THE
MEMOIR AND WRITINGS
VOL. I,
THE
MEMOIR AID WRITINGS
JAMES HANDASYD PERKINS.
EDITED BY
WILLIAM HENRY CHANNING.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
BOSTON :
WM. CROSBY AND H. P. NICHOLS.
CINCINNATI:
TRUEMAN & SPOFFORD.
1851. *
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S50, by
STEPHEN H. PERKINS,
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts
CAMBRIDGE:
METCALF AND COMPANY,
PRINTERS TO THE UNIVERSITY.
vJ
CONTEXTS.
SKETCHES OF THE LIFE OF J. H. PERKINS.
I. YOUTH. 1810-1831.
Parentage and Birth, 1. Childhood in Boston and Brookline, 2.
Lancaster, 4. Sports, 7. School, Mr. S. P. Miles, 13. Exeter and
Round-Hill, 15. Authorship, My Aunt Esther, The Nashua, The
Young Soldier, My Old Felt Hat, 19. Literature, 27. Nahant, 29.
Mercantile Life, 30. Spiritual Struggles, 31. Voyage to England,
35. London, Fanny Kemble, &c., 43. The West Indies, Slavery,
&c., 46. Return and " Stepping Westward," 56.
II. MANHOOD. 1832 - 1849.
Cincinnati, 58. Law Studies, 59. Society, 60. Correspondence,
61. The Emigrant's Lesson, 72. Inward Conflicts, 73. Betrothal
and Correspondence, 74. Marriage, 85. Withdrawal from the Law,
87. Editorship, 89. Rules of Study, 92. Life at Porneroy, 97. Lit-
erary Plans and Horticulture, 106. A Morning Walk, 108. Social
Position and Influence, 110. Ministry at Large, 113. Liberality, 120.
Prison Reforms, 124. Christian Statesmanship, 134. Washington,
135. Agrarianism, 136. Dangers of the West, 146. Prospects of the
West, Christian Republicanism, 153. Masses and Individuals, 160.
Associations, a Vital Form of Social Action, 165. Free Institutions,
172. Representatives and Constituents, 180. Socialism, 182. Anti-
slavery, 189. Education, Public Schools, 208. Cincinnati College
and Cincinnati Observatory, 210. Private School, 211. Female Edu-
cation, 221. Young Men's Mercantile Library Association, 242.
Historical Societies of Cincinnati and Ohio, and Historical Writings,
243. ^Esthetics, Powers, 245. Poetry, 253. Public Lectures, 254
The Preacher, 255. Views of Religion, 272. Relations with the
First Congregational Society, 276. Union of Christians, 278. Plan
of a Christian Society, 2'Jl. Home Life, 296. Character and Influ-
ence, 303. Death and Testimonials of Friends, 306 - 320.
VI CONTENTS.
VERSES.
PAGE
NEW ENGLAND ........ 323
To A LADY, wno WONDERED WHY SHE WAS LOVED . 325
SONG, " O, MERRY, MERRY HE THE DAY" . . . 326
CHANGE NOT 329
POVERTY AND KNOWLEDGE ...... 331
HOME 333
THE MOTHER AND CHILD 335
To A CHILD 337
NOVEMBER AND MAY 310
TRUTH 312
To ONE FAR AWAY 311
ANGEL MEETINGS ........ 3-18
A COUNTRY CLERGYMAN 319
ON THE DEATH OF A YOUNG CHILD . . . . 351
TASSO IN PRISON 353
MARQUETTE ......... 355
To A FLOWER 359
COME, LEST THE LARK ...... 3G1
BY EARTH HEMMED IN 363
HYMN 364
THE STORM-SHAKEN WINTER 365
THE VOICE THAT BADE THE DEAD ARISE . . . 366
THE PAST AND THE FUTURE ...... 367
THAT HAPPY LAND 370
INVOCATION 371
SPIRITUAL PRESENCE ....... 372
TALES.
MELANCTHON AND LUTHER ...... 375
LORD OSSORY 381
DORA McCiiAE 388
THE HYPOCHONDRIAC ....... 406
A WEEK AMONG THE " KNOBS " 438
THE JUDGE'S HUNT 450
THE MURDERER'S DAUGHTER ...... 460
THE KINDNESS THAT KILLS ...... 469
CHARITY IN THE COUNTING-HOUSE AND OUT OF IT . . 484
LIFE IN CINCINNATI IN 1840 ..... 499
THE LOST CHILD .508
THE PIoLE IN MY POCKET . . . . . . 517
THE ONE TRUE CONVERT . 521
SKETCHES
LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS
TO THE
FIKST CONGREGATIONAL SOCIETY OF CINCINNATI,
AND
TO THE CIECLE OF OUR FRIENDS,
THIS MEM01K OF
JAMES H. PERKINS
IS DEDICATED, WITH AFFECTIONATE RESPECT,
BY
WILLIAM H. CHANNING.
SEPTEMBER 21. 1S50.
TO THE
FRIENDS OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
OUR friend was a man so free from pretension, that
informal sketches of his life seem alone to befit his char-
acter ; and all that I have here attempted is to give an
off-hand outline of his genius and growth as I observed
them, filled up with extracts from his writings, and
memorials supplied by others. But so interesting has it
proved to trace his spiritual progress, that these notices
have become too personal, minute, and lengthened out
for the public eye. I have neither leisure nor inclina-
tion, however, to mend my work ; and must ask you,
pardoning its imperfections, to accept this memoir as a
faithful portrait for the home circle. May its contem-
plation at once elevate and humble us, renew our aspi-
rations, quicken our watchfulness, and rouse us to good
works. Biographies should rarely be attempted ; but if
written at all, they should be TRUE. Otherwise they
are living lies, and do but spread by contagion the death-
in-life of self-deceit and hypocrisy. So far as I have
gone, I have declared the simple truth ; and yet with
reverent affection have I passed by in silence our friend's
XU TO THE FRIENDS OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
deepest struggles, for only he could so have told them
as to leave a full impression of the truth. The clew to
their explanation is to be found in the inheritance of a
morbid temperament. How nobly, after all, did the spirit
triumph ! Death is the great emancipator for the really
earnest ; and on what ever-widening spheres of useful-
ness has this fellow-mortal and fellow- immortal assuredly
entered ! May we meet him there ! God bless him !
God bless us all !
" Do we indeed desire the dead
Should still he near us at our side ?
Is there no haseness we would hide?
No inner vileness that we dread ?
" Shall he for whose applause we strove,
We had such reverence for his blame,
See with clear eye some hidden shame,
And we be lessened in his love ?
" We wrong the grave with fears untrue :
Shall love be blamed for want of faith ?
There must be wisdom with great Death ;
The dead shall see us through and through.
" Be near us when we climb or fall :
Ye watch, like God, the rolling hours
Witli larger, other eyes than ours,
To make allowance for us all."*
W. H. C
* Tennvson's "In IMemoriam."
SKETCHES
LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS
I.
YOUTH.
1810-1831.
JAMES HANDASYD PERKINS was the youngest child
of Samuel G. Perkins and Barbara Higginson, both of
Boston, Massachusetts, and was born on the 31st of
July, 1810.
The first image that rises is of a bright-eyed boy,
with dark, curling hair, olive skin, and slight figure, hov-
ering about an aged nurse, who seemed to have sole
charge of him. " Aunt Esther," as he used to call
her, with form bent by age and crippled by rheumatism,
with face brown as parchment, seamed by wrinkles, and
utterly ugly but for the love that illumined it, so deaf
that only shouting directly in her ear could carry mean-
ing to the brain, slow-moving, slow-thoughted, but pa-
tient and inexhaustibly kind Aunt Esther, how she
reappears from the past, with that half playful, half plain-
VOL. i. 1
LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
live, gypsy-looking boy hanging round her in the lonely
nursery ! Lonely, I say, for the impression left of those
earliest days is of a very isolated childhood. The elder
brother was away from home at a boarding-school, and
soon went to Europe to complete his training in Germany
and France. Of the sisters, two had already entered
society, and were engaged amidst the constantly recurring
interests of cultivated life, while two younger were ab-
sorbed in perfecting'their education and accomplishments.
The mother appears in memory, as from secluded dis-
tance, a person of stately beauty, seated beneath curtains
on a sofa, in turban and elegant attire, entertaining an
admiring circle with eloquence and wit ; while the father,
seemingly a giant in figure as lie towered above us, alter-
nately cheerful and stern, but to children invariably con-
siderate and kind, comes in only at intervals, when
released from cares of commerce or the engrossing
pleasures of horticulture. So that "Aunt Esther" and
I seem to have been James's constant companions.
Dwelling in the same block in Boston during the
winter, and within a short half-mile of one another at
Brookline in summer, related by close family ties, as
our mothers were sisters, separated in age by but two
months, James being the junior, both guarded from pro-
miscuous intercourse with children, kept much at home,
and with just enough of likeness and unlikeness in dispo-
sition to make us congenial, we were from the cradle
almost like twin-brothers. Together we watched the
falling flakes, measured with delight the swelling banks,
shovelled away the snow, piled it up into monsters, and
battered them with balls ; together we wandered in
the woods, gathering flowers or watching the birds and
squirrels at their frolics, chasing our boats along the
YOUTH.
rippling brook, strolling under the barberry-hedges, with
their yellow blossoms and scarlet fruit, or eying the
gardener wistfully as he plucked luscious grapes and
nectarines in the hot-house ; together we conned our
Latin grammar, or worked out our sums on the slate, in-
terweaving a border of grotesque figures, at Mr. Greeley's
school, and in play-hours picked up stray darts of the
older boys, who, with paper helmets and shields covered
with Gorgon-heads, fought over the battles of the Iliad ;
together we pored over volumes of cavalry exercise,
illustrated by drawings of horses in every conceivable
attitude, of costumes and trappings used in the French
armies, and by pictures of Napoleon's battles, or stag-
gered under the heavy cap and sabre worn by his father
as commander of the huzzars ; together we communed
with Robinson Crusoe on his lone island, sailed with
Sinbad on his perilous voyages, wandered with Gulliver
at Lilliputias and Brobdignags, revelled in the piquant
wonders of the Arabian Nights, felt our hearts glow
with heroic ardor as Mentor encouraged Telemachus,
followed Christian and Christiana through the perils and
pains of their pilgrimage, or enjoyed more home-like
pleasures while we read aloud Sanford and Merton, the
Children of the Abbey, Evenings at Home, the Par-
ent's Assistant, Popular Tales, and Berquin's Children's
Friend ; together, rarest joy of all, we peopled the
world of fancy round us with Olympic Deities, Genii,
and Fairies, built airy castles for our future lives, looked
abroad over the wide prairies of romance, and, in a word,
exchanged in unstinted measure a boy's full life of hope
and enterprise.
One incident so prominently recurs to mind, as illus-
trative of my cousin's character, that, though it may
4 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
appear trifling, I am impelled to record it. One after-
noon, before school-time, we were tilting upon a heavy
piece of timber, quite unequally balanced, James and I
being together on one end and several boys on the other,
when, by way of trick, they at a signal sprang off as we
rose in the air, meaning merely to loss us into the dust
when we struck the ground. Unfortunately, James's
ankle came beneath the beam, and while I bounded up
he lay prostrate. His leg was broken. Never shall 1
forget the sad smile and soft gaze of his brilliant yet mel-
ancholy eyes, as, without a tear or a word of complain-
ing or reproach, that little boy was borne upon men's
shoulders home. In the fortitude, stern yet sweet, with
which he met that injury, wrought not of purpose, but
by his fellows' thoughtlessness, I seem to see an omen
of his earthly course.
Some two years now passed, during which we were
separated, James having spent the intervening period in
Boston and Waltham, and I at Lancaster, Massachu-
setts, to which picturesque town he, too, was afterward
sent, that he might have the advantages of excellent
instruction and the sympathizing oversight of relatives.
Brightly comes up again the summer afternoon of his
arrival. I took him to a hill, commanding a wide pros-
pect across meadows tufted with elm-trees which skirted
the Nashua, and beyond, a rolling country with Warhu-
sett's rounded summit swelling blue against the western
sky ; and there, amid the sunset, he repealed the opening
stanzas of Marmion. He had found this stirring talc of
border warfare on his mother's table before leaving home,
and it had so enchanted him, that long passages were
imprinted on his memory. The ringing tones, the mu-
YOUTH.
sical cadences, the kindling eye and animated gesture of
that boy, then ten years old, as, with head bathed in the
"yellow lustre," he stood upon the hill-top, chanting
almost those verses, present to me an ever-vivid image
of his poetic enthusiasm.
The next afternoon, being holiday, was spent by us
alone among the pine-woods in boyish gossip, he pouring
out the pent-up memories of boarding-school oppressions
and miseries, of boarding-school stratagems and tricks,
and I listening with the tender sympathy of a child who
had never left the guarded circuits of a happy home.
Well I remember that, while tickled beyond measure
with the little fellow's spirit, drollery, shrewdness, and
endless inventiveness, I was pained to feel though
then incapable of shaping the feeling into thought
that neglect and wrong had spotted with rust the once
wholly bright links of his affectionateness. A slight
infusion of sarcasm in his narratives and sketches, spicy
at first taste, but afterwards bitter, marked the sense of
half-pardoned injustice. Most contagious, however, was
his fun, as, with almost Indian gravity on his expressive
features, the chiselled chin, fine-cut lips, high, thin nose,
and black eyes glancing under straight brows, he over-
flowed in a stream of pithy anecdotes, quaint fancies,
and, as must be candidly owned, of most Munchausen-
like exaggerations. But far more exciting in interest
was his fresh vigor of thought. He had read much and
remembered vividly; he had observed the natural world,
and was full of faets ; above all, ever-wakeful imagina-
tion threw around words and actions the charm of sug-
gestiveness and beauty. Since our parting, among many
companions I had met with no one who could compare
in attractiveness with this brilliant boy. Once more we
1*
LIFE OF JAMES n. PERKINS.
plighted our vows of friendship, and became ns before
inseparable cronies, cronies so exclusively, indeed,
that \ve had often to run the gauntlet of our playmates'
somewhat jealous raillery ; for genuine democrats as they
are, spurning all bonds but of their own imposing, bovs
are still scrupulous courtiers in demanding observance of
their habitual etiquette, and cronyship violates in ; de-
gree the indiscriminate good-fellowship that is the natural
tone of youthful groups.
It is not meant that James was unsocial, far less that
be was haughty or moody ; for at that period, as through
life, he had rare conversational gifts, and often became
the centre of a knot of listeners, who, though older,
larger, stronger than he, were yet constrained to feel the
charm of his superior talent, as he narrated or invented
tales, recited verses, often of his own composing, or
amused them with ingenious discussions and humorous
talk. But though kindly and generous, he had little aste
for violent sports, and much preferred a solitary ramble
with a friend to any noisy frolic. Thus, spite of jeers or
petty persecutions, we were cronies ; and it would be
hypocrisy to conceal that our hours of amusement al-
ways first present themselves, when looking backward to
those bright mountain-passes of our early years. Is not
a boy's character most formed and his mind most devel-
oped, indeed, in seeming idle hours ; and should not edu-
cation be moulded on the hint thus given by nature, that
joy was meant by God to be the quickening sunshine of
life's spring-time ? Hut not to philosophize, James and
I certainly rejoiced together to our hearts' content. < >ur
gains and risks, our pleasures and perils, were in com-
mon ; we were mutually confidants, guardians, partners
in full. How impossible it is to convey the significance
YOUTH. 7
of our own experience, or to repeat the emphasis which
Providence puts upon events by their adaptation to our
powers and needs ! Yet the most insignificant of those
boyish adventures seems now to have been prolific in
enthusiasm, imagination, thought, courage, honor ; and
each season was only too short to let us drink our fill of
healthful excitement.
When southwest winds, laden with showers, melted
the snows accumulated through the winter in the woods,
and poured them into the Nashua, and the river, gathering
up its might, broke its already loosened fetters, bearing
the heaped-up fragments over the meadows, and sweep-
ing fences or even bridges in its course, then, what
wild rapture was it to watch the " freshet " ! We stood
in twilight under the leaden sky, and followed with our
eyes the floating foam, eddying whirlpools, and grinding
cakes, the broken boughs, rolling trunks, pieces of tim-
ber or wrecks of buildings, perhaps living things, a
muskrat, a sheep, a cow, struggling to reach the land,
and crawling up half-dead with cold and fright upon the
bank, where the back-water spread out shallow behind a
projecting point ; we listened to the moaning wind, the
crash of ice and logs, and the hoarse roaring of the flood
that filled the air, till moonlight, streaming in flashes
through the scud, wrought metamorphoses with every
touch, and gave free play for eye and thought to fill the
scene with wonders. Much I fear that we felt more
sympathy with the rising river, in its turbulent radicalism,
than with the farmer mourning the disappearance of his
boundaiy-marks. And it would be long to tell into
what meanings of reform symbols of the universal law
of change, thus vividly conceived in youth, were trans-
muted amid the struggles of manhood !
8 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
With summer suns came gardening. Lucky he whose
melons first burst the mould, and, pushing off their caps,
shot forth their leaves and runners ; still luckier he, who,
watching day by day the green knob beneath the blossom
as it swelled into a glossy, mottled globe, by tappings of
the rind and scrutiny of the shrunk stem, was at length
satisfied that his treasure wa,s ripe, and could summon
his fellows to sit around him in the shade, while with
eager knife he shared the crimson slices. James and I
were amateur husbandmen, too, and would often lend a
helping hand to our companions among the farmers' sons,
in hoeing potato and corn hills, raking up windrows
and hay-cocks in the meadows, or binding sheaves in the
grain-fields, while in payment for our services they were
allowed to go with us on swimming frolics, to dive,
splash, float, or plunge for white stones on the bottom of
the transparent Nashua. In due season, we took our
baskets on our arms in the evening, and over the shrubby
hills gathered the whortleberry and blueberry, or, better
still, the long, plump blackberry from its trailing vines,
while over head the swooping nighthawks drew our eyes
to the deep sky, where-, fanning slowly upwards or falling
in swift curves, their forms were darkly drawn upon the
rosy clouds. Then came the orchard-harvest, when
sometimes we shook down and gathered the apples into
red, green, and yellow heaps, and stood by the crunch-
ing cider-press, through straws sucking up the unfer-
mented juice, or sometimes wandered forth on foraging
excursions, with most primitive license as to owner-
ship, stuffing pockets, hats, bosoms, with fruit, which
was stowed, if not quite mellow, in the hay-mow. In
the dusky evenings, we built fires in our ovens under
the sand-banks, and roasted ears of corn, which I can-
YOUTH.
didly own we pilfered from the nearest Geld. And when
autumn winds and frost whirled away the gorgeous leaves,
and rattled the gaping burrs and shells, we filled our
bags with chestnuts, walnuts, hazelnuts, and spread the
butternuts to dry upon the garret floor. What overflow-
ing generosity do the opulent bounties of the natural
world teach to the boy, who is not trained by drudging
toil and penury to premature prudence, and with what
exquisite gradations does the constant round of country
avocations unfold each practical power ! For the health
of his whole soul in after life, does not the child need to
be like father Adam, a tiller of the garden, and to walk
with God amidst the Eden-like beauties of the budding
and the ripening year ? Ay ! does he not need, too, to
be somewhat of a vagrant and unchartered freeholder ?
A frank confession must here be made, however, that
through all warm months the chief delight of James and
myself was faking. Without the dimmest premonition,
certainly, of our future calling, as " fishers of men," we
plunged into this as it now appears most cruel sport,
with a zeal and skill that might have won praises from
that autocrat of anglers, Christopher North. Week in,
week out, the intensity of our " passion " for this
amusement was strong enough to bear us, with unwearied
limbs, through scorching suns, and soaking rains, and long
excursions among marshes and thickets. Was it the
mere pleasure of exercising superior craft, that harden-
ed us without a thrill of horror to pluck those lustrous,
swiftly-gliding creatures from their elastic element, and
see them flap to painful death ? or was it not rather the
love of beauty that led us with stealthy steps along the
brook, where in dark hollows and gurgling rapids the red-
flecked trout were darting to and fro, or by the sedgy
10 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
margin of the ponds, where, under lilies with broad green
pads and white and orange blossoms, the spotted pickerel
with bony snout and slowly fanning fins lay lurking, or
on the river-bank beneath the elder-blooms, where, over
sands gold-braided with flickering rays, the breams or
perch maintained their brotherhood ? Doubtless, glory
in repute for sportsmanship and love of adventure were
elements in our excitement ; but verily I believe our joy
rose mainly from symbols half hinted, half hidden, in the
musical, graceful flow of waters, the inverted images of
trees and herbs and living things, more brightly beautiful
than their originals, the phantom-like shapes of brooding
fogs, the mirrored skies so softly blue, across whose
wonderful depths clouds floated of every tint, with cease-
less play of light and shadow, the ever-widening, ever-
crossing circles formed by trickling rain-drops, above all,
the gentle, yet resistless, onward rush of the stream,
opening to thought dim avenues of that future towards
which existence is evermore tending. The cream of
our delight was surely this communion with nature in
her serenest moods. But whatever our motive, the fact
undeniably was, that we were a pair of as inveterate lit-
tle fishermen as ever dug worms, baited hook, or watch-
ed a bobbing cork for a nibble.
So passed the sunny seasons, and winter only glorified
for us the dying year. Before frosts bound up the soil,
with hatchet and spade we dug up pitch-pine knots to
brighten the twilight with their genial glow. Then fol-
lowed skating, with its fascinating flights over the black,
transparent, gleaming surface of the pond, while the yet
thin ice rang musically, and chipped and crackled round
us, or bent in gentle undulations, as sparkling particles
skimmed off like spray beneath our cutting strokes. But
YOUTH. 11
ecstasy was at its height only when a driving north-
easter came to bury up roads and fences beneath the
snow. Somewhere we had found Forster's Treatise on
Meteorology, and had patiently studied out the science of
the clouds, until our prognostications would have done
no discredit to a sage seaman or farmer. With what
congratulations we spied the wavy film of cirrus whiten-
ing the sky at noon, beheld the sun dwindle to a pallid
point and disappear in leaden banks skirting the south-
western horizon, and watched the halo growing faint and
ever fainter round the moon, while smoke columns from
the neighbouring chimneys curled uprightly through the
still air, then slowly curved and settled before faint puffs
of the eastern wind. With what eagerness we waked
by daylight, listened to hear the clicking flakes against
the glass, and peered abroad through window-panes half
cleared of frost to see whether the ground was whitened
and wooded hills looked veiled and dim. All day long
our rapture grew with the growing drifts, as we waded
back and forth, or leaped to bury ourselves full length in
the powdery mounds, rejoicing most when whirling snow-
clouds shut out the nearest familiar objects, and when
the pelting blast forced us to close our blinded eyes and
turn our backs to catch a breath. Then when night
came on without exhausting the crystal store-house of
the clouds, and rays from fire and candle flashed out in
flame-like splendor on the scud, and icicles hung tbick
and long from half blocked up windows, and tbe tempest
howled and died away fitfully above the chimmey or moan-
ed through the crannies, how we made the walls resound
with Campbell's Ode to Winter, read aloud apt passages
from Thomson's Seasons, Cowper's Task, or Hogg's
Glen-Avin, and told stories round the hearth, while
12 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
temperance forgive we passed the cider-mug from
hand to hand, and feasted on nuts and apples. Even
when the repeated " Good-night " summons drove us
reluctantly to bed, we did not lose our interest in the
progress of the storm, which we would have to be the
most tremendous ever seen or heard of ; again and again
we must open a crack of the door to feel with hand and
cheek the thickened atmosphere, again and again, with
eyes screened from the light held close to the panes, scan
the white swarm of eddying flakes, again and again sit
up half wrapped in blankets to assure ourselves that
spirits of the air yet played their antics round the eaves,
and that still the wooded hills looked veiled and dim.
And morning ! when through a fringe of slowly with-
drawing clouds the slanting sunbeams opened a doorway
to calm upper glory, and lustre fell on pine-trees bowed
with sweeping arms beneath white priestly robes, and
roofs, gables, fences, wood-piles, exalted by peerless
arabesques into component parts of one vast temple,
whose floor was the wide waste of spotless plains, whose
colonnade of arches was the shining hills, with what
grateful awe did we behold the miraculous transmutation
of the common scene, and recognize the boundlessness
of Divine art so prodigally poured abroad in evanescent
beauty ! with what thrills of pure pleasure did we trace
the varied mouldings of the snow-drift, and refresh our
dazzled eyes in the cerulean tint of blue that, beneath
each graceful curve, mirrored the heavens !
These simple joys of country life I would like to pic-
ture with even fond minuteness, so sure I am, that more
than all other influences they combined to shape James's
tastes and habits, and that every type of beautiful joy
entered into his spiritual life to reappear through after
YOUTH. 13
years in hope, patience, liberal judgments, capacious
thought, and ideal longings for purity and peace. Well
might he have echoed Wordsworth's sublime strain of
gratitude :
" Wisdom and Spirit of the universe !
Thou soul that art the eternity of thought,
That gavest to forms and images a breath
And everlasting motion, not in vain
By day or star-light thus from my first dawn
Of childhood didst thou intertwine for me
The passions that build up our human soul,
Not with the mean and vulgar works of man,
But with high objects, with enduring things,
With life and nature, purifying thus
The elements of feeling and of thought,
And sanctifying, by such discipline,
Both pain and fear, until we recognize
A grandeur in the beatings of the heart."
Justice must now be done, however, to the wise
guardianship of a teacher, to whom James was most
warmly attached, and to whom he felt that he was deeply
indebted for the formation of his character and mind.
This was Mr. S. P. Miles, afterward Tutor of Math-
ematics in Harvard University, and honored Principal
of the Boston English High School, who will be always
remembered with affectionate reverence by every pupil
who enjoyed his paternal care. Son of a clergyman in
a small village of New Hampshire, stimulated to over-
exertion by a desire to aid his younger brothers and sis-
ters, broken down, as so many men of highest promise
have been, by a sudden change from out-of-door labors
to sedentary pursuits, and with the spiritual light of con-
sumption already beaming in his eyes, Mr. Miles treated
his scholars with a considerate sympathy, a delicate ap-
preciation of tendencies and trials, an encouraging cheer-
VOL. i. 2
14 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
fulness, a sweetness, and, above all, an equity, which ap-
pealed to every magnanimous impulse, and quickened
conscience and self-respect to constant action. He was
in spirit and deed a Christian gentleman. Reared up
under a somewhat gloomy Orthodoxy, he had worked his
way out into the sunnier faith of Unitarianism, and blend-
ed in his religious sentiments the earnest piety of Calvin-
ism with the hopeful benevolence of the Liberal school ;
while natural affability and refined tastes gave the charm
of courtesy to manners made pensive by a consciously
weak hold of life. His mental bias was towards natu-
ral science, and he had supplied himself with books,
plates, cabinets, and instruments for illustrating lectures
or making experiments, which he was always patient as
prompt to use for the good of those who had the sense
to appreciate his teaching.
James was as much of a favorite with Mr. Miles as a
person so impartial would allow himself to have, and for
a time was his room-mate. I think I well know the oc-
casion that 6rst called out his special regard for his pupil.
Business summoning him away one afternoon, he trusted
the school to the charge of a monitor, expressing a hope
that his confidence would not be abused. But on his
return his ears were greeted, even from a distance, by
an uproar. The sentry at the door, however, giving
notice of " the master," all was a scene of apparently
absorbing study as he entered. This hypocrisy prob-
ably touched him more keenly than our quite natural
roguishness, for it was with a tone of most unusual sever-
ity that he said, " Let the boys who have been guilty
of this disturbance come forward." No one stirred, the
big fellows especially, who had been ringleaders, sitting
shrouded in a most imperturbable air of injured inno-
YOUTH. 15
cence. After waiting in silence, and looking from face
to face, he continued, " Has no one courage to be
true ? " Then, up from the benches of the smaller
boys rose James, and, with a friend of about his own
age, walked steadily down the aisle, until confronted with
the ruler of our little realm. It was with a clear, calm
tone, and a look of sorrow, not fear, that he confessed
his trifling share in the tumult; and incentive indeed
it was to frankness for a lifetime, when, placing his hand
on the heads of the young friends, and with a few words
to the school in commendation of their honor, the much-
loved teacher forgave them. From that hour Mr. Miles
seemed to repose a perfect trust in James's sincerity,
and admitted him to his intimate friendship. Through
this intercourse he gained a strengthened interest in the
natural sciences, more solidity of judgment, simplicity of
manners, and lively conscientiousness ; and I doubt not,
also, that, by their conversations, readings, and occasional
devotions, James's religious sensibility was much quick-
ened, though Mr. Miles's dread of formality or mor-
bid excitement, and his respect for the sacredness of
spiritual experiences, made him reserved even to an
excess of delicacy. Altogether, this period of Lancas-
ter life was most prolific of good for James. Vital seeds
were deeply planted in him, seeds destined to outlive
the gloomiest seasons of doubt and despondency, and to
grow up to sunlight through the rubbish of temptation
and worldly influences.
Now came separation once more, while James passed
several years, first at Phillips Academy, Exeter, where
presided the excellent Dr. Abbot, who had married a
sister of his father ; and afterward in the famous Round-
16 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
Hill School, at Northampton, Massachusetts, then under
the direction of Mr. Joseph G. Cogswell and Mr. George
Bancroft, assisted by a most talented and accomplished
corps of teachers. During this interval I could trace
his progress only by means of a correspondence, quite
diligently kept up for boys, and a cronyship regularly
renewed in every vacation. One of his instructors at
that period, Hon. Timothy Walker of Cincinnati, de-
scribes James as follows : "During the years 1826,
1S27, 1828, I had charge of the mathematical depart-
ment, and young Perkins was a member of my class.
No instance is remembered in which he incurred censure
from any of the professors ; on the contrary, he was
always prepared in his lessons. He did not then study
the ancient languages ; but in the modern languages,
French, Spanish, Italian, and German, it is believed
that he had no superiors among the pupils. It is well
remembered that he was never a playful or mirthful boy.
While others were engaged in their sports, he sought his
recreation in solitary walks, generally in the beautiful
surrounding forests, collecting flowers and minerals."
And a friend and schoolmate, U. Tracy Howe, Esq.,
adds the following impressions: "As a boy, James
exhibited some of the peculiarities which have marked
him through life. He had great intellectual activity and
capacity, and whenever he applied himself he excelled ;
yet, as I recall him, he did not rank high or take a prom-
inent stand as a scholar. He had then, as he had in
manhood, that love of independence, both in action and
thought, which made it distasteful to him to comply with
any rules or formulas of thought or study imposed by
others. Thus, though his mind and body were active,
they were active in his own peculiar way. I remember
YOUTH. 17
we used frequently to start off upon a pedestrian tour, in
the midst of a hard snow-storm, or at its close, with the
snow up to our knees ; and at such times, when others
were about the fire or amusing themselves under cover,
it was his favorite pastime to take a tramp of several
miles, over the fields and through the woods. This
fondness for walking for severe walking continued
with him as long as I knew any thing of his habits. An
accident of childhood, which produced weakness and
periodical lameness of one leg, prevented him from en-
tering into the more active of boyish sports ; but he was
very fond of gymnastics, especially of such as required
vigor of arm. He had at that time great facility in writ-
ing for a boy, and some taste and power in versification.
His desire for an adventurous, roving life was very
strong. The thought of the wilderness, and of the free
activity of the backwoodsman and hunter, always excited
his imagination ; and I remember well, when reading
with him some account of the region of the Rocky
Mountains, how his face would light up, and his eye
glow with enthusiasm, as he talked of going thither,
which he said he intended to do at some future day."
The passion for exploring rambles, thus truly referred
to as characteristic of James, was the result of many
combined impulses. The restless energy of his nervous-
bilious temperament sought vent in sustained muscular
activity ; poetic enthusiasm was gratified by the sense of
novelty, the hope of adventures, and contemplation of
the exquisite beauty that hung around Mount Holyoke
and Mount Tom, or overspread the wooded hills and
grassy meadows of the Connecticut ; his already strong
taste for natural science, yet further stimulated by Mr.
Cogswell, who was an earnest mineralogist, and by Pro-
2*
18 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
fessor Hentz, who was a master of botany and entomol-
ogy, found ceaseless play ; his almost Indian-like love
of independence enjoyed the zest of consciously break-
ing the appointed school-bounds, and disregarding high-
ways or inclosures ; and finally, solitude freed him from
the frivolities of uncongenial companions, and gave oc-
casion for thought and the exercise of fancy in mental
composition. An extract from a confidential letter, writ-
ten about the time of his leaving Northampton, presents
his portrait, by his own hand. It is by no means flat-
tered, but very life-like, and may suitably close this
sketch of his school-days ; especially as it illustrates
what James felt intensely throughout his manhood
the evils of education in large schools unhallowed by
religious and humane influences, and where the young
are trusted, without wise guardianship, to their own half-
savage instincts.
1827. " I have never tried to persuade myself that all
affection is affectation. Far from it. I may seem dull or
cold where others would not, not because I do not feel,
but because it is not natural for me to express my feelings.
I have always been to appearance a phlegmatic sort of ani-
mal, but it is only in appearance. I have felt what no one
at the time knew me to feel.
" You need not fear that I am about to reveal a love
story ; I have not reached that degree of affection yet. I
have only now to say, that I have loved my master. I really
loved Mr. M , at Lancaster ; I have really loved Mr.
C , here. He liked me too; and what was the result?
I was hated by the boys. This was when was under
my charge. If I spoke to him of neatness, be complained
to his companions ; and this, with the favor I had with Mr.
C , finished me. I was voted a bully, was driven out of
all society, and became a sort of solitary. After this term,
YOUTH. 19
when the boys found 's story a lie, they became more
friendly. Then I apparently left the master and took to my
playmates, for ' you cannot serve God and Mammon,' you
know. I made friends with those who had persecuted me,
and became in turn head of the persecutors. I gained my
revenge, but I was feared. Before, when I was hated, I
was weak ; now I was strong, and the strong were on my
side. Still I was unhappy. Then I let all persecution drop,
treated every body well, and appeared to love all. But by
this time I had become disgusted. I could gain peace only
by deceit, and deceit I loathed. So now I grew desirous of
living alone. I could trust none, did trust none, and ceased
to show that I had any affection at all. Thus unsociability
is my nature, my habit, my fancy, and I fear I shall never
be cured."
The most interesting recollection of James, during
this period, which remains with me is, that he invariably
brought home a budget of copy-books, crammed with
tales and verses, some mere plagiarizing imitations, of
course, but the most of them freshly alive with his own
experience and originality. These it was always our first
pleasure to read over together and to criticize. And I
know no better way of giving some impression of our
delight in those hours of callow authorship, than to re-
print here a few pieces, composed about that time,
though revised at a later day. They are all records of
his youth.
MY AUNT ESTHER.
MY first and best, and oldest of aunts ! and yet no more
my relation than the town-pump. Aunt Esther ! she was
the nursing mother of the whole dynasty of s, father
20 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
and grandfather, son and grandson; they had all been
fondled and spanked, washed, combed, and clothed by the
venerable maiden. From her I learned to love " lasses
candy " ; from her I learned to hate Tom Jefferson.
Many an evening as I sat by her rush-bottomed and rickety
chair, threading her needle, or holding, while she wound,
skeins of silk or yarn, that I thought must be as long as the
equator, many an evening has she discoursed of the arch-
rebel Napoleon, whom " she would have torn to flinders,"
she said, " if she could only have got her hands on him " ;
though the next day she would set free the very mouse
that had stolen her last pet morsel of cheese ; for she was a
very Uncle Toby, or rather Aunt Toby, in such matters.
She told me of Napoleon, and her little work-table was
the battle-field. Here was the ball of yarn, and there was
the half-finished stocking, and yonder was the big Bible,
supported by the spectacle-case. Old Boney himself moved
among them in the form of a knitting-needle; and to this
day I cannot think of the Little Corporal, but as a tall bit
of cold steel, with a head made of beeswax.
From her, too, came my portrait of Washington, whom
she had seen during his visit to the North. Year after year
did those well-beloved lips pronounce his eulogy, and often
was the hourly prayer put up by me for a long life to Aunt
Esther and General Washington; little did I dream that one
who to me had just begun to live, had been dead these ten
years and more !
And then came the war and the Hartford Convention ;
and such a time as we had of it, up in our little back-room !
I don't know what it was that preserved the nation ; for
there was Aunt Esther and I, and the whole race of s,
in such a passion that we almost walked to England dry-
shod.
Aunt Esther had one fault, she was always too cleanly
in her notions. It was probably because of her Federal and
YOUTH. 21
aristocratic associations, but certain it is that she could not
even see a dirty boy without wanting to wash her hands. And
this her most prominent organ was exercised most fully
upon generation after generation, as each marched through
her dominions. "As bad as to be washed by Aunt Esther,"
was a proverb in the dynasty. For many a long year no
lines in the language were to me so pathetic and soul -har-
rowing* as those from the Columbiad :
" Still on thy rocks the broad Atlantic roars,
And washes still unceasingly thy shores."
To be "washed unceasingly " was my beau-ideal of misery.
Aunt Esther, familiar as she was, was still a mysterious
being to me. I had never met any other of her name ; and,
having early in life heard the Book of Esther read, always
thought of my old nurse in connection with Ahasuerus and
Mordecai, and the tall gallows. Nor was the mystery di-
minished on being told, when I asked how long it was since
Mordecai, that it was hundreds and thousands of years.
How old she was I did not dare to ask !
Brought up to bring up others, the venerable matron
loved nothing so dearly as Scotch snuff and noisy children.
When the storm waxed loudest in the nursery, she was most
in her element, and walked undisturbed amid
" The wreck of horses and the crash of toys."
Her chief text and comfort was that in which we are told
that our Saviour blessed the children brought to him, and
said that of such was the kingdom of heaven ; for to her
it conveyed the idea that the place of rest would be brim-
full of babies.
And I grew up, and another generation came forward to
claim my rocking-horses, and my long-legged chairs. I
went to school ; and when I came home, I found Aunt
Esther just as of old, only (as the saying is) a good deal
more so. But though to me time was a matter of some
22 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
import, she defied it. Nay, I received a letter from my
cousin, who had just been married, telling me that Aunt
Esther had danced at her wedding. was the old lady's
last favorite; gentle and kindly, she loved her foster-mother
more than many do their own parents, and she meant to
take the ancient to her new home, she told me. But when
I arrived at Boston again, I found that this had not been
done ; Aunt Esther could not leave the old nursery, with
its yellow floor and barred windows ; and as little could she
bear to lose her pet. From the day of 's wedding, she
began to go out ; her work on earth was done ; and from
the arms of the last she had brought up in the fear of the
Lord, she passed away to meet her new colony of infants
beyond the skies.
In one corner of the church-yard there had been a great
oak, of which all had departed but a shell of bark a few
feet high. From this shell, within a year or two, a young,
tall sprout had sprung up. Under that emblem of the res-
urrection they laid the body of Aunt Esther. Above her
they placed a three-sided obelisk ; upon the west side was
carved the form of an aged woman, on the brink of the
grave ; upon the east, that of a bright spirit, springing from
that same grave ; while upon the front was her name and
age, "Esther Pray, aged 91 years," with a part of her
favorite text, perverted and yet true, " Of such is the
kingdom of heaven."
THE NASHUA.
FAIREST of rivers, rolling Nashua !
Whose waters through deep forests glide along,
And then o'er rocks and pebbles dash and splash away !
To thee, sweet stream, would I direct my song ;
From 'mid these dusty streets, this bustling throng,
YOUTH. 23
The hum of business, I would strive to sing
(So be 't the Muses will inspire my tongue)
Of the sweet days of life's all-joyous spring,
When fishing was " the go," and Saturday " the thing."
Still, as of erst, thou rollest on thy tide
Unto the ocean, its far dwelling-place,
And still the blackbird screameth by thy side,
And still the bubble dances on thy face,
But on thy banks there is a different race.
We were there once, ere Time upon our brow
Had set his signet, and a little space
We angled where thy tall bullrushes grow.
Our lines were taking then, I fear mine wont be now !
Ah Youth ! thou art indeed the golden age
Of our existence, and when thou dost pass
The silver comes, when money is the rage ;
And by and by awhile, the age of brass,
When men will lie and fabricate, alas !
As if they did not know it were a sin ;
Then iron old age comes. There ends the farce ;
And to the most, the tragic doth begin,
For all without seems dark, when there 's no light within.
But Youth ! thy days have passed, for ever passed.
No more we rig the line, array the poles,
And hurry to the river-side so fast;
No more we gather round the favorite hole,
Or angle where the rapid waters roll,
For the bright chiven or the spotted trout ;
A pickerel now is not ambition's goal ;
We should not fish and fume and sweat about,
Save for a smiling wife, which, caught, may prove a pout !
24 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
THE YOUNG SOLDIER.
" Now lend the eye a terrible aspect,
Set firm the teeth, and stretch the nostrils wide,
Hold hard the breath, and tend up every spirit
To his full height." King Henry Fifth.
O, WERE ye ne'er a schoolboy ?
And did you never train,
And feel that swelling of the heart
You never can again ?
Didst never meet, far down the street,
With plumes and banners gay,
While the kettle, for the kettle-drum,
Played your march, march away ?
It seems to me but yesterday,
Nor scarce so long ago,
Since we shouldered our muskets
To charge the fearful foe.
Our muskets were of cedar-wood,
With ramrod bright and new ;
With bayonet for ever set,
And painted barrel too.
We charged upon a flock of geese,
And put them all to flight,
Except one sturdy gander,
That thought to show us fight.
But, ah ! we knew a thing or two :
Our captain wheeled the van,
We routed him, we scouted him,
Nor lost a single man.
Our captain was as brave a lad
As e'er commission bore ;
YOUTH. 25
All brightly shone his tin sword,
And a paper cap he wore ;
He led us up the hill-side,
Against the western wind,
While the cockerel plume that decked his head
Streamed bravely out behind.
We shouldered arms, we carried arms,
We charged the bayonet ;
And woe unto the mullen-stalk
That in our course we met.
At two o'clock the roll was called,
And till the close of day,
With our brave and plumed captain,
We fought the mimic fray,
When the supper-bell, we knew so well,
Came stealing up from out the dell,
For our march, march away.
MY OLD FELT HAT.
"Gone, and for ever ! Let me muse awhile." ANON.
THIS world 's a very wicked world,
Indeed, I wish it would amend ;
This world 's a very heartless world,
I may not, cannot find a friend.
I 've searched it through from side to side,
All kinds, complexions, I have tried,
The young, the old, the lean, the fat,
Of every climate, every hue ;
But cannot find one half so true,
So ever firm and kind, as you,
My old felt hat.
VOL. i. 3
26 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
I bought it on a summer's day,
The summer sun was shining bright,
The summer birds were singing gay
In every grove, on every spray ;
And as I went my homeward way,
Ah me ! I was a happy wight.
And when I stopped, a foolish boy,
Upon a mossy stone I sat,
And wept to think how blest I was ;
And as I wept, I kissed the cause
Of all my tears, and hope, and joy,
My new felt hat.
Ah ! summer days are sweet and long,
But summer days are quickly told ;
And new felt hats are passing strong,
But cannot bear the rain and cold.
They said that mine was getting old ;
But still I wore, I brushed it still,
And still it was my Sunday's best ;
And when within the pew I sat,
In ruffled shirt and speckled vest,
How carefully I watched thee, lest
Some wicked one should work thee ill,
My new felt hat !
And winter past, and jocund spring,
With skies of blue and leaves of green,
And countless birds upon the wing,
Came back, and round us every thing
Burst forth in renovated sheen.
Did I say all ? Yes, all, save one ;
Nor watering dew nor warming sun
YOUTH. 27
Brought spring or summer more to that :
All past was now its early pride,
All broken in its pasteboard side,
And so it lost its dye, and died,
My poor felt hat.
Ah ! my old hat, methinks in thee
A mournful emblem I may see.
The fairest flowers are first to die,
The brightest fruits the soonest fall ;
The worm will live, the butterfly,
One little hour may be his all ;
The patriot stern, that will not bow
Nor to the monarch bend the knee,
But bears his country's wrongs, as thou
Didst bear the blows were meant for me,
The fairest flowers of womankind,
Of warmest heart, and brightest mind,
Of sweetest eye, and liveliest chat,
May live one short, one summer day ;
Then, for this world too pure and true,
Will lose their beauty and decay,
Scarce prized till they are lost ; like you,
My old felt hat.
So much for first flights in authorship. And next
came comparisons of what had been read since we part-
ed, and new explorations in the fields of literature. The
earlier English poets and ancient bards in translations, we
were sufficiently acquainted with to revere from afar ;
but they occupied a secondary place in our affections.
Thomson, Goldsmith, Cowper, came nearer home.
Scott was read, reread, recited. Campbell was a famil-
iar household minstrel. Southey was dearly prized for
28 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
his pathos, manly simplicity, high-toned goodness, end-
lessly various versification, and, above all, for his rich
imagination as exhibited in the Curse of Kehama and
Thalaba, whose fluent melodies charmed us unweariedly.
And, by somewhat incongruous juxtaposition, Byron
was our idol. Strange it seems now to recall the fe-
verish excitement with which we gave ourselves up to
Childe Harold, the Bride of Abydos, the Siege of Co-
rinth, &c., our favorite being Manfred. Coleridge,
too, wove round us his mysterious spell in the Ancient
Mariner, Christabel, and Genevieve, though of course
we were yet unripe for his more solemn strains. But
our grand discovery was Wordsworth; discovery, I
say, for we had never heard more than his name, cer-
tainly, when, taking up a volume that lay on the table,
we chanced on Peter Bell, and read it aloud with in-
tensest interest. The Idiot Boy, The Cumberland
Beggar, The White Doe of Rylstone, and all his simpler
tales and poems, followed in swift succession, and cor-
dially did we thank their author for the springs of pure
and serene joy which his touches of natural feeling
opened in our hearts. But we were not absorbed in
poetry. Now were the enrapturing days of the Waver-
ley Novels, which, sitting side by side, we scampered
through, with eyes on a race to reach the bottom of the
page. We were never tired, either in poring over Ho-
garth's works, and tracing out in minutest details the
tragi-comic aspect of life's tapestry turned wrong side
out. Don Quixote, too, in a beautifully illustrated copy,
was a serviceable counterpoise to our over-wrought
enthusiasm. As I remember, moreover, James was
fond of studying some volumes of Cuvier's Animal
Kingdom, which he found in his father's library, being
YOUTH. 29
rather attracted than repelled by their classifications and
technicalities ; and his vigorous mind drew in the practi-
cal information needed for nutriment, from works of
travels, and history. Still, undeniably, the poets were
our cherished guides, and it was in their company that
we learned wonder, trust, and hope.
Our vacations were by no means, however, mainly
passed within doors, or in beholding life through the
magic glass of imagination. We still kept up our habits
of pedestrian excursions, and were passionately as ever
fond of angling. Regularly we spent several weeks at
Nahant, where his mother, attracted by health and taste,
resided during the summer. Her cottage stood upon the
ridge of the promontory, overlooking the bay encircled
by the beaches of Beverly and Gloucester, from the
long-stretching village of Lynn to the looming headlands
of Cape Ann, with the brown steeps of Egg Rock, gir-
dled by foam, on the east. There our daily delight was
to see from the piazza the sun break in glory from the
glittering water, and then to watch the flock of fishing-
boats, with pointed sails, skimming across the blue sur-
face like sea-birds on the wing. When the dew was off
the herbage, and breakfast done, with poles, lines, and bait
in order, we started for the rocks, soothing conscience
that would now and then upbraid us for our wholesale
murders by the specious plea of earning a dinner.
But again let me do our hearts no more than justice, by
asseverating, that "sport" formed a trifling ingredient
only in the fascination, which morning after morning en-
ticed us to broil in sunshine upon the projecting ledges
till face and hands were blistered, and to crawl through
clefts slippery with seaweed yet dripping with the wave's
last pulsation. Our joy was in the silvery glister of the
30 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
horizon, the undulating, on-rolling ocean, the slow-gather-
ing, graceful swells, the crested billows with their locks
of spray, and the melodious roar with which the exultant
sea embraced the shore in ever fresh espousals. Spite of
romance, we earned at once a dinner and an appetite ; yet
often our poles dropped from listless hands, and baitless
hooks were entangled in the water-plants, while dreamily
we gazed into the green, sun-lighted caverns of the deep,
or fancy took flight through vistas where the main and
sky met and mingled.
But boyhood's yachting trip must now be ended,
and the merchantman launched for the voyage of life.
At the age of eighteen, James entered the counting-
room of his uncle, Colonel Thomas H. Perkins, whose
house was then, and for so long a period, a leader in the
Canton trade. Here, for two years and more, he
punctually discharged the drudging duties of clerk in a
large establishment, and was trained by strict routine to
climb step by step to business efficiency and skill ; and
hence^too, in due time, might he have risen to become,
according to the purpose of his munificent relative, a
partner in one of the most substantial and gainful firms
of his native city. But he felt that an exile from books
to ledgers was turning him into a mere copying-machine ;
the reserve of his superiors shut him out from such
views of commercial enterprise as might have awakened
his intellect and energy ; association with his fellow-
clerks, though friendly, and enlivened with humorous
chat, did not feed his longing for earnest intercourse,
while their experiences only deepened his sense of the
inequalities and hardships of mercantile life ; and above
all, as he learned to know his own tastes and aspirations,
YOUTH. 31
did he become satisfied that he could neither kindle nor
keep burning that love of money-making which is the
prerequisite of worldly success. Thus gradually he was
forced to the conviction that he must disappoint his
friends by turning from a seemingly sure path, and fash-
ioning for himself an untried career.
As James beheld perplexities and tantalizing uncer-
tainties spreading round him, despondency settled down
upon his spirits like a foggy night. Selfish anxiety,
however, had but a superficial influence in causing this
gloom ; for he was too conscious of power to feel much
fear as to finding a sphere of activity. His trials rose
from a deeper source. He was now in that passage-
way from childhood's peaceful valley to the world of
action, when the soul seems to stand, like an unarmed
prize, between the darts of tempters and the swords of
guardian-angels. Those transition years from youth to
manhood ! years of judgment, when the golden sands
that glided so swiftly through life's hour-glass are sifted
and tested, to be thrown away as valueless, or molten
and coined ; years of spiritual candidateship, when
cowards, detected through every sham, are let off to
vain pursuits, while the brave are adopted by heaven's
chivalry, and sent abroad to win their title by deeds of
generous good-will ; years of pilgrimage, through which
all earnest persons pass, unless rarely favored by tem-
perament, social position, and congenial work ; years
of baptism, years of the second birth ; who ever did,
or ever could, adequately portray their pathetic in-
terest ?
My cousin made me a counsellor in his conflicts, and
thus I became privy to the causes brought up for judg-
ment in his court of conscience. His first struggles rose
32 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
from an insight of the practices and maxims which gov-
ern the mercantile profession. That men seemingly
sound-hearted in the circles of family and friendship, and
nowise devoid of moral or religious principle, confided
in by fellow-citizens for wisdom, integrity, and public
spirit, the " Ancient and Honorable " of the land
should, as a matter of course, cheat in trade, use supe-
rior information to outwit the unwary, avail themselves
of the mischances of the poor, weave webs of specula-
tion to control markets for their own gain by others'
losses, and all for the sake of a few dollars, filled him
at first with dismay, and then with disgust. Thus the
question came up, whether he would add one more to
the already crowded class of " go-betweens," whose
support must, by some means, be drawn alike from pro-
ducers and consumers ; and he resolved that, however
honorable might be the position of exchanger in justly
ordered societies, he would escape at the earliest chance
from what he saw was the gambler's den of competitive
commerce. But this question brought up others. What
was the meaning of this tyranny of wealth, that led men
to barter their very manhood for gain ? And, as for the
first time he opened his eyes on conventional customs,
the prevalence of ambition and manoeuvring, the cringing
concessions of the needy, the ostentatious pride of the
opulent, and the fawning flattery that vitiates to the core
the courtesies of fashionable life, it cannot be denied that
a sad contempt took possession of his heart, and made
him for a time a cynic. He grew plain to bluntness in
his speech, careless to extreme in dress, utterly disre-
gardful of etiquette, reserved, almost morose, in manner,
and solitary in his ways.
Yet deeper troubles drove him to solitude. His very
YOUTH. 33
doubts of men and dissatisfaction with society compelled
him to look inward on his own heart, and to grapple
there with the stern problems of destiny. In his con-
scious soul-weariness, his want of harmony and strength,
his sullen despair, whither should he look for light and
peace ? What was this resistless Fate that seemed to
drive men, fettered in coffles, to work in dark mines of
evil ? Whence came prevalent inhumanity and injus-
tice ? Was this Christian religion so pompously pro-
fessed, yet practically so violated, a superstitious farce
or a solemn reality ? Was there a Sovereign Good,
intelligent of man and sympathizing with his struggles ?
Was the career of humanity a blind circuit in a tread-
mill, or an upward progress ? Was there an end worth
living for ? In this mood he read all the philosophers,
Christian or Infidel, whose works he could obtain, and
found solace in the poems of Shelley. In the vague
yearnings of that beautiful spirit for love ineffable and
full of bliss, his communings with Nature as a living
friend, his prophetic hope, uncompromising justice, femi-
nine tenderness, unawed fidelity to truth, and infantile
freshness, was just the cordial that his wounded feelings
needed ; while in the very indefiniteness of Shelley's
creed, he found the reflex of his own skepticism. He
was much gratified, also, in planting his feet firmly on
facts, as they then appeared to him to be, in the novel
doctrines of Phrenology, and read Spurzheim and Combe
with profoundest interest. But such satisfaction was
incomplete at best. There were central, spiritual wants,
which Shelley did not recognize, which natural science
could not feed, diseases of the Will, such as faith
alone could cure. Then it was that James turned, as
so many an inquiring spirit has done, to Coleridge, and
34 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKIX S.
not in vain. In the " Friend," and yet more in the
" Aids to Reflection," he found glimpses of a new world,
offering welcome from afar to the storm-driven and be-
calmed voyager ; but as yet glimpses only, for time and
change of scene were needed to bring him to a haven.
To these real griefs were added others wholly fanci-
ful in origin, and which, in after life, he could refer to
with no little amusement. He believed himself to be in
love with a lady, to whom I believe he never even
spoke, but whose beauty, as he beheld her in his walks,
or at church, seemed quite to fulfil his ideal of loveliness ;
and among his manuscripts poems still remain, express-
ing his devotion to this imaginary mistress. But these
sorrows of the fancy doubtless deepened his despon-
dency, which, spite of the kindness of parents, sisters,
brothers, friends, became at length almost intolerable.
For relief he was accustomed to take long tramps
through rain and snow as in bright weather, and by
night as in the day. Usually he walked alone, though
not averse to congenial companionship. Well do I
remember his coming to me in desperate mood one
autumn afternoon, with the urgent request that I would
go with him to Nahant. A northeast storm was
brooding, and he longed to behold the surf. As we
crossed the beach about dusk, we saw, to our astonish-
ment, that every breaker was luminous with phospho-
rescence. And going at once to the rocks at East ClifT,
we witnessed a rare scene of solemn beauty. Clouds
of leaden gray closed darkly down on the horizon, and
scud was driving swiftly overhead ; but, far as eye could
reach, the surface of ocean was braided with crink-
ling lines and circles of soft lustre, and the billows, as
they rolled over half-sunk ledges, and, rushing onward,
YOUTH. 35
flung themselves high against projecting points, opened
in golden wreaths, and burst in showers of spangles.
No depression of spirits could resist such a magnificent
symbol of the brightness hid in seemingly the gloomiest
fate ; and when, towards midnight, we sought our beds,
James was once again light-hearted as a boy.
As a means of wholly breaking off his morbid trains
of feeling, and rousing him to healthier action of his
powers, his father made arrangements, in the winter of
1830 31 to despatch James on a business mission, first
to England, and thence to the West Indies. And ex-
tracts from his letters during this period will best reveal
his progress, and his objects of interest.
PARTING WORDS. " New York, January 15, 1831. I
am thus far on my way to England, and thence go to the
West Indies Pardon me if I have the blues. Melan-
choly has much as you may believe the contrary ever
been one of my passions, but it is melancholy of a peculiar
kind ; it is not doubt concerning the future, nor sorrow for the
past, much as I have reason both to doubt and to sorrow ; it is
constitutional, and I have always been, am, and probably
shall ever be, really more disposed to cry than to laugh. I
have lived in an ideal world of my own creating, knowing at
the same time that it was ideal ; the world, as it is, does not
suit me. Not that I am disposed to get out of the way of all
society and become a hermit ; but I do not like fashionable
society, because it scarce appears to me to deserve the
name. At heart, I should always be disposed to be a social
man. But men are so utterly selfish and carnally-minded
in the mass, that I am not fond of their company ; and wom-
en, as far as I have known them, are, with few exceptions,
so much ' lower than the angels,' that I rather like to think
36 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
of them than le with them. I have an itching for something
beyond and better than eating and drinking and money-
making ; even knowledge and fame, it appears to me, pro-
duce satiety. I am never contented ; at rest I long for ac-
tion, in action I long for rest. I build no castles in the air,
form no plans for the future, look forward to nothing, and
yet I am not what others think me, uninterested. I am
always interested, and that far more deeply, I believe, than
most are, but in something unreal and intangible, in some-
thing not future, but, if I may be paradoxical, beyond the
future. What a monstrous deal of stuff about myself; but
remember, it may be my last chance."
" THIRTY DAYS IN MY BERTH. A Liverpool packet is
a palace or a dungeon, according to the state of a man's
stomach. To me, it was the Black-Hole of Calcutta, seven
times blackened.
" We set sail from New York, soon after the great north-
east snow-storm, in January, 1831 ; and a most nipping and
eager air it was, that wafted us from New Amsterdam. It
reduced the captain's whiskers one half, and made the old
bottle-nosed storm-stemmer look like a frost-bitten cabbage ;
and the gray-headed pilot, too, though he had drifted twixt
sea and shore in his cockle-shell for half a century, stamped
about like a first-chop tragedian, with his arms knee-deep,
as they say in Hibernia, in the bags of his monkey jacket.
As for my own self, being a new hand in salt-water matters,
and feeling an instinctive antipathy to a cabin, where every
thing was on the full swing, I kept on deck too ; and looked
up at the sails, and down at the sea, and forward where the
bows were beginning to rise and fall on the long swell ; and
thrashed my arms and legs about, and tried to keep warm,
and feel wonderfully contented. But it would not do ; and
when the pilot got into his little Water-Witch, I came within
an ace of straddling the bulwark with him ; but then I re-
YOUTH. 37
membered my trunk and sweetmeats, and, holding fast to a
rope, I breathed upon the tip of my nose, to keep the life
in, and became sentimental.
'Adieu, adieu ! My native shore
Fades o'er the waters blue ;
The night-winds sigh, the breakers roar,
And shrieks the wild sea-mew.'
" The last trace of America disappeared ; the ship rolled
more, and more, and more ; the steward called me to tea.
I staggered into the close, hot mahogany cabin, took a seat
to windward, and accepted a cup of that nondescript called
by sailors tea; but when I put this same compound of tar
and hot water to my mouth, my stomach threw itself upon
its reserved rights ; and as there was no denying that this
same tar-tea was opposed to the constitution of my federal
system, and fearing that the complainant might nullify at an
improper moment, I made a dive for my state-room door,
amid the congratulations of the captain, who was renovating
his countenance with a bottle of porter, and a cut. of cold
roast beef, supported by fried potatoes.
" I reached my room, pulled off my coat and cravat,
kicked my shoes under the berth, and stepped into the soli-
tary chair for the purpose of gaining my bed ; when a sud-
den lurch of the ship capsized the chair, and sent me head-
foremost into the cabin, where I landed safe on my back
under the captain's stool. ' Good God ! ' said he, dropping
a large slice of fried potato into my face, ' what's the mat-
ter ? ' I had but little breath to spare, and so the steward
dragged me out by the legs, and stowed me safe under the
counterpane, breeches and all ; while his superior looked on,
and inquired through his mouthful of beef if I would not
take a little porter after my fall. Bah !
" For the next forty-eight hours I was insensible ; once or
twice they brought me near enough to the land of the living
to make me swallow a little cold water, but otherwise I was
VOL. i. 4
33 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
collapsed. On the third day, my mind opened its eyes
again. It was a beautiful, warm forenoon, they told me, and
so the steward took me up fore and aft, carried me on deck,
and stowed me away in the long boat, among some old sails.
Here I found one of my two fellow-passengers, and a more
forlorn figure never crossed my vision.
" Mr. B was a Montreal merchant ; he had a body
five feet five inches high, and that might weigh, feet and all,
eighty pounds; and a mind nearly half as large as its dwell-
ing-house. He was enveloped in a white surtout, and cow-
hide boots ; from above the collar of his surtout sprouted a
fungus-like head, defended from the winds and rains of
heaven by twenty-five or thirty long, colorless hairs, seem-
ingly made of a spider's web; to assist which, he had called
in the aid of an immense otter-skin cap, calculated for the
wear of some Canadian hunter, across the mouth of which
had been rigged up a sort of network of red and green
twine, such as we tie up quills with, to prevent this formida-
ble friend from slipping down and extinguishing him. His
eyes were undoubtedly eyes, but they seemed to be all white,
with only a little aperture in the centre to look through ; and
for his nose, I will not describe it otherwise than by refer-
ring you to a ploughshare, mottled white and blue. But,
his mouth, it was the mouth that marked the man ; the
lower part of his face appeared to have passed through a
rolling-mill, and his teeth and tongue inhabited an open
country, having six inches perhaps, of frontier, and extend-
ing back to an unknown distance ; he had thirty-five teeth
at least.
" Mr. B , not as I have described him, but in the state
such a man would be in when sea-sick, with an invisible
beard half an inch long, and a sky-blue tippet about his
neck, was soliloquizing upon a roast potato and a bit of cod-
fish, in the sternsheets of the long-boat, when the steward
threw me in beside him. ' By the by, 1 said Mr. B ,
YOUTH. 39
* how are you to-day ? ' I could only answer by dropping
my under jaw. The Canadian comprehended me, and
offered me the skin of his potato.
"It was in truth a beautiful day. Though in the middle of
January, the air was warm and pleasant ; the sea was com-
paratively calm, though the pitching of the ship made me
dizzy, as the remembrance of it does now. We were going
merrily on our way, under a sufficiency of sail, and the
men were at work repairing the fore-yard, which had been
injured two nights before in a squall. I began to think I
might like the ocean yet, and intimated as much to my fel-
low-sufferer. ' Ah,' said he, 'by the by, so I thought my-
self.' But hope is as notable a hussy at sea as on shore,
and when I had eaten a plate of rice tinctured with molasses,
and drank a tumbler of wine and water, I found it advisable
to call all hands and take to my berth again.
" Why is it that nobody will sympathize with a person
when suffering under the two most purgatorial troubles of
this world, sea-sickness and disappointed love ? Let a man
have a headache, or a twinge of rheumatics, and who thinks
of laughing at him ? But let him be cast into a state of
mind and body when life is a burden, food, rank poison,
hope, energy, and every thing else gone, and he is fair
game. It is a disgrace to civilized man. And just so when
a poor fellow embarks in chase of a wife ; let but the jade
play him foul, cut the throat of his affections, and strip the
skin from his heart, and he is sure to be attacked by every
other member of the community. I say again it is a dis-
grace to civilized man. And so I said to myself, as I lay
grinding my teeth, and heard the captain discuss me with the
one sound passenger, by name Mr. S , over a roast tur-
key and cranberry sauce.
" This Mr. S , as I afterward discovered, was quite a
character. He was a revolutionist to the back-bone, a deist,
a linguist, a chemist, and a rank heretic on every subject
40 LIFE OF JAMES II. PERKINS.
but the excellence of brandy. He was a man of talent,
but self-educated, conceited, and a bigot. lie began bis life
in a pottery ; but finding that within him which aspired to
something above the fashioning of clay, he ran off, and
went to sea, and became at last a cabin-boy in a man-of-war.
This he liked very well, but one. day while in port he un-
luckily drank more grog than came to his share, and, in the
course of the capers whereby he let off the super-excite.nent,
broke the cabin mirror, and being of op'nion that desertion
was the only true kind of valor, at any rate in cabin-boys,
he dropped from the window at midnight, and swam ashore,
carrying in his pocket a roll of money which he took from
the captain's locker, thinking, doubtless, in the hurry and
darkness, that he was taking a shirt out of his own empty
chest.
" He next turned the face of his multiform genius to mak-
ing up pills, and compounding nameless doses in the back
shop of what is called in England a chemist and druggist,
i. e. an apothecary. From his worthy master in this line, he
imbibed the spirit of reform that was fairly devouring him ;
from him came his ideas of government, of professional
men, upon whom he looked down with great contempt, and
of various other important matters.
"And Mr. S was no mere talker; he had done all in
his power to overthrow the British monarchy ; and failing
in that, he had moved to America, where he intended to
bring about a reform that should be felt through every de-
partment of the government, and every section of the coun-
try. He meant to reduce the price of soda-powders one
half. He had, moreover, made some progress in a new
dictionary of our language, the first word of which was to
be ' truth,' the second ' knowledge,' and the third ' belief ;
the fourth he had not quite fixed upon ; the plan was philo-
sophical, and he meant to make the study of his diction-
ary the best means of attaining all knowledge. ' I will de-
YOUTH. 41
fine truth, Sir,' said he, ' show the relation between truth
and knowledge, and between knowledge and belief, and so
go on to all that man's mind has elaborated, that in this one
work every thing shall be stated, not separately, but in such
connections, and so illustrated, that we shall need no libra-
ries and no encyclopaedias.' Mr. S was fifty, probably,
and had advanced three words toward accomplishing this
small work. He had, moreover, a system of laws on the
stocks ; and a plan of society which should dispense with
all professions. His idea was to educate every child in law,
medicine, and boxing ; the rest was mere luxury. He was
a man of considerable reading, and untiring industry ; in
his pocket he carried his ink-horn, pen, and note-book, and
not an idle moment checkered his existence ; from mental
he went to bodily exercise, from bodily back to mental ;
and, if the chance offered, would crack an argument with
great relish.
" I was in my berth the whole passage, sick as any could
wish his worst foe, with now and then a lucid interval of
half an hour. On these occasions, the reformer used to fas-
ten upon me with infinite satisfaction ; and he gave me an
insight into one of the strangest minds I have ever wrestled
with.
" The mainspring of all his heterodox notions was, not
bad feeling or insanity, either of head or heart, but simple
vanity ; and this is the case, I believe, with nine out of ten
of such men ; they are too conceited to see an error, into
which conceit perhaps first led them, and die in their unbe-
lief. But he had more uncommon qualities than vanity ; he
had a mixture of good and bad principle, of wisdom and
folly, of clearness and confusedness, that I never saw equal-
led. As I lay in my state-room, I used to hear him at
times rubbing up the Canadian.
" ' Pray,' said he to him one day, ' pray, Mr. B , who
do you think wrote the New Testament ? ' Mr. B , to-
4*
42 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
tally unsuspicious of any trick, and too much of a merchant
to appear ignorant, answered promptly, ' Doubtless, Sir, it
was Peter.' 'And did Peter, think you, Mr. H , write
Paul's Epistles? ' The Canadian was dumb-foundered ; but
feeling himself in a marsh, he concluded it best not to go too
deep ; and so, opening his mouth, very much as a clam
opens his shell when the tide is coming in, he sent forth a
long-spun ' VVhy-y-y,' to cover his retreat, and observed,
4 By the by, I think Paul did live about that time.' ' And
pray, Sir,' said the apothecary, ' was it Paul or Peter that
wrote St. John's Gospel ? ' Mr. B was a quiet man and
a coward, but, like many four-legged cowards, force him
into a corner, and he would fight with the energy of de-
spair ; in such a corner he was at present, and turning upon
his persecutor, with a boldness little expected by the man
of salts, he said calmly, ' You speak of the New Testament,
Mr. S . St. John's (lospel is not in that work.' This
was a poser; there was no argument left to Mr. S but
to produce the book. But not a Testament was to bo
found ; the captain was asleep ; I was so, too, in appearance,
and Mr. B triumphed. His opponent took the only re-
venge in his power, he entered the Canadian in his note-
book, and went on deck, to jump rope.
" Thirty days on one's back is no joke, at least to a man
whose bones are prominent. My shoulder-blades had cut
through the sacking before we had been out a fortnight. At
last we entered the Channel ; the sea was smooth, and as I
stood on deck, and eat Newtown pippins and watched the
gulls, I felt really in heaven ; and when dinner came, and
the roast turkey and cranberry, it was tenfold Elysium.
We passed the blue heights of Dungarven, the green shores
of Wexford ; the lights of the Mi.xen-head, and the Wick-
low-head ; in due time doubled the Ilolyhead isle, and with
the Welsh mountains on our right, the heaving sea on our
left, and athousand small fry all about us, before a snorting
YOUTH. 43
breeze we sped on to Liverpool, the American city of Old
England."
" London, March 1st, 1831. Let me instruct you in my
way and fashion of life. I inhabit a very small room, hav-
ing five sides, and fronting upon Leicester Square; one side
of my room is taken up by the window, a second by the
door, a third by the fireplace, a fourth by my bed, and the
fifth accommodates my bureau and myself. I rise at seven
or half past, and walk till nine, breakfast, study French and
algebra till twelve, read Shakspeare or Milton till two, and
walk again till three, when I go to my eating-house and
dine. After dinner I read or write till dusk, then walk an
hour, going down into the by-roads and hidden paths, re-
turn, drink tea, and read or write again. Occasionally, say
twice a week, I take tea and spend the evening out, and
once a week, or perhaps twice, dine out."
FANNY A. KEMBLE. " March 21, 1831. For two
weeks I did not go to the theatre, but Monday I went to
see Miss Kemble, and the consequence was, I have been
every time she has played since, and mean to go every time
she plays again, if I have to pawn my last shirt to buy a
ticket. I have a ticket for next Monday night, when she
plays Constance in King John. It is her benefit, and the
tickets (box tickets, dress circles) are all signed by her. I
will give you an autograph ; but it wont do to put it here,
for it deserves to be kept as a valuable legacy. In playing
she very much resembles Mrs. Siddons, as she appears by
a print in the number ' On the Stage,' of Percy Anecdotes ;
but then she is a very beautiful girl, in feature ; and in ex-
pression, soul, mind! essence!! quintessence!!! cen-
tessence ! ! ! ! I should wish to be moderate and reasonable
in what I say in praise of her, so I will merely remark that
I think, if any thing will ever tempt me to cross the Atlantic
again, it will be the hope of seeing Fanny Kemble.
44 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
" What a beautiful hand she writes for an autograph ! *
Examine it. The F, you may see the firmness in the
top, and in the bottom the grief, the drooping, of a Juliet.
The A, it is a character in itself; the beginning strong
and well defined, the strokes, however, toward the cen-
tre becoming finer and nicer, to bring forth more power-
fully the close ; presently the plot thickens, there is a burst
of passion, a flood of tears, a shudder, a faint groan, and
she is carried oflf insensible. But now observe the K ;
' There is a laughing devil in its sneer ' ;
it is a maze of scorn, hatred, love, grief, repentance. Me-
thinks, as I look at it, I see her as she was in Fasio, hanging
upon the neck of a husband whom she has given over to
death from excess of love. Presently the bell tolls, her
hands drop powerless to her side, her long black hair covers
her shoulders, and as she leans a little forward a single tress
falls across her bosom ; the mouth is just open, the lips
slightly parted ; her eye is like the eye of a living statue ;
the brow is a little bent. The bell tolls again ; she starts,
but he is gone to the scaffold. She springs after him;
and the cry of ' He is not guilty,' which she gave, is ring-
ing in my ears yet. VV^e will pass the intermediate parts,
and come to the closing scene. You may see it in the last
joint of the K, the strong down and light upward stroke.
Her husband is executed ; the woman owing to whom all
has been brought to pass is making merry with the prince at
home. Anon, the music and dance cease for a moment ;
a door at the back opens, and a figure clothed in white, and
pale as the dead, is seen. The music strikes up, and the
dancing commences again ; at that instant comes a laugh,
heard above the music and noise, that might make ' the
boldest hold his breath,' and in a moment she is in the
* In the margin a fac-simile is given.
YOUTH. 45
midst of them. The long, jet-black hair, which half hides
her face, makes its extreme paleness the more apparent ;
her finger points to her enemy ; you yet hear a low laugh
of scorn, and the eye and the lip are in unison. Her story
is told, her prayer granted, her enemy banished. Then be-
gins the upward stroke ; the smile leaves her lip, the brow
is open again, she puts back her hair, and her voice regains
its softness. There is no stage effect, no straining for atti-
tudes, no studied emphasis or gesture. It is all soul, and
from the soul goes to the soul. I took out my handkerchief
three times during the play ; twice to blow my nose, and
once to get something out of my eye ! Then observe the
figure she cuts in ' 21 ' ; it agrees with the figure she cuts at
twenty-one, a most original figure. But you read her
character in it as in all, more strength than grace, more
nature than art, more almost any thing than twenty-one,
and neither does she seem twenty-one."
" London, April 1st, To-morrow I leave London, most
like for ever, and that before I have become fully con-
vinced I am there. When I look at a map of the world, it
requires an effort of imagination to believe that I am where
I am, in this renowned city of cities. When at home, I
used to speculate of such things ; thought I should go mad
with joy were I to see England. But so true is it that the
world we live in is within rather than without us, that here I
scarce feel I am here, and going hence scarce know that it
is England which I leave. The voyage, my daily life,
every thing, to my mind, is tinged with romance. So little
have I felt that I was actually in LONDON, and but for a
time, that had we not been detained beyond our safling day,
I should never have seen Westminster Abbey ; and unless
we are detained another day, I shall not see the inside of
St. Paul's, though I have passed it every day since my
arrival. Don't lament my mental paralysis. It is not want
46 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
of curiosity ; but I am too much at home with myself not
to feel at home with any thing and every thing about me,
and in consequence am here as if t were in Boston. The
older I grow, too, the less curiosity do I feel about the works
of man, and the more about man himself and his fellow-
creatures. Were I in the country, I should be eternally
upon the go."
Castries, May. " We arrived at Barbadoes a week ago
to-day. There I remained till Monday, and then sailed for
this port in a packet-boat. Our vessel was about as long as
a steamer is broad, and, save six feet of quarter-deck, was
under water, while every ten minutes a wave would wash
all fore and aft. To get to my bed I had to lower myself
down through a hole in the deck, just big enough to admit
my body ; then lie flat on my belly, and creep over the
cases, which were piled up to within a foot of the deck.
Once there, we all bundled in together, black, white, and
gray ; then the hole through which we entered was closed,
and we were left to stew ! In the night, if any one wished
to get out, he must clamber across all the rest. I had two
or three feet on my head, and put my own on two or three
others. I had not slept for two nights, or, salamander as I
am, I could not have borne it. In the morning we turned
out to breakfast, which was served up in true West India
style. A pottage compounded of chicken, pork, salt-fish,
yams, charcoal, and tar, and a dish of fly ing- fish roasted on
the coals, these were set upon deck, and round them we
all squatted, fingers serving for knife, fork, and platter. The
rest made a meal of it, and I made faces at it. Claret,
verging towards vinegar, and rain-water was our beverage,
the whole topped off with a draught of ginger tea, drank
how ? why, as it should be, from the nose of the tea-
kettle. Each wiped oflf the soot with his sleeve, and swig-
ged. Now observe nationality ! The company were all
YOUTH. 47
French, save I, and after breakfast a bucket of water was
put in the centre, and each washed his mouth and dipped
his fingers, as though it were a glass bowl at a dinner-party.
I paid $16 for a passage of fifteen hours."
Castries, May. " Fortunately you are not a merchant,
and know not mercantile troubles. Void ! A gentleman
invites me to his house, treats me as kindly as possible,
does all in his power for me, and what then? Why, I
must must, observe ye try to bargain him, coax him,
drive him, cheat him, out of a dollar or two. I 'd rather
lose a leg ; and yet if I don't I 'm a fool, a greenhorn, and
he 'ZZ take me in, because 7 wouldn't serve him so. If I ever
get home again, I '11 quit trade for ever and aye. My love
of rambling has not decreased, though I am lowering rny
notions of things and rnen a peg or two every day ; but I
cannot ramble as I please, and I 'd rather be nailed to a
door-post than go on as I am going. I think worse and
worse, I say, of men. Of those I meet with, there are but
few for whom I have much respect ; of man in the general
I can, of course, think neither better nor worse, while I
know so little of him. The West Indians are if I may
take the ones I see, and they are the first class little
better than beasts. Slavery has done more hurt to the
whites than the blacks. Honesty is rare here ; morality is
an exotic, and if it is brought in, the climate kills it ; relig-
ion, do men 'gather grapes of thistles'? They make
no attempt to defend slavery, save by this one argument :
4 We can't make money without niggers.' The captain of
the vessel I came out in used to hold frequent arguments
with me upon this same question. He was a fiery, hot-
headed, good-natured, easy, obstinate, gallimaufry sort of a
creature, his doctrine being the old one, that ' Slaves are
happier than they would be if free.' ' He 'd be d d,
for his part, if he would not make the poor rascals about
48 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
England slaves, if he could ; 't would be a grand stroke
in political economy, clear Great Britain of its surplus,
stock the colonies, and make all parties happy, for the
now naked and starving would then be well fed and clothed.'
The mate, who was the captain's antipodes, as well as
antipathy, used to answer this to the great credit of his
organ of causality. He took for granted two things,
1 that all men had a right to be free,' and ' that slaves are
men'; and thence proceeded to argue, 'that slaves had a
right to be free.' In his conclusion he was certainly log-
ical, and if his argument was not very straight, it was, like
the tower at Pisa, the more remarkable fur its obliquity.
'Sir,' said he, 'you might as well say the king's horses
are men, because they are well lodged.'''
Castries, May. " It is a proverb ' something musty,' that
habit is a second nature ; and I have been seeing it proved
in a manner that made my blood run cold. When 1 went
to receive my French lesson this morning
" But, by the way, I have never told you the story of
my schooling here. It is briefly this. There are, in this
town of Castries, two young ladies, ranging from eighteen
to twenty, who, being natives, are totally unable to speak
English ; I being equally minus in French, and, truth to
tell, a strong electrical attraction existing between us, it was
finally arranged that we should make an exchange. Ac-
cordingly I teach them English, and they teach me French,
tcte-d-ti-le. I assure you it is very interesting and ro-
mantic.
" Well, this morning when I went, I found them, as usual,
in the midst of their slaves, embroidering ' in the true old
Greek style' ; and a slave, a girl of six or seven, having
made some mistake or other, received a small blow from
the riding-whip, which always hangs by the table to keep
order with. The child very naturally cried, and the con-
YOUTH. 49
sequence of the crying was, that one of the young ladies,
a kinder, gentler, more woman-like woman I never knew ;
she would not crush a worm or hurt a fly if she could avoid
it ; but such is habit, this young lady took the rod in hand
to correct the girl, and, without the least passion apparently,
coolly and considerately, she thrashed with that horsewhip
the poor child till she could scarcely walk ! Her sister, mean-
while, was no more moved, than if the beating had been on
a block of wood ! I pitied the slave, but I pitied her mistress
more. She has been used to seeing punishment, and inflict-
ing punishment, through her whole life ; and to the suffering
of a slave, because it is a slave, is callous. She would not
for the world have treated a dog so.
" Can any thing seem stranger, more contradictory, more
out of nature, than this story ? I beg you to say nothing of it,
for the honor of our species. I would have kept it to myself,
but I can't find room for it in the portion of my mind which
is set apart for the horrible ; it will out. Here is a new trait
in one whom I have, till now, really respected. You may
be of the belief, that I hold the ' fair sex,' as they are call-
ed, and I wish there was another name, for I abominate
this distinction of sexes, in, if not utter contempt, at least
rather low estimation. But in this you have greatly mis-
taken me. I am not of the school, and do not fancy
' eyeses and noses ' and all that trash, but I do fancy the true
woman, if any such there be ; and that is the secret of my
secrecy- I have a beau-ideal of my own, a picture ready
painted to my mind, and in my mind, and I am but waiting
to find a likeness among the living. But, as you once said,
I am of opinion we must have ' a new race par tout,'' or I
shall never be satisfied. I 'm sorry, but as my sorrow is
all my own, why should I trouble you with it ? "
June. "I read a West India planter's will yesterday. It
was three pages of legacies to his natural offspring and their
VOL. I. 5
50 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
unnalural mothers, his own slaves, of course ; and in con-
clusion he said, that, ' for the quiet repose of his spirit, he
wished to have his body laid near to the spot where his slaves
were wont to bathe, that his grave might be watered by their
tears ' ; or by other salt water, I suppose indifferently. It
was a regular French mixture ; a compound of sensuality,
sentiment, vanity, politeness, and independence ; an Eng-
lishman could not have dreamed even of such a thing. I
can compare it to nothing but a piece of fat pork served up
in cream, with a few onions about the plate, touched through-
out with oil, and sprinkled with ginger."
June. " This evening I put on my old coat, took my
umbrella, nobody here walks without an umbrella, and
strolled down to the beach. The sun was just setting. Along
the west lay a bank of dark, heavy clouds, brought into
strong and beautiful relief by the tinted sky beyond, and
the light, fleecy clouds, that lay higher up in the heaven,
green, and gold, and crimson, as it were a half-visible
paradise. In the front ground was the steep, solitary hill
upon the right hand of the harbour, and the harbour itself,
as calm as though it had ceased its motion to gaze upon the
heavens above. Yet, from the changing of the tints, you
might see that the unceasing roll of ocean was felt even
here ; and there was a perceptible rise and fall, too, of the
schooner which lay dark and silently upon the water, with
her useless sail hansjing idly from the boom. A single water-
bird was flitting along the imaged skies, and now and then
a fish would leap and disturb the perfect mirror; but wave
after wave circled away, fainter and fainter, till all was still
again.
" I was leaning against a tamarind-tree, recalling a thousand
such evenings gone, long gone by, and meditating with
little of hope upon the future. I wished to find a subject to
write upon, and my mind, what with the inaudible music of
YOUTH. 51
the scene before me, and that which came breathing from
the past, was well disposed to think of man as he should be,
to fancy him in a garden of Eden, with no forbidden fruit.
Presently, a hand was laid on my shoulder. I turned round.
It was that of an old friend of mine, of perhaps fifty years,
not too drunk to be able to stand alone, nor too sober to
refuse the arm of the negress, his negress, upon whom
he was leaning. I don't know what he said, but I do know
that I came home with a sick headache, and gave up my
garden of Eden."
June. " You used to smile at my indifference or as-
sumed indifference as I suppose you thought it respecting
little troubles, and, if I am not much out, you thought it
arose from a sort of callousness of feeling. But you were
as much mistaken as if you had referred it to the toothache.
It was, I verily believe, true philosophy, the genuine,
not Stoicism, but something better. By nature I am inclined
to be in a pet at trifles as much as, nay, more than most
persons ; but I have seen so much pain, actual suffering,
from this fretfulness in others, that I have wished to spare
myself, and par consequence have done all I can to bring
my mind and body into such a state, that things which I
cannot influence shall not put either into a fever. Since I
have been from home, I have found my reward. Matters
at which I should formerly have fidgeted terribly have
troubled me no more than mosquito-bites ; they were un-
pleasant, nothing more, and I have let them have their own
way, rather than scratch off the skin and make a fester of
it. With matters which / can control, it is quite otherwise ;
but how few can we control ! and most of those at which
men fret are past, and consequently past control. The cap-
tain with whom I came from England was miserable from
morning to night about nothing, he was a very tornado,
and yet thought himself as patient as Job. How ridiculous it
52 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
was to see the man foaming at the mouth almost, because
his dinner was overdone, or there was no butter to the
fish ! Again, when I arrived here, I found affairs in such a
state, that there seemed no prospect of doing any thing ex-
cept perhaps getting into difficulty. I was sorry, yet did
not rip out against the French Revolution, and I know not
what all ; but my more gunpowderish friends did, and fell,
some of them, into a terrible passion, because I was 10 be
disappointed, though I, the person interested, kept very
cool. It was great generosity in them to be mad for me, I
grant ; but it was the generosity of the man who would take
a dose of castor-oil because his friend was like to die of a
fever ; not that of Ben Pump, who got into the stocks beside
Leatherstocking."
June. "There is nothing here surprises me more than
the development of acquisitiveness, which organ shines out
in all its glory. Men come from Europe, and spend their
lives here, without families, society, books, amusement, or
improvement of any sort, putting money to their purse, and
that is all ; and yet you may see them, old, gray-headed fel-
lows, thinking, dreaming of but this one thing, and, I doubt
not, calculating one of these days to set down comfortably
and be married. 'T is more curious than any thing in na-
ture ; I beg your critical pardon, this is nature, a natural
phenomenon ; I meant inanimate nature.
" By the way, talking of nature, I got hold of Newton's
Optics on the passage from England, and find Mr. D a
humbug ; for he misrepresented matters, though I am far
from believing that Optics, or rather Light, is thoroughly un-
derstood. Electricity I have been pecking at a little, too. It
is yet a mystery to me, and I should like nothing better than
a good chance to study the subject. I think you would find
the mental dyspepsia with which, if I mistake not, you are
sometimes troubled, relieved by a change of diet. Meta-
YOUTH. 53
physics, and such like, taken alone, are too windy ; you
want a little solid food. Let me recommend those matters
in natural philosophy which will allow speculation enough,
and yet give something tangible to rest on
" I am pouring forth an extensive poem on the Deluge !
What think ye, will it come out of the little end? I have
luxuriated extensively upon Milton and Mother Goose, of late.
That last-mentioned author gives a rich opening ; if I had
time I would try it, for many excellent satires might be
preached from her texts. Childe Harold, too, I have been
reading again, and think, though I am sorry to say it, less
and less of Byron's talents. I like his writings, but they do
not seem to me to be wrought of the same stuff as Shak-
speare and Milton. I judge he will be rather like those poets
who are now almost forgotten, though they were in their
times very popular. I have been studying, also, Shelley's
Queen Mab. The man was a real poet, though a poor phi-
losopher. He asserts himself to be an atheist ; and tries to
support his belief, but his argument is weak. Paine's work
is much more sensible, but neither he nor his antagonists
fight fair ; they assert, but prove not. It is fortunate that
belief is not what some would make it. One may spend a
life in study, and not be satisfied. And now, hoping this
will make "you wiser and gooder, I am, &c."
June. " You must excuse me if I give you no reason for
my tides and currents ; they are incomprehensible to my-
self. Just now I am as calm as a summer evening, or a
winter morning, or a spring noon ; but come twenty-four
hours hence, and you might find an equinoctial. We talk
a great deal about that First Lord of the Treasury, called
Free Will, but my prime minister is plaguy apt, when it
comes to the point, to be left in the minority. I would, and
I would not. Now the ' would not ' evidently is not the
'would'; and Will and Do must go together. / lay the
5*
54 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
matter before myself ; I take one side, and se //", who goner-
ally manages to get the vote of my body, takes the other,
and leaves me in the lurch. I fight it out stoutly, but i
won't do. There is a question of reform to come up before
us in a day or two, but I can already foresee the issue.
There is but one resource, to dissolve the meeting and
get rid of that rotten-borough member, the body. I don't
know where I picked up my character, I mean the one I
wear at present. It may pass with you and the world for a
pretty decent one ; but it is made up of shreds and patches,
and every now and then a thread gives way. I am for ever
at work, sewing and stitching, and yet can't keep it whole.
One trait, which is generally thought of but little use, has
saved me from the rocks, and that is mauvaise honle. If
I have lost much, I have gained more by it ; without it I
might have been better liked, but should have deserved to
be more hated.
" Shelley denies free will. He says the strongest mo-
tive must decide a man, and that the advocate for free will
would have you believe a man can resist and act against the
strongest motive, which is evidently a contradiction in
terms. This seems, at first view, plausible. The mind
is a balance ; in the one scale is, we will say, Passion, in
the other Duty ; whichever is the heaviest is the prevailing
motive, the Will, and determines the conduct. Is it not
the case ? I wish to do so and so, to go to Ohio, to stay
in Castries. Hark ! I hear a voice I know ; now I want to
go out, see the person, and speak to him, that weighs ten
pounds; but, on the other hand, I 've no cravat on, no coat
on, and they weigh eleven pounds ; of course I shall not go.
* Yet I can go if I will," 1 you say. No, I cannot without I
add another pound of motive, and more than a pound, to the
first scale, no matter what that motive is, if it be only to
prove to myself that I can go, that I have free will for that
is a motive, and has weight. Free will is always the same,
YOUTH. 55
the weight on the long arm of the steelyard. Push it
out a notch, and it will counterbalance a pound ; two notches,
two pounds, and so on for ever. But what then becomes of
moral responsibility ? No man can be blamed for doing
that which he must do. A person commits a theft, and you
condemn him; but Shelley says: 'Wait; there were
certain motives in his mind for and against the act ; which-
ever prevailed, that he must obey ; and he did not make
those motives." 1 ' There is the very point,' say you ;
' had he restrained his propensity when young ! ' ' What
do you mean ? ' asks Shelley ; ' he had motives, on either
hand, then as well as now." 1 ' But,' say you again, and
you think you have found the kernel of the matter, ' but
did he consider those motives ? did he weigh them ? did
he not give way to the first which came, put passion into
one scale and nothing in the other, and then say pas-
sion was the heaviest ? ' ' He did all he could," 1 answers
Shelley ; ' if he was hasty, he had motives for being so.'
You may get out of the labyrinth as you can. And yet
Mr. Shelley and his school can blame kings and priests for
enslaving mankind ! The fact is, that words would per-
suade them that there is no such reality as Will, but the
DEITY within assures them of the contrary."
June. " The only thing that can save is to get mar-
ried ; to give up trash, employ his powers to some purpose,
study algebra and geometry, and read Coleridge's Aids, &c. ;
thus he may come down to sense and poetry, for at present
he is in a balloon of fanciful conceit. He tried to mount
Pegasus, but found .the sky-steed too fiery. When I was
eighteen years of age, shall I confess it ? I thought of
rivalling B , and P , and W , &c., myself; but
three years have made me wiser. My rhyming talent is a
faculty of great worth to me, and I am thankful to possess
it ; but I shall not trouble others therewith. We want
POETS at present, not versifiers.
56 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
" I will not ask you to forgive my dustiness, my selfish-
ness, but only assure you that this is my very last. "
James returned home in the summer of 1831 ; and,
as soon as the settlement of affairs allowed, informed his
friends of his resolve to abandon for ever the mercantile
profession. After full consideration of his prospects
and aims, he determined to try his fortune, and in some
way test his powers, in the great valley of the West.
Thither we will now follow him, and see how the char-
acter formed in Youth developed itself in Manhood.
The views which guided him in emigrating to Ohio
are explained in a letter addressed to his former teacher,
Timothy Walker, Esq.
" Boston, December 5//t, 1831. Sir, I have for some
time been thinking of going to the Westward in search of
employment, for that which I have here is too sedentary for
my taste or health ; but as I knew no one who could give
me any information respecting the proper mode of starting
in your part of the world, I have put off the coming to the
point from time to time, for the last twelve months.
" I now take the liberty of writing to you, hoping that,
without inconvenience to yourself, you may be able to give
me the information I want ; which is, simply, whether, if I
should reach Cincinnati in mid-winter, say January, I could
probably find immediate employment in some active, out-
door business, with a compensation sufficient to give me a
support until I could form some permanent arrangement.
For this purpose it must be a place which I can leave at
any time, with a short notice. My intention is to purchase
land somewhere in Ohio, and undertake the care of an es-
tate ; but I wish to get some employment which will give
me a bare sustenance, while I am gaining some insight into
YOUTH. 57
the matter of farming, of which at present I know nothing,
being one of that amphibious species, half merchant, half
scholar, with a strong inclination to become either a cob-
bler or a blacksmith.
" I should suppose that, in a State like yours, a person
possessing some knowledge of the business, and willing to
work, might, by taking a small farm upon some of the riv-
ers which empty into the Ohio, and attending to the raising
of grain, cattle, getting down lumber, &c., lead a quiet life
and make some money. Will you be good enough to in-
form me, if without inconvenience you can, what the value
of cleared land of good quality upon the rivers may be per
acre ; and what is the probable cost of getting such a farm
as a new settler would want into operation ? However, I
would not trouble you with any but the simple question,
whether I can get occupation at once, or soon after arrival,
in some active business, which I should prefer, or even in
an in-door employment ; and, by the way, perhaps the
country would be better than the town to serve my appren-
ticeship in. I am ready to try any thing almost, which will
leave me free to quit when I please.
"I beg you will not give yourself the least trouble, nor
spend any of your time to answer me, unless you can well
afford it ; and hoping before long to see your city and self,
I remain, your obedient servant, &c.
"JAMES H. PERKINS."
II.
M A X II 001).
1832-1849.
IT was in February, 1832, thru Mr. Perkins reached
Cincinnati, intending to remain but a week or two, till
the ground was sufficiently cleared from snow and set-
tled, for him to look about and choose a farm. Mean-
while, he was asked to pass his leisure hours at the
ofiice of his friend, Mr. Walker, who had then just
entered upon the professional career which has since so
deservedly placed him in the front rank of Western
jurisprudents. It was a matter of course, with his habits
of vigorous inquiry, that he should take up the books
around him, and catch such glimpses as he could of the
science of the law. He had long since learned to husband
his time, and knew well that all information comes
sometimes in piny, while variety of discipline best ma-
tures the judgment. So, instead of idling, gossiping, or
staring at novelties, he studied ; studied so diligently,
indeed, that, unawares, he found himself becoming pro-
foundly interested in tracing out the symmetrical system
of justice, which, like a network of nerves, pervades
the body of social relations. The result of this acci-
dental application was, that, drawn in part by the exhil-
arating pleasure of the study, and in part by the counsels
of Mr. Walker, and ^of young friends whom he met at the
MANHOOD. 59
office, who all admired his commanding intellect, he
suddenly resolved to devote hims If to the law. " For
a week past," he wrote, in great spirits, " I have been
too busy to do any thing but study, fourteen hours per
day being my allowance of work, for I am not joking, I
assure you. After all the uncertainties of my life, I
have at last hit upon that to which I should have
been trained from youth upward, if I could have had
my own way. But in knowledge, I fancy I am about
as far on as if I had passed through college, and in
wickedness being a little behindhand is no harm. So,
Mr. Professional, here 's at you. Having taken up
study in earnest, I mean to stick to it." And again
to his father he playfully says: "The books which
you have had the kindness to send have not arrived, but
they will be amply in time to instruct me in the business
of horticulture, as I see small prospect of becoming a
farmer for a year or two yet. The law, that came in
on a visit merely, may remain as a resident, unless some-
thing new turns up. The more I study it, the more I
like it ; though this may be on the principle that a horse
goes by in a burning stable, when he runs into the fire
instead of out of the door. In Cincinnati, the number
of lawyers is large ; but in the country there is a wide
field to do justice that is, to practise abominations
in. Titles, to be sure, are clear hereabouts, men peace-
able, and laws mild ; but I flatter myself that I can pick
up information enough in two years to ' change all that,'
sufficiently, at least, to serve my own interests."
Mr. Perkins was yet further led to stay in Cincinnati
by the charms of the social circle to which he was at
once introduced, and where he found himself welcomed
with a cordial truthfulness, that opened his heart, and set
60 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
free his long prisoned affections. In place of fashiona-
ble coldness, aristocratic hauteur, purse-pride, ostenta-
tion, reserve, non-committalisin, the tyranny of cliques,
and the fear of leaders, he found himself moving among
a pleasant company of hospitable, easy, confiding, plain-
spoken, cheerful friends, gathered from all parts of the
Union, and loosed at once by choice and promiscuous
intercourse from trammels of bigotry and conventional
prejudice. He breathed for once freely, and felt with
joy the blood flowing quick and warm throughout his
spiritual frame. He caught, too, the buoyant hopeful-
ness that animates a young, vigorous, and growing com-
munity, and mingled delightedly with groups of high-
hearted, enterprising men, just entering on new careers,
and impelled by the hope of generous service in literary,
professional, or commercial life. Above all, happiest
good-fortune brought him at once under the influence of
woman, as he had so long in the ideal dreamed of her,
serenely wise, pure as lovely, spreading around her the
verdure and bloom of goodness, through daily charities of
home. Extracts from his letters will best show the elas-
ticity of his temper, and the direction of his thoughts.
May 6th. " Being confined the greater part of the time
to an office, carrying on a war against reports and text-
books, and busied in gathering together my spoils, I can have
but litlle to tell you as to the world without; though once in
a while, to be sure, when I feel very anti-sublunary, I take a
turn of ten or twelve miles in the country, and fancy my-
self in the garden of Eden, the only thing in the way
of completing this idea being the prevalence of rail-fences.
To a person who has been all his life in New England,
where a man ploughs, not his land, but his rocks, and where
the great secret of agriculture, if 1 mistake not, is, by dint
MANHOOD. 61
of ploughing, harrowing, hoeing, raking, and hard swearing,
so to arrange the stones that the sun, the rain, and the wa-
terpot may be able to coax up one blade of corn between
three pebbles, to a person ' raised ' in that pudding-stone
part of the republic, this country seems miraculous. For
here a man runs his coulter along a hill-top, and turns up a
soil as black as plum-cake, and without a stone in it half as
big as those I used to eat in your dyspepsia plum-cake,
which was made, I apprehend, upon the principle, that men,
like chickens, have gizzards ; indeed, this soil is more like
wedding-cake, for, like wedding-cake, it is too rich to be
wholesome. You speak to me of selecting a place where
' water will be at hand.' But water, unless it be the rain
from heaven, is never put on the ground here, notwithstand-
ing the plants which in Pennsylvania and Virginia grow
only in the rich bottoms flourish here upon the ridges. In-
deed, if one can but make a long leg with his imagination,
and step into the year. 2032, hs sees here a true paradise ;
for there is not a foot of land that I know of back from the
river hill, one side of which, next the river, is some-
times precipitous, that is not as well worthy of cultiva-
tion as any square inch in your garden.* The woods, which
cover much of the country even in this immediate vicinity,
are not, as with you, haunted by a confederacy of dry
branches, leaves, stumps, and underbrush ; but we have a
forest composed of immense trees running up twenty or
thirty feet before they branch, and walk under them upon
grass as smooth and soft as if Aunt had had the rolling
of it, with not a leaf, dry leaf I mean, to be discerned,
which I can but assert and not explain, and troubled by
nothing in the way of undergrowth, unless the great elm
on Boston Common might pass for a weed or sucker.
" But the mineral immensity of the country is as unique as
its agricultural ; for iron, coal, salt, lead, lime, are the substra-
* This letter is addressed to his father.
VOL. I. 6
62 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
turn of the whole valley. We have no great barren, conglom-
erated hills here, no granite peaks to lead to speculation,
railroading, and bad business, and no need of them, for we
have no ocean to beat our wharves out of all proper shape,
and no men-of-war sighing for dry docks ; and as to build-
ing, the limestone of this country is as much superior in
point of workability and beauty to granite, and in point of
beauty, neatness, and democratic elegance to marble, as one
can well imagine. As to coal and iron, they are the nerve
and muscle of this country, for, had the steam-engine never
been invented, Cincinnati might have contained 3,000, but
could not have gathered together 30,000 inhabitants. In
this inland country, as there is no wind unless in stormy
weather, you may go, of a fine, clear day, upon the highest
hill in the neighbourhood, and it is as still as if the air were
spellbound, and you hear with equal distinctness the lowing
of the cattle in the valleys back from the Ohio toward the
north, the song of the boatman floating along a mile an hour
on his immense flat, and the baying of the hounds in the
woods of Kentucky that stretch far away to the south. But
presently far-off sounds ' PufF! puff! puff!' and round a
point comes in sight a little fiery-nosed fellow, the boats
here all have their furnace open forward, and horizontal
engines, puffing along, and leaving behind a long, irregu-
lar wake, which makes you think of a Dutchman, with a
pipe in his mouth, running away from the sea-serpent. On he
comes faster and faster, turns another point in the serpentine
highway, and disappears ; all done so quickly, that one
might think it a mistake but for the continuance of the high-
pressure ' Puff! puff! puff! ' that you may hear ten miles
away almost. Then as to factories, the country is so level
that water-power is hardly used ; steam does all. You walk
through town, and every building that is not a dwelling-
house, a warehouse, or shop, is a steam-mill of one sort or
another. Do you want a block of wood sawed into any
MANHOOD. 63
shape or size, you go, not to a carpenter, who would by
hand-work cut it up in an hour or two, but to a little black,
rickety shed, that shakes and shivers as though it had the
ague, and within which, by the aid of a steam-engine that
might work without inconvenience in an old-fashioned waist-
coat pocket, and a little circular saw, in five minutes you
have any thing you wish. I have not as yet, to be sure,
discovered them, but have no doubt that there are engines
here expressly for the purpose of cutting out and finishing
toothpicks.
" But perhaps nothing is more characteristic than the rapid-
ity of building. I was first struck with it soon after I came.
A block of four or five houses was burnt down, and, though it
was mid-winter, the masons actually laid the foundation, and
began to build at one end, before the fire was wholly out
at the other. Nothing is more common than to be asked, or
to have occasion to ask, ' Why, where did that house come
from ? ' But you can neither get nor give any more satis-
factory answer than, perhaps, ' I 'm sure I don't know, I
found it there yesterday morning.' One of my fellow-stu-
dents soon after his arrival was taken sick and confined to his
bed, his only amusement being to watch, as he lay, the steam-
boats going up and down the river. One morning he woke,
rubbed his eyes, thought it very dark, looked at his watch,
and, finding it nine o'clock, rubbed his eyes again and turned
to the window. Behold ! a brick wall within three feet of
the glass. In doubt and wonder, he rang the bell ; and,
when the landlady came up, asked whether he was awake,
and if so, where that wall came from. ' O la ! Sir,' said the
old lady, ' it 's only the Squire built up his house agin this
morning, what he tore down last week ; if this spiles y'r
prospect, we shall put up a new wing to-morrow to our house,
and you can change y'r room, Sir.' Such is Ohio."
" I have been reading Goethe's Wilhelm Meister, a strange
64 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
book, which I cannot pretend, at present, to understand,
either in whole or in part. Without assuming to judge of
German manners, however, as no American could do, I
must yet think the change that goes on in Wilhelm's char-
acter unnatural. I have looked through Moore's Epicu-
rean, too, and have been much disappointed. Is not Moore
the founder of the school in poetry which merges all logic in
sentiment ? One of these days, Mr. , when I have ' got
my edication,' look out for a poem which shall set the world
in the true track again, and bring it back from sweet sounds
and wordy nonsense to Nature. ' You don't believe it ! '
No ! Nor would you have believed that I was to be a law-
yer, two months ago. You may live all your life in a house,
my dear Sir, and go through and through it, till you think
you know every corner, crack, and cranny, and yet at last
find in some odd hole a chest of pearls, silver, gold, or
brass ! "
" Robert Owen is holding forth here on Deism, and found
a stormy audience. I was conversing with a young friend
about it afterwards, who asserted that ' no Deist could be
an honest man.' This I ' traversed,' as we say in law,
and my defence of the possibility of an honest Deist has
acquired for me, I find, the reputation of being one. So
much for free inquiry ; though doubtless this bigotry shows
a good spirit enough. But I am no Deist. The character
of the Christian religion, and the character of its Founder,
are proof enough to me of its Divine origin. When I think of
the age and nation wherein Jesus is said to have appeared,
and of the ages since down to our own times, I cannot con-
ceive of his character as being a human invention. No
one even now, indeed, can comprehend its perfection. It is
stamped with signs of a supernatural influence, and yet has
this peculiarity of naturalness in it, that every beholder sees
it to be beautiful from his own point of view. The martyr
MANHOOD. 65
and crusader looked up to the strength of mind in Jesus,
which could crush fear, and despise pain or scorn ; the Re-
former and Puritan revered his holy zeal and devout aspira-
tion ; while a Fenelon is touched by his purity, meekness,
love. Few persons, perhaps, will be convinced by such a
proof; but it is the only satisfactory one to me."
" And so you conjecture that I have some itchings of Sa-
tan, and am dreaming of stump speeches, elections, and
everlasting notoriety for one year, do you ? Well ! you
miss the mark widely. I have lost, since I came to Cincin-
nati, what good opinion even I had of myself before ; I
have seen enough of the jealousy, envy, and ill-will felt
towards every one who outstrips his rivals, no matter how
insignificant the prize, and know too much of the woes of
unsuccessful strivings, ever to wish to make an effort for
advancement in wealth, power, influence, or any such path
as men generally toil in."
" It makes me start and rub my eyes, when I consider my
past life and present situation ; and I have a strange, reckless
feeling as to the future, which sometimes tempts me from
mere curiosity to lift the veil. In my own case, in yours, in
every one's, we seem to stand by and see our course shaped,
our fate decided, by events, in the fashioning of which we
have no more hand than we had in moulding Mount Ararat.
It is the conviction of this fact, which prevents me from feel-
ing much interest in my outward circumstances, for I look at
my own career as I would on that of some character in a
novel. I am absorbed in the thought of my inward progress ;
though truly this is not wise, for while the mind depends so
much on its condition, it is useless to hope for the conse-
quent without bestowing a thought on its precedents."
" I have lately been reading much of Wordsworth, again ;
6*
66 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
and admire him more and more every day, not as a poet
only, but as a philosopher and moralist. My own philoso-
phy runs at present in the same channel. I have been
much altered, and really I believe for the better, since I
came to this place ; my old-fashioned mumpishness, dis-
tance, and silence have quite passed away, and I am posi-
tively one of the most social men you ever met with. And
not only has the without skin been cast, but I have got rid
of much of the monstrous heresy of inhumanity that smoth-
ered within. To whose influence all this is to be ascribed I
could easily tell you. The fact is, there is a set here, a
circle of married ladies, which I believe could scarcely
be surpassed in any city for intelligence, and what is better,
for excellence ; and all so related and united, that scarce
an evening passes without my meeting some of them, or all.
When you add a fair proportion of the fairest, sweetest, dear-
est girls imaginable, can you wonder at my metamorphosis ? "
" I do not remember any hint thrown out by me to entice
you into the most undeserved compliment, if it were
meant for one, for it would have been a cutting sarcasm,
which ascribes to me ' active usefulness and genuine con-
scientiousness,' not to mention the ' dogged determination'
that is, in truth, an attribute of mine. I fear one who
peeped into our epistles, and noted the unhesitating way in
which each belabors himself, would think us a true pair of
hypocrites ; but at the risk of being so thought by your-
self, if you please, I will say that my most deadly fault
in as far as I know myself is, utter selfishness in little
matters. It is a common fault, and a foul one ; a mean
and degrading one. I could, I think, sacrifice a good deal
if occasion called for it ; if the happiness of another for
whom I cared were at stake, fortune and all its concomi-
tants, and I believe life, would be, as Mr. G says, ' indif-
ferent' to me. But if I am to give up a little that another
MANHOOD. 67
may gain a little, there 's the rub ; I follow the vile fash-
ion and prefer number one. But this petty weakness is
like to be rooted out of me, and by the force of that irre-
sistible monitor, example. That same person, to whom,
as I think I have told you before, I owe more than I
can ever pay in the way of purification and cleansing, Mrs.
, has taught me, by action, not precept, to deny myself
that others may profit thereby. How this is effected I need
not tell you. The influence, unseen, though deeply felt,
of a woman whose beauty is her least charm is too well
known by every one to require me to dwell upon it.
" Making you, then, no longer my father-confessor, I will
beg your pardon for not answering your letter before. My
excuse, as usual, must be, work ; and yet, by some strange
power, the day is borne away from me before I have well
mastered an hour of it. I am up before it is light enough
to see any thing, save by torch-light ; keep at it all the day-
long, till ten, P. M., and yet, with all my pains, do nothing,
or next to that. I have been acting as editor, that is, writer,
of the magazine * I spoke of, which costs me some trouble ;
and I have two or three lyceum lectures on the stocks, for I
am becoming somewhat literary, and now am about attempt-
ing to get up a book in opposition to that ' got-up concern '
of the Glauber Spa. Judge Hall, Mr. Flint, Mrs. Hentz,
and two or three more of us (!), intend to storify Kentucky
and Kentuck manners. And this reminds me of your desire
to know something of these parts.
" The West is decidedly Saxon ; do you comprehend ?
We have not the chivalry of the Norman ; we have not the
fire of the Southron ; you do not find here the Yankee
shrewdness, I mean among the true Western men, nor
the hot-headedness of the Carolinian. The Kentuckian is
big and naturally sluggish, but if roused, almost capable, and
* The Western Monthly Magazine.
68 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
fully daring enough, to ' ride a streak o' lightning through
a crab-apple orchard.' He eats largely, and is fond of
whiskey. He will not rush into danger where no need is,
nor curb his temper if thwarted, for fear, love, or money.
Be kind to the Kentuckian, and he is rudely polite, carries
you home, and you may stay with him six months, rent
free, if you will give him a good story and flatter him a
little, for he's 'mighty vain.' Cross him, and he will
hesitate at nothing. If a Kentuckian insults you, offer him
fight on the spot, and two to one he will haul off and make
friends ; attempt to ' cut dirt,' and he will set on you like
a wildcat. He has, in short, most of the virtues, and too
many of the vices, of the old Northman.
" The country, as I have said time and again, is beautiful ;
near Lexington, one might almost think himself in England.
I spent a week or ten days with a gentleman who lives
about forty miles east of Lexington. We went down T.
H and myself to the county-town in the stage. Our
host residing four miles off, we held a consultation as to the
best way of getting out to his farm, and inquired if a
wagon could be had. There was not one in town, and it
was a good-sized town, too, brick houses, shops, and tav-
erns. Meeting-houses are scarce in these parts, though a
congregation met somewhere. ' Well, if no wagon, could
we have a chaise ? ' ' Not a chaise within twenty miles.'
' Was there any wheeled carriage of any description to be
had ? ' ' There was one gig down the street, but it was
oldish-like and " powerful weak." There was no alterna-
tive, and so T set off after the gig, while I shaved, in
the midst of a political discussing club by the fireside, for
it was a day or two only before the election. In a little
while my compagnon de voyage returned with the news that
he had accomplished the gig, and thought it safe for four
miles, riding and lying. So we went to work to prepare
our trunks. Ere long, a boy stepped in to say he had
MANHOOD. 69
tied up the shaft, nailed on the whiffletree, and the gig
was ready. ' Bring out the trunk,' said I. The landlord
seized the trunk, and we rushed to the door. There stood
the invalid machine, but horseless. I looked round at the
boy. ' Where shall I find your horse ? ' said he. ' Have
not you a horse ? ' ' No, I reckoned you had the horse.'
' Is there a horse to be hired in town ? ' 'I reckon not.'
1 Then we must walk.' And so we did walk, it was a
warm day, sweating it out to the Judge's.
" He lives in a brick house of most antique cast, you
might think it a second-rate chateau of France rather than
the domicile of a new country, some quarter of a mile
from the road ; the main building being flanked and kept in
countenance by a dozen little log-cabins, barns, corn-houses,
wood-houses, ice-houses, &c. Mrs. , the wife, with the
aid of two very pretty and well-educated daughters, keeps
school for the farmers' girls of all the country round. They
were kind beyond measure, would not allow me, though I
came out only to dine, to go back that night, nor the next day,
nor for a week ; and then I got away with difficulty, and was
obligated to promise a return for two months* residence in the
spring. At the time of our arrival, the Judge was absent,
riding his circuit, which is over some three or four or a
dozen counties, in the most barbarous part of the State. He
reached home two or three days after our arrival, having
ridden for two days in a tremendous rain. Though born a
Yankee, he is a good specimen of the better Kentuckian ;
very large and strong, rough and fearless, with a good deal
of quaint humor and fun, and at the same time a rigid Pres-
byterian. He was a Clay man to the sole of his boot, and
prayed, with his family assembled about him at evening,
that ' we might be pardoned the sins and abominations com-
mitted by our Federal head.' He spends much of his year
on horseback, riding from log court-house to no court-house
at all, putting up a temporary judgment-seat, at such times,
70 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
composed of an old stump, with a rail for the bar, and a
little cover of boughs for a roof, the culprit, if it be a
heinous offence, being chained by the leg to a tree with an
ox-chain. The style of living in the Judge's family was a
specimen of Western plenty, though he is a poor man, hav-
ing been swindled by a Yankee friend out of some $40,000,
the product of much labor. His house is open to any ; the
family numbers fourteen, and there are in general two or
three guests. The table, as in olden times, almost groans
with the various breads, and cakes, and condiments, a favor-
ite dish, of which I became very fond, being a piece of
honeycomb as large as your hand, eaten, as you eat a roast
apple, in a bowl of milk. Milk is the Kentuckian beverage
at all times, at breakfast, dinner, and supper ; you take a
glass when you get up, and a glass before you go to bed."
" Having eaten, my dear philosopher, a large breakfast
of buckwheat-cakes, and walked three or four miles on top
of it, I am in prime order to discuss the mystery of Free
Will. But for the present I simply remark, that I entirely
agree with you in the opinion, that good Doctor Spurzheim
has done but very little to elucidate that black-hole of
' Necessity.'
" Bah ! I am called upon to pay money, Rent. How I
abominate these dollars and cents ! I am afraid, I stand in
awe, of them. One of these days I expect to run mad from
mere dread of money. I have half a dozen debtors here,
and yet cannot get a cent from any of them. I cannot, will
not dun, and they cannot, will not pay. It will bring me to
hard work yet, this anti-commercial nicety of mine. O for
a farm where I might be independent of all these Jews and
thieves and brokers !
" To return to free will, for money is the antipode of free
will. 1 am half inclined to think that Doctor Spurzheim, like
some other wise men, has more wisdom apparently than
MANHOOD. 71
really. I should not, however, say wisdom, but novelty.
Here I am stopped again with the information that your
master in philosophy is dead. It must be a loss to science
that will not soon be repaired ; for, though I doubt the Doc-
tor's originality in general speculation, I do not doubt his
accuracy, his power, or his philanthropy. I presume he
will have left works behind him to be published ; if he has,
and they are printed, I shall get them. His former writ-
ings are scarce known in this country, but it is probable, I
should suppose, that, since he has been among us, his works
may be translated and spread abroad. The leading doc-
trines of Phrenology are very generally believed, and some
of the details ; but it is so entirely a science of experiment,
that many years must necessarily elapse before it can be-
come settled and digested.
" But to go back again. You wrote me a letter a while
since, from which I should suppose that you think it wiser
to use life in acting well, upon the faith that this course will
lead to the desired point, than to spend your days in at-
tempting to learn why, in order to reach this point, one must
go such a long way about, through bogs and fens, (fee. I
am entirely of your opinion in this matter; I conceive spec-
ulation, and all of that family, to be poor company, save in
as far as they help to form a rule of action, or serve as
mental gymnastics ; and it were better to exercise the mind
upon what would at the same time improve it, and add to
its store. We often find in one man two distinct characters,
according to one of which he thinks and judges, while ac-
cording to the other he acts. I in private see and admire
the beauty of amiability, and determine to be amiable as
my neighbours are ; but no sooner do I go abroad into
society to act, than I become sour and ill-natured. Now it
is the acting character according to which we judge of a
man, for we know it to be the true one ; the other is only a
prophetic shadow of what he might be. But it is the acting
72 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
character which the man will carry hence, and the object
of life should be to form this character aright. First, by
means of the understanding, study, contemplation, and
thought, the model character is to be designed, and next, by
the enchantress, Habit, this image is to be made substance.
One after another of the ideal virtues that we see in our
model are to be transmuted rnto deeds, until we ARE what
to ourselves we before SEEMED; until every grace becomes
spontaneous, and we act, not from principle, but impulse. In
woman we find this spontaneity of right far stronger than
in man, and therefore I look upon woman as a being higher
in the scale of existence. Thus respecting speculation, I
regard the intellect, learning, reasoning, theories, as all sub-
servient to that one great end, the formation of character.' 1 ' 1
The cheerful gratitude, hopefulness, sympathy, and
aspirations for a nobler style of spiritual life, which per-
vade these letters, found expression in the following
poem, which very truthfully he named " The Emi-
grant's Lesson."
"I left my own New England home,
A home with kindness running o'er,
Far off beyond the hills to roam,
And seek a stranger shore.
" His ice cold Winter round me flung,
And dark Ohio's tide did roll ;
But colder, darker mists there hung
O'er my desponding soul.
" Yet when I reached, at length, the strand
Where my sad pilgrimage should end,
Behold ! on every side a hand,
On every side a friend.
MANHOOD. 73
" If I had left true hearts behind,
I found as true, and franker, here ;
As loving, and as simply kind,
As kind, and as sincere.
" And shall this goodness be in vain,
No deep impression leave on me ?
Or rather help me to attain
That true philanthropy,
" Which loveth not alone the race,
But strives the godlike power to reach,
That can enfold in one embrace,
Not only ALL, but each ?
" HE loved each being of our kind,
He that made .human virtue dim ;
And we but O how far behind !
May follow after Him."
But not at once could the fiends who, through tem-
perament, habit, and early conditions, had found lodg-
ment in his soul, be exorcised. Notwithstanding outward
encouragements and inward triumphs, he had still to fight
a hard battle with his foes. In one letter he says, "I
find it a truly Herculean task to cleanse the Augean sta-
bles of my despondency." And again, " I am little
wiser or better, I fear. Dyspepsia is weaving her black
mantle and getting ready her ashes for me to do penance
in, penance for folly in having abandoned the plough
for the pen. I wish the mists which envelop my brain
would roll off enough to let me look a little way into the
future, or else that the brain itself would give up its tan-
VOL. i. 7
74 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
trums, and work straight on to some purpose. My intel-
lect and heart seem wonderfully fond of the ' great kick
and little go.' I am at it for ever, and have no difficulty
in killing time ; but after all I am just there, in the same
old ruts and mud-holes." Once more : " In situation
there is nothing left me to desire ; yet I feel as if I were
a shingle in a mill-pond, unable to steer itself, the sport
of winds or schoolboys, and floating about only till its turn
comes to go over the dan)." And finally : " There
are times when it seems to me, not that there is room
for doubt of God or destiny, but that I am not as I
should be. I do not conceive the sun to be darkened,
but my own sight to be obscured. Like all other men,
or rather children, I have had misfortunes of which
neither you nor any created being knows or ever will
know. It would be useless to attempt to tell them ; and
yet they have left an impression that death alone can
efface. And sometimes, when the remembrance of them
comes over me, I feel a spiritual nausea within, and
would fain throw up all memory of the past. At such
seasons I am indigo to the backbone. But these turns
come less and less often. I mix more with others ; act
upon my fellows, and am acted upon by them ; and now
frequently look forward, whereas once I walked crab-
like, looking only at the path I had passed over. I may
do but little in this world, I mean little good, but
I am of that rare sect for though all are of it nomi-
nally, the true followers are few that really believes
in another life, in a thousand other lives."
Thus morally yet more than mentally active, rejoicing
in the genial influence of female society, and longing for
home-happiness far more than for public success, Mr.
Perkins was brought providentially into daily intercourse
MANHOOD. 75
with one who, by her sunny temper, sound judgment, and
ready good-will, formed the very complement he needed
for harmonious growth. This gay girl in manner, yet
wise-hearted woman, was Sarah H. Elliott, of Guilford,
Connecticut, who was then visiting Cincinnati for a few
months, and residing in the family of her sister, Mrs.
Samuel E. Foote. They were betrothed in the spring
of 1833 ; and from his correspondence with her which
has been intrusted to my use free extracts shall be
made, as the only adequate mode of presenting a beau-
tiful side of my friend's character. Many of the most
interesting passages must of course be kept sacred, but
I may be allowed here to say, that every line is fragrant
with a delicate tenderness, a sincerity and gentle wisdom,
which prove how true was the relation between these
lovers. These extracts are of worth, too, as sketching
with fidelity his experiences, trials, and progress, and
thus illustrating, as no second hand could do, his real life.
This consideration, indeed, has mainly guided me in the
selection.
May, 1833. " Hitherto, Memory has been my com-
forter rather than Hope. On this side the grave I have an-
ticipated little happiness, and have taken but little pains to
secure it. Death has appeared to me rather a deliverance
from pain than an exile from joys ; and there has been but
one sting in the thought of dissolution, the knowledge that
I should leave no one to mourn me here, and could look for-
ward to no meeting with one that loved me hereafter. But
all this is done away. Now I do hope ; I strive now to se-
cure happiness in this world ; life and health have become
treasures beyond price ; and if I am ever useful, ever do
any thing as a member of society that will entitle me to the
thanks or prayers of my fellow-beings, to you, my gentle
mistress, to you will it be owing."
76 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
May, 1833. " Contrary to the wishes of many, and
the advice of all my friends, I came out here upon what was
considered a madcap expedition, to seek my fortune ; and
what a fortune have I found ! I was before in a business
that I hated, by coming here I have gone into one which I
like, and in which I believe I shall succeed ; before, I was
sour and disagreeable, now I am brighter and kinder, though
still bad enough ; before, I hoped not for love, and seemed
'predestinated in my own opinion never to be loved, now I
am certain of the love of one of the best, and kindest, and
purest of friends. Had I found a mine of gold or a bed of
diamonds I might still have been poor, but I have found
you."
June, 1833. " And you, my bird of summer, for your
soul was surely once the spirit of a lark or some other care-
less, or rather uncaring songster, you are not, I trust, am-
bitious, and would not wish to have your husband a ' great
man.' Your mind must be above such things, for I do
think ambition a weakness. If, however, you do expect to
derive any degree of happiness from my distinction, I fear
you will be disappointed. I w;is once as ambitious as any,
and would have as soon died to-morrow as lived humble and
unknown ; but this mood has past, and each day I live I re-
joice that it has past. The jealousies, struggles, and petty
manoeuvres of even the greatest are enough to sicken a
healthy mind. The characters of note with whom alone I
am satisfied, and toward whom I feel as I should wish to
have others feel toward me, are such as Washington and
Sir Walter Scott ; for in them the heart was ever stronger
than the head, and therefore the whole world loves them."
June, 1833. " She is, I fear, too wholly intellectual for
me. I like independence of thought and action in woman ;
I should wish my wife to know u-Jiat her duties are, and u-Jiy
MANHOOD. 77
they are duties ; I would have her make up her mind on
these matters from her own reasonings and cogitations rath-
er than take her opinions from rne. But I would wish her
also to be affectionate and confiding, as deeply and en-
tirely so as you are, and should care far more about her
feeling with me respecting the whole course of life, than
her thinking with me respecting literary performances, or
any merely mental matter."
July, 1833. " When I think of the course things have
taken, I feel more than ever the influence of an ever-pres-
ent Providence. Had I loved any other of the many
women whom I met in the circle in which I found you,
had I been engaged to them, and after the engagement had
my eye-sight failed, as it has done, I should have felt it al-
most obligatory on me to break an engagement which never
would have been made could I have looked into the future.
But with you, educated as you have been, and with your
natural tastes, I do not feel that I am called upon for your
happiness to sacrifice my own. I believe you depend less
than most upon external circumstances, and will live pleas-
antly even out of general society and under all the incon-
veniences of a country life. Destitute as I now am of the
means of living in town, my situation would be fearfully
forlorn did I not look forward to being united to you. I
never should have dared to ask any one to marry me with
my present prospects, and my life would have been that of
a hermit, perhaps o/ a misanthrope. The thought of these
things, the sense that a protecting arm has been over me
hitherto, will make me look upon the future without dread.
I will do all in my power, and for the rest trust implicitly
to Providence."
October, 1833. " Mrs. inclines to wonder that I am
not jealous of this correspondence of yours with gentlemen
7*
78 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
in town, but I told her that it agreed with my system of eth-
ics on such matters, and that for me to object to your writing
to whom you pleased would be ridiculous. A secret cor-
respondence would be wrong ; but where all is open, it is
an insult to interfere. On these points I differ much from
the majority of the world
"There seems to be too much probability that you will
learn the lesson which adversity and disappointment teach.
And they teach, dear S , a lesson very difficult, but
most essential to be learnt, which is, so to regulate our minds
that nothing shall induce us to despair; so to make our hap-
piness depend upon ourselves, that no outward circumstances
can bring us down
" In the mean time, hope, hope, hope ! Be assured that
the Being who made us never made us for grief, and if we
will only be faithful to ourselves, we need not fear that woe
will come/'
January, 1834. "Could I have foreseen the present
state of my affairs, I would sooner have cut off my right hand
than have asked you, or any woman situated as you were,
to marry me. But what is done I cannot undo ; I have
troubled the quiet stream of your life, and now I can do no
more than suffer it to run clear again. Our future connec-
tion I place entirely at your disposal ; and the only piece of
advice I will hazard is, that you follow your own good sense
and good feelings, and the advice of your friends, without
any regard to what you may think to be my wishes ; for my
supremest wish is to know that you are happy. Do not
think from what I say, S , that I am despondent. Let
what will come, I am determined to be contented. My only
anxiety is to have you so too."
January, 1834. " Nothing has more surprised me of late
years than to discover in what esteem I was held by many
MANHOOD. 79
whom I supposed despised me. My person, my manners,
my talents, my character, were rated high by persons whom
I fancied laughed at them all. The knowledge of this has
led me to a more thorough self-examination ; and that ex-
amination has taught me to think less of myself in all these
respects than ever. I find my talents small, my knowledge
superficial, and my character very, very defective. But I
can increase my stores of learning, and you, my dear S ,
shall have the pleasure of perfecting to some extent my dis-
positions."
January, 1834. " I shall be admitted to the bar in May,
and continue my studies. In March, then, I shall take my
cot, mattress, clothes-press, and other necessaries, and pro-
ceed to my farm ; there I shall at once go to work planting
and preparing, and, while I am at it in the fields, shall have
the carpenters and painters busy about the house. As I live
at present entirely upon my own resources, that is to say, as
I take care of myself in all respects, I shall, out of town, want
neither servant nor cook. I shall take out my library, and
in solitude and seriousness gain my bread by the sweat of
my brow, study what is to be studied, and prepare all
things for your reception. I shall arrange the garden for
you, plant your flowers, and prepare the dairy for your su-
perintendence. As to how hard we need work, that will de-
pend entirely upon our own choice. For myself, I shall
labor enough to earn my living, and for you, you will labor
enough to prevent ennui and idleness. We shall be much
more together than in town. I can teach you all I know
already, and we can, together, make new advances in knowl-
edge. Between the garden, the dairy, the house, music,
visitors, reading, and meditation, I trust you will be able to
pass the time pleasantly. Be assured, my endeavour shall
be to make you happy and good
" I am now living upon mere bread and water, but would
80 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
not exchange places with any of the nobility of England,
particularly if I were to lose you by the bargain. It seems
to me at times as if it must be a dream, that there is a
being whose soul is filled with love for me, and to whom
these words which I am writing will be a source of pure
joy. When I think of this, that I am already wedded in
soul, that I have a power of becoming every day wiser and
better, and that my education has not bound me about with
those cords of error and prejudice with which so many are
entangled, it appears to me that I could be happy under
any circumstances
" I intend, so far as I can, to labor six hours a day bod-
ily, spend six in study and writing, devote six to you or
society, and sleep six. I think I can make some money
each year by writing, and that will prevent the necessity of
hard labor on my part. If I know you, some daily occupa-
tion will please you, and you shall be your own mistress
entirely as regards the quantity. I have so few wants that
it will cause little labor to any one to supply them."
January, 1834. " As I consider you already wedded to
me in spirit, S , and as you are entitled to know as much
of me, my temper, and disposition as I can teach you, I will
give you an extract from my journal of yesterday, for it
contains an account of one of those moods which from time
to time try my courage : '1 argued this afternoon a cause
in the moot court before Judges Wright, King, and Walker.
My argument was a poor one, and satisfied neither myself
nor any of rny hearers. A sense of this troubled me, for,
as I had given much time to it, a failure proved my poverty
of talent ; and though the belief that my mind is not what
my friends and myself once thought it makes me the more
ready to leave the law, yet a feeling of mental weakness is
never pleasant, and it rendered me fretful. I drank tea with
Mrs. F , and, as usual, the ease and comfort amid which
MANHOOD. 81
she lives, and which S might, but for me, still live in,
made the want and the work to which I shall bring her seem
doubly hard to bear, and I was more soured than before. I
then went to Mrs. 's, to a small party ; but the sight of
Mr. brought money matters to my mind, and the fu-
ture appeared darker and more full of doubt than ever. I
could not join in the mirth, and wished to leave, but Mrs.
was to be cared for, and I remained two hours. I then
found that was' to walk home with her. This added
new acid to my temper. Without thinking that she was
ignorant of the cause of my stay, I at once set this down as
a proof of her dislike to me, and jealousy became my mas-
ter. I looked upon myself as disliked by some for my
temper, and as despised by others for my weakness. I saw
nothing but darkness before me, and when I looked back it
was to know that I had taken the only being that ever
loved me, and the one that I love most dearly, from a position
that all might envy, and was about to drag her to a fate that
any would shrink from. When came home, I was
crabbed and unkind ; he observed it and was silent. This
led me to reflect upon my state of mind, and the causes of
it, and before I slept, thank God, I had overcome the fiends
that troubled me.' Such, my dear father-confessor, is a faint
picture of one of those fits of despair and jealousy which
were once of almost daily occurrence, but which now come
seldom. Such is a faint picture of the temper which you,
my own sweet S , must chasten and correct. Now you
may understand why I say that you will be my teacher;
you do not yield to the demons that trouble me, or rather
you are too pure for them to approach."
February, 1834. " The remark you made as to the inad-
equacy of most young men to be husbands is perfectly true,
quite as much so as the one made by me, to which it was
a retort. Few of us consider, when we arrive near to years
82 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
of manhood, what it is that is needful in order to fill well our
places in life. We are educated either to make money or
to attain some kind of distinction, but those qualities which
are most important in domestic life are little cultivated, and
those studies which would fit us to be really good men are
but little pressed upon us. We live on for some years in a
dreamy state, fall in love, perhaps, and get married, but with-
out asking soberly and rationally whether we are suited to her
we love, or she to us ; or whether we are fitted, either of us, to
perform our several duties. In short, we act from impulse, and
not from principle. And when a young man, before address-
ing a lady, considers coolly her good qualities and her bad
ones, when he bases his attachment upon respect and esteem,
instead of mere whim and instinct, he is by many condemned
as cold-hearted and calculating. I loved you in a certain
sense before I knew enough of you to respect you ; but the
love I now feel for you, S , and that which led me to
try to gain your affections, was the result of much thought,
of a comparison of our respective tempers and dispositions,
and of the influence we should have upon each other, and
of a conviction that we are better adapted to one another
than are most who enter the marriage state, and, in conse-
quence of all this, some of my young friends, I know, look
upon me as being at least ultra-philosophic."
February, 1834. " A wedding should be very private, and
without any of the parade which has distinguished 's.
Fashionable parade and solemnity are incompatible ; and
solemnity I think should certainly be preserved. Then, the
admission of the whole town to share in a joy most em-
phatically private and personal, or rather to eat our ice-
creams and chicken salad, is horrible; a few picked
friends, and an evening of rational enjoyment, would be
more proper and pleasant. Again, to receive visits the next
day, and have parties given through the succeeding fort-
night, is to my mind sacrilege."
MANHOOD. 83
February, 1834. "During the past week I made my debut
as public debater. I succeeded better than I anticipated,
and in time may be able to make a speech worth listening
to ; as I am a member of two weekly debating clubs, 1 shall
have opportunity enough. One of them is called the Inqui-
sition ; it is composed of the most talented men in town, and
at present, to be a member is considered no small honor. I
was one of the original subscribers and founders, or other-
wise never might have been in it, for, knowing the rule of
the society, which is to admit those only who possess un-
doubted talent, and knowing, too, my own deficiencies, I
should never have dared to propose. It is to me a matter of
daily surprise and sorrow, to find myself looked upon as
possessing powers and information that I know I do not pos-
sess. I am sorry to find this favorable opinion more widely
spread than I had supposed, sorry, because, when much is
expected of a young man, he is almost certain to disappoint
the world. However,. I will dc my best."
April, 1834. K "jlt is a very difficult thing to tell whether
one is liked'or disliked, considered a pleasant or a disagree-
able companion. One day, after having heard some one, who
to his face is treated as well as I, called a most consummate
bore and impertinent varlet, I make up my mind to visit
people no more, except just so far as common decency re-
quires. The next day, I come to the conclusion, that such a
course would be foolish and wrong ; I meet some kind soul,
whose cordial manners reassure me, and in I go again.
Thus I am alternately thinking myself liked and disliked,
shunned and courted ; and am unable to make up my mind
whether the good people I visit will not wish me in Jericho.
Your rule of presuming that all like you does very well for
you, my dear S , for it is evident enough all do like
you ; I, on the contrary, know that almost every one dislikes
me on first acquaintance, and that with many the dislike
84 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
strengthens with time. A natural consequence is, that I
suspect all, all but you, my own dear girl, you I can-
not suspect. Nor would I distrust any, indeed, whose hearts
were opened to me, for it is not jealousy I feel, but mere
uncertainty, and an uncertainty resulting from the best of
causes, the knowledge that I do not deserve love, respect, or
esteem. But enough of this."
May, 1834. " Your happiness, and that of every wom-
an, is much more dependent upon slight matters than a man's
can be ; and consequently in the little pleasures and arrange-
ments of life it should be my object always to follow your
tastes and desires, and not my own, and in doing this I shall
sacrifice nothing, so do not fear for me. But we have now
to decide upon a matter of real importance to us both ; let
us in all things act as one, and that we may do so I must be
fully acquainted with your views. You will think, my love,
I am early introducing you to the cares and troubles of life ;
but such, S , is the destiny of mortals, and you must
forgive me. My object is to consult your happiness, afld do
my duty. That done, I shall leave the result to God without
fear. My anxiety now arises from a feeling of uncertainty
as to what my duty is. I have myself always desired to live
in the country, but my friends have opposed it, as they will
do now. While it was merely desire on my part, I was un-
willing to contend with them ; but now it appears that it may
be a matter of necessity, and it will be out of my power to
respect their wishes. To me, health, which I shall possess
in the country if anywhere, independence, which I be-
lieve any one in health may possess in the country, and
i\\Q power of doing good, which I think will be more certain
to me as a farmer than as a lawyer, to me these three
things are, and ever have been, enough to recommend the
fields, independent of the pleasure which I enjoy in nature."
MANHOOD. 85
June, 1834. " I have lately been conversing somewhat
warmly with a friend of mine, a young man of as high,
pure, generous sentiments as any that lives, on various
important matters, such as love, distinction, genius, &c.
He is in about the same state of mind that I was in three or
four years since, but to which I am now the antipodes.
Love, to him, is not an attachment based upon knowledge and
esteem of the person loved, but a mysterious, supernatural
bond of union between the two, which is superior to, and
uncontrolled by, the sense of duty, which must be obeyed,
cannot be regulated, and is independent of principle,
in short, real old-fashioned, Byronic passion. Now, I have
been growing more and more prosaic and matter-of-fact
every day, with yet quite enough of romance, however,
though says I have not a particle, it never having oc-
curred to him that a person may possess what he does not
show. I am come to regard the world as an arena in which
I have to do two things,. improve others and improve my-
self. I look upon myself, upon you, and upon all of us, as
capable of improvement, infinitely. ' He that is faithful
over a few things shall be ruler over many.' I am not will-
ing to seek power here, simply because I look forward to
the time when I shall have worlds at my command. I wish
in this life to Jit myself for that command ; and the only
way of doing so is to perfect my nature, as far as I can.
The highest, the divinest power in the world, is that of
love, for by it God governs."
Mr. Perkins was married on the 17th of December,
1834. He had been admitted to the bar during the pre-
vious spring, and was at this time engaged in the double
duty of professional labors and editing. His prospects
in the law were excellent. Greatly admired by the pub-
lic for his talent as a speaker, which had already been
variously manifested through lectures and debates, re-
VOL. i. 8
86 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
spected by his elders and legal compeers for the solidity
of his attainments, his perspicuity of intellect, and his
powers of argument, and closely connected with influ-
ential persons in society, who, though advanced in age
and social position, made of this brilliant young man an
intimate companion and confidential friend, he seemed
sure of eminent success. " For two years," says Mr.
Walker, " there could not have been a more devoted
student. His very first argument, made before the moot
court of which I acted as judge, on a question of com-
mercial law, has left such an impression on my mind,
that, at the distance of nearly seventeen years, I remem-
ber it as one of the most finished and lawyer-like argu-
ments I have ever heard." " He made great proficiency
in the study of the law," says also his friend T. Howe,
Esq., " and acquired a remarkably clear, strong, and
comprehensive knowledge of the great principles of ju-
risprudence, to which, as a science, he always remained
much attached."
"But though," continues Mr. Howe, " he was suc-
cessful as a beginner, Mr. Perkins remained but a short
time in practice. This he found to be, in the last degree,
distasteful, and so different from the pure, exhilarating,
intellectual excitement of the study, that he became im-
pressed with such disgust as never afterwards, I think,
to do full justice to the profession. His moral standard,
though not higher than all should have, was far higher
than that of the great majority of his professional asso-
ciates. They laughed at many of his views as absurd
and Quixotic. Much of a young lawyer's business is
necessarily of a small, pettifogging sort, where no great
principle is involved, and where the feelings and habits
from the magistrate downwards are comparatively low.
MANHOOD. 87
And it must be confessed, loo, that, at this period, the
tone and character of the Cincinnati bar were nowise en-
couraging to a high-minded man. It was under these
circumstances that Mr. Perkins determined to quit the
profession." " Two reasons mainly influenced him,"
adds Judge Walker. " In the first place, a sedentary
life was prejudicial to his health. But a more weighty
reason w T ith him was, that he could not conscientiously
do all that was required of a lawyer in order to secure
success. And here I may remark, that, of all men w ? ith
whom I have been intimately acquainted, he was the
most scrupulously, the most heroically conscientious."
His views are thus fully stated by himself :
"Dear Sir, In reply to your inquiry, why I leave my
profession, I answer, 1st, because in a city it is too seden-
tary and adverse to firm health ; 2d, because the drudgery
of it is injurious to the intellect ; 3d, because the devotion
which it requires is greater than I am willing to give to any
merely worldly concern, which either does not affect my
higher powers or impairs them ; and 4th, because the rules
of morality by which lawyers are governed do not, in many
points, coincide with my own views, and I am not indepen-
dent enough of my daily labor to enable me to oppose the
ways of the profession. Upon this' last point alone shall I
say any thing.
" The common code among the lawyers with whom I
have talked is this, that they are not called on to refuse to
conduct suits, the bringing or resisting of which is clearly
wrong on the part of their client ; and that their business is
to see the law enforced, and not to attend to the equitable
operation of that law in certain cases. For instance, one
man rents a house of another for a month ; when the month
is up, the owner wishes to let it to some one else, and the
88 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
tenant wishes to retain it, though he has no shadow of right ;
this tenant goes to a lawyer and states his wish ; the lawyer
sees that he has no claim, but he appears for him before the
justice, and the justice decides against the tenant ; his pro-
ceedings have, in some point, however, been informal ; the
lawyer takes advantage of this want of form to remove the
case to a higher court, where it may remain undecided for
one or two years, during which time the tenant retains pos-
session. In this case, the lawyer, instead of refusing to
assist in gaining what he knows to be an unjust claim, uses
the law, which was made to prevent injustice, to work injus-
tice ; he sees the claim to be wrong in the claimant, he
knows that, should he assist the claimant as a friend, he
would be equally in the wrong, but as a lawyer he does
right. Now, to my mind, no man can rightfully do as a law-
yer what is wrong in him as a man ; he cannot by assum-
ing a profession put off God's moral law ; and as to his duty
being to see the law fulfilled, it is not so if the law is meant to
work injustice ; nor if, from man's imperfection, it does work
injustice in particular cases. His duty is to see the purpose
of the law, and not its letter, fulfilled, and that is JUSTICE.
" It is said, however, that the law must be literally carried
out, or it becomes uncertain, and the consequent public in-
jury more than outweighs the private good. This principle
should make the judge always respect the law, no matter
what evil results from its application, and it may even war-
rant the lawyer in taking advantage of the technicalities in
the progress of a just suit, because to neglect them may
cause looseness of practice and evil ; but it can never author-
ize him to commence an unjust suit, or to bring up techni-
calities that they may be violated.
" I have spoken of the creed above referred to as com-
mon among those lawyers whom I have consulted. Perhaps
the expression is too broad, for I do not know that most of the
profession hold to it in its bare form, and I do know some who
MANHOOD. 89
abhor it ; but most of those with whom I have talked ap-
proved it, and among them were men of pure character and
romantic notions of honor. To me the doctrine seems op-
posed to all sound morality, and I hope there are those com-
ing forward in the West who will do it away. While men
think the course right and Christian, I bring no charge
against them; we are all too self-deceiving to make that
safe, for though their error, as I think it, may result from
their interest and non-examination, and so be criminal, it is
equally certain that it may not. But against the creed that
a man may do as a lawyer what would be wrong as a friend
and fellow-man, I would enter my protest as strongly as
against any criminal and immoral doctrine ; nor do I believe
the profession will ever exert the influence they should, until
they declare this doctrine rank heresy. Their duties, their
powers, their privileges, are in themselves noble and Chris-
tian ; but they are as yet perverted and disgraced by too
many, and that without reproof."
Thus freed from the drudgery and temptations of the
law, Mr. Perkins devoted himself with new energy to
literature. He had already conducted with signal ability
the Western Monthly Magazine, and was now engaged
as editor of the Evening Chronicle. This paper he
purchased in the winter of 1835, and united it with the
Cincinnati Mirror, which was then published by William
D. Gallagher and Thomas H. Shreve, when, for six
months, this very spirited and successful weekly was ed-
ited by the three friends conjointly. From Mr. Shreve,
whose brilliant wit and elegant taste have for many years
enlivened the Louisville Gazette, comes the following
brief, yet truthful sketch.
"All the little intimacy I enjoyed with Mr. Perkins
was embraced within the years 1834- 35 ; and the rec-
90 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
ollection of my intercourse with him during that period
is among the treasures of my memory. He was in the
habit of coming into the office early in the morning, and,
without any preliminaries, would proceed to his table
and write as if he had just stepped out a moment before.
Tt was one of his characteristics, I think, to do what he
designed doing at once, for he was a true economist of
time, and acted while persons generally would be getting
ready to act.
" He would frequently turn round and ask my opinion
of some subject on which he happened to be writing. A
conversation, perhaps a controversy, would ensue. His
object was not so much to ascertain my opinions, as to
place his own mind in a condition to act efficiently.
When our talk was ended, he would resume his writing,
It was during our business connection that I was first
informed of the unsoundness of his health. I have seen
him start up from his table, hastily throw pen and paper
aside, strike his breast with his fist, complain of feeling
unwell there, and then, drawing his hat or cap down
over his eyes, walk off rapidly. At such times I have
known him to walk two or three miles, when he would
return and resume what he had left unfinished. He
would also complain of vertigo, and has often told me
that he had eaten no breakfast.
" I am unable to give you any anecdotes or illustrative
reminiscences. Had you assigned me the pleasant task
of recording my impressions of his character, then I
could have written quite as much as you would willingly
read. You know, far better than I, that his devotion to
truth was a leading quality of his nature. His renoun-
cing the practice of the law at the time he did, for the
reason that he could not practise it successfully without
MANHOOD. 91
indulging in falsehood and deception, I have always re-
garded as highly honorable to him. How few are like
him ! And yet at that time he made no professions of
religion. He convinced himself that he must renounce
either his honesty or his profession, and did not hesitate.
He considered it his duty to preserve his soul from the
defilement of untruth ; and no one who knew him ever
supposed that he could be induced to turn his back on
what he recognized as his duty.
" I remember well his appearance in the ' Inquisition.'
His speeches in that society were always truly admira-
ble. The logic, the wit, the sunny humor, the raillery,
were alike irresistible. The same wide resources of
mind that he subsequently displayed in the pulpit were
exhibited in the Inquisition debates, and we all felt that
when we had him as an opponent we had much to fear.
I remember, too, his lectures on ' Fishes ' and ' Insects '
before the Mechanics' Institute. They embodied the
most graceful and witching blending together of humor
and science I ever listened to. I shall never forget his
account of the ant-lion, which convulsed every one pres-
ent. Had Mr. Perkins devoted himself to humorous
literature, he would have stood at the head of American
writers in that line. Indeed, as a humorist, original and
gentle, he could scarcely be excelled. But so well
developed were all the faculties of his mind, that, not-
withstanding the prominence of his humor when com-
pared with the humor of others, it only balanced his
other faculties."
The habit of mind to which Mr. Sh*eve so truly re-
fers, of economizing time, and always doing at once what
was to be done, enabled Mr. Perkins, amidst the hurry
of editorship, to be a most rapidly advancing scholar.
92 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
Steadily, and with an easy exercise of thought, which
proved how exact was the equilibrium of his powers, he
daily added to his stores of varied information. He was
systematic, almost unconsciously, and kept memory,
observation, imagination, and judgment in perpetually
harmonious activity. His rules of study, in so far as
he had any, were thus expressed in a letter to a joung
friend.
" You could scarce ask me a harder question, than the
one you now ask, ' What books should a young man read
between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four ? ' It is puz-
zling to answer such questions, not only because no two
persons ought to go through the same course of reading,
but because we study, not to heap up so much miscellane-
ous knowledge, but to learn those things of which we are
peculiarly ignorant, and to cultivate those of our faculties
which most require it. While, therefore, I may be able to
advise you very well, knowing you as I do, I am wholly
unable to advise your brother ; and as to giving hints adapt-
ed to all, I would sooner turn quack, and give one dose for
all constitutions and all diseases ; for I think it better to
trifle thus with the body than the soul. But there are some
remarks which will apply equally to all persons and all
courses, and to some of these I will ask your thought.
" I would first, then, say, never read without an object.
If you have ever been called on to study with reference to
the attainment of some definite end, you will remember that
what you thus learned remained with you long after most
that you read had been forgotten. Not alone because you
went deeply into it at the time, but because it was in your
mind so associated and incorporated with many other sub-
jects, that it is easily brought back again in after life. Do
not, then, read vaguely and without purpose ; know what to
expect from your book before you begin it ; and at every
MANHOOD. 93
step, see what bearing what you have read has upon the
points before you. Many men read every thing twice,
once to find out what to read for, and again, to learn what
is to be learned. Read, therefore, few very new books, the
merits and objects of which you know nothing about ; wait
till you know whereof the last publication treats, and how
it treats it.
" Next, I would advise you to read by subjects, not by vol-
umes. I have known many scholars who had never read a
book through in their lives, except, of course, those of mere
amusement. In this way you get comparatively whole, not
fractional views, and both sides of a question ; you may
thus escape partyism, partiality, and narrow notions.
" In the third place, I would recommend you not to com-
monplace your reading, but to think it over, digest it, and,
if you have time, reduce your own views, obtained from
what you have read, to writing, in a blank book. The
thinking may be done while you are walking, waiting tea,
sitting over the fire, or in attendance for an unpunctual
friend. The secret of writing much and easily consists, I
fancy, in sitting down to write with your thoughts already
in your mind, instead of fishing in the inkstand for them.
" My fourth piece of advice is, to draw up for yourself a
systematic list of all the subjects of human knowledge, made
as particular as you please. By a glance at this you may
see at once how little you know ; may refresh your knowl-
edge of your ignorance, and see to what subjects you most
need to turn your attention.
" Lastly, I would say, keep by you a blank book, arranged
as an index, in which you can enter references to those
many passages and facts met with daily by a student, which
have no immediate connection with the subject of the work
in which they are found, and which we so often remember
to have seen, but cannot think where.
" I will now call your mind to a question, which every sys-
94 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
tematic reader must ask himself, Shall my reading be con-
fined to one or two subjects until I am thorough in them, or
shall it be general and superficial ? Most whose advice you
would follow would, I think, advise the first ; for my own part,
I am in favor of the last course. It is true, that superficial
knowledge should be avoided where it can be ; but to my
mind, the true question is this, Does it best become a being
destined for eternity to gain a broad view of all that he can
know, though a very imperfect one, or one more narrow and
more perfect? If you look into what is said in favor of thor-
ough studies, you will find them upheld, generally, as the
means to gain worldly power or distinction ; and, when this is
not the case, they are contended for by those who have little
or no faith in the doctrine, that our studies, habits, and occu-
pations here will affect our fate hereafter. But to me it is
clear that all the powers and capacities of the man are more
perfectly developed, and brought out in better proportion, by
gaining an outline merely of all knowledge within our reach,
than by pursuing any one branch of knowledge into all its
details ; and the ridicule and scorn which have been heaped
upon 'smatterers,' though it may properly apply to those who
go from subject to subject without purpose and without sys-
tem, cannot, with justice, fall upon students who go perfect-
ly as far as they go, and stop because they perceive the in-
utility of going farther. Some one subject, it is true, will
become the prominent one in every man's mind, and it is
right it should be so, for every man owes it to the world, to
extend, in some direction, the circle of knowledge, if it be in
his power; but the prominence differs from the entire pre-
dominance of one subject. A man may carry his researches
in natural or mental philosophy, history, or natural history,
beyond the common line, and yet by no means give up other
subjects. This has been done by some of the most emi-
nent men in all branches, Milton, Newton, Locke, Cole-
ridge, Goethe. If you read the works of Coleridge, for
MANHOOD. 95
instance, you will find continual references to all branches
of natural and political science, and will see that from these
he has drawn many of his most admirable illustrations, and
gained from them that breadth and unity of thought which
must ever distinguish him, despite his many faults ; and the
great German is a still more striking instance.
" But the habit of general and systematic study is by no
means common among either great or small men. We are
apt, if lawyers, physicians, or clergymen, to read upon no
subject as we should read, except that belonging to our pro-
fession, and seldom upon that. Other subjects we take up
for amusement, and lay them down again to resume or not
as occasion occurs. This I would advise you never to do.
If a work on botany or biography falls in your way, do not
touch it, unless you see that you can pursue that of which
it treats to some purpose ; and, above all things, eschew the
habit of standing about a library or reading-room, dipping
for a moment into this book or that review, and then turn-
ing to another.
" Reviews are at times of great use, because they com-
press knowledge and give references, and also because they
excite an interest in subjects that, but for them, we might
never approach ; but they are, to the student, edged tools,
to be used with great caution.
"I would say, then, let your reading be general, but by
no means promiscuous or vague. You may learn enough
of nature to have the God of nature always before you, to
value all that he has made, and from his works, to learn
the many lessons of mercy, faith, love, and courage that
they were meant to teach, and yet be what men will call a
smatterer ; for you need know few names, and may be igno-
rant of many standard authors. But I should think you far
wiser to gain this smattering than to give the time spent in
its gain to becoming perfect and thorough in the dates of
history, or the minute facts of statistics.
96 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
" But, while I advise a large field of study, I beg you to
guard against the too current practice of making a very im-
perfect knowledge of a subject enough, whatever chances
may occur for increasing it ; 1 would be content with imper-
fection, because general perfection is impossible ; but be as
thorough as you can be, and never think that you know
enough of a subject when opportunities offer to increase
your knowledge of it. There is an essential difference be-
tween the man that is content with a scant view of the
whole now, because he hopes to perfect that view hereafter,
and the man that is content with it because he cares to know
no more.
" One more remark, and I close ; in choosing your sub-
jects of study, have your eye ever upon the great truth
that should be our guide in every pursuit, and a full, ever-
present, ever-influential faith, in which is the beginning, and
body, and end of all philosophy, the truth that we are
immortal spirits. Having this in view, you will not, as
some do, spend years in acquiring knowledge that cannot
have any influence, as far as we can see, upon the eternal
interests of yourself or others. Having this in view, you will
never narrow your reading to the newspapers and maga-
zines of the day ; nor yet despise them, for they are your
only means of communication with the great mass of your
fellows. It is for want of faith in this truth, that the lawyer
becomes a mere lawyer, the politician a devotee to the small
interests of the time, and the tradesman a bondman of trade.
Keep this truth, then, ever before you, by attendance on
public worship, by private devotion, by the study of Scrip-
ture, by the study of nature, by reflecting upon your own
powers, and going over again in thought your past life, in
the opportunities and changes of which you may see the
hand of God schooling you for the future, as clearly as you
see it in the stars of night, the clouds of noonday, or the
plan and formation of your own body."
MANHOOD. 97
But pecuniary embarrassments, the frequent fate
of literary men, especially in a new country, and
yet more the failure of health, once more compelled Mr.
Perkins to turn his thoughts towards a country life. In
the summer of 1835, he for a time proposed to seek a
residence in Fayal, but at length determined to join some
highly esteemed friends in forming an establishment for
mining, milling, and manufacturing at Pomeroy, on the
Ohio. Extracts from letters to various friends will give
a vivid picture of his inward and outward state during the
process of this experiment.
Cincinnati, February, 1835. " I said tny prospects in a
worldly way were dark. My publisher last week failed,
leaving me unpaid for all my labors since August, and cut-
ting off at once more than half my anticipated revenue.
However, I have much confidence in success somehow. By
success, I mean, in keeping above starvation ; farther than
that I never look. S has done much, and is daily doing
more to improve me. She is herself an embodiment of
simple cheerfulness and confiding love, and into my intel-
lectual selfishness throws a light and heat which never were
known there before. In her I have a never-failing spring
of joy
" In the country I shall have more time for literature than
here, and I shall use it ; if I have any power to do good to
others, and support myself in part, by what is always a
pleasant employment, most assuredly I shall exercise it.
To some it may seem to betoken a grovelling spirit to go
quietly into the country and sit down there contented, and
my own kith and kin may raise an outcry ; but I am of a
different way of thinking."
May, 1835. " For myself I should like nothing so well
VOL. i. 9
98 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
as to go quietly back to Lancaster or Northampton, and there
spend the remainder of my days in silence. I love action, but
it is action on a small scale. I hate chicanery, diplomacy,
and every vile weed of the sort. Time was when literary
ambition was a powerful stimulant with me ; but another,
and I trust a more correct view of life, and the wherefore
we live, has, in a great measure, strangled this reaching
after I know not what, and I am come to the conclusion,
that the happiest man in this world is he that has but one
great object in view, no, two I should say, self-improve-
ment, and the improvement of his fellows. I do not mean
mere improvement of the mind, but of all the improvabilities
of our nature. The ambitious man, the money-hunter, and
all those whose end is on this planet, are chasing, as I think,
an ignis faluus ; they misunderstand the great instinct of
human nature, which is a desire continually to rise, to im-
prove, to be perfect. Therefore would I willingly sit down
in any place, where health could be mine, and means of
doing good and receiving good accessible, and live and die
as little known and cared for by the world as now, though
but a few years since such a future would have seemed an
earthly hell."
June, 1835. " I know but too well the misery of unsat-
isfied ambition. Plants, we are told, will force themselves
from darkness into sunshine, and the instinct of the human
vegetable to do the same thing is as strong. The love of
power of which I take the love of renown to be but an
offshoot is common to the whole human family; and
more, it is, I believe, the peculiar privilege which distin-
guishes human beings from other creatures. It is in fact the
most God-tending, if not God-like, faculty of our nature, but,
like every principle, it may go too far. The whole secret of
true success is to regulate it. He that makes notoriety the
end at which he aims will assuredly suffer, because he does
MANHOOD. 99
not direct this principle aright. But the man who guides its
action in accordance with his reason and his conscience will
gain all the objects of his ambition, and gain them without
one pang I have gone into this sermon, because I
have been in very much the same state of mind that you are
in now, if I judge aright ; and when so, was much assisted by
the suggestions of a friend. In like manner I would aid you
if I could, simply by leading you to reflect upon the true
end for which we are created, and placed among the count-
less means that surround us in this really beautiful and
bright world, upon true eminence, and the true way of
gaining it. It is a matter of surely great import, but there
are very few, even among thinking men, who ever get clear
ideas on the subject. I hope you will pardon my dryness,
and not think me meddling."
July, 1835. " It is a curious matter to me to trace the
manner in which I have been led through commerce, law,
and almost divinity, to the life that I have coveted from my
earliest days, that of a farmer. I have always felt that a
hand, of which I knew nothing, that of Providence, was
carrying me to and fro upon the face of the land, and I am
now more fully convinced than ever that such is the case.
To a certain extent, my fortunes are in my own hand, for it
is character that gives character to circumstances ; but I
am in a far greater degree dependent upon circumstances.
Had I not curbed the strong tendency toward being notable
that once was in me, such a change as the present one
would have made my spirit fret and kick, till mayhap it
would have kicked away this underpinning of a body, and
fallen into chaos. As it is, all seems in my favor. My
chief want at the time of my advent to this valley of the
West the want of a wife has been supplied, and had
I searched the world, I do not think I could have found one
better suited to me and my future situation. In her I have
100 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
a model it is a strong word, but she deserves it of love,
faith, and disinterested activity, from which if I failed to
learn, the very stones would hiss at me. A cold pattern of
right-doing I might be insensible to, but a warm-hearted,
living woman, who may often do wrong but always feels
right, no one can resist."
August, 1835. " For myself, I am inclining more and
more to silence and a domestic life. I have been editor long
enough to be abused, ridiculed, reviled, and eulogized ; and
the trials of my temper, patience, and vanity have not, I
trust, been profitless. But the notoriety in which some so
much delight is to me a most comfortless thing ; and though
I shall continue to write, if I can find publishers, I do not
wish to remain a professed literary man, for I have neither
talent nor learning to support the character decently. The
truth is, that the influence of two or three women has woman-
ized me, and I am much more of a lieart-ist and less of a
head-ex than I was a year or two ago. I am more and
more of the opinion, that a man of small ability does more
good and fulfils his purpose better by unseen, private influ-
ence, by loving others and serving those he loves, and in
every thing raising his standard and himself, than he does
by a solitary, speculative, writing career, though much may
be done also in the way of writing. Hereafter, I wish to
publish nothing that will not, in my estimation, do GOOD ;
I want to have that object definitely before me in all I write,
and to have support from other sources. My wife is admira-
bly suited to my character in this respect. She lives in re-
ceiving and doing good ; love not to me alone, but to all
about her is the breath of her life. This youthfulness of
character, this childlikeness, is the very antipode of my own
semi-artificial nature ; and by living with her, I have had
my character ripped up, and am now making it over again
in a new fashion, double-breasted, and with a larger
skirt."
MANHOOD. 101
Pomeroy, June, 1836. " And where, you ask, is Pome-
roy ? Look at the map, and you will find that it is in Meigs
County, Ohio, six miles southwest from Chester, upon the
river, just where it bends to the north. In this embryo town
of Pomeroy, in the only finished and decent house in said
town-to-be, I am staying with the Romulus of the place, S-
W. Pomeroy, once of Brighton. In the neighbourhood of
this dwelling, known as Butternut Cottage, are a saw-mill
and a few houses ; half a mile above it is another small settle-
ment, and between the two I am about building a house, and
overseeing the building of a mill for a company, of which
mill, when built, I shall be agent and factotum. Our house
will stand scarcely a stone's throw from the Ohio, upon a
knoll at the foot of a high clifF and hill, the place being
known in the history of Pomeroy as the ' Cedar ClifF.' Our
plantation will contain nearly two acres, reclaimed for the
purpose, from the original forest. Should you wonder at
the extent of my farm, know, thou dweller in the desert,
that, in this civilized part of the world, land is worth $500
per acre, though five years since fifty cents would have
been thought a fair price. The cause of this rise in value,
and the cause of my coming hither, and the cause of the
town-to-be, is, that this is a coal region, and steam-mills re-
quire coal. Here, then, after all my changes, am I, I trust,
settled as a gardener and a miller ; and when I look back
on my past life, I cannot but wonder at the path by which I
have been led to this long-sought point. Had I been placed
where I am now originally, I should probably soon have
regretted that I had not been in trade to grow rich, or in a
profession or a literary life to become known ; but it has
been so arranged that I have learned how to value all these
things before coming to my goal. Now, a quiet life of
simple pleasures and hard work is to my taste what it is to
my reason."
9*
102 LIFE OF JAMES H. PEEKINS.
June, 1836. " At quarrying stone we come on poorly.
The stones are poor, the masons poorer ; and were we not
in extremity, I would not employ them. But, though the
'Old Serpent' send twenty hard Harts and hard rocks to
annoy me, he shall not win the battle, nor move one hair of
my patience. I am too well, strong, and content with what-
ever befalls, to willingly believe his Satanic Majesty can use
me up more than I have used up the rocks."
" As to the name of our estate, let it be as you please.
' Cedar Cliffs ' is pretty enough, but rather too high-sound-
ing, and false, besides. Now, if I had remained a law-
yer, I should not mind lying, but I don't think it becoming
a miller. The commonness of ' Grapery ' is the very
recommendation of the name to me ; for, being but a
common place, and having but commonplace owners, I
think a commonplace name most suitable. As for ' Rock
Dale,' I would as soon call it ' Rock Cod,' which would
be much more appropriate, as we shall have cod-fish, but
' devil a bit ' of a dale. Upon the whole, I think the name
had better remain in suspense for a time."
July, 1836. " I came to Ohio dreaming of a wife, a
quiet home by the river, a small estate, a mill, it is true,
while at sea, I dreamt for hours of being a mill-owner in
Ohio, some literary name, and a library. It has pleased
the Shaper of our fortunes to give me at least in near
prospect all that I wished, and more, for I never dreamt
of you, nor of a country life with the society we may have
here. But above all, in my visions for the future I never
looked forward to so great a change of character as you
have wrought in me ; may God bless you for it ! "
" The worst of the business, however, is the deception,
want of punctuality, and want of care, among workmen. I
MANHOOD. 103
have avoided much trouble by my constant presence and
inspection, otherwise few things would be done well. What
a mistake it is to get out of humor about matters ; I have a
teamster working for me that has not been good-humored
one moment since he came ; he 's always in a passion,
' darning,' and ' swowing,' and ' by Gosh-ing,' and would be
worth some money to a large dealer in bonny-clapper, he
looks so perennially sour. I pity such people, for I once
belonged to the same class."
July, 1836. " It seems as if Satan had mustered strongly
to disquiet me. My stone-mason is laid up, and my team-
ster is on his' back ; the horses have the distemper, and the
work that should be cannot be done ; then steps down
last evening, and says that he should not be much surprised
if the knoll on which I am building should one day slip or
settle into the hollow, and our house be ' knocked into a
cocked hat.' Hurrying to my labors again, a man tells me
the river is rising rapidly, and will sweep my 100,000 shin-
gles to New Orleans before morning ; and, to comfort me
under these prospects, I can look back upon what think
you ? a half-quarrel with in the afternoon ! It hap-
pened thus. When the mill was finished, he was to have the
masons, but as he had made no preparation for them, and I
wanted some few stone to finish our cellar, I took them for a
day. Well, in the afternoon came up to where we
were working, and asked me, with abruptness, ' when I
should be clone hauling stone.' It was the first salutation.
I said, I suppose, with still greater abruptness, but without the
least consciousness of it, ' When I get enough.' This gave
offence, as I soon saw, and he was departing in anger ; but
I took his arm, led him into the shade, and half laughed,
half reasoned him into good-humor again. This adventure
taught me to beware of my own bad humors, and to think of
the characters of those I have to deal with
104 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
" But, despite all the Enemy's endeavours, I am little
moved. What God wills, be it the destruction of all our
plans and hopes here, or whatever it be, to that I think I can
resign myself, though it may cost a struggle to do so. As
regards , I was to blame, but I redeemed my error by
a sacrifice of my pride, and that was all I could do
" Mr. B 's letter I was very glad to receive, and
shall write him again whenever I have leisure ; but even in
that there was one trial in what he says touching my writ-
ing for the Examiner, and Mr. W 's opinion. It pained
me, because I know that Mr. B 's estimate of my intel-
lect and character is very wrong, and wholly exaggerated,
and in his warm praise of me to others I hear what will
raise expectations that must be disappointed."
August, 1836. " I have become badly poisoned, prob-
ably with ivy, in clearing up our place. Yesterday morning
the humor broke out more or less all over me, and from that
time to this I have been really in agony from the intolerable
itching of face, hands, and body. Dr. has prescribed
an ointment of lard and sugar of lead, with which agreeable
mixture I am now well basted. The worst of the matter is,
that I have some twenty men to be looked to and directed,
and am forced to hobble to and fro, feeling as if I were one
vast mosquito-bite. I am glad, however, my dear wife, that
you are not with me ; you could do nothing for me ; I am
fidgety and cross, and I should probably poison you. Be-
fore you read this it will all be over, a matter of history to
be talked of and laughed at. Even now, while in full viru-
lence, I can improve it to my good, and cultivate patience
and resignation as readily, and in as rank a soil, as I hope
by and by to cultivate melons and cucumbers in."
Pomeroy, September, 1837. " Our worldly walkings and
workings here have produced no fruit but certain potatoes
MANHOOD. 105
and cauliflowers, together with a small modicum of wisdom.
Some four thousand silver dollars have dwindled, under the
united influence of bad times and worse management, to
four hundred, paper currency, ragged and very greasy.
Our house just built here, under the shade of sugar-
maples and oaks, with the Ohio a few hundred feet before
us, and the mighty sand-cliffs, that whisk us back into past
eternity, behind we are forced to sell at half cost; and
having but just unpacked and settled, as we thought, must
pack up again and take up our march for another corner of
the ' Garden of Eden,' as we think it best to call this earth,
in order that she may have no cause of quarrel. Whither
we shall go is somewhat uncertain, but most probably on to
a small farm of ten to twenty acres, somewhere in the vicin-
ity of Cincinnati, there to raise potatoes and fruit-trees, and
write articles that might as well not be written.
" I have always had a standard with respect to daily em-
ployments, that I have been trying, so far without success,
to live up to. I want hard bodily labor enough to keep me
in health ; enough of business to exercise my order, activity,
and perceptive powers, and leisure enough for reading and
writing to keep me from petrifying into a thorough man of
business. Having weak eyes yet, I am forced to find day-
light enough for all these things, and this, as society is now
constituted, is no easy matter. In coming here I thought I
had attained my end, but bad advice as to cost of building,
bad management on my own part, and somewhat unlocked
for mishaps, have disappointed me. I now propose to try
the experiment on a smaller scale, content myself with a
log-cabin, literally, and make a bold push for independence
on an income of $ 150 per annum ! Such is a chart of my
proposed course in a worldly way.
" Spiritually, I fear I have done scarce as well as in busi-
ness. I have met some hard rubs, and my skin was too
thin to stand them. However, I believe, all things consid-
106 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
ered, that both my outer and inner tumbles of the year past
will help me in finally gaining the prize I am after, and that
more speedily and certainly than an easier journey would
have done. A great deal of latent selfishness still pervades
my frame, and it wants a heavy pressure to force it out ;
and if that which has been on me has sometimes expelled it
in explosive quantities, still so much of it is gone, which is a
great comfort."
Returning to Cincinnati for the winter of 1837 - 38,
Mr. Perkins at once set about fulfilling the humble plan
sketched briefly in the last letter. He bought a few
acres of ground, which seemed to present a good site for
a nursery, on the Hamilton road, about six miles from
Cincinnati, and made arrangements for building a cottage
of dimensions as moderate as his hopes. Meanwhile,
he occupied himself in visiting the schools, lecturing,
preparing articles for magazines, and arranging a volume
for publication. " I have just been writing," he says,
"an essay on the new views of Zoology, which make
the whole animated world one, and attempt to demon-
strate its laws, as Newton demonstrated those of the in-
animate world. The subject is a most interesting one.
I propose, also, to publish two volumes, one containing
the 'Constitutional Opinions of Judge Marshall,' the
other 'Reminiscences of the St. Domingo Insurrection,'
by my father, who was there during the whole. These
I shall get printed when I go on to the eastward to learn
my new business, the management of fruit-trees. By
means of these works I hope, at least, to pay our way
on and back, if nothing more. They may serve as an
introduction, too, to such acquaintances as will here-
after enable me to earn something by my pen, for though
MANHOOD. 107
the hands may feed, the head must clothe myself and
my wife, and we shall henceforth walk attired, not in
silks and velvets, but in folio and foolscap."
Accordingly, in the spring of 1838, he returned to
Brookline to superintend these publications, and to be-
come for a few months pupil of his father, who was one
of the most enthusiastic, scientific, and successful hor-
ticulturists in New England. In regard to his volume
of " Marshall's Constitutional Opinions," he had the
great satisfaction of receiving from Judge Story the fol-
lowing high tribute of praise : " The list of cases is
very full and perfect ; the general plan is judicious and
appropriate ; the abstracts are accurate and satisfactory,
clear, and exactly such as can be easily comprehended
by unprofessional as well as professional readers." Not-
withstanding this strong recommendation, however, and
the general approval of his plan by leading jurists, he
met with considerable difficulty in finding a publisher.
The " Reminiscences of St. Domingo " was begun and
half written, and proved to be admirably graphic and
interesting, but owing to the untimely appearance of
another work on the same topic, which seemed to fore-
stall the market, it was unfortunately laid aside. His
leisure hours he then devoted to an article on Carlyle's
French Revolution, for the New York Review. " What
a Mirabeau-like book it is," he says, "pock-marked,
shaggy-haired, monstrous, original, yet alive from top to
toe. You are against me, it seems, in not thinking its
style affected, that is, assumed. I trust you are right,
for an eruption on the skin is apt to be a sign of inward
disease. But to my mind, the evidence that Carlyle
adopted his peculiar form of speech because he thought
it would tell, is very strong. At any rate, I fear that
108 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
his example will lead many to put on with malice afore-
thought a similar phraseology. Yet essentially the book
is, according to Continental rules of criticism, a high
work of art."
In November, 1848, Mr. Perkins returned to the
West ; and it was now that our intimate friendship was
renewed once more by daily intercourse, for, mainly
owing to his solicitations and the hope of having his
sympathy and aid, I had accepted an invitation to minis-
ter to the First Congregational Society of Cincinnati,
and had already entered upon my work. The day after
his arrival we walked out to Cheviot to visit his snug
little cottage and his nursery-grounds, which he was
anxious to put in trim for the next year's operations. It
was one of the serenest days of the Indian summer, and
silvery lustre suffused the heavens and softly flooded hill
and valley. On our return we left the highway, and,
striking to the south, reached an open grove on the south-
erly slope of a range of heights commanding the valley
of the Queen City ; and here, as we lay under the
ancient trees, amid the unbroken stillness, with the plain
outspread beneath us, teeming with creative industry, he
told me of his life in this new world. It was a beautiful
romance of reality, and I saw at once how a sensitive
yet strong nature, nipped, as it were, by spring frosts, and
dwarfed by eastern winds, had shot up and leafed and
blossomed under more genial skies. The sternness,
silence, listless indifference, which, on each visit of my
cousin to Boston, I had observed gradually obscuring his
manner like a fog, were now melted away into sunny
sweetness.
He talked of the Great West, of its immeasurable
MANHOOD. 109
physical resources, from the prairies and oak-openings of
Illinois and Michigan to the cypress swamps and vast
savannahs of Louisiana and Arkansas, with majestic riv-
ers from the Alleghanies on the one hand, and the Rocky
Mountains on the other, rolling their accumulated waters
through its midst, its surface verdant and prolific inex-
haustibly with a loamy soil, deposited by ages upon ages,
and underlaid from end to end by coal, lime, iron, and
various metals ; he talked of Fulton and Fitch, and the
magic might of steam, by whose agency every water-
course was made, like a giant genius, a bearer of burdens
and a swift express in ceaseless industrial interchange,
and at whose touch the agricultural and mineral resources
of the land were transmuted to manufactured wealth ; he
talked of the pulse of emigration, which from surcharged
Europe was pouring in an immense population to be re-
oxygenated in these great lungs, intermingled with fresh
elements, and thence returned to renovate Christendom
by hope, and liberty, and love ; he talked of the possible
and probable future of this grand empire of united free-
men, and of the responsibilities devolving on this genera-
tion, which was inevitably moulding a long future by the
character of its institutions, manners, creeds, and wor-
ship ; he talked of the danger of mercenary inhumanity
and earthly-minded politics amid such stimulants to self-
ish indulgence, of the temptations of lawless democracy
freed from traditionary restraints and sanctions, and of
the urgent need that every person of principle and power
should consecrate his best energies to the introduction of
Social Equality, Popular Education, Christian Brother-
hood, and, above all, Spiritual-Mindedness ; and as he
talked, it appeared how filled he was with grateful joy,
yet solemn awe, in the consciousness that it was his priv-
VOL. i. 10
110 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
ilege to be a fellow-worker in the very heart of this cho-
sen nation.
Day by day, as I met my friend in society and public
meetings, observed him in his relations to others, and
talked with them about him, it became evident how high
was the position which quite unawares he really
occupied among his fellow-citizens. Nothing could have
been more unpretending than his manner, as in slouch-
ed cap, carelessly-tied neckcloth, loose rough frock,
Kentucky-jean pantaloons, and stout boots, which bore
traces of long excursions through mud or dust, he ex-
changed off-hand greetings as he swept along the street,*
or, with the slight alterations in attire demanded by
merest neatness, entered with gracious demureness the
crowded circles of society, or the quiet houses of friends.
Wherever he might be, with a poor man on the corner,
at committee-meetings for business, or in a " Semico-
lon " party, he was always himself, and quite unique in
his singular blending of dignity and diffidence, of firm
self-reliance and habitually modest estimates, of essential
respect for all and utter disregard of conventional dis-
tinctions, of decision and reverence. A spirit of ear-
nest intelligence, of downright good-sense, of interest in
great aims and indifference to trifles, seemed to spread
out from him, and clothe him with an air of quiet power.
He took naturally, and as of right, the attitude of broth-
erly kindness towards high and low, learned and igno-
rant, men and women, young and old, and met all on the
* A humorous friend, while speaking of the striking contrast be-
tween Mr. Perkins's fine ideal head and his common dress and man-
ner, thus, with quaint fidelity, described his style of walking : " His
head looked as if it was above minding the legs ; and the legs looked
as if they did not care whether the head minded them or not."
MANHOOD. Ill
broad table-land of manly truth. This unaffected integ-
rity and characteristic single-mindedness it plainly was
that gave him such a hold over others. They bestowed
more regard on him, because personally he asked for
none ; they relied upon his opinion, because it seemed
rather wisdom, than he, that spoke ; they obeyed his
counsel, because he never laid down the law, but turned
all inward upon their own convictions ; they loved him
for his kindly considerateness of others ; they honored
him because he was so humble ; and it was a lesson on
the inspiring influence of genuine good-will to see how,
for the time being, he fashioned those around after the
likeness of his own sincerity.
It was a pleasant stimulus, too, to observe his versatile
ability, and easy promptitude on most diverse occasions.
Always he seemed equally self-possessed and present-
minded. Whether it- was to tell a story to a group of
children, to bear a part with grave jocularity in some
play of wit with sprightly girls, to discuss among peers
the current topics of the day, to consult with elders
and influential persons on matters of moment, to ex-
amine or exhort a common school, to unfold by con-
versation some profound principle in religious meet-
ings, or to address a public assembly, he seemed per-
fectly ready. His information was well arranged and
accessible, his memory quick and sure, his powers of
discrimination and combination duly harmonized, his im-
agination vivid, his judgment in equipoise, his feelings
governed. He took the average tone of those around
him, and by easy gradations raised them to the level of
his own thought, neither dizzying his hearers by flights
of enthusiasm, nor letting attention creep in common-
places ; he had a soberness of ideality, that never daz-
112 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
zled, yet threw a brightened radiance on every theme ;
he could be earnest without extravagance ; he used, un-
consciously, a rare skill in clear statements ; he had a
forefeeling of changing moods in his auditors, and knew
how by gentle humor to soften asperities, by lively sallies
to expose inconsistencies, or by rapid digressions to
glide past difficult points ; and finally, in private talk or
public speech, he instinctively regarded limits, and felt
where and how to stop. This consummate balance of
inward faculty, tact in management, and self-centred pow-
er, admirably fitted him for leadership ; and wherever he
was, he led.
It appeared to be a sad waste of spiritual capital, that,
at his period of life, Mr. Perkins should retire from ac-
tive life, though doubtless there were considerations of
health and of pecuniary subsistence which made his hor-
ticultural plan otherwise expedient. But it seemed as if
he was just the man for Cincinnati, and Cincinnati just
the place for him. His training had been so various and
his spiritual discipline so searching ; his very external
failures had so wrought out his inward triumphs ; his prin-
ciples were so clear, and his aims so high ; there was such
a fund of rich life lying latent in him, and waiting only fit
occasion for service of God and man, that one could not
feel reconciled to his comparatively burying his talent in
the ground. All who knew him were of the same opin-
ion. Circumstances beyond his own control had planted
him in Cincinnati ; his finest tendencies had taken root
there and gathered nutriment ; why should he be trans-
planted just as the fruit had formed beneath the blossom,
and was ready to ripen ? He must be made to stay.
But how ?
Providentially the way opened, the very way which
MANHOOD. 113
of all others he would have preferred, though he had
never premeditated entering upon such a course. It
had just been determined by some of the most philan-
thropic members of the First Congregational Society,
chief among whom were Messrs. John C. Vaughan,
Charles Stetson, and William Greene, to establish in
Cincinnati a Ministry at Large, and partly by contribu-
tions among themselves, partly by aid from the American
Unitarian Association, a small sum had been raised for
the purpose. Learning that Mr. C. P. Cranch, who,
in the absence of a fit agent, had accepted for a few
weeks this charitable office, was compelled to return to
the East and resume his professional duties, we con-
sulted whether this would not be a suitable post for Mr.
Perkins. That his comprehensive views of society, sa-
gacity, business habits, benevolence, and practical piety
qualified him for such a function, was clear ; and also
that the confidence felt in him by his fellow-citizens
generally would give him a vantage-ground for intro-
ducing a novel plan. Would this ministry among the
poor accord with his own convictions of duty ? We
could but make the proposal. " I remember well the
day," says Mr. Vaughan, " when Mr. Perkins came
into my office and said that he would undertake the Min-
istry at Large. He was truly eloquent ; I never heard
him more so, than when he spoke of the dignity of the
station and the greatness of the work. ' Gladly will I
consecrate my life to this ministry,' was his expression.
And he did take hold of it with a wisdom and energy
which have already done much for Cincinnati, and have
been the means of quickening there a spirit of humanity
that can never die."
10*
114 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
It was in the winter of 1838-39 that Mr. Perkins
entered on his MINISTRY TO THE POOR, and from that
time till his death he was a livins; centre of charitable
C?
action in Cincinnati, from whose often unseen, yet effi-
cient, influence flowed forth an exhaustless stream of
wise beneficence. His first work was to become in-
formed of the moral and social condition of the city,
which he did by thorough personal explorations ; and
he immediately made up his mind that only by some
united action, embracing all religious sects and political
parties, could the reform and prevention of pauperism
be insured. To this point, thenceforth, he directed his
efforts, first forming a visiting committee among the
Unitarian society and those who were willing to coop-
erate with them, then attempting a system of district
visitation for the whole city and suburbs, and finally,
successfully organizing the Relief Union. At his en-
trance on his duties he found an energetic fellow-laborer
in the Episcopal City Missionary, Rev. Alfred Blake,
as well as in the Secretary of the Charitable Intelligence
Office, Mr. A. Spiller ; but afterward he toiled on very
much alone, feeling himself hindered by sectarian jeal-
ousies among the clergy, though often cordially furthered
by the laity, until he met with the devoted agent of the
Relief Union, Mr. A. L. Bushnell.
How comprehensive were Mr. Perkins's aims in this
ministry will appear in part from a letter written in the
early spring of 1839, and from the Report of the Chari-
table Intelligence Office, which follow :
"The mantle of Minister at Large has fallen upon me,
and in this vocation I hope somewhat to realize that useful-
ness to which you allude as the crowning gift of man. The
MANHOOD. 115
field is wide and undug ; my spade is dull and weak, but by
care it may loosen the hard soil, or turn over that which the
frosts of misfortune have already mellowed. Pauperism,
Poverty, Infidelity, Vice, Crime, these are five well-armed
and most determined demons to war with, true children
of the world, the flesh, and the Devil, which, jockey-like,
cross and recross their breeds for ever, to keep up the
health of disease, and the life of death. Against these keen
and bold warriors I am opening my works slowly and with
care, and by the time you come back may have brought a
gun or two to bear.
" By the time you come back, I say ; for, in spite of all
things, I think you will come back sooner or later. Come !
we will see if we cannot muster men of talent, knowledge,
wisdom, genius, and goodness here, enough to keep the city
from putrefying. Bring back your cultivation, power, learn-
ing, and enthusiasm, and join us ; we will form an ' Anti-
septic Society ' ; you shall be spice, and I will be common
salt, and saltpetre, and charcoal.
" Two hundred years hence, men will lift their hands
over the blindness and fanaticism of our time, as we raise
ours in wonder and horror over the persecution of the
Quakers, and the burning of all heretics. It is very hard to
realize that one is living at midnight instead of noonday ;
amidst darkness and not light ; and yet I suppose that, prone
as we are to think all knowledge and wisdom and power at
our mercy now, we are no more at the end of Christian
civilization than our fathers were when they first put on
breeches of untanned skin. Look at the railroad, the calcu-
lating machine, the new style of engraving with sunlight,
when will such material changes cease ? And for moral
and social changes, are we not likely to upset all the old-
world notions ? Such desperate locofocos never were dip-
ped in brimstone as the lest of us a few of you travelled
gentry alone excepted are becoming. It would make
116 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
your hair turn snow-white to hear the Radicalism that of a
Thursday evening, in our vestry-room, makes the Unitarian
church rock to its foundations ! "
" Six months having passed since the ' Charitable Intelli-
gence Office ' was first opened, the subscribers think it
proper to make some report of their doings to those who
have so liberally given to them for the relief of the suffering.
They would also take this opportunity of calling the minds
of their fellow-citizens to the great subject of Pauperism.
" Few persons in America, very few in the West, yet
realize how important this subject of Pauperism may be-
come in a very short time. Its evils, physical and moral,
are more or less known to all readers ; but who is there that
feels deeply the need of immediate and energetic action to
prevent the rapid spread of those evils, here, in Cincinnati,
or elsewhere in our rich and prosperous valley ? And yet
there is, at this moment, a very strong band of true paupers
in this community, a circle of them extending through the
whole city, from Fulton to Mill Creek. And this circle, the
high-school of vice and crime, spreads daily, as all rotten-
ness does, and will lead to undreamed of troubles and ex-
penses, unless dealt with at once. Every man in Cincinnati
is bound to help in stopping the growth of pauperism ; the
man of property, because his houses and goods are endan-
gered by it ; the man of family, rich or poor, because it
threatens with ruin his sons and daughters ; the friend of
education, because it is the deadliest foe to knowledge and
labor ; the Christian, because it is one of Satan's chief nets
to catch souls with.
" Pauperism does not yet exist among us widely, as in
England, Ireland, and Switzerland ; but it does exist among
us deeply, and in a very bad form. Scenes of more wretch-
edness and more depravity cannot be met with, we fear, in
any land, than may be found now and then in Cincinnati
MANHOOD. 117
even, young and healthy as the society in the main is here !
Very many children, more than any of us know of, are
learning daily the lessons of iniquity in our midst, and teach-
ing them to the children of happier birth in the great semi-
nary of the street. It is a strange and a dreadful thing, but
one of no unfrequent occurrence, to hear from boys and
girls of ten and twelve, and even of six and seven, accounts,
drawn from nature, of every evil practice, from simple
drunken revelry down to theft and bloodshed.
" To aid in diminishing, or at any rate in withstanding
the growth of pauperism, was our purpose in opening our
office. We did not and do not wish to cause more alms-
giving, for we are convinced that enough, if not too much,
already exists in Cincinnati. The liberality of our citizens
has shone out brightly during the past winter ; through soci-
eties and through individuals, very large amounts have been
given to the poor, and in general with very good judgment,
so far as we are aware. Our aim and wish is to combine
alms-giving with measures calculated to diminish the neces-
sity of alms-giving ; to relieve the suffering, even of the
idle and vicious ; but at the same time to remove the causes
of suffering.
" It is plain that, to relieve the poor effectually, we must
do away the causes of the poverty ; to give an idle and
wasteful family a barrel of flour will not provide them with
bread for more than a few weeks, and if in habits of in-
temperance, much of it will be sold at half price for whis-
key. But by any means do away the habit of waste, idle-
ness, and drinking, and you truly relieve that family. In
order, however, to do any thing toward curing evil habits, it
is necessary to become well acquainted with those having
them, to see them frequently, and to keep up a continued
connection with them. As charity is often given, by
chance visiting, a little here and a little there, no perma-
nent relations being established between the giver and the
118 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
receivers, no opportunity is allowed for the exertion of that
influence which may do away the causes of poverty. Nay,
such charity too often weakens the feeling of independence,
leads the receiver to look to others for support, and, as the
same kind hand is not again extended, causes applications
to others, the habits of begging, deceit, imposition, and evil.
" One great purpose which we have in view is, therefore,
to establish permanent relations with those whom we assist,
to become so acquainted with them as to prevent deception,
to continue to assist and advise them the year round, and to
bring them within those educational and religious influences
by which alone their dependence can be prevented from
producing evil results.
" We also wish to assist those in need by finding work for
them ; and whenever we can do this, we deem it a far better
charity than any form of alms-giving. We would, indeed,
ask the friends of right, and all kind hearts, to economize
last of all in these hard times by taking their work from the
poor. One dollar paid for work done is worth two given ;
better, then, give nothing, than do your own work and give
every week. We would indeed ask how the Christian can
justly economize by taking the means of support from a fel-
low man or woman, instead of giving up some of his or her
own luxuries ? Is it right, just, to use our comforts, and
withdraw our work from those who need it, when times re-
quire that we must give up those comforts, or do our own
work ? It may at first be thought too much to require men
to abandon their comforts for the sake of their neighbours;
but if a man's neighbour is drowning, is he justified in letting
him drown because he must plunge into cold water to save
him ? If a man's neighbour is starving, is he justified in
letting him starve because he must give up coffee or wear
homespun in order to save him ?
" Our two chief objects have been, therefore, first to form
such connections with the poor as will enable us, in some
MANHOOD. 119
degree at least, to withdraw them and their children from
evil associations, and to combine immediate physical relief
with continued moral relief; and second, to find those in
need employment. We hope, also, that our office may be
the means of uniting those engaged in benevolent action,
and, through such a union, of preventing a portion of that
imposition which now discourages so many who would other-
wise be foremost in kind works.
" We have since October received contributions from
seventy-two sources, mostly without solicitation. To all
of these we would now return thanks in the name of those
who have been relieved through their contributions. We
have received money, flour, clothing, groceries of all kinds,
wood, coal, books, bread, &c., &c. The names of the indi-
vidual givers we do not publish, as we do not suppose any
of them to desire it. To the sewing-societies, who have
kept our wardrobe filled ; to the choir and people of the
New Jerusalem Temple, from whose concert we received
one hundred and thirty-eight dollars ; to the directors of the
ball at the Theatre, from which we received fifty dollars ; and
to those merchants on Main Street, who sent us a Christmas
gift of forty-six dollars, we may refer without impropriety,
and would thank them for their kindness.
" These various contributions have been distributed among
two hundred and sixteen families ; some of whom have re-
ceived very slight assistance, while others have been helped
through the winter. Wood or coal has been sent to about
seventy families, to several of them many times. Clothing
has been given to more than one hundred. One hundred
and sixteen pairs of shoes have been given, mostly to children
to enable them to go to school. The rent of twenty or
twenty-five families has been paid in whole or in part.
Flour, potatoes, tea, coffee, candles, soap, rice, sugar, and
many other articles, have been provided for nearly two hun-
dred families.
120 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
" All the families assisted have been visited by us, with a
few exceptions where they were brought to us by friends
who had visited them. To none of them has money been
given, the articles needed being alsvays supplied.
" In addition to the above, we have paid about one hun-
dred and eighty dollars for such purposes as the following:
nursing the sick, sending deaf and dumb and blind children
to Columbus, sending poor families to their relatives, &c., &c.
" Thus, during the past winter, we have tried in some de-
gree to attain our ends. One of us (Mr. Blake) will soon
leave the city, the other will remain, and attempt in the
course of the coming summer so to systematize our infor-
mation that he may be enabled next winter to act more
effectually; and hoping by that time to bring about a more
perfect union among the friends of the poor, he trusts with
their aid to be able next year to do far more good than we
have been able to do during the present.
" The office, during the summer, (i. e. from May 1st
to October 1st,) will be open from 12 A. M. to 1 P. M.
every day. The tenant wishes it to be considered free to all
friends of the poor, city missionaries, &c., at all hours, for
all purposes of a general nature, and would invite all such
to use it freely.
" JAMES H. PERKINS,
ALFRED BLAKE.
" April 14/A, 1840."
The liberality, open-handed, though discreet, which
Mr. Perkins manifested throughout his ministry can
never be fitly described, for it was known only to his
beneficiaries. But in a letter to his wife, confessing his
inability to make or hoard wealth, with a few touches he
portrays what every friend knew to be his characteris-
tic, as exhibited in daily walks. " Heaven grant I may
always have the health to work with and for you, dear
MANHOOD. 121
S. ; for I am a poor hand, and I am thankful it is
so, a very poor hand, at making money. I say I am
thankful, because I would not for the wealth of the
world have my mind cramped and narrowed down to
the dimensions of a money-maker's. May the same
spirit ever be mine that now is, a spirit that desires
nothing more than independence of others ; and, while
that is secured, is willing to divide its last dollar with a
neighbour. This is my instinct, and therefore I can
claim no particle of merit for my prodigality, as some
would call it ; but I trust the instinct will remain." And
after his death, one of his grateful friends thus wrote :
" One word I would add on my pecuniary indebtedness
to Mr. Perkins, although, in his great kindness, he has
repeatedly told me 'not to think of it.' I find in my
memoranda a balance of $63.92 due to him. He was
truly the good Samaritan to me ; he found me buried by
many misfortunes, at a season of destitution, with seven
small children to support ; and whilst unable to procure
me any remunerative employment, he invited me with a
brotherly unction ' to call on him and he would share
with me ' ! The mere money may yet be repaid, the
heart's obligations, never ! " Finally, Mr. Bushnell thus
bears his affectionate testimony to the devoted labors of
his friend: "Previous to my connection with Mr.
Perkins in the Relief Union, my acquaintance with him
had been only by reputation, as a distinguished scholar,
philanthropist, and preacher. But when I became asso-
ciated with him in this great and good work of Christian
charity and benevolence, when I witnessed his self-
denying labors and efforts among the poor, the friendless,
and the wretched, my previous esteem and high regard
were increased almost to veneration. I loved his very
VOL. i. 11
122 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
step, as I heard it approaching, and his voice to me was
music. Never had I witnessed a more perfect exempli-
fication of Gospel benevolence as explained in the New
Testament by our great Pattern and Guide, than in the
character of Mr. Perkins."
The Cincinnati Columbian well sums up the history
of his benevolent labors :
" In the early years of his clerical career, Mr. Perkins
acted in a manner as Minister at Large for the city, in
which capacity he visited personally among the poor and
needy in all parts of the town, and became the almoner of
many of the good of all religious persuasions. \Vhilc en-
gaged in these duties, his early business training came op-
portunely to his aid. He opened an office, in which he kept
a register of the names of all applicants for either work or
assistance, and, before dispensing to them the charities with
which he was intrusted, visited them at the places of their
residence, and ascertained whatever he could as to their cir-
cumstances and characters. He rarely gave money, except
in small amounts for the immediate relief of hunger or sick-
ness. He distributed clothing only where there was real
nakedness, to shut out cold for the time, or ease the sense of
manifest shame. He gave out food where he found it was
needed to stop the gnawings of hunger, but only in limited
quantities, as necessity demanded. LABOR was his gift,
whenever it would be accepted by the needy and could be
properly performed, and in order to supply this, he finally
opened a regular intelligence office, from which he supplied
widows with needle-work, servants with places, and day-
laborers with such employment as he could obtain for them.
" Out of this beginning a few years afterwards grew that
comprehensive charity, the Cincinnati Relief Union, of
which Mr. Perkins was President from its organization to
the time of his death. His experience as a visitor among
MANHOOD. 123
the poor and the degraded had taught him the necessity of
an association such as this ; and he worked with all his
might and all his patience to build it up, to sustain it, and to
make it useful in finding out and relieving virtuous want.
In his last sermon to his congregation, preached the Sab-
bath before his death, Mr. Perkins presented anew the
claims of this benevolent society, and gave notice that it was
then in the immediate want of funds. He stated that it was
of the first necessity that its excellent agent should be re-
tained in his place, without whom its plans of relief would
come to naught. He said that, for the period of the next
three months, which would be the hardest part of the winter
upon the poor, this would require but $125. And this sum,
he remarked, he should be pleased to have his congregation
assist him to raise ; but whether they assisted or not, it
should be raised, for he had determined to retain the agent
for this length of time, if it had to be done out of means of
his own.
" It was chiefly through the exertions of Mr. Perkins, en-
gaged with a few kindred spirits, that the condition of the
county jails of Ohio was investigated and reported upon sev-
eral years ago, and some improvements effected in their
sanitary regulations. And to his wisdom and perseverance
is this community indebted, as much at least as to those of
any other man, for the scheme of Houses of Refuge and
Correction, which are soon to commence their useful ser-
vices, and also of the house for the confinement and employ-
ment of juvenile offenders, now nearly erected, two miles
north of the city.
" But there have been few projects of a wise, Christian
benevolence, indeed, in this city, for the past twelve or fif-
teen years, that have not had the aid of his intellect, his
heart, and his physical labor. To thousands of cheerless
hearts he has carried the warmth of his own soul ; to thou-
sands of dark abodes, the light of hope and religion. He
124 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
has ministered to the sick and sorrowing ; lie has fed the
hungry, and clothed the naked ; he has visited the widow
and the orphan in their aflliction."
What is here said in regard to Mr. Perkins's services
in promoting prison reform is strictly true ; for many
friends must remember the private influences which, in
1833, gave the first impulse to that movement in Cincin-
nati and Ohio. Judges Lane, Este, and Reid, Mayor
Spencer, Messrs. William Greene and J. C. Vaughan
of the legal profession, and Messrs. Phillips, Martin,
and other energetic and benevolent men among the me-
chanics, took the lead in it ; meetings were called, laws
drafted, presented, and passed ; plans were set on foot
for inspecting the county prisons, and erecting new build-
ings on an improved model ; and finally, though the
plans adopted fell far short of Mr. Perkins's ideal, the
work of converting the hells of convict torture into pur-
gatories at least of penitence was fairly begun. During
the protracted efforts needed to keep alive public atten-
tion, to collect funds, and direct legislative action, Mr.
Perkins used every occasion to promote this cause of
just humanity. He did not make himself prominent, but,
as was his habit, acted through others ; yet very much
owing to his wise suggestions and patient exertions were
these great measures successfully carried through.
His views in regard to prison discipline and the refor-
mation of the young may be learned in part from the
following paper :
" In the month of December, 1838, a meeting of the me-
chanics of Cincinnati was called at the Court-House, to con-
sider the present system pursued in Ohio with regard to
the labor of penitentiary convicts. This system is known
MANHOOD. 125
as the ' Farming System,' and is marked by this feature,
that the labor of the convicts is let out by the State to con-
tractors, who pay so much a day for every man's labor ; by
means of this labor they make any articles they please at
much less cost than the common manufacturer, as they pay
less than half the usual wages, and therefore are enabled to
undersell the common manufacturer. At the meeting held
in pursuance of the call above referred to, it was stated, that
these contractors pursued the plan of producing articles of
quite limited consumption, of which they could obtain the
monopoly by underselling the regular producers, and so
command the market. In this way, it was said, more than
one manufacturer had been ruined, and the mechanics were
called on to remonstrate against so unjust a system.
" Late in the next month another meeting was called
upon the. same subject ; strong resolutions were passed, and
a memorial prepared to present to the Legislature ; and the
general penitentiary system being brought into discussion
incidentally, the meeting was adjourned, and a committee
chosen to report upon the propriety of teaching mechanical
labors in the penitentiary upon any system. The resolutions
offered by this committee were discussed during several
successive Saturday evenings, and the whole subject of pris-
on discipline was thrown open. In the course of these dis-
cussions the following report was made :
" ' In old times, when a man wronged society he was
killed, whipped, maimed, branded, or exposed in the pillory.
Punishment was then looked on as, in a great degree, ven-
geance. In the course of time the views of punishment
changed, and man came to think that criminals should suffer
in order that society might be protected, not that it might
be avenged. Thinking thus, and believing the whipping
and exposure then practised to be little calculated to protect
society or help the criminal, the Friends or Quakers of
Pennsylvania proposed to substitute imprisonment in the
11*
126 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
place of death and other direct bodily inflictions. The first
movement of those excellent men on this subject was about
the beginning of the Revolution, during the very years in
which John Howard began his labors of mercy ; but owing
to the condition of the United Colonies at that time, nothing
was done, and even after the Revolution, and before the
adoption of the Constitution, three years passed before those
who wished to call the public eye to the state of the criminal
law succeeded in doing so ; they did succeed at last, how-
ever, and in 1786 a reform began in Pennsylvania, by which
the old code of stripes and torture was done away. From
Pennsylvania Ohio borrowed the great features of her crim-
inal laws, and to that we owe it that her statute-book is not
defaced by provisions which still stain those of many of her
sister States. In Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode
Island, the use of the pillory, the whip, and the maiming-
knife were authorized by law as late as 1833 ; and in Dela-
ware at that time poisoning was punished by a fine of ten
dollars, an hour's exhibition in the pillory, sixty stripes well
laid on, four years in prison, and public sale into slavery for
fourteen years.* But in Pennsylvania, as we have said,
reform began in 1786, and the penitentiary system was
commenced by the establishment of the Walnut Street pris-
on. The idea in founding this prison seems to have been
this, to protect society by confining the criminal, and to re-
form as far as possible the criminal himself, so that he might
not be criminal again as soon as free. The idea we think a
noble and true one, uniting policy and benevolence ; but the
execution of it was most faulty, for numbers were placed
together, and unrestrained communion allowed. The conse-
quence of this was, that the young and comparatively inno-
cent were utterly depraved by intimate connection with the
* Beaumont and De Tocqueville on the Penitentiary System of the
United States. Trans., p. 16.
MANHOOD. 127
vile and hardened. It was hoped that this consequence
might be avoided by classifying the prisoners, placing to-
gether those of equal criminality ; but this was soon proved
to be impracticable, for there was no guage by which to
know the souls of men. Some, also, were placed in soli-
tary confinement, but they were left unemployed. The
Pennsylvania system, with all its defects, was copied in
1797 by New York and New Jersey, and soon after by
Massachusetts, Connecticut, and all the other States ; the old
punishments fell into disuse, and the State prisons were
looked to with hope and joy. But it was soon clear that
they would never bring about a millennium ; indeed, there
was every reason to think that they were schools of vice,
producing evil, and little or nothing else.
'"This state of things led to new efforts in 1816 and 1817.
In the former year the Auburn prison was begun in New
York ; in this, prisoners were to be placed two in each cell,
and those who were vyorst were to be confined in solitude
without work. In 1817 Pennsylvania undertook the peniten-
tiary at Pittsburg, where each prisoner was to be confined
in solitude without work. Both of these prisons failed of
success ; that at Pittsburg, because so built as to enable the
prisoners to converse with perfect freedom, though not see-
ing one another ; that at Auburn, because, where two were
put together, as much, or more, evil ensued as if twenty had
been, and those who were placed in solitary confinement with-
out work sickened, became insane, and committed suicide.
" ' Two modes of imprisonment had now been tried,
" ' 1. That by which many were placed together, to work
in common and communicate freely.
" ' 2. That by which each was placed by himself in idle-
ness.
'"Both had failed. These failures led to the adoption of
two new systems ; that known as the Auburn, because tried
there first, after the failure just spoken of; the other known
as the Philadelphia system.
128 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
" ' The Auburn plan arose in 1824, but who originated it
is not certainly known. Its two great features are solitary
confinement at night, and labor in common, but without
communication through the day. The Philadelphia system
is marked by solitary confinement day and night, with labor.
This went into operation in 1829.
" ' Such is an outline of the history of the American peni-
tentiary system, and this history has shown two things most
clearly ; the one, that prisoners must not communicate, and
the other, that they must be kept employed. Should it be
asked whether there has been any change effected by stop-
ping communication between prisoners, and keeping them
at labor, we answer, the change has been very great. In
the Walnut Street prison in Philadelphia, such was the disci-
pline, that, when the first sermon was preached there, it was
thought needful to draw up the prisoners in a solid column
in front of the preacher, by whose side was a loaded cannon,
and a man with a lighted match.* Under the new system
at Singsing, a thousand men work unfettered at an open
quarry, with but thirty keepers to control them.t In the old
Philadelphia prison, the keeper kept spirits to sell to the con-
victs. Under the new system, water and coffee alone are ever
used by them. In the Massachusetts State prison, so late as
1825, the prisoners were leagued with rogues without, from
whom they received bank-bills which they altered from 1's
to 10's, and from 2's to 20's. They also made false keys
for their comrades without, and divided the profits. f Nor
if the influence of the new system less marked, by the fad
that, whereas under the old form a third to a quarter of
those who left the prison returned again, under the new not
more than one twelfth or fifteenth part come back. In
* Ch. Ex., III. 207.
t Beaumont and De Tocqueville, p. 26.
t Ch. Ex, III. 210.
N. Y. Report, 1828, p. 62. Ch. Ex., March, 1839.
MANHOOD. 129
New York, some years since, pains were taken to trace a
number of those who had left Auburn, and from one hun-
dred and sixty who were traced, one hundred and twelve
had become good citizens, and only twenty-six remained de-
cidedly untrustworthy.*
" ' But the great good of the new system is this, that it pre-
vents the young, who are led into crime, from becoming
utterly ruined while in confinement. Leaving this point,
however, for the present, we turn to the inquiry, What spe-
cies of labor shall the convict be employed on ? Keeping
in mind that one great end is to prevent the convict from
becoming criminal again when free, we answer that it must
be, if possible, a species that will support him when he
leaves prison, and also one that will not necessarily bring
him often into connection with other freed criminals ; for it
is found that most of those who go back to prison a second
time have fallen in with fellow-convicts while at large.
" ' Useless labor, such as that of the treadmill, is therefore
to be rejected, for it will not feed him. Stone-breaking,
and employments which cause a wandering life, and which
are liable to be monopolized by convicts, are also objection-
able ; more than half the new criminals have led such wan-
dering lives, and the collecting into bands of those known to
each other as criminals is much to be feared.
" ' The professions we think out of the question, because
the professional man more than any other asks for confi-
dence, and none would confide either life or property to
those fresh from prison. We might employ one of whom
we know nothing good to make us a pair of shoes, though
We should not employ him as a physician or attorney.
" ' We find, then, but two classes of labor to which the con-
vict can devote himself, the agricultural and the mechanical.
Were it possible to employ him in agriculture while a pris-
* N. Y. Report, 1828, pp. 70, 72.
130 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
oner, we should think it by far the best life for him to lead,
it being found that the freed prisoner who goes into the coun-
try is far less likely to return to prison than the one who
goes to the city. Nor do we say that the prisoner cannot be
employed in agriculture, though we see no means by which
he may be.
" ' In every branch of mechanical labor, however, he may
easily be taught : and having learned any one, he may live
thereby when free, may reach a respectability which the
stone-breaker never can, and will not be thrown into many
temptations, and with many associates, that the wandering
day-laborer cannot avoid.
" ' But our friends, the mechanics, say your State-prison
competition will ruin us, and your freed convicts will dis-
grace and demoralize us. To this we answer by asking, if
the mechanics of Ohio would fear the competition of any
other five hundred men. Were it proposed to save five
hundred young men from idleness, vice, and the penitentiary
by making them mechanics, would our shoemakers, carpen-
ters, and blacksmiths ask that it should not be done, because
the competition would be ruinous ? We cannot for a mo-
ment think they would, and yet these five hundred now in
prison are no more than they were when out of prison.
The truth is, that the competition of five or seven hundred
men scattered over the whole field of mechanical labor
would not be felt in Ohio, were the products of their labor
sold at market prices. The fear of competition arises from
the contracting system at present in vogue.
"'As respects disgrace to, and injury to the morals of,
the mechanics, we think they will see the danger to be little.
No man in this country can be honored or disgraced but by
his own acts : neither blood, nor wealth, nor profession
should or need determine the honor or disgrace of an Amer-
ican ; by his own worth, and that only, must he stand.
" ' Believing both the objections urged against teaching the
MANHOOD. 131
convict mechanical trades to be unsound, we are of opinion
that he may be taught them with propriety and safety. At
the same time, we see the difficulties connected with this mat-
ter, for who will employ the freed criminal ? We see great
inducements to deception, and many dangers to the public,
from the suspicion with which he is always, and necessarily,
regarded. But we do not see the danger less in one direction
than another from this source ; and the experience of the
Auburn prison is in favor of the teaching of mechanical
labors.
" ' In closing this report, we would refer to three points of
deep interest to our community.
" ' One is the best means of enabling the freed convict to
get a livelihood. Should the State give him employment ?
Should it give or lease him land ? On this point we have
nothing to offer.
" ' The second point is the propriety of having houses
where those arrested on suspicion, and witnesses who cannot
give security for their appearance, may be detained. Such
houses of detention are common in Europe, but the first ever
built in this country has but just gone into operation : it is in
New York. The propriety of such places, and the impro-
priety of sending suspected persons to jail, are clear : more
than a fifth part of those arrested are not convicted.
" ; The third point referred to is one which we would par-
ticularly ask attention to : it is the need we have of a HOUSE
OF REFUGE, to which all boys and girls violating the law may
be sent, there to be educated, reformed, and made worthy
of society, and saved from a life of sin.
" ' The first institutions of this kind were founded in Ger-
many, by individuals, about 1813 ; in 1S25, one was formed
in New York by a society ; Boston founded one in 1826,
and Philadelphia in 1828. Fourteen years of experience
have proved these institutions to be most valuable. In them
boys and girls of from seven to twenty-one and eighteen are
132 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
received and truly reformed ; fifty in a hundred among those
who have left them are known to be industrious and up-
right, not five of whom would have been saved from
crimes and ruin in any oilier way, so far as can be judged.
" ' The call for such a House of Refuge in Cincinnati must
be known to all those who are acquainted with the number
of offences committed here by the young, and we most ear-
nestly hope that this meeting will see fit to adopt measures to
have the subject fully discussed and presented to the public.
" ' As a condensed view of the opinions contained in this
report, we offer the following resolutions.
" ' 1st. Resolved, That, if the convict can be employed in
agricultural labor, it is desirable that he should be.
" ' 2d. Resolved, That the free mechanic need not fear the
competition of the prisoner, provided the State do her duty ;
and need not fear disgrace or moral injury, provided he do
his own duty.
" ' 3d. Resolved, That in the opinion of this meeting a
House of Refuge for young criminals is much needed in
Cincinnati, and that the public should be invited to consider
the propriety of founding one.
" ' 4th. Resolved, That, for the purpose last named, a com-
mittee of nine be appointed to prepare a report and resolu-
tions, and to call a meeting when and where they see good.'
" The question of prison discipline from first to last is
of very deep interest and importance to us all, and the fact
that most of those engaged in the discussions already men-
tioned were mechanics is most cheering. If such men will
take hold of such questions in earnest, and, instead of suffer-
ing lawyers and political aspirants to use them as puffing-
posts and party machinery, will consider and settle them
soberly and calmly, we may hope for a political regenera-
tion, almost.
"The question of prison discipline involves,
" 1st. That of confining and trying persons suspected.
MANHOOD. 133
How should they be tried ? Publicly or privately ? How
should they be confined ? Surely not as those convicted are.
And yet, in most of our jails, suspected men, and boys, and
women may be found, whose accommodations will not com-
pare with those of the convict. In Baltimore, within the year,
the jail-prisoners had neither leds nor changes of clothing.
And where is the jail that is what it should be ? Here in
Cincinnati we now have a 'chain-gang 1 ; an improvement
upon the horrors of crowded rooms and idleness, perhaps,
but generally destructive of the criminal who is put upon it.
Why do we not have labor in secret, as at so many of the
Eastern prisons ? and why no House of Arrest for merely
suspected persons ?
" 2d. The question involves that of treating the young, of
houses of refuge or schools of moral reform. Upon this
we say nothing now, meaning soon to give a whole paper
to it.
" 3d. We have the question of employing grown convicts
in agriculture. Could the State own several farms with a
penitentiary on each ? Could men be kept at such work in
silence and safety ? This question is full of interest, and
full of difficulty.
" 4th. The great problem of penitentiary discipline comes
before us ; namely, to provide for the employment of the
released convicts. To look at the present system, one would
say that ninety-nine out of one hundred released convicts
would be criminal again, must be criminal again. The
man leaves the prison ; a suit of clothes, five dollars, and
plenty of advice are given him, and what else has he ? His
limbs, his good resolves, his wish to live honestly. True, but
he is known at Columbus as a convict, and no one will em-
ploy him, and he can scarce reach any other place where
he would not be suspected and forced to deceive, without
resorting to wrong means of support. The released convict
is most truly a criminal in the market ; the first buyer that
VOL. i. 12
134 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
offers, the first rogue that will give him bread in exchange
for evil deeds, may buy him cheap, for he must sell himself
or starve. The great problem for us of this day to solve is,
then, we think, this, How may the freed convict be em-
ployed so as to relieve him of the necessity of deception and
crime, and enabfe him to redeem his character?
" Is this plan feasible ? Take of the prisoner's earnings
enough to buy a small tract of land, put him upon that when
free, and let him clear and cultivate it if he will, on these
terms, that it shall be his if he remains on it and culti-
vates it for ten years, and if he do not, that it shall then re-
main the property of the State.
" That some plan must be adopted is clear, if we wish
the penitentiary system to work reformation of life, and
unless that be brought about, the public is most poorly pro-
tected."
Warm as was Mr. Perkins's private sympathy for the
suffering, the tempted, and debased, and faithful as he
was in personal ministrations of benevolence, it would
be doing injustice to his aims not to view these labors in
connection with his principles of CHRISTIAN STATES-
MANSHIP, in the largest sense of those words. The
prevention and relief of Pauperism, the reform of Crim-
inals, were to him but branches of the living tree of Re-
ligious Policy. And in order to present his profound
and broad convictions of social duty, which were
held not in theory only, but practically fulfilled, it is
right to quote freely from his writings. Shall not the
day soon come, when, in all our communities, leaders,
parties, and people shall be governed by like sublime,
yet rational, aspirations for a heaven on earth ?
1836. "WASHINGTON. Where lay the greatness of
MANHOOD. 135
George Washington ? Men of every land, speakers of
every tongue, have united in his praise, and declared him
indeed a GREAT MAN : why was this ? Not because of his
victories ; few dream of placing him, as a soldier, with Na-
poleon : not because he was wiser, as a statesman, than
all others ; Burke was more philosophic, Fox far more elo-
quent, Pitt had more energy and resource, Canning
more learning ; and yet Washington was a greater man
than either. Yea, when the star of our freedom burned but
faintly, and the most hoping hushed their fears, even then,
when, if taken, George Washington might have been hung
as a rebel, he was a greater man than any of those we
have named. And why ? Because the MAN and his great-
ness, differ wholly from the Soldier, or the Statesman, and
their greatness. The person who, as a warrior, a politician,
a writer, an orator, is greatest in the land, may, as a man, be
among the least. The trade of life, that wherein most that
are marked are marked, requires one power, or one class
of powers, full and great ; but the great man is he whose
powers are all full, who eminently lacks nothing in the
outline of his character, who, as a whole, most resembles
God. That one may be a great Lawyer, and yet break half
the laws of God, we all know ; but, if he does break those
laws, he is not a great Man ; for he lacks much in the out-
line of his character ; he does not resemble God. As a
lawyer, a being of this world, a worm that may die to-mor-
row, a being without nobility of sentiment or purity of pur-
pose, he is great ; as a living soul, with capacities fitted
for an eternal life, he is small and poor. Which is of most
import, the lawyer or the man ? Which is looked up to by
the instinct of nature and the word of God ? All know, if
all do not say, the man ; and where, as in Washington,
greatness as a man has been made prominent, and produced
vast effects, the world unite in placing it before all profes-
sional greatness. George Washington, then, was peculiarly
136 LIFE OF JAMES II. PERKINS.
great, because he was great throughout. Moreover, he was
professionally great, mainly because of his greatness as a
man. It was not his military genius that made him muster
of our forces; he had not, in the French war, shown genius,
but he had shown courage, coolness, modesty, diligence,
self-reliance, humanity, and many other qualities which
belong to the great man, be his calling what it will. And
through our war, it was not the commander, but the man,
George Washington, that carried us. Had his virtues been
less known, and his character as a man less relied upon,
the army would have melted like ice ; and unity of purpose,
council, and action would have been impossible. And as a
statesman the same thing is true ; he had nothing of the mere
politician, learned in human weakness and folly, nothing
of the professed diplomatist, who would use men as puppets,
in him. He sat in the council as a man dealing with
men. It was not the wisdom of books, of experience, or the
promptings of genius, that guided him ; it was the honest,
heaven-born excellence of his own heart, more than a match
for all the arts of a Talleyrand."
1836. " AGRARIANISM. There is an outcry of ' Agra-
rianism ' abroad, and everywhere we see the workingmen,
or more properly the hand-working men, gathering numbers
into parties. What do these things mean ? and why are
they ?
" By Agrarianism we understand sometimes a disposition,
and sometimes a system, that would attack the present
rights of property. Not content with forbidding the law to
aid individuals in the acquisition of wealth, it would make
it strip them of their present possessions, and prevent future,
acquisition.
" The folly and iniquity of such a system need not be
pointed out. That the right to the accumulations of indus-
try, constituting riches, is the same with the right to the first
MANHOOD. 137
fruits of industry, which form the daily bread of the daily
laborer, is self-evident. There never has been, and never
can be, an agrarian community. Those Roman laws from
which we take the name, related, not to private property,
but to the public domain, as Niebuhr and Savigny have fully
shown ; and the attempt of the French madmen was, as a
schoolboy might have prophesied, an entire failure. Were
all men good Christians, there might be an approach made
to that ideal state of society where none shall be very rich,
and none poverty-stricken ; but even an approximation to
this state must result from individual principle, not public
law.
" A perception of these truths has prevented any impor-
tant direct manifestation of a levelling spirit in our land, but
indirectly the jealousy of wealth among us is fully visible.
Without being the advocate of either party, we cannot but
see in the support given by the people to the administration,
while warring upon the United States Bank, an evidence
of this jealousy. The war, then, is already begun ; and,
unless the cause of this jealousy is removed, it will go on
slowly, but certainly, till republicanism crumbles into an-
archy.
" And what is its cause ?
" In every erroneous system there is a germ of truth.
No creed, however monstrous, but rests upon some reality.
The error, like the fiery beard of the comet, may flame
from the horizon to the zenith, and fill the eye of the looker-
on, but somewhere there is an unseen nucleus. We believe
it to be so with regard to agrarianism ; we believe the gen-
eral feeling, not that the rights of industry should be de-
stroyed, but that something is wrong with regard to wealth,
to have its origin in the rnisty perception of a great truth,
and of the general disregard of it. We believe that in one
point, at least, the state of society in our country is opposed
to republicanism, and that this opposition is the parent of that
12*
138 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
feeling of which we have spoken ; a feeling far more wide-
spread than most of us suppose, swaying many who would
shrink from an open attack upon property.
" The great truth referred to may be stated in the lan-
guage of Miss Sedgwick, in her most admirable little work,
' Home': ' Talent and worth are the only eternal grounds
of distinction. It will be our own fault, if in our land soci-
ety, as well as government, is not organized upon a new
foundation. Knowledge and goodness, these make degrees
in heaven, and they must be the graduating scale of a true
democracy.' The disregard of these truths we look upon
as not only keeping us back in our national growth, but as
also forming the root of the great prevalent hostility to prop-
erty ; and for this cause, that property, in the place of
knowledge and goodness, is made too much the graduating
scale of our democracy. This the moneyless democrat per-
ceives ; he feels himself wronged, and, to do away that
wrong, inclines to, if he does not, join that party which
would destroy the cause of wrong-doing, wealth.
" That point in our social condition, then, (to repeat in
another form what we last said,) which we think at variance
with republicanism no less than Christianity, is the moral
rank and influence given to mere wealth, but due to talent,
education, and character. A dim perception of this vari-
ance we look on as giving rise to the common feeling that
something is wrong, as well as to the wish of the agrarian
to cure this wrong by the equalization of property.
" But some one may say, that wealth is desired for the
luxuries and bodily comforts it brings, and not for the rank
and influence given its possessor.
" As this objection strikes at the root of our whole argu-
ment, we must consider it at some length.
" Let the reader look back over his own personal experi-
ence, and then inquire whether, among the money-seekers
whom he has known, the mass have been moved to labor
MANHOOD. 139
by the hope of better food or raiment, as a means of sim-
ple sensual gratification, or in the expectation that known
wealth, costly clothes, and fine houses would increase their
influence and standing. We would ask him to say, from
his own observation, if the bodily comforts of the rich
exceed those of the independent hand-worker. Do they
not rather fall short of his ? That there are some, mostly
belonging to the dissolute and needy, that desire money as a
means to sensual pleasure, is undoubted ; and probably no
poor man passes through life without wishing for wealth, as
giving luxuries ; but we are speaking now of the great mass,
and of the permanent object for which they labor, not of a
momentary impulse.
" Again, if a man of wealth were thrown into a commu-
nity of true Christians, with whom wealth was no passport to
rank and influence, would he value his riches ? or would a
poorer man of the world envy him there, as he would in the
world ?
" Again, why is there so much pomp and display made
with money ? Why are not the rich content to have warm
and pleasant houses, and soft clothes, and to eat and drink
in privacy ? Is it not because they wish to have their wealth
known and recognized ? And why is this, but for the re-
spect they know will be paid to it ?
" There is a fact also connected with the hostility to
wealth in our country, which may give us some light ; it is
this, the opposition to the rich is not made by all those not
rich, but by the hand-working men, as we have called them.
But there are two distinct classes beside the wealthy ; one
consists of these hand-workers, and the other of clergymen,
lawyers, doctors, and writers, many of whom are much
poorer, and live in a much less luxurious state, than those
mechanics who lead the working party. But this second
class have no hostility to wealth, and, with the exception of
a few discontented spirits, feel no jealousy of it. Why is
140 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
this ? It is because a poor lawyer or physician ranks higher
than a printer of equal education, talent, character, and
good-hreeding ; his opinion is listened to, and has weight ;
the leaders of fashion speak with him, and the first men in
the community receive him socially as an equal. But the
printer has equally within him the love of influence ; and
when he sees one richer than himself in gold, but poorer
in all knowledge and excellence, received with favor where
he dares not venture, he feels wronged ; he feels that he is
degraded, while the other merits degradation. Reason, re-
publicanism, Christianity, all assure him that mere money
can give no man a claim to respect ; but finding that it
does give that claim with the world, he either goes into busi-
ness to become rich himself, or joins one of the professions
(which are consequently crowded), or cries out upon this
false talisman that so witches men's eyes.
" And in England, at this moment, against whom goes
the battle ? Against the aristocracy, who claim rank and
power, and not against the bankers of London. Or if the
rich man is abhorred, it is the one that parades his wealth,
and lays claim to distinction and standing, that has his
chariot and outriders, his box at the opera, and his princely
park for the summer, and not the old West Indian, that
drinks his two bottles of Madeira, and smokes his cigar
among the dusky piles of Bishopsgate Street. Each may
have his million, but he is envied to whom the world looks
up, and not he that enjoys himself in a corner.
" And in France, during both revolutions, the starving
and mad mob, while engaged in sacking palaces, and de-
stroying the marks of rank, refused to take the booty that
lay about them.
" A consideration of these things convinces us that wealth
is desired and envied by strong and energetic men, not as a
means to sensual pleasure, but as giving a claim to moral
influence and standing.
MANHOOD. 141
" We now come to the inquiry, why this is not a just
claim, or why it is opposed to republicanism.
" The idea of a republic is, that men shall be esteemed
according to their merit. Under other forms of government,
birth, wealth, or even physical power, may form the stand-
ard of rank ; in a republic none of these can have weight
in themselves. Among savages, physical power is merito-
rious ; in their view, the best hunter and warrior is the best
man. Among the semi-civilized, where education exists,
but is not general, birth is a half-guarantee of a good educa-
tion as well as good blood. And when you come one step
nearer our present condition, wealth affords probable evi-
dence of industry, care, and moral habits, and is respected,
not for itself, but as proving them. But in the perfectly
civilized state it is not evidence of these things ; neither
does birth guarantee superiority of education ; and brute
strength ceases to be merit, save in the eyes of the brutish.
Anew standard is now erected, intellectual power and
culture, and moral character. Such is the law of republi-
canism and the Christian religion, as applied to social rank.
The preeminence of wealth is also anti-republican, because
in a republic the mass rule, but in no land can the mass be
wealthy. Wherever civilization prevails, however, the love
of influence is the ruling passion. If, therefore, wealth have
preeminence, the mass will be against it; but the end of
government is peace, whereas a republic where wealth
gives influence leads to war ; the two things are therefore
in opposition.
" And what is the mistake which shuts out the great class
of hand-working men from cultivated society ?
" It is this : manual labor is taken as evidence of a want
of education at least, while wealth and intellectual labor are
received as proofs of the contrary.
" In this statement we believe the cause of the whole
difficulty will be found. Because in Europe bodily labor,
142 LIFE OF JAMES II. PERKINS.
ignorance, and vulgarity have gone so much together, we
think them blood relations, and suppose the presence of the
first cannot but bring in the two last. Instead of asking
whether this printer or that cabinet-maker is as well educated
and behaved, possesses as much talent and as high a char-
acter, as the lawyer or physician next door, we take it for
granted that he does not, though every body knows that free
schools, manual-labor colleges, and mechanics' institutes are
giving our mechanics all needful learning ; and as to man-
ners, we doubt much if the court-house be a better school
than the workshop. The presumption against farmers is
going by, in consequence of the good sense of many young
men of family and wealth, who have taken the plough into
their own hands ; but against mechanics the prejudice re-
mains as of old.
" We have now pointed to the spot in our social condi-
tion where we think there is something at variance with
republicanism. I have shown in what that variance is, and
why it is ; we now come to the question, Can it be rem-
edied ?
" The evil is, that an undue rank is assigned to wealth ;
and also, that an undue importance is assigned to employ-
ments ; to both of which this common characteristic be-
longs, that by the mass the profession or occupation is
too much thought of, the individual too little.
" With respect to these evils, one of three courses must be
adopted ; they must either be left to run, as many would
say, their natural course, though we do not think the sins
of artificial life ought to be thus put upon poor nature ; or
wealth must be equalized ; or men must be taught not to
respect mere wealth or place, but to consider the intellect,
education, and character of each individual, known by ex-
amination, and not by inference from his business, as giving
him a claim to social influence and standing.
" Which course should be adopted ?
MANHOOD. 143
" If we take the first, civil war and anarchy are almost
certain, for there may as truly be a civil war in the halls
of legislation as the fields of battle. If we adopt the second
course, we but take the shorter path to the same point, anar-
chy. How is it if we take the third ? Wealth will neither
be desired nor envied then as now ; education and charac-
ter, both attainable by all in this land, will be the things to
which the ambition of all will be directed ; the cry of agra-
rianism will die away ; the professions will no longer be
crowded by incompetent deserters from the mechanic arts ;
and well-behaved, well-mannered mechanics will rank every-
where as highly as equally deserving men of whatever station.
" But how can the influence of wealth be done away, and
merit be made the standard of rank.
"It can never be done entirely, but we may approximate
to it in many ways, and indeed are now doing so.
" To say that the spread of Christian feeling and princi-
ple among men will tend to the desired object, is but anoth-
er form of saying that Christianity opposes the prevalent
worship of Mammon ; and yet there are many that would
oppose what they thought a wrong in the commonwealth, but
never think of opposing it by religion. Very few, it is to be
feared, see that the best principles of policy are wrapped
up in the teachings of Jesus ; and very few, by making these
teachings known in their remote consequences, would hope
to heal the sores of a state. But we believe all good and
statesmanlike and substantial policy to be based upon, and
flow logically from, the grand principles of human nature,
and its guide, the Book of Life. A dissemination, then, of
Christian truth, a thorough and unsectarian development
and application of this truth to every individual as a man, a
citizen, and one member of a family, we believe to lie at
the root of all reformation.
" Next to this in importance, we place the spread of edu-
cation by manual-labor schools, where the laborer may be
144 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
instructed and yet not cease to be a laborer. The line now
drawn between educated men and workingmen must be
done away ; the farmer and mechanic must be educated ;
by which we mean, not only that they must read, write,
and cipher, but that they must attain to those ends to the
reaching which those things are means. Education is not
only to fit men to buy and sell without being cheated ; it
looks farther than this life and its profits. Education, in this
sense, may and must be given to the industrious and enter-
prising of our nation ; those whose misdirected, but honest,
energy now threatens the rights of property, would then
stand its friends.
" In the third place, we look to the efforts of the educated
men in our republic. Bv their teachings, through the press,
from the pulpit, the bar, the desk of the lyceum, they must fit
this people for freedom, Christian freedom, pure re-
publicanism, when money will have no power except that
which is its own, the power of buying so much labor or the
results of so much labor. The reformation of feeling with
regard to wealth, if it begin at all, must begin with those who
have the same rank and influence with the wealthy. They
are to blame if the present unwholesome state of things con-
tinues. They must first become freemen, and then break the
chains of others. And they not only must teach, but prac-
tise ; they must receive and respect the printer, of good
manners and character, while they turn from the rich gam-
bler, or the time-serving attorney. They must be willing
to become themselves hewers of wood and drawers of
water. Already is this done to some extent in the coun-
try, and the more it is done, the better for religion and the
republic ; a little leaven leavcneth the whole lump, and
one man of educated and disinterested talent may give
tone and standing to a great class. If the Russian Peter is
to be honored because he became a shipwright for the mer-
cantile welfare of his people, how much more deserving that
MANHOOD. 145
man who gives up present rank for the eternal and all-em-
bracing good of those about him !
" We come, then, to these conclusions, that the respect now
paid mere wealth, and the prejudice yet existing in favor of
some and against other occupations, are opposed to republi-
canism ; that the elements of warfare of necessity exist
among us, our social condition being in these respects at
variance with our political condition ; that this variance is to
be done away, not by taking from the rich the wealth that is
theirs, but by keeping from that wealth the respect which
is our own, and also by examining the claims of individuals
to social rank, instead of judging, on the principles of other
ages and lands, respecting whole classes ; and lastly, that
the great means to be used in this good work are the
spread and development of Christianity, the thorough edu-
cation of the leading spirits of all occupations and profes-
sions, the continual teaching of those now educated and
influential, together with the practice by them of receiving
as equals individuals from all lines of life, and also of bring-
ing up to agricultural and mechanical pursuits many whose
birth, wealth, and education would, on present principles,
place them in the professions.
" To effect any thing in this great work, there must be
the action of very many, and those strong and well-knit,
minds. In the West, where society was born republican,
where the farmer and mechanic may be always indepen-
dent, where manual-labor schools are growing up rapidly,
and where the prejudices of Europe have less force than
elsewhere, we hope to see the experiment tried ; here, if
anywhere, we think it must succeed. A republican govern-
ment, based upon a republican state of society, the world
has never yet seen ; before fifty years have passed, we trust
that something like it may be tbe strength and glory of this
great valley."
VOL. i. 13
146 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
1837. " DANGERS OF THE WEST. When Anthony
Wayne forced from the Indians of the Northwest the treaty
of 1795, this vast territory was thrown open to all that
chose to flock hither. And who would naturally seek the
wilderness ? Not men of wealth, not men of high mental
culture, but the enterprising and energetic poor : the shrewd
New-Englander, the saving German, the warm-hearted hut
impoverished Virginian, all that would gain bread or
wealth, that would mend or make fortunes. The men of the
West were therefore money-seekers ; they knew and cared
little for the elegances of life, and the voice of the Muses
was as little to their taste as the whoop of the savage ; even
History was not listened to if she told of any thing prior to
1775.
" The character thus formed has since varied, but not
radically changed. The West is still the land of promise
to the needy, and men still come here to mend or make for-
tunes. Although the people are intelligent, although edu-
cation is everywhere countenanced, although many men of
refinement and polish have arisen there, yet is the mass bent
upon gain. And even education, warmly and generously
as it is supported, is half in the pay of Mammon ; boys are
educated rather to 'do well in the world,' than to become
good men, and sincere Christians ; and reading, writing, and
ciphering are very much insisted on, because one cannot
' get along' without them, while a cheerful temper and for-
giving spirit, and a tongue that hates deceit, are very excel-
lent things, but by no means so important as arithmetic.
" Now there are two classes of money-seekers in the
world. The first seek it as a means to some good end ; this
end furnishes their motive, and in gaining wealth they are
developing their best powers. The second class seek wealth
as the means to some end of doubtful propriety, or merely as
itself an end ; they seek it, too, with a spirit of intense devo-
tion ; it is ever in their thoughts, and in every thing influ-
MANHOOD. 147
ences their conduct. These men are narrowing and dead-
ening their best powers; they lose sight of their immortal
destiny, and, however Christian in profession, are practically
unbelievers. To this class the mass of money-seekers every-
where, and in all time, belong.
" If this be so, then national wealth, although the cause
of that civilization which is without, may be the destroying
poison of that civilization which is of the spirit, and which
alone is of value. To a Roman, it was a good argument
against wealth, that it brought in luxury and national weak-
ness ; but to a Christian, there is a far more weighty cause
for distrusting it; it is the individual moral torpor which it
brings about. For us to have canals, and railroads, and
mines, and to be devoid, as a people, of spiritual purity and
spiritual strength, is to sell, not our birthright, but our souls
themselves, for a mess of pottage. No truth spoken by the
Truth-sayer is more practical, than that we cannot serve God
and Mammon ; and it should teach us, that whatever tends to
increase and perpetuate among us the race of mere money-
seekers tends inevitably to unchristianize us ; and let us
never be so short-sighted as to think that a people can be
great, when the individuals composing it are spiritually want-
ing. The material riches of the universe could never raise
from the dust a nation of dead souls.
" It is true that many men, and many statesmen, and
many philosophers too, do not recognize that connection be-
tween the individual and the state which seems to us so im-
portant. They think that because the nation, as one, can be
rich, powerful, and influential, while it cannot be spiritually-
minded, therefore wealth and power are the only things in
which the nation is concerned. But if it be a truism that
the nation exists only for the good of those composing it, it
exists of course for their highest good, and whatever is at
enmity with that highest good must be at enmity with the
true good of the state, for it is opposed to that for which the
148 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
state exists. But the intense spirit of gain, which fills a
money-seeking community, is opposed to the highest good
of the members of that community, for the essence of it is
selfishness, and in its exercise the nobler powers of the soul
are never called into action. However valuable, then, wealth
may be when gained, it can never outweigh the evil attend-
ing its gain, when pursued in the spirit so prevalent in a new
and growing country ; and however heterodox the opinion,
we have no doubt it were better for our railroads to be de-
stroyed, our mineral wealth annihilated, and our soil impov-
erished, than for the present respect and appetite for money
to increase, or even to remain where it is now. The present
influence of riches is the predominance of the material over
the spiritual ; it is the sign of disease ; and it is with grief
that we feel that the means for spiritual growth which me-
chanical philosophy, wonderful natural abundance, and free
institutions have given us, have not, thus far, been duly im-
proved. It is with grief that we feel the noblest talents and
purest characters of our country so enwrapped in merely
worldly good, giving over all spiritual concerns to the cler-
gy, and living six days in the seven as if Christianity was to
them what the ancient mythology was to the philosophers, a
bawble to amuse the multitude with ; as if they knew of no
moral vision that looks beyond this life, and immortality were
a dream.
" If what we have said be correct, the people of the West
have among them, naturally and inevitably, a dreadful foe
to their best good ; it has been born among them ; it is their
misfortune that it is in their households, not their fault, but
it will be their fault if it be suffered to remain. Every
patriot and every philanthropist is bound to assist in the de-
struction of this foe to humanity and to republicanism : to
humanity, because the love of money deadens all of human-
ity that is not perishable ; and to republicanism, because,
while wealth is so sought and so reverenced, the poor will
MANHOOD. 149
envy and war against the rich. The mass must ever be
poor, and, while riches are held out as the criterion of influ-
ence, that mass must be at variance with the few, so that an
aristocracy of birth would scarce be more anti-republican
than the existing aristocracy of long purses.
" But in the West, not only is wealth sought, but it is
sought very generally in the worst of ways, by speculation.
Whether speculation be first-cousin to gambling or no, we
care not; one thing is certain, that the effect on the mind
and character is the same, whether our fortune depend on a
chance turn of a die, or an equally chance turn of the
money or produce. It is folly to say, that all commercial
and agricultural operations are affected by chance, for if
this authorizes speculation, it authorizes gambling. The
minds of a speculating people must be affected, and affected
injuriously, by their business.
" The men of the West, then, have to contend, first, with a
prevalent spirit of mere money-making, and second, with a
disposition to make it short-hand ; both these things are
natural products of their soil, but, like many productions of
a rank soil, are themselves rank poisons.
" Again, the West was born democratic ; it did not feel
or fight its way from loyalty to independence, but began in
the faith that all men are born free and equal, a faith well
suited to a race of pioneers. One result of this faith has
been, that the principle of reverence has grown weak this
side the mountains, while the sense of self-dependence, and,
as a common consequence, of contempt for all that is op-
posed to self, has grown strong. This is an evil ; not a
political, but an individual evil ; not an evil that proves
democracy unsuited for us, but one that proves it faulty.
It is an evil because no principle of action leads more con-
tinually to improvement than a mistrust of ourselves, and a
due reverence for others, and other things than those that
we have ; while contempt, based more upon self-esteem than
13*
150 LIFE OF JAMES II. PERKINS.
the demerits of what we contemn, is the mortal foe of ad-
vancement, and the very opposite of Christianity. It is bet-
ter to revere what is in itself contemptible than to despise
what is in itself venerable, and imperfect beings must err
on one side or the other. One tendency of democratic in-
stitutions, then, upon individuals, is to unchristianize them,
by destroying Christian humility and elevating Satanic pride,
and the evil results of this tendency we see daily in our
public halls no less than in our private kitchens. We see
everywhere what is called self-respect, but what is too often
in one station unholy self-reliance, in another, assumption
and impertinence, and but very seldom that spirit of Christ
which men call cowardice and mean-spiritedness.
" There is another evil coming from democratic institu-
tions. As all can vote, and all be chosen to office, political
rank and politics generally assume an undue stand in our
minds. We soon mistake means for ends, and sacrifice
great good to gain, what, at the best, can but lead to that
good which we give up. The end of the state is to serve
best the highest good of its members ; but in our anxiety to
have some man brought forward, or some measures carried,
we injure our own minds, and mislead all whom we influ-
ence, by a devotion to our object wholly out of proportion
to its value. If as much had been said, thought, and written
about subjects of lasting importance, within ten years, as has
been said about the United States Bank, the character of the
people might have been almost changed ; but the mechanic
lays down his hammer to read politics, the farmer quits his
plough to talk politics ; the merchant leaves his books half
posted to demonstrate the folly of the veto, or the wisdom of
the deposit removal ; even the quiet student forsakes his
books to follow this Jack-a-lantcrn. What if all the women
should turn politicians? We should be shocked, because
their characters, we know, must suffer by the turmoil and
dust. And are men so different that theirs will not suffer?
MANHOOD. 151
What is an electioneering clergyman worth ? How well
does he fit himself to lead in the way to heaven ? And shall
we not follow our leader ? Or are we of other clay than
he ? No ; the truth is, that the great interest felt in politics
by the mass of a democracy injures every soul in that mass,
for it is an absorbing, selfish, earthly, unspiritual interest ;
and being such, it is an evil ; it is opposed to the end of
government, and political freedom is no equivalent for moral
degradation. The slave of the Russian autocrat may be
more fortunate in his chains than we in our freedom, if we
use that freedom wrongly ; and we do use it wrongly, when
we devote ourselves to politics. But let us be understood.
We are friends, not foes, to democracy ; we speak of its
evils, its common and almost certain evils ; but even with
these evils, we prefer it to any other form, with its evils.
So of wealth ; there are evils attending its accumulation,
and all facilities to its accumulation, but it is in itself a
blessing ; and though, if it could not be separated from those
evils, we should rather our lands were poor than rich, yet
we believe it can be ; we believe that men may grow rich,
and yet not be mere money-seekers ; and we believe, too,
that they can live in a democracy, and yet be humble and
give to politics but their due.
" While, therefore, we are in favor of the democratic
system for this country and people, we cannot but see the
dangers of the system ; we cannot shut our eyes to the
fact, that our freedom makes us estimate liberty too often
as an end rather than a means, nor our ears to the flat-
tery poured out upon the mob by those who forget all
but petty self-advancement. Our independence should be
used to provide means for the growth and perfection of our
people in character and spirit, or it is of little value. But it
is not so used ; there is no hiding the truth, that we are pre-
eminently a physical and worldly people. Our common
pursuits, our literature, our education, are all worldly.
152 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
Practical men and practical teaching and practical truths
are all the cry, and by these things we mean men and truths
fitted for this globe and this body, as though, when the last
day comes, the sincere Christian, whose life has been one of
toil and temptation, and who has borne all and done all, not
for wealth or notoriety, but for the good of others and his
own spiritual purity, would not be found vastly more practi-
cal than the richest merchants or most influential statesmen.
" In the love of wealth as an end, in the disposition to
seek that wealth by speculation, in the self-dependent spirit
resulting from political equality, and in the great interest
taken in politics by all classes, we believe may be found the
roots of most of the peculiar dangers of this country, and
in particular of the West. Against those dangers all are
bound to act, at least those that look for an immortality.
And how can they act ? By education, the education of
the young, and the education of the adult. By placing in
the true light the value of wealth, national power, political
notoriety, and political influence, as compared with a warm,
open, pure heart, and a fair, inquiring, unsectarian mind.
" We need not cease to be merchants, because while
trading we should keep justice and kindness more in view
than mere gain ; because we must regard the influence of
every act upon others and ourselves as immortal beings,
rather than the net cash profits of it. We need not quit
politics because we must think of the eternal interests of
those we affect more than our own immediate good. Wash-
ington was a man of business and a politician, and yet
ceased not to be a Christian in every act, and the same is
true of John Jay and John Marshall.
" It is a very commonplace truth, to be sure, that a man
should be pure and kind, but it is not a very commonplace
practice ; nor do w< believe that there is among teachers,
writers, or influential mon generally, any thing like a full
comprehension of the tendency to antagonism which exists
MANHOOD. 153
between business and politics, and Christian duty. It is not
that immorality, or that selfishness even, is apt to result from
trade, speculation, and partyism, but that an unsound, over-
anxious, worldly mind comes from them. Those powers
which we call spiritual, because they refer to a future of
pure spiritual existence, are unused by the common man of
the world ; he cares nothing for the ideal, the perfect, the
poetic ; that natural longing for these things, which exists,
more or less developed, in every soul, has been pointed to
the money-heap, the political office, or the niche of literary
fame, and seeks in seeking them to be satisfied ; it asked
for bread and has been given a stone. In this truth may be
found the explanation of all the complaints of the emptiness
of riches, fame, and power ; the very instinct that leads
men to seek these things is that which should guide them
to the true object, a Christian life. He that said to her of
Samaria, ' Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give
him shall never thirst,' can alone quench that thirst for hap-
piness, for power, for the infinite and eternal, and all the
efforts of others can but hew out broken cisterns that will
hold no water.
" These foes to the true civilization are to be met, I have
said, by education ; not by learning to cipher to the rule
of three, but by a spiritual and religious education, one
that will lead men to change, not only their means, but their
ends, of life."
1837. "PROSPECTS OF THE WEST. We hear daily of
the Great West. In what is the West great ? What do
men mean by this phrase ? Some mean that we have vast
plains and prairies, and giant forests, lakes of sea extent,
and rivers which an English tourist is said to have pointed
to as truly great for a new country. Others mean that our
soil grows much corn, cotton, hemp ; many swine and oxen ;
and holds stores of coal, iron, lead, and salt. A third calls
154 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
the West great, because it will be tlie home of many men,
will exert a vast influence over this land and the world, and
may one day be the centre of learning, and wealth, and
might. But there is a sense in which the West will he,
though it is not now, great ; a sense little dwelt upon, and
worthy, we think, of some thought and remark. The West
will be great, because it will be the scat of a new PRACTI-
CAL PHILOSOPHY, snrial, monil, political, religious, ai,d lit-
erary. In this broad vale, where society was born republican
and Christian, we may, with the eye of faith, look to see a
CHRISTIAN REPUBLICANISM shaping and moulding all things.
" And what is a Christian Republicanism ? It is not, in
social life, a want of caste, and absence of rank ; for as
surely as one star differeth from another star in glory, so
surely will those of varying tastes, powers, and habits walk
apart from one another. In the hour of turmoil, the great
deep may be broken up, and society, storm-shaken and cha-
otic, be devoid of all order and beauty; but when stillness
comes back, the laws of social are as certain as those of
mineral crystallization, and every layer, one above the
other, will return to its place, silently, but surely. It is not,
in politics, the absence of place, pow-r, patronage ; it is not
that democracy which would, by rotation in office, place in
the chair any and every man, nor that which would bestow
office as a reward. It would, on the contrary, forbid the
mass to hold place ; it would silence him that shouted aloud
of his services, and asked to be paid in power.
"The great idea, as Coleridge would call it, the
great informing idea of republicanism is, not that distinc-
tions, and ranks, and privileges are to be abolished, but that
MERIT shall take the place of BIRTH, WEALTH, and PROWESS,
and become the basis of an aristocracy ; and Christian re-
publicanism makes Christ the judge of merit.
" What is merit ? It is genius, learning, experience, and,
above all, character. It is whatever Christianity and the
MANHOOD. 155
good sense of the time may make it. Merit was the basis
of the European aristocracy, at a time when might of arm
was merit. The error, the fatal error, was to make that
which can belong but to the man descend, as an heirloom,
to his sons ; in that hour the true principle of rank was
lost sight of. -
" We wish upon this point to be clear. We therefore
again say, that to us republicanism does not oppose differ-
ences of rank ; it does not teach that men are born equal,
or are ever equal ; it does not level, for to level is ever to
lower. No, it leaves those that are high there, and seeks
to raise others to them ; it differs from other forms of gov-
ernment in this, and only this, that its standard of height,
its principle of classification, is wide of theirs.
" The true republican, then, will not seek to believe, or
to make those about him believe, that he and they are as
good as any ; his desire and struggle will be to make him-
self and his fellows as good, not only as others, but as the
oracle within tells him they should be. When a place is
to be filled, he will vote, speak, write, for the man best fitted
for it. He will revere the wise, and good, and aged, as
men of a rank above his own ; he will look up to them ; they
will be, in his eyes, nobles. But you will say this is so al-
ready. We reply, to some extent it is ; the mass feel, though
they do not see, the idea we have spoken of; they cry
aloud, ' All men are equal,' and bow to thousands ; their acts
mock their words daily, and why? Because they do not
think of inequality, unless in fortune, birth, and education ;
they mean to say, when they speak of all men being born
equal, that no man, merely because of the condition of his
fathers, is high; nor is, for any thing he may have himself
done, entitled to other than the natural and certain results
thereof. For instance, the son of Daniel Webster has not,
because of his father's stand, a claim to any preeminence
himself; nor, having equal merit with his father, can he
156 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
claim to give more votes than others, or receive a support
from the state. But he can and will claim to exert a greater
moral and intellectual influence than others, to stand higher
and be more respected than others. And nature guarantees
his claim, for republicanism is the order of nature ; the
aristocracy of a republic is the aristocracy of nature. It is
an error to think a patriarchal government resembles a
monarchy ; the father rules on the ground of merit, not of
birth ; he rules on the true republican ground, and so does
the sachem of the Indian tribe. And each of nature's gov-
ernors, each and all, rule on the score of merit, merit
measured by the unenlightened sense, while with us, as we
have before said, the judge of merit should and must be
Him that inhabiteth eternity.
" This Christian republicanism we hope will one day
abide in the West ; it is the social arid political philosophy
which is to become the marked faith of this land. Old in
theory, it will, applied to practice, be new ; and though it
must ever come short of the point of perfection, much, very
much, may be done towards its growth and power ; and
much is doing even now, while we write.
" And a new religious philosophy is to spring up here ;
not a new system of religious faith and rite, but new princi-
ples of religious thought, feeling, word, and action. Unita-
rianism we do not hope nor wish to see the one creed here ;
identity of doctrine God never meant should be, for he gave
us our minds, and placed us where we are ; by the last he
made us Christians rather than Turks, and by the first he
made us Calvinists, Methodists, or Unitarians. Until the
original and broad differences between men are done away,
the same proofs, arguments, appeals, will affect them differ-
ently ; and there is as little chance of their agreeing as
there is that the herdsman of Bukharia will become Christian.
He may be made so, and the strong bonds of temper and
training may be rent, and far-sundered sectarians be united ;
MANHOOD. 157
but such a union will not be general. One man is born a
Socinian, another a Calvinist, a third a disciple of Emanuel
Swedenborg. And never in this valley may the Sabbath
smile upon a dead uniformity ! Long may the follower of the
Genevan here pour forth his unwritten prayer ! Long may
the clergyman of the Episcopal Church lose himself in the
beauty and devotion of his most beautiful service, the Ro-
man Catholic, in his vast cathedral, speak the words of truth
and wisdom to those who, of all, most need them, the
Methodist seek God in the wilderness, and the Baptist call
aloud to him from the water-courses ! We would not blot
out one church, nor take from any the faith which forms his
staff.
" The religious ideas which we hope may become the
life of faith here are those of the Reformation, as they
were in the breast of Luther when passion slept, and the
strong voice of his own good and right sense spake out,
Freedom from naked authority ; toleration in heart as well
as act ; modesty, hope, faith, in doctrine and demeanour ;
appeals to the reason not the understanding which rejects
mysteries that reason receives, but the true reason which
takes hold on the mysterious moral, as on the mathematical
truth, and believes rather than passion and prejudice ;
these form the central points of that philosophy which, old
in the world of thought, is yet unknown in the world of feel-
ing and action ; but which we trust may find a dwelling upon
our plains, and walk unfettered among the green pastures,
and by the still waters, of the West.
"Next, as to the literature which we hope may reign here,
even before this age is closed ; and which must, in a meas-
ure, precede the social, political, and religious principles to
which we have pointed. What is the literature of an age
and country ? It is the mass of written wisdom and folly
which has been created and chosen out to bear upon and
mould the mind of that age and place. It consists of the
VOL. i. 14
158 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
school manuals of the grown-up children ; it is one means
by which they educate themselves ; and in this age is a
very important means. The philosophy of a literature is
formed by the general principles in harmony with which it
is built up. The great ideas which we look to see govern
literature in the West are, in the abstract, aged, and, alas!
feeble also ; but, in practice, are little known. They flow
from the object and influence of literature, as given in the
above definition ; they regard writings as means, more or
less mighty, to influence for good or evil all to whom they
go ; and of course look with a keen regard at all who write.
Under their rule, even their foes would not be forced to si-
lence ; for that would be indeed to do evil that good might
come ; but all enemies would be won away from enmity.
Is the literature of this age and land created and governed
by the philosophy we speak of ? When Byron's poetry
runs afar on before Southey and Wordsworth ; when Bul-
wer and D'Israeli are re-read more often than Edgeworth,
and perhaps Scott; when novels too nerveless to live a poor
month overthrow history, poetry, science, is the litera-
ture of this age fitted to raise the age ? We fear not ; and
if the time does go on, and not back, it is, we think, despite
the leading literature. But all truth, whether of time, place,
and act, as in history and science ; of character and nature,
as in poetry and fiction ; or of abstract thought, as in ethics,
all can and should be so chosen and given as to work good.
In all lands there is, at this time, a wish, an effort, to have
such a literature ; but nowhere do we think it can be looked
for with so much hope as in the centre of this country.
" Having now very briefly sketched what the peculiar
philosophy of the West will be, we proceed to say why we
believe it will be so.
"In Europe, society grew from barbarism to civilization;
and the shreds and tatters of barbarism are about it to this
day. Upon our Atlantic coast, society was born republican,
MANHOOD. 159
grew up semi-aristocratic, if not in name in spirit, and was
at maturity once more thrown back to its first state. In
South America it began in aristocracy yet more rotten ;
and to this day is unsound. Now, upon the state and health
of society depends the character of politics, religion, and lit-
erature, as truly as the state and health of society depend
upon them ; it is action and reaction for ever.
" But in the West, as we have said before, society was
born republican ; it first saw the light when the great ideas
which we think are to find a home here were strongly
spoken and written, though very little acted upon. The
peculiar philosophy to which we have before referred was
therefore from the first the philosophy of this section in a
greater degree than of any other section or country.
"This, then, gives us good reason to say that here we
may look for the more full development, not in theory, but in
practice, of this philosophy, for as yet it is not fully devel-
oped ; and, indeed, strong antagonist principles have been
seen among us, and our dangers are equal to our privileges.
" Another reason which leads us to hope much from the
West is the enthusiasm of the Western character. Enthu-
siasm is a virtue ; a virtue much wanting in the New Eng-
land character, and which not unfrequently runs into a vice
at the South. At the West we find a medium ; the warmth
of one zone has combined well with the cool judgment of the
other ; and while there is enough of the former to produce
great changes, and changes based upon abstract truth, and
aloof from mere worldly interest, we think there is good
sense enough growing up among us to keep such changes
from excess.
" A third peculiarity of the West is, that men from all
lands, with all manner of prejudices, habits, and modes of
action, meet here ; and the result of their meeting is, so to
neutralize one another as to leave us open, unbiased, as
a people unprejudiced ; and therefore better ground for
160 LIFE OF JAMES II. PERKINS.
the growth of good or evil seed than any whose modes and
characters were fixed and stony.
" A fourth reason is, that in the West there has been of
necessity much independence heretofore, and that indepen-
dence, and consequent individuality, still continue. Men and
women think more for themselves, are less under the in-
fluence of authority ; they are not all of one growth, made
after one pattern. In most lands, before the minds of the
mass came to act upon politics and religion, they had lost
their first individual freedom ; here they have not to the
same degree. These are our chief reasons for thinking
that the philosophy or great principles of social and political
eminence, of religious thought and action, and literary prom-
inence, will be here what thousands have said they ought
to be everywhere, but what they have not been anywhere.
And if they are, if the West shall make merit the test of
rank, and grant rank to merit ; if those great and influential
doctrines of Christianity, which all revere, should find a
home here ; if free, fair inquiry, and spiritual toleration and
charity, shall dwell here ; and if our literature shall aid in
the growth, and the strength, and the support of these prin-
ciples, then will the West, of a truth, be great. And be
it remembered, that whether all this shall or shall not be
depends upon the educated, influential writers, speakers,
and actors of the West ; upon their backs is the burden,
and, if true to their duty, they will not faint under it. Theirs
is the burden, and theirs will be the honor of success, or
the disgrace of failure ; of failure, for failure may come.
There are many and great dangers about us ; these, at some
future time, we shall attempt to point out. Not that they are
hidden, but custom blinds us to them ; and, indeed, what
many look on as our safeguards, we fear may prove the
source of our downfall."
1837. " MASSES vs. INDIVIDUALS. There is a tendency
MANHOOD. 161
at the present day to attach too much importance to masses of
men, and too little to the persons forming those masses. The
good of the race, of the nation, of the state, of the city, of the
circle, is talked of and made too prominent ; it hides the
good of the men, women, and children as individuals, hav-
ing wants and interests beyond those which they possess as
members of the various masses just named. We lose sight
of the plain truths, that the mass has interests only because
its members, taken separately, have them ; and that they
have also others, as simple individuals. We see that what
is for the good of the whole is for the good of each part ;
but fail to notice that that is not the only good belonging to
each part. The effect of this mode of viewing the subject
is, that too many of us spend our lives in speculating about
the advance of the species, and seeking to contribute thereto ;
or in reflecting upon the state of the nation, its wants and
defects, and how to remedy them. We look at our neighbour
as a man and a republican, and seek, in both capacities, to
enlighten and advance him ; but as an individual, having an
individual character, temperament, and education, preju-
dices peculiar to himself, and powers and knowledge also
peculiar to himself, we do not see him, and do not seek
to improve and develop him. Indeed, it is very probable
we may look upon ourselves as merely members of the race,
the nation, the party, and the church to which we belong,
and fail to discover that we have peculiarities, good and
bad, that should be nourished or rooted out ; and thus the
most important part of self-education is neglected, and we
go down to the grave, our capacities but half developed, our
failings but half cured.
" Again : Not only do we act too little upon others, in
their individual capacities, but also too little as individuals
ourselves. We come to them as members of some mass ;
we join societies, in order to do good ; and our separate in-
fluence, though it does and must exist, is too little noted and
14 *"
162 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
relied upon. ' A corporation,' says the law, ' has no soul ' ;
and men of business tell us it is true ; for corporations,
though just, are not merciful ; the outer rule of right binds
them, but they have no rule of mercy within. Something
of this same soullessncss belongs to all masses and societies ;
and when a society performs an act, it does often but half
the good an individual would have done by the same act.
For instance, a poor man is helped by a society, his want is
supplied ; but there is no fellow, no one person, to whom his
heart springs ; his gratitude is like that which thousands feel
to their theoretic God ; but go yourself for yourself, and
aid that man, and you give food, not to the body alone, but
to the soul, and the good you do is tenfold that done by the
unthanked giver. Or, ask the mechanic whose mind has
been, by turns, lifted by the tracts of the Society of Useful
Knowledge, and the little volumes of Harriet Martineau,
what difference of effect they produced, and you will find
him to the individual teacher grateful ; but the society is an
abstraction, a thing, not a person ; he values the gift, but
the giver has no nook in his heart ; his intellect has been
raised by what he read, but his moral nature has not been
advanced by what he felt.
" Now, we hold all institutions of every kind to be but
means to this one END, the full development of each indi-
vidual in the community. Banks, corporations, governments,
all are means, and means to this end. But the end is lost
sight of. We argue about the policy of this measure, and
the policy of that measure, but seldom attempt to trace out
the ultimate influence of policies and measures upon the
souls, the intellects, and hearts of our neighbours, A. B, and
C. A boy is educated to be a lawyer, merchant, mechanic,
or what not ; but is seldom taught to make each and every
employment of life conduce to his individual growth in
excellence. As a member of society, he is taught to walk in
this or the other path ; but as a child of God, for whose
MANHOOD. 163
good society exists, he is not taught to walk. From the pul-
pit he is appealed to, as an individual ; but where is it im-
pressed upon him, that in every relation, in every situation,
in every conceivable condition, he is, and must act as, an
individual ?
" Let us not be misunderstood. We do not wish men to
act always with reference to their individual interests ; but
with reference to their individual duties, interests, and aims"
September, 1837. " There is one great truth, which must
be the root of vital action in this country, that, under free
institutions, reform must come, not from government or so-
cieties, but from individuals. Dr. Channing has illustrated
and enforced this truth in many ways, but every day makes
me more aware how little it is apprehended. With regard
to the present currency question, for instance, it seems to
be thought by those about me, that legislation can prevent
such earthquake shocks of bankruptcy as those of last year.
In a despotism, the action of government might prevent
them ; but is it not one of the most essential distinctions of a
free nation, that government does not exercise control in
such matters ? So it seems to me. A national bank could
not have prevented the catastrophe ; it did not in 1824-25 ;
it has not now in England. Even if our federal govern-
ment had the power of creating a paper currency, irredeem-
able (as was that of England, till lately), it could riot affect
the matter greatly ; the proportion of bills of exchange to
currency, in a commercial country, is ten to one, and when-
ever individual cupidity is excited, individual credit will be
locked up in forms that, for the time, annihilate it, and a
terrible crisis must follow, not because the one of currency is
gone only, but because nine of the ten of credit are gone also.
No legislation can prevent this, and nothing but individual
principle and wisdom can. Mr. Van Buren is right, to my
thinking, when he says that a commercial overthrow which
164 LIFE OF JA3IES H. PERKINS.
affects London, Paris, Vienna, Constantinople, Alexandria,
and Ispahan, could not have been caused or prevented by
United States Banks.
" Upon the currency question, as one of political econ-
omy, I have seen nothing that satisfied me. I am little able
to judge, but my impression is that the present administra-
tion, in their general idea of opposition to a currency resting
on the faith of corporations, are right. If we go beyond
gold and silver to a representative of them, it seems to me
that nothing but a nation should make the representative for
itself; the whole, as existing in the government, should
alone have the power of making money, that is, issuing
paper.
" On this and similar questions, I take more interest daily,
although so little of a party politician as to be uncertain to
which party I most incline. Indeed, I think every man that
claims to think ought to follow Dr. Channing's example, and
come forward in print or conversation, as his gifts may be,
to assist in the well-keeping of the general mind in politics ;
and this not only because of the immense results, immediate
and ulterior, of every great political movement, such as the
annexation of Texas to the Union, but also because the
most efficient form of national education must, for a long
time, be through politics. Self-government is, and will be,
a passion with the people, as military glory was with the
French, through that is the readiest access to their head
and heart ; those that read on nothing else, argue on
nothing else, and study nothing else, read, discuss, and study
politics. Make them, on that point, honest, far-sighted, spir-
itually-minded, and you make them so throughout.
" In your views as to the true condition of society as
it should le, I most cordially agree. The cause why so
many have failed to inspire on a large scale what succeeded
with a few, was, I think, what I have referred to, they
relied too much on the effect of masses, on government,
MANHOOD. 165
on rules, on creeds. One great point in the Unitarian faith
is, that it speaks to you and me, not to a church. I don't
believe religious corporations have souls any more than lay
ones have, and spiritual truths fall dead on their ears. That
something like a democratic, or to use the true term
a Christian, state of society is to exist in this country, I de-
voutly believe. In the West there is much to favor the idea
that here will be the main seat of this society, and I should
not think the chance lessened if, for ten or twenty years to
come, infidelity should increase here ; the night is darkest
and coldest just before daybreak."
1838. " ASSOCIATIONS, A VITAL FORM OF SOCIAL AC-
TION. In the physical world about us, we see forces of two
wholly different kinds, namely, vital forces and mechanical
forces ; and, in accordance with this distinction, divide bodies
into vital and mechanical. The difference alluded to is seen
broadly in the difference which exists between a draught-
horse and a locomotive engine. It is seen also in the differ-
ence between the warming of the horse's blood, and the
heating of the water in the locomotive's boiler ; or, again, in
the difference between the movement of the horse's limbs,
considered as levers, and the action of the muscles which
give play to those limbs.
" This distinction, so familiar and plain in the material
world, is true also of the mental and moral worlds. Thus,
the common processes of arithmetic are mechanical, so
entirely mechanical, that Mr. Babbage has made his calcu-
lating engine, which is not only far more accurate than man,
but is also far more profound, and has succeeded in puzzling
even the genius of its inventor. But while this engine is
thus mighty in mere calculation, the elements of which are
given it, it is unable to select the elements necessary to the
most simple process ; there must come in the vital calcula-
tor, man. In music we see the same thing ; by no very
166 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
complex process, the various notes may be combined to an
indefinite extent, and every combination be, more or less, a
melody. This may be done by wheels and pulleys, or by
the mind acting mechanically : in truth, the most common
form of musical composition is but a mechanical re-combi-
nation of the elements derived from old tunes, and might be
as well done by an engine as by a mind. But not so with
the melodies of the great Italians ; not so with the harmonies
of Handel and Beethoven. These men acted vitally in their
compositions, and no machine, mental or material, can do
what they did. In poetry, the rhyme and verse are usually
merely mechanical ; and all are aware how much of what
we call poetry is called so because it has rhyme and verse.
But the true poet is no machine ; his very verse is alive : he
does not count his fingers for his numbers ; they, with the
sentiments they embody, flow from his soul,
' Spring to their task with energy divine,
Laugh, weep, command, and live in every line.'
So, too, in painting, statuary, and architecture, we find those
who, with mere mechanical industry, recompose pictures,
statues, and buildings, from the materials about them, and
those who truly create figures, faces, groups, and columns.
The Greeks acted vitally when they built the Parthenon and
the temple of Apollo near Miletus, and our ancestors acted
vitally when from the Druid forest-trees they caught the
idea of the great cathedrals of England and France ; but
we act mechanically, when, from fragments of these several
buildings, we try to recompose a consistent whole, placing
Gothic spires and Saxon towers over Grecian porticos.
" The power which acts vitally we call genius ; that
which acts mechanically we call talent. The man of talent
will construct a most excellent lecture, address, sermon, or
any thing else which can be constructed. But when the hour
of earnest debate comes, and from the very centre of the
spirit a word is needed to restrain, to compel, to calm, or to
MANHOOD. 167
rouse, then the voice of the man of talent is unheard, for
construction will not do ; not only a living, but a life-giving,
power is called for ; and while a thousand history-quarriers
and masters of logic are as if dumb, some son of genius,
who can create, lifts his prophetic tone, and the whole world
follows him.
" And in character we recognize the same distinction.
He whose virtues result from calculated happiness, here or
hereafter, who walks by an external law, instead of an in-
ternal faith, who moulds his moral nature, as a potter the
clay, is a mechanical moralist, and has not yet learned the
vital truth of Christianity. Utilitarianism, in every form,
whether in the orthodox churchman, Paley, or the atheistic
jurisprudent, Bentham, is mechanical, inconsistent with
what is called, in technical, but true terms, vital piety. The
life of the Christian will be true, because truth is his life,
not because truth will buy bread and cloth. Luther was
alive, and so was Fenelon, his opposite in faith and spirit,
as it would seem at first. Erasmus was, morally, a piece
of clock-work, and so, in a great measure, was Benjamin
Franklin.
" But the difference between vital and mechanical action
does not stop with individuals. Many social movements
belong to each class. Thus, in the French Revolution, the
great outbreak was vital, but the constitutions of that time
were mechanical, and could not work or last. So in this
country the republican form is living ; but in Mexico it is a
mere dead image, moulded after our living form, and there
it is powerless.
" But society, which lies behind all governments and
social arrangements, and of which they are but the outer
skin, is always living. If the skin die, it sloughs off, and a
new one comes.
" It would seem, indeed, as if it were meant that society,
like the silk-worm, should grow toward the perfect state, not
1C8 LIFE OF JAMES 11. PERKINS.
gradually and happily, but by fits and starts, with painful
moultings, struggles, and sickness niuh unto death. To
certain periods seem to be given institutions fating for the
time, but not growing as the body within grows, and so suc-
ceeds a season of revolution : not only forms of government,
which are commonly the least vital parts of society, change,
but social organization throughout changes ; aristocracies
cease, democracies come in, or democracies cease and des-
potisms rise.
" Thus, in its day, the feudal system was the vital form
of social arrangement ; but the day went by ; the feudal
system was no longer what the spirit of society called for ;
it was as the second skin of the silk-worm approaching its
third state ; it grew dry and hard, it no longer yielded, as of
old, to the motions of the body within, but cramped it and
cut it with its inflexible wrinkles, until at length the expan-
sion of the social juices cracked the hard case, and the great
worm was left to struggle out of its prison. This moulting
is not yet through.
" Meanwhile, as it would appear, society demands, or
rather produces unconsciously, many new forms to replace
the old ones, which are nearly or wholly done away with in
some parts of the world. It is one of these new forms of
social action that 1 am now about to speak of.
' In all times and lands, it is noticeable that men have not
acted individually. Even those individuals whose great
powers have enabled them to do the most have acted
through bodies of men, classes, and castes. Thus, in Orien-
tal lands, a priesthood ruled ; in (Jreece, a faction ; in Rome,
a patrician order ; in feudal Europe, a church and an aris-
tocrnry. When Peter tin: Hermit roused Europe, he acted
upon classes ; when Hildebrand laid his grasp upon tempo-
ralities, he acted through bis influence upon orders ; when
Luther effected the Reformation, he relied upon the common
interests of many. The Church and the aristocracy were,
MANHOOD. 169
in the Middle Ages, strong enough to produce any result
they wished. They were the true product of the time, and
suited the time. Had a temperance reform been then need-
ed, the Church would have wrought it. Had abolition been
called for, the Church would have effected it. Had it been
necessary to withstand democracy and revolution, the Church
and the nobles would both have helped in the good work.
Even now, in England, the reliance of the Tory party is upon
the Church and the House of Lords ; to them men look in the
great warfare of conservatism with chartism and socialism.
Now all this is right, and while we look the truth fairly in
the eye, and see that we, in these United States, have no
church, in the sense in which Rome and England have, and
cannot, of course, rely upon a church, let us not sneer at
the Oxford divines and their followers, who see no hope in
this dark day of our mother country, save through the
might of church authority, save through the denial of the
doctrines of individual judgment, which have followed the
Reformation.
" But here the progress of democracy has been much
greater than in Europe, though the tendency of all Christen-
dom has been to give up classes, and corporate bodies of
every kind, and to come to simple, direct individualism. In
our government, we recognize only individuals, at least
among whites ; and in social life, the constant effort is to do
away the castes produced by difference of fortune, education,
and taste. The motto upon the flag of America should be,
' Every man for himself.' Such is the spirit of our land,
as seen in our institutions, in our literature, in our religious
condition, in our political contests, for it is this antagonism
to all corporations, all privileged bodies, and castes of every
kind, which lies at the root even of the present political
struggle.
" We have, then, in the United States a curious condition of
things ; no recognized orders, and no church, and yet much
VOL. i. 15
170 LIFE OF JAMKS H. PKIiKINS.
of the same desire for action in IIKISSOS which has always
existed, find which must exist until ignorance and vice cease
from the earth. One result of this condition of things has
been the production of voluntary associations to an immense
extent. 1 look, therefore, upon the system of associated
effort, now so general, as a true and vital production of our
times ; liy means of this system we strive to supplv the
want of a church and an aristocracy. It is a NI;W IOHM of
social derelojimrnl ; not a mere mechanical contrivance,
which cannot last, but a true LIVING IUODE OF ACTION on
the; part of society.
" 1'Yom this point of view, all associated eiFort becomes
highly interesting, and worthy of careful examination. Like
other living things, it is liable to decease, and, with other
earthly things, it will in time pass away, but still, like all
that has life, it is (Jod's work, and should he reverently
dealt with.
" Three forms of associated literary rfrort are seen in
our day.
" First, that which seeks to increase results by u division
of labor. This is seen in our reviews, to which dozens of
persons contribute, whereas, in the last century, Johnson,
Addison, and Steele wrote their periodicals almost unaided.
It is seen in the encyclopaedias, to which contributors arc
co'inted by fifties, while, in the great works of that kind
published a hundred years since, a few did nearly ail the
labor. We have now even a History of England, written
by a do/en dilierent hands : while libraries innumerable, the
result of joint labors, flow from the press.
" The second class of societies consists of those who
gather numbers, in order, by numbers, to aflect the minds
of men, as well as to act more efficiently for some one
object. Such are the temperance, abolition, and various
educational societies.
"The third class consists of those which aim to unite
MANHOOD. 171
men by acquaintance, common interests, and brotherly
sympathy ; not for any one especial object, but for the
wide purpose of banding together in the cause of learning
and religion those throughout the whole country whose
minds and hearts are free to take an interest in such things.
" Religious faith is the basis of all social and all individual
good. But religious faith will no more rest on authority in
this land. Think of it what we may, individual opinion,
and not the decision of a church, must give us our religion.
There is something in this application of individualism to
religion which is startling and terrible ; and no wonder
that many are looking to Rome again, as to the single bea-
con-fire which still stands above this heaving sea of opinion,
doubt, and denial, the Eddystone of the ocean of religious
controversy. To us it appears they look in vain ; that
beacon-fire, to which the world once owed its escape from
shipwreck, is doomed, as we think, to extinction, though the
very storm which will overwhelm it at last may for the
time make it burn the brighter. To us it seems that the
whole course of things is toward the overthrow of authority,
and the fullest reception of the doctrine of the Reformation.
Where, then, is our safety ? Upon what can our religious
faith rest in this land ? It must be upon the extension of
intelligence and virtue, and upon the influence of true and
good men over the ignorant and low.
" Through schools, through lectures, through the press,
by professional labors, intelligence, reverence for what is
venerable, respect for what is GOOD, love for what is beauti-
ful, must be spread abroad. And who can do it? The
Educated Men ; and they only by concert and union. The
writers of our country must feel themselves called on to
work for their country and mankind. Literature must cease
to be an amusement, a mere pastime, an ornamental thing,
a luxury ; it must lose its lightness and become serious, for
by it are to be worked out serious results. Books have be-
172 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
come our pulpits, nncl newspapers our shrines for daily
resort ; if at those shrines we worship Mammon or Lucifer,
and not the true Clod, woe, woe to us and to our country.
" I cannot think it a dream, then, that in our land religion
must depend upon the diffusion of truth and goodness, mainly
through the medium of associated action.
" Man, weak and sinful as he is, cannot possess even
truth without making poison from it, as he makes whiskey
from corn, the water of death from the staff of life. In his
hands freedom is distilled over into libertinism, and unshac-
kled thought ferments, and becomes skepticism and atheism.
Can this be prevented ? Will external authority, political
and ecclesiastical, prevent it ? We think history proves it
will not ; we believe it, at any rate, hopeless to control by
authority, in our time and in the United States. We see
no course open for escape, except unwearied toil on the part
of those who see our dangers, to spread, first, Christian
faith, and second, thorough learning.
" To aid in spreading these, we believe God has given
birth to the associated efforts of the day ; we look upon them
as rital forms of organization, destined, in connection with
the scattered fragments of the Church, and the labors of in-
dividual men, to supply for a season the place of that united
and truly Catholic Church, which, in God's own good time,
may bring into one fold again the scattered sheep of our
Saviour."
1819. " FREE INSTITUTIONS. We believe one half the
world arc puzzled by political views, because they have
never been led to examine the self-evident, commonplace
truths on which the science of the statesman, like that of
the astronomer, rests.
" One such truth \ve take to be this, that by free insti-
tutions we are to understand, not those of a representative
democracy and no others, but whatever institutions are best
MANHOOD. 173
suited to secure FREEDOM to any given nation. A constitu-
tion like that of the United States, if given to Russia, would
cease to be free in its character, because it would (at least
in all probability) lead to utter anarchy, and consequent
individual slavery of mind, and heart, and soul. The insti-
tutions of England, for England, are in the main as truly
free as those of our land are for us. The representative
democracy of France at this moment secures less freedom
than the aristocratic monarchy of Great Britain.
" Again, the whole subject of freedom and free institutions
is too commonly regarded entirely from an Athenian or
Roman point of view, not from that which Christianity
offers to us. Our speculations are pagan in their basis, and
pagan in their results. It is generally the aim of our efforts
for freedom to secure our own rights, but not so to place
ourselves as to be able to secure the rights of all, and do
our own duty to all. The great Christian doctrine, that
liberty comes through, obedience, that the whole value of
liberty lies in its enabling us to be more and more obedient,
and that whatever institutions favor the growth of a spirit of
obedience to God are most truly free, this great doctrine
is unheeded, or denounced as slavish and degrading.
" Whence came that pithy motto which has been so often
dwelt upon of late years, ' Our country, right or wrong' ?
It came from pagan patriotism. It was the very essence of
Spartan and Roman virtue. But such patriotism is not far-
ther removed from Christianity than is the intense individu-
alism which asks at every moment, What are my rights ?
and seldom or never, What are the rights of my neighbour ?
And yet, by free institutions most men understand such as
will give this very spirit of selfishness the fullest play, and
count whatever would lead or would compel them to respect
the claims of other men as so much liberty lost, so much
conservatism and toryism left amid the freedom they enjoy.
IIow can we explain the Red Republicanism of educated men
15*
174 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
in France ? How the strong reactionary spirit ? They are
both, we believe, born of the same practical infidelity,
twins of February, 1848. France, with all her Pope-restor-
ing, is torn and ruled by those who are filled with heathen
ideas ; and hence the danger of her position, the impossibil-
ity of solving the problem of her politics.
" Nor is it far different, we fear, in Germany or Italy.
The monarchs of Prussia, Austria, and Naples, in their va-
cillating careers, have been moved by no spirit of love for
their subjects, no thought of the rights of the people over
whom God has placed them ; neither have those people,
burgesses or proletaries, been more considerate of the claims
of their sovereigns, or those of their fellow-subjects. The
spirit which was present to so great an extent in the leaders
of our Revolution, in Washington, Jay, Jefferson, Adams,
Franklin, the spirit of Christian justice, the spirit which
urged them to seek the good of all, to secure the rights of
all, is unknown, it would seem, in these European revolu-
tions. That spirit has enabled us to approach true freedom ;
without it, we could never have done so. When our Revo-
lution was in progress, the problem of our future was com-
paratively simple, because God's truth was in the midst of
its movers ; the problem offered by Europe is complicated
and dark beyond expression, because in its heart are work-
ing human selfishness and human passion, and not God's
truth.
" At the outset, then, of an inquiry into the nature of free
institutions, we should call to mind these old truths : that
those governments are truly free which secure the freedom
of the people living under them ; that freedom lies, not in
the absence of restraint, but in the power of obedience to
God, in the power of doing our duty toward all men, and
granting their just claims ; and that free institutions are
impossible among a heathen people, so that liberty in Rome
now, if Rome be practically pagan, is as much out of the
question as it was in the time of Tully.
MANHOOD. 175
" These, we say, are old truths, and yet we well know
that many will not admit them. At the risk of being very
tedious, therefore, we offer a few illustrations.
" When we speak of civil freedom, and free governments,
it is always understood that we speak of something to be
desired. But the liberty which is desirable for any man,
really good for him, is not absolute liberty, freedom from all
law, human and divine ; it is, plainly, relative liberty,
freedom from all that cripples him, hinders his true growth,
from all that keeps him down or drags him down. But the
amount of freedom which is good for the man is bad for the
boy; that which helps the Briton may prove the ruin of the
Spaniard or the Sicilian. What is true liberty for one peo-
ple, therefore, may be licentiousness for another; and those
institutions which are the source of life to the former may
be the means of bringing death to the latter. But if by free
institutions we mean something desirable, and if no institu-
tions can be absolutely free, how can we hesitate to give
the title to those which best secure the liberties of the nation
to which they belong, and to refuse it to such as lead to
popular tyranny, the despotism of a demagogue, the drag-
ging down and holding down of countless human souls, even
though these things be done by a representative democracy,
or a democracy pure and direct ?
" But if the only freedom worth having or talking about
is that relative liberty which is befitting the condition of the
person or the nation, if we are none the less free, when
fetterless and at large, because the might of gravity binds
us to the earth, and by its very bond enables us to move, to
turn, to stand, to be free, instead of driving like leaves be-
fore the wind, slaves to the mightiest impulse, is it not
clear that the highest freedom we can attain to is obedience
to God's will, obedience to the centre of spiritual gravita-
tion ?
" What is the essence of slavery ? Is it not the power of
176 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
a fellow-man over us, by which our intellectual and spiritual
progress is deadened or destroyed ? Let us be satisfied,
that to be absolutely under another's bidding will secure our
progress most effectually in every thing that belongs to mind,
heart, and soul, in all that links us to eternity, and
such submission would cease to be slavery, or slavery would
cease to be hateful. But no progress is possible without
submission to the Infinite One ; in obedience to him lies the
source of all growth ; his ' service,' therefore, in the beauti-
ful language of the English Church, ' is perfect freedom.'
But we cannot serve God if we fail to fulfil our duty to-
wards all men, and their just claims on us. These things
granted, and they are but Christian truisms, it is the
simplest corollary that freedom and free institutions are
impossible where paganism rules, even though it be in the
capital of Christendom itself.
" But these commonplaces are not the only ones which
lie at the foundation of a just understanding of the nature of
free institutions, and a neglect of which, because so simple
and self-evident, hinders or makes useless all our inquiries.
It is never to be forgotten, for example, that governments,
that political systems, are powerless by themselves to set a
people free, or even to secure freedom when it has been
obtained ; but that in conjunction with social arrangements,
educational and religious institutions, and the inborn charac-
ter of a people, governments become of immense impor-
tance ; all the other agents being comparatively uninfluential
so long as the political system is adverse to Christian liberty.
A just estimate of this mutual support which Social institu-
tions lend to Political, and Political to Social, would prevent
the exaggerations of the Associationists on the one side, and
those of their blind opponents on the other. No represen-
tative democracy could enable a nation to live in freedom if
the family were abolished, property made insecure, or re-
licrion utterly neglected by the state. But the home may
MANHOOD. 177
remain unviolated, the earnings of the citizen untouched,
and Heaven be appealed to hourly, and yet the influence of
a despotism like that of Turkey or Russia shall prove fatal
in countless ways to the true liberty of heart and soul.
Nay, it is not despotism alone which may prove thus fatal.
The aristocratic spirit of England exerts upon thousands an
enslaving power ; the ultra democracy of Athens was as
deadly as the tyranny of the Caesars ; and even in our own
pattern land, and with a government which, for us, and
upon the whole, is as good as man has yet attained, even
with us, despite of homes, and property, and religion, the
popular element of our political condition, acting through
the press and public opinion, strips multitudes of the free-
dom which they nominally enjoy.
" True views in relation to the connection which exists
between Social and Political arrangements are, in our day,
peculiarly needed. The masses of men have never suffi-
ciently understood the worthlessness of laws and rulers to
secure freedom when the system of society was adverse to
its existence. Even now, the suffering millions of the Brit-
ish empire look to Parliament for that which Parliament can
never bestow ; trust to free trade as in itself a specific for
the evils which spring from ignorance, vice, and selfishness ;
and almost hope to put an end to the potato-rot by the ballot-
box. How constant is the outcry against the English gov-
ernment because it does not destroy the miseries of Ireland !
and yet the main portion of those miseries England can no
more do away by legislation, than she can legislate away
the clouds which so often threaten her harvests. In our
own country, even with the wide diffusion of knowledge
which has taken place, and which has turned countless
minds to the influence of social arrangements without mak-
ing them converts to any of the schools of reform,- even
in these United States men look to the election of a presi-
dent or a senator with a vague hope that the triumph of one
178 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
party or the other, as their own views incline, will bring
about results which can follow only upon social changes.
The poor but ambitious mechanic, galled by the undue influ-
ence of wealth, trusts that the success of some anti-bank
candidate will do away the inequality which poisons his life,
and turns with contempt from the Christian, who would bring
all classes together without regard to property, upon the
ground of equal excellence and intelligence, as from an
ineffectual dreamer, whose impracticable schemes will never
remove the mischief they aim to destroy.
" But while, on the one hand, the multitude have too little
comprehended the vast influence of social institutions upon
politics and individual freedom, there is, on the other side, a
growing body of thinking and enthusiastic men, who are dis-
posed to underrate the power of political systems, and care
too little for the machinery of government. To them the
limits of the veto power, the theory of representation, the
tenure of judicial offices, the mode of choosing judges, and a
hundred similar questions, are matters of no moment. So-
cial reform, land reform, absorb all their energies. They
are not, what we wish the ultraists on either side would be-
come, at once men of to-day and of the future ; advocates
for some small, but most needful reformation, and at the
same time prophets of, and pleaders for, a reformation
which shall go to the root of existing evils, and prepare the
way for the second coming of our Lord.
" At the threshold, then, of our inquiry, we would keep
clearly in mlnd,Jirst, that those are free governments which
secure the whole spiritual freedom of the persons living
under them ; secondly, that the essence of freedom is a
complete capability of serving God and man ; thirdly, that
free institutions must rest on Christian, and not pagan, ideas
of liberty ; fourthly, that no political institutions of them-
selves, unconnected with social, educational, and religious
appliances, can regenerate a state ; and fft.hly, that no so-
MANHOOD. 179
cial, educational, and religious changes, of themselves, un-
connected with political reforms, are able to accomplish
what is desired by us all.
" There is another thought, almost as simple and self-
evident as the above, which meets us at the outset of our
examination. It is, that true freedom, being the capability
of serving God and man, is not a mere negative thing, the
absence of slavery. Most men regard the perfection of free
institutions as lying in the fact, that they leave every man in
a great measure to do as he pleases ; they neither hinder
him nor help him ; they are free institutions because they
are, practically, no institutions at all. But to us it seems
that a truly free government will have its positive as well as
its negative side. It not only will not hinder, but it will
help. It is not freedom to be let alone ; laissez faire is not
the motto of Christian liberty. The common saying, that
the best government is that in which there is the least legis-
lation, appears to us an entire fallacy. We do not want bad
laws, despotic whims, or popular caprices ; but we do need
an abundance of good laws, whereby those things may be
done which can be done only by a nation, laws to secure
the advance of the higher and less material interests which
the individual in his selfishness so constantly neglects. We
may trust every man to manage in a great degree his own
commercial, agricultural, worldly matters; the laissez faire
of the French merchants was sensible advice, for the chil-
dren of this world are wise in their generation. But art,
science, literature, education, religion, these things need
constant aid, countenance, support, from the nation. There
are, then, when we come to discuss free institutions, these
two questions: What will hinder true freedom ? What
will advance and increase it ? In the discussion of these
two inquiries, were they dealt with in an exhaustive manner,
every topic, we conceive, would be taken up which Grimke,
Brougham, De Tocqueville, or any other writer, has consid-
180 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
ered, and taken up under relations that would make it far
more intelligible than it can be when out of its natural and
vital connection, just where chance brings us upon it.
" We have neither space nor inclination to pursue the
consideration of these queries ; but is it not plain that, with
the Christian idea of freedom before us, we at once dispose
of the first topic which suggests itself, namely, What are
the adverse influences of despotism, constitutional monarchy,
aristocracy, democracy, and anarchy? Dispose of it, we
mean, by instantly rejecting the despotism and the anarchy,
as being deadly to ' the complete capability of serving God
and man,' which we have assumed as the essence of free-
dom ; and by accepting monarchy, aristocracy, and democ-
racy, as being, each for some state of society, some point
of national progress, fitted to help, not deaden, this ser-
vice of our Maker and our brother. If we are asked, Why
accept them ? we answer, because in England, as she has
been and is, and in these United States, we see these three
institutions upholding, securing, and forwarding the freedom
that comes from on high."
1849. " REPRESENTATIVES AND CONSTITUENTS. The
people of the United States exercise a direct power, through
the almost universal reception of the doctrine that the repre-
sentative is bound by the instructions of his constituents.
But it is a most vital question, whether such a power ought
to be recognized by a statesman, or approved by a political
philosopher. Out of fashion as it is, we believe in the view
which makes the representative something much more than
an agent. The essence of representation, to our minds, lies
not in its convenience, in the fact that, while all the mil-
lions of a land cannot meet and deliberate, some hundreds,
who shall be the channels through which the wishes of the
millions may pass, can so come together ; but it lies in this,
that the people of a neighbourhood can select their wisest
MANHOOD. 181
and best man, and do it with great certainty, while they can-
not judge of details of statesmanship with any certainty at
all. The wise and good man, being chosen, becomes, not
the agent of those who chose him, but their representative ;
he stands in their place, and is independent of them and the
world. We may be told that good and wise men are not
selected, but violent, noisy partisans ; and why ; Because
of this very doctrine of instructions ; or rather, because of
that overruling vanity and folly from which this doctrine
springs. ' Measures, not men,' has become in practice the
American motto, and no one can estimate the evil that has
followed its adoption. Were the directly opposite assumed,
it would be far wiser, to think only of the men we elect,
and nothing of the questions they are to determine. But
this, we know, cannot be done. Into the ground of our esti-
mate of a man's wisdom and capacity enters our knowledge
of his views on certain great subjects ; and we reject him as
a representative, if he .vitally differs from ourselves upon
them. But this is a wholly different thing from dictating to
him, after he is chosen, how he shall vote on the points in
reference to which he, in all human probability, knows a
hundred times more than any member of the majority that
undertakes to instruct him. The idea that the law-maker is
to obey orders causes us to send blockheads to our legisla-
tures ; and having blockheads, instruction, indeed, becomes
needful. Could we return to the doctrine of those who
wrote the Federalist, could we make our public men lead-
ers, instead of servants, of the people, we should have
more heroes, and fewer demagogues and flunkies, among
the honorables of the land.
" The ' divine right ' of the man of vast intellect and
upright character to rule us is too little recognized. A
Washington, a Jay, a Marshall, has a God-given power to
claim our obedience. Carlyle's principle of hero-worship,
within limits revealed to every man's conscience, we believe
VOL. i. 16
182 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
in, though we cannot accept his heroes. But the opposite
principle, of worshipping the most available, moulding the
common clay into an idol, and bowing down to it, we utterly
detest. We can sympathize, with all our dislike of his prin-
ciples, in the election of a Jackson, but never in that of a
Polk."
1849. "SOCIALISM. The question as to the (rue rela-
tions of CAPITAL and WORK is the great question of the
coming fifty years. No other, in our estimation, approaches
it in importance. The Christian religion has worked won-
ders in the world, but miracles remain to be wrought.
There have been mighty changes for the better in the rela-
tions between the rich and poor, since the Son of God made
himself known by slow degrees to the minds and hearts of
our ancestors. But after all these changes, we see only the
more clearly, that the state of society depicted so vividly in
' Mary Barton,' a state which is coming nearer to us of the
Western world with every day that passes, is not the condition
of mankind which even a kind and just pagan would have
approved, far less that which Jesus would have instituted.
There must be, either by individuals in the existing organiza-
tion, or by individuals uniting to organize a NEW SOCIETY,
a far deeper application of self-denial, self-sacrifice, and
obedience to the dictates of Christianity in the arrangements
of trade and of manufactures, or the evils which now
threaten England will envelop every portion of the globe
which is physically progressive. Mr. Macaulay and others
may demonstrate, by figures and tables, that the laboring
classes are far better off now than they were in the time of
Charles the Second ; but his tables omit one vital element,
the idea of comfort and well-being which men have now, as
compared with the idea of 1680. He whose views are high,
whose tastes are refined, whose ambition and eternal nature
are awakened, is tried, degraded, ruined, by the very same
MANHOOD. 183
life which would help and improve the tasteless, ignorant,
sensual clown. In our age education, some degree of re-
finement, and, above all, the conception of rising in the
world, are familiar to every man ; but the physical inde-
pendence and well-being of the laborer do not improve as
fast as the requisitions of his immortal nature under the cul-
ture we give him."
This last-quoted passage, from the North American
Review,* is but a part of the testimony which, amidst
the present world-wide struggle between Industrial Feu-
dalism and Organized Industry, Mr. Perkins felt prompt-
ed to bear, and to bear, too, through the organ which
addresses itself most authoritatively to the conservative
classes of the United States. How far he had gone in
asserting the claims of Socialism to respect may be in-
ferred from the following explanatory note of the Edi-
tor, the publication of which is due to the memory of
Mr. Perkins.
" Your article placed me in a dilemma. I had already
written and printed in the forthcoming North American Re-
view an article on ' French Ideas of Democracy and a
Community of Goods,' which is as conservative as yours
is what shall I call it ? reformatory, progressive, radi-
cal. Yet I am persuaded that we both think much alike
about social and political affairs, as we augur nothing but
evil from institutions that are not based on Christianity. The
proof of this fundamental similarity of doctrine under super-
ficial differences is, that far the larger portion of the two
articles can stand side by side in the same number without
any danger to the reputation of the Review for consistency.
But the whole could not thus stand, and I did not wish to
* For October, 1849, pp. 4G8, 469.
184 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
sacrifice the whole because opinions were expressed or im-
plied in certain parts which I could not accept. I have con-
cluded to take what seemed to be a middle course, and the
best that was possible under the circumstances. Instead of
sentencing the whole either to the press or the flames, I
have printed nineteen twentieths of it, and burnt the other
twentieth. I did not feel at liberty to put words into your
mouth, but I thought you would prefer to say to the world a
portion of what you thought, rather than to keep silence
altogether. Your praise of the Tribune newspaper, a sen-
tence or two in your remarks on the judiciary, and the con-
cluding portion of what you wrote about the doctrines of the
Associationists, are left out. The rest is printed as you
wrote it, except that the want of space obliged me to leave
out two of the extracts, and, in order that the article might
not come abruptly to a close, I was forced to add a couple
of sentences in place of your peroration, which I had left
out. What is expressed in those sentences I have no doubt
that you will agree to.
" But these points cannot be fully discussed in a letter. I
have written thus much only to excuse myself for the omis-
sion of portions of your article. Your first purpose was to
gratify Judge Grimke by a complimentary article on his
work in the North American Review ; and this end is se-
cured by the appearance of the article in its present shape.
On other points, I fear, an amicable difference of opinion must
always exist between us. My instincts, as well as my reflec-
tions and studies, tend strongly to Conservatism, or Toryism,
as some would call it, while your natural bias is towards radi-
cal reform. Yet we have both the same end in view, and in
our choice of means we both rely upon moral and religious
culture. You would try some form of Communism, in order
that men might act out their Christianity more fully towards
each other ; while I believe that they must first become
thoroughly Christian in their hearts and lives before any
MANHOOD. 185
scheme of Communism is practicable. When all evil pas-
sions are eradicated, when not only envy, hatred, and mal-
ice, but indolence and emulation and the love of exclusive
possessions, are done away, men can live and work together
like brothers, without the presence of those incentives which
now maintain their activity. When they become as pure as
the earliest converts to Christianity were, they can live to-
gether as those converts did, though even in that band were
found an Ananias and a Sapphira." *
I shall leave the duty of explaining Mr. Perkins's re-
lations to Socialism to our mutual friend, Benjamin
Urner, whose high integrity in every walk of life gives
weight to his words.
" Cincinnati, July 7, 1850. You wish to learn from me
what were the relations of our late friend, James H. Per-
kins, to the Social Reform movement ; how far he inclined
towards Phalansterian, and how far towards Christian Social-
ism ; whether his preaching turned much upon that class of
topics ; and if, in his philanthropic movements, and in his
proposed new religious society, he seemed to aim ultimately
at a practical social organization, &c., &c.
" I think I can confidently state, that Mr. Perkins was a
Christian socialist, as I understand that term to be used by
most writers. He certainly could not be classed as belonging
to any distinct and well-defined school of socialists that has
hitherto existed. He was neither a Communist nor a Phalan-
sterian ; but his discourses and lectures of late years turned
mainly upon social reformatory topics. The substitution of
cooperation in industry and commerce for competition was a
very favorite idea of his, as a means of bringing men's daily
lives into conformity with the requirements of Christianity ;
* Dated Cambridge, September 1st, 1849.
16*
186 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
and that was, I think, the only distinct socialist idea to which
he had attained. The miseries and sufferings of his fellow-
men, the evils of poverty and pauperism, and the vices and
crimes thence resulting, seemed to be constantly present to
his mind, and hence his interest in social reform movements.
He held the belief, that there must exist a social science, but
he did not believe that it had yet been discovered. Some
six or seven years since, he delivered several lectures on
Sunday evenings, from his pulpit, on Owen and Fourier, and
their social theories, with the view of inducing his hearers
to study and investigate the social question. He gave Fou-
rier the credit of truthfulness, sincerity, earnest devotion of
a long life to the good of his race, and the possession of
profound genius ; but he considered his theory fallacious,
as being founded upon the, to him, erroneous doctrine of the
essential goodness of human nature. Granting that funda-
mental premise to be true, he thought Fourier's system was
profoundly plausible. ' According to the views of man held
by Fourier, man wants the baker and the butcher ; but ac-
cording to my view, he is sick and wants the doctor.' So he
expressed himself. Some three years since, Mr. Perkins
called on me and inquired as to a fund which he had heard
was being made up for the purchase of the writings of
Fourier and of his disciples, for circulation among inquirers,
and contributed to that fund voluntarily, and encouraged that
object as one highly useful. When Mr. Allen was an-
nounced, in February, 1848, as having arrived here for the
purpose of lecturing upon Association, 'Mr. Perkins made
the occasion the subject of his discourse on Sunday morning
from his pulpit, and urged his hearers to attend that gentle-
man's lectures, and to study the problem of socialism. He
fvlso joined Mr. Allen in his course, and delivered one lec-
ture himself, in which he treated what he called the common-
sense view of Association and Social Reform. These two
discourses or lectures were reported and published here in
MANHOOD. 187
the Morning Herald, and I think they were republished in
the Harbinger. In the constitution of the Relief Union of
this city, an organization coextensive with the city, for the
purpose of relieving the destitute poor of the city, without
reference to sect or class, of which society Mr. Perkins may
be said to be the father, in that constitution, as prepared
by him, is introduced a provision for stated regular meetings
to be held by the society, for the discussion of the socialist
question, ' Whether it be possible to abolish pauperism, and
if so, by what means ; or, if impossible, whether some mode
of relieving the poor could not be devised better than that
of alms-giving.' And in his published discourse, setting
forth his principles, objects, and plans of proceeding for the
proposed new religious society, he also made provision for
the same purpose.
" I remember hearing him make the remark, in a conver-
sation some three or four years since, that the Fourierists
seemed to him to be animated by a more self-sacrificing,
humanitary, and Christian spirit than any class of men of
that time. Of the universal prevalence of selfishness, social
evils and imperfections, he was very sensibly conscious ;
and of the hopeless inefficiency of all existing political and
religious organizations as means to a higher and truer state
of man, he was also convinced. Of men's ' pietizing ' on
Sunday, and yielding themselves up to selfish tendencies
during the week, he thought and felt as all truly enlight-
ened men now do. For a great change in the state of man,
individual and collective, he ardently aspired. But he had
no consistent philosophic views as to the method of effecting
the change. In the Phalansterian doctrines of passional
attraction, of a divine social code, in harmony and adapta-
tion to which man's soul is constituted and impassioned, of
the possibility of so coordinating each human being to his
fellows, to nature, and to God, as that universal integral
development, universal unity, and harmony shall result, in
188 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
the absence of restraints and constraints of reason, in this
he did not believe. He seemed to cling rather to the com-
mon idea, that, in the formation of human virtue and the
true Christian character, a conflict between duty and incli-
nation is necessary. He seemed to trust in no method for
effecting a change in the condition and well-being of man-
kind, such as he hoped for and conceived to be possible,
other than that of persuading men to do rightly. V\ e may
know what right conduct is, unerringly, from the teachings
of Christ ; and to bring men's lives into conformity with the
life of Christ, the means is an appeal to their conscience.
This means having been in operation for many centuries,
without resulting in the desired change, he hoped for success
in future, not by the adoption of new means, but by a more
vigorous and better systematized application of the old. In
short, he was not a social philosopher, but a Christian pld-
lanthropist, who sympathized with socialism because it is
in sympathy with his Christian philanthropy.
" Mr. Perkins frequently spoke of the inadequate compen-
sation which many classes of laborers receive, particularly
women, and argued that it was the Christian duty of employ-
ers and of purchasers to pay what the necessities of the
employed required, not what their necessities compelled
them to accept ; and according to this rule he, I believe,
practised. I remember selling him a ream of writing-
paper, and naming the common price, but stating that the
manufacturer for whose account I sold it authorized me to
dispose of it for a less sum rather than miss making sales.
Mr. Perkins insisted on paying the higher price, as probably
the more just one. A more conscientious man it would
probably be ditlicult to find than Mr, Perkins. He was, I
believe, very reluctant to go in opposition to what he knew
was pleasing to his intimate friends ; but when he was con-
vinced that duty required it, he could act with heroic disre-
gard of their ill-founded prejudices. An occasion of this
MANHOOD. 189
kind occurs to me, which I will mention. The socialists
and reformers in Cincinnati, on the occasion of Fourier's
birthday, in April, 1848, celebrated the progress of social-
ism, as manifested by the French Revolution of February.
A committee for the invitation of guests to the festival was
raised, and Mr. Perkins was requested to give his name and
services as one of that committee. He promptly acceded
to the request, and invitations were accepted and responded
to, which would have been treated with no respect had not
his name been connected with them. By this act he be-
came in a degree identified with ' Fourierism,' and persons
who before could not hear the word mentioned with pa-
tience now began to think that socialism could not be so
very bad after all."
The deliberateness of judgment, moderation, extreme
caution, yet independence in obeying his mature convic-
tions of duty, which characterized Mr. Perkins in the
advocacy of socialism, were yet more distinctly mani-
fested in regard to our great national problem, the lim-
itation and removal of slavery. But here again my
friend, so far as possible, shall be his own interpreter.
The passages already given from his letters while in
the West Indies will show how early in life his indignant
disgust was excited against the institution of slavery ;
and the following extracts will prove how ready he was
at all times, calmly, yet unflinchingly, to uphold what
he saw to be the right. The remarks in relation to
fugitive slaves are of special interest at a moment when
so many prominent political aspirants have slipped on
the leash of the slave power, and have volunteered as
catchpolls.
1836. "SLAVE EDUCATION. The so-called friends of
190 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
the negro may be divided into two great classes, those who
look on him as a brute, and those who think him a man. If
the former wish him free, it is that he may have more yam,
hominy, and sleep ; the latter would break his chains, be-
cause the enchained man can never properly perfect the
powers that belong to him as a man. One of the first class,
after a visit to slave lands, will often defend slavery, because
the African has better feed and a wider sty than the English
and German peasants. Should one of the second class go
with him, he would think of the palsied intellect, the stran-
gled affections, the broken sense of right, and the entire
moral stupor, that are scarce separable from slavery, how-
ever kind and Christian the slave-owner. The first would
say, ' The slave is happy ; he wants no more than he has ' ;
the last would think, ' How miserable this man, that he
knows not even his degradation ! '
" To those who belong to the class of animalists, and who
regard freedom as a means to present enjoyment merely,
this paper is not addressed. We cannot go so far back, at
present, as to discuss the question with them. We would
now speak to those who believe the negro to be in kind A
MAN, who believe freedom to be invaluable as a means to
intellectual and moral improvement, and who believe it
every man's duty to assist those properly within his influ-
ence to improvement, and therefore to freedom. To all
such we state but a truism, when we say that, if to the slave
present freedom would be the means of improvement, pres-
ent freedom is his right ; but if, in consequence of his
unfitness to use freedom aright, or because of laws that de-
grade the free blacks, present freedom would not be a means
whereby he may improve, that then it is not his right, nor is
his master, by any principle, bound to free him.
" To the little child, present freedom would not be a
means of improvement, and he is kept under restraint ; to
the idiot and insane man it would not be, and we confine
MANHOOD. 191
them, even when not likely to injure others ; we confine
them for their own sake.
" But though the parent does right to restrain his son, be-
ing a child, what would we think of him should he do nothing
to fit his son to become free ? Though he that has charge
of a lunatic is not only just, but kind, when he binds his pa-
tient even with fetters of iron, if need be, how unjust and
inhuman would all think him, should he use no exertion to
restore the poor wretch to reason ! And what is the slave ?
He is a little child, needing restraint, needing punishment,
but more than all needing education. He is a man void of
sense, whose limbs it may be needful to fetter, that he may
be cured of his disease, and fitted to serve and to advance
himself.
" If the negro be in kind a man ; if man be immortal, and
destined ever to advance in intellectual and moral perfect-
ness ; if to this advancement freedom of will and self-de-
pendence be essential ; and if it be every man's duty to
assist his fellows, then it must be that the negro, however
degraded and unworthy now to be free, still has the right,
not to liberty, but to that process ivhich will Jit him for lib-
erty ; and it must also be the duty of all that can influence
him to urge their influence to this end ; it must be that the
slave-owner is bound to educate him, that those who can
influence the slave-holder are bound to enforce this duty.
" In this faith we speak, not as abolitionists, not as agita-
tors, not as wishing to excite in any passion or unkind
feeling, but as Christians, who think the African a man,
having the privileges of a man, and, above all, the privilege
of improvement. We are for ulterior freedom and imme-
diate action that will fit for freedom. Were we now in
New England, however, even this opinion we should think
it unwise to publish ; but standing as we do, upon the limits
of the Slave States, and knowing that, of the little circle our
voice will reach, many are slave-holders, we speak with
192 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
more boldness than if afar off; for we have no fear that
calm argument addressed to the slave-holders, and published
in a Slave State, will be mistaken by any for agitation. But
while we say this, we would dissent wholly from the doctrine
that slavery is a mere political question. It is, and the laws
of all Europe and America relative to the slave-trade recog-
nize it as being, a MORAL, question, in which every man, as a
man, is interested. The means by which slavery shall be
done away in any State belong to politics and that State ; the
propriety and duty of doing it away belong to morals and
the race.
" We are, as we have said, for an education which will
fit the slave for freedom. By this we do not mean that he
should learn at once to read and write ; that he should study
geography, grammar, and arithmetic. No ; the education
which the bondman needs is that of the character, that
which will govern action. A judicious father educates his
son by teaching him to restrain his impulses, to seek his best
interests, to follow the path of duty ; little by little he lifts
him to manhood, giving him one right after another, and
ever-increasing freedom, until imperceptibly all restraint is
done away. In many of the West India Islands the British
government acted on this system ; it forbade excessive pun-
ishment ; it gave the slave a right to prosecute his master ;
it appointed ' protectors of the slave ' ; it gave every slave
so much time, so much land, a day to sell the produce, and
a right to carry it to market, the proceeds were all his own.
Many of the planters carried on a continued traffic with their
own slaves, and paid them daily for eggs, poultry, and fruit.
In this way the slave learned to respect the rights of others,
in order that they might respect his ; he learned to labor for
his own good, and to love labor, so directed ; he found it
needful to restrain his impulses, and adopt principles of ac-
tion ; self-dependence, foresight, and forethought became
familiar to him ; he saw the value of justice, of confidence,
MANHOOD. 193
of morality ; his moral powers were developed ; he became
more and more a man, and more and more fitted for perfect
liberty ; and when, upon the 1st of August, 1834, the slaves
of Antigua, where there were fifteen to every white man,
were made absolutely free, what was the consequence
Neither bloodshed nor tumult, but a continuance, and even
increase, of prosperity ; the slaves had become men, and
like men acted and labored.
" Such was the effect of governmental education ; but that
of the individual slave-owner may do infinitely more. An
instance of very thorough and effectual education of this
kind came to our knowledge some years since. A gentle-
man in Cuba was called upon to take charge of a plantation
upon which were three or four hundred negroes of a noto-
riously bad character. His resort was at once to the whip,
and he soon distinguished himself by his severity. But hav-
ing observed the absence of all proper feeling in the slaves,
and rightly supposing -this to be in a great measure the
cause of their misbehaviour, he set about a reform. First,
he made them acquainted with their rights under the Spanish
law, and also with his rights ; he gave them warning that he
should punish them if they interfered with his, and showed
them how to obtain redress if he meddled with theirs. He
next made known to them a code of laws for the estate,
giving them rights not given by the law of the island. By
this code he made it penal for any white man to insult or
violate the wife or daughter of any slave ; to take property
from any ; to strike any, unless with the appointed instru-
ment of punishment, and, except in urgent cases, after a
trial before him ; the women were governed by female dri-
vers, and punished only by women ; theft, adultery, and
other crimes among the slaves themselves were punished
severely ; every morning, like an Eastern sovereign, he held
court, heard all complaints, received the evidence of all
parties, and did justice as he best might. Punishment, by
VOL. i. 17
194 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
this system, became inevitable, and was recognized as justice,
and not revenge. By pursuing tbis system thoroughly, by
placing confidence in tbose that deserved it, and by never
deceiving them himself, he in a few years brought his re-
fractory blacks to such a state, that the whip was abandoned ;
the desire to gain the good opinion of, and to stand fair with,
their fellows made all work cheerfully ; and a friend who
visited the plantation two years since told us he had seen a
slave faint in the field, rather than be supposed desirous of
' shirking.' Indeed, so strong was the feeling of duty among
the slaves, that a rebellious one was put down at once by
his fellows ; he could not withstand the public opinion among
them.
" Any one acquainted with the course pursued by Fellen-
berg in the education of the low and vicious of Switzerland,
will recognize the system we have just sketched as be-
ing essentially the same ; in both cases the result was suc-
cessful.
" But, alas ! there are few like Fellenberg, and fewer,
perhaps, like the planter of whom we have spoken. The
main hope for the education of the slaves rests upon the legis-
latures of the Slave-holding States. Let them take measures
to learn exactly what has been the result of protective meas-
ures in other slave lands ; let them, from the experience of
others, satisfy themselves that it is sound policy, as well as
Christian duty, to elevate the enslaved black, and we may
then have some faint hope of seeing the bond go free ; but
we cannot discern even a ray of hope in any other direction.
" As, by the supposition, all fear of trouble and bloodshed
from the mode of emancipation proposed will be done away,
the only objection remaining to the freedom of the black is
this, that he will become our fellow in all things, which will
not be agreeable. To this we need only say, if you are sat-
isfied it is your duly to free the slave when fit for freedom,
it is needless to talk of possible results, however disagreea-
MANHOOD. 195
ble : if his freedom will end in doing MORE MORAL WRONG
than it cures, keep him enslaved, but do not, to offset the
commands of duty, present the dictates of taste. Or the
objection may assume this form. If the black be set free,
however quiet, he will at last drive the white from the coun-
try by outworking him, by getting the capital into his own
hands, for the white cannot, in Southern lands, compete with
him. To this we answer, that it is yet doubtful if the white
cannot compete everywhere with the negro, and very far
from being true, that the best hand-laborer will have the most
capital ; intellect does much more than brute power to accu-
mulate wealth ; and, indeed, were all the premises of the
objection true, what Christian man could urge it as a fair
conclusion, that slavery ought still to exist ? The premises,
in substance, allege that God has fitted the negro only to
live in Southern countries by fair means ; the conclusion is,
that therefore foul means should be used to enable the white
to live there. To the "man that thinks slavery no WRONG,
the argument may be irresistible ; to those whom we speak
to, it must be without force.
" From what has been said, if we have spoken clearly, it
will be seen that we believe in Gradual Emancipation, not,
however, meaning by that term what is usually meant. We
do not believe it expedient or right to free the slaves by in-
stalments, so many one year, and so many the next. The
laws of Slave States, touching free blacks, prevent freedom
from becoming a means of improvement. Nor have we any
greater faith in setting free a generation of pickaninies,' the
children of slaves, and of necessity undergoing no course
of parental education that would fit them to act like freemen.
These kinds of gradual emancipation give liberty, but strip
it of its main power, its true value. But let a course of
legislation, acting upon the whole slave population, and fitted
to raise the character of that multitude, be persisted in ; let
those that sway public opinion give their weight, not only to
196 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
humanity, but to the plan pursued by the Cuba planter ; let
the religious and moral not only think, but feel, on this sub-
ject, and we may then have the hope of seeing the slaves,
father and child, old and young, all brought to that point
when all may be made free, uninfluenced by the degrading
laws that Slave States feel bound to pass respecting free ne-
groes. They may be made free, not necessarily to vote and
to govern, that is no essential point of freedom ; nor to
mix socially, and intermarry, with the white, how that shall
be must depend on the will of the whites ; but free to use
their will, intellect, conscience ; free to learn the truth ;
free to worship God, and to grow toward that perfection
for which, if they be indeed men as we are, God has fitted
them.
" To the man that denies the negro to be possessed of
the same powers with himself, our argument can have no
weight ; to the man that has no faith in eternity and an
eternal growth, it can have none ; to him that thinks it no
duty of his to aid his fellows, it can have none ; and lastly,
to him with whom worldly interest is almighty, it can have
none, and alas! how many, and how many honest men
too, do these classes contain ! But if there be any who think
it their duty and high privilege to help others in their onward
progress, and if they number the black among those others,
they will, we feel assured, see that the law which binds the
father to educate the son which God giveth him binds also
the slave-owner to educate the child that is born his slave.
How he may best be educated is a question of expediency ;
what we would urge is the propriety and policy of action by
the slave-holders to ascertain what mode is the best, and of
immediate action."
1837. " THE PROPOSAL TO ANNEX TEXAS TO THE
UNITED STATES. The question is fairly before the people,
Shall we take Texas into our confederacy ?
MANHOOD. 197
" To the Slave States this question will be vital ; not in
the sense in which the advocates of annexation would use
that term, but in this sense, if Texas be received, it will
be either with the stipulation on both sides that slavery shall
never exist there, or without that stipulation. If the Slave
States agree to such an exclusion, they will give the Free
States a pledge of true abolition principles, which will wholly
change the relations of the two. If they refuse, they will
take a step that can mean but this : ' We wish to see
slavery continued, extended, and created,' and the inevita-
ble result must be DISUNION.
" It is useless to hide the truth ; it is useless to doubt that
the moral feeling of the world will compel the North to sep-
arate from a country which, from motives of worldly expe-
diency, dares to countenance the abstract right of man to
enslave man. When the South defends slave-holding by
stating the impossibility of setting her slaves free, she uses
an argument that the world can understand, and that, with
open brow, may be pleaded before the throne of God ;
but if, to increase, or keep, political power, she takes one
step towards the increase of slavery, or the extension of it
within her limits, it must be with a face turned earthward,
and a cheek burning with shame at her own want of moral
courage, or else with full defiance of man and God, and
a brazen front, which it needs no prophet to foretell will soon
be scathed by the lightnings of the Almighty.
" The South has said that she was opposed to the intro-
duction of slavery, and the world has believed her. If such
be the truth, she can use but one argument in favor of receiv-
ing Texas, slavery being permitted therein. It is this,
I have been placed where I am by others, and what they
did I agree to have been anti-Christian ; but. being where
I am, I shall be ruined in all worldly matters unless I now
repeat their act, that is, do myself what I consider anti-
Christian.
17*
198 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
" It needs no argument to show that this is precisely the
reasoning of the cutthroat who has been ruined by the good
luck or knavery of another, the reasoning of the man that
burns your house because his father has left him destitute,
or so arranged matters that he will soon be ruined unless he
burns it.
" Where would the man, who, in these times, should
attempt to save his property by fraud and wrong-doing, be
more scorned than at the South ? And will the South go
and do likewise ?
" But if, despite all that has been said to the contrary, the
Slave-holding States at last join with Governor McDuffie in
thinking this peculiar institution their chief blessing, security,
and stronghold, what then? CAN THE DEAD AND THE
LIVING BE ONE ?
" We care not to point to any other view of this question.
If it should be agreed that Texas, if admitted, shall be a Free
State, a thing not to be hoped, vast obstacles still re-
main to her coming among us ; but for the present we must
consider her as about to be, if received, a Slave State.
" One word farther. We trust the South will not identify
opposition to the proposed annexation with advocacy of
abolition. The last is, to the slave-holder, an unjust inter-
ference with his rights ; but who can dispute the right of all
to discuss the admission of Texas among us ? Who will
have enough of despotic blood in his veins to deny the right
of all to discuss this question in every point of view ? The
North is, almost to a man, opposed to the propositions of
McDuffie's defence of slavery ; to admit Texas, a Slave
State, would be either to agree in them, or to commit an
acknowledged crime. With the North, then, we do not
think the question one to be discussed. With the South, the
alternative is this, to gain some small present power, but
defy the world, and wholly alienate the North ; or to stand
politically where she now does, and with a far higher claim
MANHOOD. 199
to the sympathy and respect of both Christendom and her
fellows, than at present ; for let her refuse to aid in extend-
ing slavery, and her gain in moral would far exceed her loss
in political influence."
1S37. " UNITED STATES LAW RESPECTING FUGITIVE
SLAVES. The groundwork of all law in Ohio, Indiana,
Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin is the ORDINANCE OF
1787 ; by an express provision of which, nothing therein
contained could be altered but by the consent both of the
original States and of the people of the Territory, since di-
vided into the several parts above named.
"This Ordinance established as a fundamental law entire
and unqualified freedom, but contained this stipulation, that
fugitives from labor into the Territory from the original
States might be reclaimed. Soon after, the Federal Consti-
tution was formed, which contained a stipulation that fugi-
tives from labor, from any State into any other, might be
reclaimed. On this point, then, the Ordinance and Constitu-
tion differed ; the former confining the right of reclaiming
fugitives to the original States, the latter extending it to all.
" But in the formation of the Constitution no part of the
Northwest Territory had any voice, and of course, by the
provision of the Ordinance, nothing therein was superseded
by the Constitution. On this ground it is contended, that no
fugitive from labor, unless from one of the original States,
can be now reclaimed in Ohio.* But we do not think this
argument valid ; for, when the original States passed the
Constitution, they thereby agreed to extend the stipulation
of the Ordinance respecting fugitives from labor to all the
States ; and when the citizens of Ohio applied for admis-
sion among the United States, under the Constitution, they
* Speech of S. P. Chnse before the Court of Common Pleas of
Hamilton County, Ohio, March 11, 1837.
200 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
virtually agreed on their part to take that instrument in
place of the Ordinance, whenever the two were at variance.
We have, therefore, both parties agreeing to the extension
of the stipulation of the Ordinance to all the States.
" But there is another provision of this Ordinance bearing
upon the question before us ; it is that which guarantees to
the inhabitants of the Territory, forever, the trial by jury
(Art. 2) ; and which also says, that no man shall be de-
prived of his liberty or property but by the judgment of his
peers, or the law of the land. As there is nothing in the
United States Constitution which conflicts with this provis-
ion, it still retains whatever force it originally had. And
what was that ? The iirst part of the provision is unquali-
fied, and under it we are either entitled to a trial by jury in
all cases, or the law may deprive us of it in all cases ; and
by the last, the law of the land may substitute what it sees
fit, instead of a judgment by one's peers. That this provis-
ion does not entitle us to trial by jury always was, in sub-
stance, decided by the Supreme Court of Ohio (5 0. R.
133), when they held that the law might appoint other
means to determine rights of property, though the State
Constitution says (Art. 8, 8), 'that the right of triiil by
jury shall be inviolate.'
" We fear, therefore, that the United States law cannot
be held to violate the letter of the Ordinance, in the con-
struction that would be put upon it by any of our courts ;
and must now turn to the Federal Constitution, and examine
the law in question by that.
" The words of the stipulation contained in our national
instrument are these: 'No person held to service or
labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into
another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation
therein, be discharged from such service or labor; but shall
be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such seivice
or labor shall be due.'
MANHOOD. 201
" The first question is, whether, under this provision,
Congress have a right to pass any law on the subject.
The legislative power of that body is derived either from
express provisions, as in the section preceding the one just
quoted, where it is authorized by general laws to prescribe
the manner in which the public acts and records of one
State may be proved in another; or from the general pro-
vision empowering it to make all laws that shall be neces-
sary and proper for carrying into execution the powers
vested by the Constitution in the government of the United
States. (Art. 1.) Now, with respect to fugitives from labor,
there is certainly no express provision ; and it is equally
certain, that the clause above given vests no power in the
government of the United States. How, then, can Congress
legislate on the subject ? Is there any power bestowed on
the general government, to carry which into execution re-
quires a law to be passed affecting fugitives from labor ? If
the precedent relied on by the court in this case have any
weight, it must be because it has gone upon the ground that
there was some such power ; as in those well-known cases
where concurrence of opinion has settled the constitution-
ality of some point, it has been upon the basis that some
power directly given the government could not be carried
into execution without the law then under debate ; that is,
the opinion settled, not the existence of a power, but the
necessity of a certain law to carry into execution a power
plainly given. Now, if any court can find a power so
given, which cannot be carried into execution without a law
touching fugitives from labor, it may use, as the United
States court has done, the doctrine of precedent from con-
tinued legislation, but not otherwise. The clause of the
Constitution above cited does not, as we conceive, give such
a power, nor does it need either a Federal or State law in
order to be operative ; for the claimant might seize the per-
son claimed as now, and the question of ownership be as
202 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
fully tried as at present, upon a writ of habeas corpus ; and
the claimant proving his claim might take his slave, under
the Constitution, without any law.
" Such a gift of power, then, cannot, we think, le found ;
and iue hold it, therefore, demonstrable, that Congress have
no right, under the Constitution, to legislate on this sub-
ject.. (Chase's Speech, pp. 19, 20, 21.)
" This view is supported by the provision respecting pub-
lic records, already referred to. Both of the first two sec-
tions of the fourth article are to determine relations between
States ; the first says that full faith shall be given in each
State to the public records of all others, and authorizes
Congress to regulate by law the proof and effect of such
records. Would Congress have had this power without
this express authority? No one can think it. Well, the
second section says, first, that the citizens of each State
shall have the privileges of citizens in all the States ; next,
that a person flying from a State where he is charged with
crime to'another, shall be delivered up to the executive of
the State whence he fled ; arid last, that no person bound to
service in one State shall fly to another, and by any law
thereof be released from his obligation, but shall be deliv-
ered to the parly entitled to his services ; and here the
whole subject is dropped, no power is given to Congress to
pass laws, nor to the government in any shape. The pur-
pose of these two sections was to place these subjects, as far
as the States were concerned, upon a sure basis, and not to
leave them to the common law of nations. They are in the
nature of a treaty between independent governments, and,
having settled that certain things shall and shall not be done,
leave it with those governments to say by law how they
shall or shall not be ; making, however, one exception, and
with respect to one subject giving the law-making power to
a third party; which exception, if there had been nny
doubt before, would surely prove that where the third party
MANHOOD. 203
was not expressly ordered to regulate the manner of doing
or preventing the things spoken of, there, beyond doubt, the
power of regulation should remain with the two interested
parties. (Chase's Speech, pp. 21, 22.)
" Moreover, that these provisions are in the nature of a
treaty is known by the fact that all of them, but this respect-
ing fugitives from labor, were in the old Articles of Confed-
eration ; they there gave the Federal government no power,
but were mere articles of compact. There the clause
respecting records stood, without any law-making power
attached to it. When the Constitution was formed, Congress
were empowered to legislate on this subject ; while the
others remained as before, and a new clause was added
in the form which the whole had under the old Confedei'a-
tion. These considerations, urged with great force by Mr.
Chase, seem to us unanswerable.
" But we have another point yet to consider. It is this.
Even if Congress have a constitutional right to legislate
respecting fugitives from labor, is the existing law constitu-
tional ?
" Of this law we have as yet given no account ; but of all
the legislative monsters that disgrace American statute-
books, this is surely one of the strangest and vilest. Act
of February 12, 1793, 3. By this act, the claimant of any
fugitive from labor may seize said alleged fugitive, without
writ or legal authority of any kind, take him or her before
any justice of the peace of any city, town, or county ; and
having by written or oral evidence or affidavit established
to the satisfaction of the justice his claim, he shall be enti-
tled to a certificate, under which he may carry the alleged
fugitive from the State, and no one may hinder. The per-
son arrested or seized has no notice given, no time to
collect witnesses, no power of cross-examination, no jury
or bench of magistrates to hear the cause, no appeal, no
right to a new trial in any form. The justice receives no
204 LIFE OF JAMES II. PERKINS.
pay from the United States, but must look to tlie claimant,
and may receive a thousand dollars as a fee. He cannot
be removed for what he does by the Federal government,
for he is a State officer ; he cannot be touched by the
State for what he does as a Federal officer ; and stands
irresponsible, bribed by the law to take bribes, vested with
the power of judging instantly, upon ex parle evidence,
upon the oath of one interested man, and authorized to
decide finally and for ever upon the freedom, probably the
perpetual freedom, of as many as may be dragged to his
bar.* Is it said that in this country such a power will be
rarely exercised, we must answer, that it is exercised con-
tinually. Since we began this article, we have heard of a
case wherein it was shown in all its excellence! A mulatto
boy, who had been in the service of a barber at Cincinnati
for a year or more, was one morning, while shaving a cus-
tomer, laid hold of and carried off to the magistrate's, as a
fugitive from labor. His master went to an attorney and
asked him to hurry, and try to help the lad ; he went, found
that the magistrate had been unable to attend to the case,
and had sent the parties to another justice. The lawyer has-
tened to him ; he had been unable to hear the case also,
and the claimant and colored boy had crossed the street to
the mayor's. To the mayor's office the advocate posted, and
was there just in time to see the certificate sealed, which
consigned the youth to hopeless servitude !
" It needs no argument to prove that this law, which in-
vests the lowest judicial individuals of our country wilh a
process more summary, one-sided, final, and unquestionable
* We know of no provision bv which the question of freedom may
be tried in a Slave State, but by habeas corpus. Tlie hopelessness of
a fair trial under that, when one party holds the other as his slave,
has the magistrate's certificate, and is among his friends and depend-
ents, while the other is ignorant, away from those that know him,
without money, and must bear the burden of proof, is self-evident.
MANHOOD. 205
than any other known among us, and that, too, with respect
to an almost certain loss of freedom, is utterly opposed
to the whole spirit of our Constitution and laws. The Star-
Chamber of Elizabeth was far less fearful, far less anti-
republican ; and had this law been put into execution against
whites instead of blacks, it could not have stood one year.
" But it is not only opposed to the purpose of our Consti-
tutions, but is at open variance with their language. That of
the Union says, ' The right of the people to be secure in
their persons, against unreasonable seizures, shall not be
violated ; and no warrant shall issue but upon probable
cause, supported by oath.' (Amend., Art. 4.) And again,
' No person shall be deprived of liberty without due process
of law.' (Ibid., Art. 5.) If these clauses have force or
meaning, the law under consideration is wholly unconstitu-
tional. Let no one say, that, because the law in this case
makes the individual arrest the proper proceeding, there-
fore this is legal process ; those words have a technical
meaning, and the reference to the warrant shows that the
Constitution used them in that meaning.
" So stand the Constitution and laws of the United States
respecting blacks claimed as runaway slaves ; for upon
them the weight of suffering falls. Let us, for the sake of
deepening our impressions, suppose a like power given as
respects whites. For instance, a white and black live side
by side, equally respectable and industrious. A man comes
to town and accuses the black of being a slave, of having
been unfortunate, not criminal ; he is taken at once, con-
victed upon the oath of his accuser, and delivered up to
slavery. Another person accuses the white of havincr been
guilty of burglary ; suppose the law authorized this accuser
to drag the accused before a magistrate, and have him con-
victed at once by affidavit, without cross-examination, and
without time given to collect counter-evidence, and allowed
the magistrate to send him to Louisiana in charge of his
VOL. i. 18
206 LIFE OF JAMES II. PERKINS.
accuser, to prove his innocence there if he could, but held
to be guilty unless he could prove it, and held, too, with all
those disadvantages which the slave labors under. What
would the subjects of the. tyrant of Austria say to such a law
as this ? And should the white accused of crime fare
better than the black accused of misfortune ? But the black
is claimed as property, it is said. Well, and the claimant is
opposed by the black as counter-claimant ; he is both prop-
erty and owner. And what should we say of the law that
should allow the Mississippian to come here, claim a white
man's whole wealth, establish his claim by oath, and carry
it home with him ? This is done in the case of the black
considered as property.
" But it is said again, the alleged fugitive from justice
from another State is claimed from us, and we deliver him
up under the United States law without scruple ; and we
have no more right to think the black will not be tried fairly,
when we deliver him up, than that the accused criminal will
not be. To this we need but say, that the executive of a
State, or the State itself, claims and takes in one instance,
a private individual in the other ; and that we do know that,
in all the Slave States, the white criminal stands an infinitely
better chance to have justice done him, than a black held as
a slave under a certificate from the magistrate of a Free
State does to obtain freedom. And as citizens of the United
States, as men and Christians, we have no right to shut our
eyes on this knowledge ; if we do so, on the ground that we
are not called on to know the laws of other States, and so
the freeman is enslaved, surely we are no better than kid-
nappers in the eyes of God. But no thinking man will con-
found the case of the criminal, who is demanded by a
State, taken by a public officer, carried to the spot where
it is said he committed a crime, and must there be tried,
and his guilt proved to a jury, he having been first presented
by a grand jury, and that of the slave, taken by an individ-
MANHOOD. 207
ual, carried his friends know not where, and who, to ob-
tain his freedom, must, in a strange land and under countless
disadvantages, prove he is free, instead of having it proved
that he is not free.
" Many trials have been made to have the existing law
altered, but neither North nor South is willing to move in
the matter. The right of Congress to pass a law, although
very debatable, will not be disputed by any court, we sup-
pose ; the policy of a Federal provision, and the acquiescence
hitherto, will prevent it. But THE EXISTING LAW is CLEARLY
OPPOSED TO THE WORDS OF THE CONSTITUTION."
Against the disgraceful Black Laws of Ohio Mr. Per-
kins bore earnest testimony in public and in private, and
was indefatigable in demanding more righteous legislation.
He was a steady opponent, also, to the admission of
Texas, except as a Free State ; and as a preacher,
public debater, and- through the press, used all the
influence he could exert against the extension of slavery.
But though an undisguised adversary of the slave power,
in all its policy, partisan, ecclesiastical, and commer-
cial, he yet sustained no such relation to the Anti-
slavery movement as to be called an Abolitionist. What
he said and did was as an individual, on his own respon-
sibility, according to his own judgment, and in bis own
way. He was a free man, who would never permit
others to impose servile restraints upon his liberty of
conscience, utterance, or action ; but he scrupulously
checked himself, and was ever watchful against fanati-
cism, partial views, or revolutionary outbreaks. His
most positive manifestation of respectful sympathy to-
wards the negro race was in his treatment of the colored
citizens of Cincinnati. And here he set an example well
worthy of being universally followed. He visited them
208 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
at their homes and places of business, addressed their
public assemblages, lectured in their lyceum, preached
in their pulpits, encouraged their associated action, con-
tributed to their charitable funds, and, above all, cooperat-
ed in the establishment of their schools. When, on one
occasion, the enthusiastic Hiram Gilmore, who, for a
number of years, was the teacher of a colored school,
made an appeal to the public, Mr. Perkins preached on
the subject, and raised a contribution from among his
people in their behalf, which unlocked for response
was received with equal pleasure and surprise. Pie was
pertinacious also in demanding, either that colored children
should have free access to the public schools, or else
that a fair proportion of the school-tax levied on their
parents should be appropriated to their use. For, what-
ever difficulties he felt as to the immediate measures of
the Abolitionists, he had not a doubt in regard to the
eventual emancipation of the slaves throughout our land ;
and was convinced of the urgent duty, as well as policy,
of fitting the colored race for full participation in all so-
cial, civil, and religious privileges. Chief among the
means of thus preparing them for the functions of repub-
lican equality was, of course, Education.
EDUCATION, indeed, regarded as a science and an
art, was a cause that always called out Mr. Perkins's
highest enthusiasm. One of his first efforts as an edi-
tor, when he took charge of The Western Monthly Mag-
azine, in 1832, was to call the attention of his fellow-
citizens to the importance of elevating the standard of
teaching, of fitting instructors for their responsible office,
and securing the most thorough, physical, intellectual, and
moral training for the children of all classes. In the
MANHOOD. 209
pages of that review, as well as in the Chronicle and Mir-
ror, in lucid and complete summaries he presented the
plans of Pestalozzi, Fellenberg, and of the German and
French governments, and thenceforth used every accessi-
ble means for advancing the Free School System of Ohio.
But not with pen alone did he aid this great republican
movement. From his entrance upon Western life until
his death, he took an efficient part in upholding the high
character 'of the Cincinnati schools. " I know," says
the patriarch among the Trustees and Visitors of the
Queen City, Mr. Nathan Guilford, " that Mr. Perkins
was one of the most active, punctual, and zealous friends
of education among us, and that to his counsel and labors
our schools are much indebted for their past progress and
present prosperous condition. I have just finished the
examination of over one hundred and thirty schools, with
their six thousand scholars, and could not but feel what
a source of gratification their success must be to all who
directly or indirectly have labored for their establish-
ment." And Mr. William Greene, who for many years
has made it his pride and pleasure to be the friend alike
of teachers and children in Cincinnati, adds this tribute
to the worth of Mr. Perkins's exertions : " He was
three times elected a member of the Board of Examin-
ers of the Common Schools, resigned twice, and
under his last election continued a member until his death.
He was three years in succession elected a member of
the Board of Visitors of the Schools, and for one year
was its president. In these several stations his labors
were remarkable for punctuality and completeness. He
never left unfinished or to be done by others the work
that properly belonged to himself. So quietly, however,
were his public offices performed, that the amount of his
18*
210 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
exertions might easily have been overlooked except by
careful observers. He never did any thing for eflect,
and therefore, though always busy, attracted little atten-
tion from the busy world. He was eminently one of
those the truly great who are felt in a thousand
minute and deep relations to society, exerting the most
invigorating influence, without being seen, or wishing to
be seen. Thus was it in his relations to our schools."
Mr. Perkins was also a member of the Board of Trus-
tees in the Cincinnati College for several years, and for
a considerable time acted as its secretary. It was in this
capacity that he came into intimate intercourse with Pro-
fessor O. M. Mitchell, whose friendship he justly valued,
and with whose devoted labors he rejoiced to cooperate.
How high was Mr. Mitchell's estimate of his services
will appear from the following letter.
" I became acquainted with Mr. Perkins soon after my ar-
rival in this city in 1832, but our intimacy dates from about
1836, when the Cincinnati College was reorganized, and he
became one of the Board of Trustees of that institution. In
1839-40 we were associated in forming a Society for the
Promotion of Useful Knowledge, which continued to exert
some influence in our city for two years, and opened the
way for the enterprise which ended in the erection of the
Cincinnati Observatory. Mr. Perkins, as a Trustee of the
College, as a Director in the Society first named, and as one
of the Board of Control of the Cincinnati Astronomical So-
ciety, always exerted a most powerful influence over those
with whom he was associated. He was one of the very few
on whom the most implicit reliance might be placed in the
hour of greatest difficulty. He was slow to adopt any new
idea, or to receive into his confidence new enterprises ; but
when, after deliberation, he once gave his hearty approval
MANHOOD. 211
to any great or noble undertaking, it was not merely an ap-
proval. He was ever ready to work for it, and to contribute
in every way to promote its accomplishment.
" From the organization of the Cincinnati Astronomical
Society, Mr. Perkins was one of its officers ; and although our
pursuits were different, yet in all the efforts which I have
been making, in and out of the Observatory, if to others I
looked for pecuniary aid, it was to Mr. Perkins I went for
that intellectual sympathy so grateful to one who is obliged
to struggle in almost absolute isolation. His mind was emi-
nently clear and comprehensive, and although he was no-
wise devoted to pure science, yet he never failed to show
so ready and strong an apprehension of whatever topic was
fairly brought before it, that one was sure of a just appre-
ciation of his views, however new. The last day we spent
together was in the Observatory. He wished to understand
the new methods of observing recently introduced in this
institution, and to compare them with those elsewhere em-
ployed. For this purpose long and minute explanations
were made of details, to which previously he could have
given no attention. Yet I have no doubt that he compre-
hended the entire scope of the problem ; and had he lived,
he would have presented to the world a luminous exhibition
of the relative advantages of these methods of scientific re-
search. It was his intention to write upon the subject, and
I presume an unfinished paper will be found among his
manuscripts."
Necessity and inclination conspired to bring Mr. Per-
kins into yet nearer relations with the band of educators,
who may so truly be called spiritual parents. A year
after he had entered upon his labors as Minister at Large,
it was found that the salary raised for the support of his
office was so very inadequate that he must either abandon
the enterprise or procure some independent resources.
212 LIFK OF JAMF.S II. PKKKIXS.
He did not hesit;ite, hut at once proposed to open a
school for young ladies. How high \vas his reverence
for woman and her function has already appeared ; and
now it was a mailer of self-congratulation that lie; could
actively participate in raising the standard of female edu-
cation. With the respect felt for him, there was of
course no difficulty in surrounding himself with a "hoiee
circle of scholars, to whose culture he at once sedulously
devoted his leisure hours. In their society he found re-
freshment amidst his exhausting puhlie engagements.
" My week is spent," he writes to a friend, " in visit-
ing poor, sick, hliud, maimed, wicked, wretched chil-
dren of mortality, relieving the melancholy monotony
of such duties hv a daily three hours' converse with eiidit
or ten hopeful young maidens. If I were to ohey ihe
wishes of my ' depraved nature,' 1 might join you at
trout-fishing, hut I have a ' mission ' amidst the dust,
sweat, sickness, and nonsense of Cincinnati ; and were I
to desert, the memory of my unfaithfulness would spoil the
flavor of the richest trout. So much for a fixed idea. 1 '
Of Mr. Perkins's skill and success as an educator, the
hcst proof may he found in the following letters from two
of his pupils.
" With joyful alacrity I add my mite to the materials from
whirl) you meditate giving to the world the memoirs of my
revered teacher. It is about Mr. Perkins the impersona-
tion*of my ideal of all that is glorious in man that I am to
speak. () that I could speak as I feel, as thoughts of his
many virtues, great natural and acquired intellectual powers,
and beautiful peculiarities, come rushing upon me! If I
could take you with me into that pleasant lillle room, sacred
as our school-room, and show you that table with the youth-
ful band gathered around it, and their minds' father at its
MANHOOD. 213
head, and if you could see with what breathless attention and
delight they listen to his words, you would know that their
hearts were his. Then, could you hear his questions, so
varied in tone and manner, and hear in turn the fearless
answers, you would know that he understood each one's
character, and was ready to do justice to each one's opinion.
We loved him as a parent and friend, while we revered him
as a superior being. The sympathy he always expressed in
our feelings and doings elicited from us the most perfect
confidence. If we were happy we must tell him, that his
smile might perfect our happiness ; if sad, he condoled with
us ; if in perplexity, he advised. He seemed to understand
and come down to all our little trials, and not feel it a come-
down either.
" He would draw a lesson 'from every thing. Often our
books were unopened during the three or four hours we re-
mained with him, and yet we went away with some great
lesson imprinted upon' our memory, never to be effaced,
called forth by an apparently slight remark from one of us.
It was principally by conversation that he taught us, and I
never knew any one who could lead a conversation so well,
and draw out others' ideas so entirely. He had a vast
amount of general knowledge, well digested, stored away,
labelled, and lying quietly in its place until wanted ; then it
was all ready for use. We thought he knew every thing.
He ever mingled the moral with the intellectual, and gave
the former the precedence, though he thought it every one's
duty to cultivate to the utmost each mental faculty ; for he
used to say, *All knowledge will be of use in another world,
where we can go on advancing gloriously when freed from
the pressure of mortality.' He thought that people do wrong
in paying particular attention to capacities which are natu-
rally precocious, and desired rather that dormant ones
should first be awakened. He had an utter aversion to any
thing like parrotism ; originality of mind was his delight.
214 LIFE OF JAMES II. PERKINS.
Consequently, his favorite authors were those whom he con-
sidered bold, free thinkers. He always wished us to give
our reasons for holding any opinion, and thus endeavoured to
prevent our adopting views without reflection. He thought
politics an essential part of a female's education ; and to
rouse us to acquire a knowledge of such subjects, he read
to us from the newspapers daily, and discussed with us the
great questions of the day. How we enjoyed those argu-
ments ! He would propose a question, and we, having made
up our minds for or against it, argued with him and each
other. Always we felt at perfect liberty to ask him about
any thing that we did not understand, and he would explain
so delightfully ! In our studies he endeavoured to have some-
thing to exercise each faculty of the mind alternately. We
never had arithmetic, algebra, geometry, and then history,
geography, biography ; but arithmetic, history, rhetoric,
then algebra, mechanics, logic, &*c.
" We read aloud to each other a great deal when he was
not with us, poetry and prose alternately. lie selected
for us. Afterwards we wrote out our impressions of the
authors' merits, and quoted passages that pleased us. We
read most of Scott's novels during school hours. This many
persons considered a waste of time, but he thought they con-
tained a combination of instruction which could scarce be
found elsewhere. He desired that the imagination should be
particularly cultivated, as refining the whole mind, and add-
ing beauty to virtue. He liked to have us write stories once in
a while. We habitually wrote compositions. When he gave
us subjects they were of this nature: ' What <Tre the causes
that determine the character of a people ? ' ' What are the
relative influences of the sciences and fine arts on individual
character ? ' &c. He thought a great deal of analysis, as
strengthening the judgment and memory. A book was
never considered as done with, until it had been subjected to
this process. Before hearing us recite, he read over our
MANHOOD. 215
lessons, and therefore his questions had a bearing upon the
whole matter, and not merely upon a line or paragraph, as
is the case with too many teacher's questions. He had a
great deal of real humor, which he frequently used for our
diversion. He advised us never to talk unless we really had
something to say ; trifling chat and scandal were an abomi-
nation to him. He endeavoured to impress upon us the im-
portance of our moments, and said we should always have a
book close beside us, that when waiting for any one or for
any cause we might not be losers. By the way, did you
ever see him read ? He read the most in the least time of
any person I ever knew. By merely glancing over a page he
could catch what there was of good in it; that he remem-
bered, the rest was nothing to him. He would tell us always
to have our eyes and ears open, that there was some-
thing to be learned at all moments and everywhere. 1
believe he never even took a walk without learning some-
thing. His great aim .was improvement, and he tried to
make ours the same. He said he hoped to teach us how to
learn, then he should be contented.
" We tried hard to please him, and he was not hard to
please, for we all loved him deeply, devotedly. He was
ever the topic of our conversation. The sayings and doings
of,, ' our Mr. Perkins ' could be compared with those of no
other person, he was the man. A storm was never severe
enough to keep us from school, for our hours spent there
were the sweetest in the day. Then at church how proud
we were of him ! how delightedly we listened to him as our
pastor ! What weight his pi'ecepts ever had, for they were
accompanied by that impressive good-promoter, example !
O, he was a dear, dear, good man ! I shall ever thank
God that I have known him as I did know him. His loss
is irreparable. But he is happy, and in that belief we will
not repine that for a time we are materially separated. And
now I will close, though I feel that I could never weary in
talking of my beloved teacher."
216 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
" It would have been impossible for any one to be with
Mr. Perkins daily for so long a time, without feeling fur him
the deepest love and reverence, and in some degree, at
least, understanding his spirit. But it has been a matter of
surprise, even to myself, to feel how constantly his opinion
occurs to me upon every subject which I hear mentioned,
and yet I hardly know what I shall say in answer to your
inquiries. His mind was so perfect as a whole that it seems
impossible to regard separately its component attributes;
but, as I have been his pupil, I may have seen him, as a
teacher, under peculiar aspects, and I can at least try to
recall some of his characteristics.
" Strange though it may seem in so great a mind, Mr.
Perkins was very fond of teaching. I have often heard him
say that he much preferred this occupation to any which he
had ever tried. He relied in his teaching very little on
books; and his wonderful knowledge enabled him to instruct
us upon every subject in a much more satisfactory manner
than any books which we might have obtained could have
done. I do not mean that he made no use of books, but they
were used rather as suggestive texts to be commented upon
than as authorities to be trusted. His choice of books often
surprised those who were unacquainted with him ; but they
were generally selected with the view to provoke inquiry
and discussion. Hardly a day passed without some question
arising calculated to call forth debate, frequently detaining
us long after the school hours. Nor was any subject ex-
cluded; he attracted our attention to politics and religion,
and listened with interest to our criticisms of the books we
were reading, and of our favorite characters in history. In
fact, I do not think that any questions long troubled the minds
of his pupils, for they were all brought before him, and there
the truth was soon discovered. Mr. Perkins never pretended
to decide for us on any subject ; in fact, he generally took
the opposite side to us, without reference to his own opinion.
MANHOOD. 217
But before we parted, he would present the truth in so clear
and persuasive a manner, that few were able to resist it.
" One of the most wonderful characteristics of Mr. Per-
kins's mind seemed to me to be his power of seeing at once
the TRUTH ; no matter how great the number of mysteries
by which it was shrouded, his clear eye, without fail,
without hesitation, pierced them all until it reached the very
centre. Sometimes he would show us the variety of views
which might be entertained upon the same subject. He
would ask our opinion upon any point, and when we had giv-
en it, would bring forward the arguments opposed to it ; and
we would be obliged to confess, that a person looking upon
the subject in that point of view would arrive at a conclu-
sion opposite to our own. He would then give us another
series of arguments, which, if we yielded to them, would
force us again to change our opinion, and so on, until he
pointed out to us the true reasons which should guide our
judgment. So much trust had we in this power of his, that,
when he stated any thing, we were almost sure it must be
so ; and our friends laughingly asserted, that all our argu-
ments concluded with ' Mr. Perkins says so.' This reliance
was to us a safe refuge from the storms and contrarieties of
opinion by which we were surrounded.
" Mr. Perkins constantly impressed upon our minds the
inconsistency of consistency, as that word is generally
used, showing us that true consistency can exist only
where there is progressive change, and that without such
change there could be no improvement. And he constantly
exemplified this truth in himself. Those who did not under-
stand him often complained of, and even ridiculed, his
changes ; but those who knew him best saw that no day
passed without his taking a step often the step of a
giant in the ascending path to wisdom and goodness.
This progress was evident in his bearing at school. During
the last few years that I was with him, even when he was
VOL. i. 19
218 LIFE OF JAMES II. PERKINS.
suffering from physical infirmity, I never knew him, un-
der all the trials to which a teacher is subject, yield to irrita-
tion of temper, or impatience of spirit ; he seemed to have
acquired that for which he had ever been striving, perfect
mastery over himself. lie also impressed upon our minds
the greatest horror of sectarianism, or, indeed, narrowness
of any sort. It was a favorite idea with him, that there are
classes of minds adapted to receive the special truths \vhich
are found in every form of faith ; and thus he rejoiced alike
in the spread of Swedenborgianism, of Catholicism, and of
the Unitarian belief. His horror of sectarianism was very
strong, and I do not think there was any failing with which
he had so little sympathy, and for which he had so little pity,
as bigotry ; for his mind was so comprehensive, that he
could understand any thing better than the smallness of
others 1 prejudices.
" Mr. Perkins did not think it right that some one faculty,
in which the person showed great proficiency, should be cul-
tivated to the exclusion of others. ' This,' he would say,
* may be preparing a person for a successful career upon
earth, but is it the true preparation to enter another world ?
Every faculty should be cultivated, the whole being en-
larged.' I think Mr. Perkins laid much more stress upon
breadth of development, both in the intellect and character,
than upon the peculiar excellence of any one power. At
the same time, he was very much opposed to compelling
children to pursue any particular branch of study to which
they showed a disinclination. All persons, he thought, had
special vocations, to which they were suited, and which they
should learn to fill well. He had a great power of adapting
his teaching to the minds under his control, and of bringing
the most complicated truths within the comprehension of the
dullest. I have often known others, in attempting to explain
something, fail because they could not perceive what it was
that troubled their listener. But this he always seemed to
MANHOOD. 219
understand. ' Any one who has just mastered a subject,'
he would say, 'is better able to explain it than one more
fully acquainted with it, for the former will remember the
little difficulties which arose in his own mind, and will know
how to smooth them away for others.'
" There was no fault which Mr. Perkins spoke against
more frequently than that of scandal, no power which he
deemed more abused than that of the tongue. To punctual-
ity, also, he gave more importance than is usual. I have
often heard him say, that he considered it as much a crime
to steal a person's time, as any thing else which belonged
to him. He would sometimes give us different passages
from standard authors to read, and we would then compare
them. I remember hearing him say, when we expressed
surprise at the differences of opinion concerning some new
publication, ' that books pleased us in proportion as they
called forth ideas already existing in our minds in a latent
form, and that while the most popular books would be those
which addressed themselves in this way to the largest num-
ber, the greatest books were those which addressed them-
selves to the highest class of minds.' He always wished us
to take a lively interest in the great movements which were
agitating the world, and insisted upon our reading the pa-
pers ; he said it was foolish that so many should spend their
whole time in studying the history of the past, while they
remained totally ignorant of events of the greatest impor-
tance happening all around them. I think Mr. Perkins made
it his constant aim to educate those placed under his charge
naturally. Their style of reading, writing, and thinking,
he corrected when there were any decided faults ; but he
allowed them, as a rule, to form themselves. He thought
it much better for the mind to be engaged in but few studies
at a time. ' You do not come to school to learn,' he would
say, ' but to acquire the power of learning. The knowledge
which you acquire at school will avail you little, if your
220 LIFE OF JAMES H. PF.RKINS.
mind is not so trained that you will have the desire and the
power to study when you have left it.' The influence of
climate, government, &c., upon the character and mind,
the spirit itself, the heart and intellect, all became in
his hands subjects for the most interesting and instructive
conversation.
" I could go on thus indefinitely, recalling what I remem-
ber, but I feel constantly that I am doing him injustice, and
say to myself, ' Is this all that you can record, after having
listened for so many years to Mr. Perkins's eloquence and
wisdom ? ' But although I can give you no idea of Mr.
Perkins intellectually, in common with all of his scholars
I can bring a living testimony to his greatness in our love
for him, and this will show his influence. Mr. Perkins was
idolized by his scholars, as only a father could be ; and they
cherish his memory in their hearts with the tcndcrest affec-
tion. Few can know better than we do his kindness and
tenderness ; that kindness, which caused him to take little
children by the hand, and day after day walk with them in
the woods, fascinating them with tales more wildly beautiful
than those which have been eagerly sought by the young of
many generations, snatches of which constantly recur to
my memory like half-forgotten strains of music ; that ten-
derness, which made him as careful not to wound the feel-
ings of his scholars, even by a just rebuke, as if they had
been his own children. We know, too, how spiritual he was.
I have seen him in his school-room and in the pulpit, when
he seemed to be in direct communion with God, and I cannot
bear to think that all those glorious sermons are lost, ex-
cepting in so far as they live in the hearts of his hearers.
" One word more I wish to add. Since Mr. Perkins's
death I have heard the remark, that during the last few
years of his life he had been becoming morbid and mel-
ancholy. It seems to me that the contrary is the truth.
Just before giving up his school, a little over a year be-
MANHOOD. 221
fore his death, I remember hearing him say, as we \vere
speaking of the comparative happiness of young and old,
that, ' as far as his experience went, he had become, and was
becoming, happier every year of his life.' About this time
I left Cincinnati, and did not see him again until a few
months before his death, when I thought his appearance had
very much improved. He was in better health, and the
brilliancy and life of his manner seemed to have increased.
I walked with him the day before his death, and shall never
be grateful enough that I did so. His face seemed radi-
ant ; I had never seen him look so beautifully, or talk more
cheerfully. When he reached our gate, he turned and
bowed, with his bright, peculiar smile. It was the last time
that I ever saw him."
A lecture delivered by Mr. Perkins in October, 1842,
at the opening of the special session of the Western
College of Teachers, briefly expresses the matured results
of his experience as an educator. The want of suitable
school-books, which he complains of, he intended, so far
as in his power, to remedy. And it is much to be re-
gretted that he did not live to fulfil this design ; for, by
the blending of keen powers of discrimination with vivid
imagination and a sound judgment, be was rarely fitted
for this important work. The lecture, though poorly
reported, is of worth for its many practical suggestions,
and strongly indicates its writer's reverence for woman.
"The subject of my address this evening is the EDUCA-
TION OF GIRLS, a subject respecting which I feel some
embarrassment, from its having been frequently presented
to the public.
" Some years since, a ship in which was a friend of mine,
in going from France to the East Indies, got entirely out of
19*
222 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
provisions, and the passengers must have starved to death
had it not been for a part of the cargo consisting of beans.
The captain, who was a polite man in doing the honors of
the table when they had great profusion, was equally so
when they had nothing but beans: he would ask, 'Gen-
tlemen, will you change your plates, and take a few more
beans ? ' I feel that this change of the College session is
only a change of plates, and I only ask you to take ' some
more beans.'
" It is the education of girls of which I propose to speak ;
but it is not the whole immense subject of the education of
girls. Let me, in the first place, state distinctly what I in-
tend to speak about. It is of the intellectual education of
girls between eight and eighteen years old. I cannot speak
here of the mysteries of the kitchen, &c. ; I have no remarks
to make about mince-pics and making dresses ; yet all these
things go into their education. I shall say little of thc'ir moral
education, for the true sphere of that is their homes ; and
though I would do all in my power as a teacher to educate
them morally while at my school, for it is far more impor-
tant than their intellectual education, it is the parent who
must do it in the main, and not I.
" Again, I propose a practical, not a popular lecture ; and
also, at the outset, I would say, let no one suppose me so
foolish as to undertake to give lessons to the much older
teachers whom I see about me. There are men here who
have studied more years than I have months upon this sub-
ject. I would ask them rather to look at my remarks as if
they were so many questions. I simply ask, ' Is it so : ' and
if not, I wish to be corrected. My object is not so much to
enlighten you as to learn from you.
" If an architect were asked to build a house, his first
question would be, ' What is to be its object ? Tell me that,
and I shall know how to plan the house.' Every other
artisan would make the same observation, and give a like
MANHOOD. 223
answer. With regard to education, the same is true : the
first thing to be determined is the object ; you must know
what you are to aim at, and then, and not till then, you can
take your aim.
" Now, intellectual education has several objects. It has
these four distinct purposes :
" I. To give the mind the instruments by which it may
learn more.
" II. To cultivate the faculties of the mind itself.
" III. To give the individual a general knowledge upon
all subjects.
" IV. To give the individual a technical knowledge appli-
cable to the profession to which he is destined.
" These are the great ends of intellectual education, as
far as I can determine ; and let me say a little with regard
to each of them.
" I. The education which gives the instruments of knowl-
edge is that which teaches the arts of reading, writing, and
arithmetic, and any other art which gives a knowledge of
the use of such instruments as may come into our hands, by
which our observations may be extended.
" Language and mathematics are the two great studies
which furnish the instruments by which we may go out and
compass the world. Without language we could learn
nothing ; but through it, as through an electric chain, comes
centring home to us the thought which is diffused through-
out the universe. Every one of us has felt the touch of the
old philosophers of Greece, and of the prophets of Israel,
in his heart and mind. It came to us through the medium
of language alone.
" Mathematics is the next great master key to universal
knowledge. This world itself is made mathematically.
Every thing that God has made is based upon mathematics.
You cannot learn a single law of natural philosophy or chem-
istry, except by the aid of mathematics. You must, then,
use it as an instrument of acquiring knowledge.
224 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
" II. In the second place, as to the education of the facul-
ties of the human mind. These faculties I shall divide into
four classes :
" 1. The power of ohservation.
" 2. The power of analysis.
" 3. The power of composition.
" 4. The power of imagination.
" These four comprehend all that is included in the intel-
lect. Now, each of these requires a thorough systematic
training.
" 1. ' The power of observation,' you may reply, ' any
body, who is not at Columbus in the blind asylum, has
without training.' Every one of you who has ever read the
little story in the Evening's Entertainment, of ' Eyes and No
Eyes,' knows that it is not so. How many thousands, with
as good eyes as Dr. Jenner, observed all that fell under his
observation ! But their powers of observation had not been
quickened by training. Their observation had not been di-
rected as his had been, and the result was, that he gave to
the world a complete remedy against the small-pox.
" Another example of this was in these Argand lamps
which we are now using. When Argand was trying his ex-
periments with a double column of air inside and outside of
the flame, he found that the lamp did not burn well. His
brother observed a broken oil-flask in the room ; it struck
him this was just the thing ; he seized it, placed it over the
flame, and the lamp was completed.
" This faculty of observation, in fact, needs to be brought
out by education, or we may go about the world stone blind.
" Any one who has been an educator of children must be
aware of the fact, that they know nothing about the things
they see daily, till their attention is called to them by their
teachers, simply from the fact that they are so constantly be-
fore them.
" 2. In the next place, those faculties of intellect which
MANHOOD. 225
give us the power of analyzing (however you may classify
them) need training; and one of the greatest objects of in-
tellectual education should be, to know how we are to culti-
vate these faculties. It is by these that we go out into the
fields of history, of natural science, and of human experi-
ence, and read there, and understand what is there written.
It is on account of the difference in degree of this power of
analysis in different persons, that one will read a volume,
and remember half a dozen dates and nothing else, while
another, analyzing and discriminating, will seize and become
entire master of the whole spirit and essence of the author
at once. This is one of the great and predominating powers
of Daniel Webster. It is this which enables him, or any
one like him, to see the main point of an argument. While
others waste their time upon the by-ways, he goes to the
great central idea at once, and thus is enabled to convince
all. I mention the name of W 7 ebster, because, a few years
since, an instance fell under my own observation, in which a
very intricate law question was presented to an eminent law-
yer now on the bench. He spent forty-eight hours upon the
case ; he examined his books, went through immense labor,
and proposed a written opinion upon it. He said it was the
most difficult thing he had undertaken, to separate the ten
thousand little points, and to get at the main question, and
learn the truth with regard to it. It was an insurance case.
Mr. Webster, who was also of counsel for the insurance
company, was called on, and came to the office, and the
question and statement of facts were presented to him for the
first time. He took the papers, and for twenty minutes
seemed to be not alive, except that he breathed, so intently
was he absorbed in thought. At the end of that time, as if
he had waked up from a dream, he passed his hand over his
eyes, looked round a moment, and then went on and stated
the very point, and in the same position and relation as the
other lawyer, who had devoted forty-eight hours to the study.
226 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
" It is this power which we should strive to give to men,
and then, in politics, and in religion, and in the business of
life, they would act sensibly, and not wildly and foolishly.
" It needs not to be said, that the power of observation be-
longs to woman as well as to man, and should equally be
educated. They possess, unquestionably, very good powers
of observation for some things, which are capable of being
highly developed. But some will doubt whether the culti-
vation of the power of analysis is as necessary for them as
for us. To me it appears equally necessary. I believe it
is necessary even for the sake of small things.
" You will find that the comfort of a household depends
upon the power of analysis which the housewife possesses.
She cannot be a good housewife without it. She cannot dis-
O
cern what makes affairs go wrong or right. When her hus-
band comes home, his brow knit and his countenance sulky,
if she has not this power she is not able to know what it is
that ails him, and, not knowing the cause, cannot dispel it.
If she has this power she can do it. And when we go into
her sphere as a mother, we know that without this power
she cannot conduct the education of her children with pro-
priety and ability. It is impossible for any woman to guide
her children right, with regard to their habits of thought,
feeling, and action, if she has not this power. It is called for
daily, in all the little and great things of life ; and in regard
to these little things, I ask you to say, from your own expe-
rience, whether these many household matters these name-
less, unknown things do not go far to make up our hap-
piness and influence our character ? Whether many a soul
has not been spoiled at the fireside by these little things,
the insignificant items of housekeeping ?
" 3. Again, the power of composition, of recombining
the elements that we obtain by analysis into one whole ; this
is one of the greatest powers that man possesses, and needs
to be cultivated. It is called for every time that anv man
MANHOOD. 227
speaks or acts, if he would produce a whole impression. A
man cannot write an article for a newspaper, or deliver a
stump speech, without this power. The great difference be-
tween speakers is the difference in their power of composi-
tion. It is equally true in the other sex. This power is con-
tinually brought into play. It is the intellectual power of
composition that enables one woman to make a good pudding,
or a neat dress, or any other article of cookery or clothing,
while another cannot do it at all. It is by the exercise of
this power that she is enabled to carry on those combinations
that make up housekeeping. It is by this that she is ena-
bled to make her house a pleasant home. Is there any one
who does not know the difference between a room where the
furniture, &c., is well arranged, judiciously and tastefully,
and one ill arranged, with no reference to comfort, con-
venience, or taste, and where the composition of the whole
scenery is cheerless ? Does not every one feel a chill upon
entering such a room ? . It is the want of this power of com-
position, in part at least, which prevents a woman from
making her husband a home-staying man, instead of one
who spends all his evenings at the political gathering, or even
at the grog-shop. And again, with regard to the education of
her children, this power is constantly called for. It is by her
faculty of recomposing that she is enabled to bring those in-
fluences to bear which make them just, pure, intellectual,
all that she wishes them to be.
" 4. The power of imagination. For the practical pur-
poses of housekeeping, this is less necessary than the facul-
ties of observing, analyzing, and bringing together again the
elements of existence to any whole. Yet this power has an
intimate connection with all the occurrences of life. It is by
this that sympathy is in a great measure produced. The
person whose imagination is vivid, and in whom it has been
cultivated, will sympathize when another will not. It brings
absent things near to us ; if we have not this power, we do not
228 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
care for things which are not before our eyes. We hear of
the misfortunes of persons at a distance, and we care but
little about them. But let a person come here who has wit-
nessed them, and who has the power to represent and bring
them home to us, we shall then feel and judge rightly.
Why ? Because our sympathy is increased ? No : but be-
cause our imagination has been roused. Now, to the person
of vivid imagination, this aid is needless ; he will compre-
hend and sympathize without it. I say, then, that this moral
bond of sympathy depends in a great measure upon this
power of imagination. And what sustains us often at the
bed-side of sickness, and in all our troubles and trials ? Is
it not the power of going, by imagination, from that scene of
trouble, and living elsewhere ? Is it not true, that, when some
pleasant book is put into our hands, we are able by this
power to leave the scenes by which we are surrounded, and
pass away into other lands and ages ? Is it not through the
power of imagination that the mother, sitting and watching
by her sick infant or husband, may take her Testament, and,
leaving her cold, narrow room, the straw bed, and the small
lamp and the decaying fire, may be carried by the sacred
words of the Gospel into the green fields of Palestine, and
listen to the tidings of God as they fell from the lips of Jesus
himself? May she not join with that humble band of fol-
lowers who are already on the borders of the Lake of Gali-
lee, and who, with their mantles gathered around them, are
praying that he who has just departed upon its waters may
not be swallowed up by the storm which they see gathering?
and, in imagination, will she not be with the disciples them-
selves in the reeling ship, when He rose and stilled the
waves ? and will she not realize, by this power of imagina-
tion, as without it she could not have realized, the great truth,
that it is more than a man in whose presence she stands ?
It is, too, by this same power that the most distinct and
vivid certainty is given to all the future. There may be a
MANHOOD. 229
Christian faith in one who has little of this power. But the
more vivid the imagination, the more vivid the reality which
we perceive through faith.
"Such are these four powers, Observation, Analysis,
Composition, and Imagination. And they comprehend the
whole range of the human intellect, if I mistake not. And
I ask if there is one of them that is not deserving of cultiva-
tion, and that does not need it as much in the female as in
the male. Thus, then, we have taken one decided step in
our theory of the intellectual education of woman.
" III. In the third place, we have to speak of the intellect-
ual education of girls which seeks to give a general knowl-
edge, which makes us acquainted with the world at large,
with mankind, and with God, who made and preserves man
and the world he dwells in.
" Many persons, when told that their daughters are to be
introduced to the study of natural history, philosophy, hu-
man history, or political economy, think it a waste of time.
They say, 'Can you boil a ham by political economy, or
roast a chicken by natural philosophy ? ' and, taking this low
idea of the .education of females, they do not recognize
the truth, that it is only by this general knowledge woman
can grow to her proper height.
" But it is too evident to need argument, that it is by the
means of this universal acquaintance with the whole world,
and nothing short of the whole world, that we become what
men and women should be.
" I ask you if it be not true, that the divine will be just so
much more a sectarian as he is ignorant ? the lawyer nar-
row just in proportion to his want of general knowledge ? if
the politician will not become a mere partisan, if his views
have not been widened out to the whole scope of the world?
It is only by this general knowledge, this universal acquaint-
ance with every thing, that, putting off this narrowness of a
VOL. i. 20
230 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
sectarian, he is enabled to stand before God and the world
as a man, and not as a partisan.
" But women, it may be said, are not exposed to the dan-
ger that men are, that of pursuing one profession exclu-
sively, and being narrowed down, and becoming mere
tools, mere mechanics, or lawyers, or divines.
" It is true, that woman is not exposed to this professional
danger. But is she not to danger just as great, to an
education which would make her a mere boiler of hams and
sweeper of rooms, as if the profession of housekeeping were
the only thing she could be expected to understand ? Is
there not danger of this ?
" But we wish her to be educated, so as not only to know
how to sweep her room or boil a ham, and do every thing
with her own hands (and this I hold that all women should
learn to do), but we also wish her to be educated with as
much care as we ourselves should be.
" Many men, I believe, for fear that woman would outstrip
them, say that this knowledge is out of her province, and
that she has no business with any thing of the kind.
" I believe that woman has an immortal soul, and is just
as much a child of my Maker as we are, and that we have
no more right to try to limit her than to limit ourselves to
any line of life alone, and as I hold it criminal in a man to
become a mere divine, a mere lawyer, a mere mechanic, or
any other part of a man, so it would be criminal in us to
make our helpmates any less perfect than we would make
ourselves. All general knowledge, then, I say, becomes
the right of woman, and this should be given her. And if
this be true, we have taken another great step in settling
our theory of female education.
"IV. The fourth branch of intellectual education is tech-
nical education, and woman is entitled to a technical, profes-
sional education, as much so as a lawyer or a carpenter.
At first sight it would seem that woman has no technical
MANHOOD. 231
profession. I think that every woman has a profession. It
is that of being a wife and mother. Those who do not come
in as principals, as wives and mothers, come into it as assist-
ants, under the name of maiden aunts ; so that the whole of
womankind, with few exceptions, belong to this profession
of education. For the wife and mother must be an edu-
cator, and the whole of womankind belong to the college of
teachers.
" Now if this be true, and if we admit nothing else, then
with respect to her technical education as teacher she has
claims to be introduced to a wider literary and scientific
field than the mere lawyer, doctor, or minister. For if
there is any profession which requires extensive knowledge,
it is this of a teacher. There is no greater error than to
limit woman in her technical studies, and the mistake has
arisen from this, that we think each man is to study for a
profession, and that she has no profession ; but if that be
true which has been stated, from what have we a right to
shut her out ?
" Of these four branches of intellectual education, then, so
far as I have been able to judge, there is not one into which
woman should not be introduced as much as man.
" I have, then, so far as I can, given you that which I
would aim at. I have told you, as I said that the architect
would, what the object is to be attained. My aim would
be, to give in the education of girls all that I have to give.
" Next, let us ask as to the MODE or PLAN of an education
for girls ; and in the first place I will name the common
deficiencies and difficulties which exist at present in the
intellectual education of girls.
" 1. There is this great and lamentable deficiency,
they are not well taught in the rudiments of any thing they
undertake. I know not why it is, but it seems to me they
are commonly very imperfectly instructed in the rudiments
232 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
of any science. In mathematics it is seldom the case that
they understand the theory and philosophy of mensuration
and rotation at all. What they know, they know mechani-
cally. In grammar you find the same thing true. Woman
may talk as good grammar as man. They talk better than
most men in this part of the world. Not because they
understand the theory, however. They have learned but
little in regard to that. Again, with regard to reading,
a girl may go to school until she is fifteen or sixteen, and
may read beautifully aloud. But try her as to the mean-
ing and force of what she reads. As to that she knows
comparatively little. It may be that the sense may be
ichipped into boys, and not into girls, but I do not believe
that to be the reason. I believe there is too general a neg-
lect on this subject, that it is for want of thought and
consideration on the part of the earlier teachers of girls.
" 2. In the second place, the studies are too crowded ; too
many things are given to girls to learn at once. I have had
children come to me ten or eleven years old, who were
learning to read, write, and spell, and yet they were in the
midst of natural philosophy and Parley's History of Eng-
land, and of the World ; and this history is drilled into
them, when any thing like an idea of history is as unattain-
able as it would have been when they were six months old.
They might better be at work improving their handwriting.
"3. The third difficulty is the repetition which arises
from the neglect of the rudiments. I recollect myself, after
going on for six or seven years through Ovid and Virgil, I
had to turn back and begin again with Liter Primus, and
go over and over the same thing. But among girls this is
particularly true, they turn back and begin again, and
retrace their steps, like a mill-horse, going round and round,
till they become disgusted with the whole study.
" There was a sentence in the letter of the President of
this College which was read to-night, that struck me very
MANHOOD. 233
forcibly ; he said that it was perfectly wonderful how little
children really learned, out of all the books which they went
through. They appear to learn very frequently, but look
deeper than memory and words, and there is but little left
at the end of a year ; and unless the rudiments are well
learned, there is little or nothing that will be learned from
four to twenty.
" 4. A fourth difficulty in my estimation, and my views
may be in this respect somewhat peculiar, is, that too little
time is given to education. I do not think that with males or
females we have any true idea of the time necessary for
education ; for myself, I believe that with men the whole
time should be occupied up to the age of thirty. It is not
till the age of seventeen or eighteen that young men can
begin to appreciate the great questions presented to the
intellect. To pass through them all, and be able by practi-
cal experience to comprehend them, and read books and life
understandingly, requires every moment up to thirty.
" They had a higher idea of education in olden time, a
far higher idea, when they did not expect a man to be edu-
cated till he was thirty, than we have now. Here, at eigh-
teen or nineteen, young men know every thing, and with
girls it is still worse. A young lady is expected to know all
about the world and every thing in it by the time she is six-
teen. History, philosophy, all the languages, all the mathe-
matics, these must be perfectly distinct and clear in her
mind.
" She leaves school at sixteen or seventeen, and goes out
into the world, and studies not at all after that, or if she
makes the effort, studying alone is very up-hill work, and
if she has no company or instructor, she gains little or
nothing.
" Now it appears to me, that much more time should be
given to the early branches, that the higher should not
be introduced till nearer the close of the period usually de-
20*
234 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
voted to education, and that education should be continued
systematically till eighteen, twenty, or even twenty- five.
" 5. A fifth difficulty is a want of system. There are
institutions and private schools in which there is something
like system. But usually there is not that system which is
pursued with boys. A boy goes through a regular course in
preparing for college. He then enters college, and has to
pass through a regular course of study with great care, and
by a system based on wide experience. But girls go through
with nothing of the kind. They change from school to
school, studying indiscriminately, and, in nine cases out of
ten, the beginning, middle, and end of their education have
no reference one to the other. It is a common thing in this
country to send daughters to the Eastern cities to finish their
education ; as though a lady in Philadelphia, knowing noth-
ing of their previous education, could know how to complete
the plan.
" It is for the removal of these difficulties that I am seek-
ing. I wish those of more experience to tell me how it is
that the great end is to be gained. This is the object I have
in view in presenting these remarks to the College of Teach-
ers. And in order that I may be understood, allow me to
lay before you as briefly as I can a COURSE OF STUDY,
which, with my short experience, I have undertaken to
arrange ; claiming nothing more, than that others shall tell
me wherein I am wrong.
" My proposal, then, would be, that girls should not come
to school till they are eight years of age. Before that, at
home, I would have them taught to read, at least, and, if
possible, to write.
" And here let me say, that in this early education it is
that the woman, more than at any other period, can guide
the future course of the child. The mother at home will
determine in a great measure all that the teacher can do.
He can do nothing with a child, if she has an unfaithful
MANHOOD. 235
mother at home. I propose that the girl of eight shall come,
able to read and write, and that is all I would ask. My plan
during the first year would be to detain her but three hours
in school, and I should confine her to reading, with defini-
tions, spelling, and grammar, orally taught; to geography,
taught with history and natural history, and these in a great
measure orally, too; to writing and drawing; to these, with
story-telling, I would limit my instruction during the year.
I should like to spend an hour every da*y telling stories, as
by so doing the powers of language, composition, observa-
tion, and imagination may all be brought out and cultivated.
I would have, too, regular conversations, and thus do what
we do not do at present, cultivate the power of conversation.
" During the next year, I would confine the child to four
hours only, say from nine to one. Exercises the same, with
the addition of arithmetic ; and as to geography, I would
give my entire attention to the study of American geogra-
phy and history.
" Instead of giving general geography, and going over the
whole world in six months, I would take a single country,
and devote the whole year to that country, and combine the
history and natural history of that country with its geog-
raphy.
" And I would say, begin the study of geography at
home. I know there are some experienced teachers who
would first teach the general science of geography, and
then all the details ; but I have been convinced that a child
learns better in geography with regard to these great subjects
when details are not understood at all. I would begin here
at home, and making them understand the geography of our
own country, I would go from the centre outwards, till the
whole world should be embraced. So with arithmetic, I
would spend the first two years in doing nothing but this,
teaching the child numeration, notation, and the four simple
rules ; I should not expect to go beyond division.
236 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
" In teaching arithmetic at the outset, I think we err in
not presenting some visible external objects. A child may
be taught by means of blocks with great ease. I know this,
because I have taken children, and by means of a few scraps
of paper have made them comprehend perfectly the whole
theory of numeration ; and any one knows, when that is truly
understood, arithmetic presents no difficulty at all ; they go
through arithmetic as easily as they would walk through a
grass field.
" During the first and second years I would use, in addi-
tion to a common reader of some kind, some one book pos-
sessing a classical character ; but take care that it should
not be a task-book, and so made hateful. You all recollect
the disgust you have felt from having been forced to read
over and over the noblest passages of our literature.
" In this way I would introduce children to our best
English writers, while yet very young, beginning at eight
years, and going on slowly, not introducing the higher au-
thors till twelve or thirteen. I believe a girl at sixteen or
seventeen may have become acquainted with about sixty of
the best authors in the English language, a list which com-
prehends all its best classics. I have made a calculation
that, in this way, by little and little, and without task, by giv-
ing to the younger readers the simpler and easier writers, and
so on up to the voluminous divines and metaphysicians, &c.,
in one hour a day, the whole may be made intelligible and
familiar to a girl between the ages of eight and seventeen.
" In the next year (between ten and eleven) I should in-
troduce the study of Latin.
" When I began to teach I was much prejudiced against
introducing Latin, for I was myself ten years learning it,
during which time I was flosged till my hand became
as hard as a ploughman's, and I was so disgusted with
the whole study that I left school and entered a mercan-
tile life.
MANHOOD. 237
" Feeling thus, I went on during a year without Latin,
and the second year tried the experiment of using it, and
became then satisfied that it was a proper study for girls.
They acquire, through that language, the English language,
and come also to the grammar of all languages ; while
analysis and the power of composition are cultivated, as
nothing else will cultivate them.
" It was remarked some years ago by President McGuf-
fey, that to transfer a series of ideas from one form of Eng-
lish words into another was no exercise of the power of
composition, but simply of analysis, while to translate from
one tongue to another requires both.
'' A young man studying Csesar has to rewrite Cccsar.
He has to take the separate words and put them together as
Csesar did. Here is an effort of composition. I should,
therefore, introduce and continue for four years the study of
the Latin.
" During this period I should continue drawing and writ-
ing, and I ask your attention to this. By drawing, better
than in any other way, we get that command of the muscles
which makes a good writer. And it cultivates, also, the
sense of the beautiful. I would, therefore, give lessons
every other day in drawing, from simple forms to complex,
during the whole course, to the age of fifteen.
" In the third year, also, I would take up the geography
of Europe, and the history and natural history of Europe,
making the geography prominent, for that can be understood
when history is a sealed book.
" During the fourth year I would give Asia, Africa, and
the rest of the world in the same way.
" Between twelve and thirteen, fifth year, coming
back to America, I would go over the whole world as before,
making, however, the history prominent, and the geography
subordinate.
" There is one great objection, however, to the plan just
238 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
named. We have not a book in the language fitted for the
purpose.
" Between eleven and twelve I would introduce the writ-
ing of compositions in the form of stories that have been
read, or something similar. I believe it is true, and I ask
if it is not, that girls acquire an inflated, false, and ridicu-
lous style, by imitating writers when composing essays on
abstract subjects. The result often is, that when they sit
down to write a letter, they write the most arrant nonsense
ever put upon paper. I have read letters which appeared
to be the quintessence of absurdity, and I imputed it to the
fact that they had been called upon at school to imitate fine
writing.
" From that time, the age of twelve, I would continue
composition to the end of their course. Up to this age I
should introduce no other studies but the English grammar,
and geography and history, as already named, with writing
and drawing, and arithmetic. After twelve, I would intro-
duce algebra, the philosophy and principles of English criti-
cism, the study of natural philosophy and history.
" And now I ask you, if by this plan studies would be
crowded, repetition needed, the rudiments neglected ? Up
to the age of thirteen, I should occupy only four hours a
day. Increasing it to five and a half hours from thirteen to
fourteen.
" From fifteen to sixteen, I should introduce the study of
the French, because some of the best modern literature of
the world is in that tongue ; and for carrying out the histor-
ical education, if for nothing else, I would give the young
this language, for the greatest historical writers of our age
are Frenchmen.
" During this year I should introduce the study of scien-
tific natural history. At that age, and not earlier, it may
be clone, without producing a repulsion to the whole subject.
" A little child is pleased with examining insects and ani-
MANHOOD. 239
mals ; but if you attempt to teach it nomenclature, it is
disgusted with the whole subject. I would not introduce
natural history as a science until a more mature age, say
at thirteen.
" From fourteen to fifteen I would pursue nearly the same
course. Passing over, from one step to another, I would in-
troduce political economy, and after going through, as they
would have gone through, history as a collection of facts,
the students may be introduced with great benefit to such
knowledge as will make them to understand what modern
history means. While ancient history is a history of war-
fare, modern history is the history of political economy and
of government.
" Between fifteen and sixteen, having gone through the
modern, we may turn to the universal history of civilization,
so as to be able, turning back upon the part already studied,
to understand what that is which has been learned. Little
children are not capable of reading history to good purpose.
Natural philosophy and history belong to comparatively ma-
ture minds. It is not till we have our powers of analysis
and composition educated that we can truly learn them.
Instead of introducing natural philosophy at nine, I would
not touch it till mathematics had been gone through with,
just as it is in our colleges.
" At the period from sixteen to seventeen, I would take
up the study of chemistry, deferring it till then for the same
reasons that would lead me to defer natural philosophy.
" In that year, sixteen to seventeen, I would take up the
study of technology, and here I come to a field not usually
entered by young ladies.
" A few years ago an intelligent English gentleman went
into one of our common schools. A gentleman who sits be-
fore me was examining a class on the history of ancient
Greece. The foreigner was astonished, and said, ' What
schools you have in Cincinnati ! ' But when he began to
240 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
ask about the bricks and boards, and found they knew
nothing about ihom, lie said, ' Why, it seems to me that this
is a disgrace to Cincinnati. While you teach about Greece,
two thousand years ago, you leave your children ignorant of
the world right before them ! '
" I believe there is truth in this criticism, and I would,
though not till a late period, introduce them to the arts and
practical occupations among men. It is a study for young
men at college ; why not for girls ? I would introduce, in
connection with it, statistics, and, like the Germans, aesthet-
ics, or the science of beauty.
" Here, again, with the exception of music, do not girls
grow up ignorant ? Who among us is able, on scientific
principles, to determine the value of the female head sent to
Mr. Longworth by Powers? Who, educated here, can dis-
cern the merits of any great painting ? Very few, if any.
It seems to me that, if it can be done, this subject of irsthet-
ics should be introduced among the studies of girls, for
with them the science of beauty should be understood.
' In the last year, sixteen to seventeen, I would introduce
the study of political science, the outlines of theology,
medicine, and law. It may seem absurd that young ladies
should be taught to be divines, and lawyers, and doctors, but
surely they ought to be doctors at least. If women knew
when children are likely to have the scarlet fever, instead
of a cold, many children would be saved, and physicians
might rest quietly in their beds. I would teach the others,
also, for in order to know what is going on in the world they
must know something of law and theology. The great prin-
ciples of them should be embraced in such a course.
" Now, if you will notice what I have gone over, you will
sec there are no less than twenty-five distinct subjects em-
braced. lU-fore the age of seventeen, therefore, these studies
would have been included, and the girl, if able and faithful,
would have a better knowledge of the country and its institu-
MANHOOD. 241
tions, the trades and statistics, &c., of our own city, and all
kindred subjects, than most of our young men who have
been at college at a maturer age.
" And now I come to the last year, from seventeen to
eighteen. This I should devote entirely to a revision of the
whole course, teaching the student how to teach those things
she has learned. It should be spent exclusively in teaching
her how to be a professional teacher, and not to disgrace her
calling as an educator. And let me say here, before I close,
that not only is the mother of the greatest assistance by what
she does before a child comes to school, but she may assist
the teacher during the whole period of her attending school.
Every instructor knows the difference between a family in
which an interest is taken in the children's studies, and one
where every study is neglected at home.
" The father and mother can do more than words can ex-
press in perfecting the education of their children. The
greatest difference that "I find is not in the natural capacity of
children ; but it lies in this, that some have been trained to
habits of industry, care, and thoroughness, and others have
not been. I find, when a girl has been taught to hang up
her bonnet when she comes home, she is a better scholar
than if not so taught. If taught at home to make bread or
pudding thoroughly, she will learn her lessons better in
school.
" If a girl of good mind is at home thorough, industrious,
and careful, she will be an intellectualist ; but if the oppo-
site habits are taught at home, she cannot be a good scholar ;
for these habits are necessary to a good scholar. And I say
that, if there be any thing in the idea that education should
not stop when children leave school, but that the young
woman should go on till she is twenty-five before she con-
siders herself educated, then from eighteen onward it should
be the mother that should guide the daughter. Those daugh-
ters who, when they leave school, have mothers to sit down
VOL. i. 21
242 LIFE OF JAMES II. PERKINS.
with them as their instructors, will go on improving, and all
the allurements of society will not drive them away from
the means, and the only means, of true growth.
" 1 have thus, my friends, stated, as well as I am able, the
end at which we .should aim in the education of girls. I
have pointed out the defects in female education which have
fallen under my notice ; and I have given you the scheme
which I should be inclined to adopt.
"I respectfully ask your continued attention to this sub-
ject. For my own part, believing, as I do, that, the destinies
of our country hang upon WOMAN, that she is far more in-
fluential at the heart and centre than man ever is, it appears
to me one of the greatest questions that can be brought be-
fore us, ' How shall woman be thoroughly and intellectually
educated, during the few years given for that purpose ? '
But Mr. Perkins's views of education were nowise lim-
ited to youth. His own solitary studies and intellectual
triumphs had taught him the worth of self-culture through-
out the whole of life ; and among the mercantile, me-
chanic, and laboring classes he continually met with
men of noblest powers, who were passing through the
world comparatively unknown and unfelt, for mere want
of mental stimulants. This desire to welcome all to
that path of progress which, once vigorously entered,
leads upward for ever, prompted him to aid every plan
for general enlightenment. Among these were Libraries,
Lyceums, and Societies for Mutual Improvement. Of
the Young Men's .Mercantile Library Association he
was a munificent patron. The Board of that institution,
in their Reports, acknowledge the following donations :
in 1S46, " of 1-46 volumes, most of them standard works,
and a few of scarce and valuable editions, together with
valuable maps and charts," in 1S47, "of 107 vol-
MANHOOD. 243
times of rare works, with scarce and valuable maps,"
in 1848, " of 60 volumes " ; and they accompany their
acknowledgments with " heartfelt thanks for his great and
repeated liberality," and in token of their gratitude pre-
sented to him a right of life-membership in the Asso-
ciation. To him was due, also, the suggestion and com-
mencement of a Library of Reference, where costly
books might be deposited for purposes of study, and be
open for the use of earnest inquirers, with only the re-
strictions prescribed by honor.
Of the Historical Society of Cincinnati, and of the
Historical and Philosophical Society of Ohio, which
in 1849 was removed from Columbus to Cincinnati, and
united with the former association, Mr. Perkins was
also a devoted and intelligent member, doing all in his
power to keep alive a memory " of that adventurous and
hardy band who first broke the stillness of the forests of
the West, and planted on her soil the standard of free-
dom and civilization." Of the Cincinnati Historical So-
ciety, which was organized in 1844, he was the first
president, 'and retained his position till 1847, when for
two years he served it as vice-president and recording
secretary. Of the Historical Society of Ohio he was
elected first vice-president at its reorganization in 1849.
These honors he well deserved, and office to him was
never a sinecure. In the winter of 1838, he delivered
an address before the Ohio Historical Society at Colum-
bus, and in his leisure hours during the remainder of
that season began the preparation for his Annals of the
West, a work whose accuracy, completeness, thor-
oughness of research, clear method, and graceful per-
spicuity of style show his admirable qualifications for an
244 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
*
historian. Successively, in after years, he wrote for
the North American Review the series of Historical
Sketches reprinted in the second volume of this col-
lection of his writings, sketches which, even as they
stand, form a complete outline of Western history. His
penetrating power of analysis, constructive imagination,
regard for truth, sound judgment, and humane principle,
are brightly manifested in these essays ; and throughout
is felt his pervading trust in Providence, and awe for the
grandeur of human destiny.
Hut it was not as an historian only that Mr. Perkins
discharged his duty as a literary man. After the resig-
nation of his editorships, he was still a constant contribu-
tor to leading papers and journals, of tales, poems, es-
says, criticisms, &c., losing no chance to speak a good
word for enterprises of usefulness, to advocate the cause
of justice and mercy, to allay prejudices, to guide the
public mind in a right direction, and from transient ques-
tions of the hour to draw enduring lessons. His views
of the function of the scholar and author, indeed, were in
the highest degree earnest. " Your principle," he says
to a friend, in 1839, " of not writing for the public, but
to please yourself, albeit one of Carlyle's and I believe
of Goethe's, I cannot subscribe to. I surely would not
have one write unless he has something and some-
thing of deep interest to himself to say ; but I would
have every student work for his fellow ' forked rad-
ishes,' let said radishes be as strong and pungent as they
may. I am fully of the faith, my most philosophic
friend, that if Jesus of Nazareth had any idea in his
mind, or feeling in his heart, or law in his conscience, it
was this, l Live and labor for all men, never asking
what they think of you, nor caring how they receive your
MANHOOD. 245
efforts.' And to you as a fellow-radish, let me say, in
all frankness and without offence, that you and I, and all
of us, are in danger of underrating the public, because we
feel that the public underrates MS. For myself, at least,
I am well aware that not a day passes when I have not
to struggle against the temptation to sneer, because, as I
feel, I am sneered at. And, as a literary man, I know
that I need frankness, courage, humility, single-hearted-
ness." Especially as a Western literary man was he
intent to reach and keep the highest mood of intellectual
action; for he felt how individual and independent, how
free from traditional reins and cast loose to the guidance
of their own genius, how practically zealous, hopeful,
enthusiastic, pliant, yet sturdy, were the people of the
Great Valley, and the thought shone out for ever bright
before him, that in the West was soon to be throned the
sovereignty of this continent. He longed to be a me-
dium for the spirit of religious humanity, that he might
aid to establish there that only real freedom whose es-
sence is love, whose form is obedience to right. It is
this earnestness that makes the charm of his verses and
narratives ; and this sincerity it was that gave to his style
its simple strength.
How presiding conscience was in Mr. Perkins's habits
of feeling strikingly appeared in his aesthetic tastes ; and
perhaps this predominance of the moral sentiment over
the sense of beauty hindered his enjoyment of ordinary
works of art. For he kept ever present so pure an
ideal, that he could rarely be pleased. Yet that he had
fine artistic perception is plain from the following notices
of some masterpieces of Powers.
" POWEES'S FIRST IDEAL HEAD. Nicholas Longworth,
21*
246 LIFE OF JAMES II. PERKINS.
who was an early and a true friend of Hiram Powers, has
just received from him his first original head, cut in marble.
" It is a female head, perfectly simple in design and ex-
pression, and shows not alone flic pure, noble, just concep-
tion of the artist, but also his exquisite skill in embodying
that conception.
" The head resembles, in its outline and air, the Grecian
sculptures ; but has not their strait, hard profile, nor their
unromantic expression. The nose is not Grecian, nor is
the hair arranged formally after the Greek models, though
it is so far in that style as to possess its peculiar grace.
" Rut when, from the mere outward being, we turn to the
inirard one, as seen in the expression rather than the fea-
tures, it seems to us that no Greek, living while woman was
what she was in Greece, could have given that which the
Christian sculptor has given. And what is this ? \Ve need
use no hyperbole. It is a lovely image of feminine purity,
combined with feminine affection ; the brow, the eye, the
lip, at once human and superhuman ; the counterfeit re-
semblance of one tried, and rising above trial,
1 A being breathing thoughtful breath,
A traveller betwixt Life and' Death ;
The reason firm, the temperate will,
Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill :
A perfect woman, nobly planned,
To warm, to comfort, and rommand;
And yet a spirit still, and bright
With something of an angel light.'
" In a word, it seems to us that the artist in this, his first
work, luis succeeded most admirably in uniting the spirit, of
O I
the two great regions of art, the classic and the romantic,
the Greek and the Teutonic. And to do this is the ofllce of
Christian art.
" Three hundred years ago, we all know how perfectly it
was done in Italy. In our day, Germany bids fair to revive
MANHOOD. 247
the past ; and it is a source of grateful wonder to us, that
from the backwoods of America we have sent more than
one laborer in the cause, none of them greater, none,
probably, equal to the one whose first original work has
been sent by him to tbe place where his own youth was
spent, and to one by whom his youth was aided to grow to
its present manhood.
" Of the details of this head, words can give no idea.
The drapery is faultless ; the hair exquisite ; every curve
of the throat, the neck, and shoulder is given so truly and
delicately as to make you almost think it moving as you
look ; and all without any extravagance or mannerism.
" The pleasantest view we thought to be that from the
side ; but the light will determine the point of view, and
every new light will reveal new beauties."
" POWERS'S BUST OF JUDGE BURNET. It is one of the
rarest results of art to' produce a portrait which shall affect
one like a work of imagination, like an ideal. The same
painter or sculptor whose heads of creation are full of
spirit and feeling, will make his portraits stiff, unmeaning,
and worthless. Nature makes every peasant's head worthy
of careful study, but it is as rare that we find a Murillo to
represent it upon canvas, as a Scott to portray the charac-
ter of a Dandie Dinmont or Edie Ochiltree.
" The portraits of Rembrandt and Vandyke are ideals,
because they have so truly caught the spirit no less than the
form of nature ; and their works in this department, though
lower than the Madonnas of Raphael and Prophets of
Michael Angelb, are surely among the noblest results of
painting. Mr. Powers's busts may almost, if not altogether,
rank with the works of those great masters in that depart-
ment ; that is, if we may trust report for most that he has
cut, and our own eyes for that of Judge Burnet, lately re-
ceived in our city.
248 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
" His head of the Judge, to one who never heard that
such a man lived, would have as much value as an ideal
piece, from its perfect re-creation for it is not imitation
of nature. When we went to see this head, a countryman
was sitting in the entry ; he entered the room with us; and
as his eye caught the bust, ' Why, it 's the Judge,' said he ;
not as if he thought it a bust at all, but the man himself.
And so it is the man himself; we never saw a bust before,
in which we failed to feel the want of the eye ; but here the
whole is so perfect, that one sees the eye from sympathy,
though there is no eye to be seen. The slight, but strongly
marked, muscles of the cheek move as you look at them ;
the veins of the throat swell, and the lips contract, as if the
marble were about to speak ; indeed, one feels awkward
looking at it, it is so like staring a man out of countenance.
" The chiselling is, as all who have seen Mr. Longworth's
' Ginevra ' would expect, exquisite ; indeed, it is so exquisite,
that, combined as it is with the higher qualities of art, one
may incredible as it may seem to young ladies take as
much pleasure in looking at this likeness of a wrinkled old
gentleman, as in gazing upon the smooth, calm beauty of
the 'Gir.cvra' itself."
" POWERS'S GREEK SLAVE. This statue, now world-
renowned, has been for some weeks in this city, and has
been seen and admired by a great multitude. Such admi-
ration, however, is in a measure what we may call second-
hand ; that is, I admire because Mr. Spriggs the millionnaire,
or Dr. Slop the editor, or John Smith, admired before me ;
the admiration is not mine, in truth, but is his in my hands,
otherwise second-handed. This false applause has been
given to every good thing in the world, and of course Mr.
Powers and his Slave could not hope to escape. And among
those who admired it in their hearts, not with their lips only,
some objected to the conception, others to the expression,
MANHOOD. 249
and a third party to the taste of the sculptor in making his he-
roine ' nude,' as it is termed, which, heing translated, means
' stark naked.' For our own part, while we feel in every
fibre the beauty of the work, marvel at its execution, and
thank its creator, we cannot but object to the taste displayed,
the situation represented, and the countenance and position
as suggestive of the situation.
" Let us first notice the face and posture. Do these at
once reveal the state of mind which the supposed situation
must produce in any well-organized maiden ? We feel
confident they do not, from this fact, no Jive persons who
see the statue and think it expressive see the same expres-
sion. One says she is in prayer ; another, she is in con-
scious agony ; another, she is stupefied with agony ; a fourth,
that she has risen above her trial by the power of faith ; and
so on. To us, she looks as one might who is about to
bathe, and heard a noise which made her fear an intruder ;
she stops, listens, is alarmed, grieved, troubled. The expres-
sion, intenser in kind, not in degree alone, which shall at
once lay open to you her actual trial and her struggle, vic-
tory through faith, or defeat through human weakness, is
entirely wanting.
" We say, the expression should reveal at once the state
of mind. Many persons, however, will object that no great
works of art or nature Niagara, the Ocean, Shakspeare,
Homer, Raphael, Michael Angelo produce their full ef-
fect at once ; they need to be studied and lived with.
Most true, no full spring was ever taken in and exhausted at
a mouthful ; and yet the first mouthful will give an idea of
the quality of water or wine. Niagara is not fully seen at
once, but the same impression which is finally left by its
waters in their giant sport is that which at first strikes
one ; the two differ in degree, not in kind. And so with
Raphael or Buonarroti ; the Dresden Madonna of the first,
the Moses of the last, may be studied for years, and every
250 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
year will unfold new beauties and wonders, but the nature,
character, kind, of the last impression and the first is the
same. But, as we see it, in the face and position of Mr.
Powers's statue, the kind of expression is wanting, not
merely the full intensity, the degree.
" Next, as to its nakedness. We do not believe such stat-
ues to be incentives of licentiousness. Stronger incentives
are always within the reach of the seekers. ' To the pure,'
says St. Paul, 'all things are pure, but unto them that are
defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure.' This text, in the
case before us, cuts both ways, as it was meant to ; it sug-
gests the unclean thoughts of too many of those who, as
of necessity, see uncleanness in a naked woman ; and
also points out the great truth, that any painting, statue,
or book, even God's Word itself, may to the impure be-
come a source of evil influences. We do not believe that
the unclothed figure is so dangerous. Men are excited to
evil by evil spirits, not by forms of any kind. A woman
who exposes an arm, or an ankle, through the influence of
loose principles, will arouse the Satyr in them more effectu-
ally than the bare body of an Eve, or the half-clad form of
a Jeanne d'Arc. And here lies the danger of the model
artists, as distinct from the Greek Slave ; their motive is
Mack, Powers's white. But, while we reject the idea that
Mr. Powers's statue is against good morals, we accept the
doctrine that it is against good taste. In other words, it
does not deprave us, make us beasts ; but it does not cleanse
us and bring us nearer to the angels. Naked forms are
not suited to our day. They may be tolerated in Europe
and among us, but they pain every pure man and woman
that goes to see them. They do not necessarily produce
licentiousness, but they necessarily produce suffering ; they
are offensive to our best citizens and best lovers of art.
It may seem very funny to some, that the ' best citizens '
should be allowed to sit in judgment on an artist, but let us
MANHOOD. 251
all remember that whoever does most to purify, cleanse,
and Christianize a community is its best citizen. And why
are they offensive ? Because the unclad human form is
suggestive of evil ? God forbid ! No : it is (so far as we
can analyze) because we cannot but connect degradation,
suffering, purity cast down and impurity triumphant, with
the nakedness of the Moslem captive, or that of any other
woman, save only Eve. An Eve is not open to this criti-
cism, but how few can in any degree realize the position of
our great-great-grandmother ? Realize, for one thing, her
innocence. The naked Eve must be innocent ; when she
sinned she clothed herself. We think the Greek Slave, then,
in bad taste, being, as it is, needlessly, and in opposition to
the common custom, presented in utter nakedness ; not
because nakedness is in itself evil, but because it can belong,
in the conception of our day, only to Eden innocence, or to
degradation, voluntary or compelled.
" And this leads us -to explain our third ground of ob-
jection, namely, that this statue is not well conceived. A
great work of art should appeal to our highest nature, and
so elevate our aims. It should suggest ennobling, not de-
grading, things. It may be painful, but the pain should be
forgotten, lost, in the heaven-tending, and so pleasurable,
result suggested. The highest topic for a work of art is the
Crucifixion, because it is a tragedy linked to the throne of
God ; the topic is full of pain, but infinitely fuller of joy.
The self-sacrifice of Godiva, the martyr-heroine of Coventry,
is a subject full of woe, but full of grandeur also, worth
a seraglio of slave-girls. Treated historically (the heroine
naked as the Greek Slave), it would be, we think, in far
better taste than the Slave, because so much less painful.
The bare limbs of the English noblewoman are exposed to
save many families from woe, many hearths from desola-
tion ; those of the Greek Slave are to tempt the brutal pro-
pensities of some rich Turk. Or suppose a young girl ex-
252 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
posed in the Roman amphitheatre as a Chi'istian ; let her be
naked as she was born, would her nakedness suggest the
same painful, degrading ideas that the Slave does ? No. It
would be, probably, one element of beauty melting into and
mingling with the whole effect. And yet, even in the case
of Godiva, or that of the Christian martyr, it would, we
think, be in far better taste to clothe the figure to the ' edge
of beauty.'
" We would have this position, if possible, definite ; and
therefore our readers will excuse some further illustration.
" You know the story of Godiva. Imagine yourself pres-
ent at her far-famed ride, present, but unseen. You see
the white limbs glisten ; you feel the sacrifice that is made ;
you realize the infinite love that was working in the breast
of that unclothed woman when she bent her will before that
of her brutal spouse. Beautiful and unveiled, as Venus,
she draws near. What do you do ? You bow your head,
and feel that the Spirit of God has passed before you, sup-
porting that shrinking form. You rise ennobled, with a
new conception of the power of faith and love, with a new
purpose in your heart to serve God and the right.
" Again ; you go to the slave-mart in some city where
girls are exposed for sale. You see the buyers, cloven-
footed, Pan-like ; the sellers, merciless sons of Plutus and
Pluto alike. A young, innocent child of seventeen, chained
and stripped, is dragged before you ; she rests in her faint-
ness upon the nearest support, and in her intense woe for-
gets her woe. What do you do ? How do you feel ? You
feel mere anguish, unutterable sympathy and sorrow. You
are not raised, but stricken down ; God is not revealed by
an act of self-sacrifice, he is hidden by the predominance of
the power of Satan. When Godiva rode forth you cried,
' She goes in the might of Heaven ' ; when the poor Greek
shrunk before your gaze, you said, ' Where is God, that
such things are allowed ? '
MANHOOD. 253
" A great artist, presenting to us a tragedy, will always
cause us to sympathize with the suffering portrayed, and yet
will make us forget that suffering in our sympathy with the
noble efforts that are made by the victim. The Greek Slave
appeals to our sympathy with woe, but not at all to our sym-
pathy with spiritual struggle and victory. Therein we think
it vitally defective."
The spirituality that shines through these extracts was
yet more manifest in Mr. Perkins's estimate of the art
of arts, poetry. With unconscious ease, from boyhood
upward, he had poured forth verses ; but the true poet
was to him in so sublime a sense a prophet, that he was
never willing to class himself among that chosen band.
In a lecture on Polite Literature, in 1840, he asks,
" What is it that makes a work poetical ? I answer, it is
that in it which awakens the sense of the DIVIDE,
appealing to the heart through some form of sublimity or
beauty, some holy emotion, some association of
heavenly affections with common experience. The po-
etic element is that which lifts us to the spiritual world.
It is a Divine essence, that makes human speech poetry.
The two grand powers of the poet are, first, that of per-
ceiving what awakens a sense of the Divine, and second,
that of expressing what is poetical in such words and by
such style as to give its true impression. These two
powers may exist apart. A critic may feel when the
sense of the Divine is awakened, but he cannot be a
poet without the inventive imagination that can give to it
a local embodiment and a name. Poetry is not rhyme
or verse merely ; but it is that chord in the human heart
which sends forth harmony when struck by the hand of
nature, that essential spirit of beauty which speaks from
VOL. i. 22
254 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
the soul, in the highest works of sculpture or painting,
which gives eloquence to the orator, and is heard as the
voice of God." It was in his eloquence as an orator,
that his own poetic genius most appeared.
The generous aims which prompted Mr. Perkins to
communicate freely of his inmost life, as a writer, made
him rejoice to use the means of access to the minds of
his fellows given by the modern method of popular lec-
tures. In his very first year of Western life he delighted
large audiences hy his rare gift of speech ; and not a
winter passed without his taking his turn, once or often-
er, in the courses of the Mercantile Library Association,
the Mechanics' Institute, the Lyceum, the Society for
the Promotion of Useful Knowledge, or the College
Fraternities. It was on one of these occasions that I
first heard him address a public assembly, and I shall
never forget the impression. There is a shock of pleas-
ant surprise in seeing one who has been a bosom friend
revealed as the centre of attraction for a crowd of stran-
gers. The heart beats and the breath comes quick with
sympathetic apprehension. " Will he be worthy of his
highest hours, and before this multitude approve him-
self as that man whom I have known ? " I was in-
stantly reassured. The very movement of Mr. Perkins
as he entered the desk, so subdued, yet tranquil, the
quiet equipoise of his tall figure as he rose to speak,
the deliberate intonation and articulateness of his open-
ing words, the measured volume of his voice, its
mellow music so richly various, the graceful dignity
of his gesture, his air of unaffected interest in his
theme, the commanding beauty of his smile and eye
and rounded temples, and finally, his magnetic charm,
MANHOOD. 255
which was singularly strong, all conspired to captivate
me, and before the hour was ended my judgment was
clear, that the playmate of my boyhood had become in
his mature years a master of oratory. This conviction
was only deepened, as I heard him oftener and became
familiar with his style. I have listened to many of our
nation's most admired speakers in the Pulpit, at the
Bar, on the floor of Congress, on the platform of Re-
form Meetings, and before Literary Associations ; but,
after making allowance for the partiality of affection, I
must deliberately say, that for variety and harmonious
combination of faculty I have never heard Mr. Perkins's
superior, and rarely his peer. Especially was he re-
markable for a calm, transparent truthfulness, which
carried up the hearer, through mere outward attractions
of diction and manner, to communion with the very
spirit of the speaker. This profound sincerity gave to
his briefest utterance the unction of a religious appeal.
It seemed but providentially fit, that a man who had
been refined through such complex experience, and was
so consecrated to heavenly ends, should become a
PREACHER. And on the first occasion when aid was
needed, he was invited to take my place in the pulpit.
The congregation honored him so highly, that his pres-
ence there was grateful to their feelings, and the oppor-
tunity seemed a worthy one for manifesting the faith,
that the true ordination for administering the Gospel is
not a laying on of human hands, but an influx of the
Divine Spirit. Though reluctant when the proposal
was made, my friend decided, on reflection, that he
ought to yield to the request ; and by that step he en-
tered on his highest vocation. It became instantly clear
256 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
that the Pulpit was the very place to call forth all his
powers. And the result was, that, when in the summer
I visited the East, he supplied the desk to full accep-
tance ; and when in 1841 I resigned my charge, by the
unanimous voice of the society he was invited to become
their minister. He accepted the duty, though only in
part and as a temporary relation ; for the position of a
professional priest and pastor was repugnant alike to his
taste and judgment, and he wished rather to be one of a
religious brotherhood, who, each in turn, should be
dispensers of devout illumination and charity.
But distrust of his own fitness to be a spiritual guide
was yet further a motive for not assuming the full re-
sponsibilities of the clerical office. In answer to a let-
ter urging him to retain his position, he says :
" My feeling of trouble at occupying the pulpit has come
from the consciousness that I do not approximate to the
character which a Christian teacher should possess. The
people have been kind and attentive ; the church has been
filled, and I presume no one would dissent from my becom-
ing the regular clergyman. But my temper, my habits,
my whole spirit, are such, I am entirely aware, as could
not Christianize any people. Did I feel myself even de-
cently pure, true, just, and kind, I should delight to labor as
a pastor, while I supported myself as a teacher, and let all
means go to other purposes. And should I live to be forty,
and succeed as a teacher, both very questionable points,
it will be my hope to assume such a position, stronger,
wiser, better disciplined, and more able to direct some of
my fellow-beings heavenward. Meantime, bard work for
the body, study for the mind, and restraint and whipping for
the Old Adam ! "
To this expression of natural misgiving I could but
MANHOOD. 257
reply very much in the words which, years before, he
had addressed to myself, in a similar season of humilia-
tion. Plis letter was as follows :
" The state of mind in which you are is, as it seems to
me, a very desirable one. The sense of progress, and a
determination to go on, what can be better suited to your
profession ? One that 1ms been through this warfare, that
has battled with his faults and vanquished them, seems to
me of all men to be best fitted to guide others in the true
course. He has a definite notion of the evils which men
need to be constantly cautioned against, of the snares
which beset the paths of those who are just entering life,
and of the mode of avoiding these snares. The gross vices
of sense are so well known, that it scarce requires more
than common refinement to be able to say all that can be
said against them ; but to warn others of selfishness in its
myriad forms, to put them on their guard against those
mean states of mind which injure many more fine natures
than coarse vices, demands that kind of education which
can be gained only by a struggle with the foes themselves,
or, to use a popular phrase, only by having ' gone through
the mill ' one's self. To a certain extent you have done this ;
and this experience will ultimately give you far more knowl-
edge than any amount of theological reading could do of
the vital springs of human action, and of the daily, hourly,
momentary faults of human nature, faults to commit
which there is not only now and then an outward tempta-
tion, but a continual, standing temptation within."
Faultless, or wholly freed from the evils of tempera-
ment, training, caprice, indulgence, habit, Mr. Perkins
confessedly was not ; but progressive, aspiring, humble,
honest, centrally disinterested, he undeniably was. The
inmost impulse of his will was right. His eye was
22*
258 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
single. He had chosen the Good as his law. His life
was to seek the inspiration of Divine Love, and to make
his thoughts and acts a fitting medium for its transmis-
sion. His spiritual growth had been gradual, but sure ;
and the very external changes winch to superficial ob-
servers might appear like vacillation were really the
sign of his unswerving unity of aim. From his entrance
upon manhood, Moral Development had been the end
to which he had made all plans and interests subservient.
In childhood it had not been his privilege to breathe a
sphere of subduing religious influence, and in youth
lonely struggles and weariness of the world had shut him
up for a time in stern despair. But as life opened be-
fore him, as friendship tempered his severe judgments,
as wider observation of mankind called out pity and rev-
erence, and especially as love quickened his dormant
affections, the frown of Fate was transformed above him
into the smile of Providence. His first step towards a
holy life was this conviction that Sovereign Goodness
ever led him, weak and wayward though he might be, by
the hand. His next was a clear sight of the true end of
existence. Even in boyish speculation, death and the
unseen world had strangely fascinated his imagination ;
and a constant topic of our talk had been preexistence
and futurity. But as the tantalization of ordinary pur-
suits grew plain, and the degradation of prevalent world-
liness filled him with disgust, he longed for an interest
worthy of manly devotion. He found it in the assurance
of immortality. I have rarely seen a person so pene-
trated with the truth that the life of life is the spirit's
growth.
It was from intuition and science, however, that Mr.
Perkins had been led to these convictions of Provi-
MANHOOD. 259
clence and immortality, for at that period he was a skep-
tic in regard to the Christian religion. But as he be-
came more aware of his own frailty, and found by sad
experience how prone he was to fall short of his ideal,
and as the mystery of sin in mankind at large forced
itself upon his attention, he asked himself whether there
was not a deeper significance than he had been apt to
credit in the doctrines of redemption. It was at this
period that he found, as lias been said, a guide in Cole-
ridge. The " Aids to Reflection " he did not merely
read through attentively, but he pierced by zealous study
to its central truths, and worked out faithfully its rich
veins of suggestion. In his copy, fly-leaves, margins,
blank spaces, are completely filled with notes, queries,
illustrations. And to Coleridge he always looked as to
his Christian father. Not because he adopted his leader's
theological opinions, for many of these he rejected, while
others he received in only a modified form ; but because
he did recognize the distinction so justly drawn by that
philosopher between prudence, morality, and spiritual
life. From the universe, through humanity, he longed to
ascend to Divine communion ; and saw in Nature, Rea-
son, and Revelation that " Unity in Trinity, which all
may receive : God the Creator and Governor, seen in
Nature, God the Redeemer, seen in Revelation,
God the Sanctifier, purifying the heart through Reason,
One God, in Three Forms." *
At the time when Mr. Perkins began to preach, he
felt the pressure of moral infirmity. The very position
that he assumed in the pulpit, and his whole tone of dis-
course, showed how conscious he was that he had not
* See his lecture on the Relations of Nature, Reason, and Revela-
tion. Western Messenger, 1640.
260 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
attained to peace or light. He was a seeker, intellect-
ually and spiritually, and professed to be nothing more.
Usually, he rather lectured than sermonized, and pre-
ferred to read prayers from a liturgy, rather than to utter
the confessions and aspirations of his o\vn heart. So
fearful did he seem, indeed, of vitiating by affected feel-
ing what inward life he had, that he was plain even to
carelessness in his style of address, and familiar to the
verge of commonplace in his topics and illustrations.
Yet however trite his theme, and however off-hand his
manner, there was always a concentrated earnestness in
his look, and a tremulous emotion beneath the calmness
of his voice and gesture, that irresistibly won respectful
sympathy ; and at times he unpremeditatedly rose into
sustained flights of sublimest thought, and poured forth
his feeling in most pathetic devotion. " Though, as I
came late, I stood outside the door," said once a visitor
to the church, " and could not hear distinctly a single
word of his prayer, yet his mere tone and accent were so
profoundly affecting, that I was moved to tears." It was
the humility of his attitude, as he stood side by side with
his hearers, and the simple truthfulness with which he
asked illumination from on high, that gained their confi-
dence. He was pure from pretence ; he brought no
false fire to the altar ; he drew from a reserved force of
character ; he was ascending, and as he mounted to se-
rener heights his stature rose in dignity, and his counte-
nance grew bright.
As the earliest sermons of Mr. Perkins were the only
ones which I heard, it must be left to other friends to
describe the impression produced by his preaching.
Judge Walker thus bears his testimony to its power :
MANHOOD. 261
" It is within the truth to say, that no society could be more
devoted hearers. And speaking for myself, I unhesitatingly
declare, that his sermons and lectures, for solid sense, clear-
ness of expression and arrangement, practical utility, free-
dom from bigotry, all-embracing charity, beautiful simplicity,
and earnest piety, surpassed any which I ever heard. He
spoke for the most part extemporaneously ; and yet he was
seldom known to recall a word as misplaced, or a thought
as misapplied. On the contrary, the most laborious efforts
at composition could not, apparently, have improved either
the diction or arrangement of his discourse."
And Mr. William Greene, an earnest yet discriminat-
ing admirer of good preaching, thus shows the quality
and source of his influence :
" It was the capital feature in Mr. Perkins's character,
and perhaps the truest mark of his acknowledged greatness,
that he lived and worked for God and humanity, and never,
apparently, for any personal advantage, even that of repu-
tation. His superiority consisted, in good measure, in not
presenting himself in what he did, as that of most persons
does in the reverse. He seemed not to have a particle of
ambition in the ordinary sense of that word, nor a particle
of the vanity which is almost always at the bottom of it. In
all my knowledge of men, and among all my acquaintance,
I think in these particulars he was without an equal.
" He never delivered a five minutes' speech that he did
not leave an impression to be borne away, and to make him
remembered. He rarely preached a sermon that was not
pronounced ' grand.' And this was not a word merely of
the moment and of the tongue that uttered it. It was felt in
every hearer's deepest heart to be true. ' Was not that a
great and wonderful discourse ! ' How often have Judge
Walker and myself interchanged that exclamation as we
2G2 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
were coming out of church ! And how have the dozen, male
and female, around us hunt; with the wannest sympathy
upon our involuntary utterance, an utterance which was
only a. thinking aloud of what could not he suppressed.
His 'last sermon' was generally his 'best'; though the
feeling in reference to the previous one had been, that not
even he could excel it in any future effort. In this statement
I feel that I am speaking without exaggeration, as I am cer-
tainly without the sentiment of it. I>ut the statement would
be imperfect if I did not add, that, in all this glorious out-
pouring of intellect and spirit, he appeared to he utterly un-
conscious of the power he was exerting, and of the effect he
produced. When I occasionally talked to him of this, as
in moments of close confidence 1 could not help doing, it
was quite evident to me that I touched his humility rather
than his pride. lie knew 1 was incapable of flattering him,
and therefore was not ollended ; but I have thought at such
times, that his manner indicated a sort of kind pity of the
judgment that could so estimate the powers of so humble a
creature as lie felt himself to he.
" There arc those who, acknowledging the fact of his
influence, might curiously inquire in what consisted the
mighty power of this great man as a preacher. It was not,
ct rtainlv, in what would be called the originality of his
topics, for these were generally of the most every-day and
familiar kind. Indeed, some of his noblest efforts have
been upon commonplace occurrences, not twenty-four hours
old at the time when he would astonish us with his amazing
powers of statement and analysis, or by the inculcation of
some most impressive lesson which they suggested. Nor
was any considerable part of his power in any thing that
was merely oratorical ; for his manner, though always ear-
nest, was always simple. He had no tricks of imposing
form, as too many have, to eke out deficiency or inanity
of substance.
MANHOOD. 263
" It has occurred to me, that his chief power as a preacher
consisted in the fact that he was a practical man, and as
such felt a deep and earnest sympathy with the spiritual
wants that pertained to the current life of every class. He
felt that every event in the development of humanity, of
whatever grade in the scale of merely factitious standards,
was, in solemn reality, an essential part of the Providence
of God, and as such of highest moment in the proper esti-
mate of man. Acting, thinking, and speaking under this
conviction to others, with the application of his extraordi-
nary intellectual power in enforcing his thoughts, he gave
to ordinary experiences a commanding interest. Thus he-
made every listener feel that he had a direct personal con-
nection with the most transient concerns of the community,
and relations of duty of which he had never thought before.
Hundreds of times I have gone away from his preaching
with precisely the feeling that I have here tried to express,
surprised to recognize -the importance of matters which I
had been wont to pass by as too trifling for attention.
" Our friend's influence as a preacher grew, too, in part
from his relations to public institutions. Thence he brought
experience, and to them communicated again new interest.
To him was conceded by judicious minds that authority
which is due only to unpretending and assured wisdom,
united with the spirit of disinterested benevolence. Every
one felt, that his word was true, and his advice considerate
and well matured. This distinction gave him a sway over
public opinion, which, at the same time that it devolved
upon him the weightiest responsibilities for the public good,
he did not fail to apply, and with gratifying success, to the
most honorable and useful ends.
" And, again, his preaching was impressive from the
well-known fact that his ordinary life was, from day to
day, habitually and systematically devoted, in some form or
other, to doing good, either in teaching the young, coun-
264 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
selling the old, relieving the wants of the needy, comforting
the sick and the alllicted, or reclaiming the vicious. All
remembered that he was ready for these works at a mo-
ment's call, at all seasons of the year, at all hours of day
and night, and in all weathers : and that they were done so
o *
quietly, that any amount of them might have distinguished a
given period, and the world have been no wiser, except as ac-
cident might disclose what his disinterestedness, ditiidence,
and modesty would have preferred, and even sought, to
conceal."
And, finally, an earnest and high-minded woman thus
records to a friend the c fleet of Mr. Perkins's sermons
upon herself :
" They used often to begin like mere conversations, and
were almost always about what seemed the most familiar
things. We were astonished, not so much that he preached
on uncommon subjects, as that he treated them in so un-
common a manner, and that his preaching embraced so
many topics which would not be considered strictly relig-
ious. His power of securing and enchaining the attention
was one of his most remarkable gifts. Whatever one's
mood might be, or however much absorbed in other con-
cerns, he never failed to arrest the thoughts and to keep
them till the last word was uttered. Whether you agreed
with him or not, he was almost equally interesting ; and his
main object seemed to be to leave the minds of others per-
fectly free. He was incapable of exercising any thing like
tyranny, and at the same time had great power of convin-
cing. He communicated his own expansiveness of thought
and greatness of soul ; and I used to feel, when I was lis-
tening to him, that I was great too. I never wished to
speak after I came out of church ; and it was often a sore
trial, after hearing some of his finest sermons, to be obliged
to talk, even with those I liked. I could not bear to have
the influence pass away.
MANHOOD. 265
" I have not to regret that I did not appreciate him more
fully, for I could not have listened to him with more ear-
nestness, it seems to me, if I had known how soon we were
to lose him ; and there was always a feeling of insecurity
about his health, which made me value every opportunity of
hearing him speak. He seemed to me the greatest arid
most effective preacher whom I had ever listened to, and no
one ever impressed me so deeply with the reality of his
religious faith. I should have fancied it was from some pe-
culiarity of my own mind or temperament, that his preach-
ing was so much more satisfactory and elevating to me
than that of any one else, if I had not found that others
gained the same strength from his words, and felt, like me,
that they were peculiarly adapted to their own nature
and wants. It was because his teaching was so broad and
comprehensive, that it seemed especially suited to every
mind. Every thing was real that came from his lips. He
was incapable of falling into a monotonous manner, or ac-
quiring a ministerial tone. He said every thing livingly,
and gave to every statement the freshness of a new thought.
He could not be commonplace or dull, whatever he might
say. The more I contrast his preaching with that of other
men, the more convinced I am that we did not enough esti-
mate its rare power. I have sometimes regretted, with
others, that so few of his sermons were preserved for publi-
cation, but I do not know that this is my permanent feeling.
For in print they must have lacked the earnest tone, the
matchless simplicity, the freedom from excitement and
every attempt at effect, which constituted so essential a part
of their character."
Mr. Perkins usually preached without notes, and seldom
prepared more than a brief skeleton of his discourses.
It was his habit to meditate carefully upon selected
topics during his walks, and for an hour or two before
VOL. i. 23
2G6 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
entering the pulj>it ; but he trusted entirely to inspirations
of the hour for forms of utterance. He could not be
persuaded, either, that sermons which proved most ef-
fective in delivery were worthy of being written out for
preservation ; and even the occasional ones which he did
commit to paper were quickly destroyed, for he was
chiefly anxious to forget the past and to press on. It is
impossible, therefore, to give any adequate impression of
his preaching. Yet, though confessedly an imperfect
specimen of his style, it may be pleasing to place on
record here the following sermon. It is of value as
communicating his deliberate judgment upon the princi-
ples which should guide the religious teacher in our age
and land.
1842. " Since we last met, my friends, we have beard
of the death of DR. WILLIAM E. CHANNING, a man whose
talents and position, as well as his peculiar connection with
the body to which we belong, ask from us some notice, now
that lie has passed into another state of being. Dr. Cban-
ning was a native of New England, and grew up in New
England habits of moral and religious sobriety. He was
educated in the common faith, and commenced bis life the
believer and teacher of doctrines very different from those
he afterwards adopted. What circumstances led bis mind to
change I do not know ; but at length the struggle ceased ;
the clouds that bad oppressed him broke away ; the formula
faith of education, followed by the anxious skepticism of in-
quiry, gave way to the clear and calm faith of rational con-
viction and spiritual insight ; and the conqueror in the great
contest rose up from it one of the deepest, widest, highest,
and purest thinkers that any age of the world has yet seen.
This fact has been recognized, both in this country and in
Europe, by those who still dissent from Dr. Cbanning's
MANHOOD. 267
theology ; his fame is not local or national merely, it is
as universal as the English language. Some years since, I
was in several of the least frequented of the West India
Islands, islands where a book was a curiosity, and even
the authors of England scarce known but by name ; yet I
found the works of our countryman known there, and known
with so much of feeling that strangers sought me out and
introduced themselves to me, in order to ask concerning
him.
" But widely as he is known now, and highly as he is rank-
ed, both as a writer and thinker, my own conviction is, that he
will from this time forth grow in the estimation of the world,
just as the world grows in true spiritual insight, until the
mass reach to his full height, when new teachers must take
his place. As yet, I believe that even by his disciples this
great teacher is but very imperfectly understood ; and that
by men at large, out of the church to which he belonged,
he is not understood at all. He was, in religious views, not
only beyond his time, but often beyond his immediate asso-
ciates. The evidence of this may be found in the fact, that
his writings are intelligible only by spiritual vision ; and
that, in consequence, we may all find in them new force,
and light, and truth, as our own spiritual sight is strength-
ened. Plain and simple, the youth of twenty admires their
style rather than their thought ; at twenty-five he will for-
get the style in his wonder at the grand truths and views
announced ; at thirty that wonder will grow deeper, when
he finds in the volumes before him the questionings of his
own soul answered, as if he had laid his heart bare before
the writer ; and he will remember as a dream his former
study of these same books and passages, when, never hav-
ing questioned, they brought no answer. Some of you saw
the pictures painted by Daguerre, which were exhibited here
a few weeks since, wherein, the canvas remaining un-
changed, the simple change of light made it appear as
268 LIFE OF JAMES H. PI- KKINS.
broad daylight or gentle moonlight, or red with the glare of
torches. So it is with the writings of Charming, they
change not, but they seem to us wholly altered as the light
shifts hy which we sec them. Some writings, that they
may be understood, require a peetdiar state of the affections ;
others demand a particular vividness of fancy or imagina-
tion ; others ask for study. 15ut the writings of Dr (.'ban-
ning can be appreciated only by the aid of spiritual ex-
perience ; their great points are known only when seen by
the light of spiritual struggles. To him that has not yet
gone through such conflicts, study would avail nothing,
imagination would avail nothing ; these writings would re-
main misunderstood, or half understood. To the most im-
aginative they would be worthless, unless imagination had
risen, through trial, and effort, and victory, into faith, and
the mere conceptions of youth had become the firm realities
of more mature years.
" Unless 1 mistake, the simplicity of Dr. Channing's
works causes many to misunderstand him. It seems so
very easy to fathom his sense, that his whole meaning is
thought near bv, while in truth it is only visible in the infi-
nite distance. Ilis truths are like stars, equally near us, as
we think, but, as the spiritual Ilcrsehel knows, one lying
beyond another, off and yet farther off, till their distance can
be conceived by no human mind.
" He reminds me, in his simplicity and strength, of John
Marshall, who was in constitutional law what Channing has
been in divinity, an expounder from the depths of his
own spirit, and not from authority. Look at Marshall's
opinions ; they rest on truth, not on I'lackstono or Chitty,
neither on the spirit or form of the English law ; they ask
no indorser; they appeal to something deeper than law
learning or reverence for old names, and this, too, without
contempt of learning or ridicule of old names. Marshall
never, like some reformers, ridiculed the old, for he rested
MANHOOD. 269
on the oldest, common sense and common justice. In like
manner, and even as Marshall is distinguished from the best
of his legal fellows, so is Channing distinguished from his
colaborers. He rests not upon Luther, or Augustine, or
Paul, or Moses ; they are too fallible, too modern, for him.
He goes to the Ancient of Days, to God, to Jesus, and learns
from them, as the truest and the oldest ; for was not Jesus
before Abraham ? the Word before the world ?
" Dr. Channing appears to me to have been a great re-
former ; one whose reformation has but just commenced,
however, and the extent of whose influence no one yet
knows. He was not an oral reformer mainly ; he was not,
like Luther, Fox, Wesley, and many others, most powerful
in the pulpit, and the same striking results have not followed
his labor that flowed from theirs. He spoke through the
press, and, though dead, still speaketh, and long will his si-
lent tones appeal to men, and reveal the Father in the Son.
He passed homeward -just at sunset, we are told, and, like
that of the sun, his influence remains behind him. Speak-
ing as he does, not to the passions, the affections, or the
sympathies chiefly, but to the conscience and spiritual rea-
son of man, great immediate results could not follow his
speech. When I consider how wide his reach, embracing
every variety of religious faith that is not scholastic and
mechanical, the Catholic and the Quaker, the materialism
of Priestley, and the transcendentalism of Emerson ; when I
remember his power of seeing Truth under all her countless
disguises, and Error in her borrowed plumes ; when I recall
the greatness of his moral principles, meeting a response in
every heart that listened to them, the purity of his spirit-
ual conceptions, so clear, so lofty, so truly spiritual, and yet
never mystical ; when I think of the perfect simplicity of
his views respecting Christianity and its great ends, I
cannot doubt that the time will come when his opinions
will take hold of multitudes that shudder at the name of
23*
270 LIFE OF JAMES II. I'KKKI.NS.
Unitarian, and mould the faith of crowds that never heard
the name of Channing. Are not his opinions already, like
the noiseless sunshine, melting their way into the icy heart
of scholastic theology .' Are not his old opponents re-
producing from time tu time, under new and more technical
forms, the spirit that was breathed into them, without their
knowledge and against their will, in long past controversies ?
' During the last few years \>r. Channing has entered a
new field, that of ethics, as applied to policy and social
relations and practices. His writings on war, temperance,
amusements, slavery, and the laboring classes, have been
widely influential, already, both here and in Europe. To
us, I think, these writings should have a peculiar interest,
for the practical truths contained in them. Truths almost
universally recognized and welcomed are, I believe, the
immediate and necessary result of those spiritual views
which we wish to see spread abroad, and will serve, as
fruits, to make the faith whence they sprung more widely
known, and fully believed in. In another point of view
these later writings are full of interest. Too commonly the
intellectual world has been fettered by a false application
of the principle of a division of labor ; the theologian has
been a mere theologian, without interest in earthly things,
or, if having interest, without liberty to express it; while the
politician, no matter how firm a Christian in private, has
been expected as a statesman to leave alone the wire-drawn
distinctions between right and wrong which Christ teaches,
and to proceed as if this life wen,' all, and the expediency of
the world alone to be thouuht of. The divine that has med-
dled in politics IKIS been thought no less a meddler by
the world, than the politician who should dare mount tiie
pulpit would be deemed by the clergy. While demagogues
of twenty have been applauded on the stum]), and religious
teachers of no greater maturity idolized in the desk. Chan-
ning has been rebuked for speaking of policy without expe-
MANHOOD. 271
rience. Men have forgotten that the same eternal truth
that must guide the statesman in every measure of govern-
ment will interpret the world and the Scripture to the open-
minded student of divine things. Men have made policy
worldly and theology scholastic ; have narrowed and hard-
ened both ; have divorced what God joined together, the
present and the eternal interests of mankind ; and it was
needed that some prominent man, whose ability and whose
character would command respect, should make us sensible
again of that true union of Church and State by which the
former is made practical, the latter withdrawn from heathen-
ism. And this has been done by him of whom I speak
more perfectly than by any other whom I know.
"Many of us may question the application made by Dr.
Channing of his spiritual views to society and national law ;
we may think his views of man ultra-democratic, his views of
slavery destructive of the Union. But the great example has
been given, be the results right or wrong ; the deepest and
purest spiritual views have been by him applied to the every-
day concerns of the President's Cabinet and the Houses of
Congress ; and many thousands in our nation will never
henceforth be willing to determine political matters by the
maxims of prudence or the lessons of empiricism. A high-
er spirit than that of expediency, a nobler tone than that of
party, has entered the field of politics, and will remain in it.
Our government may pass away, our Constitution be made
mere paper and ink, State may separate from State, and
civil war crush freedom with its iron heel ; but from the
contest, as from every such struggle, will arise uninjured
and undismayed the God-given principles involved in it. In
our case, the principles of human brotherhood as it was
taught by Jesus, of God's paternal presence, of man's eter-
nal destiny, sooner or later, these spiritual truths must
be as familiar to the legislature, and the court of justice,
and the office of the executive, as they are to the student of
272 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
divinity. Upon no other basis can freedom stand ; nothing
else can limit that bitter, that selfish feeling which we all
recognize in our adversaries, if not in ourselves.
" How deeply ought we to feel, then, our debt to the
great teacher that has passed from among us ! To how
many of our firesides has his voice reached, and there
breathed faith, and hope, and joy ! He has been indeed
our friend; when death and disappointment have made us
lonely, this interpreter of our Saviour has brought Jesus
home with him, and our hearths have been blessed even in
sorrow. In losing him we have lost a friend ; in his death,
as one who knew him well said to me yesterday, our family
circles have been lessened. But not only have we lost a
friend, an interpreter, our country and the world have
lost a prophet also. In days like these, when we have no
reputation and a doubtful character, when so many ex-
tremes arc aimed at, and \vith deep and evil feeling, too,
we need a prophet to speak hope to the timid, decision to
the wavering, and a warning to the headstrong. The truest
that we had is gone. But the truths he taught, the spirit
that inspired him, remain ; and our best token of the sorrow
we feel for his loss will be, in private and in public, to live
out those truths and that spirit."
As minister of the Unitarian society, Mr. Perkins
was naturally classed with that denomination. And as a
matter of fact, he did believe, as he said in 1S37, that,
" although other forms of Christianity might appeal more
powerfully to fear, wonder, and imagination, no creed on
earth is so fitted to touch the heart, and call out love,
hope, faith, trust, devotion, as that which tells of one
God, whose justice and mercy arc identical, whose good-
ness is unchanging, and who chastens only as a Father,
while leading his children onward through the imperfect
MANHOOD. 273
to perfection." Yet he was, in the truest sense of the
words, a Liberal Christian, always ready to examine the
dogmas of the sect, while seeking for the light of
universal truth ; humble and tolerant, though firm to his
own convictions ; free from cant and arrogance, while
seeking definite views ; thankful for illumination already
given, and aspiring towards the perfect day. His inti-
mate friend, Mrs. H. Beecher Stowe, thus expresses her
view of his spiritual progress.
" Mr. Perkins's position, religiously considered, was one
to which few will do justice. He whose inquiries after truth
are so strictly individual and eclectic as were his finds little
sympathy in our religious community, where it seems to be
an essential requisite that a man should class somewhere,
and be enabled to state his creed under some one name of
the various recognized parties. When, therefore, Mr. Per-
kins ceased to be a Unitarian, and yet could not embrace
in toto any of the formularies of Orthodoxy, his position
was in many respects painful ; but I believe there never was
a man who approached more nearly the ideal of an honest,
unprejudiced inquirer after truth. Nor was he, in my opin-
ion, one of that unfortunate class, who, from some peculiarity
of mental balance, seem foredoomed to be always inquirers
merely, and believers never.
" He was capable of a hearty, settled, genuine belief,
and such, on many questions, he had attained to. He first
approached the land of moral inquiry from the side of
entire skepticism, and how different are the views of one
who enters it on that side from his who glides in upon the
tranquil stream of traditional belief! It was by earnest
wrestling, by vigilant and careful inquiry, that he attained
to every successive conviction ; but he did attain to many
points which he looked upon as frm land, and not bog or
mirage. The number of these was, I think, every year
274 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
increasing ; the fog was rolling up from the moral land-
scape, and point after point emerging, all glittering in the
sunshine of truth. How much did I hope from the onward
progress of such a mind, when years should have ripened
and fully elaborated his views. Though they might have
coincided in exact form and shade with those of no classified
religious body, yet in their strong, hearty individualism, they
would have formed no mean addition to the great stock
of moral and religious presentations which this age is col-
lecting.
" The points on which I think Mr. Perkins had attained to
settled conviction were, the entire ruin of the human race
morally ; the entire dependence of man on Divine assistance
for any upward progress ; the necessity of a thorough and
radical regeneration of every individual heart, ' through the
supernatural influences of the Spirit of God.' These last
words are quoted from one of his sermons, and are a form
of expression that I have heard him use frequently. He
also believed in Christ as so united to the Divine nature as
to be truly and properly God manifest in the flesh, a
proper object of the highest religious homage and worship ;
and I remember a very beautiful and eloquent description
which he gave of the influence of living faith in Christ in
the transformation of human character. He believed also
in the fact of an Atonement by the death of Christ, though
he stated that he could not as yet see truth in any of the
philosophical theories by which the doctrine was supported.
" With respect to many phases of religious opinion, he
was undoubtedly, as he always represented himself, in a
transition state. And so indeed it has proved to him, as,
passed at once beyond the shadows of earth, he has found
the light for which his soul yearned, in heaven.
" Amid all the affliction of his sudden and most mourn-
ful death, I have never been without a mingling of solemn
joy when I think of him individually. The divine longing
MANHOOD. 275
was in him so strong, the yearning, the hungering and
thirsting, after light and purity so ardent, that I rejoice at his
having at last found it. His was one of those souls whom a
German writer describes as possessed by a ' home-sickness'
which makes them perpetually long for a higher sphere, and
forbids them any settled repose on the bosom of created
things. Of all such when they depart may it truly be said,
' If ye loved me ye would rejoice, because I go unto my
Father.' "
In a letter written in 1846, Mr. Perkins thus explained
his own position :
" As to my theology, it is of a curious kind just now, if I
may judge by the fact, that the Catholics think me on the
point of joining their Holy Communion, while the Sweden-
borgians regard me as about to enter their New Church, and
some of Dr. Beecher's people look on me as sufficiently
Orthodox to say that, when I preach again, they shall enlist
under my banner. The amount of the matter is, that my
Biblical studies, where alone I study theology, while they
have made me come to look on Jesus as having a far more
intimate relationship with his Father than man has, or can
have, have not enabled me to form any idea of that relation-
ship. He is to me God Manifest, an object of worship, a
living reality, with whom I may commune, and through
communion grow more and more to resemble. This com-
munion is by meditation, prayer, the cultivation of all right
thoughts and feelings, and especially by acts which are the
last embodiments of thoughts and feelings. All the mooted
questions in divinity I throw aside. A LIFE that shall make
each man more like Jesus, by means of a practical faith in
him, and which will also most aid the masses, this I
would preach and aim at, in general and detail, and ask no
one about Trinity, Atonement, Baptism, &c., &c. UNION
276 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
AMONG CHRISTIANS is all-essential. This cannot rest on
intellectual agreement ; and a church, in my view, must base
itself on agreement of feelings and principles ; that is, it
must have faith in Jesus, not faith in a theological creed,
whether that of the Council of Nice, the Westminster As-
sembly, or any other Not-Jesus. And yet I want a creed
and a theology."
With Mr. Perkins's distaste for the ministerial profes-
sion, his hatred of isms as really schisms, his aspiration
for a unitary faith, which shall comprehend, transmute,
and harmonize all partial creeds, his deepening conscious-
ness of communion with Christ, and his longing for a more
living and effective union among; Christians, it was but
O ^J J
consistent and right that he should either resign his tem-
porary post in the Unitarian Society, or seek to raise
them to the level of his own large aims. Only the urgent
persuasions of leading friends in the congregation, and
the freedom which was gladly granted to him to utter his
most extreme views, both speculative and practical, in-
duced him to retain his oflice so long, which except-
ing the few months of Mr. Fenner's ministry, and some
intervals of sickness and absence he held until his
death. The following letter to the society, in February,
1 847, will best show how truthful and friendly were the
relations between him and his people.
" February I3lh, 1847. To THE TRUSTEES AND MEM-
BERS OF THE FIRST CONGREGATIONAL SOCIETY. I cannot,
my friends, easily find words to express to you my gratitude
for the confidence you have shown in me by your late invi-
tation to become again your pastor. I only regret that my
own conscience and consciousness do not assure mo that I
am worthy of such confidence.
MANHOOD. 277
" In relation to the proposal made me I would say,
" First, That I hold myself so far bound by engagements
already entered into, as to make it impossible for me at
present to do more than preach once a Sunday, my school
and writings requiring nearly every hour from Monday
morning to Saturday evening. This state of things will
continue until July next ; meanwhile, if you desire it, I will
preach on Sunday mornings.
" Second, When my present engagements close, I should
feel unwilling to enter upon any agreement to act as a pastor,
unless with a full understanding upon two points. These
are,
I. That I am not to be expected to make regular, formal,
parochial calls. In cases of sickness and distress I should, I
trust, act as a Christian friend, but the usual course of parish
visiting I cannot honestly undertake. My wish would be to
visit among the poor and ignorant, the erring and criminal.
II. I should wish it to be fully understood, that I become
the head of your society again (should I do so) with the
hope and purpose of leading you to leave the dogmatic, sec-
tarian ground of Anti-Trinitarianism, and to assume that of
a more practical Christianity, having as its basis these
points :
" 1st. Faith in the perfect trustworthiness of the Gos-
pels, in their essential inspiration.
" 2d. Faith in Jesus, as God revealed through man.
" 3d. Faith in God's constant presence and ceaseless in-
tercourse with human souls.
" 4th. Faith in regeneration and the forgiveness of sins.
" 5th. Faith in a future life of retribution.
" 6th. Faith in the power of Christianity to cure the evils
of the world.
" I do not ask you to believe with me on these points ; I
do not ask you to agree to give up sectarian Unitarianism ;
I only ask that it shall be fully understood that I shall urge
VOL. i. 24
278 LIFK OF JAMES H. PEKKINS.
you to do so, and shall preach what. arc to my mind the truths
of theology which tend to a practical result, and net Ami-
Trinitarianism. The practical 1'orm which I should trust
the action of your society will take, it will be my purpose
to sketch in the discourse which will precede the reading
of this letter.
" ft has pleased God to relieve me in a great measure
from the affection which last year disabled me from preach-
ing. With renewed health I have meant in some form to
resume my Ministry at Large ; if I can do it, and at the
same time supply your wants, I shall be most grateful for
the opportunity. Hut, while 1 thank you from my heart for
your invitation, I cannot honestly accept it unless with the
understanding I have mentioned. If you wish, I will preach
once a Sunday until July, if my health will allow ; and
then your invitation may be renewed, if you think my pro-
posals reasonable.
" With gratitude and affection, your friend,
"J. II. PERKINS."
Thus continued their relations, until, in consistency
with the views expressed in this letter, and with the
conviction that the time had come for inviting his friends
to form a UNI ox upon the ground of Practical Chris-
tian Life, Mr. Perkins preached, on October 8, 1848,
the following discourse.
" ' Believe me, the hour comcth when ye shall neither in
this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father.
But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true
worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth.'
John iv. 21, 23.
" When invited by you, my friends, nearly two years
since, to take this desk again, 1 did so with the express
agreement that I should be at liberty to urge upon you,
MANHOOD. 279
without offence, the abandonment of Unitarianism as a
ground of union as the basis of your society. From time
to time I have presented to you the views which convince
my own mind that such a step is desirable. To-day I ask
you to take the step ; to say to all about you who are inter-
ested, that you no longer wish to remain a society because
you are opposed to the Trinity, or any of its dependent doc-
trines ; that you abandon the ground upon which this con-
gregation was originally gathered ; that you are convinced
there is a broader, better ground of union, one that may
support a true catholic church, and that this you would
seek for. That this you would seek for, I say, not that you
have found it. The problem which has so long perplexed
the largest minds and noblest hearts in the Church of Christ,
we cannot claim to have solved : we merely seek a solu-
tion ; and, as a first step, leave a position which \ve believe
prevents our progress toward that end.
" Asking you to take this step, to make this declara-
tion to the world, the little world that is concerned in our
doings, I propose to present to-day in one view the rea-
sons in favor of such a course, which appear to me of most
weight.
" And, in the first place, I ask you to leave your present
basis of union, which is opposition to the Trinity, because
that basis tends to make you sectarian, and sectarianism is
a form of Antichrist. In the present position of human cul-
ture and Christian development, divisions or sects in the
Church may be inevitable ; but sects may exist without sec-
tarianism. Sectarianism is that spirit of division, disunion,
antagonism, which would PERPETUATE differences, instead
of doing them away, which seeks for points of opposition
in place of points of union, which delights in controversy,
contest, and victory, which cannot conceive that the truth
is so large, and man so small, that countless differences
must of course arise from man's partial views of that truth,
280 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
and that those who seem to us opposed to the Gospel may
indeed but be viewing it from a point whereon we never
stood. To the sectarian, the man that does not think with
him, for or against the dogmas in question, is of necessity
wrong, and to be combated. He does not dream that both
he and his opponent may be in part wrong, in part right,
and that they should study, know, aid one another, instead of
trying merely to convince or overcome one another.
" But sects may exist without this spirit. Those of vari-
ous views, in Christian humility and love, may seek for the
truth in the views of their fellows, and so grow daily wider.
We may remain Congregationalists, Episcopalians, Presby-
terians, and yet not be antagonists, but friends, co-laborers,
members of the body of Christ. Sects may be but the vari-
ous limbs in that body, moving in harmony and health ; but
sectarianism is a disease, which makes the limb it possesses
at discord with all others, adverse to them, worse than
useless.
" Need I spend time in proving that such a spirit is Anti-
christ ? It is the spirit of selfishness, pride, war, hatred,
and cruelty; it is the opposite of that love, humility, gen-
tleness, kindness, long-suffering, which Jesus has revealed
to us as the spirit of God and his Anointed. From secta-
rianism have come persecutions, burnings, bloodshed, in
times past, in our day, hard words, accusations, bitter-
ness, hatred, malice. Sectarianism has weakened the power
of the Church to do good, to put down evil, to advance the
cause of the Saviour ; it has made men look on Christendom
as the battle-field of contending parties, not as the great
labor-field of united brothers.
" Need I stop long to satisfy you that your union in oppo-
sition to the Trinity makes you sectarian ? Does not that
union, by an act of your own, divide you from the great
body of the disciples of Jesus ? Does it not place you in
antagonism to them ? Does it not breed in you and them
MANHOOD. 281
more or less of coldness, unkindness, and enmity ? And is
not this in a great measure your own doing, the result of
the platform you adopt ? They do not combine against the
Unity of God ; you bind yourselves together against the
Trinity. They do not excommunicate you so much as you
cut yourselves off voluntarily. Let a Congregational society
be gathered in this city, having no creed, no platform in-
volving Trinity or Anti-Trinity, but professing merely to
worship God together, and to work together for the exten-
sion of the kingdom of heaven, would it be cut off from
other churches ? Would they refuse fellowship with it
unless it took some sectarian name and symbol ? I do not
think so poorly of their liberality and Christian spirit as to
suppose for one moment that they would. They stand aloof
from us, because, as a Unitarian society, we declare war, as
it must seem to them, against the very foundation of Chris-
tianity ; we are the aggressors, we are the sectarians ; the
peace of the Church is -disturbed by us. Nor can we hon-
estly say that we have no creed, no platform. England has
a constitution, though it is unwritten ; and we have a con-
fession of faith, though it exists in no book or manuscript.
The purpose for which this church was gathered was known
to all men ; the character of the discourses delivered in its
early years was known to all. Professed Unitarians alone
have been called to preach here ; and during nearly twenty
years this society has been, distinctively, Anti-Trinitarian.
" But do not, my friends, suppose that I mean by my
language to accuse the founders of this society of aggression
and sectarianism, of selfishness, pride, and malice. My
proposition is not that sectarianism founded this church, but
that its continued existence upon the basis originally as-
sumed tends to produce sectarianism.
" And this leads me to the second reason which I would
urge in favor of the step I propose. It is this, that the
Anti-Trinitarian basis at first adopted by this society, ho\v-
24*
282 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
ever suitable to the wants of that day, is not adapted to the
wants of ours : in other words, that our platform, even if it
did not involve the evils of sectarianism, is too narrow for
the present moment.
" The present time demands, if I mistake not, a platform
which leaves minds free in relation to theology, but unites
them in reference to worship, self-improvement, and labor
for those around them who need aid, physical, intellect-
ual, and spiritual. Or, to present it otherwise, if we
would conform ourselves to this year 1848, we shall aban-
don opposition to the Trinity and Atonement as a ground of
union, and shall agree to be a Congregational society, be-
cause we can pleasantly and profitably worship together ;
listen together to an appointed preacher, no matter what his
theology ; consult and debate together ; and work together
to do away poverty, ignorance, vice, and infidelity.
" I am not, as you well know, a disbeliever in the value
of theology. It is not a mean, or mysterious, or unpracti-
cal system of truths, as I view it. Nothing, I believe, is so
universally and constantly practical, sensible, and noble, as
theology. It not only ought to govern, but does govern,
the merchant in Main Street, the lawyer at the bar, the me-
chanic in his shop, the farmer at his plough. When you
leave this city for New York or New Orleans, your life will
depend very much upon the theology of the engineer who
holds the safety-valve of the steamboat, or modulates the
speed of the locomotive. No matter what his skill, his
energy, his knowledge : the man's conduct will be finally
determined by what he really bcliei-cs in reference to Cod,
and the relations of God to man ; in other words, by Ms
theology.
" It is not, then, because I despise or disregard this sci-
ence, if we may fitly degrade it by such a term, that I
say a platform of to-day must leave minds free upon it.
Neither is it because I would tolerate all views and bear with
MANHOOD. 283
all errors. I would bear with no error ; I would tolerate no
false view; I would discard as an insult the name of liber-
ality, when it implies, as it too often does, the quiet suffer-
ance of lies. Who was ever more intolerant than Jesus of
the Pharisees ?
" No, my friends, it is not either because I think theology
worthless, or am ready to tolerate any falsehoods therein,
that I say our platform should leave all minds free. We
should leave them free, because, in relation to this, the
most practical, important, and vital of subjects, we really
know so little, see so partially, can judge so imper-
fectly, except for ourselves. To the same soul even the
Gospel changes from month to month, and year to year, as
the mountain peak changes when we draw near to it : to
various souls the Gospel is as different in hue, form, and
bearing, as that same peak is to those who approach from
opposing sides. We at best see but portions of the one
great truth as it was in Jesus ; and if we see part, so do our
opponents. Calvinists and Arminians, Catholics and Protes-
tants, Trinitarians and Unitarians, are but so many bands,
looking up from the darkness and narrowness of their val-
leys to the snowy whiteness, the never-shadowed radiance,
of that peak above them all.
" It is, then, because theological truth deserves all rever-
ence, that it becomes us to revere its presence in every
human soul, and, recognizing our own ignorance and inca-
pacity, to shrink from a platform which we are sure will
contain but a part of Christian truth, and which will serve
only to sever us from others as honest, and liberal, and de-
voted as we can be ourselves. Such a platform is the un-
written creed of Unitarianism ; and therefore I believe it is
for our day too narrow.
" When modern Unitarianism first found expression in
our land, it was the earnest protest of devout hearts against
that real or imagined form of faith which of the Triune
284 LIFE OF JAMES II. PKKKINS.
God had made three Gods, which to the fallen man
denied the mere power of receiving God's spirit, which
sunk the great Reconciler of God and man in the victim of
Divine wrath, which petrified foreordi nation into a pagan
fate, and election into the capricious mercy of a tyrant.
For one, I thank God that such a protest was made, even
though no human being held the faith denounced. No the-
ory ever yet darkened the world more black and deadly
than exaggerated Calvinism. I have said that I do not be-
lieve in that liberality which would tolerate a lie ; and if
man ever uttered one regarding his Creator, if he ever
was false to the whole spirit and purpose of Christ, if he
ever in words denied his master and reviled his God, it was
when he fashioned that system of theology against which
Unitarianism declared deadly war. I have referred to the
possibility that this system was never really entertained : it
may not have been ; but, asking you, as 1 do, to leave the
basis of Unitarianism, I feel bound to say that, in my belief,
the words of Charming, Buckminster, and Ware, in their
day, were as truly needed as any words ever spoken by
man. And Heaven gave the words needed, through various
channels, in various lands. But their day is long since
passed ; the great truths taught by them, in part through
their agency, but mainly independent of them, are now re-
ceived on all sides; the spirit they lived in has become, to
a greater or less degree, the spirit of all sects. Thomas
Arnold of England, Ronge in Germany, Bacon and Tay-
lor of New Haven, Horace Bushncll of Hartford, Henry
Bcecher of Brooklyn, and several Evangelical ministers of
our own city, besides hundreds of whom I krfow nothing,
are clearly in the truth which made Charming and his fel-
low-laborers so strong. That truth was not their denial of
the Trinity ; it was their affirmation to man's conscience and
heart, rather than to bis intellect rm'd fears, of God's justice,
of Christ's reconciling power, of the indwelling of the Holy
MANHOOD. 285
Spirit in the heart of man, and, more than all, of the rightful
freedom of man from priesthood, creeds, and every form
of human imposition and human tyranny.
" While, therefore, I agree that Unitarianism was some
years since necessary, and arose naturally according to the
laws of reaction ; and while I believe that now also there
are minds which can approach Christianity only on that side,
can learn to see the Divinity of Christ only by first dwell-
ing on his Humanity, I cannot but regard it as a needless
and narrow basis for us at present to unite upon.
" But, in addition to its tendency to make us sectarian,
and its narrowness as a ground of union, there is a third
reason why I hope to see it abandoned by you. It is this.
" Christian societies are needed, in our day and land,
which shall make it a chief object to influence the commu-
nity around them ; and, beginning with themselves, to seek,
more distinctly than is usual with Protestant churches, to
reform social evils. Such societies cannot be based, as we
now are, upon the affirmation or denial of theological dog-
mas.
" Hitherto Protestant Christianity has looked almost exclu-
sively to the work of individual salvation. It has neglected
social salvation as a thing belonging to Caesar, not to God.
But human government with us in America will do but little
for that salvation ; and if the Christians of our land do not
in union take up the work, the infidels will ; and every year
our democracy will be more and more pagan, farther and
farther from that of the Pilgrims : the heathen idea of self-
government will utterly expel the Christian conception of
submission to the will of Heaven, and the source of our so-
cial security will be lost.
" In our day, moreover, men are fast coming to appreciate
the scientific truth and social bearing of a principle, which
Jesus, in its spiritual and moral relations, constantly pre-
sented, the principle of Brotherhood, of cooperation,
286 LIFH OF JAMES H.
as distinguished from inimical competition, such as now ex-
ists in the world of business ; the principle of associative
notion, as distinguished from naked individualism. Society
everywhere is hecomin-j; conscious that it does not, as now
orirani/ed, fulfil the purposes for which it was ordained ; that
it docs not secure to its members the blessings to which all,
as (tod's children, are entitled. In England, France, Ger-
many, Italy, and our own country, the masses, enlight-
ened anil unenlightened, are asking, ' What shall we do to
bo social Iv saved r ' Sinning society, like the individual
sinner, is anxious ; and in both it is the first step towards
salvation. What is the next ? To the individual is pre-
sented, as an object of love, faith, trust, confidence, Jesus the
Anointed, God embodied in man ; and through faith in him
come the hope, the deepening penitence, and that essential
and jrrowin" change of views, wishes, purposes, and princi-
ples, which show the entrance of the Spirit of God, awaken-
ing, condemning, forgiving, and regenerating. And some-
what so, I believe, it must be with society. Men need to
have faith in a social embodiment of the spirit which was in
Jesus. As Jesus is the mediator between God and man. so
we need mediators between Jesus and the world ; associa-
tions, or forms of society, that shall apply the Divine spirit
to every relation of life, and make possible for us a living
faith in such an application. But such forms of society can-
not be expected to spring at once from the bosom of existing
society. We have all been too deeply educated into false
relations, to be able instantly to see and seize the true ones.
Moreover, we have no mode of selecting from those about
us the best men and women to form the associations which
shall seek to embody the spirit of Christ, and yet a most
wise selection is plainly necessary. In the first place, then,
there is required some mode by which, in our existing soci-
ety, we may be educated from its prejudices and falsehoods
into the truth as it was in Jesus, into the application of his
MANHOOD. 287
life and teachings to the problems which now cloud our
path, slavery, hired labor, pauperism, arid crime ; and sec-
ondly, a plan by which the wisest and best may be gathered
in due time to form the social bodies through which may be
shown an approach to the Divine order of society, and thus
a faith be generated in the possibility of doing away present
evils, and, by the power of the Holy Spirit, producing social
salvation. The nearest question for us to answer, then, is
this, How may we, in the midst of existing society, fit our-
selves for a higher system of social relations, and be enabled
to choose from among us the wisest and best to reduce that
system to practice ? And to this, for my own part, I an-
swer, By Christian societies, which, while they labor for
the salvation of the individual, shall recognize the evils that
now beset every community, and which shall make it a defi-
nite purpose to examine them, inquire for remedies, and as
far as possible carry those remedies out into life. By doing
this, some must be trained to at least a partial application of
cooperative principles, and must become fitted to judge who
among their colaborers are the best suited to a more com-
plete and exclusive experiment. If in our city, for instance,
twenty societies were to be formed, which sought practically
a remedy to social evils, ten probably would be led to some
form of associative action, and that without disturbing those
truly vital connections which now bind us together. By
such action, all must be, more or less, educated for coopera-
tion, and some men and women must be made known who
are specially fitted by physical constitution, temper, worldly
wisdom, high principle, and a Christian spirit, to join a soci-
ety, a community, which shall aim at completeness by obe-
dience to the will of God in every particular.
" It is not my purpose, however, at this time to propose to
you any form of combination with reference to such a result
as that I have been speaking of. I wish at present to submit
to you only one proposition, the abandonment of Unita-
288 LIFE OF JAMES II. PERKINS.
rianisin as your ground of union as the basis of this relig-
ious society. If that step be taken, you can continue in-
dependent of all theological platforms, and all theories of
social reform ; or you can adopt as your basis some plan
which shall contemplate social inquiries, and the practical
application of some remedy for existing troubles. The
present point for you to decide- is, the renunciation of a the-
ological platform of union, and nothing more. Should you
determine to do this, I shall hope to present the wisdom of
farther action in detail, and therefore oiler no plans or sug-
gestions at present.
" But, it may be asked, what will the position of this so-
ciety be, if it renounce its original basis, its Unitarian theol-
ogy ? I answer, it will be just what it is now, except in its
relations to other Christian societies about it, and to the
world at large. By renouncing opposition to the Trinity
as our basis of union, we place ourselves on ground where
others ought to, and I believe will, recognize us, work with
us, become coopcrators with us. We are still the First
Congregational Society, or, if you please to take an individ-
ual name, the Church of the Disciples, of the Crucifixion, of
Humanity, or any thing else you like. The present exer-
cises would continue, and others would be added, should it
meet the approval of the society, others relating especially
to social evils and remedies. Then would come the question
of agreeing to labor, as a society, to advance the cause of
Christian Association. That question, however, is not now
before you.
" Again, the inquiry may be made, whether I suppose that
individuals are to change their faith, to abandon Unitarian-
ism, if now held by them. Of course not. No man can so
change his convictions. If you are Arians, Humanitarians,
Sabellians, Socinians, such you will remain, until convert-
ed to some other form of faith. I ask individuals not to
'
abandon their own convictions, but to believe that others,
MANHOOD. 289
who have different convictions, are also through these pos-
sessed of truth ; not to give up Unitarianism us an individual
belief for some other belief, but to give it up as a bond of
union, because, by uniting in opposition to the Trinity, they
make it their great object to deny the existence of truth in
that dogma which their fellow-Christians regard as the cor-
ner-stone of their theology, rather than to examine whether
there may not be truth there also.
" If, then, individuals are to remain what they are, is not
the proposed abandonment of Unitarianism by the society a
mere change of name ? I think not. If I supposed it to be
a mere change of name, I should care little about it ; the
name 'Unitarian' is as good as any other name. It is a
real change in your relations to other Christian societies and
the world, which I ask for. It is an end of the antagonism
existing between this body and others around it, which I
hope for; and which, as far as you can secure it, will be
secured by your withdrawal from an avowed position of an-
tagonism. For twenty years we have been saying to the
Trinitarian world, ' Your dogmas are utter errors, and we are
united for the purpose of destroying them where we can.'
I ask you now, instead of this, to say, ' In your dogmas, the
basis of your religious life, we are satisfied there are truths,
though we cannot see them : we would learn them ; we
would strive to attain your point of view ; we would bring
you, if possible, to ours ; for, in our dogmas and denials too,
there is truth : we would cease contest, and labor truly to
aid one another.' I wish you, as a society, to change, not
your name, but your platform, or creed ; for an unwrit-
ten one, as I have said, you have, and, whatever you do, will
have. At present, it stands thus : ' We believe the doctrine
of the Trinity and its dependent doctrines to be false and
unwarranted by Scripture, and we regard opposition to them
as a paramount duty.' I would have you substitute the dec-
laration, ' We believe that in every form of doctrine which
VOL. i. 25
290 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
has been the basis of Christian life, there lies more or less
of Divine truth ; and \ve regard it as our paramount duly to
seek for that truth everywhere. We would strive, there-
fore, not to hit the medium of opposing dogmas, nor to
tolerate indifferently views of every kind, but, by the ex-
amination of dogmas, and the earnest endeavour to under-
stand the views of our opponents, to attain, with the help of
God, to a more comprehensive knowledge of the infinite
truth that was in Christ.'
' ; That the change proposed is not merely one of name
may be illustrated, perhaps, in this way. Four societies
might be formed, all composed of those who are individually
Unitarians. One of these societies might assume the name
and attitude of Anti-Trinitarians ; a second, sinking the ques-
tion of Trinity and Atonement, might base itself solely on
the denial of Eternal Punishment ; a third, disregarding all
these points, might rest simply on the Baptist ground of the
immersion of adults; while the fourth should assume the
position for which I now contend, and, denying neither
Trinity, Eternal Punishment, nor Infant Baptism, should as-
sert as its foundation a common worship of God, a common
effort for the removal of ignorance and vice, a common
wish to learn the truth which is the life of every division of
Christians, and a devout hope that a time may come when
those divisions will draw together again, and the scattered
limbs of the body of Christ once more be united in health,
and power, and beauty. Would these four societies differ
only in name ? Would not their relations to the world, their
influence on the world, be wholly unlike ?
" This, then, vny friends, is the point to which I would
bring you : I would have you declare to all interested, that,
as a society, you abandon the Anti-Trinitarian failh as your
bond of union, as the basis of your religious association ;
" 1. Because it tends to make us sectarian ;
" '2. Because it is too narrow for our day ; and
MANHOOD. 291
" 3. Because the time calls for societies which recognize
the need of, and are willing to labor for, a social as well as
an individual regeneration, trusting in the power of faith in
Jesus Christ, and the influence of the Holy Spirit of God."
After delivering this discourse, Mr. Perkins offered
his resignation as minister to the Unitarian society,
whose views in relation to his proposed movement may
be inferred from the following Resolutions :
" At a full meeting of the members of the First Congre-
gational Society of Cincinnati, held on Sunday, the 22d
of October, 1848, the following resolutions were unanimously
adopted :
" Resolved, That this society cordially approve of the
ministry of James H. Perkins, their pastor; that they have
at all times admired the liberality, honesty, and independ-
ence of his discourses, and the truly catholic and Christian
spirit which has uniformly characterized his conduct and
teachings ; that, as fully as any society can do so, they
collectively embrace his religious doctrines and Christian
faith.
" Therefore, Resolved, That this society earnestly, affec-
tionately, and unanimously request Mr. Perkins to withdraw
his letter of resignation, and to continue his relations to the
society as their minister and pastor."
Mr. Perkins did not withdraw his resignation, though
he accepted the invitation to continue his preaching ;
and in a series of discourses opened still further his plan
of Christian Union. The organization proposed for the
new religious society may be in part learned from the
following sketch, prepared by a friendly hearer for a
Cincinnati paper.
" It is known to many that the minister of the First Con-
292 LIFE OF JAMES H. TERKI.NS.
gregational Cliurch in this city recently proposed to his soci-
ety the abandonment of Uniturianism as their bond of union.
At the same time he signified his intention of presenting a
plan for the organization of a new society, on a wider basis,
and with higher and more comprehensive objects. Accord-
ingly, on last Sunday morning, his connection with the Uni-
tarian society having ceased, lie addressed a very large
audience of interested minds upon the subject. The follow-
ing is a brief abstract of the compact and well-reasoned
discourse thus presented.
" The speaker began by announcing that he should aim
at giving a summary of what, in his view, should constitute
the Objects, the Principles, and the Details of such a relig-
ious society as he proposed.
" I. The Objects were as follows :
*' 1. The public worship of God, not as a prescribed for-
mula, but as a duty sanctioned by the natural, spontaneous,
and universal instinct of man.
" 2. The weekly renewal of our religious sympathies and
affections, as a guard against the deadening influence of the
world.
"3. The seeking after the will of God, in an enlarged
and scientific spirit of inquiry, drawing truth from all
sources, and learning that will, not from the Bible alone,
but from history, from nature, from Providence, and from
our own souls and those of other men.
" 4. The application of that will to life, in every detail of
our daily business, and in all our relations to God and to
each other.
" 5. The alleviation, by both physical and spiritual means,
of poverty, ignorance, misery, vice, and crime.
" G. The endeavour, not only to relieve, but to discover,
a radical cure, which shall effectually remove these evils,
which so sorely afflict our communities.
"7. The carrying out vigorously and fully, into actual
social operation, this remedy, when found.
MANHOOD. 293
" II. The Principles which the speaker deemed a proper
basis of union were threefold.
" 1. The acknowledgment, by the adoption of a distinct
creed or symbol, that we are a Christian society, recogniz-
ing the Divine Messiahship and inspired mission of Jesus
Christ as the Son of God. Such a symbol we might find in
the Apostles'* creed, not now known as such, but in the words
of Peter, sanctioned by Jesus, ' Thou art the Christ, the Son
of the living God.'
" 2. This recognition once made, our stand should be
upon it alone. We should shut out none by requiring all to
believe every thing alike, we should shut up free inquiry
by no detail of doctrines. Holding ourselves as earnest seek-
ers of what Jesus taught, we should be ready to receive truth
from every quarter. We should not stand in opposition to
the doctrine of the Trinity or the Atonement ; we should
not stand as advocates of these doctrines ; we should be tol-
erant of the truth which exists in every sect and in every
creed. We should invite the ministers of other denomina-
tions to teach us ; for as truth is seen relatively, not abso-
lutely, by any of us, we are bound to believe that others
have truths which we have not. We should not be a sect,
for our union excommunicates no Christian ; we should hold
ourselves in antagonism to no sect, for we must admit that
regeneration and a Christian life exist in all. We should
say to other societies, ' We believe you are Christians ; if
you believe that we are heathens, come and Christianize us.'
" 3. The acknowledgment of our duty, as a society and
as individuals, to apply Christianity to life, in a thorough
and scientific manner.
" III. The Details briefly glanced at by the speaker were
as follows :
" 1. The adoption of a creed, already spoken of.
" 2. A public profession of faith by all the members in
the principles of the society, and an adhesion to its aims.
25*
29i LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
" 3. The calling to our pulpit, from time to time, minis-
ters from other societies, to teach us.
"4. The holding of all baptisms, marriages, and funerals
in church.
" 5. The binding of each member to devote a certain
portion of every week in visiting and aiding the poor and
the sick.
"6. The devotion of one fifth of all funds raised by the
society to objects of charity, one fifth to the support of good
music, and three fifths to the support of a minister, provided
that the latter shall not exceed 1,000 per year.
" 7. The privilege of using the church or the funds of the
society by any portion of its members, provided such use is,
in the judgment of the minister, in harmony with the objects
of the society.
" I have given a condensed abstract of the religious soci-
ety as proposed by Mr. Perkins on last Sunday. It will be
observed, that it proposes nothing absolutely new in princi-
ple ; and the proposer took special occasion to repudiate the
intention of founding a new sect on novel principles. It
proposes merely a new method of action in carrying out
principles already known and acknowledged. The distinc-
tion and starting-point of the whole plan is this, that moral
intentions, sympathies, and habits of action should be the
true bond of union in a religious society, and not unanimity
of opinion, or agreement as to the theory and expression of
truth. In short, that right acting, and not right thin/dug, is
the true bond of religious union.
" This is to abandon the whole ground of sectarianism.
The proposed society is not only not a new sect, but it is
not. a sect at all. It proposes a UNION of minds, hearts, and
hands bent on thinking right, feeling right, and doing right,
and drawn together by the magnetic power of the inten-
tion, and not by agreement in the actual amount of progress
made."
MANHOOD.
295
Mr. Perkins's own feeling as to the probable success
of this movement may be learned by the following ex-
tracts from his letters.
" The blow struck by me, and it is not too strong an
expression, in the discourse that I sent to you, has told
here, in various directions, among many sects. I may
never see the result ; but children now living will. Hun-
dreds, out of the Unitarian society, have already expressed
to me their sympathy ; and in the course of the coming
winter, if I have life and strength, I can undoubtedly gather
a large and effective body upon the ground of faith in Jesus
and labor for man's salvation, personally and socially, with-
out respect to theological opinions."
" Our movement here is yet in embryo. I am in no
haste ; all good births are after the fulness of time. Several
from Episcopal, Presbyterian, Methodist, and other churches
will come in, I think ; but I am no believer in the revival sys-
tem, which is man's, though very full of faith in that revival
which is from God. I therefore make no noise or stir."
" We are all well. I am busy lately in a more than
usual degree about my grounds. I have some six acres,
every foot of which is capable of being made either ' use-
ful or ornamental,' a classification taught me fifteen
years ago by my excellent, well-dressed friend with the
lame foot, of omnibus-riding memory, and I am busy
bringing them into order and beauty. Had I no other cares
or thoughts, were I fifty miles from a city, town, village,
or human being, I should be perfectly content to dig,
hoe, rake, read, eat, and sleep for the rest of my life. But
I am, alas! at this moment forced to act as leader, nomi-
nally, of the anti-sectarian spirit of Cincinnati, which comes
to me under many names and phases ; and also to give
several hours a week, the number increasing geometrically
296 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
with the cold, to the presidential duties of the Relief Union,
or Central Charity of this Queen City.
" In short, were I an active bachelor, I should be busy
fifteen hours a day in attending on the poor and comforting
the troubled ; or in studying subjects for a dozen or two
lectures, which I ought to deliver this winter on all conceiv-
able subjects ; or in electioneering for a new society, for I
have resigned my pastorship in the old one, on account of
my heresies and sins ; or in writing for the North American
Review, Massachusetts Quarterly, &c. ; or in reading new
books, reviews, &c., &c. As it is, however, I nurse the
baby, go to market, see the poor and sick as I can, meditate
a sermon, skip through a novel, skim a review, dig a flower-
bed, eat a dinner, take a nap, write a page or two, discipline
half a dozen boys, and go to bed ! "
This last extract carries us to Mr. Perkins's HOME,
and thither \ve will now follow him. How strong his
yearning had always been to escape from the whirl and
confinement of cities, to the stillness, pure pleasures,
quiet work, and large freedom of the country, has ap-
peared in all his letters, even from boyhood ; and as the
charities of Cincinnati became organized, and his failing
health and a regard for his family's welfare absolutely
demanded a change, he at length took the decided step
of establishing himself out of town. The arrangement
which he was enabled to make was a delightful one.
Among the Walnut Hills, a few miles northeast of Cin-
cinnati, his brother-in-law had planted a nursery-gar-
den, and upon his grounds Mr. Perkins built a little
cottage. Behind it were the unbroken woods, and all
around, at short distances, lay pleasing prospects. He
called his retreat the " Owl's Nest " ; and how much
parents and young ones enjoyed their covert will appear
by a few extracts from his correspondence.
MANHOOD. 297
1845. " You speak in one of your letters of my working
too hard. I regret to say, I am sick with laziness and idle-
ness ; nor have I been able to discover any mode of cure
except to move three miles out of town, and try to fill up
my time by walking in and out, and gardening, loafing,
strolling, and lazing generally."
1S4G. " We have a very pretty place, with a beautiful
forest directly back of us, where we take many a pleasant
walk, in winter no less than summer. We have had much
snow this season, which has added not a little to our fun, as
well as to the beauty of the woods. Could you see us and
the four boys sliding on our pond, and coasting in a sled of
my manufacture, a Champagne basket on barrel-staves,
you would fancy us all children together."
1S17. " I am teaching, lecturing, writing two or three
books, visiting the poor, walking about in immense boots
through immense mud, lounging, napping, frolicking, and
reading at leisure " L'Unite Universelle," by Charles
Fourier, in four volumes. So goes life; the old hash
spiced with crying children, and sweetened with laughing
ones."
1S47. " We enjoy our life out of town very much in-
deed, in winter no less than in summer. And though I
have to ' tote ' out much of our marketing, and wade
through mire and water, yet I am glad to do all and bear
all for the pleasure I have in the exercise, the air out of
town, and the rambles in the woods. And Sarah and the
boys enjoy it as much as I."
1S47. "We are at present all quite well in body, and
only slightly troubled in mind by the Fall of Adam, Slavery,
the Mexican War, the prevalence of injustice, and a ' few
298 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
more of the same sort. 1 Our talk is of an immediate return
to New England, say in twenty years or so, to live on
oysters, lament the decay of Puritan principles, and try to
begin over again. Meanwhile we give the hoys homoeo-
pathic pellets and read the London Examiner. On week-
days, I personally am rather driven during daylight, and,
being nowise hat-like, am blind when daylight is over; and
Sarah and Charles E. being of similar sightless habits, we
spend very pleasant chatty evenings, occasionally varied by
four uneasy-sleeping boys, who have been eating hickory-
nuts ichole, or other similar delicacies."
The tone of gentle humor that runs through these
extracts was very characteristic of Mr. Perkins. It
pervaded speecli and manner in his familiar intercourse,
and spread a genial fireside glow through the domestic
circle. \ et it needs a fine touch to mark the quality of
this humor, so delicate and half latent was it beneath his
grave exterior. It was not the hilarity of good animal
spirits, nor the glittering wit of a keen intellect ; hut
though both sprightly and sharp-sighted, his playfulness
came of the heart. From principle, he had learned to
let off nervous excitement through sparkling fireworks
rather than fatal explosions. He felt so acutely the re-
buffs of life, that, to spare himself and all around from
incessant worry, he preferred to look at existence as a
fancy fair, where he was best fellow who wore the
drollest mask and carried on the joke most spiritedly.
Hence, when his peace was assaulted, he parried the
blow with a merry turn, and when his feelings were most
wounded, hid the scar beneath a smile. The mechan-
ism of comedy, qiinintness, repartee, the play on words
and oddities ol look and speech, were always at his com-
mand ; but the peculiarity of his sportiveness was the
MANHOOD. 299
intensity of feeling it betrayed. To the eye of sympa-
thy it was plain enough that, while the face was cheerful,
the soul was sad. In a word, he used humor rightfully,
as oil to save friction, and as means to speed the pas-
sage of good-will.
This trait showed itself most freely in his treatment of
his wife and boys. Though naturally irritable, and the
prey through life to a morbid temperament, for the most
part he kept up a good-natured battle with annoyances,
and changed petty troubles into stimulants of mirth.
He was ready at all hours to be playfellow, comforter,
guardian, nurse. He could be a child among his chil-
dren, and, after the studies and cares of the day, enter
heartily into a game of romps, a wrestling-match, a tramp
in the woods, or a snowball frolic. He had the w : isdom
to let Nature take her course in the rough-and-tumble
instincts of boyishness, and would not kill the buds of
manly feeling by pulling off' the husk prematurely or
blowing open the flowers. It was his aim rather to
inculcate gradually high principle by example, than irk-
somely to repeat specific precepts ; and he trusted more
to an implicit reliance on his judgment and kindness,
called out by calm consistency, than to a timid obedi-
ence of his commands. He knew so well, from experi-
ence, the worth of a self-relying will, that he preferred
to expose his sons to risks rather than to dwarf and en-
feeble their energies by over-fond anxiety. In a word,
he sought rather to be their friendly confidant than an
authoritative parent, And of woman's trials he was
most tenderly considerate ; he could lift the galling bur-
dens of the mother and housewife by pleasant diversions
and kindly sympathy ; he understood and remembered
the complex details that must be harmoniously ordered
300 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
in a comfortable home ; he could bear, as well as give,
advice, could sacrifice his own whims and predilections,
and was too grateful for the sunny sweetness which kept
love's garden green, to be vexed at every withered leaf
or broken twig.
In the training of his children intellectually, Mr. Per-
kins was apparently negligent ; for he had no faith in
precocious growth. He w;is solicitous, first of all, to
nourish their constitutional vigor, to give them strength
of muscle, and to clothe their nerves with a covering
sufficiently tough to bear the rubs of life. To rouse
their senses to quick and accurate observation, to accus-
tom their limbs to toil as hard as their age could bear, to
fit them by the small duties of home for faithfulness in
manly functions, was the surest way, he was convinced,
of laying foundations for substantial good sense ; and he
had no fear lest they would not, in due time, overtake
by swift progress their compeers who had climbed on
before. He preferred, too, to quicken their spiritual
affections rather by the infusion of his piety than by
forms. Meanwhile, he talked with his boys freely on
matters small or great, remote or near, as they were
suggested, told them stories, called their attention to
nature, taught them how to use their faculties in work,
and read to them such passages as he thought would be
interesting or instructive. Reading aloud, indeed, was
a constant pleasure of the fireside, and Wordsworth,
Southey, Scott's Novels, Carlyle's Sartor Resartus and
French Revolution, and the good current tales, reviews,
popular histories, and spirited travels, were thus enjoyed
in company with his wife and their visitors.
They \\ere, in truth, seldom alone. Hospitable,
cordial, and devotedly fond of their intimate friends, and
MANHOOD. 301
sought for their own sakes by others, the guest-chamber
in the cottage and the spare seats at the table were usu-
ally filled. At different periods, young ladies, placed
under their charge for purposes of education, lived with
them till they could scarce bear to be parted from these
second parents ; and for many months at a time a young
man of rare genius, but most eccentric character, who
came to Cincinnati for the mere purpose of forming Mr.
Perkins's acquaintance, and who made him his idol,
was an inmate at their house as if he had been a brother.
It was in this near intercourse that the loveliest side of
Mr. Perkins's spirit appeared. Whatever of reserve or
stiffness encased his manner in the world thawed off at
home ; and here he showed the genuine sweetness of his
character. He was never too busy or absorbed for the
exchange of friendly words and acts ; and his simplicity
of speech and bearing put every one at ease. Espe-
cially beautiful was his intercourse with girls and young
women. In common with all men of genius, the femi-
nine element in him was largely developed, and his re-
fined sympathies found a congenial sphere in female
society. But apart from natural romance of disposition,
he had the profoundest reverence for woman in herself,
and for her appointed destiny. He had caught a clear
view of the new era, opening in modern Christian soci-
ety, of -woman's co-sovereignty with man ; and on every
young girl whom he met he looked with interest, to
learn how far disposition and culture combined to fit her
for the exercise of ennobling influence. It was in his
confidential talks with a circle of these, that his hope
and imagination found wings. He liked to study with
them, opening by his suggestions the wide west of
inquiry, and to walk with them in cheerful conversa-
VOL. i. 26
302 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
tion, rising into earnest eloquence as mind illumined
mind.
The presence of friends did not hinder, but rather
aided, Mr. Perkins in his intellectual pursuits. His
method was so centrally controlling that he did not need
routine, and his character was too vitally regular to be
mechanical in act. He had learned, while yet a youth
in a counting-room, the art of carrying on his mental
operations amidst the most discordant conditions ; and
with the unconsciousness of habit grown to second na-
ture, he took his course through trifling interruptions.
He was the strictest economist of time. The moments
were never left to run to waste in sands of sloth ; but
all that did not turn the wheels of business, or fill the
streams of study, were made to water the garden-bed
and wild-flowers of fancy. He never went abroad with-
out a book in his pocket, and mastered many volumes
every year while waiting for the omnibus or unpunctual
committees. He was earnestly thoughtful, even when
most free. He could melt and mint the results of hours
of reading in a morning's stroll, and held his treasurer,
memory, to a strict account of her stewardship. Thus
he worked easily ; and the noises of children or the talk
of friends did not distract his attention. He prepared
himself by thorough, though rapid, reading before begin-
ning to write ; and when he put pen to paper, so strong
was his concentration, so discriminating his power of
analysis, and, above all, so truthful his intellect, that he
seldom needed to make a correction, or even an erasure.
Indeed, in all his processes, as student, writer, lecturer,
preacher, he was singularly consistent with himself. He
knew precisely what he wished to do, to what his pow-
ers were adequate, and the readiest mode to fulfil his
MANHOOD. 303
work ; and thus, though often aiming at moderate suc-
cess, he never failed, and generally surpassed, expecta-
tion. This practical efficiency he carried into all the
business of life. A more direct, prompt, punctual,
thorough person, it is rare to meet ; and he was as exact
an economist and prudent a manager as he was large in
ideal aims and boldly enthusiastic.
Yet the true LIFE of Mr. Perkins was a guarded cen-
tre, to which friends, children, wife even, seldom pene-
trated ; and of this his writings and sermons gave only a
distant glimpse. To those who knew and loved him
best he seemed subject to moods ; but few conjectured
the intensity of his inward struggles. Though his intel-
lect was so capacious, well ordered, and strong, the pas-
sional element in him was in many respects extravagant.
By nature, as he well knew, he was prompted by fiery
emotions. He could change with a flash from tenderness
to haughty severity ; by his very longing for sympathy,
he was tempted to crave exclusive regard ; conscious of
power, he was instinctively fond of sway ; and the viv-
idness of his ideality made common life seem tame.
Other weaknesses not a few he was also painfully aware
of. The real greatness of his life was in the incessant
warfare with these wayward tendencies ; and to a high
degree he mastered them. God and good angels alone
are pure enough to estimate the worth of his self-disci-
pline. Friends can only reverently admire the fact,
that a man, who, ungoverned by conscience, might have
been vindictive, jealous, ambitious, and unstable, was
gently merciful, disinterested, humble, and constantly
progressive. To those who had the eye to discern his
spirit through his nature, the moral heroism and pious
aspiration of James Perkins were sublime.
It is not surprising, that one who was so constantly
304 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
humbled by conscious struggle with sin should have felt
as if others would recognize his frailties. Indeed, how
could he esteem highly the conscience of those who did
not detect faults which to him were so glaring ? And in
proportion as he honored friends for their excellence, he
disclaimed for himself a right to their affection. This
self-distrust increased his natural diffidence ; and both
conspired to produce a reserve, which gained a deepened
shade from the very perception that it repelled those
around him. He was too generous to receive a love
which he could not overpay in return ; perhaps he was
too proud to seek affection which was not freely given ;
and one who was so stern towards himself could not
always be tolerant of others. This distance of manner
was heightened by his finest virtues. The prevalent
standard of conduct and character was so low, that he
would neither govern himself by popular maxims, nor
pretend a respect for what excited only his contempt.
The habit of referring to his inward oracle gave him a
O CJ
feeling of independence which could not but manifest
itself outwardly. The falsehood of conventional formal-
ities seemed oftentimes to demand a disregard of eti-
quettes, if merely to preserve truthfulness of heart. His
consciousness of half-stifled ambition made him put aside
as a tempter the honors which others were ready to ren-
der. And his cordial delight in genuine love filled him
with disgust for fussy sentimentalism.
Notwithstanding defects of manner, however, Mr.
Perkins was really a social man. He was unfitted by
taste and habit, indeed, for fashionable life, and was apt
to be more courteous to the poor in their garrets or cel-
lars than he was to belles and beaux in a ball-room ;
yet, though prone it may be to undervalue the graceful
elegances of life, he was too genuinely reverent to be
MANHOOD. 305
rude. In circles where he was known, and could meet
his fellows face to face, he was a charming companion.
There was a fascination in his mingled frankness and re-
tenue ; and while his sincerity won confidence, there
hung around him a veil of mystery that one longed to lift.
His wisdom wore so pleasant an air of comic serious-
ness, that he could preach in private without being dull,
and his very censure left no sting. He was fond of ar-
gumentation as the means of bringing out all sides of
a subject, and invariably defended the principle, party,
person, seemingly most weak. Though living out of
town, he still kept up intimate relationship with the city ;
and in the neighbourhood at Walnut Hills there grad-
ually gathered the families of some of his most valued
friends, in intercourse with whom he was like a brother.
He was often visited, also, by influential persons, who
wished to consult whir him on important measures, ques-
tions of public policy, or perplexed private affairs ; and
the poor whom he had aided, or who were sent to him
for advice, were glad to rest for a while in the quiet of
his cottage, and feel the refreshment of his cordial sym-
pathy. Letters daily arrived, too, from reformers, teach-
ers, scholars, and the seekers for unsectarian religious
unions ; and young men, who saw in his example of self-
help and humane services a noble model, gathered round
him to catch the impulse of his prescience, calm inten-
sity, and large good-will. Like Ernest in " The Great
Stone Face," he had gazed so long and ardently upon
the ideal of manly goodness, that others saw reflected in
him the beauty which he sought.*
* Hawthorne's exquisite tale has seemed to others, as to me, like
a portrait of our friend.
26*
306 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
From amidst this home, these spheres of usefulness,
our friend departed suddenly, in the gloomy days, when
northern zones are most darkened by the earth's shadow.
With the returning sun of Christmas, let us trust that he
entered on brighter mansions, and more loving society,
in communion with the Light of Life.
The half of a man's existence is in the impression that
he makes on others ; and from the following tributes of
affectionate reverence, called out by his death, some
image may be formed of James H. Perkins.
" Our readers are all aware of the sudden death of Rev.
James H. Perkins, pastor of the First Congregational Church
of Cincinnati, by drowning from the Jamestown ferry-boat,
on Friday evening last, December 14th.
" We recollect no previous occurrence which cast so deep
and general a gloom over this community as that in which
it has been wrapped by the death of this estimable man.
Mr. Perkins had so endeared himself to the poor by his com-
prehensive benevolence and unceasing charities ; had been
for so long a time the light and life of intellectual and social
circles ; had so ingrained himself into the common heart,
and won the universal sympathy by his brilliant mental en-
dowments, and the untiring devotion of his time and means
and health to whatever would give relief to the sick, or add
a grace to the whole, to whatever would in his estimation
promote the best and truest interests of society, that all
classes were his friends. If any knew him except to love
him, or named him except to praise, they are of those who
are themselves unknown and unloved. To all, therefore,
the announcement of his untimely death came with a shock,
and to every heart brought a most poignant sorrow. It is
not transcending the truth to say, that not one of the hun-
dred thousand souls comprising our population could have
MANHOOD. 307
been tnken away, who would have been so generally missed
or so deeply mourned.
" For a period of between fifteen and twenty years, during
which time we have known Mr. Perkins well, he has been
subject to a sudden rush of blood to the head, which has
produced distressing vertigo, at times greatly impaired his
sight, and often thrown him into deep despondency. Within
the past five or six years he has suffered intensely from pal-
pitation of the heart, often being incapacitated by his dis-
tressing affection for the discharge of his pastoral and other
duties. On Friday last, a paroxysm of this kind was pro-
duced by the agitation he suffered in consequence of the
supposed loss of his two children. In the morning of that
day one of his little boys aged nine years, and another aged
seven, rode to the city from Mr. Perkins's residence, on
Walnut Hills, with a neighbour, and were to return home
in the omnibus, at the stand of which their father, who was
to come in by another conveyance, was to meet them.
Not finding them there at the appointed time, Mr. Perkins
feared that they had lost themselves, and commenced search-
ing for them. Being unsuccessful, he became more and
more agitated the farther he went, and finally employed the
crier, who met with no better success. The search was at
length abandoned, and in despair, and fatigued as he was,
Mr. Perkins walked home, a distance of nearly four miles,
whither his children had preceded him.
" He reached his residence about one o'clock in the after-
noon, utterly exhausted ; but, after lying down for a time,
rose and dined. He could not, however, overcome the ex-
citement into which he had been thrown, although the chil-
dren were with him and well. He was restless and nervous
to a degree never before witnessed by his family ; and so
continuing, about five o'clock he told his wife that he would
take a walk to calm his nerves, but not be gone long, that
he wished to try and allay the excitement, but would be
308 LIFE OF JAMES II. PERKINS.
back before tea-time. lie went out thus, but did not return,
and nothing was seen of him afterwards by his family or
friends.
" Early on Saturday morning a report was spread from
the Jamestown Crossing of the Ohio, that on the previous
evening a man had drowned himself from the ferry-boat at
that point, leaving behind him several articles of clothing,
among them an overcoat, in one of the pockets of which
was found a memorandum-book, with initials in several
places. A gentleman of the city, who happened to have
business on the boat, asked to see the book, and upon open-
ing it saw the letters ' J. H. P.,' with which he was familiar.
He immediately rode to the residence of Mr. Perkins's fam-
ily with the information.
" Upon subsequent inquiry, it was ascertained that not
quite half an hour elapsed between leaving his home and
reaching the ferry, which is distant from a half to three
fourths of a mile. With his arms folded and eyes bent upon
the ground, he walked hastily on board, and crossed to the
outer side of the boat, standing on the very edge, and look-
ing into the water. There being no carriages, the bar was
not up. The ferryman said, loudly enough for him to hear,
' That man will be overboard if he does not take care.' Mr.
Perkins looked round, but did not speak. He, however,
changed his position. This was the last that was seen of
him. After a while the collector discovered an overcoat,
in which was found the memorandum-book referred to, a
wrapper, a vest, a cap, and a pair of spectacles, all of which
have been identified as belonging to Mr. Perkins.
" The supposition among those well acquainted with the
peculiar mental constitution of the deceased, and his severe
physical sufferings, is, tbat his walk, instead of allaying his
excitement, still further increased it, till reason was tempo-
rarily dethroned. In a wandering mood, not knowing whither
he went, he had doubtless reached the Jamestown Ferry,
MANHOOD. 309
and in a paroxysm of mental aberration had thrown himself
into the stream.
" The unusual fatigue and excitement of Friday morning
had hrought on a more violent palpitation of the heart than
Mr. Perkins had ever before experienced. In lighter attacks
his friends have frequently thought his brain temporarily
affected by his sufferings ; and although nothing of the kind
was observed by those who assisted him in the search for
his children on Friday morning, or by his family when he
left the house for the walk on Friday evening, it probably
soon came on, producing the melancholy termination re-
corded of his beautiful and useful life.
" The waters closed over his body still and dark ; but so
shall not human forgetfulness close over his good deeds.
These were many and long continued, and will live and
grow brighter and brighter in thousands of hearts, till they,
too, cease to beat, and pass away and unite with his again
in the great hereafter." WILLIAM D. GALLAGHER, Cincin-
nati Gazette.
" The profound sorrow into which our city was thrown
on Saturday last, by the sudden and melancholy death of
this good man, and the tone of the numerous notices of the
event and remarks on his character that have since been
made in the newspapers, show the extent and force of his
hold on the respect and affections of the community. If
there is one heart that does not share in the general grief
for his loss, if there is one tongue that does not join in the
common tribute to his virtues, if there is one soul that does
not unite in the seemingly universal homage paid to his
active goodness, we do not know it. Persons of all ages
and all classes express the highest reverence for his elevated
Christian character, and the deepest regret at the time and
manner of his departure from the sphere of his earthly loves
and labors. And of this sorrow and this respect, profound
310 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
and all-pervading as they are, it is no exaggeration to ?ay,
he was eminently worthy. Years ago he devoted his life to
the service of (rod, the ylory of Christ, and the good of his
fellow-men ; and humbly, patiently, and laboriously, amid
many hardships and many discouragements, through sor-
rows and sufferings of his own that would have daunted a
less resolute heart, he gave it, day after day, season after
season, year after year." Cincinnati Columbian.
" Cincinnati, December 2Qlh, 1819. Mr. Perkins in the
common affairs of life was a man of a sensible, well-bal-
anced mind. He was eminently practical, devoting his
time, energy, and means to the relief of the poor and
suffering of every class, lie was President of the City
Relief Union, of which he was the main originator, an
institution which has for some time been doing more than
any other for the poor. For some days before his decease
his mornings were spent in its rooms, in listening to the
tales of the suffering, and giving orders for their relief.
His comprehensive plans for the diminution of suffering
and crime, his increasing charities, his fine social qualities,
his mental endowments, indeed, his whole character was
such as to endear him to all who knew him, personally or
by reputation." Correspondence of the National Era.
" In him the poor have lost a friend, the youth a faithful
counsellor and guide, and the good feel as if a link that
bound them to the world of unsullied purity was snapped
asunder. Mr. Perkins was a man of the highest integrity to
the world, and honesty to himself. He was an earnest
seeker after truth, and bold in its avowal. He possessed a
fine analytical mind, a copious diction, and the eloquence of
his discourse was that which wells up spontaneously from a
full soul, and an acute sense of the great responsibility of
his position. If any could criticize the consistency of his
MANHOOD. 311
views, one with the other, it was because they did not view
the subject through the same medium. He was benevolent
in that exalted import given to the word by Him who bore
his own cross to the place of his crucifixion without a mur-
mur of reproach. Him did our departed friend imitate in
his humility, his gentleness, his simplicity, his kindness, and
his charity."
" If the mantle of charity should ever cover the end of a
good man, thus ushered into the presence of his God, it
would be accorded to the deceased by the universal ac-
claim of his fellow-men. He who so liberally dispensed the
sweets of charity to suffering humanity is certainly entitled
to a share of it now. Had we been called upon to name
one as perfect, and possessing more of the Divine attributes
in his composition than any other human being, we should
have unhesitatingly pointed out him whose melancholy end
it is our painful duty to record. The poor of this inclement
season have lost in him their best friend. He was ever
among them, day and night, no matter how inclement the
season, sacrificing his own health and comfort to relieve the
wants of suffering humanity." Cincinnati Papers.
" No one, who had the good fortune to be intimately ac-
quainted with Mr. Perkins, can for a moment doubt that he
committed the act when his judgment had lost its balance,
and his mind was in that state of utter distraction which is
denominated insanity.
" We doubt whether Cincinnati numbers among her citi-
zens any one who has performed such .valuable service to
the community as Mr. Perkins did. For a series of years
he dedicated himself with his whole heart to relieving the
necessities of the poor, and to visiting the widow and the
fatherless. He was a genuine benefactor, and so great was
the confidence of the people of Cincinnati in him, that, not-
312 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
withstanding he belonged to a denomination of Christians
generally regarded as heretical, he was the chosen deposi-
tary of the charities of hundreds of those who, while ac-
knowledging the rare excellence of the man, very cordially
denounced his articles of faith. He enkindled the light of
hope and self-respect in thousands of desolate hosoms, and
relumed the fires on thousands of cold and cheerless hearths.
By the poor he was, of course, regarded with feelings of the
most profound respect, for in him they always found a fast
friend.
" Mr. Perkins was one of the ablest men in the West.
His articles in the New ^ork Review and North American
Review are among the best that ever appeared in their
pages. He has at times published sketches abounding in
the most sunny humor, and stories illustrative of moral
principles. Every thing that he did was well done, better
than almost any one else could have done it. His mind
was well balanced in its powers. He had a magnificent
imagination, a judgment of great power and truthfulness,
and a memory clear and comprehensive. The play of his
fancy was exquisite. He was witty, humorous, satirical,
and sarcastic at will. He was a pleasant companion, a
useful citizen, and a good man. In the aggregate power of
mind, he has left few persons behind him in the city in
which the years of his manhood were spent, that can for a
moment be ranked with himself. His discourses in the
church in which he officiated as a pastor, for several years,
were plain, and yet powerful ; in thought they were very
elevated ; in utterance they were marked by simplicity and
intelligibility. \Ve have known him for many years, and
we have known but few men who, ' take them all in all,'
did not fall far below him.
" That such a generous heart, that such a gifted and
powerful mind, should have met with such an end, is to us
very inscrutable. The heart that was very warm toward all
MANHOOD. 313
the lonely and the afflicted has ceased to beat, beneath the
cold wave of the Ohio, and the mind that had conversed
with the minds of the good and the great of all ages, and
had afforded delight and instruction to many thousands, was
quenched, so far as the world is concerned, in a moment of
its aberration. That glorious head, so dream-like and so
intellectual in its form and expression, around which so many
visions of the beautiful floated and lingered, the home of so
many noble purposes of extensive usefulness, is now dark
and cold. A superior spirit has passed from earth, and is
now, we trust, imparadised in those heavenly mansions to
merit which it dedicated itself to deeds of good while here."
T. H. SHREVE, Louisville Journal.
" ROOMS OF THE YOUNG MEN'S MERCANTILE LIBRARY
ASSOCIATION, Cincinnati, December 29, 1849. At a stated
meeting of the Board of Directors, it was
" Resolved, ' That this Board have learned with profound
regret the death of REV. JAMES H. PERKINS, late a life-
member, and from its organization a warm friend, as well
as preeminently a very liberal benefactor, of this Association.
" ' That while few words best befit the solemnity of the
occasion, and the deep and all-pervading sorrow of this com-
munity, the YOUNG MEN'S MERCANTILE LIBRARY ASSOCIA-
TION feel a right and privilege to bear public testimony to
the worth, exalted talents, and earnest philanthropy, to the
dignity and beauty of life and character of the deceased :
his counsels and benefactions were ever lavished upon this
institution, and his memory will be cherished among us, as
in a peculiar manner the friend of young men, in its lar-
gest and truest sense, the friend of all mankind.
" ' That, as an expression of respect and heart-felt sympa-
thy, a copy of this minute be transmitted to the family of
the deceased ; that it be presented at the first general meet-
ing of the Association for a place on its permanent records ;
VOL. i. 27
314 UFK OF JAMES II. PERKINS.
and that copies of the same be furnished the daily papers of
the city for publication.'
" At the annual meeting in January, after the reading of
the annual report, the chair having called for resolutions
referred to in that document, MR. LUPTON said,
" k I am charged, Mr. President, with the presentation of a
very brief minute adopted by the Board of Directors upon
the melancholy occasion of the death of Rev. J. II. Perkins,
for which, if it meet the pleasure of this meeting, I have to
ask a place on the permanent records.
" ' The life of Mr. Perkins was a living eulogy : his identi-
fication with this society, his labors of love, and the value of
his counsels and benefactions, are best known to those who
in years past have been most conversant with the business
affairs and history of the Association his death caused the
heart of the community to throb. It is not for me, Mr. Presi-
dent, on this solemn occasion, to presume to offer a single
word of panegyric. As an humble member of the Young
Men's Mercantile Library Association, and of this commu-
nity, I can but place my hand on my mouth, my mouth in
the dust, inasmuch as the hand of God has been indeed laid
heavily upon us.'
" A motion to approve, and enter on the minutes, seconded
by Mr. llartwell, was then carried by a unanimous vote of
the Association.
" Of Mr. Pei kins we will not attempt to speak in terms of
befitting eulogy. In the removal of this good man, the
entire community has sustained an irreparable loss. His
blameless purity of life, unostentatious benevolence, and
unaffected piety, had won for him universal esteem and ven-
eration. The subdued tone in which the news of his mel-
ancholy and untimely end was communicated from lip to lip,
and the all-pervading sadness it occasioned, attest, in lan-
guage more eloquent than words, how deeply enshrined in
the popular heart is the memory of him whose life had been
MANHOOD. 315
consecrated to virtuous deeds. Perhaps to no man in this
community is our Association more largely indebted for wise
counsels and liberal benefactions ; and, while it becomes us
to bow in humble submission to the inscrutable dispensation
which has removed him for ever from the scene of his earthly
labors, we may be permitted to mingle our sympathies in the
common bereavement."
HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF OHIO. " At a special meeting
of the Historical Society of Ohio, held at the Society's
rooms, on Monday the 24th instant, after the transaction of
the regular business of the association, the following tribute
of respect to the memory of James H. Perkins, late Vice-
President of the Society, offered by Edwin R. Camp-
bell, was unanimously adopted.
" Whereas, in common with our fellow-citizens at large,
we deeply feel the loss of a valued member of this society,
and of society in general, James H. Perkins, late Vice-
President of this association, it is hereby
" Resolved, That we deeply deplore the sudden and un-
expected private and public bereavement, which has deprived
us of a valued brother and associate, who contributed so
largely to the good of his fellow-men, to the objects of our
Association, and to the Historical Annals of the West.
" Mr. Perkins was a pride to this city, a man whom all
delighted to honor, one who, though dead, shall not be lost
to us, whose example is still with us, and the remem-
brance of his conduct will still incite us to deeds of kindness,
greatness, and philanthropy."
" If an expression of deepest, heart-felt regret be permit-
ted to any, it surely will not be denied to one who, in com-
mon with so many children of misfortune, has recently lost
in departed worth a friend and a brother. Regrets may be
vain, as all earthly benefits are transitory ; yet it is an
316 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
abiding consolation to reflect that he who so nobly fulfilled
his mission here, who went about doing good continually,
who overtaxed his mental and physical powers in unceasing
efforts for the benefit of his fellows, and undoubtedly suf-
fered shipwreck of his life in consequence, has gone hence
only to enjoy those abiding treasures which his good deeds
had laid up for immortality. Nor can his bright example
be lost to our community ; for, like every excellent person
of past ages, in the lapse of time he will only become more
duly appreciated. And long indeed will the widow, the
orphan, and the fatherless embalm his memory with tears."
" I cannot help feeling, that his death must have proceed-
ed from derangement of the mental powers, brought on by
disappointment that he lived in a day and generation which
knew him not, and could not comprehend a life so much
superior to the conceptions of a people who had little aspi-
ration. I do not know that I am ri^K in this conjecture ;
but it seems to me very clear, that his mind could never
have been perplexed by causes that operate on the world at
large. From the little I knew of him and his endeavours
after a true life, I looked upon him as one of the purest and
brightest spirits of our a<:e, and he approached my beau-
ideal of a perfect man more nearly than any other."
" The more I think what his life was, how laboriously de-
voted to the best interests of society, the more I feel how
great the loss has been. His influence was great every
way, but most of all through his life, through the rare ex-
ample he set of disinterestedness, magnanimity, the love of
truth, and his generous and exalted aims." EPHRAIM PEA-
BODY, Boston, Mass.
" James was to me more like a brother than almost any
friend I ever had. In him I found sympathy in all things.
MANHOOD. 317
Whether we agreed or differed, I was sure of his under-
standing and appreciating my thoughts and motives. There
was no veil between us. I am truly thankful for the good I
have derived from his friendship. All his aims were so
noble, so free from selfishness, that no one could associate
with him without becoming better. It was this which made
his society so attractive, and his influence so great among
the better part of the young persons with whom he came in
contact. His power was entirely unknown to him, because
he was entirely unconscious of its exercise. His ardor in
the cause of every good object was somewhat chilled, and
himself disheartened, by the want of a purity and disinter-
estedness in others like that which he possessed, and which
he thought to be natural to all. He was disappointed, also,
at the seemingly small amount of his influence in directing
the thoughts and exertions of others rightly, because he knew
how easily his own were guided. The very elements in his
character which gave him so much influence for good made
him unconscious that he possessed any." ESTES HOWE,
Cambridge, Mass.
" I have known but few whose abilities and character
rose into the same high region of my respect which his
steadily occupied. There was a Christian sincerity and
breadth of character, a purity of aim, and a comprehensive
humanity of feeling in him rarely equalled, with a modest
independence, which as I remember it, in its peculiarity of
granite firmness, yet almost blushing regard for another's
opinion, was all his own. His virtue is not lost, but trans-
planted, growing in a kindlier soil." C. A. BARTOL, Bos-
ton, Mass.
" Of all men I have met in life since boyhood, I have
learned to respect him most and love him best. Among the
choicest of my recollections, I shall value my intercourse
27*
318 LIFE OF JAMES H. PERKINS.
with him, and your communication that he was attached to
me. If remembrances of his commanding intellect, of his
varied and extended attainments, of his genial spirit, and of
his life spent in doing good, or if the most wide-spread
and heart-felt sympathies, could console his family for his
loss, they are poured in upon them without measure or
stint." E. LANE, Sandusky, Ohio.
" Not a day has passed that my mind has not dwelt on
the sad change, and pictured the many happy days 1 have
passed in your family. Mr. Perkins was my beau-ideal of
all that was great and good in this world, and I have often
told my friends, that I looked upon him as the best man I
ever knew ; and I shall always feel that I received from him
more real good than from any other man." FRANK P.
ABBOT, Baltimore, Md.
" No young girl, it seems to me, ever had such a friend,
ever suffered such a loss ; his tender care, his loving
looks and words, are always in my heart, and I can never
hope in this world to meet with another in the least like
him. It seems now as if I could never fear death again. I
feel, should I die, that I must certainly see his face of per-
fect goodness, his loving gaze, and that he would gently
take my hand in his as he has so often done in this life.
Certainly it is a great thing to have had, even for a short
time, the love and friendship of such a perfect being."
" You know how much I was indebted to the care and
kindness of Mr. Perkins. I owe the little good that is in me
to him, for how patiently and kindly he toiled to rouse my
better nature; and the principles he almost imperceptibly
instilled into me have enabled me to overcome trials that
would otherwise have crushed me. I mourn for him as I
would for a tenderly loved brother, and while I know that
MANHOOD. 319
he is lost to us here, I feel that his pure soul has become
another link in the chain which draws us to that God
whose faithful servant he was while on earth. I will treas-
ure as precious jewels the recollection of his good deeds and
pure precepts, and revere his memory as that of the best
man I ever knew."
" I knew James well. I knew that he had the best heart
in the world, that he was kind and friendly to all, and that
he loved to see every body happy. He always did his duty
towards every body. How deeply am I indebted to him for
his acquaintance and friendship ! " J. APPLETON JEWETT,
Boston, Mass,
" I can truly say I have never lost any friend who seemed
to me so great a loss, and I feel, as all those must who have
been accustomed to lean on him, that no one can ever take
the place he has left vacant."
" In private intercourse, I do not think any thing was more
striking in Mr. Perkins than his perfect truth. I am cer-
tain that I never felt the power of truth, or the necessity of
being true, so much as I did in his presence. I do not mean
of being true in general, but in every word and act ; and I
never felt so reproached for the careless statements I made,
even in little things, as I did from his severe and direct ques-
tionings. There was nothing he seemed to consider too
unimportant to be repeated, if at all, with the most perfect
exactness and the strictest conformity to facts. And though
he mingled so little with society, I believe it is through his
influence that there is so much simplicity and heartiness in
the relations in which nearly all his acquaintances stand
in towards each other here. There is certainly in this circle
in Cincinnati less of compliment, form, pretension, and insin-
cerity than in any circle I have ever met. And I believe
very much of it is owing indirectly to him."
LIFE OF JA.MES H. PERKINS.
" It was but a short time since, that I found, in looking
over a portfolio, an original piece of James's in his own
handwriting. It was a farewell, written in the easy haste
for which he was so remarkable. He had not the trouble to
compose, he tliovght poetry. I think it is this truthful spirit
that gives such a simple earnestness to all he has written ;
he did not write to be read, but to give his feelings utterance.
He had an almost morbid fear of display, and an integrity
which was carried even into his imagination ; he could not
imagine falsehood, and it always appeared to me that his
ideals had spiritual existence. TRUTH formed the main-
spring of his character, and controlled an unusually devel-
oped ideality. It was this that made his speculations on the
spiritual world so interesting to me. I have listened to him
by the hour, and looked at the inspired expression of his
face, until I could almost believe that faith was turned into
vision."
NEW ENGLAND.
O, TELL me not 't is Fancy's voice
That whispers in my ear ;
For I know 't is Nature's holy tone
That breathes in silence here.
From the silence of my bosom
It bids me cease to roam,
And to seek once more the rock-girt shore,
And the green fields of my home.
Why do I love that rocky land,
And that inclement sky ?
I know alone I love it,
But ask, and care, not why.
As round my friends my feelings twine,
So round my native shore ;
God placed the instinct in my heart,
And I seek to know no more.
Then howl, ye thunder-tempests,
For ye lull my soul to sleep ;
And in dreams I hear the ocean-wind,
And the surges of the deep.
324 NEW ENGLAND.
Again thn clouds of winter
Sweep o'er the summer sky,
And the ground rings hard beneath my tread,
And the snow comes drifting by.
My fathers' bones, New England,
Sleep in thy hallowed ground ;
My living kin, New England,
In thy shady paths are found ;
And though my body dwelleth here,
And my weary feet here roam,
My spirit and my hopes are still
In thee, my own loved home.
1835.
325
TO A LADY,
WHO WONDERED WHY SHE WAS LOVED.
IT is not learning's borrowed gleam,
It is not beauty's holier light,
It is not wealth, that makes thee seem
So lovely in our sight.
The worth may leave Potosi's ore,
Golconda's diamond lose its sheen,
But thine is the exhaustless store
Of innocence serene.
The beauty of the eye must fade,
The beauty of the cheek decay,
But from thy spirit, guileless maid,
No charm shall pass away.
The learning of the gifted mind,
Its gathered wisdom, may depart,
But in thy ignorance I find
The wisdom of the heart.
And this nor earthly change or ill,
Nor time, nor malady, can blight ;
And this it is that makes thee still
So lovely in our sight.
1833.
VOL. i. 28
326
SONG.
O, MERRY, merry be the day,
And bright the star of even ;
For 't is our duty to be gay,
And tread in holy joy our way ;
Grief never came from Heaven,
My love,
It never came from Heaven.
Then let us not, though woes betide,
Complain of Fortune's spite, love ;
As rock-encircled trees combine,
And nearer grow, and closer twine,
So let our hearts unite,
My love,
So let our hearts unite.
Though poortith grim should smile on me,
It shall not make me wince, love ;
Your ruddy cheek and laughing e'e,
They are a store of wealth to me
That might content a prince,
My love,
That might content a prince.
SONG. 327
O, may God bless that laughing e'e,
Preserve that happy look, love ;
For there I read his gracious will,
His mercy and his kindness still,
As in a written book,
My love,
As in a written book.
And what though friends be often cold,
And sometimes false and faithless?
Though eyes we loved be closed in death,
And hushed the music of the breath,
Yet there be true hearts nathless,
Love,
O, there be true hearts nathless !
There 's many a cheek will brighter glow,
And many a breast beat higher,
At our approach ; and when we die,
Believe me, there is many an eye
Will weep above our pyre,
My love,
Will weep above our pyre.
And though the circle here be small
Of heartily approved ones,
There is a home beyond the skies,
Where vice shall sink and virtue rise,
Till all become the loved ones,
Love,
Till all become the loved ones.
Then let your eye be laughing still,
And cloudless be your brow ;
328 SONG.
For in that better world above
O, many myriads shall we love,
As one another now,
My love,
As one another now.
329
CHANGE NOT.
BE ever thus ; though years must roll,
And add their wrinkles to thy cheek,
Still let thy ever-youthful soul
In word and action live and speak.
Unknowing of a wicked thought,
Untouched by any act of sin,
And all ungoverned and untaught,
Save by the monitor within,
Thou shalt know nothing of the things
That breed earth's countless quarrellings ;
Yet of the learning of the sage,
The poet's rhyme, the scholar's page,
All that is pure and true shall be
A gift of instinct unto thee ;
And so, as guileless and as wild,
Thou shalt live on, and die, a child.
When merry Spring, with crown of flowers,
Comes dancing through the budding bowers,
Thy laughing eye and voice of song
Shall swell the chorus of her throng ;
28*
330 CHANGE NOT.
And though the birds be all about,
And many a bee upon the wing,
Thy jocund tone shall mark thce out,
The very spirit of the spring.
And when the days of winter come,
And all is tempest, all is gloom,
Thy sunny cheek and sunny eye
Shall chase that tempest from the sky ;
And though in ice be bound the earth,
Thy loving hope and careless rnirth
Shall make it summer round our hearth.
Then ever, ever, be the same,
As pure, as thoughtless, and as wild,
A woman, yet a little child ;
For thus from God you came.
331
POVERTY AND KNOWLEDGE
AH, dearest, we are young and strong,
With ready heart and ready will
To tread the world's bright paths along ;
But poverty is stronger still.
Yet, my dear wife, there is a might
That may bid poverty defiance,
The might of knowledge ; from this night
Let us on her put our reliance.
Armed with her sceptre, to an hour
We may condense whole years and ages ;
Bid the departed, by her power,
Arise, and talk with seers and sages.
Her word, to teach us, may bid stop
The noonday sun ; yea, she is able
To make an ocean of a drop,
Or spread a kingdom on our table.
In her great name we need but call
Scott, Schiller, Shakspeare, and, behold !
POVERTY AND KNOWLEDGE.
The suffering Mary smiles on all,
And FalstalF riots as of old.
Then, wherefore should we leave this hearth.
Our books, and all our pleasant labors,
If we can have the whole round earth,
And still retain our home and neighbours .-
Why wish to roam in other lands ?
Or mourn that poverty hath bound us ?
We have our hearts, our heads, our hands,
Enough to live on, friends around us,
And, more than all, have hope and love.
Ah, dearest, while those last, be sure
That, if there be a God above,
We arc not and cannot be poor !
333
HOME.
No, it is not a poet's dream,
It does not live in thought alone ;
For here, by Housatonic's stream,
Home, as she wrote of it, is known.
Here, where round every rock and peak
Clings some tradition dim and hoary,
And every valley seems to speak
Of the lost Indian's pride and glory ;
Where the pure mists long linger nigh,
Like guardian Naiads to the rills,
And the vast shades flit silently,
As giant spectres, o'er the hills ;
Where neither slaves nor nobles bend,
But all in love aid one another ;
Where every stranger is a friend,
And every honest man a brother ;
Where all gives proof of woman's power,
The might of nature, not of art ;
,'i,'{ t HOME.
And day l>v day, and hour by hour
Heart clingeth closer still to heart ;
Here is a home, a IIOMK in truth,
One that can chase away the ills
Of age, and lend new joy to youth,
A holy home among the hills.
Here may we see a stronger bond
Than interest, ambition, pelf,
Which, reaching to the world beyond,
Still makes a world within itself.
For though to few the power is given
To guide, to govern, or to move,
Yet unto each all-bounteous Heaven
Holds out the God-like power to love.
Long may that flame within us burn,
As here each bounding heart it fills,
Although we never should return
To this sweet home among the hills.
Siockbridgf, August, ItsJG.
335
THE MOTHER AND CHILD
IT was a mother and her child ;
She hushed him with a lullaby,
And as she sung he smiled.
Her hair lay carelessly and wild
Upon a sun-burnt brow ;
But there was beauty in her eye,
It lives, it burns before me now,
That might all time and change defy ; -
Such beauty is not born to die.
" Sleep, my fatherless ! sleep, sleep ! "
Thus she sung ;
" Be thy slumbers sweet and deep ;
While the shades of evening creep
From the forest-boughs among,
And the dews the meadows steep,
Sleep, O, sleep !
Close, close that little hand,
And that too watchful eye ;
And, in slumbers soft and bland,
Dream of days gone by.
336 THE MOTHER AND CHILD.
Sleep, my orphan, sleep !
While the moon, so mild,
Doth her vigils keep ;
And the shadows sweep,
And the silent night falls deep
O'er the wild ;
Sleep, my little child,
Sleep, O, sleep ! "
'T was nothing, yet in every note
That mother breathed above her young,
More heavenly music seemed to float
Than ever gifted Mozart wrote,
Than Pasta ever sung.
337
TO A CHILL).
MY little friend, I love to trace
Those lines of laughter in thy face,
Which seems to be the dwelling-place
Of all that 's sweet,
And bend with pride to thy embrace,
Whene'er we meet.
For though the beauty of the flower,
Or of the sky at sunset hour,
Or when the threatening tempests lower,
May be divine,
Yet unto me but weak their power
Compared with thine.
And though the ocean's waves, which roll
From the equator to the pole,
May tell us of a God's control,
Yet poor they be,
When measured by the living soul
Which burns in thee.
And of strange cities we are told,
That were in the dim days of old ;
VOL. i. 29
338 TO A CHILD.
Of thrones of ivory and of gold
By jewels hid,
And temples of gigantic mould,
And pyramid.
But I would brave a hundred toils
To watch thy little ways and wiles,
And bathe my spirit in thy smiles,
And hear thy call,
Rather than walk a dozen miles
To see them all.
For thou, when folly hath beguiled,
Or selfishness or sense defiled,
Thou meetest me, my little child,
Fresh with my stain ;
But when upon me thou hast smiled,
I 'm pure again,
O, then by thee I could be led,
With joy, life's humblest walks to tread
The lowliest roof, the hardest bed,
Were all I 'd ask ;
To raise my heart above my head
Should be my task.
W hat, then, to me the diamond stone,
And what the gem-encircled zone,
And what the harp's bewildering tone ?
Thine azure eye,
Thy ruddy cheek and laugh, alone
Would satisfy.
TO A CHILD. 339
And though all fortune were denied,
I 'd struggle still against the tide,
Nor pray for any wealth beside,
If I could be
The parent, governor, and guide
Of one like thee.
NOVEMBER AND MAY.
ix months ago, my little friend,
The trees were bare and dark the ground ;
November's sky did o'er us bend,
November's breezes whistled round.
But now the flowers are bright about us,
The red-bird pours his liquid lay,
And all within and all without us,
As with one voice, proclaim the May.
And as it chanced, a little girl
I met with, just six months ago ;
Her brown hair fell in many a curl
Round features that I did not know.
Our path, so far, had been apart,
And though the maiden spoke and smiled,
It was November in my heart
Toward that little, unknown child.
Half of the year has passed away,
She that I met with must depart ;
NOVEMBER AND MAY. 341
But now, believe me, it is May,
And not November, in my heart.
Her warm affection, modest bearing,
Her words, her actions stamped with truth,
Her thoughtful conduct, calm, yet sharing
The frolic temper due to youth,
These, like the warm spring days, have smiled
On feelings all too torpid yet,
And make me place that unknown child
With those I shall not soon forget.
Her welfare and her spirit's growth,
Her victory o'er the might of passion,
Her freedom from ennui and sloth,
Her safety from the snares of fashion.
Shall be my prayer when far away ;
And if she act but well her part,
0, she will fill with endless May
Not mine alone, but many a heart.
342
TRUTH.
WRITTEN IN A PORTFOLIO.
BE TRUTH my motto ever ! Thou
That bendest o'er my pages now,
Wouldst thou but write a sentence here,
Be every line and word sincere.
Whether it be to those who mourn
For friends departed, kindred gone,
Or to the jocund and the gay,
Who cannot think friends pass away,
Whether it be the gravest strain
That ever racked a thoughtful brain,
Or of a style that would beguile
All thought, and raise the dimpling smile,
Write when you may and what you will,
Of grave or gay, of good or ill,
O, be that word my motto still !
Here, to those gone, with artless art
Pour the full fountains of the heart ;
Obey that prompter deep within,
That feels concealment half a sin ;
Speak out, and others then to you
Will speak as warmly and as true.
TRUTH.
Or should there burn a holier fire
Than ever Friendship can inspire,
Should mighty Love above me deign
To hover on his azure wing,
And prompt the letter or the strain
That only lovers write or sing,
Though joy-bewildered, hope-amazed,
Be not that guiding word erased.
And after I am gone, O, still
To mould thy passion, guide thy will,
To point thy path, sustain thy strength,
And lead thee to thy rest at length,
In womanhood and age, as youth,
Be thy firm trust, thy motto, TRUTH.
1836.
344
TO ONE FAR AWAY.
I SOMETI3IES feel melancholy when I think of the travel-
ler's lot ; forming friendships only to be broken ; becoming
a member of families, in which he is scarce domiciled when
he is once more called to tear himself away; a plant for
ever taking root, and for ever lacerated by transplantation.
And yet there is another view of the matter. The friend-
ships which the traveller forms need not perish, nay,
they will not ; the mountains may crumble, and the valleys
become filled, but true affection is imperishable. Love is
not a plant which, lacerated by separation, dies ; it is a seed
which sinks into our spirits, and may remain hid there for
ages, but will one day spring up, and from its tiny envelope
send forth a Tree of Life.
A few years since, I used to doubt if we should recognize
hereafter those to whom we are attached here, because, I
said, our attachments die out even on earth ; a year ago I
was wrapped up in one on whom I should now look almost
with indifference, for during that year we have not met. A
few years have revealed to me that my former view was the
result of my former blindness, and that blindness the inev-
itable consequence of my unworthiness ; I now see that the
purer and truer I become, arid the freer from selfishness I
am, the more permanent are my attachments, and the less
power have time and space over them. To the really pure
spirit I cannot doubt that there is given a grasp which enables
TO ONE FAR AWAY. 345
it, while loving many, to love each as deeply as we can love
but one.
I would look forward, then, with entire trust to the time
when, free, not from this body only, but also from the
inner and grosser body of spiritual death, I may stand con-
nected intimately with a myriad of spirits, connected by
bonds which the passing of ages shall not loosen, nor the
width of the universe weaken. And I would believe, more-
over, that the seeds of those myriad connections are now
being planted in my breast : from passing acquaintances,
from momentary meetings, from slight intimacies, from
all knowledge of noble, just, devoted qualities, I would
believe that I am receiving those seeds.
The traveller's lot, then, is not wholly mournful : he is
not a former of fruitless attachments, and does not plant in
vain. He plants, as we all do by every act and feeling, for
eternity ; and if he plant pure affections, it is good seed,
and will bring him a rich harvest.
In connection with these thoughts, let me give you some
verses written in reference to one now far away :
Late to our town there came a maid,
A noble woman, true and pure,
Who, in the little while she stayed,
Wrought works that will endure.
It was not any thing she said,
It was not any thing she did ;
It was the movement of her head,
The lifting of her lid,
Her little motions when she spoke,
The presence of an upright soul,
The living light that from her broke,
It was the perfect whole :
346 TO ONE FAR AWAY.
We saw it in her floating hair,
We saw it in her laughing eye ;
For every look and feature there
Wrought works that cannot die.
For she to many spirits gave
A reverence for the true, the pure,
The perfect, that has power to save,
And make the doubting sure.
She passed ; she went to other lands ;
She knew not of the work she did :
The wondrous product of her hands
From her is ever hid.
For ever, did I say ? O, no !
The time must come when she will look
Upon her pilgrimage below,
And find it in God's Book :
That as she trod her path aright,
Power from her very garments stole ;
For such is the mysterious might
God grants the upright soul.
A deed, a word, our careless rest,
A simple thought, a common feeling,
If He be present in the breast,
lias from Him powers of healing.
Go, maiden, with thy golden tresses,
Thine azure eye, and changing cheek, -
Go, and forget the one who blesses
Thy presence through that week.
TO ONE FAR AWAY.
Forget him : he will not forget,
But strive to live, and testify
Thy goodness, when Earth's sun has set,
And Time itself rolled bv.
1839.
348
ANGEL MEETINGS.
THERE is a faith in Eastern lands,
That, when true friends are torn apart,
Their angels who are here below,
To guard them through this world of woe,
Do walk together still ; and so
Heart communes still with heart.
In that belief I would believe,
Upon that holy faith would lean,
And thus still bow before thy shrine,
Still gaze upon thy light divine,
And still my spirit learn of thine,
Though mountains rise between.
1836.
349
A COUNTRY CLERGYMAN.
FRAGMENT OF A LETTER TO A STUDENT OF DIVINITY.
I SEE you in some country town
On snug four hundred settled down,
And saving from your salary
What little surplus there may be,
To buy your wife a Christmas gown.
I see you through the rain, the snow,
Heat, cold, and mud, unwearied go
To visit every home of woe,
Sustain each drooping head ;
Or when the mortal lies below,
Weep o'er the humble dead.
I see the fire ; the cottage room,
Now all alight, and now all gloom,
As rise the flames or fall ;
The simple meal ; the honeycomb ;
The bread and butter, made at home;
And you the lord of all.
I see the circle gather round,
I hear the silence so profound,
As bending, reverent, to the ground,
You pour the living prayer ;
VOL. i. 30
350 A COUNTRY CLERGYMAN.
I see to rest your prattlers led,
With swimming eyes, back-turning head ;
And when another hour is fled,
At nature's call, you haste to bed,
And I am with you there ;
In other scenes and spheres you seem,
Of wider usefulness you dream,
And thirst for nobler care.
In unseen worlds far, far away,
Your accents pour increasing day,
And still chaotic strife ;
Your fingers mould the plastic clay,
You breathe the breath of life.
The mists that linger now within
Passion, and ignorance, and sin
Are past ; another birth
Empowers you, with a deeper joy,
To make your every day's employ
The miracles of earth.
Light, from the Fountain of all light,
Has reached thy blinded spirit's sight,
Broke through the earthly clods ;
The hope, the instinct of thy soul
Is satisfied, to grasp the whole,
To gain all knowledge, all control,
And be, indeed, like God.
351
ON THE DEATH OF A YOUNG CHILD.
STAND back, uncovered stand, for lo !
The parents who have lost their child
Bow to the majesty of woe !
He came, a herald from above,
Pure from his God he came to them,
Teaching new duties, deeper love ;
And, like the boy of Bethlehem,
He grew in stature and in grace.
From the sweet spirit of his face
They learned a new, more heavenly joy,
And were the better for their boy.
But God hath taken whom he gave,
Recalled the messenger he sent ;
And now beside the infant's grave
The spirit of the strong is bent.
But though the tears must flow, the heart
Ache with a vacant, strange distress,
Ye did not from your infant part
When his clear eye grew meaningless.
That eye is beaming still, and still
Upon his Father's errand he,
352 ON THE DEATH OF A YOUNG CHILD.
Your own dear, bright, unearthly boy,
Worketh the kind, mysterious will,
And from this fount of bitter grief
Will bring a stream of joy ;
O, may this be your faith and your relief!
Then will the world be full of him ; the sky,
With all its placid myriads, to your eye
Will tell of him ; the wind will breathe his tone ;
And slumbering in the midnight, they alone,
Your Father and your child, will hover nigh.
Believe in him, behold him everywhere,
And sin will die within you, earthly care
Fall to its earth, and heavenward, side by side,
Ye shall go up beyond this realm of storms,
Quick and more quick, till, welcomed there above,
His voice shall bid you, in the might of love,
Lay down these weeds of earth, and wear your native
forms.
353
TASSO IN PRISON.
YES, I am chained : these dark and dreary walls
Must henceforth my horizon be ; no light
Will ever come to cheer my aching balls,
Save 't is the jailer's torch, flashing along
The firm-ribbed archway, as he comes at night
To deal me out my pittance. I was strong,
Strong once in mind and frame ; 't is gone, and now
I have no power ; 't is gone, I know not how,
It cannot be that servitude hath might
To rob the spirit of its heaven-born flight,
And plunge the mind in an eternal night ?
Let me not think of such things, for my brain
Is weak, and when I think, upon my sight
Those chilling visions all crowd back again,
As to the murderer's eye the spirits of the slain.
Yes, I am chained : the mountain stream no more
Will bear me on its bosom ; ne'er again
Shall I go down at evening to the shore,
To listen to the chafed ocean's roar;
Nor ever climb the mottled hill-side, when
The thunder-clouds are gathering ; nor repose
By the calm lake at evening, when the earth
30*
354 TASSO IN PRISON.
Is hushed, to hear that music from above
Which wins the sorrowing from his want and woes,
In the desponding breeds a holy mirth,
And in the hating breast calls forth a fount of love.
Yes, I am chained ; but are not all men so ?
Are they not chains, these passions frail, yet foul ?
Is not the body we are wedded to
A clog upon the still upspringing soul?
Then am I freer than my tyrant lord,
For I have crushed this body, I have poured
My spirit into that which I adored,
My Mother Nature ; fettered, I have broke
Free from the earthly bonds, and foul desires,
Which cling around us, as the parasite
Clings to and crushes in its poisonous spires
The strength and beauty of the heavenward oak.
I am a freeman ; I can take my flight
With the Great Spirit to the realms above,
And ride upon the whirlwind ; I am part
And portion of Thee, Author of all love ;
I shall be present wheresoe'er Thou art ;
In the far west at sunset ; on the wave
When the storm waketh ; in the bursting bud,
The flower, the withering leaf, the angry flood ;
The birth, the bridal, and the field of blood ;
In life and death, the cradle and the grave.
1835.
355
MARQUETTE.*
i.
SINK to my heart, bright evening skies !
Ye waves that round me roll,
\Vith all your golden, crimson dyes,
Sink deep into my soul !
And ye, soft-footed stars, that come
So silently at even,
To make this world awhile your home,
And bring us nearer heaven,
Speak to my spirit's listening ear
With your calm tones of beauty,
And to my darkened mind make clear
My errors and my duty.
ii.
Speak to my soul of those who went
Across this stormy lake,
On deeds of mercy ever bent
For the poor Indian's sake.
* Composed on Lake Michigan, by the river where Marquette
died. See Vol. II. p. 133.
S56 MARQUETTE.
They looked to all of you, and each
Leant smiling from above,
And taught the Jesuit how to teach
The omnipotence of love.
You gave the apostolic tone
To Mnrquctte's guileless soul,
Whose life and labors shall be known
Long as these waters roll.
To him the little Indian child
Fearless and trustful came,
Curbed for a time his temper wild,
And hid his heart of flame.
With gentle voice and gentle look,
Sweet evening-star, like thine,
That heart the missionary took
From ofT the war-god's shrine,
And laid it on the Holy Book
Before the Man Divine.
The blood stained demons saw with griet
O
Far from their magic ring,
Around their now converted chief,
The tribe come gathering.
Marquette's belief was their belief,
And Jesus was their king.
Fierce passions' late resistless drift
Drives now no longer by;
'T is rendered powerless by the gift
Of Heaven-fed charity.
in.
Speak to my heart, ye stars, and tell
How, on yon distant shore,
The world-worn Jesuit bade farewell
To those that rowed him o'er;
MARQOETTE.
Told them to sit and wait him there,
And break their daily food,
While he to his accustomed prayer
Retired within the wood ;
And how they saw the day go round,
Wondering he came not yet,
Then sought him anxiously, and found,
Not the kind, cairn Marquette,
He silently had passed away,
But on the greensward there,
Before the crucifix, his clay
Still kneeling, as in prayer.
IV.
Nor let me as a fable deem,
Told by some artful knave,
The legend, that the lonely stream,
By which they dug his grave,
When wintry torrents from above
Swept with resistless force,
Knew and revered the man of love,
And changed its rapid course,
And left the low, sepulchral mound
Uninjured by its side,
And spared the consecrated ground
Where he had knelt and died.
Nor ever let my weak mind rail
At the poor Indian,
Who, when the fierce northwestern gale
Swept o'er Lake Michigan,
In the last hour of deepest dread
Knew of one resource yet,
And stilled the thunder overhead
By calling on Marquette.
357
858 3IARQUETTE.
V.
Sink to my heart, sweet evening skies !
Ye darkening waves that roll
Around me, ye departing dyes,
Sink to my inmost soul !
Teach to my heart of hearts that fact,
Unknown, though known so well,
That in each feeling, act, and thought,
God works by miracle.
And ye, soft-footed stars ! that come
So quietly at even,
Teach me to use this world, my home,
So as to make it heaven.
August 24, 1846.
359
TO A FLOWER.
FAIR flower, I would not rashly tread
Into the dust thine humble head ;
I would not, with tyrannic power,
Rob thine existence of an hour,
Though that existence unto me
Is wrapt in total mystery.
Thou hast no tongue nor power to tell
The secret so inscrutable
To human eye,
Why 'tis thou art ; we know full well,
That in a little while thy bell
Will droop and die ;
And more than that we cannot know
Of countless beings here below.
The compass is of such extent,
In nature's mystic instrument,
The whole man may not see ;
And for that reason he should prize
The meanest thing, nor aught despise,
However low it be ;
For though to him unheard its tone,
There still is an Almighty One,
Who from the daisy and the sun
Alike wakes melody.
360 TO A FLOWER.
That hand which spread the heaven around,
Without a limit or a bound,
And placed in its pure depths profound
The myriad orbs of night,
Upreared thy petals from the ground,
And oped them to the light.
The very voice which bade earth speed
Upon her way un wearied ly
Hath called the sunbeam at thy need,
And bade the dew-drop water thee.
For 't is the same pervading soul
That through the universe is met,
Ruling alike the all-perfect whole,
And every part and every germ.
Ah ! did not man that truth forget,
He would not tread upon the worm,
Nor spurn the reptile for his form,
Nor crush the humble violet.
1832.
361
COME, LEST THE LARK.
COME, lest the lark pour out alone
His matin at our Maker's throne,
Come, hail the new-born day ;
But mingle no untimely moan
Amid the festive lay ;
'T is not the hour for sorrow's plaintive tone.
The glad earth sends her incense up ;
Joy thrills the living crowd ;
The young bee, in the honey-cup,
Sings at his task aloud.
As up the mountain rolls the cloud,
The wood-rose opens there ;
And the slight cedar-tops are bowed
Beneath the waking air.
Long, Father, may my cloudless eye
Behold thee in the vaulted sky,
And in the springing flower ;
Thy wisdom in the butterfly,
That sports his little hour,
Then folds his burnished wings to die.
i. 31
COME, LEST THE LARK.
Teach me to ever walk below
In wisdom's way alone ;
To weep my brother's sin and woe,
And struggle with my own.
.May I reject the tempter's throne,
And scorn the proffered gem,
There is a kingdom all my own,
A richer diadem.
U'hen earthly visions shall decay,
As the light frost-work melts away
Before the summer's breath,
Upspringing from this ball of clay,
Across the realms of death,
Grant me to dwell in an eternal day.
1833.
363
BY EARTH HEMMED IN.
BY earth hemmed in, with earth oppressed,
'T is hard to labor, hard to pray ;
And of the week, for prayer and rest
We 've but one Sabbath day.
But purer spirits walk above,
Who worship alway, who are blest
With an upspringing might of love,
That makes all labor rest.
Father ! while here, I would arise
In spirit to that realm ; and there,
Be every act a sacrifice,
And every thought a prayer.
1839.
364
H Y M N .
ALMIGHTY God ! with hearts of flesh
Into thy presence we have come,
To breathe our filial vows afresh,
And make thy house once more our home.
We know that thou art ever nigh ;
We know that thou art with us here,
That every action meets thine eye,
And every secret thought thine ear.
But grant us, God, this truth to feel,
As well as know ; grant us the grace,
Somewhat as Adam knew thee, still
To know and see thee, face to face.
Here, while we breathe again our vows,
Appointing one to minister
In holy things within this house,
Grant us to feel that Thou art here.
May 10, 1839.
365
THE STORM- SHAKEN WINTER
THE storm-shaken winter
Has passed from earth's bosom,
And spring to our borders
Brings back bird and blossom ;
Through all her sweet life-strings,
Through all her glad voices,
In daylight and darkness,
Old Nature rejoices.
And we have known winter,
The dark storm hath swept us ;
But God, our preserver,
Hath graciously kept us.
The winter is passing,
The spring bursts around us,
And He has with new bands
Of brotherhood bound us.
To thank Him, our Father,
As brethren we come here ;
Our hopes and our wishes,
Henceforth be their home here !
Almighty Eedeemer,
We ask not to fear Thee,
But, like our Great Teacher,
To know, love, revere, Thee.
1839.
31*
366
THE VOICE THAT BADE THE DEAD ATCISE.
THE voice that bade the dead arise,
And gave back vision to the blind,
Is hushed ; but when he sought the skies,
Our Master left his Word behind.
'T was not to calm the billows' roll,
'T was not to bid the hill be riven ;
No ! 't was to lift the fainting soul,
And lead the erring back to heaven,
To heave a mountain from the heart,
To bid those inner springs be stirred.
Lord, to thy servant here impart
The quickening wisdom of that Word !
Dwell, Father, in this earthly fane,
And, when its feeble walls decay,
Be with us till we meet again
Amid thy halls of endless day.
367
THE PAST AND THE FUTURE.
THE blush upon a summer sky ;
The ocean's moan upon the shore ;
The upward glancing of an eye ;
A sound we never heard before ;
The dark main waking in its ire ;
The shifting of the northern fire ;
Ten thousaad things which Fortune flings
Across our drudging daily track,
May touch the quick, electric rings
Of Memory's mysterious chain,
And, like the light from heaven, comes back
The past in youthful prime again.
The sculptured column seems a tree,
The moulded roof a sky ;
And we hear the wood-bird's minstrelsy
In the bleak wind whistling by.
The mist curls up into the form
Of those that lived, and loved, and died ;
And the bleak winter seems the warm
And pleasant summer-tide !
Again I seek the shady nook,
Or tumble on the new-mown hay,
368 THE PAST AND THE FUTURE.
Or chase the fishes in the brook,
Or, happy, buoyant, bright, and gay,
With old straw hat upon my head,
Once more my native hills I tread,
And watch the sinking sunlight shed
Its pensive beauty o'er the bay.
While round me, 'mid the radiance mild,
Cluster, as when a little child,
The many forms I knew, which lie
In mouldering graves so silently.
But while the memories of the past
Thus throng upon me, thick and fast,
And from the realms of deatli and doubt
The spirits of the dead step out,
And the drop stands upon my brow,
Some careless, some unmindful hand
Will tear me from that blessed land,
Drive from my sight that magic train,
And I a wanderer am again.
But what a wondrous power is this !
And what a privilege is ours,
To find a never-failing bliss
In past and future hours !
Misfortune o'er the present day
May govern with unquestioned sway ;
But in that world which is to be,
IIo.v poor, how powerless, is she !
Though pain and poverty their might,
With fearful death, should all unite
To crush me to the earth,
Still would the clastic spirit rise,
The suffering and the fear despise,
THE PAST AND THE FUTURE. 369
And seek beyond the opening skies
The country of its birth.
There unto me it may be given,
Amid the countless hosts of heaven,
Amid the bright, seraphic band,
Before my Father's throne to stand,
Before my ^Saviour's face to bow,
A seraph's sceptre in my hand,
A seraph's crown upon my brow.
Then unto me the power may be,
With kind and gentle ministry,
To bid the warring cease,
To cause the shades of sorrow flee,
And bring the mourner peace.
Or, in a wider sphere of good,
Above some universe of strife,
Dove-like, it may be mine to brood,
And still the chaos into life.
O, when I dwell on thoughts like these,
My spirit seems to hear the cry,
" Come up ! " and, listening to the call,
Earth's dearest pleasures quickly pall,
The scales from off my vision fall,
And I could pray to die.
1835.
370
THAT HAPPY LAND
LET us seek for that happy land
Where grief is unknown ;
Let us seek to rejoin the band
That has made heaven its own.
Haste, haste, let us flee
To that calm eternity ;
Ours all its peace shall be,
But not ours alone.
To that happy land shall come
All our Saviour knows;
In that our Father's home
All shall find repose.
There, there, every race
Shall have ample dwelling-place,
And, cheered by God's own face,
Shall forget its woes.
Let us seek, then, that happy land
Where hate is unknown ;
Let us seek for the brother band,
That has made heaven its own.
Haste, haste, let us flee,
Where true love shall ever be,
Where through eternity
Love shall rule alone.
371
INVOCATION.
SPIRITS who hover near me, ye whose wings
Beat back the Tempter, whose sweet presence brings
Calm, gentle feelings, wishes pure and kind,
An eye for all God's beauty, and a mind
Open to all his voices, still be nigh,
When the Great Mystery its broad shadow flings
Over earth's firmest visions, till they fly
Like phantoms of the night, and teach me how to die.
When my breath faileth, as the summer air
Fainteth at evening, when my heart, whose care
Jesus hath lightened, throbs, stops, throbs again,
Then, slowly sinking, ceases without pain
Its noiseless, voiceless labors, still be nigh ;
Let not the form of ghastly Death be there,
But to my clouded, yet clear-seeing eye
Reveal your forms of light, and make me love to die.
The pinions of the Dark and Dreaded One
Shall not, then, fan my temples, when 't is done
This hard-fought fight ; your fingers shall untie
My earthward bonds ; your voices silently
Whisper, " Come home, your course is but begun " ;
And in your arms borne upward, far on high,
With mind and heart tuned to heaven's harmony,
I shall know all, love all, and find 't is Life to die.
FLAT ROCK, June 9th, 1845.
372
SPIRITUAL PRESENCE.
IT is a beautiful belief,
When ended our career,
That it will be our ministry
To watch o'er others here ;
To lend a moral to the flower ;
Breathe wisdom on the wind ;
To hold commune, at night's pure noon,
With the imprisoned mind ;
To bid the mourners cease to mourn,
The trembling be forgiven ;
To bear away from ills of clay
The infant, to its heaven.
Ah ! when delight was found in life,
And joy in every breath,
I cannot tell how terrible
The mystery of death.
But now the past is bright to me,
And all the future clear ;
For 't is my faith, that after death
I still shall linger here.
Ic33.'
TALES
VOL. I.
32
MELANCTIIOX AND LUTHER.
WHEN Luther left his hiding-place at the castle of the
Wartburg, and went up for a season to visit his little flock at
the University, he stayed with Melancthon at the house of
AmsdorfF, a brother of the priest of that name.
It was an old house even then, overrun with useless pas-
sages, dark and deep stairways, and doors that led nowhere ;
and though the rooms which Philip occupied were in front
of the building, and by far the best in it, yet were there no
less than eight doors leading from them, two only of which
were ever used. As for the rest, as they would not lock,
Philip had placed some broad-backed chairs against them,
and sat down careless whither they led.
There were no residents in the old castle but Melancthon
and his young wife, old AmsdorfF and a single daughter,
Catherine, who went singing about among the dusty by-ways
of the dwelling, with all the joyousness proper to a Saxon
lassie of sixteen. Philip, demure as he was, loved a pretty
girl dearly, though the more he liked, the more he feared
her ; and the bright, flowing curls and swimming blue eyes
of the maiden that met him now and then, as he came from
his lectures, were by no means powerless, so that ere long
he was as much afraid to go home as if he thought an enemy
lay in wait for him ; and as she, the more they met, grew
the more familiar, every day added to his trouble, until at
376 MELANCTHON AND LUTHER.
length his very visions were filled with the form that he so
much feared to meet smiling in the entry, or swaying the
broomstick upon the stairs ; and all because she, in her
innocence, and knowing his bashful temper, never dreamed
that a married man and a professor ever thought of any
thing but his wife and his books.
It was a cold and rainy night, and the wind howled mys-
teriously in the many passages, and died away in broken
groans in the distance. Philip sat alone, musing over the
embers. His wife had gone to her father's to make room for
the great apostle of reform, who was himself spending the
evening with some of his few, but devoted, disciples.
The solitude, the storm, the state of the Church, and the
many dangers that threatened, not men alone, but eternal
truths, all united to weigh down the hopes of one at no
time of a hopeful turn, and now more than ever depressed,
lest his brother and master should be discovered and seized.
In vain did Philip turn to the sacred volume, and try to bend
his thoughts to study ; in vain did he look out upon the night,
and watch the flickering lantern of the bewildered passers-
by ; in vain did he listen to the shrieks and shoutings of the
air-demons, as they rang through the empty halls ; for ever
and ever his mind went back to the dangers of the great
cause, and the voice of the tempest seemed to speak only of
evil. At length, at a moment when the wind lulled, he
heard, or thought he heard, a whisper and a laugh close be-
hind him. He started, but there was nothing there save the
waving tapestry. Reaching his stick, he made the circuit of
the chamber, but all was as usual, save that one of the doors
had pushed back the chair that stood before it and was ajar.
As it would not even latch, he placed a heavier weight
against it, and once more sank into sad musings by the fire.
Why was Luther so late ? Was it the storm ? He feared
not the elements. Was it the company of friends that kept
him ? It might be, or, as Philip well knew, it might be the
MELANCTHON AND LUTHER. 377
hands of enemies. More and more worried, more and more
excited, the poor professor heard every sound with anxiety
and evil foreboding. At length the front door opened,
his heart ached with hope and fear. There was a heavy
step in the hall below, and he almost shouted for joy ; but
the heavy step passed away, and nothing was heard but the
tempest again.
Another half-hour of fear and vague thought passed
slowly on, and in the private passage that led from his
chamber to that of his host, whom he knew to be out, Philip
heard footfalls and smothered voices ; one was the voice of
a woman. The first thought was, that his master's dwelling-
place had been made known, and that they now sought him.
Never possessed of much presence of mind, Philip at the
instant placed his shoulder against the door, and stood pre-
pared to resist when resistance was called for. A few whis-
pers were heard, a step or two, and a hand was laid upon
the latch without. " Come not here," cried Melancthon,
" for I am armed, and ready to resist stoutly. On your life,
beware, and go hence, whoever you be."
" Go hence ! " answered a laughing voice, at the first
sound of which Melancthon fell back, as if struck by a
strong hand.
" Go hence ! " cried Luther, as, dripping and smiling, he
strode through the unresisting door. " Why, how now, bully
Philip, what freak is this ? Heady to resist stoutly ! By my
cowl, brother, I thought I was the Saint Peter, and you the
peaceful John, of the good work ; but I think you'll cut off
more ears than I, after all, with that big staff of yours.
Here have I stumbled through your dark mansion fora half-
hour, and at last called poor Kate from her bower, I think,
for she has come out of some labyrinth, looking as foolish
as you ever did, Philip, and all to have that great stick
flourished at me, as though my Doctor of Wittenberg were
a country clown, hot for a bout at quarterstaff. Of a truth,
32*
37H MELANCTHON AND LUTHKIt.
I must sciul thcc to Kuino to knock the Pope over the
knuckles, when lie aims another hull at my head."
Hut Melancthon was too glad to see his friend safe home
to care for his gibes, and their converse soon turned to
Luther's hopes, and plans, and displeasures.
" I am grieved and vexed," said the Reformer sternly, " to
see tht; little spirit there is among you. Will not m\ written
words do, hut I must he here to scold and play schoolmas-
ter r Work as I will in my captivity, it is vain, if your free-
men second me not. Kven you, Philip, have given too
much to the baser spirits ; you are too tolerant, man, by
half."
" Nay," said Melancthon, " hut I even fear lest I he my-
self in error."
" And know you not, hoy," answered Luther, "that that
fear is the prompting of Satun ? We are right, I know we
are right. 1 too have had fears, but I know they came from
hell, and as such I battled with and drove them out, even
as I drove out the Father of Lies himself, when he mocked
me at midnight."
" Where r how ? when ? " eagerly inquired his compan-
ion.
11 And no wonder you mocked," continued Luther, his
mind filled with the memory of that night, and his flashing
eyes fixed on vacancy, u no wonder you mocked, for has
not my whole life been given to the beating down of your
power and glory ? Hut mock and mouth as you will," and
he shook his clenched fist at the imagined demon, " In the
help of (Jod and his Christ, I will drive you and your servant
of Home from this broad earth, let the lion-whelp of Eng-
land howl, and the asses of the Sorbonne bray as they will."
' Hut of this visit .' " said Melancthon a^ain.
" It was at the Wartburg. I had been poring over an ob-
scure text of Paul's all night, till I saw darkness in my lamp
and balls of fire in the darkness. Puzzled and wearied, and
MELANCTHON AND LUTHER. 379
provoked, I threw down the holy book, and looking up,
behold ! the foe. It was a fearful moment, Philip, for me
and for the cause ; had I faltered then, it might have been
that the truth had fallen. But God gave me strength.
Looking the demon full in his blood-red eye, I lifted my
large stone inkstand and hurled it at his head. He fled,
howling, not from the blow, but from the spirit ; and, by
God's grace, I will with equal ease rout him and his hosts,
come when and where they will."
As he ceased speaking, the storm lulled for a moment,
and a low, hollow laugh just behind them brought both to
their feet.
" I have heard it before," said Melancthon ; " it bodes no
good."
His comrade made no reply, but, taking the lamp, walked
to the door which Philip had before closed, and which
again stood ajar. They entered a long and moulder-
ing corridor, from the ceiling of which the spiders' webs
hung thickly, while from the floor the dust rose in clouds.
They searched the room. . It was empty. A window at the
end stood open ; this they closed, and again returned to the
fireside.
" They may perchance seek my life," said Luther, " and
it behooves me to have care. Should we hear any thing fur-
ther, I will enter the hall barefooted and without a light ;
and should any pass this way, Philip, use thy staff, or hold
fast till I come."
A few moments went by, and the door creaked upon its
hinges again, and, as it pushed the chair before it, once more
they heard human voices. Taking off his foot-gear, Luther
stole into the hall. For a moment Philip doubted, and then
the thought of the danger which hung over his master led
him to follow. Within it was darkness, and the sounds of
the storm drowned all other sounds. Following carefully the
wall, Melancthon had nearly reached the window, when he
MELANCTHON AND LT'THER.
laid his liand upon a human arm. The person strove !o
escape, but lie held fast.
" I la ! have you the enemy ? " said the low, deep tones of
Luther from the distance.
He would have answered "Yes," hut at that instant his
prize turned upon him, the arms of a woman were thrown
about his neck, and her soft lips pressed to his. With a
scream of horror, amazement, anil alarm, he struggled to
be free. lie was so, and so was his captive ; and when
Luther's lamp made things visible, there was no one in the
wide chamber but Philip, who, with open eyes and quiver-
ing limbs, was giving silent thanks for his deliverance from
the Evil One. But alas for his tale of Satan's device to
ensnare him ! Luther picked from the floor a scarf, bear-
ing the name of " Catherine AmsdorfT."
" By my cowl," said Luther laughing, " but the girl chose
a sure way to fright your professorship into an ague-fit, and
make her freedom certain. She had a keen eye for the
weak point of that sheep's head of thine. But thou shouldst
have held fast, Philip. Devil, damsel, or armed man, it mat-
ters not, give not up thy grasp, boy ; and the kiss of a pretty
maiden will harm thee at least us little as the blow of a
brawny arm, or the horn of the Evil One."
But though he knew the advice to be good, Philip never
heeded it, and to his last hour held not fast, as Luther wished
him, nor ever thought of that night or of that kiss without a
chill.
LORD OSSORY.
THE unwavering loyalty and stern honor of James Butler,
Duke of Ormond, is almost proverbial. Through the civil
wars, his fidelity to the king was never for a moment shak-
en, though fame, fortune, and power were a necessary sac-
rifice to his devotion ; and when the king did " enjoy his
own again," and enjoy it in a manner that disgraced him
forever, Ormond and his family remained unpolluted in
that festering court, uncorrupted in the midst of venality. He
did indeed stand alone. The degeneracy of the times did not
reach him, and such was the power of his strong virtue over
even the sensualist Charles, that, when the king frowned
upon him, he did it with so poor a grace that Buckingham
inquired " whether the Duke were out of his Majesty's fa-
vor, or his Majesty out of the Duke's ? " But, noble as was
the character of Ormond, it did not surpass, and scarcely
equalled, that of his wife ; and their combined virtues lived
again in the Lord Ossory, their son.
To this young nobleman we may look as to a model of
all that is noble in character and in person. Tall, strong,
active, and with an open, handsome countenance, his outer
man was a true exponent of the being that ruled within.
As a son, a husband, and a patriot, he was never surpassed
in kindness, truth, and courage. The friend of the desti-
tute, the steward of the needy, he was yet the embodied
spirit of chivalry, the soul of honor, the lion of England,
382 LORD OSSORY.
the g'ory of his age, his country, and his race. " No writ-
er," says the historian, " ever appeared, then or since, so
regardless of truth and of his o\vn character as to venture
one stroke of censure on that of the Earl of Ossory."
And yet upon this character there was a blot. Although
engaged in every important battle on land or sea until his
death, although he dared accuse the favorite and nandcr
of his king in his king's presence, telling him that he well
knew that he, George Villiers, was the instigator of the as-
sassin that had attempted his father's life, and giving him
warning that, if by any means the Duke of Ormond was
murdered, he would hold him to be the assassin, and pistol
him, though he stood by his monarch's chair, yet was
there an enemy to whose might even Ossory bowed, an
assassin to whose dagger he bared his heart.
# * * * *
It was a calm evening, and the Countess lingered longer
than usual under the noble oaks, pacing the greensward and
listening for the sound of her lord's steed. He had gone
the previous morning to the city, to conclude some negotia-
tions respecting certain moneys which, at his wife's request,
he had loaned to her father, and she now awaited the suc-
cess of his endeavours, for they were of much import to her
parent. But the twilight faded, and the lady was forced to
retire to her chamber alone. Another, and another, and a
third hour past, but he came not, and his lady began to fear
lest some of those who had sought to hang the father upon
Tyburn gallows should be now exulting over the fall of the
renowned son. But again, when she remembered his prow-
ess, his band of followers, and, above all, the moral might
of the very name of Ossory, she felt that there could be no
danger.
The clock had told the hour past midnight, and, save the
Countess and one of her women, all within doors were
asleep. There was a loud knocking at the gate, then the
LORD OSSORY. 383
ladies heard the porter's voice, the portal opened, and a
light step was heard on the stair. Quick as the thought,
the noble lady flung open her chamber door, and, seizing
the page's arm, for it was her lord's page, " Ron-
ald," she said, and the tones were low and husky, " where
is your master ? " The boy stood trembling and silent.
" Where ? " she repeated, in a tone that would be an-
swered. " In the grove by the old castle," he faltered.
" And who was with him ? " " No one." The blood went
slowly from the lady's countenance, until even her lips were
as ashes. "Does he live?" she said, and so sepulchral
was the voice that Ronald started for fear. " Assuredly he
does, dear lady," cried the child, bursting into tears ; " he is
not harmed, but only ill in mind. Go to him, and comfort
and support him, my more than mother, for he would
not let any, not even me, stay by him, he was so ill at
ease." As the leaden and livid cloud, when touched by
the sunbeam, is moulded into a world of beauty and light,
even so did the boy's speech bring back to the noble lady's
countenance its wonted life ; and even while the tears of
joy rolled down her cheek, and the throbbing of the heart
choked her voice, she motioned to her tirewoman to pre-
pare her dress for going abroad.
With no other attendant than her lord's hound, whose
sagacity, strength, and courage made him a guard of more
value than any other with whom she was willing to go into
her husband's presence, she passed from the house, and
took the well-known path to the Hermit's Hollow. It was
a dark and dreary way ; the ruined castle frowned over the
dell, and the copses were thick and impenetrable. Were
there a lion in the path, the lady could not have turned
aside ; but all was clear, and, preceded by her stately
attendant, Emilie de Nassau tripped with a light step, but
heavy heart, to the mystic glen, in which tradition said the
heathen of old had sacrificed to their false gods other vic-
tims than sheep and goats.
384 LORD OSSORY.
In the depth of the dell, by the light of the moon, the
Countess saw a human figure seated upon the ground, and
at nearly the same moment he was discovered by Ca'ur-
de-Lion, whose head was for an instant raised, while his
half-stifled growl spoke suspicion, but who the next instant
sprang from his mistress's side, and with a few bounds
reached and crouched to the sitting figure. The man
looked up for a moment, and then his head drooped again.
The Countess was satisfied from the dog's motions that it
was her husband, and descended by the narrow pathway
until she stood before the seeming sleeper; for, though the
hound again went forward to welcome her, he moved not,
and to seeming lived not. " My Lord," she said. A tremor
passed over his frame, but still he said nothing. She stop-
ped, and, kneeling upon the damp earth, " My husband,"
she said, " speak to me." It was not a tone of entreaty nor
of command, but of affection ; and, raising his hot brow,
England's noblest chief met her eye for one moment, and
then bowed his head again in agony and shame. " Why
do you turn from me, my Lord," she continued ; " have I
done aught to displease you ? " Again he raised his head ;
the drops of sweat stood upon his noble forehead, and his
hair was matted and tangled. Even by the moonlight his
young wife saw the blush upon his cheek, and the hot hand
she grasped told of fever within.
" My Lord," for still he spoke not, " you suffer."
"I do, Emilie," said the stricken Earl, "I do suffer
the torments of the damned."
" Why, my dear Lord, why and whence this anguish?
Is it of body or mind? Where have you been? What
done ? Why seek you this spot ? "
" To hide my shame," replied he, as over his open face
there flitted one of those passing expressions which witness
" lnige affliction and dismay
Mixed with obdurate pride."
LORD OSSORY. 385
" For yesterday," he continued, " I could have faced,
without blenching, the proudest noble, the bravest foe in
Europe, and now I shrink from a woman, and that woman
my wife."
" And why, Lord Ossory ? Has the first man in England
done any thing to disgrace himself? "
" I have, Emilie," cried he, rising as though a thousand
weight were upon his stalwart shoulders, " I have disgraced
myself, and you, and all that claim us as parents or as chil-
dren. My word is forfeit, my pledged word, that not this
round world should have tempted me to break, has been
broken at the first tempter's bidding, and the whole earth
hisses at me," and with clenched hands he pressed his
brain, as though to crush the organ of thought that brought
thus his sins before him.
"My Lord of Ossory," said his queen-like wife, stepping
back from him, " your honor is in your own keeping, and
my honor is in mine ; no act of yours shall attaint rny blood
or my character in the courts of God, whatever man may
adjudge. Your fault I parity guess, partly, indeed, know.
It is a deep and dark one, my Lord, but it may and must be
repented ; your boasted virtue has been too often proved
weak, but this must be so no more. The man whom all
Europe dared not impeach of falsehood, I dare and do;
and he dare not say nay to the charge."
Twice while she spoke, the young nobleman attempted
to seize her arm, but she waved him back with an air which
he, who knew so well her virtues and her strength of mind,
dared not disobey.
" Emilie," he said, when she ceased, " is this kind ? I
am already in the dust ; cannot my wife wait until a foe
gives me the mercy-stroke, that she thus chides ? "
" For your own good, and from my love to you, my Lord,
I speak. You are not in the dust, and shall not be, if but
true to yourself. What is it for which you grieve ? "
VOL. i. 33
386 LORD OSSORY.
" I will tell you, and that briefly," be said, speaking with
the bitterness of despair. " I had bound myself, as you
know, to your father, for a thousand pounds. Yesterday I
went up to arrange matters, us you also know ; I did well,
and received the money. The evening was to be spent
with your cousin Arlington, at whose table I met a young
stranger from your land, whose face, in the dim light they
allowed us, seemed pleasant enough, and whose voice and
manner were those of a stripling bred at court. I took to
him, though why I know not, and by and by he proposed
play. For a time I was averse, though, with shame let
me say it, I dared not refuse on principle, but he at length
won me to bet with him on certain of the players at the
other end of the room. We did not see their hands, nor did
he in fact go near them. We talked, and betted, and talked
again, and still I lost ever. I pledged of your father's mon-
ey, and that too went ; till, owing to desperation, and utterly
forgetful of my duty, my word, my honor, and my virtue, I
staked all I had received, and lost it all. Just then would
to God it had been an hour sooner ! my father sent for
me, and I left your brother's penniless. The whole of the
past day I have been engaged in business, but with the
evening came the remembrance of my disgrace, and I dared
not, Einilie, I dared not meet you. My broken faith will
be known, my loose virtue will be scoffed at, and the
spotless scutcheon of Ormond will be stained black by me ! "
Thus saying, the victim of one vice, and that no vice to
the world, the miserable gambler, the broken-spirited
noble, the self-convicted, self-condemned man of honor,
flung himself upon the turf as though he had hoped a grave
would open beneath him.
For a few moments his Countess stood by him in silence,
and as she saw how strongly he was moved, the tears gath-
ered in her lids, and she knelt by his side again, and said,
" Ossory, my Lord Ossory, be yourself; this anguish, great
LORD OSSORY. 387
as it is, is medicinal ; you will henceforth know how mighty
the sum of pain which follows broken vows and violated
principles. Rise, my Lord, and let us home. Your prom-
ise to my father shall not be broken ; your money waits
you."
Slowly Lord Ossory rose from the ground, and would
have asked her meaning, but she turned into the homeward
path ; the lion-hearted hound sprang on in advance, but
with fallen crest, as though he too had felt his master's
shame ; and behind followed the noble, with bended head.
They reached the portal, the wondering warder admitted
them ; they reached the chamber, and the page opened it
before them. The Earl, with folded arms, stood by the win-
dow, as a criminal before his judge ; the Countess took from
her cabinet some papers, and carried them to him. " Heav-
ens ! " he cried, " do I dream ? They are the very bills I
lost to the young noble."
" They are."
" And where is he ? "
" He stands here before you. By connivance, my Lord,
I won your money, lest another should play upon your
weakness ; I won it for your good, and now restore it for
your honor."
The iron band about his forehead was loosed ; his word
was not forfeit, his scutcheon was not stained beyond the
reach of repentance ; and bowing his head upon her shoul-
der, the Lord Ossory wept. From that day forth he stood
unimpeached of the vice of gambling, before God and man.
DOHA M c C R A E :
AN INCIDENT OF ST. CLAIM'S DEFEAT.
THE gathering of St. Glair's army occupied nearly the
whole spring and summer of 1791. Among those who cen-
tred, somewhat unwillingly, around his standard, were the
militia of Kentucky ; and among the active men who com-
posed that corps, no one was more unwilling than John
McCrae.
John's father was an old settler, and had been out with
Clark more than once. He had " a thirst for hair," as they
say on the road to California. He would have John go to
the wars, especially since his friend, Colonel Ilardin, had
been worsted in his Indian fights under Harmar. I3ut John
had no love of Indians and no love of war, and when the
old man, with his kindling Irish eye, put into his son's hand
the hunting-knife with which many a deer, hear, panther,
and more than one " human," had heen hied to death, the
son's own blood ran cold.
"(Jive it to the varmints," said the white-haired hunter,
" and come hack here without a scalp on your head, or with
many under your 6e//, or you '11 taste a kiss of my old rifle,
my boy."
The Kcntuckians all went to the contest unwillingly, be-
cause regulars were to be with them, and regular officers
DORA McCRAE. 389
were to command them ; but John McCrae was backward,
because in his soul he was an arrant coward. But his
father was more terrible than Mechecunnaqua,* and John
went to the wars. The old man had as much of a suspicion
that his son was a coward, as such a man could have. But
the truth was known to only one being, Dora McCrae, John's
twin-sister. Each was the fac-simile of the other. In size,
complexion, features, movement, even voice, few could
distinguish the two urchins that played in the sugar-troughs,
and pounded the hominy together. John was tinged, to his
tones even, with effeminacy ; Dora, though free from all
coarseness, was tall, active, daring, and possessed a voice
which, ringing through the clear woods of Fayette, might
have puzzled an old pagan to tell whether it was Diana or
Apollo he listened to. But, alike as they were externally,
within John and Dora differed widely. She had no knowl-
edge of fear till the woman's dread of insult and wrong
slowly quickened in her soul. The beasts of prey
wolves, cougars, bears had no terror for her childhood;
and many a time had she gone fearless into the forest to
learn the meaning of some strange cry, while John cowered
in the cornfield.
When John was to leave for Fort Washington, Dora, per-
fectly understanding his dread of the work before him, made
up her mind to go with him. She had cousins in the little
village of Cincinnati, and obtained her parents' leave to go
and visit them while John was preparing for his northward
march under St. Clair. She knew that her strong affection
for her brother was fully returned by him, and trusted her
presence and influence would keep him true to his duty.
They reached the little, marshy town ; John reported him-
self to the proper officer, and, until the movement of Sep-
tember 17th, when the army was got under way for the
Miami station, now Hamilton, all went well, and Dora's
* Little Turtle.
33*
390 DORA McCRAE.
throbbing heart grew every day more calm. On the morn-
ing of that day she rose early, and went to her brother's
room, to bid him farewell, it might be for ever. She
knocked, no answer ; louder, there was no reply ;
she spoke, no sound followed but the snore of the sleepers
below. She went into the room ; the bed was empty, the
window open, the clothes of the late occupant scattered here
and there. The dress he had worn on duty lay on the floor.
The truth instantly flashed across the mind of the agitated
girl, " lie has deserted ! "
For a while, contempt for him, love for him, dread of her
father's anger, sorrow for the deadly grief of the old veteran,
were mingled in her mind. She saw the gray Indian fighter
as he sat at his cabin-door in the early autumn sun, and
counted the victims of his son's rifle and knife ; again she
saw him, as some neighbour, cruel with news, came in and
told him of that son's desertion. She shuddered at the look
of incredulous horror as it crept over and fro/.e that beam-
ing, scarred countenance ; she heard his cry of agony, of
vengeance, as he realized the terrible truth, that the son of
a McCrac was a coward.
With that swelling from the heart which chokes the
throat, and runs over in the wet, but unwecping eyes, she
gathered her soul's energies, and saw her way suddenly, but
dimly, as the pilot sees the circling Ohio when the morning
mist lifts like a curtain.
Often in early youth the twins were at the time we
write of but eighteen she had changed dresses with her
brother to make sport among the neighbouring cabins, a few
miles south, on the Elkhorn. At this moment, filled with
mingled emotions, in which love for the fugitive, the pride
of the race of McCrae, and womanly diffidence prevailed,
she determined to clothe herself with his hunting-shirt and
leggings, to take his place in the ranks, to save his reputation
from the slanderer, and, if she lived, to hide the truth from
all but the brother she had saved.
DORA McCRAE. 391
With that intense calmness winch belongs to the intense
situations of life Dora looked at her position. She must
account for her own apparent absence from her cousin's
house ; and she must meet the difficulties which would grow
from an almost entire want of knowledge of a military life.
Such were the two most pressing problems before her. To
solve the first was the work of a few moments. She rapidly
wrote, in her backwoods fashion, a few lines addressed to
John, telling him that she could not bear to wait for his de-
parture ; that she dreaded the last farewells, and had left at
early dawn to return to her home. This done, she went to
her room, packed up her clothes, which she put in his
saddle-bags, put her chamber in order, carefully cut her
hair, and lay down upon his bed. Not long after, the
oldest son of her cousin came to call John to his last
breakfast. Dora rose, dressed herself in her brother's
militia suit, which was not afcr a very military fashion,
and with trembling limbs descended the ladder by which
the communication between the two stories of the log-
house was effected. The family were all assembled, and
wondered why Dora, who was commonly up so early,
though John was given to morning naps, had not yet ap-
peared. John (as we shall now call his representative) sat
down to his corn-bread and rye coffee, and if but little was
said, and he seemed somewhat queer and troubled, it was
ascribed to his near departure, for which, as the family
suspected, he had no especial fancy. " But where 's
Dora ? Where can the girl be ? " was the constant in-
quiry. At last, the mother of the young Buckeyes went
herself into the loft to look after her cousin, and soon, with
fear and wonder in every feature and limb, came down,
bringing the note to John, which, in her plain way. she had
read as soon as she saw it. " The child 's mad ! " said the
father. " She 's a fool ! " cried the aunt. " She 's as
wild as she is good, that 's sure," chimed in the matron
392 DORA McCRAE.
herself. John's eyes brimmed \\ith tears, hut who could
wonder? and Dora rejoiced to find that her hold nature
made that seem natural for her to do, which done by another
would have seemed most out of nature. No one doubted
her departure ; no one suspected that the young soldier
before them was anv other than John McCrae.
And now she lias, or he has (we had better call the
voung soldier McCrae by \vav of compromise, however, and
say McCrae has), well, McCrae has found a squad of the
sons of" Old Kaintuck," they at twenty being older than
their mother, and is pressing on with them to Ludlow's
Station, where the body of ihc troops had long been. Dora
was as well acquainted with the Kentucky boys as John had
ever been, and so long as it was merely to carry a rifle and
use it, hunter-fashion, she was equal to any man. Her old
father would have thought her education very childish-like,
if she could not carrv. load, fire a rifle. run, leap, walk,
ride, in short, go through any frontier calisthenics. But
she dreaded to meet the Colonel, and be put upon those
semi-military evolutions which John had been practised in
for many weeks. Her second problem, as yet, found no
solution. Ludlow's Station is soon reached; Colonel Old-
ham calls his boys to order, puts them in line, and, though
no very strict disciplinarian, tries to learn what material is
under him. "Who are you, Sir?" "John McCrae."
" Whore from ? " " Fayette." " A son of the old Irish-
man ?" "He's my father." " Good, my lad," says the
Colonel ; " rnind you keep up the honor of the McCracs.
I 've heard you had scarce their blood in you." Dora's
flashing eyes and expanded nostril made the Colonel fairly
jump. " It 's a scandal, a slander," muttered Oldliam, as
he moved on; "the fellow has soul, has pluck, if I know
an eye from an acorn." Slowly, through the wilderness of
stumps, called playfully a road, the troops dragged on to-
wards the point where Fort Hamilton was to be erected.
DORA McCRAE. 393
During the march, no " evolutions," except the common one
of getting out of a quagmire, were called for, and our gen-
derless McCrae got the run of the corps, the outline of
operations, quite clearly in mind. But at the Miami was to
come the trial ; there, in the intervals of mud-heaving, were
to come the military movements, and Dora had as yet no
solution to her problem. Sickness, or a sprained ankle even,
might lead to detection ; she dared not get into the hands of
the doctors. That young McCrae had forgotten all that he
had learned at Fort Washington was not to be believed for
a moment. What could be done ? When her wits, hardly
tasked, failed to answer, the power which men term Fortune
stepped in with a reply.
The day after they reached the Miami, Colonel Oldham
had no inspection, and his men lounged about, killing that
aboriginal who never dies, old Time. McCrae, guided by
fortune, went to the field, where certain of the regular
troops were under drill. Among them was a fellow whose
heels had been stolen by Bacchus. He knew nothing of
the acute " right wheel " and " left wheel," but kept up a
chronic wheel in all directions. The eye of the officer
caught him ; a reprimand, an arrest, a sentence of confine-
ment till the army moved again, were the product of a
moment. Our misclad heroine looked and listened, at first
laughing, for such curves were no new thing in her forest
geometry ; then troubled, then thoughtful; lastly hopeful,
for her problem seemed less perplexing. Homer might
have said that Minerva came to her aid ; we ascribe the
help to another spiritual agent, whiskey. " Will not
whiskey explain all my awkwardness ? " said she to herself.
John McCrae, for fear of a quarrel, had always shunned
the bottle. That night John was beside himself. His com-
panions were sobered with amazement. " McCrae, my boy,
you '11 catch it on the parade to-morrow," were words that
cheered Dora's heart, as she suffered the abominable liquid
394 DORA ML-CRAE.
to trickle over her bosom, and sink into the folds of her gar-
ments.
The morrow came, the prophecy was realized, such slov-
enly habits of musket-handling, marching, moving, in a
young man four weeks under drill, could not escape Old-
ham's eye. The goddess of whiskey, however, explained it
all. " He shall be made an example of," swore tho Colo-
nel. " It 's the first time he was ever known to drink," said
the captain at his elbow. "So? so?" mused the com-
mander. " Call him here." The trembling masker came.
" McCrae," said the officer kindly, " you arc plainly drunk,
but I 'm told it 's the first time. You will, however, con-
sider yourself so far under arrest as not to appear on parade
again until notice is sent you." Dora's heart beat prayers
and thanksgivings till long after midnight.
Shut out from any participation in the exercises, but al-
lowed to witness them, McCrae was soon so well acquainted
with what had to be done, that, when called to the ranks
again, while Fort Jefferson was slowly rising from the sods,
no more ignorance was noticed than a month out of practice
would easily account for.
It was a weary march, that of St. Glair's doomed army.
Through muddy, timber-cumbered roads, often making only
seven miles a day, with scant and poor food, through early
snows and ceaseless rains, cold, wet, and hungry, the troops
toiled on from Fort Jefferson toward the fatal field. And
yet this march was the brightest period of Dora's life. She
had saved her brother, so she trusted. That was much, but
it was not all. On such a march as that we speak of, strict
discipline could not be observed, and the members of the
different corps were frequently during the day intermingled.
Now it happened that, on the way from Fort Hamilton,
McCrae was thrown into the company of some of the New
Jersey regulars, or rather those who had been such during
the Revolutionary War. Among them was Captain Kirk-
DORA McCRAE. 395
wood, an old veteran, and with him, in a manner under his
charge, a young man, son of a Mr. Grey of Trenton, who
was acting as a volunteer. Grey's father had been in the
New Jersey regiment himself, and the son had been from
his boyhood a soldier in purpose and in spirit ; and yet a
more gentle being never lived. Fearless of danger, calm
in battle, he was horror-struck by the rudeness, the profan-
ity, the vulgarity of a camp, and had taken up an especial
dislike to the Western soldiers or hunters.
It was with no good-will, therefore, that he saw McCrae
rapidly becoming a favorite with Kirkwood, whose tales of
Camden, Guilford, and Eutaw the beardless Kentuckian
never tired of hearing. But as Grey noticed his new com-
panion more closely, and remarked that no oaths, no vulgar
slang, no bitter taunts or foolish boasting, ever passed those
almost effeminate lips, as he thought them, he began to fall
in with the old Captain's liking for the boy, and before the
halt at Fort Jefferson took place the two youngsters were in-
separable. Grey was amazed and charmed by the spirit of
refinement which marked the wildest sallies of his comrade,
and grew more and more attached to the gentle savage.
Dora, who had never before met an educated, polished, and
yet free-spoken and open-hearted man, need we say how
her brain began to swim, and her blood to tingle ? how her
ears grew deaf to old Kirkwood's yarns, and her eyes blind
to every wonder but one ? For the first time, she dreaded
the day of battle. She prayed that the roads might grow
deeper, and the rains mightier, and the weary march endure
for ever. But her prayers even could not prolong it for
ever. On the evening of the 3d of November, the armv
reached its enamel-field, and McCrae passed, with the rest
of Oldham's corps, beyond the creek, and took up a position
a quarter of a mile in advance.
The night of the 3d was by no means a pleasant one for
a bivouac. The ground had been covered with a light
396 BORA M'-CRAE.
snow the (lay before, which had partially melted, saturating
the earth with moisture. As night came on, it grew more
and more chill. Crystals of ice began to skim over the
little puddles, and stiffen the wet ground. The soldier,
whether standing or lying, had his choice between a ducking
snow or a freezing bog. The troops had for some days
been on short allowance ; and as the wet and half-starved
wretches crowded round the watch-fires, happy was the
man who could find a dry, comfortable log to sit on, and a
chunk to support his freezing feet. Under these circum-
stances our heroine, who was less used to cold and wet than
her companions, and whose feelings made their company
distasteful, determined to keep in motion, and went to Colo-
nel Oldham to ask the privilege of acting as a scout ; for it
was rumored among the militia that they were not more
than fifteen or eighteen miles from the Miami villages, that
the creek behind them was a branch of the St. Mary's, and
that St. Clair thought the Indians who had been seen north of
the creek when the army first came in sight of it were the
advanced guard of the body of savages. When McCrae
made the request stated, Oldham readily granted it, adding
that the commander-in-chief had ordered the greatest care
to be taken to prevent a surprise, and had directed the
woods to be thoroughly searched. He therefore cautioned
the young soldier to be noiseless and watchful ; to use the
rifle only in case of absolute necessity, and to trust to speed
or the hunting-knife in case of danger. " A select body of
regulars under Captain Slough," added the Colonel, " is to
take a position a mile in advance of us, as a still farther pre-
caution. Take your range to the left, move slowly, so as
to come to them about midnight, then turn on your track
again, and be in the camp for morning muster."
Dora started upon her solitary way, having first learned the
watch-cry the trill of the little owl by means of which
the scouts were to know one another. How calm her feel-
DORA McCRAE. 397
ings as she moved through those solemn woods, catching now
and then a sight of the half-starred, half-clouded heavens,
through the leafless branches ! A few weeks had changed
the girl into the woman. She had risked her life to save her
brother's honor, as much from the recklessness of her Irish
blood and backwoods breeding, as from any higher impulse ;
but now she felt a serious heroism strengthening every
limb, sending a nobler life into every fibre. Love, in her
true, pure nature, was not that selfish passion which binds us
to one fellow-being ; it was that divine power which, open-
ing the spiritual eyes, and changing all nature, binds to all
through one. She went upon her path silently, watchfully,
not for her own sake, not because Grey's life might
depend upon her care, but because his life and all other
lives around her might hang upon it.
We need not follow her through those tedious hours.
She was fearless, because, little as she had heard of relig-
ion, she knew, by a sense just developed, that God was with
her. Toward midnight she drew near to the outpost ; glid-
ing from tree to tree, she approached the watch-fire ; no
one was by it, the logs had burned to cinders, and were un-
renewed. Startled by this desertion, she was doubting
whether to return direct to the militia camp, or retrace
her steps as directed by the Colonel, when a hand was laid
on her shoulder. She turned, and by the light of the moul-
dering embers beheld an Indian, his finger on his lips. For
an instant the woman unmanned her. During that instant her
rifle and knife were taken. She bowed her head in bitter
silence, awaiting the tomahawk. The Indian, in equal si-
lence, took her by the arm and led her away ; he plainly
thought he had caught a coward. After a little while the
low whining of a fox was heard, her companion repeated it,
and in a few moments more they stood amid a band of sav-
ages. A short talk in Indian followed ; her hands were
then bound behind her back, and she was tied to a tree, with
VOL. i. 34
398 DORA McCRAE.
a significant gesture, which told her that a word, a cry, would
insure her a cleft skull. It was perfect darkness. But near
her she heard the sound of some one breathing heavily, as
if asleep or gagged. Her heart grew light with the hope of
a fellow-captive, so selfish at times are the best of us.
At last an Indian, bearing a torch, drew near; and as the
welcome light brought the world back to her, she saw, not
one, but eight captives, each bound to his tree. Some wore
the careless dress of the militia, others the uniform of the
United States : and as the torch-bearer drew nearer to where
she stood, examining the bands of the captives, or inquiring
as to St. Clair's strength and position, and as not only
forms, but features, grew distinct in the glare, Dora recog-
nized with a kind of horrid joy the person and face of Grey.
Me had been one of the volunteers under Captain Slough.
That officer had placed him, with others, upon the outskirts of
his party, as sentinels, having been convinced, soon after
taking up his position, that the savages were numerous in his
vicinity. Grey, like many, unused to Indian tricks, had
been taken noiselessly ; some had fired their guns and been
killed. Slough, some time before Dora reached his watch-
fire, finding clear proof of the enemy's force in these ire-'
quent captures, had returned to make his report to General
Butler.
Dora's first sensation was a horrid joy, as we have said :
but the horror soon outweighed the joy. She could have
died and smiled in death ; its worst pang would have been,
that her brother after all was not saved : but that he
should die ! A faintness never felt before in her young
limbs came over them. Excitement, horror, cold, fatigue,
had weakened soul and body. When Mechecunnaqua
for the torch-bearer was the Little Turtle himself came
to the tree where they had tied her, she was hanging sense-
less in her bonds.
The chief looked amazed ; the pale lips showed no sham-
DORA McCRAE. 399
ming ; he laughed silently in scorn of the Longknife who
had been scared to death ; or was it the faintness of a
wound ? He ordered the belt which held her to the tree to
be loosened, the wrists to be set free, and, laying the body
upon the earth, threw back the hunting-shirt to discover. A
grunt of extraordinary astonishment burst from the group of
bending scalp-locks, for one glance showed the sex of the
captive. At that moment came messengers who reported
the white army alarmed and in motion ; for Slough, on his
way in, had informed Colonel Oldham that the foe were near
in force, and that they should certainly be attacked in the
morning or sooner, and Oldham, thinking the same from the
reports of his spies, had detached several small parties to
bring in the scouts. The Little Turtle, who knew of St.
Glair's habit of getting his troops under arms before daylight,
and then dismissing them to breakfast, had planned what
he actually performed a surprise between daybreak and
sunrise, when all would be off guard ; but this information,
that St. Clair was alarmed and in motion, made him fear his
whole plan abortive. Hastily directing a follower to send a
squaw to the young pale-face, he at once went, therefore, to
re-arrange his red men. One captive, and that a woman,
was of small interest compared with the news just delivered,
and Dora, still insensible, was left deserted on the icy leaves.
At last, life painfully came again, then recollection ; she
moved, she was free ; she tried to pierce the darkness, but
could not. Where was she ? How came she free ? Pres-
ently she heard that heavy breathing again. Reassured, she
rose, and, directed by the sound, reached the tree where she
thought Grey was tied. Whispering in the captive's ear
that it was a friend, with trembling fingers she took the gag
from his mouth. She had been right ; it was he. A few
minutes more, and he too was at liberty. He had seen the
body of a captive laid upon the ground not far from him, but
had not seen the face amid the circle of savages. Deep was
400 DORA M-CRAE.
his gratitude and joy to find his deliverer to be his dearest
friend ; but how much deeper the joy of that deliverer!
And now they would have freed the others, but again a
torch was seen ; the squaws were grumbling on their path in
search of the pale-face. Not knowing whither they went,
the two Americans glided away.
They took, fortunately for them, the very opposite course
to that which they would have taken had they known the
points of the compass, and so went directly north. It was
fortunate for them, because the Indians, when Little Turtle
had at length prevailed in the council soon after midnight,
had drawn in close about the devoted army, and when Dora
first saw by the stars the direction they had taken, they were
far behind the foe. They then changed their course, and,
judging the savages were between them and their comrades,
made a detour to the west, until, shortly before daybreak,
they struck the creek on which St. Clair had encamped, but
some distance below him. This they crossed, to escape any
flanking party of red men ; and soon heard the drums of
the regiments, then about being disbanded for the morning.
" Thank God, they are alive and up," cried Grey.
" Slough gave the alarm, and the old man will have the
red-skins now in spite of his crutches." And Slough had
given the alarm, but to heedless ears. He had reported to
General Butler, as was proper, his own conviction, and that
of Colonel Oldham, that the enemy was before them in great
force, and would attack in the morning, or earlier. Butler,
an old Indian trader and hunter, despised the regulars with
whom lie acted, whenever Indians were concerned ; the
militia he despised for their insubordination ; St. Clair he
despised also, as a worn-out invalid, indeed, they were not
at that time on speaking terms. Slough and Oldham commu-
nicated nothing definite, only their own convictions. What
were they worth ? Butler sent no word to St. Clair, took
no measures to prevent a surprise. A brave man himself,
DORA McCRAE. 401
he would have felt like a coward to alarm the whole army
on such grounds. His courage cost many lives. Had St.
Clair received the accounts of Slough and Oldham, he would
have attacked the Indians, and Mechecunnaqua's plans would
have failed.
As Grey and his comrade drew nearer to the army, they
moved with greater stealth and care. Day had now fairly
broken. Presently, far to their left, were heard yells, shouts,
rifles, and that sea-like sound of many feet shaking the earth.
In a moment more the drums beat again ; and in front of
the fugitives the clash and hubbub of ranks forming sud-
denly rose on the frosty air.
" It is the attack," said Grey, pausing ; " but what are
those sounds to the left ? "
" The yells of the savages ; the cries of the Kentuck-
ians," answered McCrae. " The militia has been driven
back."
Dora was right. Oldham, waiting for orders, had taken
no efficient steps to prevent a surprise. His corps were
taken unawares, and, rushing back upon the regulars, threw
all into confusion, and lost the day. We need not follow
the details of the battle ; they are known but too well.
When the fugitives of our tale reached the field, all was con-
fusion. The survivors of McCrae's company were scattered
wherever there was shelter. Kirk wood was killed. Through
the dreadful carnage of those three hours and a half, the
friends, seizing the arms of the fallen, fought side by side.
At last the word spread that the troops were to retreat.
" Like a drove of bullocks," as a spectator says,* the
survivors pressed to the right. In the press, Dora found
herself alone. She struggled forward with what was thought
the despair of terror, he was not there ; she lagged amid
the hastening crowd with what men deemed the apathy of
* Van Cleve, American Pioneer, II. 150.
34*
402 DORA McCRAE.
cowardice, but she could not see him ; she turned, and strove
madly to stem the human torrent, and die with him under
the tomahawks of the pursuing savages, but the torrent bore
her along. Once more she pressed forward ; he was strong,
active, he was in the advance. She ran till her limbs,
which had not rested for so many hours, failed her, and she
sank by the road-side. The flying troops still hurried by,
men, women, and boys, some on foot, some on jaded horses.
The yells of the foe, who, stopping to scalp those they slew,
followed slowly, were just audible. Amid the crowd of ter-
rified runners she could see no fo"rm like his. The tide of
life, that had once before that morning ebbed, again flowed
backward. The hideous scalp-shrieks drew nearer. She
closed her eyes, and resigned herself once more to death.
A hand was laid on her shoulder. She started, looked,
sprang up ; it was Grey, but so deathly pale she scarce
knew him. What was it ? A wound, a ball through the
shoulder ; his dress was dripping with blood. He had sought
his saviour of the morning in front and rear, had pressed
too near the enemy ; a rifle had sped its ball close to his
heart. In an instant Dora's wearied limbs seemed rested,
even as Grey sank exhausted by her side. The scalp-
screams came nearer. She gave one glance at him, he
was senseless ; one at the chances of escape near by, which
her own fate had never led her to look at. Snow still cov-
ered the earth, but here and there were patches of bare
leaves. At a little distance was an old moss-grown tree-
skeleton, fallen half a century before. Many a time had
Dora hidden in such, in her childhood. A few steps carried
her to it ; it was, as she guessed, hollow. She returned,
lifted with her whole life-energy the body of him she loved,
and bore it to the rotten log. With great difficulty she
brought back his senses by the help of the snow around
them ; bound his wound ; pointed out his danger, and the
only place of refuge ; and, just as the Indians appeared in
DORA McCRAE. 403
the road almost beside them, filled the open end of their
hiding-place with the leaves that had before been hidden
within it by November winds.
It was a happy thought thus to push those within out, rath-
er than to draw up those that lay about the opening. Dora
and he whom she had twice saved lay feet to feet, unable to
speak ; but though speech was denied them, hearing was
not. There were steps, voices ; nearer and nearer they
came. Low guttural sounds were made just above them.
Presently two or more Indians, invited by the mossy seat,
sat down over their heads ; then they heard a gurgle as the
whiskey-canteen of some dead regular was applied to savage
lips, then laughter and yells. Presently a white man's
voice perhaps Simon Girty's, he is said to have been
there* asked what was in that log they were on. The
tipsy Indian stuck his hand into the hollow, and answered,
" Leaves, leaves."
Ere long the love of blood outgrew that of the fire-water,
and the green log covered less agitated hearts. Then came
the sounds of the returning victors, and then the silence
of night. The fugitives ventured forth. The cold earth
and mouldering wood had stopped the bleeding wound, but
Grey was still weak from the blood he had lost. They both
needed food ; they had not eaten for twenty -four hours.
Dora silently disappeared. She went to the corpse-cumbered
road ; she took flour, meat, spirits, from the bodies of the
slain, for very many of the army in the absence of legal
supplies had provided illegal. She tore from the dim-seen
dead men linen to make bandages for him that lived ; she
took their coats for his bed.
Four days passed. The Indians, loaded with scalps and
spoils, had gone northward. The whites were getting their
breath and spinning their yarns in Forts Hamilton and Wash-
* Stone's Life of Brant, I. 310.
404 DORA McCRAE.
ington. The vultures, and the buzzards, and the carrion-
crows possessed the battle-field. Grey, his strength almost
restored, had gone out to look at the traces of death, while
his comrade, having now for the first time dared to light a
fire, prepared some civilized food. The young officer wan-
dered some way toward the ground of the engagement, till,
warned by weakness, he turned again. Sauntering along,
in that luxury of laziness known only to the valetudinarian,
he saw suddenly a figure before him. It was McCrae, whom
he had left over the kettle, only so differently dressed.
" Where, McCrae, did you get that ? " cried he.
"Ha! you know me!" said the other, with a savage,
reckless gravity, that astonished Grey beyond measure.
" Know you ? My dear John, 1 have reason to know you.
But why this masquerade ? Is breakfast ready ? "
McCrae stared with the air of one who had met a mad-
man. " Who are you ? " said he ; " where have you seen
me ? what do you know of me ? "
Grey thought the gay young woodsman playing a part, in
his joy for their safety ; so, putting on a part himself, he re-
plied, " You 're mad, John, raving crazy. Our escapes, our
wounds, our starving, our freezing, have turned your head,
John. I must bleed you, my boy."
The boy it was John himself stood stupefied. He
had from his hiding-place gone back to Cincinnati ; had
learned that John McCrae had marched with his company ;
had guessed his sister's sacrifice ; and when the breath of
the defeat reached him, stung into heroism by despair, rea-
son, love, shame, fear, had gone to seek her, to die if
she were dead, if she were a captive to redeem her with
his own life. At Grey's last words a light broke upon him.
" Have you known me ? " cried he, eagerly. " Where
am I ? where did we freeze and starve ? where arc we ?
Take me to her ! "
The young officer began to think his comrade indeed in-
DORA McCRAE. 405
sane. " Come," said he, taking McCrae's arm, "we'll go
to our log."
They came to the spot : Dora had gone for water.
" Do you feel better ? " said Grey.
" Where is she ? " replied the other, fiercely. " I 'II
have her, or your life."
Grey scarce knew whether to weep or laugh ; he still
thought it all pretence, so he laughed. John sprang at him,
grappled him, they rolled together in the leaves. At that
instant a clear, ringing voice came up the little hollow,
charming the echoes into silence.
" It is she," cried John, springing to his feet.
" It is you," said Grey, almost speechless.
Slowly the young man's eyes turned from the brother to
the sister, from the sister to the brother. He was himself
going crazy. Dora embraced her counterfeit.
Why dwell on what is known ? The secret was out,
the maiden overpowered with shame, the soldier sick at
heart with gratitude, admiration, and love.
John redeemed his character under Wayne ; and for
Dora, are there not Greys in New Jersey until to-day ?
Who was their ancestress ?
THE HYPOCHONDRIAC.
AN INCIDENT OF WAYNE'S VICTORY.
AMONG the early settlers of Western Pennsylvania were
several Highland families, and naturally enough where there
were Highland men, there were Campbells. One of them,
Arthur Campbell, the son of " old man Arthur," who lived
in Alleghany County, is the hero of our sketch.
The boy was as active, strong, and intelligent as the de-
scendant of mountaineers, himself a dweller among moun-
tains, ought to be. No summer field of grass or wheat, no
winter forest of massive trunks that were to be chopped
and split into fire-wood, no wild-cat of the hills, nor fish of
the stream, could tire out or elude him. He was early
trained to follow the beasts of the wilderness, and to track
its wild savages to their wigwams. His childhood was
amused with tales of the days of Braddock, and his youth
instructed by the study of the frontier campaigns of Wash-
ington, Armstrong, and Bouquet. At sixteen, no keener
scout, no stouter wood-chopper, no bolder hunter, was to bo
found about the Salt Springs of the Kiskiminitas, than the
young Scotch Highlander. But Arthur was too ambitious
to rest content with even the renown that filled a county.
He had heard of Boone and the pioneers of Kentucky ; he
had read of the exploits of George Rogers Clark in the far
THE HYPOCHONDRIAC. 407
Northwest; and when at Pittsburg, in the winter of 1787-
88, he had seen and talked with some of the first settlers
of Marietta, who were then busy at " Sumrill's," on the
Youghiogeny, building the boats which were to convey them,
when spring opened, to the vast regions of the Ohio, which
the whites had as yet spared. His imagination and his van-
ity were both excited to the highest point, and he longed to
make himself known, as Logan, and Clark, and Putnam
were known already. Under these impulses, young Arthur,
in the spring of 1788, about the time he supposed Putnam's
band would be descending the river, determined to take his
rifle and knife, and make his way by land to the mouth of
the Muskingum, and rejoiced in his soul silently, as he
thought how wonder-stricken the Dodges and Captain De-
voll would be to see him at their location before them ; and
how he would be made known to the general, and would
become a scout for the party, and would be chosen to lead
some band against the Indians, who, as every one said,
would oppose the new-comers ; and how he would surprise
a great band of Shawanese, and be the hero of a terrible
struggle ; and so on, and so on ; the whole winding up with
his marriage to one of the pretty girls that were coming out
from New England when all was ready for them. So one
morning young Arthur, with a strange big lump in his
throat that kept him swallowing every half-minute, told his
father and mother, and his dear little sister Peggy, that he
was going to hunt for a day or two, and they, thinking
nothing of it, as it was not yet ploughing weather, kissed
him as usual, wished him good luck, and went on quietly
about their chopping and spinning. He, poor boy, looked
back at the old man, with his Scotch bonnet thrown back as
he wielded the axe, and at the window, behind which they
were working and singing, he could hear Peggy's voice, and
his heart almost gave way ; but vanity and the love of enter-
prise are, after all, stronger in a lad of sixteen than home ties
or brother's love, and he tearfully turned to the forest again.
408 THE HYPOCHONDRIAC.
lie apprehended no danger. The animals of the wilder-
ness he had no fear of; the Indians were friendly or neu-
tral ; and though the way was unknown to him, he had a
general" notion of the direction in which the mouth of the
Muskingum lay, and, confident in his powers as a woods-
man, crossed the Allcghany in a canoe which lie used when
on his common expeditions to the North, intending '.o keep
northwest until he should pass Beaver Creek, and thence
hoping, by nearly a direct west course, to strike the Tuscara-
was in the vicinity of old Fort Laurens, from which point he
would follow the waters down to Fort Harmar, at the mouth
of the "Elk Eye."
His plan was well laid, and would have succeeded, proba-
bly, so as to bring him to the desired point about the first of
April, but for one thing, the fall of heavy rains about the
heads of Beaver Creek. Owing to these, when our young
adventurer reached the banks of that stream, he found it an
impassable torrent ; but he could not wait, for the very
waters which opposed him would help forward the boatmen
whose arrival he longed to anticipate. So, hastily, too has-
tily, he fashioned n raft of the floating logs and boughs
which were rolling by, and with his only treasures, his rifle
and powder-horn, trusted himself to the stream, which he
. hoped to cross gradually by the aid of his setting-pole, and
the eddies which here and there sucked shoreward. Alas !
those eddies, like many a seeming aid in the voyage of life,
were caused by and concealed deadly dangers. The one
which Arthur tried to make serviceable was the result of a
huge stump, which caught the drift, and held out to the nav-
igator a tempting harbour. With his whole strength he
tried to make the proffered landing-place, and in trying
failed to see the ragged remnants of the huge boughs, which,
reaching up from the submerged trunk of the prostrate syc-
amore, were grinning at him, like shark's teeth, from just
beneath the surface. Another push, and he will be in the
THE HYPOCHONDRIAC. 409
eddy and ashore ; yes, but for them. He puts his shoulder
to the pole ; the rude raft swings round, the shark's teeth
seize it; the rushing waters tug and tear at it; the grape-
vines, loosely knotted, give way ; the severed logs again
strike out, each on its own voyage, and among them is strug-
gling for life, for room to breathe, the young builder of cas-
tles in the air.
Arthur would have been in no real danger, however, for
he was as much at home in water as on land, had he not
clung to his rifle. With the instinct of a woodsman he had
seized it the instant he felt the raft strike, and heard the
bands which held it crack ; and amid drift and raft and eddy
he still clung to it, struggling for life ; for his life was in his
breath and his rifle, and he strove to save both. A few
moments, however, proved it impossible to do so, and with
a groan, more of indignation than regret, he let go his hold
and struck out for the shore.
And now he was once more on land, not very dry land,
to be sure, for a cold, penetrating, drizzling rain was falling ;
but beyond the reach of the mad waters at any rate. Yes,
he was on land, but how helpless ! how hopeless ! No gun,
no food, his powder afloat, no means of kindling a fire or
securing a meal, and in spite of himself shivering to his in-
most bones. Two hours he had stood in the water making
his unlucky vessel, and the warmth which had been pro-
duced by his exertions in trying to land could not counter-
balance the physical depression and exhaustion which those
two hours had produced, and the shock of the ice-bath that
had followed. Had Arthur been an old hand in the wilder-
ness, he would have spent five minutes in making up his
mind as to the nearest point where food and warmth could
be had, and, without awaiting still further exhaustion from
famine and cold, would have used all his remaining strength
and energy to reach that point. Had he done so, he would
in two hours have been relieved, for he was not more than
VOL. i. 35
410 THE HYPOCHONDRIAC.
five miles above the site of Fort Mclntosh. But Arthur
was not an old practical pioneer, an indomitable Boone, or
all-conquering Logan, he was a young castle-builder,
whose airy towers had all been laid low by the swollen
waters of the Big Beaver, and in utter despair he threw
himself upon the ground, and regretted that he had been
able to save his life from the flood.
How long he lay there, half insensible with cold and
hopelessness, he never knew. When he arose, as he re-
membered afterwards, it was night, and fever-pains were
shooting through every limb, and fever-phantoms were be-
ginning to whirl their waltzes in his brain. Then all to him
was darkness ; nor was it ever known whither he went or
how he lived during the next three days. At the end of
that time, naked as he was born, thin as the skeleton pic-
ture of death, and still raving with delirium, he swam off to
a boat which was floating down the Ohio, bound to the
Beargrass settlements near the Falls, and was with difficul-
ty secured by the emigrants on board.
Among those emigrants were two women who nursed the
young sufferer, until at last nature effected a partial cure.
A partial cure, we say, for neither nature nor art, nursing,
medicine nor rest, could ever make Arthur Campbell again
wholly what he had been before. His constitution, just at
the age when most susceptible, had been so shaken, so shat-
tered, by excitement, exposure, cold, hunger, disease, and
delirium, that, though he lived till within a few years, to
the age of seventy-two, he never recovered the effects of his
trip to the Beaver. His nerves were so affected, that the
slightest excitement or anxiety caused him to quiver like an
aspen ; and his spirit was for the time so changed, that
when, in the midsummer of 1788, he found his way back
from the kind friends who had saved his life to his old
home on the Kiskiminitas, his parents and Peggy, who had
long mourned him as dead, found him, though living, not
THE HYPOCHONDRIAC. 411
the same ; the frank, active, hopeful, energetic boy had be-
come a shy, dependent, moping hypochondriac. And so he
remained for years, yes, for life.
The settlement of the West went on. Harmar marched
upon his unlucky and inglorious errand to the confederated
tribes of the Maumee ; St. Clair gathered his forces, and
scolded, and limped to and fro, and inch by inch penetrated
the wilderness, and then, stricken as by a thunderbolt, was
driven back to the old stations ; and all the while, amid the
whole bustle of frontier enlistment and frontier panic, Ar-
thur Campbell was as unmoved and as uninterested as the
old house-dog by the hearth. His energy seemed dead ;
his vanity, his ambition, seemed dead ; he was silent to all,
and shunned even Peggy's company and sympathy. But
he was also far more unselfish than formerly ; was active
for others, if not for himself; could not talk to any one, but
would work for all. Not a day passed but the sister found
that the hand of the speechless brother had done some
work, removed some obstacle, sketched some improvement,
which would have tried her strength, or patience, or inge-
nuity.
At length, in the summer of 1792, the troops of Wayne
began to gather for the final conflict with the red men of
the Northwest. From the Atlantic to the Mississippi, men
were active during that summer in the great cause of white
supremacy ; the old feudal proverb having been in our day
a little varied, so as to make it read, " White makes right."
Among the candidates for admission into the legion of Mad
Anthony came forward, to the amazement of all, Arthur
Campbell, the victim of Big Beaver. Some hoped it was a
proof that all was well with him again ; others knew it was
his insanity come back ; others, again, thought he might
have motives different from ambition, or gain, or the prompt-
ings of a crazy intellect. Among these last was Peggy.
She, poor child, was from the first all of a flutter with the
412 THE HYPOCHONDRIAC.
enlisting and the drumming, the marching and sharp-shoot-
ing, which, under the orders of Washington and Wayne,
filled the West of Pennsylvania that summer with powder-
smoke and shouts. Especially was she fluttered, being just
eighteen, by the eyes and the movements of a young offi-
cer who was sent into their neighbourhood to gather up
men for the battle-field. Poor Peggy, who had been flint
to all men in leggings and hunting-shirts, was mere ice to
the lieutenant in his regimentals; she melted and warmed
at once. This Arthur had seen ; and she knew, though he
said not a word, that he had seen it. And when the young
officer urged her to wed him, and she, trembling and de-
lighted, promised to follow him, if need be, down the mouth
of the Little Turtle, or into the inmost fold of Blue Jacket,
she felt that, somehow, Arthur heard every syllable she
said, felt every throb of her heart ; so that when all others
were at a loss for the enlistment of the invalid, Peggy knew
it was because she had enlisted first.
We need not dwell on the partings and marchings ; the
tiresome winter at Legionville ; the endless drillings at Hob-
son's Choice, just below the little village of Cincinnati ; or
the advance into the wilderness, where the second long
winter, that of 1793-94, was spent by the cautious " black
snake " of the Americans. During the whole monotonous
movements of the army, Peggy lived in a long honey-moon,
and Arthur performed what duties fell to his share with un-
deviating regularity. He had joined the army, not as a
regular soldier, but as a scout or spy, for in that calling he
fell himself at home ; he dared not trust his nerves in com-
pany, but alone no granite hill could be firmer. The eye
of a comrade could at any moment make him quiver, but
an enemy he had no dread of, and could face and fight un-
moved. At length, late in July of 1794, the mounted men
of Kentucky, under Scott, joined the main body at Green-
ville, and the day of contest drew near.
THE HYPOCHONDRIAC. 413
On the 4th of August, the army being then about
twenty-five miles beyond Fort Recovery, the young officer
to whom our friend Peggy had been married was ordered
with a party in pursuit of some Indians, whose traces had
been seen near the camp, and Arthur obtained leave to go
with him as a spy. This leave, however, was not had with-
out effort, for the Highlander, moody and silent, had more
than one enemy in the camp ; and on that day, Bill Strong,
who was from the neighbourhood in which the Campbells
lived, and had been an old admirer of Peggy, had par-
ticular reasons for wishing her brother to remain with the
army.
Bill was one of those men who are, unfortunately, too
common in armies, and especially in those armies recruited
from among the settlers of a frontier. Bold, and full of
animal life, he was as brutal as he was powerful and deter-
mined ; and without being absolutely malicious, he was ca-
pable of any extent of bloodshed and cruelty, under the
inspiration of vengeance or the temptings of lust. He was
one of the same class that wrought the massacre of the
Christian Delawares.
This man, who had been long watching for an opportu-
nity to revenge himself on the fortunate lover of his mis-
tress, but who was not willing to resort to assassination, and
could not succeed in fixing a quarrel upon Litcomb, Peggy's
husband, had made his calculations on this day to lead the
party which that officer was to command into an Indian
ambush, and so take the life of his rival without his agency
being seen, either by his commander, his companions, or
even his own conscience. It was therefore a great annoy-
ance to him to find that Arthur was to be joined with him
in the service of protecting the flanks of the detachment.
He knew all about Campbell's adventure on Big Beaver,
his illness, his weakness, and was aware that he could at
any moment make him quake by a glance of his eye ; and
35*
414 THE HYPOCHONDRIAC.
yet he feared the intelligence and the disinterestedness of
the hypochondriac. He was like the imaginary lion in
whose presence the maiden trembles, but which yet shrinks
and crouches at her feet. But there was nothing to be
done ; the word of Anthony had gone forth, and Campbell
and Strong set forward with the company under the charge
of Litcomb.
Arthur had known his comrade from boyhood. In youth
they had often hunted side by side, and never had any quar-
rel existed between them. But still they walked that day
side by side, each suspicious of the other. Strong dreaded
lest his secret plans had become known by words which he
had uttered in his sleep, or in some way that mortals could
not understand ; while Campbell, who had long watched his
sister's discarded lover, more than guessed at his enmity and
his determination to do the young officer who was with them
an injury. Indeed, he had exerted himself to obtain leave
to go with the party that day, because he apprehended
some ill purpose in his fellow-scout. With his whole soul,
therefore, he was prepared to watch the movements of
Bill, who, as the one that had discovered traces of the
enemy, was entitled to assume in a measure the direction
of affairs.
For some distance they returned upon the road made by
the advancing army, then struck a creek which led them to
the northeast, and in the direction of the Auglaize. They
had not gone far down this stream before Indian signs be-
came abundant, and a halt was called for consultation.
Now Strong knew very well how the Indians were posted.
Through a Canadian who was with them, one of Elliott's
men, he had prepared every thing to secure the defeat of
his own party, and the death or capture of Litcomb, and yet
had so contrived as to secure himself, as he trusted, both
from injury by the foe and discovery on the part of the
Americans ; for, to insure the latter, with that craft which
THE HYPOCHONDRIAC. 415
the Devil teaches his victims, he had made the Canadian
think himself the duper of the Longknives, and the deceiver
of their spy. Bill, therefore, advised a separation of the
party. Ten men he would take and go round by a path
which he knew, having scouted the ground some days be-
fore, so as to bring himself into the rear of the Indians who
were supposed to occupy the bottom along the creek ; while
the twenty men who remained were to go forward with the
Lieutenant and Campbell, until they came in front of the
savages. All were then to rest until the moon rose, when
the red men, lost in slumber, were to be attacked by the
two divisions at the same moment. To this plan no objec-
tion was made. Arthur would not have left his brother
alone, and he would not have left him under the guidance
of Strong ; but he never for a moment dreamed of treach-
ery, and feared only the anger and direct vengeance of his
former friend. All went, therefore, as the evil-minded man
desired. The detachment divided ; Bill with his portion
took to the hills, and the remainder marched down the val-
ley toward the point where, as Strong well knew, the sav-
ages, lying in ambush on either side of the narrow run,
waited the coming of the victims whose march the traitor
had disclosed.
But fortunately they were under the guidance of one whose
disease and melancholy had made him far more thoughtful
and observing than common men, and in whose mind suspi-
cion, still lingering, kept every faculty awake. Influenced
by this vague feeling of danger, Arthur proposed to the
Lieutenant to remain with the party where they then were
for an hour or two, and allow him to examine by himself
the ground before them, a delay which would not more
than equal the time lost by Strong in making his circuit.
To this proposition Litcomb assented, with the proviso that
he should accompany his brother in the reconnoitre, a
plan which Campbell opposed in vain. So, leaving the
416 THE HYPOCHONDRIAC.
men with their sergeant, the two set fortli together. Before
they had gone far, the scout discovered signs which told
him lhat the savages in considerable numbers had been as-
cending the densely-wooded sides of the ravine, and was
about to point out to his companion the wisdom of an imme-
diate return, when he caught the eye of an Indian glancing
through the bushes along the barrel of his rifle. Assured
by what he had seen that this warrior was not alone, and
knowing that flight and contest must be equally useless, sit-
uated as they were, he made a sign of friendship to the
threatening foe, and with a word or two explained to the
Lieutenant their dangerous position. " We have been en-
trapped," he added ; " we must submit as deserters, and
trust to our ingenuity to save us." It was with great un-
willingness that the young officer could entertain the idea of
practising this deception, even on an Indian, and playing the
part of a traitor. But no other hope offered itself; and
while still but half resolved, he found himself surrounded
and pinioned. The Canadian, Strong's friend, was present,
and acted as interpreter. Through him Campbell com-
municated a number of supposed facts in relation to the
body of troops they had just left a mile or two above,
which had the effect of preventing any attempt to attack
them, and, after soine consultation, led the chiefs to
determine to leave that vicinity for the towns near the
Maumee, carrying with them, of course, the two professed
deserters.
The sergeant who had been left in command of the twenty
men, when evening came, and the Lieutenant and spy did
not return, moved cautiously down the valley ; but as he
found no one to oppose him, saw and heard nothing of his
officer or of Strong's detachment, he retraced his steps with
wonder, and some dismay, and reported himself to Wayne
early the next forenoon. Strong, who had expected soon
after climbing the hill to hear the rifles of the ambushed
THE HYPOCHONDRIAC. 417
Indians, and who was afraid to trust himself near the ground
which he supposed they occupied, was at a loss how to be-
have so as to prevent his men accusing him of cowardice
and treachery ; for although they knew nothing of the de-
tails of the plan he had proposed, they had gathered its out-
line. But while he rested upon the summit of the ridge or
rise, where he told his men they had better remain till dark,
the sound of an advancing body of men struck his quick ear,
and he had scarce time to conceal his followers when the
body of savages passed by toward the north, having in their
midst his fellow-scout and his commander. As his forces
were but ten in number, and the Indians at least a hundred,
it was impossible to rescue his comrades, to say nothing of
the fact that it gave him exquisite pleasure to see them in
captivity. It was necessary, however, to seem to care for
them ; so he followed at a safe distance until nightfall.
Then, taking with him one of the soldiers, he crept closer
to the spot where the Shawanese were encamped ; close
enough, indeed, for both him and his companion to over-
hear portions of the conversation between Litcomb and
Arthur on the one part, and the Canadian upon the other.
In drawing thus near, Bill had no other object in view than
to be able to carry back a satisfactory account in the morn-
ing to the commander-in-chief ; but to his astonishment he
overheard what seemed to stamp both the apparent prisoners
with the character of deserters who were conveying to the
enemy all the information in their power in relation to the
American army. " Now, then," thought the devil-inspired
man, " I am revenged any how. If they return, they shall
be hung as traitors ; if they do not, mistress Peggy shall be
mine at last." So, with the strange news of the desertion
of Litcomb and Campbell, and with the soldier who had
overheard the conversation as a witness, Strong returned to
the army, which he reached not long after the other portion
of the detachment.
418 THE HYPOCHONDRIAC.
When Pegcy heard of the reports brought in by the party
with which her husband and brother had gone out, nothing
could equal her sorrow, except, indeed, her anger. With a
woman^s instinct, she at once suspected some treachery on
the part of Bill Strong ; but how could she detect it ? How
rescue those she loved ? Or, if they died, how prove their
innocence ? She had no female friends in the camp ; Wayne
had little taste for women on a campaign, and only peculiar
circumstances had enabled Litcomb to bring his wife thus
far. Arthur had seemingly none to care for him, for he
sought the acquaintance and friendship of none. The Lieu-
tenant was somewhat of a favorite, but Peggy was rather
afrai i of the young men who were his intimates. And so
the poor girl mourned, with her teeth set resolutely against
Bill Strong all the while, in utter solitude.
Meanwhile, in another portion of the camp, two men,
whom Peggy had never seen, and would have shunned if
she had seen, were deliberating also how to save her brother.
One of these two was a New England boy, awkward to an
absurdity, and cautious to a fault, but whose nature was
generous and true, and whose conscience had the old Pil-
grim stamina in it. The other was an Irishman, rash as a
meteor and hot as the sun that exhales it. Both were of
the corps of spies, though wholly unfitted by opposite qual-
ities to perform the duties of a scout as they should be per.
formed. Both had been in countless perplexities, and both,
countless times, had been silently relieved by the thoughtful-
ness, the knowledge, the coolness, or the boldness of the
hypochondriac. For months, with few words passing be-
tween them, a strong bond had been knitting them vitally to
Arthur Campbell ; and they felt that the proof of its vitality
was now to be given.
While Peggy mourns, and threatens, and thinks ; and
while Benjamin Pollock and Johnny Grant try to make their
discordant brains work together for the cood of their com-
THE HYPOCHONDRIAC. 419
rade and helper, the two professed deserters are safely
housed in a wigwam at Grand Glaize. As yet no plan for
escape had opened to them. They were but half trusted,
and treated rather as spies than real traitors. This Arthur
expected, and knowing how little time remained for them to
act in, and how necessary it was to establish confidence in
the minds of their captors, utterly indifferent also as to his
own life, if he could but save those dear to him, he deter-
mined upon a plan, which he dared not disclose to his com-
panion, but which he trusted would accomplish all he
wished, the production of trust in them on the part of the
Indians, means to aid the army of Wayne, an opportunity to
betray the secrets of that of his enemies, and a chance at
last to secure the liberty of his brother, and, if all went
right, his own. His plan was this, to ascertain from the
Canadian the position of the American army ; to offer his
services, the unarmed and two armed savages watching him,
to learn when any portion of that army had been detached,
and to insure its capture. This capture he intended really
to effect, if the number was not more than would probably
go out to gather the corn and pumpkins of the rich Indian
fields that made that neighbourhood one boundless garden,
and the effecting of it would, he trusted, produce reliance in
him, and so enable him to work out the problem, to
become most completely Wayne's spy, and to bring about
most quickly the liberation of the Lieutenant. Two things,
unluckily, were unknown to Arthur, the treachery of
Strong, and the conversation which had been half over-
heard by him and the soldier. He proposed his plan, how-
ever, to the Canadian, and through his agency the chiefs
accepted it.
On the 8th of August, Wayne reached the confluence of
the Maumee and Auglaize, and the advanced body of In-
dians retired toward the main force, nearly fifty miles down
the former river. It was at this point, while Fort Defiance
420 THE HYPOCHONDRIAC.
was in progress, that the experiment of Campbell was to be
made, if ever.
The evening of the llth of August set in dark and
stormy, and Arthur Campbell informed the Canadian that
he thought no better opportunity could occur to examine the
neighbourhood of Wayne's fort, now nearly completed, in
anticipation of the attempt upon any party which might ven-
ture forth to gather food. Accordingly, in the evening,
Arthur, unarmed, accompanied by the Canadian and two
savages, each with his rifle, stole up the banks of the river,
and proceeded cautiously to examine the ground about the
American encampment. It was familiar, of course, to the
natives, but Campbell could not carry out his plan without
himself going over it. From point to point it was traversed,
therefore, and each hollow and thicket pointed out to him
as well as the night would allow. While engaged in this
occupation, Arthur heard a low whistle, which he at once
recognized as that of a scout; replying to it, he informed
his companions that the American spies were abroad, and
thinking it possible that Wayne was preparing to beat the
woods for any lingering parties of the red men that might
be about, he advised an immediate return to the Indian
camp. To this advice the Canadian would not listen, for he
thought it proceeded from cowardice, and the four, much to
Campbell's discomfort, drew nearer and nearer to the camp
of the Longknives. It was as Arthur supposed ; a party
of scouts, with a file of picked soldiers, was at this moment
preparing to leave the fort to examine the neighbouring for-
est, where some of the enemy, as it had been learned, still
lurked ; and the little band of explorers had not gone twenty
steps beyond the spy whose whistle had been first heard, be-
fore Campbell discovered that they were in the midst of a
number of men, who, stationed at a distance of about ten
feet each from the other, were waiting in perfect silence the
command to move forward. These men perceived the pres-
THE HYPOCHONDRIAC. 421
ence of the Indians and Canadian about the same instant
that Arthur discovered them; but, supposing the persons in
motion to be a portion of their own body, would have suf-
fered them to pass through uninterrupted, had not the com-
manding officer at that moment come forward to see that all
was right, when opening his lantern, as he did so he made
visible the copper countenances and streaming scalp-locks
of the Wyandots. A cry of alarm and wonder was succeed-
ed by rifle-shots and uproar ; then came dead silence again.
In the utter darkness, no man knew what had happened.
A little while, however, revealed the result of the unlooked-
for skirmish. Two Americans lay badly wounded ; one of
the Indians was dead, the other had vanished, the Canadian
and Arthur were prisoners.
Our hero scarce knew at first whether to rejoice or mourn
at this catastrophe. It secured his freedom if he chose to
profit by it, but that he cared not for ; it was Litcomb's
liberty, not his own, which he was striving to secure, and
he dreaded lest it should lead to greater mistrust of his
brother, and perhaps his death. Again, it might enable him
to arrange his plans with Wayne in such a manner as to put
it into the power of that commander to free them both ; but,
meanwhile, would not the Wyandots, alarmed by the war-
rior that had escaped, at once join the main body, and carry
Litcomb beyond all aid ? While meditating these things,
and considering how he could contrive to make the Ameri-
cans treat him as a deserter in presence of his fellow-cap-
tives, he was brought into a blaze of torch-light, which for the
first time allowed his captors to discover who it was they had
taken, for at first they had naturally supposed both the white
men to be Canadians : and what was the horror of Arthur
to find in every word that fell upon his ear proof that he
was already looked upon as a traitor and a villain. He
could not account for it ; it was something which had not
entered into his thoughts, and in an instant he saw that, if
VOL. i. 36
4'22 THE HYPOCHONDRIAC.
Wayne held the convictions which his comrades declared,
all hope for him and his brother was gone ; that he must die
the death of a deserter, and Litcomh pass into the merciless
hands of Elliot and McKee. lie was left to pass the re-
mainder of the night revolving these thoughts, more wretch-
ed and despondent than ever.
Early in the morning, while he yet lay wrapped in his
blanket upon the floor of the block-house which had been
made his prison, the American general entered. Arthur
sprang to his feet, and confronted the eagle-eyed soldier with
a face as calm and proud as his own.
"And you, Campbell, a deserter!" said Wayne, who
knew the hypochondriac well, " you, the son of a High-
lander, traitor to your native land and your own blood !
deserting not only your colors and your comrades, but your
own sister, and carrying her husband into infamy with
you ! I could not have believed it ! "
" And do you believe it, General ? "
" Yes."
" On what proof? Why?"
Anthony opened the door and beckoned. Bill Strong and
the soldier who had overheard the conversation between
Arthur and the Canadian entered at the signal. When
Campbell saw the former glide into the apartment, he caught
a glimpse of the villany that had been perpetrated ; and as
he did so, intense anger, which seldom visited his breast,
shook every fibre of his frame, and the whole force of the
terrible disease under which he labored came back upon his
brain and his nerves. Pale and trembling, when Wayne
again turned to question him, his looks were enough ; his
quivering voice and wild eyes answered for him ; and with
scarce a moment's hesitation the General left the room, with
a complete conviction of his treachery.
Neither Strong nor his victim failed to see the effect which
had been produced by the nervous weakness of the latter,
THE HYPOCHONDRIAC. 423
and the real traitor resolved to profit by the weakness of
the hypochondriac. Seeking his commander, therefore, he
proposed, as he said he wished to be fair to his neighbour
Campbell, that the latter should be asked to make oath that
he was not guilty of desertion, and if he could do it without
shrinking, all might be well, perhaps ; but if he dared not
call God to witness his fidelity to his flag, then there could
be no more doubt. The proposition seemed reasonable, and
Wayne, though rather to satisfy this lover of justice than
himself, agreed to the trial. On the afternoon of the 12th
of August, therefore, Arthur was brought before a tribunal,
where the General presided, and informed that, if he would
subscribe an affidavit solemnly declaring that he did not leave
his fellows falsely, and basely give information to the foe,
his case should be gone into fully ; but if he refused to take
this oath he would be adjudged guilty at once. All seemed
just and fair, and yet Arthur so well knew his weakness that
he foresaw he never could do what was required. The
demon of hypochondria was on him ; his hand was power-
less, and thus called upon, he knew that he could not sign
any thing, say any thing. And so it proved ; his tongue
refused to swear, his trembling fingers refused to hold the
pen. As it fell from his hand, while big drops of sweat
rolled down his pale countenance, the commander muttered,
" It is God's judgment. Take him away and put him in
irons ; he shall die before we fight."
Meanwhile, the whole army had been made aware that
one of the deserters, the silent scout, was taken. It reached
the ears of Pollock and Grant when they came in from their
rounds, on the afternoon of the 12th, and penetrated the
mourning chamber of Peggy, if a loft in a log-hut deserves
so grand a name. The news was not lost on either the
spies or the sister. She sought and obtained leave to see
the unhappy man that evening. Grant talked himself dry
in his defence ; while Pollock quietly set himself to unravel
424 ' THE HYPOCHONDRIAC.
the mystery of Arthur's sudden inability to speak or write ;
for as to its being conscience that shook him, Benjamin was
too confident of his truth to heed that notion. All, as it
pleased that Power who works for innocence, elFected some-
thing for the victim of disease.
Peggy, omitting all mention of tears and words of affec-
tion, told her brother just what report the informants against
him had brought in ; the conversation they had overheard ;
the things they had witnessed ; and thus enabled Arthur to
understand what real evidence existed against him, and
made known to him the weakness of his cause. She told
him, also, of her determination to run every risk to save her
husband ; and was so calm and firm in her behaviour as she
expressed her willingness to go anywhere, or do any thing,
to free the man she loved, that Campbell saw in her agency
a new means to effect all he coveted, but which he had begun
to despair of, Litcomb's release. Promising Peggy, there-
fore, to think how her spirit might best aid them all, the
scout lay down in his fetters, thanking God for the hope that
had risen upon his soul.
While these two thus communed, Johnny Grant was talk-
ing himself into a quarrel with the man who had borne wit-
ness against his friend, " Big Bill," as he was called.
Strong had not felt disposed to say much about Campbell's
desertion to his fellow-spies until this evening, but now his
tongue was untied. Before, he had been pexplexed by what
he had heard, for in his soul he believed Arthur to be as true
as Anthony himself; but the proof against him was now so
mighty that he did not care how freely he condemned his
old comrade, though the dread disease of the victim of Big
Beaver was explanation enough, as he well knew, of his
speechless tongue and powerless hand. And as the dispute
grew fiercer, and the whiskey-gourd circulated more freely,
Benjamin Pollock, the peacemaker and teetotaller, for once
in his life fanned the flame and passed the cup. He had
THE HYPOCHONDRIAC. 425
caught some words from Strong's mouth which seemed to
throw light into the dark places, and Benjamin hoped that
warmth and liquor would give him yet more insight into the
misfortunes of his benefactor. Nor was he wrong in his cal-
culation, and, before the higher powers came in to quiet and
reprove the backwoodsmen, had learned some things that he
hoped to make useful. Thus recklessness and caution work-
ed together for Arthur's good.
He, the condemned traitor, during that night of the 12th,
lay in his irons, meditating how to solve the problem of his
own and his brother's fate by means of a woman ; and ere
morning his mind was clear as to the solution. He deter-
mined to seek an interview with the Canadian ; to get from
him some token which the Wyandots would know ; to send
Peggy, disguised as a boy, with this token to their camp ; to
communicate by her his fate and that of his fellow-captive ;
to inform the Indians when the Americans would move for-
ward, concealing, however, their numbers, and to arrange
an ambush, in which Litcomb was to take part if possible ;
to inform Litcomb of the whole plot, so that, when the
whites and Indians were engaged, he might pass with Peggy
to the American side, and after the skirmish, which could
not last long, might, if both were living, appear as witness
in his behalf. Such was the outline of his rude plan ; the
detail, he knew, must be left to what we term chance, and
to the ingenuity and energy of Peggy and her husband.
In the morning, the unhappy, but undaunted girl again
saw him, listened to him, comprehended his projects, and
gave herself, body and soul, to save those who were dearest
to her. She could ride, run, swim, shoot, as a frontier
girl should, and doubted not to learn when the army
would leave Defiance, and to procure the disguise that was
needed.
But Peggy, hopeful and brave as she was, would have
been able to do but little had not our friend Benjamin been
36*
426 THE HYPOCHONDRIAC.
devoted to the same cause with herself. lie alone, of all in
the camp, had the clothes which she needed ; they had he-
longed to an adopted son of eighteen, who had emigrated
with him, and died at Fort Recovery. Moreover, he alone,
of all in the camp, had the true clew to the conduct of Camp-
bell and Litcomb when they became apparently deserters.
How he obtained this clew we must now relate. When the
angry discussion between Strong and Grant took place, the
former let fall sundry remarks in relation to the Canadian
who had been taken with Arthur, which induced our Yankee
friend to seek an interview with that prisoner. This he
easily obtained, and in half an hour's cautious, insinuating,
suggestive conversation, wherein what he knew through
Strong's tipsy rage came frequently in play, he learned be-
yond question that worthy man's treachery, the way in
which he had delivered up his comrades to the Indians, and
various little matters which went to illustrate the true posi-
tion of allairs. Thus much learned, the scout sought a
meeting with his old companion, and it was not long before
the keen wit of Scot and Now-Englander acting together
made every thing as clear as noonday. At this meeting,
which took place about noon on the 13th, Arthur related to
his friend the plan by which he proposed to release Litcomb,
and learned to his great joy that Benjamin could furnish the
disguise that was needed, and would, moreover, conduct
Peggy so far upon her way as to insure her safety. Nay, fur-
ther, lie promised to learn when the army would move, and
also proposed to go with her to the Canadian, and use his
diplomatic skill in obtaining from that person the token
which was needed to insure Peggy's welcome among the
"Wyandots. All went on as they wished. The token was
procured ; the disguise put on ; the lines passed ; the vicinity
of the Indians reached unharmed ; and then Pollock returned
to his duties, and Peggy, now the boy Peter, unarmed
but fearless, sped to the rescue of the Lieutenant.
THE HYPOCHONDRIAC. 427
Tt was just after daylight on the morning of the 14th of
August that she approached the Wyandot encampment.
She came boldly up to it, bearing a white cloth upon a staff,
and holding up to view the plume which the Canadian had
given her, and which was marked in a manner that made
it equal to a signet-ring. At the first sound of a human
voice she paused and looked around ; for a while she saw
no one ; then she beheld a woman lying upon the ground
about twenty yards distant, who seemed unable to move,
scarce able to speak. Peggy almost forgot she was no lon-
ger a woman herself, as she sprang to the side of her red
sister, and asked with gestures what was the matter. The
squaw had been bitten by a rattlesnake as she was gathering
dry boughs for the morning fire, and fear rather than the
injury had deprived her of all power of motion. Peggy in
an instant comprehended the evil, and applied the means
which her mountain training had made familiar ; and before
the brown girl had ceased to wonder at her rescue by this
young warrior of the whites, the poison was sucked out, the
healing leaves applied, and the wounded limb bound up.
It was a fortunate introduction for our masquerader. It
secured her devoted friends in the mother and brother of
the Indian girl, and made the whole party ready to listen
favorably to the tale which Peggy had to tell. And she
needed to tell it well, for that morning Matthew Elliot him-
self, having just returned from Detroit, whither he went to
make the final arrangements for the approaching struggle,
had come up the Maumee to the advanced Wyandot band ;
and the Highland maiden, when brought before the chiefs to
give an account of herself, found, instead of a common
Canadian interpreter, the most sagacious and unscrupulous
of that class of white men who used the savages as imple-
ments of war and plunder. She told her story, however, so
well, was so exact and true upon every point whereon the
Indians could possibly be informed, for such had been Ar-
428 THE HYPOCHONDRIAC.
thur's repeated advice, that even Elliot did not suspect
the inventions to which she was obliged to resort in regard
to those private matters of which he knew nothing. On one
point of public interest only did she deceive him, but that
was a vital one. It was in reference to the mode in which
the American army would move forward from the new fort.
The time of probable departure Elliot had ascertained, and
Peggy's account agreed with that which lie had heard from
his spies ; so that he was ready to give credence to what she
added in relation to Wayne's determination to move down
the Maumee with divided forces, one half of his troops on
each bank, a division which the British agents had been
trying to bring about, but scarce hoped to eilect. After a
consultation among themselves, Litcomb was called in to be
confronted with the new-comer. When he entered the wig-
wam and saw the lad who stood there, he paused, puzzled
with the sense of half-recognition ; and as his conviction
became firmer that it was Peggy herself, he would have
spoiled all by clasping her in his arms, had she not, seeing
the danger, stepped forward and said, " Perhaps the Lieu-
tenant docs not remember the boy Peter that joined the
army with Benjamin Pollock. 1 ' Her husband comprehended
at once that her disguise was to be retained, not thrown off
now that she had reached him, and, clasping her hand, ac-
knowledged that for a moment he was at a loss, though he
was sure the features were familiar ; nor, once put upon
his guard, could Elliot's cross-examination bring any thing
out tending to throw discredit upon the story which the boy
had told. This story was exceedingly simple. Several oth-
er of Wayne's spies besides Arthur were desirous of going
over to the side of the allies; and among them Pollock,
whose son Peggy claimed to be. By him she had been
sent to open a communication with the enemy, and brought
promises of aid on the part of several of the scouts, pro-
vided the savages would do all in their power to save Camp-
THE HYPOCHONDRIAC. ^ 429
bell. Bat how to aid him ? The plan suggested by Pollock
through his messenger was this. Arthur was to be with the
party that would move down the north bank of the river, and
which was to leave early the next day ; this party the In-
dians, headed by Litcomb, were to attack, and it was asserted
that the presence of the yonng officer would cause a con-
siderable portion of the troops of Wayne who would be
there to stand neutral at least. If the American Lieutenant
were not present, the success of the effort might be doubted ;
if he were, there was no difficulty to be apprehended. It
was not so easy to induce the Wyandots to place so great
confidence in the deserter, but the message sent by the
Canadian seemed to make it certain that the officer and
scout had in reality gone over to the side of the red man,
and that the latter now lay under sentence of death for hav-
ing done so. One by one, therefore, the savages yielded to
the conviction that the proposed plan was the best for them,
and preparations were made to attack what was supposed to
be the vanguard of the American army, but what in reality
would be the chief force of the " Legion."
On the 15th, the Americans, as Pollock had sent word,
moved forward. Litcomb, with Peggy as an aid-de-camp,
had been placed in charge of the small body of Indians who
were to attempt the rescue of Campbell ; but his followers
in name were his masters in reality, and he found that he
was neither to choose his ground or arrange his plan of
attack : his function, indeed, was limited to appearing in his
regimentals and bespeaking the favor of his fellow-soldiers.
Nor was this all, for, while no other arms were allowed him
than his sword, two of the grimmest of the grim Hurons,
with unfailing rifle and tomahawk, were obviously placed to
watch him through the contest. Such had been the advice
of Matthew Elliot. The Lieutenant, seeing these things,
made up his mind that he and his wife must die, whatever
the result of the conflict might be. If the Indians were
430 ^ THE HYPOCHONDRIAC.
destroyed, it would not be till they had first slain" their de-
ceivers; and if they escaped annihilation by the forces of
Wayne, the stake and brand would surely become the por-
tion of the white spies, for it was not to be doubted that
the appearance of the whole American army would satisfy
the Indians that they had been deceived.
As he ruminated these things, and meditated what advice
he ought to give Peggy under the circumstances, the party
reached the place selected for the attack ; it was where a
marsh, filled with weeds and bushes, extended parallel to
the river, leaving room for the whites to pass on solid ground
between it and the bank, but of such a character that no
troops could enter it. Here the savages were concealed
with great care, and with instructions to shoot down from
their cover every officer that came in sight, and then, show-
ing themselves, with Litcomb at their head, to call for the
discontented of the American force to join them. In order
to mislead the faithfnl scouts of Wayne, a few Indians were
to show themselves at the west end of the rnorass, and pass
north toward the woods, as if to a main body concealed
there.
Day was just breaking as these arrangements were all
completed by the Wyandots, and as the light veiled the
stars, Litcomb perceived with a joy that almost forced him
to shout in triumph, a fog rising from the river and marsh
that would soon wrap every thing in uncertainty.
While the Hurons and their half-trusted white allies were
making these preparations, the army of the States began to
move, and Pollock with Johnny Grant, to whom he had
communicated every thing, took his place as a scout in ad-
vance of the regulars. As the fog enveloped them shortly,
it became necessary to move with great caution, and the
two spies found themselves almost at a loss. It had been
Pollock's plan, or rather his hope, to learn the position of
his friends and their savage attendants before the army came
THE HYPOCHONDRIAC. 431
in sight ; and he doubted not that he should be able to aid
them to good purpose if he could do so. But the same fog
which gave Litcomb some hope of evading his watchers,
took from his friends on the other side all chance of helping
him to do so. In an atmosphere less transparent than that
of midnight, therefore, the Legion of Wayne, or rather its
front guard, which on that morning consisted of two compa-
nies about half a mile in advance of the main body, came to
the swamp. This atmosphere made useless the proposed
feint of the Hurons, and so the whole of the red men, in
number about forty, lay listening for the tramp of the foe.
But the mist which puzzled our friend Pollock defeated also
the plan suggested by Elliot for getting rid at the first fire
of the American leaders, and made it necessary for a volley
to be fired into the dense mass of moving soldiers, and then
a rush made with tomahawks and knives. Word to this
effect was passed from bush to bush, and the Lieutenant be-
came more hopeful than ever that, in the confusion which
must follow such a rush, he and his helpmate might escape.
The troops drew near, and the Indian rifles were half-
raised to their positions, all, as Litcomb noticed, except
those of his two watchers, whose eyes never seemed to wink
even as they followed his slightest movement. Observing
this, he beckoned to the dim-seen chief who plainly direct-
ed affairs, and saying that, as his appearance in such a mist
would be useless, it would be wiser for him to go to the rear
of the body, began to move, with Peggy by his side, away
from the coming troops. The chief interpreted this sudden
movement as Litcomb meant he should, into an evidence of
arrant cowardice, and, with a smile of disdain, motioned to
one of the two Wyandots who had watched the Lieutenant
to follow him still, while he called the other to his own as-
sistance. The tread of the Americans was now near by,
and so loud as to make it needless for Litcomb and his
attendant to be very cautious as to the sounds they made
432 THE HYPOCHONDRIAC.
themselves ; they pressed rapidly, therefore, toward a little
hill which rose at a short distance before them, it being the
captive's determination to close with his guard as soon as the
battle began, and make one desperate effort for life and
liberty.
Meanwhile Pollock and Johnny Grant, who had often
gone round and through this swump in their excursions, had
determined to examine it this morning, as they thought it
not unlikely the Indians might be there. Entering it on the
rear, they had discovered the ambuscade, and, retreating
again, lay concealed among the bushes of the hillock, to-
wards which Litcomb, Peggy, and the Huron were hasten-
ing, it having been their intention to attack the rear of the
Indians while engaged with the companies in front. But
when they saw the Lieutenant, the boy Peter, and their
companion, and comprehended, as they soon did, how mat-
ters stood, their plan changed, and they lay in utter silence,
waiting the attack in front of them to shoot the frowning
Wyandot, who, on his side, itched to slay and scaip the
pale-face that took him from the skirmish with its harvest
of hair.
A few moments only passed before the expected attack
took place ; the Indian rifles gave one fatal discharge, the
shriek of death sounded in the ears of the bewildered sol-
diers, and the savages with knife and hatchet were among
them. At this instant, Litcomb sprang to his feet to battle
for himself, when, to his wonder, the tall Indian before him
was bent double, and, with a shiver and a groan, fell to his
knee, and forward upon his face. The bullet of Pollock
had gone through his heart. The instant appearance of that
worthy and his companion, explained all, and there was no
time for words. But what next ? The three men must
plunge into the foggy fight, so much was certain, but for
Peggy? She said she was not afraid, no one would touch
her there, and, speedily concealing herself, bade her hus-
THE HYPOCHONDRIAC. 433
band take the rifle of the fallen Indian, and prove by his
acts that he was no traitor to Wayne. It was the only plan
to be thought of, and the three Americans, with arms in
readiness for action, moved cautiously through the mist, so
as to come upon the rear of the savages, if they were acting
still under cover of the bushes, and left Peggy to her fate.
To her fate ! could Litcomb have foreseen it, he would
sooner have poured the contents of his rifle into her bosom
than have left her.
Bill Strong had been aware that Pollock had suspected
him of foul play for a day or two past ; and when the two
scouts set forth that morning, Strong dogged their steps,
and at the moment of the rescue of Litcomb lay not twenty
yards off, watching for an opportunity of closing Pollock's
mouth, and stilling his brain for ever. He understood, from
the little he could see and the little he could hear, that
Peggy, though in disguise, was present, and that she was
left to her fate. He waited till his comrades were far
enough away, crept to her hiding-place, and before she
was aware, seized her, bound her mouth, confined her
limbs, and before her husband had closed with the enemy
was bearing the captive of his treachery away in his arms
as readily as a lion bears the antelope of the desert.
The skirmish over, and it did not, could not, last long,
for the body of the legion came quickly up, our Lieutenant
and his friend hastened back to the hillock, but no boy Pe-
ter was there. Their quick eyes, however, detected the
heavy foot of a larger man than either of them in the prints
upon the neighbouring marsh, and these they followed until
they were lost amid the crowd of marks which showed
where the savages had retreated when they found that no
desertion took place from the American ranks to their own.
All individual traces being lost there of necessity, Litcomb,
more mournful than ever, returned to the American army.
We cannot stop to detail how the Lieutenant, Pollock,
VOL. i. 37
434 THE HYPOCHONDRIAC.
and the Canadian, by their joint evidence, proved the inno-
cence of Arthur Campbell, and the guilt of Strong. We
need not dwell on the interview, in which Arthur, as the
only reward for his fidelity, asked leave to seek his sister.
Nor can we follow him in those investigations which led
him to think she had fallen into the hands that had sought
her husband's blood, and that in some way, probably through
losing his path in the fog, Strong and his victim had passed
into the power of the Hurons. We must content our-
selves with saying that Arthur, informed by Litcomb of
the devotion to Peggy of the Indian girl she had helped
when poisoned, made up his mind to visit the camp of the
savages, wherever it might be, and to effect the freedom of
his sister or share her fate.
It is near the noon of the 17th of August, three days
before the battle which closed our Indian wars in Ohio.
The survivors of the skirmish of the 15th, and in the dark-
ness of that day few on either side had been killed, had
rejoined the main body of Indians, some fifty miles below
Grand Glaize, and had borne with them, chance prisoners,
Strong and his prey, who had wandered into their hands.
The sex of Peggy had been discovered, and while the squaw
she had saved was thereby more bound to her than ever,
the mass of the savages became perfectly satisfied that all
the whites who had been among them as deserters were in
truth spies and deceivers. Having lost Campbell and Lit-
comb, therefore, they condemned to death by fire the only
two in their clutches, Peggy and her brutal gallant. It is,
as we have said, near noon of the 17th, clear, crystal-
line, summer weather. The natives are gathered in a large
opening, in the midst of which Strong and his fainting com-
panion are bound among the selected fagots by the hands
of the torture-loving squaws; and, strange to see, the girl
that had been bitten by the serpent, and her mother, are
most active of all in binding her benefactress to the stake,
THE HYPOCHONDRIAC. 435
and pouring insults into her ears. The chiefs come forth ;
the crowd presses into a more regular circle ; the torches
are waving in the hands of the old women, volunteer execu-
tioners ; a moment more and all will be alight, when from
the outside of the throng arises a cry, shrieking and scold-
ing, mingled with a laugh so full of madness that the blood
was chilled by it. The fire-kindlers pause ; the cries in-
crease ; the crowd wavers and parts, and, rushing through it
bent almost horizontally, comes a human being with matted
hair, torn clothing, a skin bleeding from a hundred wounds,
and eyes like those of the hyena. A delirious, raging white
man, a prophet, an inspired, God-protected white man,
and from the fragments of his clothing, it would seem
a Canadian. All stand amazed, doubtful. With a cry of
madness the new-comer springs upon the torch-bearers,
snatches their brands and extinguishes them ; then, laugh-
ing and dancing, takes his place before the doomed. The
Indians look on, awe-struck, overcome. The madman, or
prophet, scoops with his nails a little hollow in front of each
prisoner, blows into it ; then on each side he scoops oth-
ers, and so, too, behind. And now he takes the extinguished,
but yet smoking torch, closes his hands over it, raises it to
the sun, mutters a few words of magic, and it bursts into a
flame again ; then he passes round the condemned with his
taper, and, as he goes, a circle of fire kindles along the
ground behind him, and from the cavities he had hollowed
clouds of dense white smoke arise. Nay, with a shudder,
the Indians see that it is pouring from the man himself,
he seems about to burst into flames, and, as he approaches,
the boldest warrior shrieks and falls back. Again and again
the stranger conjuror walks his round until his own form is
undistinguishable, and the victims are lost in the vapor,
which rolls away into the woods on the north, and from the
fumes of which all turn dismayed. And now in front, toward
the river, from the white smoke-cloud burst colored flames,
436 THE HYPOCHONDRIAC.
blue, yellow, red, purple ; and, more astounded than ever,
the crowd presses to behold the miracle. Then the flames
cease ; the smoke thins ; the crowd slackens and wavers
back. But where is the conjuror ? Where the woman that
should have died ? Where the Wyandot girl that had been
saved from death by her, and yet bound her death bonds ?
Did she bind them too slackly ? Strong stands where he
was ; but the post of the woman is vacant.
It is evening of the same day; let us glance at two scenes
and we are done.
At the spot where the two spies were to have been
burnt that day, are gathered again a multitude. They
come now, not with the torch, for they are yet doubtful
as to the power that defeated them at noon, but with
their rifles. Strong is bound to a tree ; his body to the
waist is bound ; and, as the sun sinks towards the horizon,
the young men of the Shawanesc practise at a distance
their hands, and eyes, and guns, upon the wretched suffer-
er ; and inch by inch, minute by minute, cut his flesh and
spill his blood, but shun the heart and the brain.
Round their camp-fire at the head of the Rapids, where
they had just arrived, sat Litcomb, Pollock, Grant, and an
officer connected with the artillery department. The latter is
telling his companions of the wonders of pyrotechny, of the
wonders that ean be wrought by sun-glasses and means as
simple as the kindling of a common fire. " And all this,"
says Litcomb, " you laid before him ? "
"For the year past," answers the artillerist, "Arthur has
been using his quiet movements in the study of these se-
crets, little dreaming that he should ever use them as he has
done, I trust, to-day."
The Lieutenant looks, however, more mournful than
hopeful ; he has faith, and so have his companions, in fire
applied to a musket or a rifle, but smoke they make little
opinion of, except when used to make bacon ; and as for col-
THE HYPOCHONDRIAC. 437
ored flames, they take those to be Satan's private property.
So they sit, more and more mournful, when, like a thunder-
clap, Anthony himself bursts in, laughing till the tears run
down his cheeks, and bringing with him the conjuror and
the captive, the victim and the hypochondriac.
37
A WEEK AMONG THE "KNOBS."
" BEFORE you leave us," said the Judge one morning as
we were waging war against the corn-cakes and honey-
comb, " before you leave us," said he, " I reckon you 'd
like to see a specimen of the Kentuck nabob ; so, if you
please, we '11 step over the first fair day to Colonel Mar-
shall's, and make a call." " How far is it ? " asked I.
"Thirty-five miles," said the Judge. "And you are going
thirty-five miles to make a call ? " " Ay, my dear fellow ;
what 's your trouble ? We '11 call round and spend a
week, make a Kentucky call ; that 's the idea."
In the course of a couple of days the wind veered west-
ward, and the young leaves of the surrounding forests, and
the herbage of the knobs and valleys, came forth greener
and brighter than ever. The thousand birds, whose names
I know not, sung merrily ; the calves in the meadow gam-
bolled ; the young colts frolicked, and the honey-bees hum-
med round the open windows in momentary idleness ; the
very swine that rooted and grunted in the orchard seemed
to be more light-hearted, and to grunt with more gout.
But though the little run at the foot of the garden, which
had foamed and sputtered so two days before, was now
quiet and civil again, yet the creek, we were told by old
man Anderson, was still too high for a dry passage, and we
determined to wait another dav and let it run down. The
A WEEK AMONG THE " KNOBS." 439
next morning in due season arrived, as bright and as merry
as any young belle of the country round; and, our horses
being brought to the block, we mounted and set off amid the
shouts of twenty little negroes, whose hearts leaped for joy to
think that " massa would be gone long while," and they
escape " mazing deal o' work." The roads were somewhat
deep, and our " leggins " became very much spattered, and
my own feet soaked ; but the Judge, more used to Kentucky
riding, managed to cross the creeks dryshod. However, it
was warm, and my blood was running swiftly, and I cared
not a whit for wet feet. The Judge had a bottle of cherry-
bounce too, and that he reckoned was enough to thaw us out
had we slept twenty years under an iceberg. As we jour-
neyed, the Judge gave me a clew to the character of the
Colonel. " He 's a very fair specimen," said he, " of the
noble Kentuckian, with all his faults and all his virtues. He
was born here in a log fort, brought up with a tomahawk in
one hand and a bowl of mush and milk in the other, until
he was big enough to tote a rifle, and then he took to that.
He fought the Indians while there were any to fight, and
when they were gone turned to and farmed. He raised
stock, and still does so, and receives ten thousand dollars
cash for what he sends to market yearly. He was a colonel
in our last war, and did wonders in some of the frontier
skirmishes ; for his courage is that of a lion, and his
strength, too, for that matter. In high party times, when it
was dangerous to go to the polls unarmed, Marshall did more
than any man about to keep the rabble in order. They
feared him, for if his word was not heeded, they knew his
fist, foot, cudgel, dirk, pistol, and rifle were all ready to
enforce obedience. He 's a man of strong prejudices, and
despises the Yankees; so you must mind and not let out that
you 're one. For myself, he forgives my Yankee origin,
and swears ' by Old Virginny ' it was a mistake. His hos-
pitality is unbounded ; cheap as living is to a planter, all his
440 A WEEK AMONG THE " KNOBS."
ten thousand a year goes to the winds in a mighly small time.
In short, he 's rough as a bear, noble as a lion, kind and
faithful as a mastiff, and withal full of that wisdom which
comes from men, and not books, from studying character
and nature, and tracing for himself effects to causes."
We spent the night at a little inn on the road, and the
next day about noon reached the place of our destination.
We entered through a very rusty and broken gate, which
slammed to behind us, as if very much offended at being
opened, upon a natural park. The greensward was short
and velvety ; the undulation of the surface and roundness of
the declivities, almost, as it seemed, artificial; while the scat-
tered clumps of trees, beneath which the cattle and horses
stood in sleepy and solemn happiness, gave to the scene an
English air, which was scarce destroyed by the worm-fences
and droves of swine, both truly American accompaniments.
Nearly a quarter of a mile from the road stood the man-
sion, half seen, half hidden by the mass of foliage which
covered the trees and vines around it. It was a rather old-
fashioned looking domicile, with large windows, having very
clumsy frames and small glasses or lights, and with a long
piazza or stoop upon the north and east sides. The main
building was flanked by two smaller ones, and surrounded
by an infinity of log-cabins, barns, stables, and I know not
what all.
Soon after we entered the park, we started a whole covey
of little woolly-headed fellows, who grinned, turned up their
great eyes at us, and then set out for another part of the
domain with all speed, tumbling now and then head over
heels as they rushed down the hill-side. The pigs, too, half
wild, would start as we came near them, look up, give a
quick, sharp, angry grunt, and scamper away as their' an-
cestors of the forests of Europe did before them. Presently,
as we came near the white garden-fence, we were brought
to by a voice from the right. " Halloo, Judge," shouted
A WEEK AMONG THE " KNOBS." 441
some one, " I reckon you aint your spectacles on this morn-
ing, or else your Yankee blood is getting the better of your
Kentucky raising"; and as he spoke, the speaker pushed
his way, his rifle in advance, through a mass of shrubbery
on one side the path. He was a tall man, and stout almost
to corpulency ; his face was square, his mouth small, lips
thin, his nose hooked, and from under his gray 'and knitted
brows his eyes shone with a look of suspicion and defiance ;
his head was gray, as I saw from the long locks which fell
upon his coat-collar, and his breast was open. " Ah, Colo-
nel," said the Judge, as the Colonel wiped his brow, " so
we 've caught you playing Indian, lurking in the bushes ? "
" Playing Indian, indeed ! " said the other ; " I reckon if I
play Indian with you, most learned Judge, 't will be with El-
len's shot-gun or Aunt Dinah's syringe, and not this old deer-
killer ; but who 's this you 've got along, Judge ? " " This,"
answered the man of law, " is a young shoot of the Buckeye
bar ; he came over to see some of the wild Kentucks, and
so I brought him down to spend a week with you." " He 's
right welcome," and the Colonel strode up and shook me
fiercely by the hand, " he 's right welcome, I say, and I
reckon if he don't find us Kentucks wild as we were, he '11
not, at any rate, think us too tame. So come, stranger, you
go on to the house, and I '11 soon join you ; and mind, now,
you need n't knock, as I 'm told they do in Cincinnati. I
reckon we don't do nothing in our house we 're afraid to
have the world see " ; and so saying, with long and rapid
strides the Kentuckian took his way for the wood.
We jogged on to the door, threw our reins to an old negro
who stood ready to receive them, and who took ofF his
remnant of a hat to the Judge with an unutterable grin, and
walked into the house without knocking. My friend had
told me that the Colonel's wife was dead, and that he had
but a single daughter, Ellen, upon whom he had not, how-
ever, expatiated, and in whom I expected to find a very
442 A WEEK AMONG THE "KNOBS."
ordinary maiden. What, then, was my surprise, when,
having thrown our saddlebags into a corner, hung up our
overcoats and hats, disposed of our leggins, and walked
into the parlour, I saw through a window which looked out
to the west a girl of eighteen dancing along the grassplat,
her straw bonnet hanging upon her shoulders, her light
shawl wrapped round one arm, her dark hair swaying with
the motion, and a face, form, and complexion which some-
how went direct to my heart, or rather the place where
my heart should have been, for it had been absent some
time. She evidently did not know any strangers had come,
and, singing as she ran and skipped along, was at a back-
door and in the room before I could say a word to my com-
rade. Seeing us, she stopped, blushed, and then, recogniz-
ing the Judge, sprang past me, grasped his hand, welcomed
him warmly, and then, bless me, kissed him ! I drew my
breath as one does when he steps into a bath of cold water.
She turned to me, the Judge introduced us, and, with a
mingled delicacy and freedom of bearing that might have
done honor to the goddess Diana, she took my hand and
bade me welcome. But there was no kiss then, in truth, I
did not expect one.
" Did you see my father ? "
"Yes, he met us in the path, rifle in hand."
" Was there a young man with him ? "
" No ; is there one staying here ? "
" There is, a young man from your own Yankee land.
Mr. Clay gave him letters to father."
" A Yankee ! Why is he here ? I should think your
father would be afraid to have him in the house."
" So he is, and plagues poor Ned almost to death. He 's
been here for a month past ; I don't know what for, I 'm
sure, but I reckon he wants to write a book about us, for
he 's always in his own room, scribbling like a mad man.
But I must see to your rooms and your dinner, and tell
A WEEK AMONG THE "KNOBS." 443
Job to turn your horses out. Where is your baggage, or I
suppose, as a Kentucky girl, I should say, plunder? In the
entry ? Well, good-by till dinner-time. And so Julia 's mar-
ried, is she ? How funny it seems ! Does she look much
older? " Then, turning to me with that same kind smile
again, she said, pointing to a book-case, " If you should wish
to read, Sir, we have a few volumes, not written in Chero-
kee, either. I have some in my room beside, and if you
are not as afraid of a lady's boudoir as Ned Vaughan is,
come, and I '11 show you the way to my castle." And
away she went, as light and rapid as if innocence and health
had clothed her with unseen wings. She took me to her
room, a little attic, crowded with books, and pictures, and
flowers, and needle-work, upon which the sunlight played
fitfully, falling through a curtain of leaves, and bidding me
consider it all my property, " except the needle-work," said
she, " and the rest, when I want to be alone," away she
bounded again, leaving me standing in her boudoir, in a
happy maze of wonder, admiration, and let me see, I
think the proper word is respect. I took up a book which
lay open upon the table, and started to find it was an English
edition of Coleridge's Friend, the margin crowded with pen-
cil writing, and Ellen Marshall's name upon the title-page.
To find a woman who could con amore read Coleridge, in
the wilds of Kentucky, took me by surprise, and I never so
envied the philosopher of Highgate Hill as at that moment.
By its side was a volume containing translations of several
of Schiller's plays ; below this was Madame de Stael's Ger-
many, then Spenser's Faerie Queene, and I cannot say what
else, for the rush of thoughts into my head made it swim.
To give the particulars of our sojourn at Echo Vale (for
so the estate is named) would take too much time and pa-
per ; a"nd I will merely sketch as I can the scene of the day
before our intended departure. It was Ellen's birthday, and
the house was thrown open to all, friends and strangers.
444 A WEEK AMONG THE " KNOBS."
But first of Edward Vaughan,the young New-Englander,
of whom I have as yet said nothing. The truth was, that
he proved to be a highly respectable, talented, and good-
hearted fellow, and was, as I soon discovered, dead in love
with Ellen. The Colonel liked him in all points, only that
he was a Yankee ; how the lady looked upon him may be
guessed from the transactions of that last fatal day.
A week of fine weather soon passed amid hunting, and
riding, and racing, and shooting, and fishing, and gardening,
and eating, and drinking, and the other occupations of a
Kentucky gentleman, not to mention the devotion of an hour
or two a day to my backwoods blue-stocking, whom I found
as much deeper than myself in the mysteries of belles-lettres
as in those of woodcraft, and who. as her tastes and habits
were at variance with those around her, seized upon me as
a fellow-countryman in a foreign land, and read with me
and talked with me in a manner most dangerous and be-
witching. Vaughan was afraid to trust himself alone with
her, but why was a mystery to her. " I won't bite you,"
she said, as he turned off to his solitary chamber, while I
bounded up to her little studio. " Look at /tm," she con-
tinued, pointing to me, " he is not either dead or crazy,
Edward, though he comes to my enchanted castle ten times
a day." But poor Ned shook his pate, and went his way sor-
rowfully, for he would not do any thing to bring about what
he knew would make the Colonel mad and miserable, though
he could not at the same time but linger round the treasure he
dared not touch. " What a pity," she said to me, as I threw
open the little window, " what a pity he 's so silent and her-
mitish! I really think he must be in love." Then, catching
my eye, she blushed, though why she could not have told for
her life ; and, taking the volume we were reading, " Come,
Mr. Sarcastic," said she, " read your lesson, like a good boy,
and don't stand there staring at your mistress " ; and at the
word mistress she blushed again. In ten minutes we were
A WEEK AMONG THE " KNOBS." 445
deep in the lore of Jeremy Taylor, and as I gazed on her
yet flushed countenance, over which the sunlight gleamed,
broken by the leaves of the honeysuckle which shrouded
the window, and her own fair tresses, I did long to be
a limner ; not that she looked so very beautiful, but be-
cause she looked so good, so kind, so Christian. A week,
I say, soon passed ; every day one or more persons were
with us, but when Ellen's birthday drew near, they came
in, not singly, but by companies of five and ten. Every
room, every outhouse, was filled ; the pastures teemed with
horses, and saddlebags were as plenty as blackberries.
Ellen was forced to give up her chamber, and sleep in the
little attic, so that my visits there were at an end.
The eventful day came, clothed in beauty. Nature her-
self seemed to consider it a kind of Sabbath ; at least, in our
eyes it appeared so. The negroes, headed by a venerable
piece of ebony from' Virginia, woke us with music and
dancing ; and, to the sound of the banjo and fiddle, sung most
uncouth songs under fair Ellen's window. The forenoon
was passed by some in shooting at a mark ; by others in
wrestling, jumping, running, swinging, or lounging, and of
the last I presume a Kentuckian can do as much in as little
time as any man in the world, that is, if he has leisure.
The Colonel and his daughter were busy preparing dinner.
At one o'clock we dined. Of the dinner I will attempt no
description, for I have no time to say what we had noi,
much less what we had. A vast deal was eaten, and no
little drank. At three the feast was over, and a more up-
roarious set of mortals than came forth into the lawn, it
would be hard to find of a summer's day.
Now it chanced that the Colonel had been told by some
of his guests, that it was reported that Ned Vaughan was to
marry Ellen. It was a new idea to the old man, and his
blood was boiling in a moment at the notion of a Yankee
being wedded to his daughter. His wrath against Vaughan
VOL. I. 38
446 A WEEK AMONG THE " KNOBS."
was not diminished by that youth's abstinence from, and
open disapproval of, ardent spirits ; and he had, moreover,
heard something about the iniquity of slavery fall from him.
" The swindlers," said he to some one near him, " they
would come here with their cold-water doctrines, their fasts,
their prayers, and their Abolition notions, and make us the
same miserable, snivelling, lizard-blooded things with them-
selves, fit only to dig the earth, and cheat all their honest
neighbours ; but I reckon they '11 find it mighty hard to
mount old Kentuck, after all."
In the kindly state of mind evidenced by these words, the
Colonel, when a ride after dinner was proposed, ordered Job
to saddle Devildam for Mr. Edward Vaughan. " Why, fa-
ther ! " cried Ellen, " you surely don't mean so ; Edward 's
but a young horseman, and you can scarce govern that mare
yourself." " Mr. Edward Vaughan, if you please, Miss
Ellen," thundered the Colonel ; " as for the horse, Mr.
Vaughan can have that or stay. But I trust he 's not a
coward, or afraid of a mare ; if he be, he 's no business in
Kentucky." " Father," replied Ellen, catching his arm,
" I will stay, and Mr. Vaughan can have Flora." " You
shall neither stay, nor he have Flora. Go and rig, girl, and
say no more." With tears in her eyes she did so, for she
saw her father was angry and heated with liquor, and knew
remonstrance would be useless.
The truth undoubtedly was, that the old man wished to
make Vaughan ridiculous by putting him upon a horse he
could not control, for a poor horseman in Kentucky meets
with but little quarter. The horses were saddled, and with
many a whoop and halloo the company mounted. I assisted
Ellen to her seat, and then spoke to Vaughan, who was
was quietly tightening his girth, and whose composure was
not shaken, though he had heard all the conversation which
had taken place, and knew his danger. " Never mind,"
said he, " faint heart never won fair lady." I smiled, and so
A WEEK AMONG THE " KNOBS." 447
did he, at the appropriateness of the proverb. We mounted
and were off. At first Vaughan's mare was restive, but he
soon made her almost as calm as himself, and trotted quietly
on by the side of Flora and her mistress. The Colonel,
finding his plans were making things worse instead of
better, determined that, if the mare would not go of her own
accord, he 'd make her, and slipping behind his guest and
daughter, he managed, unobserved, to strike the mare a
smart blow. It had the desired effect ; the rein was loose,
and in an instant, seizing the bit in her teeth, she was off.
But she was not alone in her race. Flora also was a horse
of spirit ; her rein was also loose, and, started by the sudden
spring of her comrade, she was off like an arrow, too.
Away, away they went, now on the hill, now lost from sight
in the valley, scattering to the right and left those of our
company who were in advance. Away, away they still
went, side by side, like riders on the course. Presently we
saw them rising the side of a hill upon a path which deviated
from the main road, and which, as we all knew, terminated
in an abrupt precipice, where the hill had been dug away
for stone.
The Colonel, who had ridden on in silence and evident
anxiety, when he saw the route the runaways had taken, set
his horse at full speed, shouting as he did so, " Ride ! for
Heaven's sake, ride, gentlemen ! On ! on ! They will be
over the bluff, they will be killed ! For God's sake ride,
ride to their rescue ! " and he was off, too, like the wind.
We followed him as we could. I saw the fugitives near the
top of the hill ; I saw Vaughan struggling with his horse,
and then he was by Ellen's side, and, as I thought, catching
at her bridle, and then we swept down into the hollow and
lost sight of them. When we gained the next ridge, there
was but one horse to be seen, and but one figure, and that
was not erect. On, on we spurred, and now the whole
party is racing up the hill-side. The horse that is in sight
448 A WEEK AMONG THE " KNOBS."
is Flora, the kneeling figure is Ellen. I shuddered as I
thought of the fate of my late comrade. Nearer and nearer
we come, and now we see that Ellen is leaning over some-
thing. It is Vaughan, senseless and bathed in blood, and
she is chafing his temples. Her father is at her side, and
in a moment we all surround the group.
A physician chanced to be of the party, and, while he
took charge of the wounded man, I walked to the edge of
the precipice ; the mutilated, but still quivering, creature my
friend had ridden lay among the rocks below.
A few words from Ellen told the tale. Vaughan found
they were approaching certain destruction, and, nearing
Ellen, he managed to grasp her rein, and throwing himself
from his own horse, by his weight he succeeded in stopping
Flora in time, but only by being himself trodden under foot
and almost killed. The physician pronounced that he was
only stunned, and had a few ribs broken, that was all. He
was taken home on a litter made of boughs by some of the
woodsmen, and placed in bed. Ellen and her father re-
turned together, and neither, I observed, said one word.
For forty-eight hours it was doubtful if Vaughan would live
or die, but the third day he was much better. About noon
of that day the Colonel came in, and, after sitting a few min-
utes in silence, holding the sick man's hand, " Edward,"
said he, " you 've not only saved Ellen's life, but have
saved me from being a murderer, and of my own and only
child," and he laid his face upon the bed. " Colonel Mar-
shall," said Vaughan, " I know all that you have done, and
forgive you. You meant me no harm, and though your
conduct was rash, it was not criminal." " Do you forgive
me ! " and the old man raised his hand to heaven. " Thea
I may hope my Maker will forgive me. Edward Vaughan,
I have suffered more in two days than in all past time else,
for I felt myself a murderer; but you have relieved me
from that load of guilt. For Ellen, I know your wishes ;
A WEEK AMONG THE " KNOBS." 449
you 've saved her, and she 's yours." " I hope I may live
to receive her from your hands, Sir." " Live ! you shall
live. Come, my dear fellow, none of that talk ; you must
live, you '11 soon be well."
We staid another week for Vaughan's sake. He recov-
ered rapidly, and though nothing was said to Ellen by any
one, yet from certain symptoms, the lotions and beverages
that she made, and the way she administered them, it was
evident to me that Coleridge, poor fellow, would soon be
neglected, and another " Friend " studied and noted ; and
that as to Jeremy Taylor, he would thenceforth be seldom
called upon, except, perhaps, for his sermon on the mar-
riage ring.
38*
THE JUDGE'S HUNT.
DENNIS O'SHAUGHNESSY was as true an Irish lad as ever
was born in the county of Tipperary. His father, who was
always in hot water, perhaps because he never would
meddle with cold, mourned and drank so hard at his poor
wife's wake that he soon slept himself in consequence ; and,
Dennis was left with scarce a friend in the world, save the
old sow that suckled hirn.
There 's a bump on an Irishman's head for whiskey ; and
the poor little O'Shaughnessy had been taught early in life
to believe that drinking the " raal potheen " was no more
than a short-hand way of eating potatoes ; and now that he
was a lone orphan boy, he kissed his foster-mother, and,
giving her a breakfast of the raw material, took himself a
little of the essence, from the big jug that had murdered his
father.
At eighteen years of age, as near as he could guess,
Dennis came to America, as sturdy a young tippler as ever
worked in a canal ; full to the brim of fun, fight, and for-
giveness ; ready to work well and faithfully for six days, if
at the end of the six he could have one to himself, on which
to enjoy a " raal drunk." On one of the countless waves of
emigration, Dennis was cast over the mountains, and landed
in a small settlement in the east of Kentucky, among the
Knobs, a part of the world where men sell their wives for
THE JUDGE'S HUNT. 451
rifles, and swap off a promising family for a race-horse. It
is here that my story catches him.
So much for my hero ; now let me introduce the lady.
Contentment Carter was born in the valley of the Housa-
tonic, in the west of the respectable, and once great, State of
Massachusetts.
"She was not very beautiful, if beautiful it be
To have a forehead and a lip transparent as the sea."
No, she was freckled, and had a pug nose ; and yet, to the
swains of her native village, she was " dreadful pooty,"
there was such a good-natured cast in her eye, and so sweet
a welcome in her smile. She broke half a dozen hearts
before she was twenty, though most of them were coopered
up again by other damsels of the neighbourhood ; and yet,
when twenty-five came, she was still but 'Tent Carter, and
on the savage side of the Alleghanies.
But here she found another beau more devoted than even
those of her native valley, our friend Dennis, of course,
known at first as " Dennis the Biter," in contradistinction to
some in the settlement who were only snappers, but of late
more generally called " Dennis the Sponge," in compliment
to his unlimited powers of soaking. 'Tent Carter, however,
was not the girl to marry a man whose gains were mere con-
solidated whiskey, and whose clothes were all in tatters,
in short, of such loose habits, and so she told him, and
left him to choose between a wife and a whiskey-bottle.
Things had staggered to and fro in this way for a year or
more, when I arrived at the settlement, in company with my
respected friend, Judge E, , the judge of that district.
Being unable to go to business at once, in consequence of the
court-house having been used as a barn during harvest, we
spent the first day after arriving, I in shooting, the Judge in
assisting the settlers to finish a large log building, wherein
justice was for a time to abide. At evening, we again as-
sembled round the ample fireplace.
452 THE JUDGE'S HUNT.
The Judge had just rolled in a log which he had been
attempting in vain to split, and with his feet upon the rough
stone jamb, and his chair at a comfortable angle, was work-
ing out some law point, or thinking over the Major's account
of how he fatted his pigs, when we were both startled by
hearing a number of voices, and the trampling of many
men. The judge opened the door, and there was half the
village. A guerilla warfare of question and answer imme-
diately commenced, from which we gathered, with much
ditliculty, that Contentment Carter was missing, and so was
Dennis, her suitor; and as Dennis was a mighty desperate
fellow, and Contentment had pulled his ears publicly only a
week previous, and as they had been seen together that
afternoon, why two and two make four, and it was voted
unanimously that Dennis ought to be tracked, and the poor
girl rescued. The Judge agreed, and in fifteen minutes it
was settled that, at daybreak the next morning, he and some
half-dozen others should start in pursuit of the kidnapper.
This done, the bustle subsided, the man of law again assum-
ed his American position ; and I, with infinite relish, eat my
hoe-cake, and meditated upon my destined bed ; and in due
time we all retired to our corn-shucks.
When the Judge shook me in the morning, although the
gray streaks of day were visible, the stars were still pursu-
ing their silent and mystic courses, and a moon in the last
quarter looked down coldly upon the damp earth. An
October morning among the interminable forests of the
West is not peculiarly agreeable to a man whose bones are
a favorite manor-house of the rheumatism ; and when I
looked down into the run, where the mist lay clammy and
dead, and up at the dripping trees, and the skim-milk sky,
which seemed parboiled, like a washer-woman's fingers, and
thought of a wet horse, and a soaked saddle, and a long
stroll through the damp woods, and among the tall weeds of
the clearings, such a twinge shot through me, I thought I
THE JUDGE'S HUNT. 453
should have to turn in again. But, on the other hand, be-
fore me stood our party, all equipped, save the Judg, who
was washing himself at the spring ; and as I should be ridi-
culed if I stayed, and might, if I went, see some sport, I
too ducked my head in the bucket, saddled my nag, clapped
a few corn-dodgers in my pocket in case of need, and was
ready as soon as my senior.
Some of the party had been out the evening before and
learnt the direction in which Dennis was going when last
seen ; and one said, that old man Wood, who had seen Den-
nis, had met Contentment on her pony but a little while
previous. This, of course, confirmed our suspicions. Fol-
lowing our guide, therefore, Indian file, we descended into
the run, and stood up its course, northwardly, through a fog
that was indeed " darkness visible." For hours we toiled
on slowly, at times in the broken and stony bed of the
shrunken stream, and .at times upon the side of the steep
and slippery bank, where no nags but those of the back-
woods could have trod in safety ; and for hours we could
see nothing but the man before us, and the ghostly shapes
of the dim trees, and now and then a branch which stretched
across the path, apparently self-supported in the mist ; and
heard no sound but that of the horses' feet, and occasion-
ally the scream of some startled bird far in the tree-tops
above us.
At last, just as my patience was becoming somewhat rag-
ged, a halt was ordered. All of us that were rearward, sup-
posing the enemy in sight of the warriors in front, prepared
our rifles; and I felt a cold sweat stealing over my body,
and my teeth began to chatter most indecorously, until I
learned that our party was here to separate. Part of us
struck into a buffalo-track, which led over the hills west-
ward, and part kept on, in order to inform an uncle of Con-
tentment's, who lived somewhere in the distance, of what
had taken place.
454 THE JUDGE'S HUNT.
As we rose into the hills, we mounted above the regions
of dampness, and made acquaintance with the morning
sun. On the brow of the first rise, a scrap of woods of a
few hundred acres had been burned, and we rested, and
looked back at the IMuto-ish realms we had just quitted.
The sun had been up long enough to wake the mists ; and
around the distant knobs the lazy fogs were climbing and
clinging, looking as loth to leave their calm beds as ever
did a school -boy on Sunday morning; or perhaps it was
modesty, they hated to be thus forced to leave their her-
mit-cells, to go up into the heavens and be looked at all day
by the impudent sun, indeed, they blushed as they rose.
After gazing a moment at the scene, and breathing our
nags, we resumed our line of march, and for an hour longer
toiled on over the ridges and across the runs of the broken
country. At the end of that time we had again become
fairly warmed, and, as our appetites appeared to promise
well, a regular halt was called, and preparations made for
breakfast. One brought forth a large specimen of that eter-
nal Kentucky dish, to wit, bacon, of which I should think
more was eaten yearly in that State than the whole world
produces ; another presented his array of corn-bread ; a
third possessed a few baked potatoes ; a fourth, a bottle of
milk ; a fifth, one of whiskey ; and so, among the whole,
we soon managed to congregate a breakfast. A stump
served us for a table, a few logs for scats, and at it we went.
The Judge, who was a man of humor, coarse, racy, and
backwoods-like, rolled up the sleeves of his hunting-shirt,
doffed his cap, and laid himself out to entertain us: and
under his administration we were all just gathering our fac-
ulties for a universal roar, when his countenance changed,
he laid his finger upon his lip, while his eye pointed our
attention to the northern slope of the ridge on which we
were sitting. Upon this side the hill fell away abruptly,
and was covered with a scanty growth of some underwood,
THE JUDGE'S HUNT. 455
papaw-bushes, perhaps. Among these, the lynx-eyed
man of law had spied out a human form ; and, motioning
all else to remain still, he crept, with his rifle in hand, to-
ward the object.
Too long versed in forest stratagems to be caught by a
trick, the Judge glided from cover to cover, still approaching
the space where lay the object of his search, and where he
must either expose himself, there being in that spot only
underbrush, as I said, or else must make sure of his game
by using his rifle ; and with that we all knew he was able to
touch a pigeon on the wing. He himself seemed disposed
to try the latter plan, for when he came to the last tree, we
saw him stoop ; his gun was cocked, and in a moment more
drawn to his shoulder. We could hardly think he wished to
kill poor Dennis, if, as we supposed, it was he, for his
imputed sins, although he might wish to wing him, and mo-
mentarily looked for the Biter to spring to his feet, and show
fight.
For a moment the Judge's rifle hung in air, and then it
fell into his open hand ; and, quitting his cover, he stepped
on tiptoe to the prostrate form, bent over it, and then, laugh-
ing noiselessly, beckoned us to approach. We did, and
there beheld Dennis, an empty bottle by his side, and
breathing with the ponderosity of one over whose slumbers
Bacchus as well as Morpheus presides. " Is this the var-
mint ?" asked the captor. " The identical cretur," said a
little man in a deer-skin shirt, whom I afterwards discov-
ered to be a justice of peace. " Well," said the Judge,
" I reckoned the skunk was playing 'coon ; but he 's mighty
near drunk, I guess, by the buzz he makes." And so say-
ing, he walked up the hill, took the spare girth, which he
always carried in riding the circuit, from his nag, and, com-
ing down again, turned Dennis fairly over, and strapped his
arms behind his back. This delicate piece of attention
roused some consciousness in the sleeper's head, and a
456 THE JUDGE'S HUNT.
few shakes brought him fairly to life again. lie looked
round, rubbed his arms against his sides, squeezed his lids
hard together, and burst into a fit of crying. " By my
shoul," sobbed the poor, conscience-stricken Sponge, " that
last bottle, St. Stephen bedevil it, has toted me fairly to
the old boy, I reckon." " Not altogether yet, my blossom
of Kentuck," growled the Judge, as he led the unresisting
Americano-Irishman off towards the encampment.
There was a settlement, consisting of two log cabins, a
couple of miles to the south, and, Dennis being tied on to a
horse, we started for it, it being the appointed place for
meeting the rest of our party.
As soon as we arrived, poles were cut, branches lopped,
and in half an hour we sat within an extemporary court-
house of boughs and logs, such as a Kentucky trial was
once often held in. The Judge sat one log above the rest,
his rifle on his knees, and, the day having become warm,
stripped to his shirt-sleeves, with his jeans hunting-jacket for
a cushion. The justice, as clerk pro tern., sat below, with
an old chair-bottom and a bit of charcoal, to keep the rec-
ords. The prisoner was made fast to the tree which was
main prop to our shanty, by an ox-chain, the rest of us lay
at our ease on the greensward which formed our floor.
The complaint was soon made, and the usual question of
guilty or no, put ; but deuce of a word was forthcoming
from Dennis; all the blood of old Ireland and Kentuck
united was boiling in him. He had come to a full sense of
his situation, but the why and wherefore still seemed to his
mind a mystery; and though words occasionally came to
his throat, he choked them down and sat in gloomy silence.
The evidence of three or four was taken, all going to
show that Dennis had been refused by Contentment ; that
she 'd boxed his ears; that he had followed her out of the
village while still angry, and that she had disappeared. To
all this the Biter said never a word ; and no defence being
THE JUDGE'S HUNT. 457
made, the Judge bade the clerk enter the crime confessed in
open court, by wilful silence, and moved an adjournment ;
bidding, at the same time, that the prisoner be committed
to two men for further trial ; and the august assembly
broke up.
We had not got ten rods from the place, when a cry from
the extemporary constables brought us to the right about.
The chain had been taken from Dennis's leg, and, as he
seemed cowed, his masters were not careful of his hands ;
so that, watching his chance, he had broke from them, and
when we turned was in the act of seizing a rifle. Another
instant, and he was behind a tree. Quick as thought the
woodsmen all sprang to cover, and a skirmish seemed to be
nearing. But, as it chanced, the man whose rifle Dennis
had seized was with the Judge and myself, and he at once
told us, in a whisper, that it was not loaded. The Judge
pondered a moment, and then his mind was made up ; and,
to the surprise of our companions, who sat, each watching
the just visible muzzle of the Biter's gun, the man of law,
without rifle and without coat, for he had only thrown his
hunting-shirt over his arm when the trial was done, walked
from his cover directly up toward the tree where stood the
dreaded marksman.
Dennis, he knew, must be a formidable foe with a rifle
in his hand, though unloaded, and his object was, of course,
to wrest it from him.
We heard the deep tones of the Irishman, bidding his foe
beware, and saw the barrel fall lower and lower, till it was
pointed at the heart of the foolhardy assailant. The Judge
walked at his usual pace, his head erect, and his frame
ready for action, full toward the death-dealing tube ; he was
within five feet. We held our breath from fear. We heard
the rifle cocked ; it almost touched the body of our cham-
pion. It was raised to the sturdy shoulder of the prisoner,
and we heard the trigger pulled ; and then, just when the
VOL. i. 39
45S THE JUDGE'S HUNT.
Biter's hold was insecure, the Judge seized the barrel, and
we saw the gun go whirling into the air, and the brawny
Hibernian in the grasp of him of the ermine.
Dennis was a stout fellow, big of bone and strong in
muscle ; few of the woodsmen could stand before him in a
wrestling-match ; and now his wrestling was for life and
death. But he had met his equal. For bone and sinew,
my learned friend would compare with any man ; and his
was a spirit of the cool, determined, unflinching cast, that
won our Revolution, and made Bunker's height immortal.
Many a time and oft, when party spirit was strong, had he
gone to the polls, pistol in hand, to record his vote in oppo-
sition to the popular party ; many a time, when at the bar,
had he first out-argued his opponent, and then thrashed him
in fair fight ; and this was by no means the first time since
he ascended the bench, that he had been his own executive.
Dennis griped hard ; his teeth were set, and his lips were
covered with foam ; thrice lie lifted his weighty opponent
from the ground, and thrice when his feet touched the soil
again, he stood like a tower, unmoved. A fourth time he
collected his energies for the attempt ; but now the prisoner
found himself, in his turn, in mid-air ; one moment he hung
there, and then, descending, his legs failed to support him,
and the formidable Biter lay locked in his victor's arms.
At that instant we heard the sound of horses' hoofs ; nearer
it came, and nearer ; we saw through the trees glimpses of
a woman riding at full speed toward us. The Judge raised
himself, his knee upon his foeman's chest, to gaze ; but the
Irishman lay with eyes closed, dead in despair. Another
instant, and, with hair loose and cheek flushed, the female
was among us ; she sprang from her steed, cast one look at
the prosirate figure, one at the giant that bestrode him, and
sunk by them upon the earth. Dennis looked up, he strug-
gled, he spoke. She looked up, too ; she saw he was not
dead, and shrieked for joy. " O, the swate crathur ! "
murmured Dennis.
THE JUDGE'S HUNT. 459
In a moment more came rushing in another rider, one of
our original set. The matter was soon explained. Content-
ment was at her uncle's, and, hearing of Dennis's danger,
had rushed to the rescue. The eyes of the blind were
opened ; Dennis forswore whiskey, shook hands with the
Judge, felt of him from top to toe, cut a caper as high as his
head, and went his way rejoicing.
*****
I rode the circuit again the next year. Dennis had re-
mained faithful to temperance and Contentment, and waited
but our arrival to take to himself a wife. It was a mild
autumnal evening, the close of an Indian-summer day, and
the atmosphere wore the rich, calm, slumberous hue pe-
culiar to the season. The bridal party, consisting of the
whole village, came out to meet us, and the caper-cuttings
which some of the young ones indulged in were a caution.
Dennis himself looked grave, and kept order, but finally
dashed off into more capers than any of them.
On the brow of the hill we found a Kentuck entertain-
ment, ham, hoe-cake, dodgers, honey, milk, and, at the far
end from the bridegroom, a small allowance of the " cra-
thur." They danced, they sung, they roared, they wrestled,
they romped ; and the old justice of peace had no little dif-
ficulty in restoring peace, that the company might drink " a
roast or toast, or whatever the name was," which Dennis
had been mustering courage to propose. At length out it
bolted, and you may be sure the forest rang with our re-
sponse. " Our respectable guest," said the happy O'Shaugh-
nessy, " the only man that iver squazed the Sponge, and he
squazed it dry."
THE MURDERER'S DAUGHTER.
As we climbed the steep and slippery hill-side, scrambling
through the dry runs, over rocks, and into hollows, now
bruising our shins against some stump which had fallen from
the bank, and lay hid under the snow, and now slumping
knee-deep into some standing pool, thickened to a mush-like
consistency by the feathery shower, my heart misgave
me. Soaked, bruised, shivering, rny clothes torn, and my
rifle an encumbrance rather than a help, I wished Job Strong
and his whole race where 1 knew he deserved to be. Nor
was it any better when we clambered from the waterless
brook, and put out into a half-cleared spot, where countless
unseen logs served as traps to the unwary. Even the Judge's
stalwart form bent low against the tempest ; and as the dark-
ness grew upon the face of things, I shuddered lest we should
lose our path in this truly howling wilderness, and become
as motionless, ere morning, as the ghastly and skinless
trunks that stood around us. At times, as the wind lulled,
we heard what might be the cry of the wolf or panther, and
the moaning of the forest all about us was horrrble to me ;
it was almost like walking through a field of the dying.
At length, in one of the hollows, the Judge halted, shook
the snow from his bear-skin cap, and looked keenly to the
state of his rifle-lock. " I reckon it can't no how be more
than a mile now," said he.
THE MURDERER'S DAUGHTER. 461
I could scarce find blood and breath enough to ask, in
reply, when he trod that path last ?
" Never before this night did I see the first stone of it,"
answered the Judge, " and if I 'd known how powerful
rough it was, I 'd been mighty cautious how I took the trail.
But there 's no backing out now, so, up the hill and ahead,
boy " ; and with the but of his gun he heaved his huge
frame forward again.
Despair now and then lends a novel-hero wings. On the
present occasion it lent me legs, and I managed to stride
shoulder to shoulder with my guide, stopping occasionally
to pick myself up. For a time I tugged on with set teeth,
and straining sinews. I knew that if I opened my rnouth old
Boreas would cram my words down my throat again, and
was mum. But at length we took up a hollow, where, being
no longer obliged to hold our ears lest a sudden snap should
sweep them off, the floodgates of my impatience gave way.
" And who," I cried, " is this throat-cutter, Job Strong ? "
" A damned Yankee," growled the Judge.
" And how long of Kentuck ? and what 's his calling ?
and in what part of Yankee-land was he raised ? and
what "
" Hold on," shouted he, turning on me, " don't try for
all, or you '11 get none. Job 's a Green Mountain boy ; he
come to the West, and fought the Indians before our time a
mighty long while ; but he 's quick as a flash, and given to
whiskey. When he 's drunk he 's right mad, and when
he 's mad he kills ; he 's dangerous you may depend.
For his wife, she 's an old psalm-singing Connecticut Yan-
kee, that aint worth the logs that cover her. As for Tem-
perance, the child, there aint such a one to be seen nowhere
hereabout but she. My Esther aint a priming to her. She
loves the old man sweetly ; and I 've seen her, I disrcmem-
ber how often, keep him from mischief. She 's done her
do to fix him right any how ; but 't wont stay fixed ; he 's
39*
462 THE MURDERER'S DAUGHTER.
drunk and elbow-deep in blood, and must hang, there 's no
two ways about it." And, with that comforting remark, the
Judge nestled into the fringe of his hunting-frock, and we
again set our faces to the blast.
We were now moving along the ridge of a hill over which
the wind swept unbroken. It had long been cleared, and,
except where a stump offered to the snow a hiding-[ lace, it
was unable to make any stand against its pursuer, and we
trod upon the bare, crisp grass with a strange feeling of ease
and relief. Presently, afar off we spied a light. "There,"
said the Judge, pointing to it, "there I reckon we have
the old woman's hut ; and there we may catch the cutthroat
in the chimney-corner."
" And do you mean to arrest him ; "
" If I can."
" Well, do you hope to ? "
" It 's pretty mixed whether I do or not," said the Judge ;
" but I 've played sheriff mighty often, and never was the
rogue yet raised that I could n't lay hold on, and holo on to,
when 1 was so minded. And now, if you '11 stand by and
shoot him, should he run, I '11 lay mine to a coon's skin that
he do n't live to see daylight a free man."
The hut was a common, low log hut ; it stood just at the
end of the ridge, and the ground all about it had been cleared
and cultivated. The Judge placed me behind one of the
out-buildings, through which came an agreeable warmth and
scent, from sundry porkers who had found shelter there from
the storm; while he went himself to reconnoitre. The light
that shone through the single pane of glass spoke of a roar-
ing and dancing fire within ; to this simple window the
man of law addressed himself. For a moment his big head
hid the light from me, and then it shone clear again, and I
sunk into my warm corner. " lie 's not here, after all," said
the Judge, bitterly, as he strode up to me again ; " but we '11
go in, and see if we can suck any thing from the old worn-
THE MURDERER'S DAUGHTER. 463
an." So, at his bidding, I followed to the door. He
knocked. " Who 's there ? " said a female. He gave his
name, and the simple latch was lifted.
In one corner of the rough room stood the bed, covered
with a patchwork comfortable ; along the end opposite
the door was a row of plates, cups, saucers, milk-pans, and
pots ; an old-fashioned brass-mounted sword hung along a
log, just above a single shelf of well-worn books ; over the
large stone chimney-place were two or three rough engrav-
ings of the Sacrifice of Isaac, the Prodigal Son, &c. ; while
the two solitary women that abode in this deserted spot sat
upon a pair of rough stools over a rougher table, before the
well-heaped fire. The floor was of flat stones throughout,
with a scrap of carpeting by the bedside. Upon a pile of
logs near the fire lay a clean and civilized-looking pussy,
black nnd white.
The mother was, to the eye, a hag. Her gray locks, her
bloodless and wrinkled face, her bent form, and the almost
maniac fire of her eye, were startling; but her voice was
low and sweet, and as, with her spectacles thrown up upon
her high forehead, and her skinny hand pressed firmly down
upon the open Bible, from which she was reading by the
light of a pine-torch stuck into a crevice in the table, I
could have fancied her first cousin to Hecate. " And what
want ye here ?" she said, and my rough comrade, despite
his contempt for her, doffed his cap unawares. " Why
come ye here when the Lord of the storms is walking abroad,
and wishes to be alone in the wilderness ? "
"Stay, mother," said the maiden, "I know the man ";
and, drawing a bench from the shadow beyond the chimney,
she, in a silent manner, asked us to sit down.
Although the Judge had praised Miss Temperance, her
looks were not bewitching. She was tall, raw-boned, and
hard-featured. Her black eye and brow bespoke character,
and her cool and measured step and speech, self-command.
464 THE MURDERER'S DAUGHTER.
The self-made sheriff felt awkwardly for an instant, and
fingered his rifle-stock unmeaningly ; when hoth of us
were startled by the voice quiet, and calm, and musical
of the mother. " Let us pray," she said, and she bent
her stiff knees to the stones. 1 expected a wild rhapsody of
unmeaning quotations from Scripture, and senseless excla-
mations ; but I heard, instead, a prayer which rung in my
ears for months afterward, and made every nerve quiver.
She prayed for her husband, for the father of the pure
maid beside her ; she prayed for the man of riot, blasphemy,
and blood ; she prayed for him whose pursuers, whose
judges, whose executioners, it might be, were even then
kneeling by her hearth-stone. " They will bring shame
upon us," she said, in that low, deep, burning tone, which
was heard above all the shouts of the air-demons. " They
will bring down my gray hairs in sorrow to the grave,
and embitter the dregs of a drained cup. But ours, not
theirs, is the fault, and ours be the woe and the wailing."
The Judge even could not withstand the simple, sincere,
deep petition of her whose husband's life he was seeking,
and, for the first time in many years, tears gathered in his
eye.
After the prayer that we had heard, it was needless to ex-
plain our visit, and it would have been cruel to ask where
he might be found. In silence victuals were set before us,
and we ate. The daughter also placed upon the table a bot-
tle of spirits. I do not know if we should either of us have
touched it, but before we had time to do so, the mother rose,
and taking it, opened the door and cast it, without a word,
out into the tempest.
We now prepared to go again, and for myself I must say
willingly, much as 1 dreaded the tramp. There was some-
thing in the old woman's bright, still eye, and in the calm,
queen-like strength of the daughter, which awed and
troubled me. Seeing us about to depart, the aged mourner
THE MURDERER'S DAUGHTER. 465
opened her Bible, and unbidden read aloud. It was from
the tenth chapter of Job. " My soul is weary of my life ; I
will leave rny complaint upon myse f ; I will speak in the
bitterness of my soul." It was fearful to behold her ; not
a fibre of her frame but shook, and her tearless eyeballs
burned like fire. With a power that seemed not native to
so worn a frame and broken a spirit, she poured forth the
closing petition. " Are not my days few ? Cease, then, and
let me alone, that I may take comfort a little, before I go
whence I shall not return, even to the land of darkness and
the shadow of death ; a land of darkness, as darkness itself ;
and of the shadow of death, without any order, and where
the light is as darkness." And her head sank upon the
Holy Book.
We rose, and in silence left the hut ; but we left it not
alone. Temperance threw her cloak over her, and said she
wished to return to the village, and would, if we pleased, go
with us. And again we walked in the storm, though I felt
it not, and heard it not. The backwoodsman went before
us, to see that all was safe and clear, while the maiden leant
upon me, giving rather than receiving support, however.
Safely, but slowly, we retrod our path, and had now
reached the last hill-top, when we all saw before us a man,
his dark form set out by the snow. The Judge hailed, but
the figure was gone. Our way lay down the slanting and
bare ridge, upon either side of which was a hollow, more or
less filled with papavv and other bushes, among which a
thousand men might have lain hid. I felt the grasp of my
companion tighter upon my arm, until it was very painful ;
and, thinking her alarmed, I said that we had nothing to fear.
She made no reply, but I saw a look pass over her face
which then I did not understand. The Judge had dropped
back to join us, and was looking keenly for tracks, when the
crack of a rifle close beside us made my heart jump, and the
poor girl by my side trembled like a leaf of autumn. It was
466 THE MURDERER'S DAUGHTER.
an instant only, and the rifle of the Judge was levelled ; for
his eye had caught a glimpse of the foe, and the report, and
the death-cry of the victim, were, and were gone, hefore I
could think. With the caution of an old hand, the Judge
stopped to reload, but while the sharp yell of agony was yet
ringing in my ear, Temperance sprang toward the bushes.
I seized her cloak and besought her to stay. She left it in
my hands and plunged down the descent. As quick as might
be I was after her, but for a moment was lost among the
undergrowth ; then, as I burst from the thicket, I saw her
supporting a dark form which I knew must be his who had
tried to take our lives. She was bending over the dim-seen
face, in which there was no sign of life. The eye was open,
but upturned and red ; the mouth, too, was open, but no
breath came from it ; a battle quivering of the limbs was all
that bespoke any remains of life.
" Do you know him ? " said I.
She looked up at me with a countenance which, in the
dim light, was calm and placid ; and if it seemed ashy pale,
it might be but the light of the snow.
" It is my father," she said.
When the Judge joined us, he saw at a glance whose life
he had taken, and while a curse upon Job Strong's malice
rose to his lips, he could not but feel for his child.
" Is it all over, gal ? " said he ; " let me hold him awhile,
you 're too much fluttered." She said nothing, but, placing
her finger upon her wrist, held it towards him ; it was an
action full of meaning, and the woodsman felt it. " May
God have mercy upon his soul ! " was his simple reply to
her gesture ; but it went to her heart, and she bent upon the
yet warm hod . < f her parent, and mourned as do those who
mourn but seldom.
We hastened fur help to the village, and then bore the
corpse to the hut, where Strong had lurked.
The next day, I went alone to the house where we had
THE MUEDEEEB'S DAUGHTER. 467
left Temperance, and where she had long lived with him
whose death I had witnessed. She was busily engaged in
packing up the few utensils she possessed, to have them
taken to her mother's hut. Her manner was as calm as
ever, though her face was swollen and distorted. She hade
me welcome kindly ; wiped a seat by the fire, and asked
me if I would eat. She spoke of the funeral, which was to
take place toward evening ; of the kindness that had been
shown her by those near by ; and then insensibly turned to
the character of him that was gone. " They tell'd me,"
said she, " not to cry for him, because he was a bad man ;
and he was powerful bad, to be sure. But God gave him to
me to be my father, Sir, and God made me love him like
life. He was hard to some, Sir, but here was as good as a
child ; he raised me kindly, and never was the first blow
struck, or oath uttered, within that door. They tell'd me I
should n't love him, aud could n't think no how I did ; but
the cub of the wolf never asks whether its mother be good,
Sir, and why should I ? He was my father, bad as he was,
and God, Sir, made me love him ; and now, only but for her
sake, I could wish I was dead with him."
I did not attempt to comfort her, or stop the truly instinc-
tive grief to which she gave way ; but I spoke of the world
beyond death, and of the hopes that all had of forgiveness.
She sat, her arm upon the window-sill, looking up, as if for
hope, into the broken snow-clouds that were drifting cheer-
lessly from the northwest ; her eye was moist, but bright,
and her lip trembled with a feeling short of despair. " And
is there," said she, without turning, " a right good chance
for them that sin ? "
" The mercy of our Father," I replied, " is boundless."
" But if I was there," she continued, still looking up into
the sky, " I reckon I could help him, might n't I ? "
" Every tear you shed, every prayer you breathe, helps
him," I answered, " and gives you hope."
468 THE MURDERER'S DAUGHTER.
She drew her coarse sleeve across her face, and came
and knelt at my feet and prayed.
Toward night the little company that cared to follow, in
the cold wind, a murderer to his grave, met at the log inn.
Temperance, clad in such weeds as she chanced to have,
walked as sole mourner. She was supported by him whose
hand had taken the life of the dead before us. We walked
in silence to the grave, and in silence the rude coffin was
placed in the cold earth ; the Judge read a simple service,
and the frozen clod fell upon the board. The daughter stood
calm and motionless at the head of the grave, until all was
done ; she then came forward, and taking the Judge's hand,
" Till this moment," she said, " I never thought to thank
God that he had been saved from the fate of the murderer."
She then turned to the rest of us, and tried to speak, but her
breath choked. Half a dozen voices at once offered her all
they could give. I caught with difficulty her reply ; she
asked only their forgiveness and prayers for him. We left
her alone with her Maker.
Some hours after dark, the Judge and myself had occasion
to pass the graveyard. The wind was high, and the snow
drifting ; the clouds at times hid all, and at times the moon
looked out through the frosty air. We stopped a moment to
look at the grave round which we had stood. " The snow
will not lodge on it," said my comrade ; and he pointed to
the dark spot on the field of white. I looked, and thought I
saw the object move. We got over the fence and went to-
ward it ; it was some sort of garment. I took hold to move
it, and found it held down. I thought at first it was the
snow, which covered a great part of it ; but the Judge guessed
more rightly, and, stooping down, he grasped and raised the
stiff and lifeless body of Temperance Strong.
THE KINDNESS THAT KILLS.
I.
COME with me. Look at that cottage. Mark the rosy
children ; the observant pigs, watchful for stray morsels
of bread and apple-peelings ; the dirty, noisy, gabbling,
companionable, gossiping ducks; the sleepy dog, with his
eyes wide awake ; the all-sweeping, all-scolding, all-spank-
ing mother. Is it not a beautiful scene, worthy of the
Miami valley ? See that young good-for-nothing, who has
clambered over the garden fence, and is busy looking in the
grass for apples; how plump and solid! a New-Zealander
would keep him for an Australasian Fourth of July. The
rogue deserves to be whipped ; he 's stealing the russets
from the tree. But what does he do with them ? They are
all quietly made over, under cover of the tall iron weeds, to
the thin, pale girl, five years older than himself, whose flesh
has been shaken off by the ague-demons which haunt these
same luxuriant valleys. But, while we are musing over the
great problem of rich lands and bilious dwellers, the pale,
diffident girl, knowing how little beauty she has, for her
wavy looking-glass tells her the worst as to that, and not
knowing what a well of inner, of soul beauty, of soul-taking
beauty, springs up in her dark eyes when the magic of kind
acts opens them, the awkward, bashful girl, we beg you to
notice, has stumbled backwards. Against what ? As I live,
VOL. i. 40
470 THE KINDNESS THAT KILLS.
it 's a bee-hive ! She '11 be stung to death ! What can be
done ? We are so far off; and the children run ; the
sleepy dog wakes and runs ; the pigs run faster than any ;
the all-sweeping mother has gone in doors ; and round her
bowed, devoted head, as though all the wealth of Hymettus
or a sugar-hogshead centred there, the roused legions of the
insect Victoria sound their gathering-cry. She, poor scared
creature, bows submissive, never lifts a hand in self-
defence ; both hands, indeed, are busy holding up her apron
full of apples. " Better be stung," (so says inarticulate af-
fection,) " than throw away Ned's gift"; which, by the
way, Ned will certainly be spanked for giving. Meanwhile
young scapegrace himself runs. " Shame on him ! " do
you say ? Ask first why he ran. Napoleon might have
run at the right time. He runs for help. Good. " But
still," you say, " he should have helped his sweetheart
himself." Very true. Notice now what he does. At ten
steps off stand empty flour-barrels, waiting the advent of
those very apples Ned has been stealing. Quick as a hawk
on a chicken, Ned pounces on one ; staggering, he shoul-
ders it, grasping simultaneously a handful of the straw
which lies ready to embrace the coy russets. Ellen, paler
than ever, calm as only a sick child can be, stands with
bowed head, holding her apron full of apples. Only an in-
stant has elapsed since the hive was upset, long as it takes
to write and read about it ; the bees still dance their war-
dance with uplifted tomahawks, when, like a new Achilles,
Ned, barrel on shoulder, wisp in hand, rushes in, scatters the
myriads for a moment with his straw sword, and plumps the
barrel over the astounded Ellen, who comes to her knees,
losing all her russets. " Stay still," says Ned, " one min-
ute"; and before the defrauded honey-hoarders know what's
what, or who 's who, he 's into the house, and out again,
with a bunch of matches, and Ellen, half-choked with grat-
itude and brimstone, is trying to cough out her thanks in the
back-kitchen.
THE KINDNESS THAT KILLS. 471
II.
Look again ! A little boy, about Ned's age, sits knock-
ing his heels upon the counter of a country store. His
father and grandfather, good, sensible, steady, rising people,
measure out calico and cloth to the clodhoppers who swarm
in, this fine fall afternoon. Women, with children and with-
out, come and go ; jean-coats enter and exeunt ; the flies buzz
with the prosy tone of autumnal old age ; and Bob kicks his
heels. " My boy," says the grandfather, who has nerves,
" please stop your noise." " I won't," says Bob. " Rob-
ert, my son ! " emphasizes the immediate parent. Bob
kicks on. The young democracy conquers. " Bob," pleads
the nerve-torturing grandsire, " here 's a fip ; save it ; save
all your ftps, and you '11 be rich." Bob understands the
bribe indirect as well as the bribe direct, and gives his an-
cestor a wink that implies, " Old fellow, make the young
one pay up too, and I '11 quit," and kicks on. " Robert,"
says the defaulter after a moment, " if I give you a fip will
you go home to mamma ? " " Just you try," answers Bob,
with watering mouth. The experiment is tried, and suc-
ceeds ; but, as the youth hears frequently the moral lesson
that " we must gather as we go," he reaches home with
such an accumulation of candy on his face and feelers, that
it is well Mrs. Pond's unhoused bees are not by at the time,
or they would surely suck him up by mistake.
III.
Turn the kaleidoscope. Moonlight falls through the
trees ; silent, silvery mists, full of beauty and poison, steal
inch by inch from the river. Are these twain, walking
here now that the drops gather on the leaves, strangers to
Ohio ? No, they are Buckeyes. Then they are either
crazy, or charmed, or full of the magic might of calomel.
Neither : they are merely lovers, and think and care not for
472 THE KINDNESS THAT KILLS.
mists, man, misery, ague, or any thing. It is strange, too !
for the girl looks hollow-cheeked in the moonbeams, and her
shawl is thin, and her shoes nothing but slippers. And now
that we see her face, is it not Ellen ? she that was saved by
the flour-barrel ? And Ned, too ! the rosy apple-stealer,
rosy and plump as ever. Hold your breath, and listen to
them for a moment.
" Mother must have the old place," says Ned ; " come
what will to us, Nelly, she must have that." This his voice
roundly asserts, but his arm somehow makes a note of in-
terrogation on Ellen's side ; and she answers with a pres-
sure that hardly roughens the wing of the moth that has
just flown between them, and yet opens to him her whole
soul, as the star which is but a point to the most powerful
telescope seems often to reveal to us the soul of the Infinite.
" And if she has the place," continues Ned, " and the girls
have the money that father left us in bank, and if we are
to be married, Nelly, I must take Bob Strong's offer,
must n't I ? "
What thoughts go on under that close-drawn bonnet !
How she tries to solve the problem, " Ought I not to refuse
to be married, if it 's to drive him to town, to a store, to
drudgery, to sickness, and perhaps to death ? " And as she
imagines all her hopes, and wishes, and plans, and fears,
and thoughts at an end, she shrinks so close to him that, in
the ghostly moonlight, under the dripping trees, she seems
to vanish ; as well she might, for what is she, poor orphan,
but hopes, and wishes, and fears, and thoughts? Yes, she
is something else ; for the soul of her soul is Faith, and
more mighty within her than fear or hope, wishes or plans,
is the power of Prayer : and as she rises to the only sure
Helper, she becomes conscious that her union on earth
with him she loves so deeply is not the one thing nqedful,
and so turns to the problem again with new eyes, and new
powers of solution.
THE KINDNESS THAT KILLS. 473
" Perhaps, Ned," she says very firmly, but very faintly,
" perhaps we had better not be married quite yet." Ned
drops her arm, steps back alarmed, he does not understand
her. How should he, great strong boy, understand her,
whose whole life has been one of suffering, struggle, sacri-
fice ! The deep bonnet is turned down, he cannot see her
face, but he hears her beating heart ; she magnetically feels
his heart answer throb for throb ; she lifts her face, the
moon steals silently in, and he sees her dark eyes smiling
through tears ; he takes her arm again, and the dialogue
ends. Without a word the whole affair is settled, they are
to be married next week, and he is to see Bob Strong to-
morrow.
IV.
Here sits Bob, no longer a candy-clothed urchin, but
the buck and the millionnaire of the village. The old grand-
father, worn out with half a century of calico-selling and
cent-saving, has passed beyond the reach of the kicks and
coppers of this world, leaving to Bob's father countless
acres, and cords of promissory notes, not all capable of dis-
count, however. Bob the elder, who has become a con-
vert to Methodism, and withal somewhat superannuated,
though still but sixty, does little business now-a-days, looks
after the spiritual welfare of his neighbours, and leaves the
store and the till to the easy, lazy, cigar-loving, good-na-
tured, kindly counter-kicker. Bob is a business man now,
but he wants a partner to do the business ; and knowing the
poverty, the love, the engagement, the doubts of his old
schoolmate, Ned Pond, and touched by the homely beauty
of Ellen, out of pure kindness he has offered Ned a place
at the counter, a share in the profits, a chance to make his
way in the world ; taking all the risk and trouble of having
a partner that has never even lived in a town, much less
wielded a yard-stick. However, Ned was always good at
40*
474 THE KINDNESS THAT KILLS.
figures, and can keep the accounts and write the letters.
So Bob, in his kindly-selfish fashion, like the warm-hearted,
thoughtless, spoiled child that he is, amiable and generous
while he has his own way, but ready to slay and roast who-
ever thwarts him, has come down to the store to settle mat-
ters finally with Ned, his new colaborer. Like all thought-
less men who are generous from impulse, and from impulse
alone, Bob's intentions are liable to sudden changes. He
has just heard that a certain hundred-dollar note, upon
which he relied for cash to pay for his new horses, is not
likely to be met at maturity, and the brimming well of kind-
ness in his heart somehow ebbs at the information. His
father, moreover, who does not think much of Mrs. Pond,
with her quiet, Connecticut, congregational ways, has just
been pointing out to him the disadvantages of his proposed
arrangement, and has succeeded in awakening a certain
habitual love of money-making and money-saving caught
from the old grandfather, whose Poor-Richard proverbs
were the reading and writing lessons, the morning and
evening prayers, the Sunday psalms, and constant torment
of Bob's boyhood, which habitual love of money underlies
all the youth's lavishness and beneficence. And so he sits
here, his cigar defunct and retained in his mouth only as
something to bite at, his mind running on unpaid notes, bor-
rowed money, his comparative poverty, the necessity of
saving, the utter want of any claim on the part of Ned, the
kindness he does him in taking him into his store, the folly
of being too generous, &c., &c. Presently Ned enters ;
flushed, panting, dusty, but brisk and bright as the squirrels,
whose society he is going to leave for the living death of a
country village. The young merchant catches the healthy
tone of the farm-boy, and the old grandfather's ghost, which
was strong upon him, creeps under the counter again.
Then Ned is so quick, so grateful, so diffident, so willing,
ready to write, to run, to measure, to learn ; no one can
THE KINDNESS THAT KILLS. 475
help liking him, trusting him, buying of him. Bob feels
he 's a treasure, will double the custom of the store, will
assure prompt payments, will keep every thing like clock-
work ; the crabbed selfishness which possessed him melts
into his habitual kindly selfishness ; the new horses, unpaid
note, borrowed money, are forgotten. Ned is admitted to
the firm on what he looks upon as excellent terms, on what
Robert Strong, Jr., regards as conditions of unexampled
generosity, on what Robert. Sen., denounces as a footing
that is adverse to all wisdom and success.
V.
Let us turn the tube again. It is the old store, with the
old sign, but so improved inwardly, so stocked and method-
ized, that the grandfather's ghost must have long since de-
serted it. The picayune look has given place to a com-
plexion of golden eagles. Business has quadrupled under
Ned's hands, for he can talk to every farmer of his crops,
to every dame of her poultry, to the village belle of the last
novel, to the lawyer of the latest news from Washington,
and yet all the time can measure, and count, and write
memoranda, as though every finger had a mind and a
mouth. Never was so popular a salesman, so accurate an
accountant, so tasteful a purchaser of stock, so accommo-
dating and clever a fellow known before in the town of
Huntville. Let us step in, and have a chat with him.
Which is he ? That ! that Ned Pond ! That pale, thin-
faced, hollow-eyed man! Why, Ned was health itself in
a human form, when we saw him last ; and that man is
marked for the grave. Very true, sad as it is ; but to rise
at daylight, bend over the counter till dark, and write till
midnight, are things that might turn health itself to a skel-
eton, especially if health had lived till twenty-two in the
open air, and gone to bed with the birds. But why, you
ask, does he not desert for the fields again, throw his yard-
476 THE KINDNESS THAT KILLS.
stick at the head of the first person who opposes him, and
save his ebbing life, while it is not yet too late ? To an-
swer this to your mind, we must look elsewhere.
VI.
Tread softly ; speak low ; or, rather, speak not at all, but
look and listen. It is a sick-room, that 's plain. The easy-
chair, the phials, the half-drawn curtain, the little messes on
the hearth, the solemn old skin-and-bones in a petticoat,
that is gliding about, tell us so much. It is the room, too, I
guess, of one whose life is sickness, not of a fever patient
or sudden sufferer of any kind. The air has the subdued
character of hospital air ; the doors turn on their hinges as
though they had not slammed for years ; the windows are
listed at every crack ; the little saucepan by the embers
hums as though it had hummed there from childhood ; the
night-lamp, the worn Bible, the wrapper, the watch-pocket
hanging to the mantle, every thing bears the mark of the
constant sufferer, the habitual invalid. The nurse draws
the window curtain a little, to look into the mysteries hid-
den in the little humming saucepan, and now you catch a
glimpse of the sick woman. You were right ; it is, as you
guessed, Ellen, thinner, paler, with an eye that lets the soul
forth even more than formerly, but still the same as when
she stumbled over the bee-hive. " Is it almost seven ? "
she says. How the voice goes through you, like a voice
from beyond the grave. The old atomy fumbles for the
watch, then fumbles over it, rubs her eyes, rubs the watch,
and while she still hesitates between the hands, and is not
quite sure whether it 's just past seven, or half past twelve,
an outer door opens, feet are heard on the mat, on the
floor-cloth, the silent hinges of the sick-room door revolve,
and Ned is bending over the thankful face, and has kissed
away the tears of joy that rise from those dark, fathomless
soul-fountains. " I shall be at home this evening, Ellen."
THE KINDNESS THAT KILLS. 477
What good news ! But why does he call her Ellen ? It is
only when very serious, that Ned and Nelly turn into Edward
and Ellen. She asks him with her hollow eyes. He smiles,
and says he has to talk to her of business, of new plans, of
an offer that may give him leisure, and perhaps with leis-
ure renewed health. And now the nurse arranges the little
table by the bedside, where the childless couple eat togeth-
er. Childless! yes, so men say, not so they feel. Two
infants have been born into this world under that roof, and
shall we say " alas "? have been also born there out
of this world into a higher. Their dust lies where that of
the mother, at least, must soon mingle with it. While they
talk of common things until the curious old woman goes to
her own domains, let us look into another household.
VII.
This round-shouldered, dark-browed, middle-aged man,
who sits scowling, and pouting, and shaking his head at the
fire, as if he saw some mortal foe there, is a new acquaint-
ance, I think. So is his wife, comely and comfortable, who
is nodding in the rocking-chair opposite, without any vision
of a mortal foe in the universe. If you please, I will let
you a little into their history. This is John Strawbridge,
whose sign for five years past has been opposite to that of
Strong & Co., and whose heart for five years past has been
getting more and more entangled by the junior partner of
his rivals over the way. Mr. Strawbridge and his wife are
English people, with that dogged virtue, that bigotted ex-
cellence, that narrow-minded generosity, which marks the
true Anglo-Saxon ; the American branch of the great Teu-
tonic stream is wider, but not half so deep. Mr. Straw-
bridge, we say, has been charmed by our friend Ned ;
his kindliness, his open heart and hand, his industry, his
care of his sick wife, all have enlisted John's sympathy,
respect, and love. He has watched Ned's fading, thinning
478 THE KINDNESS THAT KILLS.
cheek ; he has wondered, as you did, that he clung to what
was killing him ; he has learned the secret, in Ellen's sick-
ness, in her need of that rest, that attendance, those luxuries,
which a poor man on a farm cannot command ; he has
learned, too, that Ned has to labor as he does, because he
cannot afford to pay an assistant, and will not ask Bob Strong
to do what their agreement does not call for ; and having
learned and talked over these things with his wife, Mr.
Strawbridge made up his mind yesterday to interfere, and
save Ned. To-day he did interfere, and all this pouting and
scowling comes of it. Let us see why. Immediately after
breakfast, this morning, he brushed his hat very carefully,
wiped the dust from his shoes, and walked up to see Mr.
Robert Strong, no longer Jr., for the father has followed the
grandfather.
He found Bob as easy, as happy, as jocose, as self-satis-
fied as ever ; he was delighted to see Mr. Strawbridge,
offered him a cigar (John would as soon have put a scor-
pion's tail into his mouth), asked his opinion of a new pat-
tern of spittoon he had imported, proposed to sell him twenty
town lots in an imaginary village, somewhere between Chi-
cago and the north pole, and rattled on about horses and
crops, Baltimore oysters and native wines, until the pa-
tience of the Briton was more than threadbare. At last Bob
rested for a space, and Mr. Strawbridge introduced his busi-
ness.
" A fine young man your Mr. Pond."
" First-rate," answered Bob, suspecting nothing.
" But not well ; ill, very ill, I think."
" O, as the world goes," said Bob, who had never been
sick a day, had suffered nothing, denied himself in nothing,
and knew no more of Ned's condition, state of body, and
frame of mind, than a butterfly does of the United States
Constitution, "as the world goes," said he, "Ned Pond is
a strong man, does an immensity of work."
THE KINDNESS THAT KILLS. 479
" Too much work," suggested John ; " killing himself,
Mr. Strong."
" O, trust me for that," replied Bob ; " I 'm his friend.
He '11 be a nabob yet. I 've put him in the way of fortune.
I know he feels grateful, and works hard ; he 's right ; nev-
er you mind his health, Mr. Strawbridge."
With this, Bob cocked on his hat, lighted a fresh cigar,
and intimated a wish to walk down town ; and so the nar-
row-minded Englishman found himself nonplussed.
John Strawbridge went to his store almost too angry to
care for Ned or any body ; but when the pale, clear-eyed
young man came by, and stopped to speak, first to one, and
then to another, and at last to himself, saying to each, some-
how, the very pleasantest thing possible, John's fog rose,
and he was the same sunny soul as ever. Then he deter-
mined to talk to Ned himself, and urge him to quit his close,
killing confinement. So he sent over his boy and asked Mr.
Pond to spend half an hour with him after dinner. Ned,
wondering, went to the rival counting-room, anticipating
some business perplexity, some misunderstanding or trouble
of one kind or another. How astonished was he to learn the
object of his interview, to find this heavy-browed neigh-
bour of his anxious that he should earn an independence on
easier terms, and even ready, if it could be done without
violating contracts, John would not have violated a con-
tract to pay the national debt of Great Britain, to give
Ned a birth himself, which would insure him a competence,
and time enough to preserve the life that yet throbbed in his
veins ! But he was bound to Mr. Strong for ten years ; six
only had passed. True, but he had made Mr. Strong's prof-
its fourfold. Ought he not to receive a portion with which
to hire aid, aid which was required, because he had so
increased the business, and with it the profits ? Ned scarce
liked to open the matter to one who had befriended him in
time of need, had enabled him to marry, buy a house, and
480 THE KINDNESS THAT KILLS.
give his sick wife all she wanted, who had done every
thing for him. He would consult his wife, however, he
said ; and to this Mr. Strawbridge, who always consulted his,
when she was awake, could not object ; and thus came
about Ned's evening at home, and John's faces at the unof-
fending fire.
VIII.
Ned and Nelly talked the matter over at length, and
passed a unanimous vote that Ned had better say nothing to
his partner about the matter. Nelly, however, down deep in
her soul, determined that, the first time she was well enough
to write, she would herself pen a line to Mr. Strong, and
ask him to be, what he had always been, a true friend. But
do not think because she proposed to write, that Bob never
came near his partner's sick wife ; he was too kindly not to
do that, and, more than once in the month, usually, drew up
his horses at her door, and perfumed her chamber with the
sphere of Havanna which accompanied his steps. Nelly,
however, dared not trust herself to talk, so she determined to
write. And she did write, and, foolish, unsuspecting child
that she was, told of the offer made by Mr. Strawbridge.
Had she not done this, Bob's easy, kindly selfishness would
probably have led him to do the very thing that was wanted,
when urged by the gentle, persuasive tone of the invalid.
But to learn that his partner and his rival were conspiring,
conspiring to break the agreement which had been acknowl-
edged by Ned as a great favor done him, conspiring
to defraud him, the benefactor, of his dues, and make him
pay a clerk, that the poor country boy he had befriended
might live in ease and luxury, we cannot tell how much
virtuous indignation at such treachery and meanness bub-
bled up in Bob's breast ; bubbled over, indeed, into a reply,
which tore another year, it may be believed, from Ellen's
short span of life. She burned it, she tried to forget it ; but
THE KINDNESS THAT KILLS. 481
it never left her. Why ? Because she feared that, God
forgive them, they were ungrateful to their greatest earthly
benefactor.
IX.
Let" us turn the glass once more. The little town is in
utter consternation. Mr. Strawbridge is rushing, bare-
headed, for the doctor ; the clerks of Strong & Co. are so
pale and palpitating, that every ribbon and silk in the store
might be carried away and they unable to resist ; the very
lawyer runs out, leaving all his papers for the winds to play
with, in order that he may learn the particulars. Alas ! the
particulars are few and soon learned, Ned Pond in lifting
a case of goods has broken a bloodvessel, and has been
carried home, dying or dead. Every man, woman, and
child, as the word spreads, feels as though a little piece had
been taken from his own heart. No one knew how dear
Ned had been to him till now that Ned is gone, that bright
face gone, that pleasant voice stilled to all earthly ears.
Night comes half an hour sooner than it ever did before,
sinks upon every threshold with deeper darkness. Away
in the country men put their hands to their chins and tell
how sudden it was ! and at his mother's ? at his home ?
dare you go thither ?
X.
Look at this scene. Bob has been suddenly wakened
from his afternoon nap by slamming doors. He starts up
with a look of singular anxiety. He has been dreaming,
what he often dreams lately, that Ellen, pale as a spirit,
has been to beseech him to save her husband. He had
heard the doctor say three months ago that Ned could not
live if he did not stop working so. " He chooses to do it,"
said Bob to hisconscience. Conscience entered into no dis-
cussion, but intimated that he was not telling the truth, and
VOL. I. 41
482 THE KINDNESS THAT KILLS.
Bob turned away. But in his dreams conscience plays the
tyrant ; he is haunted before his time. A year has passed
since that cruel note to the sick wife, and day by day he
has seen the husband fail, and speak no word. He begins
to tremble ; he questions whether he has been as generous
as he deemed himself; he is resolved to release his partner
from his old bond that has enslaved him now these seven
years. He starts up, as we say, with a strange look of
anxiety ; rubs his eyes ; resolves he 'II do it to-morrow, and
lay this ghost that pursues him. Calmed by his good reso-
lution, he tries to sleep again, when the door opens, his el-
dest girl rushes in, and, forgetting all in her grief for Ned,
whom she loved dearly, throws herself at her father's knees,
and sobs out, " U papa ! papa ! he 's dead ! " " Who ?
what ? when ? " " Dear Ned Pond, papa ! he died at the
store, died at his work ! " Died at his work ! How will
you lay the ghost now, selfishly generous man ?
XI.
Once more we look into the chamber of the invalid. The
little saucepan is silent ; the voice of time, as instant after in-
stant is told off, alone breaks the stillness. Who sits by the
bedside? It is the beetle-browed Englishman, calm and
mournful. Is he watching by the sick ? No, but by the
dead. And where is Ellen ? Too ill to be here ? No,
she is here, and never did her plain features seem so beauti-
ful ; but the eye is closed, yes, closed in death. The blow
was too much for one so weak. Side by side they lie there ;
or no, not they, but their decaying and corruptible frames.
They at last are free : the family circle is again formed :
the parents and the children have met together.
A knock is heard on the door, a step in the entry ; the si-
lent hinges turn ; Robert Strong enters the room. He has
been requested to watch there with John Strawbridge, and
he dares not refuse. How the night lingers ! Not a word ;
THE KINDNESS THAT KILLS. 483
not a motion, unless when the air from the half-opened win-
dow stirs the bed-curtains, and the shadows dance and whis-
per, and then sleep again. Hour after hour the watch ticks,
and the pulses of the living beat, and their breath comes
and goes, and memory and conscience have all the conver-
sation to themselves. It is a terrible night to Robert ; but is
it only terrible ? Does no clearer insight into life and duty
come to him ? no comprehension that mere impulse is not
God's voice, and that no kindly-selfishness will take the
place of true, thoughtful, consistent, enduring, self-denying
kindness ? Let us trust that he is learning in these silent
hours that there is an aid which is no aid, a generosity which
is robbery, a kindness that kills.
CHARITY IN THE COUNTING-HOUSE AND
OUT OF IT.
IT 's a desolate place, that suburb of Fulton. Of a cold,
dark evening, when the easterly wind draws down the val-
leys, and the clouds drift by with a snow-spit now and then)
I know not of a more desolate place on earth. The long
Front Street of Cincinnati, which runs by the river-side, and
follows the vagaries of the stream, at length runs close
under the hills, and melts into the single avenue which
forms the thoroughfare of the superb city of Fulton. In
front rolls the turbid Ohio ; behind rise the precipitous
hills, whence clay avalanches for ever noiselessly slide,
pressing houses and stores hourly forward, forward, like an
inexorable fate.
Slowly, wearily, through the mud of that single thorough-
fare, now on planks, now on the railway which runs in the
rnidst of the street, now on the curb-stone of some intended,
but never completed sidewalk, the straight, soldier-like form
of Ferdinand Spalding glanced amid the increasing snow-
flakes, as he struggled, after a long day's work, to seek the
material of more work. On his left lay the ship-yards,
with their ribs of future leviathans glistening in the ghostly
snow-light. Hill-pressed houses, nodding in tipsy reverie,
uncertain when to tumble, glowered on his right. Before
him, the locomotive, filling the street with its black-white
CHARITY IN THE COUNTING-HOUSE AND OUT OF IT. 485
breath, and turning the snow-flakes to grains of gold with its
fiery eye, came screaming, crushing onward. But Ferdi-
nand saw not the silent spectral forms around him, heard
not the shriek of the monster that drew near. The voice-
less electricity, which, overhead, was carrying on the chit,
chat of men a thousand miles apart, had no interest for him
at that moment. He had left hungry children, a fireless
hearth, a sick wife, behind him ; and his soul, commonly as
free from care as a bird, was for a while bowed down.
Slowly, wearily, Ferdinand has passed by the embryo
steamers, the grating saw-mills, the chipping, splitting, plan-
ing machines, the subterranean rolling-mills, where half-
clad, brawny men struggle for ever with red-hot serpents of
iron, and has entered the city, as street after street becomes
conscious of gas.
It was the same snow-spitting evening ; two men, longer
in conversation than usual, still sat over the store stove in
Main Street. The gloomy night grew darker, and still they
talked.
" I give freely," said the younger, buttoning his sack-
coat over a somewhat corpulent person, and drawing him-
self up with an air of satisfaction. " For my means, Dea-
con Stiles, I give freely. I know the wants of the poor, Sir.
I have visited the poor. My wife, your niece, Sir, does
nothing but mother them. I give freely, but never blindly,
Deacon Stiles ; never blindly."
The elder, who had been sitting, doubled up, with his
small, quiet eyes fixed upon the stove, suddenly opened
those eyes to double dimensions, laughed in a supernatural-
ly noiseless manner, and turning his cud, repeated, "Never
blindly, never blindly, Reuben ; freely, I know it, but never
blindly " ; and he chuckled again, like a spectre.
" There are men in business," said Reuben, emphatically
nodding his head, " who do as well as I do, and buy real
estate out of their profits, and who give nothing to the suf-
41*
486 CHARITY IN THE COUNTING-HOUSE AND OUT OF IT.
fering. I know the men, I can put my finger on them.
Others give to every beggar ; they make beggars. They
are beggar-breeders, Sir. They ought to be fined, taxed,
to support the paupers they bring on us. In this country,
Deacon Stiles, no honest, industrious man need want; if he
has health, you know, of course. Show me the well man
that says he is suiluring, and 1 '11 show you a rogue, Sir,
an impostor, Sir, or a lazy, drunken vagabond. 1 know
the pour ; I have been in their houses."
u Wife," said the Deacon, laughing through his nose, as
lie spoke, " children, scarlet fever, measles, can't
work, no tools, doctor took them."
Reuben's mind seemed hardly to follow the argument of
which his companion gave the heads, so he went back to
his own experiences.
" My neighbour, next door here, has a theory that a great
many can be helped best by making them loans, giving
them credit, and so on. It 's all nonsense. He makes beg-
gars. Such fellows need to be dealt with strictly. Make
them pay for what they buy, pay cash ; that 's the way to
make them active, thriving, prompt."
At this moment the door opened, and the same soldier-
like person that we saw coming through the mire of Fulton
entered, took ofT his straw hat, bowed stiffly, and asked if
" the proprietor" was in. Reuben coming forward as such,
the inquiry was made for red flannel. "I am usually a
purchaser from your neighbour," said Spalding, " but he is
closed. I have an order, which must be completed to-mor-
row noon, or I shall not be entitled to my pay ; and I must
work till past midnight to complete it." As he said this,
his lip trembled, and his eye swam. Reuben turned to
present his goods, when the other stopped him, and said,
painfully, it seemed, but resolutely, " If I buy, Sir, I cannot
pay you till to-morrow, when I shall receive payment my-
self."
CHARITY IN THE COUNTING-HOUSE AND OUT OF IT. 487
Reuben looked at the Deacon, and smiled. " Did not I
tell you so ? My neighbour makes beggars, does n't he,
Deacon ? "
" I am no beggar, Sir," said Spalding, half amazed, half
angry.
"I spoke to this gentleman," replied Reuben, as he took
his chair again. " I have no flannel to sell you, my friend."
The stiff bow was repeated, the straw hat replaced, and
the cashless purchaser passed out once more into the storm.
He tried one or two other stores, but to no purpose ; so,
making up his mind to come at early dawn to his usual
place of purchase, he turned to retrace his steps over the
desolate path he had so lately trodden in vain.
" My neighbour makes beggars," repeated Reuben, as
the door closed. The Deacon, who had watched the coun-
tenance, manner, and voice of Spalding with his half-shut
eyes, laughed in his soul, and said to his companion, in a
queer, confidential way, as though the store had been filled
with people, "Wrong, Reuben; honest, works hard,
seen better times."
Reuben would have gone into an argument to prove that
he was right ; but the Deacon, shaking with noiseless mirth,
stopped him with, " No talk, no talk ; rnind, I want flannel
myself. Cash here."
The young tradesman laughed heartily at the idea of re-
quiring the rich old Deacon to pay cash, but nevertheless
took the money, and the two soon parted. Reuben returned
to listen over his steak and young hyson to his wife's
account of the poor she had been mothering that day ;
while the old man, who lived near Columbia, got into his
wagon, and began the perilous journey through the heights
and depths, the broken pavements and immeasurable mud-
holes, of the same pathway which Spalding was pursuing on
foot. Deacon Stiles knew very well that Spalding was pur-
suing it ; he knew where he lived, had inquired into his
488 CHARITY IN THE COUNTING-HOUSE AND OUT OF IT.
condition, had sent him, or rather his wife, customers ; and
yet this dismal evening, as he passed the weary walker,
though he looked closely at him, he did not stop, as one
might have supposed he would, to take him up ; but drove
quietly by, and left the straw hat to catch the snow-flakes at
its leisure. Had Reuben been there, he would certainly
have said, " Wrong, Deacon." Perhaps the old man thought
so ; for his head shook as if palsy-stricken with the laughter
that filled him, as an earthquake might some gray old con-
tinent.
Round a fireless fireplace stood four shivering children.
In their midst, on his knees, a fifth was trying to kindle
some wet chips that he had just brought from the ship-yard,
as he returned from his day's work at the bagging- factory.
On the bed lay the mother, a new-born infant, and a little
girl with the quinsy. Of the two boys and two girls who
stood about the fire-builder, but one had on shoes, it was
the smallest, not two years old. A pile of red-flannel shirts
lay upon a bureau. The room was clean, and, had there
been a fire, would have been quite cheerful, with its white
curtains and engravings. Over the mantel hung a portrait
of the Duke of Wellington, and above it, the sword of an
English officer.
The fire kindles, goes out again ; once more it lights up,
and the little solemn faces around glisten, and half smile ;
but the wet drops a second time extinguish their hopes.
" It 's too hard on you, John," said the pale mother,
faintly, " after your twelve hours' labor."
" Make it go yet, mother," answered John, with a tone
that was a perfect challenge to despondency. " Father 's
had many a worse time making fire in the mountains."
Hope and perseverance conquer ; the oak-chips slowly
catch the blaze ; picture after picture on the whitewashed
wall wakes up, and the little bare toes on the bare floor for-
get to curl with cold any longer. The child with the quinsy
CHARITY IN THE COUNTING-HOUSE AND OUT OF IT. 489
tries to speak her gratitude through her swollen throat, and
the mother closes her eyes, to thank God.
There comes a knock at the door. John, who had stood
back to give the youngsters a chance, opens it. A muffled
form is seen holding out a bundle of some kind ; a pair of
eyes which are small, then large, looks in at the scene, at
the just kindled fire, and comprehends it all.
" Flannel for to-night for father. Pay to-morrow, next
day. Dollar, work to be done next week."
John takes the flannel and the dollar-bill, knowing noth-
ing of what it all means. The visitor kisses the little girl
that has gone to the door to see who is come, slips some-
thing into her hand, and slips himself down the abrupt hill,
over the rail track, to the road, where his old white horse
and green wagon are waiting for him. No one on earth
heard that small laugh through the nose, as he turned his
cud with closed lips, and wiped what he thought the snow-
water out of his eyes.
" So father bought his goods," said the poor woman,
thankfully, " but what the dollar means I don't know. Let
us thank God for it, though, for there 's not a mouthful in
the house but John's dinner."
John was about to say he had his dinner at the factory,
and, indeed, he had eaten his usual chunk of bread ; for
his dinner was always kept till evening, it tasted so much
better at home, but he remembered the dollar, and saved
himself from the temptation. He did not want to lie, even
to give them a meal.
Little Mora, meanwhile, had run to the fire, to see what
the strange man had given her. It was a paper of sugar-
plums and candy, with an orange at the bottom of the bag.
" That was for mamma ; they all knew that was for mam-
ma "; and the most delicate morsels of cream-candy were
for poor Kate ; they would n't hurt her throat one bit. " But
who could the strange man be ? " There was no end of
490 CHARITY IN THE COUNTING-HOUSE AND OUT OF IT.
wondering. In half an hour, the father's step was heard.
The door opened ; the children sprang to meet him. He em-
braced them with a mournful face ; but their hearts were so
bright that their eyes were dim, and they saw in his counte-
nance reflected the joy that sparkled in their own.
" And who was it brought your flannel?" said the mother,
" and what does the dollar mean ? "
" Flannel ! dollar ! " cried Ferdinand, with amazement.
The articles were shown him, but there was no end of won-
dering. The cry still was, " Who could the strange man
be ? "
However, the dollar was used, and John ate his dinner in
company.
Long after those merry eyes were closed, and those cheer-
ful voices silenced, Ferdinand was at work. The sick child
turned and moaned, and he gave it drink, and it, too, slept
at length. He beat up his wife's pillow, walked the uneasy
infant to rest, and in the intervals, and after all were lost to
this world's trials, his needle was busy. It was a strange
sight, doubtless, to any ghosts that flitted through Fulton that
night, this old soldier of the Peninsula making flannel
shirts on the banks of the Ohio.
Spalding had come to America with a competence. He
had bought a farm in Ohio, had been ruined by Merino
sheep and indorsements. Giving up every thing, he moved
to Cincinnati, where he knew one man ; that man was on
his deathbed, and could not aid him. For months he had
sought in vain for employment. He knew no one ; his man-
ner was abrupt, his pride strong ; and but for some sewing
which his wife was doing, they might all have starved or
begged. When John got into the bagging-factory, it was a
help ; but when the wife was prematurely confined in the
midst of a contract which she had taken, and the pay for
which depended on the exact completion of her work upon
a specified day, all seemed lost. But Ferdinand was a man
CHARITY IN THE COUNTING-HOUSE AND OUT OF IT. 491
of resource ; as a soldier, he had used the needle, and he
now used it again.
By noon the next day the shirts were placed before the
employer, and, with straw hat in hand, the Englishman
awaited his payment, six cents for each shirt, beyond the
cost of material. With microscopic eyes the contractor ex-
amined the stitches ; he detected the man's hand.
" Wont do ; wont do. Who made these ? "
" My wife part, I part."
" Thought so ; thought so. Can 't have them. Poor
trash," replied the store-keeper. " I '11 give you the cost
of the material ; not a cent more."
" My wife is sick ; we are starving. Take her's, they are
well made," cried the unhappy substitute.
" All or none. Cost of material or nothing. Keep them.
Find a market if you can."
Too proud to chaffer, in debt for the flannel, wholly un-
used to such scenes, Spalding took the offer of the human
vampire, and, with a heart sick against his fellows, and half
rebellious against his God, turned away.
He paid the merchant who had trusted him for most of
his materials. The remainder of the money, and the rem-
nant of flannel left from his last piece, he laid away until the
owner should appear.
And now began a series of sacrifices, self-denials, and
sufferings, which we dare not attempt to describe. Every
salable article was sold, except the sword and the portrait
of Wellington. John's wages were reserved for rent. The
money due the strange visitor of the snowy night lay in the
drawer, but no one thought of touching it. At last, an offer
was made of some work, if a peculiar material could be had.
Ferdinand went to his old friend ; he had none ; there was
none, he thought, in town, unless at Reuben Small's. With
feet of lead, Ferdinand once again presented himself before
the man who gave freely to the poor. Reuben remembered
492 CHARITY IN THE COUNTING-HOUSE AND OUT OF IT.
the straw hat. Had he cash ? No ; but he could refer to
next door to prove his punctuality. Reuben shook his head.
The article was scarce, was a cash article.
" But I am poor, Sir, destitute."
" Then work."
" How can I, without material ? "
" Are you a seamstress ? "
" My wife is, Sir."
" And you, like a lazy vagabond, depend on your wife,
do you, Sir ! Leave my store ! "
Reuben went home, full of virtuous indignation.
How placidly falls the fire-light over this Saxony carpet,
these velvet-covered lounges, these damask curtains, how
merrily it dances in the tall pier-glasses, how roguishly it
opens for an instant the beauties of that landscape by Whit-
tridge, then plunges it in darkness again, and laughs at you
from the engraving after Teniers, or glooms from the copy
of Rembrandt ! The silent centre-table is heaped with the
soul-heard voices of the dead, Milton, Dante, Southey,
how strange they must feel in their suits of gold and moroc-
co ! A little woman sits by the grate, rocking anxiously.
She shades her face with a paper. Perhaps it 's the National
Era ? No ; she 's a kind little woman, and mothers the
poor, but she hates Antislavery. She has an uncle, a rich
uncle, in Louisiana. The negroes she feels sorry for, but
what business has the North to meddle with slavery ? She
would like to have that question answered. She gives a dol-
lar a month to send King James's translation to Rome, but
what has Ohio to do with slavery ?
The outer door opens ; there is a scrubbing and grunting,
a knocking effect, clearing of throats, and blowing of noses,
and the little woman rocks more and more nervously. Then
Reuben enters. " O Mr. Small," says the little wife,
hurriedly, " I 'vc heard of such a case ! such a case ! "
Reuben had that day it was just a week after Spalding
CHARITY IN THE COUNTING-HOUSE AND OUT OF IT. 493
last saw him given five dollars to the agent of the Protes-
tant Society, and something almost like a frown crossed his
brow at this threatened attack on his pocket ; however, it
might have been a wrinkle of fire-light.
" The Thompsons, that had n't a pillow-case in the house,
was nothing to it," said Mrs. Small. " The Browns' case
was a sad one," she continued ; " no tea, no sugar, for an
age ; but this is real starvation, Reuben, positive starving
to death ! You must go with me to-morrow morning and
see it. We '11 have the carriage, and go after breakfast,
and you can be back by eleven."
" Where is it ? Where would you take me, my love ?
I 'm a man of business ; remember, Mrs. Small, a man of
business."
" But you must go, Reuben ; you must go. Uncle Stiles,
who told me about it, said you must go ; he wished you to
go-"
" Ah ! well, my love, well ! Deacon Stiles ! Well, if he
desires it, of course. I respect the Deacon, Mrs. Small.
But how comes he to know any thing of the poor ? Does he
visit the poor ? He 's a rich man, a fine man, Uncle Stiles ;
but a little careful, I think, my love, a little close ; hardly
gives like some of us," and Reuben laughed happily. He
thought partly of his own free-giving, partly of the unencum-
bered property of his wife's bachelor uncle.
This same old bachelor, after his visit to Spalding's with
the flannel, had been tied to his bed by rheumatism ; perhaps
that hunt in the snow for the shirt-maker's house had some
hand in it. However, on the morning of the day we now
write of, he had got out again, and on his way to town had
called at the same house, with some work he had trumped
up, to pay for the dollar he had given them. He knocked
at the door ; no one came. A second and third knock were
unanswered. He ventured to lift the latch, and enter.
It was a bright morning, but the curtains of the little apart-
VOL. I. 42
494 CHARITY IN THE COUNTING-HOUSE AND OUT OF IT.
merit were all drawn, and at first he could see nothing.
Then came to his eyes a bed, and by it were kneeling some
sobbing children. What was on the bed ? He could not
see. He drew nearer. A sheet covered the whole surface
of the shuck mattress. With pious hands, gently he folded
it down ; three forms, cold as the ice on the threshold, lay
there, side by side, a mother, an infant, and a little girl
of five or six years old, all so wasted that it was terrible
to look upon their hungry faces. Shuddering, the old man
turned back the shroud. He looked at the kneeling children,
who had at last noticed him. They shook with cold ; the
skin around their temples was half-transparent ; their eyes
seemed phosphoric in the twilight.
" Did you bring us some bread ? " said little Mora.
The whole hideous truth which he had held away,
afraid to think of it came like a blow upon the old man's
heart. Faint and staggering, he hastened to the nearest
store, scandalizing old Mrs. Strong, who saw him issue
from the door, and told all her neighbours, for twenty-four
hours, how Deacon Stiles, of Columbia, had been up drink-
ing with that lazy fellow, Spalding.
He bought some food, begged some firewood, caught the
first woman he knew by the arm, and dragged her with him ;
and when the widowed soldier, haggard and heavy-eyed,
opened his door with his armfull of ship-yard chips, he found
a fire blazing on the hearth, a pot simmering over it, the
pale-faced children nestling in its blaze, and the Deacon
doling out to them very small mouthfuls of very dry bread,
bidding them be careful to eat slow, and " masticate thor-
oughly," a direction which resulted mainly in opening
their sunken eyes till they looked like four dwarf spectres.
A few questions identified the present helper with the
friend of the snowy night. Little Mora, indeed, had whis-
pered twenty times that it was he. A few words explained
the misery of the Englishman. The sale of the shirts for
CHARITY IN THE COUNTING-HOUSE AND OUT OF IT. 495
i
their cost ; the necessity of paying their rent with John's
earnings, for while the wife was sick they could not move ;
the last disappointment at Reuben Small's ; the short and
shorter allowance of food, dwindling to nothing ; his con-
stant attendance for nearly forty-eight hours by the triple
deathbed, which had taken away even the fragment of a
meal and the semblance of a fire, these things were soon
told.
As the husband and father closed his melancholy tale, he
rose, went to the drawer, and brought to the Deacon the
remnant of flannel, and the price of what he had used, telling
him what it was. The old man sprang from his chair, up-
setting the table, with the pitcher of milk and the loaf of
bread, and dropping from his lap the morsels he had been
cutting with his jack-knife.
" Great God ! and you have been starving with this money
in the house ! "
" It was not mine," said the soldier, quietly.
The next morning, the comfortable little one-horse wagon
owned by Mr. Small was floundering on its way to Fulton,
every mud-hole bringing a malediction half-way up Reuben's
throat. He wished the Common Council, and Deacon Stiles,
and all folks who were fools enough to starve, just where
they belonged. When he got to the turnpike, his soul grew
smoother, but presently came the locomotive, that demon
to the eyes of horses, and the unhappy man was forced to
scramble out into the mire, and wrestle with his terrified
beast, until, from hip to ankle, he was a real-estate owner in
" that detestable town of Fulton." In what state of mind,
therefore, he drew near the end of his journey, may be im-
agined.
At length, they reached the point where the Deacon had
told them to stop. The horse was hitched, the hill climbed,
the house recognized by the black crape on the latch, the
latch lifted, and Reuben stood in that dwelling which might
496 CHARITY IN THE COUNTING-HOUSE AND OUT OF IT.
never have been visited by death, had he but asked a few
kind questions of the man whose wife was a seamstress, or
been willing to take his neighbour's assurance that a poor man
might be trusted, an assurance he would have taken in a
moment, had a country merchant been the customer.
On the bed, the only resting-place, were the two coffins ;
from the one, the wasted features of mother and babe, from
the other, the sunken eyes of little Kate, spoke of woes that
few know on earth. The other children, decently clad, but
still shrunk and pinched from the cold and famine they had
gone through, sat upon a bench by the bedside. The father
had gone for the clergyman.
Reuben, whose heart was a kind one, felt strangely
troubled, as he looked upon the reality of starvation, a
thing, as he had always thought and said, unknown in Cin-
cinnati, where all is so abundant and so cheap.* He turned
to the Deacon, and asked the particulars of the scene he
witnessed.
" Father," said the old man, " soldier ; man of property ;
ruined ; no work ; knew nobody ; proud ; honest ; would n't
ask, sooner die."
" A soldier ? " said Reuben. " Did I ever see him ? "
" Be in presently " ; and something like the usual silent
laugh shook the Deacon's breast. Then he went on, " Wife
sewed ; boy in bagging-factory ; never ran in debt ; no
debts, no debts ; wife sick ; little girl sick, too ; father
sewed" Reuben grew uneasy "all day, all night;
cooked ; nursed ; sewed. Was cheated, old Stump, clothes-
man, you know him, cheated out of all his work and her
work on seven dozen red flannel shirts." As the Deacon
* Lest our readers should think with him, we would say, that one
case, at least, has occurred in Cincinnati this year, in which both
parents starved to death ; they were English, and left several very fine
children. Our story is, in all its features, drawn from facts within our
own knowledge.
CHARITY IN THE COUNTING-HOUSE AND OUT OF IT. 497
grew warmer, he spoke louder and more like other men.
" Yes, Sir," and he opened his eyes on the Main Street deal-
er, whose gaze was now on the still coffins, now on the hol-
low-cheeked children, " the making of seven dozen red
flannel shirts were they cheated out of." The red of the
flannel seemed reflected in the cheeks of Reuben. " Then
they began to starve," continued the speaker ; " the sick felt
it most ; they sold all to the bed, that portrait of Wellington,
that sword, which this man had used under the eye of Wel-
lington. More work was offered ; a rare material was need-
ed ; the only man, hear me, Reuben," for Reuben had
risen and gone to the window, " the only man who had
that material would not trust him, though he offered the best
references."
" Cruel wretch," cried Mrs. Small.
" Yes, cruel," said her uncle, " through his thoughtless-
ness; through his theory that charity was not to be given by
trusting, by loaning, in the way of business, at the counting-
house."
" And did they starve ? " cried Reuben, turning, with tears
running down his cheeks, after a fashion that made his wife
admire him more than ever. " Did they indeed starve ? "
" They had money in the house," continued the Deacon,
" but it was not theirs ; they would not use it. They lived
on corn-meal ; they picked up bones and boiled them. But
starving on such things dried up the mother's milk ; the child
died ; the mother's heart sank, broke ; she could eat nothing
they could buy with the few cents they earned now and
then, her stomach rejected it; she died; the little girl,
with the quinsy, had no medicine, no food, no warmth, no
mother, and she died, too. You may say yourself, Reuben,
if they starved or not."
" And I am their murderer," cried the conscience-stricken
man, pressing his hot head against the wall, as if to crush
the thought that haunted him.
42*
498 CHARITY IN THE COUNTING-HOUSE AND OUT OF IT.
" No, Reuben," said the old man, kindly, " you are not
their murderer ; but neither are you what you might have
been, their saviour. God put it in your power to save
them, but you did not dream that a counting-room, that
cloth-selling, might be made the field and the means of such
wonders. You had not learned that the best sphere of char-
ity is our daily walk in life."
Just then, the father and the minister came in ; the neigh-
bours gathered ; the service proceeded ; the broken-hearted
family gathered around the coffins, and gave the last look.
But their hearts, much as they suffered, did not suffer as
Reuben's did that day, when the clods fell on the victims of
want, for their consciences were unclouded.
LIFE IN CINCINNATI IN 1840.
FEW of us know how our neighbours live ; few of us ask
even what are the daily doings of those about us ; and yet
to learn more of the strange world in whose midst we walk
is, perhaps, the surest way by which to put off prejudice and
error, and acquire in their stead liberality and wisdom.
To present true portraits of some of the many varieties of
life which now, at this hour, have their being in this city, is
my object ; and every portrait is from life.
FIRST SCENE.
A room twelve by eight, with a window of four panes of
glass, and a chimney-place five feet by three ; a bed is in
the room, a table having three legs, and an empty candle-
box, set upon the end to serve as a seat ; no chairs ; in one
corner three sticks of wood. In the bed and among the
clothes upon it which consist of blankets, coats, petticoats,
pantaloons, and ragged quilts are a mother, her son of
sixteen, her daughter of fourteen, and three younger chil-
dren. All are asleep but the mother, though the hour is
half past nine, A. M. The mother lies with her eyes fixed
on the three sticks of wood ; presently she shakes the oldest
boy by the shoulder, ajad says, " Bill, I say, when did the
Council tell you they 'd give us some more wood ? " " Next
week, I telled yer last night. Let me sleep." So he drops
500 LIFE IN CINCINNATI IN 1840.
away again into slumber, while the mother, with many a deep-
drawn breath, makes her calculations for fuel during four
days, her capital being three sticks. Her financiering thoughts
terminate, where so many do, in concluding to borrow.
Having settled this, she gets up, puts on her outer clothes
(the under ones are never taken off except to wash, at rare
intervals), and proceeds to fish out the smaller children,
whose faces she rubs with a damp crash towel till all are
red and roaring. Sally and Bill, much relieved by the ab-
sence of the juniors, stretch themselves and prepare for a
new draught of oblivion ; while the mother makes ready her
thick coffee, and puts a little fat into the frying-pan to melt
before the one stick which she has kindled at the end, while
she mixes the unleavened flour and water which are to sup-
ply their staff of life.
At first glancing into this room, one thinks it the home of
vice, the abode of intemperance, licentiousness, idleness, and
probably dishonesty. The glance is deceptive. The mother
is honest, industrious, and religious ; but without work and
without tact. Moreover, she was raised in a Slave State,
and learned inefficiency from her sugar-trough cradle. The
eldest boy is in a bad way, it is true ; for, being out of work,
he has fallen into the company of boys whose parents are
bad, and is learning evil rapidly. He and his sister sleep
so late this morning because they were up by turns through
the night with a neighbour's child ; however, they rarely
rise before nine, having no work, and animal warmth being
cheaper than fuel. The sister is by nature one of the most
beautiful girls in the city, modest, intelligent, full of feel-
ing ; but slatternly, careless, and inefficient.
The father of this family has gone to that great receptacle
of husbands and sons, known by the somewhat vague name
of " down the river." Nothing has been heard from him
for eight months. This is probably, then, one of the desert-
ed families. The mother goes out to wash ; the elder daugh-
LIFE IN CINCINNATI IN 1840. 501
ter takes care of the younger children, one of whom is a
cripple ; the elder son works in brick-yards, tobacconists'
shops, printing-offices, and when out of work runs the streets,
and by intervals goes to school. For some days all' have
been out of work. They have no money, no meat, no bread ;
a little lard, a few pounds of flour, a " drawing" or two of
coffee, without milk or sugar. Behold their possessions !
Rent is due, also, and wood fast drawing to a close. Friends
on earth this family has not ; but the mother has still her
faith in God's presence, and in his providence. The power,
the value, of that faith, those of us who dwell not under the
constant pressure of want do not, cannot, realize. To that
poor woman God is no abstraction, but a living father ; he is
not among the stars, but by her bedside. When the hour of
great need, of hopeless need almost, comes, her Bible and
Methodist hymn-book have a Divine power in them, and her
last crust becomes, like the five loaves in the desert place,
enough for a multitude.
But want of food is not so hard to bear as what follows,
the temptation to forget want in whiskey ; the temptation to
supply want by dishonesty, by what many tongues suggest,
the prostitution of that young girl. It is when we see the
immense " purchase " which Satan has whereby to move
such hearts, and look at the frequency with which he moves
our own, that we may learn tolerance for the vices of the
poor. Let a man or woman fall down drunk in the street,
or be caught in a petty theft, lo ! the refined pass by in dis-
gust and contempt ; the worldly with a sneer ; the vulgar
stop and look on with a laugh. The pity without condemna-
tion, without contempt, without derision, such as becomes
a Christian, we seldom witness.
SECOND SCENE.
A room twenty-three by eighteen ; twelve feet high ; win-
dows reaching to the floor ; splendid curtains. Sofas of
502 LIFE IN CINCINNATI IN 1840.
rosewood ; pier-tables ; mirrors ; pictures ; hanging and
mantel lamps ; seats of various kinds worked in worsted ;
a carpet into which the foot sinks half-way to the ankle. It
is the edge of evening. Two old ladies sit, looking at the
fire, one keeping time to an imaginary band of music with
her foot. One young lady, near the window, is engaged in
running her eyes over Marryatt's " Diary." From an ad-
joining room is heard that peculiar kind of uproar which
commences toward dusk in a dinner party. A young man
enters and throws himself full length on a sofa.
The door-bell rings ; servant enters and says there is a
woman wishing to see Mrs. A., the same woman who
called this morning. "Tell her to call to-morrow morning,"
says Mrs. A. " Why not see her to-night, aunt ? " says the
young man. " Why, my dear John," cries the second old
lady (Mrs. B.), "don't you know how many houses have
been robbed of their cloaks only just last week, and within a
month ? To be sure, the woman must come by daylight,
and not in this kind of thievery way at midnight." John
groans, gets up, and goes into the entry. He asks the poor
woman her errand : she is after some work promised last
week. John tells his aunt. " Say she may call day after
to-morrow ; it is n't cut out yet," is the reply, which John
transmits. The woman turns, goes to the door, hesitates,
bites her lip, swallows her heart once or twice, opens the
door, stops again, and turns round, looking downward so as
to hide her face, though it is too dark to see color or feature.
John says to himself, " Well, I do believe she 's a thief,
after all," and watches her narrowly. She asks, after
another gulp or two, if she can have the half-dollar yet due
her. John, fearing a trick, remains in the entry, and calls
to his aunt. The reply is heard indistinctly, mingled with
renewed roars of laughter from the dining-room. " Tell
Mrs. Page," is the reply, "call pay her own leisure."
Mrs. Page turns ; John draws out a half-dollar, and, putting
LIFE IN CINCINNATI IN 1840. 503
it into her hand, asks her place of residence. She tells him,
and departs. John walks once or twice through the entry,
and then returns to his sofa. " Do you know that woman,
aunt ? " " O, no ; she 's a poor thing. I give her work to
keep her from pestering me ; but it don't do." " She is not
content with work," says John, " but wants money ! Most
unreasonable ! " Mrs. A. does not understand, and yawns.
The young lady rubs her eyes, and says, " Marryatt 's a
right fine fellow." Mrs. B. proceeds to remark how wicked
it is to beg, instead of working ; and how strange it is that
the benevolent societies do not provide for the poor ; and how
wonderful it is poverty should be allowed. John begins to
say something about " fellow-men, and fellow-Christians,"
but his aunt cuts him short by asserting that Mrs. Page is
neither man nor Christian. " Why not Christian ? " cries
John. " Because she told me herself she had never been
to church for time immemorial." " Did she say why ? "
" O, as usual, something about clothes ; just an excuse, of
course. Every body knows a true, humble Christian don't
mind the like of clothes." The dinner party breaks up,
eight men, in the four hours, having consumed as much (in
cost) as would support a " poor family" of three or four, the
year round.
THIRD SCENE.
A small room in the suburbs, shed roof, no plastering on
the walls. In the closet a few plates and saucers neatly ar-
ranged, a bed smooth and orderly, a fire of saw-dust. On
some chunks of wood sit a man and two little girls of eight
and ten, with flaxen hair and blue eyes, looking up into their
father's dim-seen face. He is telling them the story of
Joseph. The door opens and Mrs. Page enters, puts down
her basket, kisses her children, who jump up to meet her,
turns down the bed-clothes to look at the sleeping baby, and
then sits down by the fire. " No work, Edward," she says,
501 LIFE IN CINCINNATI IN 1840.
sighing. " But you have the pay for the last ? " " I have
some bread, and some sugar, and your medicines ; and paid
up at the apothecary's." " Then we will thank God, and go
to bed, and to-morrow pray for our daily bread again." An
hour is spent in talk and prayer, and all go to bed.
FOURTH SCENE.
Mrs. Page's house, 9 A.M. All clean and in order;
breakfast over, floor scrubbed ; Mrs. P. gone to get work, if
possible. John enters ; hesitates ; looks round. " Is this
Mrs. Page's house ? " " It is." Asks for her. Is invited
to sit down. Looks upon Mr. P. as an outlaw and ruffian,
and prefers to stand. John inquires as to family, &c. The
two little girls come and take his hand at their father's bid-
ding, John rather shrinking, as from young scorpions. Mr.
Page tells his story. He was a carpenter ; he hurt himself
by a fall, and has been sick all winter. His wife has sup-
ported him. Has been visited by few ; helped only by poor
neighbours. One who visited them, " an excellent Christian
woman she was, too," he said, had talked hard to his wife
for ironing some clothes on Sunday morning for his children
to go to Sunday school in, though she was up till ten the
night before working; it had dispirited his wife a great deal.
" Does your wife go to church? " asks John. " She has not
had a shoe of her own for months," is the answer ; " when
she goes out she borrows a neighbour's, who can't lend them
of a Sunday." John returns to his aunt's with some new
views of life.
FIFTH SCENE.
Front Street, of a sunny day early in January. A good-
looking young man is going from store to store asking for
work. Some have none ; some ask his politics, and tell him
he 's served right for voting for Van Buren ; some ask his
name, condition, birthplace, &c. He is named John Scott ;
LIFE IN CINCINNATI IN 1840. 505
came from Cuyahoga County ; has a mother and sister
mainly dependent on him ; worked all the summer and fall
on one of the public works, and lost half his wages through
some dispute between the company and contractor ; has
no home in Cincinnati, but puts up at D.'s on Water Street,
when he can pay, and sometimes sleeps on the floor by the
stove when penniless. Has no friend in the city, and no
means of leaving it.
Finding no work, John leans against a post, and suns him-
self, and thinks of his poor mother's disappointment at re-
ceiving no letter from him. He fears to write, for he has
no money to send, and is conscious of having misspent what
little he has earned. His heart sinks, his blood grows bitter
and savage ; he would like to drown thought in drink, quar-
rel, any thing. A comrade touches him on the shoulder,
" Liquor, John ? " With a mad alacrity he joins the drink-
ers. Had the good Whig who rejected him for his vote em-
ployed him, he might have saved a soul alive.
SIXTH SCENE.
A cold, snowy afternoon, late in January. Dusk is draw-
ing near. Men muffled up to the chin step along quickly,
and remark through their coat-collars that it 's quite a snow-
storm ; then drive on again, bending against the cold wind,
with visions of hot rolls and buttered toast, of a cosy evening
by the fireside, and a soft warm bed, in their minds. One
of them is stopped by a man whose legs move under him as
he stands, as if all his joints were of the ball-and-socket
make ; a large rent in the leg of his pantaloons reveals no
under garment ; another in the seat fails to discover a shirt ;
his teeth chatter ; his whole frame quivers as in an ague ;
his fingers stand out like icicles. " Stranger," he says,
" where can I get warm ? " " Go home, go home, my good
fellow," answers the other with mingled nausea and pity. " I
have no home," growls John Scott ; " I 'm cold ; I 've slept
VOL. i. 43
506 LIFE IN CINCINNATI IN 1840.
out two nights ; two nights hy the wntch, stranger. I 'm
cold, I tell you ; I have not seen a fire for eight hours. As
God made you, stranger, where can I get warm ? " Two
more gentlemen come up, stop, and one asks what the mat-
ter is. " O, the man 's only drunk ! " cries his friend.
" Come along, or the muffins will be burnt." They pass on.
John Scott looks after them, and mutters something about
their being burnt one day. While his eyes are wandering,
the person first addressed, feeling himself unable to do any
thing, pushes for home. John, muttering curses, and prayers,
and promises of amendment, staggers up the street.
Soon after dark he was picked up from the middle of the
street (where two or three persons had poked him with their
canes to see what the matter was, and concluded he was
" only drunk "), and taken to a tavern, by a young, chicken-
hearted clerk, who was such an enemy to temperance as to
pity an intemperate man.
SEVENTH SCENE.
A small, dark room, unplastered ; the crevices of the
walls pasted over with leaves from the Bible. A small fire
of pine boards (it is late in February). Two men sit by a
table playing some game of chance by the light of a candle
stuck in a knot-hole. One is John Scott, the other Mike
Simmons. Mike was once a boatman, hale and handsome ;
lie is still handsome, but dying of consumption. He was
once honest, sober, industrious ; he is now a drunkard, gam-
bler, idler, and lives by stealing logs from the saw-mills and
lumber from rafts. He keeps a child at a pay school.
The door opens, and Mike's wife enters, red in the face,
and reeling. She places a jug on the table, and from a heap
of crockery and old shoes pulls out a bowl and washes it in
the water bucket. Drinking begins. Mike has a job on
hand, and wants his wife out of the way ; for even such
women as she have hearts, and pity the victims in whose
LIFE IN CINCINNATI IN 1840. 507
midst they walk. The woman is drenched, and thrown into
the heap of straw, bedclothes, and children in the corner.
The children cry out, and wriggle from under their mother ;
one squirms out of bed, and is kicked back by the father.
Family matters settled, Mike goes on with his game.
John Scott is kept on the verge of entire drunkenness by the
whiskey, and prevented from going over by well-told tales of
theft, robbery, and bloodshed, exciting enough to rouse
him from complete lethargy. About ten a third man enters,
after a mysterious tap at the window. The three draw to-
gether and speak under their breath.
The results of that consultation are not yet evident, but at
such moments bold deeds of evil are planned. By some
such deed John Scott may yet prove that, when drunk in the
street, his case was not that of " only drunk," but that of one
hanging between a return to right and destruction. Even
now, breathing this tainted atmosphere of whiskey and on-
ions, in which the very candle burns dim, John thinks of his
mother ! O, were some friend by to help the poor strug-
gling wretch ! There is none. Satan smiles at his elbow,
and, opposite, Mike smiles in answer, little dreaming that
his dear friend and gossip, theTempter, is exchanging grins
with the Death which is now looking from his own sunken
and swimming eyes.
THE LOST CHILD.
IT has been said that the morals of a city depend very
much upon the manner in which it is laid out ; if irregular,
and full of alleys, lanes, and courts, there will inevitably be
more of filth and iniquity therein, than if it be open, regular,
and airy. High houses and narrow passage-ways seem to
breed vicious habits, as dark crevices do foul insects ; at
any rate, they give shelter and shade. The ideal of a city
would be realized when every passage-way was made broad
and easy of access. It is an error, therefore, to build a
town in squares, for the interiors of the squares become
always, in a greater or less degree, sinks.
The mistake in the plan of Cincinnati, then, was, that the
main squares are not traversed by large passage-ways ; and
many, that seem without noble and fine, are within foul and
terrible to look upon. Under the very windows of the most
beautiful and comfortable dwelling-houses of our city are
some of the most miserable hovels in existence, unnoticed,
because in the interior of a square.
In the door-way of an old wooden house, which stands,
unseen by the passer-by in the street, in the midst of one of
the fine squares of Cincinnati, a white woman, of some
thirty years old, sat looking stupidly at the golden sky of the
west. The beauty of God's heaven soothed and interested
her, though she knew not what influence it was that calmed
THE LOST CHILD. 509
her spirit. The house was miserably dilapidated ; not a
window remained whole ; the weather-boarding was broken,
and the chimney in ruins. Close to the feet of the sitting
woman, the hogs were quarrelling for some remnants of her
last meal ; and upon the ash-heap by her side, a little girl,
about four years old, was playing with a yellow, scabby dog.
Within, a straw-bed lay in a corner, and a block of wood
from some lumber-yard contrasted strangely with a bureau
veneered with showy mahogany.
" Mother," cried out a ragged and dirt-streaked boy, who
came up kicking his furless fur cap before him, "John
ain't nowhere."
" He is," said the woman, without moving her eyes from
the sky ; " and if you don't fetch him in quick, mind your-
self."
The boy gave the dog one kick, that brought forth a simul-
taneous howl from cur and child, and strolled out into the
street again.
The twilight faded ; the stars looked down upon the
seething city, and through the stillness of evening the boat-
man's song rose from the sluggish river, and was listened to
by many an ear far up town. The lady, leaning from her
open window, heard it, and ceased fanning herself to catch
the hearty tones ; the gentleman, rocking in his piazza,
heard it, and his cigar went out as his head kept time with
the quick, full notes ; the servant-girl caught the sound, and
stood, cup and towel in hand, drinking in what reminded her
of one who was braving the fever in the Southwest ; the
poor woman sitting on the threshold of that old frame-house
heard that song also, and years were annihilated by it, and
she laid her head down upon her greasy apron, and cried
as the fallen alone ever do. While the fit was still on her,
the boy whom she had sent out came back again, sullen and
fierce. " He ain't to be had," said he.
43*
510 THE LOST CHILD.
" Who ? John ? Where ain't he ? Who 'vc you seen ?
What 've you done ? Answer me, Bill, is John lost ? "
" For all I know," said the boy.
The woman caught up her little girl, threw her, scream-
ing, into an inner room, cast a shawl over her head, and,
seizing her sullen boy by the arm, walked out into Vine
Street.
" Now where did you see him last, Bill ? " she said,
pausing on the sidewalk.
" Down there," he growled, pointing to the opposite
square, which was nearly vacant.
Letting go of her son's arm, the woman began her search
among the lumber-piles where the lost child had been last
seen ; while Bill shuffled along to a coffee-house close by,
where a store-breaker was just then consulting with his com-
panions, and a young carpenter, fresh from New Hampshire,
was trying to smile as he drank his dose of whiskey and
water with a new bosom friend.
The clock of the Second Church struck eight ; the groups
about the corners were thinner; the laugh and shout and
oath were less frequent ; more lights were seen in upper
windows; the active and faithful were going to their beds.
More than one man, during the evening, had swung along to
that old house in the centre of the square, had called for
"Bet" and "Betsey" and "Bet Fowler," and, having no
answer, had sworn and slammed the door, and swung away
again. Now and then the little girl in the inner room had
o c
wakened, and whimpered a little, and sunk to sleep again ;
and once during the hour preceding eight, Bill had crept in
silently, and placed something in, or taken something from,
a drawer of the bureau. The clock of the Second Church
struck eight, and people in Fourth Street, having counted the
strokes, were just about to talk again, when the bell of the
public cryer stopped all tongues : "A child found,"
shouted that functionary, " five years old ; blue eyes, one
THE LOST CHILD. 511
black and blue ; red hair ; very dirty ; had on, when found,
calico clothes of no great value." Ding ding. "Stop,"
said a woman, seizing his arm ; " it 's my child ; where is
he ? " " He ! who said it was a ' he ' ? " answered the
bellman. " Man," said the mother, griping the arm of the
officer so that he felt his pleasantry ooze out of his fingers'
ends, " tell me where he is." He hesitated. " For
shame ! " cried the spectators. " Well, come along, then,"
said he, " and I wish you joy of your beauty." She said no
word, but followed him to a house from which she could
look down upon her own miserable home ; there was her
lost boy, not now what he had been, but washed and
clothed with clean and decent, though over-large clothes.
" My good woman," said a lady, whose eye showed her
sympathy, " whereabouts do you live ? "
" Down there," said the mother, pointing, and answering
with a defiant and hard manner.
" Whom shall I ask for ? " inquired the lady.
" I would n't go and ask for no one," replied the other,
bitterly.
" But," said the lady, after a pause, " I want to help you ;
you look poor."
" I am poor, but no beggar," was the reply ; and the
woman turned and walked away, leaving her benefactor in
a state of mingled surprise and horror.
" Is it possible," said that lady, the next morning at break-
fast, " that so much misery exists close by us as that wom-
an's looks would show ? "
" It's a melancholy fact," said her husband.
" And what can be done for her ? "
" Nothing, so far as I can see," and he opened the Ga-
zette to learn if any new books were advertised.
That day the lady went through the square to which the
woman had pointed the night before, but saw nothing of her
or her boy. She saw enough, however, to make her flesh
512 THE LOST CHILD.
creep, and could not rest when she went home till she had
washed and dressed anew, the open air in which she had
been had seemed so thick with uncleanliness to her. " And
all this," she said to herself again and again, " is right un-
der my windows."
The next morning was rainy, but in the afternoon it
cleared up, and putting on her thick shoes, and bracing her
courage to the highest, once more this lady went forth to
find the woman whose child she had clothed two days be-
fore. " Surely," said she, " if the mother could go abroad
at night to find him when lost from her, I may venture by
daylight to seek those lost to comfort, joy, and I fear to vir-
tue and their Father in heaven."
She went, and not in vain ; for she came this time sudden-
ly upon the mother, with the little boy by her side and a still
younger child in her arms.
" I tried to find you yesterday."
" I know it."
" How do you know it ? "
" I saw you, and hid away."
" For what, in mercy's sake ? "
" Because I don't want none of your money."
" But I may get you work, and your children places, if
you have any older than these."
" Will you walk in ? " said the poor woman, opening her
door, which swung from one hinge. Her visitor shrunk,
and hesitated for an instant, but choked down her disgust
and went it.
" What may your name be ? " said the tenant of the
building, wiping ofTthe block of wood, the only seat in the
room.
" Mrs. Ellis is my name," said the lady.
" And why do you want to help me ? "
" Because you seem to need it."
"And so do dozens and hundreds that's innocenter and
cleverer than I, Miss."
THE LOST CHILD. 513
" Are there many in want about here ? "
" Many ! That there be. I wish you could ha' seen 'em
crowd round one log here last winter ; and that a log that I
fished out o' the river when my petticoats was as stiff as a
board afore I 'd well got ashore. O, what a crowing there 'd
be down here, if that broad roof of yourn would only burn
up some sharp night. But you need n't be scared ; it ain't
you, Miss, that we hate, it 's the whole world."
" But why do you hate the world ? "
" Because I 've nothing to eat."
" Do you ever go to church? " asked Mrs. Ellis.
The woman literally howled as she answered, " Church !
there 's a church ! I could throw a stone into the window.
I used to go there, but not now ; I found 'em out. How
could I go to church with this on my back ? When I went
there, and dressed genteel, and had no rags and few sins on
my shoulders, the minister never come near me ; he never
knowed me in the street, though him and me met frequent.
And when the pinch come, and the Devil come, then he gave
me to fire and brimstone because I would n't starve."
" What caused your poverty ? " said Mrs. Ellis, shudder-
ing.
" I scare you, don't I ? " said the woman. " But don't be
scared, Bet Fowler never hurt no one."
" Is your name Fowler, then ? "
" That was my husband's name, when I had one."
" And where is he ? "
" He left me years ago. He was a drunkard, and he left
me when I did n't hardly know what hunger or harm
meant."
" And how have you lived since ? "
" Lived ! I have n't lived ! When I think of my father's
house, and the stoop where I used to sit and hark of an
evening to the boatmen singing; Fowler was a boatman
and followed the river regular, he drank some when we
514 THE LOST CHILD.
married ; however, as I was saying, when I think of them
times it seems to me I died years ago."
" Would you tell me your whole story ? " asked Mrs.
Ellis.
" I hain't no story."
" But your life, you 've had a strange life ? "
" Strange ! bless you, its the commonest life going.
Dissipation, and want, and despair, and evil, them ain't
strange."
" But tell me how you came here, and when your hus-
band left you? "
The unfortunate woman, who had thus far been standing
by the door, touched by the voice and look of interest, came
in, and, sitting down upon the straw bed, bowed her head
between her knees for a moment, and then, lifting her
face, which had lost something of its stupid and sullen look,
told her short tale.
Her husband had been a river trader, clever and affec-
tionate when sober, but given to frolicking. He had
brought his wife to Cincinnati soon after their marriage, and
they had lived quite comfortably ; but within two years his
habits became worse than ever, and at last he had left her
to take a boat-load of flour to Natchez and New Orleans,
from which time she had never heard from him. After he
went, she had lived for a while on his credit, and when that
was gone, had to pledge her furniture and clothing for food.
She next tried work, but her little boy was first sick, and
then she was herself confined. Debt came in consequence ;
people shunned her ; she wrote to her father, and the post-
master sent back word that he was dead. She asked assist-
ance of strangers ; some gave food and some gave money,
but all gave, she thought, in the hope of getting rid of her.
She went to the physicians, hoping to get a place as nurse.
She could find no place, but one of those whom she
visited marked her as a creature fast verging to that point
THE LOST CHILD. 515
when vice might seem virtue. He watched her ; helped
her ; condoled with her ; abused the heartless world ;
sneered at the virtue which suffered others or one's self to
starve ; and, in the end, succeeded in his worse than mur-
derous purpose. From that day degradation went on rapid-
ly ; as she said herself, it seemed to her that she died then.
Mrs. Ellis listened with surprise to a tale such as hundreds
might tell, and felt her blood curdle as the hitherto unknown
terrors of poverty were opened to her. " And all this has
been going on under my eyes," she said, " and how easily
might it have been prevented." But the question now as to
the woman before her was not prevention, but cure. " Mrs.
Fowler," said she, " you would change if you could ? "
The woman started at the unaccustomed title, and shook
her head in bitter despair. " Who 'd trust me ? " said she ;
" I M be put in jail in a week on suspicion, if I quit my
trade."
Her friendly visitor knew not what to reply, for the whole
dreadful gulf was beyond her vision ; but having asked her
wants, and bade her be of good cheer, she sought her
clergyman, before whom she laid the whole case. And to
him, strange to say, the case was full of new features ; busy
in his parochial duties, his easy benevolence, his theology
and botany, this good man had gone on ignorant that such
instances of want and despair and temptation were all about
him. He said he would inquire ; he hoped something might
be done ; he wished he knew what to do ; he determined he
would do something. So, taking his hat and cane, he sought
his friend and adviser, Deacon X. ; this gentleman, having
heard the story, advised at once that the woman should be
sent into the country with her children, and thought he
might get her a place if she knew any thing of dairy matters.
Mrs. Ellis soon learned that, before her marriage, she had
been used to the care of cows, and in a few weeks arrange-
ments were made, and the old frame-house in the centre of
the square was tenantless.
516 THE LOST CHILD.
A year has passed since that fallen woman was placed
again upon the way to truth and hope. Her careless and
lazy habits, her despondency and sullen temper, are not
wholly gone yet ; and Bill Fowler is the dread of the neigh-
bourhood. But still a great step has been taken, a great vic-
tory won ; and Mrs. Ellis often thanks God that she found
that lost child ; for, but for that child, she might to this
day have known nothing of the sin and suffering, of the
unknown and unspoken agony, which were " right under
her eyes," and which no one is now more busily engaged
in relieving than she.
THE HOLE IN MY POCKET.
IT is now about a year since my wife said to me one clay,
" Pray, Mr. Slackwater, have you that half-dollar about you
that I gave you this morning ? " I felt in my waistcoat
pocket, and turned my purse inside out, but it was all space,
which is very different from specie. So I said to Mrs. Slack-
water, " I 've lost it, my dear ; positively there must be a
hole in my pocket ! " "I '11 sew it up," said she.
An hour or two after, I met Tom Stebbins. "How did
that ice-cream set ? " said Tom. " It set," said I, " like the
sun, gloriously." And as I spoke, it flashed upon me that
my missing half-dollar had paid for those ice-creams ; how-
ever, I held my peace, for Mrs. Slackwater sometimes
makes remarks ; and even when she assured me at break-
fast next morning that there was no hole in my pocket,
what could I do but lift my brow and say, " Ah, is n't there ?
really ! "
Before a week had gone by, my wife, who, like a dutiful
helpmate, as she is, always gives me her loose change to
keep, called for a twenty-five cent piece that had been de-
posited in my sub-treasury for safe-keeping. " There is
a poor woman at the door," she said, " that I 've promised
it to for certain." " Well, wait a moment," I cried ; so I
pushed inquiries first in this direction, then in that, and then
in the other, but vacancy returned a hollow groan. " On
VOL. i. 44
518 THE HOLE IN MY POCKET.
my soul," said I, thinking it best to show a bold front, " you
must keep my pockets in better repair, Mrs. Slackwater ;
this piece, with I know not how many more, is lost, because
some corner or seam in my plaguy pocket is left open."
" Are you sure ? " said Mrs. Slackwaler.
" Sure ! ay, that I am. It 's gone, totally gone ! " My
wife dismissed her promise, and then, in her quiet way,
asked me to change my pantaloons before I went out, and,
to bar all argument, laid another pair on my knees.
That evening, allow me to remark, gentlemen of the spe-
cies " husband," I was very loath to go home to tea. I had
half a mind to bore some bachelor friend, and when hunger
and habit, in their unassuming manner, one on each side,
walked me up to my own door, the touch of the brass knob
made my blood run cold. But do not think that Mrs. Slack-
water is a tartar, my good friends, because I thus shrunk
from home ; the fact was that I had, while abroad, called to
mind the fate of her twenty-five cent piece, which I had
invested in smoke, that is to say, cigars, and I feared to
think of her comments on my pantaloons pocket.
Thus things went on for some months ; we were poor to
begin with, and grew poorer, or, at any rate, no richer, fast.
Times grew worse and worse ; my pockets seemed weaker
and weaker. Even my pocket-book was no longer to be
trusted ; the rags slipped from it in a manner most incredible
to relate. As an Irish song says,
"And such was the fate of poor Paddy O'Moore,
As Ins purse had the more rents, so lie had the fewer."
At length, one day my wife came in with a subscription-
paper for the Orphan Asylum. I looked at it, and sighed,
and picked my teeth, and shook my head, and handed it
back to her.
" Ned Bowen," she said, " has put down ten dollars."
"The more shame to him," I replied; "he can't afford
THE HOLE IN MY POCKET. 519
it ; he can just scrape along any how, and in these times
it aint right for him to do it."
My wife smiled in her sad way, and took the paper to
him that brought it.
The next evening she asked me if I could go with her to
see the Bowens, and, as I had no objection, we started.
I knew that Ned Bowen did a small business that would
give him about six hundred dollars a year, and I thought it
would be worth while to see what that sum would do in the
way of housekeeping. We were admitted by Ned and wel-
comed by Ned's wife, a very neat little body, of whom Mrs.
Slackwater had told me a great deal, as they had been
schoolmates. All was as nice as wax, and yet as substan-
tial as iron ; comfort was written all over the room. The
evening passed somehow or other, though we had no refresh-
ments, an article which we never have at home, but al-
ways want when elsewhere, and I returned to our own
establishment with mingled pleasure and chagrin.
" What a pity," said I to my wife, " that Bowen don't
keep within his income."
" He does," she replied.
" But how can he on six hundred dollars," was my an-
swer, " if he gives ten dollars to this charity, and five dollars
to that, and lives so snug and comfortable, too ? "
" Shall I tell you ? " asked Mrs. Slackwater.
" Certainly, if you can."
u His wife," said my wife, " finds it just as easy to go
without twenty or thirty dollars of ribbons and laces as to
buy them. They have no fruit but what they raise and
have given them by country friends, whom they repay by a
thousand little acts of kindness. They use no beer, which is
not essential to health, as it is not to yours; and then he
buys no cigars, or ice-cream, or apples at one hundred per
cent, on market price, or oranges at twelve cents apiece,
or candy, or new novels, or rare works that are stiil more
520 THE HOLE IX MY POCKET.
rarely used ; in short, my dear Mr. Slackwater, he lias no
hole in his pocket.''''
It was the first word of suspicion my wife had uttered on
the subject, and it cut me to the quick. Cut me ? I should
rather say it sewed me up, ine and my pockets, too;
tliev have never had holes in them since that evening.
THE ONE TRUE CONVERT.
SOME who read this sketch will remember a lady, not
many years since a resident of the West, whose great per-
sonal beauty and varied attractions were less remarkable
than the simplicity of her manners, and her apparent un-
consciousness that she was either beautiful or attractive. I
lately became acquainted with an incident of this lady's
early history, which may not be without interest, even to
those that never met her.
When about thirteen years old, she was placed at school
in a small New England village, the clergyman of which
was a relative of her father ; and she lived, of course, in
the pastor's family. In that family was also residing a
young student of divinity, one of those bashful Northern
youths, who blush when their mothers speak to them, and
tremble when a strange face draws nigh, one of that class
from which have come many of the purest and noblest of
New England's sons, but a large proportion of which, after
struggles and sufferings of which the world has no record,
droop, and in silence pass away. Leonard was awkward,
reserved, and diffident ; the coming of a little girl to the ta-
ble made him for a while unhappy, and he listened before
he opened his door for fear he should meet her on the
stairs. This continued for some time ; for though the
bright, quiet, fearless-child produced a pleasant impression
44*
522 THE ONE TRUE CONVERT.
upon him, he could not sh;ike off his horror of a new per-
son in the house ; and three months after they had heen
first sheltered hy the same roof, he would have gone a mile
round in the dusty road, or would have crossed the wet
fields of a dewy morning, rather than pass his fellow-boarder
as she tripped to her school-room.
But so lovely and loving a damsel as the one I write of
could not remain averse to him. With surprise, and almost
terror, Leonard found himself looking at her, as she sat
reading under the trees, for ten minutes at a time. Then
he offered her the milk-pitcher, or a baked apple, as they sat
opposite to each other at the tea-table. By and by he spoke
to her; explained to her dark passages in the books she was
reading, and called her attention to books she had not before
heard of. The grass plat under the elm was no longer the
less pleasant because she was chasing the butterflies there ;
and more than once the villagers met him at evening walk-
ing with her by the rocky river, holding her slight fingers
with one hand, and with the other pointing out the constella-
tions, the Dipper, Cleopatra's Chair, and all the wonders of
night. Slowly, unaware to himself, and wholly beyond her
dreams, a strong interest, deepening into affection for her,
grew up in Leonard's bosom. When she was present he
was happy, though he looked the other way ; when she was
absent his heart fell down, the sun had no brightness, the air
no freshness, for him.
Month after month rolled by, and every day broke upon
the student with new glory, for his little friend came to him
each day with increased frankness, and he, on his part, was
ever more kind to her and to others ; for it is one of the
many blessed consequences of love in a healthy spirit, that
it makes it more kindly to the whole world.
Month after month rolled by ; the time drew near for the
student to go to his college, and he counted calmly, but with
a full heart, the days that were to pass before his depart-
THE ONE TRUE CONVERT. 523
ure. Day went after day ; and now but -two remained be-
fore he was to be separated, probably for ever, from the first
human being who had taken a strong hold of his slow but
deep affections.
In the afternoon of the second day before his departure,
as he was sitting musing in his room, his little friend came
in. He had been with her that day upon some long talked
of expedition, and had been kinder than usual ; and with a
bright eye and kindling cheek, she now thanked him for his
kindness.
" What have I done that you should be so good to me ? "
said she.
" You have been good to others," replied Leonard.
"And how can I repay you ?" asked the little girl.
For some minutes the young man was silent; then, taking
both her hands in his, he said, " My dear little girl, in a
few hours you and I are to separate, perhaps for ever in this
life ; and I will tell you all that I would ever ask you to do
in return for whatever kindness I have been able to show
you ; it is to be true to yourself, to your own pure and high
impulses. In a few years you will go into society ; you will
be told that you are beautiful, amiable, talented ; every
temptation that would lead you to forget that there is an
eternal life beyond this will be thrown in your Avay. When
those days come, remember what I have so often said to you
respecting the eternal nature of true affection, and seek it ;
remember the short-lived nature of admiration, and shun it.
When flatterers are telling you (as they will tell you) of
your perfections, do not forget that you are still as far from
perfection as from those stars about which we have talked
together so often ; think, my dear girl, in that hour, of those
ever-burning worlds, and the thought will shield you from
harm." He kissed her forehead, and she left him.
In due time Leonard went to Andover ; he there com-
pleted his theological education, and became, at length, the
524 THE O.\E TRUE CONVERT.
clergyman of his native village. Seven years passed on ;
during five of them he heard nothing of her whose form
often floated before him in the light of the autumn sunset,
and whose voice he heard in the still summer twilight and
the dark storm of winter. But in the sixth year after he
left her uncle's house, rumors came from Boston of one,
now about to enter the fashionable world, whose beauty and
whose character were unequalled. The familiar name made
his heart leap to his throat, and now again at midnight his
voiceless prayer went up for the child he had loved so well.
Whenever a stranger came from the city, Leonard listened,
half in fear, half in hope, for news of her welfare. Was she
loved by those about her ? or, was she a belle merely ?
As those questions were answered, his thoughts were pleas-
ant or disturbed.
He had long been an invalid, and for a vear or two the
evidences of pulmonary disease were such as to lead his
society to ofier him leave of absence for the winter ; this he
had refused to accept, however, as his widowed mother
would be left alone. The agitation of feeling produced by
the revival of his old affection now added to the symptoms
of his disease ; lie became too weak to preach, and, after
much persuasion, was induced to leave home for a warmer
climate. By the advice of his physician, he went to Bos-
ton to take passage for Florida.
While at Boston, he was invited to a party, at which were
many of the leaders of fashion, though the lady of the house
was by no means one of them. Leonard went, with
" Hopes, and fears that kindle hope,"
nor had he been long in the room before his eye fell upon
one, whom, through the change of years, he knew to be her
whose unconscious influence over him had been so great.
Turning to an acquaintance, he asked her name.
" She is one," was the answer, " who seems to live in
THE ONE TRUE CONVERT. 525
a magic circle. The sneers of society stop when they come
to her in their round of abuse, and go by silently ; scandal
cannot touch her. She is admired, of course, but loved far
more than admired ; and the impure, that cannot love,
fear her. Flattery falls upon her, but does no harm ; and
our common fops dare not approach her with their emp-
ty compliments, for her simple, sincere spirit overawes
them."
The young divine stood long with his eyes fixed on the
form which in its girlhood he had so loved to look on, every
breath he drew marking the pulsation of his heart, and
his head throbbing as in a fever. By and by he moved
nearer to her. A man distinguished and talented sat by her
side, and with the greatest skill addressed to her the most
flattering remarks, and listened to her replies as to an ora-
cle ; but not a word or look on her part betrayed a con-
sciousness of the admiration which he expressed. When
he left her, a female friend that had listened to him said to
her, "How in the world is it that such attentions, from
such a man, do not prove too much for your philosophy ? "
" It is because my philosophy asks love which will live s
not admiration, which will die."
" But how do you keep such things in mind at such a mo-
ment ? "
" I will tell you," answered the fair girl, smiling ; " but
what I say will have no meaning to you, though there is one
somewhere who would understand me. When my head
begins to swim, I think of the STARS."
Not a word of that reply escaped the invalid, as he stood
behind her ; the throbbing in his head ceased, his heart was
still, his spirit at rest. " I have saved her," he said to him-
self, and soon returned to his lodgings.
The next morning he left, not for Florida, but for home ;
he told his mother that he was well again, and for a week
or two appeared strong and happy. Then came the reac-
526 THE ONE TRUE CONVERT.
tion and relapse, and he was weaker than ever ; for the rest
of the winter he was confined to his house.
At length, one mild March day, Leonard mounted his
horse, and telling his mother that he should be gone a day,
rode over to the village where lie had resided previously to
entering the divinity school. Leaving his horse at the tav-
ern, he went on foot over the route which he had walked,
seven years previous, with her, the last time they walked to-
gether. Then he went to the parsonage-house, up into his
old room, and sat in the chair which he sat in when he gave
her his last advice, that which she had so well remembered.
There was the same spreading elm-tree; the tan-yard with
its piles of bark ; the hill, where they had gathered blue-
berries, in the distance, all as he had seen them that
evening after she left him ; the same picture of the Prodigal
Son hung against the wall over the mantel-piece ; the same
clock ticked on the stairway. The feelings which rise when
old scenes are visited all know, but none can describe.
He slept that night in his old room, and in the morning
returned home. When he reached home his frame was
chilled, and his feet very cold ; so he sat down by the fire,
and his mother took his feet in her lap and chafed them.
Leonard lay for some time leaning back, with his eyes
closed ; but at last, raising himself, not without an effort,
for he was very weak, he said, " Mother, I have saved
her ; I have made one true convert." The old lady was
deaf, and thought he spoke of having saved his own life by
his journey. So she smiled and went on chafing his feet ;
but they grew colder and colder. She asked him how he
was, but he made no answer ; she looked up, and his chest
was rising and falling as gently arid regularly as that of a
sleeping child. But still his feet grew more icy ; she felt of
his legs, and they " were as cold as any stone." The old
woman, now alarmed, rose up ; Leonard's head lay back,
his eyes half closed, his lips just moving. " I have saved
THE ONE TRUE CONVERT. 527
her," he said once again, as his mother believed afterwards,
though then she scarce noticed the motion ; a convulsive
smile passed over his features, and she was left standing by
the clay that her son had dwelt in.
END OF VOL. I.
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