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FRANKLIN 
 
 LIBRARY ASSOCIATION, 
 
 /FRANKLIN, N. Id. / 
 
 Library open every Saturday from 1 to 5 o clock 
 P. M. 
 
 Books must be returned in two weeks. If kept 
 longer, five cents per week will be charged extra. 
 
 Books lost or injured must, in all cases, be made 
 good to the Library. 
 
 All Books must be returned seven days at least 
 before the Annual Meeting, which is on the 1st 
 Saturday of April. 
 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES S WETTINGS, 
 
 Poetical Works. 
 
 1vol. 16mo. With Portrait. $1.25: 
 
 Sengs in Many Keys. 
 
 1 vol. 16mo. $ 1.25. 
 
 Poems. 
 
 plete. l vol. 32mo. Blue and gold. With new 
 
 Portrait. $ 1.00. 
 
 Poems. 
 
 Complete. 1 vol. 16mo. Cabinet Edition. With new 
 Portrait. $ 1.25. 
 
 The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table. 
 
 Illustrated by HOPPIN. 1vol. 12mo, $1.25; 8vo, $3.00. 
 
 The Professor at the Breakfast-Table. 
 
 With the Story of Iris. 1 vol. 12mo, $1.25; 8vo, $3.00. 
 
 Elsie Venner : A Romance of Destiny. 
 
 2 vols. 16mo. $2.00. 
 
 Currents and Counter-Currents in Medical Sci 
 ence, with other Essays. 
 
 1 vol. 12mo. $ 1.25. 
 
 Border Lines in some Provinces of Medical Sci 
 ence. 
 
 1 vol. 12mo. 50 cts. 
 
 Soundings from the A tlantic. 
 
 1 vol. 16mo. $ 1.25. 
 
 TICKNOB AND FIELDS, Publishers. 
 
SOUNDINGS 
 
 FROM THE ATLANTIC. 
 
 BY 
 
 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
 
 BOSTON : 
 
 TICKNOR AND FIELDS 
 1864. 
 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1863, by 
 
 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, 
 in the Clerk s Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 
 
 UNIVERSITY PRESS: 
 
 WELCH, BIGEI. ow, AND COMPANY, 
 
 CAMBRIDGE. 
 
TO 
 
 JACOB BIGELOW, M. D., 
 
 WHOSE VARIED ATTAINMENTS IN LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART 
 
 REFLECT THEIR MINGLED LIGHT ON THE PROFESSION 
 
 WHICH HE ADORNS, 
 
 THIS VOLUME OF ESSAYS 
 
 Respectfully Dedicated. 
 
 M221434 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PACK 
 
 BREAD AND THE NEWSPAPER .... 1 
 
 MY HUNT AFTER " THE CAPTAIN "... 24 
 
 THE STEREOSCOPE AND THE STEREOGRAPH . . 124 
 SUN-PAINTING AND SON-SCULPTURE ; WITH A STER 
 EOSCOPIC TRIP ACROSS THE ATLANTIC . .166 
 
 DOINGS OF THE SUNBEAM ..... 228 
 
 THE HUMAN WHEEL, ITS SPOKES AND FELLOES . 282 
 
 A VISIT TO THE AUTOCRAT S LANDLADY . . 328 
 A VISIT TO THE ASYLUM FOR AGED AND DECAYED 
 
 PUNSTERS 348 
 
 THE GREAT INSTRUMENT ..... 362 
 
 THE INEVITABLE TRIAL 401 
 
BREAD AND THE NEWSPAPER. 
 
 THIS is the new version of the Panem 
 et Circenses of the Roman populace. 
 It is our ultimatum, as that was theirs. They 
 must have something to eat, and the circus- 
 shows to look at. We must have something 
 to eat, and the papers to read. 
 
 Everything else we can give up. If we are 
 rich, we can lay down our carriages, stay away 
 from Newport or Saratoga, and adjourn the trip 
 to Europe sine die. If we live in a small way, 
 there are at least new dresses and bonnets and 
 e very-day luxuries which we can dispense with. 
 If the young Zouave of the family looks smart 
 in his new uniform, its respectable head is con 
 tent, though he himself grow seedy as a cara 
 way-umbel late in the season. He will cheer 
 fully calm the perturbed nap of his old beaver 
 
& : BREAD AN, THE NEWSPAPER. 
 
 by patient brushing in place of buying a new 
 one, if only the Lieutenant s jaunty cap is what 
 it should be. We all take a pride in sharing 
 the epidemic economy of the time. Only bread 
 and the newspaper we must have, whatever else 
 we do without. 
 
 How this war is simplifying our mode of 
 being ! We live on our emotions, as the sick 
 man is said in the common speech to be nour 
 ished by his fever. Our ordinary mental food 
 has become distasteful, and what would have 
 been intellectual luxuries at other times, are 
 now absolutely repulsive. 
 
 All this change in our manner of existence 
 implies that we have experienced some very 
 profound impression, which will sooner or later 
 betray itself in permanent effects on the minds 
 and bodies of many among us. We cannot for 
 get Corvisart s observation of the frequency 
 with which diseases of the heart were noticed 
 as the consequence of the terrible emotions pro 
 duced by the scenes of the great French Revo 
 lution. Laennec tells the story of a convent, 
 of which he was the medical director, where all 
 
BREAD AND THE NEWSPAPER. 3 
 
 the nuns were subjected to the severest pen 
 ances and schooled in the most painful doc 
 trines. They all became consumptive soon after 
 their entrance, so that, in the course of his ten 
 years attendance, all the inmates died out two 
 or three times, and were replaced by new ones. 
 He does not hesitate to attribute the disease 
 from which they suffered to those depressing 
 moral influences to which they were subjected. 
 
 So far we have noticed little more than dis 
 turbances of the nervous system as a conse 
 quence of the war excitement in non-comba 
 tants. Take the first trifling example which 
 comes to our recollection. A sad disaster to 
 the Federal army was told the other day in the 
 presence of two gentlemen and a lady. Both 
 the gentlemen complained of a sudden feeling 
 at the epigastrium, or, less learnedly, the pit of 
 the stomach, changed color, and confessed to a 
 slight tremor about the knees. The lady had a 
 " grande revolution" as French patients say, 
 went home, and kept her bed for the rest of the 
 day. Perhaps the reader may smile at the 
 mention of such trivial indispositions, but in 
 
4 BREAD AND THE NEWSPAPER. 
 
 more sensitive natures death itself follows in 
 some cases from no more serious cause. An 
 old gentleman fell senseless in fatal apoplexy, on 
 hearing of Napoleon s return from Elba. One 
 of our early friends, who recently died of the 
 same complaint, was thought to have had his 
 attack mainly in consequence of the excitements 
 of the time. 
 
 We all know what the war fever is in our 
 young men, what a devouring passion it be 
 comes in those whom it assails. Patriotism is 
 the fire of it, no doubt, but this is fed with fuel 
 of all sorts. The love of adventure, the con 
 tagion of example, the fear of losing the chance 
 of participating in the great events of the time, 
 the desire of personal distinction, all help to 
 produce those singular transformations which 
 we often witness, turning the most peaceful of 
 our youth into the most ardent of our soldiers. 
 But something of the same fever in a different 
 form reaches a good many non-combatants, who 
 have no thought of losing a drop of precious 
 blood belonging to themselves or their families. 
 Some of the symptoms we shall mention are 
 
DREAD AND THE NEWSPAPER. 5 
 
 almost universal ; they are as plain in the peo 
 ple we meet everywhere as the marks of an 
 influenza, when that is prevailing. 
 
 The first is a nervous restlessness of a very 
 peculiar character. Men cannot think, or write, 
 or attend to their ordinary business. They 
 stroll up and down the streets, or saunter out 
 upon the public places. We confessed to an 
 illustrious author that we laid down the volume 
 of his work which we were readino- when the 
 
 O 
 
 war broke out. It was as interesting as a ro 
 mance, but the romance of the past grew pale 
 before the red light of the terrible present. 
 Meeting the same author not long afterwards, 
 he confessed that he had laid down his pen at 
 the same time that we had closed his book. He 
 could not write about the sixteenth century any 
 more than we could read .about it, while the 
 nineteenth was in the very agony and bloody 
 sweat of its great sacrifice . 
 
 Another most eminent scholar told us in all 
 simplicity that he had fallen into such a state 
 that he would read the same telegraphic de 
 spatches over and over again in different papers, 
 
6 BREAD AND THE NEWSPAPER. 
 
 as if they were new, until he felt as if he were 
 an idiot. Who did not do just the same thing, 
 and does not often do it still, now that the first 
 flush of the fever is over? Another person 
 always goes through the side streets on his way 
 for the noon extra, he is so afraid somebody 
 will meet him and tell the news he wishes to 
 read, first on the bulletin-board, and then in the 
 great capitals and leaded type of the newspaper. 
 When any startling piece of war-news comes, 
 it keeps repeating itself in our minds in spite of 
 all we can do. The same trains of thought go 
 tramping round in circle through the brain, like 
 the supernumeraries that make up the grand 
 army of a stage-show. Now, if a thought goes 
 round through the brain a thousand times in a 
 day, it will have worn as deep a track as one 
 which has passed through it once a week for 
 twenty years. This accounts for the ages we 
 seem to have lived since the twelfth of April 
 last, and, to state it more generally, for that ex 
 post facto operation of a great calamity, or any 
 very powerful impression, which we once illus 
 trated by the image of a stain spreading back- 
 
BREAD AND THE NEWSPAPER. 7 
 
 wards from the leaf of life open before us 
 through all those which we have already turned. 
 
 Blessed are those who can sleep quietly in 
 times like these ! Yet, not wholly blessed, 
 either ; for what is more painful than the awak 
 ing from peaceful unconsciousness to a sense 
 that there is something wrong, we cannot at 
 first think what, and then groping our way 
 about through the twilight of our thoughts until 
 we come full upon the misery, which, like some 
 evil bird, seemed to have flown away, but which 
 sits waiting for us on its perch by our pillow in 
 the gray of the morning ? 
 
 The converse of this is perhaps still more 
 painful. Many have the feeling in their waking 
 hours that the trouble they are aching with is, 
 after all, only a dream, if they will rub their 
 eyes briskly enough and shake themselves, they 
 will awake out of it, and find all their supposed 
 grief is unreal. This attempt to cajole our 
 selves out of an ugly fact always reminds us of 
 those unhappy flies who have been indulging in 
 the dangerous sweets of the paper prepared for 
 their especial use. 
 
8 BREAD AND THE NEWSPAPER. 
 
 Watch one of them. He does not feel quite 
 well, at least, he suspects himself of indis 
 position. Nothing serious, let us just rub 
 our fore-feet together, as the enormous creature 
 who provides for us rubs his hands, and all will 
 be right. He rubs them with that peculiar 
 twisting movement of his, and pauses for the 
 effect. No ! all is not quite right yet. Ah ! it 
 is our head that is not set on just as it ought to 
 be. Let us settle that where it should be, and 
 then we shall certainly be in good trim again. 
 So he pulls his head about as an old lady adjusts 
 her cap, and passes his fore-paw over it like a 
 kitten washing herself. Poor fellow ! It is 
 not a fancy, but a fact, that he has to deal with. 
 If he could read the letters at the head of the 
 sheet, he would see they were Fly-Paper. So 
 with us, when, in our waking misery, we try to 
 think we dream ! Perhaps very young persons 
 may not understand this ; as we grow older, 
 our waking and dreaming life run more and 
 more into each other. 
 
 Another symptom of our excited condition is 
 seen in the breaking up of old habits. The 
 
BREAD AND THE NEWSPAPER. 9 
 
 newspaper is as imperious as a Russian Ukase ; 
 it will be had, and it will be read. To this all 
 else must give place. If we must go out at un 
 usual hours to get it, we shall go, in spite of 
 after-dinner nap or evening somnolence. If it 
 finds us in company, it will not stand on cere 
 mony, but cuts short the compliment and the 
 story by the divine right of its telegraphic de 
 spatches. 
 
 War is a very old story, but it is a new one 
 to this generation of Americans. Our own 
 nearest relation in the ascending line remembers 
 the Revolution well. How should she forget it ? 
 Did she not lose her doll, which was left behind, 
 when she was carried out of Boston, then grow 
 ing uncomfortable by reason of cannon-balls 
 dropping in from the neighboring heights at all 
 hours, in token of which see the tower of 
 Brattle-Street Church at this very day ? War 
 in her memory means 76. As for the brush of 
 1812, " we did not think much about that " ; 
 and everybody knows that the Mexican business 
 did not concern us much, except in its political 
 1* 
 
10 BREAD AND THE NEWSPAPER. 
 
 relations. No ! War is a new thing to all of 
 us who are not in the last quarter of their cen 
 tury. We -are learning many strange matters 
 from our fresh experience. And besides, there 
 are new conditions of existence which make war 
 as it is with us very different from war as it 
 has been. 
 
 The first and obvious difference consists in 
 the fact that the whole nation is now pene 
 trated by the ramifications of a network of iron 
 nerves which flash sensation and volition back 
 ward and forward to and from towns and prov 
 inces as if they were organs and limbs of a sin 
 gle living body. . The second is the vast system 
 of iron muscles which, as it were, move the 
 limbs of the mighty organism one upon another. 
 What was the railroad-force which put the Sixth 
 Regiment in Baltimore on the 19th of April 
 but a contraction and extension of the arm of 
 Massachusetts with a clenched fist full of bayo 
 nets at the end of it ? 
 
 This perpetual intercommunication, joined to 
 the power of instantaneous action, keeps us al 
 ways alive with excitement. It is not a breath- 
 
DREAD AND THE NEWSPAPER. 11 
 
 less courier who comes back with the report 
 from an army we have lost sight of for a month, 
 nor a single bulletin which tells us all we are to 
 know for a week of some great engagement, 
 but almost hourly paragraphs, laden with truth 
 or falsehood as the case may be, making us rest 
 less always for the last fact or rumor they are 
 tellino-. And so of the movements of our ar- 
 
 O 
 
 mies. To-night the stout lumbermen of Maine 
 are encamped under their own fragrant pines. 
 In a score or two of hours they are among the 
 tobacco-fields and the slave-pens of Virginia. 
 The war passion burned like scattered coals of 
 fire in the households of Revolutionary times ; 
 now it rushes all through the land like a flame 
 over the prairie. And this instant diffusion of 
 every fact and feeling produces another singular 
 effect in the equalizing and steadying of public 
 opinion. We may not be able to see a month 
 ahead of us ; but as to what has passed, a 
 week afterwards it is as thoroughly talked out 
 and judged as it would have been in a whole 
 season before our national nervous system was 
 organized. 
 
12 BREAD AND THE NEWSPAPER. 
 
 " As the wild tempest wakes the slumbering sea, 
 Thou only teachest all that man can be ! " 
 
 We indulged in the above apostrophe to War 
 in a Phi Beta Kappa poem of long ago, which 
 we liked better before we read Mr. Cutler s 
 beautiful prolonged lyric delivered at the recent 
 anniversary of that Society. 
 
 Oftentimes, in paroxysms of peace and good 
 will towards all mankind, we have felt twinges 
 of conscience about the passage, especially 
 when one of our orators showed us that a ship 
 of war costs as much to build and keep as a 
 college, and that every port-hole we could stop 
 would give us a new professor. Now we begin 
 to think that there was some meaning in our 
 poor couplet. War has taught us, as nothing 
 else could, what we can be and are. It has 
 exalted our manhood and our womanhood, and 
 driven us all back upon our substantial human 
 qualities, for a long time more or less kept out 
 of sight by the spirit of commerce, the love of 
 art, science, or literature, or other qualities not 
 belonging to all of us as men and women. 
 
 It is at this very moment doing more to melt 
 
BREAD AND THE NEWSPAPER. 13 
 
 away the petty social distinctions which keep 
 generous souls apart from each other, than the 
 preaching of the Beloved Disciple himself would 
 do. We are finding out that not only " patri 
 otism is eloquence," but that heroism is gentil 
 ity. All ranks are wonderfully equalized under 
 the fire of a masked battery. The plain artisan 
 or the rough fireman, who faces the lead and 
 iron like a man, is the truest representative we 
 can show of the heroes of Crecy and Agincourt. 
 And if one of our fine gentlemen puts off his 
 straw-colored kids and stands by the other, 
 shoulder to shoulder, or leads him on to the 
 attack, he is as honorable in our eyes and in 
 theirs as if he were ill-dressed and his hands 
 were soiled with labor. 
 
 Even our poor " Brahmins," whom a critic 
 in ground-glass spectacles (the same who grasps 
 his statistics by the blade and strikes at his sup 
 posed antagonist with the handle) oddly con 
 founds with the " bloated aristocracy," whereas 
 they are very commonly pallid, undervitalized, 
 shy, sensitive creatures, whose only birthright 
 is an aptitude for learning, even these poor 
 
14 BREAD AND THE NEWSPAPER. 
 
 New England Brahmins of ours, gubvirates of 
 an organizable base as they often are, count as 
 full men, if their courage is big enough for the 
 uniform which hangs so loosely about their slen 
 der figures. 
 
 A young man was drowned not very long 
 ago in the river running under our windows. A 
 few days afterwards a field-piece was dragged 
 to the water s edge, and fired many times 
 over the river. We asked a bystander, who 
 looked like a fisherman, what that was for. It 
 was to " break the gall," he said, and so bring 
 the drowned person to the surface. A strange 
 physiological fancy and a very odd non sequitur ; 
 but that is not our present point. A good many 
 extraordinary objects do really come to the sur 
 face when the great guns of war shake the 
 waters, as when they roared over Charleston 
 harbor. 
 
 Treason came up, hideous, fit only to be 
 huddled into its dishonorable grave. But the 
 wrecks of precious virtues, which had been 
 covered with the waves of prosperity, came 
 up also. And all sorts of unexpected and un- 
 
BREAD AND THE NEWSPAPER. 15 
 
 henrd-of things, which had lain unseen during 
 our national life of fourscore years, came up 
 and are coming up daily, shaken from their bed 
 by the concussions of the artillery bellowing 
 around us. 
 
 It is a shame to own it, but there were per 
 sons otherwise respectable not unwilling to say 
 that they believed the old valor of Revolution 
 ary times had died out from among us. They 
 talked about our own Northern people as the 
 English in the last centuries used to talk about 
 the French, Goldsmith s old soldier, it may 
 be remembered, called one Englishman good for 
 five of them. As Napoleon spoke of the Eng 
 lish, again, as a nation of shopkeepers, so these 
 persons affected to consider the multitude of 
 their countrymen as unwarlike artisans, for 
 getting that Paul Revere taught himself the 
 value of liberty in working upon gold, and 
 Nathaniel Greene fitted himself to shape armies 
 in the labor of formnor iron. 
 
 O O 
 
 These persons have learned better now. The 
 bravery of our free working-people was overlaid, 
 but not smothered ; sunken, but not drowned. 
 
16 BREAD AND THE NEWSPAPER. 
 
 The hands which had been busy conquering 
 the elements had only to change their weapons 
 and their adversaries, and they were as ready 
 to conquer the masses of living force opposed 
 to them as they had been to build towns, to 
 dam rivers, to hunt whales, to harvest ice, to 
 hammer brute matter into every shape civiliza 
 tion can ask for. 
 
 Another great fact came to the surface, and is 
 coming up every day in new shapes, that we 
 are one people. It is easy to say that a man is 
 a man in Maine or Minnesota, but not so easy 
 to feel it, all through our bones and marrow. 
 The camp is deprovincializing us very fast. Poor 
 Winthrop, marching with the city Elegants, 
 seems to have been a little startled to find 
 how wonderfully human were the hard-handed 
 men of the Eighth Massachusetts. It takes all 
 the nonsense out of everybody, or ought to do 
 it, to see how fairly the real manhood of a coun 
 try is distributed over its surface. And then, 
 just as we are beginning to think our own soil 
 has a monopoly of heroes as well as of cotton, 
 up turns a regiment of gallant Irishmen, like 
 
BREAD AND THE NEWSPAPER. 17 
 
 the Sixty-Ninth, to show us that continen 
 tal provincialism is as bad as that of Coos 
 County, New Hampshire, or of Broadway, New 
 York. 
 
 Here, too, side by side in the same great 
 camp, are half a dozen chaplains, representing 
 half a dozen modes of religious belief. When 
 the masked battery opens, does the " Baptist " 
 Lieutenant believe in his heart that God takes 
 better care of him than of his " Congregation- 
 alist" Colonel ? Does any man really suppose, 
 that, of a score of noble young fellows who 
 have just laid down their lives for their country, 
 the Homoousians are received to the mansions 
 of bliss, and the Homoiousians translated from 
 the battle-field to the abodes of everlasting: 
 
 O 
 
 woe ? War not only teaches what man can 
 be, but it teaches also what he must not be. He 
 must not be a bigot and a fool in the presence 
 of that day of judgment proclaimed by the 
 trumpet which calls to battle, and where a man 
 should have but two thoughts : to do his duty, 
 and trust his Maker. Let our brave dead come 
 back from the fields where they have fallen for 
 
18 BREAD AND THE NEWSPAPER. 
 
 law and liberty, and if you will follow them to 
 their graves, you will find out what the Broad 
 Church means ; the narrow church is sparing 
 of its exclusive formulae over the coffins wrap 
 ped in the flag which the fallen heroes had 
 defended ! Very little comparatively do we 
 hear at such times of the dogmas on which men 
 differ ; very much of the faith and trust in 
 which all sincere Christians can agree. It is a 
 noble lesson, and nothing less noisy than the 
 voice of cannon can teach it so that it shall be 
 heard over all the angry cries of theological 
 disputants. 
 
 Now, too, we have a chance to test the sa 
 gacity of our friends, and to get at their prin 
 ciples of judgment. Perhaps most of us will 
 agree that our faith in domestic prophets has 
 been diminished by the experience of the last 
 six months. We had the notable predictions 
 attributed to the Secretary of State, which so 
 unpleasantly refused to fulfil themselves. We 
 were infested at one time with a set of ominous- 
 looking seers, who shook their heads and mut 
 tered obscurely about some mighty preparations 
 
BREAD AND THE NEWSPAPER. 19 
 
 that were making to substitute the rule of the 
 minority for that of the majority. Organiza 
 tions were darkly hinted at ; some thought our 
 armories would be seized ; and there are not 
 wanting ancient women in the neighboring 
 University town who consider that the country 
 was saved by the intrepid band of students who 
 stood guard, night after night, over the G. R. 
 cannon and the pile of balls in the Cambridge 
 Arsenal. 
 
 As a general rule, it is safe to say that the 
 best prophecies are those which the sages remem 
 ber after the event prophesied of has come to 
 pass, and remind us that, they have made long 
 ago. Those who are rash enough to predict 
 publicly beforehand commonly give us what 
 they hope, or what they fear, or some conclu 
 sion from an abstraction of their own, or some 
 guess founded on private information not half so 
 good as what everybody gets who reads the 
 papers, never by any possibility a word that 
 we can depend on, simply because there are 
 cobwebs of contingency between every to-day 
 and to-morrow that no field-glass can penetrate 
 
20 BREAD AND THE NEWSPAPER. 
 
 when fifty of them lie woven one over another. 
 Prophesy as much as you like, but always hedge. 
 Say that you think the rebels are weaker than 
 is commonly supposed, but, on the other hand, 
 that they may prove to be even stronger than is 
 anticipated. Say what you like, : only don t 
 be too peremptory and dogmatic ; we know that 
 wiser men than you have been notoriously de 
 ceived in their predictions in this very matter. 
 
 Ibis et redibis nunquam in bello peribis. 
 
 Let that be your model ; and remember, on 
 peril of your reputation as a prophet, not to put 
 a stop before or after the nunquam. 
 
 There are two or three facts connected with 
 time, besides that already referred to, which 
 strike us very forcibly in their relation to the 
 great events passing around us. We spoke of 
 the long period seeming to have elapsed since 
 this war began. The buds were then swelling 
 which held the leaves that are still green. It 
 seems as old as Time himself. We cannot fail 
 to observe how the mind brings together the 
 scenes of to-day and those of the old Revolu 
 tion. We shut up eighty years into each other 
 
BREAD AND THE NEWSPAPER. 21 
 
 like the joints of a pocket-telescope. When the 
 young men from Middlesex dropped in Balti 
 more the other day, it seemed to bring Lexing 
 ton and the other Nineteenth of April close to 
 us. War has always been the mint in which 
 the world s history has been coined, and now 
 every day or week or month has a new medal 
 for us. It was Warren that the first impression 
 bore in the last great coinage ; if it is Ellsworth 
 now, the new face hardly seems fresher than the 
 old. All battle-fields are alike in their main 
 features. The young fellows who fell in our 
 earlier struggle seemed like old men to us until 
 within these few months ; now we remember 
 they were like these fiery youth we are cheer 
 ing as they go to the fight ; it seems as if the 
 grass of our bloody hillside was crimsoned but 
 yesterday, and the cannon-ball imbedded in the 
 church-tower would feel warm, if we laid our 
 hand upon it. 
 
 Nay, in this our quickened life we feel that all 
 the battles from earliest time to our own day, 
 where Right and Wrong have grappled, are 
 but one great battle, varied with brief pauses or 
 hasty bivouacs upon the field of conflict. The 
 
22 BREAD AND THE NEWSPAPER. 
 
 issues seem to vary, but it is always a right 
 against a claim, and, however the struggle of 
 the hour may go, a movement onward of the 
 campaign, which uses defeat as well as victory 
 to serve its mighty ends. The very weapons of 
 our warfare change less than we think. Our 
 bullets and cannon-balls have lengthened into 
 bolts like those which whistled out of old arba 
 lests. Our soldiers fight with bowie-knives, 
 such as are pictured on the walls of Theban 
 tombs, wearing a newly invented head-gear as 
 old as the days of the Pyramids. 
 
 Whatever miseries this war brings upon us, 
 it is making us wiser, and, we trust, better. 
 Wiser, for we are learning our weakness, our 
 narrowness, our selfishness, our ignorance, in 
 lessons of sorrow and shame. Better, because 
 all that is noble in men and women is demand 
 ed by the time, and our people are rising to the 
 standard the time calls for. For this is the 
 question the hour is putting to each of us : Are 
 you ready, if need be, to sacrifice all that you 
 have and hope for in this world, that the gener 
 ations to follow you may inherit a whole coun 
 try whose natural condition shall be peace, and 
 
BREAD AND THE NEWSPAPER. 23 
 
 not a broken province which must live under 
 the perpetual threat, if not in the constant 
 presence, of war and all that war brings with 
 it ? If we are all ready for this sacrifice, bat 
 tles may be lost, but the campaign and its grand 
 object must be won. 
 
 Heaven is very kind in its way of putting 
 questions to mortals. We are not abruptly 
 asked to give up all that we most care for, in 
 view of the momentous issues before MS. Per 
 haps we shall never be asked to give up all, but 
 we have already been called upon to part with 
 much that is dear to us, and should be ready to 
 yield the rest as it is called for. The time may 
 come when even the cheap public print shall be 
 a burden our means cannot support, and we can 
 only listen in the square that was once the mar 
 ket-place to the voices of those who proclaim 
 defeat or victory. Then there will be only our 
 daily food left. When we have nothing to read 
 and nothing to eat, it will be a favorable mo 
 ment to offer a compromise. At present we 
 have all that nature absolutely demands, we 
 can live on bread and the newspaper. 
 
MY HUNT AFTER " THE CAPTAIN." 
 
 IN the dead of the night which closed upon 
 the bloody field of Antietam, my house 
 hold was startled from its slumbers by the loud 
 summons of a telegraphic messenger. The air 
 had been heavy all day with rumors of battle, 
 and thousands and tens of thousands had walked 
 the streets with throbbing hearts, in dread an 
 ticipation of the tidings any hour might bring. 
 We rose hastily, and presently the messenger 
 was admitted. I took the envelope from his 
 hand, opened it, and read : 
 
 HAGEESTOWN 17th 
 
 To H 
 
 Capt H wounded shot through the neck 
 
 thought not mortal at Keedysville 
 
 WILLIAM G LEDUC 
 
MY HUNT AFTER THE CAPTAIN." 25 
 
 Through the neck, no bullet left in wound. 
 Windpipe, food-pipe, carotid, jugular, half a 
 dozen smaller, but still formidable vessels, a 
 great braid of nerves, each as big as a lamp- 
 wick, spinal cord, ought to kill at once, if 
 at all. Thought not mortal, or not thought mor 
 tal, which was it ? The first ; that is better 
 than the second would be. " Keedysville, a 
 post-office, Washington Co., Maryland." Le- 
 duc ? Leduc ? Don t remember that name. - 
 The boy is waiting for his money. A dollar 
 and thirteen cents. Has nobody got thirteen 
 cents ? Don t keep that boy waiting, how do 
 we know what messages he has got to carry ? 
 
 The boy had another message to carry. It 
 was to the father of Lieutenant-Colonel Wilder 
 D wight, informing him that his son was griev 
 ously wounded in the same battle, and was ly 
 ing at Boonsborough, a town a few miles this 
 side of Keedysville. This I learned the next 
 morning from the civil and attentive officials at 
 the Central Telegraph-Office. 
 
 Calling upon this gentleman, I found that he 
 meant to leave in the quarter past two o clock 
 
26 MY HUNT AFTER " THE CAPTAIN." 
 
 train, taking with him Dr. George H. Gay, an 
 accomplished and energetic surgeon, equal to 
 any difficult question or pressing emergency. I 
 agreed to accompany them, and we met in the 
 cars. I felt myself peculiarly fortunate in hav 
 ing companions whose society would be a pleas 
 ure, whose feelings would harmonize with my 
 own, and whose assistance I might, in case of 
 need, he glad to claim. 
 
 It is of the journey which we began together, 
 and which I finished apart, that I mean to give 
 my " Atlantic " readers an account. They 
 must let me tell my story in my own way, 
 speaking of many little matters that interested 
 or amused me, and which a certain leisurely 
 class of elderly persons, who sit at their firesides 
 and never travel, will, I hope, follow with a 
 kind of interest. For, besides the main object 
 of my excursion, I could not help being excited 
 by the incidental sights and occurrences of a 
 trip which to a commercial traveller or a news 
 paper-reporter would seem quite commonplace 
 and undeserving of record. There are periods 
 in which all places and people seem to be in a 
 
MY HUNT AFTER " THE CAPTAIN." 27 
 
 conspiracy to impress us with their individuali 
 ty? in which every ordinary locality seems to 
 assume a special significance and to claim a par 
 ticular notice, in which every person we meet 
 is either an old acquaintance or a character ; 
 days in which the strangest coincidences are con 
 tinually happening, so that they get to be the 
 rule, and not the exception. Some miVht natu 
 rally think that anxiety and the weariness of a 
 prolonged search after a near relative would 
 have prevented my taking any interest in or 
 paying any regard to the little matters around 
 me. Perhaps it had just the contrary effect, and 
 acted like a diffused stimulus upon the attention. 
 When all the faculties are wide-awake in pur 
 suit of a single object, or fixed in the spasm of 
 an absorbing emotion, they are oftentimes clair 
 voyant in a marvellous degree in respect to 
 many collateral things, as Wordsworth has so 
 forcibly illustrated in his sonnet on the Boy of 
 Windermere, and as Hawthorne has developed 
 with such metaphysical accuracy in that chap 
 ter of his wondrous story where Hester walks 
 forth to meet her punishment. 
 
28 MY HUNT AFTER " THE CAPTAIN." 
 
 Be that as it may, though I set out with a 
 full and heavy heart, though many times my 
 blood chilled with what were perhaps needless 
 and unwise fears, though I broke through all 
 my habits without thinking about them, which 
 is almost as hard in certain circumstances as for 
 one of our young fellows to leave his sweet 
 heart and go into a Peninsular campaign, though 
 I did not always know when I was hungry nor 
 discover that I was thirsting, though I had a 
 worrying ache and inward tremor underlying 
 all the outward play of the senses and the mind, 
 yet it is the simple truth that I did look out of 
 the car-windows with an eye for all that passed, 
 that I did take cognizance of strange sights and 
 singular people, that I did act much as persons 
 act from the ordinary promptings of curiosity, 
 and from time to time even laugh very nearly 
 as those do who are attacked with a convulsive 
 sense of the ridiculous, the epilepsy of the 
 diaphragm. 
 
 By a mutual compact, we talked little in the 
 cars. A communicative friend is the greatest 
 nuisance to have at one s side during a railroad- 
 
MY HUNT AFTER " THE CAPTAIN." 29 
 
 journey, especially if his conversation is stimu 
 lating and in itself agreeable. " A fast train 
 and a slow neighbor," is my motto. Many 
 times, when I have got upon the cars, expecting 
 to be magnetized into an hour or two of blissful 
 reverie, my thoughts shaken up by the vibra 
 tions into all sorts of new and pleasing patterns, 
 arranging themselves in curves and nodal 
 points, like the grains of sand in Chladni s fa 
 mous experiment, fresh ideas coming up to 
 the surface, as the kernels do when a measure 
 of corn is jolted in a farmer s wagouj all this 
 without volition, the mechanical impulse alone 
 keeping the thoughts in motion, as the mere act 
 of carrying certain watches in the pocket keeps 
 them wound up, many times, I say, just as 
 my brain was beginning to creep and hum with 
 this delicious locomotive intoxication, some dear 
 detestable friend, cordial, intelligent, social, ra 
 diant, has come up and sat down by me and 
 opened a conversation which has broken my 
 day-dream, unharnessed the flying horses that 
 were whirling along my fancies and hitched on 
 the old weary omnibus-team of e very-day as- 
 
30 MY HUNT AFTER THE CAPTAIN." 
 
 sociations, fatigued my hearing and attention, 
 exhausted my voice, and milked the breasts of 
 my thought dry during the hour when they 
 should have been filling themselves full of fresh 
 juices. My friends spared me this trial. 
 
 So, then, I sat by the window and enjoyed 
 the slight tipsiness produced by short, limited, 
 rapid oscillations, which I take to be the exhil 
 arating stage of that condition which reaches 
 hopeless inebriety in what we know as sea-sick 
 ness. Where the horizon opened widely, it 
 pleased me to watch the curious effect of the 
 rapid movement of near objects contrasted with 
 the slow motion of distant ones. Looking from 
 a right-hand window, for instance, the fences 
 close by glide swiftly backward, or to the right, 
 while the distant hills not only do not appear to 
 move backward, but look by contrast with the 
 fences near at hand as if they were moving for 
 ward, or to the left ; and thus the whole land 
 scape becomes a mighty wheel revolving about 
 an imaginary axis somewhere in the middle- 
 distance. 
 
 My companions proposed to stay at one of 
 
MY HUNT AFTER " THE CAPTAIN." 31 
 
 the best-known and longest-established of the 
 New- York caravansaries, and I accompanied 
 them. We were particularly well lodged, and 
 not uncivilly treated. The traveller who sup 
 poses that he is to repeat the melancholy experi 
 ence of Shenstone, and have to sigh over the 
 reflection that he has found " his warmest wel 
 come at an inn," has something to learn at the 
 offices of the great city hotels. The unheralded 
 guest who is honored by mere indifference may 
 think himself blessed with singular good-for 
 tune. If the despot of the Patent- Annunciator 
 is only mildly contemptuous in his manner, let 
 the victim look upon it as a personal favor. 
 The coldest welcome that a threadbare curate 
 ever got at the door of a bishop s palace, the 
 most icy reception that a country cousin ever 
 received at the city mansion of a mushroom mil- 
 lionnaire, is agreeably tepid, compared to that 
 which the Rhadamanthus who dooms you to the 
 more or less elevated circle of his inverted In 
 ferno vouchsafes, as you step up to enter your 
 name on his dog s-eared register. I have less 
 hesitation in unburdening myself of this uncom- 
 
32 MY HUNT AFTER THE CAPTAIN: 
 
 fortable statement, as on this particular trip I 
 met with more than one exception to the rule. 
 Officials become brutalized, I suppose, as a mat 
 ter of course. One cannot expect an office 
 clerk to embrace tenderly every stranger who 
 comes in with a carpet-bag, or a telegraph oper 
 ator to burst into tears over every unpleasant 
 message he receives for transmission. Still, hu 
 manity is not always totally extinguished in 
 these persons. I discovered a youth in a tele 
 graph-office of the Continental Hotel, in Phila 
 delphia, who was as pleasant in conversation, 
 and as graciously responsive to inoffensive ques 
 tions, as if I had been his childless opulent 
 uncle and my will not made. 
 
 On the road again the next morning, over 
 the ferry, into the cars with sliding panels and 
 fixed windows, so that in summer the whole side 
 of the car may be made transparent. New 
 Jersey is, to the apprehension of a traveller, a 
 double-headed suburb rather than a State. Its 
 dull red dust looks like the dried and powdered 
 mud of a battle-field. Peach-trees are com 
 mon, and champagne-orchards. Canal-boats, 
 
MY HUNT AFTER THE CAPTAIN." 33 
 
 drawn by mules, swim by, feeling their way 
 along like blind men led by dogs. I had a 
 mighty passion come over me to be the captain 
 of one, to glide back and forward upon a sea 
 never roughened by storms, to float where I 
 could not sink, to navigate where there is no 
 shipwreck, to lie languidly on the deck and 
 govern the huge craft by a word or the move 
 ment of a finger : there was something of rail 
 road intoxication in the fancy ; but who has not 
 often envied a cobbler in his stall ? 
 
 The boys cry the " N -York Heddk" instead 
 of " Herald " ; I remember that years ago in 
 Philadelphia ; we must be getting near the far 
 ther end of the dumb-bell suburb. A bridge 
 has been swept away by a rise of the waters, 
 so we must approach Philadelphia by the river. 
 Her physiognomy is not distinguished ; ncz 
 camus, as a Frenchman would say ; no illustri 
 ous steeple, no imposing tower ; the water-edge 
 of the town looking bedraggled, like the flounce 
 of a vulgar rich woman s dress that trails on the 
 sidewalk. The New Ironsides lies at one of the 
 wharves, elephantine in bulk and color, her 
 2* c 
 
34 MY HUNT AFTER " THE CAPTAIN." 
 
 sides narrowing as they rise, like the walls of 
 a hock-glass. 
 
 I went straight to the house in Walnut Street 
 where the Captain would be heard of, if any 
 where in this region. His lieutenant-colonel 
 was there gravely wounded ; his college-friend 
 and comrade in arms, a son of the house, was 
 there, injured in a similar way ; another soldier, 
 brother of the last, was there, prostrate with 
 fever. A fourth bed was waiting ready for the 
 Captain, but not one word had been heard of 
 him, though inquiries had been made in the 
 towns from and through which the father had 
 brought his two sons and the lieutenant-colonel. 
 And so my search is, like a " Ledger " story, to 
 be continued. 
 
 I rejoined my companions in time to take the 
 noon-train for Baltimore. Our company was 
 gaining in number as it moved onwards. We 
 had found upon the train from New York a 
 lovely, lonely lady, the wife of one of our most 
 spirited Massachusetts officers, the brave Colonel 
 
 of the th Kegiment, going to seek her 
 
 wounded husband at Middletown, a place lying 
 
MY HUNT AFTER " THE CAPTAIN." 35 
 
 directly in our track. She was the light of our 
 party while we were together on our pilgrim 
 age, a fair, gracious woman, gentle, but. cour 
 ageous, 
 
 " ful plesant and amiable of port, 
 
 estatelich of manere, 
 
 And to ben holden digue of reverence." 
 
 On the road from Philadelphia, I found in 
 the same car with our party Dr. William Hunt, 
 of Philadelphia, who had most kindly and faith 
 fully attended the Captain, then the Lieutenant, 
 after a wound received at Ball s Bluff, which 
 came very near being mortal. He was going 
 upon an errand of mercy to the wounded, and 
 found he had in his memorandum-book the 
 name of our lady s husband, the Colonel, who 
 had been commended to his particular attention. 
 
 Not long after leaving Philadelphia, we passed 
 a solitary sentry keeping guard over a short 
 railroad-bridge. It was the first evidence that 
 we were approaching the perilous borders, the 
 marches where the North and the South mingle 
 their angry hosts, where the extremes of our 
 so-called civilization meet in conflict, and the 
 tierce slave-driver of the Lower Mississippi 
 
36 MY HUNT AFTER THE CAPTAIN." 
 
 stares into the stern eyes of the forest-feller 
 from the banks of the Aroostook. All the way 
 along,, the bridges were guarded more or less 
 strongly. In a vast country like ours, commu 
 nications play a far more complex part than in 
 Europe, where the whole territory available for 
 strategic purposes is so comparatively limited. 
 Belgium, for instance, has long been the bowl 
 ing-alley where kings roll cannon-balls at each 
 other s armies ; but here we are playing the 
 game of live ninepins without any alley. 
 
 We were obliged to stay in Baltimore over 
 night, as we were too late for the train to Fred 
 erick. At the Eutaw House, where we found 
 both comfort and courtesy, we met a number of 
 friends, who beguiled the evening hours for us 
 in the most agreeable manner. We devoted 
 some time to procuring surgical and other arti 
 cles, such as might be useful to our friends, or 
 to others, if our friends should not need them. 
 In the morning, I found myself seated at the 
 breakfast-table next to General Wool. It did 
 not surprise me to find the General very far 
 from expansive. With Fort McHenry on his 
 
MY HUNT AFTER " THE CAPTAIN." 37 
 
 shoulders and Baltimore in his breeches-pocket, 
 and the weight of a military department loading 
 down his social safety-valves, I thought it a 
 great deal for an officer in his trying position to 
 select so very obliging and affable an aid as the 
 gentleman who relieved him of the burden of 
 attending to strangers. 
 
 We left the Eutaw House, to take the cars 
 for Frederick. As we stood waiting on the 
 platform, a telegraphic message was handed in 
 silence to my companion. Sad news : the life 
 less body of the son he was hastening to see was 
 even now on its way to him in Baltimore. It 
 was no time for empty words of consolation : I 
 knew what he had lost, and that now was not 
 the time to intrude upon a grief borne as men 
 bear it, felt as women feel it. 
 
 Colonel Wilder Dwight was first made known 
 to me as the friend of a beloved relative of my 
 own, who was with him during a severe illness 
 in Switzerland, and for whom while living, and 
 for whose memory when dead, he retained the 
 warmest affection. Since that, the story of his 
 noble deeds of daring, of his capture and es- 
 
38 MY HUNT AFTER " THE CAPTAIN." 
 
 cape, and a brief visit home before he was able 
 to rejoin his regiment, had made his name fa 
 miliar to many among us, myself among the 
 number. His memory has been honored by 
 those who had the largest opportunity of know 
 ing his rare promise, as a man of talents and 
 energy of nature. His abounding vitality must 
 have produced its impression on all who met 
 him ; there was a still fire about him which any 
 one could see would blaze up to melt all difficul 
 ties and recast obstacles into implements in the 
 mould of an heroic will. These elements of his 
 character many had the chance of knowing ; 
 but I shall always associate him with the mem 
 ory of that pure and noble friendship which 
 made me feel that I knew him before I looked 
 upon his face, and added a personal tenderness 
 to the sense of loss which I share with the 
 whole community. 
 
 Here, then, I parted, sorrowfully, from the 
 companions with whom I set out on my jour 
 ney. 
 
 In one of the cars, at the same station, we 
 met General Shriver, of Frederick, a most loyal 
 
MY HUNT AFTER " THE CAPTAIN." 39 
 
 % 
 
 Unionist, whose name is synonymous with a 
 hearty welcome to all whom he can aid by his 
 counsel and his hospitality. He took great 
 pains to give us all the information we needed, 
 and expressed the hope, which was afterwards 
 fulfilled, to the great gratification of some of us, 
 that we should meet again when he should re 
 turn to his home. 
 
 There was nothing worthy of special note in 
 the trip to Frederick, except our passing a squad 
 of Rebel prisoners, whom I missed seeing, as 
 they flashed by, but who were said to be a most 
 forlorn-looking crowd of scarecrows. Arrived 
 at the Monocacy River, about three miles this 
 side of Frederick, we came to a halt, for the 
 railroad-bridge had been blown up by the Reb 
 els, and its iron pillars and arches were lying 
 in the bed of the river. The unfortunate 
 wretch who fired the train was killed by the 
 explosion, and lay buried hard by, his hands 
 sticking out of the shallow grave into which he 
 had been huddled. This was the story they 
 told us, but whether true or not I must leave 
 to the correspondents of " Notes and Queries " 
 to settle. 
 
40 MY HUNT AFTER " THE CAPTAIN." 
 
 
 
 There was a great confusion of carriages and 
 wagons at the stopping-place of the train, so 
 that it was a long time before I could get any 
 thing that would carry us. At last I was lucky 
 enough to light on a sturdy wagon, drawn by a 
 pair of serviceable bays, and driven by James 
 Gray den, with whom I was destined to have a 
 somewhat continued acquaintance. We took 
 up a little girl who had been in Baltimore 
 during the late Rebel inroad. It made me 
 think of the time when my own mother, at that 
 time six years old, was hurried off from Boston, 
 then occupied by the British soldiers, to New- 
 buryport, and heard the people saying that " the 
 redcoats were coming, killing and murdering 
 everybody as they went along." Frederick 
 looked cheerful for a place that had so recently 
 been in an enemy s hands. Here and there a 
 house or shop was shut up, but the national 
 colors were waving in all directions, and the 
 general aspect was peaceful and contented. I 
 saw no bullet-marks or other sign of the fight- 
 in^ which had gone on in the streets. The 
 Colonel s lady was taken in charge by a daugh- 
 
MY HUNT AFTER " THE CAPTAIN." 41 
 
 ter of that hospitable family to which we had 
 been commended by its head, and I proceeded 
 to inquire for wounded officers at the various 
 temporary hospitals. 
 
 At the United States Hotel, where many 
 were lying, I heard mention of an officer in an 
 upper chamber, and, going there, found Lieu 
 tenant Abbott, of the Twentieth Massachusetts 
 Volunteers, lying ill with what looked like ty 
 phoid fever. While there, who should come in 
 but the almost ubiquitous Lieutenant Wilkins, 
 of the same Twentieth, whom I had met repeat 
 edly before on errands of kindness or duty, 
 and who was just from the battle-ground. He 
 was going to Boston in charge of the body of 
 the lamented Dr. Revere, the Assistant Surgeon 
 of the regiment, killed on the field. From his 
 lips I learned something of the mishaps of the 
 regiment. My Captain s wound he spoke of 
 as less grave than at first thought ; but he 
 mentioned incidentally having heard a storv 
 recently that he was killed, a fiction, doubt 
 less, a mistake, a palpable absurdity, 
 not to be remembered or "made any account 
 
42 MY HUNT AFTER THE CAPTAIN." 
 
 of. O no ! but what dull ache is this in that 
 obscurely sensitive region, somewhere below 
 the heart, where the nervous centre called 
 the semilunar ganglion lies unconscious of 
 itself until a great grief or a mastering anxi 
 ety reaches it through all the non-conductors 
 which isolate it from ordinary impressions? 
 I talked awhile with Lieutenant Abbott, who 
 lay prostrate, feeble, but soldier-like and un 
 complaining, carefully waited upon by a most 
 excellent lady, a captain s wife, New-England- 
 born, loyal as the Liberty on a golden ten- 
 dollar piece, and of lofty bearing enough to 
 have sat for that goddess s portrait. She had 
 stayed in Frederick through the Rebel inroad, 
 and kept the star-spangled banner where it 
 would be safe, to unroll it as the last Rebel 
 hoofs clattered off from the pavement of the 
 town. 
 
 Near by Lieutenant Abbott was an unhappy 
 gentleman, occupying a small chamber, and 
 filling it with his troubles. When he gets well 
 and plump, I know he will forgive me if I con 
 fess that I could not help smiling in the midst 
 
MY HUNT AFTER THE CAPTAIN." 43 
 
 of my sympathy for him. He had been a well- 
 favored man, he said, sweeping his hand in a 
 semicircle, which implied that his acute-angled 
 countenance had once filled the goodly curve 
 he described. He was now a perfect Don 
 Quixote to look upon. Weakness had made 
 him querulous, as it does all of us, and he piped 
 liis grievances to me in a thin voice, t with that 
 finish of detail which chronic invalidism alone 
 can command. He was starving, he could 
 not get what he wanted to eat. He was in 
 need of stimulants, and he held up a pitiful 
 two-ounce phial containing three thimblefuls of 
 brandy, his whole stock of that encouraging 
 article. Him I consoled to the best of my abil 
 ity, and afterwards, in some slight measure, 
 supplied his wants. Feed this poor gentleman 
 up, as these good people soon will, and I should 
 not know him, nor he himself. We are all 
 egotists in sickness and debility. An animal 
 has been defined as " a stomach ministered to 
 by organs ; " and the greatest man comes very 
 near this simple formula after a month or two 
 of fever and starvation. 
 
44 MY HUNT AFTER " THE CAPTAIN." 
 
 James Grayden and his team pleased me well 
 enough, and so I made a bargain with him to 
 take us, the lady and myself, on our further 
 journey as far as Middletown. As we were 
 about starting from the front of the United 
 States Hotel, two gentlemen presented them 
 selves and expressed a wish to be allowed to 
 share our conveyance. I looked at them and 
 convinced myself that they were neither Rebels 
 in disguise, nor deserters, nor camp-followers, 
 nor miscreants, but plain, honest men on a 
 proper errand. The first of them I will pass 
 over briefly. He was a young man of mild and 
 modest demeanor, chaplain to a Pennsylvania 
 regiment, which he was going to rejoin. He 
 belonged to the Moravian Church, of which I 
 had the misfortune to know little more than 
 what I had learned from Southey s " Life of 
 Wesley," and from the exquisite hymns we have 
 borrowed from its rhapsodists. The other stran 
 ger was a New-Englander of respectable ap 
 pearance, with a grave, hard, honest, hay-beard 
 ed face, who had come to serve the sick and 
 wounded on the battle-field and in its immedi- 
 
MY HUNT AFTER THE CAPTAIN." 45 
 
 ate neighborhood. There is no reason why I 
 should not mention his name, but I shall con 
 tent myself with calling him the Philanthro 
 pist. 
 
 So we set forth, the sturdy wagon, the ser 
 viceable bays, with James Grayden their driv 
 er, the gentle lady, whose serene patience bore 
 up through all delays and discomforts, the 
 Chaplain, the Philanthropist, and myself, the 
 teller of this story. 
 
 And now, as we emerged from Frederick, 
 we struck at once upon the trail from the great 
 battle-field. The road was filled with straggling 
 tfnd wounded soldiers. All who could travel 
 on foot multitudes with slight wounds of the 
 upper limbs, the head or face were told to 
 take up their beds a light burden or none at 
 all and walk. Just as the battle-field sucks 
 everything into its red vortex for the conflict, 
 so does it drive everything off in long, diverg 
 ing rays after the fierce centripetal forces have 
 met and neutralized each other. For more 
 than a week there had been sharp fighting -all 
 along this road. Through the streets of Fred- 
 
46 MY HUNT AFTER THE CAPTAIN." 
 
 erick, through Crampton s Gap, over South 
 Mountain, sweeping at last the hills and the 
 woods that skirt the windings of the Antietam, 
 the long battle had travelled, like one of those 
 tornadoes which tear their path through our 
 fields and villages. The slain of higher con 
 dition, " embalmed " and iron-cased, were slid 
 ing off on the railways to their far homes ; the 
 dead of the rank-and-file were being gathered 
 up and committed hastily to the earth ; the 
 gravely wounded were cared for hard by the 
 scene of conflict, or pushed a little way along 
 to the neighboring villages ; while those who 
 could walk were meeting us, as I have said, at 
 every step in the road. It was a pitiable sight, 
 truly pitiable, yet so vast, so far beyond the 
 possibility of relief, that many single sorrows of 
 small dimensions have wrought upon my feel 
 ings more than the sight of this great caravan 
 of maimed pilgrims. The companionship of 
 so many seemed to make a joint-stock of their 
 suffering; it was next to impossible to indi 
 vidualize it, and so bring it home as one can 
 do with a single broken limb or aching wound. 
 
MY HUNT AFTER " THE CAPTAIN." 47 
 
 Then they were all of the male sex, and in 
 the freshness or the prime of their strength. 
 Though they tramped so wearily along, yet 
 there was rest and kind nursing in store for 
 them. These wounds they bore would be the 
 medals they would show their children and 
 grandchildren by and by. Who would not 
 rather wear his decorations beneath his uni 
 form than on it ? 
 
 Yet among them were figures which arrested 
 our attention and sympathy. Delicate boys, 
 with more spirit than strength,* flushed with 
 fever or pale with exhaustion or haggard with 
 suffering, dragged their weary limbs along as if 
 each step would exhaust their slender store of 
 strength. At the roadside sat or lay others, 
 quite spent with their journey. Here and there 
 was a house at which the wayfarers would stop, 
 in the hope, I fear often vain, of getting re 
 freshment ; and in one place was a clear, cool 
 spring, where the little bands of the long pro 
 cession halted for a few moments, as the trains 
 that traverse the desert rest by its fountains. 
 My companions had brought a few peaches 
 
48 MY HUNT AFTER " THE CAPTAIN." 
 
 along with them, which the Philanthropist be 
 stowed upon the tired and thirsty soldiers with 
 a satisfaction which we all shared. I had with 
 me a small flask of strong waters, to be used as 
 a medicine in case of inward grief. From this, 
 also, he dispensed relief, without hesitation, to 
 a poor fellow who looked as if he needed it. I 
 rather admired the simplicity with which he 
 applied my limited means of solace to the first- 
 comer who wanted it more than I ; a genuine 
 benevolent impulse does not stand on cere 
 mony, and had I perished of colic for want 
 of a stimulus that night, I should not have 
 reproached my friend the Philanthropist, any 
 more than I grudged my other ardent friend 
 the two dollars and more which it cost me to 
 send the charitable message he left in my hands. 
 It was a lovely country through which we 
 were riding. The hillsides rolled away into 
 the distance, slanting up fair and broad to the 
 sun, as one sees them in the open parts of the 
 Berkshire Valley, at Lanesborough, for instance, 
 or in the many-hued mountain-chalice at the 
 bottom of which the Shaker houses of Lebanon 
 
MY HUNT AFTER THE CAPTAIN." 49 
 
 have shaped themselves like a sediment of cu 
 bical crystals. The wheat was all garnered, 
 and the land ploughed for a new crop. There 
 was Indian-corn standing, but I saw no pump 
 kins wanning their yellow carapaces in the sun 
 shine like so many turtles ; only in a single 
 instance did I notice some wretched little minia 
 ture specimens in form and hue not unlike those 
 colossal oranges of our cornfields. The rail- 
 fences were somewhat disturbed, and the cin 
 ders of extinguished fires showed the use to 
 which they had been applied. The houses 
 along the road were not for the most part neat 
 ly kept ; the garden fences were poorly built 
 of laths or long slats, and very rarely of trim 
 aspect. The men of this region seemed to ride 
 in the saddle very generally, rather than drive. 
 They looked sober and stern, less curious and 
 lively than Yankees, and I fancied that a type 
 of features familiar to us in the countenance of 
 the late John Tyler, our accidental President, 
 was frequently met w r ith. The women were 
 still more distinguishable from our New-Eng 
 land pattern. Soft, sallow, succulent, delicately 
 3 D 
 
50 MY HUNT AFTER THE CAPTAIN." 
 
 finished about the mouth and firmly shaped 
 about the chin, dark-eyed, full-throated, they 
 looked as if they had been grown in a land of 
 olives. There was a little toss in their move 
 ment, full of muliebrity. I fancied there was 
 something more of the duck and less of the 
 chicken about them, as compared with the 
 daughters of our leaner soil ; but these are 
 mere impressions caught from stray glances, 
 and if there is any offence in them, my fair 
 readers may consider them all retracted. 
 
 At intervals, a dead horse lay by the road 
 side, or in the fields, unburied, not grateful to 
 gods or men. I saw no bird of prey, no ill- 
 omened fowl, on my way to the carnival of 
 death, or at the place where it was held. The 
 vulture of story, the crow of Talavera, tho 
 " twa corbies " of the ghastly ballad, are all 
 from Nature, doubtless ; but no black wing was 
 spread over these animal ruins, and no call to 
 the banquet pierced through the heavy-laden 
 and sickening air. 
 
 Full in the middle of the road, caring little 
 for whom or what they met, came long strings 
 
MY HUNT AFTER " THE CAPTAIN." 51 
 
 of army-wagons, returning empty from the 
 front after supplies. James Grayden stated it 
 as his conviction that they had a little rather 
 run into a fellow than not. I liked the looks 
 of these equipages and their drivers ; they 
 meant business. Drawn by mules mostly, six, 
 I think, to a wagon, powdered well with dust, 
 wagon, beast, and driver, they came jogging 
 along the road, turning neither to right nor left, 
 some driven by bearded, solemn white men, 
 some by careless, saucy-looking negroes, of a 
 blackness like that of anthracite or obsidian. 
 There seemed to be nothing about them, dead 
 or alive, that was not serviceable. Sometimes 
 a mule would give out on the road ; then he 
 was left where he lay, until by and by he would 
 think better of it, and get up, when the first 
 public wagon that came along would hitch him 
 on, and restore him to the sphere of duty. 
 
 It was evening when we got to Middletown. 
 The gentle lady who had graced our homely 
 conveyance with her company here left us. 
 She found her husband, the gallant Colonel, in 
 very comfortable quarters, well cared for, very 
 
52 MY HUNT AFTER THE CAPTAIN." 
 
 weak from the effects of the fearful operation 
 he had been compelled to undergo, but show 
 ing the same calm courage to endure as he had 
 shown manly energy to act. It was a meeting 
 full of heroism and tenderness, of which I heard 
 more than there is need to tell. Health to the 
 brave soldier, and peace to the household over 
 which so fair a spirit presides ! 
 
 Dr. Thompson, the very active and intelli 
 gent surgical director of the hospitals of the 
 place, took me in charge. He carried me to 
 the house of a worthy and benevolent clergy 
 man of the German Reformed Church, where 
 I was to take tea and pass the night. What 
 became of the Moravian chaplain I did not 
 know ; but my friend the Philanthropist had 
 evidently made up his mind to adhere to my 
 fortunes. He followed me, therefore, to the 
 house of the " Dominie," as a newspaper-corre 
 spondent calls my kind host, and partook of the 
 fare there furnished me. He withdrew with 
 me to the apartment assigned for my slumbers, 
 and slept sweetly on the same pillow where I 
 waked and tossed. Nay, I do affirm that he 
 
MY HUNT AFTER THE CAPTAIN." 53 
 
 did r unconsciously, I believe, encroach on that 
 moiety of the couch which I had flattered my 
 self was to be my own through the watches of 
 the night, and that I was in serious doubt at 
 one time whether I should not be gradually, 
 but irresistibly, expelled from the bed which I 
 had supposed destined for my sole possession. 
 As Ruth clave unto Naomi, so my friend the 
 Philanthropist clave unto me. " Whither thou 
 goest, I will go ; and where thou lodgest, I will 
 lodge." A really kind, good man, full of zeal, 
 determined to help somebody, and absorbed in 
 his one thought, he doubted nobody s willing 
 ness to serve him, going, as he was, on a purely 
 benevolent errand. When he reads this, as I 
 hope he will, let him be assured of my esteem 
 and respect ; and if he gained any accommoda 
 tion from being in my company, let me tell 
 him that I learned a lesson from his active 
 benevolence. I could, however, have wished to 
 hear him laugh once before we parted, perhaps 
 forever. He did not, to the best of my recol 
 lection, even smile during the whole period that 
 we were in company. I am afraid that a light- 
 
54 MY HUNT AFTER THE CAPTAIN." 
 
 some disposition and a relish for humor are not 
 so common in those whose benevolence takes 
 an active turn as in people of sentiment, who 
 are always ready with their tears and abound 
 ing in passionate expressions of sympathy. 
 Working philanthropy is a practical specialty, 
 requiring not a mere impulse, but a talent, with 
 its peculiar sagacity for finding its objects, a 
 tact for selecting its agencies, an organizing and 
 arranging faculty, a steady set of nerves, and a 
 constitution such as Sallust describes in Cati 
 line, patient of cold, of hunger, and of watch 
 ing. Philanthropists are commonly grave, oc 
 casionally grim, and not very rarely morose. 
 Their expansive social force is imprisoned as a 
 working power, to show itself only through its 
 legitimate pistons and cranks. The tighter the 
 boiler, the less it whistles and sings at its work. 
 When Dr. Waterhouse, in 1780, travelled with 
 Howard, on his tour among the Dutch prisons 
 and hospitals, he found his temper and manners 
 very different from what would have been ex 
 pected. 
 
 My benevolent companion having already 
 
 
MY HUNT AFTER " THE CAPTAIN." 55 
 
 made a preliminary exploration of the hospitals 
 of the place, before sharing my bed with him, 
 as above mentioned, I joined him in a second 
 tour through them. The authorities of Middle- 
 town are evidently leagued with the surgeons of 
 that place, for such a break-neck succession of 
 pitfalls and chasms I have never seen in the 
 streets of a civilized town. It was getting late 
 in the evening when we began our rounds. 
 The principal collections of the wounded were 
 in the churches. Boards were laid over the 
 tops of the pews, on these some straw was 
 spread, and on this the wounded lay, with little 
 or no covering other than such scanty clothes 
 as they had on. There were wounds of all 
 degrees of severity, but I heard no groans or 
 murmurs. Most of the sufferers were hurt in 
 the limbs, some had undergone amputation, and 
 all had, I presume, received such attention as 
 was required. Still, it was but a rough and 
 dreary kind of comfort that the extemporized 
 hospitals suggested. I could not help thinking 
 the patients must be cold ; but they were used 
 to camp life, and did not complain. The men 
 
56 MY HUNT AFTER " THE CAPTAIN." 
 
 who watched were not of the soft-handed varie 
 ty of the race. One of them was smoking his 
 pipe as he went from bed to bed. I saw one 
 poor fellow who had been shot through the 
 breast ; his breathing was labored, and he was 
 tossing, anxious and restless. The men were 
 debating about the opiate he was to take, and I 
 was thankful that I happened there at the right 
 moment to see that he was well narcotized for 
 the night. Was it possible that my Captain 
 could be lying on the straw in one of these 
 places ? Certainly possible, but not probable ; 
 but as the lantern was held over each bed, it 
 was with a kind of thrill that I looked upon the 
 features it illuminated. Many times as I went 
 from hospital to hospital in my wanderings, I 
 started as some faint resemblance the shade 
 of a young man s hair, the outline of his half- 
 turned face recalled the presence I was in 
 search of. The face would turn towards me, 
 and the momentary illusion would pass away, 
 but still the fancy clung to me. There was no 
 figure huddled up on its rude couch, none 
 stretched at the roadside, none toiling languidly 
 
MY HUNT AFTER " THE CAPTAIN." 57 
 
 along the dusty pike, none passing in car or in 
 ambulance, that I did not scrutinize, as if it 
 might be that for which I was making my pil 
 grimage to the battle-field. 
 
 " There are two wounded Secesh," said my 
 companion. I walked to the bedside of the 
 first, who was an officer, a lieutenant, if I re 
 member right, from North Carolina. He was 
 of good family, son of a judge in one of the 
 higher courts of his State, educated, pleasant, 
 gentle, intelligent. One moment s intercourse 
 with such an enemy, lying helpless and wound 
 ed among strangers, takes away all personal bit 
 terness towards those with whom we or our 
 children have been but a few hours before in 
 deadly strife. The basest lie which the mur 
 derous contrivers of this Rebellion have told is 
 that which tries to make out a difference of 
 race in the men of the North and South. It 
 would be worth a year of battles to abolish this 
 delusion, though the great sponge of war that 
 wiped it out were moistened with the best blood 
 of the land. My Rebel was of slight, scholas 
 tic habit, and spoke as one accustomed to tread 
 3* ^^flfl 
 
58 MY HUNT AFTER " THE CAPTAIN: 
 
 carefully among the parts of speech. It made 
 my heart ache to see him, a man finished in the 
 humanities and Christian culture, whom the sin 
 of his forefathers and the crime of his rulers had 
 set in barbarous conflict against others of like 
 training with his own, a man who, but for 
 the curse which our generation is called on to 
 expiate, would have taken his part in the be 
 neficent task of shaping the intelligence and 
 lifting the moral standard of a peaceful and 
 united people. 
 
 On Sunday morning, the twenty-first, having 
 engaged James Grayden and his team, I set 
 out with the Chaplain and the Philanthropist 
 for Keedysville. Our track lay through the 
 South-Mountain Gap, and led us first to the 
 town of Boonsborough, where, it will be re 
 membered, Colonel Dwight had been brought 
 after the battle. We saw the positions occupied 
 in the Battle of South Mountain, and many traces 
 of the conflict. In one situation a group of young 
 trees was marked with shot, hardly one having 
 escaped. As we walked by the side of the wagon, 
 the Philanthropist left us for a while and climbed 
 
MY HUNT AFTER " THE CAPTAIN." 59 
 
 a hill, where, along the line of a fence, he found 
 traces of the most desperate fighting. A ride of 
 some three hours brought us to Boonsborough, 
 where I roused the unfortunate army-surgeon 
 who had charge of the hospitals, and who was 
 trying to get a little sleep after his fatigues and 
 watchings. He bore this cross very creditably, 
 and helped me to explore all places where my 
 soldier might be lying among the crowds of 
 wounded. After the useless search, I resumed 
 my journey, fortified with a note of introduction 
 to Dr. Letterman ; also with a bale of oakum 
 which I was to carry to that gentleman, this 
 substance being employed as a substitute for lint. 
 We were obliged also to procure a pass to 
 Keedysville from the Provost-Marshal of Boons- 
 borough. As we came near the place, we 
 learned that General McClellan s head-quarters 
 had been removed from this village some miles 
 farther to the front. 
 
 On entering the small settlement of Keedys 
 ville, a familiar face and figure blocked the way, 
 like one of Bunyan s giants. The tall form and 
 benevolent countenance, set off by long, flowing 
 
60 MY HUNT AFTER " THE CAPTAIN." 
 
 hair, belonged to the excellent Mayor Frank B. 
 Fay, of Chelsea, who, like my Philanthropist, 
 only still more promptly, had come to succor 
 the wounded of the great battle. It was wonder 
 ful to see how his single personality pervaded 
 this torpid little village ; he seemed to be the 
 centre of all its activities. All my questions he 
 answered clearly and decisively, as one who 
 knew everything that was going on in the place. 
 But the one question I had come five hundred 
 miles to ask, Where is Captain H. ? he could 
 not answer. There were some thousands of 
 wounded in the place, he told me, scattered 
 about everywhere. It would be a long job to 
 hunt up my Captain ; the only way would be to 
 go to every house and ask for him. Just then a 
 medical officer came up. 
 
 " Do you know anything of Captain H., of the 
 Massachusetts Twentieth ? " 
 
 " yes ; he is staying in that house. I saw 
 him there, doing ^ery well." 
 
 A chorus of hallelujahs arose in my soul, but 
 I kept them to myself. Now, then, for our twice- 
 wounded volunteer, our young centurion whose 
 
MY HUNT AFTER THE CAPTAIN: 61 
 
 double-barred shoulder-straps we have never yet 
 looked upon. Let us observe the proprieties, 
 however ; no swelling upward of the mother, 
 no hysterica passio, we do not hke scenes. A 
 calm salutation, then swallow and hold hard. 
 That is about the programme. 
 
 A cottage of squared logs, filled in with plaster, 
 and whitewashed. A little yard before it, with 
 a gate swinging. The door of the cottage ajar, 
 no one visible as yet. I push open the door and 
 enter. An old woman, Margaret Kitzmuller her 
 name proves to be, is the first person I see. 
 
 "Captain H. here?" 
 
 " O no, Sir, left yesterday morning for 
 Hagerstown, in a milk-cart." 
 
 The Kitzmuller is a beady-eyed, cheery-look 
 ing ancient woman, answers questions with a 
 rising inflection, and gives a good account of the 
 Captain, who got into the vehicle without assist 
 ance, and was in excellent spirits. Of course he 
 had struck for Hagerstown as the terminus of 
 the Cumberland Valley Railroad, and was on 
 his way to Philadelphia, via Chambersburg and 
 Harrisburg, if he were not already in the hos- 
 
62 MY HUNT AFTER THE CAPTAIN." 
 
 pitable home of Walnut Street, where his 
 friends were expecting him. 
 
 I might follow on his track or return upon my 
 own ; the distance was the same to Philadelphia 
 through Harrisburg as through Baltimore. But 
 it was very difficult, Mr. Fay told me, to procure 
 any kind of conveyance to Hagerstown ; and, on 
 the other hand, I had James Grayden and his 
 wagon to carry me back to Frederick. It was 
 not likely that I should overtake the object of 
 my pursuit with nearly thirty-six hours start, 
 even if I could procure a conveyance that day. 
 In the mean time James was getting impatient 
 to be on his return, according to the direction 
 of his employers. So I decided to go back with 
 him. 
 
 But there was the great battle-field only about 
 three miles from Keedysville, and it was impos 
 sible to go without seeing that. James Gray- 
 den s directions were peremptory, but it was a 
 case for the higher law. I must make a good 
 offer for an extra couple of hours, such as would 
 satisfy the owners of the wagon, and enforce it 
 by a personal motive. I did this handsomely, 
 
MY HUNT AFTER " THE CAPTAIN." G3 
 
 and succeeded without difficulty. To add bril 
 liancy to my enterprise, I invited the Chaplain 
 and the Philanthropist to take a free passage 
 with me. 
 
 We followed the road through the village for 
 a space, then turned off to the right, and wan 
 dered somewhat vaguely, for want of precise 
 directions, over the hills. Inquiring as we went, 
 we forded a wide creek in which soldiers were 
 washing their clothes, the name of which we did 
 not then know, but which must have been the 
 Antietam. At one point we met a party, women 
 among them, bringing off various trophies they 
 had picked up on the battle-field. Still wander 
 ing along, we were at last pointed to a hill in 
 the distance, a part of the summit of which was 
 covered with Indian-corn. There, we were told, 
 some of the fiercest fighting of the day had been 
 done. The fences were taken down so as to 
 make a passage across the fields, and the tracks 
 worn within the last few days looked like old 
 roads. We passed a fresh grave under a tree 
 near the road. A board was nailed to the 
 tree, bearing the name, as well as I could make 
 
64 MY HUNT AFTER " THE CAPTAIN." 
 
 it out, of Gardiner, of a New-Hampshire regi 
 ment. 
 
 On coming near the brow of the hill, we met 
 a party carrying picks and spades. " How 
 many ? " " Only one." The dead were nearly 
 all buried, then, in this region of the field of 
 strife. We stopped the wagon, and, getting out, 
 began to look around us. Hard by was a large 
 pile of muskets, scores, if not hundreds, which 
 had been picked up, and were guarded for the 
 Government. A long ridge of fresh gravel rose 
 before us. A board stuck up in front of it bore 
 this inscription, the first part of which was, I 
 believe, not correct : " The Rebel General An 
 derson and 80 Rebels are buried in this hole." 
 Other smaller ridges were marked with the 
 number of dead lying under them. The whole 
 ground was strewed with fragments of cloth 
 ing, haversacks, canteens, cap-boxes, bullets, car 
 tridge-boxes, cartridges, scraps of paper, portions 
 of bread and meat. I saw two soldiers caps that 
 looked as though their owners had been shot 
 through the head. In several places I noticed 
 dark red patches where a pool of blood had 
 
MY HUNT AFTER " THE CAPTAIN." 65 
 
 curdled and caked, as some poor fellow poured 
 his life out on the sod. I then wandered about 
 in the cornfield. It surprised me to notice, that, 
 though there was every mark of hard fighting 
 having taken place here, the Indian-corn was 
 not generally trodden down. One of our corn 
 fields is a kind of forest, and even when fighting, 
 men avoid the tall stalks as if they were trees. 
 At the edge of this cornfield lay a gray horse, 
 said to have belonged to a Rebel colonel, who 
 was killed near the same place. Not far off 
 were two dead artillery horses in their harness. 
 Another had been attended to by a burying- 
 party, who had thrown some earth over him ; 
 but his last bed-clothes were too short, and his 
 legs stuck out stark and stiff from beneath the 
 gravel coverlet. It was a great pity that we had 
 no intelligent guide to explain to us the position 
 of that portion of the two armies which fought 
 over this ground. There was a shallow trench 
 before we came to the cornfield, too narrow for 
 a road, as I should think, too elevated for a 
 water-course, and which seemed to have been 
 used as a rifle-pit. At any rate, there had been 
 
66 MY HUNT AFTER THE CAPTAIN." 
 
 hard fighting in and about it. This and the 
 cornfield may serve to identify the part of the 
 ground we visited, if any who fought there 
 should ever look over this paper. The opposing 
 tides of battle must have blended their waves at 
 this point, for portions of gray uniform were 
 mingled with the " garments rolled in blood " 
 torn from our own dead and wounded soldiers. 
 I picked up a Rebel canteen, and one of our 
 own, but there was something repulsive about 
 the trodden and stained relics of the stale battle 
 field. It was like the table of some hideous orgy 
 left uncleared, and one turned away "disgusted 
 from its broken fragments and muddy heel-taps. 
 A bullet or two, a button, a brass plate from a 
 soldier s belt, served well enough for mementos 
 of my visit, with a letter which I picked up, 
 directed to Richmond, Virginia, its seal un 
 broken. " N. C. Cleveland County. E. Wright 
 to J. Wright." On the other side, " A few lines 
 from W. L. Vaughn," who has just been writing 
 for the wife to her husband, and continues on 
 his own account. The postscript, " tell John 
 that nancy s folks are all well and has a verry 
 
MY HUNT AFTER " THE CAPTAIN." 67 
 
 good Little Crop of corn a growing." I wonder, 
 if, by one of those strange chances of which I 
 have seen so many, this number or leaf of the 
 " Atlantic " will not sooner or later find its way 
 to Cleveland County, North Carolina, and E. 
 Wright, widow of James Wright, and Nancy s 
 folks, get from these sentences the last glimpse 
 of husband and friend as he threw up his arms 
 and fell in the bloody cornfield of Antietam ? I 
 will keep this stained letter for them until peace 
 comes back, if it comes in my time, and my 
 pleasant North Carolina Rebel of the Middle- 
 town Hospital will, perhaps, look these poor 
 people up, and tell them where to send for it. 
 
 On the battle-field I parted with my two com 
 panions, the Chaplain and the Philanthropist. 
 They were going to the front, the one to find 
 his regiment, the other to look for those who 
 needed his assistance. We exchanged cards and 
 farewells, I mounted the wagon, the horses 
 heads were turned homewards, my two com 
 panions went their way, and I saw them no 
 more. On my way back, I fell into talk with 
 James Grayden. Born in England, Lancashire ; 
 
68 MY HUNT AFTER THE CAPTAIN." 
 
 in this country since he was four years old. 
 Had nothing to care for but an old mother ; 
 did n t know what he should do if he lost her. 
 Though so long in this country, he had all the 
 simplicity and childlike light-heartedness which 
 belong to the Old World s people. He laughed 
 at the smallest pleasantry, and showed his great 
 white English teeth; he took a joke without 
 retorting by an impertinence ; he had a very 
 limited curiosity about all that was going on ; 
 he had small store of information ; he lived 
 chiefly in his horses, it seemed to me. His quiet 
 animal nature acted as a pleasing anodyne to my 
 recurring fits of anxiety, and I liked his frequent 
 " Deed I don t know, Sir," better than I have 
 sometimes relished the large discourse of pro 
 fessors and other very wise men. 
 
 I have not much to say of the road which we 
 were travelling for the second time. Reaching 
 Middletown, my first call was on the wounded 
 Colonel and his lady. She gave me a most 
 touching account of all the suffering he had 
 gone through with his shattered limb before he 
 succeeded in finding a shelter, showing the ter- 
 
MY HUNT AFTER THE CAPTAIN." G9 
 
 rible want of proper means of transportation of 
 the wounded after the battle. It occurred to 
 me, while at this house, that I was more or less 
 famished, and for the first time in my life I 
 begged for a meal, which the kind family with 
 whom the Colonel was staying most graciously 
 furnished me. 
 
 After tea, there came in a stout army-surgeon, 
 a Highlander by birth, educated in Edinburgh, 
 with whom I had pleasant, not unstimulating 
 talk. He had been brought very close to that 
 immane and nefandous Burke-and-Hare business 
 which made the blood of civilization run cold in 
 the year 1828, and told me, in a very calm way, 
 with an occasional pinch from the mull, to 
 refresh his memory, some of the details of those 
 frightful murders, never rivalled in horror until 
 the wretch Dumollard, who kept a private cem 
 etery for his victims, was dragged into the light 
 of day. He had a good deal to say, too, about 
 the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh, 
 and the famous preparations, mercurial and the 
 rest, which I remember well having seen there, 
 the " sudabit multum," and others, also of 
 
70 MY HUNT AFTER " THE CAPTAIN." 
 
 our New York Professor Carnochan s handi 
 work, a specimen of which I once admired at 
 the New York College. But the doctor was 
 not in a happy frame of mind, and seemed will 
 ing to forget the present in the past: things 
 went wrong, somehow, and the time was out 
 of joint with him. 
 
 Dr. Thompson, kind, cheerful, companiona 
 ble, offered me half his own wide bed, in the 
 house of Dr. Baer, for my second night in Mid- 
 dletown. Here I lay awake again another night. 
 Close to the house stood an ambulance in which 
 was a wounded Rebel officer, attended by one 
 of their own surgeons. He was calling out 
 in a loud voice, all night long, as it seemed to 
 me, " Doctor ! Doctor ! Driver ! Water ! " in 
 loud, complaining tones, I have no doubt of real 
 suffering, but in strange contrast with the silent 
 patience which was the almost universal rule. 
 
 The courteous Dr. Thompson will let me 
 tell here an odd coincidence, trivial, but having 
 its interest as one of a series. The Doctor and 
 myself lay in the bed, and a lieutenant, a friend 
 of his, slept on the sofa. At night, I placed my 
 
MY HUNT AFTER " THE CAPTAIN." 71 
 
 match-box, a Scotch one, of the Macpherson- 
 plaid pattern, which I bought years ago, on the 
 bureau, just where I could put my hand upon it. 
 I was the last of the three to rise in the morn 
 ing, and on looking for my pretty match-box, I 
 found it was gone. This was rather awkward, 
 not on account of the loss, but of the un 
 avoidable fact that one of my fellow-lodgers 
 must have taken it. I must try to find out what 
 it meant. 
 
 " By the way, Doctor, have you seen any 
 thing of a little plaid-pattern match-box ? " 
 
 The Doctor put his hand to his pocket, and, 
 to his own huge surprise and my great gratifi 
 cation, pulled out two match-boxes exactly alike, 
 both printed with the Macpherson plaid. One 
 was his, the other mine, which he had seen lying 
 round, and naturally took for his own, thrusting 
 it into his pocket, where it found its twin-brother 
 from the same workshop. In memory of which 
 event, we exchanged boxes, like two Homeric 
 heroes. 
 
 This curious coincidence illustrates well 
 enough some supposed cases of plagiarism, of 
 
72 MY HUNT AFTER " THE CAPTAIN" 
 
 which I will mention one where my name fig 
 ured. When a little poem called " The Two 
 Streams" was first printed, a writer in the 
 New York " Evening Post " virtually accused 
 the author of it of borrowing the thought from 
 ja. baccalaureate sermon of President Hopkins, 
 of Williamstown, and printed a quotation from 
 that discourse, which, as I thought, a thief or 
 catchpoll might well consider as establishing a 
 fair presumption that it was so borrowed. I 
 was at the same time wholly unconscious of 
 ever having met with the discourse or the sen 
 tence which the verses were most like, nor do I 
 believe I ever had seen or heard either. Some 
 time after this, happening to meet my eloquent 
 cousin, Wendell Phillips, I mentioned the fact to 
 him, and he told me that Tie had once used the 
 special image said to be borrowed, in a discourse 
 delivered at Williamstown. On relating this to 
 my friend Mr. Buchanan Read, he informed me 
 that he, too, had used the image, -perhaps 
 referring to his poem called " The Twins." 
 He thought Tennyson had used it also. The 
 parting of the streams on the Alps is poetically 
 
MY HUNT AFTER THE CAPTAIN." 73 
 
 elaborated in a passage attributed to " M. 
 Loisne," printed in the " Boston Evening Tran 
 script " for October 23d, 1859. Captain, after 
 wards Sir Francis Head, speaks of the showers 
 parting on the Cordilleras, one portion going to 
 the Atlantic, one to the Pacific. I found the 
 image running loose in my mind, without a 
 halter. It suggested itself as an illustration of 
 the will, and I worked the poem out by the aid 
 of Mitchell s School Atlas. The spores of a 
 great many ideas are floating about in the at 
 mosphere. We no more know where all the 
 growths of our mind came from, than where the 
 lichens which eat the names off from the grave 
 stones borrowed the germs that gave them birth. 
 The two match-boxes were just alike, but nei 
 ther was a plagiarism. 
 
 In the morning I took to the same wagon 
 once more, but, instead of James Grayden, I 
 was to have for my driver a young man who 
 spelt his name "Phillip Ottenheimer," and 
 whose features at once showed him to be an 
 Israelite. I found him agreeable enough, and 
 disposed to talk. So I asked him many ques- 
 
74 MY HUNT AFTER " THE CAPTAIN." 
 
 tions about his religion, and got some answers 
 that sound strangely in Christian ears. He 
 was from Wittenberg, and had been educated 
 in strict Jewish fashion. From his childhood 
 he had read Hebrew, but was not much of a 
 scholar otherwise. A young person of his race 
 lost caste utterly by marrying a Christian. 
 The Founder of our religion was considered 
 by the Israelites to have been "a right smart 
 man, and a great doctor." But the horror with 
 which the reading of the New Testament by 
 any young person of their faith would be re 
 garded was as great, I judged by his language, 
 as that of one of our straitest sectaries would 
 be, if he found his son or daughter perusing 
 the " Age of Reason." 
 
 o 
 
 In approaching Frederick, the singular beauty 
 of its clustered spires struck me very much, 
 so that I was not surprised to find " Fair- View " 
 laid down about this point on a railroad-map. 
 I wish some wandering photographer would 
 take a picture of the place, a stereoscopic one, 
 if possible, to show how gracefully, how charm 
 ingly, its group of steeples nestles among the 
 
MY HUNT AFTER THE CAPTAIN." 75 
 
 Maryland hills. The town had a poetical look 
 from a distance, as if seers and dreamers might 
 dwell there. The first sign I read, on enter 
 ing its long street, might perhaps be consid 
 ered as confirming my remote impression. It 
 bore these words : " Miss Ogle, Past, Present, 
 and Future." On arriving, I visited Lieu 
 tenant Abbott, and the attenuated unhappy gen 
 tleman, his neighbor, sharing between them as 
 my parting gift what I had left of the balsam 
 known to the Pharmacopoeia as Spiritus Vini 
 Gallid. I took advantage of General Shriv- 
 er s always open door to write a letter home, 
 but had not time to partake of his offered hospi 
 tality. The railroad-bridge over the Monocacy 
 had been rebuilt since I passed through Fred 
 erick, and we trundled along over the track 
 toward Baltimore. 
 
 It was a disappointment, on reaching the 
 Eutaw House, where I had ordered all com 
 munications to be addressed, to find no tele 
 graphic message from Philadelphia or Boston, 
 stating that Captain H. had arrived at the 
 former place, " wound doing well in good spir- 
 
76 MY HUNT AFTER " THE CAPTAIN: 1 
 
 its expects to leave soon for Boston." After 
 all, it was no great matter ; the Captain was, 
 no doubt, snugly lodged before this in the 
 house called Beautiful, at * * * * Walnut 
 Street, where that " grave and beautiful dam 
 sel named Discretion" had already welcomed 
 him, smiling, though " the water stood in her 
 eyes," and had " called out Prudence, Piety, 
 and Charity, who, after a little more discourse 
 with him, had him into the family." 
 
 The friends I had met at the Eutaw House 
 had all gone but one, the lady of an officer 
 from Boston, who was most amiable and agree 
 able, and whose benevolence, as I afterwards 
 learned, soon reached the invalids I had left suf 
 fering at Frederick. General Wool still walked 
 the corridors, inexpansive, with Fort McHenry 
 on his shoulders, and Baltimore in his breeches- 
 pocket, and his courteous aid again pressed 
 upon me his kind offices. About the doors 
 of the hotel the news-boys cried the papers 
 in plaintive, wailing tones, as different from 
 the sharp accents of their Boston counterparts 
 as a sigh from the southwest is from a north- 
 
MY HUNT AFTER " THE CAPTAIN." 77 
 
 eastern breeze. To understand what they said 
 was, of course, impossible to any but an edu 
 cated ear, and if I made out "Stoarr" and 
 " Clipp rr," it was because I knew before 
 hand what must be the burden of their adver 
 tising coranach. 
 
 O 
 
 I set out for Philadelphia on the morrow, 
 Tuesday the twenty-third, there beyond ques 
 tion to meet my Captain, once more united 
 to his brave wounded companions under that 
 roof which covers a household of as noble 
 hearts as ever throbbed with human sympa 
 thies. Back River, Bush River, Gunpowder 
 Creek, lives there the man with soul so dead 
 that his memory has cerements to wrap up 
 these senseless names in the same envelopes 
 with their meaningless localities ? But the 
 Susquehanna, the broad, the beautiful, the 
 historical, the poetical Susquehanna, the river 
 of "Wyoming and of Gertrude, dividing the 
 shores where 
 
 " aye those sunny mcmntains half-way down 
 Would echo flageolet from some romantic town," 
 
 did not my heart renew its allegiance to the 
 
78 MY HUNT AFTER " THE CAPTAIN." 
 
 poet who has made it lovely to the imagina 
 tion as well as to the eye, and so identified 
 his fame with the noble stream that it " rolls 
 mingling with his fame forever " ? The prosaic 
 traveller perhaps remembers it better from the 
 fact that a great sea-monster, in the shape 
 of a steamboat, takes him, sitting in the car, 
 on its back, and swims across with him like 
 Arion s dolphin, also that mercenary men 
 on board offer him canvas-backs in the season, 
 and ducks of lower degree at other periods. 
 
 At Philadelphia again at last ! Drive fast, 
 O colored man and brother, to the house 
 called Beautiful, where my Captain lies sore 
 wounded, waiting for the sound of the chariot- 
 wheels which bring to his bedside the face 
 and the voice nearer than any save one to 
 his heart in this his hour of pain and weak 
 ness ! Up a long street with white shutters 
 and white steps to all the houses. Off at right 
 angles into another long street with white shut 
 ters and white steps to all the houses. Off 
 again at another right angle into still another 
 long street with white shutters and white steps 
 
MY HUNT AFTER " THE CAPTAIN." 79 
 
 to all the houses. The natives of this city 
 pretend to know one street from another by 
 some individual diffefences of aspect; but the 
 best way for a stranger to distinguish the 
 streets he has been in from others is to make 
 a cross or other mark on the white shut 
 ters. 
 
 This corner-house is the one. Ring softly, 
 
 for the Lieutenant-Colonel lies there with 
 
 a dreadfully wounded arm, and two sons of 
 the family, one wounded like the Colonel, one 
 fighting with death in the fog of a typhoid 
 fever, will start with fresh pangs at the least 
 sound you can make. I entered the house, 
 but no cheerful smile met me. The sufferers 
 were each of them thought to be in a critical 
 condition. The fourth bed, waiting its tenant 
 day after day, was still empty. Not a word 
 from my Captain. 
 
 Then, foolish, fond body that I was, my 
 heart sank within me. Had he been taken 
 ill on the road, perhaps been attacked with 
 those formidable symptoms which sometimes 
 come on suddenly after wounds that seemed to 
 
80 MY HUNT AFTER THE CAPTAIN." 
 
 be doing well enough, and was his life ebbing 
 away in some lonely cottage, nay, in some 
 cold barn or shed, or at the wayside, unknown, 
 uncared for? Somewhere between Philadel 
 phia and Hagerstown, if not at the latter town, 
 he must be, at any rate. I must swaep the 
 hundred and eighty miles between these places 
 as one would sweep a chamber where a precious 
 pearl had been dropped. I must have a com 
 panion in my search, partly to help me look 
 about, and partly because I was getting ner 
 vous and felt lonely. Charley said he would 
 go with me, Charley, my Captain s beloved 
 friend, gentle, but full of spirit and liveliness, 
 cultivated, social, aifectionate, a good talker, 
 a most agreeable letter-writer, observing, with 
 large relish of life, and keen sense of humor. 
 He was not^well enough to go, some of the 
 timid ones said; but he answered by packing 
 his carpet-bag, and in an. hour or two we were 
 on the Pennsylvania Central Railroad in full 
 blast for Harrisburg. 
 
 I should have been a forlorn creature but for 
 the presence of my companion. In his delight- 
 
MY HUNT AFTER " THE CAPTAIN." 81 
 
 fill company I half forgot my anxieties, which, 
 exaggerated as they may seem now, were not 
 unnatural after what"! had seen of the confusion 
 and distress that had followed the great battle, 
 nay, which seem almost justified by the recent 
 statement that " hiffh officers " were buried after 
 
 O 
 
 that battle whose names were never ascertained. 
 I noticed little matters, as usual. The road was 
 filled in between the rails with cracked stones, 
 such as are used for Macadamizing streets. 
 They keep the dust down, I suppose, for I 
 could not think of any other use for them. By 
 and by the glorious valley which stretches along 
 through Chester and Lancaster Counties opened 
 upon us. Much as I had heard of the fertile 
 regions of Pennsylvania, the vast scale and the 
 uniform luxuriance of this region astonished me. 
 The grazing pastures were so green, the fields 
 were under such perfect culture, the cattle 
 looked so sleek, the houses were so comfortable, 
 the barns so ample, the fences so well kept, that 
 I did not wonder, when I was told that this 
 region was called the England of Pennsylvania. 
 The people whom we saw were, like the cattle, 
 
 4* F 
 
82 MY HUNT AFTER " THE CAPTAIN." 
 
 well nourished ; the young women looked round 
 and wholesome. 
 
 " Grass makes girls," I said to my companion, 
 and left him to work out my Orphic saying, 
 thinking to myself, that, as guano makes grass, 
 it was a legitimate conclusion that Ichaboe must 
 be a nursery of female loveliness. 
 
 As the train stopped at the different stations, 
 I inquired at each if they had any wounded 
 officers. None as yet; the red rays of the 
 battle-field had not streamed off so far as this. 
 Evening found us in the cars ; they lighted 
 candles in spring-candle-sticks ; odd enough I 
 thought it in the land of oil-wells and unmeas 
 ured floods of kerosene. Some fellows turned 
 up the back of a seat so as to make it horizontal, 
 and began gambling, or pretending to gamble ; 
 it looked as if they were trying to pluck a 
 young countryman ; but appearances are decep 
 tive, and no deeper stake than " drinks for the 
 crowd" seemed at last to be involved. But 
 remembering that murder has tried of late years 
 to establish itself as an institution in the cars, I 
 was less tolerant of the doings of these " sports- 
 
MY HUNT AFTER THE CAPTAIN." 83 
 
 men " who tried to turn our public conveyance 
 into a travelling Frascati. They acted as if 
 they were used to it, and nobody seemed to pay 
 much attention to their manoeuvres. 
 
 We arrived at Harrisburg in the course of the 
 evening, and attempted to find our way to the 
 Jones House, to which we had been commend 
 ed. By some mistake, intentional on the part 
 of somebody, as it may have been, or purely 
 accidental, we went to the Herr House instead. 
 I entered my name in the book, with that of 
 my companion. A plain, middle-aged man 
 stepped up, read it to himself in low tones, and 
 coupled to it a literary title by which I have 
 been sometimes known. He proved to be a 
 graduate of Brown University, and had heard 
 a certain Phi Beta Kappa poem delivered there 
 a good many years ago. I remembered it, too ; 
 Professor Goddard, whose sudden and singular 
 death left such lasting regret, was the Orator. 
 I recollect that while I was speaking a drum 
 went by the church, and how I was disgusted to 
 see all the heads near the windows thrust out 
 of them, as if the building were on fire. Cedat 
 
84 MY HUNT AFTER " THE CAPTAIN." 
 
 armis toga. The clerk in the office, a mild, 
 pensive, unassuming young man, was very po 
 lite in his manners, and did all he could to make 
 us comfortable. He was of a literary turn, and 
 knew one of his guests in his character of au 
 thor. At tea, a mild old gentleman, with white 
 hair and beard, sat next us. He, too, had come 
 hunting after his son, a lieutenant in a Pennsyl 
 vania regiment. Of these, father and son, more 
 presently. 
 
 After tea we went to look up Dr. Wilson, 
 chief medical officer of the hospitals in the place, 
 who was staying at the Brady House. A mag 
 nificent old toddy-mixer, Bardolphian in hue, 
 and stern of aspect, as all grog-dispensers must 
 be, accustomed as they are to dive through the 
 features of men to the bottom of their souls and 
 pockets to see whether they are solvent to the 
 amount of sixpence, answered my question by a 
 wave of one hand, the other being engaged in 
 carrying a dram to his lips. His superb indif 
 ference gratified my artistic feeling more than it 
 wounded my personal sensibilities. Anything 
 really superior in its line claims my homage, 
 
MY HUNT AFTER " THE CAPTAIN: 85 
 
 and this man was the ideal bar-tender, above 
 all vulgar passions, untouched by commonplace 
 sympathies, himself a lover of the liquid happi 
 ness he dispenses, and filled with a fine scorn 
 of all those lesser felicities conferred by love or 
 fame or wealth or any of the roundabout agen 
 cies for which his fiery elixir is the cheap, all- 
 powerful substitute. 
 
 Dr. Wilson was in bed, though it was early 
 in the evening, not having slept for I don t 
 know how many nights. 
 
 " Take my card up to him, if you please." 
 
 " This way, Sir." 
 
 A man who has not slept for a fortnight or so 
 is not expected to be as affable, when attacked 
 in his bed, as a French Princess of old time at 
 her morning receptions. Dr. Wilson turned 
 toward me, as I entered, without effusion, but 
 without rudeness. His thick, dark moustache 
 was chopped off square at the lower edge of the 
 upper lip, which implied a decisive, if not a 
 peremptory, style of character. 
 
 I am Doctor So-and-So, of Hubtown, looking 
 after my wounded son. (I gave my name and 
 said Boston, of course, in reality.) 
 
86 MY HUNT AFTER " THE CAPTAIN." 
 
 Dr. Wilson leaned on his elbow and looked 
 up in my face, his features growing cordial. 
 Then he put out his hand, and good-hum oredly 
 excused his reception of me. The day before, 
 as he told me, he had dismissed from the service 
 a medical man hailing from ******** ? Pennsyl 
 vania, bearing my last name, preceded by the 
 same two initials; and he supposed, when my 
 card came up, it was this individual who was 
 disturbing his slumbers. The coincidence was 
 so unlikely a priori, unless some forlorn parent 
 without antecedents had named a child after me, 
 that I could not help cross-questioning the Doc 
 tor, who assured me deliberately that the fact 
 was just as he had said, even to the somewhat 
 unusual initials. Dr. Wilson very kindly fur 
 nished me all the information in his power, gave 
 me directions for telegraphing to Chambersburo;, 
 and showed every disposition to serve me. 
 
 On returning to the Herr House, we found 
 the mild, white-haired old gentleman in a very 
 happy state. He had just discovered his son, in 
 a comfortable condition, at the United States 
 Hotel. He thought that he could probably give 
 
MY HUNT AFTER " THE CAPTAIN." 87 
 
 us some information which would prove inter 
 esting. To the United States Hotel we re 
 paired, then, in company with our kind-hearted 
 old friend, who evidently wanted to see me as 
 happy as himself. He went up-stairs to his 
 son s chamber, and presently came down to 
 conduct us there. 
 
 Lieutenant P , of the Pennsylvania 
 
 th, was a very fresh, bright-looking young 
 
 man, lying in bed from the effects of a recent 
 injury received in action. A grape-shot, after 
 passing through a post and a board, had struck 
 him in the hip, bruising, but not penetrating or 
 breaking. He had good news for me. 
 
 That very afternoon, a party of wounded 
 officers had passed through Harrisburg, going 
 East. He had conversed in the bar-room of 
 this hotel with one of them, who was wounded 
 about the shoulder, (it might be the lower part 
 of the neck,) and had his arm in a sling. He 
 belonged to the Twentieth Massachusetts; the 
 Lieutenant saw that he was a Captain, by the 
 two bars on his shoulder-strap. His name was 
 my family-name ; he was tall and youthful, like 
 
88 MY HUNT AFTER THE CAPTAIN." 
 
 my Captain. At four o clock he left in the 
 train for Philadelphia. Closely questioned, the 
 Lieutenant s evidence was as round, complete, 
 and lucid as a Japanese sphere of rock-crys 
 tal. 
 
 TE DEUM LAUDAMUS ! The Lord s name be 
 praised ! The dead pain in the semilunar gang 
 lion (which I must remind my reader is a kind 
 of stupid, unreasoning brain, beneath the pit of 
 the stomach, common to man and beast, which 
 aches in the supreme moments of life, as when 
 the dam loses her young ones, or the wild horse 
 is lassoed) stopped short. There was a feeling 
 as if I had slipped off a tight boot, or cut a 
 strangling garter, only it was all over my 
 system. What more could I ask to assure me 
 of the Captain s safety ? As soon as the tele 
 graph-office opens to-morrow morning we will, 
 send a message to our friends in Philadelphia, 
 and get a reply, doubtless, which will settle 
 the whole matter. 
 
 The hopeful morrow dawned at last, and the 
 message was sent accordingly. In due time, the 
 following reply was received : 
 
MY HUNT AFTER " THE CAPTAIN." 89 
 
 " Phil Sept 24 I think the report you have 
 heard that W [the Captain] has gone East must 
 be an error we have not seen or heard of him 
 here M L H " 
 
 DE PROFUNDIS CLAMAVI ! He could not have 
 passed through Philadelphia without visiting the 
 house called Beautiful, where he had been so 
 tenderly cared for after his wound at Ball s 
 Bluff, and where those whom he loved were 
 lying in grave peril of life or limb. Yet he did 
 pass through Harrisburg, going East, going to 
 Philadelphia, on his way home. Ah, this is it ! 
 He must have taken the late night-train from 
 Philadelphia for New York, in his impatience to 
 reach home. There is such a train, not down in 
 the guide-book, but we were assured of the fact 
 at the Harrisburg depot. By and by came the 
 reply from Dr. Wilson s telegraphic message : 
 nothing had been heard of the Captain at Cham- 
 bersburg. Still later, another message came 
 from our Philadelphia friend, saying that he was 
 
 seen on Friday last at the house of Mrs. K , 
 
 a well-known Union lady in Hagerstown. Now 
 
90 MY HUNT AFTER THE CAPTAIN." 
 
 this could not be true, for he did not leave 
 Keedysville until Saturday ; but the name of 
 the lady furnished a clew by which we could 
 probably track him. A telegram was at once 
 
 sent to Mrs. K , asking information. It was 
 
 transmitted immediately, but when the answer 
 would be received was uncertain, as the Gov 
 ernment almost monopolized the line. I was, 
 on the whole, so well satisfied that the Captain 
 had gone East, that, unless something were 
 heard to the contrary, I proposed following him 
 in the late train leaving a little after midnight 
 for Philadelphia. 
 
 This same morning we visited several of the 
 temporary hospitals, churches and school-houses, 
 where the wounded were lying. In one of 
 these, after looking round as usual, I asked 
 aloud, " Any Massachusetts men here ? " Two 
 bright faces lifted themselves from their pillows 
 and welcomed me by name. The one nearest 
 me was private John B. Noyes, of Company B, 
 Massachusetts Thirteenth, son of my old college 
 class-tutor, now the reverend and learned Pro 
 fessor of Hebrew, etc., in Harvard University. 
 
MY HUNT AFTER " THE CAPTAIN." Ul 
 
 His neiglibor was Corporal Armstrong of the 
 same Company. Both were slightly wounded, 
 doing well. I learned then and since from Mr. 
 Noyes that they and their comrades were com 
 pletely overwhelmed by the attentions of the 
 good people of Harrisburg, that the ladies 
 brought them fruits and flowers, and smiles, 
 better than either, and that the little boys of 
 the place were almost fighting for the privilege 
 of doing their errands. I am afraid there will 
 be a good many hearts pierced in this war that 
 will have no bullet-mark to show. 
 
 There were some heavy hours to get rid of, 
 and we thought a visit to Camp Curtin might 
 lighten some of them. A rickety wagon carried 
 us to the camp, in company with a young wo 
 man from Troy, who had a basket of good things 
 with her for a sick brother. " Poor boy ! he 
 will be sure to die," she said. The rustic sen 
 tries uncrossed their muskets and let us in. 
 The camp was on a fair plain, girdled with hills, 
 spacious, well kept apparently, but did not pre 
 sent any peculiar attraction for us. The visit 
 would have been a dull one, had we not hap- 
 
92 MY HUNT AFTER " THE CAPTAIN." 
 
 pened to get sight of a singular-looking set of 
 human beings in the distance. They were clad 
 in stuff of different hues, gray and brown be 
 ing the leading shades, but both subdued by a 
 neutral tint, such as is wont to harmonize the 
 variegated apparel of travel-stained vagabonds. 
 They looked slouchy, listless, torpid, an ill- 
 conditioned crew, at first sight, made up of such 
 fellows as an old woman would drive away from 
 her hen-roost with a broomstick. Yet these 
 were estrays from the fiery army which has 
 given our generals so much trouble, " Secesh 
 prisoners," as a bystander told us. A talk with 
 them might be profitable and entertaining. But 
 they were tabooed to the common visitor, and it 
 was necessary to get inside of the line which sep 
 arated us from them. 
 
 A solid, square captain was standing near by, 
 to whom we were referred. Look a man calmly 
 through the very centre of his pupils and ask 
 him for anything with a tone implying entire 
 conviction that he will grant it, and he will very 
 commonly consent to the thing asked, were it to 
 commit hari-kari. The Captain acceded to my 
 
MY HUNT AFTER " THE CAPTAIN." 93 
 
 postulate, and accepted my friend as a corollary. 
 As one string of my own ancestors was of Bata- 
 vian origin, I may be permitted to say thai my 
 new friend was of the Dutch type, like the 
 Amsterdam galiots, broad in the beam, capa 
 cious in the hold, and calculated to carry a 
 heavy cargo rather than to make fast time. He 
 must have been in politics at some time or other, 
 for he made orations to all the " Secesh," in 
 which he explained to them that the United 
 States considered and treated them like children, 
 and enforced upon them the ridiculous impossi 
 bility of the Rebels attempting to do anything 
 against such a power as that of the National 
 Government. 
 
 Much as his discourse edified them and en 
 lightened me, it interfered somewhat with my 
 little plans of entering into frank and friendly 
 talk with some of these poor fellows, for whom 
 I could not help feeling a kind of human sym 
 pathy, though I am as venomous a hater of the 
 Rebellion as one is like to find under the stars 
 and stripes. It is fair to take a man prisoner. 
 It is fair to make speeches to a man. But to 
 
94 MY HUNT AFTER THE CAPTAIN." 
 
 take a man prisoner and then make speeches to 
 him while in durance is not fair. 
 
 I began a few pleasant conversations, which 
 would have come to something but for the 
 reason assigned. 
 
 One old fellow had a long beard, a drooping 
 eyelid, and a black clay pipe in his mouth. He 
 was a Scotchman from Ayr, dour enough, and 
 little disposed to be communicative, though I 
 tried him with the " Twa Briggs," and, like all 
 Scotchmen, he was a reader of " Burrns." He 
 professed to feel no interest in the cause for 
 which he was fighting, and was in the army, 
 I judged, only from compulsion. There was a 
 wild-haired, unsoaped boy, with pretty, foolish 
 features enough, who looked as if he might be 
 about seventeen, as he said he was. I give my 
 questions and his answers literally. 
 
 " What State do you come from ? " 
 
 " Georgy." 
 
 " What part of Georgia ? " 
 
 " Midway" 
 
 [How odd that is ! My father was settled 
 for seven years as pastor over the church at 
 
MY ILL \ T Al- TER "THE CAPTAIN" 95 
 
 Midway, Georgia, and this youth is very prob 
 ably a grandson or great grandson of one of his 
 parishioners.] 
 
 " Where did you go to church when you 
 were at home ? " 
 
 " Never went inside T a church b t once in 
 m life." 
 
 " What did you do before you became a 
 soldier?" 
 
 " Nothin V 
 
 " What do you mean to do when you get 
 back ? " 
 
 Nothin ." 
 
 Who could have any other feeling *han pity 
 for this poor human weed, this dwarfed and 
 etiolated soul, doomed by neglect to an existence 
 but one degree above that of the idiot ? 
 
 With the group was a lieutenant, buttoned 
 close in his gray coat, one button gone, per 
 haps to make a breastpin for some fair traitorous 
 bosom. A short, stocky man, undistinguishable 
 from one of the " subject race " by any obvious 
 meanderings of the sangre azul on his exposed 
 surfaces. He did not say much, possibly because 
 
96 MY HUNT AFTER THE CAPTAIN." 
 
 he was convinced by the statements and argu 
 ments of the Dutch captain. He had on strong, 
 iron-heeled shoes, of English make, which he 
 said cost him seventeen dollars in Richmond. 
 
 I put the question, in a quiet, friendly way, to 
 several of the prisoners, what they were fighting 
 for. One answered, " For our homes." Two 
 or three others said they did not know, and 
 manifested great indifference to the whole matter, 
 at which another of their number, a sturdy fel 
 low, took offence, and muttered opinions strongly 
 derogatory to those who would not stand up for 
 the cause they had been fighting for. A feeble, 
 attenuated old man, who wore the Rebel uni 
 form, if such it could be called, stood by without 
 showing any sign of intelligence. It was cutting 
 very close to the bone to carve such a shred of 
 humanity from the body politic to make a sol 
 dier of. 
 
 We were just leaving, when a face attracted 
 me, and I stopped the party. " That is the true 
 Southern type," I said to my companion. A 
 young fellow, a little over twenty, rather tall, 
 slight, with a perfectly smooth, boyish cheek, 
 
MY HUNT AFTER " THE CAPTAIN." 97 
 
 delicate, somewhat high features, and a fine, 
 almost feminine mouth, stood at the opening of 
 his tent, and as we turned towards him fidgeted 
 a little nervously with one hand at the loose 
 canvas, while he seemed at the same time not 
 unwilling to talk. He was from Mississippi, he 
 said, had been at Georgetown College, and was 
 so far imbued with letters that even the name of 
 the literary humility before him was not new to 
 his ears. Of course I found it easy to come into 
 magnetic relation with him, and to ask him with 
 out incivility what he was fighting for. " Because 
 I like the excitement of it," he answered. I 
 know those fighters with women s mouths and 
 boys cheeks. One such from the circle of my 
 own friends, sixteen years old, slipped away from 
 his nursery, and dashed in under an assumed 
 name among the red-legged Zouaves, in whose 
 company he got an ornamental bullet-mark in 
 one of the earliest conflicts of the war. 
 
 " Did you ever see a genuine Yankee ?" said 
 my Philadelphia friend to the young Mississip- 
 pian. 
 
 " I have shot at a good many of them," he 
 
98 MY HUNT AFTER " THE CAPTAIN." 
 
 replied, modestly, his woman s mouth stirring a 
 little, with a pleasant, dangerous smile. 
 
 The Dutch captain here put his foot into the 
 conversation, as his ancestors used to put theirs 
 into the scale, w r hen they were buying furs of 
 the Indians by weight, so much for the weight 
 of a hand, so much for the weight of a foot. It 
 deranged the balance of our intercourse ; there 
 was no use in throwing a fly where a paving- 
 stone had just splashed into the water, and I 
 nodded a good-by to the boy-fighter, thinking 
 how much pleasanter it was for my friend the 
 Captain to address him with unanswerable argu 
 ments and crushing statements in his own tent 
 than it would be to meet him upon some remote 
 picket station and offer his fair proportions to 
 the quick eye of a youngster who would draw a 
 bead on him before he had time to say dander 
 and blixum. 
 
 We drove back to the town. No message. 
 After dinner still no message. Dr. Cuyler, 
 Chief Army-Hospital Inspector, is m town, they 
 say. Let us hunt him up, perhaps he can 
 help us. 
 
.17 r III XT AFTER THE CAPTAIN." 99 
 
 We found him at the Jones House. A gentle 
 man of large proportions, but of lively tempera 
 ment, his frame knit in the North, I think, but 
 ripened in Georgia, incisive, prompt, but good- 
 humored, wearing his broad-brimmed, steeple- 
 crowned felt hat with the least possible tilt on 
 one side, a sure sign of exuberant vitality in 
 a mature and dignified person like him, busi 
 ness-like in his ways, and not to be interrupted 
 while occupied with another, but giving himself 
 up heartily to the claimant who held him for the 
 time. He was so genial, so cordial, so encourag 
 ing, that it seemed as if the clouds, which had 
 been thick all the morning, broke away as we 
 came into his presence, and the sunshine of his 
 large nature filled the air all around us. He 
 took the matter in hand at once, as if it were his 
 own private affair. In ten minutes he had a 
 second telegraphic message on its way to Mrs. 
 K at Hagerstovvn, sent through the Gov 
 ernment channel from the State Capitol, one 
 so direct and urgent that I should be sure of 
 an answer to it, whatever became of the one I 
 had sent in the morning. 
 
100 MY HUNT AFTER " THE CAPTAIN: 
 
 While this was going on, we hired a dilapi 
 dated barouche, driven by an odd young native, 
 neither boy nor man, " as a codling when t is 
 almost an apple," who said wen/ for very, simple 
 and sincere, who smiled faintly at our pleasant 
 ries, always with a certain reserve of suspicion, 
 and a gleam of the shrewdness that all men get 
 who live in the atmosphere of horses. He drove 
 us round by the Capitol grounds, white with 
 tents, which were disgraced in my eyes by un- 
 soldierly scrawls in huge letters, thus : THE 
 SEVEN BLOOMSBURY BROTHERS, DEVIL S HOLE, 
 and similar inscriptions. Then to the Beacon 
 Street of Harrisburg, which looks upon the Sus- 
 quehanna instead of the Common, and shows a 
 long front of handsome houses with fair gardens. 
 The river is pretty nearly a mile across here, but 
 very shallow now. The codling told us that a 
 Rebel spy had been caught trying its fords a 
 little while ago, and was now at Camp Curtin 
 with a heavy ball chained to his leg, a popu 
 lar story, but a lie, Dr. Wilson said. A little 
 farther along we came to the barkless stump of 
 the tree to which Mr. Harris, the Cecrops of 
 
MY HUNT AFTER " THE CAPTAIN." 101 
 
 the city named after him, was tied by the Indians 
 for some unpleasant operation of scalping or 
 roasting, when he was rescued by friendly 
 savages, who paddled across the stream to save 
 him. Our youngling pointed out a very respect 
 able-looking stone house as having been " built 
 by the Indians " about those times. Guides 
 have queer notions occasionally. 
 
 I was at Niagara just when Dr. Rae arrived 
 there with his companions and dogs and things 
 from his Arctic search after the lost navigator. 
 
 " Who are those ? " I said to my conduc 
 tor. 
 
 " Them ? " he answered. " Them s the men 
 that s been out West, out to Michig n, aft Sir 
 Ben Franklin: 
 
 Of the other sights of Harrisburg the Brant 
 House or Hotel, or whatever it is called, seems 
 most worth notice. Its facade is imposing, witli 
 a row of stately columns, high above which a 
 broad sign impends, like a crag over the brow of 
 a lofty precipice. The lower floor only appeared 
 to be open to the public. Its tessellated pave 
 ment and ample courts suggested the idea of a 
 
102 MY HUNT AFTER "THE CAPTAIN." 
 
 temple where great multitudes might kneel un- 
 crowded at their devotions ; but, from appear 
 ances about the place where the altar should be, 
 I judged, that, if one asked the officiating priest 
 for the cup which cheers and likewise inebriates, 
 his prayer would not be unanswered. The edi 
 fice recalled to me a similar phenomenon I had 
 once looked upon, the famous Gaffe Pedrocchi 
 at Padua. It was the same thing in Italy and 
 America : a rich man builds himself a mauso 
 leum, and calls it a place of entertainment. The 
 fragrance of innumerable libations and the 
 smoke of incense-breathing cigars and pipes 
 shall ascend day and night through the arches 
 of his funeral monument. What are the poor 
 dips which flare and flicker on the crowns of 
 spikes that stand at the corners of St. Gene- 
 vieve s filigree-cased sarcophagus to this per 
 petual offering of sacrifice ? 
 
 Ten o clock in the evening was approaching. 
 The telegraph-office would presently close, and 
 as yet there were no tidings from Hagerstown. 
 Let us step over and see for ourselves. A mes 
 sage ! A message ! 
 
MY HUNT AFTER THE CAPTAIN." 103 
 
 " Captain H still here leaves seven to-morrow 
 for Harrisburg Penna Is doing well 
 
 Mrs HK ." 
 
 A note from Dr. Cuyler to the same effect 
 came soon afterwards to the hotel. 
 
 We shall sleep well to-night ; but let us sit 
 awhile with nubiferous, or, if we may coin a 
 word, nepheligenous accompaniment, such as 
 shall gently narcotize the over-wearied brain 
 and fold its convolutions for slumber like the 
 leaves of ii lily at nightfall. For now the over- 
 tense nerves are all unstraining themselves, and 
 a buzz, like that which comes over one who 
 stops after being long jolted upon an uneasy 
 pavement, makes the whole frame alive with a 
 luxurious languid sense of all its inmost fibres. 
 Our cheerfulness ran over, and the mild, pen 
 sive clerk was so magnetized by it that he came 
 and sat down with us. He presently confided 
 to me, with infinite ndiveti and ingenuousness, 
 that, judging from my personal appearance, he 
 should not have thought me the writer that he 
 in his generosity reckoned me to be. His con- 
 
104 MY HUNT AFTER " THE CAPTAIN." 
 
 ception, so far as I could reach it, involved a 
 huge, uplifted forehead, embossed with protu 
 berant organs of the intellectual faculties, such 
 as all writers are supposed to possess in abound 
 ing measure. While I fell short of his ideal in 
 this respect, he was pleased to say that he found 
 me by no means the remote and inaccessible 
 personage he had imagined, and that I had 
 nothing of the dandy about me, which last com 
 pliment I had a modest consciousness of most 
 abundantly deserving. 
 
 Sweet slumbers brought us to the morning of 
 Thursday. The train from Hagerstown was 
 due at 11.15 A. M. We took another ride 
 behind the codling, who showed us the sights 
 of yesterday over again. Being in a gracious 
 mood of mind, I enlarged on the varying as 
 pects of the town-pumps and other striking 
 objects which we had once inspected, as seen 
 by the different lights of evening and morning. 
 After this, we visited the school-house hospital. 
 A fine young fellow, whose arm had been shat 
 tered, was just falling into the spasms of lock 
 jaw. The beads of sweat stood large and 
 
MY HUNT AFTER " THE CAPTAIN." 105 
 
 round on his flushed and contracted features. 
 He was under the effect of opiates, why not 
 (if his case was desperate, as it seemed to be 
 considered) stop his sufferings with chloroform ? 
 It was suggested that it might shorten life. 
 "What then?" I said. "Are a dozen addi 
 tional spasms worth living for ? " 
 
 The time approached for the train to arrive 
 from Hagerstown, and we went to the station. 
 I was struck, while waiting there, with what 
 seemed to me a great want of ca*re for. the 
 safety of the people standing round. Just after 
 my companion and myself had stepped off the 
 track, I noticed a car coming quietly along at a 
 walk, as one may say, without engine, without 
 visible conductor, without any person heralding 
 its approach, so silently, so insidiously, that I 
 could not help thinking how very near it came 
 to flattening out me and my match-box worse 
 than the Ravel pantomimist and his snuff-box 
 were flattened out in the play. The train was 
 late, fifteen minutes, half an hour late, and 
 I began to get nervous, lest something had hap 
 pened. While I was looking for it, out started 
 
 5* 
 
106 MY HUNT AFTER THE CAPTAIN." 
 
 a freight-train, as if on purpose to meet the 
 cars I was expecting, for a grand smash-up. I 
 shivered at the thought, and asked an employS 
 of the road, with whom I had formed an ac 
 quaintance a few minutes old, why there should 
 not be a collision of the expected train with 
 this which was just going out. He smiled 
 an official smile, and answered that they 
 arranged to prevent that, or words to that 
 effect. 
 
 Twenty-four hours had not passed from that 
 moment when a collision did occur, just out of 
 the city, where I feared it, by which at least 
 eleven persons were killed, and from forty to 
 sixty more were maimed and crippled ! 
 
 To-day there was the delay spoken of, but 
 nothing worse. The expected train came in so 
 quietly that I was almost startled to see it on 
 the track. Let us walk calmly through the 
 cars, and look around us. 
 
 In the first car, on the fourth seat to the 
 right, I saw my Captain; there saw I him, 
 even my first-born, whom I had sought through 
 many cities. 
 
.17) HUNT AFTER "THE CAPTAIN." 107 
 
 How are you, Boy ? " 
 
 How are you, Dad ? " 
 
 Such are the proprieties of life, as they are 
 observed among us Anglo-Saxons of the nine 
 teenth century, decently disguising those natural 
 impulses that made Joseph, the Prime-Minister 
 of Egypt, weep aloud so that the Egyptians and 
 the house of Pharaoh heard, nay, which had 
 once overcome his shaggy old uncle Esau so 
 entirely that he fell on his brother s neck and 
 cried like a baby in the presence of all the 
 women. But the hidden cisterns of the soul 
 may be filling fast with sweet tears, while the 
 windows through which it looks are undimmed 
 by a drop or a film of moisture. 
 
 These are times in which we cannot live 
 solely for selfish joys or griefs. I had not let 
 fall the hand I held, when a sad, calm voice 
 addressed me by name. I fear that at the 
 moment I was too much absorbed in my own 
 feelings ; for certainly at any other time I 
 should have yielded myself without stint to the 
 sympathy which this meeting might well call 
 forth. 
 
108 MY HUNT AFTER THE CAPTAIN." 
 
 " You remember my son, Cortland Saunders, 
 whom I brought to see you once in Boston ? " 
 
 " I do remember him well." 
 
 " He was killed on Monday, at Shepherds- 
 town. I am carrying his body back with me 
 on this train. He was my only child. If you 
 could come to my house, I can hardly call it 
 my home now, it would be a pleasure to me." 
 
 This young man, belonging in Philadelphia, 
 was the author of a " New System of Latin Par 
 adigms," a work showing extraordinary schol 
 arship and capacity. It was this book which 
 first made me acquainted with him, and I kept 
 him in my memory, for there was genius in the 
 youth. Some time afterwards he came to me 
 with a modest request to be introduced to Presi 
 dent Felton, and one or two others, who would 
 aid him in a course of independent study he was 
 proposing to himself. I was most happy to 
 smooth the way for him, and he came repeat 
 edly after this to see me and express his satis 
 faction in the opportunities for study he enjoyed 
 at Cambridge. He was a dark, still, slender 
 person, always with a trance-like remoteness, a 
 
.17 ) HUNT AFTER THE CAPTAIN." 109 
 
 mystic dreaminess of manner, such as I never 
 saw in any other youth. Whether he heard 
 with difficulty, or whether his mind reacted 
 slowly on an alien thought, I could not say ; 
 but his answer would often be behind time, and 
 then a vague, sweet smile, or a few words spok 
 en under his breath, as if he had been trained in 
 sick men s chambers. For such a young man, 
 seemingly destined for the inner life of contem 
 plation, to be a soldier seemed almost unnatural. 
 Yet he spoke to me of his intention to offer 
 himself to his country, and his blood must now 
 be reckoned among the precious sacrifices which 
 will make her soil sacred forever. Had he 
 lived, I doubt not that he would have redeemed 
 the rare promise of his earlier years. He has 
 done better, for he has died that unborn gen 
 erations may attain the hopes held out to our 
 nation and to mankind. 
 
 So, then, I had been within ten miles of the 
 place where my wounded soldier was lying, and 
 then calmly turned my back upon him to come 
 once more round by a journey of three or four 
 hundred miles to the same region I had left! 
 
110 MY HUNT AFTER THE CAPTAIN." 
 
 No mysterious attraction warned me that the 
 heart warm with the same blood as mine was 
 throbbing so near my own. I thought of that 
 lovely, tender passage where Gabriel glides un 
 consciously by Evangeline upon the great river. 
 Ah, me ! if that railroad-crash had been a few 
 hours earlier, we two should never have met 
 again, after coining so close to each other! 
 
 The source of my repeated disappointments 
 was soon made clear enough. The Captain had 
 gone to Hagerstown, intending to take the cars 
 at once for Philadelphia, as his three friends 
 actually did, and as I took it for granted he 
 certainly would. But as he walked languidly 
 along, some ladies saw him across the street, 
 and seeing, were moved with pity, and pitying, 
 spoke such soft words that he was tempted to 
 accept their invitation and rest awhile beneath 
 their hospitable roof. The mansion was old, as 
 the dwellings of gentlefolks should be ; the 
 ladies were some of them young, and all were 
 full of kindness ; there were gentle cares, and 
 unasked luxuries, and pleasant talk, and music- 
 sprinklings from the piano, with a sweet voice 
 
MY HUNT AFTER " THE CAPTAIN." Ill 
 
 to keep them company, and all this after the 
 swamps of the Chickahominy, the mud and flies 
 of Harrison s Landing, the dragging marches, 
 the desperate battles, the fretting wound, the 
 jolting ambulance, the log-house, and the rick 
 ety milk-cart! Thanks, uncounted thanks to 
 the angelic ladies whose charming attentions 
 detained him from Saturday to Thursday, to his 
 great advantage and my infinite bewilderment ! 
 As for his wound, how could it do otherwise 
 than well under such hands ? The bullet had 
 gone smoothly through, dodging everything but 
 a few nervous branches, which would come 
 right in time and leave him as well as ever. 
 
 At ten that evening we were in Philadel 
 phia, the Captain at the house of the friends 
 so often referred to, and I the guest of Char 
 ley, my kind companion. The Quaker element 
 gives an irresistible attraction to these benig 
 nant Philadelphia households. Many things 
 reminded me that I was no longer in the land 
 of the Pilgrims. On the table were Kool Slaa 
 and Schmeer Kase, but the good grandmother 
 who dispensed with such quiet, simple grace 
 
112 MY HUNT AFTER "THE CAPTAIN." 
 
 these and more familiar delicacies was literally 
 ignorant of Baked Beans, and asked if it was 
 the Lima bean which was employed in that mar 
 vellous dish of animalized leguminous farina ! 
 
 Charley was pleased with my comparing the 
 face of the small Ethiop known to his house 
 hold as " Tines " to a huckleberry with fea 
 tures. He also approved my parallel between 
 a certain German blonde young maiden whom 
 we passed in the street and the " Morris 
 White " peach. But he was so good-humored 
 at times, that, if one scratched a lucifer, he 
 accepted it as an illumination. 
 
 A day in Philadelphia left a very agreeable 
 impression of the outside of that great city, 
 which has endeared itself so much of late to 
 all the country by its most noble and generous 
 care of our soldiers. Measured by its sover 
 eign hotel, the Continental, it would stand at 
 the head of our economic civilization. It pro 
 vides for the comforts and conveniences, and 
 many of the elegances of life, more satisfac 
 torily than any American city, perhaps than 
 any other city anywhere. Many of its char- 
 
MY HUNT AFTER THE CAPTAIN." 113 
 
 acteristics are accounted for to some extent 
 by its geographical position. It is the great 
 neutral centre of the Continent, where the 
 fiery enthusiasms of the South and the keen 
 fanaticisms of the North meet at their outer 
 limits, and result in a compound which nei 
 ther turns litmus red nor turmeric brown. It 
 lives largely on its traditions, of which, leaving 
 out Franklin and Independence Hall, the most 
 imposing must be considered its famous water 
 works. In my younger days I visited Fair- 
 mount, and it was with a pious reverence that 
 I renewed my pilgrimage to that perennial 
 fountain. Its watery ventricles were throb 
 bing with the same systole and diastole as 
 when, the blood of twenty years bounding in 
 my own heart, I looked upon their giant mech 
 anism. But in the place of " Pratt s Garden " 
 was an open park, and the old house where 
 Robert Morris held his court in a former gen 
 eration was changing to a public restaurant. 
 A suspension-bridge cobwebbed itself across the 
 Schuylkill where that audacious arch used to 
 leap the river at a single bound, an arch 
 
114 MY HUNT AFTER THE CAPTAIN." 
 
 of greater span, as they loved to tell us, than 
 was ever before constructed. The Upper Ferry 
 Bridge was to the Schuylkill what the Colos 
 sus was to the harbor of Rhodes. It had an 
 air of dash about it which went far towards 
 redeeming the dead level of respectable aver 
 age which flattens the physiognomy of the 
 rectangular city. Philadelphia will never be 
 herself again until another Robert Mills and 
 another Lewis Wernwag have shaped her a 
 new palladium. She must leap the Schuylkill 
 again, or old men will sadly shake their heads, 
 like the Jews at the sight of the second temple, 
 remembering the glories of that which it re 
 placed. 
 
 There are times when Ethiopian minstrelsy 
 can amuse, if it does not charm, a weary soul, 
 and such a vacant hour there was on this same 
 Friday evening. The u opera-house " was spa 
 cious and admirably ventilated. As I was 
 listening to the merriment of the sooty buf 
 foons, I happened to cast my eyes up to the 
 ceiling, and through an open semicircular win 
 dow a bright solitary star looked me calmly 
 
MY HUNT AFTER "THE CAPTAIN." 115 
 
 in the eyes. It was a strange intrusion of 
 the vast eternities beckoning from the infinite 
 spaces. I called the attention of one of my 
 neighbors to it, but "Bones" was irresistibly 
 droll, and Arcturus, or Aldebaran, or what 
 ever the blazing luminary may have been, with 
 all his revolving worlds, sailed uncared-for 
 down the firmament. 
 
 On Saturday morning we took up our line 
 of march for New York. Mr. Felton, Presi 
 dent of the Philadelphia, Wilmington and 
 Baltimore Railroad, had already called upon 
 me, with a benevolent and sagacious look on 
 his face which implied that he knew how to 
 do me a service and meant to do it. Sure 
 enough, when we got to the depot, we found 
 a couch spread for the Captain, and both of us 
 were passed on to New York with no visits, 
 but those of civility, from the conductor. The 
 best thing I saw on the route was a rustic 
 fence, near Elizabethtown, I think, but I am 
 not quite sure. There was more genius in it 
 than in any structure ?f the kind I have ever 
 seen, each length being of a special pattern, 
 
116 MY HUNT AFTER THE CAPTAIN." 
 
 ramified, reticulated, contorted, as the limbs 
 of the trees had grown. I trust some friend 
 will photograph or stereograph this fence for 
 me, to go with the view of the spires of 
 Frederick already referred to, as mementos of 
 my journey. 
 
 I had come to feeling that I knew most of 
 the respectably dressed people whom I met in 
 the cars, and had been in contact with them 
 at some time or other. Three or four ladies 
 and gentlemen were near us, forming a group 
 by themselves. Presently one addressed me 
 by name, and, on inquiry, I found him to be 
 the gentleman who was with me in the pulpit 
 as Orator on the occasion of another Phi Beta 
 Kappa poem, one delivered at New Haven. 
 The party were very courteous and friendly, 
 and contributed in various ways to our com 
 fort. 
 
 It sometimes seems to me as if there were 
 only about a thousand people in the world, 
 who keep going round and round behind the 
 scenes and then before them, like the "army" in 
 a beggarly stage-show. Suppose that I should 
 
MY HUNT AFTER "THE CAPTAIN." 117 
 
 really wish, some time or other, to get away 
 from this everlasting circle of revolving super 
 numeraries, where should I buy a ticket the 
 like of which was not in some of their pockets, 
 or find a seat to which some one of them was 
 not a neighbor? 
 
 A little less than a year before, after the 
 Ball s-Bluff accident, the Captain, then the 
 Lieutenant, and myself had reposed for a night 
 on our homeward journey at the Fifth-Avenue 
 Hotel, where we were lodged on the ground- 
 floor, and fared sumptuously. We were not 
 so peculiarly fortunate this time, the house being 
 really very full. Farther from the flowers and 
 nearer to the stars, to reach the neighbor 
 hood of which last the per ardua of three or 
 four flights of stairs was formidable for any 
 mortal, wounded or well. The " vertical rail 
 way " settled that for us, however. It is a 
 giant corkscrew forever pulling a mammoth 
 cork, which, by some divine judgment, is no 
 sooner drawn than it is replaced in its position. 
 This ascending and descending stopper is hol 
 low, carpeted, with cushioned seats, and is 
 
118 MY HUNT AFTER " THE CAPTAIN." 
 
 watched over by two condemned souls, called 
 conductors, one of whom is said to be named 
 Ixion, and the other Sisyphus. 
 
 I love New York, because, as in Paris, every 
 body that lives in it feels that it is his prop 
 erty, at least, as much as it is anybody s. 
 My Broadway, in particular, I love almost as 
 I used to love my Boulevards. I went, there 
 fore, with peculiar interest, on the day that 
 we rested at our grand hotel, to visit some 
 new pleasure-grounds the citizens had been ar 
 ranging for us, and which I had not yet seen. 
 The Central Park is an expanse of wild coun 
 try, well crumpled so as to form ridges which 
 will give views and hollows that will hold 
 waiter. The hips and elbows and other bones 
 of Nature stick out here and there in the 
 shape of rocks which give character to the 
 scenery, and an unchangeable, unpurchasable 
 look to a landscape that without them would 
 have been in danger of being fattened by art 
 and money out of all its native features. The 
 roads were fine, the sheets of water beautiful, 
 the bridges handsome, the swans elegant in 
 
MY HUNT AFTER THE CAPTAIN." 119 
 
 their deportment, the grass green and as short 
 as a fast horse s winter coat. I could not 
 learn whetKer it was kept so by clipping or 
 singeing. I was delighted with my new prop 
 erty, but it cost me four dollars to get there, 
 so far was it beyond the Pillars of Hercules 
 of the fashionable quarter. What it will be 
 by and by depends on circumstances ; but at 
 present it is as much central to New York as 
 Brookline is central to Boston. The question 
 is not between Mr. Olmsted s admirably ar 
 ranged, but remote pleasure-ground and our 
 Common, with its batrachian pool, but between 
 his Acentric Park and our finest suburban 
 scenery, between its artificial reservoirs and the 
 broad natural sheet of Jamaica Pond. I say 
 this not invidiously, but in justice to the beau 
 ties which surround our own metropolis. To 
 compare the situations of any dwellings in 
 either of the great cities with those which look 
 upon the Common, the Public Garden, the 
 waters of the Back Bay, would be to take 
 an unfair advantage of Fifth Avenue and Wal 
 nut Street. St. Botolph s daughter dresses in 
 
120 MY HUNT AFTER " THE CAPTAIN." 
 
 plainer clothes than her more stately sisters, 
 but she wears an emerald on her right hand 
 and a diamond on her left that Cybele her 
 self need not be ashamed of. 
 
 On Monday morning, the twenty-ninth of 
 September, we took the cars for home. Va 
 cant lots, with Irish and pigs ; vegetable-gar 
 dens ; straggling houses ; the high bridge ; 
 villages, not enchanting; then Stamford; then 
 NORWALK. Here, on the sixth of May, 1853, 
 I passed close on the heels of the great dis 
 aster. But that my lids were heavy on that 
 morning, my readers would probably have had 
 no further trouble with me. Two of my 
 friends saw the car in which they rode break 
 in the middle and leave them hanging over 
 the abyss. From Norwalk to Boston, that 
 day s journey of two hundred miles was a 
 long funeral-procession. 
 
 Bridgeport, waiting for Iranistan to rise 
 from its ashes with all its phoenix-egg domes, 
 bubbles of wealth that broke, ready to be 
 blown again, iridescent as ever, which is pleas 
 ant, for the world likes cheerful Mr. Barnum s 
 
MY HUNT AFTER " THE CAPTAIN." 121 
 
 success ; New Haven, girt with flat marshes 
 that look like monstrous billiard-tables, with 
 hay-cocks lying about for balls, romantic 
 with West Hock and its legends, cursed 
 with a detestable depot, whose niggardly ar 
 rangements crowd the track so murderously 
 close to the wall that the peine forte et dure 
 must be the frequent penalty of an inno 
 cent walk on its platform, with its neat 
 carriages, metropolitan hotels, precious old col 
 lege-dormitories, its vistas of elms and its di- 
 slrevelled weeping-willows ; Hartford, substan 
 tial, well-bridged, many-steepled city, every 
 conical spire an extinguisher of some nine 
 teenth-century heresy; so onward, by and 
 across the broad, shallow Connecticut, dull 
 red road and dark river woven in like warp 
 and woof by the shuttle of the darting en 
 gine ; then Springfield, the wide-meadowed, 
 well-feeding, horse-loving, hot-summered, giant- 
 treed town, city among villages, village 
 among cities ; Worcester, with its Daedalian 
 labyrinth of crossing railroad-bars, where the 
 snorting Minotaurs, breathing fire and smoke 
 
122 MY HUNT AFTER " THE CAPTAIN." 
 
 and hot vapors, are stabled in their dens ; 
 Framingham, fair cup-bearer, leaf-cinctured 
 Hebe of the deep-bosomed Queen sitting by 
 the sea-side on the throne of the Six Nations. 
 And now I begin to know the road, not by 
 towns, but by single dwellings; not by miles, 
 but by rods. The poles of the great magnet 
 that draws in all the iron tracks through the 
 grooves of all the mountains must be near at 
 hand, for here are crossings, and sudden stops, 
 and screams of alarmed engines heard all 
 around. The tall granite obelisk comes into 
 view far away on the left, its bevelled cap 
 stone sharp against the sky ; the lofty chim 
 neys of Charlestown and East Cambridge 
 flaunt their smoky banners up in the thin 
 air ; and now one fair bosom of the three- 
 hilled city, with its dome-crowned summit, 
 reveals itself, as when many-breasted Ephesian 
 Artemis appeared with half-open chlamys be 
 fore her worshippers. 
 
 Fling open the window-blinds of the cham 
 ber that looks out on the waters and towards 
 the western sun ! Let the joyous light shine 
 
MY HUNT AFTER THE CAPTAIN." 123 
 
 in upon the pictures that hang upon its walls 
 and the shelves thick-set with the names of 
 poets and philosophers and sacred teachers, in 
 whose pages our boys learn that life is noble 
 only when it is held cheap by the side of 
 honor and of duty. Lay him in his own 
 bed, and let him sleep off his aches and wea 
 riness. So comes down another night over 
 this household, unbroken by any messenger of 
 evil tidings, a night of peaceful rest and 
 grateful thoughts ; for this our son and brother 
 was dead and is alive again, and was lost and 
 is found. 
 
THE STEREOSCOPE AND THE 
 STEREOGRAPH. 
 
 DEMOCRITUS of Abdera, commonly 
 known as the Laughing Philosopher, 
 probably because he did not consider the study 
 of truth inconsistent with a cheerful counte 
 nance, believed and taught that all bodies were 
 continually throwing off certain images like 
 themselves, which subtile emanations, striking 
 on our bodily organs, gave rise to our sensa 
 tions. Epicurus borrowed the idea from him, 
 and incorporated it into the famous system, of 
 which Lucretius has given us the most popular 
 version. Those who are curious on the matter 
 will find the poet s description at the beginning 
 of his fourth book. Forms, effigies, membranes, 
 or films, are the nearest representatives of the 
 terms applied to these effluences. They are 
 
THE STEREOSCOPE. 125 
 
 perpetually shed from the surfaces of solids, 
 as bark is shed by trees. Cortex is, indeed, one 
 of the names applied to them by Lucretius. 
 
 These evanescent films may be seen in one of 
 theij aspects in any clear, calm sheet of water, 
 in a mirror, in the eye of an animal by one who 
 looks at it in front, but better still by the con 
 sciousness behind the eye in the ordinary act of 
 vision. They must be packed like the leaves of 
 a closed book ; for suppose a mirror to give an 
 image of an object a mile off, it will give one at 
 every point less than a mile, though this were 
 subdivided into a million parts. Yet the images 
 will not be the same ; for the one taken a mile 
 off will be very small, at half a mile as large 
 again, at a hundred feet, fifty times as large, and 
 so on, as long as the mirror can contain the 
 image. 
 
 Under the action of light, then, a body makes 
 its superficial aspect potentially present at a dis 
 tance, becoming appreciable as a shadow or as a 
 picture. But remove the cause, the body 
 itself, and the effect is removed. The man 
 beholdeth himself in the glass, and goeth his 
 
126 THE STEREOSCOPE 
 
 way, and straightway both the mirror and the 
 mirrored forget what manner of man he was. 
 These visible films or membranous exuvice of 
 objects, which the old philosophers talked about, 
 have no real existence, separable from their 
 illuminated source, and perish instantly when it 
 is withdrawn. 
 
 If a man had handed a metallic speculum to 
 Democritus of Abdera, and told him to look at 
 his face in it while his heart was beating thirty, 
 or forty times, promising that one of the films 
 his face was shedding should stick there, so that 
 neither he, nor it, nor anybody should forget 
 what manner of man he was, the Laughing 
 Philosopher would probably have vindicated his 
 claim to his title by an explosion that would 
 have astonished the speaker. 
 
 This is just what the Daguerrotype has done. 
 It has fixed the most fleeting of our illusions, that 
 which the apostle and the philosopher and the 
 poet have alike used as the type of instability and 
 unreality. The photograph has completed the 
 triumph, by making a sheet of paper reflect im 
 ages like a mirror and hold them as a picture. 
 
AND THE STEREOGRAPH. 127 
 
 Tliis triumph of human ingenuity is the most 
 audacious, remote, improbable, incredible, the 
 one that would seem least likely to be regained, 
 if all traces of it were lost, of all the discoveries 
 man has made. It has become such an every 
 day matter with us, that we forget its miracu 
 lous nature, as we forget that of the sun itself, 
 to which we owe the creations of our new art. 
 Yet in all the prophecies of dreaming enthusiasts, 
 in all the random guesses of the future conquests 
 over matter, we do not remember any prediction 
 of such an inconceivable wonder, as our neigh 
 bor round the corner, or the proprietor of the 
 small house on wheels, standing on the village 
 common, will furnish any of us for the most 
 painfully slender remuneration. No Century 
 of Inventions includes this among its possibili 
 ties. Nothing but the vision of a Laputan, who 
 passed his days in extracting sunbeams out of 
 cucumbers, could have reached such a height of 
 delirium as to rave about the time when a man 
 should paint his miniature by looking at a blank 
 tablet, and a multitudinous wilderness of forest 
 foliage or an endless Babel of roofs and spires 
 
128 THE STEREOSCOPE 
 
 stamp itself, in a moment, so faithfully and so 
 minutely, that one may creep over the surface 
 of the picture with his microscope and find 
 every leaf perfect, or read the letters of distant 
 signs, and see what was the play at the u Va- 
 rie*tes " or the " Victoria " on the evening of the 
 day when it was taken, just as he would sweep 
 the real view with a spy-glass to explore all that 
 it contains. 
 
 Some years ago, we sent a page or two to 
 one of the magazines, the " Knickerbocker," 
 if we remember aright, in which the story 
 was told from the " Arabian Nights," of the 
 three kings sons, who each wished to obtain 
 the hand of a lovely princess, and received for 
 answer, that he who brought home the most 
 wonderful object should obtain the lady s hand 
 as his reward. Our readers, doubtless, remem 
 ber the original tale, with the flying carpet, the 
 tube which showed what a distant friend was 
 doing by looking into it, and the apple which 
 gave relief to the most desperate sufferings only 
 by inhalation of its fragrance. The railroad- 
 car, the telegraph, and the apple-flavored chlo- 
 
AND THE STEREOGRAPH. 129 
 
 reform, could and do realize, every day, as 
 was stated in the passage referred to, with a 
 certain rhetorical amplitude not doubtfully sug 
 gestive of the lecture-room, all that was 
 fabled to have been done by the carpet, the 
 tube, and the fruit of the Arabian story. 
 
 All these inventions force themselves upon us 
 to the full extent of their significance. It is 
 therefore hardly necessary to waste any con 
 siderable amount of rhetoric upon wonders that 
 are so thoroughly appreciated. When human 
 art says to each one of us, I will give you ears 
 that can hear a whisper in New Orleans, and 
 legs that can walk six hundred miles in a day, 
 and if, in consequence of any defect of rail or 
 carriage, you should be so injured that your 
 own very insignificant walking members must 
 be taken off, I can make the surgeon s visit a 
 pleasant dream for you, on awaking from which 
 you will ask when he is coming to do that 
 which he has done already, what is the use 
 of poetical or rhetorical amplification ? But 
 this other invention of the mirror with a memory, 
 and especially that application of it which has 
 6* i 
 
130 THE STEREOSCOPE 
 
 given us the wonders of the stereoscope, is not 
 so easily, completely, universally recognized in 
 all the immensity of its applications and sug 
 gestions. The stereoscope, and the pictures it 
 gives, are, however, common enough to be in 
 the hands of many of our readers ; and as many 
 of those who are not acquainted with it must 
 before long become as familiar with it as they 
 are now with friction-matches, we feel sure that 
 a few pages relating to it will not be unaccept 
 able. 
 
 Our readers may like to know the outlines of 
 the process of making daguerrotypes and pho 
 tographs, as just furnished us by Mr. Whipple, 
 one of the most successful operators in this 
 country. We omit many of those details which 
 are everything to the practical artist, but noth 
 ing to the general reader. We must premise, 
 that certain substances undergo chemical alter 
 ations, when exposed to the light, which produce 
 a change of color. Some of the compounds of 
 silver possess this faculty to a remarkable de 
 gree, as the common indelible marking-ink 
 (a, solution of nitrate of silver), which soon 
 
AND THE STEREOGRAPH. 131 
 
 darkens in the light, shows us every day. This 
 is only one of the innumerable illustrations of 
 the varied effects of light on color. A living 
 plant owes its brilliant hues to the sunshine ; 
 but a dead one, or the tints extracted from it, 
 will fade in the same rays which clothe the tulip 
 in crimson and gold, as our lady-readers who 
 have rich curtains in their drawing-rooms know 
 full well. The sun, then, is a master of chiaros 
 curo, and, if he has a living petal for his pallet, 
 is the first of colorists. Let us walk into his 
 studio, and examine some of his painting ma 
 chinery. 
 
 1. THE DAGUERROTYPE. A silver-plated 
 sheet of copper is resilvered by electro-plating, 
 and perfectly polished. It is then exposed in a 
 glass box to the vapor of iodine until its surface 
 turns to a golden yellow. Then it is exposed 
 in another box to the fumes of the bromide of 
 lime until it becomes of a blood-red tint. Then 
 it is exposed once more, for a few seconds, to 
 the vapor of iodine. The plate is now sensitive 
 to light, and is of course kept from it, until, 
 
132 THE STEREOSCOPE 
 
 having been placed in the darkened camera, 
 the screen is withdrawn and the camera-picture 
 falls upon it. In strong light, and with the best 
 instruments, three seconds exposure is enough, 
 but the time varies with circumstances. The 
 plate is now withdrawn and exposed to the va 
 por of mercury at 212. Where the daylight 
 was strongest, the sensitive coating of the plate 
 has undergone such a chemical change, that the 
 mercury penetrates readily to the silver, pro 
 ducing a minute white granular deposit upon it, 
 like a very thin fall of snow, drifted by the 
 wind. The strong lights are little heaps of 
 these granules, the middle lights thinner sheets 
 of them ; the shades are formed by the dark 
 silver itself, thinly sprinkled only, as the earth 
 shows, with a few scattered snow-flakes on its 
 surface. The precise chemical nature of these 
 granules we care less for than their palpable 
 presence, which may be perfectly made out by 
 a microscope magnifying fifty diameters, or even 
 less. 
 
 The picture thus formed would soon fade 
 under the action of light, in consequence of 
 
AND THE STEREOGRAPH. 133 
 
 further changes in the chemical elements of the 
 film of which it consists. Some of these ele 
 ments are therefore removed by washing it with 
 a solution of hyposulphite of soda, after which it 
 is rinsed with pure water. It is now permanent 
 in the light, but a touch wipes off the picture 
 as it does the bloom from a plum. To fix it, a 
 solution of hyposulphite of soda containing chlo 
 ride of gold is* poured on the plate, while this 
 is held over a spirit-lamp. It is then again 
 rinsed with pure water, and is ready for its 
 frame. 
 
 2. THE PHOTOGRAPH. - Just as we must 
 have a mould before we can make a cast, we 
 must get a negative or reversed picture on glass 
 before we can get our positive or natural pic 
 ture. The first thing, then, is to lay a sensitive 
 coating on a piece of glass, crown-glass, 
 which has a natural surface, being preferable 
 to plate-glass. Collodion, which is a solution 
 of gun-cotton in alcohol and ether, mingled 
 with a solution of iodide and bromide of potas 
 sium, is used to form a thin coating over the 
 
134 THE STEREOSCOPE 
 
 glass. Before the plate is dry, it is dipped into 
 a solution of nitrate of silver, where it remains 
 from one to three or four minutes. Here, then, 
 we have essentially the same chemical elements 
 that we have* seen employed in the daguer- 
 rotype, namely, iodine, bromine, and silver ; 
 and by their mutual reactions in the last process 
 we have formed the sensitive iodide and bro 
 mide of silver. The glass is now placed, still wet, 
 in the camera, and there remains from three 
 seconds to one or two minutes, according to cir 
 cumstances. It is then washed with a solution 
 of sulphate of iron. Every light spot in the 
 camera-picture becomes dark on the sensitive 
 coating of the glass-plate. But where the shad 
 ows or dark parts of the camera-picture fall, 
 the sensitive coating is less darkened, or not at 
 all, if the shadows are very deep, and so these 
 shadows of the camera-picture become the lights 
 of the glass-picture, as the lights become the 
 shadows. Again, the picture is reversed, just 
 as in every camera-obscura where the image is 
 received on a screen direct from the lens. Thus 
 the glass plate has the right part of the object 
 
I 
 AND THE STEREOGRAPH. 135 
 
 on the left side of its picture, and the left part 
 on its right side ; its light is darkness, and its 
 darkness is light. Everything is just as wrong 
 as it can be, except that the relations of each 
 wrong to the other wrongs are like the relations 
 of the corresponding rights to each other in 
 the original natural image. This is a negative 
 picture. 
 
 Extremes meet. Every given point of the 
 picture is as far from truth as a lie can be. But 
 in travelling away from the pattern it has gone 
 round a complete circle, and is at once as re 
 mote from Nature and as near it as possible. 
 " How far is it to Taunton ? " said a country 
 man, who was walking exactly the wrong way to 
 reach that commercial and piscatory centre. 
 " Biiout twenty-five thaousan mild," said the 
 boy he asked, " fy go z y V goin naow, 
 n baout haaf a mild f y turn right raoun n j 
 go t other way." 
 
 The negative picture being formed, it is 
 washed with a solution of hyposulphite of soda, 
 to remove the soluble principles which are liable 
 to decomposition, and then coated with shellac 
 varnish to protect it. 
 
i 
 
 136 THE STEREOSCOPE 
 
 This negative is now to give birth to a posi 
 live, this mass of contradictions to . assert it* 
 hidden truth in a perfect harmonious affirmation 
 of the realities of Nature. Behold the process ! 
 
 A sheet of the best linen paper is dipped in 
 salt water and suffered to dry. Then a solution 
 of nitrate of silver is poured over it and it is 
 dried in a dark place. This paper is now sensi 
 tive ; it has a conscience, and is afraid of day 
 light. Press it against the glass negative and 
 lay them in the sun, the glass uppermost, leav 
 ing them so for from three to ten minutes. The 
 paper, having the picture formed on it, is then 
 washed with the solution of hyposulphite of soda, 
 rinsed in pure water, soaked again in a solution 
 of hyposulphite of soda, to which, however, 
 the chloride of gold has been added, and again 
 rinsed. It is then sized or varnished. 
 
 Out of the perverse and totally depraved neg 
 ative, where it might almost seem as if some 
 magic and diabolic power had wrenched all things 
 from their proprieties, where the light of the eye 
 was darkness, and the deepest blackness was 
 gilded with the brightest glare, is to come 
 
AND THE STEREOGRAPH. 137 
 
 the true end of all this series of operations, a 
 copy of Nature in all her sweet gradations and 
 harmonies and contrasts. 
 
 We owe the suggestion to a great wit, who 
 overflowed our small intellectual home-lot with 
 a rushing freshet of fertilizing talk the other 
 day, one of our friends, who quarries thought 
 on his own premises, but does not care to build 
 his blocks into books and essays, that perhaps 
 this world is only the negative of that better one 
 in which lights will be turned to shadows and 
 shadows into light, but all harmonized, so that 
 we shall see why these ugly patches, these mis 
 placed gleams and blots, were wrought into the 
 temporary arrangements of our planetary life. 
 
 For, lo ! when the sensitive paper is laid in 
 the sun under the negative glass, every dark 
 spot on the glass arrests a sunbeam, and so the 
 spot of the paper lying beneath remains un 
 changed ; but every light space of the negative 
 lets the sunlight through, and the sensitive 
 paper beneath confesses its. weakness, and be 
 trays it by growing dark just in proportion to 
 the glare that strikes upon it. So, too, we have 
 
138 THE STEREOSCOPE 
 
 only to turn the glass before laying it on the 
 paper, and we bring all the natural relations 
 of the object delineated back again, its right 
 to the right of the picture, its" left to the picture s 
 left. 
 
 On examining the glass negative by trans 
 mitted light with a power of a hundred diam 
 eters, we observe minute granules, whether 
 crystalline or not we cannot say, very similar 
 to those described in the account of the da- 
 guerrotype. But now their effect is reversed. 
 Being opaque, they darken the glass wherever 
 they are accumulated, just as the snow darkens 
 our skylights. Where these particles are drift 
 ed, therefore, we have our shadows, and where 
 they are thinly scattered, our lights. On ex 
 amining the paper photographs, we have found 
 no distinct granules, but diffused stains of deeper 
 or lighter shades. 
 
 Such is the sun-picture, in the form in which 
 we now most commonly meet it, for the da- 
 guerrotype, perfect and cheap as it is, and 
 admirably adapted for miniatures, has almost 
 disappeared from the field of landscape, still life, 
 
AND THE STEREOGRAPH. 139 
 
 architecture, and genre painting, to make room 
 for the* photograph. Mr. Whipple tells us that 
 even now he takes a much greater number of 
 miniature portraits on metal than on paper ; and 
 yet, except occasionally a statue, it is rare to see 
 anything besides a portrait shown in a daguerro- 
 type. But the greatest number of sun-pictures 
 we see are the photographs which are intended 
 to be looked at with the aid of the instrument 
 we are next to describe, and to the stimulus of 
 which the recent vast extension of photographic 
 copies of Nature and Art is mainly owing. 
 
 3. THE STEREOSCOPE. This instrument was 
 invented by Professor Wheatstone, and first de 
 scribed by him in 1838. It was only a year 
 after this that M. Daguerre made known his dis 
 covery in Paris ; and almost at the same time 
 Mr. Fox Talbot sent his communication to the 
 Royal Society, giving an account of his method 
 of obtaining pictures on paper by the action of 
 light. Iodine was discovered in 1811, bromine 
 in 1826, chloroform in 1831, gun-cotton, from 
 which collodion is made, in 184G, the electro- 
 
140 THE STEREOSCOPE 
 
 plating process about the same time with pho 
 tography ; "all things, great and small, work 
 ing together to produce what seemed at first as 
 delightful, but as fabulous, as Aladdin s ring, 
 which is now as little suggestive of surprise as 
 our daily brea.d." 
 
 A stereoscope is an instrument which makes 
 surfaces look solid. All pictures in which per 
 spective and light and shade are properly man 
 aged, have more or less of the effect of solidity ; 
 but by this instrument *that effect is so height 
 ened as to produce an appearance of reality 
 which cheats the senses with its seeming truth. 
 
 There is good reason to believe that the ap 
 preciation of solidity by the eye is purely a mat 
 ter of education. The famous case of a young 
 man who underwent the operation of couching 
 for cataract, related by Cheselden, and a similar 
 one reported in the Appendix to Muller s Phys 
 iology, go to prove that everything is seen only 
 as a superficial extension, until the other senses 
 have taught the eye to recognize depth, or the 
 third dimension, which gives solidity, by con 
 verging outlines, distribution of light and shade, 
 
AND THE STEREOGRAPH. 141 
 
 change of size and of the texture of surfaces. 
 Cheselden s patient thought " all objects what 
 ever touched his eyes, as what he felt did his 
 skin." The patient whose case is reported by 
 Miillcr could not tell the form of a cube held 
 obliquely before his eye from that of a flat piece 
 of pasteboard presenting the same outline. Each 
 of these patients saw only with one eye, the 
 other being destroyed, in one case, and not 
 restored to * sight until long after the first, in 
 the other case. In two months time Chesel 
 den s patient had learned to know solids ; in 
 fact, he argued so logically from light and shade 
 and perspective, that he felt of pictures, expect 
 ing to find reliefs and depressions, and was sur 
 prised to discover that they were flat surfaces. 
 If these patients had suddenly recovered the 
 sight of both eyes, they would probably have 
 learned to recognize solids more easily and 
 speedily. 
 
 We can commonly tell whether an object is 
 solid, readily enough with one eye, but still 
 better with two eyes, and sometimes only by 
 using both. If wo look at a square piece of 
 
142 THE STEREOSCOPE 
 
 ivory with one eye alone, we cannot tell wheth 
 er it is a scale of veneer, or the side of a cube, 
 or the base of a pyramid, or the end of a prism. 
 But if we now open the other eye, we shall see 
 one or more of its sides, if it have any, and then 
 know it to be a solid, and what kind of a solid. 
 
 We see something with the second eye, which 
 we did not see with the first ; in other words, 
 the two eyes see different pictures of the same 
 thing, for the obvious reason that they look from 
 points two or three inches apart. By means of 
 these two different views of an object, the mind, 
 as it were, feels round it and gets an idea of its 
 solidity. We clasp an object with our eyes, as 
 with our arms, or with our hands, or with our 
 thumb and finger, and then we know it- to be 
 something more than a surface. This, of course, 
 is an illustration of the fact, rather than an ex 
 planation of its mechanism. 
 
 Though, as we have seen, the two eyes 
 look on two different pictures, we perceive 
 but one picture. The two have run together 
 and become blended in a third, which shows 
 us everything we see in each. But, in order 
 
AND THE STEREOGRAPH. 143 
 
 that they should so run together, both the 
 eye and the brain must be in a natural state. 
 Push one eye a little inward with the fore 
 finger, and the image is doubled, or at least 
 confused. Only Certain parts of the two ret 
 inae work harmoniously together, and you have 
 disturbed their natural relations. Again, take 
 two or three glasses more than temperance 
 permits, and you see double ; the eyes are 
 right enough, probably, but tl*e brain is in 
 trouble, and does not report their telegraphic 
 messages correctly. These exceptions illus 
 trate the every-day truth, that, when we are 
 in right condition, our two eyes see two some 
 what different pictures, which our perception 
 combines to form one picture, representing 
 objects in all their dimensions, and not merely 
 as surfaces. 
 
 Now, if we can get two artificial pictures 
 of any given object, one as we should see it 
 with the right eye, the other as we should 
 see it with the left eye, and then, looking 
 at the right picture, and that only, with the 
 right eye, and at the left picture, and that 
 
144 THE STEREOSCOPE 
 
 only, with the left eye, contrive some way 
 of making these pictures run together as we 
 have seen our two views of a natural object 
 do, we shall get the sense of solidity that nat 
 ural objects give us. The arrangement which 
 effects it will be a stereoscope, according to 
 our definition of that instrument. How shall 
 we attain these two ends ? 
 
 1. An artist can draw an object as he sees 
 it, looking at-, it only with his right eye. 
 Then he can draw a second view of the 
 same object as he sees it with his left eye. 
 It will not be hard to draw a cube or an 
 octahedron in this way; indeed, the first ste 
 reoscopic figures were pairs of outlines, right 
 and left, of solid bodies thus drawn. But the 
 minute details of a portrait, a group, or a 
 landscape, all so nearly alike to the two eyes, 
 yet not identical in each picture of our natu 
 ral double view, would defy any human skill 
 to reproduce them exactly. And just here 
 comes in the photograph to meet the diffi 
 culty. A first picture of an object is taken ; 
 then the instrument is moved a couple of 
 
AND THE STEREOGRAPH. Ho 
 
 inches or a little more, the distance between 
 the human eyes, and a second picture is taken. 
 Better than this, two pictures are taken at 
 once in a double camera. 
 
 We were just now stereographed, ourselves, 
 at a moment s warning, as if we were fugi 
 tives from justice. A skeleton shape, of about 
 a man s height, its head covered with a black 
 veil, glided across the floor, faced us, lifted its 
 veil, and took a preliminary look. When we 
 had grown sufficiently rigid in our attitude 
 of studied ease, and got our umbrella into a 
 position of thoughtful carelessness, and put 
 our features with much effort into an uncon 
 strained aspect of cheerfulness tempered with 
 dignity, of manly firmness blended with wo 
 manly sensibility, of courtesy, as much as to 
 imply, " You honor me, Sir," toned or sized, 
 as one may say, with something of the self-asser 
 tion of a human soul which reflects proudly, 
 " I am superior to all this," - - when, I say, 
 we were all right, the spectral Mokanna 
 dropped his long veil, and his waiting-slave 
 put a sensitive tablet under its folds. The 
 7 j 
 
146 THE STEREOSCOPE 
 
 veil was then again lifted, and the two great 
 glassy eyes stared at us once more for some 
 thirty seconds. The veil then dropped again ; 
 but in the mean time the shrouded sorcerer 
 had stolen our double image ; we * were im 
 mortal. Posterity might thenceforth inspect 
 us (if not otherwise engaged), not as a sur 
 face only, but in all our dimensions as an 
 undisputed solid man of Boston. 
 
 2. We have now obtained the double-eyed 
 or twin pictures, or STEREOGRAPH, if we may 
 coin a name. But the pictures are two, and 
 we want to slide them into each other, so to 
 speak, as in natural vision, that we may see 
 them as one. How shall we make one pic 
 ture out of two, the corresponding parts of 
 which are separated by a distance of two or 
 three inches ? 
 
 We can do this in two ways. First, by 
 squinting as we look at them. But this is 
 tedious, painful, and to some impossible, or at 
 least very difficult. We shall find it much 
 easier to look through a couple of glasses that 
 squint for us. If at the same time they mag- 
 
AND THE STEREOGRAPH. 147 
 
 nify the two pictures, we gain just so much 
 in the distinctness of the picture, which, if 
 the figures on the slide are small, is a great 
 advantage. One of the easiest ways of ac 
 complishing this double purpose is to cut a 
 convex lens through the middle, grind the 
 curves of the two halves down to straight 
 lines, and join them by their thin ed^es. 
 This is a squinting magnifier; and if arranged 
 so that with its right half we see the right 
 picture on the slide, and with its left half 
 the left picture, it squints them both inward, 
 so that they run together and form a single 
 picture. 
 
 Such are the stereoscope and the photo 
 graph, by the aid of which form is henceforth 
 to make itself seen through the world of intel 
 ligence, as thought has long made itself heard 
 by means of the art of printing. The mor- 
 photype, or form-print, must hereafter take its 
 place by the side of the logotype, or word- 
 print. The stereograph, as we have called the 
 double picture designed for the stereoscope, is 
 
148 THE STEREOSCOPE 
 
 to be the card of introduction to make all 
 mankind acquaintances. 
 
 The first effect of looking at a good photo 
 graph through the stereoscope is a surprise 
 such as no painting ever produced. The mind 
 feels its way into the very depths of the pic 
 ture. The scraggy branches of a tree in the 
 foreground run out at us as if they would 
 scratch our eyes out. The elbow of a figure 
 stands forth so as to make us almost un 
 comfortable. Then there is such a frightful 
 amount of detail, that we have the same sense 
 of infinite complexity which Nature gives us. 
 A painter shows us masses ; the stereoscopic 
 figure spares us nothing, all must be there, 
 every stick, straw, scratch, as faithfully as 
 the dome of St. Peter s, or the summit of 
 Mont Blanc, or the ever-moving stillness of 
 Niagara. The sun is no respecter of persons 
 or of things. 
 
 This is one infinite charm of the photo 
 graphic delineation. Theoretically, a perfect 
 photograph is absolutely inexhaustible. In a 
 picture you can find nothing which the artist 
 
AND THE STEREOGRAPH. 149 
 
 has not seen before you ; but in a perfect 
 photograph there will be as many beauties 
 lurking, unobserved, as there are flowers that 
 blush unseen in forests and meadows. It is 
 a mistake to suppose one knows a stereoscopic 
 picture when he has studied it a hundred 
 times by the aid of the best of our common 
 instruments. Do we know all that there is 
 in a landscape by looking out at it from our 
 parlor windows ? In one of the glass stereo 
 scopic views of Table Rock, two figures, so 
 minute as to be mere objects of comparison 
 with the surrounding vastness, may be seen 
 standing side by side. Look at the two faces 
 with a strong magnifier, and you could iden 
 tify their owners, if you met them in a court 
 of law. 
 
 Many persons suppose that they are looking 
 on miniatures of the objects represented, when 
 they see them in the stereoscope. They will 
 be surprised to be told that they see most 
 objects as large as they appear in nature. A 
 few simple experiments will show how what 
 we see in ordinary vision is modified in our 
 
150 THE STEREOSCOPE 
 
 perceptions by what we think we see. We 
 made a sham stereoscope, the other day, with 
 no glasses, and an opening in the place w r here 
 the pictures belong, about the size of one of 
 the common stereoscopic pictures. Through 
 this we got a very ample view of the town of 
 Cambridge, including Mount Auburn and the 
 Colleges, in a single field of vision. We do 
 not recognize how minute distant objects really 
 look to us, without something to bring the 
 fact home to our conceptions. A man does 
 not deceive us as to his real size when we 
 see him at the distance of the length of Cam 
 bridge Bridge. But hold a common black 
 pin before the eyes at the distance of distinct 
 vision, and one twentieth of its length, near 
 est the point, is enough to cover him so that 
 he cannot be seen. The head of the same 
 pin will cover one of the Cambridge horse- 
 cars at the same distance, and conceal the 
 tower of Mount Auburn, as seen from Boston. 
 We are near enough to an edifice to see it 
 
 o 
 
 well, when we can easily read an inscription 
 upon it. The stereoscopic views of the arches 
 
AND THE STEREOGRAPH. ]51 
 
 of Constantino and of Titus give not only every 
 letter of the old inscriptions, but render the 
 grain of the stone itself. On the pediment of 
 the Pantheon may be read, not only the words 
 traced by Agrippa, but a rough inscription 
 above it, scratched or hacked into the stone 
 by some wanton hand during an insurrectionary 
 tumult. 
 
 This distinctness of the lesser details of a 
 building or a landscape often gives us incidental 
 truths which interest us more than the central 
 object of the picture. Here is Alloway Kirk, 
 in the churchyard of which you may read a 
 real story by the side of the ruin that tells of 
 more romantic fiction. There stands the stone 
 " Erected by James Russell, seedsman, Ayr, in 
 memory of his children," three little boys, 
 James and Thomas and John, all snatched 
 away from him in the space of three succes 
 sive summer-days, and lying under the matted 
 grass in the shadow of the old witch-haunted 
 walls. It was Burns s Alloway Kirk we paid 
 for, and we find we have bought a share in the 
 griefs of James Russell, seedsman ; for is not 
 
152 THE STEREOSCOPE 
 
 the stone that tells this blinding sorrow of real 
 life the true centre of the picture, and not the 
 roofless pile which reminds us of an idle le 
 gend? 
 
 We have often found these incidental glimpses 
 of life and death running away with us from the 
 main object the picture was meant to delineate. 
 The more evidently accidental their introduc 
 tion, the more trivial they are in themselves, 
 the more they take hold of the imagination. 
 It is common to find an object in one of the 
 twin pictures which we miss in the other ; the 
 person or the vehicle having moved in the 
 interval of taking the two photographs. There 
 is before us a view of the Pool of David at 
 Hebron, in which a shadowy figure appears at 
 the water s edge, in the right-hand farther cor 
 ner of the right-hand picture only. This muf 
 fled shape stealing silently into the solemn scene 
 has already written a hundred biographies in 
 our imagination. In the lovely glass stereo 
 graph of the Lake of Brienz, on the left-hand 
 side, a vaguely hinted female figure stands by 
 the margin of the fair water 5 on the other side 
 
AND THE STEREOGRAPH. 153 
 
 of the picture she is not seen. This is life ; we 
 seem to see her come and go. All the longings, 
 passions, experiences, possibilities of womanhood 
 animate that gliding shadow which has flitted 
 through our consciousness, nameless, dateless, 
 featureless, yet more profoundly real than the 
 sharpest of portraits traced by a human hand. 
 Here is the Fountain of the Ogre, at Berne. 
 In the right picture two women are chatting, 
 with arms akimbo, over its basin; before the 
 plate for the left picture is got ready, " one 
 shall be taken and the other left"; look! on 
 the left side there is but one woman, and you 
 may see the blur where the other is meltino- 
 
 o 
 
 into thin air as she fades forever from your 
 eyes. 
 
 O, infinite volumes of poems that I treasure 
 in this small library of glass and pasteboard! 
 I creep over the vast features of Rameses, on 
 the face of his rock-hewn Nubian temple; I 
 scale the huge mountain-crystal that calls itself 
 the Pyramid of Cheops. I pace the length of 
 the three Titanic stones of the wall of Baalbec, 
 mightiest masses of quarried rock that man 
 
 7* 
 
154: THE STEREOSCOPE 
 
 has lifted into the air; and then I dive into 
 some mass of foliage with my microscope, and 
 trace the veinings of a leaf so delicately wrought 
 in the painting not made with hands, that I can 
 almost see its down and the green aphis that 
 sucks its juices. I look into the eyes of the 
 caged tiger, and on the scaly train of the croco 
 dile, stretched on the sands of the river that 
 has mirrored a hundred dynasties. I stroll 
 through Rhenish vineyards, I sit under Roman 
 arches, I walk the streets of once buried cities, 
 I look into the chasms of Alpine glaciers, and 
 on the rush of wasteful cataracts. I pass, in a 
 moment, from the banks of the Charles to the 
 ford of the Jordan, and leave my outward frame 
 in the arm-chair at my table, while in spirit I 
 am looking down upon Jerusalem from the 
 Mount of Olives. 
 
 " Give me the full tide of life at Charing 
 Cross," said Dr. Johnson. Here is Charing 
 Cross, but without the full tide of life. A per 
 petual stream of figures leaves no definite shapes 
 upon the picture. But on one side of this ster 
 eoscopic doublet a little London " gent " is lean- 
 
AND THE STEREOGRAPH. 155 
 
 ing pensively against a post; on the other 
 side he is seen sitting at the foot of the 
 next post; what is the matter with the lit 
 tle "gent"? 
 
 The very things which an artist would leave 
 out, or render imperfectly, the photograph takes 
 infinite care with, and so makes its illusions 
 perfect. What is the picture of a drum without 
 the marks on its head where the beating of the 
 sticks has darkened the parchment? In three 
 pictures of the Ann Hathaway Cottage, before 
 US) the most perfect, perhaps, of all the paper 
 stereographs we have seen, the door at the 
 farther end of the cottage is open, and we see 
 the marks left by the rubbing of hands and 
 shoulders as the good people came through the 
 entry, or leaned against it, or felt for the latch. 
 It is not impossible that scales from the epider 
 mis of the trembling hand of Ann Hathaway s 
 young suitor, Will Shakespeare, are still adhe 
 rent about the old latch and door, and that 
 they contribute to the stains we see in our 
 picture. 
 
 Among the accidents of life, as delineated in 
 
156 THE STEREOSCOPE 
 
 the stereograph, there is one that rarely fails in 
 any extended view which shows us the details 
 of streets and buildings. There may be neither 
 man nor beast nor vehicle to be seen. .You 
 may be looking down on a place in such a way 
 that none of the ordinary marks of its being 
 actually inhabited show themselves. But in 
 the rawest Western settlement and the oldest 
 Eastern city, in the midst of the shanties at 
 Pike s Peak and stretching across the court 
 yards as you look into them from above the 
 clay-plastered roofs of Damascus, wherever man 
 lives with any of the decencies of civilization, 
 you will find the clothes-line. It may be a 
 fence, (in Ireland,) it may be a tree, (if the 
 Irish license is still allowed us,) but clothes- 
 drying, or a place to dry clothes on, the stereo 
 scopic photograph insists on finding, wherever 
 it gives us a group of houses. This is the city 
 of Berne. How it brings the people who sleep 
 under that roof before us to see their sheets 
 drying on that fence ; and how real it makes 
 the men in that house to look at their shirts 
 hanging, arms down, from yonder line! 
 
AND THE STEREOGRAPH. 157 
 
 The reader will, perhaps, thank us for a few 
 hints as to the choice of stereoscopes and stereo 
 scopic pictures. The only way to be sure of 
 getting a good instrument is to try a number 
 of them, but it may be well to know which are 
 worth trying. Those made with achromatic 
 glasses may be as much better as they are 
 dearer, but we have not been able to satisfy 
 ourselves of the fact. We do not commonly 
 find any trouble from chromatic aberration (or 
 false color in the image). It is an excellent 
 thing to have the glasses adjust by pulling 
 out and pushing in, either by the hand, or, 
 more conveniently, by a screw. The large 
 instruments, holding twenty-five slides, are best 
 adapted to the use of those who wish to show 
 their views often to friends ; the owner is a 
 little apt to get tired of the unvarying round 
 in which they present themselves. Perhaps we 
 relish them more for having a little trouble in 
 placing them, as we do nuts that we crack 
 better than those we buy cracked. In optical 
 effect, there is not much difference between 
 them and the best ordinary instruments. We 
 
158 THE STEREOSCOPE 
 
 employ one stereoscope with adjusting glasses 
 for the hand, and another common one upon 
 a broad rosewood stand. The stand may be 
 added to any instrument, and is a great con 
 venience. 
 
 Some will have none but glass stereoscopic 
 pictures ; paper ones are not good enough for 
 them. Wisdom dwells not with such. It is 
 true that there is a brilliancy in a glass pic 
 ture, with a flood of light pouring through 
 it, which no paper one, with the light neces 
 sarily falling on it, can approach. But this 
 brilliancy fatigues the eye much more than 
 the quiet reflected light of the paper stereo 
 graph. Twenty-five glass slides, well inspected 
 in a strong light, are good for one headache, 
 if a person is disposed to that trouble. 
 
 Again, a good paper photograph is infi 
 nitely better than a bad glass one. We have 
 a glass stereograph of Bethlehem, which looks 
 as if the ground were covered with snow, 
 and paper ones of Jerusalem, colored and un- 
 colored, much superior to it both in effect and 
 detail. The Oriental pictures, we think, are 
 
AND THE STEREOGRAPH. 159 
 
 apt to have this white, patchy look ; possibly 
 we do not get the best in this country. 
 
 A good view on glass or paper is, as a 
 rule, best uncolored. But some of the Amer 
 ican views of Niagara on glass are greatly 
 improved by being colored ; the water being 
 rendered vastly more suggestive of the reality 
 by the deep green tinge. Per contra, we have 
 seen some American views so carelessly Col 
 ored that they were all the worse for having 
 been meddled with. The views of the Hath 
 away Cottage, before referred to, are not only 
 admirable in themselves, but some of them 
 are admirably colored also. Few glass stere 
 ographs compare with them as real represent 
 atives of Nature. 
 
 In choosing stereoscopic pictures, beware of 
 investing largely in groups. The owner soon 
 gets tired to death of them. Two or three 
 of the most striking among them are worth 
 having, but mostly they are detestable, vul 
 gar repetitions of vulgar models, shamming 
 grace, gentility, and emotion, by the aid of 
 costumes, attitudes, expressions, and accesso- 
 
160 THE STEREOSCOPE 
 
 ries worthy of a Thespian society "of candle- 
 snuffers. In buying brides under veils, and 
 such figures, look at the lady s hands. You 
 will very probably find the young countess is 
 a maid-of-all-work. The presence of a human 
 figure adds greatly to the interest of all archi 
 tectural views, by giving us a standard of size, 
 and should often decide our choice out of a 
 variety of such pictures. No view pleases the 
 eye which has glaring patches in it, a per 
 fectly white-looking river, for instance, or 
 trees and shrubs in full leaf, but looking as 
 if they were covered with snow, or glaring 
 roads, or frosted-looking stones and pebbles. 
 As for composition in landscape, each person 
 must consult his own taste. All have agreed 
 in admiring many of the Irish views, as those 
 about the Lakes of Killarney, for instance, 
 which are beautiful alike in general effect and 
 in nicety of detail. The glass views on the 
 Rhine, and of the Pyrenees in Spain, are of 
 consummate beauty. As a specimen of the 
 most perfect, in its truth and union of har 
 mony and contrast, the view of the Circus of 
 
AND THE STEREOGRAPH. 161 
 
 Gavarni, with the female figure on horseback 
 in the front ground, is not Surpassed by any 
 we remember to have seen. 
 
 V 
 
 What is to come of the stereoscope and the 
 photograph we are almost afraid to guess, 
 lest we should seem extravagant. But, pre 
 mising that we are to give a colored stereo 
 scopic mental view of their prospects, we will 
 venture on a few glimpses at a conceivable, 
 if not a possible future. 
 
 Form is henceforth divorced from matter. In 
 fact, matter as a visible object is of no great 
 use any longer, except as the mould on which 
 form is shaped. Give us a few negatives of 
 a thing worth seeing, taken from different 
 points of view, and that is all we want of 
 it. Pull it down or burn it up, if you please. 
 We must, perhaps, sacrifice some luxury in 
 the loss of color ; but form and light and 
 shade are the great things, and even color 
 can be added, and perhaps by and by may be 
 got direct from Nature. 
 
 There is only one Colosseum or Pantheon ; 
 
 K 
 
162 THE STEREOSCOPE 
 
 but how many millions of potential negatives 
 have they shed* representatives of billions 
 of pictures since they were erected ! Mat 
 ter in large masses must always be fixed and 
 dear ; form is cheap and transportable. We 
 have got the fruit of creation now, and need 
 not trouble ourselves with the core. Every 
 conceivable object of Nature and Art will 
 soon scale off its surface for us. Men will 
 hunt all curious, beautiful, grand objects, as 
 they hunt the cattle in South America, for 
 their skins, and leave the carcasses as of little 
 worth. 
 
 The consequence of this will soon be such 
 an enormous collection of forms that they will 
 have to be classified and arranged in vast 
 libraries, as books are now. The time will 
 come when a man who wishes to see any ob 
 ject, natural or artificial, will go to the Impe 
 rial, National, or City Stereographic Library, 
 and call for its skin or form, as he would for 
 a book at any common library. We do now 
 distinctly propose the creation of a compre 
 hensive and systematic Stereographic library, 
 
AND THE STEREOGRAPH. 163 
 
 where all men can find the special forms they 
 particularly desire to see as artists, or as schol 
 ars, or as mechanics, or in any other capacity. 
 Already a workman has been travelling about 
 the country with stereographic views of furni 
 ture, showing his employer s patterns in this 
 way, and taking orders for them. This is a 
 mere hint of what is coming beTore long. 
 
 Again, we must have special stereographic 
 collections, just as we have professional and 
 other special libraries. And, as a means of 
 facilitating the formation of public and private 
 stereographic collections, there must be ar 
 ranged a comprehensive system of exchanges, 
 so that there may grow up something like 
 a universal currency of these bank-notes, or 
 promises to pay in solid substance, which the 
 sun has engraved for the great Bank of Na 
 ture. 
 
 To render comparison of similar objects, or 
 of any that we may wish to see side by side, 
 easy, they should be taken, so far as possible, 
 with camera-lenses of the same focal length, at 
 the same distance, and viewed through stereo- 
 
164 THE STEREOSCOPE 
 
 scopic lenses of the same pattern. In this way 
 the eye is enabled to form the most rapid and 
 exact conclusions. If the u great elm " and 
 the Cowthorpe oak, if the State-House and 
 St. Peter s, were taken on the same scale, 
 and looked at with the same magnifying power, 
 we should compare them without the possi 
 bility of being misled by those partialities which 
 might tend to make us overrate the indigenous 
 vegetable and the dome of our native Michel 
 Angelo. 
 
 The next European war will send us ster 
 eographs of battles. It is asserted that a 
 bursting shell can be photographed. The time 
 is perhaps at hand when a flash of light, as 
 sudden and brief as that of the lightning 
 which shows a whirling wheel standing stock 
 still, shall preserve the very instant of the 
 shock of contact of the mighty armies that 
 are even now gathering. The lightning from 
 heaven does actually photograph natural ob 
 jects on the bodies of those it has just blasted, 
 so we are told by many witnesses. The 
 lightning of clashing sabres and bayonets may 
 
AND THE STEREOGRAPH. 165 
 
 be forced to stereotype itself in a stillness as 
 complete as that of the tumbling tide of Niag 
 ara as we see it self-pictured. 
 
 We should be led on too far, if we devel 
 oped our belief as to the transformations to 
 be wrought by this greatest of human tri 
 umphs over earthly conditions, the divorce of 
 form and substance. Let our readers fill out 
 a blank check on the future as they like, - 
 we give our indorsement to their imaginations 
 beforehand. We are looking into stereoscopes 
 as pretty toys, and wondering over the photo 
 graph as a charming novelty ; but before an 
 other generation has passed away, it will be 
 recognized that a new epoch in the history 
 of human progress dates from the time when 
 He who 
 
 " never but in uncreated light 
 Dwelt from eternity " 
 
 took a pencil of fire from the " angel stand 
 ing in the sun," and placed it in the hands 
 of a mortal. 
 
SUN-PAINTING AND SUN-SCULPTURE; 
 
 WITH A STEREOSCOPIC TRIP ACROSS THE ATLANTIC. 
 
 THERE is one old fable which Lord Bacon, 
 in his " Wisdom of the Ancients," has 
 not interpreted. This is the flaying of Marsyas 
 by Apollo. Everybody remembers the accepted 
 version of it, namely, that the young shepherd 
 found Minerva s flute, and was rash enough to 
 enter into a musical contest with the God of 
 Music. He was vanquished, of course, and 
 the story is, that the victor fastened him to a 
 tree and flayed him alive. 
 
 But the God of Song was also the God of 
 Light, and a moment s reflection reveals the 
 true significance of this seemingly barbarous 
 story. Apollo was pleased with his young 
 rival, fixed him in position against an iron 
 rest, (the tree of the fable,) and took a photo 
 graph, a sun-picture, of him. This thin film 
 
SUN-PAINTING. 167 
 
 or skin of light and shade was absurdly inter 
 preted as being the cutis, or untanned leather 
 integument of the young shepherd. The human 
 discovery of the art of photography enables us 
 to rectify the error and restore that important 
 article of clothing to the youth, as well as to 
 vindicate the character of Apollo. There is 
 one spot kss upon the sun since the theft from 
 heaven of Prometheus Daguerre and his fellow- 
 adventurers has enabled us to understand the 
 ancient legend. 
 
 We are now flaying our friends and submit 
 ting to be flayed ourselves, every few years or 
 months or days, by the aid of the trench 
 ant sunbeam which performed the process for 
 Marsyas. All the world has to submit to it, 
 -kings and queens with the rest. The mon 
 uments of Art and the face of Nature herself 
 are treated in the same way. We lift an impal 
 pable scale from the surface of the Pyramids. 
 We slip off from the dome of St. Peter s that 
 other imponderable dome which fitted it so 
 closely that it betrays every scratch on the 
 original. We skim off a thin, dry cuticle from 
 
168 SUN-PAINTING 
 
 the rapids of Niagara, and lay it on our un- 
 moistened paper without breaking a bubble or 
 losing a speck of foam. We steal a landscape 
 from its lawful owners, and defy the charge of 
 dishonesty. We skin the flints by the wayside, 
 and nobody accuses us of meanness. 
 
 These miracles are being worked all around 
 us so easily and so cheaply that most people 
 have ceased to think of them as marvels. There 
 is a photographer established in every consid 
 erable village, nay, one may not unfrequently 
 see a photographic ambulance standing at the 
 wayside upon some vacant lot where it can 
 squat unchallenged in the midst of burdock 
 and plantain and apple-Peru, or making a long 
 halt in the middle of a common by special per 
 mission of the " Selectmen." 
 
 We must not forget the inestimable precious- 
 ness of the new Promethean gifts because they 
 have become familiar. Think first of the privi 
 lege we all possess now of preserving the linea 
 ments and looks of those dear to us. 
 
 " Blest be the art which can immortalize," 
 
 said Cowper. But remember how few painted 
 
.\.\D SUN-SCULPTURE. 169 
 
 portraits really give their subjects. Recollect 
 those wandering Thugs of Art whose murder 
 ous doings with the brush used frequently to 
 involve whole families ; who passed from one 
 country tavern to another, eating and painting 
 their way, feeding a week upon the landlord, 
 another week upon the landlady, and two or 
 three days apiece upon the children ; as the 
 walls of those hospitable edifices too frequently 
 testify even to the present day. Then see what 
 faithful memorials of those whom we love and 
 would remember are put into our hands by the 
 new art, with the most trifling expenditure of 
 time and money. 
 
 This new art is old enough already to have 
 given us the portraits of infants who are now 
 growing into adolescence. By and by it will 
 show every aspect of life in the same individ 
 ual, from the earliest week to the last year of 
 senility. We are beginning to see what it will 
 reveal. Children grow into beauty and out of 
 it. The first line in the forehead, the first 
 streak in the hair are chronicled without mal 
 ice, but without extenuation. The footprints 
 
 8 
 
170 SUN-PAINTING 
 
 of thought, of passion, of purpose are all treas 
 ured in these fossilized shadows. Family- traits 
 show themselves in early infancy, die out, and 
 reappear. Flitting moods which have escaped 
 one pencil of sunbeams are caught by another. 
 Each new picture gives us a new aspect of our 
 friend ; we find he had not one face, but many. 
 
 It is hardly too much to say, that those whom 
 we love no longer leave us in dying, as they did 
 of old. They remain with us just as they ap 
 peared in life ; they look down upon us from 
 our walls ; they lie upon our tables ; they rest 
 upon our bosoms ; nay, if we will, we may. wear 
 their portraits, like signet-rings, upon our fin 
 gers. Our own eyes lose the images pictured 
 on them. Parents sometimes forget the faces 
 of their own children in a separation of a year 
 or two. But the unfading artificial retina which 
 has looked upon them retains their impress, and 
 a fresh sunbeam lays this on the living nerve 
 as if it were radiated from the breathing shape. 
 How these shadows last, and how their originals 
 fade away ! 
 
 What is true of the faces of our friends is still 
 
-I.VD SUN-SCULPTURE. 171 
 
 more true of the places we have seen and loved. 
 No picture produces an impression on the im 
 agination to compare with a photographic tran 
 script of the home of our childhood, or any scene 
 with which we have been long familiar. The 
 very point which the artist omits, in his effort 
 to produce general effect, may be exactly the 
 one that individualizes the place most strongly 
 to our memory. There, for instance, is a pho 
 tographic view of our own birthplace, and with 
 it of a part of our good old neighbor s dwelling. 
 An artist would hardly have noticed a slender, 
 dry, leafless stalk which traces a faint line, as 
 you may see, along the front of our neighbor s 
 house next the corner. That would be nothino- 
 
 O 
 
 to him, but to us it marks the stem of the 
 honeysuckle-vine, which we remember, with its 
 pink and white heavy-scented blossoms, as long 
 as we remember the stars in heaven. 
 
 To this charm of fidelity in the minutest de 
 tails the stereoscope adds its astonishing illusion 
 of solidity, and thus completes the effect which 
 so entrances the imagination. Perhaps there is 
 also some half-magnetic effect in the fixing of 
 
172 SUN-PAINTING 
 
 the eyes on the twin pictures, something like 
 Mr. Braid s hypnotism^ of which many of our 
 readers have doubtless heard. At least the 
 shutting out of surrounding objects, and the 
 concentration of the whole attention, which is 
 a consequence of this, produce a dream-like 
 exaltation of the faculties, a kind of clairvoy 
 ance, in which we seem to leave the body be 
 hind us and sail away into one strange scene 
 after another, like disembodied spirits. 
 
 " Ah, yes," some unimaginative reader may 
 say ; " but there is no color and no motion in 
 these pictures you think so lifelike ; and at best 
 they are but petty miniatures of the objects we 
 see in Nature." 
 
 But color is, after all, a very secondary quality 
 as compared with form. We like a good crayon 
 portrait better for the most part in black and 
 white than in tints of pink and blue and brown. 
 Mr. Gibson has never succeeded in making the 
 world like his flesh-colored statues. The color 
 of a landscape varies perpetually, with the sea 
 son, with the hour of the day, with the weather, 
 and as seen by sunlight or moonlight ; yet our 
 
AND SUN-SCULPTURE. 173 
 
 home stirs us with its old associations, seen in 
 any and every light. 
 
 As to motion, though of course it is not pres 
 ent in stereoscopic pictures, except in those toy- 
 contrivances which have been lately introduced, 
 yet it is wonderful to see how nearly the effect 
 of motion is produced by the slight difference 
 of light on the water or on the leaves of trees as 
 seen by the two eyes in the double-picture. 
 
 And lastly with respect to size, the illusion is 
 on the part of those who suppose that the eye, 
 unaided, ever sees anything but miniatures of 
 objects. Here is a new experiment to convince 
 those who have not reflected on the subject that 
 the stereoscope shows us objects of their natural 
 size. 
 
 We had a stereoscopic view taken by Mr. 
 Soule out of our parlor-window, overlooking 
 the town of Cambridge, with the river and the 
 bridge in the foreground. Now, placing this 
 view in the stereoscope, and looking with the 
 left eye at the right stereographic picture, while 
 the right eye looked at the natural landscape, 
 through the window where the view was taken, 
 
174 SUN-PAINTING 
 
 it was not difficult so to adjust the photographic 
 and real views that one overlapped the other, 
 and then it was shown that the two almost ex 
 actly coincided in all their dimensions. 
 
 Another point in which the stereograph differs 
 from every other delineation is in the character 
 of its evidence. A simple photographic picture 
 may be tampered with. A lady s portrait has 
 been known to come out of the finishing-artist s 
 room ten years younger than when it left the 
 camera. But try to mend a stereograph and 
 you will soon find the difference. Your marks 
 and patches float above the picture and never 
 identify themselves with it. We had occasion 
 to put a little cross on the pavement of a double 
 photograph of Canterbury Cathedral, copying 
 another stereoscopic picture where it was thus 
 marked. By careful management the two cross 
 es were made perfectly to coincide in the field 
 of vision, but the image seemed suspended above 
 the pavement, and did not absolutely designate 
 any one stone, as it would have done if it had 
 been a part of the original picture. The impos 
 sibility of the stereograph s perjuring itself is a 
 
A-ND SUN-SCULPTURE. 175 
 
 curious illustration of the law of evidence. " At 
 the mouth of two witnesses, or of three, shall he 
 that is worthy of death be put to death ; but at 
 the mouth of one he shall not be put to death." 
 No woman may be declared youthful on the 
 strength of a single photograph ; but if the ster 
 eoscopic twins say she is young, let her be so 
 acknowledged in the high court of chancery of 
 the God of Love. 
 
 Some two or three years since, we called the 
 attention of the readers of this magazine to the 
 subject of the stereoscope and the stereograph. 
 Some of our expressions may have seemed ex 
 travagant, as if heated by the interest which a 
 curious novelty might not unnaturally excite. 
 We have not lost any of the enthusiasm and 
 delight which that article must have betrayed. 
 After looking over perhaps a hundred thousand 
 stereographs and making a collection of about 
 a thousand, we should feel the same excitement 
 on receiving a new lot to look over and select 
 from as in those early days of our experience. 
 To make sure that this early interest has not 
 
176 SUN-PAINTING 
 
 cooled, let us put on record one or two con 
 victions of the present moment* 
 
 First, as to the wonderful nature of the in 
 vention. If a strange planet should happen to 
 come within hail, and one of its philosophers 
 were to ask us, as it passed, to hand him the 
 most remarkable material product of human 
 skill, we should offer him, without a moment s 
 hesitation, a stereoscope containing an instan 
 taneous double-view of some great thorough 
 fare, one of Mr. Anthony s views of Broad 
 way, (No. 203,) for instance. 
 
 Secondly, of all artificial contrivances for the 
 gratification of human taste, we seriously ques 
 tion whether any offers so much, on the whole, 
 to the enjoyment of the civilized races, as the 
 self-picturing of Art and Nature, with three 
 exceptions: namely, dress, the most universal, 
 architecture, the most imposing, and music, the 
 most exciting, of factitious sources of pleasure. 
 
 No matter whether this be an extravagance 
 or an over-statement ; none can dispute that we 
 have a new and wonderful source of pleasure in 
 the sun-picture, and especially in the solid sun- 
 
AND SUN-SCULPTURE. 177 
 
 sculpture of the stereograph. Yet there is a 
 strange indifference to it, even up to the present 
 moment, among many persons of cultivation and 
 taste. They do not seem to have waked up to 
 the significance of the miracle which the Lord 
 of Light is working for them. The cream of the 
 visible creation has been skimmed off; and the 
 sights which men risk their lives and spend their 
 money and endure sea-sickness to behold, the 
 views of Nature and Art which make exiles of 
 entire families for the sake of a look at them, and 
 render " bronchitis " and dyspepsia, followed by 
 leave of absence, endurable dispensations to so 
 many worthy shepherds, these sights, gath 
 ered from Alps, temples, palaces, pyramids, are 
 offered you for a trifle, to carry home with you, 
 that you may look at them at your leisure, by 
 your fireside, with perpetual fair weather, when 
 you are in the mood, without catching cold, 
 without following a valet- de-place, in any order 
 of succession, from a glacier to Vesuvius, from 
 Niagara to Memphis, as long as you like, and 
 breaking off as suddenly as you like ; and you, 
 native of this incomparably dull planet, have 
 8* L 
 
178 SUN-PAINTING 
 
 hardly troubled yourself to look at this divine 
 gift, which, if an angel had brought it from 
 some sphere nearer to the central throne, 
 would have been thought worthy of the celes 
 tial messenger to whom it was intrusted ! 
 
 It seemed to us that it might possibly awaken 
 an interest in some of our readers, if we should 
 carry them with us through a brief stereographic 
 trip, describing, not from places, but from the 
 photographic pictures of them which we have 
 in our own collection. Again, those who have 
 collections may like to compare their own opin 
 ions of particular pictures mentioned with such 
 as are here expressed, and those who are buy 
 ing stereographs may be glad of some guidance 
 in choosing. 
 
 But the reader must remember that this trip 
 gives him only a glimpse of a few scenes selected 
 out of our gallery of a thousand. To visit them 
 all, as tourists visit the realities, and report what 
 we saw, with the usual explanations and histori 
 cal illustrations, would make a formidable book 
 of travels. 
 
AND SUN-SCULPTURE. 179 
 
 Before we set out, we must know sometliing 
 of the sights of our own country. At least we 
 must see Niagara. The great fall shows infi 
 nitely best on glass. Thomson s " Point View, 
 28," would be a perfect picture of the Falls in 
 summer, if a lady in the foreground had not 
 moved her shawl while the pictures were taking, 
 or in the interval between taking the two. His 
 winter view, " Terrapin Tower, 37," is perfec 
 tion itself. Both he and Evans have taken fine 
 views of the rapids, instantaneous, catching the 
 spray as it leaped and the clouds overhead. Of 
 Blondin on his rope there are numerous views ; 
 standing on one foot, on his head, carrying a 
 man on his back, and one frightful picture, 
 where he hangs by one leg, head downward, 
 over the abyss. The best we have seen is 
 Evans s No. 5, a front view, where every 
 muscle stands out in perfect relief, and the 
 symmetry of the most unimpressible of mortals 
 is finely shown. It literally makes the head 
 swim to fix the eyes on some of these pic 
 tures. It is a relief to get away from such 
 fearful sights and look up at the Old Man of 
 
180 SUN-PAINTING 
 
 the Mountain. There stands the face, without 
 any humanizing help from the hand of an art 
 ist. Mr. Bierstadt has given it to us very well. 
 Rather an imbecile old gentleman, one would 
 say, with his mouth open ; a face such as one 
 may see hanging about railway-stations, and, 
 what is curious, a New England style of coun 
 tenance. Let us flit again, and just take a look 
 at the level sheets of water and broken falls of 
 Trenton, at the oblong, almost squared arch 
 of the Natural Bridge, at the rains of the 
 Pemberton Mills, still smoking, and so come 
 to Mr. Barnum s " Historical Series." Clark s 
 Island, with the great rock by which the Pil 
 grims "rested, according to the commandment," 
 on the first Sunday, or Sabbath, as they loved to 
 call it, which they passed in the harbor of Ply 
 mouth, is the most interesting of them all to us. 
 But here are many scenes of historical interest 
 connected with the great names and events of 
 our past. The Washington Elm, at Cambridge, 
 (through the branches of which we saw the first 
 sunset we ever looked upon, from this planet, at 
 least,) is here in all its magnificent drapery of 
 
AND SUN-SCULPTURE. 181 
 
 hanging foliage. Mr. Soule has given another 
 beautiful view of it, when stripped of its leaves, 
 equally remarkable for the delicacy of its pen 
 dent, hair-like spray. 
 
 We should keep the reader half an hour look 
 ing through this series, if we did not tear our 
 selves abruptly away from it. We are bound 
 for Europe, and are to leave via New York im 
 mediately. 
 
 Here we are in the main street of the great 
 city. This is Mr. Anthony s miraculous instan 
 taneous view in Broadway, (No. 203,) before 
 referred to. It is the Oriental story of the pet 
 rified city made real to our eyes. The character 
 of it is perhaps best shown by the use we make 
 of it in our lectures, to illustrate the physiology of 
 walking. Every foot is caught in its movement 
 with such suddenness that it shows as clearly 
 as if quite still. We are surprised to see, in one 
 figure, how long the stride is, in another, how 
 much the knee is bent, in a third, how curi 
 ously the heel strikes the ground before the rest 
 of the foot, in all, how singularly the body is 
 accommodated to the action of walking. The 
 
182 SUN-PAINTING 
 
 facts which the brothers Weber, laborious Ger 
 man experimenters and observers, had carefully 
 worked out on the bony frame, are illustrated 
 by the various individuals comprising this mov 
 ing throng. But what a wonder it is, this snatch 
 at the central life of a mighty city as it rushed 
 by in all its multitudinous complexity of move 
 ment ! Hundreds of objects in this picture 
 could be identified in a court of law by their 
 owners. There stands Car No. 33 of the Astor 
 House and Twenty-Seventh Street Fourth Ave 
 nue line. The old woman would miss an apple 
 from that pile which you see glistening on her 
 stand. The young man whose back is to us 
 could swear to the pattern of his shawl. The 
 gentleman between two others will no doubt 
 remember that he had a headache the next 
 morning, after this walk he is taking. Notice 
 the caution with which the man driving the 
 dapple-gray horse in a cart loaded with barrels 
 holds his reins, wide apart, one in each hand. 
 See the shop-boys with their bundles, the young 
 fellow with a lighted cigar in his hand, as you 
 see by the way he keeps it off from his body, 
 
AND SUN-SCULPTURE. 183 
 
 the gamin stooping to pick up something in the 
 midst of the moving omnibuses, the stout philo 
 sophical carman sitting on his cart-tail, Newman 
 Noggs by the lamp-post at the corner. Nay, 
 look into Car No. 33 and you may see the pas 
 sengers ; is that a young woman s face turned 
 toward you looking out of the window? See 
 hojv the faithful sun-print advertises the rival 
 establishment of " Meade Brothers, Ambrotypes 
 and Photographs." What a fearfully suggestive 
 picture ! It is a leaf torn from the book of 
 God s recording angel. What if the sky is one 
 great concave mirror, which reflects the picture 
 of all our doings, and photographs every act on 
 which it looks upon dead and living surfaces, so 
 that to celestial eyes the stones on which we 
 tread are written with our deeds, and the leaves 
 of the forest are but undeveloped negatives where 
 our summers stand self-recorded for transfer into 
 the imperishable record ? And what a meta 
 physical puzzle have we here in this simple- 
 looking paradox ! Is motion but a succession 
 of rests ? All is still in this picture of universal 
 movement. Take ten thousand instantaneous 
 
184 SUN-PAINTING 
 
 photographs of the great thoroughfare in a day ; 
 every one of them will be as still as the tableau 
 in the " Enchanted Beauty." Yet the hurried 
 day s life of Broadway will have been made up 
 of just such stillnesses. Motion is as rigid as 
 marble, if you only take a wink s worth of it at 
 a time. 
 
 We are all ready to embark now. Here is 
 the harbor ; and there lies the Great Eastern at 
 anchor, the biggest island that ever got adrift. 
 Stay one moment, they will ask us about se 
 cession and the revolted States, it may be as 
 well to take a look at Charleston, for an instant, 
 before we go. 
 
 These three stereographs were sent us by a 
 lady now residing in Charleston. The Battery, 
 the famous promenade of the Charlestonians, 
 since armed with twenty-four pounders facing 
 Fort Sumter; the interior of Fort Moultrie, 
 with the guns since spiked by Major Anderson ; 
 and a more extensive view of the same interior, 
 with the flag of the Union still flying, the 
 free end of it tied to a gun-carriage, probably 
 
AND SUN-SCULPTURE. 185 
 
 for the convenience of the photographer, as 
 one of the garrison explains it for us. In the 
 distance, to the right, Fort Sumter, looking re 
 mote and inaccessible, the terrible rattle which 
 our foolish little spoiled sister Caroline has in 
 sisted on getting into her rash hand. How 
 ghostly, yet how real, it looms up out of the 
 dim atmosphere, the guns looking over the 
 wall and out through the embrasures, meant 
 for a foreign foe, this very day (April 13th) 
 turned in self-defence against the children of 
 those who once fought for liberty at Fort Moul- 
 trie ! It is a sad thought that there are truths 
 which can be got out of life only by the destruc 
 tive analysis of war. Statesmen deal in proxi 
 mate principles, unstable compounds ; but war 
 reduces facts to their simple elements in its red- 
 hot crucible, with its black flux of carbon and 
 sulphur and nitre. Let us turn our back on 
 this miserable, even though inevitable, fraternal 
 strife, and, closing our eyes for an instant, open 
 them in London. 
 
 Here we are at the foot of Charing Cross. 
 
18 6 5 UN-PA IN TING 
 
 You remember, of course, how this fine eques 
 trian statue of Charles I. was condemned to be 
 sold and broken up by the Parliament, but was 
 buried and saved by the brazier who purchased 
 it, and so reappeared after the Restoration. To 
 the left, the familiar words, " Morley s Hotel" 
 designate an edifice about half windows, where 
 the plebeian traveller may sit and contem 
 plate Northumberland House opposite, and the 
 straight-tailed lion of the Percys surmounting 
 the lofty battlement which crowns its broad 
 facade. We could describe and criticise the 
 statue as well as if we stood under it, but other 
 travellers have done that. Where are all the 
 people that ought to be seen here ? Hardly 
 more than three or four figures are to be made 
 out ; the rest were moving, and left no images 
 in this slow, old-fashioned picture, how un 
 like the miraculous " instantaneous " Broadway 
 of Mr. Anthony we were looking at a little while 
 ago ! But there, on one side, an omnibus has 
 stopped long enough to be caught by the sun 
 beams. There is a mark on it. Try it with a 
 magnifier. 
 
AND SUN-SCULPTURE. 187 
 
 Charing 
 
 + 
 Strand 
 
 633. 
 
 Here are the towers of Westminster Abbey. 
 A dead failure, as we well remember them, 
 miserable modern excrescences, which shame 
 the noble edifice. We will hasten on, and 
 perhaps by and by come back and enter the 
 cathedral. 
 
 How natural Temple Bar looks, with the 
 loaded coach and the cab going through the 
 central arch, and the blur of the hurrying 
 throng darkening the small lateral ones ! A 
 fine old structure, always reminds a Bosto- 
 nian of the old arch over which the mysterious 
 Boston Library was said still to linger out its 
 existence late into the present century. But 
 where are the spikes on which the rebels heads 
 used to grin until their jaws fell off? One 
 of Hogarth s pictures will perhaps help us to 
 answer this question which the stereograph 
 leaves doubtful. To the left a woman is 
 spreading an awning before a shop ; a 
 man would do it for her here. Ghost of a 
 
188 SUN-PAINTING 
 
 boy with bundle, seen with right eye only. 
 Other ghosts of passers or loiterers, one of a 
 pretty woman, as we fancy at least, by the way 
 she turns her face to us. To the right, frag 
 ments of signs, as follows : 
 
 22 
 
 PAT 
 
 CO 
 
 BR 
 
 PR 
 
 What can this be but 229, Patent Combs and 
 Brushes, PROUT ? At any rate, we were look 
 ing after Prout s good old establishment, (229, 
 Strand,) which we remembered was close to 
 Temple Bar, when we discovered these frag 
 ments, the rest being cut off by the limits of 
 the picture. 
 
 London Bridge ! Less imposing than Water 
 loo Bridge, but a massive pile of masonry, which 
 looks as if its rounded piers would defy the 
 Thames as long as those of the Bridge of 
 Sant Angelo have stemmed the Tiber. Fig 
 ures indistinct or invisible, as usual, in the 
 foreground, but farther on a mingled proces- 
 
AND SUN-SCULPTURE. 139 
 
 sion of coaches, cabs, carts, and people. See 
 the groups in the recesses over the piers. The 
 parapet is breast-high ; a woman can climb 
 over it, and drop or leap into the dark stream 
 lying in deep shadow under the arches. Women 
 take this leap often. The angels hear them like 
 the splash of drops of blood out of the heart 
 of our humanity. In the distance, wharves, 
 storehouses, stately edifices, steeples, and rising 
 proudly above them, " like a tall bully," Lon 
 don Monument. 
 
 Here we are, close to the Monument. Tall, 
 square base, with reliefs, fluted columns, queer 
 top; looks like an inverted wineglass with a 
 shaving-brush standing up on it : representative 
 of flame, probably. Below this the square cage 
 in which people who have climbed the stairs are 
 standing ; seems to be ten or twelve feet hicrh, 
 
 o " 
 
 and is barred or wired over. Women used to 
 jump off from the Monument as well as from 
 London Bridge, before they made the cage safe 
 in this way. 
 
 " Holloa I " said a man standing in the Square 
 one day, to his companion, " there s the flag 
 coining down from the Monument ! " 
 
190 SUN-PAINTING 
 
 "It s no flag," said the other; "it s a wo 
 man ! " 
 
 Sure enough, and so it was. 
 
 Nobody can mistake the four pepper-boxes, 
 with the four weathercocks on them, surmount 
 ing the corners of a great square castle, a little 
 way from the river s edge. That is the Tower 
 of London. We see it behind the masts of sail 
 ing-vessels and the chimneys of steamers, gray 
 and misty in the distance. Let us come nearer 
 to it. Four square towers, crowned by four 
 Oriental-looking domes, not unlike the lower 
 half of an inverted balloon : these towers at the 
 angles of a square building with buttressed and 
 battlemented walls, with two ranges of round- 
 arched windows on the side towards us. But 
 connected with this building are other towers, 
 round, square, octagon, walls with embrasures, 
 moats, loop-holes, turrets, parapets, looking ns 
 if the beef-eaters really meant to hold out, if a 
 new army of Boulogne should cross over some 
 fine morning. We can t stop to go in and see 
 the lions this morning, for we have come in 
 sight of a great dome, and we cannot take our 
 eyes away from it. 
 
AND SUN-SCULPTURE. 191 
 
 That is St. Paul s, the Boston State-House 
 of London. There is a resemblance in effect, 
 but there is a difference in dimensions, to the 
 disadvantage of the native edifice, as the reader 
 may see in the plate prefixed to Dr. Bigelow s 
 " Technology." The dome itself looks light and 
 airy compared to St. Peter s or the Duomo of 
 Florence, not only absolutely, but compara 
 tively. The colonnade on which it rests divides 
 the honors with it. It does not brood over 
 the city, as those two others over their subject 
 towns. Michel Angelo s forehead repeats itself 
 in the dome of St. Peter s. Sir Christopher had 
 doubtless a less ample frontal development; 
 indeed, the towers he added to Westminster 
 Abbey would almost lead us to doubt if he had 
 not a vacancy somewhere in his brain. But the 
 dome of the London " State-House " is very 
 graceful, so light that it looks as if its lineage 
 had been crossed by a spire. Wait until we 
 have gilded *the dome of our Boston St. Paul s 
 before drawing any comparisons. 
 
 We have seen the outside of London. What 
 do we care for the Crescent, and the Horse- 
 
192 SUN-PAINTING 
 
 guards, and Nelson s Monument and the statue 
 of Achilles, and the new Houses of Parliament ? 
 The Abbey, the Tower, the Bridge, Temple 
 Bar, the Monument, St. Paul s : these make up 
 the great features of the London we dream about. 
 Let us go into the Abbey for a few moments. 
 The dim religious light" is pretty good, after 
 all. We can read every letter on that mural 
 tablet to the memory of the " most illustrious 
 and most benevolent John Paul Howard, Earl 
 of Stafford," " a Lover of his Country, A Rela 
 tion to Relations," (what a eulogy and satire in 
 that expression !) and in many ways virtuous and 
 honorable, as " The Countess Dowager, in Tes 
 timony of her Great Affection and Respect to 
 her Lord s Memory," has commemorated on his 
 monument. We can see all the folds of the 
 Duchess of Suffolk s dress, and the meshes of 
 the net that confines her hair, as she lies in 
 marble effigy on her sculptured sarcophagus. It 
 looks old to our eyes, for she was the mother 
 of Lady Jane Grey, and died three hundred 
 years ago, but see those two little stone 
 heads lying on their stone pillow, just be- 
 
AND SUN-SCULPTURE. 193 
 
 yond the marble Duchess. They are children 
 of Edward III., the Black Prince s baby- 
 brothers. They died five hundred years ago, 
 but what are centuries in Westminster Ab 
 bey? Under the pillared canopy, her head 
 raised on two stone cushions, her fair, still fea 
 tures bordered with the spreading cap we know 
 so well in her portraits, lies Mary of Scotland. 
 These, fresh monuments, protected from the wear 
 of the elements, seem to make twenty genera 
 tions our contemporaries. Look at this husband 
 warding off the dart which the grim, draped 
 skeleton is aiming at the breast of his fainting 
 wife. Most famous, perhaps, of all the statues 
 in the Abbey is this of Joseph Gascoigne Night 
 ingale and his Lady, by Roubilliac. You need 
 not cross the ocean to see it. It is here, liter 
 ally, to every dimple in the back of the falling 
 hand, and every crinkle of the vermiculated 
 stone-work. What a curious pleasure it is to 
 puzzle out the inscriptions on the monuments in 
 the background I for the beauty of your photo 
 graph is, that you may work out minute details 
 with the microscope, just as you can with the 
 
194 SUN-PAINTING 
 
 telescope in a distant landscape in Nature. 
 There is a lady, for instance, leaning upon an 
 urn, suggestive, a little, of Morgiana and the 
 forty thieves. Above is a medallion of one 
 wearing a full periwig. Now for a half-inch 
 lens to make out the specks that seem to be 
 letters. " Erected to the Memory of William 
 Pulteney, Earl of Bath, by his Brother" 
 That will do, the inscription operates as a 
 cold bath to enthusiasm. But here is our own 
 personal namesake, the once famous Rear Ad 
 miral of the White, whose biography we can find 
 nowhere except in the " Gentleman s Magazine," 
 where he divides the glory of the capture of 
 Quebec with General Wolfe. A handsome young 
 man with hyacinthine locks, his arms bare and 
 one hand resting on a cannon. We remember 
 thinking our namesake s statue one of the most 
 graceful in the Abbey, and have always fallen 
 back on the memory of that and of Dryden s 
 Achates of the " Annus Mirabilis," as trophies 
 of the family. 
 
 Enough of these marbles ; there is no end to 
 them ; the walls and floor of the great, many- 
 
AND SUN-SCULPTURE. 195 
 
 arched, thousand-pillared, sky-lifted cavern are 
 crusted all over with them, like stalactites and 
 stalagmites. The vast temple is alive with the 
 images of the dead. Kings and queens, nobles, 
 statesmen, soldiers, admirals, the great men 
 whose deeds we all know, the great writers 
 whose words are in all our memories, the brave 
 and the beautiful whose fame has shrunk into 
 their epitaphs, are all around us. What is the 
 cry for alms that meets us at the door of the 
 church to the mute petition of these marble beg 
 gars, who ask to warm their cold memories for 
 a moment in our living hearts ? Look up at the 
 mighty arches overhead, borne up on tall clus 
 tered columns, as if that avenue of Royal 
 Palms we remember in the West India Islands 
 (photograph) had been spirited over seas and 
 turned into stone. Make your obeisance to the 
 august shape of Sir Isaac Newton, reclining like 
 a weary swain in the niche at the side of the 
 gorgeous screen. Pass through Henry VII. s 
 Chapel, a temple cut like a cameo. Look at the 
 shining oaken stalls of the knights. See the 
 banners overhead. There is no such speaking 
 
196 SUN-PAINTING 
 
 record of the lapse of time as these banners. 
 There is one of them beginning to drop to 
 pieces; the long day of a century has decay 
 for its dial-shadow. 
 
 We have had a glimpse of London, let us 
 make an excursion to Stratford-on-Avon. 
 
 Here you see the Shakespeare House as it 
 was, wedged in between, and joined to, the 
 " Swan and Maidenhead " Tavern and a mean 
 and dilapidated brick building, not much worse 
 than itself, however. The first improvement 
 (as you see in No. 2) was to pull down this 
 brick building. The next (as you see in No. 3) 
 was to take away the sign and the bay-window 
 of the " Swan and Maidenhead" and raise two 
 gables out of its roof, so as to restore something 
 like its ancient aspect. Then a rustic fence was 
 put up, and the outside arrangements were com 
 pleted. The cracked and faded sign projects as 
 we remember it of old. In No. 1 you may read 
 " THE IMMORTAL .HAKvspeare . . . Born in This 
 House " about as well as if you had been at the 
 trouble and expense of going there. 
 
 But here is the back of the house. Did little 
 
AND SUN-SCULPTURE. 197 
 
 Will use to look out at this window with the 
 bull s-eye panes ? Did he use to drink from this 
 old pump, or the well in which it stands ? Did 
 his shoulders rub against this angle of the old 
 house, built with rounded bricks ? It is a 
 strange picture, and sets us dreaming. Let us 
 go in and up-stairs. In this room he was born. 
 They say so, and we will believe it. Rough 
 walls, rudely boarded floor, wide window with 
 small panes, small bust of him between two cac 
 tuses in bloom on window-seat. An old table 
 covered with prints and stereographs, a framed 
 picture, and under it a notice " Copies of this 
 
 Portrait " the rest, in fine print, can only 
 
 be conjectured. 
 
 Here is the Church of the Holy Trinity, in 
 which he lies buried. The trees are bare that 
 surround it ; see the rooks nests in their tops. 
 The Avon is hard by, dammed just here with 
 flood-gates, like a canal. Change the season, if 
 you like, here are the trees in leaf, and in 
 their shadow the tombs and graves of the mute, 
 
 O 
 
 inglorious citizens of Stratford. 
 
 Ah, how natural this interior, with its great 
 
198 S UN-PAINTING 
 
 stained window, its mural monuments, and its 
 slab in the pavement with the awful inscription ! 
 That we cannot see here, but there is the tablet 
 with the bust we know so well. But this, after 
 all, is Christ s temple, not Shakespeare s. Here 
 are the worshippers seats, mark how the pol 
 ished wood glistens, there is the altar, and 
 there the open prayer-book, you can almost 
 read the service from it. Of the many striking 
 things that Henry Ward Beecher has said, noth 
 ing, perhaps, is more impressive than his account 
 of his partaking of the communion at that altar 
 in the church where Shakespeare rests. A mem 
 ory more divine than his overshadowed the 
 place, and he thought of Shakespeare, " as he 
 thought of ten thousand things, without the least 
 disturbance of his devotion," though he was 
 kneeling directly over the poet s dust. 
 
 If you will stroll over to Shottery now with 
 me, we can see the Ann Hathaway cottage from 
 four different points, which will leave nothing 
 outside of it to be seen. Better to look at than 
 to live in. A fearful old place, full of small ver 
 tebrates that squeak and smaller articulates that 
 
AND SUN-SCULPTURE. 199 
 
 bite, if its outward promise can be trusted. A 
 thick thatch covers it like a coarse-haired hide. 
 It is patched together with bricks and timber, 
 and partly crusted with scaling plaster. One 
 window has the diamond panes framed in lead, 
 such as we remember seeing of old in one or two 
 ancient dwellings in the town of Cambridge, 
 hard by. In this view a young man is sitting, 
 pensive, on the steps which Master William, too 
 ardent lover, used to climb with hot haste and 
 descend with lingering delay. Young men die, 
 but youth lives. Life goes on ^n the cottage just 
 as it used to three hundred years ago. On the 
 rail before the door sits the puss of the house 
 hold, of the fiftieth generation, perhaps, from 
 that "harmless, necessary cat" which purred 
 round the poet s legs as he sat talking love with 
 Ann Hathaway. At the foot of the steps is a 
 huge basin, and over the rail hangs a dish 
 cloth, drying. In these homely accidents of the 
 very instant, that cut across our romantic ideals 
 with the sharp edge of reality, lies one of the 
 ineffable charms of the sun-picture. It is a little 
 thing that gives life to a scene or a face ; por- 
 
200 SUN-PAINTING 
 
 traits are never absolutely alive, because they 
 do not wink. 
 
 Come, we are full of Shakespeare ; let us go 
 up among the hills and see where another poet 
 lived and lies. Here is Rydal Mount, the home 
 of Wordsworth. Two-storied, ivy-clad, hedge- 
 girdled, dropped into a crease among the hills 
 that look down dimly from above, as if they 
 were hunting after it as ancient dames hunt 
 after a dropped thimble. In these walks he 
 used to go "booing about," as his rustic neigh 
 bor had it, reciting his own verses. Here is 
 his grave in Grasmere. A plain slab, with 
 nothing but his name. Next him lies Dora, 
 his daughter, beneath a taller stone bordered 
 with a tracery of ivy, and bearing in relief a 
 lamb and a cross. Her husband lies next in the 
 range. The three graves have just been shorn 
 of their tall grass, -in this other view you may 
 see them half hidden by it. A few flowering 
 stems have escaped the scythe in the first pic 
 ture, and nestle close against the poet s head 
 stone. Hard by sleeps poor Hartley Coleridge, 
 with a slab of freestone graven with a cross and 
 
AND SUN-SCULPTURE. 201 
 
 a crown of thorns, and the legend, "By thy 
 Cross and Passion, Good Lord, deliver us."* 
 All around are the graves of those whose names 
 the world has not known. This view (302), 
 from above Rydal Mount, is so Claude-like, es 
 pecially in its trees, that one wants the solemn 
 testimony of the double-picture to believe it an 
 actual transcript of Nature. Of the other Eng 
 lish landscapes we have seen, one of the most 
 pleasing on the whole is that marked 43, 
 Sweden Bridge, near Ambleside. But do not 
 fail to notice St. Mary s Church (101) in the 
 same mountain-village. It grows out of the 
 ground like a crystal, with spur-like gables bud 
 ding out all the way up its spire, as if they were 
 ready to flower into pinnacles, like such as have 
 sprung up all over the marble multiflora of 
 Milan. 
 
 And as we have been looking at a steeple, let 
 us flit away for a moment and pay our rever- 
 
 * Miss Martineau, who -went to his funeral, and may be sup 
 posed to describe after a visit to the churchyard, gives the 
 inscription incorrectly. See Atlantic Montlily for M^y, 1861, 
 p. 652. Tourists cannot be trusted; stereographs can. 
 9* 
 
202 SUN-PAINTING 
 
 ence at the foot of the tallest spire in England, 
 that of Salisbury Cathedral. Here we see it 
 from below, looking up, one of the most 
 striking pictures ever taken. Look well at it ; 
 Chichester has just fallen, and this is a good 
 deal like it, some have thought raised by the 
 same builder. It has bent somewhat (as you 
 may see in these other views) from the perpen 
 dicular ; and though it has been strengthened 
 with clamps and framework, it must crash some 
 day or other, for there has been a great giant 
 tugging at it day and night for five hundred 
 years, and it wiU at last shut up into itself or 
 topple over with a sound and thrill that will 
 make the dead knights and bishops shake on 
 their stone couches, and be remembered all their 
 days by year-old children. This is the first 
 cathedral we ever saw, and none ever so im 
 pressed us since. Vast, simple, awful in dimen 
 sions and height, just beginning to grow tall at 
 the point where our proudest steeples taper out, 
 it fills the whole soul, pervades the vast land 
 scape pver which it reigns, and, like Niagara 
 and the Alps, abolishes that five or six foot 
 
AND SUN-SCULPTURE. 203 
 
 personality in the beholder which is fostered by 
 keeping company with the little life of the day 
 in its little dwellings. In the Alps your voice 
 is as the piping of a cricket. Under the sheet 
 of Niagara the beating of your heart seems too 
 trivial a movement to take reckoning of. In 
 the buttressed hollow of one of these palaeozoic 
 cathedrals you are ashamed of your ribs, and 
 blush for the exiguous pillars of bone on which 
 your breathing structure reposes. Before we 
 leave Salisbury, let us Jook for a moment into 
 its cloisters. A green court-yard, with a cov 
 ered gallery on its level, opening upon it through 
 a series of Gothic arches. You may learn 
 more, young American, of the difference be 
 tween your civilization and that of the Old 
 World by one look at this than from an average 
 lyceum-lecture an hour long. Seventy years of 
 life means a great deal to you ; how little, com 
 paratively, to the dweller in these cloisters I 
 You will have seen a city grow up about you, 
 perhaps ; your whole world will have been 
 changed half a dozen times over. What change 
 for him? The cloisters are just as when he 
 
204 SUN-PAINTING 
 
 entered them, just as they were a hundred 
 years ago, just as they will be a hundred 
 years hence. 
 
 These old cathedrals are beyond all compari 
 son what are best worth seeing, of man s handi 
 work, in Europe. How great the delight to be 
 able to bring them, bodily, as it were, to our 
 own firesides ! A hundred thousand pilgrims a 
 year used to visit Canterbury. Now Canter 
 bury visits us. See that small white mark on 
 the pavement. That marks the place where the 
 slice of Thomas a Becket s skull fell when Reg 
 inald Fitz Urse struck it off with a " Ha ! " that 
 seems to echo yet through the vaulted arches. 
 And see the broad stairs, worn by the pilgrim s 
 knees as they climbed to the martyr s shrine. 
 For four hundred years this stream of worship 
 pers was wearing itself into these stones. But 
 there was the place where they knelt before the 
 altar called " Becket s Crown." No ! the story 
 that those deep hollows in the marble were made 
 by the pilgrims knees is too much to believe, 
 but there are the hollows and that is the story. 
 And now, if you would see a perfect gem of 
 
AND SUN-SCULPTURE. 205 
 
 the art of photography, and at the same time an 
 unquestioned monument of antiquity which no 
 person can behold without interest, look upon 
 this, the monument of the Black Prince. 
 There is hardly a better piece of work to be 
 found. His marble effigy lies within a railing, 
 with a sculptured canopy hung over it, like a 
 sounding-board. Above this, on a beam stretched 
 between two pillars, hang the arms he wore at 
 the battle of Poitiers, the tabard, the shield, 
 the helmet, the gauntlets, and the sheath that 
 held his sword, which weapon it is said that 
 
 Cromwell carried off. The outside casing of 
 
 t 
 
 the shield has broken away, as you observe, but 
 the lions or lizards, or whatever they were 
 meant for, and the flower-de-luces or plumes, 
 may still be seen. The metallic scales, if such 
 they were, have partially fallen from the tab 
 ard or frock, and the leather shows bare in 
 parts of it. 
 
 Here, hard by, is the sarcophagus of Henry 
 IV. and his queen, also enclosed with a railing 
 like the other. It was opened about thirty 
 years ago in presence of the dean of the cathe- 
 
206 SUN-PAINTING 
 
 dral. There was a doubt, so it is said, as to 
 the monarch s body having been really buried 
 there. Curiosity had nothing to do with it, it 
 is to be presumed. Every over-ground sar 
 cophagus is opened sooner or later, as a matter 
 of course. It was hard work to get it open ; 
 it had to be sawed. They found a quantity of 
 hay, fresh herbage, perhaps, when it was laid 
 
 upon the royal body four hundred years ago, 
 
 and a cross of twigs. A silken mask was on 
 the face. They raised it, and saw his red beard, 
 his features well preserved, a gap in the front 
 teeth, which there was probably no court-dentist 
 to supply, the same face the citizens looked 
 on four centuries ago 
 
 " In London streets that coronation-day, 
 When Bolingbroke rode on roan Barbary " ; 
 
 then they covered him up to take another nap 
 of a few centuries, until another* dean has an 
 historical doubt, at last, perhaps, to be trans 
 ported by some future Australian Barnum to 
 the Sidney Museum and exhibited as the mum 
 my of one of the English Pharaohs. Look, 
 too, at the " Warrior s Chapel," in the same 
 
AND SUN-SCULPTURE. 207 
 
 cathedral. It is a very beautiful stereograph, 
 and may be studied for a long time, for it is full 
 of the most curious monuments. 
 
 Before leaving these English churches and 
 monuments let us enter, if but for a moment, 
 the famous Beauchamp Chapel at Warwick. 
 The finest of the views (323, 324) recalls that 
 of the Black Prince s tomb, as a triumph of 
 photography. Thus, while the whole effect 
 of the picture is brilliant and harmonious, we 
 shall find, on taking a lens, that we can count 
 every individual bead in the chaplet of the 
 monk who is one of the more conspicuous re 
 liefs on the sarcophagus. The figure of this monk 
 itself is about half an inch in height, and its 
 face may be completely hidden by the head of a 
 pin. The whole chapel is a marvel of work 
 manship and beauty. The monument of Rich 
 ard Beauchamp in the centre, with the frame 
 of brass over the recumbent figure, intended to 
 support the drapery thrown upon it to protect 
 the statue, with the mailed shape of the 
 warrior, his feet in long pointed shoes resting 
 against the muzzled bear and the griffin, his 
 
208 SUN-PAINTING 
 
 hands raised, but not joined, this monument, 
 with the tomb of Dudley, Earl of Leicester, 
 Elizabeth s Leicester, and that of the other 
 Dudley, Earl of Warwick, all enchased in 
 these sculptured walls, and illuminated through 
 that pictured window, where we can dimly see 
 the outlines of saints and holy maidens, form 
 a group of monumental jewels such as only 
 Henry VII. s Chapel can equal. For these two 
 pictures (323 and 324) let the poor student 
 pawn his outside coat, if he cannot have them 
 otherwise. 
 
 Of abbeys and castles there is no end. No. 
 4, Tintern Abbey, is the finest, on the whole, 
 we have ever seen. No. 2 is also very perfect 
 and interesting. In both, the masses of ivy 
 that clothe the ruins are given with wonderful 
 truth and effect. Some of these views have the 
 advantage of being very well colored. War 
 wick Castle (81) is one of the best and most 
 interesting of the series of castles ; Caernarvon 
 is another still more striking. 
 
 We may as well break off here as anywhere, 
 so far as England is concerned. England is 
 
AND SUN-SCULPTURE. 209 
 
 one great burial-ground to an American. As 
 islands are built up out of the shields of insects, 
 so her soil is made from the bones of her in 
 numerable generations. No one but a travelled 
 American feels what it is to live in a land of 
 monuments. We are all born foundlings, ex 
 cept here and there, in some favored spot, 
 where humanity has nestled for a century or 
 two. Cut flowers of romance and poetry stuck 
 about are poor substitutes for the growths which 
 have their roots in an old soil that has been 
 changing elements with men and women like 
 ourselves for thousands of years. Perhaps it is 
 well that we should be forced to live mainly 
 for the future ; but it is sometimes weary and 
 prosaic. 
 
 And yet, open this enchanted door (of 
 pasteboard) which is the entrance to the land 
 of BURNS, and see what one man can do to 
 idealize and glorify the common life about him ! 
 Here is a poor " ten-footer," as we should call 
 it, the cottage William u Burness " built with his 
 own hands, where he carried his young bride 
 Agnes, and where the boy ROBERT, his first- 
 
210 SUN-PAINTING 
 
 born, was given to the light and air which he 
 made brighter and freer for mankind. Sit still 
 and do not speak, but see that your eyes do 
 not grow dim as these pictures pass before 
 them: The old hawthorn under which Burns 
 sat with Highland Mary, a venerable duenna- 
 like tree, with thin arms and sharp elbows, and 
 scanty chevelure of leaves; the Auld Brig o 
 Doon (No. 4), a daring arch that leaps the 
 sweet stream at a bound, more than half clad in 
 a mantle of ivy, which has crept with its larva- 
 like feet beyond the key-stone ; the Twa Brigs 
 of Ayr, with the beautiful reflections in the 
 stream that shines under their eyebrow-arches ; 
 and poor little Alloway Kirk, with its fallen 
 roof and high gables. Lift your hand to your 
 eyes and draw a long breath, for what words 
 would come so near to us as these pictured, nay, 
 real, memories of the dead poet who made a 
 nation of a province, and the hearts of mankind 
 its tributaries. 
 
 And so we pass to many-towered and turret- 
 ed and pinnacled Abbotsford, and to large- 
 windowed Melrose, and to peaceful Dryburgh, 
 
AND SUN-SCULPTURE. 211 
 
 where, under a plain bevelled slab, lies the great 
 Romancer whom Scotland holds only second in 
 her affections to her great poet. Here in die 
 foreground of the Melrose Abbey vie^v (436) is 
 a gravestone wlu ch looks as if it might be de 
 ciphered with a lens. Let us draw out this 
 inscription from the black archives of oblivion. 
 Here it is : 
 
 In Memory of 
 
 Francis Cornel, late 
 
 Labourer in Greenwell, 
 
 Who died 11** July, 1827, 
 
 aged 89 years. Also 
 
 Margaret Betty, his 
 
 Spouse, who died 2 d Dec*, 
 
 1831, aged 89 years. 
 
 This is one charm, as we have said over and 
 over, of the truth-telling photograph. We who 
 write in great magazines of course float off from 
 the wreck of our century, on our life-preserving 
 articles, to immortality. What a delight it is to 
 snatch at the unknown head that shows for an 
 instant through the wave, and drag it out to 
 personal recognition and a share in our own 
 sempiternal buoyancy ! Go and be photo- 
 
212 S UN-PA IN TING 
 
 graphed on the edge of Niagara, O unknown 
 aspirant for human remembrance ! Do not 
 throw yourself, O traveller, into Etna, like Em- 
 pedocles.^ but be taken by the camera standing 
 on the edge of the crater ! Who is that lady in 
 the carriage at the door of Burns s cottage? 
 Who is that gentleman in the shiny hat on the 
 sidewalk in front of the Shakespeare house? 
 Who are those two fair youths lying dead on a 
 heap of dead at the trench s side in the cemetery 
 of Melegnano, in that ghastly glass stereograph 
 in our friend Dr. Bigelow s collection ? Some 
 Austrian mother has perhaps seen her boy s 
 features in one of those still faces. All these 
 seemingly accidental figures are not like the 
 shapes put in by artists to fill the blanks in their 
 landscapes, but real breathing persons, or forms 
 that have but lately been breathing, not found 
 there by chance, but brought there with a pur 
 pose, fulfilling some real human errand, or at 
 least, as in the last-mentioned picture, waiting to 
 be buried. 
 
 Before quitting the British Islands, it would 
 be pleasant to wander through the beautiful 
 
AND SUN-SCULPTURE. 213 
 
 Vale of Avoca in Ireland, and to look on 
 those many exquisite landscapes and old ruins 
 and crosses which have been so admirably ren 
 dered in the stereograph. There is the Giant s 
 Causeway, too, which our friend Mr. Waterston 
 showed us in his Museum of Art in Chester 
 Square before we had been able to obtain it. 
 This we cannot stop to look at now, nor these 
 many objects of historical or poetical interest 
 which lie before us on our own table. Such are 
 the pictures of Croyland Abbey, where they 
 kept that jolly drinking-horn of " Witlaf, King 
 of the Saxons," which Longfellow has made 
 famous ; Bedd-Gelert, the grave of the faithful 
 hound immortalized by nay, who has immor 
 talized William Spencer; the stone that marks 
 the spot where William Rufus fell by Tyrrel s 
 shaft ; the Lion s Head in Dove Dale, fit to be 
 compared with our own Old Man of the Moun 
 tain; the " Bowder Stone," or the great boulder 
 of Borrowdale ; and many others over which 
 we love to dream at idle moments. 
 
 When we began these notes of travel we 
 meant to take our fellow-voyagers over the con- 
 
214 SUN-PAINTING 
 
 tinent of Europe, and perhaps to all the quarters 
 of the globe. We should make a book, instead 
 of an article, if we attempted it. Let us, in 
 stead of this, devote the remaining space to an 
 enumeration of a few of the most interesting 
 
 o 
 
 pictures we have met with, many of which may 
 be easily obtained by those who will take the 
 trouble we have taken to find them. 
 
 Views of Paris are everywhere to be had, 
 good and cheap. The finest illuminated or 
 transparent paper view we have ever seen is 
 one of the Imperial Throne. There is another 
 illuminated view, the Palace of the Senate, 
 remarkable for the beauty with which it gives 
 the frescoes on the cupola. We have a most 
 interesting stereograph of the Amphitheatre of 
 Nismes, with a bull-fight going on in its arena 
 at the time when the picture was taken. The 
 contrast of the vast Roman structure, with its 
 massive arched masonry, and the scattered 
 assembly, which seems almost lost in the spaces 
 once filled by the crowd of spectators who 
 thronged to the gladiatorial shows, is one of the 
 most striking we have ever seen. At Quim- 
 
AND SUN-SCULPTURE. 215 
 
 perle is a house so like the curious old building 
 lately removed from Dock Square in Boston, 
 that it is commonly taken for it at the first view. 
 The Roman tombs at Aries and the quaint 
 streets at Troyes are the only other French pic 
 tures we shall speak of, apart from the cathedrals 
 to be mentioned. 
 
 Of the views in Switzerland, it may be said 
 that the Glaciers are perfect, in the glass pic 
 tures, at least. Waterfalls are commonly poor : 
 the water glares and looks like cotton-wool. 
 Staubbach, with the Vale of Lauterbrunnen, is 
 an exquisite exception. Here are a few signal 
 specimens of Art. No. 4018, Seelisberg, un 
 surpassed by any glass stereograph we have ever 
 seen in all the qualities that make a faultless 
 picture. No. 4119, Mont Blanc from Sta. Rosa, 
 the finest view of the mountain for general 
 effect we have met with. No. 4100, Suspension- 
 Bridge of Fribourg, very fine, but makes one 
 giddy to look at it. Three different views of 
 Goldau, where the villages lie buried under these 
 vast masses of rock, recall the terrible catastro 
 phe of 1806, as if it had happened but yesterday. 
 
216 SUN-PAINTING 
 
 Almost everything from Italy is interesting. 
 The ruins of Rome, the statues of the Vatican, 
 the great churches, all pass before us, but in a 
 flash, as we are expressed by them on our ideal 
 locomotive. Observe : next to snow and ice, 
 stone is best rendered in the stereograph. Stat 
 ues are given absolutely well, except where 
 there is much foreshortening to be done, as in 
 this of the Torso, where you see the thigh is 
 unnaturally lengthened. See the mark on the 
 Dying Gladiator s nose. That is where Mi 
 chel Angelo mended it. There is Hawthorne s 
 Marble Faun (the one called of Praxiteles), 
 the Laocoon, the Apollo Belvedere, the Young 
 Athlete with the Strigil, the Forum, the Cloaca 
 Maxima, the Palace of the Caesars, the bronze 
 Marcus Aurelius, those wonders all the world 
 flocks to see, the God of Light has multiplied 
 them all for you, and you have only to give a 
 paltry fee to his servant to own in fee-simple 
 the best sights that earth has to show. 
 
 But look in at Pisa one moment, not for the 
 Leaning Tower and the other familiar objects, 
 but for the interior of the Campo Santo, with its 
 
AND SUN-SCULPTURE. 217 
 
 holy earth, its innumerable monuments, and the 
 fading frescos on its walls, see ! there are 
 the Three Kings of Andrea Orgagna. And 
 there hang the broken chains that once, centu 
 ries ago, crossed the Arno, standing off from 
 the wall, so that it seems as if they might clank, 
 if you jarred the stereoscope. Tread with us the 
 streets of Pompeii for a moment ; there are the 
 ruts made by the chariots of eighteen hundred 
 years ago, it is the same thing as stooping 
 down and looking at the pavement itself. And 
 here is the amphitheatre out of which the Pom- 
 peians trooped when the ashes began to fall 
 round them from Vesuvius. Behold the fa 
 mous gates of the Baptistery at Florence, 
 but do not overlook the exquisite iron gates of 
 the railing outside ; think of them as you enter 
 our own Common in Boston from West Street, 
 through those portals which are fit for the gates 
 of not paradise. Look at this sugar-temple, 
 no, it is of marble, and is the monument of 
 one of the Scalas at Verona. What a place for 
 ghosts that vast palazzo behind it ! Shall we 
 stand in Venice on the Bridge of Sighs, and 
 
 10 
 
218 SUN-PAINTING 
 
 then take this stereoscopic gondola and go 
 through it from St. Mark s to the Arsenal? 
 Not now. We will only look at the Cathedral, 
 all the pictures under the arches show in our 
 glass stereograph, at the Bronze Horses, the 
 Campanile, the Rialto, and that glorious old 
 statue of Bartholomew Colleoni, the very 
 image of what a partisan leader should be, the 
 broad-shouldered, slender-waisted, stern-featured 
 old soldier who used to leap into his saddle in 
 full armor, and whose men would never follow 
 another leader when he died. Well, but there 
 have been soldiers in Italy since his day. Here 
 are the encampments of Napoleon s army in the 
 recent campaign. This is the battle-field of 
 Magenta with its trampled grass and splintered 
 trees, and the fragments of soldiers accoutre 
 ments lying about. 
 
 And here (leaving our own collection for our 
 friend s before-mentioned) here is the great 
 trench in the cemetery of Melegnano, and the 
 heap of dead lying unburied at its edge. Look 
 away, young maiden and tender child, for this is 
 what war leaves after it. Flung together, like 
 
AND SUN-SCULPTURE. 219 
 
 sacks of grain, some terribly mutilated, some 
 without mark of injury, all or almost all with a 
 still, calm look on their faces. The two youths 
 before referred to lie in the foreground, so sim 
 ple-looking, so like boys who had been over 
 worked and were lying down to sleep, that one 
 can hardly see the picture for the tears these 
 two fair striplings bring into the eyes. 
 
 The Pope must bless us before we leave 
 Italy. See, there he stands on the balcony of 
 St. Peter s, and a vast crowd before him with 
 uncovered heads as he stretches his arms and 
 pronounces his benediction. 
 
 Before entering Spain we must look at the 
 Circus of Gavarni, a natural amphitheatre in 
 the Pyrenees. It is the most picturesque of 
 stereographs, and one of the best. As for the 
 Alhambra, we can show that in every aspect; 
 and if you do not vote the lions in the court of 
 the same a set of mechanical h****gs and nurs 
 ery bugaboos, we have no skill in entomology. 
 But the Giralda, at Seville, is really a grand 
 tower, worth looking at. The Seville Boston- 
 folks consider it the linchpin, at least of this 
 
220 SUN-PAINTING 
 
 rolling universe. And what a fountain this is 
 in the Infanta s garden! what shameful beasts, 
 swine and others, lying about on their stomachs ! 
 the whole surmounted by an unclad gentleman 
 squeezing another into the convulsions of a eal- 
 
 O 
 
 vanized frog! Queer tastes they have in the 
 Old World. At the fountain of the Ogre in 
 Berne, the giant, or large-mouthed private per 
 son, upon the top of the column, is eating a 
 little infant as one eats a radish, and has plenty 
 more, a whole bunch of such, in -his hand, 
 or about him. 
 
 A voyage down the Rhine shows us nothino- 
 
 ^ 
 
 better than St. Goar (No. 2257), every house 
 on each bank clean and clear as a crystal. The 
 Heidelberg views are admirable; you see a 
 slight streak in the background of this one : we 
 remember seeing just such a streak from the 
 castle itself, and being told that it was the 
 Rhine, just visible, afar off. The man with the 
 geese in the goose-market at Nuremberg gives 
 stone, iron, and bronze, each in perfection. 
 
 So we come to quaint Holland, where we see 
 wind-mills, ponts-levis, canals, galiots, houses 
 
AND SUN-SCULPTURE. 221 
 
 with gable-ends to the streets and little mirrors 
 outside the windows, slanted so as to show the 
 frows inside what is going on. 
 
 We must give up the cathedrals, after all: 
 Santa Maria del Fiore, with Brunelleschfs 
 dome, which Michel Angelo would n t copy 
 and could n t beat ; Milan, aflame with statues, 
 like a thousand-tapered candelabrum ; Tours, 
 with its embroidered portal, so like the lace of 
 an archbishop s robe ; even Notre Dame of 
 Paris, with its new spire; Rouen, Amiens, 
 Chartres, we must give them all up. 
 
 Here we are at Athens, looking at the but 
 tressed Acropolis and the ruined temples, the 
 Doric Parthenon, the Ionic Erechtheum, the 
 Corinthian temple of Jupiter, and the beautiful 
 Caryatides. But see those steps cut in the nat 
 ural rock. Up those steps walked the Apostle 
 Paul, and from that summit, Mars Hill, the 
 Areopagus, he began his noble address, " Ye 
 men of Athens ! " 
 
 The Great Pyramid and the Sphinx ! Herod 
 otus saw them a little fresher, but of unknown 
 antiquity, far more unknown to him than to 
 
222 SUN-PAINTING 
 
 us. The Colossi of the plain ! Mighty mon 
 uments of an ancient and proud civilization 
 standing alone in a desert now. 
 
 My name is Osymandyas, King of Kings : 
 Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair! 
 
 But nothing equals these vast serene faces of 
 the Pharaohs on the great rock-temple of Abou 
 Simbel (Ipsambul) (No. 1, F. SOT). It is the 
 sublimest of stereographs, as the temple of Kar- 
 dasay, this loveliest of views on glass, is the 
 most poetical. But here is the crocodile lying 
 in wait for us on the sandy bank of the Nile, 
 and we must leave Egypt for Syria. 
 
 Damascus makes but a poor show, with its 
 squalid houses, and glaring clayed roofs. We 
 always wanted to invest in real estate there in 
 Abraham Street or Noah Place, or some of its 
 well-established thoroughfares, but are discour 
 aged since we have had these views of the old 
 town. Baalbec does better. See the great 
 stones built into the wall there, the biggest 
 64 X 13 X 13 ! What do you think of that ? 
 a single stone bigger than both your parlors 
 thrown into one, and this one of three almost 
 
AND SUN-SCULPTURE. 223 
 
 alike, built into a wall as if just because they 
 happened to be lying round, handy ! So, then, 
 we pass on to Bethlehem, looking like a fortress 
 more than a town, all stone and very little win 
 dow, to Nazareth, with its brick, oven-like 
 houses, its tall minaret, its cypresses, and the 
 black-mouthed, open tombs, with masses of cac 
 tus growing at their edge, to Jerusalem, to 
 the Jordan, every drop of whose waters seems 
 to carry a baptismal blessing, to the Dead 
 Sea, and to the Cedars of Lebanon. Almost 
 everything may have changed in these hallowed 
 places, except the face of the stream and the 
 lake, and the outlines of hill and valley. But as 
 we look across the city to the Mount of Olives, 
 we know that these lines which run in graceful 
 curves along the horizon are the same that He 
 looked upon as he turned his eyes sadly over 
 Jerusalem. We know that these long declivi 
 ties, beyond Nazareth, were pictured in the eyes 
 of Mary s growing boy just as they are now 
 ours sitting here by our own firesides. 
 
 This is no toy, which thus carries us into the 
 
224 SUN-PAINTING 
 
 very presence of all that is most inspiring to the 
 soul in the scenes which the world s heroes and 
 martyrs, and more than heroes, more than mar 
 tyrs, have hallowed and solemnized by looking 
 upon. It is no toy : it is a divine gift, placed in 
 our hands nominally by science, really by that 
 inspiration which is revealing the Almighty 
 through the lips of the humble student of 
 Nature. Look through it once more before 
 laying it down, but not at any earthly sight. In 
 these views, taken through the telescopes of De 
 la Rue of London and of Mr. Rutherford of 
 New York, and that of the Cambridge Observa 
 tory by Mr. Whipple of Boston, we see the 
 "spotty globe " of the moon with all its moun 
 tains and chasms, its mysterious craters and 
 groove-like valleys. This magnificent stereo 
 graph by Mr. Whipple was taken, the first pic 
 ture February 7th, the second April 6th. In 
 this way the change of position gives the solid 
 effect of the ordinary stereoscopic views, and the 
 sphere rounds itself out so perfectly to the eye 
 that it seems as if we could grasp it like an 
 orange. 
 
AND SUN-SCULPTURE. 225 
 
 If the reader is interested, or like to become 
 interested, in the subject of sun-sculpture and 
 stereoscopes, he may like to know what the last 
 two years have taught us as to the particular 
 instruments best worth owning. We will give 
 a few words to the subject. Of simple instru 
 ments, for looking at one slide at a time, Smith 
 and Beck s is the most perfect we have seen, 
 but the most expensive. For looking at paper 
 slides, which are light, an instrument which 
 may be held in the hand is very convenient. 
 We have had one constructed which is better, 
 as we think, than any in the shops. Mr. Joseph 
 L. Bates, 129 Washington Street, has one of 
 them, if any person is curious to see it. In 
 buying the instruments which hold many slides, 
 we should prefer two that hold fifty to one that 
 holds a hundred. Becker s small instrument, 
 containing fifty paper slides, back to back, is the 
 one we like best for these slides, but the top 
 should be arranged so as to come off, the first 
 change we made in our own after procuring it. 
 
 We are allowed to mention the remarkable 
 instrument contrived by our friend Dr. H. J. 
 10* 
 
226 SUN-PAINTING 
 
 Bigelow, for holding fifty glass slides. The 
 spectator looks in : all is darkness. He turns a 
 crank : the gray dawn of morning steals over 
 some beautiful scene, or the facade of a stately 
 temple. Still, as he turns, the morning bright 
 ens through various tints of rose and purple, 
 until it reaches the golden richness of high 
 noon. Still turning, all at once night shuts 
 down upon the picture as at a tropical sunset, 
 suddenly, without blur or gradual dimness, 
 the sun of the picture going down, 
 
 " Not as in Northern climes obscurely bright, 
 But one unclouded blaze of living light." 
 
 We have not thanked the many friendly 
 dealers in these pictures, who have sent us 
 heaps and hundreds of stereographs to look over 
 and select from, only because they are too many 
 to thank. Nor do we place any price on this 
 advertisement of their most interesting branch 
 of business. But there are a few stereographs 
 we wish some of them would send us, with the 
 bill for the same ; such as Antwerp and Stras 
 bourg Cathedrals, Bologna, with its brick 
 towers, the Lions of MycenaB, if they are to 
 
AND SUN-SCULPTURE. 227 
 
 be had, the Walls of Fiesole, the Golden 
 Candlestick in the Arch of Titus, and others 
 which we can mention, if consulted ; some of 
 which we have hunted for a long time in vain. 
 But we write principally to wake up an interest 
 in a new and inexhaustible source of pleasure, 
 and only regret that the many pages we have 
 filled can do no more than hint the infinite 
 resources which the new art has laid open 
 to us all. 
 
DOINGS OF THE SUNBEAM. 
 
 FEW of those who seek a photographer s 
 establishment to have their portraits taken 
 know at all into what a vast branch of com 
 merce this business of sun-picturing has grown. 
 We took occasion lately to visit one of the 
 principal establishments in the country, that 
 of Messrs. E. & H. T. Anthony, in Broad 
 way, New York. We had made the acquaint 
 ance of these gentlemen through the remarka 
 bly instantaneous stereoscopic views published 
 by them, and of which we spoke in a former 
 article in terms which some might think ex 
 travagant. Our unsolicited commendation of 
 these marvellous pictures insured us a more 
 than polite reception. Every detail of the 
 branches of the photographic business to which 
 they are more especially devoted was freely 
 
DOINGS OF THE SUNBEAM. 229 
 
 shown us, and " No Admittance " over the 
 doors of their inmost sanctuaries came to mean 
 for us, " Walk in ; you are heartily welcome." 
 We should be glad to tell our readers of all 
 that we saw in the two establishments of theirs 
 which we visited, but this would take the whole 
 space which we must distribute among several 
 subdivisions of a subject that offers many points 
 of interest. We must confine ourselves to a 
 few glimpses and sketches. 
 
 The guests of the neighboring hotels, as they 
 dally with their morning s omelet, little imagine 
 what varied uses come out of the shells which 
 furnished them their anticipatory repast of dis 
 appointed chickens. If they had visited Mr. 
 Anthony s upper rooms, they would have seen 
 a row of young women before certain broad, 
 shallow pans filled with the glairy albumen 
 which once enveloped those potential fowls. 
 
 The one next us takes a large sheet of photo 
 graphic paper (a paper made in Europe for 
 this special purpose, very thin, smooth, and 
 compact), and floats it evenly on the surface 
 
230 DOINGS OF THE SUNBEAM. 
 
 of the albumen. Presently she lifts it very 
 carefully by the turned-up corners and hangs 
 it 6ms, as a seamstress might say, that is, cor- 
 nerwise, on a string, to dry. This " albumen- 
 ized " paper is sold most extensively to photo 
 graphers, who find it cheaper to buy than 
 to prepare it. It keeps for a long time unin 
 jured, and is " sensitized " when wanted, as 
 we shall see by and by. 
 
 The amount of photographic paper which is 
 annually imported from France and Germany 
 has been estimated at fifteen thousand reams. 
 Ten thousand native partlets 
 
 " Sic vos non vobis nidificatis, aves " 
 
 cackle over the promise of their inchoate off 
 spring, doomed to perish unfeathered, before 
 fate has decided whether they shall cluck or 
 crow, for the sole use of the minions of the 
 sun and the feeders of the caravanseras. 
 
 In another portion of the same establishment 
 are great collections of the chemical substances 
 used in photography. To give an idea of the 
 scale on which these are required, we may 
 
DOINGS OF THE SUNBEAM. 231 
 
 state that the estimate of the annual consump 
 tion of the precious metals for photographic 
 purposes, in this country, is set down at ten 
 tons for silver and half a ton for gold. Vast 
 quantities of the hyposulphite of soda, which, 
 we shall see, plays an important part in the 
 process of preparing the negative plate and fin 
 ishing the positive print, are also demanded. 
 
 In another building, provided with steam- 
 power, which performs much of the labor, is 
 carried on the great work of manufacturing 
 photographic albums, cases for portraits, parts 
 of cameras, and of printing pictures from neg 
 atives. Many of these branches of work are 
 very interesting. The luxurious album, em 
 bossed, clasped, gilded, resplendent as a tropical 
 butterfly, goes through as many transformations 
 as a " purple emperor. " It begins a paste 
 board larva, is swathed and pressed and glued 
 into the condition of a chrysalis, and at last 
 alights on the centre-table gorgeous in gold and 
 velvet, the perfect imago. The cases for por 
 traits are made in lengths, and cut up, some 
 what as they say ships are built in Maine, a 
 
232 DOINGS OF THE SUNBEAM. 
 
 mile at a time, to be afterwards sawed across 
 so as to become sloops, schooners, or such other 
 sized craft as may happen to be wanted. 
 
 Each single process in the manufacture of 
 elaborate products of skill oftentimes seems and 
 is very simple. The workmen in large estab 
 lishments, where labor is greatly subdivided, be 
 come wonderfully adroit in doing a fraction of 
 something. They always remind us of the Chi 
 nese or the old Egyptians. A young person 
 who mounts photographs on cards all day long 
 confessed to having never, or almost never, seen 
 a negative developed, though standing at the 
 time within a few feet of the dark closet where 
 the process was going on all day long. On e 
 forlorn individual will perhaps pass his days in 
 the single work of cleaning the glass plates for 
 negatives. Almost at his elbow is a toning 
 bath, but he would think it a good joke, if you 
 asked him whether a picture had lain long 
 enough in the solution of gold or hyposulphite. 
 
 We always take a glance at the literature 
 which is certain to adorn the walls in the neigh 
 borhood of each operative s bench or place for 
 
DOINGS OF THE SUNBEAM. 233 
 
 work. Our friends in the manufactory we are 
 speaking of were not wanting in this respect. 
 One of the girls had pasted on the wall before 
 
 her, 
 
 " Kind words can never die." 
 
 It would not have been easy to give her a harsh 
 one after reading her chosen maxim. " The 
 Moment of Parting " was twice noticed. " The 
 Haunted Spring," " Dearest May," " The Bony 
 Boat," "Yankee Girls," "Yankee Ship and 
 Yankee Crew," "My Country, tis of thee," 
 and was there ever anybody that ever broke 
 up prose into lengths who would not look to see 
 if there were not a copy of some performance 
 of his own on the wall he was examining, if he 
 were exploring the inner chamber of a freshly 
 opened pyramid ? 
 
 We left the great manufacturing establish 
 ment of the Messrs. Anthony, more than ever 
 impressed with the vast accession of happiness 
 conferred upon mankind by this art, which 
 has spread itself as widely as civilization. The 
 photographer can procure every article need 
 ed for his work at moderate cost and in quan- 
 
234 DOINGS OF THE SUNBEAM. 
 
 titles suited to his wants. His prices have 
 consequently come down to such a point that 
 pauperism itself need hardly shrink from the 
 outlay required for a family portrait-gallery. 
 The "tin-types," as the small miniatures are 
 called, stannotypes would be the proper 
 name, are furnished at the rate of two cents 
 each ! A portrait such as Isabey could not 
 paint for a Marshal of France, a likeness such 
 as Malbone could not make of a President s 
 lady, to be had for two coppers, a dozen 
 chefs d oeuvre for a quarter of a dollar. 
 
 We had been for a long time meditating a 
 devotion of a part of what is left of our more 
 or less youthful energies to acquiring practical 
 knowledge of the photographic art. The auspi 
 cious moment came at last, and we entered 
 ourselves as the temporary apprentice of Mr. 
 J. W. Black of this city, well known as a 
 most skilful photographer and a friendly as 
 sistant of beginners in the art. 
 
 We consider ourselves at this present time 
 competent to set up a photographic ambulance 
 or to hang out a sign in any modest country 
 
DOINGS OF THE SUNBEAM. 235 
 
 town. We should, no dout)t, over-time and 
 imder-tone, and otherwise wrong the counte 
 nances of some of our sitters ; but we should 
 get the knack in a week or two, and if 
 Baron Wenzel owned to having spoiled a hat 
 ful of eyes before he had fairly learned how to 
 operate for cataract, we need not think too 
 much of libelling a few village physiognomies 
 before considering ourselves fit to take the min 
 ister and his deacons. After years of practice 
 there is always something to learn, but every 
 one is surprised to find how little time is re 
 quired for the acquisition of skill enough to 
 make a passable negative and print a tolerable 
 picture. We could not help learning, with the 
 aid that was afforded us by Mr. Black and his 
 assistants, who were all so very courteous and 
 pleasant, that, as a token of gratitude, we offered 
 to take photographs of any of them who would 
 sit to us for that purpose. Every stage of the 
 process, from preparing a plate to mounting a 
 finished sun-print, we have taught our hands to 
 perform, and can therefore speak with a certain 
 authority to those who Wish to learn the way of 
 working with the sunbeam. 
 
236 DOINGS OF THE SUNBEAM. 
 
 Notwithstanding the fact that the process of 
 making a photographic picture is detailed in a 
 great many books, nay, although we have 
 given a brief account of the principal stages of it 
 in one of our former articles, we are going to 
 take the reader into the sanctuary of the art 
 with us, and ask him to assist, in the French 
 sense of the word, while we make a photograph, 
 say, rather, while the mysterious forces 
 which we place in condition to act work that 
 miracle for us. 
 
 We are in a room lighted through a roof of 
 ground glass, its walls covered with blue paper 
 to avoid reflection. A camera mounted on an 
 adjustable stand is before us. We will fasten 
 this picture, which we are going to copy, against 
 the wall. Now we will place the camera oppo 
 site to it, and bring it into focus so as to give a 
 clear image on the square of ground glass in the 
 interior of the instrument. If the image is too 
 large, we push the camera back ; if too small, 
 push it up towards the picture and focus again. 
 The image is wrong side up, as we see ; but if 
 we take the trouble to reverse the picture we 
 
DOINGS OF THE SUNBEAM. 237 
 
 are copying, it will appear in its proper position 
 in the camera. Having got an image of the 
 right size, and perfectly sharp, we will prepare 
 a sensitive plate, which shall be placed exactly 
 where the ground glass now is, so that this same 
 image shall be printed on it. 
 
 For this purpose we must quit the warm pre 
 cincts of the cheerful day, and go into the nar 
 row den where the deeds of darkness are done. 
 Its dimensions are of the smallest, and its aspect 
 of the rudest. A feeble yellow flame from a 
 gas-light is all that illuminates it. All round us 
 are troughs and bottles and water-pipes, and ill- 
 conditioned utensils of various kinds. Every 
 thing is blackened with nitrate of silver ; every 
 form of spot, of streak, of splash, of spatter, of 
 stain, is to be seen upon the floor, the walls, the 
 shelves, the vessels. Leave all linen behind 
 you, ye who enter here, or at least protect it at 
 every exposed point. Cover your hands in 
 gauntlets of India-rffbber, if you would not utter 
 Lady Macbeth s soliloquy over them when they 
 come to the light of day. Defend the nether 
 garments with overalls, such as plain artisans 
 
238 DOINGS OF THE SUNBEAM. 
 
 are wont to wear. Button the ancient coat over 
 the candid shirt-front, and hold up the retracted 
 wristbands by elastic bands around the shirt 
 sleeve above the elbow. Conscience and nitrate 
 of silver are telltales that never forget any tam 
 pering with them, and the broader the light the 
 darker their record. Now to our work. 
 
 Here is a square of crown glass three fourths 
 as large as a page of the " Atlantic Monthly," 
 if you happen to know that periodical. Let us 
 brush it carefully, that its surface may be free 
 from dust. Now we take hold of it by the up 
 per left-hand corner and pour some of this thin 
 syrup-like fluid upon it, inclining the plate 
 gently from side to side, so that it may spread 
 evenly over the surface, and let the superfluous 
 fluid drain back from the right-hand upper cor 
 ner into the bottle. We keep the plate rocking 
 from side to side, so as to prevent the fluid run 
 ning in lines, as it has a tendency to do. The 
 neglect of this precaution is evident in some oth 
 erwise excellent photographs ; we notice it, for 
 instance, in Frith s Abou Simbel, No. 1, the 
 magnificent rock-temple facade. In less than a 
 
DOINGS OF THE SUNBEAM. 239 
 
 minute the syrupy fluid has dried, and appears 
 like a film of transparent varnish on the glass 
 plate. We now place it on a flat double hook 
 of gutta-percha, and lower it gently into the 
 nitrate-of-silver bath. As it must remain there 
 three or four minutes, we will pass away the 
 time in explaining what has been already done. 
 The syrupy fluid was iodized collodion. This 
 is made by dissolving gun-cotton in ether with 
 alcohol, and adding some iodide of ammonium. 
 When a thin layer of this fluid is poured on the 
 glass plate, the ether and" alcohol evaporate very 
 speedily, and leave a closely adherent film of 
 organic matter derived from the cotton, and 
 containing iodide of ammonium. We have 
 plunged this into the bath, which contains 
 chiefly nitrate of silver, but also some iodide 
 of silver, knowing that a decomposition will 
 take place, in consequence of which the iodide 
 of ammonium will become changed to the iodide 
 of silver, which will now fill the pores of the 
 collodion film. The iodide of silver is emi 
 nently sensitive to light. The use of the 
 collodion is to furnish a delicate, homogeneous, 
 
240 DOINGS OF THE SUNBEAM. 
 
 adhesive, colorless layer in which the iodide 
 may be deposited. Its organic nature may 
 favor the action of light upon the iodide of 
 silver. 
 
 While we have been talking and waiting, the 
 process just described has been going on, and 
 we are now ready to take the glass plate out of 
 the nitrate-of-silver bath. It is wholly changed 
 in aspect. The film has become in appearance 
 like a boiled white of egg, so that the glass pro 
 duces rather the effect of porcelain, as we look 
 at it. Open no door now ! Let in no glimpse 
 of day, or the charm is broken in an instant ! 
 No Sultana was ever veiled from the right of 
 
 to 
 
 heaven as this milky tablet we hold must be. 
 But we must carry it to the camera which 
 stands waiting for it in the blaze of high noon. 
 To do this, we first carefully place it in this 
 narrow case, called a shield, where it lies safe 
 in utter darkness. We now carry it to the 
 camera, and, having removed the ground glass 
 on which the camera-picture had been brought 
 to an exact focus, we drop the shield containing 
 the sensitive plate into the groove the glass 
 
DOINGS OF THE SUNBEAM. 241 
 
 occupied. Then we pull out a slide, as the 
 blanket is taken from a horse before he starts. 
 There is nothing now but to remove the brass 
 
 O 
 
 cap from the lens. That is giving the word 
 Go ! It is a tremulous moment for the be 
 ginner. 
 
 As we lift the brass cap, we begin to count 
 seconds, by a watch, if we are naturally un 
 rhythmical, by the pulsations in our souls, if 
 we have an intellectual pendulum and escape 
 ment. Most persons can keep tolerably even 
 
 time with a second-hand while it is traversing 
 
 o 
 
 its circle. The light is pretty good at this time, 
 and we count only as far as thirty, when we 
 cover the lens again with the cap. Then we 
 replace the slide in the shield, draw this out of 
 the camera, and carry it back into the shadowy 
 realm where Cocytus flows in black nitrate of 
 silver and Acheron stagnates in the pool of hy 
 posulphite, and invisible ghosts, trooping down 
 from the world of day, cross a Styx of dissolved 
 sulphate of iron, and appear before the Rhada- 
 manthus of that lurid Hades. 
 
 Such a ghost we hold imprisoned in the shield 
 il p 
 
242 DOINGS OF THE SUNBEAM. 
 
 we have just brought from the camera. We 
 open it, and find our milky-surfaced glass plate 
 looking exactly as it did when we placed it in 
 the shield. No eye, no microscope, can detect 
 a trace of change in the white film that is spread 
 over it. And yet there is a potential image in 
 it, a latent soul, which will presently appear 
 before its judge. This is the Stygian stream, 
 this solution of protosulphate of iron, with 
 which we will presently flood the white surface. 
 We pour on the solution. There is no change 
 at first ; the fluid flows over the whole surface 
 as harmless and as useless as if it were water. 
 What if there were no picture there ? Stop ! 
 what is that change of color beginning at this 
 edge, and spreading as a blush spreads over a 
 girl s cheek ? It is a border, like that round the 
 picture, and then dawns the outline of a head, 
 and now the eyes come out from the blank as 
 stars from the empty sky, and the lineaments 
 define themselves, plainly enough, yet in a 
 strange aspect, for where there was light in 
 the picture we have shadow, and where there 
 was shadow we have light. But while we look 
 
DOINGS OF THE SUNBEAM. 243 
 
 it seems to fade again, as if it would disappear. 
 Have no fear of that ; it is only deepening its 
 shadows. Now we place it under the running 
 water which we have always at hand. We 
 hold it up before the dull-red gas-light, and then 
 we see that every line of the original and the 
 artist s name are reproduced as sharply as if the 
 fairies had engraved them for us. The picture 
 is perfect of its kind, only it seems to want a 
 little more force. That we can easily get by 
 the simple process called "intensifying" or 
 " redeveloping." We mix a solution of nitrate 
 of silver and of pyrogullic acid in about equal 
 quantities, and pour it upon the pictured film 
 and back again into the vessel, repeating this 
 with the same portion of fluid several times. 
 Presently the fluid grows brownish, and at the 
 same time the whole picture gains the depth of 
 shadow in its darker parts which we desire. 
 Again we place it under the running water. 
 When it is well washed, we plunge it into this 
 bath of hyposulphite of soda, which removes all 
 the iodide of silver, leaving only the dark metal 
 impregnating the film. After it has remained 
 
244 DOINGS OF THE SUNBEAM. 
 
 there a few minutes, we take it out and wash it 
 again as before, under the running stream of 
 water. Then we dry it, and when it is dry, 
 pour varnish over it, dry that, and it is done. 
 This is a negative, not a true picture, but a 
 reversed picture, which puts darkness for light 
 and light for darkness. From this we can take 
 true pictures, or positives. 
 
 Let us now proceed to take one of these pic 
 tures. In a small room, lighted by a few rays 
 which filter through a yellow curtain, a youth 
 has been employed all the morning in develop 
 ing the sensitive conscience of certain sheets of 
 paper, which came to him from the manufac 
 turer already glazed by having been floated 
 upon the white of eggs and carefully dried, 
 as previously described. This " albumenized " 
 paper the youth lays gently and skilfully upon 
 the surface of a solution of nitrate of silver. 
 When it has floated there a few minutes, he 
 lifts it, lets it drain, and hangs it by one corner 
 to dry. This " sensitized " paper is served 
 fresh every morning, as it loses its delicacy by 
 keeping. 
 
DOINGS OF THE SUNBEAM. 245 
 
 We take a piece of this paper of the proper 
 size, and lay it on the varnished or pictured side 
 of the negative, which is itself laid in a wooden 
 frame, like a picture-frame. Then we place a 
 thick piece of cloth on the paper. Then we 
 lay a hinged wooden back on the cloth, and by 
 means of two brass springs press all close to 
 gether, the wooden back against the cloth, 
 .the cloth against the paper, the paper against 
 the negative. We turn the frame over, and see 
 that the plain side of the glass negative is clean. 
 And now we step out upon the roof of the 
 house into the bright sunshine, and lay the 
 frame, with the glass uppermost, in the full 
 blaze of light. For a very little while we can 
 see the paper darkening through the negative, 
 but presently it clouds so much that its further 
 changes cannot be recognized. When we think 
 it has darkened nearly enough, we turn it over, 
 open a part of the hinged back, turn down first 
 a portion of the thick cloth, and then enough of 
 the paper to see something of the forming pic 
 ture. If not printed dark enough as yet, we 
 turn back to their places successively the pie- 
 
246 DOINGS OF THE SUNBEAM. 
 
 ture, the cloth, the opened part of the frame, 
 and lay it again in the sun. It is just like 
 cooking : the sun is the fire, and the picture is 
 the cake ; when it is browned exactly to the right 
 point, we take it off the fire. A photograph- 
 printer will have fifty or more pictures printing 
 at once, and he keeps going up and down the 
 line, opening the frames to look and see how 
 they are getting on. As fast as they are done, 
 he turns them over, back to the sun, and the 
 cooking process stops at once. 
 
 The pictures which have just been printed in 
 the sunshine are of a peculiar purple tint, and 
 still sensitive to the light, which will first " flat 
 ten them out, " and finally darken the whole pa 
 per, if they are exposed to it before the series 
 of processes which " fixes" and " tones " them. 
 They are kept shaded, therefore, until a batch 
 is ready to go down to the toning-room. 
 
 When they reach that part of the establish 
 ment, the first thing that is done with them is 
 to throw them face down upon the surface of 
 a salt bath. Their purple changes at once to a 
 dull red. They are then washed in clean water 
 
DOINGS OF THE SUNBEAM. 247 
 
 for a few minutes, and after that laid, face up, 
 in a solution of chloride of gold with a salt of 
 soda. Here they must lie for some minutes at 
 least; for the change, which we can watch by 
 the scanty daylight admitted, goes on slowly. 
 Gradually they turn to a darker shade ; the 
 reddish tint becomes lilac, purple, brown, of 
 somewhat different tints in different cases. 
 When the process seems to have gone far 
 enough, the picture is thrown into a bath con 
 taining hyposulphite of soda, which dissolves the 
 superfluous, unstable compounds, and rapidly 
 clears up the lighter portion of the picture. 
 On being removed from this, it is thoroughly 
 washed, dried, and mounted, by pasting it with 
 starch or dextrine to a card of the proper size. 
 
 The reader who has followed the details of 
 the process may like to know what are the com 
 mon difficulties the beginner meets with. 
 
 The first is in coating the glass with collo 
 dion. It takes some practice to learn to do this 
 neatly and uniformly. 
 
 The second is in timing the immersion in the 
 nitrate-of-silver bath. This is easily overcome ; 
 
248 DOINGS OF THE SUNBEAM. 
 
 the glass may be examined by the feeble lamp 
 light at the end of two or three minutes, and, if 
 the surface looks streaky, replunged in the bath 
 for a minute or two more, or until the surface 
 looks smooth. 
 
 The third is in getting an exact focus in the 
 camera, which wants good eyes, or strong glasses 
 for poor ones. 
 
 The fourth is in timing the exposure. This 
 is the most delicate of all the processes. Expe 
 rience alone can teach the time required with 
 different objects in different lights. Here are 
 four card-portraits from a negative taken from 
 one of Barry s crayon-pictures, illustrating an 
 experiment which will prove very useful to the 
 beginner. The negative of No. 1 was exposed 
 only two seconds. The young lady s face is 
 very dusky on a very dusky ground. The lights 
 have hardly come out at all. No. 2 was exposed 
 five seconds. Undertimed, but much cleared 
 up. No. 3 was exposed fifteen seconds, about 
 the proper time. It is the best of the series, 
 but the negative ought to have been intensified. 
 It looks as if Miss E. V. had washed her face 
 
DOINGS OF THE SUNBEAM. 249 
 
 since the five-seconds picture was taken. No. 
 4 was exposed sixty seconds, that is to say, 
 three or four times too long. It has a curious 
 resemblance to No. 1, but is less dusky. The 
 contrasts of light and shade which gave life to 
 No. 3 have disappeared, and the face looks as if 
 a second application of soap would improve it. 
 A few trials of this kind will teach the eye to 
 recognize the appearances of under and over- 
 exposure, so that, if the first negative proves to 
 have been too long or too short a time in the 
 camera, the proper period of exposure for the 
 next may be pretty easily determined. 
 
 The printing from the negative is less, diffi 
 cult, because we can examine the picture as 
 often as we choose ; but it may be well to un 
 dertime and overtime some pictures, for the 
 sake of a lesson like that taught by the series 
 of pictures from the four negatives. 
 
 The only other point likely to prove difficult 
 is the toning in the gold bath. As the picture 
 can be watched, however, a very little practice 
 will enable us to recognize the shade which in 
 dicates that this part of the process is finished. 
 11* 
 
250 DOINGS OF THE SUNBEAM. 
 
 We have copied a picture, but we can take a 
 portrait from Nature just as easily, except for a 
 little more trouble in adjusting the position and 
 managing the light. So easy is it to reproduce 
 the faces that we love to look upon ; so simple 
 is that marvellous work by which we preserve 
 the first smile of infancy and the last look of 
 age ; the most precious gift Art ever bestowed 
 upon love and friendship ! 
 
 It will be observed that the glass plate, cov 
 ered with its film of collodion, was removed 
 directly from the nitrate-of-silver bath to the 
 camera, so as to be exposed to its image while 
 still wet. It is obvious that this process is one 
 that can hardly be performed conveniently at a 
 distance from the artist s place of work. Solu 
 tions of nitrate of silver are not carried about 
 and decanted into baths and back again into 
 bottles without tracking their path on persons 
 and things. The photophobia of the " sensi 
 tized " plate, of course, requires a dark apart 
 ment of some kind : commonly a folding tent 
 is made to answer the purpose in photographic 
 excursions. It becomes, therefore, a serious 
 
DOINGS OF THE SUNBEAM. 251 
 
 matter to transport all that is required to make 
 a negative according to the method described. 
 It has consequently been a great desideratum 
 to find some way of preparing a sensitive plate 
 which could be dried and laid away, retaining 
 its sensitive quality for days or weeks, until 
 wanted. The artist would then have to take 
 with him nothing but his camera and his dry 
 sensitive plates. After exposing these in the 
 camera, they would be kept in dark boxes until 
 he was ready to develop them at leisure on re 
 turning to his atelier. 
 
 Many " dry methods " have been contrived, 
 of which the tannin process is in most favor. 
 The plate, after being " sensitized " and washed, 
 is plunged in a bath containing ten grains of tan 
 nin to an ounce of water. It is then dried, and 
 may be kept for a long time without losing its 
 sensitive quality. It is placed dry in the cam 
 era, and developed by wetting it and then pour 
 ing over it a mixture of pyrogallic acid and the 
 solution of nitrate of silver. Amateurs find 
 this the best way of taking scenery, and pro 
 duce admirable pictures by it, as we shall men 
 tion by and by. 
 
252 DOINGS OF THE SUNBEAM. 
 
 In our former articles we have spoken prin 
 cipally of stereoscopic pictures. These are still 
 our chief favorites for scenery, for architectural 
 
 objects, for almost everything but portraits, 
 
 and even these last acquire a reality in the 
 stereoscope which they can get in no other way. 
 In this third photographic excursion we must 
 only touch briefly upon the stereograph. Yet 
 we have something to add to what we said 
 before on this topic. 
 
 One of the most interesting accessions to our 
 collection is a series of twelve views, on glass, 
 of scenes and objects in California, sent us with 
 unprovoked liberality by the artist, Mr. Wat- 
 kins. As specimens of art they are admirable, 
 and some of the subjects are among the most 
 interesting to be found in the whole realm of 
 Nature. Thus, the great tree, the " Grizzly 
 Giant," of Mariposa, is shown in two admira 
 ble views ; the mighty precipice of El Capitan, 
 more than three thousand feet in precipitous 
 height, the three conical hill-tops of Yo Sem 
 ite, taken, not as they soar into the atmosphere, 
 but as they are reflected in the calm waters be- 
 
DOINGS OF THE SUNBEAM. 253 
 
 low, these and others are shown, clear, yet 
 soft, vigorous in the foreground, delicately dis 
 tinct in the distance, in a perfection of art 
 which compares with the finest European work. 
 The " London Stereoscopic Company " has 
 produced some very beautiful paper stereo 
 graphs, very dear, but worth their cost, of the 
 Great Exhibition. There is one view, which 
 we are fortunate enough to possess, that is a 
 marvel of living detail, one of the series 
 showing the opening ceremonies. The picture 
 gives principally the musicians. By careful 
 counting, we find there are six hundred faces 
 to the square inch in the more crowded portion 
 of the scene which the view embraces, a part 
 occupied by the female singers. These singers 
 are all clad in white, and packed with great 
 compression of crinoline, if that, indeed, were 
 worn on the occasion. Mere points as their 
 faces seem to the naked eye, the stereoscope, 
 and still more a strong magnifier, shows them 
 with their mouths all open as they join in the 
 chorus, and with such distinctness that some of 
 them might readily be recognized by those fa- 
 
254 DOINGS OF THE SUNBEAM. 
 
 miliar with their aspect. This, it is to be re 
 membered, is not a reduced stereograph for the 
 microscope, but a common one, taken as we see 
 them taken constantly. 
 
 We find in the same series several very good 
 views of Gibson s famous colored "Venus," a 
 lady with a pleasant face and a very pretty pair 
 of shoulders. But the grand " Cleopatra " of 
 our countryman, Mr. Story, of which we have 
 heard so much, was not to be had, why not 
 we cannot say, for a stereograph of it would 
 have had an immense success in America, and 
 doubtless everywhere. 
 
 The London Stereoscopic Company has also 
 furnished us with views of Paris, many of them 
 instantaneous, far in advance of the earlier ones 
 of Parisian origin. Our darling little church of 
 St. Etienne du Mont, for instance, with its stair 
 case and screen of stone embroidery, its carved 
 oaken pulpit borne on the back of a carved 
 oaken Samson, its old monuments, its stained 
 windows, is brought back to us in all its minute 
 detail as we remember it in many a visit made 
 on our w r ay back from the morning s work at 
 
DOINGS OF THE SUNBEAM. 255 
 
 La Pitid to the late breakfast at the Cafe* Pro- 
 cope. Some of the instantaneous views are of 
 great perfection, and carry us as fairly upon the 
 Boulevards as Mr. Anthony transports us to 
 Broadway. With the exception of this series, 
 we have found very few new stereoscopic pic 
 tures in the market for the last year or two. 
 This is not so much owing to the increased ex 
 pense of importing foreign views as to the greater 
 popularity of card-portraits, which, as everybody 
 knows, have become the social currency, the 
 sentimental " Green-backs " of civilization, with 
 in a very recent period. 
 
 We, who have exhausted our terms of admi 
 ration in describing the stereoscopic picture, 
 will not quarrel with the common taste which 
 prefers the card-portrait. The last is the cheap 
 est, the most portable, requires no machine to 
 look at it with, can be seen by several persons 
 at the same time, in short, has all the popular 
 elements. Many care little for the wonders of 
 the world brought before their eyes by the 
 stereoscope ; all love to see the faces of their 
 friends. Jonathan does not think a great deal 
 
256 DOINGS OF THE SUNBEAM. 
 
 of the Venus of Milo^ but falls into raptures 
 over a card-portrait of his Jerusha. So far 
 from finding fault with him, we rejoice rather 
 that his affections and those of average mor 
 tality are better developed than their taste ; and 
 lost as we sometimes are in contemplation of 
 the shadowy masks of ugliness which hang in 
 the frames of the photographers, as the skins 
 of beasts are stretched upon tanners fences, we 
 still feel grateful, when we remember the days 
 of itinerant portrait-painters, that the indignities 
 of Nature are no longer intensified by the out 
 rages of Art. 
 
 The sitters who throng the photographer s 
 establishment are a curious study. They are 
 of all ages, from the babe in arms to the old 
 wrinkled patriarchs and dames whose smiles 
 have as many furrows as an ancient elm has 
 rings that count its summers. The sun is a 
 Rembrandt in his way, and loves to track all the 
 lines in these old splintered faces. A photo 
 graph of one of them is like one of those 
 fossilized sea-beaches where the rain-drops have 
 left their marks, and the shell-fish the grooves 
 
DOINGS OF THE SUNBEAM. 257 
 
 in which they crawled, and the wading birds 
 the divergent lines of their footprints, tears, 
 caivs, griefs, once vanishing as impressions from 
 the sand, now fixed as the vestiges in the sand 
 stone. 
 
 Attitudes, dresses, features, hands, feet, betray 
 the social grade of the candidates for portraiture. 
 The picture tells no lie about them. There is 
 no use in their putting on airs ; the make- 
 believe gentleman and lady cannot look like the 
 genuine article. Mediocrity shows itself for 
 what it is worth, no matter what temporary 
 name it may have acquired. Ill-temper can 
 not hide itself under the simper of assumed 
 amiability. The querulousness of incompetent 
 complaining natures confesses itself almost as 
 much as in the tones of the voice. The anxiety 
 which strives to smooth its forehead cannot get 
 rid of the telltale furrow. The weakness which 
 belongs to the infirm of purpose and vacuous of 
 thought is hardly to be disguised, even though 
 the moustache is allowed to hide the centre of 
 expression. 
 
 All parts of a face doubtless have their fixed 
 
258 DOINGS OF THE SUNBEAM. 
 
 relations to each other and to the character of 
 the person to whom the face belongs. But 
 there is one feature, and especially one part of 
 that feature, which more than any other facial 
 sign reveals the nature of the individual. The 
 feature is the mouth, and the portion of it referred 
 to is the corner. A circle of half an inch radius, 
 having its centre at the junction of the two lips, 
 will include the chief focus of expression. 
 
 This will be easily understood, if we reflect 
 that here is the point where more muscles of 
 expression converge than at any other. From 
 above comes the elevator of the angle of the 
 
 O 
 
 mouth ; from the region of the cheek-bone slant 
 downwards the two zygomatics, which carry the 
 angle outwards and upwards ; from behind comes 
 the buccinator, or trumpeter s muscle, which sim 
 ply widens the mouth by drawing the corners 
 straight outward ; from below, the depressor of 
 the angle ; not to add a seventh, sometimes well 
 marked, the " laughing muscle" of Santorini. 
 "Within the narrow circle where these muscles 
 meet the ring of muscular fibres surrounding 
 the mouth the battles of the soul record their 
 
DOINGS OF THE SUNBEAM. 259 
 
 varying fortunes and results. This is the " nceud 
 vital" to borrow Flourens s expression with 
 reference to a nervous centre, the vital knot 
 of expression. Here we may read the victories 
 and defeats, the force, the weakness, the hard 
 ness, the sweetness of a character. Here is the 
 nest of that feeble fowl, self-consciousness, whose 
 brood strays at large over all the features. 
 
 If you wish to see the very look your friend 
 wore when his portrait was taken, let not the 
 finishing artist s pencil intrude within the circle 
 of the vital knot of expression. 
 
 We have learned many curious facts from 
 photographic portraits which we were slow to 
 learn from faces. One is the great number 
 of aspects belonging to each countenance with 
 which we are familiar. Sometimes, in looking 
 at a portrait, it seems to us that this is just the 
 face we know, and that it is always thus. But 
 again another view shows us a wholly different 
 aspect, which is yet as absolutely characteristic 
 as the first ; and a third and a fourth convince 
 us that our friend was not one, but many, in 
 outward appearance, as in the mental and 
 
260 DOINGS OF THE SUNBEAM. 
 
 emotional shapes by which his inner nature 
 made itself known to us. 
 
 Another point which must have struck every 
 body who has studied photographic portraits is 
 the family likeness that shows itself throughout 
 a whole wide connection. We notice it more 
 readily than in life, from the fact that we bring 
 many of these family portraits together, and 
 study them more at our ease. There is some 
 thing in the face that corresponds to tone in the 
 voice, recognizable, not capable of descrip 
 tion ; and this kind of resemblance in the faces 
 of kindred we may observe, though the features 
 are unlike. But the features themselves are 
 wonderfully tenacious of their old patterns. 
 The Prince of Wales is getting to look like 
 George III. We noticed it when he was in 
 this country ; we see it more plainly in his re 
 cent photographs. Governor Endicott s features 
 have come straight down to some of his descend 
 ants in the present day. There is a dimpled 
 chin which runs through one family connection 
 we have studied, and a certain form of lip which 
 belongs to another. As our cJieval de laUaille 
 
DOINGS OF THE SUNBEAM. 2G1 
 
 stands ready saddled and bridled for us just now, 
 we must indulge ourselves in mounting him for 
 a brief excursion. This is a story we have told 
 so often that we should begin to doubt it but 
 for the fact that we have before us the written 
 statement of the person who was its subject. 
 His professor, who did not know his name or 
 anything about him, stopped him one day after 
 lecture and asked him if he was not a relation 
 
 of Mr. , a person of some note in Essex 
 
 County. Not that he had ever heard of. 
 The professor thought he must be, would he 
 inquire? Two or three days afterwards, hav 
 ing made inquiries at his home in Middlesex 
 County, he reported that an elder member of 
 the family informed him that Mr. s great 
 grandfather on his mother s side and his own 
 great-grandfather on his father s side were own 
 cousins. The whole class of facts, of which this 
 seems to us too singular an instance to be lost, 
 is forcing itself into notice, with new strength 
 of evidence, through the galleries of photo 
 graphic family portraits which are making every 
 where. 
 
262 DOINGS OF THE SUNBEAM 
 
 In the course of a certain number of years 
 there will have been developed some new physi 
 ognomical results, which will prove of extreme 
 interest to the physiologist and the moralist. 
 They will take time ; for, to bring some of them 
 out fully, a generation must be followed from its 
 cradle to its grave. 
 
 The first will be derived from a precise 
 study of the effects of age upon the features. 
 Many series of portraits taken at short intervals 
 through life, studied carefully side by side, will 
 probably show to some acute observer that Na 
 ture is very exact in the tallies that mark the 
 years of human life. 
 
 The second is to result from a course of in 
 vestigations which we would rather indicate 
 than follow out ; for, if the student of it did 
 not fear the fate of Phalaris, that he should 
 find himself condemned as unlife worthy upon 
 the basis of his own observations, he would 
 Very certainly become the object of eternal 
 hatred to the proprietors of all the semi-organi 
 zations which he felt obliged to condemn. It 
 
 & 
 
 consists in the study of the laws of physical 
 
DOINGS OF THE SUNBEAM. 263 
 
 degeneration, the stages and manifestations of 
 the process by which Nature dismantles the 
 complete and typical human organism, until it 
 becomes too bad for her own sufferance, and she 
 kills it off before the advent of the reproductive 
 period, that it may not permanently depress her 
 average of vital force by taking part in the life 
 of the race. There are many signs that fall far 
 shorf of the marks of cretinism, yet just as 
 plain as that is to the visus eruditus, which 
 one meets every hour of the day in every circle 
 of society. Many of these are partial arrests 
 of development. We do not care to mention 
 all which we think may be recognized, but there 
 is one which we need not hesitate to speak of 
 from the fact that it is so exceedingly common. 
 The vertical part of the lower jaw is short, 
 and the angle of the jaw is obtuse, in infancy. 
 When the organizing force is abundant, the 
 lower jaw, which, as the active partner in the 
 business of mastication, must be developed in 
 proportion to the vigor of the nutritive appa- 
 .ratus, comes down by a rapid growth which 
 gives the straight-cut posterior line and the bold 
 
264 DOINGS OF THE SUNBEAM. 
 
 right angle so familiar to us in the portraits of 
 pugilists, exaggerated by the caricaturists in 
 their faces of fighting men, and noticeable in 
 well-developed persons of all classes. But in 
 imperfectly grown adults the jaw retains the 
 infantile character, the short vertical portion 
 necessarily implying the obtuse angle. The 
 upper jaw at the same time fails to expand lat 
 erally : in vigorous organisms it spreads out 
 boldly, and the teeth stand square and with 
 space enough ; whereas in subvitalized persons 
 it remains narrow, as in the child, so that the 
 large front teeth are crowded, and slanted for 
 ward, or thrown out of line. This want of lat 
 eral expansion is frequently seen in the jaws, 
 upper and lower, of the American, and has 
 been considered a common cause of caries of 
 the teeth. 
 
 A third series of results will relate to the 
 effect of character in moulding the features. Go 
 through a "rogues gallery" and observe what 
 the faces of the most hardened villains have in 
 common. All these villanous looks have been 
 shaped out of the unmeaning lineaments of in- 
 
DOINGS OF THE SUNBEAM. 265 
 
 fancy. The police-officers know well enough 
 the expression of habitual crime. Now, if all 
 this series of faces had been carefully studied in 
 photographs from the days of innocence to those 
 of confirmed guilt, there is no doubt that a keen 
 eye might recognize, we will not say the first 
 evil volition in the change it wrought upon the 
 face, nor each successive stage in the downward 
 process of the falling nature, but epochs and 
 eras, with differential marks, as palpable per 
 haps as those which separate the aspects of the 
 successive decades of life. And what is far 
 pleasanter, when the character of a neglected 
 and vitiated child is raised by wise culture, the 
 converse change will be found nay, has been 
 found to record itself unmistakably upon the 
 faithful page of the countenance ; so that charita 
 ble institutions have learned that their strongest 
 appeal lies in the request, " Look on this pic 
 ture, and on that," the lawless boy at his 
 entrance, and the decent youth at his dismissal. 
 The field of photography is extending itself to 
 embrace subjects of strange and sometimes of 
 fearful interest. We have referred in a former 
 12 
 
266 DOINGS OF THE SUNBEAM. 
 
 article to a stereograph in a friend s collection 
 showing the bodies of the slain heaped up for 
 burial after the Battle of Melegnano. We have 
 now before us a series of photographs showing 
 the field of Antietam and the surrounding 
 country, as they appeared after the great battle 
 of the 17th of September. These terrible me 
 mentos of one of the most sanguinary conflicts 
 of the war we owe to the enterprise of Mr. 
 Brady of New York. We ourselves were on the 
 field upon the Sunday following the Wednesday 
 when the battle took place. It is not, however, 
 for us to bear witness to the fidelity of views 
 which the truthful sunbeam has delineated in 
 all their dread reality. The photographs bear 
 witness to the accuracy of some of our own 
 sketches in a paper published in the " Atlantic 
 Monthly " for December, 1862. The " ditch " 
 is figured, still encumbered w T ith the dead, and 
 strewed, as we saw it and the neighboring fields, 
 with fragments and tatters. The " colonel s 
 gray horse " is given in another picture, just as 
 we saw him lying. 
 
 Let him who wishes to know what war is 
 
DOINGS OF THE SUNBEAM. 267 
 
 look at this series of illustrations. These wrecks 
 of manhood, thrown together in careless heaps 
 or ranged in ghastly rows for burial, were alive 
 but yesterday. How dear to their little circles 
 far away, most of them ! how little cared for 
 here by the tired party whose office it is to con 
 sign -them to the earth ! An officer may here 
 and there be recognized ; but for the rest, if 
 enemies, they will be counted, and that is all. 
 U 80 Rebels are buried in this hole" was one 
 of the epitaphs we read and recorded. Many 
 people would not look through this series. 
 Many, having seen it and dreamed of its hor 
 rors, would lock it up in some secret drawer, 
 that it might not thrill or revolt those whose 
 soul sickens at such sights. It was so nearly 
 like visiting the battle-field to look over these 
 views, that all the emotions excited by the actual 
 sight of the stained and sordid scene, strewed 
 with rags and wrecks, came back to us, and we 
 buried them in the recesses of our cabinet as we 
 would have buried the mutilated remains of the 
 dead they too vividly represented. Yet war 
 and battles should have truth for their delinea- 
 
268 DOINGS OF THE SUNBEAM. 
 
 tor. It is well enough for some Baron Gros or 
 Horace Vernet to please an imperial master 
 with fanciful portraits of what they are supposed 
 to be. The honest sunshine 
 
 " Is Nature s sternest painter, yet the best " ; 
 
 and that gives us, even without the crimson 
 coloring which flows over the -recent picture, 
 some conception of what a repulsive, brutal, 
 sickening, hideous thing it is, this dashing to 
 gether of two frantic mobs to which we give 
 the name of armies. The end to be attained 
 justifies the means, we are willing to believe ; 
 but the sight of these pictures is a commentary 
 on civilization such as a savage might well tri 
 umph to show its missionaries. Yet through 
 such martyrdom must come our redemption. 
 War is the surgery of crime. Bad as it is in 
 itself, it always implies that something worse has 
 gone before. Where is the American, worthy of 
 his privileges, who does not now recognize the 
 fact, if never until now, that the disease of our 
 nation was organic, not functional, calling for the 
 knife, and not for washes and anodynes ? 
 
DOINGS OF THE SUNBEAM. 269 
 
 It is a relief to soar away from the contempla 
 tion of these sad scenes, and fly in the balloon 
 which carried Messrs. King and Black in their 
 aerial photographic excursion. Our townsman, 
 Dr. John Jeffries, as is well recollected, was one 
 of the first to tempt the perilous heights of the 
 atmosphere, and the first who ever performed a 
 journey through the air of any considerable ex 
 tent. We believe this attempt of our younger 
 townsmen to be the earliest in which the aero 
 naut has sought to work the two miracles at 
 once, of rising against the force of gravity, and 
 picturing the face of the earth beneath him 
 without brush or pencil. 
 
 One of their photographs is lying before us. 
 Boston, as the eagle and the wild goose see it, 
 is a very different object from the same place as 
 the solid citizen looks up at its eaves and chim 
 neys. The Old South and Trinity Church are 
 two landmarks not to be mistaken. Washing 
 ton Street slants across the picture as a narrow 
 cleft. Milk Street winds as if the cowpath 
 which gave it a name had been followed by the 
 builders of its commercial palaces. Windows, 
 
270 DOINGS OF THE SUNBEAM. 
 
 chimneys, and skylights attract the eye in the 
 central parts of the view, exquisitely defined, 
 bewildering in numbers. Towards the circum 
 ference it grows darker, becoming clouded and 
 confused, and at one end a black expanse of 
 waveless water is whitened by the nebulous 
 outline of flitting sails. As a first attempt, it 
 is on the whole a remarkable success ; but its 
 greatest interest is in showing what we may 
 hope to see accomplished in the same direction. 
 While the aeronaut is looking at our planet 
 from the vault of heaven where he hangs sus- 
 
 o 
 
 pended, and seizing the image of the scene be 
 neath him as he flies, the astronomer is causing 
 the heavenly bodies to print their images on the 
 sensitive sheet he spreads under the rays con 
 centrated by his telescope. We have formerly 
 taken occasion to speak of the wonderful stereo 
 scopic figures of the moon taken by Mr. De la 
 Hue in England, by Mr. Rutherford and by Mr. 
 Whipple in this country. To these most suc 
 cessful experiments must be added that of Dr. 
 Henry Draper, who has constructed a reflecting 
 telescope, with the largest silver reflector in the 
 
DOINGS OF THE SUNBEAM. 271 
 
 world, except that of the Imperial Observatory 
 at Paris, for the special purpose of celestial pho 
 tography. The reflectors made by Dr. Draper 
 " will show Debilissima quadruple, and easily 
 bring out the companion of Sirius or the sixth 
 star in the trapezium of Orion. " In taking 
 photographs from these mirrors, a movement of 
 the sensitive plate of only one hundredth of an 
 inch will render the image perceptibly less 
 sharp. It was this accuracy of convergence of 
 the light which led Dr. Draper to prefer the 
 mirror to the achromatic lens. He has taken 
 almost all the daily phases of the moon, from 
 the sixth to the twenty-seventh day, using most 
 ly some of Mr. Anthony s quick collodion, and 
 has repeatedly obtained the full moon by means 
 of it in one third of a second. 
 
 In the last " Annual of Scientific Discovery " 
 are interesting notices of photographs of the 
 sun, showing the spots on his disk, of Jupiter 
 with his belts, and Saturn with his ring. 
 
 While the astronomer has been reducing the 
 heavenly bodies to the dimensions of his stereo 
 scopic slide, the anatomist has been lifting the 
 
272 DOINGS OF THE SUNBEAM. 
 
 invisible by the aid of his microscope into pal 
 pable dimensions, to remain permanently re 
 corded in the handwriting of the sun himself. 
 Eighteen years ago, M. Donne" published in 
 Paris a series of plates executed after figures 
 obtained by the process of Daguerre. These, 
 which we have long employed in teaching, give 
 some pretty good views of various organic 
 elements, but do not attempt to reproduce any 
 of the tissues. Professor O. N. Rood, of Troy, 
 has sent us some most interesting photographs, 
 showing the markings of infusoria enormously 
 magnified and perfectly defined. In a stereo 
 graph sent us by the same gentleman the 
 epithelium scales from mucous membrane are 
 shown floating or half submerged in fluid, a 
 very curious effect, requiring the double image 
 to produce it. Of all the microphotographs we 
 have seen, those made by Dr. John Dean, of 
 Boston, from his own sections of the spinal 
 cord, are the most remarkable for the light they 
 throw on the minute structure of the body. 
 The sections made by Dr. Dean are in them 
 selves very beautiful specimens, and have formed 
 
DOINGS OF THE SUNBEAM. 273 
 
 the basis of a communication to the American 
 Academy of Arts and Sciences, in which many 
 new observations have been added to our knowl 
 edge of this most complicated structure. But 
 figures drawn from images seen in the field of 
 
 O o 
 
 the microscope have too often been known to 
 borrow a good deal from the imagination of the 
 beholder. Some objects are so complex that 
 they defy the most cunning hand to render 
 them with all their features. When the enlarged 
 image is suffered to delineate itself, as in Dr. 
 Dean s views of the medulla oblongata, there is 
 no room to question the exactness of the por 
 traiture, and the distant student is able to form 
 his own opinion as well as the original observer. 
 These later achievements of Dr. Dean have ex 
 cited much attention here and in Europe, and 
 point to a new epoch of anatomical and physio 
 logical delineation. 
 
 The reversed method of microscopic photog 
 raphy is that which gives portraits and docu 
 ments in little. The best specimen of this kind 
 we have obtained is another of those miracles 
 which recall the wonders of Arabian fiction. 
 
 12* R 
 
274 DOINGS OF THE SUNBEAM. 
 
 On a slip of glass, three inches long by one 
 broad, is a circle of thinner glass, as large as a 
 ten-cent piece. In the centre of this is a speck, 
 as if a fly had stepped there without scraping 
 his foot before setting it down. On putting this 
 under a microscope magnifying fifty diameters 
 there come into view the Declaration of Inde 
 pendence in full, in a clear, bold type, every 
 name signed in fac-simile ; the arms of all the 
 States, easily made out, and well finished ; with 
 good portraits of all the Presidents down to a 
 recent date. Any person familiar with their 
 faces would recognize any one of these portraits 
 in a moment. 
 
 Still another application of photography, be 
 coming every day more and more familiar to 
 the public, is that which produces enlarged por 
 traits, even life-size ones, from the old daguerro- 
 type or more recent photographic miniature. 
 As we have seen this process, a closet is ar 
 ranged as a camera-obscura, and the enlarged 
 image is thrown down through a lens above on 
 a sheet of sensitive paper placed on a table capa 
 ble of being easily elevated or depressed. The 
 
DOINGS OF TIIE SUNBEAM. 275 
 
 image, weakened by diffusion over so large a 
 space, prints itself slowly, but at last comes out 
 with a clearness which is surprising, a fact 
 which is parallel to what is observed in the 
 stereoscopticon, where a picture of a few square 
 inches in size is " extended " or diluted so as to 
 cover some hundreds of square feet, and yet 
 preserves its sharpness to a degree which seems 
 incredible. 
 
 The copying of documents to be used as evi 
 dence is another most important application of 
 photography. No scribe, however skilful, could 
 reproduce such a paper as we saw submitted to 
 our fellow-workman in Mr. Black s establish 
 ment the other day. It contained perhaps a 
 hundred names and marks, but smeared, spot 
 ted, soiled, rubbed, and showing every awkward 
 shape of penmanship that a miscellaneous col 
 lection of half-educated persons could furnish. 
 No one, on looking at the photographic copy, 
 could doubt that it was a genuine reproduction 
 of a real list of signatures ; and when half a 
 dozen such copies, all just alike, were shown, 
 the conviction became a certainty that all had a 
 
276 DOINGS OF THE SUNBEAM. 
 
 common origin. This copy was made with a 
 Harrison s globe lens of sixteen inches focal 
 length, and was a very sharp and accurate du 
 plicate of the original. It is claimed for this 
 new American invention that it is " quite ahead 
 of anything European"; and the certificates 
 from the United States Coast-Survey Office go 
 far towards sustaining its pretensions. 
 
 Some of our readers are aware that photo 
 graphic operations are not confined to the delin 
 eation of material objects. There are certain 
 establishments in which, for an extra considera 
 tion (on account of the difficilis ascensus, or 
 other long journey they have to take), the 
 spirits of the departed appear in the same pic 
 ture which gives the surviving friends. The ac 
 tinic influence of a ghost on a sensitive plate is 
 not so strong as might be desired ; but consider 
 ing that spirits are so nearly immaterial, that the 
 stars, as Ossian tells us, can be seen through 
 their vaporous outlines, the effect is perhaps as 
 good as ought to be expected. 
 
 Mrs. Brown, for instance, has lost her infant, 
 and wishes to have its spirit-portrait taken with 
 
DOINGS OF THE SUNBEAM. 277 
 
 her own. A special sitting is granted, and a 
 special fee is paid. In due time the photograph 
 is ready, and sure enough, there is the misty 
 image of an infant in the background, or, it may 
 be, across the mother s lap. Whether the orig 
 inal of the image was a month Or a year old, 
 whether it belonged to Mrs. Brown or Mrs. 
 Jones or Mrs. Robinson, King Solomon, who 
 could point out so sagaciously the parentage of 
 unauthenticated babies, would be puzzled to 
 guess. But it is enough for the poor mother, 
 whose eyes are blinded with tears, that she sees 
 a print of drapery like an infant s dress, and a 
 rounded something, like a foggy dumpling, 
 which will stand for a face; she accepts the 
 spirit-portrait as a revelation from the world 
 of shadows. Those who have seen shapes in 
 the clouds, or remember Hamlet and Polonius, 
 or who have noticed how readily untaught eyes 
 see a portrait of parent, spouse, or child in 
 almost any daub intended for the same, will un 
 derstand how easily the weak people who resort 
 to these places are deluded. 
 
 There are various ways of producing the 
 
278 DOINGS OF THE SUNBEAM. 
 
 spirit-photographs. One of the easiest is this. 
 First procure a bereaved subject with a mind 
 " sensitized " by long immersion in credulity. 
 Find out the age, sex, and whatever else you 
 can, about his or her departed relative. Select 
 from your numerous negatives one that corre 
 sponds to the late lamented as nearly as may be. 
 Prepare a sensitive plate. Now place the nega 
 tive against it and hold it up close to your gas- 
 lamp, which may be turned up pretty high. In 
 this way you get a foggy copy of the negative 
 in one part of the sensitive plate, which you can 
 then place in the camera and take your flesh- 
 and-blood sitter s portrait upon it in the usual 
 way. An appropriate background for these 
 pictures is a view of the asylum for feeble 
 minded persons, the group of buildings at 
 Somerville, and possibly, if the penitentiary 
 could be introduced, the hint would be salu 
 tary. 
 
 The number of amateur artists in photogra 
 phy is continually increasing. The interest we 
 ourselves have taken in some results of photo 
 graphic art has brought us under a weight of 
 
DOINGS OF THE SUNBEAM. 279 
 
 obligation to many of them which we can hardly 
 expect to discharge. Some of the friends in 
 our immediate neighborhood have sent us pho 
 tographs of their own making, which, for clear 
 ness and purity of tone, compare favorably with 
 the best professional work. Among our more 
 distant correspondents there are two so widely 
 known to photographers that we need not hesi 
 tate to name them : Mr. Coleman Sellers of 
 Philadelphia and Mr. S. Wager Hull of New 
 York. Many beautiful specimens of photo 
 graphic art have been sent us by these gentle 
 men, among others, some exquisite views of 
 Sunnyside and of the scene of Ichabod Crane s 
 adventures. Mr. Hull has also furnished us 
 with a full account of the dry process, as fol 
 lowed by him, and from which he brings out 
 results hardly surpassed by any method. 
 
 A photographic intimacy between two per 
 sons who never saw each other s faces (that is, 
 in Nature s original positive, the principal use 
 of which, after all, is to furnish negatives from 
 which portraits may be taken) is a new form 
 of friendship. After an introduction by means 
 
280 DOINGS OF THE SUNBEAM. 
 
 of a few views of scenery or other impersonal 
 objects, with a letter or two of explanation, the 
 artist sends his own presentment, not in the stiff 
 shape of a purchased carte de visite, but as seen 
 in his own study or parlor, surrounded by the 
 domestic accidents which so add to the individ 
 uality of the student or the artist. You see 
 him at his desk or table with his books and 
 stereoscopes round him ; you notice the lamp by 
 which he reads, the objects lying about ; you 
 guess his condition, whether married or single ; 
 you divine his tastes, apart from that which he 
 has in common with yourself. By and by, as 
 he warms towards you, he sends you the pic 
 ture of what lies next to his heart, a lovely 
 boy, for instance, such as laughs upon us in the 
 delicious portrait on which we are now looking, 
 or an old homestead, fragrant with all the roses 
 of his dead summers, caught in one of Nature s 
 loving moments, with the sunshine gilding it 
 like the light of his own memory. And so these 
 shadows have made him, with his outer and 
 his inner life, a reality for you ; and but for his 
 voice, which you have never heard? you know 
 
DOINGS OF THE SUNBEAM. 281 
 
 him better than hundreds who call him by 
 name, as they meet him year after year, and 
 reckon him among their familiar acquaintances. 
 To all these friends of ours, those whom we 
 have named, and not less those whom we have 
 silently remembered, we send our grateful ac 
 knowledgments. They have never allowed the 
 interest we have long taken in the miraculous 
 art of photography to slacken. Though not 
 one of them may learn anything from this sim 
 ple account we have given, they will perhaps 
 allow that it has a certain value for less instruct 
 ed readers, in consequence of its numerous and 
 rich omissions of much which, however valua 
 ble, is not at first indispensable. 
 
THE HUMAN WHEEL, ITS SPOKES 
 AND FELLOES. 
 
 THE starting-point of this paper was a de 
 sire to call attention to certain remarkable 
 AMERICAN INVENTIONS, especially to one class, 
 of mechanical contrivances, which, at the pres 
 ent time, assumes a vast importance and inter- 
 
THE HUMAN WHEEL. 283 
 
 ests great multitudes. The limbs of our friends 
 and countrymen are a part of the melancholy 
 harvest which War is sweeping down with 
 Dahlgren s mowing-machine and the patent 
 reapers of Springfield and Hartford. The ad 
 mirable contrivances of an American inventor, 
 prized as they were in ordinary times, have 
 risen into the character of great national bless 
 ings since the necessity for them has become 
 so widely felt. While the weapons that have 
 gone from Mr. Colt s armories have been carry 
 ing death to friend and foe, the beneficent and 
 ingenious inventions of MR. PALMER have been 
 repairing the losses inflicted by the implements 
 of war. 
 
 The study of the artificial limbs which owe 
 their perfection to his skill and long-continued 
 labor has led us a little beyond its first object, 
 and finds its natural prelude in some remarks on 
 the natural limbs and their movements. Ac 
 cident directed our attention, while engaged 
 with this subject, to the efforts of another 
 ingenious American* to render the use of our 
 lower extremities easier by shaping their arti- 
 
284 . THE HUMAN WHEEL, 
 
 ficial coverings more in accordance with their 
 true form than is done by the empirical cord- 
 wainer, and thus Dr. Plumer must submit to 
 the coupling of some mention of his praiseworthy 
 efforts in the same pages with the striking 
 achievements of his more aspiring compatriot. 
 We should not tell the whole truth, if we did 
 not own that we have for a long time been lying 
 in wait for a chance to say something about the 
 mechanism of walking, because we thought we 
 could add something to what is known about it 
 from a new source, accessible only within the 
 last few years, and never, so far as we know, 
 employed for its elucidation, namely, the instan 
 taneous photograph. 
 
 The two accomplishments common to all man 
 kind are walking and talking. Simple as they 
 seem, they are yet acquired with vast labor, and 
 very rarely understood in any clear way by 
 those who practise them with perfect ease and 
 unconscious skill. 
 
 Talking seems the hardest to comprehend. 
 Yet it has been clearly explained and success- 
 
ITS SPOKES AND FELLOES. 285 
 
 fully imitated by artificial contrivances. "We 
 know that the moist membranous edges of a 
 narrow crevice (the glottis) vibrate as the reed 
 of a clarionet vibrates, and thus produce the 
 human Heat. We narrow or widen or check or 
 stop the flow of this sound by the lips, the 
 tongue, the teeth, and thus articulate, or break 
 into joints, the even current of sound. The 
 sound varies with the degree and kind of inter 
 ruption, as the "babble" of the brook with the 
 shape and size of its impediments, pebbles, or 
 rocks, or dams. To whisper is to articulate 
 without Heating, or vocalizing ; to coo as babies 
 do is to bleat or vocalize without articulating 
 
 O 
 
 Machines are easily made that bleat not unlike 
 human beings. A bit of India-rubber tube tied 
 round a piece of glass tube is one of the simplest 
 voice-uttering contrivances. To make a ma 
 chine that articulates is not so easy ; but we 
 remember Maelzel s wooden children, which 
 said, " Pa-pa " and " Ma-ma " ; and more elab 
 orate and successful speaking machines have, we 
 believe, been since constructed. 
 
 But no man has been able to make a figure 
 
286 THE HUMAN WHEEL, 
 
 that can walk. Of all the automata imitating 
 men or animals moving, there is not one in 
 which the legs are the true sources of motion. 
 So said the Webers * more than twenty years 
 ago, and it is as true now as then. These 
 authors, after a profound experimental and 
 mathematical investigation of the mechanism 
 of animal locomotion, recognize the fact that our 
 knowledge is not yet so far advanced that we 
 can hope to succeed in making real walking 
 machines. But they conceive that the time 
 may come hereafter when colossal figures will 
 be constructed whose giant strides will not be 
 arrested by the obstacles which are impassable 
 to wheeled conveyances. 
 
 We wish to give our readers as clear an idea" 
 as possible of that wonderful art of balanced 
 vertical progression which they have practised, 
 as M. Jourdain talked prose, for so many years, 
 without knowing what a marvellous accomplish 
 ment they had mastered. We shall have to 
 begin with a few simple anatomical data. 
 
 * Traits de la Mechanique de$ Organes de la Locomotion. 
 Translated from the German in the Encyclopedie Anatomique. 
 Paris, 1843. 
 
ITS SPOKES AND FELLOES. 287 
 
 The foot is arched both longitudinally and 
 transversely, so as to give it elasticity, and thus 
 break the sudden shock when the weight of the 
 body is thrown upon it. The ankle-joint is a 
 loose hinge, and the great muscles of the calf 
 can straighten the foot out so far that practised 
 dancers walk on the tips of their toes. The 
 knee is another hinge-joint, which allows the leg 
 to bend freely, but not to be carried beyond a 
 straight line in the other direction. Its further 
 forward movement is checked by two very pow 
 erful cords in the interior of the joint, which 
 cross each other like the letter X, and are hence 
 called the crucial ligaments. The upper ends of 
 the thigh-bones are almost globes, which are 
 received into the deep cup-like cavities of the 
 haunch-bones. They are tied to these last so 
 loosely, that, if their ligaments alone held them, 
 they would be half out of their sockets in many" 
 positions of the lower limbs. But here comes 
 in a simple and admirable contrivance. The 
 smooth, rounded head of the thigh-bone, moist 
 with glairy fluid, fits so perfectly into the smooth, 
 rounded cavity which receives it, that it holds 
 
288 THE HUMAN WHEEL, 
 
 firmly by suction, or atmospheric pressure. It 
 takes a hard pull to draw it out after all the lig 
 aments are cut, and then it comes with a smack 
 like a tight cork from a bottle. Holding in this 
 way by the close apposition of two polished sur 
 faces, the lower extremity swings freely forward 
 and backward like a pendulum, if we give it a 
 chance, as is shown by standing on a chair upon 
 the other limb, and moving the pendent one out 
 of the vertical line. The force with which it 
 swings depends upon its weight, and this is much 
 greater than we might at first suppose ; for our 
 limbs not only carry themselves, but our bodies 
 also, with a sense of lightness rather than of 
 weight, when we are in good condition. Acci 
 dent sometimes makes us aware how heavy our 
 limbs are. An officer, whose arm was shattered 
 by a ball in one of our late battles, told us that 
 the dead weight of the helpless member seemed 
 to drag him down to the earth ; he could hardly 
 carry it ; it " weighed a ton," to his feeling, as 
 he said. 
 
 In ordinary walking a man s lower extremity 
 swings essentially by its own weight, requiring 
 
ITS SPOKES AND FELLOES. 289 
 
 little muscular effort to help it. So heavy a 
 body easily overcomes all impediments from 
 clothing, even in the sex least favored in its cos 
 tume. But if a man s legs are pendulums, then 
 a short man s legs will swing quicker than a tall 
 man s, and he will take more steps to a minute, 
 other things being equal. Thus there is a nat 
 ural rhythm to a man s walk, depending on the 
 length of his legs, which beat more or less rap 
 idly as they are longer or shorter, like metro 
 nomes differently adjusted, or the pendulums of 
 different time-keepers. Commodore Nutt is to 
 M. Bihin in this respect as a little, fast-ticking 
 mantel-clock is to an old-fashioned, solemn- 
 clicking, upright time-piece. 
 
 The mathematical formula in which the 
 Messrs. Weber embody their results would 
 hardly be instructive to most of our readers. 
 The figures of their Atlas would serve our pur 
 pose better, had we not the means of coming 
 nearer to the truth than even their careful 
 studies enabled them to do. We have selected 
 a number of instantaneous stereoscopic views of 
 the streets and public places of Paris and of 
 
 13 8 
 
290 THE HUMAN WHEEL, 
 
 New York, each of them showing numerous 
 walking figures, among which some may be 
 found in every stage of the complex act we are 
 studying. Mr. Darley has had the kindness to 
 leave his higher tasks to transfer several of these 
 to our pages, so that the reader may be sure 
 that he looks upon an exact copy of real human 
 individuals in the act of walking. 
 
 Fig. 1. 
 
 The first subject is caught with his legs 
 stretched in a stride, the remarkable length of 
 
ITS SPOKES AND FELLOES. 291 
 
 which arrests our attention. The sole of the 
 right foot is almost vertical. By the action of 
 the muscles of the calf it has rolled off from the 
 ground like a portion of the tire of a wheel, the 
 heel rising first, and thus the body, already 
 advancing with all its acquired velocity, and 
 inclined forward, has been pushed along, and, 
 as it were, tipped over, so as to fall upon the 
 other foot, now ready to receive its weight. 
 
 Fig. 2. 
 
 In the second figure, the right leg. is bend 
 ing at the knee, so as to lift the foot from 
 
292 THE HUMAN WHEEL, 
 
 the ground, in order that it may swing for- 
 
 
 
 ward. 
 
 Fig. 3. 
 
 The next stage of movement is shown in the 
 left leg of Figure 3. This leg is seen suspend 
 ed in air, a little beyond the middle of the 
 arc through which it swings, and before it has 
 straightened itself, which it will presently do, as 
 shown in the next figure. 
 
 The foot has now swung forward, and tend 
 ing to swing back again, the limb being straight 
 ened, and the body tipped forward, the heel 
 
ITS SPOKES AND FELLOES. 293 
 
 strikes the ground. The angle which the sole 
 
 Fig. 4. 
 
 of the foot forms with the ground increases with 
 the length of the stride ; and as this last sur 
 prised us, so the extent of this angle astonishes 
 us in many of the figures, in this among the 
 rest. 
 
 The heel strikes the ground with great force, 
 as the wear of our boots and shoes in that part 
 shows us. But the projecting heel of the hu 
 man foot is the arm of a lever, having the ankle- 
 
294 THE HUMAN WHEEL, 
 
 joint as its fulcrum, and, as it strikes the ground, 
 brings the sole of the foot down flat upon it, as 
 shown in Figure 1. At the same time the 
 weight of the limb and body is thrown upon the 
 foot, by the joint effect of muscular action and 
 acquired velocity, and the other foot is now 
 ready to rise from the ground and repeat the 
 process we have traced in its fellow. 
 
 No artist would have dared to draw a walk 
 ing figure in attitudes like some of these. The 
 swinging limb is so much shortened that the toe 
 never by any accident scrapes the ground, if this 
 is tolerably even. In cases of partial paralysis, 
 the scraping of the toe, as the patient walks, is 
 one of the characteristic marks of imperfect 
 muscular action. 
 
 Walking, then, is a perpetual falling with a 
 perpetual self-recovery. It is a most complex, 
 violent, and perilous operation, which we divest 
 of its extreme danger only by continual practice 
 from a very early period of life. We find how 
 complex it is when we attempt to analyze it, 
 and we see that we never understood it thor 
 oughly until the time of the instantaneous pho- 
 
ITS SPOKES AND FELLOES. 295 
 
 tograph. We learn how violent it is, when we 
 walk against a post or a door in the dark. We 
 discover how dangerous it is, when we slip or 
 trip and come down, perhaps breaking or dislo 
 cating our limbs, or overlook the last step of a 
 flight of stairs, and discover with what headlong 
 violence we have been hurling ourselves for 
 ward. 
 
 Two curious facts are easily proved. First, 
 a man is shorter when he is walking than when 
 at rest. We have found a very simple way of 
 showing this by having a rod or yardstick placed 
 horizontally, so as to touch the top of the head 
 forcibly, as we stand under it. In walking rap 
 idly beneath it, even if the eyes are shut, to 
 avoid involuntary stooping, the top of the head 
 will not even graze the rod. The other fact is, 
 that one side of a man always tends to outwalk 
 the other, so that no person can walk far in a 
 straight line, if he is blindfolded. 
 
 The somewhat singular illustration at the 
 head of our article carries out an idea which 
 has only been partially alluded to by others. 
 Man is a wheel, with two spokes, his legs, and 
 
296 THE HUMAN WHEEL, 
 
 two fragments of a tire, his feet. He rolls suc 
 cessively on each of these fragments from the 
 heel to the toe. If he had spokes enough, he 
 would go round and round as the boys do when 
 they " make a wheel " with their four limbs for 
 its spokes. But having only two available for 
 ordinary locomotion, each of these has to be 
 taken up as soon as it has been used, and carried 
 forward to be used again, and so alternately with 
 the pair. The peculiarity of biped-walking is, 
 that the centre of gravity is shifted from one 
 leg to the other, and the one not employed can 
 shorten itself so as to swing forward, passing 
 by that which supports the body. 
 
 This is just what no automaton can do. Many 
 of our readers have, however, seen a young lady 
 in the shop windows, or entertained her in their 
 own nurseries, who professes to be this hitherto 
 impossible walking automaton, and who calls 
 herself by the Homeric-sounding epithet Auto- 
 peripatetikos. The golden-booted legs of this 
 young lady remind us of Miss Kilmansegg, 
 while the size of her feet assures us that she is 
 not in any way related to Cinderella. On be- 
 
ITS SPOKES AND FELLOES. 297 
 
 ing wound up, as if she were a piece of machin 
 ery, and placed on a level surface, she proceeds 
 to toddle off, taking very short steps, like a 
 child, holding herself very stiff and straight, with 
 a little lifting at each step, and all this with a 
 mighty inward whirring and buzzing of the en 
 ginery which constitutes her muscular system. 
 
 An autopsy of one of her family who fell 
 into our hands reveals the secret springs of her 
 action. Wishing to spare her as a member of 
 the defenceless sex, it pains us to say, that, in 
 genious as her counterfeit walking is, she is an 
 impostor. Worse than this, with all our rev 
 
 erence for her brazen crinoline, duty compels us 
 to reveal a fact concerning her which will shock 
 
 13* 
 
298 THE HUMAN WHEEL, 
 
 the feelings of those who have watched the state 
 ly rigidity of decorum with which she moves 
 in the presence of admiring multitudes. She is 
 a quadruped! Inside of her great golden boots, 
 which represent one pair of feet, is another 
 smaller pair, which move freely through these 
 hollow casings. 
 
 Four cams or eccentric wheels impart motion 
 to her four supports, by which she is carried 
 forward, always resting on two of them, the 
 boot of one side and the foot of the other. Her 
 movement, then, is not walking ; it is not skat 
 ing, which it seems to resemble; it is more 
 like that of a person walking with two crutches 
 besides his two legs. The machinery is simple 
 enough ; a strong spiral spring, three or four 
 cog-wheels and pinions, a fly to regulate the mo 
 tion, as in a musical box, and the cams before 
 mentioned. As a toy, it or she is very taking 
 to grown people as well as children. It is a lit! 
 eral fact, that the police requested one of our 
 dealers to remove Miss Autoperipatetikos from 
 his window, because the crowd she drew ob 
 structed the sidewalk. 
 
ITS SPOKES AND FELLOES. 299 
 
 We see by our analysis of the process, and by 
 the difficulty of imitating it, that walking is a 
 much more delicate, perilous, complicated opera 
 tion than we should suppose, and well worth 
 studying in a practical point of view, to see what 
 can be done to make it easier and safer. Two 
 Americans have applied themselves to this task : 
 one laboring for those who possess their lower 
 limbs and want to use them to advantage, the 
 other for such as have had the misfortune to 
 lose one or both of them. 
 
 Dr. J. C. Plumer, formerly of Portland, now 
 of Boston, has devoted himself to the study of 
 the foot, and to the construction of a last upon 
 which a boot or shoe can be moulded which 
 shall be adapted to its form and accommodated 
 to its action. 
 
 Most persons know something of the cruel 
 injustice to which the feet are subjected, and the 
 extraordinary distortions and diseases to which 
 they are liable in consequence. The foot s fin 
 gers are the slaves in the republic of the body. 
 Their black leathern integument is only the 
 mark of their servile condition. They bear the 
 
300 THE HUMAN WHEEL, 
 
 burdens, while the hands, their white masters, 
 handle the money and wear the rings. They 
 are crowded promiscuously in narrow prisons, 
 while each of the hand s fingers claims its sep 
 arate apartment, leading from the antechamber, 
 in the dainty glove. As a natural consequence 
 of all this, their faculties are cramped, they grow 
 into ignoble shapes, they become callous by long 
 abuse, and all their natural gifts are crushed and 
 trodden out of them. 
 
 Dr. Plumer is the Garrison of these op 
 pressed members of the body corporeal. He 
 comes to break their chains, to lift their bowed 
 figures, to strengthen their weakness, to restore 
 them to the dignity of digits. To do this, he 
 begins where every sensible man would, by con 
 templating the natural foot as it appears in in 
 fancy, unspoiled as yet by social corruptions, in 
 adults fortunate enough to have escaped these 
 destructive influences, and in the grim skeleton 
 aspect divested of its outward disguises. We 
 will give the reader two views of the latter 
 kind, illustrating the longitudinal and transverse 
 arches before spoken of. 
 
ITS SPOKES AND FELLOES. 301 
 
 A man who walks on natural surfaces, with 
 his feet unprotected by any artificial defences, 
 calls the action of these arches into full play at 
 every step. The longitudinal arch is the most 
 strikingly marked of the two. In some races 
 and in certain individuals it is much developed, 
 so as to give the high instep which is prized as 
 an evidence of good blood. The Arab says that 
 a stream of water can flow under his foot with 
 out touching its sole. Under the conditions 
 supposed, of a naked foot on a natural surface, 
 the arches of the foot will commonly maintain 
 their integrity, and give the noble savage or 
 barefooted Scotch lassie the elasticity of gait 
 which we admire in the children of Nature. 
 
 But as a large portion of mankind tread on 
 artificial hard surfaces, especially pavements, 
 
302 THE HUMAN WHEEL, 
 
 their feet are subjected to a very unnatural 
 amount of wear and tear. How great this is 
 the inhabitants of cities are apt to forget. After 
 passing some months in the country, we have 
 repeatedly found ourselves terribly lamed and 
 shaken by our first walk on the pavement. A 
 party of city-folk who landed on a beach upon 
 Cape Cod complained greatly to one of the 
 natives accompanying them of the difficulty of 
 walking through the deep sand. " Ah," he 
 answered, "it s nothing to the trouble I have 
 walking on your city sidewalks." To save the 
 feet from the effects of violent percussion and 
 uneven surfaces, they must be protected by 
 thick soles, and thick soles require strong upper- 
 leather. When the foot is wedged into one of 
 these casings, a new boot, a struggle begins be 
 tween them, which ends in a compromise. The 
 foot becomes more or less compressed or de 
 formed, and the boot more or less stretched 
 at the points where the counter-pressure takes 
 place. 
 
 On the part of the foot, the effects of this 
 warfare are liable to show themselves in thick- 
 
ITS SPOKES AXD FELLOES. 303 
 
 ening and inflammation of the integuments, in 
 displacement of the toes, and occasionally in the 
 breaking down of the transverse or longitudinal 
 arches. On the part of the boot or shoe, there 
 is a gradual accommodation which in time fits 
 it to the foot almost as if it had been moulded 
 upon it, so that a little before it is worn out it 
 is invaluable, like other blessings brightening 
 before they take their flight. 
 
 Now Dr. Plumer s improvements proceed 
 from two series of data. First, certain theo 
 retical inferences from the facts above named. 
 Finding the arches liable to break down, he 
 supports the transverse arch by making the in 
 ner surface of the sole corresponding to it con 
 vex instead of concave transversely ; he makes 
 the middle portion of the sole convex again in 
 both directions to support the longitudinal arch, 
 and for the same reason extends the heel of the 
 boot or shoe forward, so as to support the ante 
 rior portion of the heel of the foot. kSecond/y, 
 Dr. Plumer takes an old shoe that has done 
 good service, and studies the reliefs and hollows 
 which the foot has shaped on the inner surface 
 
304 THE HUMAN WHEEL, 
 
 of its sole. Comparing the empirical results of 
 this examination with those based on the ana 
 tomical data above given, and finding a general 
 coincidence in them, he constructs his last in 
 accordance with their joint teachings. Theo 
 retically, Dr. Plumer is on somewhat dangerous 
 ground. If the arches of the foot are made to 
 yield like elliptical springs, why support them ? 
 But we subject them to such unnatural condi 
 tions by pressure from above over the instep, by 
 adding high heels to our boots and shoes, by 
 taking away all yielding qualities from the soil 
 on which we tread, that very probably they 
 may want artificial support as much as the soles 
 of the feet want artificial protection. If, now, 
 we find that an old, easy shoe has worked the 
 inside surface of its sole into convexities which 
 support the arches, we are safe in imitating that, 
 at any rate. We shall have a new shoe with 
 some, at least, of the virtues of the old one. 
 
 This aU sounds very well, and the next ques 
 tion is, whether it works well. We cannot but 
 remember the coat made for Mr. Gulliver by 
 the Laputan tailors, which, though projected 
 
ITS SPOKES AND FELLOES. 305 
 
 from the most refined geometrical data and the 
 most profound calculations, he found to be the 
 worst fit he ever put on his back. We must 
 ask those who have eaten the pudding how it 
 tastes, and those who have worn the shoe how 
 it wears. We have no satisfactory experience 
 of our own, having only within a week or two, 
 by mere accident, stumbled into a pair of Plu- 
 merian boots, and being thus led to look into a 
 matter which seemed akin to the main subject 
 of this paper. But the author of "Views 
 Afoot," who ought to be a sovereign authority 
 on ah 1 that interests pedestrians, confirms from 
 his own experience the favorable opinions ex 
 pressed by several of our most eminent physi 
 cians, after an examination of the principles of 
 construction. We are informed that the Plumer 
 last has been recently adopted for the use of the 
 army. We add our own humble belief that Dr. 
 Plumer deserves well of mankind for applying 
 sound anatomical principles to the construction 
 of coverings for the feet, and for contriving a 
 last serving as a model for a boot or shoe which 
 is adapted to the form of the foot from the first, 
 
306 
 
 THE HUMAN WHEEL, 
 
 instead of having to be broken in by a painful 
 series of limping excursions, too often accompa 
 nied by impatient and even profane utterances. 
 ." 
 
 It is not two years since the sight of a person 
 who had lost one of his lower limbs was an in 
 frequent occurrence. Now, alas ! there are few 
 of us who have not a cripple among our friends, 
 if not in our own families. A mechanical art 
 which provided for an occasional and excep 
 tional want has become a great and active 
 branch of industry. War unmakes legs, and 
 human skill must supply their places as it best 
 may. 
 
 Our common idea of a wooden leg is realized 
 in the "peg" of the Greenwich pensioner. 
 This simple contrivance has done excellent 
 service in its time, and may serve a good pur 
 pose still in some cases. A plain working-man, 
 who has outlived his courting-days and need not 
 sacrifice much to personal appearance, may find 
 an honest, old fashioned wooden leg, cheap, last 
 ing, requiring no repairs, the best thing for his 
 purpose. In higher social positions, and at an 
 
ITS SPOKES AND FELLOES. 307 
 
 age when appearances are realities, in the condi 
 tion of the Marquis of Anglesea, for instance, it 
 becomes important to provide the cripple with a 
 limb which shall be presentable in polite society, 
 where misfortunes of a certain obtrusiveness 
 may be pitied, but are never tolerated under the 
 chandeliers. 
 
 The leg invented by Mr. Potts, and bearing 
 the name of the " Anglesea leg," was long 
 famous, and dotfbtless merited the reputation it 
 acquired as superior to its predecessors. But 
 legs cannot remain stationary while the march 
 of improvement goes on around them, and they, 
 too, have moved onward with the stride of 
 progress. 
 
 A boy of ten years old, living in a New 
 Hampshire village, had one of his legs crushed 
 so as to require amputation. The little fellow 
 was furnished with a " peg," and stumped 
 round upon it for ten years. We can imagine 
 what he suffered as he grew into adolescence 
 under the cross of this unsightly appendage. 
 He was of comely aspect, tall, well-shaped, with 
 well-marked, regular features. But just at the 
 
308 THE HUMAN WHEEL, 
 
 period when personal graces are most valued, 
 when a good presence is a blank check on the 
 Bank of Fortune, with Nature s signature at the 
 bottom, he found himself made hideous by this 
 fearful-looking counterfeit of a limb. It an 
 nounced him at the threshold he reached with 
 beating heart by a thump more energetic than 
 the palpitation in his breast. It identified him 
 as far as the eye of jealousy could see his moving 
 figure. The peg " became intolerable, and he 
 unstrapped it, and threw himself on the tender 
 mercies of the crutch. 
 
 But the crutch is at best an instrument of tor 
 ture. It presses upon a great bundle of nerves ; 
 it distorts the figure ; it stamps a character of 
 its own upon the whole organism ; it is even 
 accused of distempering the mind itself. 
 
 This young man, whose name was "B. FRANK. 
 PALMER," (the abbreviations probably implying 
 the name of a distinguished Boston philosopher 
 of the last century, whose visit to Philadelphia 
 is still remembered in that city,) set himself at 
 work to contrive a limb which should take the 
 place of the one he had lost, fulfilling its func- 
 
ITS SPOKES AND FELLOES. 309 
 
 tions and counterfeiting its aspect so far as possi 
 ble. The result was the " Palmer leg," one of 
 the most unquestionable triumphs of American 
 ingenuity. Its victorious march has been un 
 impeded by any serious obstacle since it first 
 stepped into public notice. The inventor was 
 introduced by the late Dr. John C. Warren, in 
 1846, to the Massachusetts General Hospital, 
 which institution he has for many years supplied 
 with his artificial limbs. He received medals 
 from the American Institute, the Massachusetts 
 Charitable Association, and the Great Exhibi 
 tion in New York, and obtained an honorary 
 mention from the Royal Commissioners of the 
 World s Exhibition in London, being the only 
 maker of legs so distinguished. These are only 
 a few of fifty honorary awards he has received 
 at various times. The famous surgeons of Lon 
 don, the Societe de Chirurgie of Paris, and 
 the most celebrated practitioners of the United 
 States have given him their hearty recommen 
 dations. So lately as last August, that shrewd 
 and skilful surgeon, Dr. Henry J. Bigelow, who 
 is as cautious in handling his epithets as he is 
 
810 THE HUMAN WHEEL, 
 
 bold in using the implements of his art, strongly 
 advised Surgeon-General Hammond to adopt 
 the Palmer leg, which, after a dozen years ex 
 perience, he had found none to equal. We see 
 it announced that the Board- of Surgeons ap 
 pointed by the Surgeon-General to select the 
 best arm and leg to be procured by the Govern 
 ment for its crippled soldiers, chose that of Mr. 
 Palmer, and that Dr. Hammond approved their 
 selection. 
 
 We have thought it proper to show that Mr. 
 Palmer s invention did not stand in need of our 
 commendation. Its merits, as we have seen, are 
 conceded by the tribunals best fitted to judge, 
 and we are therefore justified in selecting it as 
 an illustration of American mechanical skill. 
 
 We give three views of the Palmer leg : an 
 inside view when extended, a second when 
 flexed, a third as it appears externally. 
 
 The Committee on Science and the Arts of 
 the Franklin Institute of Pennsylvania thus 
 stated the peculiarities of Mr. Palmer s inven 
 tion : 
 
 " First. An ingenious arrangement of springs 
 
ITS SPOKES AND FELLOES. 311 
 
312 THE HUMAN WHEEL, 
 
 and cords in the inside of the limb, by which, 
 when the wearer is in the erect position, the 
 limb is extended, and the foot flexed so as to 
 present a natural appearance. 
 
 " Second. By a second arrangement of cords 
 and springs in the inside of the limb, the foot 
 and toes are gradually and easily extended, when 
 the heel is placed in contact with the ground. 
 In consequence of this arrangement, the limping 
 gait, and the unpleasant noise made by the sud 
 den stroke of the ball of the foot upon the 
 ground in walking, which are so obvious in the 
 ordinary leg, are avoided. 
 
 " Third. By a peculiar arrangement of the 
 knee-joint, it is rendered little liable to wear, 
 and all lateral or rotary motion is avoided. It 
 is hardly necessary to remark that any such 
 motion is undesirable in an artificial leg, as it 
 renders its support unstable." 
 
 Before reporting some of the facts which we 
 have seen, or learned by personal inquiry, we 
 must be allowed, for the sake of convenience, to 
 exercise the privilege granted to all philosoph 
 ical students, of enlarging the nomenclature 
 
ITS SPOKES AND FELLOES. 313 
 
 applicable to the subject of which we are treat 
 ing. 
 
 Man, according to the Sphinx, is successively 
 a quadruped, a biped, and a triped. But circum 
 stances may change his natural conditions. If 
 he loses a leg, he becomes a uniped. If he loses 
 both his legs, he becomes a nulliped. If art re 
 places the loss of one limb with a factitious sub 
 stitute, he becomes a ligniped, or, if we wish to 
 be very precise, a uniligniped ; two wooden legs 
 entitle him to be called a Uligniped. Our termi 
 nology being accepted, we are ready to proceed. 
 
 To make ourselves more familiar with the 
 working of the invention we are considering, 
 we have visited Mr. Palmer s establishments in 
 Philadelphia and Boston. The distinguished 
 " Surgeon-Artist " is a man of fine person, as we 
 have said. But if he has any personal vanity, 
 it does not betray itself with regard to that por 
 tion of his organism which Nature furnished him. 
 There is some reason to think that Mr. Palmer 
 is a little ashamed of the lower limb which he 
 brought into the world with him. At least, if 
 lie follows the common rule and puts that which 
 
 14 
 
314 THE HUMAN WHEEL, 
 
 he considers his best foot foremost, he evidently 
 awards the preference to that which was born 
 of his brain over the one which he owes to his 
 mother. He walks as well as many do who 
 have their natural limbs, though not so well as 
 some of his own patients. He puts his vegeta 
 ble leg through many of the movements which 
 would seem to demand the contractile animal 
 fibre. He goes up and down stairs with very 
 tolerable ease and despatch. Only when lie 
 comes to stand upon the human limb, we begin 
 to find that it is not in all respects equal to the 
 divine one. For a certain number of seconds he 
 can poise himself upon it ; but Mr. Palmer, if 
 he indulges in verse, would hardly fill the Ho- 
 ratian complement of lines in that attitude. In 
 his anteroom were unipeds in different stages of 
 their second learning to walk, as lignipeds. At 
 first they move with a good deal of awkward 
 ness, but gradually the wooden limb seems to 
 become, as it were, penetrated by the nerves, 
 and the intelligence to run downwards, until it 
 reaches the last joint of the member. 
 
 Mr. Palmer, as we have incidentally men- 
 
ITS SPOKES AND FELLOES. 315 
 
 tioncd, has a branch establishment in Boston, 
 to which also we have paid a visit, in order to 
 learn some of the details of the manufacture to 
 which we had not attended in our pleasant in 
 terview with the inventor. The antechamber 
 here, too, was the nursery of immature lio-ni- 
 peds, ready to exhibit their growing accomplish 
 ments to the inquiring stranger. It almost 
 seems as if the artificial leg were the scholar, 
 rather than the person who wears it. The man 
 does well enough, but the leg is stupid until 
 practice has taught it just what is expected from 
 its various parts. 
 
 The polite Boston partner, who, if he were 
 in want of a customer, would almost persuade 
 a man with two good legs to provide himself 
 with a third, carried us to the back part of the 
 building, where legs are organized. 
 
 The willow, which furnishes the charcoal for 
 the gunpowder that blows off limbs, is the wood 
 chosen to supply the loss it has helped to oc 
 casion. It is light, strong, does not warp or 
 " check " so much as many other woods, and is, 
 as the workmen say, healthy, that is, not irri- 
 
316 THE HUMAN WHEEL, 
 
 tating to the parts with which it is in contact. 
 Whether the salicine it may contain enters the 
 pores, and invigorates the system, may be a 
 question for those who remember the drugs in 
 the Sultan s bat-handle and the remarkable cure 
 they wrought. This wood is kept in a dry- 
 house with as much care as that intended for 
 the manufacture of pianos. It is thoroughly 
 steamed also, before using. 
 
 The wood comes in rudely shaped blocks, as 
 lasts are sent to the factory, seeming to have 
 been coarsejy hewed out of the log. The shap 
 ing, as we found to our surprise, is all done by 
 hand. We had expected to see great lathes, 
 worked by steam-power, taking in a rough stick 
 and turning out a finished limb. But it is 
 shaped very much as a sculptor finishes his 
 marble, with an eye to artistic effect, not so 
 much in the view of the stranger, who does not 
 look upon its naked loveliness, as in that of 
 the wearer, who is seduced by its harmonious 
 outlines into its purchase, and solaced with the 
 consciousness that he carries so much beauty 
 and symmetry about with him. The hollowing- 
 
ITS SPOKES AND FELLOES. 317 
 
 out of the interior is done by wicked-looking 
 blades and scoops at the end of long stems, sug 
 gesting the thought of dentists instruments as 
 they might have been in the days of the giants. 
 The joints are most carefully made, more par 
 ticularly at the knee, where a strong bolt of 
 steel passes through the solid wood. Windows, 
 oblong openings, are left in the sides of the limb, 
 to insure a good supply of air to the extremity 
 of the mutilated limb. Many persons are not 
 aware that all parts of the surface breathe, just as 
 the lungs breathe, exhaling carbonic acid as well 
 as water, and taking in more or less oxygen. 
 
 One of the workmen, a pleasant-looking 
 young fellow, was himself, we were told, a 
 ligniped. We begged him to give us a speci 
 men of his walking. He arose and walked 
 rather slowly across the room and back. " Once 
 more," we said, not feeling quite sure which 
 was Nature s leg and which Mr. Palmer s. So 
 he walked up and down the room again, until 
 we had satisfied ourselves which was the leg of 
 willow and which that of flesh and bone. It is 
 not, perhaps, to the credit of our eyes or observ- 
 
318 THE HUMAN WHEEL, 
 
 ing powers, but it is a fact, that we deliberately 
 selected the wrong leg. No victim of the thim 
 ble-rigger s trickery was ever more completely 
 taken in than we were by the contrivance of the 
 ingenious Surgeon- Artist. 
 
 Our freely expressed admiration led to the 
 telling of wonderful stories about the doings of 
 persons with artificial legs. One individual was 
 mentioned who skated particularly well ; another 
 who danced with zeal and perseverance ; and a 
 third who must needs swim in his leg, which 
 brought on a dropsical affection of the limb, 
 to which kind of complaint the willow has, 
 of course, a constitutional tendency, and for 
 which it had to come to the infirmary where 
 the diseases that wood is heir to are treated. 
 
 But the most wonderful monuments of the 
 great restorer s skill are the patients who have 
 lost both legs, nullipeds, as presented to Mr. 
 Palmer, Ulignipeds, as they walk forth again 
 before the admiring world, balanced upon their 
 two new-born members. We have before us 
 delineations of six of these hybrids between the 
 animal and vegetable world. One of them was 
 
ITS SPOKES AND FELLOES. 319 
 
 employed at a railway station near this (Atlan 
 tic) city, where he was often seen by a member 
 of our own household, whose testimony we are 
 in the habit of considering superior in veracity 
 to the naked truth as commonly delivered. He 
 walked about, we are assured, a little slowly 
 and stiffly, but in a way that hardly attracted 
 attention. 
 
 The inventor of the leg has not been con 
 tented to stop there. He has worked for years 
 upon the construction of an artificial arm, and 
 has at length succeeded in arranging a mechan 
 ism, which, if it cannot serve 3, pianist or violin 
 ist, is yet equal to holding the reins in driving, 
 receiving fees for professional services^ and simi 
 lar ea^y labors. Where Mr. Palmer means to 
 stop in supplying bodily losses it would be pre 
 mature to say. We suppose the accidents hap 
 pening occasionally from the use of the guillo 
 tine are beyond his skill, and spare our readers 
 the lively remark suggested by the contrary 
 hypothesis. 
 
 It is one of the signs of our advancing Amer- 
 
320 THE HUMAN WHEEL, 
 
 lean civilization, that the arts which preserve 
 and restore the personal advantages necessary 
 or favorable to cultivated social life should have 
 reached such perfection among us. American 
 dentists have achieved a reputation which has 
 sent them into the palaces of Europe to open 
 the mouths of sovereigns and princes as freely 
 as the jockeys look into those of horses and 
 colts. Bad teeth, too common among us, help 
 to hreed good dentists, 110 doubt ; but besides 
 this there is an absolute demand for a certain 
 comeliness of person throughout all the decent 
 classes of our society. It is the same standard 
 of propriety in appearances which lays us open 
 to the reproach of caring too much for dress. 
 If the national ear for music is not so acute as 
 that of some other peoples, the national eye for 
 the harmonies of form and color is better than 
 we often find in older communities. We have 
 a right to claim that our sculptors and painters 
 prove so much as this for us. American taste 
 was offended, outraged, by the odious " peg " 
 which the Old- World soldier or beggar was 
 proud to show. We owe the well-shaped, 
 
ITS SPOKES AND FELLOES. 321 
 
 intelligent, docile limb, the half-reasoning willow 
 of Mr. Palmer, to the same sense of beauty and 
 fitness which moulded the soft outlines of the 
 Indian Girl and the White Captive in the stu 
 dio of his namesake at Albany. 
 
 As we wean ourselves from the Old World, 
 and become more and more nationalized in our 
 great struggle for existence as a free people, we 
 shall carry this aptness for the -production of 
 beautiful forms more and more into common 
 life, which demands first what is necessary and 
 then what is pleasing. It is but a step from 
 the painter s canvas to the weaver s loom, and 
 the pictures which are leaving the easel to-day 
 will show themselves in the patterns that sweep 
 the untidy sidewalks to-morrow. The same 
 plastic power which is showing itself in the tri 
 umphs of American sculpture will reach the 
 forms of our household utensils. The beans 
 of Beverly shall yet be baked in vases that 
 Etruria might have envied, and the clay pipe 
 of the Americanized Milesian shall be a thing 
 of beauty as well as a joy forever. We are al 
 ready pushing the plastic arts farther than many 
 u* u 
 
322 THE HUMAN WHEEL, 
 
 persons have suspected. There is a small town 
 not far from us where a million dollars worth 
 of gold is annually beaten into ornaments for 
 the breasts, the fingers, the ears, the necks of 
 women. Many a lady supposes she is buying 
 Parisian adornments, when AttleborougTi could 
 say to her proudly, like Cornelia, " These are 
 my jewels." The workmen of this little town 
 not only meet the tastes of the less fastidious 
 classes, to whom all that glisters is gold, but 
 they shape the purest metal into artistic and 
 effective patterns. When the Koh-i-noor 
 the Mountain of Light was to be fashioned, 
 it was found to be almost as formidable a task 
 as that of Xerxes, when he undertook to 
 hew Mount Athos to the shape of man. The 
 great crystal was sent to Holland, as the only 
 place where it could be properly cut. We 
 have lately seen a brilliant which, if not a 
 mountain, of light, was yet a very respectable 
 mound of radiance, valued at some ten or 
 twelve thousand dollars, cut in this virgin set 
 tlement, and exposed in one of our shop-win 
 dows to tempt our frugal villagers. 
 
ITS SPOKES AND FELLOES. 323 
 
 Monsieur Trousseau, Professor in the Medi 
 cal School of Paris, delivered a discursive lec 
 ture not long ago, in which he soared from the 
 region of drugs, his well-known special province, 
 into the thin atmosphere of aesthetics. It is the 
 influence that surrounds his fortunate fellow-cit- 
 zens, he declares, which alone preserves their 
 intellectual supremacy. If a Parisian milliner, 
 he says, remove to New York, she will so 
 degenerate in the course of a couple of years 
 that the squaw of a Choctaw chief would be 
 ashamed to wear one of her bonnets. 
 
 Listen, O Parisian cockney, pecking among 
 the brood most plethoric with conceit, of all the 
 coop-fed citizens who tread the pavements of 
 earth s many-chimneyed towns ! America has 
 made implements of husbandry which out-mow 
 and out-reap the world. She has contrived 
 man-slaying engines which kill people faster 
 than any^ others. She has modelled the wave- 
 slicing clipper, which outsails all your argosies 
 and armadas. She has revolutionized naval 
 warfare once by the steamboat. She has revo 
 lutionized it a second time by planting towers 
 
324 THE HUMAN WHEEL, 
 
 of iron on the elephantine backs of the waves. 
 She has invented the sewing-machine to save 
 the dainty fingers of your virtuous grisettes from 
 uncongenial toil, so that Fifine and Fr&illon. 
 may have more leisure for self-development. 
 She has taught you a whole new system of 
 labor in her machinery for making watches and 
 rifles. She has bestowed upon you and all the 
 world an anodyne which enables you to cut arms 
 and legs off without hurting the patient ; and 
 when his leg is off, she has given you a true 
 artist s limb for your cripple to walk upon, in 
 stead of the peg on which he has stumped from 
 the days of Guy de Chauliac to those of M. 
 Nekton. She has been contriving well-shaped 
 boots and shoes for the very people who, if 
 they were your countrymen, would be clumping 
 about in wooden sabots. In works of scientific 
 industry, hardly to be looked for among so new 
 a people, she has distanced your best, artificers. 
 The microscopes made at Canastota, in the back 
 woods of New York, look in vain for their rivals 
 in Paris, and must challenge the best workman 
 ship of London before they can be approached in 
 
SPOKES AND FELLOES. 325 
 
 excellence. The great eye that stares into the 
 celestial spaces from its workshop in Cambridge 
 dives deeper through their clouds of silvery dust 
 than any instrument mounted in your observa 
 tory in face of the Luxembourg. Our arti 
 sans produce no Gobelin tapestries or Sevres 
 porcelain as yet ; but when your mobs have loot 
 ed the Tuileries, our shopkeepers have bought 
 up enough specimens to serve them as patterns 
 by and by. 
 
 All this is something for a nation which has 
 hardly pulled up the stumps out of its city mar 
 ket-places. It is sad to reflect that milliners, 
 like Burgundy, are spoiled by transportation to 
 the head-quarters of American fashion. But 
 as the best bonnet of the Empress s own artist 
 would be exploded with yells a couple of seasons 
 after the time when i^ was the rage, the Icarian 
 professor s flight into the regions of rhetoric has 
 not led him to any very logical resting-place 
 from which he can look down on the aesthetic 
 possibilities of New York or other Western cities 
 emerging from the semi-barbarous state. 
 
 We are not proud, of course, of any of the 
 
326 THE HUMAN WHEEL, 
 
 * 
 mechanical triumphs we have won ; they are 
 
 well enough, and show to borrow the words 
 
 O 
 
 of a distinguished American, whom, during his 
 too brief career, we held unrivalled by any ex 
 perimenter in the Old World for the depth as 
 well as the daring of his investigations that 
 some things can be done as well as others. 
 
 Our specialty is of somewhat larger scope. 
 We profess to make men and women out of 
 human beings better than any of the joint-stock 
 companies called dynasties have done or can do 
 it. We profess to make citizens out of men, 
 not dtoyens, but persons educated to question all 
 privileges asserted by others, and claim all rights 
 belonging to themselves, the only way in 
 which the infinitely most important party to the 
 compact between the governed and governing can 
 avoid being cheated out of f the best rights inhe 
 rent in human nature, as an experience the world 
 has seen almost enough of has proved. We are 
 in trouble just now, on account of a neglected 
 hereditary melanosis, as Monsieur Trousseau 
 might call it. When we recover from the social 
 and political convulsion it has produced, and 
 
ITS SPOKES AND FELLOES. 327 
 
 eliminate the materies morbi, and both theso 
 events are only matters of time, perhaps we 
 shall have leisure to* breed our own milliners. 
 If not, there will probably be refugees enough 
 from the Old World, who have learned the 
 fashions in courts, and will be glad to turn their 
 knowledge to a profitable use for the benefit of 
 their republican patronesses in New York and 
 Boston. 
 
 We have run away from our subject farther 
 than we meant at starting ; but an essay on 
 legs could hardly avoid the rambling tendency 
 which naturally belongs to these organs. 
 
A VISIT TO THE AUTOCRAT S 
 LANDLADY. 
 
 BY THE SPECIAL REPORTER OF THE " OCEANIC MISCELLANY." 
 
 THE door was opened by a stout, red-armed 
 lump of a woman, who, in reply to my 
 question, said her name was Bridget, but Biddy 
 they calls her mostly. There was a rickety hat- 
 stand in the entry, upon which, by the side of a 
 school-boy s cap, there hung a broad-brimmed 
 white hat, somewhat fatigued by use, but looking 
 gentle and kindly, as I have often noticed good 
 old gentlemen s hats do, after they have worn 
 them for a time. The door of the dining-room 
 was standing wide open, and I went in. A 
 long table, covered with an oil-cloth, ran up and 
 down the length of the room, and yellow wooden 
 chairs were ranged about it. She showed me 
 where the Gentleman used to sit, and, at the 
 
THE AUTOCRATS LANDLADY. 329 
 
 last part of the time, the Schoolmistress next to 
 him. Their chairs were like the rest, but it was 
 odd enough to notice that they stood close to 
 gether, touching each other, while all the rest 
 were straggling and separate. I observed that 
 peculiar atmospheric flavor which has been de 
 scribed by Mr. Balzac (the French story-teller 
 who borrows so many things from some of our 
 American leading writers), under the name of 
 odeur de pension. It is, as one may say, an 
 olfactory perspective of an endless vista of de 
 parted breakfasts, dinners, and suppers. It is 
 similar, if not identical, in all temperate climates ; 
 a kind of neutral tint, which forms the perpetual 
 background upon which the banquet of to-day 
 strikes out its keener but more transitory aroma. 
 I don t think it necessary to go into any further 
 particulars, because this atmospheric character 
 has the effect of making the dining-rooms of all 
 boarding-houses seem very much alike ; and the 
 accident of a hair-cloth sofa, cold, shiny, slip 
 pery, prickly, or a veneered sideboard, with 
 a scale off here and there, and a knob or two 
 missing, or a portrait, with one hand half 
 
330 A VISIT TO THE 
 
 under its coat, the other resting on a pious-look 
 ing book, these accidents, and such as these, 
 make no great difference. 
 
 The landlady soon presented herself, and I 
 followed her into the parlor, which was a decent 
 apartment, with a smart centre-table, on which 
 lay an accordion, a recent number of the " Pac- 
 tolian," a gilt-edged, illustrated book or two, and 
 a copy of the works of that distinguished native 
 author, to whom I feel very spiteful, on account 
 of his having, some years ago, attacked a near 
 friend of mine, and whom, on Christian prin 
 ciples, I do not mention, though I have 
 noticed, that, where there is an accordion on 
 the table, his books are apt to be lying near it. 
 
 The landlady was a "wilted" (not exactly 
 withered), sad-eyed woman, of the thin-blooded 
 sort, but firm-fibred, and sharpened and made 
 shrewd by her calling, so that the look with 
 which she ran me over, in the light of a possible 
 boarder, was so searching, that I was half put 
 down by it. I informed her of my errand, 
 which was to make some inquiries concerning 
 two former boarders of hers, in whom a portion 
 
AUTOCRATS LANDLADY. 331 
 
 of the public had expressed some interest, and 
 of whom I should be glad to know certain per 
 sonal details, as to their habits, appearance, 
 and so on. Any information she might furnish 
 would be looked upon in the light of a literary 
 contribution to the pages of the " Oceanic Mis 
 cellany," and be compensated with the well- 
 known liberality of the publishers of that spir 
 ited, enterprising, and very popular periodical. 
 
 Up to this point, the landlady s countenance 
 had kept that worried, watchful look, which 
 poor women, who have to fight the world single- 
 handed, sooner or later grow into. But now 
 her features relaxed a little. The blow which 
 had crushed her life had shattered her smile, 
 and, as the web of shivered expression shot off 
 its rays across her features, I fancied that Grief 
 had written her face all over with Ws, to mark 
 her as one of his forlorn flock of Widows. 
 
 The report here given is partly from the con 
 versation held with the landlady at that time, 
 and partly from written notes which she fur 
 nished me ; for, finding that she was to be a 
 contributor to the " Oceanic Miscellany," and 
 
332 A VISIT TO THE 
 
 that in that capacity she would be entitled to 
 the ample compensation offered by the liberal 
 proprietors of that admirably conducted peri 
 odical, which we are pleased to learn has 
 been growing in general favor, and which, the 
 public may be assured, no pains will be spared 
 to render superior in every respect, I say, 
 finding that she was to be handsomely remu 
 nerated, she entered into the subject with great 
 zeal, both verbally and by letter. The reader 
 will see that I sometimes follow her orthog 
 raphy, and sometimes her pronunciation, as I 
 may have taken it from writing or from speech. 
 
 THE LANDLADY S ACCOUNT. 
 
 There is two vacant places at my table, 
 which I should be pleased to fill with two gen 
 tlemen, or with a gentleman and his wife, or 
 any respectable people, be they merried or 
 single. It is about the gentleman and the lady 
 that used to set in them places, that inquiries is 
 bein made. Some has wrote, and some has 
 spoke, and a good many folks, that was unbe 
 known to me, has come in and wanted to see 
 
-AUTOCRATS LANDLADY. 333 
 
 the place where they used to set, and some 
 days it s been nothin but ring, ring, ring, from 
 mornin till night. 
 
 Folks will be curious about them that has 
 wrote in the papers. There s my daughter 
 could n t be easy no way till she d got a pro- 
 feel of one of them authors, to hang up right 
 over the head of her bed. That s the gentle 
 man that writes stories in the papers, some in 
 the same way this gentleman did, I expect, that 
 inquiries is made about. 
 
 I m a poor woman, that tries to get an honest 
 livin , and works hard enough for it ; lost 
 my husband, and buried five children, and have 
 two livin ones to support. It s a great loss to 
 me, losin them two boarders ; and if there s 
 anything in them papers he left in that desk 
 that will fetch anything at any of the shops 
 where they buy such things, I m sure I wish 
 you d ask the printer to step round here, and 
 stop in and see what any of em is worth. 
 I 11 let you have one or two of em, and then 
 you can see whether you don t know anybody 
 that would take the lot. I suppose you 11 put 
 
334 A VISIT TO THE 
 
 what I tell you into shape, for, like as not, I 
 sha n t write it out nor talk jest as folks that 
 make books do. 
 
 This gentleman warn t no great of a gentle 
 man to look at. Being of a very moderate 
 dimension, five foot five he said, but five foot 
 four more likely, and I Ve heerd him say he 
 did n t weigh much over a hundred and twenty 
 pound. He was light-complected rather than 
 darksome, and was one of them smooth-faced 
 people that keep their baird and wiskers cut 
 close, jest as if they d be very troublesome 
 if they let em grow, instead of layin out 
 their face in grass, as my poor husband that s 
 dead and gone used to say. He was a well- 
 behaved gentleman at table, only talked a good 
 deal, and pretty loud sometimes, and had a way 
 of turnin up his nose when he did n t like what 
 folks said, that one of my boarders, who is a 
 very smart young man, said he could n t stand, 
 no how, and used to make faces and poke fun 
 at him whenever he see him do it. 
 
 He never said a word aginst any vittles that 
 was set before him, but I mistrusted that he was 
 
AUTOCRATS LANDLADY. 335 
 
 more partickerlar in his catin than he wanted 
 folks to know of, for I ve knowed him make 
 believe to eat, and leave the vittles on his plate 
 when he did n t seem to fancy em ; but he was 
 very careful never to hurt my feelin s, and I 
 don t belief he d have spoke, if he had found 
 a tadpole in a dish of chowder. But nothin 
 could hurry him when he was about his vittles. 
 Many s the time I Ve seen that gentleman keep- 
 in two or three of em settin round the break 
 fast-table after the rest had swallered their meal, 
 and the things was cleared off, and Bridget was 
 a-waitin to get the cloth away, and there that 
 little man would set with a tumbler of sugar and 
 
 water, what he used to call O Sukray, a- 
 
 talkin and a-talkin , and sometimes he would 
 laugh, and sometimes the tears would come into 
 his eyes, which was a kind of grayish blue 
 eves and there he d set and set, and my boy 
 Benjamin Franklin hangin round and gettin 
 late for school and wantin an excuse, and an 
 old gentleman that s one of my boarders, a- 
 listenin as if he wa n t no older than my Ben. 
 Franklin, and that schoolmistress settin jest as 
 
336 A VISIT TO THE 
 
 if she d been bewitched, and you might stick 
 pins into her without her hollerin . He was a 
 master hand to talk when he got a-goin . But 
 he never would have no disputes nor long arger- 
 ments at my table, and I liked him all the better 
 for that ; for I had a boarder once that never 
 let nothin go by without disputin of it, till 
 nobody knowed what he believed and what he 
 did n t believe, only they was pretty sure he 
 did n t believe the side he was a-disputin for, 
 and some of em said, that, if you wanted him 
 to go any partickerlar way, you must do with 
 him just as folks do that drive well, them 
 obstinate creeturs that squeal so, for I don t 
 like to name such creeturs in connexion with 
 a gentleman that paid his board regular, and 
 was a very smart man, and knowed a great deal, 
 only his knowledge all laid crosswise, as one of 
 em used to say, after t other one had shet him 
 up till his mouth wa n t of no more use to him 
 than if it had been a hole in the back of his 
 head. This wa n t no sech gentleman. One 
 of my boarders used to say that he always said 
 exactly what he was a mind to, and stuck his 
 
AUTOCRATS LANDLADY. 337 
 
 idees out jest like them that sells pears outside 
 their shop-winders, some is three cents, some 
 is two cents, and some is only one cent, and if 
 you don t like, you need n t buy, but them s 
 the articles and them s the prices, and if you 
 want ein, take em, and if you don t, go about 
 your business, and don t stand mellerin of em 
 with your thumbs all day till you ve sp ilt em 
 for other folks. 
 
 He was a man that loved to stick round home 
 as .much as any cat you ever see in your life. 
 He used to say he d as lief have a tooth pulled 
 as go away anywheres. Always got sick, he 
 said, when he went away, and never sick when 
 he did n t. Pretty nigh killed himself goin 
 about lecterin two or three winters, talkin 
 in cold country lyceums, as he used to say, 
 goin home to cold parlors and bein treated to 
 cold apples and cold water, and then goin up 
 into a cold bed in a cold chamber, and comin 
 home next mornin with a cold in his head as 
 bad as the horse-distemper. Then he d look 
 kind of sorry for havin said it, and tell how 
 kind some of the good women was to him, 
 
 15 V 
 
338 A VISIT TO THE 
 
 how one spread an edder-down comforter for 
 him, and another fixed up somethin hot for him 
 after the lecter, and another one said, " There 
 now, you smoke that cigar of yours after the 
 lecter, jest as if you was at home," and if 
 they d all been like that, he d have gone on 
 lectering forever, but, as it was, he had got pooty 
 nigh enough of it, and preferred a nateral death 
 to puttin himself out of the world by such vio 
 lent means as lecterin . 
 
 He used to say that he was always good com 
 pany enough, if he was n t froze to death, and 
 if he was n t pinned in a corner so t he could n t 
 clear out when he d got as much as he wanted. 
 But he was a dreadful uneven creetur in his 
 talk, and I ve heerd a smart young man that s 
 one of my boarders say, he believed he had a 
 lid to the top of his head, and took his brains 
 out and left em up stairs sometimes when he 
 come down in the mornin . About his ways, 
 he was spry and quick and impatient, and, ex 
 cept in a good company, he used to say, 
 where he could get away at any minute, he 
 didn t like to set still very long to once, but 
 
AUTOCRAT S LANDLADY. 339 
 
 wanted to be off walkin or rowin round in one 
 of them queer boats of his, and he was the solita- 
 riest creetur in his goin s about (except when 
 he could get that schoolmistress to trail round 
 with him) that ever you see in your life. He 
 used to say that usin two eyes and two legs at 
 once, and keepin one tongue a-goin , too, was 
 too sharp practice /or him ; so he had a way of 
 dodgin round all sorts of odd streets, I ve 
 heerd say, where he would n t meet people that 
 would stick to him. 
 
 It did n t take much to please him. Some 
 times it would be a big book he d lug home, and 
 sometimes it would be a mikerscope, and some 
 times it would be a dreadful old-lookin fiddle 
 that he d picked up somewhere, and kept a- 
 screechin on, sayin all the while that it was 
 jest as smooth as a flute. Then ag in I d hear 
 him laughin out all alone, and I d go up and 
 find him readin some verses that he d been 
 makin . But jest as like as not I d go in 
 another time, and find him cryin , but he d 
 wipe his eyes and try not to show it, and it 
 was all nothin but some more verses he d been 
 
340 A VISIT TO THE 
 
 a-writin . I ve heerd him say that it was put 
 down in one of them ancient books, that a man 
 must cry himself, if he wants to make other 
 folks cry ; but, says he, you can t make em 
 neither laugh nor cry, if you don t try on them 
 feelin s yourself before you send your work to 
 the customers. 
 
 He was a temperate man, and always encour 
 aged temperance by drinkin jest wjiat he was a 
 mind to, and that was generally water. You 
 could n t scare him with names, though. I re 
 member a young minister that s go n to be, 
 that boards at my house, askin once what was 
 the safest strong drink for them that had to take 
 somethin for the stomach s sake and thine awful 
 infirmities. Aquafortis, says he, because you 
 know that 11 eat your insides out, if you get it 
 too strong, and so you always mind how much 
 you take. Next to that, says he, rum s the 
 safest for a wise man, and small beer for a fool. 
 
 I never mistrusted anything about him and 
 that schoolmistress till I heerd they was keepin 
 company, and was go n to be merried. But I 
 mi^ht have knowed it well enough by his smart- 
 
AUTOCRAT S LANDLADY. 341 
 
 in himself up the way he did, and partin the 
 hair on the back of his head, and gettin a blue 
 coat with brass buttons, and wearin them dread 
 ful tight little French boots that used to stand 
 outside his door to be blacked, and stickin round 
 schoolma am, and follerin of her with his eyes ; 
 but then he was always fond of ladies, and used 
 to sing with my daughter, and wrote his name 
 out in a blank book she keeps, them that has 
 daughters of their own will keep their eyes on 
 em, and I ve often heerd him say he was 
 fond of music and picters, and she worked a 
 beautiful pattern for a chair of his once, that he 
 seemed to set a good deal by ; but I ha n t no 
 fault to find, and there is them that my daughter 
 likes and them that likes her. 
 
 As to schoolma am, I ha n t a word to say 
 that a n t favorable, and don t harbor no unkind 
 feelin to her, and never knowed them that did. 
 When she first come to board at my house, I 
 had n t any idee she d live long. She was all 
 dressed in black ; and her face looked so delicate, 
 I expected before six months was over to see u 
 plate of glass over it, and a Bible and a bunch 
 
342 A VISIT TO THE 
 
 of flowers layin on the lid of the well, I don t 
 like to talk about it ; for when she first come, 
 and said her mother was dead, and she was alone 
 in the world, except one sister out West, and 
 onlocked her trunk and showed me her things, 
 and took out her little purse and showed me her 
 money, and said that was all the property she 
 had in the world but her courage and her edu 
 cation, and would I take her and keep her till 
 she could get some scholars, I couldn t say 
 not one word, but jest went up to her and kissed 
 her and bu st out a-cryin so as I never cried 
 since I buried the last of them five children that 
 lays in the buryin -ground with their father, and 
 a place for one more grown person betwixt him 
 and the shortest of them five graves, where my 
 baby is waitin for its mother. 
 
 [The landlady stopped here and shed a few 
 still tears, such as poor women who have been 
 wrung out almost dry by fierce griefs lose 
 calmly, without sobs or hysteric convulsions, 
 when they show the scar of a healed sorrow.] 
 
 The schoolma am had jest been killin 
 
 herself for a year and a half with waitin and 
 
AUTOCRAT S LANDLADY. 343 
 
 tendin and watchin with that sick mother that 
 was dead now and she was in mournin for. 
 Slie did n t say so, but I got the story out of her, 
 and then I knowed why she looked so dreadful 
 pale and poor. By and by she begun to get 
 some scholars, and then she would come home 
 sometimes so weak and faint that I was afraid 
 she would drop. One day I handed her a bottle 
 of camphire to smell of, and she took a smell of 
 it, and I thought she d have fainted right away. 
 Oh, says she, when she come to, I ve breathed 
 that smell for a whole year and more, and it kills 
 me to breathe it again ! 
 
 The fust thing that ever I see pass between 
 the gentleman inquiries is made about, and her, 
 was on occasion of his makin some very search- 
 in* remarks about griefs, sech as loss of friends 
 and so on. I see her fix her eye steady on him, 
 and then she kind of trembled and turned white, 
 and the next thing I knew was she was all of a 
 heap on the floor. I remember he looked into 
 her face then, and seemed to be seized as if it 
 was with a start or spasm-like, but I thought 
 not hiii more of it, supposin it was because he 
 felt so bad at makin her faint away. 
 
344 A VISIT TO THE 
 
 Some has asked me what kind of a young 
 woman she was to look at. Well, folks differ as 
 to what is likely and what is homely. I ve seen 
 them that was as pretty as picters in my eyes : 
 cheeks jest as rosy as they could be, and hair all 
 shiny and curly, and little mouths with lips as 
 red as sealin -wax, and yet one of my boarders 
 that had a great name for makin marble figgers 
 would say such kind of good looks warn t of no 
 account. I knowed a young lady once that a 
 man drownded himself because she wouldn t 
 marry him, and she might have had her pick of 
 a dozen, but I did n t call her anything great in 
 the way of loaks. All I can say is, that, whether 
 she was pretty or not, she looked like a young 
 woman that knowed what was good and had 
 a nateral love for it, and she had about as clear 
 an eye and about as pleasant a smile as any man 
 ought to want for e very-day company. I ve 
 seen a good many young ladies that could talk 
 faster than she could ; but if you d seen her or 
 heerd her when our boardin -house caught afire; 
 or when there was anything to be done besides 
 speech-makin , I guess you d like to have stood 
 
AUTOCRAT S LANDLADY. 345 
 
 still and looked on, jest to see that young 
 woman s way of goin to work. Dark, ruther 
 than light ; and slim, but strong in the arms, 
 perhaps from liftin that old mother about ; for 
 I Ve seen her heavin one end of a big heavy 
 chest round that I should n t have thought of 
 touchin , and yet her hands was little and 
 white. Dressed very plain, but neat, and wore 
 her hair smooth. I used to wonder sometimes 
 she did n t wear some kind of ornaments, bein 
 a likely young woman, and havin her way to 
 make in the world, and seem my daughter 
 wearin jewelry, which sets her off so much, 
 every day. She never would, nothin but a 
 breastpin with her mother s hair in it, and some 
 times one little black cross. That made me think 
 she was a Roman Catholic, especially when she 
 got a picter of the Virgin Mary and hung it up 
 in her room ; so I asked her, and she shook her 
 head and said these very words, that she 
 never saw a church-door so narrow she could n t 
 go in through it, nor so wide that all the Crea 
 tor s goodness and glory could enter it ; and 
 then she dropped her eyes, and went to work on 
 
 15* 
 
346 A VISIT TO THE 
 
 a flannel petticoat she was makin , which I 
 knowed, but she did n t tell me, was for a poor 
 old woman. 
 
 I ve said enough about them two boarders, 
 but I believe it s all true. Their places is va 
 cant, and I should be very glad to fill em with 
 two gentlemen, or with a gentleman and his 
 wife, or any respectable people, be they merried 
 or single. 
 
 I Ve heerd some talk about a friend of that 
 gentleman s comin to take his place. That s 
 the gentleman that he calls "the Professor," 
 and I m sure I hope there is sech a man ; only 
 all I can say is, I never see him, and none of my 
 boarders ever see him, and that smart young 
 man that I was speakin of says he don t believe 
 there s no sech person as him, nor that other 
 one that he called " the Poet." I don t much 
 care whether folks professes or makes poems, 
 if they makes themselves agreeable, and pays 
 their board regular. I m a poor woman, that 
 tries to get an honest livin , and works hard 
 enough for it ; lost my husband, and buried five 
 children. 
 
A UTOCRA T S LANDLADY. 347 
 
 Excuse me, dear Madam, I said, looking at 
 my watch, but you spoke of certain papers 
 which your boarder left, and which you were 
 ready to dispose of for the pages of the " Oceanic 
 Miscellany." 
 
 The landlady s face splintered again into the 
 wreck of the broken dimples of better days. 
 She should be much obleeged, if I would look 
 at them, she said, and went up-stairs and got 
 a small desk containing loose papers. I looked 
 them hastily over, and selected one of the short 
 est pieces, handed the landlady a check which 
 astonished her, and send the poem thus happily 
 obtained as an appendix to my report. If I 
 should find others adapted to the pages of the 
 spirited periodical which has done so much to 
 develop and satisfy the intellectual appetite of 
 the American public, and to extend the name 
 of its enterprising publishers throughout the 
 reading world, I shall present them in future 
 numbers of the " Oceanic Miscellany." 
 
A VISIT TO THE ASYLUM FOR AGED 
 AND DECAYED PUNSTERS. 
 
 HAVING just returned from a visit to 
 this admirable Institution in company 
 with a friend who is one of the Directors, we 
 propose giving a short account of what we saw 
 and heard. The great success of the Asylum 
 for Idiots and Feeble-minded Youth, several of 
 the scholars from which have reached consider 
 able distinction, one of them being connected 
 with a leading Daily Paper in this city, and 
 others having served in the State and National 
 Legislatures, was the motive which led to the 
 foundation of this excellent Charity. Our late 
 distinguished townsman, Noah Dow, Esquire, as 
 is well known, bequeathed a large portion of his 
 fortune to this establishment, " being thereto 
 moved," as his will expressed it, " by the desire 
 
AGED AND DECAYED PUNSTERS. 349 
 
 of N. Dowing some publick Institution for the 
 benefit of Mankind." Being consulted as to the 
 Rules of- the Institution and the selection of a 
 Superintendent, he replied, that " all Boards 
 must construct their own Platforms of opera 
 tion. Let them select anyhow and he should be 
 pleased." N. E. Howe, Esq., was chosen in 
 compliance with this delicate suggestion. 
 
 The Charter provides for the support of " One 
 hundred aged and decayed Gentlemen-Pun 
 sters." On inquiry if there was no provision 
 for females, my friend called my attention to this 
 remarkable psychological fact, namely : 
 
 THERE is NO SUCH THING AS A FEMALE 
 PUNSTER. 
 
 This remark struck me forcibly, and on re 
 flection I found that I never knew nor heard of 
 one, though I have once or twice heard a woman 
 make a single detached pun, as I have known a 
 hen to crow. 
 
 On arriving at the south gate of the Asylum 
 grounds, I was about to ring, but my friend held 
 my arm and begged me to rap with my stick, 
 which I did. An old man with a verv comical 
 
350 A VISIT TO THE ASYLUM FOR 
 
 face presently opened the gate and put out his 
 head. 
 
 " So you prefer Cane to A Bell, do you ? " 
 he said, and began chuckling and coughing 
 at a great rate. 
 
 My friend winked at me. 
 
 " You re here still, Old Joe, I see," he said 
 to the old man. 
 
 " Yes, yes, and it s very odd, considering 
 how often I Ve bolted, nights." 
 
 He then threw open the double gates for us to 
 ride through. 
 
 " Now," said the old man, as he pulled the 
 gates after us, " you ve had a long journey." 
 
 " Why, how is that, Old Joe ? " said my 
 friend. 
 
 " Don t you see ? " he answered ; " there s 
 the East hinges on one side of the gate, and 
 there s the West hinges on t other side, haw ! 
 haw ! haw ! " 
 
 We had no sooner got into the yard than a 
 feeble little gentleman, with a remarkably bright 
 eye, came up to us, looking very seriously, as if 
 something had happened. 
 
AGED AND DECAYED PUNSTERS. 351 
 
 " The town has^entered a complaint against 
 the Asylum as a gambling establishment," he 
 said to my friend, the Director. 
 
 " What do you mean ? " said my friend. 
 
 " Why, they complain that there s a lot 
 rye on the premises," he answered, pointing to 
 a field of that grain, and hobbled away, his 
 shoulders shaking with laughter, as he went. 
 
 On entering the main building, we saw the 
 Rules and Regulations for the Asylum conspicu 
 ously posted up. I made a few extracts which 
 may be interesting. 
 
 Sect. I. OF VERBAL EXERCISES. 
 
 5. Each Inmate shall be permitted to make 
 Puns freely from eight in the morning until ten 
 at night, except during Service in the Chapel 
 and Grace before Meals. 
 
 6. At ten o clock the gas will be turned off, 
 and no further Puns, Conundrums, or other play 
 on words, will be allowed to be uttered, or to be 
 uttered aloud. 
 
 9. Inmates who have lost their faculties and 
 cannot any longer make Puns shall be permitted 
 
352 A VISIT TO THE ASYLUM FOR 
 
 to repeat such as may be selected for them by 
 the Chaplain out of the work of Mr. Joseph 
 Miller. 
 
 10. Violent and unmanageable Punsters, who 
 interrupt others when engaged in conversation, 
 with Puns or attempts at the same, shall be de 
 prived of their Joseph Millers, and, if necessary, 
 placed in solitary confinement. 
 
 Sect. III. OF DEPORTMENT AT MEALS. 
 
 4. No Inmate shall make any Pun, or at 
 tempt at the same, until the Blessing has been 
 asked and the company are decently seated. 
 
 7. Certain Puns having been placed on the 
 Index Expurgatorius of the Institution, no In 
 mate shall be allowed to utter them, on pain of 
 being debarred the perusal of Punch and Vanity 
 Fair, and, if repeated, deprived of his Joseph 
 Miller. 
 
 Among these are the following : 
 
 Allusions to Attic salt, when asked to pass the 
 salt-cellar. 
 
 Remarks on the Inmates being mustered, etc., 
 etc. 
 
AGED AND DECAYED PUNSTERS. 353 
 
 Personal allusions in connection with carrots 
 and turnips. 
 
 Attempts upon the word tomato, etc., etc. 
 
 The following are also prohibited, excepting 
 to such Inmates as may have lost their faculties, 
 and cannot any longer make Puns of their 
 own : 
 
 " your own hair or a wig " ; " it will 
 
 be long enough" etc., etc. ; " little of its age," 
 etc., etc. ; also, playing upon the following 
 words : Aospital ; mayor ; pun ; pitied ; bread ; 
 sauce, sole, etc., etc., etc. See INDEX EXPUR- 
 GATORIUS, printed for use of Inmates. 
 
 The Superintendent, who went round with 
 us, had been a noted punster in his time, and 
 well-known in the business-world, but lost his 
 customers by making too free with their names, 
 as in the famous story he set afloat in 29 
 of forgeries attaching to the names of a noted 
 Judge, an eminent Lawyer, the Secretary of the 
 Board of Foreign Missions, and the well-known 
 Landlord at Springfield. One of the four Jer 
 ries, he added, was of gigantic magnitude. 
 
354 A VISIT TO THE ASYLUM FOR 
 
 The Superintendent showed some of his old 
 tendencies as he went round with us. 
 
 " Do you know " he broke out all at once 
 " why they don t take steppes in Tartary for 
 establishing Insane Hospitals ? " 
 
 We both confessed ignorance. 
 
 " Because there are nomad people to be found 
 there," he said, with a dignified smile. 
 
 He proceeded to introduce us to different In 
 mates. Tke first was a middle-aged, scholarly 
 man, who was seated at a table with a Web 
 ster s Dictionary and a sheet of paper before 
 him. 
 
 "Well, what luck to-day, Mr. Mowzer ? " 
 said the Superintendent. 
 
 He turned to his notes and read : 
 
 " Don t you see Webster ers in the words 
 center and theater? 
 
 " If he spells leather leiher, and feather f ether ^ 
 is n t there danger that he 11 give us a bad spell 
 of weather ? 
 
 " Besides, Webster is a resurrectionist ; he 
 does not allow u to rest quietly in the mould. 
 
 " And again, because Mr. Worcester inserts 
 
AGED AND DECAYED PUNSTERS. 355 
 
 an illustration in his text, is that any reason 
 why Mr. Webster s publishers should hitch one 
 on in their appendix ? It s what I call a 
 Connect- a-cut trick. 
 
 " Why is his way of spelling like the floor of 
 an oven ? Because it is under bread." 
 
 " Mowzer ! " said the Superintendent, 
 " that word is on the Index ! " 
 
 " I forgot," said Mr. Mowzer ; " please 
 don t deprive me of Vanity Fair, this one time, 
 Sir. 
 
 " These are all, this morning. Good day, 
 Gentlemen. Then to the Superintendent, 
 Add you, Sir ! " 
 
 The next Inmate was a semi-idiotic-looking 
 old man. He had a heap of block-letters before 
 him, and, as we came up, he pointed, without 
 saying a word, to the arrangements he had 
 made with them on the table. They were evi 
 dently anagrams, and had the merit of trans 
 posing the letters of the words employed without 
 addition or subtraction. Here are a few of 
 them : 
 
356 A VISIT. TO THE ASYLUM FOR 
 
 TIMES. SMITE ! 
 
 POST. STOP ! 
 
 TRIBUNE. TRUE NIB. 
 
 WORLD. DR. OWL. 
 
 ( KES VERI DAT. 
 ADVERTISER. j l s TRUE . R EAD! 
 
 ALLOPATHY. ALL o TII PAY. 
 
 HOMCEOPATHY. 0, THE ! ! 0, MY ! PAH ! 
 
 The mention of several New York papers led 
 to two or three questions. Thus : Whether the 
 Editor of the Tribune was H. Gr. really ? If the 
 complexion" of his politics were not accounted 
 for by his being an eager person himself? 
 Whether Wendell Fillips were not a reduced 
 copy of John Knocks ? Whether a New York 
 Feuilletoniste is not the same thing as a Felloiv 
 down East? 
 
 At this time a plausible-looking, bald-headed 
 man joined us, evidently waiting to take a part 
 in the conversation. 
 
 " Good morning, Mr. Higgles," said the Su 
 perintendent. " Anything fresh this morning ? 
 Any Conundrum ? " 
 
 " Nothing of any account," he answered. 
 "We had hasty-pudding yesterday." 
 
 " What has that got to do with conundrums ? " 
 asked the Superintendent. 
 
AGED AND DECAYED PUNSTERS. 357 
 
 " I asked the Inmates why it was like the 
 Prince." 
 
 " O ! because it comes attended by its sweet" 
 said the Superintendent. 
 
 " No," said Mr. Higgles, " it is because the 
 lasses runs after it." 
 
 " Higgles is failing," said the Superintendent, 
 as we moved on. 
 
 The next Inmate looked as if he might have 
 been a sailor formerly. 
 
 " Ask him what his calling was," said the 
 Superintendent. 
 
 " Followed the sea," he replied to the ques 
 tion put by one of us. " Went as mate in a 
 fishing-schooner." 
 
 " Why did you give it up ? " 
 
 " Because I did n t like working for tivo-mast- 
 ers" he replied. 
 
 Presently we came upon a group of elderly 
 persons, gathered about a venerable gentleman 
 with flowing locks, who was propounding ques 
 tions to a row of Inmates. 
 
 " Can any Inmate give me a motto for M. 
 Berger ? " he said. 
 
358 A VISIT TO THE ASYLUM FOR 
 
 Nobody responded for two or three minutes. 
 At last one old man, whom I at once recognized 
 
 O 
 
 as a Graduate of our University, (Anno 1800,) 
 held up his hand. 
 
 " Hem a cue tetigit." 
 
 " Go to the head of the Class, Josselyn," said 
 the venerable Patriarch. 
 
 The successful Inmate did as he was told, but 
 in a very rough way, pushing against two or 
 three of the Class. 
 
 "How is this?" said the Patriarch. 
 
 " You told me to go up jogttm ," he replied. 
 
 The old gentlemen who had been shoved 
 about enjoyed the Pun too much to be angry. 
 
 Presently the Patriarch asked again, 
 
 " Why was M. Berger authorized to go to 
 the dances given to the Prince ? " 
 
 The Class had to give up this, and he an 
 swered it himself: 
 
 " Because every one of his carroms was a 
 tick-it to the loll." 
 
 " Who collects the money to defray the ex 
 penses of the last campaign in Italy ? " asked 
 the Patriarch. 
 
AGED AND DECAYED PUNSTERS 359 
 
 % 
 
 Here again the Class failed. 
 
 " The war-cloud s rolling Dun" he answered. 
 
 " And what is mulled wine made with ? " 
 
 Three or four voices exclaimed at once, 
 
 " Sizzle-y Madeira ! " 
 
 Here a servant entered, and said " Luncheon- 
 time." The old gentlemen, who have excellent 
 appetites, dispersed at once, one of them politely 
 asking us if we would not stop and have a bit 
 of bread and a little mite of cheese. 
 
 " There is one thing I have forgotten to show 
 you," said the Superintendent, " the cell for 
 the confinement of violent and unmanageable 
 Punsters." 
 
 We were very curious to see it, particularly 
 with reference to the alleged absence of every 
 object upon which a play of words could pos 
 sibly be made. 
 
 The Superintendent led us up some dark 
 stairs to a corridor, then along a narrow pas 
 sage, then down a broad flight of steps into 
 another passage-way, and opened a large door 
 which looked out on the main entrance. 
 " We have not seen the cell for the confine- 
 
360 A VISIT TO THE ASYLUM FOR 
 
 ment of violent and unmanageable Punsters," 
 we both exclaimed. 
 
 " This is the sell! " he exclaimed, pointing to 
 the outside prospect. 
 
 My friend, the Director, looked me in the 
 face so good-naturedly that I had to laugh. 
 
 " We like to humor the Inmates," he said. 
 " It has a bad effect, we find, on their health 
 and spirits to disappoint them of their little 
 pleasantries. Some of the jests to which we 
 have listened are not new to me, though I dare 
 say you may not have heard them often before. 
 The same thing happens in general society, with 
 this additional disadvantage, that there is no 
 punishment provided for * violent and unman 
 ageable Punsters, as in our Institution." 
 
 We made our bow to the Superintendent and 
 walked to the place where our carriage was 
 waiting for us. On our way, an exceedingly 
 decrepit old man moved slowly towards us, with 
 a perfectly blank look on his face, but still ap 
 pearing as if he wished to speak. 
 
 " Look ! " said the Director, " that is our 
 Centenarian." 
 
AGED AND DECAYED PUNSTERS. 361 
 
 The ancient man crawled towards us, cocked 
 one eye, with which he seemed to see a little, up 
 at us, and said, 
 
 " Sarvant, young Gentlemen. Why is a 
 a a like a a a ? Give it up ? Be 
 cause it s a a a a ." 
 
 He smiled a pleasant smile, as if it were all 
 plain enough. 
 
 " One hundred and seven last Christmas," 
 said the Director. " He lost his answers about 
 the age of ninety-eight. Of late years he puts 
 his whole Conundrums in blank, but they 
 please him just as well." 
 
 We took our departure, much gratified and 
 instructed by our visit, hoping to have some 
 future opportunity of inspecting the Records of 
 this excellent Charity, and making extracts for 
 the benefit of our Readers. 
 
THE GREAT INSTRUMENT. 
 
 EARLY in the month of November the 
 mysterious curtain which has hidden the 
 work long in progress at the Boston Music Hall 
 will be lifted, and the public will throng to look 
 upon and listen to the GREAT ORGAN. 
 
 It is the most interesting event in the musical 
 history of the New World. Tlie masterpiece 
 of Europe s master-builder is to uncover its 
 veiled front and give voice to its long-brooding 
 harmonies. The most precious work of Art 
 that ever floated from one continent to the other 
 is to be formally displayed before a great assem 
 bly. The occasion is one of well-earned re 
 joicing, almost of loud triumph ; for it is the 
 crowning festival which rewards an untold sum 
 of devoted and conscientious labor, carried on, 
 without any immediate recompense, through a 
 
THE GREAT INSTRUMENT. 363 
 
 long series of years, to its now perfect consum 
 mation. The whole community will share in 
 the deep satisfaction with which the public- 
 spirited citizens who have encouraged this noble 
 undertaking, and the enterprising and untiring 
 lover of science and art who has conducted it 
 from the first, may look upon their completed 
 task. 
 
 What is this wondrous piece of mechanism 
 which has cost so much time and money, and 
 promises to become one of the chief attractions 
 of Boston and a source of honest pride to all 
 cultivated Americans ? The organ, as its name 
 implies, is the instrument, in distinction from all 
 other and less noble instruments. We might 
 almost think it was called organ as being a part 
 of an unfinished organism, a kind of Franken 
 stein-creation, half framed and half vitalized. 
 It breathes like an animal, but its huge luno-s 
 must be filled and emptied by alien force. It 
 has a wilderness of windpipes, each furnished 
 with its own vocal adjustment, or larynx. 
 Thousands of long, delicate tendons govern its 
 varied internal movements, themselves obedient 
 
364 THE GREAT INSTRUMENT. 
 
 to the human muscles which are commanded by 
 the human brain, which again is guided in its 
 volitions by the voice of the great half-living 
 creature. A strange cross between the form 
 and functions of animated beings, on the one 
 hand, and the passive conditions of inert ma 
 chinery, on the other ! Its utterance rises 
 through all the gamut of Nature s multitudinous 
 voices, and has a note for all her outward 
 sounds and inward moods. Its thunder is deep 
 as that of billows that tumble through ocean- 
 
 O 
 
 caverns, and its whistle is sharper than that of 
 the wind through their narrowest crevice. It 
 roars louder than the lion of the desert, and it 
 can draw out a thread of sound as fine as the 
 locust spins at hot noon on his still tree-top. 
 Its clustering columns are as a forest in which 
 every music-flowering tree and shrub finds its 
 representative. It imitates all instruments ; it 
 cheats the listener with the sound of singing 
 choirs ; it strives for a still purer note than can 
 be strained from human throats, and emulates 
 the host of .heaven with its unearthly "voice 
 of angels." Within its breast all the passions of 
 
THE GREAT INSTRUMENT. 365 
 
 humanity seem to reign in turn. It moans with 
 the dull ache of grief, and cries with the sudden 
 thrill of pain ; it sighs, it shouts, it laughs, it 
 exults, it wails, it pleads, it trembles, it shud 
 ders, it threatens, it storms, it rages, it is soothed, 
 it slumbers. 
 
 Such is the organ, man s nearest approach to 
 the creation of a true organism. 
 
 But before the audacious conception of this 
 instrument ever entered the imagination of man, 
 before he had ever drawn a musical sound from 
 pipe or string, the chambers where the royal 
 harmonies of his grandest vocal mechanism were 
 to find worthy reception were shaped in his own 
 marvellous structure. The organ of hearing 
 was finished by its Divine Builder while yet the 
 morning stars sang together, and the voices of 
 the young creation joined in their first choral 
 symphony. We have seen how the mechanism 
 of the artificial organ takes on the likeness of 
 life ; we shall attempt to describe the living or- 
 gau in common language by the aid of such im 
 ages as our ordinaiy dwellings furnish us. The 
 unscientific reader need not take notice of the 
 words in parentheses. 
 
366 THE GREAT INSTRUMENT. 
 
 The annexed diagram may render it easier to 
 follow the description. 
 
 Ivl 
 
 The structure which is to admit Sound as a 
 visitor is protected and ornamented at its en 
 trance by a light movable awning (the external 
 ear). Beneath and within this opens a recess 
 or passage (meatus auditorius externus), at the 
 farther end .of which is the parchment-like front 
 door, D (membrana tympani). 
 
 Beyond this is the hall or entry, H, (cavity 
 of the tympanum,) which has a ventilator, V, 
 (Eustachian tube,) communicating with the 
 outer air, and two windows, one oval, o, (fenes- 
 tra ovalis,) one round, r, (fenestra rotunda,) 
 both filled with parchment-like membrane, and 
 
THE GREAT INSTRUMENT. 367 
 
 looking upon the inner suite of apartments (lab 
 yrinth). 
 
 This inner suite of apartments consists of an 
 antechamber, A, (vestibule,) an arched cham 
 ber, B, (semicircular canals,) and a spiral cham 
 ber, S, (cochlea,*) with a partition, P, dividing it 
 across, except for a small opening at one end. 
 The antechamber opens freely into the arched 
 chamber, and into one side of the partitioned 
 spiral chamber. The other side of this spiral 
 chamber looks on the hall by the round window 
 already mentioned ; the oval window looking on 
 the hall belongs to the antechamber. From the 
 front-door to the oval window of the antecham 
 ber extends a chain, <?, (ossicula auditiis,) so 
 connected that a knock on the first is trans 
 mitted instantly to the second. But as the 
 round window of the spiral chamber looks into 
 the hall, the knock at the front door will also 
 make itself heard at and through that window, 
 being conveyed along the hall. 
 
 In each division of the inner suite of apart 
 ments are the watchmen, (branches of the au 
 ditory nerve,) listening for the approach of 
 
368 THE GREAT INSTRUMENT. 
 
 Sound. The visitor at length enters the porch, 
 and knocks at the front-door. The watchmen 
 in the antechamber hear the blow close to them, 
 as it is repeated, through the chain, on the win 
 dow of their apartment. The impulse travels 
 onward into the arched chamber, and startles its 
 tenants. It is transmitted into one half of the 
 partioned spiral chamber, and rouses the recum 
 bent guardians in that apartment. Some por 
 tion of it even passes the small opening in the 
 partition, and reaches the watchmen in the 
 other half of the room. But they also hear it 
 through the round window, not as it comes 
 through the chain, but as it resounds along the 
 hall. 
 
 Thus the summons of Sound reaches all the 
 watchmen, but not all of them through the same 
 channels or with the same force. It is not known 
 how their several precise duties are apportioned, 
 but it seems probable that the watchmen in the 
 spiral chamber observe the pitch of the audible 
 impulse which reaches them, while the others 
 take cognizance of its intensity and perhaps of 
 its direction. 
 
7 ///; GREAT INSTRUMENT. 
 
 369 
 
 Such is the plan of the organ of hearing, as 
 an architect might describe it. But the details 
 of its special furnishing are so intricate and 
 minute that no anatomist has proved equal to 
 their entire and exhaustive delineation. A 
 titled observer, the Marquis Corti, has hith 
 erto proved most successful in describing the 
 wonderful key-board found in the spiral cham 
 ber, the complex and symmetrical beauty of 
 which is absolutely astonishing to those who 
 study it by the aid of the microscope. The 
 figure annexed shows a small portion of this 
 extraordinary structure. It is from Kolliker s 
 well-known work on Microscopic Anatomy. 
 
 Enough has been said to show that the ear is 
 as carefully adjusted to respond to the blended 
 
 16* 
 
370 THE GREAT INSTRUMENT. 
 
 impressions of sound as the eye to receive the 
 mingled rays of light ; and that as the telescope 
 presupposes the lens and the retina, so the organ 
 presupposes the resonant membranes, the laby 
 rinthine chambers, and the delicately suspended 
 or exquisitely spread-out nervous filaments of 
 that other organ, whose builder is the Architect 
 of the universe, and the Master of all its har 
 monies. 
 
 Not less an object of wonder is that curious 
 piece of mechanism, the most perfect, within its 
 limited range of powers, of all musical instru 
 ments, the organ of the human voice. It is the 
 highest triumph of our artificial contrivances to 
 reach a tone like that of a singer, and among a 
 hundred organ-stops none excites such admira 
 tion as the vox humana ; a brief account of the 
 vocal organ will not, therefore, be out of place. 
 
 The principles of the action of the larynx are 
 easily illustrated by reference to the simpler 
 musical instruments. In a flute or flageolet the 
 musical sound is produced by the vibration of a 
 column of air contained in its interior. In a 
 clarinet or a bassoon another source of sound 
 
THE GREAT INSTRUMENT. 371 
 
 is added in the form of a thin slip of wood con 
 tained in the mouth-piece, and called the reed, 
 the vibrations of which give a superadded nasal 
 thrill to the resonance of the column of air. 
 
 The human organ of voice is like the clarinet 
 and the bassoon. The windpipe is the tube 
 containing the column of air. The larynx is 
 the mouth-piece containing the reed. But the 
 reed is double, consisting of two very thin mem 
 branous edges, which are made tense or relaxed, 
 and have the interval between them, through 
 which the air rushes, narrowed or widened by 
 the instinctive, automatic action of a set of little 
 muscles. The vibration of these membranous 
 edges (cliordcB vocales) produces a musical 
 sound, just as the vibration of the edge of a 
 finger-bowl produces one when a wet finger is 
 passed round it. The cavities of the nostrils, 
 and their side-chambers, with their light, elastic 
 sounding-boards of thin bone, are essential to 
 the richness of the tone, as all singers find out 
 when those passages are obstructed by a cold in 
 the head. 
 
 The human voice, perfect as it may be in 
 
372 THE GREAT INSTRUMENT. 
 
 tone, is yet always very deficient in compass, as 
 is obvious from the fact that the bass voice, the 
 barytone, the contralto, and the soprano have 
 all different registers, and are all required to 
 produce a complete vocal harmony. If we 
 could make organ-pipes with movable, self-regu 
 lating lips, with self-shortening and self-length 
 ening tubes, so that each tube should command 
 the two or three octaves of the human voice, a 
 very limited number of them would be required. 
 But as each tube has but a single note, we un 
 derstand why we have those immense clusters 
 of hollow columns. As we wish to produce 
 different effects, sometimes using the pure flute- 
 sounds, at other times preferring the nasal thrill 
 of the reed-instruments, we see why some of the 
 tubes have simple mouths and others are fur 
 nished with vibratory tongues. And, lastly, we 
 can easily understand that the great interior 
 spaces of the organ must of themselves furnish 
 those resonant surfaces which we saw provided 
 for, on a small scale, in the nasal passages, - 
 the sounding-board of the human larynx. 
 
THE GREAT INSTRUMENT. 373 
 
 The great organ of the Music Hall is a choir 
 of nearly six thousand vocal throats. Its largest 
 windpipes are thirty-two feet in length, and a 
 man can crawl through them. Its finest tuhes 
 are too small for a baby s whistle. Eighty-nine 
 stops produce the various changes and combina 
 tions of which its immense orchestra is capable, 
 from the purest solo of a singing nun to the 
 loudest chorus in which all its groups of voices 
 have their part in the full flow of its harmonies. 
 Like all instruments of its class, it contains sev 
 eral distinct systems of pipes, commonly spoken 
 of as separate organs, and capable of being 
 played alone or in connection with each other. 
 Four manuals, or hand key-boards, and two 
 pedals, or foot key-boards, command these sev 
 eral systems, the solo organ, the choir organ, 
 the swell organ, and the great organ, and the 
 piano and forte pedal-organ. Twelve pairs of 
 bellows, which it is intended to move by water- 
 power, derived from the Cochituate reservoirs, 
 furnish the breath which pours itself forth in 
 music. Those beautiful effects, for which the 
 organ is incomparable, the crescendo and dimin- 
 
374 THE GREAT INSTRUMENT. 
 
 uendo, the gradual rise of the sound from the 
 lowest murmur to the loudest blast, and the 
 dying fall by which it steals gently back into 
 silence, the dissolving views, so to speak, of 
 harmony, are not only provided for in the 
 swell-organ, but may be obtained by special 
 adjustments from the several systems of pipes 
 and from the entire instrument. 
 
 It would be anticipating the proper time for 
 judgment, if we should speak of the excellence 
 of the musical qualities of the great organ before 
 having had the opportunity of hearing its full 
 powers displayed. We have enjoyed the privi 
 lege, granted to few as yet, of listening to some 
 portions of the partially mounted instrument, 
 from which we can confidently infer that its 
 effect, when all its majestic voices find utter 
 ance, must be noble and enchanting beyond all 
 common terms of praise. But even without 
 such imperfect trial, we have a right, merely 
 from a knowledge of its principles of construc 
 tion, of the pre-eminent skill of its builder, of 
 the time spent in its making, of the extraor 
 dinary means taken to insure its perfection, 
 
THE GREAT INSTRUMENT. 375 
 
 and of the liberal scale of expenditure which 
 has rendered all the rest possible, to feel sure 
 that we are to hear the instrument which is and 
 will probably long remain beyond dispute the 
 first of the New World and second to none 
 in the Old in the sum of its excellences and 
 capacities. 
 
 The mere comparison of numbers of pipes 
 and of stops, or of external dimensions, though 
 it gives an approximative idea of the scale of an 
 organ, is not so decisive as it might seem as to 
 its real musical effectiveness. In some cases, 
 many of the stops are rather nominal than of 
 any real significance. Even in the Haarlem 
 organ, which has only about two thirds as many 
 as the Boston one, Dr. Burney says, " The 
 variety they afford is by no means what might 
 be expected." It is obviously easy to multiply 
 the small pipes to almost any extent. The 
 dimensions of an organ, in its external aspect, 
 must depend a good deal on the height of the 
 edifice in which it is contained. Thus, the 
 vaulted roof of the Cathedral of Ulm permitted 
 the builder of our Music-Hail organ to pile the 
 
376 THE GREAT INSTRUMENT. 
 
 facade of the one he constructed for that edifice 
 up to the giddy elevation of almost a hundred 
 feet, while the famous instrument in the Town 
 Hall of Birmingham has only three quarters of 
 the height of our own, which is sixty feet. It 
 is obvious, also, that the effective power of an 
 organ does not depend merely on its size, but 
 that the perfection of all its parts will have quite 
 as much to do with it. In judging a vocalist, 
 we can form but a very poor guess of the com 
 pass, force, quality of the voice, from a mere 
 inspection of the throat and chest. In the case 
 of the organ, however, we have the advantage of 
 being able to minutely inspect every throat and 
 larynx, to walk into the interior of the working 
 mechanism, and to see the adaptation of each 
 part to its office. In absolute power and com 
 pass the Music-Hall organ ranks among the 
 three or four mightiest instruments ever built. 
 In the perfection of all its parts, and in its 
 whole arrangements, it challenges comparison 
 with any the world can show. 
 
 Such an instrument ought to enshrine itself 
 in an outward frame that should correspond in 
 
THE GREAT INSTRUMENT. 377 
 
 some measure to the grandeur and loveliness of 
 its own musical character. It has been a dream 
 of metaphysicians, that the soul shaped its own 
 body. If this many-throated singing creature 
 could have sung itself into an external form, it 
 could hardly have moulded one more expressive 
 of its own nature. We must leave to those 
 more skilled in architecture the detailed descrip 
 tion of that noble facade which fills the eye 
 with music as the voices from behind it fill the 
 mind through the ear with vague, dreamy pic 
 tures. For us it loses all technical character in 
 its relations to the soul of which it is the body. 
 It is as if a glorious anthem had passed into 
 outward solid form in the very ecstasy of its 
 grandest chorus. Milton has told us of such a 
 miracle, wrought by fallen angels, it is true, but 
 in a description rich with all his opulence of 
 caressing and ennobling language : 
 
 " Anon out of the earth a fabric huge 
 Rose, like an exhalation, with the sound 
 Of dulcet symphonies and voices sweet, 
 Built like a temple, where pilasters round 
 Were set, and Doric pillars overlaid 
 With golden architrave ; nor did there want 
 Cornice or frieze with bossy sculptures graven." 
 
378 THE GREAT INSTRUMENT. 
 
 The structure is of black walnut, and is cov 
 ered with carved statues, busts, masks, and 
 figures in the boldest relief. In the centre a 
 richly ornamented arch contains the niche for 
 the key-boards and stops. A colossal mask of 
 a singing woman looks from over its summit. 
 The pediment above is surmounted by the bust 
 of Johann Sebastian Bach. Behind this rises 
 the lofty central division, containing pipes, the 
 arch over which bears a fine mask of Apollo, and 
 crowning it is a beautiful sitting statue of Saint 
 Cecilia, holding her lyre. On each side of her 
 a griffin sits as guardian. This centre is con 
 nected by harp-shaped compartments, filled with 
 pipes, to the two great round towers, one on 
 each side, and each of them containing three 
 colossal pipes. These magnificent towers come 
 boldly forward into the hall, being the most 
 prominent, as they are the highest and stateliest, 
 part of the facade. At the base of each a 
 gigantic half-caryatid, in the style of the ancient 
 hermce, but finished to the waist, bends beneath 
 the superincumbent weight, like Atlas under the 
 globe. These figures are of wonderful force, 
 
THE GREAT INSTRUMENT. 379 
 
 the muscular development almost excessive, but 
 in keeping with their superhuman task. At 
 each side of_the base two lion-Jiermw share in 
 the task of the giant. Over the base rise the 
 round pillars which support the dome and en 
 close the three great pipes already mentioned. 
 Graceful as these look in their position, half a 
 dozen men might creep into one of them and lie 
 hidden. A man of six feet high went up a lad 
 der, and standing at the base of one of them 
 could just reach to put his hand into the mouth 
 at its lower part above the conical foot. The 
 three great pipes are crowned by a heavily sculp 
 tured, ribbed, rounded dome, and this is sur 
 mounted, on each side, by two cherubs, whose 
 heads almost touch the lofty ceiling. This whole 
 portion of the sculpture is of eminent beauty. 
 The two exquisite cherubs of one side are play 
 ing on the lyre and the lute ; those of the other 
 side on the flute and the horn. All the reliefs 
 that run round the lower portion of the dome 
 are of singular richness. We have had an op 
 portunity of seeing one of the artist s photo 
 graphs, which showed in detail the full-length 
 
380 THE GREAT INSTRUMENT. 
 
 figures and the large central mask of this por 
 tion of the work, and found them as beautiful 
 on close inspection as the originals at a distance. 
 
 Two other lateral compartments, filled with 
 pipes and still more suggestive of the harp in 
 their form, lead to the square lateral towers. 
 Over these compartments, close to the round 
 tower, sits on each side a harper, a man on the 
 right, a woman on the left, with their harps, all 
 apparently of natural size. The square towers, 
 holding pipes in their open interior, are lower 
 than the round towers, and fall somewhat back 
 from the front. Below, three colossal hermce of 
 Sibyl-like women perform for them the office 
 which the giants and the lion-shapes perform for 
 the round towers. The four pillars which rise 
 from the base are square, and the dome which 
 surmounts them is square also. . Above the dome 
 is a vase-like support, upon which are disposed 
 figures of the lyre and other musical symbols. 
 
 The whole base of the instrument, in the in 
 tervals of the figures described, is covered with 
 elaborate carvings. Groups of musical instru 
 ments, standing out almost detached from the 
 
THE GREAT INSTRUMENT. 381 
 
 background, occupy the panels. Ancient and 
 modern, clustered with careless grace and quaint 
 variety, from the violin down to a string of 
 sleigh-bells, they call up all the echoes of for 
 gotten music, such as the thousand-tongued or 
 gan blends together in one grand harmony. 
 
 ^ The instrument is placed upon a low platform, 
 the outlines of which are in accordance with its 
 own. Its whole height is about sixty feet, its 
 breadth forty-eight feet, and its average depth 
 twenty-four feet. Some idea of its magnitude 
 may be got from the fact that the wind-ma 
 chinery and the swell-organ alone fill up the 
 whole recess occupied by the former organ, 
 which was not a small one. All the other por 
 tions of the great instrument come forward into 
 the hall. 
 
 In front of its centre stands Crawford s no 
 ble bronze statue of Beethoven, the gift of our 
 townsman, Mr. Charles Perkins. It might be 
 suggested that so fine a work of Art should 
 have a platform wholly to itself; but the eye 
 soon reconciles itself to the position of the 
 Statue, and the tremulous atmosphere which 
 
382 -THE GREAT INSTRUMENT. 
 
 surrounds the vibrating organ is that which 
 the almost breathing figure would seem to 
 delight in, as our imagination invests it with 
 momentary consciousness. 
 
 As we return to the impression produced by 
 the grand fagade, we are more and more struck 
 with the subtile art displayed in its adaptations 
 and symbolisms. Never did any structure we 
 have looked upon so fully justify Madame de 
 Stael s definition of architecture, as " frozen 
 music." The outermost towers, their pillars 
 and domes, are all square, their outlines thus 
 passing without too sudden transitions from the 
 sharp square angles of the vaulted ceiling and 
 the rectangular lines of the walls of the hall 
 itself into the more central parts of the instru 
 ment, where a smoother harmony of outline is 
 predominant. For in the great towers, which 
 step forward, as it were, to represent the mean 
 ing of the entire structure, the lines are all 
 curved, as if the slight discords which gave 
 sharpness and variety to its less vital portions 
 were all resolved as we approached its throbbing 
 heart. And again, the half fantastic repetitions 
 
THE GREAT INSTRUMENT. 383 
 
 of musical forms in the principal outlines, the 
 lyre-like shape of the bases of the great towers, 
 the harp-like figure of the connecting wings, 
 the clustering reeds of the columns, fill the 
 mind with musical suggestions, and dispose the 
 wondering spectator to become the entranced 
 listener. 
 
 The great organ would be but half known, if 
 it were not played in a place fitted for it in 
 dimensions. In the open air the sound would 
 be diluted and lost ; in an ordinary hall the 
 atmosphere would be churned into a mere tu 
 mult by the vibrations. The Boston Music 
 llall is of ample size to give play to the waves 
 of sound, yet not so large that its space will not 
 be filled and saturated with the overflowing 
 resonance. It is one hundred and thirty feet 
 in length by seventy-eight in breadth and sixty- 
 five in height, being thus of somewhat greater 
 dimensions than the celebrated Town Hall 
 of Birmingham. At the time of building it, 
 (1852,) its great height was ordered partly 
 with reference to the future possibility of its 
 being furnished with a large organ. It will be 
 
384 THE ORE AT INSTRUMENT. 
 
 observed that the three dimensions above given 
 are all multiples of the same number, thirteen, 
 the length being ten times, the breadth six times 
 and the height five times this number. This is 
 in accordance with Mr. Scott Russell s recom 
 mendation, which has been explained by the 
 fact that vibrating solids divide into harmonic 
 lengths, separated by nodal points of rest, and 
 that these last are equally distributed at aliquot 
 parts of its whole length. If the whole extent 
 of the walls be in vibration, its angles should 
 come in at the nodal points in order to avoid 
 the confusion arising from different vibrating 
 lengths ; and for this reason they are placed at 
 aliquot parts of its entire length. Thus the hall 
 is itself a kind of passive musical instrument, or 
 at least a sounding-board, constructed on theo 
 retical principles. Whatever is thought of the 
 theory, it proves in practice to possess the excel 
 lence which is liable to be lost in the construction 
 of the best-designed edifice. 
 
 We have thus attempted to give our readers 
 some imperfect idea of the great instrument, 
 
THE GREAT INSTRUMENT. 385 
 
 illustrating it by the objects of comparison with 
 which we are most familiar, and leaving to 
 others the more elaborate work of subjecting it 
 to a thorough artistic survey, and the rigorous 
 analysis necessary to bring out the various de 
 grees of excellence in its special qualities, which, 
 as in a human character, will be found to mark 
 its individuality. We shall proceed to give 
 some account of the manner in which the plan 
 of obtaining the best instrument the Old World 
 could furnish to the New was formed, matured, 
 and carried into successful execution. 
 
 It is mainly to the persistent labors of a single 
 individual that our community is indebted for 
 the privilege it now enjoys in possessing an 
 instrument of the supreme order, such as make 
 cities illustrious by their presence. That which 
 is on the lips of all it can wrong no personal 
 susceptibilities to tell in print ; and when we say 
 that Boston owes the Great Organ chiefly to 
 the personal efforts of the present President of 
 the Music-Hall Association, Dr. J. Baxter Up- 
 ham, the statement is only for the information 
 of distant readers. 
 
386 THE GREAT INSTRUMENT. 
 
 Dr. Upham is widely known to the medical 
 profession in connection with important contri 
 butions to practical science. His researches on 
 typhus-fever, as observed by him at different 
 periods, during and since the years 1847 and 
 1848, in this country, and as seen at Dublin and 
 in the London Fever Hospital, were recognized 
 as valuable contributions to the art of medicine. 
 More recently, as surgeon in charge of the Stan 
 ley General Hospital, Eighteenth Army Corps, 
 he has published an account of the " Congestive 
 Fever " prevailing at Newbern, North Carolina, 
 during the winter and spring of 1862-63. We 
 must add to these practical labors the record of 
 his most ingenious and original investigations 
 of the circulation in the singular case of M. 
 Groux, which had puzzled so many European 
 experts, and to which, with the tact of a musi 
 cian, he applied the electro-magnetic telegraphic 
 apparatus so as to change the rapid consecutive 
 motions of different parts of the heart, which 
 puzzled the eye, into successive sounds of a 
 character which the ear could recognize in their 
 order. It was during these experiments, many 
 
THE GREAT INSTRUMENT. 387 
 of which we had the pleasure of witnessing 
 
 A O" 
 
 that the " side-show " was exhibited of counting 
 
 O 
 
 the patient s pulse, through the wires, at the 
 Observatory in Cambridge, while it was beating 
 in Dr. Upham s parlor in Boston. Nor should 
 we forget that other ingenious contrivance of his, 
 the system of sound- signals, devised during his 
 recent term of service as surgeon, and applied 
 with the most promising results, as a means of 
 intercommunication between different portions 
 of the same armament. 
 
 In the summer of 1853, less than a year after 
 the Music Hall was opened to the public, Dr. 
 Upham, who had been for some time occupied 
 with the idea of procuring an organ worthy of 
 the edifice, made a tour in Europe with the 
 express object of seeing some of the most famous 
 instruments of the Continent and of Great 
 Britain. He examined many, especially in Ger 
 many, and visited some of the great organ- 
 builders, going so far as to obtain specifications 
 from Mr. Walcker of Ludwigsburg, and from 
 Weigl, his pupil at Stuttgart. On returning to 
 this country, he brought the proposition of pro- 
 
388 THE GREAT INSTRUMENT. 
 
 curing a great instrument in Europe in various 
 ways before the public, among the rest by his 
 " Reminiscences of a Summer Tour," published 
 in " D wight s Journal of Music." After this 
 he laid the matter before the members of the 
 Harvard Musical Association, and, having thus 
 gradually prepared the way, presented it for 
 consideration before the Board of Directors of 
 the Music-Hall Association. A committee was 
 appointed "to consider." There was some 
 division of opinion as to the expediency of the 
 more ambitious plan of sending abroad for a 
 colossal instrument. There was a majority re 
 port in its favor, and a verbal minority report 
 advocating a more modest instrument of home 
 manufacture. Then followed the anaconda- 
 torpor which marks the process of digestion of a 
 huge and as yet crude project by a multiver- 
 tebrate corporation. 
 
 On the first of March, 1856, the day of the 
 inauguration of Beethoven s statue, a subscrip 
 tion-paper was started, headed by Dr. Upham, 
 for raising the sum of ten thousand dollars. At 
 a meeting in June the plan was brought before 
 
Till: HIIKAT INSTRUMENT. 389 
 
 the stockholders of the Music Hall, who unani 
 mously voted to appropriate ten thousand dollars 
 and the proceeds of the old organ, on condition 
 that fifteen thousand dollars should be raised by 
 private subscription. In October it was reported 
 to the Directors that ten thousand dollars of this 
 sum were already subscribed, and Dr. Upham, 
 President of the Board, pledged himself to raise 
 the remainder on certain conditions, which were 
 accepted. He was then authorized to go abroad 
 to investigate the whole subject, with full powers 
 to select the builder and to make the necessary 
 contracts. 
 
 Dr. Upham had already made an examina 
 tion of the best organs and organ-factories in 
 New England, New York, and elsewhere in this 
 country, and received several specifications and 
 plans from builders. He proceeded at once, 
 therefore, to Europe, examined the great English 
 instruments, made the acquaintance of Mr. Hop 
 kins, the well-known organist and recognized 
 authority on all matters pertaining to the instru 
 ment, and took lessons of him in order to 
 know better the handling of the keys and the 
 
390 THE GREAT INSTRUMENT. 
 
 resources of the instrument. In his company, 
 Dr. Upham examined some of the best instru 
 ments in London. He made many excursions 
 among the old churches of Sir Christopher 
 Wren s building, where are to be found the fine 
 organs of " Father Smith," John Snetzler, and 
 other famous builders of the past. He visited the 
 workshops of Hill, Gray and Davidson, Willis, 
 Robson and others. He made a visit to Oxford 
 to examine the beautiful organ in Trinity Col 
 lege. He found his way into the organ-lofts of 
 St. Paul s, of Westminster Abbey, and the Tem 
 ple Church, during the playing at morning and 
 evening service. He inspected Thompson s 
 enharmonic organ, and obtained models of va 
 rious portions of organ-structure. 
 
 From London Dr. Upham went to Holland, 
 where he visited the famous instruments at 
 Haarlem, Amsterdam, and Rotterdam, and the 
 organ-factory at Utrecht, the largest and best in 
 Holland. Thence to Cologne, where, as well 
 as at Utrecht, he obtained plans and schemes of 
 instruments ; to Hamburg, where are fine old 
 organs, some of them built two or three centu- 
 
THE GREAT INSTRUMENT. 391 
 
 ries ago ; to Lubeck, Dresden, Breslau, Leipsic, 
 Halle, Merseburg. Here he found a splendid 
 organ built by Ladergast, whose instruments 
 excel especially in their tone effects. A letter 
 from Liszt, the renowned pianist, recommended 
 this builder particularly to Dr. Upham s choice. 
 At Frankfort and at Stuttgart he found two 
 magnificent instruments, built by Walcker of 
 Ludwigsburg, to which place he repaired in 
 order to examine his factories carefully, for the 
 second time. Thence the musical tourist pro 
 ceeded to Ulm, where is the sumptuous organ, 
 the work of the same builder, ranking, we be 
 lieve, first in point of dimensions of all in the 
 world. Onward still, to Munich, Bamberg, 
 Augsburg, Nuremberg, along the Lake of Con 
 stance to Weingarten, where is that great organ 
 claiming to have sixty-six stops and six thousand 
 six hundred and sixty-six pipes ; to Freyburg, 
 in Switzerland, where is another great organ, 
 noted for the rare beauty of its vox-humana stop, 
 the mechanism of which had been specially stud 
 ied by Mr. Walcker, who explained it to Dr. 
 Uphain. 
 
392 THE GREAT INSTRUMENT. 
 
 Returning to Ludwigsburg, Dr. Upham re 
 ceived another specification from Mr. Walcker. 
 He then passed some time at Frankfort examin 
 ing the specifications already received, and the 
 additional ones which came to him while there. 
 At last, by the process of exclusion, the 
 choice was narrowed down to three names, 
 Schultze, Ladergast, and Walcker, then to the 
 two last. There was still a difficulty in decid 
 ing between these. Dr. Upham called in Mr. 
 Walcker s partner and son, who explained every 
 point on which he questioned them with the 
 utmost minuteness. Still undecided, he revisited 
 Merseburg and Weissenfels, to give Ladergast s 
 instruments another trial. The result was that 
 he asked Mr. Walcker for a third specification, 
 with certain additions and alterations which he 
 named. This he received, and finally decided 
 m his favor, but with the condition that Mr. 
 Walcker should meet him in Paris for the pur 
 pose of examining the French organs with refer 
 ence to any excellences of which he might avail 
 himself, and afterwards proceed to London and 
 inspect the English instruments with the same 
 object. 
 
THE GREAT INSTRUMENT. 393 
 
 The details of tins joint tour are very inter 
 esting, but we have not space for them. The 
 frank enthusiasm with which the great German 
 organ-builder was welcomed in France contrasted 
 forcibly with the quiet, not to say cool, way in 
 which the insular craftsmen received him, grad 
 ually, however, warming, and at last, with a 
 certain degree of effort, admitting him to their 
 confidence. 
 
 A fortnight was spent by Dr. Upham in com 
 pany with Walcker and Mr. Hopkins in study 
 ing and perfecting the specification, which was 
 at last signed in German and English, and 
 stamped with the notarial seal, and thus the 
 
 contract made binding 
 & 
 
 A long correspondence relating to the instru 
 ment followed between Dr. Upham, the builder, 
 and Mr. Hopkins, ending only with the ship 
 ment of the instrument. A most interesting 
 part of this was Dr. Upham s account of his 
 numerous original experiments with the natural 
 larynx, made with reference to determining the 
 conditions requisite for the successful imitation 
 of the human voice in the arrangement called 
 17* 
 
394 THE GREAT INSTRUMENT. 
 
 vox humana. Mr. Walcker has availed himself 
 of the results of these experiments in the stop as 
 made for this organ, but with what success we 
 are unable to say, as the pipes have not been set 
 in place at the time of our writing. As there is 
 always great curiosity to hear this particular 
 stop, we will guard our readers against disap 
 pointment by quoting a few remarks about that 
 of the Haarlem organ, made by the liveliest of 
 musical writers, Dr. Burney. 
 
 " As to the vox humana, which is so cele 
 brated, it does not at all resemble a human 
 voice, though a very good stop of the kind ; but 
 the world is very apt to be imposed upon by 
 names ; the instant a common hearer is told that 
 an organist is playing upon a stop which resem 
 bles the human voice, he supposes it to be very 
 fine, and never inquires into the propriety of the 
 name, or exactness of the imitation. However, 
 with respect to our own feelings, we must con 
 fess, that, of all the stops which we have yet 
 heard, that have been honored with the appella 
 tion of vox humana, no one in the treble part 
 has ever reminded us of anything human, so 
 
THE GREAT INSTRUMENT. 395 
 
 much as the cracked voice of an old woman of 
 ninety, or, in the lower parts, of Punch singing 
 through a comb." Let us hope that this most 
 irreverent description will not apply to the vox 
 humana of our instrument, after all the science 
 and skill that have been expended upon it. 
 Should it prove a success like that of the Frey- 
 burg organ, there will be pilgrimages from the 
 shores of the Pacific and the other side of the 
 Atlantic to listen to the organ that can sing , 
 and what can be a more miraculous triumph of 
 art than to cheat the ear with such an enchant 
 ing delusion. 
 
 Before the organ could be accepted, it was 
 required by the terms of the contract to be set 
 up at the factory, and tested by three persons : 
 one to be selected by the Organ Committee of 
 the Music-Hall Association, one by the builder, 
 and a third to be chosen by them. Having been 
 approved by these judges, and also by the State- 
 Commissioner of Wiirtemberg, according to the 
 State ordinance, the result of the trial was 
 transmitted to the President and Directors of 
 the Music-Hall Association, and the organ was 
 accepted. 
 
896 THE GREAT INSTRUMENT. 
 
 The war broke out in the mean time, and 
 there were fears lest the vessel in which the 
 instrument might be shipped should fall a 
 victim to some of the British corsairs sailing 
 under Confederate colors. But the Dutch brig 
 "Presto," though slow, was safe from the li 
 censed pirates, unless an organ could be shown 
 to be contraband of war. She was out so long, 
 however, nearly three months from Rotter 
 dam, that the insurance -office presidents 
 shook their heads over her, fearing that she 
 had gone down with all her precious freight. 
 
 " At length," to borrow Dr. Upham s words, 
 "one stormy Sunday in March she was tele 
 graphed from the marine station down in the 
 bay, and the next morning, among the marine 
 intelligence, in the smallest possible type, might 
 be read the invoice of her cargo thus : 
 
 Sunday Mar. 22 
 
 i DIWUI j a upnam zu pipes <j casks gin J D Richa 
 Schumaker 20 do gin 500 bags chickory root order, etc., etc. 
 
 And this was the heralding of this greatest 
 marvel of a high and noble art, after the labor 
 of seven years bestowed upon it, having been 
 
THE GREAT INSTRUMENT. 397 
 
 tried and pronounced complete by the most fas 
 tidious and competent of critics, the wonder and 
 admiration of music-loving Germany, the pride 
 of Wiirtemberg, bringing a new phase of civil 
 ization to our shores in the darkest hour of our 
 country s trouble." 
 
 It remains to give a brief history of the con 
 struction of the grand and imposing architectural 
 frame which we have already attempted to de 
 scribe. Many organ-fronts were examined with 
 reference to their effects, during Dr. Upham s 
 visits, of which we have traced the course, and 
 photographs and sketches obtained for the same 
 purpose. On returning, the task of procuring 
 a fitting plan was immediately undertaken. We 
 need not detail the long series of trials which 
 were necessary before the requirements of the 
 President and Directors of the Music-Hall Asso 
 ciation were fully satisfied. As the result of 
 these, it was decided that the work should be 
 committed to the brothers Herter, of New York, 
 European artists, educated at the Royal Acad 
 emy of Art in Stuttgart. The general outline 
 
398 THE GREAT INSTRUMENT. 
 
 of the facade followed a design made by Mr. 
 Hammatt Billings, to whom also are due the 
 drawings from which the Saint Cecilia and 
 the two groups of cherubs upon the round towers 
 were modelled. These figures were executed at 
 Stuttgart ; the other carvings were all done in 
 New York, under Mr. Herter s direction, by 
 Italian and German artists, one of whom had 
 trained his powers particularly to the shaping of 
 colossal figures. In the course of the work, one 
 of the brothers Herter visited Ludwigsburg for 
 the special purpose of comparing his plans with 
 the structure to which they were to be adapted, 
 and was received with enthusiasm, the design 
 for the front being greatly admired. 
 
 The contract was made with Mr. Herter in 
 April, 1860, and the work, having been ac 
 cepted, was sent to Boston during the last winter, 
 and safely stored in the lecture-room beneath 
 the Music Hall. In March the Great Work 
 arrived from Germany, and was stored in the 
 hall above. 
 
 " The seven years task is done, the danger 
 
THE GREAT INSTRUMENT. 399 
 
 from flood and fire so far escaped, the gantlet 
 of the pirates safely run, the perils of the sea 
 and the rail surmounted by the good Providence 
 of God." 
 
 The devout gratitude of the President of the 
 Association, under whose auspices this great un 
 dertaking has been successfully carried through, 
 will be shared by all lovers of Art and all the 
 friends of American civilization and culture. 
 We cannot naturalize the Old World cathedrals, 
 for they were the architectural embodiment of a 
 form of worship belonging to other ages and 
 differently educated races. But the organ was 
 only lent to human priesthoods for their masses 
 and requiems ; it belongs to Art, a religion of 
 which God himself appoints the high-priests. 
 At first it appears almost a violence to transplant 
 it from those awful sanctuaries, out of whose 
 arches its forms seemed to grow, and whose 
 echoes seemed to hold converse with it, into our 
 gay and gilded halls, to utter its majestic voice 
 before the promiscuous multitude. Our hasty 
 impression is a wrong one. We have under 
 taken, for the first time in the world s history, 
 
400 THE GREAT INSTRUMENT. 
 
 to educate a nation. To teach a people to 
 know the Creator in His glorious manifestations 
 through the wondrous living organs is a task for 
 which no implement of human fabrication is too 
 sacred ; for all true culture is a form of worship, 
 and to every rightly ordered mind a setting forth 
 of the Divine glory. 
 
 This consummate work of science and skill 
 reaches us in the midst of the discordant sounds 
 of war, the prelude of that blessed harmony 
 which will come whenever the jarring organ of 
 the State has learned once more to obey its 
 keys. 
 
 God grant that the Miserere of a people in 
 its anguish may soon be followed by the Te 
 Deum of a redeemed nation ! 
 
THE INEVITABLE TRIAL.* 
 
 IT is our first impulse, upon this returning 
 day of our nation s birth, to recall what 
 ever is happiest and noblest in our past history, 
 and to join our voices in celebrating the states 
 men and the heroes, the men of thought and the 
 men of action, to whom that history owes its 
 existence. In other years this pleasing office 
 may have been all that was required of the holi 
 day speaker. But to-day, when the very life of 
 the nation is threatened, when clouds are thick 
 about us, and men s hearts are throbbing with 
 passion, or failing with fear, it is the living ques 
 tion of the hour, and not the dead story of the 
 past, which forces itself into all minds, and will 
 find unrebuked debate in all assemblies. 
 
 * An Oration delivered before the City Authorities of Boston, 
 on the 4th of July, 1863. 
 
402 THE INEVITABLE TRIAL. 
 
 In periods of disturbance like the present, 
 many persons who sincerely love their country 
 and mean to do their duty to her disappoint the 
 hopes and expectations of those who are actively 
 working in her cause. They seem to have lost 
 whatever moral force they may have once pos 
 sessed, and to go drifting about from one profit 
 less discontent to another, at a time when every 
 citizen is called upon for cheerful, ready service. 
 It is because their minds are bewildered, and 
 they are no longer truly themselves. Show 
 them the path of duty, inspire them with hope 
 for the future, lead them upwards from the tur 
 bid stream of events to the bright, translucent 
 springs of eternal principles, strengthen their 
 trust in humanity and their faith in God, and 
 you may yet restore them to their manhood and 
 their country. 
 
 At all times, and especially on this anniver 
 sary of glorious recollections and kindly enthu 
 siasms, we should try to judge the weak and 
 wavering souls of our brothers fairly and gener 
 ously. The conditions in which our vast com 
 munity of peace-loving citizens find themselves 
 
THE INEVITABLE TRIAL. 4Q3 
 
 are new and unprovided for. Our quiet burgh 
 ers and farmers are in the position of river-boats 
 blown from their moorings out upon a vast ocean, 
 where such a typhoon is raging as no mariner 
 who sails its waters ever before looked upon. 
 If their beliefs change with the veering of the 
 blast, if their trust in their fellow-men, and in 
 the course of Divine Providence, seems well- 
 nigh shipwrecked, we must remember that they 
 were taken unawares, and without the prepara 
 tion which could fit them to struggle with these 
 tempestuous elements. In times like these the 
 faith is the man ; and they to whom it is given 
 in larger measure owe a special duty to those 
 who for want of it are faint at heart, uncertain 
 in speech, feeble in effort, and purposeless in 
 aim. * 
 
 Assuming without argument a few simple 
 propositions, that self-government is the natu 
 ral condition of an adult society, as distinguished 
 from the immature state, in which the temporary 
 arrangements of monarchy and oligarchy are 
 tolerated as conveniences ; that the end of all 
 social compacts is, or ought to be, to give every 
 
404 THE INEVITABLE TRIAL. 
 
 child born into the world the fairest chance to 
 make the most and the best of itself that laws 
 can give it ; that Liberty, the one of the two 
 claimants who swears that her babe shall not be 
 split in halves and divided between them, is the 
 true mother of this blessed Union ; that the 
 contest in which we are engaged is one of prin 
 ciples overlaid by circumstances ; that the longer 
 we fight, and the more we study the movements 
 of events and ideas, the more clearly we find 
 the moral nature of the cause at issue emerging 
 in the field and in the study ; that all honest 
 persons with average natural sensibility, with re 
 spectable understanding, educated in the school 
 of northern teaching, will have eventually to 
 range themselves in the armed or unarmed host 
 which fc fights or pleads for freedom, as against 
 every form of tyranny ; if not in the front rank 
 now, then in the rear rank by and by ; assum 
 ing these propositions, as many, perhaps most of 
 us, are ready to do, and believing that the more 
 they are debated before the public the more they 
 will gain converts, we owe it to the timid and the 
 doubting to keep the great questions of the time 
 
THE INEVITABLE TRIAL. 405 
 
 in unceasing and untiring agitation. They must 
 be discussed, in all ways consistent with the pub 
 lic welfare, by different classes of thinkers ; by 
 priests and laymen ; by statesmen and simple 
 voters ; by moralists and lawyers ; by men of 
 science and uneducated hand-laborers ; by men 
 of facts and figures, and by men of theories and 
 aspirations ; in the abstract and in the concrete ; 
 discussed and rediscussed every month, every 
 week, every day, and almost every hour, as 
 the telegraph tells us of some new upheaval or 
 subsidence of the rocky base of our political 
 order. 
 
 Such discussions may not be necessary to 
 strengthen the convictions of the great body of 
 loyal citizens. They may do nothing toward 
 changing the views of those, if such there be, 
 as some profess to believe, who follow politics as 
 a trade. They may have no hold upon that 
 class of persons who are defective in moral sen 
 sibility, just as other persons are wanting in an 
 ear for music. But for the honest, vacillating 
 minds, the tender consciences supported by the 
 tremulous knees of an infirm intelligence, the 
 
406 THE INEVITABLE TRIAL. 
 
 timid compromisers who are always trying to 
 curve the straight lines and round the sharp 
 angles of eternal law, the continual debate of 
 these living questions is the one offered means 
 of grace and hope of earthly redemption. And 
 thus a true, unhesitating patriot may be willing 
 to listen with patience to arguments which he 
 does not need, to appeals which have no special 
 significance for him, in the hope that some less 
 clear in mind or less courageous in temper may 
 profit by them. 
 
 As we look at the condition in which we find 
 ourselves on this fourth day of July, 1863, at 
 the beginning of the Eighty-eighth Year of 
 American Independence, we may well ask our 
 selves what right we have to indulge in public 
 rejoicings. If the war in which we are engaged 
 is an accidental one, which might have been 
 avoided but for our fault ; if it is for any ambi 
 tious or unworthy purpose on our part ; if it is 
 hopeless, and we are madly persisting in it ; if 
 it is our duty and in our power to make a safe 
 and honorable peace, and we refuse to do it ; if 
 
THE INEVITABLE TRIAL. 407 
 
 our free institutions are in danger of becoming 
 subverted, and giving place to an irresponsible 
 tyranny ; if we are moving in the narrow cir 
 cles which are to ingulf us in national ruin, 
 then we had better sing a dirge, and leave this 
 idle assemblage, and hush the noisy cannon 
 which are reverberating through the air, and 
 tear down the scaffolds which are soon to blaze 
 with fiery symbols ; for it is mourning and not 
 joy that should cover the land ; there should be 
 silence, and not the echo of noisy gladness, in 
 our streets ; and the emblems with which we 
 tell our nation s story and prefigure its future 
 should be traced, not in fire, but in ashes. 
 
 If, on the other hand, this war is no acci 
 dent, but an inevitable result of long-incubating 
 causes ; inevitable as the cataclysms that swept 
 away the monstrous births of primeval nature ; 
 if it is for no mean, unworthy end, but for na 
 tional life, for liberty everywhere, for humanity, 
 for the kingdom of God on earth ; if it is not 
 hopeless, but only growing to such dimensions 
 that the world shall remember the final triumph 
 of right throughout all time ; if there is no safe 
 
408 THE INEVITABLE TRIAL. 
 
 and honorable peace for us but a peace pro 
 claimed from the capital of every revolted pro 
 vince in the name of the sacred, inviolable 
 Union ; if the fear of tyranny is a phantasm, 
 conjured up by the imagination of the weak, 
 acted on by the craft of the cunning ; if so far 
 from circling inward to the gulf of our perdition, 
 the movement of past years is reversed, and 
 every revolution carries us farther and farther 
 from the centre of the vortex, until, bv God s 
 blessing, we shall soon find ourselves freed from 
 the outermost coil of the accursed spiral ; if all 
 these things are true ; if we may hope to make 
 them seem true, or even probable, to the doubt 
 ing soul, in an hour s discourse, then we may 
 join without madness in the day s exultant fes 
 tivities ; the bells may ring, the cannon may 
 roar, the incense of our harmless saltpetre fill 
 the air, and the children who are to inherit the 
 fruit of these toiling, agonizing years, go about 
 unblamed, making day and night vocal with 
 their jubilant patriotism. 
 
 The struggle in which we are engaged was 
 
THE INEVITABLE TRIAL. 409 
 
 inevitable ; it might have come a little sooner, 
 or a little later, but k must have come. The 
 disease of the nation was organic, and not func 
 tional, and the rough chirurgery of war was its 
 only remedy. 
 
 In opposition to this view, there are many 
 languid thinkers who lapse into a forlorn belief 
 that if this or that man had never lived, or if 
 this or that other man had not ceased to live, 
 the country might have gone on in peace and 
 prosperity, until its felicity merged in the glories 
 of the millennium. If Mr. Calhoun had never 
 proclaimed his heresies ; if Mr. Garrison had 
 never published his paper ; if Mr. Phillips, the 
 Cassandra in masculine shape of our long pros 
 perous Ilium, had never uttered his melodious 
 prophecies ; if the silver tones of Mr. Clay had 
 still sounded in the senate-chamber to smooth 
 the billows of contention ; if the Olympian brow 
 of Daniel Webster had been lifted from the dust 
 to fix its awful frown on the darkening scowl of 
 rebellion, we might have been spared this 
 dread season of convulsion. All this is but 
 simple Martha s faith, without the reason she 
 
 18 
 
410 THE INEVITABLE TRIAL. 
 
 could have given : "If Thou hadst been here, 
 my brother had not died." 
 
 They little know the tidal movements of na 
 tional thought and feeling, who believe that they 
 depend for existence on a few swimmers who 
 ride their waves. It is not Leviathan that leads 
 the ocean from continent to continent, but the 
 ocean which bears his mighty bulk as it wafts 
 its own bubbles. If this is true of all the nar 
 rower manifestations of human progress, how 
 much more must it be true of those broad move 
 ments in the intellectual and spiritual domain 
 which interest all mankind ? But in the more 
 limited ranges referred to, no fact is more famil 
 iar than that there is a simultaneous impulse 
 acting on many individual minds at once, so that 
 genius comes in clusters, and shines rarely as a 
 single star. You may trace a common motive 
 and force in the pyramid-builders of the earliest 
 recorded antiquity, in the evolution of Greek 
 architecture, and in the sudden springing up of 
 those wondrous cathedrals of the twelfth and 
 following centuries, growing out of the soil with 
 stem and bud and blossom, like flowers of stone 
 
THE INEVITABLE TRIAL. 4U 
 
 whose seeds might well have been the flaming 
 aerolites cast over the battlements of heaven. 
 You may see the same law showing itself in the 
 brief periods of glory which make the names of 
 Pericles and Augustus illustrious with reflected 
 splendors ; in the painters, the sculptors, the 
 scholars of " Leo s golden days" ; in the authors 
 of the Elizabethan time ; in the poets of the 
 first part of this century following that dreary 
 period, suffering alike from the silence of Cow- 
 per and the song of Hayley. You may accept 
 the fact as natural, that Zwingli and Luther, 
 without knowing each other, preached the same 
 reformed gospel ; that Newton, and Hooke, and 
 Ilalley, and Wren arrived independently of each 
 other at the great law of the diminution of grav 
 ity with the square of the distance ; that Lever- 
 rier and Adams felt their hands meeting, .as it 
 were, as they stretched them into tire outer 
 darkness beyond the orbit of Uranus, in search 
 of the dim, unseen planet ; that Fulton and 
 Bell, that Wheats tone and Morse, that Daguerre 
 and Niepce, were moving almost simultaneous 
 ly in parallel paths to the same end. You see 
 
412 THE INEVITABLE TRIAL. 
 
 why Patrick Henry, in Richmond, and Samuel 
 Adams, in Boston, were startling the crown offi 
 cials with the same accents of liberty, and why 
 the Mecklenburg Resolutions had the very ring 
 
 of the Protest of the Province of Massachusetts. 
 
 
 
 This law of simultaneous intellectual movement, 
 recognized by all thinkers, expatiated upon by 
 Lord Macaulay and by Mr. Herbert Spencer 
 among recent writers, is eminently applicable 
 to that change of thought and feeling, which 
 necessarily led to the present conflict. 
 
 The antagonism of the two sections of the 
 Union was not the work of this or that enthu 
 siast or fanatic. It was the consequence of a 
 movement in mass of two different forms of civ 
 ilization in different directions, and the men to 
 whom it was attributed were only those who 
 represented it most completely, or who talked 
 longest and loudest about it. Long before the 
 accents of those famous statesmen referred to 
 ever resounded in the halls of the Capitol, long 
 before the "Liberator" opened its batteries, the 
 controversy now working itself out by trial of 
 battle, was foreseen and predicted. Washington 
 
THE INEVITABLE TRIAL. 413 
 
 warned his countrymen of the danger of sec 
 tional divisions, well knowing the line of cleav 
 age that ran through the seemingly solid fabric. 
 Jefferson foreshadowed the judgment to fall upon 
 the land for its sins against a just God. An 
 drew Jackson announced a quarter of a century 
 beforehand that the next pretext of revolution 
 would be slavery. De Tocqueville recognized 
 with that penetrating insight which analyzed our 
 institutions and conditions so keenly, that the 
 Union was to be endangered by slavery, not 
 through its interests, but through the change of 
 character it was bringing about in the people 
 of the two sections, the same fatal change which 
 George Mason, more than half a century before, 
 had declared to be the most pernicious effect 
 of the system, adding the solemn warning, now 
 fearfully justifying itself in the sight of his de 
 scendants, that " by an inevitable chain of causes 
 and effects, Providence punishes national sins by 
 national calamities." The Virginian romancer 
 pictured the far-off scenes of the conflict which 
 he saw approaching, as the prophets of Israel 
 painted the coming woes of Jerusalem, and the 
 
414 THE INEVITABLE TRIAL. 
 
 strong iconoclast of Boston announced the very 
 year when the curtain should rise on the yet 
 unopened drama. 
 
 The wise men of the past, and the shrewd 
 men of our own time, who warned us of the 
 calamities in store for our nation, never doubted 
 what was the cause which was to produce first 
 alienation and finally rupture. The descendants 
 of the men " daily exercised in tyranny," the 
 " petty tyrants," as their own leading statesmen 
 called them long ago, came at length to love the 
 institution which their fathers had condemned 
 while they tolerated. It is the fearful realiza 
 tion of that vision of the poet where the lost 
 angels snuff up with eager nostrils the sulphur 
 ous emanations of the bottomless abyss, so 
 have their natures become changed by long 
 breathing the atmosphere of the realm of dark 
 ness. 
 
 At last, in the fulness of time, the fruits of sin 
 ripened in a sudden harvest of crime. Vio 
 lence stalked into the senate-chamber, theft 
 and perjury wound their way into the cabinet, 
 and, finally, openly organized conspiracy, with 
 
THE INEVITABLE TRIAL. 415 
 
 force and arms, made burglarious entrance into 
 a chief stronghold of the Union. That the 
 principle which underlay these acts of fraud and 
 violence should be irrevocably recorded with 
 every needed sanction, it pleased God to select 
 a chief ruler of the false government to be its 
 Messiah to the listening world. As with Pharaoh, 
 the Lord hardened his lieart, while he opened 
 his mouth, as of old he opened that of the un 
 wise animal ridden by cursing Balaam. Then 
 spake Mr. " Vice-President " Stephens those 
 memorable words which fixed forever the theory 
 of the new social order. He first lifted a de 
 graded barbarism to the dignity of a philosophic 
 system. He first proclaimed the gospel of eter 
 nal tyranny as the new revelation which Provi 
 dence had reserved for the western Palestine. 
 Hear, O heavens ! and give ear, earth ! The 
 corner-stone of the new-born dispensation is 
 the recognized inequality of races ; not that the 
 strong may protect the weak, as men protect 
 women and children, but that the strong may 
 claim the authority of Nature and of God to 
 buy, to sell, to scourge, to hunt, to cheat out of 
 
416 THE INEVITABLE TRIAL. 
 
 the reward of his labor, to keep in perpetual ig 
 norance, to blast with hereditary curses through 
 out all time, the bronzed foundling of the New 
 "World, upon whose darkness has dawned the 
 star of the occidental Bethlehem ! 
 
 After two years of war have consolidated 
 the opinion of the Slave States, we read in the 
 " Richmond Examiner " : " The establishment 
 of the Confederacy is verily a distinct reaction 
 against the whole course of the mistaken civiliza 
 tion of the age. For Liberty, Equality, Fra 
 ternity, we have deliberately substituted Slavery, 
 Subordination, and Government." 
 
 A simple diagram, within the reach of all, 
 shows how idle it is to look for any other cause 
 than slavery as having any material agency in 
 dividing the country. Match the two broken 
 pieces of the Union, and you will find the fissure 
 that separates them zigzagging itself half across 
 the continent like an isothermal line, shooting its 
 splintery projections, and opening its re-entering 
 angles, not merely according to the limitations 
 of particular States, but as a county or other 
 limited section of ground belongs to freedom or 
 
THE INEVITABLE TRIAL. 417 
 
 to slavery. Add to this the official statement 
 made in 1862, that " there is not one regiment 
 or battalion, or even company of men, which was 
 organized in or derived from the Free States 
 or Territories, anywhere, against the Union "; 
 throw in gratuitously Mr. Stephens s explicit 
 declaration in the speech referred to, and we 
 will consider the evidence closed for the present 
 on this count of the indictment. 
 
 In the face of these predictions, these declara 
 tions, this line of fracture, this precise statement, 
 testimony from so many sources, extending 
 through several generations, as to the necessary 
 effect of slavery, a priori, and its actual influence 
 as shown by the facts, few will suppose that 
 anything we could have done would have stayed 
 its course or prevented it from working out its 
 legitimate effects on the white subjects of its 
 corrupting dominion. Northern acquiescence 
 or even sympathy may have sometimes helped 
 to make it sit more easily on the consciences of 
 its supporters! Many profess to think that 
 Northern fanaticism, as they call it, acted like a 
 mordant in fixing the black dye of slavery in 
 18* AA 
 
418 THE INEVITABLE TRIAL. 
 
 regions which would but for that have washed 
 
 o 
 
 themselves free of its stain in tears of penitence. 
 It is a delusion and a snare to trust in any such 
 false and flimsy reasons where there is enough 
 and more than enough in the institution itself 
 
 O 
 
 to account for its growth. Slavery gratifies at 
 once the love of power, the love of money, and 
 the love of ease ; it finds a victim for anger who 
 cannot smite back his oppressor; and it offers 
 to all, without measure, the seductive privileges 
 which the Mormon gospel reserves for the true 
 believers on earth, and the Bible of Mahomet 
 only dares promise to the saints in heaven. 
 
 Still it is common, common even to vulgarism, 
 to hear the remark that the same gallows-tree 
 ought to bear as its fruit the arch-traitor and the 
 leading champion of aggressive liberty. The 
 mob of Jerusalem was not satisfied with its two 
 crucified thieves ; it must have a cross also for 
 the reforming Galilean, who interfered so rudely 
 with its conservative traditions ! It is asserted 
 that the fault was quite as much on our side as 
 on the other ; that our agitators and abolishers 
 kindled the flame for which the combustibles 
 
THE INEVITABLE TRIAL. 419 
 
 were all ready on the other side of the border. 
 If these men could have been silenced, our 
 brothers had not died. 
 
 Who are the persons that use this argument ? 
 They are the very ones who are at the present 
 moment most zealous in maintaining the right of 
 free discussion. At a time when every power 
 the nation can summon is needed to ward off 
 the blows aimed at its life, and turn their force 
 upon its foes, when a false traitor at home 
 may lose us a battle by a word, and a lying 
 newspaper may demoralize an army by its daily 
 or weekly stillicidium of poison, they insist with 
 loud acclaim upon the liberty of speech and of 
 the press ; liberty, nay license, to deal with 
 government, with leaders, with every measure, 
 however urgent, in any terms they choose, to 
 traduce the officer before his own soldiers, and 
 assail the only men who have any claim at all to 
 rule over the country, as the very ones who are 
 least worthy to be obeyed. If these opposition 
 members of society are to have their way now, 
 they cannot find fault with those persons who 
 spoke their minds freely in the past on that 
 
420 THE INEVITABLE TRIAL. 
 
 great question which, as we have agreed, under 
 lies all our present dissensions. 
 
 It is easy to understand the bitterness which 
 is often shown towards reformers. They are 
 never general favorites. They are apt to inter 
 fere with vested rights and time-hallowed inter 
 ests. They often wear an unlovely, forbidding 
 aspect. Their office corresponds to that of 
 Nature s sanitary commission for the removal 
 of material nuisances. It is not the butterfly, 
 but the beetle, which she employs for this duty. 
 It is not the bird of paradise and the nightingale, 
 but the fowl of dark plumage and unmelodious 
 voice, to which is intrusted the sacred duty of 
 eliminating the substances that infect the air. 
 And the force of obvious analogy teaches us not 
 to expect all the qualities which please the gen 
 eral taste in those whose instincts lead them to 
 attack the moral nuisances which poison the 
 atmosphere of society. But whether they please 
 us in all their aspects or not, is not the question. 
 Like them or not, they must and will perform 
 their office, and we cannot stop them. They 
 may be unwise, violent, abusive, extravagant, 
 
THE INEVITABLE TRIAL. 421 
 
 impracticable, but they are alive, at any rate, 
 and it is their business to remove abuses as soon 
 as they are dead, and often to help them to die. 
 To quarrel with them because they are beetles, 
 and not butterflies, is natural, but far from 
 profitable. They grow none the worse for being 
 trodden upon, like those tough weeds that love 
 to nestle between the stones of court-yard pave 
 ments. If you strike at one of their heads with 
 the bludgeon of the law, or of violence, it flies 
 open like the seed-capsule of a snap-weed, and 
 fills the whole region with seminal thoughts 
 which will spring up in a crop just like the 
 original martyr. They chased one of these en 
 thusiasts, who attacked slavery, from St. Louis, 
 and shot him at Alton in 1837 ; and on the 23d 
 of June just passed, the Governor of Missouri, 
 Chairman of the Committee on Emancipation, 
 introduced to the Convention an Ordinance for 
 the final extinction of slavery ! They hunted 
 another through the streets of a great Northern 
 city in 1835 ; and within a few weeks a regiment 
 of colored soldiers, many of them bearing the 
 marks of the slave-driver s whip on their backs, 
 
422 THE INEVITABLE TRIAL. 
 
 marched out before a vast multitude tremulous 
 with newly-stirred sympathies, through the 
 streets of the same city, to fight our battles in 
 the name of God and Liberty ! 
 
 The same persons who abuse the reformers, 
 and lay all our troubles at their door, are apt to 
 be severe also on what they contemptuously 
 emphasize as "sentiments" considered as mo 
 tives of action. It is charitable to believe that 
 they do not seriously contemplate or truly un 
 derstand the meaning of the words they use, 
 but rather play with them, as certain so-called 
 " learned " quadrupeds play with the printed 
 characters set before them. In all questions 
 involving duty, we act from sentiments. Re 
 ligion springs from them, the family order rests 
 upon them, and in every community each act 
 involving a relation between any two of its 
 members implies the recognition or the denial 
 of a sentiment. It is true that men often forget 
 them or act against their bidding in the keen 
 competition of business and politics. But God 
 has not left the hard intellect of man to work 
 out its devices without the constant presence of 
 
THE INEVITABLE TRIAL. 423 
 
 beings with gentler and purer instincts. The 
 breast of woman is the ever-rocking cradle of 
 the pure and holy sentiments which will sooner 
 or later steal their way into the mind of her 
 sterner companion ; which will by and by emerge 
 in the thoughts of the world s teachers, and 
 at last thunder forth in the edicts of its law 
 givers and masters. Woman herself borrows 
 half her tenderness from the sweet influences of 
 maternity ; and childhood, that weeps at the 
 story of suffering, that shudders at the picture 
 of wrong, brings down its inspiration " from 
 God, who is our home." To quarrel, then, 
 with the class of minds that instinctively attack 
 abuses, is not only profitless but senseless ; to 
 sneer at the sentiments which are the springs 
 of all just and virtuous actions, is merely a dis 
 play of unthinking levity, or of want of the 
 natural sensibilities. 
 
 With the hereditary character of the Southern 
 people moving in one direction, and the awak 
 ened conscience of the North stirring in the 
 other, the open conflict of opinion was inevitable, 
 and equally inevitable its appearance in the field 
 
424 THE INEVITABLE TRIAL. 
 
 of national politics. For what is meant by 
 self-government is, that a man shall make his 
 convictions of what is right and expedient regu 
 late the community so far as his fractional share 
 of the government extends. If one has come to 
 the conclusion, be it right or wrong, that any 
 particular institution or statute is a violation of 
 the sovereign law of God, it is to be expected 
 that he will choose to be represented by those 
 who share his belief, and who will in their wider 
 sphere do all they legitimately can to get rid of 
 the wrong in which they find themselves and 
 their constituents involved. To prevent opinion 
 from organizing itself under political forms may 
 be very desirable, but it is not according to the 
 theory or practice of self-government. And if 
 at last organized opinions become arrayed in 
 hostile shape against each other, we shall find 
 that a just war is only the last inevitable link in 
 a chain of closely connected impulses of which 
 the original source is in Him who gave to tender 
 and humble and uncorrupted souls the sense of 
 right and wrong, which, after passing through 
 various forms, has found its final expression in 
 
THE INEVITABLE TRIAL. 425 
 
 the use of material force. Behind the bayonet 
 is the lawgiver s statute, behind the statute the 
 thinker s argument, behind the argument is the 
 tender conscientiousness of woman, woman, 
 the wife, the mother, who looks upon the face 
 of God himself reflected in the unsullied soul of 
 infancy. " Out of the mouths of babes and 
 sucklings hast thou ordained strength, because of 
 thine enemies." 
 
 The simplest course for the malecontent is to 
 find fault with the order of Nature and the 
 Being who established it. Unless the law of 
 moral progress were changed, or the Governor 
 of the Universe were dethroned, it would be 
 impossible to prevent a great uprising of the 
 human conscience against a system, the legisla 
 tion relating to which, in the words of so calm 
 an observer as De Tocqueville, the Montesquieu 
 of our laws, presents " such unparalleled atroci 
 ties as to show that the laws of humanity have 
 been totally perverted." Until the infinite self 
 ishness of the powers that hate and fear the 
 principles of free government swallowed up their 
 convenient virtues, that system was hissed at by 
 
426 THE INEVITABLE TRIAL. 
 
 all the old-world civilization. While in one 
 section of our land the attempt has been going 
 on to lift it out of the category of tolerated 
 wrongs into the sphere of the world s beneficent 
 agencies, it was to be expected that the protest 
 of Northern manhood and womanhood would 
 grow louder and stronger until the conflict of 
 principles led to the conflict of forces. The 
 moral uprising of the North came with the logical 
 precision of destiny ; the rage of the " petty 
 tyrants " was inevitable ; the plot to erect a 
 slave empire followed with fated certainty ; and 
 the only question left for us of the North was, 
 whether we should suffer the cause of the Nation 
 to go by default, or maintain its existence by the 
 argument of cannon and musket, of bayonet and 
 sabre. 
 
 The war in which we are engaged is for 
 no meanly ambitious or unworthy purpose. It 
 was primarily, and is to this moment, for the 
 preservation of our national existence. The 
 first direct movement towards it was a civil 
 request on the part of certain Southern persons, 
 
THE INEVITABLE TRIAL. 427 
 
 that the Nation would commit suicide, without 
 making any unnecessary trouble about it. It 
 was answered, with sentiments of the highest 
 consideration, that there were constitutional and 
 other " objections to the Nation s laying violent 
 hands upon itself. It was then requested, in 
 a somewhat peremptory tone, that the Nation 
 would be so obliging as to abstain from food 
 until the natural consequences of that proceed 
 ing should manifest themselves. All this was 
 done as between a single State and an isolated 
 fortress ; but it was not South Carolina and 
 Fort Sumter that were talking ; it was a vast 
 conspiracy uttering its menace to a mighty na 
 tion ; the whole menagerie of treason was pacing 
 its cages, ready to spring as soon as the doors 
 were opened ; and all that the tigers of rebellion 
 wanted to kindle their wild natures to frenzy, 
 was the sight of flowing blood. 
 
 As if to show how coldly and calmly all this 
 had been calculated beforehand by the conspir 
 ators, to make sure that no absence of malice 
 aforethought should degrade the grand malignity 
 of settled purpose into the trivial effervescence 
 
428 THE INEVITABLE TRIAL. 
 
 of transient passion, the torch which was liter 
 ally to launch the first missile, figuratively, to 
 44 fire the southern heart " and light the flame 
 of civil war, was given into the trembling hand 
 of an old white-headed man, the wretcfred in 
 cendiary whom history will handcuff in eternal 
 infamy with the temple-burner of ancient Ephe- 
 sus. The first gun that spat its iron insult at 
 Fort Sumter, smote every loyal American full 
 in the face. As when the foul witch used to 
 torture her miniature image, the person it repre 
 sented suffered all that she inflicted on his waxen 
 counterpart, so every buffet that fell on the 
 smoking fortress was felt by the sovereign nation 
 of which that was the representative. Robbery 
 could go no farther, for every loyal man of the 
 North was despoiled in that single act as much 
 as if a footpad had laid hands upon him to take 
 from him his father s staff and his mother s 
 Bible. Insult could go no farther, for over 
 those battered walls waved the precious symbol 
 of all we most value in the past and most hope 
 for in the future, the banner under which we 
 became a nation, and which, next to the cross of 
 
THE INEVITABLE TRIAL. 429 
 
 the Redeemer, is the dearest object of love and 
 honor to all who toil or march or sail beneath 
 its waving folds of glory. 
 
 Let us pause for a moment to consider what 
 might have been the course of events if under 
 the influence of fear, or of what some would 
 name humanity, or of conscientious scruples to 
 enter upon what a few please themselves and 
 their rebel friends by calling a " wicked war " ; 
 if under any or all these influences we had taken 
 the insult and the violence of South Carolina 
 without accepting it as the first blow of a mortal 
 combat, in which we must either die or give the 
 last and finishing stroke. 
 
 By the same title which South Carolina as 
 serted to Fort Sumter, Florida would have chal 
 lenged as her own the Gibraltar of the Gulf, 
 and Virginia the Ehrenbreitstein of the Ches 
 apeake. Half our navy would have anchored 
 under the guns of these suddenly alienated for 
 tresses, with the flag of the rebellion flying at 
 their peaks. " Old Ironsides " herself would 
 have perhaps sailed out of Annapolis harbor to 
 have a wooden Jefferson Davis shaped for her 
 
430 THE INEVITABLE TRIAL. 
 
 figure-head at Norfolk, for Andrew Jackson 
 was a hater of secession, and his was no fitting 
 effigy for the battle-ship of the red-handed con 
 spiracy. With all the great fortresses, with 
 half the ships and warlike material, in addition 
 to all that was already stolen, in the traitors 
 hands, what chance would the loyal men in the 
 Border States have stood against the rush of the 
 desperate fanatics of the now triumphant fac 
 tion ? Where would Maryland, Kentucky, Mis 
 souri, Tennessee, saved, or looking to be 
 saved, even as it is, as by fire, have been in 
 the day of trial ? Into whose hands would the 
 Capital, the archives, the glory, the name, the 
 very life of the nation as a nation, have fallen, 
 endangered as all of them were, in spite of the 
 volcanic outburst of the startled North which 
 answered the roar of the first gun at Sumter ? 
 Worse than all, are we permitted to doubt that 
 in the very bosom of the North itself there was 
 a serpent, coiled but not sleeping, which only 
 listened for the first word that made it safe to 
 strike, to bury its fangs in the heart of Freedom, 
 and blend its golden scales in close embrace 
 
THE INEVITABLE TRIAL. 431 
 
 with the deadly reptile of the cotton-fields. 
 Who would not wish that he were wrong in 
 such a suspicion ? yet who can forget the mys 
 terious warnings that the allies of the rebels 
 were to be found far north of the fatal boundary- 
 line ; and that it was in their own streets, 
 against their own brothers, that the champions 
 of liberty were to defend her sacred heritage? 
 
 Not to have fought, then, after the supreme 
 indignity and outrage we had suffered, would 
 have been to provoke every further wrong, and 
 to furnish the means for its commission. It 
 would have been to placard ourselves on the 
 walls of the shattered fort, as the spiritless race 
 the proud labor-thieves called us. It would 
 have been to die as a nation of freemen, and to 
 have given all we had left of our rights into the 
 hands of alien tyrants in league with home-bred 
 traitors. 
 
 Not to have fought would have been to be 
 false to liberty everywhere, and to humanity. 
 You have only to see who are our friends and 
 who are our enemies in this struggle, to decide 
 for what principles we are combating. We 
 
432 THE INEVITABLE TRIAL. 
 
 know too well that the British aristocracy is 
 not with us. We know what the West End of 
 London wishes may be result of this controversy. 
 The two halves of this Union are the two blades 
 of the shears, threatening as those of Atropos 
 herself, which will sooner or later cut into shreds 
 the old charters of tyranny. How they would 
 exult if they could but break the rivet that 
 makes of the two blades one resistless weapon ! 
 The man who of all living Americans had the 
 best opportunity of knowing how the fact stood, 
 wrote these words in March, 1862 : " That 
 Great Britain did, in the most terrible moment 
 of our domestic trial in struggling with a mon 
 strous social evil she had earnestly professed to 
 abhor, coldly and at once assume our inability 
 to master it, and then become the only foreign 
 nation steadily contributing in every indirect 
 way possible to verify its pre-judgment, will 
 probably be the verdict made up against her 
 by posterity, on a calm comparison of the evi 
 dence." 
 
 So speaks the wise, tranquil statesman who 
 represents the nation at the Court of St. James, 
 
THE INEVITABLE TRIAL. 433 
 
 in (lie midst of embarrassments perhaps not less 
 than those which vexed his illustrious grand 
 father, when he occupied the same position as 
 the Envoy of the hated, new-born Republic. 
 
 " It cannot be denied," - says another ob 
 server, placed on one of our national watch- 
 towers in a foreign capital, " it cannot be 
 denied that the tendency of European public 
 opinion, as delivered from high places, is more 
 and more unfriendly to our cause " : " but the 
 people/ he adds, " everywhere sympathize with 
 us, for they know that our cause is that of free 
 institutions, that our struggle is that of the 
 people against an oligarchy." These are the 
 words of the Minister to Austria, whose gener 
 ous sympathies with popular liberty no homage 
 paid to his genius by the class whose admiring 
 welcome is most seductive to scholars has ever 
 spoiled ; our fellow-citizen, the historian of a 
 great Republic which infused a portion of its life 
 into our own, John Lothrop Motley. 
 
 It is a bitter commentary on the effects of 
 European, and especially of British institutions, 
 that such men should have to speak in such 
 
 19 
 
434 THE INEVITABLE TRIAL. 
 
 terms of the manner in which our struggle has 
 been regarded. We had, no doubt, very gen 
 erally reckoned on the sympathy of England, at 
 least, in a strife which, whatever -pretexts were 
 alleged as its cause, arrayed upon one side the 
 supporters of an institution she was supposed to 
 hate in earnest, and on the other its assailants. 
 We had forgotten what her own poet, one of the 
 truest and purest of her children, had said of his 
 countrymen, in words which might well have 
 been spoken by the British Premier to the 
 American Ambassador asking for some evidence 
 of kind feeling on the part of his Government : 
 
 " Alas ! expect it not. We found no bait 
 To tempt us in thy country. Doing good, 
 Disinterested good, is not our trade." 
 
 We know full well by this time what truth 
 there is in these honest lines. We have found 
 out, too, who our European enemies are, and 
 why they are our enemies. Three bending 
 statues bear up that gilded seat, which, in spite 
 of the time-hallowed usurpations and consecrated 
 wrongs so long associated with its history, is still 
 venerated as the throne. One of these supports 
 
THE INEVITABLE TRIAL. 435 
 
 is the pensioned church ; the second is the pur 
 chased army ; the third is the long-suffering 
 people. Whenever the third caryatid comes to 
 life and walks from beneath its burden, the cap 
 itals of Europe will be filled with the broken 
 furniture of palaces. No wonder that our min 
 isters find the privileged orders willing to see 
 the ominous republic split into two antagonistic 
 forces, each paralyzing the other, and standing 
 in their mighty impotence a spectacle to courts 
 and kings ; to be pointed at as helots who 
 drank thefniselves blind and giddy out of that 
 broken chalice which held the poisonous draught 
 of liberty ! 
 
 We know our enemies, and they are the ene 
 mies of popular rights. We know our friends, 
 and they are the foremost champions of political 
 and social progress. The eloquent voice and the 
 busy pen of John Bright have both been ours, 
 heartily, nobly, from the first ; the man of the 
 people has been true to the cause of the people. 
 That deep and generous thinker, who, more than 
 any of her philosophical writers, represents the 
 higher thought of England, John Stuart Mill, 
 
436 THE INEVITABLE TRIAL. 
 
 has spoken for us in tones to which none but 
 her sordid hucksters and her selfish land-graspers 
 can refuse to listen. Count Gasparin and La- 
 boulaye have sent us back the echo from liberal 
 France ; France, the country of ideas, whose 
 earlier inspirations embodied themselves for us 
 in the person of the youthful Lafayette. Italy, 
 would you know on which side the rights of 
 the people and the hopes of the future are to be 
 found in this momentous conflict, what surer 
 test, what ampler demonstration can you ask 
 than the eager sympathy of the Italian patriot 
 whose name is the hope of the toiling many, 
 and the dread of their oppressors, wherever it is 
 spoken, the heroic Garibaldi? 
 
 But even when it is granted that the war was 
 inevitable ; when it is granted that it is for no 
 base end, but first for the life of the nation, and 
 more and more, as the quarrel deepens, for the 
 welfare of mankind, for knowledge as against en 
 forced ignorance, for justice as against oppression, 
 for that kingdom of God on earth which neither 
 the unrighteous man nor the extortioner can 
 
THE INEVITABLE TRIAL. 437 
 
 hope to inherit, it may still be that the strife is 
 hopeless, and must therefore be abandoned. Is 
 it too much to say that whether the war is hope 
 less or not for the North depends chiefly on 
 the answer to the question, whether the North 
 has virtue and manhood enough to persevere in 
 the contest so long as its resources hold out ? 
 But how much virtue and manhood it has can 
 never be told until they are tried, and those 
 who are first to doubt the prevailing existence 
 of these qualities are not commonly themselves 
 patterns of either. We have a right to trust 
 that this people is virtuous and brave enough 
 not to give up a just and necessary contest be 
 fore its end is attained, or shown to be unattain 
 able for want of material agencies. What was 
 the end to be attained by accepting the gage of 
 battle ? It was to get the better of our assail 
 ants, and, having done so, to take exactly those 
 steps which we should then consider necessary 
 to our present and future safety. The more 
 obstinate the resistance, the more completely 
 must it be subdued. It may not even have 
 been desirable, as Mr. Mill suggested long since, 
 
438 THE INEVITABLE TRIAL. 
 
 that the victory over the rebellion should have 
 been easily and speedily won, and so have failed 
 to develop the true meaning of the conflict, to 
 bring out the full strength of the revolted sec 
 tion, and to exhaust the means which would 
 have served it for a still more desperate future 
 effort. We cannot complain that our task has 
 proved too easy. We give our Southern army, 
 for we must remember that it is our army, 
 after all, only in a state of mutiny, we give 
 our Southern army credit for excellent spirit and 
 perseverance in the face of many disadvantages. 
 But we have a few plain facts which show the 
 probable course of events ; the gradual but sure 
 operation of the blockade ; the steady pushing 
 back of the boundary of rebellion, in spite of 
 resistance at many points, or even of such aggres 
 sive inroads as that which our armies are now 
 meeting with their long lines of bayonets, 
 may God grant them victory ! the progress 
 of our arms down the Mississippi ; the relative 
 value of gold and currency at Richmond and 
 Washington. If the index-hands of force and 
 credit continue to move in the ratio of the past 
 
THE INEVITABLE TRIAL. 439 
 
 two years, where will the Confederacy be in 
 twice or thrice that time ? 
 
 Either all our statements of the relative num 
 bers, power, and wealth of the two sections of 
 the country signify nothing, or the resources of 
 our opponents in men and means must be much 
 nearer exhaustion than our own. The running 
 sand of the hour-glass gives no warning, but 
 runs as freely as ever when its last grains are 
 about to fall. The merchant wears as bold a 
 face the day before he is proclaimed a bankrupt, 
 as he wore at the height of his fortunes. If 
 Colonel Grierson found the Confederacy "a 
 mere shell," so far as his equestrian excursion 
 carried him, how can we- say how soon the shell 
 will collapse ? It seems impossible that our own 
 dissensions can produce anything more than 
 local disturbances, like the Morristown revolt, 
 which Washington put down at once by the aid 
 of his faithful Massachusetts soldiers. But in a 
 rebellious state dissension is ruin, and the vio 
 lence of an explosion in a strict ratio to the 
 pressure on every inch of the containing surface. 
 Now we know the tremendous force which has 
 
440 THE INEVITABLE TRIAL. 
 
 
 
 compelled the " unanimity " of the Southern 
 people. There are men in 1 the ranks of the 
 Southern army, if we can trust the evidence 
 which reaches us, who have been recruited with 
 packs of blood-hounds, and drilled, as it were, 
 with halters around their necks. We know what 
 is the bitterness of those who have escaped this 
 bloody harvest of the remorseless conspirators ; 
 and from that we can judge of the elements of 
 destruction incorporated with many of the seem 
 ingly solid portions of the fabric of the rebellion. 
 The facts are necessarily few, but we can reason 
 from the laws of human nature as to what must 
 be the feelings of the people of the South to their 
 Northern neighbors. It is impossible that the 
 love of the life which they have had in common, 
 their glorious recollections, their blended histo 
 ries, their sympathies as Americans, their mingled 
 blood, their birthright as born under the same 
 flag and protected by it the world over, their 
 worship of the same God, under the same out 
 ward form, at least, and in the folds of the same 
 ecclesiastical organizations, should all be forgot 
 ten, and leave nothing but hatred and eternal 
 
THE INEVITABLE TRIAL. /Al 
 
 alienation. Men do not change in this way, and 
 we may be quite sure that the pretended una 
 nimity of the South will some day or other 
 prove to have been a part of the machinery 
 of deception which the plotters have managed 
 with such consummate skill. It is hardly to be 
 doubted that in every part of the South, as in 
 New Orleans, in Charleston, in Richmond, there 
 are multitudes who wait for the day of deliver 
 ance, and for whom the coming of u our good 
 friends, the enemies," as Beranger has it, will be 
 like the advent of the angels to the prison-cells 
 of Paul and Silas. But there is no need of 
 depending on the aid of our white Southern 
 friends, be they many or be they few ; there is 
 material power enough in the North, if there be 
 the will to use it, to overrun and by degrees to 
 recolonize the South, and it is far from impossi 
 ble that some such process may be a part of the 
 mechanism of its new birth, spreading from va 
 rious centres of organization, on the plan which 
 Nature follows when she would fill a half-fin 
 ished tissue with bloodvessels, or change a 
 temporary cartilage into bone. 
 
 19* 
 
442 THE INEVITABLE TRIAL. 
 
 Suppose, however, that the prospects of the 
 war were, we need not say absolutely hopeless, 
 because that is the unfounded hypothesis of 
 those whose wish is father to their thought, 
 but full of discouragement. Can we make a 
 safe and honorable peace as the quarrel now 
 stands ? As honor comes before safety, let us 
 look at that first. We have undertaken to 
 resent a supreme insult, and have had to bear 
 new insults and aggressions, even to the direct 
 menace of our national capital. The blood 
 which our best and bravest have shed will never 
 sink into the ground until our wrongs are 
 righted, or the power to right them is shown to 
 be insufficient. If we stop now, all the loss of 
 life has been butchery ; if we carry out the in 
 tention with which we first resented the outrage, 
 the earth drinks up the blood of our martyrs, 
 and the rose of honor blooms forever where it 
 was shed. To accept less than indemnity for 
 the past, so far as the wretched kingdom of the 
 conspirators can afford it, and security for the 
 future, would discredit us in our own eyes and 
 in the eyes of those who hate and long to be 
 
THE INEVITABLE TRIAL. 443 
 
 able to despise us. But to reward the insults 
 and the robberies we have suffered, by the sur 
 render of our fortresses along the coast, in the 
 national gulf, and on the banks of the national 
 river, and this and much more would surely 
 be demanded of us, would place the United 
 Fraction of America on a level with the Peru 
 vian guano-islands, whose ignoble but coveted 
 soil is open to be plundered by all comers ! 
 
 If we could make a peace without dishonor, 
 could we make one that would be safe and last 
 ing ? We could have an armistice, no doubt, 
 lon<T enough for the flesh of our wounded men 
 
 O O 
 
 to heal and their broken bones to knit together. 
 But could we expect a solid, substantial, endur 
 ing peace, in which the grass would have time 
 to grow in the war-paths, and the bruised arms 
 to rust, as the old G. R. cannon rusted in our 
 State arsenal, sleeping with their tompions in 
 their mouths, like so many sucking lambs ? It is 
 not the question whether the same set of soldiers 
 would be again summoned to the field. Let us 
 take it for granted that we have seen enough of 
 the miseries of warfare to last us for a while, 
 
444 THE INEVITABLE TRIAL. 
 
 and keep us contented with militia musters and 
 sham-fights. The question is whether we could 
 leave our children and our children s children 
 with any secure trust that they would not have- 
 to go through the very trials we are enduring, 
 probably on a more extended scale and in a 
 more aggravated form. 
 
 It may be well to look at the prospects before 
 us, if a peace is established on the basis of 
 Southern independence, the only peace possible, 
 unless we choose to add ourselves to the four 
 millions who already call the Southern whites 
 their masters. We know what the prevailing 
 we do not mean universal spirit and tem 
 per of those people have been for generations, 
 and what they are like to be after a long and 
 bitter warfare. We know what their tone is to 
 the people of the North ; if we do not, De Bow 
 and Governor Hammond are schoolmasters who 
 will teach us to our heart s content. We see 
 how easily their social organization adapts itself 
 to a state of warfare. They breed a superior 
 order of men for leaders, an ignorant common 
 alty ready to follow them as the vassals of feudal 
 
THE INEVITABLE TRIAL. 445 
 
 times followed their lords ; and a race of bonds 
 men, who, unless this war changes them from 
 chattels to human beings, will continue to add 
 vastly to their military strength in raising their 
 food, in building their fortifications, in all the 
 mechanical work of war, in fact, except, it may 
 be, the handling of weapons. The institution 
 proclaimed as the corner-stone of their govern 
 ment, does violence not merely to the precepts 
 of religion, but to many of the best human in 
 stincts, yet their fanaticism for it is as sincere as 
 any tribe of the desert ever manifested for the 
 faith of the Prophet of Allah. They call them 
 selves by the same name as the Christians of the 
 North, yet there is as much difference between 
 their Christianity and that of Wesley or of 
 Channing, as between creeds that in past times 
 have vowed mutual extermination. Still we 
 must not call them barbarians because they 
 cherish an institution hostile to civilization. 
 Their highest culture stands out all the more 
 brilliantly from the dark background of igno 
 rance against which it is seen ; but it would be 
 injustice to deny that they have always shone in 
 
446 THE INEVITABLE TRIAL. 
 
 political science, or that their military capacity 
 makes them most formidable antagonists, and 
 that, however inferior they may be to their 
 Northern fellow-countrymen in most branches 
 of literature and science, the social elegances and 
 personal graces lend their outward show to the 
 best circles among their dominant class. 
 
 Whom have we then for our neighbors, in 
 case of separation, our neighbors along a 
 splintered line of fracture extending for thou 
 sands of miles, but the Saracens of the Nine 
 teenth Century ; a fierce, intolerant, fanatical 
 people, the males of which will be a perpetual 
 standing army ; hating us worse than the 
 Southern Hamilcar taught his swarthy boy to 
 hate the Romans ; a people whose existence as 
 a hostile nation on our frontier, is incompatible 
 with our peaceful development? Their wealth, 
 the proceeds of enforced labor, multiplied by the 
 breaking up df new cotton-fields, and in due 
 time by the reopening of the slave-trade, will 
 go to purchase arms, to construct fortresses, to 
 fit out navies. The old Saracens, fanatics for a 
 religion which professed to grow by conquest, 
 
THE INEVITABLE TRIAL. 447 
 
 were a nation of predatory and migrating war 
 riors. The Southern people, fanatics for a sys 
 tem essentially aggressive, conquering, wasting, 
 which cannot remain stationary, but must grow 
 by alternate appropriations of labor and of land, 
 will come to resemble their earlier prototypes. 
 Already, even, the insolence of their language 
 to the people of the North is a close imitation 
 of the style which those proud and arrogant 
 Asiatics affected toward all the nations of Eu 
 rope. What the " Christian dogs " were to the 
 followers of Mahomet, the " accursed Yankees," 
 the " Northern mudsills " are to the followers of 
 the Southern Moloch. The accomplishments 
 which we find in their choicer circles, were pre 
 figured in the court of the chivalric Saladin, and 
 the long train of Painim knights who rode forth 
 to conquest under the Crescent. In all branches 
 of culture, their heathen predecessors went far 
 beyond them. The schools of mediaeval learn 
 ing were filled with Arabian teachers. The 
 heavens declare the glory of the Oriental astron 
 omers, as Algorab and Aldebaran repeat their 
 Arabic names to the students of the starry 
 
448 THE INEVITABLE TRIAL. 
 
 firmament. The sumptuous edifice erected by 
 the Art of the nineteenth century, to hold the 
 treasures of its Industry, could show nothing 
 fairer than the court which copies the Moorish 
 palace that crowns the summit of Granada. 
 Yet this was the power which Charles the 
 Hammer, striking for Christianity and civiliza 
 tion, had to break like a potter s vessel ; these 
 were the people whom Spain had to utterly 
 extirpate from the land where they had ruled 
 for centuries ! 
 
 Prepare, then, if you unseal the vase which 
 holds this dangerous Afrit of Southern nation 
 ality, for a power on your borders that will be to 
 you what the Saracens were to Europe before 
 the son of Pepin shattered their armies, and 
 flung the shards and shivers of their broken 
 strength upon the refuse heap of extinguished 
 barbarisms. Prepare for the possible fate of 
 Christian Spain ; for a slave-market in Philadel 
 phia ; for the Alhambra of a Southern caliph 
 on the grounds consecrated by the domestic vir 
 tues of a long line of Presidents and their exem 
 plary families. Remember the ages of border 
 
THE INEVITABLE TRIslL. 449 
 
 warfare between England and Scotland, closed 
 at last by the union of the two kingdoms. Rec 
 ollect the hunting of the deer on the Cheviot 
 hills, and all that it led to ; then think of the 
 game which the dogs will follow open-mouthed 
 across our Southern border, and all that is like 
 to follow which the child may rue that is un 
 born ; think of these possibilities, or probabilities, 
 if you will, and say whether you are ready to 
 make a peace which will give you such a neigh 
 bor ; which may betray your civilization as that 
 of half the Peninsula was given up to the 
 Moors ; which may leave your fair border prov 
 inces to be crushed under the heel of a tyrant, 
 as Holland was left to be trodden down by the 
 Duke of Alva! 
 
 No ! no ! fellow-citizens ! We must fio-ht in 
 
 C5 
 
 this quarrel until one side or the other is ex 
 hausted. Rather than suffer all that we have 
 poured out of our blood, all that we have lav 
 ished of our substance, to have been expended in 
 vain, and to bequeath an unsettled question, an 
 unfinished conflict, an unavenged insult, an un- 
 righted wrong, a stained escutcheon, a tarnished 
 
 c o 
 
450 THE INEVITABLE TRIAL. 
 
 shield, a dishonored flag, an unheroic memory 
 to the descendants of those who have always 
 claimed that their fathers were heroes ; rather 
 than do all this, it were hardly an American 
 exaggeration to say, better that the last man and 
 the last dollar should be followed by the last 
 woman and the last dime, the last child and the 
 last copper! 
 
 There are those who profess to fear that our 
 Government is becoming a mere irresponsible 
 tyranny. If there are any who really believe 
 that our present Chief Magistrate means to 
 found a dynasty for himself and family, that a 
 coup d etat is in preparation by which he is to 
 become ABRAHAM, DEI GRATIA REX, they 
 cannot have duly pondered his letter of June 
 12th, in which he unbosoms himself with the 
 simplicity of a rustic lover called upon by an 
 anxious parent to explain his intentions. The 
 force of his argument is not at all injured by the 
 homeliness of his illustrations. The American 
 people are not much afraid that their liberties 
 will be usurped. An army of legislators is not 
 
THE INEVITABLE TRIAL. 451 
 
 very likely to throw away its political privileges, 
 and the idea of a despotism resting on an open 
 ballot-box, is like that of Bunker Hill Monument 
 built on the waves of Boston Harbor. We 
 know pretty nearly how much of sincerity there 
 is in the fears so clamorously expressed, and 
 how far they are found in company with uncom 
 promising hostility to the armed enemies of the 
 nation. We have learned to put a true value 
 on the services of the watch-dog who bays the 
 moon, but does not bite the thief! 
 
 The men who are so busy holy-stoning the 
 quarter-deck, while all hands are wanted to keep 
 the ship afloat, can no doubt show spots upon it 
 that would be very unsightly in fair weather. 
 No thoroughly loyal man, however, need suffer 
 from any arbitrary exercise of power, such as 
 emergencies always give rise to. If any half- 
 loyal man forgets his code of half-decencies and 
 half-duties so far as to become obnoxious to the 
 peremptory justice which takes the place of 
 slower forms in all centres of conflagration, 
 there is no sympathy for him among the soldiers 
 who are risking their lives for us ; perhaps there 
 
452 THE INEVITABLE TRIAL. 
 
 is even more satisfaction than when an avowed 
 traitor is caught and punished. For of all men 
 who are loathed by generous natures, such as 
 fill the ranks of the armies of the Union, none 
 are so thoroughly loathed as the men who con 
 trive to keep just within the limits of the law, 
 while their whole conduct provokes others to 
 break it ; whose patriotism consists in stopping 
 an inch short of treason, and whose political 
 morality has for its safeguard a just respect for 
 the jailer and the hangman ! The simple pre 
 ventive against all possible injustice a citizen is 
 like to suffer at the hands of a government 
 which in its need and haste must of course com 
 mit many errors, is to take care to do nothing 
 that will directly or indirectly help the enemy, 
 or hinder the government in carrying on the 
 war. When the clamor against usurpation and 
 tyranny comes from citizens who can claim this 
 negative merit, it may be listened to. When it 
 comes from those who have done what they 
 could to serve their country, it will receive the 
 attention it deserves. Doubtless, there may 
 prove to be wrongs which demand righting, but 
 
THE INEVITABLE TRIAL. 453 
 
 the pretence of any plan for changing the essen 
 tial principle of our self-governing system is a 
 figment which its contrivers laugh over among 
 themselves. Do the citizens of Harrisburg or 
 of Philadelphia quarrel to-day about the strict 
 locality of an executive act meant in good faith 
 for their protection against the invader ? We 
 are all citizens of Harrisburg, all citizens of 
 Philadelphia, in this hour of their peril, and 
 with the enemy at work in our own harbors, we 
 begin to understand the difference between a 
 good and bad citizen ; the man that helps and 
 the man that hinders ; the man who, while the 
 pirate is in sight, complains that our anchor 
 is dragging in his mud, and the man who vio 
 lates the proprieties, like our brave Portland 
 brothers, when they jumped on board the first 
 steamer they could reach, cut her cable, and 
 bore down on the corsair, with a habeas corpus 
 act that lodged twenty buccaneers in Fort Preble 
 before sunset ! 
 
 We cannot, then, we cannot be circling in 
 ward to be swallowed up in the whirlpool of 
 
454 THE INEVITABLE TRIAL. 
 
 national destruction. If our borders are in 
 vaded, it is only as the spur that is driven into 
 the courser s flank to rouse his slumberin^ met- 
 
 & 
 
 tie. If our property is taxed, it is only to teach 
 us that liberty is worth paying for as well as 
 fighting for. We are pouring out the most gen 
 erous blood of our youth and manhood ; alas ! 
 this is always the price that must be paid for 
 the redemption of a people. What have we to 
 complain of, whose granaries are choking with 
 plenty, whose streets are gay with shining robes 
 and glittering equipages, whose industry is abun 
 dant enough to reap all its overflowing harvest, 
 yet sure of employment and of its just reward, 
 the soil of whose mighty valleys is an inexhaus 
 tible mine of fertility, whose mountains cover 
 up such stores of heat and power, imprisoned in 
 their coal measures, as would warm all the in 
 habitants and work all the machinery of our 
 planet for unnumbered ages, whose rocks pour 
 out rivers of oil, whose streams run yellow 
 over beds of golden sand, what have we to 
 complain of? 
 Have we degenerated from our English fathers, 
 
THE INEVITABLE TRIAL. 455 
 
 so that we cannot do and bear for our national 
 salvation what they have done and borne over 
 and over again for their form of government? 
 Could England, in her wars with Napoleon, bear 
 an income-tax of ten per cent, and must we faint 
 under the burden of an income-tax of three per 
 cent. ? Was she content to negotiate a loan at 
 fifty-three, for the hundred, and that paid in de 
 preciated paper, and can we talk about financial 
 ruin with our national stocks ranging from 
 one to eight or nine above par, and the " five- 
 twenty" war loan eagerly taken by our own 
 people to the amount of nearly two hundred 
 millions, without any check to the flow of the 
 current pressing inwards against the doors of 
 the Treasury ? Except in those portions of the 
 country which are the immediate seat of war, 
 or liable to be made so, and which, having the 
 greatest interest not to become the border states 
 of hostile nations, can best afford to suffer now, 
 the state of prosperity and comfort is such as to 
 astonish those who visit us from other countries. 
 What are war taxes to a nation which, as we 
 are assured on good authority, has more men 
 
456 THE INEVITABLE TRIAL. 
 
 worth a million now than it had worth ten 
 thousand dollars at the close of the Revolution, 
 whose whole property is a hundred times, 
 and whose commerce, inland and foreign, is five 
 hundred times, what it was then ? But we need 
 not study Mr. Still^ s pamphlet and " Thomp 
 son s Bank-Note Reporter," to show us what 
 we know well enough, that, so far from hav 
 ing occasion to tremble in fear of our impending 
 ruin, we must rather blush for our material 
 prosperity. For the multitudes who are unfor 
 tunate enough to be taxed for a million or more, 
 of course we must feel deeply, at the same time 
 suggesting that the more largely they report 
 their incomes to the tax-gatherer, the more con 
 solation they will find in the feeling that they 
 have served their country. But let us say it 
 plainly it will not hurt our people to be 
 taught that there are other things to be cared 
 for besides money-making and money-spending ; 
 that the time has come when manhood must 
 assert itself by brave deeds and noble thoughts ; 
 when womanhood must assume its most sacred 
 office, " to warn, to comfort," and, if need be, 
 
THE INEVITABLE TRIAL. 457 
 
 " to command," those whose services their coun 
 try calls for. This Northern section of the land 
 has become a great variety shop, of which the 
 Atlantic cities are the long-extended counter. 
 We have grown rich for what ? To put gilt 
 bands on coachmen s hats ? To sweep the foul 
 sidewalks with the heaviest silks which the toil 
 ing artisans of France can send us ? To look 
 through plate-glass windows, and pity the brown 
 soldiers, or sneer at the black ones ? to re 
 duce the speed of trotting horses a second or 
 two below its old minimum ? to color meer 
 schaums ? to flaunt in laces, and sparkle in 
 diamonds ? to dredge our maidens hair with 
 gold-dust ? to float through life, the passive 
 shuttlecocks of fashion, from the avenues to the 
 beaches, and back again from the beaches to 
 the avenues ? Was it for this that the broad 
 domain of the Western hemisphere was kept so 
 long unvisited by civilization? for this, that 
 Time, the father of empires, unbound the virgin 
 zone of this youngest of his daughters, and gave 
 her, beautiful in the long veil of her forests, to 
 the rude embrace of the adventurous Colonist ? 
 20 
 
458 THE INEVITABLE TRIAL. 
 
 All this is what we see around us, now, now, 
 while we are actually fighting this great battle, 
 and supporting this great load of indebtedness. 
 Wait till the diamonds go back to the Jews of 
 Amsterdam ; till the plate-glass window bears 
 the fatal announcement, For Sale or to Let ; till 
 the voice of our Miriam is obeyed, as she sings, 
 Weave no more silks, ye Lyons looms! " 
 
 till the o;old-dust is combed from the golden 
 
 & ~ 
 
 locks, and hoarded to buy bread ; till the fast- 
 driving youth smokes his clay-pipe on the plat 
 form of the horse-car ; till the music-grinders 
 cease because none will pay them ; till there are 
 no peaches in the windows at twenty-four dol 
 lars a dozen, and no heaps of bananas and pine 
 apples selling at the street-corners ; till the 
 ten-flounced dress has but three flounces, and it 
 is felony to drink champagne ; wait till these 
 changes show themselves, the signs of deeper 
 wants, the preludes of exhaustion and bank 
 ruptcy ; then let us talk of the Maelstrom ; 
 but till then, let us not be cowards with our 
 purses, while brave men are emptying their 
 hearts upon the earth for us ; let us not whine 
 
THE INEVITABLE TRIAL. 459 
 
 over our imaginary ruin, while the reversed 
 current of circling events is carrying us farther 
 and farther, every hour, out of the influence 
 of the great failing which was born of our 
 wealth, and of the deadly sin which was our 
 fatal inheritance ! 
 
 Let us take a brief general glance at the wide 
 field of discussion we are just leaving. 
 
 On Friday, the twelfth day of the month of 
 April, in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred 
 and sixty-one, at half past four of the clock in 
 the afternoon, a cannon was aimed and fired by 
 the authority of South Carolina at the wall of a 
 fortress belonging to the United States. Its ball 
 carried with it the hatreds, the rages of thirty 
 years, shaped and cooled in the mould of ma 
 lignant deliberation. Its wad was the charter 
 of our national existence. Its muzzle was 
 pointed at the stone which bore the symbol of 
 our national sovereignty. As the echoes of its 
 thunder died away, the telegraph clicked one 
 word through every office of the land. That 
 word was WAR I 
 
460 THE INEVITABLE TRIAL. 
 
 War is a child that devours its nurses one 
 after another, until it is claimed by its true 
 parents. This war has eaten its way backward 
 through all the technicalities of lawyers, learned 
 in the infinitesimals of ordinances and statutes ; 
 through all the casuistries of divines, experts in 
 the differential calculus of conscience and duty ; 
 until it stands revealed to all men as the natural 
 and inevitable conflict of two incompatible forms 
 of civilization, one or the other of which must 
 dominate the central zone of the continent, and 
 eventually claim the hemisphere for its devel 
 opment. 
 
 We have reached the region of those broad 
 principles and large axioms which the wise 
 Romans, the world s lawgivers, always recog 
 nized as above all special enactments. We 
 have come to that solid substratum acknowl 
 edged by Grotius in his great Treatise : " Ne 
 cessity itself, which reduces things to the mere 
 right of Nature." The old rules which were 
 enough for our guidance in quiet times, have 
 become as meaningless " as moonlight on the 
 dial of the day." We have followed precedents 
 
THE INEVITABLE TRIAL. 461 
 
 as long as they could guide us ; now we must 
 make precedents for the ages which are to suc 
 ceed us. 
 
 If we are frightened from our object by the 
 money we have spent, the current prices of 
 United States stocks show that we value our 
 nationality at only a small fraction of our wealth. 
 If we feel that we are paying too dearly for it in 
 the blood of our people, let us recall those grand 
 words of Samuel Adams : 
 
 " I should advise persisting in our struggle 
 for liberty, though it were revealed from heaven 
 that nine hundred and ninety-nine were to per 
 ish, and only one of a thousand were to survive 
 and retain his liberty ! " 
 
 What we want now is a strong purpose ; the 
 purpose of Luther, when he said, in repeating 
 his Pater Noster, fiat voluntas MEA, let my 
 will be done ; though he considerately added, 
 quiet, Tua, because my will is Thine. We 
 want the virile energy of determination which 
 made the oath of Andrew Jackson sound so like 
 the devotion of an ardent saint that the record 
 ing angel might have entered it unquestioned 
 among the prayers of the faithful. 
 
462 THE INEVITABLE TRIAL. 
 
 War is a grim business. Two years ago our 
 women s fingers were busy making " Have- 
 locks." It seemed to us then as if the Havelock 
 made half the soldier ; and now we smile to 
 think of those days of inexperience and illusion. 
 We know now what War means, and we cannot 
 look its dull, dead ghastliness in the face unless 
 we feel that there is some great and noble prin 
 ciple behind it. It makes little difference what 
 we thought we were fighting for at first ; we 
 know what we are fighting for now, and what 
 we are fighting against. 
 
 We are fighting for our existence. We say to 
 those who would take back their several contri 
 butions to that undivided unity which we call 
 the Nation ; the bronze is cast ; the statue is on 
 its pedestal ; you cannot reclaim the brass you 
 flung into the crucible ! There are rights, pos 
 sessions, privileges, policies, relations, duties, 
 acquired, retained, called into existence in virtue 
 of the principle of absolute solidarity, belong 
 ing to the United States as an organic whole, 
 which cannot be divided, which none of its con 
 stituent parties can claim as its own, which per- 
 
THE INEVITABLE TRIAL. 463 
 
 ish out of its living frame when the wild forces 
 of rebellion tear it limb from limb, and which 
 it must defend, or confess self-government itself 
 a failure. 
 
 We are fighting for that Constitution upon 
 which our national existence reposes, now sub 
 jected by those who fired the scroll on which 
 it was written from the cannon at Fort Sumter, 
 to all those chances which the necessities of war 
 entail upon every human arrangement, but still 
 the venerable charter of our wide Republic. 
 
 We cannot fight for these objects without 
 attacking the one mother cause of all the pro 
 geny of lesser antagonisms. Whether we know 
 it or not, whether we mean it or not, we cannot 
 help fighting against the system that has proved 
 the source of all those miseries which the author 
 of the Declaration of Independence trembled to 
 anticipate. And this ought to make us willing 
 to do and to suffer cheerfully. There were Holy 
 Wars of old, in which it was glory enough to 
 die, wars in which the one aim was to rescue the 
 sepulchre of Christ from the hands of infidels. 
 The sepulchre of Christ is not in Palestine ! 
 
464 THE INEVITABLE TRIAL. 
 
 He rose from that burial-place more than eigh 
 teen hundred years ago. He is crucified where- 
 ever his brothers are slain without cause ; he 
 lies buried wherever man, made in his Maker s 
 image, is entombed in ignorance lest he should 
 learn the rights which his Divine Master gave 
 him ! This is our Holy War, and we must 
 fight it against that great General who will 
 bring to it all the powers with which he fought 
 against the Almighty before he was cast down 
 from heaven. He has retained many a cunning 
 advocate to recruit for him ; he has bribed many 
 a smooth-tongued preacher to be his chaplain ; 
 he has engaged the sordid by their avarice, the 
 timid by their fears, the profligate by their love 
 of adventure, and thousands of .nobler natures 
 by motives which we can all understand ; whose 
 delusion we pity as we ought always to pity 
 the error of those who know not what they do. 
 Against him or for him we are all called upon to 
 declare ourselves. There is no neutrality for 
 any single true-born American. If any seek 
 such a position, the stony finger of Dante s 
 awful muse points them to their place in the 
 antechamber of the Halls of Despair, 
 
THE INEVITABLE TRIAL. 465 
 
 " with that ill band 
 
 Of angels mixed, who nor rebellious proved, 
 Nor yet were true to God, but for themselves 
 Were only." 
 
 " Fame of them the world hath none 
 Nor suffers; mercy and justice scorn them both. 
 Speak not of them, but look, and pass them by." 
 
 We must use all the means which God has 
 put into our hands to serve him against the ene 
 mies of civilization. We must make and keep 
 the great river free, whatever it costs us ; it is 
 strapping up the forefoot of the wild, untama 
 ble rebellion. We must not be too nice in the 
 choice of our agents. Non eget Mauri jaculis, 
 no African bayonets wanted, was well enough 
 while we did not yet know the might of that 
 desperate giant we had to deal with ; but Tros, 
 Tyrimve, white or black, is the safer motto 
 now ; for a good soldier, like a good horse, can 
 not be of a bad color. The iron-skins, as well 
 as the iron-clads, have already done us noble 
 service, and many a mother will clasp the re 
 turning boy, many a wife will welcome back the 
 war-worn husband, whose smile would never 
 again have gladdened his home, but that, cold 
 
 20 * DD 
 
466 THE INEVITABLE TRIAL. 
 
 in the shallow trench of the battle-field, lies the 
 half-buried form of the unchained bondsman 
 whose dusky bosom sheaths the bullet which 
 would else have claimed that darling as his 
 country s sacrifice ! 
 
 We shall have success if we truly will success, 
 
 not otherwise. It may be long in coming, 
 
 Heaven only knows through what trials and 
 humblings we may have to pass before the full 
 strength of the nation is duly arrayed and led 
 to victory. We must be patient, as our fathers 
 were patient ; even in our worst calamities, we 
 must remember that defeat itself may be a gain 
 where it costs our enemy more in relation to his 
 strength than it costs ourselves. But if, in the 
 inscrutable providence of the Almighty, this 
 generation is disappointed in its lofty aspirations 
 for the race, if we have not virtue enough to 
 ennoble our whole people, and make it a nation 
 of sovereigns, we shall at least hold in undying 
 honor those who vindicated the insulted majesty 
 of the Republic, and struck at her assailants so 
 long as a drum-beat summoned them to the field 
 of duty. 
 
THE INEVITABLE TRIAL. 467 
 
 Citizens of Boston, sons and daughters of 
 New England, men and women of the North, 
 brothers and sisters in the bond of the American 
 Union, you have among you the scarred and 
 wasted soldiers who have shed their blood for 
 your temporal salvation. They bore your na 
 tion s emblems bravely through the fire and 
 smoke of the battle-field ; nay, their own bodies 
 are starred with bullet-wounds and striped with 
 sabre-cuts, as if to mark them as belonging to 
 their country until their dust becomes a portion 
 of the soil which they defended. In every 
 Northern graveyard slumber the victims of this 
 destroying struggle. Many whom you remem 
 ber playing as children amidst the clover-blos 
 soms of our Northern fields, sleep under name 
 less mounds with strange Southern wild-flowers 
 blooming over them. By those wounds of liv 
 ing heroes, by those graves of fallen martyrs, by 
 the hopes of your children, and the claims of 
 your children s children yet unborn, in the 
 name of outraged honor, in the interest of vio 
 lated sovereignty, for the life of an imperilled 
 nation, for the sake of men everywhere and of 
 
468 THE INEVITABLE TRIAL. 
 
 our common humanity, for the glory of God and 
 the advancement of his kingdom on earth, 
 
 o 
 
 your country calls upon you to stand by her 
 through good report and through evil report, in 
 triumph and in defeat, until she emerges from 
 the great war of Western civilization, Queen of 
 the broad continent, Arbitress in the councils 
 of earth s emancipated peoples ; until the flag 
 that fell from the wall of Fort Sumter floats 
 again inviolate, supreme, over all her ancient 
 inheritance, every fortress, every capital, every 
 ship, and this warring land is once more a 
 United Nation ! 
 
 THE END. 
 
 Cambridge : Stereotyped and Printed by Welch, Bigelow, & Co. 
 
135, OtJasIjfitQton St., Uoston, 
 NOVEMBER, 1863. 
 
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 Adelaide Procter s Poems. $1.00. 
 
 Taylor s Philip Van Artevelde. $1.00. 
 
 Irving s Sketch-Bool. $ 1.00. Nearly Ready. 
 
22 Works Published by Ticknor and Fields. 
 
 CABINET EDITIONS OF THE POETS. 
 
 MESSRS. TICKNOR AND FIELDS are publishing a new 
 edition of the writings of popular Poets, called the Cabinet 
 Edition. It is handsomely printed on laid tinted paper, and 
 elegantly bound in vellum cloth with gilt top. The following 
 are now published : 
 
 Longfellow s Poems. 2 vols. $ 2.50. 
 Tennyson s Poems. 2 vols. $ 2.50. 
 Whittier s Poems. 2 vols. $ 2.50. 
 Holmes s Poems. 1 vol. $ 1.25. 
 
14 DAY USE 
 
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U. C. BERKELEY LIBRARIES 
 
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 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY