WHY AND WHAT AM I ? THE 0f an |namnr IN THREE PARTS. PART I. HEAR T-E XPERIENCE; OR, THE EDUCATION OF THE EMOTIONS. BY JAMES JACKSON JARVES, AUTHOR OP "ART-HINTS," "ITALIAN SIGHTS," " KIANA," ETC. BOSTON: PHILLIPS, SAMPSON AND COMPANY. LONDON : SAMPSON LOW, SON A CO. M DCCC LVII. Entered according to Actfof Congress, in the year 1857, by PIJILLIPS, SAMPSON & CO., In the Clerk s Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. Stereotyped by HOBART & ROBBIN3, Sri* A PREFACE, IN WHICH IS INCLUDED THE DEDICATION. WHY write a Preface? Any one who cares for your thought will seek to unravel it in your pages. That is true ; but the critics, to whom I dedicate all my Confessions that they will engage to criticize, seldom are able to look beyond the title-page and contents; so I must do something for them, to avoid being altogether thrown over board. Criticism, as commonly conducted, is rarely aught else than a literary guide-board. It tells you where to go, but not much of your destination. I would fain wish it might do more for me ; but my literary illusions have long since sunk to their final rest, and long ago I bade good-by to expectation and disappointment. Still, as it may gain, for me some readers, and for you, general reader, some pages of eccentric reading, I bow to its usefulness, and tell you all, in the words of Pilate, " What I have written, I have written." IV PREFACE. If you like it, and perhaps if you do not, there may follow two portions more : one, an ART-CONFESSION; OR, |j* feprmtu 0f gf static Cnlto in f ife. The other, THE RELIGIOUS IDEA; OK, f fet fink $*ttowi % f rmnt anfc Jftttot. Your humble servant, at command, THE CONFESSOR. N. B. One chapter weekly is a sufficient dose for an inquisitive thinker. Any other reader had better let the " Confessions " remain undisturbed, and be grateful to me for this caution. CONTENTS. PAG 8 SALUTATORY, 9 CHAPTER I. WHY I WAS EXILED TO EARTH, H CHAPTER II. HOW I WAS BORN, jg CHAPTER III. FATHER MOTHER, 22 CHAPTER IV. BABY MORALES AND NAME, 28 CHAPTER V. MY FIRST LESSON IN SALVATION, 34 CHAPTER VI. ITS ANTIDOTE, 44 CHAPTER VII. ILLUSIONS, AND A NEW RELATION, 54 CHAPTER VIII. PETRONIA S FORLORN HOPE, 61 1* VI CONTENTS. CHAPTER IX. PAOB IN THE COUNTRY, THANK GOD ! 67 CHAPTER X. A SPORTSMAN S i MEAN BOY S LOGIC, 77 CHAPTER XI. DESPONDENCY, FRIENDSHIP, FUN, AND DEATH, .... 83 CHAPTER XII. GHOSTS, AND A CHANGE OF HEART THAT WOULD N T COME, 92 CHAPTER XIII. I FIGHT FOR A MORAL CHARACTER, 100 CHAPTER XIV. IDIOSYNCRASIES AND THEIR CONSEQUENCES, 109 CHAPTER XV. END OF ONE EDUCATION, AND THE BEGINNING OF ANOTHER, 117 CHAPTER XVI. WHAT IS ME, AND WHAT IS NOT ME? 123 CHAPTER XVII. YOUTH NOT A DEVIL; A HUMAN CACTUS, 129 CHAPTER XVIII. A SELF-IMPOSED FRIEND, 141 CHAPTER XIX. A NEW FIELD, 151 C II A P T E K X X . PETRONIA AS MTSSIONAUY, 166 CONTENTS. VII CHAPTER XXI. PAGH DOES CHRISTIANITY AGREE WITH POLYNESIA? . . . .173 CHAPTER XXII. MY "BUSINESS" SUCCESS, . 196 CHAPTER XXIII. SKIP THIS TIS TOO DRY, 203 CHAPTER XXIV. DRIER STILL OH ! 209 CHAPTER XXV. A NOTE ON A MINOR KEY, 217 CHAPTER XXVI. TWO MOURNERS, 222 CHAPTER XXVII. LOVES FLIES OFF, > .... 227 CHAPTER XXVIII. MORE WEAKNESSES, AND MORE MORALIZING, 235 CHAPTER XXIX. MARRIED, AT LAST, BUT NOT MY WEDDING, 248 CHAPTER XXX. A SURPRISE TO TWO, 258 CHAPTER XXXI. THE RESULT, 267 VTTT CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXXII. PAGB A UNION THAT IS NOT A UNION, 271 CHAPTER XXXIII. MY THEORY OF MY HEART S IDEAL, 282 CHAPTER XXXIV. I FIND MY IDEAL, AT LAST IN PROSPECTIVE, .... 286 CHAPTER XXXV. VALEDICTORY A VISION? , . . 291 A CODICIL. THE DOCTRINE AND LESSON OF LIFE. PART I. INSTINCT, WILL, LOVE, 299 PART II. MARRIAGE, DIVORCE, REFORM, 304 SALUTATORY. ALLOW me to present to you my confessions, dear reader. I trust that, by the time you have read thus far, they will have become your confessions. This may prove true in a double sense. First, by an exchange of coin from your pocket into mine a delicate flattery which has a wonderfully soothing effect upon an author s nervous system. If you doubt my word, it is an experiment well worth your trial, and warranted to succeed upon the most obtuse literary organizations, after the seqond or third attempt. Secondly, in the light of a mirror. Far be it from me to cast any reflection upon you, dearest reader ; but, as all lives have been dipped in the same river of humanity, though for that they do not all, Achilles-like, cease to be vulnerable, I cor dially recommend you to the perusal of these con fessions, if for no other reason than to detect the common likeness, and to laugh or marvel, as may be your mood, over the differences we each have had on the great highway of LIFE. I promise you one novelty, in the outset. It is 10 SALUTATORY. this. My confessions commence at a period when yours were buried in profound sleep. " How so ? " Listen. You, I dare say, forgetful reader, cannot go back, in the traditions of the nursery, to a date anteceding the first tooth : a prodigious memory must you have, if you can recall even that stupendous fact. But I recall " t Recall what? Heavens ! you don t mean to say that " Be patient, and the story will tell its own tale. I recall an IDEA il If that be all, you had better stop our confes sions where they are. We have all had more ideas than we could manage, and Once again, courteous reader. I pray you not to interrupt me. Nothing so confuses an idea as a plump contradiction. I am bent on making our con fessions ; and, if you go on in this way, I shall never reach the first breath, much less " Much less ! What the deuce are you driving at ? I crave pardon ! This shall be my last rude ness, if my curiosity does not beget That is just what I am driving at. My idea begot me. " Fudge ! I mean, let us hear all about it." Now you are reasonable, I will begin. CHAPTER I. WHY I WAS EXILED TO EARTH. THE first, and, as it so happens, the only recollec tion allowed me, of the state of existence to which I now refer, was of being an infinitesimally small globule, or souL-germ. Unfortunately or fortunately, as opinions may run, even in that condition I was largely endowed with curiosity. The existence of a soul prior to its advent as a material being upon some one of the planets is, according to the best of my remembrance, one so perfectly passive that few persons, perhaps none, in their after experience can recall either enjoyment or suffering as connected with their immaterial being. It is true certain sen sations of happiness, or suggestions of the capacity of our spirits for infinite progress, at times flash like light through our worldly thoughts, connecting us with an unseen but not unfelt sphere of perfection. These may be the magnetic currents which, descend ing from a nobler life, illumine and cheer the soul onward, rather than sparks from the flickering torch of memory of a prior existence. Indeed, judging from myself, and in matters of the soul we have only ourself to actually know, I believe this to be 12 HEART -EXPERIENCE. the case. It is given to me, however, to have a dis tinct reminiscence of being an inquisitive little idea, pestering myself and others with curiosity, often to the no little disturbance of the celestial quiescence of my immediate circle. At last I was voted a bore, and the angel who had me in charge, not finding it convenient to answer my questions, in which re spect I have since found many teachers like him in this world, said, in a pet, " You are only fit for the earth! Be off, and cease to bother us! At all events, you will there be taught manners and knowledge." This was certainly not very civil in the angel ; but, as angels are either incipient or matured men, I for get which, it was a very natural conge, and not illy adapted to an introduction to my new existence. A sudden obscurity seized me. Memory, if I ever had had any, departed. I was conscious of nothing but a peculiar thrill or shock, resulting, I suppose, from my unexpected ejection from my old abode. If an idea can be said to possess senses, it quite took away mine, though for how long I cannot tell. When I became conscious at all, it was to find myself a human being; that is, I, an idea, for still I clung to that, was being confined into a strange- looking form, with limbs, body, and head. The first consciousness of my new self was not a compliment ary one. I was a hideous molecule, a monster, a fright, an imp, anything but what I have often since flattered myself to be. I cannot tell whether it was that, frightened by my own ugliness, or not liking the change from celestial light to sudden obscurity, I kicked out most WHY I WAS EXILED TO EARTH. 13 lustily; but I did so, and soon really enjoyed the novel exercise. I had already found a use for those limbs, the sight of which at first so puzzled and alarmed me. It was a new experience. In compar ison with my first consciousness it was delicious ; so I stirred about all I could. Like most impromptu experiments, mine in the outset was not a fortunate one. It made me an enemy at once. Strange sounds reached my ears, I should say, had they been large enough; but it was my organization which was sufficiently acute to rec ognize at once human speech, and to comprehend directly some of the dangers which already beset me. In reflecting upon this fact, I believe my old guardian, the angel, had been malicious enough, in consigning me to the earth, to give me a double share of sensibility, in order that my career should be con tinually the sport of illusions, as a punishment for my precocious curiosity. However that was, I soon found myself the subject of an interesting discussion. " I am sure of it I told you so," said the voice nearest me. And a very soft, sweet voice it was. " But, dear, you must be mistaken. Consider, you are not yet done nursing little Benjamin." " Indeed, I wish I was ; but there is no mistaking that." Here I gave a fresh kick. Something followed in a gruff, vexed tone, that sounded very much like . I have been since told it was a naughty word, and I will not write it. This exclamation was succeeded, on the other side, by a series of sighs, so deep that they really excited my pity, and of course my curiosity. 2 1 4 HEAET- EXPERIENCE. " But, my dear," after a short interval of silence, continued the gruff voice, " don t you think you are nervous, subject to fancies, eh? Exercise in the open air will do you a wonderful deal of good. What say you to riding horseback ? You have not been up the monument of late. At this season the view is remarkably fine." "How can you talk so, husband ? Do you wish me to Here the voice became a faint whisper, and I lost the rest of the sentence. " Not at all ; only, if any accident should happen, no harm would be done now. How much better it would be for little Benjamin ! Times are hard, and just enough for one is only half enough for two. I do wish nature was not so extraordinarily prolific. It is always my luck ! Confound " Something, I could not hear what ; but soon after stifled sobs were heard. " Don t take on so ! You know I did not mean it, Harriet." Sob, sob, kiss, kiss, followed in quick suc cession, intermixed with much confused talking and soothing, the upshot of which was that I found out, if one half of those in the world wished for new-com ers, the other half as heartily wished them to remain where they were, and both came to these opposite opinions professedly for the good of the object con cerned. Bad world, full of trials, money tight, weak con stitution, too many cares already, so went the refrain of good riddance on the one side ; sweet baby, life, joy, mother s delight and father s pride, WHY I WAS EXILED TO EARTH. 15 roses and sunshine, so went the song of welcome on the other. Now, all this excited my curiosity. I determined to stay. There were, then, two sides to earth-life. It was natural to wish to know both ; besides, who had so much at stake in this question as myself, whose rights were so overlooked? As I said before, I concluded to stay. My mother for so must I now begin to call her was persuaded to take for some time more exer cise than was her custom ; she did go on horseback, she did go up the two hundred and seventy-nine steps of the monument, and came down them very fast, too. She did walk much, and jump, and per form various antics somewhat surprising for a staid matron ; and she grew all the stronger thereupon, and I clave to her all the firmer therefor, for my heart was drawn to her, and my will was firm to see the world for myself. As for my father, I for gave him in this, but not till long after I became the parent of several ideas very much like myself, so it is said. CHAPTER II. HOW I WAS BORN. I CALL, as will be seen in the preceding chapter, the two persons with whom I first became acquainted in earth-life, father and mother ; but this is in defer ence to the world s sense of such relationship, which being common sense, is, after all, the most likely to be the right sense. I shall continue to use the worldly language when I wish to be particularly intelligible. If, dear reader, you ever find me somewhat obscure, conclude that my idea-origin is getting the better of my earth-knowledge, and leading me to idealize. If you have no sympathy for this frame of mind, pass it over, and stick to what you do understand. In the progressive order of things, you may your self, by begetting an idea, be awakened to your own origin as one. It is not every one, like myself, who can trace his ancestry through flesh up to a bright idea. For I do maintain that mine was a bright one, otherwise I should not have been so summarily exiled from a state of humdrum happiness, in which my curiosity annoyed myself as much as it did my neighbors. Adam and Eve have the credit of being the HOW I WAS BORN. 17 parents of mankind. This opinion does not give to each their just due. They were at first simply two passive ideas, planted in a paradise, where they had nothing to do but to pluck and eat. Now, Eve had too much pluck to be content with a vegetable life j and curiosity, which is the divine spark that fires progress, led her to experiment as to her own pow ers. The excitement she created speedily convinced her she was somebody, and entitled to have her say in creation, a right which her sex maintain in full force to this day. Adam played but a sorry figure, it mortifies mo to confess, in this business. He wanted the fun, but sneaked and blamed Eve as soon as he found out that knowledge was labor. Eve behaved like a true woman, God bless her ! and, for one, believing her merits have never been rightly appreciated, I do offer to receive subscriptions from men everywhere to erect to her a suitable monu ment, and, as is her due, larger and finer than the contemplated one to the Pilgrim Fathers, on which shall be inscribed, in grateful letters, the thanks of the world for her courageous example in preferring to be a woman to remaining an idea. Adam and his sons shall appear only on the base, in their true posi tions and conditions as caryatides. As for the serpent, it must have an honorable place, for suggesting and encouraging Eve to free herself, and of course our selves, from an existence that had neither right nor wrong to enliven it. The strange medley of bad and good, pain and pleasure, art and science, which we call civilization, is due to the courage and curi osity of a woman. She led the way to progress 2* 1 8 HEART - EXPERIENCE. man but labors to perfect her suggestion. There fore, sons of men, if ye love enterprise, industry, physical growth, and moral strength, have done with your whine and cant about the loss of an inglorious paradise, and honor the woman who first showed you how to be men ! For my part, I am determined to do the sex that favors the human race with an introduction into this earth, justice. I consider it, upon reflection, a good thing to be born. I have a liking for the way nature has provided, and I am not too modest to tell you why. Not that there is one particle of merit in being a father or mother, any more than there is in being a child. On the contrary, virtue often decides otherwise. I have noticed that it is rare for any but poor people to wish to have children, and that their numbers are in direct ratio to the poverty and ugli ness of the parents. The rich and beautiful seldom have time or inclination. But nature does not con sult the wishes of any individual. She begets or refrains, according to her own immutable rules. We owe, therefore, our advent upon earth, not to the virtues of human ancestry, but to the laws which regulate the connection between the seen and unseen. It will be seen in my case that I was not wanted either as an idea or as a baby. Not being welcome to stay or come, I owe no gratitude on either side. Such curiosity as mine could find no suitable sphere where questions were not allowed to be asked; so I seized the first chance that offered, or nature did HOW I WAS BOKN. 19 for me, and sent me to earth to learn " knowledge and manners." Now, my mother, after she became satisfied that I was determined to be born, ceased very violent exercises, the only effect of which on me was, as it since proved, to give me an insatiable love of trav elling, and gradually became even delighted at her prospect. There was soon established between us a rare sympathy. My curiosity begot in her a corresponding love of knowledge. She read trav els, histories, works of philosophy, fiction, and even theology, besides being more assiduous than ever before in her Bible reading and devotions. Her appetite in this was two-fold for herself and me. She loved instruction for its own sake, and in her present situation it seemed to her, what was really the case, that her own mind could not expand with truth without expanding mine. How she could best welcome the little stranger, as she termed me, was her hourly thought. She asked God (laily to bless me. He blessed us both. Me, in preparing my soul to believe kindly of the earth, in providing maternal instruction and care, in giving me an unfailing source of healthful development, and above all in supplying to my heart currents of love from another that over flowed with its richest treasures. Thus it happened that I was thankful I was to be born of a woman. While I was the object of so much solicitude to her, another conversation ensued with the gruff voice, only this time it was not so very gruff. I first heard the low, musical tones of my mother. She often sang, now, as if to herself; but her sooth- 20 HEART- EXPERIENCE. ing notes were the overflowings of a contented, joyful spirit, and really intended for me. She had been singing, and father was sitting near, lulled into tranquil repose, in spite of his Malthusian fears. " You seem very happy now, Harriet/ 7 said he ; "you have ceased to regret " Hush ! " said my mother ; " never allude to my foolish fears again. I would not exchange the calm pleasure I now feel, with the consciousness of lov ing and being beloved by innocence, of feeding its mind and feeling its growth,"- all babies recol lect, please, are " its " for months before and after their first breath, "for all the excitements of sense or vanity the most successful selfishness could pile about me. No, no ! nature, in permitting us females to become mothers, gives us joys that could reach our souls in no other way. I am content ; nay, more, I am very happy." My father smiled and kissed her cheek, but looked dubious, as if he did not half comprehend all this. But Harriet was happy ; and so from sympathy was Kobert, for the instant, My own little heart thrilled at her words, and gave me an emotion of indescrib able tenderness towards her. This part of my existence was so satisfactory that I like to dwell upon it. However, the time came in which I had to eat and drink and breathe for myself; in short, to be an individual, entitled, on my own re sponsibility, to all the penalties and pleasures of life. For my mother, of good constitution, correct habits, without the fears or anxieties which so often prostrate her sex at this crisis, it was an easy affair. HOW I WAS BORN. 21 A woman wise in these matters was in attendance. She rightly preferred her own sex to male assist ance. A few pangs, and I was born the idea was now shaped into a baby ; " a little angel, so like its mother, such sweet eyes, a perfect love !" So said, in her presence, an ill-favored maiden aunt. " Another squalling, red-nosed brat, and so soon after the last ; it is shameful ! " I could read in her heart, as she thought of her diminished chances at a certain re version of property in prospect. My father gently patted my cheek, and his eye moistened as he looked at his wife, exhausted yet so happy. I loved him then. CHAPTER III. FATHER AND MOTHER. " WAS it a boy ? " " Was it a girl ? " " Does an idea have sex?" I was about to reply, quite for getting that I was now a baby ; and, even if I had not arrived at that stage of progress, there are both masculine and feminine ideas, as different from each other as chalk is from cheese. Candidly speaking, at this age I had no distinct impression upon the subject. On that account, I think it will be better for the fact which you, young miss, and you, venerable miss, are so curious to know, to be developed gradually in the course of the narrative. Some things improve by keeping ; and among the chips of worldly wisdom with which I have filled my basket, I find secrets are of the num ber. Do not be over-anxious on this point. The mystery cannot endure longer than the short clothes. I assure you, upon my honor, before they were put on I never gave a token either that I was not a boy or not a girl. I was simply a baby ; known as " it " to my father and all indifferent persons, but to my mother nothing less loving than " my precious dar ling," "mamma s pet of pets," "lambkin," and a host FATHER AM) MOTHER. 23 of epithets freshly coined of her heart each hour, as she alternately tossed me in the air, or hugged me to her bosom. As at present I am simply a baby writing for the instruction of parents, those who are neither can, if they see fit, skip what immediately follows, as of interest only to the parties concerned. But, with all due respect to the agencies appointed by Provi dence to launch infants on the sea of life, I wish to record here a few thoughts suggested by my expe rience, which may benefit any expected " increase of family." My brother, Benjamin, soon after I came, took his leave of earth, forwarded heavenward by a croup- express. His was a sluggish, indolent temperament, quite unfitted to resist or impress itself upon the world. If he had remained, I could have loved him only as a fellow-being, for nature had given us but little in common except our parents. Seeing his inability to withstand the conflicting elements of this life, she wisely and kindly took him to a more congenial sphere. Being the first-born child, my father mourned or rather missed him for a while, but in silence ; my mother wept plenteously, and then comforted herself the more in me. How we grew to love each other ! I speak warm ly on this topic, because family love is the founda tion of our purest happiness. The parent is the Providence of the child the agent through whom God exercises his care; and for a considerable period is the only God, or good, which the child can com prehend. Its wants of body and mind are to be 24 HEART-EXPERIENCE. supplied only through this or its deputed agency. Fruitful for good as may be this tie, equally so can it be for evil. The latter rarely arrives from choice, but very often from the best intentions unwisely directed, and from the kindest feelings selfishly per verted. I will sketch my father. There are a great many like him ; so not many words will be requisite for the portrait. In the first place, he was rich. This gave his household every physical comfort, and even luxury. He growled at paying bills, but no one was more punctual in paying them. His ambition unfor tunately was to be richer. Being in commerce, his entire time, energies, and capital, were always tied fast to this idea. It is true he grew richer yearly ; but his trial-balance, with its weighty array of stocks, argosies, and rents, was more like a Roman triumph of chained wild-beasts, and fettered kings and queens, glittering in gems, trampling over the Via Sacra, than a joyous procession of singing hearts and festive bodies sunning themselves in his pros perity. The world looked on and admired ; it dared not touch, but bent the knee in homage to success, grateful for the largesses thrown to it now and then to keep it in good humor. The richer he grew, the greater was his stimulus to become more rich. It became his passion. True, it excited industry, and produced marvels in the way of enterprise ; but over every new building, streaming from the mast-heads of his clipper fleet, bubbling in the wake of his steam-ships, on whatever his hands touched was to be read the grim motto, FATHER AND MOTHER. 25 "cent per cent." This was his aim. He often reached it. Money, like poverty, so begot itself that the gains of one year became the capital of the next. That my father had at the bottom a tender heart, I felt sure. The tear at my birth, and his sad silence at Benjamin s death, told me that. But he had no time to love. His thoughts were so constantly with his ships and merchandise, that the affections with ered from lack of cultivation. When reminded of his family, for the moment he was considerate and kind ; but the more powerful current would soon drown the feebler, and he who could invest of a morning tens of thousands in any new enterprise was often bankrupt at night for the want of a few dollars to gratify his wife or child. It was not ava rice that ruled him, but monetary ambition. The demon of accumulation had taken him in keeping, and so ossified his heart to purer and happier life- currents, that he had at last, from want of the habit, become ashamed to be affectionate, or even frank, at home. When at times his warmer nature showed itself, the other speedily avenged the weakness by a greater reserve of manner and a more rigid theory of household economy than ever. I say theory, for the practice was sufficiently liberal. It was the feeling of self-reproach in those dependent upon him for having any wants at all which required money, that poisoned the expenditure, and made each dol lar seem more like a drop of a martyr s blood than what it really is, but a bit pf metal, valuable only as it represents comfort or happiness, No one suffered so much from this character as 3 26 HEART - EXPERIENCE. my father himself. He was at bottom too sensible not to feel at times that he had made a mistake in his exclusive pursuit of wealth. This disturbed his conscience, though it could not change his habits. Unfortunately, he was not of a demonstrative nature. His natural manner checked even the innocent mirth of children, and chilled the tender impulses of his wife. Thus as he grew older he became more re served to his family, and necessarily sought else where those pleasures which, to have been enjoyed in their truest sense, should have been shared with them. The temperament of my mother unfortunate ly made this still worse. She was excessively sen sitive and impressible. A frown, sulk, or hasty word, quite extinguished her, and made her feel as a crimi nal, when she was simply a victim. There is no men tal torture more exquisite than that which a selfish, querulous nature can inflict upon an unselfish and affectionate one, provided it be timid ; for its fears excite its supposed offences, and its susceptibility turns every suppressed emotion to anguish. An infant could have easily imposed upon her. I fear I often did. There is no reminiscence of her more dear to my mind now than of a whipping she gave me with my favorite horse-whip. Only once in her life did she nerve herself up to this duty. It was soundly done, and, although a very imperfect expiation on my part of my numerous pranks, yet it was so unexpected a display of vigor on hers, that, were she now living, and should call upon me to pre pare for another, my reverence would impel me at once to unbutton. FATHER AND MOTHER. 27 My father was not suited for my mother. A stronger and bolder nature than hers could have overcome his reserve, compelled his attentions, and won his confidence. She was afraid to love him, or, rather, she became so, after some years of hopeless trial and submission, which often would have been better for both had it been opposition. I was afraid to love him also. My nature in infancy was too like my mother s, and his operated on me to quench all freedom. I never climbed his knee, or sat in his lap. He never took me in his arms but once, and that was to shake me for some supposed mischief. As in this instance I did not deserve it, and he was in a passion, the impression upon me was not a favorable one. I became still more afraid of him because I saw that he could be unjust. There was something in me he seemed to like, notwithstanding ; for whenever I dared approach him and ask for favors, he granted them readily. Indeed, he was timid himself, after his own kind, and disliked to say no in family mat ters, preferring to dodge all domestic questions and responsibilities, leaving them to the still weaker will of his wife to settle. Thus I came to see very little of him, and had my own way in everything. CHAPTER IV. BABY MORALS AND NAME. DON T yawn, old folks ! Let baby talk to you a while longer. It is not often before weaning you hear spoken truth from the little ones you fondle and scold, as may be your own mood. If we do not talk, we see and feel, and our little senses are won derfully acute to detect love, sincerity, frankness ; nay, more, the hidden truths of the mature heart for good or evil are revealed to us with a clearness that it would be wise in you oftener to heed. We shrink from craft, cruelty, and selfishness ; we welcome the artless, affectionate, and playful. The smile of an infant is often the touchstone of moral worth. Even the caress of a dog is not to be unheeded. How much less, then, the confidence of a young soul, whose first emotions are those of innocence and candor ! My mother well understood this. She knew that in watching my dawning intelligence, in fondling and caressing me a thousand times daily, in being unwearied in her attentions to my wants and ca prices, patient, loving, and faithful, she was herself reaping a harvest of happiness purer and more enduring than she could derive from any other BABY MORALS AND NAME. 29 source. In becoming as little children we all ap proach the kingdom of heaven ; but it is a kingdom of peace and joy within ourselves, reflected from the guilelessness of these little playmates. The strength of this nature is shown by its influence over the most worldly, hardened minds. David of Judah and Henry of France trampled their greatness in the dust before the magnetism of an infant s love. There is a power in its spirit-fibre to turn manhood back to babyhood, because there is no selfish alloy in it. As you measure out your affections they are meted to you again. I think my father sometimes felt his loss as he would come home suddenly and find me in my mother s arms, caressing her with my tiny hands, nestling my little cheek against hers, or pouring into her eyes the love that overflowed from mine. He never sought to take me. Occasionally he would look curiously on, as if it were some moral phenom enon he could not explain, while I would in won der open my large, dark eyes, and look at him so steadily that he sometimes said, " How that child stares I What can it mean ? It looks right into me." Had he then gently offered to take me, he would have known that I had love to give to him as well as my mother ; that a baby can love a father even more than a mother (nursing thrown in), if he will meet its craving for affection and frolic with an open heart and unclouded brow ; that the only true rela tionship is that which springs from kindred emo tions and entwined affections. But no ; his thoughts were either far away with his ships, or brooding over 30 HEART- EXPERIENCE. ledger and journal. The mechanic, the laborer, the tradesman, the professional man, the soldier, sailor, farmer, the savage even, have time to play with their children. It is only the " man of business " of the American type, who has no time to love, to eat, or to play. And as you mount the golden ladder to the chill region above, does not the sight of the green meadows, the running streams, those glorious clouds reflecting their bright colors upon the rich, warm, sunlit landscape, a landscape made up of love and truth, does not such a sight tempt you to pause before turning your back upon it forever? Feel ings once frozen from neglect to keep alive their, soul-fire cannot be melted by a transient sigh of regret, nor made to yield their warmth at a moment ary desire. The rock must then be smitten, if it would give out living waters. In the exchange between parent and infant who gives the most the one who feeds, cherishes, and protects, or the one who makes light, and peace, and joy, reign in a household? I came to the earth to learn, and I have no intention of disguising the truth. As my experience covers all the ground, my opin ion is entitled to be heard. Most sincerely, in this matter, do I give my ver dict for the infant, provided you have endowed it with a healthful body, and bestowed upon it needful care. Where pain and sorrow brooded constantly be tween alienated hearts, have I known a babe, simply by the sympathy of its artless joys, its loving pan tomime, its wonderful intelligence, its fun, mischief, and its exigencies, restore smiles, recreate peace, and BABY MORALS AND NAME. 31 force the still unloving parents to live in harmony, and vie with each other for the embraces and affec tion of their child, and all this even before it could utter a word. Its atmosphere banished discord, and soothed disappointment. Can a parent compensate an infant for this ? Adult hearts, though wedded, may differ, cease to love even, and neither be to blame, because their affections are subject to laws that sway alike souls and the universe. Both must obey their moral and intellectual needs and capaci ties. But, as in all hearts there exists a common fountain of innocence and love, however deeply buried by disuse or error, there is no talisman so sure to make its waters flow as the smiles of infancy. Would, for his sake and mine, my father had early found out this celestial secret ! He would have been richer by far than he was with his piles of ingots. But he was waiting to be rich enough ; then he would cultivate his family. Now he simply said, as if my presence disturbed him, " Had you not better send the child to the nursery ? " A wish looked, much less spoken, by him, was a Mede and Persian edict to my yielding mother, whose sole fault was to victimize herself too much to what she had been educated to consider as duties, with out reflecting that obedience to another might prove treason to herself. I do not cite this as an instance. But such was her nature, and she was always suffer ing, in consequence, from the conflict between con ventional right and the actual right of her own nature. She held me out to him, saying at him, but to me, 32 HEART -EXPERIENCE. " Good-by ; papa/ hoping he would smile upon me, and perhaps offer to kiss me. Her heart drooped and her face grew sad, I believe a tear began to roll from between her eyelids, as he abstractedly looked at us both, but saw neither. I am sure I resented in my heart his coldness. How could it be otherwise, accustomed as I was to the fondness of my mother ? Had he a minute after tried to take me, I should have screamed and shrunk from him, and been judged by him to be an unnatu ral child. I was promptly sent up stairs. This was a com mon occurrence, while my mother considered it her duty to remain below, as he would have accused her of neglecting him, had she obeyed her instincts and gone with me. Did he converse with her? No. Did he give her his business-confidence? No. She was a wom an, and such a thought never entered his head. Brooding in silence over his plans, dozing, or bur ied in newspapers, hour after hour would he sit, answering only in monosyllables her attempts at conversation, arid seldom replying except to a sen tence twice repeated. Now, if this be not social martyrdom to a sensitive woman, what is ? For some time past she had been vainly seeking to obtain from him some decided opinion as to a name for me. " Have you thought, my dear, of a name yet for our child ? " she timidly asked. No reply. She repeated the question, adding a favorite name of her own choice, which she hoped might please BABY MORALS AND NAME. 33 him. I was to be baptized that afternoon, and he was to spare five minutes from pressing business to come in just as I was at the font. He evidently heard her that time. Taking his hat, and opening the door, he said, " I have decided upon Catamaran." " Katilan ! " exclaimed my mother, in surprise, but half hearing the strange word. My father thought she had asked him what name he had decided upon for a clipper ship about to be launched. He dropped in to the baptism. The holy water fixed his mistake indelibly upon my body, which from that day forth was known as " Katilan." That evening my father asked my name, and said it was not a bad one, but denied positively as to its being his choice. Mother dared not contradict him, so the subject was not renewed. CHAPTER V. MY FIRST LESSON IN SALVATION. MISTAKES rule the world, or very nearly so. Reli gion, politics, love, are alike their sport. We call the result to ourselves fate, destiny, or any other name which will assuage wounded amour propre, or our disappointment in finding out, after a long and weary travel, that we have mistaken our road, for want of proper attention to the sign-boards. Myself and my name were, as has been shown, both born of a mistake of my parents. It was a great mistake of their own to have married. Ever since, they had been drifting wider apart, from lack of mutual fitness. It was not in the nature of spirit that they would ever be joined, whatever the law might decide. Yet both had compensations in life : both were useful to the world in a different way; and each had a certain harmony of coloring, apart from the other, in the turnings of the human kalei doscope. Although my father overlooked domestic life him self, he contributed greatly to the means of it for others. Hundreds found him a just and often liberal employer; many more found their energies and abili- MY FIRST LESSON IN SALVATION. 35 ties stimulated by his example and advice ; while there was no enterprise born of commerce, and prom ising " to pay " even in the distant future, that he did not encourage. Such a man could have been illy spared from a mercantile public. But he was no more fit than a pope to be a husband. All he thought of or cared for was a brisk business. His principle of politics was a flourishing trade. He never, however, engaged in any dubious traffic, as he was too sagacious not to see that, next to a solid capital, a good reputation was necessary to render success permanent. On commerce he was eloquent ; in politics lively, if they touched the tariff question ; but on all other topics silent, except occasionally when some more zealous than wise theologian sought to convert him from the " error of his ways, " and induce him to join his church, as the only portal of heaven. Then he would explode his hackneyed dogmas and stereotype phrases, with a force of rea son, natural to his shrewd mind, that left the bigot floundering high and dry in his own theological morass, mourning over the loss of so much wealth and influence which a weaker head might have put under his control. My father had read the Bible, and had his own views of religion. He owned severalpews in vari ous churches, but never entered them, although he allowed his family to go wherever they felt inclined. To the clergy he was studiously courteous, provided they let him alone. He used to say " that, if he were a burning brand, he felt no confidence in being plucked from the fire by their hands ;" and sometimes 36 EEART -EXPERIENCE. somewhat irreverently would add, " He preferred to remain outside of their creed, so as not to be com mitted either to their heaven or hell." He had no objection, however, to others sitting out the longest and most unintelligible discourse, if it so pleased them ; or praying in public, kneeling, standing, or sitting, or any other way, provided they did not force him to do the same. As he was a lib eral contributor to church-bells, plate, destitute pious young men, and regularly pensioned several middle- aged female saints, whose presence he dreaded in his counting-room far more than he feared an irrup tion of corsairs, simply to keep away, he was, upon the whole, considered a highly respectable man, somewhat eccentric, but not without a " hope" after his own peculiar way. I would not have given much for his " hope " of salvation among them, had he become bankrupt. Among the array of females who dared occasion ally to invade his holy of holies was his own sister, the maiden, some ten years his senior, whose tongue found me so charming the day I looked in upon the world. She had got the notion into her head that, being his only near relation, she was destined to outlive him and his family, and inherit his property. Most of her leisure time was spent in planning the good " she was to do with it." Every child of his she looked upon as amiably as an Italian looks upon a "jettatura." From my birth I was especially her " evil eye ; " but, as she devoutly believed in her des tiny, and as the measles, whooping-cough, mumps, and scarlet fever, had each yet a chance at me, she MY FIRST LESSON IN SALVATION. 37 was so amiable to mo in public that my confiding mother really fancied she loved me. She and my father had never agreed, except in one point, namely, to see as little of each other as possi ble. Hers was an active, fidgety temperament, some what narrowed in understanding from lack of affec tion and education. But, when she did apply herself to anything, she was as penetrating as a gimlet, and about as soothing in her operations. Being a woman, too, the business world was shut to her enter prise. As yet no man had ventured to suggest mat rimony to her; and, if one did venture, unless of the clergy, and while she was under the excitement of " a call " to some religious duty, to do her justice, I think she would snap her fingers in his face ; for she had a decided contempt for the sex, and no more tenderness than a bomb-shell. The church was her field ; and she patronized it so vehe mently, that, by the influence of her patrimony and her expectations, she soon had a little clerical court about her. She deserved this distinction, for she was as well up in all its requirements as her brother was deficient. No six-days meeting, services three times daily, found her wanting ; no prayer or sewing circle was com plete without her sHrill voice and tall presence ; no missionary, temperance, anti-snuff, or any other reli gious anniversary of her sect, I forget what it was called, but it required a proselyte to be put all under water, and to say he believed in many things no mor tal head has ever yet comprehended, escaped her notice. If these attentions, thrice daily confessing herself the most miserable of sinners and very wil- 4 3 8 HEART - EXPERIENCE. ling to be damned for the glory of her Maker, twice annually reading the Bible through without skipping a verse or understanding it either, a weekly tea- assembly of promising young men for the ministry exceedingly fond of her excellent sweetmeats and irreproachable hot cakes, if all this, and weekly contributions for tracts to the Ottomis, for treatises on the proper understanding of Tlacatzintiliztlatla- colli * to the Delawares, without which they could not be saved in the true sense of Schwielendamo- witchewagan,f and to explain to the Sooakelees the nature of Mooigniazimoongo, + could make a saint, of my Aunt Petronia, she was one. She had a deep reverence for all scriptural localities ; and often re gretted she could not make a pilgrimage to the spot where Elisha s bears devoured the naughty, wicked children, and to the dung-heap of Job, which some young man just returned from Arabia had told her he had not only seen, but sat upon. My aunt was a sincere woman in everything ex cept her admiration of me ; even in that I considered her not wholly blameworthy, as evidently she could not always help it. But her zeal for the church was something stupendous. Her little court was ever putting it to the test, though they frequently found her sentiments easier to stimulate than control. It must not surprise you, dear reader, that I, who was so quick at understanding before I was born, should even as an infant be peculiarly bright. In deed, I considered myself on a mission from my brother ideas, which I had left in charge of my old * " Original Sin." t " Repentance." t God. MY FIRST LESSON IN SALVATION. 39 friend the angel ; and it would depend very much upon my report whether they would wish also to see the world for themselves. On that account my memory and perception were developed at a very tender age, as you perceive by these observations, which were actually made when my judgment was very green. Do not value them the less on that account. We all ripen through experience, and I am bound faithfully to record what I saw, heard, and felt. I do not promise to be always chronologically exact. But that is of no importance, provided the idea is correctly given. Of this you must judge for yourself. Many were the consultations held at my aunt s, among the oldest and most enthusiastic of her circle, as to the best means of bringing my father within their fold. Prior to the decision to which they ulti mately arrived, no less than twelve evenings were spent in prayer, mainly to enlighten their minds on this momentous topic, and to crown their efforts with success. Once or twice my aunt begged or stole me from my mother, that I might be suitably im pressed with the pious efforts made for my father. On these occasions, there were added some sen tences, chiefly by my aunt, on my behalf. I learned from these exercises several important facts, the chief of which was that no one who was not admitted to their church was sure of being saved. I asked my aunt what "being saved" meant. She turned in pious horror to the kneeling circle, put up her bony hands straight into the air, and exclaimed, "What dreadful ignorance, my lost child ! How my heart 40 HEART -EXPERIENCE. bleeds for you ! Let us unite once more in a peti tion, my friends, to awaken the conscience of this child s father, that he may be led, both himself and his little one, to confess their sins." Why they omitted my mother in their efforts I could not guess; but my aunt seldom recognized her existence, unless she had some subscription in view. From their prayer I learned that unless joined to the church we were irrevocably doomed to be roast ed in eternal fires, growing hotter each minute, with in horrid caverns called hell, with a great devil, and many little devils, as hideous as the imagination could conceive, sticking hot pitch-forks into us, and piling on sulphur to make the torment greater. Somehow or other I could not fed that they were in earnest in regard to me, although their groans and tears, which were very dismal, made me uncom fortable. Having once got the devil and his works into my imagination, I could not easily get them out of it. He both frightened and disgusted me. Much I wondered, too, what my father had done to merit such treatment. The only charge they brought against him was that he did not believe as they did, and that the state of my heart and his was so bad as to deserve such an end. When they told me little children were very abundant in hell, I shuddered. They then added, if I died that night without a change of heart, I was sure to go there ; and that I could not change my heart myself, but must pray to a Being, who would do it for me, if I were to be saved at all. I felt very miserably, and began to cry, and wish I had never been born. MY FIRST LESSON IN SALVATION. 41 My sorrow appeared to rejoice the group very much, and they whispered among themselves that I would soon be a fit candidate for the " anxious " seat. What this was, I could not guess; but greater anxiety than mine at that moment a young child s bosom can never experience, except in the society of the " elect." My natural spirits at intervals flashed out, and dis pelled my gloom. In one of these courageous mo ments I ventured to say I did not believe there could be such a being as a devil. Immediately, a solemn-looking individual, dressed in rusty black, with a large stomach, stiffly arose, fixed his cold, stern eyes upon me, and in a sepul chral voice said, " There is a devil ! He goes about the world at times in a human body ; he is in this room at this very minute ! " And he stared at me so fixedly that for an instant a cold sweat came over my body for fear the monster was at that moment pre paring to grab me. The speaker had been a missionary for twenty years among a tribe of semi-cannibals, without seeing the face of a white man, except a choice few that believed as he did, and a number of very sad sinners, who, preferring heathen existence to forecastle dis cipline, often gave him much cause of anxiety in his flock ; consequently he was esteemed a miracle of piety and learning, and his sayings treasured as di vine oracles. From that moment I believed there was a devil ; and it was many years before but I am anticipating my idea. Wishing to change the subject, I next inquired 4* 42 HE ART -EXPERIENCE. what sort of a place heaven was. " Heaven/ said the same voice, in the same attitude, " is the abode of the elect. They stand around the throne of God, clad in white robes, with harps in their hands, singing hymns and psalms of praise for ever and ever." "Do they never sit?" I innocently asked; for which question, and a simultaneous yawn which I could not repress, my ears were soundly boxed by my aunt, saying, " Did you ever see such irrever ence ? in one so young too ! We must redouble our efforts over this precocious vessel of wrath." Think ing that meant another box, I gave them a sample of my lungs, yelling out, " I will go home at once ! I will not be saved ! I hate heaven ! I want nothing to do with God !" But, in the midst of my wrath, I dared not say a disrespectful word of the devil. My aunt sent me home without further punish ment. She was too shocked to speak or strike. I believe the whole company felt as much relieved at my departure as did Lot when he got well out of Sodom after the hint he received to go. They de voured that evening an extra quantity of my aunt s tea and sweetmeats, and after singing, in praise of " Our Father in heaven/ 7 several hymns graphically describing the damnation of all mankind excepting the present company and their friends, they sepa rated, much refreshed in body and soul for the great privilege of the meeting so mercifully granted to such unworthy sinners. As for me, after kissing my mother, and saying at her knees, as usual, the infant s prayer, " Now I lay MY FIRST LESSON IN SALVATION. 43 me down to sleep," of which my heart did not hear one word, I went to bed alone, as usual. My dear mother had always accustomed me to this, as well as to waiting upon myself. CHAPTER VI. THE ANTIDOTE. THE night of my aunt s circle was a sad one for me. It was my first experience of mental terror. Through its long hours I lay restless, my young brain addled by contradictory thoughts, wondering if by any possibility there could be such a heaven and hell as I had heard described, and if everybody who died must go to one or the other. If the devil s kingdom appalled me, the abode and occupations of the saved were by no means inviting. Why did not my father or my mother tell me of such places ? They seemed to have no knowledge of them. That thought comforted me not a little, for I felt sure no being could wish to harm my mamma. She who was so gentle and so good, what had she to fear? If I dozed, a weight pressed upon my heart ; my head grew hot, while curious and abominable shapes flitted before my shut eyes. I could plainly see, or rather feel them; and, though shadowy and undefined, they were full of terror and misery to me. Once, on awakening suddenly, the very devil they had told me of, with his great red eyes, and hairy skin, and long, loathsome, arrow-headed tail, was standing by THE ANTIDOTE. 45 the bed-post grinning and mocking, and telling me it was quite true that hell was paved with infants skulls. A paralysis of fear seized me. My heart stopped beating. Every nerve quivered with repressed anguish. I could not call out, for my tongue was as rigid as iron. The hot breath of fifty Beelzebubs was steaming over me. Had I been at that moment dropped into that hell to which my excited imagin ation had already added so many new horrors, I could not have suffered more. Why are mere theologians suffered to teach reli gion? They little know the doubt and distress they create in young minds. Far better would it be, if Christian deeds were only shown them, conjoined to the plain precepts of the love and justice of Christ. But when fanatics and bigots are permitted to mould the religious ideas of youth, infancy must suffer, not only from spectral torments, but it must also imbibe notions of the Divinity which change him from a father to a monster. Not every child is blessed with such an antidote as I possessed. When I got up in the morning, so per suaded was I that some evil thing was in my room, I jerked on my clothes, and, as it seemed to me, flew down stairs without touching them, not daring to look back, or draw a long breath, until I was fairly out into the open air and sunlight. When I could look up to the beautiful sky I was soothed. At breakfast my mother noticed my paleness and want of appetite. She asked me no questions be fore my father, who would have been intensely an gry had he known that I had been at one of my 46 HE ART -EXPERIENCE. aunt s meetings. " Let them shout in their sulphur ous canopy," he would say, " by themselves ; " insist ing always that he was quoting from Dr. Watts. When he was gone out, she took me in her lap and questioned me. I told her my aunt had come while she was out and taken me to tea, with all the par ticulars. Now, my mother had been herself subjected to similar teachings, and had heard much preaching of a like nature. The doctrines had, however, never gone deeper than her ear, for her heart was too firmly set in the right place to allow fallacies of the head to distort her simple faith. She knew that God and good were synonymous terms; and all that tended to derogate from that idea must in some way, though she could not explain it, be error. For a while speculative ideas of sin and the future had worried her mind ; but, as neither her reading nor reflections had ever helped her to any solution conformable to the dogmas preached from pulpits, she had deter mined to act in accordance with her rigid ideas of duty, leaving the secrets of eternity to develop themselves to her when called upon to enter that state. "My dear Lame," she had diminished my odd name into that pretty one, " my dear Lanie, when you have grown up, you will understand better what your aunt means. She wished to do you good, but you are quite too young to comprehend such teach ings. Do not go there again without I am with you." She spoke most kindly of her, and, having calmed me, passing, as she talked, one of her delicate, THE ANTIDOTE. 47 soft hands through my long, flaxen curls, and hold ing mine with her other, she told me pretty stories about Christ. How that God had sent him to tell little children He loved them, and would, if they were good, take them to his arms, and make them very happy. And so she went on, saying such sweet things of God and Christ, that, although I had often heard them from her before, they seemed new to me, and made my heart swell with love to both. Hers was that perfect love that casteth out fear. Whenever she was present evil thoughts and terror were exorcised. I quickly forgot my sufferings in the warm eloquence of a mother s love. The mem ory of that conversation often, in after life, proved to my disturbed thoughts like the music of David to Saul. Truth comes to mortals gently, tenderly, and sweetly, filling them with a peace that passeth un derstanding. Error clouds, affrights, angers, and debases the soul. By their respective fruits may we know them. My struggles were the instinctive opposition of my soul to falsehood. Such doctrines were not its right element, while my mother s pro duced hope and harmony. How I loved my mother an anecdote of my baby hood, when but fifteen months old, will show. She was called away from home for a few days. I could just walk, and was beginning to talk. The first day, they have since told me, I was continually calling " mamma," and seeking for her everywhere. On the second, I insisted upon looking into all of her favorite haunts, refusing to believe that she was gone. The 48 HEART EXPERIENCE. third, they said I realized she was not to be seen ; and, as if indignant at her leaving me, I utterly refused to speak of her, and maintained a sorrowful silence. After that, if they took me into the street, and I saw any one who resembled her, I made such a clamor, they were obliged to take me home at once. After nine days, she returned. I rushed to her, I clung to her, I kissed her, J patted her, I screamed constantly " mamma ! mamma ! " and then I pouted and frowned upon her, as a punishment for leaving me. But I could not keep that up over a second, before I went to the opposite extreme, cleaving to and embracing her as if I would grow to her heart. Those who looked on said it was a delirium of infantile joy, and they became almost as excited as I. That day and that night, young as I was, I could neither eat nor sleep ; and if any one intimated my mother was going away again, I went into a spasm of despair. My mother s system of teaching me was both pleasant and judicious. She was well versed in ancient history ; and with her stories of the Hebrew prophets and kings, and her relations of the love and sufferings of Jesus, she mingled narratives from the lives of the great and good men of Greece and Rome, with such familiar explanations of their times and ideas, that I felt I knew them all personally. I look back with intense satisfaction to this element ary education. Not a word of my mother s escaped. Her comments upon their principles and actions magnetized mine, and made my imagination take me back to their existence, and make me an actor amid THE ANTIDOTE. 49 their scenes. Thus the ancient world became an actual world to me. Those who believe in the nat ural depravity of a child s heart will be disappointed to learn that mine was much more gratified to hear of good deeds than bad. My delight was to step into dead heroes shoes, to place myself in the positions of Epaminondas, Cmion, Aristides, Pho- cion, Numa, Cato, the democratic Gracchi, Socrates, and many others of the statesmen and sages of those days, in their best moments, and imagine myself each of them in turn. This vicarious life seemed more real to me than my own. A sentiment of venera tion kept me from taking similar liberties with the characters of our sacred books. I looked upon them as exceptional beings, neither endowed like ourselves, nor to be judged by the standard of human nature. Indeed, with the exception of Jesus and Paul, and perhaps the traditional love of John, I do not think that they impressed me half as much as those of classical antiquity. Before I was eight years old, I had read again and again Homer, Plutarch, Josephus, Anacharsis, Rollin, Herodotus, and all the other histories and fictions I could lay hands upon relating to this period. Anacharsis was to me a genuine traveller ; much more so than Bayard Taylor or Stephens. A year later, and I was a crusader. Tasso was my inspiration. No medieval knight ever encountered half as many adventures, or came out of them as chivalrously, as I. These doughty deeds were not confined to my mother s sanctum, but I often es caped to the woods, and there inoculated other 5 50 HEART-EXPERIENCE. boys with my illusions, fancying ourselves Binal- dos, Tancreds, or Cids ; and we gallantly mounted long sticks, and charged through hosts of Paymin foes, slaughtering right and left, to rescue ravished virgins, or redeem the holy sepulchre from pagan hands. All this, in one sense, was very laughable, but, in another, very salutary, as we never personified other than brave, faithful, chaste, and truthful knights, and thus were led to esteem and imitate the highest qualities of men. Our foes were false, base, despicable miscreants, represented by thorny thickets, deformed saplings, and impudent-looking rocks, which we resolutely charged, valiantly hack ing them with wooden swords, much to our own glorification, but not so much to the satisfaction of our mothers, who, regarding our deeds from the more vulgar aspect of rent breeches and soiled jackets, considered that we were decidedly worsted in these combats. Aunt Petronia as good as told my mother, one day, that she was no better than a heathen herself to let me cherish such a bloody disposition, and tear my clothes at this rate ; but was at last considerably mollified, when I explained that we were good Chris tians playing at converting sinners, only we had first to lick them well before they would listen at all to our exhortations. She sent me immediately a bun dle of " Calls to the Unconverted," " Miseries of Impenitence," and other religious books, from which to strengthen our minds with suitable persuasions ; but one of my brothers-in-arms suggesting that we THE ANTIDOTE. 51 might exchange them and our dilapidated Tasso for a new and better copy, they were devoted to that purpose the very next day. If my reader is dis posed to doubt this, let him go to a famed antiqua rian bookstore in Cornhill, Boston, and inquire for these very tracts. Although more than thirty years have passed, he will be sure to find them in that Golgotha, still quietly slumbering on the shelves of sepulchral literature, with not even the faintest perspective vision of a resurrection. To the expostulations of my aunt my mother would quietly reply, " See how strong and healthy Lanie is. He may have a new suit of clothes daily, if he but continue so, and always speak the truth, and love me as he does now. He is a good and bright boy, and never hides anything from me. 7 The last was strictly true, even to a love-affair, which began just as we were finishing our tourna ments for the season. Love was a natural sequence to chivalry. My companions were not inclined to imitate me in this ; they loved their sisters and friends sisters, but only to romp or dance with them. I did not confide my secret to their unsym- pathizing natures. One, who suspected my soft ness, so wounded my feelings by his contempt, that I ever after hated him. He might have spared him self this, as it was only an ideal love, though I wrote ardent notes and replied to them myself, cherished a locket supposed to contain a lock of hair, and vowed to remain a constant and devoted knight. My mother laughed so kindly at my folly, that it encouraged me in it. I can truly say that, from the 52 HEART-EXPERIENCE. character with which my imagination then invested the sex, based, doubtless, though unknown to myself, upon her virtues, I held females in pecu liar reverence, investing their natures with a refine ment, purity, and capacity of bestowing happiness, besides a delicacy of organization, far above my sex ; so that, in my thought, it was only necessary to be loved by one to be supremely happy. Indeed, I so exalted them that I dared approach but dis tantly their pedestal. This illusion caused me to cherish tender and respectful emotions towards the sex in general, but made me at first modest and diffident to a painful degree. Any occurrence which lowered my standard was a humiliation to myself. When my passions, or rather instincts, began to develop, and a plain-spoken relative told me women felt like men, I uttered so indignant and disrespect ful a reproach at Providence for thus marring his best work, that it was necessary to check my silli ness by physiological explanations not often given to my age. Well ! well ! I have grown wiser since. Alack ! Aunt Petronia was of no sex, to me. Her dress was fashioned more after her strait and angular mind than any rules of taste. Her smile was fright ful ; it was like an eruption of original sin ; and her laugh might have been mistaken for a stifled snort. A cachinnation was strangled, as an unholy impulse. The ring of her voice when excited, or, as she expressed herself, gently animated, was a suf fering, to laugh-loving ears, that is indescribable. For a long while she tried to persuade my mother THE ANTIDOTE. 53 to make me go without sugar in my coffee, that I might sacrifice my carnal appetite, arid save the money it would cost to give to the children of mis sionaries in the Cannibal Islands. I have since seen many missionaries, but I never knew any who had not plenty of good sugar for their coffee. It so happened, one day, when I was but six years old, that my aunt met me with my first pur chase. It was a book of German fairy tales, for which I had saved up my money during many months back. She snatched it from me, and threw it into the fire, telling me it was a very wicked book, and I was a very naughty boy to love such bad stories. All things considered, I was not much attached to my aunt. 5* CHAPTER VII. AND A NEW RELATIVE. MY father was one evening alone in the back par lor, musing deeply upon a new business project. The door-bell rang, but in such moods he noticed nothing. It was a dubious ring, as if the wire-puller felt not over-sanguine as to his welcome. However, the servant ushered in my aunt, and her companion, the missionary gentleman who had given me, a few evenings before, so decidedly, his opinion about the personality of the devil. To do him justice, his demeanor indicated the sincerity of his belief. There was a devil lurking in every laugh, or hid in every flower, for him ; so he never knew other enjoyment than to pray, preach, and walk in fear and trembling, believing his own path, from his uncom promising hostility to the Evil One, to be particu larly strewn with pitfalls. In one respect he inva riably cheated his adversary, for he ate abundantly and enjoyed his repasts; but he would have as soon stroked Beelzebub s tail as tasted wine, or gone to a play. Among the savages he had intro duced beet-water at communion in lieu of the for- ILLUSIONS, AND A NEW RELATIVE. 55 mer, and all his mince-pies were invariably seasoned with vinegar. The Rev. Abinadab Hardfaith s such was his name wife had died at his station at Lilibolu, worn out by solitude, want of human sympathy, she had abundance of spiritual, after Abinadab s fashion, and rearing nine children, who all resem bled their father. He was now on a visit home, to raise funds for a new and more elegant pulpit, to add a new wing to his comfortable dwelling, and to marry a new wife. Successful in every respect, even in the last, which, judging from his looks, seemed the most hopeless of all, he had come to announce this fact to my father, to beg from him, and, in pursuance of the decision of the prayer- circle at which I was so horribly frightened, to make a last attempt to proselyte him to his cheerful faith. It was a desperate affair ; but two persons better fitted, in their own opinions, to lead a forlorn hope of this nature, never existed than my aunt and uncle ! Uncle ? Not quite, but that is soon to be. Yes, Abinadab had won Petronia s hand ; and the fatal " yes/ which was to take her to live among naked savages as the wife of their spiritual teacher and the mother of nine little Abinadabs and Abinadab- esses., had already been spoken. Did my aunt love him ? Not a bit ! Why, then, does she marry him ? Because she was the victim of an illusion. What ! at her age ? Yes, at her age. Illusions are special providences, to give imaginative idlers something to do and to enjoy for a while. As one fails, another 56 HEART- EXPERIENCE. is mercifully provided. I would not give up my mental illusions for the best dinners of a Yatel. They have gilded my life, and made many scenes and persons warm and sunny, which, without such spectacles to view them through, would have ap peared as bitter and brown as Glauber salts. No, no ! Illusions are very sweet to me. They are the bright reflections of the good things of eternity; down from angels wings, dropped gently to earth, as hints to men of hope -and faith in a brighter des tiny in store for them. The devil has his illusions, also. They are the purges and emetics of Providence, to bring our systems back to healthful conditions. I am equally grateful for them. My aunt s illusion was a mixture of both. Her stirring, energetic nature required an object on which to expend itself. At bottom her volitions were not bad. Unfortunately, her head had become moulded into a bigot s, and, although she desired to be useful, it was only in accordance with her catechism, which was as exclusive in spirit as the topmost member of the upper ten thousand in fashion. To all who meekly gave ear to her exhort ations she was a Lady Bountiful; but she dis charged the only shoemaker who could fit her foot, because he could not understand her explanation of the Trinity. The Rev. Abinadab, soon after his arrival, had been passed round through numerous tea-coteries of his church, to inspect its female members. There was no lack of volunteers to accompany him to Symmes Hole, or anywhere else his piety led him. AND A NEW RELATIVE. 57 Young and rosy girls, just budding into a con sciousness of the delights of life, with happy homes, sisters, mothers, brothers, and fathers, who dearly loved them, were eager to renounce all as vanity and sinfumess, and bestow themselves upon the Rev. Mr. Ilardfaith, that they might have the privilege of a slow martyrdom of health and mind among the black maidens of the antipodes, whose fathers would gladly have eaten them up, or con verted them into ways of bestiality, as a delicate return for their disinterestedness. An unselfish enthusiasm is a glorious impulse far be it from me to speak lightly of it ! but when youth is most sanguine it should be most cautious, because it is most ignorant. Young ladies of fifteen, however pious, are not the best stuff for missionaries among tawny, breechless, frockless, and godless men and women. The reverend Ccelebs knew tjiis, and wisely overlooked their claims. His first wife had been of this sort. She had drooped from the first, like a weeping willow transplanted to a desert. Fitted by nature and accomplishments to grace only civilized life, hers at Lilibolu had been as useless to others and barren to herself as water upon sand. Body and mind both withered under such an ordeal. Her hus band saw her fade away daily ; but, as she dutifully administered, as well as her strength permitted, to his wants, and bore him children with patriarchal rapid ity, he looked stoically on, called her slow passing away the will of God, and fancying himself still more saintly by prescribing resignation to her doom. She died, not of a broken heart, but of a misapplied life. 58 HEART -EXPERIENCE. In his present search the missionary looked for a help-meet. The orthodoxy, good house-keeping, and excellent bread and butter, of Aunt Petronia, had made an early impression upon him. When he ascertained that she was not without resources, and was sister to a wealthy merchant, his love rose at once to the popping point ; but he was too sagacious to pop the question point blank, and run the risk of a scandalous discomfiture. He laid siege by grad ually firing my aunt s imagination with the superior degree of holiness a missionary s life presented ; the more perfect separation from the sinful w T orld, and the wide field of usefulness opened to a superior mind Uk e hers, she thought, and bit at the bait. I will not call it religious vanity, but vast visions of future good excited her intellect souls saved and bodies purified and made decent through her instru mentality. She reflected. The tempter took his hat, bade her be prudent of her precious health, which was dear to the church, and went out to see how the new pulpit got along. A few days after, he strolled in again. This time he described his field of labor ; so far as climate and scenery went, it was a terrestrial paradise, never very hot nor cold, a lovely valley opening up to verdant mountains, from which ran sparkling streams of the purest water ; cascades, palm-trees, a profusion of flowers, sun-shaded groves, melodious birds ; a fruit and vegetable garden, in excellent order; the largest grape-vine in the world, beating, by some square rods, the monster of Hampton Court ; a two-story stone house, facing the sea, furnished plainly, but ILLUSIONS, AND A NEW EELATIVE. 59 lacking nothing ; saddle-horses, and relays of natives for palanquins; a devoted flock, who cheerfully furnished fish, fruit, and poultry, to their pastor j and then that good man, the chief Nirnbopimbo, who, from eating babies and the tit-bits of women s thighs had become a devoted Christian, giving up every thing, including some of his best lands, and even in public repudiating his numerous wives, one of whom being his own sister and much more, at the dictation of his spiritual teacher. All this wonder fully confirmed my aunt in her nascent passion. The gay deceiver ! He omitted to catalogue the fleas and centipedes, the itch and elephantiasis, the dirty familiarities, the fierce passions, and the exceed ing hypocrisy, of his neophytes in general. He forgot even to mention the nine little ones of his household. Why should he ? Cupid and Mammon, tell me why ! In the third interview he asked Pqtronia to share his labors and home. Now, the most impenetrable of her sex feels a flutter somewhere, at such a question, from the most indifferent of men. My aunt did but she had prayed in public too often not to have acquired perfect self-control. "Sir," said she, with dignity, " did such a proposal come from a man of the world, it would require no effort for me to say no; but from you, 77 --here she paused a second, cast her eyes down, and put on a slight flutter, and then, recovering herself, proceeded coldly to say, " while I consent to accept you as a husband, it is upon the condition that I am a mis sionary wife, and not a wife of a missionary. Under stand that it is not the man, but the missionary, I 60 HEART- EXPERIENCE. marry, that I may be one with him in his high call ing." So saying, she bowed him out. The Rev. Abinadab smiled grimly as he closed the door, probably not appreciating the saving clause of my modest aunt. Her illusion in this respect became, in after life, a fruitful theme of discussion, which made Abinadab s second career as a husband less tame than his first. But I am not called upon to confess for him more than the general fact. In the mean while, I beg pardon of my father for keep ing him waiting all this time. Bless you, dear reader, while you know all this, he is as ignorant of it as an unborn babe ! CHAPTER VIII. HOW MY AUNT UNDERTAKES A FORLORN HOPE. Now, my aunt wanted first to let her brother know that she was engaged. This would both astonish, and, coupled with her prospective home twenty thousand miles off, please him. Secondly, she wanted her rev erend companion, if possible, to convert him before she went ; and thirdly, both wanted of him something handsome for their mission. To demand a surprise, a smile, a change of heart, and a liberal contribution, all of my father, in one interview, was no joke. As he sat in his chair, with furrowed brow and com pressed lips, sternly regarding the carpet, while men tally computing the cost and probable receipts of a projected railroad, my aunt s knees grew slightly weak, and for once she felt nervous. Like all cowards, she determined upon a surprise. Before he lifted up his eyes, she began, " My broth er, Mr. Hardfaith the Rev. Abinadab Hardfaith, D.D. Mr. Robert Bullion, Director of the Oregon Railway, President of the Mammoth Bank, &c. &c." Mr. Robert Bullion looked up, vexed and surprised. Had he been told that his pet clipper, Lightning, had been beaten on her voyage between Shanghae and 6 62 HEART-EXPERIENCE. London, he could not have been more astonished than when his sister added, "Mr. Hardfaith will soon have the honor to be your brother-in-law, and the happiness to be my husband. We are engaged to be married." "Engaged to what the devil are you mad?" But, seeing Mr. Hardfaith s surprise in his turn, my father recovered his usual self-possession, and add ed, " Pray be seated, sir. What is your business with me, Petronia?" My aunt s mettle was now aroused for the credit of her choice. So she boldly and clearly told him that she was going to be united, shortly, in the bonds of holy matrimony, to the eminent missionary present, and had brought him to pay his respects to her brother; and that they would embark, that day month, for Lilibolu, &c. <fec. At this last news my father actually smiled. He even rose and shook hands cordially with Abinadab, and said, " Well done, sister this is a surprise ! I should never have suspected you of this change of heart," This was an unfortunate pleasantry for my father. It let the enemy at once into his outworks, and they were not slow to avail themselves of the opening. " Ah, brother Robert, that is just what we wish to see in you ! Could I know, before I leave the country, that you have experienced religion, I should leave no regrets behind. Mr. Hardfaith and myself labor for you daily and nightly. Why will you not second our efforts, and join the church, whose arms open so lovingly to embrace you?" " I shall be very happy to do anything else for you, HOW MY AUNT UNDERTAKES A FORLORN HOPE. 63 sister, but at present this is quite out of my power. My numerous engagements prevent my entertaining any new project," replied my father, somewhat con fusedly, 1 must confess, when we consider the nature of the appeal. But he was a wag in his own way, and there is no telling what covert wickedness he had in view. Here the reverend champion interposed. " Sir/ said he, with the solemnity of voice natural to him, " this light manner of treating so serious a subject will not save your soul. Your position and wealth make your responsibilities all the heavier. Repent, at once, if you wish to escape the fate of Dives. As an ambassador of heaven, I warn you to flee from But respect for the motive prevents me from giving the whole of the reverend gentleman s harangue. It was a rousing appeal ; before his savage congrega tion it would have had a prodigious effect, in fright ening them, for a few hours, from the error of their ways. Indeed, its terrific eloquence was particu larly calculated to disturb the hardness of heart of any one who had never reflected upon the subject. Mr. Hardfaith was a powerful preacher. He had formerly been a blacksmith. His clerical denunci ations fell upon sinners like blows upon an anvil. I have noticed that such preachers make the sparks fly famously while they hammer away at hot iron ; but it speedily cools, and comes to a greater black ness than ever. . My father s first impulse was to show him the door. His next was disgust. Finally, he concluded to let the speaker exhaust himself, while he continued 64 HEART- EXPERIENCE. his silent calculations upon the railroad. One would suppose this a difficult mental effort under the circumstances, but I appeal to the whole body of mercantile church-goers to know if it be so. He was so far successful, that he was aroused from his work only by the cessation of Abinadab s voice. The sudden silence startled him much more than his noisy appeal to his fears. My father politely begged him to go on, if he had anything further to say, intending to resume his cal culations, which had been interrupted just as he had arrived at the receipts. This was praiseworthy in him, when we consider the brief but forcible extin guisher one of the Rothschilds clapped upon the hopes of a simple-minded clergyman who had gone all the way from Ohio to Europe to move him to buy the Holy Land of the Sultan and reestablish the Jews. The sole reply he got from the money- king to his eloquent appeal was "D n Jerusalem ! " The Rev. Abinadab Hardfaith did go on, seduced by my father s manner into a belief that his elo quence was having a searching effect. This time, however, perhaps unconsciously, he gradually led the way to the final object of his visit; spoke of the awful responsibility of wealth ; the urgent wants of the elect; the particular call his far-off parish had at that juncture for pecuniary assistance, especially as several of his church-members, so recently canni bals, had volunteered to go on a mission to convert another savage tribe, still given to polygamy, fighting, and all the vices of idolatry, if the necessary funds could be raised; and then he stopped, putting on hia HOW MY AUNT UNDERTAKES A FORLORN HOPE. 65 best contribution-look, as if he were himself pass ing the box through the aisles of the softest and richest of his sect s meeting-houses. This time my father looked promptly and intelli gently up. "I understand you now/ 7 he said; "not but that I think your preaching very efficacious for wild heathens, who, to behave decently at all, must be bullied into it. Excuse me for telling you, frank ly, it will never convert a white soul. Each man to his calling. You to your cannibals, I to my ships. If the world can do without us, we cannot do with out the world, were it ten times as wicked as you call it. At whatever risk to my future prospects, I cannot accept your views ; but I thank you all the same. I encourage foreign missions, not so much because they christianize savages, as that they ex tend our commercial influence. They enlarge our markets. Here," handing a check for five hun dred dollars, " appropriate this as you like best. In ten minutes I must be at a meeting of gas- directors. Good-by, sister. My respects to you, sir ; may you add many to your flock, there, I mean, not here. Good-day;" and my father began bowing them out. They had reached the steps, when a sud den thought struck him. "Petronia," he called, "it just occurs to me that I have a whale-ship going on a cruise shortly in the neighborhood of Lilibolu. If it would suit you and the Rev. Dab I beg pardon, his name has escaped me to go out in her, you are heartily welcome. The captain has a great reputa tion for piety, and won t fish on Sundays. By the way, should you, sir, see any prospect for new trade 6* 66 HEART-EXPERIENCE. in your quarter, do me the favor to let me hear from you. Good-by, again; and, sister, 77 whispered he to her, as she passed him, "you have a chosen ves sel in your future husband. Keep him well filled with good things; that is my advice; and, should you ever have need of a silver porringer hem ! you un derstand. 77 Here she did not redden but turned ferociously upon him, and told him to mind his own business, as she vigorously slammed the door to, leaving her future spouse somewhat mystified at such a seemingly uncalled for return to the hand some check he had just received. I doubt if she ever explained to him the cause of her anger. CHAPTER IX. IN THE COUNTRY, THANK GOD! AMONG your youthful enjoyments, can you recall, dear friend, for I trust that by this time my reader has become my friend, any one the memory of which lingers still around you with the zest of a first joyful experience ? Nay, more. That which then was an instinctive pleasure, has it not grown with your length of days, and expanded with your thought ; its symbols, which you first admired for their beauty and harmony, have they not since become an intelligible language, speaking to you from a thousand tongues praise, peace, and faith? If you cannot, my friend, I pity you. I can. My first real experience of the country was when I was about eight years old. Previous to that, ugly brick houses had always marred and reddened my horizon, and confined my thoughts more to their in teriors than they invited them to what was outside. What a strange idea of God s world must a strictly cockney life give ! Tiled and slated roofs, a chaos of heights and depths, right and acute angles, from out of which stiffly stand myriads of spectral spires and gaunt chimneys, ejecting columns of grimy 68 HEART-EXPEKIENCE. smoke, that melt into one common canopy, and, shutting off the sight from the clear sky, press down ward upon the city like a horrible pall ! Down below are hard pavements and stony hearts ; a confused roar of human speech, and mob of hideous hats and gay ribbons ; laughter and wailing ; virtue and crime ; the publican s prayer and flaunting sin ; a never-ending turmoil of humanity, bewildering the eye, and flaunting in gold or cowed in rags. The town is a hallelujah set to a shriek. Portentous voices, as at the siege of Jerusalem, are ever uttering, Woe, woe to all woe to ourselves live and doubt despair and die ! But the good angel sees bright spots of charity, and hears sweet notes of love, living wit nesses of faith, hope, and truth, in electrical currents, leavening the rough loaf of human life. The devil s grin fears to face the melody of David s harp. A bit of nature s green how delightful ! That solitary flower, cherished so lovingly, at yonder dis mal window, on which the setting sun pours a soli tary ray of golden light how welcome ! The soul hungers and thirsts after nature s beauty. It is its aliment of life the rainbow sign of divinity. In the city we worship trees. Feeble hints, the best of them, of nature s wondrous world, thus hidden by streets from our view ; but, like adopted found lings, we cherish them the more. It was a dark night when I arrived at my country home, so that when I awoke, at early sunrise, it was like the sudden drawing aside of a curtain from a lovely picture. Birds were singing about my win dow. From the freshly-mowed lawn there arose IN THE COUNTRY, THANK GOD ! 69 the sweetest of odors. Flowers and fruits mingled their fragrance with them, and bewitched the earth with their rich colors. The cattle were going out to their pastures, tinkling their bells, and incens ing the atmosphere with their breaths. Bare-footed boys ran laughingly after them, making the air mer ry with their cow-talk. Every leaf held a dew-dia mond, for fairies in their over-night dance had left their jewels behind them. Warmer and brighter grew the sun each minute ; but it enlivened and gilded the landscape, and made the earth rejoice that God s eye rested upon it. Such was my impatience to enter upon this scene, that it was an effort to spare time to dress myself. I ran, I shouted, I jumped, I sported ; peering here and there, and everywhere, into this new world. The mysteries of the farm had more fascination for me than since have had the arcana of the Talmud or the revelations of the Kabbala. Barn, hen-house, and granary, soon ceased to hold any secrets. If one rejoice as much upon entering the new life be yond the grave as I did this beyond the city, (and why not ?) death is indeed a friendly revelation. Alone or with society, I was ever content to be out in the open air, breathing a new life at each new sensation. God has, indeed, given man a beau tiful world. Not, indeed, the best, by many grada tions ; but the best his physical nature is able to enjoy. To ask for more on earth, while so much yet remains to be seen, known, and appreciated, would be to profane the laws of matter. True, there are two sides to every object. Every peach contains a 70 HEART -EXPERIENCE. belly-ache, and each haunch of venison a fit of gout ; an imp or a cherub lies dormant in every mamma s "precious darling/ Judas or Jesus, as may be ; but it is abuse, not use, that develops the poison. Know thyself know nature find out your relations to each other; establish the moral and animal equilib rium, and this world is not without its paradise. At all events, I was very healthy and happy in my new existence. Nature was pleased with my sympa thy, and treated me as a friend. My father was away ; my mother had no foolish fears about my safety, but permitted me to go where and do what I pleased. This was, perhaps, too great latitude ; but it devel oped my strength and courage, and, I may say, knowl edge. I obeyed my own inclinations. From farm ing, that is to say, finding hen s nests, climbing the loftiest trees, and swaying on boughs, which, as I now recall their diameter, give me an involuntary shudder, tumbling over the hay-cocks, and plucking the finest fruit and flowers for my mother, I longed for more adventurous exploits. There was a tribe of Indians not far off. To lead the free life of a son of the forest, appeared to me the summit of human happiness. Those quaint old plates of De Bry, of the life and customs of the American aborigines, had often fascinated me. My sympathies were early aroused for the red men. For years I read and collected everything I could lay hands upon relating to their history. In short, in feeling I was more an Indian than a pale-face. I spent days in hunting over solitary fields and hills, re puted sites of their extinguished council-fires, to find IN THE COUNTRY, THANK GOD ! 71 broken arrow-heads, or any other relic of their ex istence. If, by chance, success rewarded my efforts, and it often did, I called upon all my neighbors to rejoice with me. My mother, of course, shared my emotions. What a strange tramp my curiosity and illusions led her, before we were parted ! Wherever my mind went, hers followed. How wearisome had it become, had I been forced to study all that my inclinations, left free, voluntarily sought! Will would have re volted, while liberty prompted me to labor all the more. Greek, and Latin, and Mathematics, I learned at school by the usual routine, and forgot them after the necessity of reciting them had passed. But of the ologies of my own choice I was enam ored. Corichology was my first pet. Then came Ge ology, Phrenology, Numismatics, Bibliomania, The ology, Chemistry, until I blew myself up with hy drogen gas, Anatomy, and Antiquities of all kinds. Indeed, with many other fancies, equally strangely assorted, I was inoculated before I was far into my teens. This medley of pursuits proves my curiosity and versatility, not of talent, but desire to know every thing, by which I have come well-nigh to know nothing. My memory still retains, it is true, many interesting facts, amid all this lumber; and, although at that age my mind was chiefly disposed to seek after the mere husks of knowledge, yet I find, even now, much that I then acquired has a value little anticipated at the time I was so eagerly gleaning the fields of science and literature. I even tried 72 HEART-EXPERIENCE. music and poetry. But the emphatic manner in which my father bade me stop iny noise my mother the while patiently listening speedily dis couraged me as to the former ; and as for the latter, my muse was so much upon a par with my music that no editor s ear could be persuaded into giving her a hearing. Thus a merciful Providence, in the shape of a sensible, unsympathetic father, interfered to prevent my vanity and ambition from outraging all common sense. Nevertheless, I would say to any young person, not bent upon success in some one branch of learning, do just as I did. Pluck whatever your intellect craves as you go on. Give it variety. Nothing is lost ; and I do assure you that often, in after life, I have derived much addi tional happiness, in my varied experiences, from these irregular studies of my childhood. No one, either, was more regular than myself at school, or better prepared for its lessons. I mention these traits, not in self-praise, for they have also their dis advantages, but to show the possibility of learning much out of the common routine of education, and yet, as I did, find ample time for exercise. This erratic habit of bolting and changing ideas, as you perceive, still cleaves to me. My pen is like an unbitted horse, that takes me, at his will, wherever the mood inspires him. Several times have I sought to introduce something like system into these con fessions ; but my horse plunges and prances so, now running helter-skelter through brush and over rocks, now quietly nibbling the young grass at the road-side, leaping ditches and clearing walls, IN THE COUNTRY, THANK GOD ! 73 drinking from each limpid brook he finds, or fright- ened at peaceable shadows, that an orthodox, straight-forward trot is wholly out of the question. I warn you, sympathizing friend, that I know as little of the intentions of my steed, from day to day, as you do. In times past, it has been a docile creat ure ; now, its habits are all changed. If such a ride fatigue or alarm you, dismount now, for I have a presentiment that forewarns me of many break-neck jumps and furious gallops. Mayhap he may throw me. If so, you will be in at the final laugh. Where was I going when he ran with me last? ! I recollect to be an Indian. How often have 1 gone through with Church s Indian wars, and other chronicles of that heroic soul, King Philip of Mount Hope, counting up the slain and captives in his fights and surprises, hoping to find that he had at least balanced his wrongs in the blood of my ancestors ! This is a curious confession, but it is a true one. The wood-craft and free quarters of forest-life, the pursuit of game, the close communion with mother nature, the childlike dependence upon the " Great Spirit" of the tameless savage, won my young imagination. Contrasted with that freedom were the stern policy, austere habits, harsh faith, and dreary sermons, of my Pilgrim Fathers. They were my fathers, blood and bone, and I respected their virtues ; but, at that age, all my sympathies flowed towards the wild, cheated, hunted, and enslaved Indian, whose inexpiable sin was, that God had not created him to become a fre quenter of meeting-houses, and an endorser of the 7 74 HEART-EXPERIENCE. Cambridge Platform. As soon, therefore, as I found myself in the neighborhood of veritable Indians, my first impulse was to join them. " What ! leave your mother ! " Pshaw ! how you have forgotten your childhood ! Do not you know that with the young and old an illusion befools both heart and mind? In its fog- light nothing else is seen but the loom of desire. No doubt, experience would have soon driven me home, a more loving son than ever ; but that experience, and all others, must be born of life s fevers. One morning, bright and early, I ran away ; not alone, for I had enticed a pliable companion to go with me. I knew the direction of the tribe, and boldly pushed for the woods, which would take us to their camp. We got on famously, never once foot-weary or hungry, though travelling rapidly the entire morning. Sedate old chiefs, around their council-fires, instructing youthful warriors in the wisdom of their race ; war-dances, the startling war- whoop; the twanging bow, now firing at a mark, now at game ; bright-eyed, dark-skinned maidens, grinding corn and preparing food ; the rustic lodges amid a primeval forest ; the torch-light hunt for fishes, wad ing streams or flying over their surface in the birch canoe, and like picturesque pictures of the red man s life, filled our heads with visions of wild de light. Thirty years later, I became acquainted with a cultivated and accomplished woman, who told me that, when about eight years of age, she lived a IN THE COUNTRY, THANK GOD ! 75 year with a wandering tribe, away from the whites altogether. As soon as the Indians took her, they stripped her of her frocks, and clothed her as one of their own children, leaving her legs and breast bare. She soon became fascinated with her life. The warriors trotted her about on their backs ; the women instructed her in their simple arts ; she trav elled along the great lakes with them, frolicking, ber rying, as wild as a fawn, and the pet of all. Amid all her subsequent experience, she never looked back upon this life without a thrill of pleasure. My adventure was not so fortunate. By noon we arrived at the camp; no, it was a settlement of Quaker-looking one-story-and-a-half houses, un- painted, amid famine-like-looking potato-patches, and starved corn-fields. Groups of miserable, stunted pines made up the forest. Instead of deer and wild ducks, there were mangy curs and 1 cackling hens. The interiors of the houses were not untidy, but crockery and cotton in connection with red men and women were an utter abomination unto me. They wore petticoats and hats, and had no more idea of fur aprons and feather head-pieces than my old nurse Hepzibah. God bless us ! They were civil ized Indians, emasculated of all forest virtues, and loving the vices and rum of the pale-face. We had run away from home to join them, which was about as sensible as to have left our snug bed-rooms to have slept in the pig-sty. However, I told them all about our plans. They laughed, and showed me the stump of a tree said to have once sheltered King Philip, when in these parts. As I never once 76 HEART-EXPERIENCE. questioned its authenticity, this was as sacred a relic to me as is the girdle of the virgin to the dwellers of Prato. Moreover, they gave us to eat, presented me with the last and much-worn copy of Elliot s Indian Bible they possessed, and finally took us homeward in the deacon s one-horse wagon. It was high time they did, for our poor mothers, dis tracted at our absence, were just organizing a gen eral battue to hunt us up. CHAPTER X. A SPORTSMAN S i MEAN BOY S LOGIC. THE result of my Indian foray did not in the least quench my thirst for out-door life. As soon as I could handle them, guns, fishing-rods, cod-lines, and eel-spears, with an unlimited credit for powder and shot at the village shop, were given me. To them were added horses, dogs, and boats. No lad had less surveillance than I. Long before dawn I was off shooting or fishing. Many a day, by the time I was twelve or thirteen years old, have I trav elled, on foot, twenty to thirty miles, or more, with my heavy double-barrelled gun, ammunition, and game. Alone, I enjoyed it ah 1 the same, particularly if in a boat. Then the sky and water seemed to be spe cially made for me. And has not God made them for each one of his children each day a renewal of his bounty ? They spoke to me a language I well understood. Silently I drank in their inspiration, and loved them ; and the hills I rambled over, the trees that shaded me, the streams I swam in, those rocky little islets on that picturesque lake, from which I at times startled the timid deer, shot at the 7* 78 HEART-EXPERIENCE. bald-headed eagle, cooked my game upon its banks, or dove to the bottom to fish up pearly bivalves ; I loved them all dearly, and the bright sun, and the pure air which filled up my cup of health to over flowing all this made up my paradise of sensuous delight. Not wholly animal, either. Often my reveries carried me into the unseen life, out of which I peo pled the world about me with bright and fantastic images of glorious deeds and unselfish love. If, as Eastern sages tell us, every thought as well as action is registered in the " lumiere astrale " that sur rounds our globe, shaping themselves into forms corresponding to their quality, then there awaits me a varied host that no man can number. Well, I am not afraid to meet them ! They gave me happiness then, and they make me happy to recall them now. What is this dream-land but a species of spiritrlife an inkling of what we will do when unfettered from the earth-body ? Watch the building of the air- castles of your children, parents ! if ye would know of what quality of feeling their souls are made ! This peaceful enjoyment was my deepest. But the exercise which swelled each blood-vessel, and strained each muscle, was dear to me. I loved work hard work every energy of mind and body tuned to its highest pitch ; otherwise I cannot account for my fondness for shooting. Such was my determination to secure the object of the mo ment, that I have followed a single sickle-billed curlew for six hours, over slippery marshes, until I A SPORTSMAN S LOGIC. 79 bagged him. Yet it was painful to me to see the poor birds die. I never picked them up without a pang. In bird organization there is much capacity for enjoyment analogous to our own. Their loves and domestic circles, their great and well-ordered socie ties, their soul-like power of flight, their beauty and tenderness, and their piteous fluttering and almost human cries when wounded, and mingled innocence and selfishness when alive, are so many kindred claims upon our natures. The mournful look which a wounded red-breast once gave me, when my human ity prescribed a wrung neck to put him out of pain, haunted me for a long while as something particularly human. I felt guilty of cruelty to inoffensive and helpless nature. Why, then, do we slaughter birds so pitilessly ? Surely the earth is pleasanter for their loves and songs. At breakfast, when feasting on robins or plovers, these thoughts never occurred. Their luscious fat quite swamped my humanity, as perhaps they have often melted yours quite away. But at other times they would come. As they grew stronger upon me, I gave up killing, but continued to eat feath ered game as often as I could get it. Inconsistency is the inequilibrium of humanity. How curiously we are made up ! If the moral and physical jnan were in perfect balance, we should have the man-god, or Jesus. But only one such rev elation comes in long ages. I, for instance, have grown so tender-hearted towards inferior life, that to 80 HEART-EXPERIENCE. trample upon a worm, kill a mosquito, or destroy a noxious reptile, requires a moral effort. Fishing I enjoy, because so little sensation seems to attend the victims of that sport. Yet at heart I love battles. The thrill of a combat gives me delight. I could see human beings slain by myriads, under the excite ment of a great cause worthy of their throwing away their bodies to win, and rejoice over their de votion and courage. I fancy I could rival them in it. No president of a Californian Vigilance Com mittee could be more sternly pitiless to human devils than myself. But a woman s tear makes me a cow ard, and the dying struggles of a fowl give me an uneasy feeling about the epigastrium. I cannot even read a sympathetic story without a watering of the eyes, which makes me angry and ashamed at my involuntary weakness. Yet I think I have the clue to this seeming incon sistency. Every outward object is the likeness of an interior thought or feeling. Form is shaped by idea. All men carry their characters in their faces and clothes. We sympathize with whatever is anal ogous to our own natures. If the animal organiza tion is uppermost, we seek that excitement which yields it the greatest pleasure. The cruel or selfish heart, having no emotions in common with the inno cence, tenderness, beauty, or freedom of nature, as symbolized in its animal creations, relentlessly pur sues them for sport or gain, with just as little com punction as criminals prey upon the virtues of soci ety. The man who feels truth and joy in any form is tender and compassionate, but makes war firmly A SPORTSMAN S LOGIC. 81 and conscientiously on whatever there is, shaped in human or lower organization, that seeks to pervert or mar the peace and happiness of life. We can therefore judge of the quality of the hearts by the degree and quality of pleasure or pain the varied experiences of life bestow. If we yield to pure and virtuous instincts, our standard becomes elevated. If, on the contrary, they are stifled, the still small voice sinks lower in the scale of humanity. The evil of the good man becomes the good of the bad man. Cherish all that is lovable, whether it be bird or insect, vegetable or man. By so doing we promote our own loveliness. If I am right, you will excuse my prosing for my cause ; if wrong, give me, dear reader, your explanation. " We are fearfully and wonderfully made." So says the sacred book, looking at man in the light of his physical and spiritual capacity. " We are pain fully and nastily made." So says the vulgar mind, seeing himself only through his selfishness, or be wailing his boils and ulcers. Physicians tell us there is a beauty in disease. If this be true of the chang ing particles of the physical frame seeking new forms of life, how much more is it of the interior idea which those forms represent, or the destiny which they foretell ! Behold the Arcana of Nature: CHANGE PROG. RESS. Look up, faint-hearted soul, and be reconciled to your fevers and chills to your remorse and sorrows ! The physical is typical of moral evil, arid 82 HEART-EXPERIENCE. the pain you undergo is nature s benevolence, offer ing a cure. Pocket the smart, and pay her her fee by accepting the hand with which she offers to lift you upwards. CHAPTER XI. DESPONDENCY, FRIENDSHIP, FUN, AND DEATH. AMONG my playmates was one of my own age, a generous, bold fellow, ever ready to be my compan ion in everything but my studies. Books he ab horred. He was the only son of a poor but well born widow, and the sole property she had to bequeath to him was her love and the example of her virtues. These last would have been perfect, had she not been possessed by a desponding, grumbling devil. The present, past, and future, were ever to her a black pall. She could not get it out of her head that she was not the special foot-ball of Provi dence, and had had more kicks here and there than any other woman of her day. This was not true in fact. Her experience had been a very common one. An ill-timed marriage, separation, loss of property, deaths of husband and all her children, save Bob, my friend, were on the debit side of her life. Her credit side of Providence showed health, a good home in a cosey village, and many friends, more ready, it is true, to scold her for, than to sympathize with her borrowed troubles. Want of mental stimulus and excess of fat were at the bottom of her despondency. 84 HEART-EXPERIENCE. It was a fearful enterprise to make her a call. Her impressible friends were sure to recross her thresh old with an indigestion of spirits. If they had been buoyant before, and had faith that sunshine was sunshine, and a cloud but mere vapor, through which light still came, a little refracted, maybe, but still light, after one of the diurnal recitals of her trials and misfortunes, the feeble visitor was sure to leave with a deranged nervous system, big lumps about the heart, spasmodic sighs from the chest, a pressure as if of the weight of an evil destiny upon the top of the head, calves that required to be dragged along, and a general sensation of hypochon dria crawling through the vital fluids. To make matters worse, the only outlet to her intellectual energies was a Calvinistic church, under the spiritual and general direction of a preacher who, considering that he was settled in as pious and moral a village as the commonwealth can produce, dwelt unnecessarily long and often upon the total depravity of human nature, and the difficulties of salvation. He was a frequent caller upon Bob s mother. Under his sympathetic seduction, she became an active church-member; not active phys ically, for her bulk prevented that, but voluble in her pastor s praise, and energetic in frightening the sheep of his flock. The two kept the parish in wholesome terror, until a reaction took place, and the minister had a " loud call " to go elsewhere. Bob was a dutiful boy, but his spirits were in the reverse ratio to his mother s. When she sighed he laughed. If she asked him to go with her to a DESPONDENCY, FRIENDSHIP, FUN, AND DEATH. 85 week-day meeting, he went ; but no sooner was she shut up in her pew than he was off with me to the fields or forest. She could not scold him. As for her doctrinal denunciations and exhortations, they might as well have been given to a Newfoundland pup. It was as good for the spirits to be with him as it was bad to be with his mother. Noble boy ! The shepherd called him a sad reprobate, destined to bring his mother s gray hairs in sorrow down to the grave. But I knew better. As he had a fine, clear voice, it was proposed that he should take part in the religious choir. To this he agreed, if I would go with him. In country churches, as all know, the chief recom mendation for a singer is a willing spirit. Two volunteers like Bob and myself were very accept able. I know as little of music now as I do of the Book of Hermes Trismegistus ; then I knew still less. For voice, I might have been pitted against the shrillest crower of the farm-yard with success. Indeed, it was one of my amusements to crow of a still evening, just as the quiet village folks were tucking themselves into their beds. There was a capital echo near by. My notes were sure to awaken every cock within a mile ; and such a crow ing ! Whew ! how angry my feathered rivals seemed to be when they discovered it was not daybreak ! My ear has never been better than a fish s. Al though I have lived amid many strange tongues, I could never master one, owing to the dulness of this member. I compose and mangle English in a strange manner in speech, and with difficulty call 8 86 HEART-EXPERIENCE. anything or anybody by their right names. Had I been living at the building of the Tower of Babel, I have not the smallest doubt that the confusion of tongues would have been attributed to me. Such were my qualifications for the choir. To these I added an unbounded reliance upon my own abilities for anything under the sun. The Sunday came for our trial. It was a full meeting,-as I thought to do us honor. During the first hymn, I modestly subdued my voice below the bass-viol, and escaped notice. The second soon came. It was a heavy sort of a tune, with words to match. I recollect two lines of it even now : * Can tkis dark "world of sin and woe One glimpse of happiness afford : " The big fiddle thundered away with unusual unction. The flute and other instruments vied with it. A spirit of mad rivalry to make themselves heard above everything seized upon all the singers. Their un usual noise might have astonished, but not fright ened, the congregation, who were accustomed to thunder, both from the pulpit and music-loft, had it not been for me. Electrified by the fun of the thing, I gave full vent to my lungs, and soon rose for above them all, shrill and clear, but as far away from the tune as I was from really intending any disrespect. Soon every one s ear was out. St. Cecilia! what hideous discords! There was a gen eral smash and bring up of voices, instruments, and all, while every one below sprang up and stared in dismay at the singers, just as my voice at its DESPONDENCY, FRIENDSHIP, FUN, AND DEATH. 87 highest pitch broke on the word "woe," and dis charged itself into a choking shriek, that set all the babies and young children into hysterics, and the deacons beside themselves with fury. I had suffi cient presence of mind to wink at Bob to go, as the best method of putting things to rights. We de scended the stairs double quick time, and were never asked to take our places again in the choir. Had I not been the rich " Squire s son," something worse would have come to me of it. Bob was no shot, but a capital boat-man. He was always ready to carry a spare gun for me when the sport promised well. Often have we started by star-light upon our excursions, forgetting at times, in our excitement, that hunger came of exercise. I have known him, after being out the entire day, with out other provisions than a bit of cracker, having reserved that for our long homeward tramp, give it to a hungry boy he met. Once we left home earlier even than usual to make a long day of it, chiefly to be spent in boating on a lake, the shores of which were equally divided between Indian and white man s ownership. He was not in his usual spirits, but talked soon of leaving home, to seek his fortune as a sailor. His ambition and qualifications, he was sure, would soon cause his promotion. He was at a loss how to break his intention to his mother, and to overcome her repug nance to what she held to be a low occupation. Yet it was for her chiefly that he had decided to go. She bore the comparative privations of her present position uneasily, and he figured to himself so rapid 88 HEART-EXPERIENCE. a rise, as in a few years to put him in a condition to restore to her many of her lost comforts, and even luxuries. At all events, he would be supporting himself. Frequently had he, to my knowledge, but unknown to his mother, upon hearing her lament the want of some trifle she had been accustomed to consider as necessary to her as a lady, gone off and sought some employment, often menial, during the hours she thought he was at play, until he had earned enough to surprise her with the object of her wish. A more devoted son I never knew. On this occasion, he poured out his hopes and feelings to me. I promised to aid him with my father in procuring a ship, and in talking over his mother to his plan. We killed game as usual, and cooked it upon the shores of the lake, after a very primitive manner. Then we embarked in our boat and visited several of the islands, not gleefully, but with an oppression at our hearts, which I attributed to his proposed departure. Neither spoke much. Once he said, somewhat reproachfully, I thought, " Lanie, I don t feel right. It is all very well for you to play as we do, but I must begin to work. My mother shall yet be rich, like yours. She was born a lady, and before I die she shall live like one." I praised his spirit, and as we talked of the future as if already accomplished, he became more cheerful. A heavy cloud had been gathering the while in the south-east. It portended rain, if not wind. " Bob/ said I, " look at that ugly customer rising to the lee ward there. If that catches us on the lake, we are DESPONDENCY, FRIENDSHIP, FUN, AND DEATH. 89 sure of wet jackets. It looks, too, like a big bag-full of wind." " You are right," replied he ; " we have no time to lose. Let s be off at once." So saying, we jumped into the boat, hoisted our sails, and with a light air made for our place of embarkation. The cloud grew bigger and darker, and now and then big drops of rain fell, with occasional gusts ; but, being reckless sailors, we concluded to keep up our sails, trusting to our skill, in case it blew hard, to keep our boat before the wind. It did not reach us until we were within half a mile of our port. First, a strong puff, which only excited our spirits, as our fast boat cut through the water like an arrow, leav ing a long white wake behind. " Hurra ! " cried I : " this is fun; the Dolphin would have to grease her bottom to catch us now; " referring to a rival boat, with which we often raced. Bob was t at the helm ; he looked anxious, but made no reply. Soon we had to haul up somewhat, not to run past our anchor age. I sat on the starboard gunwale, to ballast the boat to the windward. As we opened upon a deep gulley in the hills, the full force of the squall struck us. The water was fairly lifted into the air, which was filled with flying foam. Bob s quick eye saw the coming shock, and he called out, as he put the helm down to shiver the sails, " Quick, Lanie, for God s sake, or we are over ! The main sheet is jammed ; let everything run ; cut cut the halli " But before he could finish the word, the boat capsized, and, being heavily ballasted, sank at once. As I rose, I looked round for Bob, but saw nothing of him. I swam around the spot, calling his name, until a sick- 8* 90 HEART-EXPERIENCE. ening fear came over me. Still, the hope that he was making his way to the shore, and the wind pre vented his hearing me, sustained me, and I struck out for the nearest land. I scarcely knew what followed, until I found myself in an Indian hut, with several dark faces bending over me. I was in great pain. The last I recollected was, being near shore and sinking. After the first thrill of fright, all seemed like a pleasant dream. I was at home with my moth er. Then my whole life, and all I had ever thought, felt, or done, seemed all before me, brighter than ever. My ideas were not confused, but novel, as if I had been suddenly invested with supernatural pow ers. At one moment a consciousness of my actual situation shot through me. I repeated to myself, as it seemed, " Here I am drowning, and feel no pain. I see my mother and father sitting at the table as usual in the dining-room, but they do not see me. How queer ! What will they think when they know I am drowned ? " After this, I could recall nothing. The first words I uttered were, " Where is Bob ? What have you done with him? I do not see him. Quick, tell me ! " The Indians shook their faces sadly, and bade me keep quiet. I insisted upon knowing the worst. They then told me a party was looking for his body. The lake where we met our disaster was very deep. It was never found. It must have been entangled among the ropes, and remained at the bottom, to be devoured by the fishes. Poor, afflicted mother ! This blow is indeed a heavy one ! Earth s affections garnered into one DESPONDENCY, FRIENDSHIP, FUN, AND DEATH. 91 sheaf, and that gone no more to be seen here or hereafter, for thy creed condemns thy lost one to endless misery. Yes, that generous, loving, noble boy, whose every pulsation was manly and true, whose sole ambition was to honor his mother, was sighed over as hopelessly lost to eternity, and his sudden end held up as a warning to other youth, by the minister of the Comforter ! Did that lonely widow feel this to be so ? God forbid ! From that moment, sadly and darkly as life lingered on, she thought less of incomprehensible dogmas, and trusted more in a Father s love. An unseen influence often soothed her sorrows, and checked her repinings. Amid her darkest hours a quenchless hope bedewed her heart, and, without knowing why, she praised God that her darling boy did not seem wholly gone from her. Robert s prayer was fulfilled. Not by the world s wealth did he lift his mother out of her despondency ; but, by a nobler law of Providence, his death brought to her riches which neither rust could corrupt nor thieves take away. CHAPTER XII. GHOSTS, AND A CHANGE OF HEART THAT WOULD NOT COME. HAVE you ever heard the outcry of a strong woman at a sudden agony brought home to her heart? I hope you never may have cause to hear such. There is nothing in nature like to it. It is the essence of despair, terror, grief, and surprise, con densed into a shriek that thrills through every fibre of the hearer, and makes soul and brain tremble under the shock. The utterer knows nothing of it; sound, sight, feeling, are all lost in her spirikconvul- sion ; but to another such a wail cannot be recalled without a cold shudder of the marrow. Bad news travels like a snake, tortuous and quick. My mother heard of the accident just as I was enter ing the house, brought home by the friendly Indians who had rescued me. Her nerves were always like a lucifer-match, ready to explode upon the slightest friction. All she heard was that I was drowned. At that word, such a shriek as I have described caine from her, all unconscious to herself, as made my heart jump into my mouth. The next instant her arms were around me, pressing me to her bosom. " Thank God thank God ! " was all she uttered, and sank GHOSTS, AND A CHANGE OF HEART. 93 exhausted into a chair, still clinging to me. She recovered herself as suddenly as she was attacked, and in a minute was able to listen calmly to my recital. Bob was a favorite of hers, for my sake. She wept for him, and sought to console his mother. Her sympathy did much, but it was weeks before the widow could bear to see me. After our first interview, she sent for me often. I became dearer than ever to her, as his friend. What were your earliest impressions of death, serious reader? Was it a devouring monster, a dreary blank, a dark unknown, or a temporary ab sence? Did you shrink in fear from the idea? Did you dread a grave-yard? Do you even now view death as a friend ? I want to know what were your instinctive feel ings in regard to it, independent of the associations derived from fallacious teachings in later life. I value those most, for they are the revelations of the soul upon its destiny. Mine were singularly calm. Nut but that I had been made a coward as to the unseen world, as all children are, some time or other, through the terrifying legends of nursery-maids and pulpit threats. For a time, when very young, the night was to me a world of frightful apparitions. I feared its shadows as if they were incarnate devils, and would have as soon jumped over Niagara Falls as to have gone alone into a dark room. But reason eventually came to my aid. Having convinced my self that such fears were silly, my next effort was to conquer them. I forced myself to go into the dark est chambers at night without a light, and there HEART-EXPEKIENCE. remain, until I became so much at my ease that I seldom took a light when I went to bed. I then frequented grave-yards after dark, and, after a few chokings at mysterious appearances, soon had no more fear of ghosts than of my playmates. When death came so home to me, I found I could not mourn. I missed my friend for my own sake, not his. Every thought in regard to him was tran quil, and full of hope. It seemed to me he had only passed on to something better ; a little while, and my turn would come ; he was to be envied, not re gretted. This was the feeling of my heart, even while my head was distracted with the theology of Calvin, under which I sat during all my youthful years. Account for this as ye may, reverend ex pounders of the Gospel. Call it a delusion of Satan, a snare of the enemy of souls, if you will. It was comforting to me then ; it is truth to me now. I never have, I never can, mourn the departed. I envy them I mean such as I have known as friends. Yet I enjoy life, and am grateful for being born. There are certain conditions of our existence, rarely combined, it is true, but quite as true they do occur, which put us in positive relations with the unseen world. If there be such a world, and we have a double existence, material and spiritual, as I presume few doubt, then it cannot be wonder ful that at times there should occur a mutual corres pondence, or meeting, as it were, half-way, in which some intercourse is possible. It is, from its very nature, obscure and imperfect, because, were it more distinct and palpable, it would imply the necessity GHOSTS, AND A CHANGE OP HEART. 95 of either the man being wholly ghost, or the ghost wholly man ; in which case, being on equal terms as to conditions, there would cease to be any distinc tions between their laws of existence, and the super natural would become the natural. The utility of such a connection is to demonstrate to the inferior life the fact of another and higher, as well as the perpetuation and punishment of sin through its legitimate moral consequences, as a warning to those who are yet only in its incipient stages. LIFE, LIFE, is the great cry of Nature. Nothing dies ; all is a series of infinite changes. We feel it. We know it. And yet each soul has its moments of doubt. But childhood feels and believes. It is of childhood I am now writing, and I must be per mitted to give my experiences as living realities. Before I was ten years old I saw my first ghost. I had been asleep in a large room by myself, and awoke suddenly about midnight. Sitting at my bed side was a female dressed in white, with a peculiar cap, I can see her now, though a third of a cen tury has elapsed, pale, regular features, mild but death-like look, gazing steadily at me. My first thought was that my mother had got up and come to me. Another look showed me that she was a stranger. I next thought it was a dream. But I was wide awake, felt the bed-clothes, rubbed myself, and finally sat up in bed and looked steadily at the figure. Then it began to occur to me that this was a veritable ghost. If so, I will prove it. I had heard, if you passed your hand through one, it would dis appear. So I went to it slowly ; but it kept its 96 HEART-EXPERIENCE. position, with the same look upon me, until I passed my hand through its body, so that it touched the chair beyond. The figure then slowly melted away. The room was perfectly dark, and there was no pos sibility of ocular deception by artificial means. It was a veritable ghost, and I have always since re gretted that I did not attempt to learn rather what it wanted than its nature. Not long after Robert was drowned, he came to me in the same way. He looked as in life, only handsomer and hap pier. This time I did not experiment upon the figure, but we conversed quite as naturally as in life, only there were no sounds. Our thoughts seemed to be reflected in each other s minds. I felt perfectly at my ease, and asked him many questions about his new abode, the nature of death, etc. He gave me to understand the difference was not so immediate and great as we had always supposed. I cannot now recall the precise words, but their meaning is indelibly fixed in my memory. The affections and pursuits which had been most dear to him on earth still influenced him ; and he was the same Bob, only with much more knowledge, and better off. On another occasion, a defunct aunt of mine came to me. She had been buried but a few days. Her memory was green to me, from her foolish indulgences to me and herself of the merely " good things " of life. She said but little, except that for her selfishness on earth she was obliged to remain for a considerable time wandering restless and unsatisfied about the scenes of her former en joyments. GHOSTS, AND A CHANGE OF HEART. 97 Pugh ! ! Dreams and nonsense ! ! ! I tell you they were not dreams; nonsense, if you will, but not nightmares. While upon serious topics, I must relate my final success as to a change of heart, according to the method prescribed by Calvinism. I was thrown so much among this sect, many of which were con scientious, excellent, and sincere persons, that it was natural I should become more or less impressed with their views. At their request, I read the bet ter class of their literature, both the purely doc trinal and the simply persuasive, and really felt a deep desire to become converted. The argument that if I joined their church I was sure to be saved, because its requirements were so rigid as to cover every point of God s law, while an uncertainty attended all others, and the certainty >of being con demned unless my heart was renewed, made a deep impression upon me. The sublimity of the atone ment of Christ, as a sacrifice for a sinful world, enlisted my sympathies and admiration. Like the Indian, however, I felt more like fighting than weep ing for him ; and while I pitied his sufferings, I cor dially hated the Jews, but tried to reconcile myself to both, as a divine necessity, in which I had a share myself. Whenever I thought of the nature of the Trinity, free-will, original sin, and the formula of re demption, according to the creed put into my hands, I became confused and sceptical. But when a per sonal interest was aroused in Christ, then I felt and persuaded myself that these doctrines were a sacred 9 98 HEART -EXPERIENCE. mystery, which would all become intelligible upon a " change of heart." I tried hard to get it. Many prayer-circles did I at tend, serious and sincere, to win this state, if it were possible, through the " means of grace " offered me. In private I prayed long, earnestly, and often. My Bible was my daily study. I devoured religious books. I am by nature impressible, and I frequent ed the most enthusiastic meetings, hoping to attain the necessary state of mind. But that which hap pened to others did not happen to me. Beyond a momentary impulse or struggle between reason and feeling, nothing ever favored my reaching heaven through this channel. I was too sincere to confess outwardly what my soul inwardly denied. After a long and painful trial, which I have never since re peated, I came deliberately to the conclusion that if Calvinism be the truth, I must either be damned, as being one of the non-elect, or that there were other ways of truth, better suited to my individuality, which God would doubtless disclose to me. For a time, great distress of mind seized me ; but I became consoled as I read of " Our Father in heaven," and thought that He could not prove less humane than an earthly parent. Why do you relate so common an experience ? Simply on that account. If you have felt reli gious doubt and distress, young reader, from an erro neous view of truth, you will sympathize with me, and trace my education in its gradual development, to see if it be the counterpart of your own. A child seldom appeals to his teachers for purer fountains GHOSTS, AND A CHANGE OF HEART. 99 of knowledge, or protests against the force or per suasion used to set him wrong on the road of life. He swallows his lessons with a smack of the lips, if pleasant ; if bitter, by having his nose held tight. His ideas are rubbed into him very much after the fashion in which a cross maid polishes dry a fretful boy after his " Saturday night s dip " into the wash- tub. My confessions may be useful as hints to both parties. Under that hope, I frankly expose all the influences and circumstances which have moulded my present ideas. CHAPTER XIII. I FIGHT FOR A MORAL CHARACTER. AT ten years of age I was sent to a boarding- school. I entered it with a head brimful of illusions of my own individual importance and abilities. Not that I was vain, but proud and reserved, and I must add selfish. My mother had unwittingly, though being the least selfish of mortals herself, cultivated this in me, by over-attention to my wants and caprices. My personal importance in her world was my standard of consideration for every other. It was well I was sent away from home, to make a practical acquaintance with outside life, before my weaknesses had become indelibly stamped upon my character. There is no ordeal for boyhood half so useful as the democratic mingling of a large school. Thoughts, passions, emotions, ambitions, the incipi ent virtues and vices of life, are all shaken up and sifted. Gold and brass separate. Each displays its true qualities; exposure and friction brightening the one, and coating with verdigris the other. A keen observer can predict the future of any child, by seeing him or her at play and studies amid the toss and whirl of their miniature world. Seclusion weak- I FIGHT FOR A MORAL CHARACTER. 101 ens or over-refines. Initiating a youth early among those who are to become his adult friends arid com petitors develops his own and awakens his per ceptions of others character. No man ever be came great or good by being shielded from the world. Its perils and temptations are as necessary for his education as their opposites. Let no mother who wishes to see her son a man too fondly keep him within her own embraces. They should be his reward, but not his protection. True protection can spring only from within himself. If I did not exactly think after this manner at that age, I felt thus ; and, notwithstanding my intense love for my mother, I gladly went forth to a broader and more fruitful life. It was never in me to shrink from any new experience. Yet at times I was the victim of so much morbid sensitiveness as to make me avoid the approach of my best friend, without knowing why. My reason condemned the weakness, but was powerless to direct my will. The following anecdote will puzzle many, as it has often puzzled me, as to its motive. I never could lie to conceal a bad or improper action, but I have told a falsehood point-blank to hide what was not to my discredit. With much study I had composed a Latin motto, and adopted it for myself. This is it : " Vita sine virtute et sapentia nullius prcetii est" Hundreds of other boys may have done the same much more elegantly before ; but it was new to me, so I wrote it in my school-books as a stimulus to exert myself. My classical tutor accidentally saw it, and asked me if I were the author. Instantly, I replied "No." 102 HEART-EXPERIENCE. Why did I ? If any one can tell me, he will confer a favor, even now. My companions soon began to put me through the ordinary tests, to see what I was made of. So evident were my weak points, that they were not long in finding ways of annoyance. Ridicule arid teasing are useful in their way, and many a silly habit has been killed through their shafts. Where I was wrong, I soon foiled my opponents by making myself right. I could run, jump, swing, arid swagger, with the best of them. This was not enough. As every man is an entire nation in himself, so every boy represents its youthful struggles to a position in the world. Unfortunately, our civilization de mands an exhibition of physical strength and cour age before it respects moral qualities. The boy who would be somebody must fight at least once. My trial soon came. The odd name of mine fur nished the cause. " Lanie " was always a sweet sound to me, because my mother had first called me by it. But my self-constituted enemies persisted in calling me " Pussy, 7 as the diminutive of " Kat ; " and when they wished particularly to mortify me, would scream out "Scat scat!" What boy of spirit could stand this ? If a great empire came to loggerheads among its own citizens, and fought bloody battles, because some of them had applied the unfortunate word Honoousios to Christ, while others persisted in considering his nature as Anomaean, no surprise need be felt that a boy of ten would fight till he dropped to wipe out the " Pussy " from his na ture. In short, " Pussy " stood for coward, imbecile, I FIGHT FOR A MORAL CHARACTER. 103 and anything that was mortifying ; while " Lanie " indicated respect and affection. The former word made me miserable ; the latter, happy. It was a question of honor and self-respect. What are blows and bruises, or even death, in comparison- with be ing honored by others, and respected by yourself? Do not think, because boys sometimes fight, that they do so merely for the love of violence. There is as often at the bottom of their quarrels a sound cause, as with grown men. A good stand-up match at fisti cuffs is frequently a capital harmonizer in a school, and purifies the heart of much bad blood, on the principle of moral reaction. It was so in my case. " Pussy " was really intended as a test of my mettle. I told them to stop it. " Scat, scat ! " said a heavier boy than myself, coming towards me. If I had run then, I had better have > completed the course by running away from the school. But my blood was up. I rushed towards him, and, before he could put himself on his defence, felled him at a single blow on his left temple. He was stunned for a little while. I waited until he recovered, and then we went at it. Our respective parties stood around to see fair play. I was lighter and more active; but he had a decided advantage in strength, and if I hit him oftener, he hit me hardest. " Stick to him, Lanie, don t give up!" was the cry on one side. "Run, Pussy, before your fur is all off!" was the encouragement I received from the other. Twice I was knocked down ; my nose was wofully bruised ; shooting stars bewildered my sight; but I kept at it, and finally with a lucky blow in my opponent s 104 HEART-EXPERIENCE. stomach, that doubled* him up, succeeded by another in the vicinity of his ear, before he could straighten himself, I sent him reeling to the ground. " Hurra for Lanie ! Well done, Lanie ! you have spunk, after all," was the universal cry. We were both soundly done up, and glad to separate. My enemy became my friend; and ever after, to him and all the school, I was " Lanie." Perhaps what helped to popularize me was my daily distribution among the crowd from a barrel of apples my mother had sent me, and pulling one day out of the water, at some risk to myself, a boy who had got beyond his depth. Our principal approved of sound thrashing. He was judicious, however, in his application of the birch, and seldom, if ever, did any delinquent receive more than his deserts. His system of terror was applied solely to pupils inaccessible to a more hon orable motive. For others he established a Corps of Honor. Its requirements were lofty. Not only general good conduct, perfection in lessons, but inflexible veracity, were demanded. When once a boy had acquired this character, he was admitted to this Corps. From that moment he had entire free dom to go and come when he pleased, without re gard to school bounds or hours ; to leave his place in school and speak to his fellows whenever it suited him ; in short, to be complete master of his own mo tions, provided he was punctual and perfect at his lessons, and on all occasions spoke the truth, even if it were to his own disadvantage. Whoever failed in any of these points was immediately degraded. I FIGHT FOR A MORAL CHARACTER. 105 The system worked admirably. It created a moral and intellectual standard that exercised an excellent influence over the whole school. Out of a hundred boys, not one tenth succeeded in placing themselves within the privileged circle ; but all aspired to, except a hopelessly vicious or stupid few, such as are to be found within every community. Poor fel lows ! Floggings, expostulations, and rewards, were equally inefficacious to counterbalance the unfortu nate bias of their natures. They became eventually either the dead-weights of social progress, or filled those situations in which physical hardihood and energy of will were more in demand than a nice sense of humanity or virtue. One, I recollect, stole, forged, and finally went to sea, to perish ignobly in a fray in a foreign port. He was a seductive boy in his way, and we had, when I first knew him, many sympathies in common, on account of his bold and adventurous spirit. Once he persuaded me to join him in the robbery of a peach-tree, at a considerable distance from the school. I recollect perfectly my internal struggle. To take another s property was instinctively stamped on my conscience as a sin. The love of adventure was not enough, of itself, to lead me astray ; but I finally went, because I was determined to reduce my moral and intellectual being into subjection to my will. This was a good test. My head and heart said, " Don t go ; you are wrong." Will said, " Go, to show yourself the master of yourself." Strange ethics ! I committed a crime to prove my free-will. We were successful in our plunder, and in escap- 106 HEAET-EXPERIENCE. ing detection. I was mentally satisfied with my experiment, though uneasy at heart ; but soon after dropped my instigator as a friend, disgusted with his cruel and lying spirit. Another school anecdote will give further insight into my strange moral character. It occurred before I was promoted to the Corps of Honor. My teacher detected me whispering to my neighbor. Without calling my name, he said, " I see a boy near a certain form breaking one of the laws of the school. Let him come up and mark himself a devia tion ; " which, in our parlance, meant a misconduct, and was a mark of shame. I felt sure he meant me ; but, as there was a chance he had some other boy in view, my pride kept me quiet. I had hitherto passed as immaculate, and dreaded the mortification of the slightest public exposure ten-fold more than the severest reproof in private. As no one volunteered to come forward, the teacher, looking in my direc tion, quietly added, " If that boy be the one I take him to be, he will hesitate no longer. 7 I instantly arose, as if I had been magnetized, and, going up to the fatal slate, wrote down my own condemnation. Fear and courage seem very convertible emotions. What makes cowardice? what constitutes bravery? My own experience puzzles me exceeding much to know in which category I stand, even now ; though these confessions ought to prove I have got beyond dreading the world s judgment, As a boy, my phys ical courage bordered upon recklessness. Gun powder and fire-arms were as familiar to me as lexi con and grammar. I have had shot batter me, and I FIGHT FOR A MORAL CHARACTER. 107 I have sent a charge right through a window imme diately over my mother s head. I have, by my care lessness, snapped my gun, loaded with sixteen buck shot, within a few inches of and pointed directly at my head, as I was hauling it over a fence, with the hammer full cocked. Then it did not go off. At another time, without provocation, it has gone off in my hand, and no harm done. In firing bullets at a mark I have exploded cap after cap, and my gun would not go off. Upon looking at the muzzle, I found that the bullet was not rammed home ; had it gone off, it would have burst the gun, and prob ably torn me to pieces. Why did it not ? The next time I tried it with the bullet down, it did its duty as usual. Before I could swim a stroke I jumped into deep, running water, and, of course, wen to the bottom. Upon being hauled out, I repeated the operation at different times, until I could swim. With horses I was equally as careless as with fire-arms and boats. Several times was I thrown far over the steed s head, lighting once flat on the top of my own, thence bounding to my feet, without a scratch or bruise, and hazarding immediately again the same narrow escape, by rapidly riding down a slippery hill. I mention these acts, not as proofs of courage, but of real folly ; for injury or death, to myself or another, might have resulted from any one. Yet I continued to go from one to another, without regard to warnings, as if bearing a charmed life. Accidents that happened to others made no impres sion upon me. The same feeling has attended me 108 HEART-EXPERIENCE. through life, and it requires an effort of reason to prevent my becoming a practical fatalist, from the instinctive effect of so many exposures and escapes, while prudence and calculation have, to my knowl edge, led on others directly to their destruction. Why the same laws and chances should have spared me and taken them, is a mystery. The habit induced by these results might by many be construed into courage. It is simply reliance or faith in influences that regulate my material destiny. Knowingly I would not do a foolish or imprudent act ; yet I often do, impelled, as it were, by another will than my own. If that be the case, then the equivalent protection is in honor bound equally to follow. I am often tormented by a vague desire to do fatal acts, such as to jump from a lofty place, to slide over Niagara Falls, to cast myself into a cra ter, or to fight a duel for the sake of being shot. Fortunately there is a balance-wheel somewhere in my system, which keeps these desires from fruition; but the impulse is none the less annoying. But why should I have them ? CHAPTER XIY. IDIOSYNCRASIES AND THEIR CONSEQUENCES. IDIOSYNCRASIES are a tormenting heritage. How many I derived from my own erratic habits, and how many from those of my fleshly antecedents, it would be impossible to decide, except in a family conven tion, which should include all my grim Pilgrim ancestry, and their accidental dip into Dutch blood. Imagine a council of philanthropic ghosts assembled to discuss the ills of mind and body each had be queathed to long-way-off descendants ; but now, seized with remorse for our sufferings, every spectre of them was ready to scramble for his own legiti mate share, as his portion in a new scheme of expia tion. How many twinges of pain, scruples of con science, nerve-quakings, morbid desires, and sores of body and mind, would be cast out of us ! The name of our self-unbegotten weaknesses is legion ; a colony of big and little demons, the spawn of rela tions we never saw, inhabiting our hearts and mus cles, and making us, nolens volens, squirm through life to the tune of St. Yitus dance ! Why must every womb prove a Pandora s box ? As there is no hope of keeping these life-moulds 10 110 HEART-EXPERIENCE. permanently shut, we may as well reconcile our selves to their legacies, for the sake of the good they transmit also. Every ancestral virtue counts something in the scale of compensation. We prate learnedly and virtuously about self-education. Bless you, dear reader, your character and mine were formed for us by people we never heard of. At all events, they have pitched into our bodies fragments of their earth-life, helter-skelter here a love, there a hate ; a disjointed idea or a passion turned topsy turvy by its long fall ; a rheumatism or a cracked brain ; a mania for music, but no ear ; a burning thirst and a rily fountain; a fearful medley of their mistakes to adulterate our free will. I am bent upon mortifying my devils by exposing them, tails and all. There is nothing more salutary to one s moral health, I assure you. Disagreeable noises and certain smells drive me mad. They did my mother they did my grand mother and tradition says they did my great-grand mother; so you perceive this is a family weakness, not mine. I could dash out the brains of every puppy that barks suddenly at my heels, with perfect delight. As to saw-sharpeners, drivers of loads of iron or tin ware over rough pavements, arid shrieking children, I could cheerfully consign them to anywhere where they would be still. Oaths I mean Anglo-Saxon ones appal me. I prefer the society of a hyena to the gin-talk of a modern ruffian. Every slang speech is to me like an application of lunar caustic. Yet I once forced myself to swear several emphatic oaths, merely to prove that it were possible. IDIOSYNCRASIES AND THEIR CONSEQUENCES. Ill Obscenity produces worse effects upon me than a rough sea. The first wit of this kind I ever heard came from a group of sailors who were making merry over the marriage of one of their mess. No sooner had it reached my ears than I choked and fled. Tobacco in any shape is poison to me. I wish all smokers embalmed in their filthy weed, or permanently fixed in their nauseous atmosphere, on some distant planet. Why human beings should be allowed thus to poison God s air, is beyond my comprehension. Like original sin, I only reconcile myself to it because I cannot help it. Temperance in eating and drinking is as instinctive to me as my detestation of tobacco and profanity. I take wine, if I desire it. But it is no want, and seldom touched except in compliment to society. To gratify others, I once was weak enough to sign a , pledge. In a few days I took my name off, resolved to be morally free to eat, drink, and believe whatever was pleasant or needful, myself being the judge. I never would join a church, club, or subscribe to any creed or doctrine, because, the instant I found myself under conventional bonds of any nature, my individuality revolted, and kept me restless and wretched until I had thrown off the yoke. All this negative principle made me a good lad in the eyes of very moral people. I should except my affair of the pledge, and obstinacy in church matters. These, it is true, were black spots to them. I had no vices. But, for all that, was I virtuous ? Virtue, it seems to me, is the fruit of self-conquest, the triumph over and not the mere abnegation of evil. 112 HEART-EXPERIENCE. How fallacious is the world s judgment in general 1 If to do none of these things was virtue, then the credit was due to instincts bestowed by nature, or my Pilgrim blood, which in such things gave me a tolerably pure and decent standpoint for the forma tion of character. Those who have to overcome temptation in these respects are so much more un fortunate than myself in the outset of life. My negative is their positive virtue. But there still remained a rough mountain for me to climb. Is it easy for you to say " no " ? Ah, indeed, it is very easy to say " yes." This disposition of mine came from my mother s milk. In great mat ters I could be firm. But, as small matters are the springs of life, mine were often out of joint for want of saying " no. 77 I acquired it, finally, but it cost me many a disagreeable sensation about the throat before I could deny another what impulse prompted, but judgment forbade. There is no luxury of life more desirable than benevolence ; none easier than an open hand ; no act which assimilates us more to the great Giver. But, as we cannot couple it with His wisdom, He has hedged our desire with many impediments. If we give in folly, it recoils upon us a crime ; if in disinterestedness, though not wisely, we may be blessed in spirit, but have impoverished another by undermining independence and energy ; but if we say " yes " only at the right time and to the right person, then we have taken a brother by the hand, and lifted him Godward. The right difference between Yes and No is the golden thread of Life. It is as difficult for some persons to ask as it is IDIOSYNCRASIES AND THEIR CONSEQUENCES. 113 for others to deny. Indeed, these two characteris tics generally go together. To assert one s rights is to many next to an impossibility, because it im plies decision, firmness, and courage. But not to demand or take them when they are in your own power, is an anomaly in character. Yet such weak ness has been mine. My teacher gave me a sum of money to take to the post-office for letters. On the way I lost it. I had had given me, a few days before, my pocket-allowance. This was in one piece, and double the amount I had lost. I paid for the letters with it, and gave the entire balance to the teacher, who never noticed the surplus. My passion for antiquities, books, <fcc., often tempt ed me to purchases far beyond my means ; yet I never could ask my father for money without a heart-quake. I was always in trouble? on this score. My financing system was extremely simple. I al ways sacrificed all I possessed to get the coveted fancy of the moment. As many objects passed through my hands as tastes through my mind. I loved them all, but it was impossible to remain con stant to but one. Unlike faithless lovers in general, my mistresses were not turned out upon the world to shift anew for themselves. I always secured for my treasures a permanent asylum on the shelves or in the collections of some learned society, where they are still to be seen. I presume a celebrated histo rian, who was not so wealthy then as he has since become, can recall an event which seemed to sur prise and vex him not a little at the time, some thirty years ago. There was a sale of rare works 114 HEART-EXPERIENCE. on the History of America. Among them was a copy of the famous De Bry, complete with a very slight exception. A perfect copy had recently cost the Duke of Devonshire twelve hundred dollars. I was determined to possess this. Beside myself, the historian was the only person present who seemed to know its worth. For days I had watched this treasure, counting the hours until the auction should come off. Imagine among the crowd of buyers the grave historian, equally covetous with myself, but wholly unsuspecting a bibliomaniac rival in the pert little boy who had climbed upon the counter to be able to keep his eyes constantly fixed upon this book, for fear it would take wings and fly away. At last its turn came. The auctioneer held it up. Not a bid followed, until the historian, who already considered it his, offered a trifling sum. I had already become adroit at those sales. Allowing the auctioneer to all but strike it off, I made, in a low voice, a small advance. The historian looked alarmed, not knowing whence it came, and quickly raised his offer, as if to defy opposition. I immediately doubled his bid. He then noticed me for the first time with a look of reproof and anger, as if I were meddling in matters that did not concern me. * The bids became animated. He evidently thought he should soon distance me ; but no sooner did he ad vance than I went ahead of him, fully determined to have it struck down to me, whether I could pay for it or not. Thus we kept it up for a few minutes, when, with another look of angry astonishment at me, he gave it up. I managed with difficulty to pay for it, IDIOSYNCRASIES AND THEIR CONSEQUENCES. 115 and kept it until a certain Antiquarian Society tempted me to relinquish it to them. Every boy has his pet ambition. Mine was to become a historian. Mexico and Peru were my favorite fields of research. Before Prescott s Histo ries were published I had read most of his printed authorities, and was studying diligently to qualify myself for the labor which he anticipated. How eagerly I devoured his fascinating works when they appeared, but it was with a pang of disappointment to see my own ambition thus frustrated. But Mr. Prescott was not the sole cause. At fifteen I was seized with temporary blindness and a rush of blood at the head, which completely destroyed not only all my hopes of literary distinction, but even of edu cation. My studies were wholly given up. For a long while all books were sealed to mb. Up to this period I had been the happiest of boys. My pur suits, my companions, my ambition, which led me to the closest application and most varied studies, and, above all, the love of my mother, who had en couraged me more zealously than wisely for my health, had made life very pleasant. Darkness now overspread my bright horizon. With what feelings of despair I lingered through the first season of my illness! Books tabooed - studies wholly at an end possible blindness even lotions and bleedings and bandages dark rooms and spare diet usurping my attention. I submitted cheerfully to every trial, in the hope of speedy re lief. In vain. Months and years rolled on, and left me helplessly stranded on the shore of invalidism. 116 HEART-EXPERIENCE. My hopes, my ambition, my studies, every pursuit in which I had delighted and looked to for future fame and usefulness, were all floated from me, un til they passed either into the hands of wreckers or out of sight. Alive, without a future ; engulfed in a colorless, cheerless present ; a miserable, fail ing boy, verging on puberty, loving above all things the bright sun to which he must close his eyes, only old enough to learn, but not to reflect ; my cherished companions all successfully pursuing their several paths of life, each step in which took them further and further from me, with no one to replace them, was it strange that I mourned as one that could not be comforted ? My contemporaries of the " Corps of Honor " proved themselves good and true men ; in some way or other distinguished themselves in learning and usefulness. The world is better for them. As for myself, ever since that fatal illness I have drifted at random on the sea of life, helmless, aimless, the victim of uncertain health, and the sport of my inborn insa tiable curiosity, but gradually developing the idea to which I owe my existence. If there be any good to others to spring from me, it must come from con triving to follow the thread of my Confessions, which, when they fail to amuse, may instruct. I offer my experience to the public, as a moral spectacle, on the same principle that the Spartans showed the tipsy Helots to their children. CHAPTER XV. THE END OF ONE EDUCATION, THE BEGINNING OF ANOTHER. MY Dark Age was not without its peculiar alle viations. It was, indeed, very sad to have my will, which had been up to this period as free of wing as an eagle, thus suddenly snubbed by a physical law, which would no longer second my intellect, but act ually asserted its own independence, and determina tion for the future to stand by its rights. But it was very kind of it to do so as firmly and early as it did. Otherwise, I might have been a permanent vic tim of the injustice my will had done it. A cause extraneous to my own free will had de cided my destiny, and dissipated all my fine projects. This was mortifying. I was indignant at my help lessness to decide my own career. It was an honorable and useful choice. Why should nature thus thwart me ? I, who had confided so lovingly in her, was I thus to be so suddenly disowned ; thrust into outer darkness because I worshipped light; left to become a fool because I sought knowledge ? 118 HEART-EXPERIENCE. Who bears his first scourging at the hand of experience any better ? If I murmured, would you not have done the same ? We are very much alike, sir, at heart, simpleton though you call me. The test of difference is the degree of wisdom that suf fering or adversity inspires us with. I then learned to appreciate more fully the treasure of affection that lies in a mother s heart. Shut off from all the rest of the world, her devotion was my life. When I could bear it, she read to me, talked, and encouraged me with hopes of continuing my studies. If confined to a dark room, she was ever with me. Her presence soothed and strengthened my over taxed system. Through her eyes and ears I still could see and hear the outer world. No harsh sound or irritating ray of light did she allow to reach me. To this tender care of mind and body she added a depth of interest in my soul s welfare that lifted me at times to almost her level of simple and sincere faith. The prayers which she then uttered for me, the example of cheerful resignation she herself ex hibited to the will of God, the beautiful and sustain ing selections which she read to me from the Scriptures, with her heartfelt comments thereon, have left an impression of peace and resignation on my character that no after-contact of sin or scepti cism has ever been able to efface. How utterly im possible is it to calculate the final results of any word or action ! A chance stone may decide an empire s freedom or slavery ; so a speech, according as its motive is good or evil, may affect souls through eternity. The illness which arrested my A NEW START. 119 eager pursuit of worldly knowledge opened my heart more fully to the influences of maternal love. Was this a bad exchange ? Nay, more. Not being able to accumulate longer within myself the thoughts of others, I began to think for myself. From studies I passed to theories. This, at an age when reason was still undeveloped, precipitated me still further into illusions, but they were all of an elevating and wholesome kind. If my own and human nature at large disappointed me, when tried before my hopes and desires, it proved to me by my very aspirations that there existed an inborn capacity to ultimately realize them all. I was comforted. Occasionally my health would light up, for a brief period. This would tempt me back to my books. It was thought I might study medi cine. I commenced an anatomical course at one of our oldest colleges. A fresh corpse had just been brought in. It was delivered to five of us students. An arm, a leg, and the head, fell to the lot of each. We fell to, dis secting, the head having by lot become my portion. With my usual zeal, I worked away until it was time to go ; but, not having sufficiently satisfied myself, I cut off the head from the trunk, put it in my pocket- handkerchief, and sallied out into the streets to take it home. I had some distance to go through the most frequented parts of the city, but luckily no one suspected the contents of my bundle. Arrived at home, I secreted myself in my room for several days, and dissected at my leisure. It was so cold that the fleshy parts finally froze. I be- 120 HEART-EXPERIENCE. came impatient to get the skull cleaned, to add to my phrenological cabinet ; and as it had become almost impervious to the scalpel, I determined to hasten matters by boiling it. Watching my opportunity when the cook was out of the kitchen, I ran down, seized an iron pot just about to do duty for dinner, filled it with water, popped the gory head in it, and hung it over the fire. As soon as the water heated the flesh began to melt ; and, as it was in reality far gone in decomposition, there arose such a stench as all but drove me out of the room. Soon there was a terrible clatter up stairs. " What s that ? where does that horrible smell come from ? Phew ! phew ! ! Heaven preserve us, what has got into the house ? " The thermometer was near zero, but the windows and doors were banged open with an emphasis that left me no doubt that there was a degree of excite ment overhead which, if it were traced to me, would not prove over agreeable. In the midst of the air ing my father came in. " What s the meaning of all this?" I heard him exclaim. " Doors and windows open on such a day ! are you mad ? " " Lord, what a stink ! What, in the name of assafoetida,have you been doing? " I did not like the ring of his voice. At that instant I heard my mother s step upon the kitchen stair. She had explored every other part of the house, in a frantic search of the nuisance. Her organ of smell was the most acute I ever knew, and the whiff she was now getting was the strangest, strongest, and foulest, it had ever been assailed with. Could she, by any possibility, have been put into a A SURPRISE. 121 rage, now was the opportunity. I had not time to take the pot off the fire ; so I ran and hid myself where I could watch her movements. She was gasping for breath. Well she might, as she was not used to the odors of a dissecting-room ; and I do assure you there is nothing worse than boiling putrid human flesh. Her eyes glanced inquiringly about the kitchen. At last they saw the pot. " What can the cook have put into that ? " she exclaimed, and pulled the cover off. Imagine her consternation, as a ghastly human head, horribly gashed and hacked, eyes gone, and ears in strips, bobbing up and down, met her view ! She shrieked and ran. Then, suspecting it was my doings, she seized the pot, rushed into the yard, dashed it on to the snow, and 1 hurried from the scene with a disordered stomach and shocked nerves. How she explained the affair to my father I never knew. I kept out of the way until the purification was complete, and noses all sweet again. But I picked up my head, finished boiling it in a safer locality, and kept the skull for a long while in my bed-room, in the society of sundry other crania and a mummy from Peru, until one evening awful shrieks were heard from one of the maids, and a desperate flight down stairs. Some family wag had taken the skull, put a night-cap upon it, and left it in the maid s bed. After this feat, the whole collection was exiled to a phrenological lecturer s cabinet, and I gave up physic and dissecting. The fact is, for a 11 122 HEART-EXPERIENCE. dead body I had the appetite of a worm, but I could not stand the cool craunch of the knife through live, flesh, and so fled operations as if they had been contagious. CHAPTER XVI. WHAT IS ME, AND WHAT IS NOT ME. THE best man and woman of us all is possessed of at least one devil. With some it is a neat devil ; others are infested by stingy or spendthrift devils. There is no end to the variety, as you must be aware, fractious reader, by consulting your inwards. It was not without reason the ancient augurs read the fate of men and battles in the entrails of ani mals. They would have been more exact in their revelations had they inspected the bowels of their clients, though doubtless a fellow-feeling, in most cases, made a bull, a cock, or an ass, answer quite as well. With most men, their sympathies are more keenly felt in their abdomens than their brains. From this fact, I judge this portion of the human system to be the favorite haunt of our domestic devils. It would be a curious and interesting inquiry to ascertain how many are indigenous, that is, our own, born solely of our whims, caprices, follies, or sins, and how many are fruits of the ancestral tree. Come back, departed blood and bones that claim 124 HEART-EXPERIENCE. me as a descendant ! Come one, come all, from out of your shadowy homes, kind spectres, good spec tres, loving spectres, impalpable ghosts though you be ! take your property ! "With interest to the utmost farthing, will I cheerfully render you your pet devils and all their works ! But stay ! Must your virtues go, too ? If you strip me of these, what am I ? My individuality has diminished to so infinitesimal a point, that it is more ghost-like than ye all, a pale, feeble, cadaverous light, that even a glow-worm would turn its nose up at. I repent me. Of earth, earthy ; of humanity, human ; its pains and penalties, its hopes and real izations, I accept all, I embrace all. Man ! t is a noble title. What though thy course leaves a troubled wake behind, and dashes the spray far before ? When clouds overhang the disturbed waters, they are chilly and dark ; but when the sun comes out, their flying drops are so many dia monds. Sun, shadow; joy, sorrow; pleasure, pain; twins all. Without the one, the other is not born. Why are ye ? Why am I ? I am because I am. But I would know what " I am " means. Whence my organization ? to what end ? what is mine, what yours, ye souls that have anticipated me on earth ? I hail existence as the gradual solution of my in quiries. Its experiences shall all be welcome. Suf fer I must ; tempted I shall be by passions, betrayed by ignorance, deceived by desire, disturbed by in herited vices, injured by crime : disappointment, disease, death, must each be mine, for I am human. WHAT IS ME, AND WHAT IS NOT ME. 125 Man implies love, hate ; wealth, poverty ; wisdom, folly; contentment, despair; faith, doubt; repose, action. Other wills, present and departed, are des tined to disturb mine. Mine reacts, in turn. It seems a strange chaos. I hear voices, now whis pering, now shouting, some with accents of angels, others with sneers of devils, " Come go ! " " Do don t ! " Darkling around me are queer, dim shapes ; faces that alternate smiles and frowns ; a confused blending of freedom and bondage, joy and sorrow, beauty and ugliness. How they pass and repass ! Now they all blend into one ; then they separate, and each grows bright or dark, as its motive has power to change its hue. Some scowl at me, some beckon ; others dance con fusedly about, now coming towards me with open arms, and looks that fascinate ; then floating away, leaving behind fragrance or foulness. Ye are welcome. I wish to learn to what extent I am I, and what of me is you. Nature has made me your equal in power. The life that has shapen your ideas has given me free-will to shape mine. I may be your master. I may be your slave. The dust of conflict obscures my sight ; but, thank God! I can fight. I will to know what earth- life is. Am I to sail at random, billow-tossed, amid other living wrecks, on a horizonless ocean, torn by every wave, powerless to repair damages, until I drift into a bottomless gulf? or, am I at last to bring my sail- patched bark, strained and worn, but sound and fast, into a fair haven ? 126 HEART-EXPERIENCE. The ocean is before me. I have now no option. Launch and sail I must. Courage, Soul ! have an eye to the ballast, Reason ! Imagination is already filling the light sails, and we are under weigh. These life-queries come earlier to some than to others. To me they came very soon, and puzzled my brains exceedingly. They puzzle me now, but I have navigated so far as to see the reflection of a light ahead. Perhaps it is a jack-o -lantern ! When up with it, I shall know. This interweaving of man with man is a curious process of nature. We are all one another, and yet nobody else is us. Individuality is the measure of the difference. No two men ever were precisely alike, and yet each man is the echo of all men. The " Canard " of French wit seems true of mankind. If you have not heard the origin of this term, I will tell it to you. A man bought twenty ducks, to test their vorac ity. He killed the twentieth, cut it up, and gave it to the remaining nineteen to eat. They gobbled it down in a few minutes. He repeated the experi ment with another, and another, with the same result. Finally, there was but one left. It had eaten up all the rest. So it would seem with men. They are so much alike, you could reduce them all into the first man, by a similar process of absorption of vices and vir tues. The result would be the Grand Man of Swe- denborg. It is to be hoped that the experiment of human nature will resolve itself finally into the Grand Man of each one of us, with individualities WHAT IS ME, AND WHAT IS NOT ME. 127 distinct, yet, like a musical scale, forming a complete harmony. To arrive at this perfect I, this individuality, we must undergo our present embryo life, and, by free dom of will, out of its complicated system of checks and balances, find out our proper equilibrium. Un doubtedly there is one destined to each soul. That attained, and our chart through the great Future becomes clear. One of our chiefest difficulties is to shake off what does not properly belong to us. It is neces sary to reject all that deranges our moral and physi cal being, and retain all that tranquillizes and ele vates. The principal of my inherited devils was being always in a devil of a hurry. Of course, the vulgar name of my imp was Impatience. I did not create it. It was born with me. Indeed, I fancy I am in the category of those who were born in a hurry, and have been in a hurry ever since. This is a very disagreeable devil. He precipi tates one into a thousand follies and mistakes. The very efforts we make to cure the evil are leavened with his malice ; so that, in our hurry to seize the honey, we often grasp only the maker s sting. Had I not been in such a prodigious hurry to become learned and famous, I might, perhaps, have become so. Had I not subsequently been in such a hurry to arrive at this and that, as you shall see, I might have spared you these confessions. Would an LL.D., or a D.D., or an M.D., after my 128 HEART-EXPERIENCE. name (how these D s remind one of the devil!) have consoled you for their loss ? I trust not. At all events, they convince me I am what I am ; and under no circumstances could 1 have been you, Mr. or Madam. CHAPTER XVII. YOUTH NOT OF THE DEVIL. A HUMAN CACTUS. MOST emphatically do I protest against the libellers of youth. Its impulses are not sinful. What a base reflection upon the Creator, to assert that the young soul loves sin as the vampire loves blood ! I do not believe this of any one. Each novice in life aspires to reach its standard of good. Dubious ways result more from necessity and ignorance than choice. Give one human being a fair chance, and ordinarily he be comes a worthy member of society. Deprive another of that chance, and he makes society s black sheep. The law that generates the one or the other is mainly independent of both. Free-will is one thing freedom of will is quite another. When the latter has fair play in blood as well as mind, men develop favorably. Some human beings seem destined by nature to be the sewers of society. They receive and carry off its foul humors ; or, like lightning-rods, they serve to collect the dangerous electricity from the upper atmosphere, and dissipate it into the regions beneath our feet. The less social evil, the fewer of these conductors. In some degree every one shares in this office ; and 130 HEART-EXPERIENCE. in some degree, also, in collecting and distributing the healthful currents of life. If our organizations and circumstances, as bestowed by birth or society, favor the one more than the other, is the resultant virtue or vice our own ? Free-will is, however, strictly our own. We can choose our aims, hopes, and loves. We can choose, also, the manner in which we will pursue them. As, therefore, we desire good, truth, beauty, for their own sakes, in that degree we attract to ourselves their divine essence ; but if wealth, power, and health, are sought simply to administer to sensuality or selfishness, the soul becomes surcharged with noxious vapors. Good and evil spring, therefore, both from cir cumstance and choice. From either cause we are judged by society, in proportion to their outward effects, as virtuous or vicious. The Judge of soul as well as action alone sees and impartially weighs both, A^s the one or the other predominates from within ourselves, so measures He our condition. By laws that never change, each human being receives that which its will craves ; not always as it craves it, but more often in sorrow and suffering, ofttimes in guilt or crime, that it may be chastened into re pentance, or instructed by experience. From these seeds of life grows its great purpose, INDIVIDUALITY. Evil consequently has as much a mission to fulfil as good. It is the divine " no." Evil being self-destruc tive, if persisted in through all its warning gradations, may not the soul ultimately so exclude from itself virtue, or the divine " yes," as to lose all person- YOUTH NOT OP THE DEVIL. 131 ality, and be degraded into the original elements of matter, and thus undergo " the second death " ? If goodness be endlessly progressive, ever trav elling towards, but never reaching, that infinite per fection which centres in the great ONE, why may not sin, by its specific gravity, go constantly downward, until the idea, ceasing to exist in form, loses itself in the origin of all things ; and then, under new com binations, start once more on another progressive experiment of life ? In this manner, evil, as a necessary element in the design of Providence in forming and proving char acter, would continue to exist for its specific pur pose in the mass, revolving and re-making, chang ing but never inactive, unless its mission ceased for want of objects, while the individual man is gradu ally lifted out of its reach or necessity by the power of a purified will. Such seems to me not unlikely to be the case. If so, it is more efficacious to encourage than to terrify youth. A bewildered, frightened will becomes des perate, or foolish. , Have patience, therefore, with youth. Be firm and judicious. Soothe its fears, dispel its doubts, cheer its efforts. Otherwise, by making heaven an impossibility, and sin an execu tioner instead of a reformer, it rejects all faith, and cleaves to a material existence as its sole hope. Human nature does not at heart willingly confess, " Let us eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die. 7 It clings even to hell, so great is its horror of annihilation. Grant the possibility of that result from the cankerous nature of continued sin, with the 132 HEART-EXPERIENCE. certainty of progressive happiness from an opposite course, and man becomes inspired with new life. Deal lovingly and firmly with disordered wills. The heart once set right, reason can be left at its own leisure to extirpate error. When I commenced this chapter I meant to have gone straight on with my confessions ; but to mor alize has become so much me, that I quite forget my readers may prefer a wholly different sauce to their pudding. However, it is only by turning myself inside out that they can make my acquaintance thoroughly. It is better to know what a friend is than what he does. If I can combine the two so as to interest you, it will greatly delight me. I got into this vein in thinking of all the new plans and visions of life that crowded my mind, after my first were broken up by my illness. They came gradually, one after another, dear illusions all, and not one of which but was pregnant with good and beauty to the world at large. My chief hobby was to walk about my native city, with my head brimfull of improvements and architectural designs for its ornamentation. I founded societies, built spacious and elegant public edifices, and in a thousand ways made myself a public benefactor, without thought of wealth or distinction to myself. My most inti mate friend talked to me about going to the South Seas, and there joining some savage tribe to teach them the arts of civilized life. He desired to be a Manco Capac I aspired to be an Augustus. Both of us heartily wished every man, woman, and child, health and happiness. A HUMAN CACTUS. 133 These mental straws showed the directions of our dispositions. If there be any speck of moral obli quity in such day-dreams, I pray the largest theo logical sin-magnifyers to point it out. They gave me a peaceful, pleasant occupation then, and have never haunted -my conscience since. There is something beautiful in the first emotions of youth, when desires and hopes, pure and sincere, spring spontaneously from out the soul, crop after crop, like fragrant prai rie-flowers, scenting the air with a sweetness which seems of Paradise. Soon, alas ! comes the wild- hog to root them up, grubbing after his dirty food ; but while they last their odor refreshes the senses, as their memory forever gladdens the soul. # # # # # , * * She was not ivy, for she did not cling lovingly ; neither was she quite of the lily species,- tender, graceful, but scentless. A violet would but feebly symbolize her beauty and tenacity of character. She was rather a human cactus, prickly, beautiful, and strong, dangerous to meddle with if you did not understand her nature ; if you did, the rich flowers captivated the eye, and their fruit was very tolerable to eat, if you only knew how to get at it. Who what are you talking about ? Why, the girl I fell in love with, to be sure, Stupid ! Have you no romance? I, who had ar rived at the picturesque age of life, must as natu rally be sentimental and discover angels, as fifteen years earlier catch the measles or drive hoop. So, one day, when my teens were in their prime, and consequently I was at the climax of the " puppy 12 134: HEART-EXPERIENCE. age/ tripping along a country roadside, I met my angel. She was indeed a sweet creature to look at. Lithe and graceful as a fawn ; of extreme delicacy of feature and classical beauty of outline ; a skin that had rivalled ivory, had not the rich, generous blush of youthful blood suffused it with warm life-tints ; a well-moulded, though not as yet fully-developed per son ; eyes that quivered with untested impulses, pure, truthful, and merry ; in short, a whole cyclo pedia of fascination ; what wonder I fell in love ! In those days neither modesty nor timidity, which have since so gained upon me, impeded my pursuit of any object on which I had set my heart. An introduction soon took place. In a week my only rival voluntarily withdrew, and I had the field to myself. What will not enthusiasm accomplish ! Constantia and myself were as radically unlike as trout and pickerel. But such a bright halo did our untu tored hearts throw over ourselves, that never did youthful lovers more sincerely believe that they were expressly formed for each other than we did. Our intercourse soon became a delicious day dream. If in America the youth of both sexes are allowed great freedom in their social relations, the result, as a whole, is far more favorable to virtue than the almost Oriental seclusion of the unmarried females of South ern Europe. It develops a sense of honor and pro tective responsibility among our young men towards A HUMAN CACTUS. 135 their female companions, such as exists in no other country ; while, on the other hand, women, in par taking so freely and largely of the society and pleasures of the male sex, refine and elevate its character. True, there are sad instances in which opportunity has promoted immorality ; but we may be pretty well assured that such individuals have but anticipated a little while desires which no sys tem of artificial restraint could have purified. For my own part, I made a full confidant of my mother. It seemed as natural to rne to go to her with my love as my studies. She smiled and sympa thized. My earnest, headstrong nature must have absorbed hers. I cannot otherwise account for her yielding so fully to all my whims. If she reasoned, it was so gently and affectionately, that while it made me love her the more, it failed to make me love my desire the less. This would not have been so, had there been anything really ex ceptionable in my actions. Seeing me happy and well employed at the moment, she did not perhaps look sufficiently into the future. Emotions of a new and more delightful character were now filling my heart and head with fresh joys and hopes. The enthusiasm with which I talked to Constantia of my plans for mankind, my desires to be useful, inoculating her with my own tastes arid thirst for knowledge, completely captivated her fancy; and she thought me a wonderful being, while her simple-hearted approbation and chaste caresses made her to me an angel. Our thoughts and feel ings all flowed in simple, healthful currents. The 136 HEART-EXPERIENCE. better part of our two natures at the most instinct ively disinterested periods of our lives were mutu ally acting and reacting, fanning our love, and making our little world a Paradise. We were two innocent children, hand in hand, plucking flowers by a sunny roadside. If, reader, before you have sounded your own heart, or have actually entered upon the conflicts between imagination and worldly reality, you have known a simple, trustful, pure love, you can then judge of the pleasure which now filled mine. It carried us forward to the future. Unless God could perpetuate our union in all eternity, we felt that we should be miserable now. We loved so ardently, it seemed to us He could not help doing it ; and every line of poetry that favored such an idea was pen cilled and prized as if it were sacred prophecy. Do you not recollect those evening walks, Con- stantia, when so often, under the shade of those venerable elms, we in silence pressed each other s hands, unable to speak, from the very fulness of overflowing hearts ; and that when we spoke our mouths uttered the same thought at the same mo ment, as if but one soul animated our bodies, and we turned our eyes wondrously towards each oth er s, full of joy at love s phenomenon ? Tell me, sympathizing trees, how many hearts, before and since, ye have witnessed do the same ! Tell me, too, what sundered those hearts, and why did they meet thus only to separate ! How often Constantia, with your head reposing on my shoulder, eyes melting with loveliness, A HUMAN CACTUS. 137 every nerve vibrating in harmonious accord to the pleasure that thrilled your soul, our souls, I should say, have you confessed how wonderful was love, for it made you kinder to all, even to the most indifferent person; how that you feared I should become too great and too good for such a simple, wilful girl as yourself; and how I kissed away the thought, and made you feel, by my flattering elo quence, that never before in a woman s body had been intrusted so refined, noble, true a spirit as yours ! Did we not both believe all this of each other, and much more ? Alas ! it was all true then! Our only clouds arose from our frequent separa tions. We lived in separate towns, and could not meet as often as we wished. Indeed, could we have fulfilled our desires, we should have been hinged together, like a bivalve shell, enclosing but one big pearl of a soul between us. As that was not possible, the mail groaned beneath our letters. Every time I went for mine, I fancied the post man smiled knowingly at me ; and even the crowd about had to my eyes a half-comical, half-sympa thetic look, which somewhat abashed me. Con- stantia has since told me, if I had proved only half as good as my letters, she should have never I dare say she was quite right. Hers were exceedingly tender, but filled with a more prosaic view of life than mine. Equipages, dress, and the table, had a decidedly mathematical valuation in her mind. Sometimes she got into a transitory sentimental view, spoke rapturously of 138 HEART-EXPERIENCE. love for its own sake, and even hinted at the delights of a cottage life, with a charming naivete that be witched me. Yet a dash of melancholy would even on these occasions mingle with my dreams of bliss, as if there were somewhere a lurking falsehood. Whatever were her wishes, my dearest ambition was to be able to gratify them. Her sympathies were equally warmly enlisted in all my plans. She was sure I must succeed in all, because they were so noble and I was so good ; and I was sure she would have all the happiness she coveted, because she was so beautiful and loving. Once or twice I fancied she coquetted somewhat ; but she had such a charming way of explaining her actions, that before she had spoken half a dozen words I had quite forgotten my cause of reproach. We had but few of these differences, but I came out of every one more hopelessly than ever in love. The delicious little witch she conquered in every thing ! It was as useless to differ from her as to fight a rainbow. My prospects from the wealth of my father were very satisfactory to her.parents ; so they encouraged my passion. Besides, they rather liked me. As for myself, in my innocence of financial matters, I never once took them into consideration, but considered it was quite sufficient to have found an angel to love me, and heaven would supply all our wants, as it did the birds. There is a pleasure in this first experience of in nocent emotions, as they spring naturally from the heart, so full of repose and confidence, because as A HUMAN CACTUS. 139 yet unsoiled by sordid care or vulgar necessities, and with passions which warm the blood only to generous instincts and pure desires, that no other age can rival. We are then Adam and Eve with the fruit of the tree of knowledge still untasted. I had a friend. It would be more proper to say, a friend had me. His name was Jonathan Plaster. He was rabid with friendship. It was a mania with him to make friends, and to intermeddle in all their aifairs as a proof of his esteem. He had a way of appropriating you, your effects, and even your will, that was quite unique and irresistible. For instance, if he saw on your table a choice cigar-case, or any thing that struck his fancy at the moment as being just the thing he would like to bestow upon another of his friends, even though it had been a gift to you, he would take it, without further ado than say ing, " Ah ! this is exactly what I want to give to X or B." His generosity, in turn, would, perhaps, bring you back something that you were as much at a loss to dispose of as the man who had the elephant given to him. But he was a handsome, eloquent, pertina cious fellow, rich withal in his own right ; and one might as well try to relieve himself from the grasp of a monster cuttle-fish as from his friendship, when once he had marked hrs victim. The enthusiasm with which he used to lecture for his conversation was in general a monologue after that form upon the noble delights of friend ship quite electrified me. He fairly made himself my confidant before I knew him ; and discovered for 140 HEART-EXPERIENCE. me so many new sensations, and talked so much of what was heroic and disinterested in a soul like his, and had such grand views of universal philan thropy, that I considered him a prodigy. He be lieved it all himself, and that helped make you believe it. CHAPTER XVIII. A SELF-IMPOSED FRIEND ? I *M OFF ! MY self-imposed friend was not long in discover ing my passion. I did not tell it to him, for there was but one beside Constantia to whom I confided my feelings. The clue once given, was all that Jonathan needed. His own imagination did the rest. All that he thought should be felt by any one un der such circumstances, according to his standard, he attributed to me. If I had been so disposed, I might have loved vicariously, through him. He lit tle knew my true feelings; and was too impatient to have listened to my confessions, had I been disposed to make them. His individuality was a perfect boa- constrictor. It enveloped in its own skin everything it attacked. I do not think it ever occurred to him that any thing he could do or say was not the best and wisest thing to be said or done, and as heartily prized by every one else as by himself. He meant well in everything; and, could he have melted the whole world into his own particular crucible, he would have generously bestowed upon it all the happiness such a process could confer. The specific form of 142 HEART-EXPERIENCE. his mania, when I knew him, was to make people happy, whether they wished it or not. I thought I knew the virtues of my beloved pretty thoroughly before he met me, but I was mistaken. He had no sooner introduced himself to her, which he travelled some distance to do, than he took us both under his patronage, as a pair of turtle-doves, whose happi ness it was his special duty to provide for and sus tain. Bless me, how many new refinements of love liness he discovered in Constantia, and how much capacity for appreciating them in myself! At first, she did not much relish his officious freedom ; but, upon the strength of my assurances that he was the paragon of friends, a little eccentric withal, she gradually grew cordial, and at last was persuaded of his good intentions. Unfortunately, my nature is not sufficiently sus picious for self-protection. I accept everything at face, believing it to be either what it seems or I wish. Without being pleased with Jonathan s free manners, I acquiesced in his professions. Indeed, he was sincere, only there were more sound than substance, and selfishness of purpose than wisdom of design. He was pampering his native weakness, when he should have sought to have subdued it. My chief weakness was of an opposite character, being based upon a morbid sensitiveness, which was very curious in discovering causes of unhappiness where in reality none existed, or, if they did, more in my own unfortunate temperament than the motives of others. This prompted me sometimes to accuse A SELF-IMPOSED FRIEND ? I M OFF ! 143 Constantia of trifling, or to quarrel with Jonathan for his forwardness ; but reason would say " you are a fool/ and so I kept quiet, when a little resist ance would have been wholesome for all parties. I never felt wholly at ease when he was with us. His intense animal spirits and exhaustless egoism agreed better with the vivacious and pleasure-loving temperament of Constantia than my half-romantic and half-melancholy nature, aspiring always to the more serious and reflective views of existence. He had, however, framed for himself so exalted and disin terested an idea of his friendship for us, that he would have sworn sooner to have killed himself than to have entertained a thought foreign to our happi ness. He had another advantage of me, in possess ing more of that masculine force of character which carries captive so easily the wills of women in gen eral. My relations with my mother had been so intimate that my feelings had acquired a certain feminine element, which almost amounted to timid ity, in the deference I had for her sex, and the esti mate I put upon their virtue and fidelity. For men to be coarse, false, and selfish, was very possible ; but for women, quite the contrary. When Jonathan was with me alone, he made me happy by his praises of Constantia, and the eagerness with which he pic tured to me a future fraught with every blessing from her love. Her letters were often filled with the flattering things he had said to her of me. But his chief forte was to discourse of the wonderful joys of a youthful passion such as ours, fostered as it was by so rare a friendship. To hear him talk on 144 HEART-EXPERIENCE. both sides of the question, one would suppose he combined both the male and female principle, and was in himself all that was necessary to a complete existence. He was a rare theorizer, and practised philanthropy as another would have the piano, for his amusement. As I drew near my nineteenth year, my father began to be impatient at my condition of mind and body, neither of which augured anything very favorable for the future. He would have made a merchant of me, in preference to any other career, for that was his beau-ideal of a man one who could have succeeded to his enterprise as well as his money. Once he ordered me to his counting- room, and for occupation gave me some accounts to settle and collect. But I so resented the deport ment of one of his principal customers, who, as I thought, very cavalierly told me to call again, when the present moment would have answered much better for me, that it was deemed inexpedient to employ me longer in that department. It then oc curred to him that I might possibly answer to order the dinner at the butcher s. The first day, I told that domestic functionary " to send some meat " to No. ^ Kosmos-square ; and, for the future, to save me the trouble of calling, he could consider that a general order. In a week my office as caterer was abolished, and my father, who loved a good joint, undertook, as before, the selection. About this time my father received a letter from his reverend brother-in-law at Lilibolu, informing him of an unusual outpouring of grace among his A SELF-IMPOSED FRIEND? 1 7 M OFF! 145 flock, and an opening for a profitable trade in cali coes, hardware, and gun-flints. As he seldom spoke to me, or remained at table after dinner, I was sur prised, one day, after the cloth was removed, by some kind inquiries as to my health, and what occu pation would be agreeable to me. " It is necessary for you to do something for a living, 7 added he, "and we will now talk it over. 7 My father, like most American parents, could conceive of no respectable position in society which did not in some way or other involve earning money. To grow rich was the highest degree of usefulness, because it implied enterprise, shrewdness, economy, and punctuality. He had no sympathy for mental culture, otherwise than as promotive of the material progress of the country. Consequently, as an idle lad, I was an eye-sore to him. He would have reconciled himself to one of the learned professions for me ; but to de velop into an amateur scholar was in his view little short of downright immorality. He was not peculiar in this. Even now American society barely tolerates the mere gentleman, how ever refined his tastes, or the simple student, who pursues knowledge for its own sake. They are both more or less under a social ban. Society re quires practical, tangible proofs from its constituents of being engaged in some pursuit intelligible and useful to the mass, otherwise it will not respect you. The philosopher, equally as well as the man who lives merely for the artistic or high-bred en joyments of social life, have as yet no real home in 13 146 HEART-EXPERIENCE. America. Would that we could say the same of their opposites, the fanatic and the rowdy 1 I was myself imbued with so much of my father s spirit as to chafe exceedingly at my forced idleness. I longed for action, but the pursuits he had hereto fore suggested to me were so repugnant to my instincts, that nothing but failure could have come from them. To get rich myself, that I might enjoy my tastes in my own way, and, above all, to sur round Constantia with the elegance for which she was so suited, had latterly, as a sense of responsibil ity in regard to the future arose within me, been my daily and nightly dream. To be dependent upon even my father fretted me. I would carve out my own fortune in some romantic way. But my partial blindness and disordered health disconcerted all my fine projects. " Katilan," continued my father, " read this from your uncle ; " and he handed me the letter above referred to. The following passages particularly struck my attention : " The king of our group, Kauli, has an ardent desire to be instructed in civil ized life, and to make his people conform to the cus toms and habits of the whites. He has bestowed upon my brethren large tracts of land, which, by the blessing of God, we hope to make useful to his people, by raising cattle, the establishment of schools, and even a college. Divine grace is spread ing everywhere. Six more of the principal chiefs have pledged themselves not to marry their sisters ; several have agreed to give up all their wives ex cept one ; and many of their people wear breeches, A SELF-IMPOSED FRIEND ? I M OFF ! 147 when they can get them, especially on Sundays, and the increase of red cotton petticoats among the women is very encouraging to morals. We need some pious trader to help our efforts by offering to supply the growing wants of the natives and ours at reasonable prices. The Lord will assuredly prosper him. He will receive the countenance of the entire mission, and they number already, chiefly through my unworthy instrumentality, five thousand church- members. Cannot you aid us, brother, out of your abundant means ? " Popo, the heathen chief in the interior, who has so long opposed our labors, was shot a month ago by a party of Christians, whom he was about to attack. Since then the Gospel has been favorably listened to among his tribe. " I have to add that our youngest child fell from a canoe last week, and was instantly bitten in two by a shark. The Lord ordereth all things for the best. " P. S. Kauli has accumulated a large amount of silver dollars by the sale of sandal-wood, and the fines of women caught in fornication, which he wishes to invest in a fast vessel or a yacht." The postscript was the part of the letter that my father most cared for. Secondly, he thought favorably of sending an agent to open trade. " How would you like to go and seek your for tune in the South Seas, Katilan ? " he inquired. " The voyage and climate would be just what you need for your health ; and, if you are enterprising and steady, you will be sure to become rich." While these ideas were suggested by my father, 148 HEART-EXPERIENCE. mine were dwelling upon the novelty of such a field ; the desire to see the world ; to make myself a civilizer ; to collect all sorts of curiosities ; to be come famous, return and claim Constantia as my bride, and take her back to be queen of my king dom i n short, while my father was casting the probabilities of a moneyed speculation, I was specu lating in anything but the thought of gaining dollars. Without a moment s hesitation, I said, " I should be delighted to go." I had about as practical an idea of what I had to encounter, and what was re quired of me to get rich in such a field, as a Poly nesian has of the etiquette of the Escurial. My ven tures in life have all been after this hap-hazard sort. " It is settled, then," replied my father ; " in a week the vessel will be ready for sea. I shall put on board a small adventure, which you are to have the sole control of. Be sharp and prudent, and you can turn it to great profit. I hear that needles and jews- harps bring amazing prices among those savages. When you are at sea, look out for the blocks aloft. Should one tumble upon you, it might kill you." Such were my instructions for a voyage of twenty thousand miles, and an absence of years. We nei ther felt the slightest grief at parting ; yet my father loved me in his way, and I had a great respect for him. It required all the authority of my father, and my own determination to attempt life for myself, to reconcile my mother to my absence. She yielded a reluctant consent, and busied herself in a thousand preparations for my comfort on the voyage. Con- A SELF-IMPOSED FRIEND ? I ll OFF ! 149 stantia was at first inconsolable. " I cannot let you go, dearest Lanie ! " she said, and pressed me again and again to her heart. By degrees, the romantic picture I drew of my success, in which she was to share so conspicuously, in that delicious climate, so like a paradise, overcame her opposition, and she even encouraged my ardor. In this Jonathan helped me. His imagination was, if possible, more fertile than mine ; and he told her such wonderful stories of that part of the world, that she at last wished to go herself, and was soothed into remaining only by the prospect of my speedy return to marry her, and give her an opportunity of enjoying all the advantages of a residence in Poly nesia. Jonathan vowed disinterested friendship to both of us. He was to be our Mercury, to convey to her all news of me, to despatch her letters to me, and console her during my absence. He fancied himself so happy in being able to give such proofs of his devotion, with so high a sense of honor at such a trust, that I almost envied his character as a friend. At parting, he embraced me like a lover. Con- stantia cried, smiled, was sad and merry by turns. She was very excited when she threw herself into my arms for the last time, clung to me, and said, " Don t go ! " and then looking up, added, " It is too late ; you must. Love me always, and " Here a hysteric laugh choked her, and she could say no more. I clung to her convulsively, for my heart struggled to remain, while my will tore me away. 13* 150 HEART-EXPERIENCE. I frantically kissed her closed eyes and cold lips, pressed her hands, jumped into my carriage without daring to look back, sunk an inert mass upon the back seat, and gasped for breath. This struggle was succeeded by a numbness of brain, which haunted me like an evil omen. A mental cloud I could not pierce settled between me and Constantia ; but why I could not tell. It was the more torment ing from its mystery. How different was the parting from my mother ! When I came for her farewell blessing, she simply kissed me once, pressed me to her bosom, but re fused to say good-by. " You know," said she, " I never say good-by, Lanie j you are always with me. God bless you, dearest boy, and may you realize all our hopes ! Take this ; " and as she passed into her chamber, giving me a bright, hopeful look to the last, she handed me a Bible with her name in it, and all her favorite passages underscored. I need not say they became mine. Indeed, I had long known them by heart. It became my travelling companion for many, many years, and when it was finally robbed from me, with the rest of my baggage, in Mexico, I grieved over it as if I had lost a personal friend. My father saw me off. As the topsails were sheeted home, he shook hands with me, and called out, as he jumped on to the wharf, " You 11 find your invoice among the ship s papers let us hear from you as soon as possible, Lanie." It was the first and only time he called me by that familiar name. CHAPTEK XIX. A NEW FIELD. A LOVELY tropical morning, five months to a day after my father had called me Lame, found us off Lilibolu. Our vessel, a taunt clipper brig, mount ing ten guns, with boarding-nets, and the usual armament for a trading voyage in these uncertain seas, with her topsails settled down upon the mast heads, rolled uneasily along the breakers, with a fresh trade-wind upon her quarter. The reefs, cov ered with foam, and trembling under the shock of the recoiling waves, extended nearly a mile from the land. Their solemn, prolonged thunder, inter mingled with the strong gusts that came down the narrow valleys, driving the salt foam before them, and whooping and shrieking through the rigging, delighted me with their wild symphony. On one side was a rough, hissing, white-crested ocean, bounded only by the horizon. On the other arose mountains, with sharp volcanic summits, covered with dense forests. The bottoms of their rich val leys still lay in deep shadow ; for the sun as yet only lit up the loftiest peaks, and sparkled to the lee ward upon the far-off waters. Two lofty extinct 152 HEART-EXPERIENCE. volcanoes, whose red precipitous sides were lashed by the waves, stood like leviathan watch-towers along the coast. There was a marked individuality about these two old earth-chimneys that particularly struck me. I never could divest myself of the idea that they were not conscious existences. For years I came to see the rising and setting sun alternately warming up their picturesque outlines and slowly consigning them to the gloom of night ; and they always affected me the same as when I first saw them. Once savage and treacherous, like the people that clustered around their base, they are now dor mant and decaying, furnishing from their debris the soil that sustains the spreading vegetation at their feet. So I afterwards found it to be with the abo rigines. Volcano and native had had their day, and their purpose of existence was finished. Iron- fisted Change was slowly destroying both, to make way for immutable Progress. I sympathized with these forlorn old fire-mountains, thus perishing piecemeal, as I did for the savage who was under going the same destiny. Both had fulfilled their natural laws, and were now being placed by inexora ble Nature on the shelf. In the early twilight the tall palm-trees that lined the coast, with their tops nodding majestically in the wind, looked like vegetable phantoms, beckoning us to approach. Beneath them could just be discerned clusters of native huts. A rapid river marked the course of the principal valley. At its mouth was Lilibolu. The " Swallow," as our brig was called, drove A NEW FIELD. 153 rapidly on towards the surf. There seemed to be no outlet or rather inlet towards the coast; yet I could make out a cluster of masts near the town. Suddenly, a canoe shot from out of the breakers, vig orously propelled by six lusty natives, and came rap idly towards us. They were the first specimens of Polynesians I had seen, and I greatly admired their muscular figures, bronzed skins, and the ease and skill with which they managed their frail vessel. As we luffed a couple of points to near them, they dropped along-side, and the only one who wore a shirt the rest being naked to their malos, or waistcloths, shouted, in broken English, " Capi- tanee ! me pilot ! want him ? " " Ay ! ay ! " roared our skipper. " Let her come to, be handy about it ! " said he to the helms man. We were low in the water, and, as our vessel lost headway, the pilot caught at the chains, and jumped upon the deck. He knew his business, for, without stopping to pay his respects to any one, he seized the wheel, and shouted, as he gave it several spokes, " Weather braces, pull ! wiki-wiki, loa, quick ! " As the " Swallow " paid off, a huge comber, with out warning, broke under her counter, and all but put her on her beam ends. Five minutes more on the course she was steering would have shivered her to pieces on the coral reef. " Jerusalem, Lanie, we came nigh tasting salt water that time ! Who the devil would have thought the reef made out after that fashion ? " said the cap- 154: HEART-EXPERIENCE. tain to me. It was his first voyage to the South Seas, and he was unaccustomed to its coast perils. " What s your name, pilot?" said he, turning to that individual. " Pea-Jakete, the skippers call me ; at church, mikonaree me call Timote ; " by which he meant Timothy. " Never mind what the missionary calls you. Pea-Jacket, can you take the Swallow inside the reef?" " Me take him in all right, Capitanee. Me all same as one fish here." As we shot along, the pilot ordered more sail to be made ; and, upon reaching a point in the reef which made well out into deep water, we discovered a nar row passage, into which, after giving her a good rap full, he suddenly luffed the brig, bracing the yards flat against the backstays. The sails shivered, but she shot ahead into smooth water ; and, by paying her off once or twice for a few times her length, to gain headway, and luffing again, Pea-Jacket very cleverly brought the vessel into as fine a harbor as could be desired, and we dropped anchor amid sev eral other craft, most of which bore the new flag of King Kauli. Lilibolu was a strange place at this date. It was in a transition state between heathenism and mis- sionaryism ; and, though the two parties had ceased to fight with carnal, they were none the less bitter with their lingual weapons. To me, coming from America to Lilibolu was like stepping back from the nineteenth century into the chaotic barbarism A NEW FIELD. 155 of the Heptarchy. It was a curious experience, and a picture of it may amuse you. Conceive a thousand or more thatched huts, look ing like geometrical hay-stacks, most of them low and filthy in the extreme, scattered higgledy-piggledy over a plain, and along the banks of a scanty river, surrounded in general with dilapidated mud-walls, and inhabited by a mixed population of curs, pigs, Shanghae poultry, and unwashed natives, on a foot ing as to sexes and conditions, of liberty, fraternity f and equality, that would have gladdened the heart of the reddest republican, and you have the ground- plan of Lilibolu. Here and there a white trader, mechanic, or sailor, had squatted, taken to himself a tawny mistress, who, by the connection, found her general condition as much raised above the mass of her sisters as is that of an Italian countess above a contadina, and made to himself a mongrel home, in which the comforts and conveniences of his mother land were oddly blended with the necessities and fashions of his adopted country. There were a few shops, stores, and houses, of stone or wood, Orient alized externally by spacious verandas, and numer ous doors and windows, and internally presenting a medley of native mats and divans, furniture from China, France, or New England, and merchandise in homoeopathic doses from the four quarters of the globe, all strewed about in sailor-like prodigality, or assorted with the right-angular and graceless system of a Yankee pedler. A few white women had followed their adventur ous husbands hither, and, with their Parisian hats 156 HEART-EXPERIENCE. and boots, their rosy faces and boundless hospitality, despite much domestic discomfort, made quite a social oasis amid the general dirt and barbarism. As the streets or lanes were in general almost impass able to their tender feet, on account of the hot, deep dust, their visits or shoppings were made in little, low, four-wheeled carriages, drawn by natives, who, out of compliment to their mistresses, consented to mount short-flapped shirts when in service. A white woman in full toilet was still a sufficient curiosity to attract a crowd consequently, if one went out, she was soon surrounded with a cortege of men and maidens, more or less in a state of nudity, all bent upon studying the fashions with an eagerness pro portioned to their own want of clothing. This sight at first struck me with as much surprise as did, but the other day, the jet-black Hindoo a newly-arrived English lady, upon his quietly taking his seat next to her on an Indian railway, stark naked except his turban. Unlike her, however, the contrast between the simple blue cotton petticoat of the Polynesian maiden, so low and short as to dis play rather than hide her charms, and the mass of millinery that enveloped her white sister, amused me, and set me to cogitating upon the comparative merits of civilization and barbarism. But the English lady arose, and, emphatically expressing her disgust and indignation, left the cars, and sued the directors for damages for being interrupted on her journey. The court sagely decided that, if she travelled on an In dian railway, her sensibilities must be at her own risk. A few of the chiefs had attempted crude imita- A NEW FIELD. 157 tions of foreign houses, but most of them were lodged in more ample and better-constructed straw huts than the common sort. Some were really very neat and attractive in their way, and far more con venient and comfortable to their owners than the more ambitious experiments of those who had thrown away their money upon foreign mechanics. The exterior of these were, in general, more or less dilapidated, and the grounds about them parched and barren. Their interiors presented an incongru ous mixture of white and native habits and articles. Huge state-beds to look at, and piles of fine cool mats to sleep upon. Chairs and sofas backed rigidly and uselessly against the walls, while their owners squatted upon the floors. Velvets and porcelain were snubbed by tapas and calabashes. Fleas and other vermin revelled amid the sweets of cologne and otto of roses. At dinner, you might be served, one day, reclining on the ground, with baked dog or live fish, by your own fingers, from a common wooden platter; and the next, sit uncomfortably upright at a high table, horrified at the rapacity and awkwardness with which your aristocratic hosts devoured pate de foie gras with the aid of silver forks, and engulfed champagne from the costliest crystal. But everywhere you went you were sure to see, conspicuously displayed, a huge Bible, printed in the native language. It had completely exorcised all other gods, and was held in a degree of rever ence and affection which gave it an almost supernat ural character. Yet its precepts, though gaining ground, were but indifferently appreciated by many 14 158 HEART-EXPERIENCE. church-members. How could it be expected that these sensuous, sensual natures should be suddenly transformed by sermons and threats into missionary asceticism ! Their white instructors, in taking away their games, dances, festivals, and wars, had given them nothing in return as an outlet of their animal energies. A polka or waltz were proscribed, as the devices of the devil. Theatricals were something worse. Horse-races were no better than hell s tour naments. Even smoking was made a capital sin, and tattooing was the mark of the beast. National songs and festivals all smacked of eternal damnation. There was absolutely nothing left to the poor native for the indulgence of his physical forces, or the develop ment of his intellectual, but that which he hated most, hard labor and theological reading. In the latter his choice was limited to the Bible, a few hymns, and elementary school-books. The most rigid principles of the most rigid of Protestant sects were made the standard of salvation for the most sensualized of races. The poor native was to labor to attain to the sanctity of men and women who rarely smiled and dared not joke ; whose intellectual excitements, in general, were preaching and pray ing ; who led lives of rigid abstinence from all the usual pleasures of life ; whose greatest dissipation was a tea-party, enlivened by prayer and serious dis course ; who produced and reared numerous chil dren in the same strait-laced way ; comfortable in their homes and tables ; neat, orderly, and exact, in every circumstance ; plain, sombre, and tasteless, in speech, dress, and deportment; preferring, from prin- A NEW FIELD. 159 ciple the desert side of life to its amenities ; wor shipping the Jehovah of Moses, a harsh, retribu tive, cruel being, softened only through the suffer ings of the innocent and pure Jesus, who was equally God and his son, and yet neither were able to give salvation, except through the capricious interven tion of a third god, called the Holy Ghost, and these three were one god ; such, in brief, were the exam ples arid doctrines of Christianity the astonished Polynesian had presented to him to replace his own effete religious system. On the other hand, he had before him the careless lives of numerous white visitors or settlers, who resembled the mis sionaries in nothing but color. They neither prayed nor preached. They smoked, drank, and were merry, after the desires of their own flesh. They took to themselves wives or mistresses, as interest or pas sion dictated. They labored for money, but spent it freely. Some were renegade sailors, to whom the change from a forecastle to this 1 sensuous cli mate and sensual people was a paradise. Others were of every grade in life, from the honest, indus trious mechanic, seeking a competency to take him back to his own village, amid the granite hills of New England, where his constant Susan impatiently awaited him, to the intelligent merchant or educated stranger, who, in visiting these shores, brought with him the enterprise, refinement, and experience, which made him a valuable citizen at home. Between the bigoted missionary and the profane, licentious renegade, most likely an escaped Botany Bay convict, there being every gradation of intelli- 160 HEART-EXPEKIENCE. gence and morals, society was kept from the open warfare or anarchy into which the two extremes would otherwise have forced it. The missionary was, in fact, a far more useful and agreeable man than his catechism would indicate ; and the trader was not so bad a man as the missionary would make him out to be. Both were necessary ingredients in the social reorganization. The one, it is true, protested against and would annihilate the entire past, because it was born of his mortal enemy, heathenism. The other served to keep alive and give play to the inborn in stincts of human nature, slowly and surely refining them to the conditions of civilized life ; and the mis sionary, on his part, as he better learned his mission, fought less uncompromisingly against humanity, seeking to purify its impulses, and direct them to loftier ends. When I arrived, a fierce hostility was raging between the two parties. The Guelf and Ghibel- line factions of Italy were more bloody, but not more sincere in their mutual opposition and denun ciations. The missionaries were by far the most powerful. They not only represented the progress ive moral principles of this strange society, but were bound together by a sincere zeal and piety, against which their opponents could only offer a sort of skirmishing opposition of outwardly selfish in terests, or dubious pleasures. They had, besides, the great advantage of being the actual government. When the missionaries landed on these islands, the old form of religion, with its idol-worshippers, had almost quietly died out, from the two-fold cause A NEW FIELD. 161 of its own lost vitality, and the scepticism of the people, derived from intercourse with white traders. The result was as unbridled a licentiousness and tyranny as a sensualized race and omnipotent oli garchy could devise. Such influence as their old religion had when it represented to a certain extent conservative or restraining ideas was now gone, and the aborigines were abandoned to the anarchy of their passions, curbed only by the selfish interests of a tyrannical government. Social corruption, under the patronage of infidelity, was, in fact, holding its last saturnalia. In the height of this revolution, the missionaries arrived, and began their preaching. Even the lowest class of whites had come to revolt at the horrible orgies and scenes of violence they had witnessed ; so they rather welcomed than otherwise the new comers. Soon, some of the chiefs, wearied of their debaucheries, were attracted. Two classes of con verts came quickly to them : the best minds, which gladly availed themselves of a newer and pure knowledge ; and those that having gone to one extreme of folly and wickedness, were anxious to expiate it by going to the other extreme of faith and virtue. These two made the new religion fash ionable. It speedily became a state power, and after its kind, owing to the zeal and ignorance of the new converts, an ecclesiastical despotism, which would have been almost as intolerable, in the end, as the old order of things, had it not been for the greater enlightenment of some of the missionaries, and the continual opposition of the foreign popula- 14* 162 HEART-EXPERIENCE. tion to the extreme measures the chiefs sought to impose upon their people for the forcible furtherance of Christianity. The leaven of foreign opposition and example derived from the white settlers alone prevented the reign of the saints from being abso lute. As it was, the enactments which attended their ascendency were of the most arbitrary charac ter, having for their object, not only to root out every vestige of heathen ideas and customs, but to compel every inhabitant to an observance of laws whose spirit was derived almost exclusively from the Mosaic dispensation. No people ever underwent a more forcible and thorough outward change than these unfortunate aborigines, in less than a score of years. There were some resistance and fighting, at the first, resulting from the expiring force of the old in contact with the new faith. But, as soon as the latter was fully adopted by the chiefs, their people acquiesced, and upon the whole welcomed a moral reaction, which exchanged the violence and degradation of excess ive sensuality for the order, strictness, and sobriety, of their new religion. They gave up, though at first not without a murmur, their dances and songs, their feastings and licentious revelries, their games, and even their tattooings, their superfluous wives and drunken debaucheries, all that was in itself harm less, as well as what was vicious which belonged to their former belief, and in exchange accepted the Bible, meeting-house, school-room, and prayer-circle, and loyally sustained their chiefs in their inquisi torial spread of new ideas. The external reform A NEW FIELD. 163 soon became as extreme as the previous undis guised vice. One who frequented only missionary circles would have concluded that Puritanism had revived in Poly nesia. Many of the chiefs and their retinues were sincerely pious, and, considering their antecedents, exceedingly exemplary in their deportment. With but few exceptions, the people at large devoutly conformed in their external conduct to the new order of things. But it would have been contrary to common sense to have accepted the outward for the true view. The same extraordinary intermixture of civiliza tion and barbarism that was to be observed in their household effects was equally perceptible in their morals, apart from the restraint of missionary vision. Within sound of one of Watts 7 hymns, as sung by a native choir, the curious visitor would be cau tiously conducted into the premises of a high chief, who was surreptitiously indulging himself in witness ing wanton dances by young, half-clad maidens, fol lowed by scenes not to be described. A little further off, he might hear through the open windows of a merchant s house the enlivening notes of waltz or cracovienne. Nearer by, the monotonous tones of natives, earnestly praying to Jehovah, would strike his ear, interrupted, perhaps, by the profane and vulgar mirth of groggy sailors ashore on a spree, but kept like wild animals chafing within the limits of some white man s enclosure, from which they and their female companions could sally forth only at the risk of being arrested by na- 164 HEART-EXPERIENCE. tive constables, greedy to collect the fines im posed upon drunkenness or debauchery. Should he wander into one of those huts, so recently the scene of devotion, its owner a church-member, perhaps a deacon would not unlikely welcome him in the spirit of the former hospitality of his race, and inquire if it would be agreeable to him to have a female to share his couch. Possibly the next day he would meet the same woman at hard labor on the public highways, betrayed by a spy, and con demned to an infamous punishment for indulging in what in her early youth she had been taught to consider as a virtue, but which now was very properly denounced as a vice. White women were held by the natives in chaste reverence. Once, it is true, a party of heathen Indians, on a visit to Lilibolu, happening to meet a lady well known for her personal attractions and refinement, became enamored, and followed her to her house, asking permission to enter. This ac corded, they, with the utmost gravity, but without the slightest gesture to alarm, stated their desires, and offered to endow the object of their love with a generous share of their barbaric ornaments. When it was explained to them that they were violating the proprieties of civilized life by such a proposi tion, they quietly withdrew, seemingly a little mor tified at their breach of good manners. I cannot better give an idea of the state of morals among this race at this period than in the words often used by themselves: "Me mikonaree here," pointing to the head; " ole mikonaree" no A NEW FIELD. 165 missionary here ; designating the rest of the body. Brass joined to clay they indeed were. Such were the people and manners among whom I found myself left at nineteen ? to seek my fortune and learn worldly wisdom. CHAPTER XX. PETRONIA AS MISSIONARY AT LILIBOLU. IN order to remain on the islands, it was neces sary to be presented to the king, and obtain his consent. This proved an affair of slight etiquette. The captain of the Swallow took me with him, saying I had come to reside for an indefinite time within his kingdom, and asked his permission. His majesty was in his shirt-sleeves, sitting on a Chinese couch in a huge grass house, dozily enjoying the breeze. Beside him was the queen dowager, formerly one of his predecessor s five state-wives, in a loose crimson silk gown, with a sort of wrapper of native cloth around the lower part of her body. Her bulk was something stupendous. She was the incarna tion of over-much feeding and indolence. Fat was piled about her in masses so gross, that had she been a whale her value in oil would have made a fair Nantucket dowry. She had, however, a good- natured and rather intelligent face, and gave me her hand to shake, which was soft, delicate, and really small, with much amiability, especially when she heard that I was nephew to her favorite preacher. The king, evidently bored at our intrusion, yawned PETRONIA AS MISSIONARY AT LILIBOLU. 167 and drawled out, " Yon are welcome." So the au dience was finished. My uncle resided at one of the out-posts of the mission. It was not considered politic by hia brethren to bring one of his exceedingly denunci atory and narrow views in immediate contact with the foreign residents ; so he was placed in a sort of complimentary exile, in a purely aboriginal field, on the then furthermost island. He fancied this mis sion was assigned him on account of its special importance ; and was well satisfied to live thus iso lated from white society, because it gave him greater license for both his good and weak points. There was no one to check his love of domination but Aunt Petronia ; and his hammer-and-anvil style of preaching had come to be very much to the taste of his congregation, from want of anything better by way of comparison. He was a self-elected judge in an Israel of his own creation, and ruled as supreme as ever did Samuel. This was but just. Whatever of Christian habits, ideas, or customs, existed within the limits of his extensive parish, was due exclusively to his personal exertions. When he pitched his tent among them, the natives were the most turbulent and vicious of the group. His fearless sincerity and unwearied zeal, as it were, magnetized them ; and while, from lack of foreign commerce, his people retained more than most others their aboriginal condition as to living, they had outwardly conformed to Abinadab s standard of Christianity, and the body of them were really vastly improved in morals. He was singularly 168 HEART-EXPERIENCE. favored in being withdrawn from the opposition of the white residents, which so sorely tried the tem pers and success of his brethren elsewhere. Those of his flock who wished to lead freer lives were obliged to escape to the seaport towns. I am sorry to say there was a constant drain of the youth of both sexes to these more seductive influences. His station was precisely the field for me to ob serve the effect of pure Calvinistic missionarism upon the sensuous Polynesian. Moreover, I really desired to see again two individuals so mixed up with my earliest religious ideas. A miniature schooner, of about twenty-five tons, owned and manned wholly by natives, was my only chance, for an in definite period, of reaching my uncle s station. It was to sail at once, so I secured passage. We left with a strong trade-wind, which pitched and tossed the frail thing about like a piece of cork. It was impossible to get into the little cabin, for it was filled with the odoriferous sour " poi," which forms the chief article of food of the islanders, and is as useful a stomachic in sea-sickness as the far-famed raw-pork-and-molasses receipt of white sailors. Not less than forty to fifty natives of the lowest class crowded the decks. From want of other room, they hung over the bulwarks, and even clung about the bowsprit, sick, naked, deluged with spray, more or less the victims of cutaneous disease, and, with their vile dogs and taper-snouted hogs, which were dearer to them than their children, presented as loathsome and brutal a mass of beings as could be well con ceived. PETRONIA AS MISSIONARY AT LILIBOLU. 169 The voyage lasted four days, owing to the pecu liar hap-hazard navigation of the crew. When wide awake they kept to their course tolerably well, but in the night often lost much that had been gained by day. The captain, who was a church-member, held periodical seasons of prayer and singing, in which all joined with apparent devotion. It was a delicious moment for me when I trod on shore. If a London cockney had shared my accommodations, he would have understood, for once in his life, the real meaning of his pet word " nasty. 77 There was more danger, too, in these trips than I had originally conceived. The live freight on deck renders the vessels top-heavy, and makes it quite im possible to manoeuvre them with quickness or skill. On her next voyage, with a similar load, the schooner was capsized, and sunk immediately in a heavy sea way, at a long distance from the land. The natives are about as much at home on the water as on shore. There were thirty-six in all. They immediately clustered about the captain, who made an audible prayer for their safety, and then all swam for the nearest land. But three of their number ever reached the shore. Two were males, who were in the water some twenty-eight hours ; and the third a woman, the wife of a respectable native, who swam alongside of her for a day, then complained of fatigue. Both rested, prayed, and she rubbed his benumbed limbs, which enabled him to hold out a little longer. As the woman saw her husband sinking, and they were now not far from land, she took him on her back and carried him for a con- 15 170 HEART-EXPERIENCE. eiderable distance, until he died. She then aban doned the corpse, and, after being in the water thirty-four hours, landed, faint with hunger and her exertions. She was soon found and cared for. With the exception of these, the others were not drowned, but died, one after another, from sheer fatigue. There were a heavy sea and a strong cur rent running the whole time. A crowd of natives welcomed me on the beach, and escorted me to my uncle s. The path lay through their thatched town, which was scattered loosely about under a beautiful grove of cocoa-nut palms. The same affectionate treatment and social equality of swine, fowls, and dogs, with their owners, were as obvious here as at Lilibolu. There was less clothing, but more personal cleanliness. The male population looked healthier and more robust; but the proportion of decrepit hags and old men far exceeded that of the capital. How hideously ugly most of them were, with their scabby skins, teeth knocked out, bodies tattooed with every species of grotesque figures, frizzly, dishevelled hair, matted with dirt, and numerous scars of heathen excesses or brutal fights ! Old age among savages is surely very unbecoming. But some of the young maidens, with their clear, olive complexions, finely-rounded forms, and laugh ing Bacchante faces, with wreaths of necklaces of white and red flowers about their heads and bosoms, timid and modest withal, were perfect pictures of aboriginal beauty. Among their brothers I re marked one young man who had the form and air PETRONIA AS MISSIONARY AT LILIBOLU. 171 of an Apollo, as he stepped lightly and gracefully before me, showing the way. He was naked to his " malo." But the mass of the population and their habitations were anything but inviting, and quite upset all my romance about Polynesian life. After walking a mile through cultivated fields and carefully-irrigated lands, we came to rising ground, on which was situated, in the midst of a beautiful grove, my uncle s stone house. It was of two stories, with a veranda, and plain but well built. Near by was one of wood, equally as large, but which had been abandoned because it did not suit my uncle. It had cost the mission a large sum of money, and was now rapidly going to ruin. My relations received me with a reasonable share of warmth. Any respectable visitor was a god send in such an exile. Aunt Petronia had many questions to ask about home. But, as the reader can be curious only about the sort of life led here, I will confine myself to that. The Rev. Abinadab was obliged to ride to a meet ing appointed some fifteen miles off for that day, so he left Petronia to do the honors of the house. My aunt s neatness and exactness were perceptible everywhere. The furniture was abundant, com fortable, and good, without any pretensions to elegance, except in a few keepsakes she had brought with her from America. It was a model establishment for a Puritan clergyman, and I can avouch that the donations of sympathizing Christians in America had all been invested so as to produce the greatest degree of comfort at the minimum of 172 HEAET-EXPERIENCE. expenditure. A pretty flower-garden and luxuriant orchard were in front of the house. At the back was a tempting display of indigenous and foreign vege tables. Both were carefully walled, to keep out quadruped and biped depredators. The domestic arrangements of my uncle were assuredly a wholesome example of civilization to his flock, but I fear as hopeless a one, considering their desires and means, as would have been La Petite Trianon, if translated from Versailles to their taro-patches. I saw at a glance that my uncle-in-law had other qualities than his merits as a preacher to recommend him to my esteem. He was an active civilizer and tamer of rude nature, and took a real pleasure in making a desert blossom, especially with whatever was pleasant to the palate, or useful as a vegetable capital on interest. In this Petronia was unlike his first spouse. Her delicacy of organization had per mitted her to interest herself only in the sentimental side of missionary life ; that is, to write home beau tiful letters, filled with the romance of godliness and bits of poetry, that found their way into the reli gious journals, greatly to the edification of philan thropic misses, who shut their eyes to real misery about them in order to enjoy more keenly the fictitious scenes of their imaginations, and allow themselves to encourage only that which is irre proachable in attire and behavior. Petronia was not of this genre. She could work, scold, preach, wash, bake, pray, catechize, make dresses, plant and pluck, drive stray pigs out of the PETRON1A AS MISSIONARY AT LILIBOLU. 173 garden, and cause the Grossest dog that crossed her path to blink and put his tail between his legs. There was nothing useful in their wilderness life that she was not handy at. The fires of the trop ics seemingly had even invigorated her forty-seven summers ; perhaps it was the scope she found in her new life for her peculiar energy that preserved her so well. At all events, it was no flattery on my part when I assured her, in return to her exclama tions of surprise at time s changes in my figure, that I could detect none in hers. " Really, aunt, you are as young and active as ever." " Spare your worldly compliments, nephew," she replied, in her most orthodox tone. " In accepting the mission Providence opened to me, I eschewed all flatteries, as well as other seductions of American life, for the peculiar trials and hardships of a mis sionary." Whatever had been her " peculiar trials and hard ships," I saw no indications of their existence in the comfortable home before me. While she spoke, a crowd of natives came to the door to pay their respects to their pastor s nephew, squatting on the floor in a circle about me, and in profound silence staring me quite out of counte nance. I noticed that nearly all brought a gift of some kind or other, the product of their little plan tations, to my aunt, who graciously received every thing with pious thanks. After they had sufficiently inspected me, one by one arose, shook me by the hand, saying, " Aloha nue oe," great love to you, and went out. 15* 174 HEART-EXPERIENCE. Soon a messenger came in, and said something mysteriously to my aunt. She followed him out, saying to me, " I must be gone for some time. Make yourself quite at home until my return. In the library you will find all the Tract Society s pub lications." I afterward learned that she had been sent for to assist at the accouchement of the young and pretty wife of the chief who ruled the island. She told me this much herself; but was silent upon the main fact of the extraordinary whiteness of the infant, which the mother somewhat naively accounted for by her having eat, for some time before, much white bread. There were other theories in relation to its unex pected paleness, which are none of the reader s business. While Aunt Petronia was gone, a domestic, whose sole livery was an extremely dirty shirt, came to lay the table for dinner. I saw by his manner that he had been well drilled ; but he speedily gave me a token that his mistress s eye could not always be upon him. One of the plates not being as clean as it might be, he polished it thoroughly with his front shirt-flap. This sudden initiation into the domestic habits of Polynesian servants greatly disturbed my appetite. When my aunt returned an excellent dinner was served. Meat and vegetables were irreproachably cooked ; the bread and butter were as sweet and good as the best in Gotham, and the fruits left nothing to be desired; but I avoided that plate. When half through dinner, it occurred to me that PETRONIA AS MISSIONARY AT LILIBOLU. 175 what I had seen was most probably symbolic of the unseen. We must eat in faith everywhere. Before we sat down, iny aunt, forgetfully, I pre sume, requested me to say grace. Had she asked me to sing Casta Diva, I could not have been more surprised. It was the easiest thing in the world to say such graces as I had often heard, namely, a few inarticulate sounds, intermingled with the words " food, refresh, thanks, and amen," got off like mili tia musket-firing; but, that I should be asked so astonished me, I was dumb-foundered, and nothing short of a miracle could have loosened my tongue. My aunt took pity on my suffused face, and said it herself; and, what was better, never repeated her request. As soon as I recovered myself, I inquired for the numerous family of her husband. She had had no children, and my father had saved the silver porringer. " With the exception of the youngest, which was killed by the shark, the others," said she, " are all in America, scattered among pious families, who have volunteered to educate and provide for them." This giving up one s own offspring to strangers, in order to look after the offspring of other strangers, struck me as a real " trial," as I thought of my own mother. My aunt saw by my expression that it seemed unnatural to me to thus exchange duties ; so she quoted from Scripture, " He that loveth son or daughter more than me, is not worthy of me." I was silenced, but thought that perhaps the meaning of the word " loveth " had been misapprehended. Petronia s barrenness was an additional qualification 176 HEART-EXPERIENCE. for her missionary life. In general, missionaries beget large families, and, to prevent their children from becoming like the surrounding heathen, they are compelled either to exile them from their own homes, or to prevent their acquiring the language of the people they are among. Would it not be better for Protestant missionaries to avoid the necessity of either of these dubious remedies, and go forth, like the Catholics, unwedded, or, like my aunt, unfruitful ? After dinner my aunt initiated me into her special fields of labor. She was quite as independent in them as my uncle was in his, and exercised an in fluence, from her energy and practical virtues, that bordered on arbitrary authority. Abinadab had sought an helpmate, and found a coequal, an ex perience not uncommon in matrimony. His domestic affairs, after Petronia s will had established her po sition, went on all the more smoothly therefor ; so that at the period of my visit both held their own spheres of duty quite distinct from but in harmoni ous relations to each other. The life Petronia now led was precisely that for which she was most suited. She cared not for society, provided she was always occupied, and no one questioned her authority. At her station she was the only white female, and ruled supreme. If there were any possibility of introducing New Eng land household habits and faith among Polynesian females, she was the woman to do it. As I walked through the native village with her, I could see that her presence operated everywhere as a civilizing PETRONIA AS MISSIONARY AT LILIBOLU. 177 tonic. True, the effect was in very many cases tran sient, but it showed that the natives knew what she expected of them. As she appeared, tobacco-pipes disappeared, idle games or gambling were slyly put by, Bibles and hymn-books were brought conspicu ously forward, and pigs and poultry driven out of the houses, while little boys gazed at her with an unut terable awe, and the young girls hastily donned their chastest dresses and looks, and all were but too happy if she honored them with a lecture or command. Most of the other ladies of the mission I had met had made ambitious attempts to keep up with the changes of fashion. Not so my aunt. She walked stiffly forth in the same cut and garb with which she had left America, namely, enormous leg-of-mutton sleeves, narrow skirts, and a bonnet that looked like the entrance to a railroad tunnel ; and as far as she could she forced the same style upon her female proselytes. There was no humbug in her. What she did, she did openly and thoroughly. She de spised fashion as a vanity, and snapped her fingers in its face ; and would sooner have branded herself with the word apostate than imitated the example of another lady of the mission, who, because her husband had received employment under the king, set up a visiting-card with an extemporized coat of arms upon it. CHAPTER XXI. HOW CHRISTIANITY AGREES WITH THE POLYNESIAN. THE Rev. Abinadab Hardfaith returned at night. His field of missionary labor was so extensive that he was obliged to pass much of his time in the sad dle, or in making pedestrian excursions to such places as were inaccessible on horseback. He re newed his welcome after his own dry manner, but which was none the less sincere. Indeed, after much experience among missionary households in wild countries, it is but simple justice to the missionaries to say, that if the Christian public in America have liberally supplied them with comforts, they are ever ready to dispense hospitality to the full extent of their means. In many places the traveller would fare but indifferently without their welcome. If he profess their faith, he is welcomed as a brother ; even if he do not, provided he does not scandalize their standard of morals by his deportment, he is received with almost equal warmth. He must, however, conform to their religious rites, and otherwise set a wholesome exam ple to the natives. This is proper in every sense. My reverence nat urally inclines me to devotion, even when its forms CHKISTIANITY AND THE POLYNESIAN. 179 and words are not always in harmony with my views of religion. I joined, therefore, without hes itation, in the private and public worship of my uncle. Of the usual vices of youth I was innocent, even in theoretical knowledge, to a degree that would have made me the butt of loose society. With such a mother as I possessed, and in the flush of a sentimental love, had not my disgust of vulgar ity been as innately strong as it was, I would not have been otherwise than pure in my desires and deportment. Gambling, intemperance, profanity, and licentiousness, with the majority of young persons, are like smoking acquired only through repeated nausea of conscience. Hence it was that, being considered by the natives a " mikonaree," - that is, one who conformed to their views, I was everywhere received with the same hospitality and respect that they manifested for their religious teachers ; and, at the same time, they did not fear to show to me their natural characters. I thus obtained a better insight into the practical effects of the discordant foreign influences operating upon this people. The problem of the capacity of the colored races for Christian civilization must in terest every student of humanity. My uncle s field gave me an opportunity for investigating it under its most favorable religious conditions. Both the gov ernment and public sentiment favored him. He had little or no opposition from vagrant whites, and no rival in his own department to interfere with his views. Moreover, he was their first teacher. To the strictest religious principles both my aunt and uncle 180 HEART-EXPERIENCE. joined a practical knowledge of the elementary civ ilization most favorable to the needs and capacities of the aborigines. The theology they taught them, although based upon fear, was mild in comparison with the terror-side of their antiquated faith. It had, besides, what that had not, the love of a divine being to counteract the fear inspired by a vengeful deity. In America my uncle was reduced, for notoriety, to his theological shade of character ; consequently, all his energies turning to polemical zeal, he was a bigot. So with my aunt. But here, with ample scope for their more useful faculties, their characters, though essentially the same in matters of faith, were greatly modified by enlarged fields of action, which, with their apparent successes, made them compara tively charitable and good-natured. I may say that the worse part of their natures was vented in words, and their better in deeds. To hear them preach and pray, you would suppose all mankind excluding themselves and their friends to be damnable scoundrels j to see them act, you felt sure they did not, at heart, feel that the human race was so unmitigatedly bad, after all. My uncle took a pardonable pride in showing me the results of his missionary labors. Among other things, he had persuaded a chief to establish, in a small way, a cotton factory. There was abundance of wild cotton in the fields, and no lack of idle youths to gather and manufacture it by the simple machinery got together for that purpose. The forest afforded abundance of dye-stuffs. He showed me, CHRISTIANITY AND THE POLYNESIAN. 181 with much complacency, specimens of cotton cloth made by the natives, and argued a great stimulus to their industry from these results. But he failed to perceive that foreign commerce could undersell native skill by one half; consequently, as it proved, the factory must soon be ruined. The great attraction was the stone church. Its architecture was his peculiar pride. It was not un like, externally, a stranded two-decker, with squared ends and roofed at a sharp pitch, the port-holes being left for windows. In short, it was as angular, and ugly, and evangelical, as it was possible for a building to be. There were galleries inside, and slips instead of pews. The pulpit, from America, occupied a con spicuous position ; and, being of mahogany, with crimson mountings, formed a clerical throne that contrasted forcibly with the naked, white-washed, cobweb-festooned walls of the interior of the build ing, and the rough-hewn wooden benches on which the hearers sat. This meeting-house had been built chiefly by the forced labor of the people. Though they cursed the toil imposed upon them in its erection, it had now become, in their eyes, a St. Peter s basilica in point of admiration. The same arbitrary principle which built it more or less .filled it, and enforced certain regulations more curious than judicious. Any one caught napping during divine service was soundly rapped on the forehead with a long cane in the hands of a special police, appointed to keep the congrega tion awake. Not very complimentary to the preach ing of my uncle ; but he seemed to think it quite 16 182 HEART-EXPERIENCE. necessary in this drowsy climate, and I agreed with him after the first sermon I heard of his. Any woman entering the meeting-house without a bonnet run the risk of having her hair shaved off close to her head. This was a regulation of the chiefs, and extended to his own residence. As nothing was said about stockings, the gallery effect was some what queer. A row of bonnets, of extraordinary shapes and sizes, modelled as closely as possible after my aunt s, surmounted the heads of the females above stairs, while their bare, brown feet were protruded through the banisters, in all direc tions, with a liberal display of legs, looking like so many tree-roots. After church, if it rained, off came the finery and clothing of both sexes, to save it from being wet; its owners preferring to expose their naked skins, rather than their ribbons and coats, to the storm. The off-hand way my uncle had of doing his work greatly amused me. In riding, one day, with him through a wild part of the country, a native called to us from a hut. He dismounted and entered, and in a few minutes returned, telling rne he had just married a couple. The bride and bridegroom came out to see him mount. From the appearance of the former, it was plain that she considered the cere mony essential to save her from hard labor on the roads, in accordance with the penalties prescribed by the new code of laws for those who loved out side of legal ties. There was a freshness in my new life that de lighted me. J was ever on foot or horseback, mak- CHRISTIANITY AND THE POLYNESIAN. 183 ing excursions to different parts of the island, from no other motive than love for the picturesque and grand scenery with which it was filled. There was also abundance of feathered game. The natives ever welcomed me to their softest mats and best dishes, of which I partook with a relish such as only a vagabond life can give. One elderly female chief, who once ranked as queen of the island, but now, through political changes, and the loss of her hus band, who had been forcibly appropriated by a more powerful member of the reigning dynasty, was reduced in rank, took such a fancy to me as to call me her son. She lived in a beautiful spot, on the sea-side, whence a river led inland to a noble water-fall, fine plains and groves, that looked more like park-scenery than the wild work of nature. To be rapidly paddled up this stream in her state-canoe, with the rude chants of its muscular crew resound ing amid its winding fertile banks, rich in tropical fruits and flowers, and melodious with the songs of birds ; a cloudless sky overhead, and cool retreats on every side ; the senses luxuriating in Nature s har mony of sound, color, and sight ; a limpid stream, beneath, from which the startled fishes jumped, or wild fowl fled, was to me, as I abandoned myself to the impulses of the scene, more a vision of a fairy land than a landscape of unpoetical earth. Never in after life have I enjoyed travelling as I then did the freedom of this beautiful wilderness. Whether camping out under the soft night sky, or swimming freshet-swollen rivers ; climbing preci pices, wandering up lovely valleys to forest-clad 184 HEART-EXPERIENCE. mountains, at times far away from human habitations, then descending to claim amid the groves of the table lands, or by the surf-lashed shore, the ever- ready welcome of native hospitality; no inns, and no lack of accommodations, with none of the trammels of civilization, and all the fascinations of a virgin scenery, my pulses quickened with renewed health and pleasure, and my mind grew peaceful and happy in Nature s embrace. This random life could not have been led except by the aid of mis sionary or other influence which the natives equally respected. Had I been known as an ordinary visitor, or under the ban of their teachers or chiefs, instead of a safety of person and property and a hospitality that was almost Arcadian, I should have been sub jected to all the annoyances which selfish, covetous, and thieving natures could inflict. No Italian fac- chini could have excelled their impudence and skill in extortion. This difference of characters, by a change of circumstances, arose from the hereditary loyalty of their natures. Their standard of morality was based, not upon a principle, but upon the wishes of their chiefs or teachers. The same peo ple who would carefully preserve and restore to its owners shipwrecked property, which they might appropriate without much risk of detection, because pleasing to the missionaries, or refrain from pilfer ing the individual they looked up to as their chief, would lie and steal, or commit any immorality, if they thought it pleasing to those above them, or if they owed no loyal faith to their victims. Some CHRISTIANITY AND THE POLYNESIAN. 185 few individuals were able to comprehend a moral principle, but not the common class. The conflict ing accounts which we have of aboriginal Polynesian character, and its more recent phase under mission ary education, arise simply from whichever side the native sees fit to exhibit. His inclinations are low and sensual; his nature, kindly and mirthful; in his aboriginal condition he knows no higher prin ciple than blind loyalty to or fear of his superior ; he is apt to learn, but deficient in reason. I may as well here give the r suit of my final observations upon the capacity of the Polynesian races to undergo the Anglo-Saxon civilization with which commerce and religion have brought them in contact, as to postpone it further in my narration. The Polynesian character and temperament, like the native American, are the result of local conditions and circumstances ; one being as much the product of his sensuous climate and prolific soil, a^ the other is natural to a ruder nature and forest-life. Both fill a certain position in nature, which leaves no space untenanted with the highest degree of life its con ditions are capable of sustaining. Each had orig inated political and religious institutions, and a social system which, at the time white enterprise invaded them, had attained their fullest development, and were tending to decay. Nature, in bringing to them nobler and more complete forms of knowledge, proclaimed her immutable fiat receive or perish. The Indian refused to yield his hunter-life, and so he died. Benevolence, govermental care, lavish expend iture, all even that Christianity could offer, have 186 HEART-EXPERIENCE. failed to save him from a decay proportioned in rapidity to the needs of the white race for his lands. The axe and the arrow cannot exist contemporane ously ; nor can the wigwam withstand the superior claims of the farm-yard. As John Smith comes, Choctaw and Fijii-man go. Whether it were better that America should have remained a wilderness sparsely tenanted by roving savage tribes, or be filled with a dense population of a far superior in tellectual and moral development, redeeming nature from a barren waste to beautiful abodes of art, sci ence, and domestic life, each mind must decide, as the fact is viewed by it. Few, I think, will question the Divine wisdom in permitting such a result. The sensibility which grieves over the change, losing sight of its final effects in sympathy for an effete race, is as morbid as the love which would compel the pain-consumed invalid to forego heaven for earth. Geology teaches that the successive changes un dergone by our globe have resulted in a progressive development of superior forms of animal -and vege table life out of the inferior. Analogy and history show that this law equally obtains in the various races of men. Reason, or soul, being the distin guishing feature between animal and human exist ence, we find it assumes forms or types of different degrees of intelligence and power. These constitute the diversified races of mankind. Each race is intimately connected by natural laws, through a series of gradations of life-forms, with the local con ditions amid which it originated. Each would seem to have a specific mission to fulfil in creation, with CHRISTIANITY AND THE POLYNESIAN. 187 powers adequate to the natural demand upon them growing out of these local conditions, and their relative positions in the scale of humanity. By no possible human wisdom or benevolence has it thus far been found that the powers or capacities of one human type can be transferred to another. Each is true to the Divine law that made them to differ. Therefore we may be sure that the degree of civil ization, including the reasoning and religious facul ties with the interior energies that give them activity, belonging to and developed among one race, cannot be transferred to another, any more than the physiological differences which equally separate them. What, then, follows ? Precisely those changes in nations which we see going on, despite all theories of human equality, or efforts of disinterested benev olence. The motive and act that would seek to elevate a Hottentot to the level of an> Anglo-Saxon blesses the latter, by extending his own civilization, and, as prayer blesses our faculties, makes his the more susceptible to their noblest impulses ; but it leaves the Hottentot still of the race of his fathers. As well may man seek to transform the grass of the prairie into the cedars of Lebanon, as to change any of the material and spiritual laws which govern his destiny. But what man desires to accomplish is gradually fulfilled, in a somewhat different manner from his own short-sighted efforts, by the all-direct ing will of Providence. Without the grass the cedar could not exist ; so, without the gradual development of the various 188 HEART-EXPERIENCE. types of mankind, the white, or noblest race we yet know, could not have had a being. The weaker and inferior are the forerunners of the stronger and superior, just as the varieties of one class of men give way before the greater activity and intelligence of another offshoot of the same race, after the institutions and forms of thought the former have given birth to have completed their natural cycle of growth, and tend to decay. In this case, however, the race does not cease to exist. It changes its external conditions, replacing effete ideas and old shapes by fresh thought and new forms. Thus, a branch of one race may overrun a kindred people, and the result is always a fusion of the two, with, perhaps, a temporary intellectual palsy, to be succeeded by renewed activity. The nations of Europe are to us the most prominent examples of this law of race. Each one, in turn, has suffered from its neighbors invasions and desolations, which, if poured out to the same extent by any one of them upon an inferior race, would have completely extinguished it. On the contrary, England, Ger many, and France, have from rude savages ripened into the most powerful civilizations, amid the press ure of foreign and intestine war. It may be con sidered as a law of race, that like may change but cannot destroy like. Under such conditions, it is simply action and reaction, causing progressive development of the species. But when the superior is forced to contest life with the inferior race, or seeks to impose its own degree of civilization and ripened thought upon the weaker, whether by force CHRISTIANITY AND THE POLYNESIAN. 189 of arms, commerce, or religion, one of two conse quences must happen. Either servitude, like that of the African, who is preserved in contact with the white race upon the principle of domestic animals, through the care and wants of their owners ; or, ex tinguishment, as is the fate of the North American Indian, whose nature, akin to the wild beasts of his forest, causes him to perish rather than be tamed to industry by the will of another. It might appear, at first glance, that the negro proved the contrary. But his fate and condition when in contact with free white labor demonstrate his utter incapacity to live in competition with it. He exists nowhere in free white communities, either in Europe or America, except casually, and more or less in the character of a dependant. Unlike many of the German and Irish peasantry, who arrive in America in a state of degradation and ignorance that scarcely removes them from the level of brutes, but who speedily rise above both, through the influ ences of free institutions, originated by a kindred race, the negro either clings to his dependence, imitating, but not improving, what he sees, or passes hopelessly away from a field for which Nature has unfitted him. Short-sighted individuals attribute this inferiority to the .white prejudice against his color, oblivious to Nature s fact, that this color is the livery of inferiority put upon him by God himself. The negro is of an inferior race in every point of view to the white. No theory of equality or actual personal freedom, whether under the African 190 HEART-EXPERIENCE. sun or amid the snows of Canada, will enable him to compete with the dominant blood. Nevertheless, he has his mission, and it will be found that Provi dence has apportioned his faculties and consequent happiness to the part he has to fulfil in the history of human beings. His lot, whether in or out of slavery, considering his capacities and desires, does not contrast unfavorably with the masses of white population in Europe. But, if he live among the whites, it must be as a dependent being. As a slave, his existence is insured ; as a free-man, it is precarious and unfavorable. But the white race owe it to their own moral and physical progress to get rid of slavery. It blights them by bringing them in close relations with moral and intellectual inferiority ; brands manual industry as disgraceful, and adds the vices of the black to the white man. Free the slave, and put him in competition with intelligent white labor, and he gradually perishes. It seems impossible to reconcile their joint existence and prosperity, either on the phase of equality or bondage. Yet, it is only through the latter that the negro has learned anything of Christianity or civilization. But of one inexorable fact both he and his white friend must rest assured : namely, that, unless the capacity to exist alongside the white race, coequal and self-dependent, exists from within himself, no effort of other human wills can place it there. Were the African race annihilated to-day, in a short time its existence on the earth would be as much forgotten as is that of megatheriums and ante diluvian sloths. Not a single thought bearing on CHRISTIANITY AND THE POLYNESIAN. 191 human progress has been born of them. Not one monument of art or science would they leave be hind. In short, nothing would recall their memory but the temporary want of their labor. The Polynesian is almost in a similar category. He is, however, a superior development to the negro. Without his geographical advantages, or contact with white intelligence, he had made greater progress in his aboriginal condition. Having no metals, living in petty, isolated communities, with a very limited animal, mineral, and vegetable king dom on his soil, he yet surprised the white navi gators, on his discovery, by his mechanical skill, his nautical courage, and his social institutions. In his own way, he was as little fitted to be a slave as the North American Indian. At the same time, he had more powers of resistance to offer to the pressure of the white race. But, were he to disappear from earth, his memory, so far as it depended upon his own developments, would soon be as much a blank as is that of the Caribs of the West Indies. Nothing would be saved from the wreck of his being, except through the arts and efforts of a foreign race. Never has there been a more favorable opportu nity of testing the capacity for civilization of an inferior race than at the Hawaiian Islands. Com merce, governments, public and private philanthropy, have all united to elevate them to the Anglo-Saxon standard. Direct .adverse influences have been cas ual, and comparatively unimportant. Their soil has been respected, their independence guaranteed ; the number of white settlers at any time has not been 192 HEART-EXPERIENCE. more than sufficient to reasonably stimulate their industry, and give them examples of foreign thrift and enterprise. More than one and a half millions of dollars have been directly expended in efforts to Christianize them, by one religious denomination in America alone. Hundreds of individuals have en gaged with zeal in what appeared so promising of success. Books, free schools, churches, domestic comforts, all that trade can bring to their shores ; the best of political institutions, good and just laws, honest and capable foreign officials, a free press ; new races of domestic animals and varieties of fruit, vegetables, and profitable plants for culture ; food abundant and cheap; in short, everything which white philanthropy and even selfish interests could devise, including premiums for industry, orderly households, increase of families, and useful enter prises, have all been tried, to save the Hawaiians, and establish them as a free and prosperous nation. Yet they have gone with increasing rapidity on the road to extinction from the hour the first white man settled among them, establishing most fully the fact that the organization God has created for one spe cies of development is radically unfitted to receive another. The pint measure will not contain a quart by any amount of pressure, but must be burst in the attempt. So it has proved with this race. Civilization and Christianity are indeed established on these shores ; but they are exotics, and flourish only through the unrelaxing efforts of those that brought them. The capacities which the aborigines manifested in their CHRISTIANITY AND THE POLYNESIAN. 193 native state have been transferred to the inferior conditions of civilization. As sailors, domestics, petty farmers, and fishermen, and to a very limited extent as mechanics and pedlers, they continue to exist ; but their indolence and want of forethought are proverbial. Even the highest classes, when not under direct foreign influence, quickly relax to a semi-torpid mental state, seemingly with little ambi tion even of gain. The vices of civilized life are most congenial to the natures of all. Its virtues re quire constant fostering to be kept alive. Their physical systems fall an easy prey to the new dis eases introduced among them. Child-bearing is the exception and barrenness the rule of their women. Even when the race becomes mixed, it is found that the half-castes have little or no generative power. Everything manifests a people rapidly dying out, while the increase of the whites is proportionately as great. It is melancholy to know thi^s of the for mer. The Hawaiians have received from the whites all the aid that the highest intellect and most devoted philanthropy could bring them for their preserva tion. These gifts have been fatal. In return, they are leaving the whites their graves.* * The population, which Captain Cook, in 1779, loosely estimated at 400,000, in 1836 had dwindled to 108,579. Since that period they have further diminished to about 75,000. In 1847 twenty of the noblest and most civilized Hawaiian families numbered among them but nineteen children in all. Of eighty married women, of the most correct habits, but thirty-nine had been mothers. At, the present rate of annual decrease, the nation will become virtually extinct in the year 1900. Contrasted with this fatality, on the same soil and under similar influences, is the extraordinary fertility of white women. Nine of the American mission ary families numbered, in 1847, fifty-nine children. The increase of the 17 194 HEART-EXPERIENCE. Neither do the Society Islands, New Zealand, nor Australia, show different results. Wherever com merce, missionaries, or white settlers, have appeared, the native population has commenced rapidly to dis appear. It retains its prolific energies only in an isolated, independent state. It is the instinct of self-preservation which diq- tates to the mongrel races in the great empires of China and Japan their policy of excluding Europe ans from their shores. Let them but once obtain a foothold, and, as certain as is the law of gravity, will be, first, the loss of their independence, and, second ly, as the pressure of the superior race is brought directly and abundantly to bear among their people, their gradual supplanting and extinction. The nearer the capacities and civilization of a rival race approach those of the whites, the slower will be their absorption. The law seems to be this. A fusion of similar stocks, whether by wars and revo lutions, as has often occurred in Europe, or by em igration, as in America, re invigorates and extends the civilization of the race. On the contrary, con tact of dissimilar races terminates in the subjection and destruction of the inferior organization by the superior. We call it death, and mourn over it. But all death is the operation of a wise principle, which transforms lower to higher life. The white or Cau casian variety of mankind is rapidly extending its conquests over the globe. No higher types of its whole by birth, in less than one generation, was 175 per cent. At a simi lar rate of increase, their descendants within a century would number 50,535 souls. CHRISTIANITY AND THE POLYNESIAN. 195 thought and intelligence exist now than in its primary being. The intellectual capacity of a Plato or a Pythagoras has not as yet been exceeded. We may conclude, therefore, that while the measure and knowledge of the leading minds are slowly becoming the standard of the general mind, by the diffusive and expansive effects of the civilization they origin ate, the original mental force remains in degree as it first appeared on earth. Further, judging from the subtle analogy between causes and effects, it seems to me that in the present material conditions of this globe, it is incapable of sustaining a superior race. To do this, it must develop new forms of ma terial life, to correspond with more refined physical and mental organizations. And this it is not likely to do, until we convince nature, by our wise appre hension and use of her present gifts, that we are deserving of nobler. CHAPTER XXII. MY "BUSINESS" SUCCESS. THE convictions given in the previous chapter, relative to the different races of men. were the result of years of intimate experience with some of them. Contrary as they were to my theories and wishes, for to demonstrate the capacity of the Polynesians for civilization was my pet youthful hobby, it was with pain that I perceived the actual truth. Before this happened, however, I took an active part, under the stimulus of my youthful enthusiasm, in the efforts made by older and wiser heads to lend them a helping hand towards the arts of civilized life. My uncle found me a willing listener to all his practical plans for the improvement of the people. The invoice my father gave me put me in funds. Part was sold for cash at Lilibolu, and part bartered by myself directly among the natives, for objects which seemed valuable in my eyes, but which my father, as will be seen by his letter to me, did not consider by any means as a paying remittance. Upon the receipt of them, he wrote me as fol lows: MY " BUSINESS 77 SUCCESS. 197 "DEAR SON: The cases, with your letter, have come duly to hand. Your mother insisted upon opening them at the house. The stench from the box of shells, owing to their being packed before they were sufficiently cleaned, caused her a faint turn. So far from their being worth a great sum (the orange cowries you quote at fifty dollars each, and chitons, murexes, volutes, helices, and other shells which, as you have not labelled them, I can not tell apart, at corresponding prices), there is no demand in our market for such articles, except as gifts for curiosity hunters. I sent them all, as a present, in your name, to the Natural History So ciety. In return, they have enclosed to me for you a diploma as an honorable and corresponding mem ber, and beg you to send them more, but to be very particular in packing and labelling their localities. I hope this return will be as satisfactory as your remittance was to me. , " You say the natives call you po kanaka/ the skull-man, from your zeal in collecting human cra nia. I want no better proof of the want of brains in your own skull, in sending me twenty of them in voiced as costing you three dollars apiece in barter. Why, at that rate, you will tempt the savages to kill each other to sell you their filthy heads ! I gave them to a phrenological lecturer, who went into ecstasies when he found they were not to be paid for. He sends you a free pass to his lectures, and an offer at all times to finger your bumps gratis. "The human-hair bracelets, whale s-teeth orna ments, straw mats, shark s-teeth sword, etc., are all 17* 198 HEART-EXPERIENCE. very curious, and much prized by the Missionary Society, to whose museum I sent them, particularly the big calabash-drum and the idol with red feathers, which is the ugliest little devil conceivable, and attracts a crowd of old-maid admirers, but fright ens the babies into fits. The committee have very generously put your name as the donor on all these articles, as the only suitable return. " I cannot recommend you to repeat the ship ment. There is a charge of forty-three dollars sixty-one cents freight, which I have passed to your debit. Hoping something more satisfactory from the balance of the invoice in your hands, " I am your affectionate father, " ROBERT BULLION." This mixture of irony and fun, so characteristic of the writer, was like cayenne pepper in my mouth ; for I had become ambitious of gaming money, and really believed my collection of curiosities, judging from the prices I had often paid in earlier days, would be the commencement of my fortune. It is not an uncommon mistake to fancy what we highly prize ourselves is equally prized by others. A few similar experiences soon taught me that there was a wide gulf between my tastes and a moneyed divi dend therefrom. My mother s letter partly con soled me. " My dearest Lanie," she wrote, " I was delighted to hear of your returning health, and all the interest ing excursions you had made. Pray be careful, and MY "BUSINESS" SUCCESS. 199 not overdo your strength. The shells you sent were really beautiful. I selected a few for the mantel-piece of my little library, where everybody admires them. It delights me to have my friends thus reminded of you, and to hear their kind in quiries and predictions that you will one day dis tinguish yourself. I care not for that, if you only continue pure and good. But how could you send home those horrid skulls? They reminded me so of the one you cooked in the iron-pot that I very nigh fainted. Your father seemed both vexed and amused. He cleared everything out of the house at once, saying he feared you would never make anything. You must try, my dear child, to please him, as his real anxiety is that you become a use ful and respectable man. I miss you more and more each day, you were so much of a com panion. Since your absence I have been out but seldom to the lectures and concerts that gave us so much pleasure ; yet I am always glad to go, as you seem nearer than ever to me on such occasions, but nearest of all when I am alone in your room, which I still keep just as you left it. When I go into it, you are there visible before me, with your head brimful of projects, and your hands busy among your treasures, and your voice merrily ring ing in my ear. For a time I am very happy ; but when the naked reality comes home to my senses, my heart grows sad, and I go into my own room and pray God to bless you, and bring you back soon. Yet I am Avilling to wait until you are independent, if staying away will make you so ; for no lot in life 200 HEART-EXPERIENCE. is more painful to a generous, ambitious spirit than to be dependent. God bless you, Lanie, is the con stant prayer of your mother. " P. S. Your friend Jonathan came to see me, when he heard of the arrival of your boxes, and selected a few objects which he said were just the specimens he wanted for the cabinet of a friend. He hopes you will send him your journal, to read before a mutual improvement society, of which he is president. I don t think I am quite as strong as when you left, which reminds me that a half-century of life is nearly passed with me." I was eager to get letters from home, and yet dreaded to receive them, and always let them lie by me unopened for some time, to tranquillize my spirit. My mother s lively, familiar words, simple in expression, but deep in feeling, always appealed so strongly to my heart, that at times an agony of desire would come over me to abandon everything else, even my hopes of Constantia, and go to her. But these paroxysms soon subsided, and were re placed by a feeling that she was ever with me. I felt her love encircling and protecting me, as if it were a living angel, and in great degree ceased to realize our separation. This delicious conscious ness of her presence, with the perfect repose I had in her affection, banished in a great degree the sense of loneliness, and amid social privations cheered and consoled me. Thank God, I am not the only son to whom a mother s love has been a pillar of light through the wilderness of life ! MY "BUSINESS" SUCCESS. 201 My uncle suggested a use for the remaining funds of my invoice which delighted me. He had ascer tained that the mulberry-tree flourished on his island, and that led him to propose to me to start a silk plantation. He had already imported some silk-worms, and fed them by way of experiment. They produced beautiful cocoons, and the natives were greatly pleased with the novel labor of feed ing the worms. Wages were but nominal, and paid mostly in flints, needles, and calicoes. He had taught a few girls to reel the silk. Everything, therefore, seemed to promise success. The land was readily obtained of the chief, at a high rent, however. I built a straw cottage, which I called the Hermitage, on a spot commanding an extensive view of land and ocean. It was most pictur esquely situated, somewhat remote from other houses, to be sure, and not as convenient as it might have been for overlooking my laborers, but the prospect was unexceptionable. In my mind s eye, I already saw rising around me a village occu pied with an industrious and civilized population, schools and churches erected from the profits of the raw silk, roads laid out, and the whole country smiling as a garden of tulips, with myself the moving spirit. It was a pretty day-dream of min gled benevolence and riches. I considered my own wealth sure, and Constantia as already the Eve of my paradise. Had it all been realized, the en joyment could not have equalled my anticipation, and the enthusiasm with which I went to work. Do not smile, dear reader ! The figures we could 202 HEART-EXPERIENCE. have shown you would have tempted even you to take an interest in the speculation at a premium. Indeed, I had offers, but the most tempting profit would not have sufficed to induce me to forego my personal participation in our projected union of wealth and philanthropy. The mulberry throve admirably on my plantation. The produce of leaves to a tree within a few months was marvellous. By weighing a certain number, we were able to tell the average crop per acre. I planted nearly three hundred acres. The number of worms these would feed was easily ascertained, as well as the amount of cocoons for a pound of raw-silk, and the time required in its reeling. In short, that twice two are four is not clearer mathematically than that we* could produce a superior quality of silk at a cost that would leave a net profit of not less than two hundred per cent. Accordingly, I prepared every thing on a grand scale. The result was a complete failure. A blight ruined my trees just as their leaves were the most wanted ; consequently, the worms were all starved. The natives were not at all impressed with the advan tages of systematic labor, and thwarted my zeal in their behalf in every possible way that indolence and selfish cunning could devise. In short, my second enterprise vised up my remaining funds, and the only return I had to make my father was some fine sam ples of raw-silk, the sale of which sufficed to pay the freight on my boxes of shells. CHAPTER XXIII. SKIP THIS; TIS TOO DRY. IF my object were simply an entertaining or dra matic tale, it would be by this time as much a failure as my silk speculation. On the contrary, I have noth ing to relate but what has or might have happened to any other son of woman. Indeed, I do not wish to make a story, but to point a moral. If, therefore, my narrative is like a Jacob s coat in coloring, some what varied and spotty, believe me it is intentional. Nothing is easier than to picture externals, to relate facts, to exhibit symbolic life. The craft and object of common novels are to show how the hero looked and acted. I would rather show how he felt and thought; developing the progress of a character, instead of a mere puppet of flesh and bones, set in motion by pen-wires. I shall suffer for this in your estimation, respected reader, I am well aware ; inasmuch as the objective, whether in religion, e very-day life, or literature, is more entertaining and intelligible than the subject ive. In seeking to blend the two, so as to show how the idea became a fact, and the fact the seed of a new thought, and all combined to work out the prob- 204 HEART-EXPERIENCE. lem of my human existence, I am attempting what is at once the possibility and impossibility of all art. Words are as feeble and uncertain, in expressing ideas, as are tools and material in rendering the entire thought of the sculptor. Artist and author suffer from a two-fold cause. First, as above, in the en deavor to compress spirit into language, or shape it into matter ; the most successful of which attempts cannot be more than a suggestion, for God alone is the creator, and man the imitator. Secondly, because neither artist nor author and, with reverence, I add God himself can put into another mind more than its given capacity. Every thought received is not only limited to the intelligence of the receiver, but is made to partake of the hues already there fixed ; consequently, every man sees only with his own eyes, and weighs everything in his own scales. He who gives another too little is niggardly ; if he give too much, he is unintelligible ; and, worse than either, if his gift be riot agreeably presented, he is quietly told that he is a bore, and sent to Coventry. As, however, no two minds are alike, so truth never presents itself in precisely the same shape and quantity to different individuals. Each human being has open to him an exhaustless fountain, from which he can drink his own fill, if not frightened by his reflected image. Everywhere in life he must see for himself. From wall and water, above and below, out of earth and sky, appear likeness and shadow. Be not startled, for they are witnesses of light and life. Truth and companionship ever encircle us. It depends upon ourselves to welcome them. This SKIP THIS; TIS TOO DRY. 205 knowledge comforts me. The same elements which nourish my soul have an affinity for all souls. I will not be frightened at my own nor another s shadow ; but will go on, unbosoming myself to the light, and haply off my mind s growth leaves may fall, which, decayed and useless to me, may help to ripen fruit to another. "Words and seeds dropped by the way side are the waifs of Providence. If every one at all times uttered, acted, or shaped, the best of that which is within himself or herself, with reference only to its being his or her best coin, given to help the weaker or to attract strength from the stronger, the moral and intellectual progress of the world would go on like a steam-express. But we are afraid to show ourselves as wo are to our fellow-men, or to reason with God. Selfishness, in dolence, and cowardice, make men mean, sensual, and timid. What gold can purchase, and not what spirit can know, becomes the life-object. If the external senses thus triumph, there is a cause equal to the effect ? What is this cause ? Behold one vital question. This solved, what next ? Are men and earth final ? Is life the begin ning and end ? Is death the worm that changes us back to dust, making us the phantoms of an hour, hopelessly bound to the soiled and creaking wheels of time ? Are we governed by Chance, Evil, or Good ? To what destiny is Is ? Why do we toil, to win disappointment ? Why do we love, to become miserable ? Why do we live, to ache? Why do we think, to find that thought recoils 18 206 HEART-EXPERIENCE. upon itself, faint and imbecile ? Why do we seek knowledge, to know that we are captives to igno rance ? Why, having learned all our brains can bear, do we piteously cry, " Help, Lord, our unbe lief " ? Why are we within this circle of matter at all? Tell me why ignorance is worse than crime. Nay, start not ! Look into the past, read the present, and you will see that uninformed understandings, rather than depraved wills, most oppress humanity. Tell me the object of crime. It exists, and must have a mission. So must disease, falsehood, and nature s disasters. You, as well as I, have struggled to solve these problems. Sooner or later each soul must, by sound ing their depths, get a foundation from which to rise. How far down are you, my brother ? How much have you suffered, my sister? May we not all mount together ? Hark ! hear ye not those mournful cries ? A wailing of many voices reaches my ears. There is no future ; there is no God ! Pleasure, pain, Earth ! we love and hate ye ! Cries and shouts, fierce threatenings, revellings upon the soul s scaffold, laughter that makes me weep, and sighs that make me rejoice, I hear ! An infant smiles, and, like a sen sitive bud touched by the world s frost, throws up its little arms despairingly to its mother, and is gone. She weeps big drops of sorrow. A father is borne prematurely to the grave by a son s ingratitude. His industry now feeds harlots, and enriches the gambler. Another parent s avarice SKIP THIS; TIS TOO DRY. 207 crushes the soul of his child, whose starved mind recoils to vice, as virtue in contrast with home s lessons. He dies a felon, and the parent a maniac. What made each Society s enemy ? I see a beauteous woman, a mother, with wealth, impulses instinctively good, the child of piety, the object of unnumbered prayers and the fondest parental devotion, loved by man as women seldom are loved, yet false to every domestic virtue, living the life of vanity and licentiousness, amid divine light, and upbraiding God for her own ac tions. " If there be a God," says she, " I will accuse him of injustice at his very throne ! Why did he make me ? " Awful words, but true. I have heard such. But why continue the picture ? Each reader can frame his own problem of being, from his heart s ex perience. I shall continue mine, mosaic-like, not after the Roman fashion, from an innumerable vari ety of artificial colors, but more as the Florentine works big pieces of natural stones inlaid upon a broad surface, here a bit and there a bit of life s doings, as a text for my thoughts. I must go on, alone, if need be, but I must go on. And yet my disappointment an author s disappointment, mark ! may be the greatest of all. For what recoil of life is more crushing than to find that its heart-beats and soul-flow have been made the butt of scoffers, the target of ridicule, or the jest of indifference ? Bad as this may be, it were still worse to be wholly unread. I con fess to this fear ; but, understood or not, there 208 HEART-EXPERIENCE. is a haven of hope and repose as well for the writer as the reader. Where and what that haven is, if time and strength permit, I shall try to show in the final dissection of life s fitful Doing and Desire. CHAPTER XXIV. DRIER STILL OH ! RESUSCITATION of life after any manner is full of pain. The spirit, so nigh free, resists being recalled ; and it is only through gaspings, convulsions, and throes, it submits to fleshly rehabitation. So, when our mental eyes are suddenly opened by harsh ex perience, the burning glare of disappointment con fuses and vexes our souls. We desire to escape out of the anxious, hard actual, into the spiritual of our nature ; and it is with repining we learn that the only road to the latter runs through the former. The knowledge that precedes wisdom is the plough that prepares the soil for the harvest. Each one of us is an Adam. We walk through an Eden of our own, in happy unconsciousness, until a chance-bitten apple drives us out. While impulses sway reason, new paradises are quickly found, each more beautiful and permanent than the last, until repeated exiles teach us not to cry for the moon. No man can resolve all questions of life for an other. Each in finding his own way may guide his brother somewhat, but there are as many different roads to truth as there are souls. Yet truth is a 18* 210 HEART-EXPERIENCE. unit. The darkening of mind which attends each baffled effort is the index of a brave, earnest spirit ; the beginning of the determination to win, just as the consciousness of evil implies the possibility of good. Man s " Golden Age " was automatic. His happiness was that of ignorance. Without will, he was without responsibility ; without knowledge, he was without wisdom, and differed from brutes only in form and speech. Expulsion from Paradise awoke the instincts of a man. Why, then, should we regret that the gates of our Edens are successively closed upon us ? We go forth to labor for something higher and better. But each blessing awaits its legitimate turn. If we lag, Nature benumbs our faculties ; if we over-press her, like a mule she throws us, and we gather cunning amid mud and kicks. How are we to find our way, and moderate our speed ? Exactly by losing it, and being upset. The first man had his choice between the instinct of an animal sinless and soulless, and the free-will of a human being. He chose the latter. For one, I thank him for it. Through tribulation, oppression, melancholy, soreness, and ignorance, we are slowly but surely asserting our birthrights. Courage, therefore ! I had need of courage, after two such failures as I had made. I had sought knowledge, and became blind ; I sought independ ence, and became dependent. Neither aim was based on selfishness. In both my desire was to extend good. In what consisted my wrong? Young as I then was, my reason could not answer this question. I DRIER STILL OH ! 211 had ploughed, dunged, and planted. I had obeyed every possible law of material and moral success within my consciousness. Why, therefore, should a contemptible insect or degraded savage have power to ruin me? In the golden age of youth, we talk with gods. Our impulses aspire to divine things. We would be gods, receiving and diffusing happiness, and creating worlds at will. These are the efforts of the unfledged bird to fly. They proclaim our relation to divinity, but at the same time our feebleness ; for, were we what we wish to be, wiU and fruition would be one. Labor and experience are the parents of knowl edge. Work, progression, are the guide-boards of heaven. But it does not suffice simply to work. We must take each step in its appointed course. Disappointments, diseases, and evils, are the senti nels which watch over the celestial road. Youth is perplexed between aspirations and necessities. If enthusiastic and generous, it ideal izes the world, seeks to fly, and tumbles momentarily into a ditch ; if sordid and selfish, it makes no effort to soar, but contentedly crawls in safety upon the earth. Yet we must learn to stand before we walk, and to walk before we can fly. Far better is it to tumble in efforts to mount, than to creep unbruised, with eyes forever fixed on the dirt. I had attempted too much. My standard was too high, compared with the wants of those with whom I had to deal. Besides, I had had no experience of the vicissitudes of agriculture. Consequently I failed. The satisfaction of having attempted a use- 212 HEART-EXPERIENCE. ful work was all that was left me ; yet not all, for I had learned that no intentions, however praise worthy, can insure success, unless in obedience to providential laws. Swine no more appreciate pearls in the nineteenth century than in the first. A well-filled swill-pail would have made them far more tractable, and me rich. I was now just enough advanced in worldly expe rience to discover that my first step for progress, whether in my affections or mind, must be through supplies to my body. Money, therefore, represented not only food, raiment, and health, but love and intellect. To be without it would be like being without lungs. Keason was but a chairman of a committee of ways and means. To every aspiring mind there is something degrading in the discovery of the omnipotence of money. The necessity of earning it as the basis of life, wilts and paralyzes the spirit. We would be free from all hunger and thirst, except the hunger and thirst after righteous ness. As we go on and open our eyes to its in fluence over mind, we are still further dismayed at the prospect. What ! so much labor to earn the wherewithal to clothe and feed us ? Art, science, progress of all kinds, moral and political freedom, even religion, depending upon the time and means money yields ! Even so. Money is the great representative of exchanges, whether of good or evil. It is the social paradox ; at once the revivifier and corrupter of society ; a Providence or a Satan, as we will its use. Without it, I am blind, deaf, dumb. With it, I may DRIER STILL OH ! 213 be equally so. Its character is protean, like its pos sessors ! The magnet of matter, all things turn towards it. Power like this must be legitimate. Whence is it? Its father is Commerce. Man s first step towards civilization is through force. Like an infant, he obeys his impulses, strikes, seizes, and gets. Thence War, the consolidator of families into nations. Con quests beget peace. As the mental scope is en larged, need and desire become wider and more active, but less ferocious. We now reach the second steps of man s progress, namely, Commerce. Its active principle is the same at foundation as that of war. Whatever advantages follow in its train, in bringing the human family into familiar and peaceful relationship, diffusing wealth, and redeeming the world from a wilderness to a garden, its basis is selfish and separate acquisition. Consequently, it is but an elementary and inferior agent in civiliza tion, and from it necessarily arises a host of evils, second only in degree to those of mere force. As it administers chiefly to the external man, it has a sensual, luxurious, covetous, and corrupting tend ency, but it elevates him from worse conditions. Born directly of material wants, it must continue the dominant principle of life, everywhere active by its agent, money, until men pass through their present stage of progress, and attain a more elevated and less partial standard of action, founded upon the development of still superior faculties of their nature. At present the watchword of society is property. This, in time, will be superseded by a 214 HEART-EXPERIENCE. more humanizing cry. As war and trade depreciate in human esteem as systems of universal action, their attendant evils will correspondingly de crease. What may succeed them as the social leaven, is -as yet a problem. But men have begun to discuss the abstract merits of the present means and ends of life, and to inquire earnestly for better. From out of their struggles will be evolved the great third element of progress. The antipathy of women and the young to trade is founded on a deep principle of human nature. With them it is a blind impulse. Reason, through experience, arrives at a similar result. Both youth ful feeling and adult wisdom are convinced, through two distinct mental operations, that something nobler and more satisfying must arrive, to appease their aspirations. If life exist simply as a final opportu nity to labor with hands, to supply bread to mouths, and clothes to backs, scanty to the many, and abun dant to the few, a transitory partial system of eating and drinking to hunger and thirst again, ending in a repetition of similar wants and vulgar necessities, perpetuated, through our means, to an indefinite series of human selves, ever turning but never ad vancing the wheel of humanity, without any innate consciousness, approved by reason, of something better in store, then indeed life is a mockery, and its author a fiend. But this is true in neither sense. If but one hu man being had been born to the appreciation of a nobler life, it would demonstrate the capacity of the entire race to ultimately solve it. You, dear reader, DRIER STILL OH ! 215 are that one. If you are not, I am, and my life is but a faint echo of the great whole. I abhorred business in a commercial sense. To be chained to that, was undergoing the fate of Prometheus. Yet, in one way or another, every human being must expiate his blind impulses on the rock of practical life. The contest between spirit and matter is, that each may have its just due. Through a har mony attainable only by constant warfare does nature soothe and elevate our souls. There are no first-class cars to heaven. Such are my present sentiments. But I did not then know that the road to success is often through defeat. The failure of my plantation left me in debt. Farewell, then, to any sudden realization of my union with Constantia ! I would not return home poor and dependent. I hated even to be in debted to my father. Money must be had, or I perish. Never before or since did I so realize its omnipotence. Its want made me a beggar to love, knowledge, independence, and benevolence. All that the soul holds dearest lay helpless at its feet. With the feelings I then possessed, I do not wonder that men with blasted hopes blaspheme, or become criminal, mistaking in their despair the servant for the master. In worshipping the golden calf, society perpetrates a fearful wrong on the weak and unin- structed. It is unnecessary to relate the steps by which I entered commercial life at Lilibolu, this time re solved to confine myself to legitimate money-making. The most difficult thing I ever attempted to master 216 HEART-EXPERIENCE. was Double and Single Entry ; the most revolting thing I ever attempted to do was to sell. In buy ing there is a pleasure, because it is in an inferior sense a species of creation. We pay, and things exist to us. In selling, we deprive another of what our impulse is rather to bestow than take, and as we gain so must the other lose. This is very unphilosophical in a mercantile sense. I know all about the doctrine of exchanges, but I never have got over a feeling of mortification in asking a return in money. Bargaining irritated me. But, to be successful, one must be self-possessed and sharp- witted. Fortunately, I was in a part of the world where trade was simple, and so profitable, being in few hands, as not to develop its meanest features. In four years I paid my debts and acquired a com petency. CHAPTER XXV. A NOTE ON THE MINOR KEY. A COLD mist lay over the water. Through it the shores were barely discernible, but their familiar outlines, dimly as I made them out, brought back my boyhood so vividly, that my long absence be came obliterated, and I was as one awakening from a dream. Yet more than six years had gone by since I had sailed down this harbor on my voyage to Polynesia. For ten months I had heard nothing from home. The gorgeous, fiery tropic, with its novel experiences, were all for the moment wiped off memory s sheet, while every early act and thought that connected me with those dear ones, whose welcome was so nigh, shone out like invisible ink before heat. It was in vain I strove to be calm. The vessel had become a cage, and minutes stretched out into hours. As the heavy chain at last rattled through the hawse-hole, I sprang over the side into a boat, and in a few minutes was on the wharf. My first impulse was to rush to my father s house ; but so many conflicting emotions beset me, that to quiet myself I concluded to walk slowly through the principal streets before meeting my mother. I saw 19 218 HEART-EXPERIENCE. many I knew, but no one recognized me. It was a strange pleasure; this knowing every one and everything, noting the most trivial changes in sign boards, and every alteration of house or individual, all things familiar, yet nothing precisely the same as it was six years before, without a glance of joy or curiosity in return. I might as well have been a spirit, so far as passing unobserved through all this busy life was concerned. It suited me. I wished simply to cross my father s threshold, walk into my mother s library, quietly take her hand, and, after one kiss, say, as if but a forenoon had elapsed since our meeting, " Good-morning, mother ; here I am again." What had been our separation ? Our hearts had been entwined, and whether our eyes greeted each other hourly, or but yearly, or even centuries intervened, we had never been apart. It was the intensity and depth of my love for her that made me so calm and assured in absence. The fever, which at first had set every nerve jumping with impatience, gradually changed into a soft melancholy. I began to feel a reluctance to go home, and too several unnecessary turns through the streets to protract my arrival. As I passed the church door which I had so often entered with my mother, I saw it was open, and heard from within the sound of the organ. This instrument possesses a sort of magnetic power over me. Its rich, super human tones lift me out of myself, and suggest a power and praise born more of the celestial spheres than man s mechanism. I went in, and took a seat near the door. The choir was chanting the com- A NOTE ON THE MINOR KEY. 219 forting words of John, " Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord : even so saith the spirit ; for they rest from their labors. 77 As they finished, and the minister rose, and began the Lord s Prayer, through the dim light from the stained glass windows, I could see near the altar a small group of mourners gathered around a coffin. A few stifled sobs faintly fell on my ear during the solemn pauses of the clergyman. All else was sadly calm and tranquilliz ing. The scene harmonized with my feelings, and I remained until the service was finished, but went out before the people stirred. On passing into the noisy, bustling streets, every thing appeared more unreal than before. I walked through them as if I were a shadow. Not a word nor sound reached my ears. My eyes, by some strange impression, felt as if drawn out of my head, by gazing into vacancy, in search of something un known to myself. How I found my father s door, I know not ; but when at last I got there, my exter nal senses appeared as if they did not belong to me, and were being used by some extraneous volition, while my mind was groping through cloud-land. There are some moments, I presume, in every one s life, when identity appears lost or paralyzed. The excitement I had undergone in my anticipated ar rival, with the eifort to soothe my nerves, joined to the impressive scene in the church, had thoroughly mystified me. I mechanically rang the bell, and, as the domestic opened the door, passed in. Everything looked precisely as it did the day I had left. Without say- 220 HEAET-EXPERIENCE. ing a word to the servant, a strange face, that suspiciously watched me, I hurried to my mother s little library, feeling sure to meet her there. He followed me, asking who I was, and what I wanted. I entered the room without answering him. On her table lay her writing-desk, opened, and as if lately in use ; her favorite books were spread about, after her usual manner ; the same prints were on the walls as when I left, including some of my early anti quarian collections ; and the only addition to her treasures that I saw was a crayon likeness of my self, which I had given her the day we parted, and the few shells she had selected from those I had sent home, and which were prettily arranged on the mantel-piece. I sat down in her chair in silence, waiting for her to appear. Again the man repeated his inquiries. I looked at him in amazement, not comprehending how I could thus be a stranger in my mother s room. At last, resenting his intrusion, I said, somewhat sternly, " Tell your mistress I am here ! " " My mistress, sir, died two days since, and is buried to-day." I felt it all the church my mother s funeral ! What ! was I not to see her face again? "It cannot be ! She is alive she must live ! Father in heaven, hast thou done this to me? Give me back my mother ! " I rose, staggered towards the door, fiercely intending to stop the funeral, and make them bring her home again. " Dead ! she is not dead ! Nay, nay ! It is but a dream ! where am I? Go, I say, and call her ! Do you not hear me ? A NOTE ON THE MINOR KEY. 221 Go, then ! help me ! She shall meet me here here where we parted! 0, God! call to them stop stop, I say ! " My brain suddenly became like lead, and I fell lifeless upon the floor. CHAPTER XXVI. TWO MOURNERS. MY father s roof sheltered two sincere mourners. But from what different aspects we viewed the dead ! Yet grief produced in each the same deportment. It separated us more than ever. We each suffered in silence, for neither of us would speak our feel ings. As for myself, so wholly did my mother seem to belong to me, that any attempt at soothing, or even an allusion to her, from any one, would have irritated me. My sad independence was fully re spected. The stern reserve of my father equally forbade any approach to him. My presence in some degree angered him, because it recalled a latent jealousy I had long ago remarked, arising from what he could not fail to feel, that in the lost one the mother had overpowered the wife in our mutual relations. With out willing it, therefore, the impulses and associa tions connected with me made him not exactly un friendly, but cold and repellent. So, in truth, both father and mother were gone from me. Surely it was no fault of mine that my mother found in my nature more to attract and develop hers TWO MOURNERS. 223 The law of affinities is as penetrating as light. Of their own volition, our souls, like water, ever seek to rise to their own level j and as their intuitions find repose or progress, so must they go. My father had lived a one-sided life, and now the truth began to break upon him that the only relation he had permitted had been that of duty. Faithfully had the departed one fulfilled this law. Never was a household more perfectly conducted than my mother s. Her husband s tastes and com forts had been so jealously provided for, that, for a while left without his ministering agent, he felt as helpless and strange as if suddenly translated to another sphere. Every want had been anticipated. If weary or ill, a devotion and tenderness, divine in its nature, because it could not be returned, surrounded him with a healing, soothing atmosphere. So constant had been this deportment, that he had come to view it as simply the natural result of the relation of wife to husband. He entered into no female society, and consequently knew nothing of womanhood in general. Thus it happened that only through deprivation did he realize the value of her he had lost as a partner in life. This loss was irreparable. The external relation ships, which alone he had admitted, being so sud denly withdrawn, he was left to mourn as one who could not be comforted. Where were now the warm slippers, the punctual meals, the silence, order, and neatness the subdued yet cheerful welcome that ever awaited him? Where were the hands that put each shirt ready and faultless at his bedside ; that 224 HEART-EXPERIENCE. left neither rents nor lack of buttons, to vex him ? Where was she who knew his weaknesses but to disguise them, and his virtues but to exaggerate them ? Where was that quiet presence that listened when he talked ; that active mind that gathered the pleasant daily chit-chat to amuse him when the news paper failed? She who was silent if that mood most pleased him. but could join in the infective laugh and hearty joke at his unbending. Where, indeed, was his domestic providence ? Ah, where ? Poor man ! he had lived on these vir tues of another as his own of right ; and, when taken from him, he realized his own nakedness. Well may he grieve ! Business men, reflect ! The woman-partner of your household is, in truth, an active partner in your commerce. Without her duti ful care to smooth your path, how could you go out to win the golden goal ? Without her welcome to soothe and rest your over-anxious minds, how could you return reinvigo rated to your daily conflicts ? Does not such an one earn something more than board and lodging ? If your pride, or avarice, will not permit her to finger the profits, as much hers as yours, give her roofed life, at the least, confidence, sympathy, and the daily news. My clientage is indeed not large, though a sad one. But of such is the kingdom of heaven. Through such we realize a bit of heaven on earth. All honor, therefore, to those noble souls, who, shipwrecked in love, cleave the more firmly to duty ! A more earnestly disinterested woman than my mother I never have seen. A De Stael, through TWO MOURNERS. 225 intellect, wins fame and influence. But, could my mother s reputation have been measured by the kind words she had spoken in season to humble human ity ; by the never-ending practical charities, by the hearts she had cheered, the minds she had en couraged ; by the purity of her motives, the lofti ness of her self-sacrificing principles, and her divine trust, it would be found that a soul like hers, too refined to bear the coarse imprint of the world, makes a deep impression in heaven. People had wondered why the wife of so rich a man dressed so plainly ; why all her personal ex penses were on so economical a scale. After her death, her accounts showed that every dollar she received from my father, not absolutely necessary to her decent appearance, had been given away to those whose needs the world could seldom know or sus pect. How often have I seen her grieve over her limited means, and plan to do without something herself to aid another ! Her charities were aimed as much at elevating heart and mind as in clothing or feeding the body ; so that good books and sympathy in all that was hopeful, refined, and cheering, she dispensed as freely as she did money. Yet she was a woman of many tears. There were disappoint ments in her life, which, in imparting moral instruc tion to me, she had vaguely hinted at, that told me, if she had subdued herself to duty, it had been through agony of spirit. Her placidity was the quiet of fathomless water. Every life has its ro mance, either of passion or denial. Hers was the last. The only anger she ever manifested was in 226 HEART-EXPERIENCE. scornful reproach at selfish acquisitiveness. Will not the recording angel s tear blot out the hasty word for this ? Mine drops as I recall her indignant protests at meanness of soul. All that she had to leave me, that she could call wholly her own, was some of her hair, in a plain mourning pin, intermixed with a flaxen curl taken from my head when I was an infant. This was enough. If my father felt that she had been taken away, I, in time, grew to feel that she could never be taken from me. The same sympathetic presence that had ever been with me when away from home came r.gain to me from her new home, and was of and in me a something that was never to be separated from my being. Feeling what I could not impart, the consolation of words would have been a mock ery. Nevertheless, I missed her much-loved form as only a son can miss such a mother on earth. How often is it thoughtlessly said that we forget the dead as soon as the sod covers them ! The dead are more likely to forget us. We look upward towards them ; they, we trust, are looking upward still. Though it be from us, their gaze is toward eternal joy. CHAPTER XXYII. LOVE FLIES OFF. TURN we from one love to another. Possessing no one but my mother and Constantia in whom to repose my affections, they were concentred on them with great intensity. After the death of the for mer, I turned more longingly than ever to the latter. I had not yet seen nor heard from her, and, in the first depths of my grief, scarcely took note that she had not written me. Indeed, as my arrival home could not have been anticipated, she was probably unaware of my return. As soon as possible I set out for her residence, without apprizing her by letter of my intention. The beauty of youthful love is its innocence and faith. We love then freely and naturally as wild- flowers grow, rooting our affections wherever a chance seed may have dropped, unconscious of and uncaring for the brambles and hungry birds that threaten its existence. While the nestling little plant lives, it is the more beautiful for blooming amid a wilderness. Its delicate petals and genuine fragrance greet us with a loveliness enhanced by contrast with the treacherous and rough nature 228 HEART-EXPERIENCE. amid which it has cast its lot. Old heads shake sagaciously and smile as they look on young hearts, and whisper, " What a pity it can t last ! " Your pity is not needed, gray-beards ! Doubt with you may be a virtue, because founded on experience, without which knowledge is hopeless. But the virtue of childhood, whether of individuals or nations, is faith ; that blind loyalty to inborn principles which incites to lofty aspirations and noble actions. Before the chill of scepticism roots itself in the mind, we follow our hopes as free and happy of wing as the singing lark ; and, like that bird, rejoice ever in sunny skies. Our hearts are not yet attuned to the melody of the nightingale from out of its shadowy, moonlit haunts. The time must come when we shall learn there can be sweet and welcome harmony even out of sorrow and disappointment, as doubt, in prompting reason to greater efforts to arrive at truth, ultimately opens loftier sources of belief. But each in its turn. Let youth enjoy its instinctive action, for it is the seed time of life. Never was a trust in another more complete than mine in the faith of Constantia. The possibility that she could not love me as I did her no more entered my head than did any calculations of self- interest, or distrust as to our mutual fitness. With me love had become, during my absence, a genuine sentiment, centred on her, asking no questions, vexed with no doubts, a companion in solitude, a solace in affliction, and an inspiration for the suc cessful effort I had made to be in a position to claim Constantia as wife. So deep a hold had this ro- LOVE FLIES OFF. 229 mance of life upon pie, that I had intuitively avoid ed female society, not out of an exaggerated feeling of constancy, but simply because the affection I cher ished for her was all-sufficient for me. The more I sacrificed to my love, the more dear it became. Sep aration, temptation, unequal mental growth, different development of tastes and objects of life, jealousy or calumny, as causes sufficient to endanger my love-balloon, were as remote from my atmosphere as the furthest comet. How beautifully it soared aloft ! What a rich, picturesque view of life it gave me ! green meadows, sunny slopes, brilliant flowers ; birds, air, and water, uniting in one soft, dreamy melody ; all nature smiling as it reflected my hopes and happiness. Have you never gone up, dear reader, in such a balloon ? No ! Ah me ! you have lost one of life s prettiest pictures. Comforting and delicious is unquestioning belief. It is our promised paradise : love s first fruit, in fancy s joy, and reason s regret, Bitter, very bitter, is the Fall ; the mind s trial essay to know ; to walk through intellect. Yet love must pass this ordeal ; discipline its impulses, learn to know itself, another, and be accepted of reason, before it can be final. No copartnership in which all interests are not com mon can be enduring ; no union can last in which temperaments, affections, and minds, do not harmo niously blend. All others are but truces and com promises negotiated between relative evil and good. These truths were Eleusinian mysteries to me when I left home to rejoin Constantia. Some na tures require rough teachings. Wars, fightings, 20 230 HEART-EXPERIENCE. drunkenness, disease, and death, are their parables. Others find angels or demons, as their wills accredit them, in the pangs of the heart. My dis cipline began through troubles and disappointments, both of head and heart. Can love and wisdom ever be reconciled? Who shall paint the anguish of soul at faith s first falsehood when hopes, plans, and feelings, trust, beauty, and goodness, lie about you a confused and battered wreck? Out-doors, there is no warmth in the sun then ; the landscape is sere and yellow ; the sky weighs like lead upon your head ; every living object looks at you askant ; the very worm turns from you, as a poor, pitiable outcast, with whom nei ther brute nor stone can sympathize. They all find some joy in nature ; but to you it is a big big lie. In-doors, your calamity spreads a pall over book and picture. Night becomes day. Willingly would you exchange the bed for a coffin. Even the hearthstone is sad and cold. Thrust your hand into the fire, and it will not burn ; water will not drown; the destruction you court flies from you as from a thing abhorred ; colds, fevers, and famine, alike spare you ; the food you loathe mysteriously nour ishes your hated body; while the soul, recoiling upon itself, fiercely resents words of hope or conso lation, and clings to despair as its only garment. Death, the inevitable, we bow to. It may be, we fondly hope, the call of an angel to one or both of the parted. God s providence it surely is. But infidelity, treachery, change, in the being we love and trust, is, as we first view it, treason to virtue. LOVE FLIES OFF. 231 Our moral nature is tortured. Hence our resist ance, curses, and despair. But may not the disrup tions of love and friendship be, like the changes in the natural world, the result of an infallible law, which joins or divorces, to the intent of benefit at large, present or prospective ? When the same truth ceases to unite individuals, they must fly asunder like positive and negative electricity. If we leave our friends, may it not be because we cleave the more firmly to friendship ? Truth is dual. It unites and disunites. The separation we grieve over may be a disguised blessing ; one of God s messengers to tell us, " On, on ! a new epoch awaits you." Character influences character, as wind water. A breeze always in one direction disturbs its level. By counter gales its surface is kept in wholesome, varied agitation. So with individualism. Our feel ings and ideas get piled up too much in one direction, by contact solely with one set of mental and affec- tional influences. We come to halt; squint, and blink, as do our neighbors. It is necessary, therefore, at times, to give our loves and friendships an airing. We must each cling to our life-motives. The world is constantly changing its aspect alike to infant and man, and is true or false to both in the proportion of their respective faculties, and the directions of their wills. Persons must part, therefore, however painful the rent in affections, as the truth or desire of each calls them asunder. Interests, passions, thoughts, and wishes, are like the arms of the cuttle fish, that extend in every direction, ever swaying about in search of food. The instant they touch 232 HEART-EXPERIENCE. the object they close upon it, and it never quits their grasp until it has fulfilled its function. Each man, woman, and child, with like intuitive selfishness, seeks its own : but its own is digestible or indigesti ble by it only in proportion as it is capable of being assimilated by reason. Why fret ourselves because the form which clothed our idea of love or friend ship, one year, has changed its look to us, the next? Love and friendship are still imperishable. We must seek or, better, wait until we can attract our present necessity to ourselves in some other form. More wise, more glorious, more lasting, shall it be than the last, because we have outgrown our past selves, and demand more of the divine spirit. This will remain wedded to us no longer than wants and natures harmonize. "Treason, treason!" I hear from all sides. "What ! will you canonize inconsistency?" Yes, I reply, if in doing so I convince you that truth, whether of mind or heart, is dearer for its own sake than for the individual. I would be con stant only to its search, accepting it as it may choose to manifest itself to me. I am not its cre ator, but its object. We talk truly of the miseries of unrequited love. Miserable, wretched, tortured, woful, is that being who contests Nature s fiat. There is no despair equal to that of being will-bound to one who cannot love in return. Petitions to God or devotion to woman are as hopeless to create the magnetic flow of feeling we baptize love, where once it has been tried and found wanting, though for a while it burnt LOVE FLIES OFF. 233 like tinder, as is the polar sun to bring forth palms and honey from the everlasting snows of the north. We ache and writhe more from the heart-want of love and friendship themselves than from the loss of their mediums, and we hail as joyfully the forms that restore their balm to our souls as does the untutored Indian his sun s escape from an eclipse. Perpetuity of the passion, through substi tution of the medium, is the true panacea of a wounded spirit. I speak wisely on this point, for I have suffered as much as man can suffer and live, from the collapse of my love-balloon. Clinging frantically to its rent gauze, I fell to earth a maimed, bruised, pitiable mass, and there for years lay grovelling, helpless and forsaken, instinctively clutching at the parted ropes, alternating between fierce imprecations and convulsive prayers, in min gled despair and hope that the balloon would again fill with gas, and take me once more upward into celestial ether. I might have lain there until this time, had not reason and experience taught me what I have written. The purer the love, the sooner it seeks to free itself from every admixture which bends its face earthward. What all covet is most counterfeited. Be brave, then, and strip the false mask from your own face. Thus may you detect the lie in your neighbor s. True love aspires to the eternal; therefore nothing fleshly can forever hold it. While of time, it par takes of the imperfections of protean matter. The loftiest love is self-sustained j quietly bides its destiny, 20* 234 HEART-EXPERIENCE. sure in its final marriage. Where and when its mar riage, it submits to its Author, with its lamp con stantly burning, refusing to sell its future for present, short-lived profit. The loss, therefore, of a present object, however brought about, will be a gain, if we meekly and thoughtfully accept Nature s lesson. Depend upon it, no change occurs without a legitimate, sufficient cause. Jacob and Esau cannot dwell together under the same tent. The world is, however, wide enough for both. I should have begun this chapter with its ap propriate fact. It comes in as well, however, at its funeral. As I was walking from the railroad station towards Constantia s house, I saw a notice on the church door, and stopped to read it. It was the banns of marriage between Constantia Russell and Jonathan Plaster ! The same night found me under my father s roof. Not a word had escaped my lips. I flung myself on my knees in my mother s room, and looked upward to God. Words of prayer came slow and stifling; yet I prayed prayed for anything that might loosen the dull agony that crushed my spirit. When I arose I staggered into my own room, and there saw a pair of pet doves which I had brought from the Pacific, intending them as a gift to Constantia on our wedding day. I wrung their necks, and dashed their palpitating bodies into the street. CHAPTER XXVIII. MORE WEAKNESSES ; MORE MORALIZING. To count time only by sunrises and sunsets is a vulgar error. Where daily wages and yearly divi dends are concerned, it is a very convenient system ; but it is no more the measure of our real age than are the gray hairs which so often maliciously coquette with our youth. Our real growth is an affair of emotions and wisdom. As we are lifted up from a narrow to a wider vision, or as we slip backwards to a more contracted view, so advance or recede our real years. We may crowd eternity into a second, or make of a second an "eternal stagnation. The only eternity we can positively know is the present ; for, if immortal, we are now as much within it as we ever shall be. Future is relative ; Being only is actual. As present thoughts and actions shape the future to us, our Now becomes the paramount consideration. If this be correct, and emotions and experience be the actual facts of life, our dinners and cash- books, our locomotives and dress-coats, are but the lungs by aid of which we inhale the real elements of our existence. Through externals, the internal 236 HEART-EXPERIENCE. is either undermined or strengthened. It matters little what form or number of days the outside life assumes, provided the interior walks forward at its natural pace. But who can control his feelings ? Who, when smitten with sorrow, can at once rise up and say, " Lord, I thank thee ; even so is it good for me." Brave thoughts do not always father brave actions. From their knees many get up to smite and curse ; many cling to grief as to a consolation ; some rave, revel, and blaspheme, while others walk thenceforth with eyes shut, seeing neither beauty, hope, nor charity, in life ; they do not war against it, they do not even argue with it ; they accept it, not as sacrifice or expiation, but as moody fate j past, present, and future, a void, yet an ache. Such was my condition for three years after the shock of - s infidelity. During that time I never once repeated her name, and I will not just now. It was strange that I scarcely thought of Jonathan in connection with her. The one great fact that my trust had been crushed like a frail egg-shell weighed down all personal considerations, and the reaction of my mind was like the sudden turning off of gas from a brilliant saloon, where all was pleasure and loveliness, and leaving it in utter con fusion and darkness. Some dispositions recoil at once, and go out again to the world as gay and hopeful as ever ; but such have no depth of foundation. Others, frail and deli cate, pass away like soap-bubbles. Mine was tena cious, clinging blankly to its wreck, as if that were MORE WEAKNESSES J MORE MORALIZING. 237 the all left of providence. The sole cry I at last daily uttered was, " The sacrifice of God is a troubled spirit ; a broken and contrite heart, God, thou shaltnot despise; 7 exaggerating my evil into a personal sin, and thus compelling nature finally to operate her cure, through a long and painful pro cess. Thanks, skilful, considerate physician ! thy healing, once completed, lifted me into a new exist ence. Thou art now welcome to thy fee. Did mortals hold less to their finite desires, and trust in thy love more, they would find that there is a power in thee to shape their destinies to happier and more heroic ends than short-sighted intellects conceive. The precise when and how by which we pass from one heart-existence into a fuller or wiser one we can no more recall than we can the hour of our earth-birth. Sufficient is it that we are born again. Much tossing, and cooing, and blessing ; much cry ing, sleeping, and wetting, make up an infant s span. It knows, but remembers not its progress. So with our thought-life. It is only in looking down upon the battle-field that we can clearly discern the ma noeuvres that lead to victory. We must place our selves at a given point, not too near nor too remote from the causes that make character, to justly esti mate them ; otherwise the smoke of passions, inter ests, or prejudices, blinds our judgment. It is well, therefore, at every great epoch in life, to pause and inquire, " What has brought me here ? whither do I tend ? " The memory that stores up only feastings and revellings is a mere parasite of 238 HEART-EXPERIENCE. sense, and the vilest sycophant and most treacher ous servant one can have. Its true duty is to take note of what goes to nourish the mental Us. If constancy consist in being faithful to the pur suit of truth and beauty, consistency no less consists in confessing them in whatever shape they may appear, whether the experience of to-day contradicts that of yesterday, or not. Those words are made the great bugbears of progress. Timid souls, who fear to step out of the track their ancestors made, not for them, but for themselves, are ever prostrating their souls before these Baals. Rise ! Be not afraid to declare your own truths ; speak plainly ; let not the past trifle nor the present deceive you. Noah s ark answered to float lazily and safely on the old flood, but we need steam and electricity to keep us up with our age. - The virtue of American life is its sincerity; it tries all things, slowly sloughing the dead past, earnest and open alike in evil or good. The antidote to error is confession ; the road to progress is trial j individually and nationally we must not shrink from unexplored nature, but boldly trust to the divinity that invites us on, to illumine our path. We cannot go far wrong, when dealing sincerely with truth, without being shown the right. Sin delights to dazzle and confuse, but virtue de velops peace and repose. Our minds are an armory of passions, sentiments, and ambitions ; weapons of every name and nature, as capable of being turned against each other as upon a common foe. The miseries that beset us arise chiefly from ignorance of their proper uses. MORE WEAKNESSES ; MORE MORALIZING. 239 We can acquire the needful knowledge only through practice. If, therefore, a gun recoils, or a cartridge bursts, find why, and try again. Human nature is a see-saw. We are constantly tilting up to tilt down again j the common science of life seems rather to be to find out how to balance our selves, instead of seeking our true balance. This is more difficult than a North-West passage ; yet there is a magnetic pole somewhere, which, when found, must put us in harmony with ourselves and others. In the mean while we go hither and thither, now ice bound, now current-drifted ; a fair wind, then a foul ; backward and forward, amid fogs, snow, and chance rays of sunshine, tempted on by the hope of clear water somewhere, and never giving up our search, though often enclosed in impenetrable night. Some come out, hull shattered, whence they started ; others float into the unknown gulf; and all sail on. The great yearning of old and young, in affections and intellect, is to be appreciated. We are sure that there is a friend or lover for us somewhere ; a com panion for every thought or wish, by which the great solitude of the heart shall be exorcised. Yet society at large is but a despairing confession of failure. Amid its noise and glitter we try to cheat ourselves of our need. But the wail of loneliness will make itself heard ; and in our silent hours we call it all vanity and vexation, but go back to it on the morrow again, to whirl and prate, a disguise to our neighbors and a mockery to ourselves. Alas ! could plate-glass let daylight, or even gas-light, through upon the pride, selfishness, and folly, the 240 HEART-EXPERIENCE. deceit and passions, the ignorance and arrogance, that coil in hearts whose outsides are so fair and courteous, their affrighted possessors would flee from each other, as if possessed of devils. But look deeper. Down below all, but struggling to be seen, is the inextinguishable thirst of real companionship. In a mock embrace, rather than none at all, society goes on ; but each member feels a gnawing for something beyond the transient and fantastic some gift, some friend, that shall unlock the tender and true within himself or herself, and hold it up to the light, so that its possessor shall become con scious of hidden fire. Have you never felt the magnetic influence of a look, a word, an emotion, spontaneous and unexpected, that gave a new in sight into your own being? Such there are constantly going to and fro through the world God s angels to hungry souls, that sit at our table for a day, and then are gone, but not before they have left their messages behind them. Thrice blessed are they when they come in hu man form ! It is sufficient, my reader, that you and I have entertained such. We need not know what was said and done, for our sympathies to flow tow ards each other. Ask your own heart how I out grew my great sorrow ; and yet by and by I may tell you a little, if it please you to listen. Blessed, too, is the messenger, though it be but a book ! I am laughed at for my respect and tender ness for those silent talkers. Joke on ! The dead, to me, are visitors of state, or dear friends. As I would have honored and welcomed them in human MORE WEAKNESSES ; MOBE MORALIZING. 241 forms, so will I now, though bound in calf, or but paper-stitched. Indeed, as flesh and blood, they might have looked coldly or proudly on me 5 but as printed thought I may compel them to be my con stant companions. When feelings and ideas suddenly reawaken, you have doubtless discovered, dear reader, that they are imperious in their exactions in the degree of their former lethargy. Mine were so. I tumbled into and out of friendships as carelessly and rapidly, for a while, as a sailor earns and spends money. This experimenting in human nature is not without its charms as well as dangers. Some characters few, however disarm doubt and suspicion at sight. Like little children they lead you captive, and draw out your purest, freshest impulses, causing you to rejoice in an innocence and joyousness that scent life with its sweetest fragrance. Others, with more intellectual power, carry you away by sheer force of will. For a while you see with their eyes, and hear with their ears. They overwhelm like a freshet, so impetuous is their motion, scattering their men tal debris over your mind, mingling fertility with destruction. If you have sufficient power of re sistance and perception to bear up against such individuals, they are not without their service to character; but, as in general their selfishness cor responds to their strength, they will use and discard the weak, and undermine the strong, if not checked by a moral nature firmer and superior to their own. My chief weakness, as was seen by my first com mercial operations, is to idealize my enterprises. 21 242 HEART-EXPERIENCE. Nature made me an optimist. Of the two extremes of foibles, this is better than being a pessimist. Is it not healthier to the moral sense to confide and hope in the possibilities of good, than ever to be lieve and forefend evil ? Either way we meet with bruises, it is true ; but the one gives us wings wherewith we shall eventually learn to fly, while the other fetters our limbs constantly to the ground. A slight sketch of some of my failures may not be without interest to you. Among my commercial friends was one whose talent for business was remarkable. He was a handsome, noble-looking fellow, and intellectual, but with his animal func tions on so active a scale as to incline him to rate their pleasures at above their proper estimate. However, in his commercial relations he had always been successful, and inspired confidence. My disin clination to act for myself made me more ready to trust in others. He proposed to act with and for me. I accepted his proposition, and, believing the true basis of any copartnership to be mutual confidence, I gave him mine most implicitly, rating him at my own standard of what human intercourse should be, rather than at what it really is. The result was, that, being deprived of the resistance of caution and oversight which his nature in reality required, he speedily lost his commercial balance, and cost me the little fortune I had made at Lilibolu before I could disconnect myself from him. Verily it is as troublesome to keep money as to earn it ! But I could not blame him as much as if I had not be trayed myself; so I set down the disappearance of MORE WEAKNESSES; MORE MORALIZING. 243 my money to the debit of Profit and Loss, but to the credit of Character, and resolved thenceforth to be content with little means, and leave money-getting to those whose proper pursuit it was. I had an artist friend, whose genius and impulsive nature, in all that related to his profession, for a while completely won me. He seemed a miracle of earnestness and sincerity ; gifted by nature he certainly was with a fine feeling for the beautiful, though in point of education as ignorant as a peasant. We are all carried away by real enthu siasm. His was fanatical in degree, but, unfortu nately, comparatively unenlightened. I thought that he needed only to study to become " a master." Con sequently I devoted myself to his benefit with all the zeal of a friendship thoroughly disinterested. This I assert, however egotistical it may appear, because I am bound to be as true to myself as to others. Besides, I had nothing to receive from him beyond the exchange of ideas, in which I trust we were mutually benefited. His intolerance towards his brother-artists kept him always in hot water, and his friends constantly fighting his battles ; but one does not mind that, provided the cause seems a good one ; and his aspirations were to the elevation of art. My standard with him was based on what I believe to be the only sound basis of friendship ; that is, a one ness of mind and feelings in all that connects two human beings ; consequently, my purse, speech, and whatever I possessed, were ever at his ser vice. I loved him as I had never before loved a man ; wilfully blinding myself to his faults, and ex- 244 HEART-EXPERIENCE. alting his virtues. There can be no doubt that the spirit we display towards a friend, in the degree of his capacity to appreciate it, invites, at all events, momentarily, a similar feeling in return. With me, he was almost always in his best mood. There were a mingled force and sweetness in his eloquence, misty, ungrammatical, and illogical, as it was, that captivated even cultivated and strong minds ; while the sublimity of his self-confidence, and the fierceness of his denun ciations when his temper was aroused, over-awed the timid, and provoked both sympathy and laughter in older heads. Few liked him; but he might have been universally respected, had it not been for his impatience to become celebrated, which he imagined he could through conceit, and by exaggerating his feeling for art, unfortunately always excessive, rather than by critical study, which he most needed. This led him to arrogate to himself a position not yet earned ; and, finding his violence could not con trol public sentiment, in an evil hour, instead of listening to the suggestions of humility, and patiently trying to rise simply through his artistic qualities, he took to intrigue. To follow him through the tortuous course by which he obtained momentary triumphs, alienating friends, undermining reputations to exalt his own, repaying trust with treachery, and, when detected, basely seeking to avenge himself by woundinghis best friends, through the confidence they had from time to time reposed in him, would of itself make a romance of no ordinary character. Suffice it to say, the lesson that he gave has lastingly cured me of endeavoring MORE WEAKNESSES ; MORE MORALIZING. 245 to make another better than he or she makes himself or herself to be. The most powerful monitors are our spontaneous, independent actions. We are all the best judges of our true selves. Fortunately, no one can take away the satisfaction of a good action or a disinterested motive. By such we are ennobled, as the reverse degrades ; and the former is the only satisfaction we should look for. Any selfish, low motive, in our conduct to another, carries with it a moral virus to ourselves. If, therefore, we can satisfy conscience that nothing blameworthy has entered into our own desires or deportment, the judgment of the uninformed or mistaken, the malice of the treacherous, or the inappreciation of the infe rior-minded, become of comparative inconsequence. We live in our own world. Yet there must be circumspection in the choice of friends. Impulses and affinities are too sanguine and partial to be blindly followed. They often, it is true, operate as instincts to bring u*s good or take us from evil ; but that arrives only either in the clairvoyant innocence of infancy, or when our moral faculties have been sufficiently trained to discrim inate at sight. The intermediate state is one of adventure, in which our tastes and inclinations take risks in proportion to their vehemence, turning up prizes or blanks, as chance rather than judgment dictates. A certain degree of selfishness is a virtue. Not so much in relation to ourselves, as in fencing in the passions and foibles of others. If we expose our infant virtues to be preyed upon, big wolves with 21* 246 HEART-EXPERIENCE. great staring eyes will eat them up. It is sinful to tempt the weakness of another by weakly yielding to aggression, for thereby an advantage is given to base ness. As soon, therefore, as confidence and gener osity provoke only selfishness and meanness, change your deportment so as to defeat vice, but keep your heart filled with kindness for your own sake. The worse your enemy, the more he needs your help to set him right. As there are some natures that can like lambs be led by faith and gentleness, so there are others whose first lessons must of necessity be force and firmness. In dealing with individuals, avoid as much as possible the idea of gratitude in any sense. It is meaji to expect it, and irritating to be under its bondage. To vulgar souls it is like an itch ; to strong natures, as bonds which sooner or later must be wrenched off. True love alone is per fect freedom. The same motives which should operate not to discourage kindly efforts towards individuals should obtain in our relations to society. Expect nothing more in the aggregate than in the singular. Good seed is sure to germinate as soon as the soil is ready. In our haste, we often plant before knowing its quality and needs, so that the misunderstanding is mutual. Much of our philanthropy is, in conse quence, seed on unploughed ground. We build great washing-houses, and expect the poor to become very grateful and clean ; forgetting that even dirt has a mission, which is to keep poverty warm until it can afford the luxury of clean liness. What wonder that an increased susceptibil- MORE WEAKNESSES; MORE MORALIZING. 247 ity of skin makes the destitute shrink from our refor mations until their homes and clothing can be equal ized to our requirements ? To permanently elevate any one, we must raise him in all points. Only in the degree that we do that to ourselves and others, do we lay the social foundations sure and strong. CHAPTER XXIX. BUT NOT MY WEDDING. FOR a long while I bad seen but little of my father. He never wrote to me, nor I to him, except circumstances positively required it. We knew nothing of each other s pursuits, simply because there was no affinity between them ; yet when we met, a latent kindness and courtesy developed themselves, which earlier might have led to more intimacy. I had a great respect for his practical talents, and he had at last forgiven me my tastes, on the ground of my general incompetency for any thing else, and that there was really nothing in them absolutely objectionable. He sometimes in quired about my studies, and I casually learned that he had purchased, from time to time, copies of such works as had appeared in my name, and given them to his friends with a certain degree of pride, how ever little they merited it, saying, with a sort of indifferent emphasis, they were from " the pen of his son." A feeling and compliment of this nature, so unexpected, determined me to go and thank him. I had been residing in a foreign country for iny BUT NOT MY WEDDING. 249 health for two years, and during that time had not received a line from him. Two months after this resolution was taken, I again pulled the old familiar door-bell. Again a servant who knew me not came to the door. He was dressed in a neat livery, which surprised me, knowing my father s democratic ideas. I entered and gave my name, and was ushered into the drawing- room. Everything was changed. The comfortable and yet tasteful furniture, with a few choice English engravings and works of art, of my mother s time, had all disappeared ; and, instead of the air of repose and extreme neatness which formerly reigned there, I found a sort of chaotic splendor, that puzzled and dismayed me. A profusion of ill-assorted paintings, old and modern copies and originals, looking as if furnished by contract, with special reference to costly frames, covered the walls. The new furniture, partly Florentine gilt and partly French marquetry, was extremely elegant, but inappropriate to the rooms. Showy porcelain, modern bronzes, and richly-bound books, were carelessly placed here and there. Before, however, I had time to note all the changes, my father entered, shook me cordially by the hand, saying, " I am glad to see you. You got my letter, of course, informing you of my marriage ? " , " Marriage !" I repeated mechanically, half doubt ing my ears. " Come, come," said he, not noticing my surprise, " I will introduce you to your new mother." Say ing this, he led the way to the well-known little 250 HEART-EXPERIENCE. library, where the alterations were greater, if possible, than in the drawing-rooms, and presented me to his bride. " My son Katilan, Mrs. Bullion ; he has come to make us a little visit." It was well that my life had been one of many shocks to my affections, or the present contrast to the cherished associations of my early home would have overwhelmed me. As it was, I felt heart-sick, but contrived to stammer out a few commonplace compliments to my unexpected relative. My father did not notice my paleness and confusion, but his wife did, and, with a woman s instinct, divining the cause, became at once my enemy. She tried, how ever, to conceal her feeling, and embraced me with great apparent cordiality, saying : " ! I am so glad Lanie has come ! that is his name, is it not, Mr. Bullion? a sweet one it is, he will make our circle complete. We have been married just six weeks to-day, and you know it is so stupid to be always with one s husband ! Don t you think so, Robert?" said she, tapping his cheek playfully with a very pretty hand, which rny father seized, and kissed as she sought to withdraw it, exclaiming, " Fy, Mr. Bullion, before our little Lanie ! You set him a bad example. Who knows but he will be making love to his venerable mother-in-law, too ? " Then, turning to me, she added: " You must tell me all about the strange countries you have seen. I have been trying to coax Mr. Bullion to take me to Russia. I dote on the Emperor ; he is my pet man, always excepting my lord and master, there. Don t BUT NOT MY WEDDING. 251 you think he has grown younger and handsomer ? I m sure you do ; but he is a real tyrant, just like Nicholas ; upsets all my fine plans by talking about hard times and tight money ; but I believe it is all sham ; he only says it to make his generosity the greater. Only see how beautifully he has refurnished the house! Those horrid, old-fashioned things are all gone. What did you do with them, lovey?" Here my father winced a little, and I felt indignant ; but, if, reader, you have ever experienced the power of a young and fascinating woman over a doting man verging on three-score, you will do as I did bite your tongue to compel its silence. "This is all my taste," continued she ; then, suddenly changing the topic, she said, " Your last book, on - on Beauty, is n t it? it is so nice ! See, I have had a copy bound in such a lovely color ! You shall read it to me !" Thus she rattled on, keeping time coquettishly, the while, with her feet, which were half buried in a luxurious cushion. Have you ever seen a woman who for a while puzzled you to know whether she was most angel or devil ? My mother-in-law was at first such a one to me, alternating so rapidly from one character to the other, as to confuse my moral perception, and make me equally doubt my own judgment, either way. As for my father, he was completely her captive. She was not above twenty-two, and looked only nineteen. There was a singular combination of good and bad points in her figure. A skin that could be either soft, clear, and brilliant, or rough, 252 HEART-EXPERIENCE. hazy, and dark, with an eye that equally varied, yet was large and expressive ; hands and feet faultless ; teeth moderately good ; mouth like a rose-bud ; nose beginning well, but too full and coarse at the nostrils ; a bust of great delicacy and beauty ; shoulders exquisitely moulded, but too long a back; arms badly filled out, and a squareness of hips that did not correspond with the elegance of her general proportions ; hair of extraordinary fineness, the color being rich auburn, yet short and scanty, all contributed to make it difficult to decide whether she was beautiful or not. At all events, she had narrowly escaped being a Venus ; and, by the aid of her tasteful toilet, she was so successful in har monizing her good points and concealing the defect ive, that few ever questioned her beauty. Her mind was as strange in the aggregate as her body. She was seemingly impulsive, affectionate, grateful, and intuitively intelligent, and her mode of caressing was too fascinating and natural not to be irresistible ; yet at the bottom of every action was cool, selfish calculation, disguised with an art that in most points was faultless, but not unfre- quently forgot itself, and either shot at random, or experimented, so as to disclose its hands to a cool observer. Her charm was that of a serpent; powerful towards her natural prey, but powerless over those from whom she had nothing to get. She was dangerous only while she could bewilder, because there was too much of the refined sensual in her temperament, joined to many excellent feel ings at heart, not to give her great control over MARRIED AT LAST, BUT NOT MY WEDDING. 253 those that she had first inspired with confidence. Her greatest vice was duplicity. This seemed to have been instilled into her by education ; for, unless some selfish motive intervened, she was sincere and kindly intentioned. Extravagance, ambition, and love of pleasure, were her predominant traits. How and where my father met her, I never knew ; but she had so skilfully played upon his nature as to awaken dormant passions, and to persuade him that under her auspices his house would become gay and companionable. The life that he had led with my mother had left him as innocent as a babe of the wiles of female nature. He had been very lonely at home j so, when his new wife amused and caressed him, administered to his wants, and petted his peculiarities, he thought that he had found a treasure of which he could not bo too choice. She at heart looked upon him simply as a well-filled money-chest, with a peculiar secret of lock, of which she had discovered the spring. Social attractions like Mrs. Bullion s, with the unlimited command of money that she had contrived to wheedle out of my father, filled his house with an endless round of gay and frivolous society, in which, it must be confessed, he figured badly, and which he was but half pleased to meet. Still, the eclat of a brilliant and fashionable wife, eclipsing all his old commercial rivals by his costly entertainments and the superior style of his equipages, was so novel a sensation that for a while he imagined that it gave him pleasure. At times he would essay to impose some check 22 254 HEART EXPERIENCE. upon her extravagance ; but he might as well have tried to ballast soap-bubbles with lead. " My dear Mrs. Bullion," he began, one morning, after an un usually brilliant and costly ball, " don t you think eleven hundred dollars rather extravagant for flowers alone?" "0, Bobby, you funny, solemn old fool ! " replied she, " leave that to me. I know what is true economy in these affairs. Mrs. Squan der gave a thousand for hers, at her last hop. You shall not be outdone by that stingy old candle- twaddler, her husband. Why, lovey, you know it would injure your credit on Change." My father could urge nothing against this, and the delicious little kiss with which she stopped his mouth, as she handed him a check to sign in pay ment for the diamonds she wore the night before, the amount for which she covered up with one hand, while with the other she gently smoothed his hair. " There," said she, as he finished, throwing both arms around his neck with what he took to be a genuine burst of impulsive affection towards him self, but which the tone of her eye said to me was meant for his gold, " you are a darling Croesus ; a sensible husband, every inch of you, and worth a dozen of those young fellows that plagued my life out before I saw and loved you ; " and she coquetted out of the room in the best possible humor, looking lovely enough to have bewitched even a more experienced heart than my father s. "Ah ! my boy, that woman fools me, and I know it," said he to me ; " but she does it so gracefully, and it gives her such pleasure to spend money, that MARRIED AT LAST, BUT NOT MY WEDDING. 255 I let her do it, for the present, in her own way. She will be wiser by and by ; the young must have their amusements." This doctrine, so novel from my father, showed me how completely his new wife had revolutionized his ideas. He continued, " She is so charitable, too, and really religious, or means to be, though her way of showing it is rather droll. Why, only a few days ago, as we were walking in the park, she be gan to take off her cachemere shawl to give to a better sort of a female beggar, who told her a dis mal story, every word of which was sheer humbug; and she fairly persuaded me soon after into giving a pew in the Presbyterian church to a canting hypo crite, who said that his wife and children had no means of grace, when he really wanted money only for the rum-shop. It was so good a joke that I made him out a deed at once. It had always cost me forty dollars in taxes annually. I had never seen it, and had never been able to get an offer for it from any one. If he can convert it into spirit, I shall become a firm believer in transubstantiation or translation which is t they call it?" The wag, at all events, had survived in my father; so I did not wholly give him up. But it was not agreeable for me to remain long under the same roof with Mrs. Bullion, who also felit my presence irksome to her, because we neither were deceived in the other. I soon left for another city, and heard nothing more of my father for ten months, when, to my surprise, the following laconic note came from him : 256 HEART-EXPERIENCE. "DEAR SON: "Come to see me. " Your affectionate father, " ROBERT BULLION." I went to him without delay. As I entered the house, I observed that it looked very much as it did in my mother s time. All the new furniture had gone, and the former simplicity was restored. " Well," thought I, " my father is a wonderful preacher, if he has proselyted my gay mother-in- law to this change." He appeared in a few minutes, looking much older than when I last saw him, and simply said to me, " She s gone." " Who s gone ? " I inquired. " Why, she ; Mrs. Bullion, to be sure ; " and as he mentioned the name, he drew a long sigh; but whether of regret or relief, I could not make out. " You amaze me, father ; tell me what has taken place." " I sent for you, my son, for that purpose. Sit down. You see me a wiser man than when you left. Ah ! your poor mother, how little I knew her value, until taught by that hussy that succeeded her ! It serves me right, however. I lived a one sided life, stinting her soul, depriving myself of her real affections, and compelling her to live a life of barren duty for what, think you ? Why, that Mr. Bullion s name might be the weightiest on Change. It was. My shrewdness was proverbial, as you know, in business ; but in the affections I was MARRIED AT LAST, BUT NOT MY WEDDING. 257 a mere puppet. I overlooked them, and they avenged themselves. I, Robert Bullion, whose name circu lates in the four quarters of the globe, with honor and credit in his profession, have been made the tool and sport of an artful minx ! So long as she merely threw away my money, I did not much care ; but when she began to throw away my honor, it aroused my old self. Expostulations and quarrels took place. I forbade her to receive certain former admirers of hers j she flared up, and swore for she could swear, it seems she would ; and she was as good as her word, privately, for I made it impossible, openly. I believe that she did it more from oppo sition to me than from criminality. But the world knew it, and the effect was the same. I told her that she must go. The allowance I gave more than consoled her, and she left three weeks since for Europe. We shall never meet again. " Now, my dear boy, the story is all told. I have but few years left, at the most ; and I will try to be a better father to you, if it be not too late. We both now equally appreciate and mourn our de parted one. God took her from me, but to make her as happy as she deserved to be. Here s my hand ; here 7 s your home, whenever you wish it ; I neither understood her nor you, Lanie ; but better late than never. Good-by till dinner-time ; " and my father, with moistened eyes, left the room. My tears fell fast. Mother, mother, you are known at last! On my knees, I thanked God for the happiest moment of my life. 22* CHAPTEE XXX. A SURPRISE TO TWO. DURING the extreme heat of summer I had gone to a secluded but prettily-situated inland village, where nature still retained much of its wild charms of forest and lake. But few visitors from our cities invaded its privacy, as it was out of the range of railroad or steamboat. On this account it possessed more attractions for me j especially as to wander at random over field and wood, or to ply my solitary oar on the picturesque lake, taking possession, Ilob- inson Crusoe like, of its pretty little islets, where, with book or fishing-rod, the hours passed sooth ingly and pleasantly, was an unfailing pleasure. The dread which so many have of being alone with nature or their own spirit costs them not only a certain degree of moral independence and freedom, but deprives them of close communion with the elementary bases of being, by which we have our nearest access to primary truths. Sky and water, pebble and plant ; the brightly-colored shell that lies broken and wave-worn on the beach, the curious and forsaken habitation of one of man s progress ive antecedents in creation; the oak that bravely A SURPRISE TO TWO. 259 lifts itself upward, as the wild wind sighs requiems or fiercely screams through its branches, wrench ing frail leaf and stem from parent trunk ; the gentle vine that clings lovingly around it, or the velvety moss which carpets our path; cloud, bird, tree, bush, butterfly, and worm all, all are voices of the great central soul, and speak to us of things we long for, and shall find, if we but open our ears to their utterance. He who can tune his heart to the great harmonies of nature is never sad nor solitary. There are tidings for him on every breeze, and from out of every light and shadow. The very air is laden with sympathy, and in all material forms he discerns a mysterious, infinite, and varied life, con nected with and concentrated in his own ; himself the object to which all things around him tend. Can the being who sees all this distrust the Giver ? Amid such scenes and thoughts I became tranquil and contented, though never devoid of a sensation of a loss or want of a certain intangible something on which wholly to repose my affections. When hungry, these will crave food, irrespective of our wills. As the worst evil that can happen to us is diseased feeling, the only radical cure is upon the homoeopathic principle like administered to like. Disappointed love requires healthy love to eradicate it ; avarice, the satisfaction of lawful gains ; all vice, the superiority of antithetic virtue. Hence, the greatest benefit that can accrue to man springs not from external fortune, but from those agencies with which nature restores the mind to healthful sentiments and action. 260 HEART-EXPERIENCE. One day, while sitting on a favorite rock which overlooked the lake, I heard the bark of a dog close behind me, and at the same moment the noise of a person approaching through the bushes. Upon turn ing, I noticed a lady coming towards the spot where I was seated. Her face was bent towards the earth, for .she was picking her way slowly through the rude path. She did not notice me until close upon me ; when, looking suddenly up, we both gave a start of surprise. My heart beat violently, and, for an instant, paralyzed my movements. The lady turned pale, and began to totter, as if about to fall. This aroused me, and I sprang forward to assist her ; but she mo tioned me away, and sank upon the ground, without power to aid herself. In an instant I rushed to the lake, wetted my handkerchief in the water, and sprinkled her face. As she recovered she opened her eyes, and, with an expression of deep pain, said, " Am I dreaming ? Is it Lanie I see by me ? " " Yes, madam, it is, or was, Lanie/ I replied. " Per mit me to aid you to reach your friends. I presume your husband cannot be far off." " My husband ! " exclaimed she, " my husband ! What do you mean ? " " Why, Mr. Plaster ; whom else can I mean ? " I coldly replied. " I beg pardon, sir, for my intrusion. I assure you that it was wholly unintentional ; I was not aware even that you were in America. Thanks for your assistance; my faint turn, to which I have been liable of late years, has passed, and I can reach my parents by myself; they are not far off/ 7 said she, as she A SUEPEISE TO TWO. 261 turned to go ; but her emotion was too great, and she tottered to the rock, and sat down. I was moved, and took her hand. She did not withdraw it. Moved by an impulse which I could not control, I asked, " Are you happy ? " " Happy ! " she mechanically echoed, " and that question from you ? Yes, yes, I am very happy ; 0, yes, always happy !" said she, pressing her hand upon her heart. " Are you not happy ? " " I am becoming so," I said, somewhat bitterly, " thanks to your lesson." " i My lesson ! My husband ! My head swims ! "What do you mean ? ! tell me, Lanie ! Whatever else there may be, let no falsehood or hatred come between us ! " My old feeling of coldness and resentment came over me, as I thought that she equivocated or jested. What ! the wife of Jonathan Plaster not understand my meaning? This was too much. " I see that you are quite recovered, Mrs. Plaster. As my presence evidently annoys you, I will go, leaving you in the company of your heart, if you have one ! " I said to her with sarcastic emphasis, as I turned on my heel. She sprang up, and, seizing my hands, drew me on to the rock beside her, then burst into tears, and for a while sobbed violently. , I was both confused and touched by her emotion, which I saw was genuine, though I could net under stand why she was so agitated. I again attempted to go. " No ! no ! " she ex claimed, " you shall stay until I know all ! Lanie, 262 HEART-EXPERIENCE. look up to the heaven above us, and tell me why were you false ! " " I false ! Constantia ! false ! ! ! Do I hear aright ? And you, the false wife of a false friend, ask me such a question ! I had learned to forget both you and him; now may my bitterest curses light on you both, for reminding me of my blasted hopes and tor tured feelings ! What ! would you be false twice ? A double traitress ! Let me go, before worse comes of this meeting ! " My violence, instead of alarming, seemed to nerve her to fulfil a long-concealed resolution. She turned to me calmly, and slowly replied, " For years I have longed to meet you ; and yet, had my life depended upon it, I would not have stepped aside to seek it. Now an accident has brought us together, you shall tell, and hear from me, all, before we part. Quiet yourself; I am not married. " Not married ! Don t jest with me I am in no mood for that ! Did I not myself read the banns of marriage between you and Jonathan ? " " You may have read them," she replied, " for they were published. But," added she, with a look of mingled shame and anger, " we were not mar ried, for all that." " And why not ? " I hurriedly asked. She passed her hand over her forehead, as if to brush away painful recollections, and then continued. " At whatever cost to my love and pride, you shall know the truth. Let me tell my story first. I heard from you but once after you sailed and that was soon after your arrival at Lilibolu. That letter I A STJRPBISE TO TWO. 263 fondly kept, hoping each month for others. None came. Jonathan came often to see me, telling me that you had also stopped writing to him. When I ques tioned him about you, he said but little, but looked as if he knew what he would not tell. He grew more and more attentive ; at first, as if it were only to console mo in your absence. I confess it, at last he acquired a control over me that I could neither shake off nor learn to do without. He had made himself necessary to my existence. By degrees he spoke with less reserve of you said he had news, but wished me not to question him. At last he told me that you had built a house, and were living with a native mistress, with no intention of returning." " What ! he told you that ? " I shouted, and, jump ing to my feet, paced with clenched hands up and down the sod before her, every nerve quivering with suppressed rage and indignation. At last I stopped, and, looking fixedly into her eyes, whis pered between my teeth upon him such an impreca tion that even now the very recollection of its energy and depth all but stops my heart s beat. I dare not repeat it ; I trust it is forgiven. I would not know again the weight of such a hatred upon myself, to avenge a lifetime of wrongs. I felt as if the strength of seventy Samsons had come into my veins ; and, had the traitor appeared before me then, I could have torn him to pieces as if he were but a rotten rag. Cain was stamped upon my brow. We may be murderers without blood s flowing. I felt it. My rage seemed to disintegrate my moral being. I lived years in that moment, so sudden and complete 264 HEART-EXPERIENCE. was the shock. My physical being at last shrunk beneath it, as though it were a consuming fire, and I became as weak as if life flickered tu wards its last flame. May God forever keep me and you from the like emotion ! Constantia was breathless. We neither could speak, for some time. She trembled all over, and looked at me beseechingly, with tears flowing down her cheeks. I threw myself at her feet, with my hands pressed tight upon my eyes, trying to shut out memory with the light ; but those damning words continued to gnaw at my heart as with the fangs of a viper. It was not the loss of love that was my agony, but the treachery to friendship. How clear it all came to me now, in one second ! My letters had been kept back ; hers had not been sent ; he he my friend had foully lied to " Well, well ! what then ? " said I, fiercely and impatiently ; " tell me all do not spare one word ! " " There is but little more to tell," replied Con stantia, sadly, and with an effort. " I was beside myself, at his words, and did not stop to think. They stung me with anger and mortification. At first I denied them ; but it was more out of pride than faith, for I am, as you know, jealous. He brought proofs, or what, in my frantic, suspicious, and I fear vindictive state of mind, seemed to be such ; but I see by your looks that they were forged tales. Gradually he soothed me, and at last proposed for my hand. After repeated refusals, I accepted him. There was more vengeance towards you than A SURPRISE TO TWO. 265 love for him in this, on my part; though he swayed my mind more completely than any one ever did before or since, and it seemed impossible for me to separate myself from him. Still I was dissatisfied and unhappy. The marriage day was fixed, when I heard that you had returned. A revulsion of feeling seized me. I became very ill. My mother said that I was at times out of my head, and often called upon you. As soon as I was well enough, I sent for Jon athan, and told him that our marriage could not take place. He entreated, threatened, expostulated, begged to know my reasons. I really believe that he loved me, his distress and violence were so great ; but I was firm, and gave him no answer, except it must not be ; and he left me in great anger. I have not seen him since, but hear he is married, and his wife unhappy. My story is done." ******* ******* Never had I seen Constantia looking more lovely. Sorrow had, it is true, somewhat paled her cheeks, but her expression had become more refined and intellectual, while her eyes still gave evidence that their vivacious fires were only temporarily subdued, not extinguished. Time had perfected her slight and graceful figure. There is a witchery in certain female natures that overmasters men s, by subduing at once their weakest and best points, without allow ing reason to utter one word. It is sufficient only that the electrical poles of opposite feelings be brought into contact to produce an immediate explosion. 23 266 HEART-EXPERIENCE. Undoubtedly we were destined to be mutually the victims of our instinctive sentiments, and there was no escaping our fate. As I gazed into her face, now flushed with tenderness, the memory of early days softened me, and I forgot both rage and suffering. Constantia suddenly became to me as if we had never been parted. Taking her hands between mine, I asked, more to hear her reply than doubting its character, "Do you still love me ? " A pair of beautiful arms warmly clasped my neck, and her excited heart beat sweet music against mine, as she said, in her dearest, gentlest tones, "Do you forgive me, Lanie all, even my unbelief? " My warm embrace, and lingering kiss, pardon me, I should say kisses, convinced her of that. That day month we were married. CHAPTER XXXI. THE RESULT. MARRIAGE is ordinarily considered the holy of holies of life, behind whose veil only the consecrated high-priest can be permitted to look. In reality it is but the second step in existence : first, birth ; next, union to our ideal ; and, as our choice is unlimited, with the ten thousand blanks of ignorance, passion, selfishness, interest, and sentiment, to the one prize of true love, the chances are greatly against com plete satisfaction in this state. We slip into it, buoyed up with hope, desire, and self-deception, mis taking its real significance, and our own actual wants. If we treated it more candidly, it would deceive us the less. I shall confess, in a few words, my subsequent experience and temptations, as a sort of moral reg ister, by which the true value of the institution, as an educator, can be indicated, and then close the affectional phase of life with my views t in detail of the legitimate origin and object of marriage. The insipidity of merely good people is proverb ial. It would appear that nature, in one sense, intended evil as the salt wherewith life should be seasoned. Certain it is, without it we should not 268 HEART-EXPERIENCE. keep. Our good would corrupt, and breed maggots. Evil, therefore, is beneficial, inasmuch as it keeps us in active chase of good, and compels us to go from one level of thought or action to another, superior or inferior, as our will dictates. Until, therefore, we learn to seek truth for its own sake, cleaving hope fully to its pursuit, despite every obstacle, we should be thankful that nature permits no repose for the wicked, but provides a scourge to lash sinners into better paths. Our impulses are, of necessity, in their origin legitimate and proper. Sin or virtue is the condi tion of their gratification. In our theories or desires in the abstract, we aim to know and attain goodness and truth ; our wills, whence spring actions, in seek ing by short cuts and temporary expedients to fore- reach these objects, or pervert them to selfish ambi tion, precipitate us into evils of every nature. But, as evils are our rightful physicians, once diseased, we could not be healed without their blisterings and bleedings. A greater wonder to many than the woman in heaven, is the difference between theory and action. He who thinks rightly very often acts wrongly. Nothing is more natural, because thought or theory is based upon the mind, which within itself holds high counsel independent of the body, and hence, as the nobler organism, manifests its abstract superi ority j but, when will impels to action, then comes the antagonism of the material senses and physical infirmities. Like the effect of common glass in dis torting rays of light, they compel the superior fac- THE RESULT. 269 ulty to manifest itself in disturbed relations with itself; and it is only by actual experience of the power of the former to subdue and cheat the latter, that we acquire a degree of self-control, which, under all circumstances, in giving to each element of life its due satisfaction, enables us to be wise unto sal vation. True wisdom is not, therefore, the fruit of asceti cism, any more than it is the result of unlimited indulgence. Either extreme produces imbecility and decrepitude. Manhood must know, judge, and act. It cannot develop itself by isolation, nor strengthen itself by yielding loose rein to either appetites, sentiments, or mere intellect. As from one extreme it swings to another, if reason be per mitted to check its motion, gradually it will approx imate towards its true balance. The greater part of our evil is simply the result of mistaken educa tion. As infants, men are alternately stuffed and starved, whipped and caressed ; their instincts wrongly trained, their intellects conventionally cramped, deluged with physic, dogmas, and laws, until all natural freedom is crushed, and body and soul are alike slave-bound to sensual wants and erro neous ideas. What wonder that the earth, in the continued struggle to emerge from its vassalage, so often becomes an Aceldama ! > But from out of its moral chaos there is a sure clue, if in our groping we but find its end. It must, however, be diligently sought. As life comes, so accept it ; dodging none of its issues ; facing alike temptation and gratification ; turning on every side 23* 270 HEART-EXPERIENCE. each proffered object to find out where lies its dry- rot ; sifting experience to preserve the good seed that may be found amid its chaff ; planting, cultivat ing, and harvesting, and planting, cultivating, and harvesting again, a never-ceasing daily labor; pas sions, affections, and mental seekings, all gradually taking their proper place in the foundation of char acter, blinking no truth, and fearing no disclosures, if so be that onward progress comes of our bravery. "Whatever happens, this is the test of its good or evil. Eventually a moral independence must be reached that will lift us above the ordinary currents of life. However much they roar or eddy, we have risen out of their suction, calmly facing each event as a welcome lesson in wisdom ; trusting in our morrow, because, having got above the want of the day, knowing, from our adaptation to the infinite, it must eventually be ours, we plant ourselves beyond the common and temporary, and in having learned to do without acquire a command over them, so that the more thirsty in soul shall be drawn to our fuller wells to drink. He who would command true friend ship or love must first learn to live independent of both in their finite forms. CHAPTER XXXII. A UNION THAT IS NOT A UNION. THERE is undoubtedly some truth at the bottom of every generally-received opinion, past or present. He who could succeed in extricating the seed-fact, in its original estate, from out of the huge falsehood- encrusted mass around it, would perform for man kind a curious service ; though, were it possible to do so before nature indicated the right time, a fatal one to the object itself. For it is evident, in our present stage of growth, that error is the protecting husk of young truth, after the same manner that the coarse, heavy shell conceals the growing pearl. Truths, also, which have fulfilled their special mis sions, become mummefied ; and it is only by strip ping off their bandages that we get an idea of their former figure, just as disinterred fossils reveal the growths of antediluvian ages. One of the widest-spread and most enduring of these mixed opinions is, that woman is the original source of human misery. The Lemnian woes still survive, a by-word of horror. Brahma, in Hindoo mythology, was linked to a demon-wife. Greece, Rome, Judea, Persia, through the legends of Helen, 272 HEART-EXPERIENCE. Atalanta, Medea, Pandora, Eve, or Ahriman, all unite to perpetuate this ungallant idea. What a bitter reproach to the sex ! But there must be some foun dation for this universal charge. What, then, is it ? The capacity for evil of a nation or an individual can be accurately gauged by their inverse power of good, as in the physical world the foulest corrup tion is united to the richest organizations. It is self- evident that the greatest natures are susceptible of the widest extremes. Of all races the Anglo- Saxon exhibits the strongest and most prolific action in both directions, in the degree that their moral or selfish faculties are aroused. Consequently their ideas are fast becoming the dominant civilization of the globe. Apply this principle to female nature, and we get at the secret of man s mingled love and hate of the sex. Its capacity is equal to the greatest extremes of good and evil. By that which is meanest or noblest in himself, woman sways him in his moral destiny. For all that is low, weak, sensual, selfish, deceitful, and malicious, she offers a corresponding affinity, to tempt him to still lower levels j while for that which is noble, true, pure, and loving, she man ifests even higher capacity, in order to exalt him to the standard of her own hopes and affections. As mother, wife, sweet-heart, sister, or friend, woman takes her relation to man either as the bane or antidote of life ; but, as evil is ever noisy and officious, while good is silent and unobtrusive, men harp ungenerously upon their fall, forgetful that she is equally the author of their rise, and that the will A UNION THAT IS NOT A UNION. 273 to accept the one or the other influence lies in his own keeping. Marriage is the great crucible in which the sex ual virtues or vices are tested. Where natures are mutually intractable, or, like oil and water, unmix- able, the secret of peace and progress is to keep them going forward, parallel, but never touching as do two carriage-wheels, each in its own rut. In terests and inclinations during the immatured expe riences of marriage prompt to constant contact ; so that much nettling and chafing must, necessarily arise, until both parties, having exhausted the dia pason of disappointment and recrimination, mutually agree to jog placably along life s highway together; and, if not haply linked, like the Siamese twins, by a ligature of temperaments, to a uniform motive, to at least give to each other scope and aid in developing his or her individualities in their most fitting direc tions. Constantia and myself immediately began to per ceive that we had mistaken the action of a few com mon sentiments for an instinct of union. Never were self-deceptions more pitilessly denuded. We fought our traitorous natures for ten years, with occasional truces, and now and then a tantalizing delusion of joyous union, vainly hoping to permanently amalga mate j but as both of us, in the end, 6nly grew the stronger in the direction of our radical differences of body and mind, each struggle separated us the further, until the wisdom of agreeing to disagree became too evident to be longer disregarded. My confessions would be incomplete did I not 274 HEART-EXPERIENCE. frankly state our connubial discoveries. Generally, they may be condensed into the following phrase : " We neither felt, acted, nor thought alike, in any relation whatever." A bill of particulars will, how ever, better elucidate our differences. FIRST, PHYSICALLY : I am warm by nature : she is cold. I am active : she is indolent. I am sleepless and restless : she is the reverse. I love to rise early: she loves to sleep late. I like game and fatty meats : she detests them. I like roast joints : she prefers entrees. I like sweet fruits : she loves only the acid. I prefer red wines : she chooses the white. SECONDLY, SOCIALLY : Balls and fashionable life are an abomination to me, but her delight. My friends can neither be her friends, nor her friends mine. Her taste leads to expensive amusements and dress : mine, to extravagance in books and works of art. So we are each economical where the other would freely spend, while neither is able to gratify either self or the other. In the accessories of life, where I am a stoic she is an epicurean. She sacrifices to sensuous exist ence : I, to the intellectual. My motives and enjoy ments are incomprehensible to her, and hers frivo lous and antipathetic to me. I am independent of society: she, dependent upon it. A UNION THAT IS NOT A UNION. 275 THIRDLY, INTELLECTUALLY : She devours only the lightest French literature, as a thirsty man in the dog-days drinks iced soda- water. Of my literary proclivities the reader, in time, may judge for himself. FOURTHLY, MORALLY : Constantia is quick-tempered, unsympathetic, ex acting, vain, and unyielding ; disguising to no one her sentiments or opinions, often offending her own sex, and alternately pleasing and piquing the other. I am morbidly reserved, proud, and taciturn ; feeling deeply, at times impulsively betraying it, and at others as immovable as marble, but easily mollified by frankness and sincerity, or governed by affection. She is as much a stranger to my inner as I am to her outer life. My mind tends to faith : hers, to scepti cism. She would have married St. Thomas: I should have been happy with Mary Magdalen. In short, so far are our gastric juices, sexual instincts, or mental desires, from having any sympathies in com mon, that they act upon each other at sight or touch like hostile currents of electricity. When we were first acquainted, she often sang a little song that made a deep impression upon me. Not long after we were married, for association s sake, I requested to hear it again. "How stupid you are ! " she replied. " Why do you tease me to sing such an old-fashioned song ? You know noth ing about music ! " And after this manner she re peatedly refused to gratify me. One day, after being repulsed with more than common want of feeling, 276 HEART-EXPERIENCE. I took the song from her music-rack, and calmly tore it to pieces before her, without saying a word. Constantia accused me of petty temper, and ridiculed it. Had she but known, it was the greatest compliment I could have paid her. I have never listened to that song since. Active evils are seldom dangerous to an energetic, firm disposition, because they call forth correspond ing active resistance. The worst relationship is not that which directly excites or prompts to wrong doing, but that which starves the affections, and keeps up a constant mental irritation, from an isola tion of sympathies arid thoughts. Hence there is no sadder exile than that of the heart from love s com panionship. We learn, finally, to live alone ; but bitterly and gloomily the minutes drag themselves along, after the gates of our youthful paradise are first closed upon us. Wait, learn, and watch, and our disappointment may prove the weaning of divin ity into a nobler life. The causes which prevented Constantia and myself from harmonizing may seem comparatively trivial, because nothing vicious or criminal existed among them ; but they had their origin in the ele ments of our being, and were therefore hopelessly irreconcilable. Passive suffering is the most wear ing of human ills. Some natures, without any posi tive fault of their own, grate on another s existence, when forced into daily contact, with an effect on the nervous system to be likened only to the torture of slow fire as applied to the body. The weak wilt and die ; the strong writhe and burst their shackles. A UNION THAT IS NOT A UNION. 277 But there is an antagonism of natures even more subtly cruel; so refined, so natural, and so blame less, as to make life, while the internal conflict of attempted, fruitless reconciliation goes on, one never- ceasing pang, which efforts, tears, and prayers, alike fail to soothe. That, for years, was mine. Whether Constantia felt as much, God alone knows ; for she gave me no sign, but went gayly and carelessly on whenever the wind set fair for her easily-satisfied and superficial desires. I could not so easily endure isolation of heart ; or, rather, it was more difficult for me to find compensation than it was for her. Twice we tried the common remedy of separation. This is effectual where no duties to others inter vene ; but, if others suffer, towards whom we have voluntarily assumed responsibilities, then we are bound to submit to our personal evils for their good. The first time, it was my proposition. Absence alle viated our respective conditions, and, in a fit of sanguine feeling, I suggested another trial at union. This time the result was even worse than before ; for Constantia had learned to love, or thought she did, another. Always frank, even to provocation, she soon disclosed to me the cause why she was utterly miserable. I think she tried to banish the feeling ; but it overmastered her, and in the struggle between duty and wilful desire, for it was a one sided passion, and quite unknown to its object, she became well-nigh insane. Again we parted, but this time at her request. Soon after, she sent me a note, in which she thus expressed herself: 24 278 HEART-EXPERIENCE. " I want to tell you how deeply grateful I am for your kindness and sympathy in my miserable state of mind, heart, I should say, and for your promptness and generosity in releasing me from a position which made me so much the more wretched ; and last, though not least, for your constant liberality and kindness. " For all this I sincerely thank you, and far more. In going back to the time when we again tried to- live together, I assure you no man could have been more patient and sympathizing in my distress, more enduring with my tears, indifference, and folly, or more ready to attempt to alleviate my sorrow, or divert my mind from the unchanging misery which hung over it, than yourself. All this I shall never forget. I beg you to accept my deep est gratitude. Among my darkest shadows will always be the reflection that my unfortunate nature will not allow me to give any proper return to the devotion and sympathy of yours. I hope your future life may never more be clouded. Adieu ! " CONSTANTLY" Within a year, she again wrote to me, as follows : " I have to make you a proposition which will surprise you. I propose to return to you as your wife, with the will and wish to fulfil all the duties which such a position will impose, both towards my dear children and towards you. I have reflected much upon the evils which my selfish weaknesses produce, and hope I am now prepared to be content with try ing to live for the happiness of others. I do not wish A UNION THAT IS NOT A UNION. 279 you to be deceived ; it is not my love I offer you, you know that is not a thing to be taken off and put on at pleasure, but my friendship, which, for the future, I will endeavor to manifest towards you, asking you only to forget the evils of our past life, and rely on my sincerity as your security for my truth. I acknowledge myself a selfish, ill-tempered, obstinate, and wilful woman, bad enough, at the best, made worse by seven years of contrarieties, and you know all the risks you incur in taking me back. These will make the merit of accepting me the greater, and the excuses for refusing the better. Reflect, decide, and give me an answer, and what ever it is I shall be silent. CONSTANTIA." At the expiration of a month, I replied : " If only our happiness were at stake, I should promptly say l No to your proposition. Why renew an experiment which for so many years has proved a continuous failure ? Apart, our tastes and affections have scope for their free exercise. To gether, they constantly clash ; our tempers are kept irritable from mutual inability to do or be what we most desire ; even our cordial friendships separate us still further, and we fail to live up to the meas ure of our individualities. But when you speak of children, you make all purely personal considerations secondary to their welfare. It is far better that they should have our joint care and instruction under one roof, with the appearance of harmony between us, than to be temporarily separated from one or the other, and subjected, as they must other- 280 HEART-EXPERIENCE. wise be, to conflicting ideas and emotions. On their account, therefore, taking your proposal in its strictest literal sense, and trusting to your more experienced views of life, and the final disappear ance of my own illusions, I say Yes. You will find such a home at your disposition as my means and character permit, as soon as you choose to avail yourself of it. KATILAN." Constantia joined me immediately. For her sex, she has a rare merit, and that is, perfect truthfulness. Some characters there are few, alas! who will not lie under any temptation. I have never known another wholly like hers in this respect. She abso lutely could not. The socket-bones of life would frequently have moved with more ease and freedom within each other, could she have acquired a little amiable tact of concealment, or occasionally oiled her temperament with assumed sympathies. Women ordinarily clothe themselves with an atmosphere of deceit, generally of an amiable or self-protective kind, fearing to speak out their natures frankly and fully, and by tact, flattery, or falsehood, seek to govern the men on whom they are dependent. Nothing of this existed in Constantia s disposition. As she felt she acted, often from superficial and mis taken ideas or emotions, but always in unison with what she thought was right. What she did not feel she was unable to express. Unlike most women, also, she had no purely sexual instinct, but in its place an extraordinary craving for or reliance upon cognate mental sympathies. Her innocence was so A UNION THAT IS NOT A UNION. 281 absolute that she sometimes provoked censure by a deportment which, unsuspicious of wrong in itself, acted with childlike freedom and wilfulness, while its pure instincts served to protect her from direct harm. Having thoroughly learned her nature, it speedily became more tractable to me, though rarely un selfish, and never affectionate. Dead love is the heaviest of all imponderable substances. When once it begins to sink, it goes on, never finding bottom. Constantia s idea of duty was neither enlarged nor self-denying ; but, such as it was, she was faithful to it. With us, marriage from love had been a com plete failure. Every hope, sentiment, or feeling, embarked in it, had been shipwrecked, after more than common efforts to safely navigate them into their longed-for haven. We were now united solely from regard to responsibilities voluntarily in curred towards others. This principle gradually developed mutual self-control and regard, so that her promised friendship and sincerity, unsought and unrestrained on my part, in the end have proved more efficacious for domestic harmony mark, not happiness than the enthusiastic but untested feel ings with which we first became husband and wife. I now view marriage more as a lesson preparatory to a higher and purer development of character, than as in itself a final condition. As we accept its teachings, so we rise or fall in the moral scale of being. True, it has failed to confer joy on me ; but it has taught me somewhat to know myself, and, bet ter than all, it has helped to point out the celestial road. God be thanked for its sad, severe wisdom ! 24* CHAPTER XXXIII. MY THEORY OF MY HEART S IDEAL. HAS it not often happened, my readers, that, in seeing a face for the first time, you could have sworn you had seen it before, so familiar did it appear? You have, indeed, seen it before, but simply as an expression of your intuitive idea of some truth, beauty, or emotion, indelibly impressed on your mind, but unrecognized by your external senses, until they surprise you with a visible repre sentation in the form of some brother or sister accidentally met by the wayside. Thus Nature im prints her facts upon flesh and blood ; varying their outer forms so infinitely, that no two human beings are precisely alike ; yet manifesting so plainly through all material coverings the few great kindred principles which govern all souls, that, as we walk through the world, we are constantly recognizing in strange faces the counterparts or antipodes of our own thoughts and feelings. This subtle faculty is the foundation of true perception of character, because it recognizes the inward principle as the real fact, while the external is but its temporary cover ing. The principle that attracts and repels souls is MY THEORY OF MY HEART S IDEAL. 283 as fixed and regular as the law that holds planets to their orbits, and regulates the flights of comets: but the moral differs from the physical in the respect that while the latter is controlled by a force wholly independent of itself, the former is gifted with a volition of its own, which, influenced by reason, bestows the power of individual choice and action. Upon a superficial glance, there would seem to be somewhat contradictory between the idea of a fixed moral principle and the self-agency of man. But, as this principle, like that of gravitation, implies only a certain tendency or movement, it does not mili tate against the varied directions and forces which other principles or laws may combine to give it. Drop a feather and stone from a great height, and both reach the earth, though at widely different intervals. Thoughts or feelings having for each other a natural affinity always tend towards union, however distant in time or space, or separated by self-control or circumstances, may be their personalities. It is not necessary to see, touch, or speak, in order to love, any more than mathematical demonstration is requisite for faith. Mind and heart attract their correlatives throughout the wide universe, recog nizing each truth and passion kindre,d to its nature as its own, whether spoken by Socrates, Christ, Shakspeare, or Swedenborg, or felt by a Cleopatra, Ruth, Mary, or Heloise. The degree in which another nature can attract and impress our own depends upon the adaptation 284 HEAKT-EXPERIENCE. of its faculties to administer to our complete happi ness, or to represent the ideal of our thoughts and desires. When young, we are too erratic and super ficial in mind, and too deludable by our untrained passions and sentiments, to attain much satisfaction in this respect. My own early years, as with most others that I have known, were but successive dis appointments of head and heart, when viewed in the light of recent experience. But, as we reach a certain distance from their immediate scenes and effects, the horizon all round grows clearer. From out the past, wisdom sheds light upon the future. Every fresh experience becomes, if we so will it, a new round in the ladder of life, planted heaven ward. How much is embraced in that simple word heaven ! God is undefinable. Christ has been moulded into a contradictory dogma, putting faith and reason in perpetual conflict ; but heaven com prehends repose, bliss, divine love, and infinite knowledge ; purity, peace, and harmony ; all that the world can desire of good, or "each soul can con ceive to be its particular happiness, exhaustless, progressive, and eternal. Sweet, very sweet> is that word, so full of hope and consolation to all sad hearts ; dearer even still is it to those that joyfully understand its promise, patiently and trustingly abiding its realization within themselves, as each act and thought hastens the coming of their Messiah. Whatever or whoever, be it success or sadness, pleasure or pain, man, woman, or child, that aids in building up our heaven, is truly a matter for self- MY THEORY OF MY HEART S IDEAL. 285 congratulation. Perhaps we never advance so fast as when our own finite wishes are most thwarted. I would fain believe so, judging from the events of my own life, by which I am able to contrast such satisfaction as I have derived at various times from the accomplishment of objects aimed at, with the Divine wisdom slowly developed to my mind through a series of seeming misfortunes and disappointments. Beside those already narrated, I shall confess but one other experience of the heart, before leaving what may be termed the practical and passional phase of life, and proceeding to its more intellectual developments of art, science, and religion. CHAPTER XXXIY. I FIND MY IDEAL, AT LAST. THERE are some natures so largely developed and well balanced in their mental faculties, with a physical organization correspondingly refined, sensi tive, and strong, that their very presence operates as a magnetic charm upon all other individualities, whether able or not to appreciate the power that attracts or subdues them. Unfortunately for our race, such superiority is extremely rare ; but, once met, no one fails to recognize an influence above and beyond the common type of humanity. Often the possessors of this mysterious soul-force are themselves unconscious of their mental and moral weight, either from being hedged in with circum stances that keep it dormant, or from the deep humility of their natures, which makes them turn in dismay from a power that awes them, simply because they have felt its strength and responsibility before understanding fully the value and purpose of the Divine gift. If you have come in contact, man ! but once in your life with one such complete woman hood, you need not my personal description to picture to your mind the charms of body and spirit AT LAST. 287 which, if words should attempt to render, would seem to the uninitiated rhapsody, while to you they at best would be but lifeless. Think not that such natures are out of our range of humanity by being less subject to passions and infirmities than ourselves. On the contrary, there is a depth to every feeling which only correspond ing feeling can fathom, and a susceptibility and beauty of physical temperament adapted to the exquisite sensibility of the soul which it enshrines. As is their capacity of enjoyment, so is their fulness of suffering. To rougher natures, associa tions, sympathies, love, and friendship, are but the chances of time transient pleasures or pains, easily forgotten or renewed ; but to the former there is a delicate fibre, which convulses with vengeful force at every heart-pang or self-renunciation, making each moral triumph a Waterloo of subdued or baffled desires. With kindred dispositions, there is a subtle sus ceptibility, that the slightest cause serves to magnet ize. When I first heard pronounced the name of the woman who subsequently restored to me my ideal of her sex, by a display of attributes which revealed a heaven of truth, purity, and affection, and once more put me in harmony with the last and best of God s creations, simply by showing how beauti ful, excellent, and wise, she may be, even on earth, I experienced a strange thrill ; a desire to meet and know that intelligence, though we were separated by an ocean. Yet I took no steps to effect this. With out willing or seeking it, we were brought together. 288 HEART-EXPERIENCE. As she first met me, radiant with that ineffable and tender beauty, yet strength of soul, that Raphael suggests in his Madonnas ; with the same golden- hued hair, repose of countenance, delicate taper ing of limbs, and graceful but full outline of body, and a voice that of itself portrayed the best virtues of her sex, so low, soft, and musical was it, she said, taking both my hands in hers, " I feel already as if I well knew you." She did know me ; she knew me better than I did myself. All that was best and worthiest flowed from me in her presence, as freely as if a new oracle spoke within me. At last, I had realized what a true woman was ; what it was to be made, man ; the true secret of morals, as Shelley calls perfect love ; that entire going out of our own being, and identifying ourselves with the beautiful in thought, action, and person, of another ; and yet, never had my own individuality been more complete and active, and, I can truly add, more thoroughly alive, not only to the happiness of the object of my passion, but of all persons. When Paul first saw celestial light he became blind; afterwards, the scales fell from his eyes, and he beheld sights more glorious than even an inspired tongue could utter. With me the dawn of my new light of the power and worth of woman was from the first glance com plete. It was what my soul had long hungered and thirsted for. This may appear exaggeration. But it is strictly true. New capacities and realizations of life were opened within me. I have passion, perhaps, more than common ; I have the strongest AT LAST. 289 desire to realize all of the good for which God or dained man and woman to dwell together ; I had been most miserable in my married life, from its failure ; yet so perfect was now my love, and so exalting to my entire nature, that I not only wel comed my past wretchedness as a fit moral prepara tion for my present satisfaction, but confided to Constantia my entire feelings. I know that this step was very weak and unnovel-like, but it was the impulse of sympathy and truth, and I had no act to conceal. Had there been a possibility of our union, per haps I should have been restless and covetous. But the superiority of s nature was so manifest, each thought, impulse, and act, so genuine and con trolling, that, had mere passion shown itself in me, a single look of hers would have instantly sub dued it. I gave her no occasion. We each had duties to others, and we made them the law of our lives. I have no exciting scenes to portray, nothing whereby to amaze or perplex. If, reader, you cannot entertain the idea of a pas sionate, all-filling love subduing itself to duty, and happy in the sacrifice, from the consciousness of preferring the repose of soul-approbation to the transient gratification of a desire even for social intercourse, with its consequent temptations, I des pair of persuading you of the truth of this my final confession. As soon as we fully realized the strength of the sympathies that united us, we parted. She gave me a bunch of wild-flowers, gathered by herself, as I bade her farewell. Those 25 290 HEART-EXPERIENCE. flowers I still keep, the sole relic of the being who revolutionized my heart. It still beats for her the same as when we separated, each with a smile on our lips, and a deep-drawn " May God keep you ! " on our tongues. We do not even correspond. Never do I hear of her ; yet I am as certain of the nobility and constancy of woman as I am of God s sunlight. It is sufficient for me that one such ex ists. That consciousness inspires me with the idea of infinite happiness, in the free communion of similar souls, when God s will permits. It cannot be on earth ; it may not arrive through many suc cessive stages of existence; but it will be. Till that period, patience and perseverance in right- doing ! I have one male friend who inspires me with a similar faith in the capacity of his sex for perfect friendship and infinite advancement. With two such examples of humanity before me, and the capacity to appreciate them, how can I do other wise than confide in the possibility, through God s providence, of the ultimate happiness and perfec tion of the affections of my own soul? CHAPTER XXXV. VALEDICTORY A VISION? IT was the evening of a warm summer s day. Island and promontory along the irregular coast line lay silent before me in the picturesque shadow of twilight, gradually growing dimmer, as star after star, shooting out of the far-off sky, sent quick, suc cessive rays of golden light earthward, to gladden the late-coming night, and weave a web of won drous beauty, wherewith to catch the tired souls of earth, and lift them for a while tenderly and repos- ingly heavenward. Down, down below, a long way down, yet shining above the horizon 1 , were several of man s beacons to earthly homes and shelter, faith fully sending their welcome tidings in all directions through the dark shades around. Light-house and star on like missions, but how widely apart their havens ! Hard by, spent waves lazily swashed over half- sunken rocks, ugly and threatening, cragged and seaweed-mantled, dripping ceaselessly salt tears from their bleak and blear sides, the sullen breakers the while hoarsely whispering of treacherous shoals and eddies, and engulfed ships, and shore-tossed, 292 HEART-EXPERIENCE. shark-mangled corpses; fearful wrecks, in which men s lives had been but as foam-bubbles, a moment struggling on the deathly wave-crest, and then gone forever. Heaven and hell were before me. The course to either was then but the difference of a turn of a spoke on the helmsman s wheel ! The breeze gradually died out, leaving only a faint ripple on the water of the bay. Cooled by the zephyr airs that danced lightly over cheek and brow, I mused. Its fairy-like touch went through skin and blood, magnetizing them with refreshing power, direct from Nature s own breath, into my inmost being, soothing, invigorating, and suggest ing the countless beauties and infinitude of good gifts of the Author of our world. Those gentle touches, then, were spirit-hands rapping with kin dred impulses upon the windows of my soul. From musing, I dozed, at least, I think I did, and saw a vision. Was it spirit-life ? Soon my old acquaintance, the angel, came. Me- thought I had gone back to my first ideaship. There was no mistaking my former guardian. This time his face shone with curiosity, mingled, so it seemed to me, with a subdued consciousness of ful filled mischief. " Well, well," said he, " my inquisitive, pestering little idea ! So you have come back, at last, I see ! Glad enough, I am sure. What now? Confess how you found earth-life." " Rather a strong tonic," I replied. " Good, how ever, if you know how to take it, but bad if an over- VALEDICTORY A VISION? 293 dose. I thank you, notwithstanding, for my chance." " Indeed ! So you do not wish to go back to your old nothinghood ? " " By no means. I have had some hard rubs, it is true, but begin to feel all the better for them. If you please, I will keep on." " What, if I do not please ? " " I will then please myself." "I see that earth-life has not cured your pert- ness." " Neither has it wholly satisfied my curiosity. I am determined both to see and feel it through." " Very well, then, have your own way." " I intend to go my own way, and win my own destiny. I have already learned enough to know- that I am immortal, and that the universe is but the workshop of each individual soul." " We will not anticipate the future. I shall fore warn you of nothing. Live and learn. But what of the past? I must catechize my vagrant idea, to see if his time has been well employed." " Begin, then." " How did you find your womb-life ? " "At first, somewhat precarious ; afterwards, safe and pleasant." "And babyhood?" " With such a mother, nothing could be more delightful." " You had the measles, croup, fever, and other touches of material evils ? " " I got the better of them, as you perceive. They 25* 294 HEART-EXPERIENCE. taught me the mysteries of my physical being, opened wider to me the heart of my mother, deep ened my own affections, and I am content." " You broke down in your studies, and lost your aim in life, did you not ? " " Yes, it is too true. I dislike unnecessary words ; so I will confess all my disasters and disappoint ments, without further probing on your part. Lis ten ! " I found no fatherly wisdom to direct me. " I lost my mother as soon as I had learned fully to appreciate her. " I failed in health and eyesight. " I failed in an education. " I failed in philanthropy. " I failed in fortune. " I failed in marriage. " I failed in love. " I failed in ambition. " I failed in being l understood and appreciated. " I failed in friendship." " Enough, enough ! " broke in the angel. " I am sufficiently bored already with your catalogue of failures. What a fine experience I shall have to relate to my celestial compatriots ! They have already too high an opinion of earth." " Nay, my benevolent guardian, since you begun the conversation, you must hear me out." " In sjjort, I acknowledge to being wrecked, snagged, gagged, cheated, vexed, diseased, and driven from and disappointed in every thing and every pursuit to which I devoted my time and VALEDICTORY A VISION? 295 abilities, and in every one to whom I gave my heart, except my mother, who is dead, friends whom I never see, and an infant, too young to know or feel anything, as yet, but its own intuitive innocence, sincerity, purity, and spirit-conscious ness. In nothing have I reached even my own finite standard. You find me isolated amid a crowd ; a lonely, taciturn invalid ; an author without an audi ence ; a man without a profession ; a husband with out a wife ; a lover without a mistress ; a son without a mother ; brotherless, sisterless, fortuneless ; ripe and overflowing with social emotions, and no tan gible, possible, satisfactory reciprocity. " Every pang of chagrined feelings, disappointed love, and tortured affections ; of loss of health, property, social position, and cherished objects in external life ; of falsehood and treachery, and of numberless other wounds, have I undergone. I con fess myself a human failure in every sense but one. Are you satisfied? " "A sad picture you draw of life. >Has it no sun light?" " Yes, I have told you that I except one thing, which is a compensation for all." "What is that?" " MYSELF." "Explain yourself. If life have proved so false and thorny to you, why do you so agree with it? " " Precisely because in respect to my inner self it has not proved a failure. A superficial view is in deed unsatisfactory ; and, if I now clung tenaciously to the objects on which my head and heart, during 296 HEART-EXPERIENCE. their unsophisticated state, set their desires, as the sole realities of existence, I should indeed of all men be the most miserable. But I do not. Most of them were but self begotten illusions. The best were but shadows of deeper, more distant, but finally realizable truths, truths that shall event ually fill heart and mind, and expand both with ever-increasing knowledge and happiness. I calmly repose in this consciousness. Neither events nor individuals can now disturb the serenity of this faith. I may not at present grasp the coveted ob ject ; but its ultimate possession, when I am fully prepared for it, will as surely be mine as that God is over all and in all. With this assurance, I can quietly wait. In the mean while we need pangs, woes, and disappointments, for the fruit they graft on our char acters. These they improve and ripen, just as the gardener s knife stimulates the tree to greater effort and improved product. A world like ours without storm or shadow would speedily become vapid and pointless. Self-effort elevates and prepares us for a higher life ; whereas selfish possession and un- bitted prosperity corrupts, weakens, and degrades. Give me, then, the discipline which best promotes my final good. God sees what the human eye can not. Believing in the wisdom of what is, I regret nothing. I am thankful for the past. I am hopeful for the future. I am content with the present." Here I awoke, as was natural after so long a speech ; and, what was equally natural, the angel had gone to sleep in my stead, and disappeared. I could see nothing of him. VALEDICTORY A VISION? 297 The stars were twinkling lovingly at me, and the ocean-symphony, as it fell in low murmur upon my ears, sounded, " It is all true." " Now, do tell me, is it all true that you have written? Be good, for once, and you shall have, what I know you want, the best kiss I have to give," said an inquisitive, gentle, and, of course, charming being, at my elbow. To which I sententiously replied, as I do to you, my reader, " To him or her that believeth, it is true ; to him or her that believeth not, it is not true." FINIS [IN PART]. A CODICIL. THE DOCTRINE AND LESSON OF LIFE. PART I. INSTINCT WILL LOVE. " Build your own world. As you conform your life to the pure idea in your mind, that will unfold its greatest proportions. A cor respondent revolution in things will attend the influx of the spirit." EMERSON. ANIMALS have unto themselves an arbitrary law called instinct, which, in obeying, brings to them their highest good. Their use in the economy of nature being an inferior one, she has provided for their guidance this self-principle, which is at once their protection and their happiness. There is noth ing in their organization that indicates a reference to other purpose than of time and earth. Even the highest evidence of their instinctive knowledge appertains exclusively to transient deeds. God manifests a definite design in every particu lar of creation. There is, to my mind, no law more certain than that hope and aspiration are the fore runners of realization the seeds planted in time, to blossom and bear fruit throughout eternity. Ani mals being destitute of these emotions, it is plain 300 THE DOCTRINE AND LESSON OF LIFE. that their lives have no functions beyond this grosser plane of existence ; while man, being filled with desires which cannot find full scope in time, and which lie within him like unfledged wings, strug gling to escape into a premature flight, shows a nobler and far-reaching design, a moral organization born of God and of necessity, as eternal as his spirit. To this inward light and testimony there is joined a motive-power we call will. This is left free to be acted upon by all influences which go to form characters, and according to the direction it takes so man shapes his destiny. Man, therefore, possessing the birthright of immor tality, loses or defers his progress heavenward, and approaches animal existence, in the degree that he barters his exalted future for present pottage. If he be content with the pleasures and capacities of his sensual being, they are accorded to him ; but with them kindly pains and disappointments, to warn him that there is a wiser choice. The enjoyments of sense perish with their use. A more bitter hell cannot exist than that of a will which craves animal indulg ence, or the exercise of selfish passions, without physical sensibility to enjoy the one, or strength to pursue the other. True happiness depends upon the spirit s condition. As the soul expands in goodness and greatness, so does its subtle power for joy permeate the body, and render it more susceptible to the rightful pleasures of its organization. At the same time it learns to triumph over disease or absti nence, often finding in either the key that tunes the mind to sweeter harmony. THE DOCTRINE AND LESSON OF LIFE. 301 Intellectual power differs from animal instinct, inasmuch as the latter comes into being as perfect at first as at last ; generations neither alter nor im prove it. Whether animals will or not will, they must obey their governing law. Not so with man. USE is his law. By use his faculties grow. By non- use they shrink. Thus he is a progressive being. He never sees the same things twice ; or, more prop erly speaking, as he advances or retrogrades things and ideas vary their proportions and positions in relation to him. Truth is measured to him by his capacity to receive and diligence in seeking it. In this law of change and progression lies the great hope of humanity. The power that gives note of it, that pulls us on, the restless I, by its consistent eccentricity demonstrates that we came from and go to the great I AM. Man s motto- is, I Wish. Noth ing short of the I AM of infinite perfection will stop his career. What better evidence can we have of our destiny than this eagerness to reach and com prehend our parentage to be worthy children of the Universal Parent ? Thank God, therefore, man, for thy aspirations ! Thank him still more for the great law of progres sion, which, making sin and evil self-destructive, draws them, as they accomplish their mission, stead ily towards annihilation. Thank him most that he has made thee after his own soul ; that nothing thou desirest in his spirit shall be withheld ; while from all nature loving truths woo thee to faith and hope. Death itself is but the birth-throe to a higher life. The holiest life that which embodies sacrifice of 26 302 THE DOCTRINE AND LESSON OP LIFE. lower for higher truths, the abnegation of selfish and temporary desire for the future and universal good is the wisest. From out of this law, as honey of old came from the carcass of the lion, cometh forth sweetness. Duty is its strength. In our earthly organization this implies action. to do, to deny, to suffer, as well as to be, to have, to enjoy, springing from the constant conflict between the temporary and the eternal. We are ever admonished to act by an inward voice, which is the echo of divinity within our hearts. Hence our earthly career is marked by struggles of will and action, which as we receive them, become the mile-stones to note our life-progress to or from the great good. Hereafter, when our progress shall merit it, so glori ous in attributes shall be our spiritual bodies, that to will, will be, to be. Whatever the soul shall crave of heavenly good, that will it spontaneously possess in forms of purest beauty, springing from the simple exercise of a will made perfect. Thus we shall for- evermore approach that being who wills, and it Is. The vital spark of the soul is its love. This truth makes martyrs. Loyal to its spirit-affections, it welcomes pain, self-denial, or death, rather than forego its faith. This body, with all its curious apparatus of seductive senses or shrinking sensibil ities, its imperious passions or ambitious desires, this world, with all its varied allurements and spirit- callousness, are but refuse garments in view of the glorious robes faith holds up to the view of those who see into the great future. The sublim ity of physical nature awes man into littleness, THE DOCTRINE AND LESSON OF LIFE. 303 because it contrasts infinite power with finite strength. But the sublimity of self-devotion, the election of future good above present gratification, lifts man towards his Maker ; for from Him comes the inspiration not in storm or lightning, but unseen, like the gentle breath of heaven. Whence it cometh and whither it goeth, it giveth no sign except by its fruits. Intellect is a gift that requires active labor to per fect. Man is to cultivate it as he tills the earth, by the sweat of his brow. Its reward is in its action. We gather knowledge from all outward agencies and inward feelings. In this pursuit man is the executive power. With moral inspiration it is differ ent. That is an inward gift, flowing from the source of all purity. The most that man can do is to train his heart to receive it. Through a virtuous will light enters his soul with ever-brightening rays. Logic will not command it, nor reason create it. To sin cere and dutiful minds solely does it come the chil dren who know their Father, and claim him, and not to those who seek him not, for he forces not him self upon unwilling hearts. This moral power is the source of all that is noblest in humanity. It is the vital principle of the patriot and statesman, the art ist and the mechanic, the author and the laborer, the woman who believes and obeys, and the man who believes and acts of all in whom are earnest, truth- seeking souls. Be their creeds or tongues what they may, this unites them under one common humanity, and makes of mankind universal brother hood. It is a bond which artificial distinctions have 304 THE DOCTRINE AND LESSON OF LIFE. had no power to sever. The human race hails the advent of each NEW man as a fresh Adam a step and prophecy to aid the race towards its future. It is slow at first to perceive its benefactors, but sooner or later recognizes, through its own soul-wants, the talents confided in trust to a fellow-man for the general good. THE DOCTRINE AND LESSON OF LIFE. PART II. MARRIAGE DIVORCE REFORM. ** Man is all symmetry, Full of proportions, one link to another, And to all the world besides. Each part may call the farthest brother ; For head with foot hath private amity And both with moons and tides." ****** " More servants wait on man Then he 11 take notice of. In every path He treads down that which befriends him When sickness makes him pale and wan. 0, mighty love ! Man is one world, and hath Another to attend him." GEOKGE HERBERT. THROUGHOUT the physical world we find a general law bringing together detached parts by a principle we call attraction. The moral world displays the same action, by the force of sympathy. Both result from a universal law of marriage, based on affinities, by which all matter and life are instinctively drawn towards their likes or loves, by the influence of har- THE DOCTRINE AND LESSON OF LIFE. 305 mony. Nature, through her lower creatures, so reg ulates their action by imperative instincts that they impulsively fulfil her laws. Consequently, in the mineral, vegetable and animal world, marriage obeys by inward compulsion the great Will. Not so with man. Endowed with loftier faculties, he has been gifted with a will of his own, by which to make his election in the wide compass of objects and desires. To each emotion has been accorded its correspondence, and to every desire its natural fulfilment ; the degree of satisfaction in all of which depends upon their relative positions in the scale of moral harmony. Spiritual affinities are as exact and forcible as are the physical ; only, from their greater subtlety of action, and the disturbing power of human will, which selects its loves in accordance with its plane of desire, and often with reference only to the selfish and transitory, they are the less understood. But, if the will be so trained as to exert itself only in the degree that each object or emotion is capable of adding to happiness by its legitimate use or moral qualification, we should keep in harmony with the outer and inner worlds, and save ourselves the often repeated search for ripe figs on the barren tree. First, know what we want ; then, how and where to look for it ; expect no more of its possession than it is qualified to bestow; cherish it solely for its own worth, and not for what nature, in withhold ing from one object, gave to another ; and, above all, prepare the mind to receive its good, and reject its evil. Without the latter, the former would not be. 26* 306 THE DOCTRINE AND LESSON OP LIFE. Without intellect to discern and will to choose, we should have no characters, but be as low in the scale of creation as the quadrupeds, or even the mollusca. Therefore, think not so despondingly of evil, man ! It is the fiery ordeal through which you must pass to reach your heavenly heritage. Evil mark ! not sin results from the imperfect or vicious use of good. It is the second-born of Law. Whether through choice or ignorance, man is responsible for it, or is its victim. God, in permitting evil, displays no less his wisdom than in the good with which he rewards the conquering soul. Without both there would be no individuality ; no soul-existence. They are man s training spirits. Reason is the drip-stone through which all knowledge must pass. If reason be impure itself by cause of a foul will, the streams that flow through it will partake of its foulness. Hence the importance of directing the desires only towards pure and refined sources of improvement. As we cultivate a love for truth, purity, and charity ; the benevolence that prefers, another to ourselves ; the knowledge that seeks to know the laws that connect man with the material world and their com mon Maker, so shall we be filled with the responsive sympathy of the good angels that guard these treasures, and the Will, of its own desire, will go forth to welcome them. Sympathy being the subtle principle which unites hearts or minds, it follows that as in the beginning it was not good for man to be alone, so it is the same now. His desires must have their objects. Friendship is but partial sympathy. Its degree is THE DOCTRINE AND LESSON OF LIFE. 307 according to the tastes and affections gratified. The basis is moral or mental appreciation. It is inferior to love, because not the total of sympathy. Love is complete sympathy. I speak of perfect love, by which the passions, sentiments, and thoughts of one human being, bear such a fitness towards those of another, that, when brought within mutual influence, they run together as naturally as two drops of water placed within their sphere of physical attraction. Similarity in sex is essential to perfect friendship ; dissimilarity, to love. Between opposite sexes, friendship is always endangered by love in the proportion that it absorbs all the faculties. Hence it is that platonic love is universally viewed as a feint or sarcasm. Nature does not acknowledge it. Men and women apart are imperfect beings ; severed halves of an intended whole. Passions, sentiments, and reason, alike point to a union as an instinct of self-preservation. This begets marriage. I believe more misery, deceit, and crime, are be gotten of this relation, intended, as it is, for mutual happiness, than from any other one cause. Yet marriage must be. Nature, as a whole, allows no exemptions. Witness the slave-wife of the savage, with her burden upon her back, and her infant at her breast; the sensual wife of the Mussulman, bred and fattened as caged lust; the brutish form and brute-worked wife of the peasantry of much of Europe cow and wife under the same yoke ; in fine, the animal wife of every grade, up to the civilized woman, the equal in cultivation and 308 THE DOCTRINE AND LESSON OF LIFE. the superior in virtue of the man of society, who too often is but a refined tyrant. Has marriage to all of these filled their measure of tenderness, sympathy, and love ? Has it not more often mocked them with a stone, instead of giving them the bread of life ? Whence your discontent, ye disappointed of both sexes ? Whence your inward repinings, and out ward protests ; the deathly calm of a benumbed mind, or the frantic defiance of worldly morality ? Have riches no power to soothe a wounded spirit? Cannot children heal a broken heart? Have not honors, station, and friends ; the gratification of every external want, of every selfish desire, pride, vanity, novelty; the culture of the intellect, the call of ambition, the rush and whirl of the world, or the solitude of despair, have not these the power to quench your sorrows, or cheat your misery? If for any of them you bartered your bodies into a slavery that wilts the spirit, have you not been paid the full forfeit of the bond? But there is a sword that ever pierces ; whose keen edge never ceases to cut the heart s strings. The wronged and the wronger alike feel it ; for their union, instead of producing happiness, jars upon the nerves of each as the shrieking discord of the set- saw upon the sensitive ear. The more poignant the misery, the stronger man knots the tie, and in his blasphemy says, " God wills it." This is false. God wills union, but not disunion. Printed laws or priest-spoken words do not make marriage. They are the external language by which man records the act. But true marriages THE DOCTRINE AND LESSON OF LIFE. 309 springs from within, and are blessed only in the degree of the purity and completeness with which the entire natures of both sexes mingle. That there are few such, is, alas ! too true ; the world may lie, but hearts declare it. Count, readers, the truly happy unions known to each of you. Can you even name the number that would have saved Sodom? Confess the contrary. Number the hearts that bleed beneath this bondage, rinding relief either in freezing their affections, or else letting them roam, like the cruiser on the open sea, in quest of prizes. What think you now ? As I have before said, evil is self-destructive, while good is self-expansive. The instinct of marriage forces man into its vortex, and equally forces him to escape. He finds not what he seeks, and demands why. Civilized man is not contented with merely legal marriage. It were safer, perhaps, to whisper this than to speak it aloud. But it is the truth, and the remedy can be found only by meeting it in its full significance. The savage or semi-barbarian, who wants a slave or sensualist, finds what he wants; but the cultivated classes of both sexes in Europe and America are growing yearly more dissatisfied with the present phase of marriage. The European, without freedom to speak in opposition to his church, thinks in silence, but acts openly. He obeys the letter of the marriage, while he contravenes its spirit. The social license that obtains throughout most of Europe attests the strength of the revolt against that dogmatic tyranny which admits of no reform. 310 THE DOCTRINE AND LESSON OP LIFE. In America, numerous divorces, treatises, social experiments, and a loose and fluctuating legislation, attempting to reconcile individual freedom with public morality, show how deeply the subject occupies the public attention. Investigation and action on all topics connected with the welfare and progress of the human race are the rules of the New World. If an evil appear, it hesitates not to probe the cause. Is it better to confess and strive to amend the institution, as in America ; or to assert its God-derived perfection, as in Europe, and live in the vice which is its worst foe ? The great fact of connubial discord being admit ted, the next step is to seek- the cause and remedy. Society and progress depend upon marriage. With the less advanced races, unions are founded on physical necessities or mutual convenience. Both their results are easily attained ; and as long as the spirit-nature is undeveloped no discontent will ensue, for there is no aspiration towards a higher condition. Affections and passions growing out of merely earthly relationship are readily satisfied ; but when the spirit begins to assert its affinity to divine nature, it then claims its right to seek those sympathies that shall best help it onward. The lower the principle on which marriage is based, the more jealous become its advocates. They would claim property in the soul, as they do in the body. We will admit, as their undoubted right, the physical chastity they rate so highly. But can they chain the heart? Decrees and com mands are futile to bind the spirit. So is even one THE DOCTRINE AND LESSON OF LIFE. 311 affection to bind another, unless it responds with equal force. Is it, then, a mortal sin, in a husband, wife, and friend, not to love solely and totally the object of their legal tie or choice ? Can they do so from will, or sense of duty? Every heart replies, it can neither be bound nor forced. Yet short-sighted jealousy has ever asserted its despotism, as well over the affections as their frame. But it has ever been met with uncompromising resistance, too often degenerating into wantonness, but under all circum stances asserting the self-agency, if not the dignity, of the individual soul. In intellectual power woman ig man s inferior, but in refinement and moral appre ciation his superior. As a friend, wife, or mother, he owes her a debt that a self-abnegating devotion equal to her own, alone can repay. Will he chain her more spiritual mind forever to the standard of his own material or rationalistic growth ? His laws and actions say so. But he might as well seek to cage the wind. The spirit goeth where it listeth; so spake the Son of God. \ As the physical body gathers its food from out of the elements of earth, air, and water, so the spirit seeks its appropriate nourishment from the bound less variety of sympathies nature and mind offer. Those who love must advance equally together in all points of spiritual growth, if they would continue soul-wedded. If their capacities and affinities indi cate their positive relationship, they will do so now and forever, in closer and more perfect union. But, if the contrary, they must separate in minds and affections, by a law more cogent than human enact- 312 THE DOCTRINE AND LESSON OF LIFE. ments or selfish interests. The stronger or purer will value the weaker or grosser at its own worth, and no more. As well might the owl say to the eagle, " You shall not fly towards the sun," as the inferior nature say to the superior, " Live always in the dark with me." This would-be exile of the spirit from its rightful element is, alas ! common among many who claim to love. Well may the afflicted shrink from such testi mony. It is not love, but selfish fear fear that would bring ruin to another to hide its own abase ment. True love speaks out, without fear, and says to the spirit, " Go forth into all quarters of the globe ; soar over creation, mount to heaven, probe every human heart, draw angels down to thine, gather from all, love and wisdom. Go in God s name. If I can keep thee company, we will rejoice together; if thou mountest faster, God speed thee ; we each in our appointed time shall reach our heaven, and be at rest, There are many mansions prepared by Christ for those who live in his love." Marriage is necessarily two-fold : the external or material, and the internal or spiritual union. Happi ness results in the degree that these accord. It is difficult to define their interaction, or where the two meet; though the results of the predominance of either, so that the harmonious balance is lost, are not to be mistaken. I do not hesitate to say, however, that there are more virtues, happiness, and welfare, be gotten of marriage, than of any other human institu tion, paradoxical as this may appear in contrast with my first assertion. But, viewing evil as the imperfect THE DOCTRINE AND LESSON OF LIFE. 313 or vicious use of good, it follows that that which is most prolific of the one must also be relatively pregnant with the other. Property- begets theft ; without a desire to steal, there would be no conscious honesty. Virtue is bom of temptation. From faith comes infidelity ; without belief, there could be no doubt; without doubt, neither questioning nor progress, nor should we know the value of faith. Hope itself is based upon the consciousness of uncertainty. The very parsimony of the natural world in cold climates, and its excessive prolificness in warm regions, are favorable to man, by forcing him to industry : for that which is spontaneous, safe, or easy, is but lightly prized. So, between good and evil there is an intimate relation for the development of the moral being in correspondence with those agencies of the physical world which bring to man pleasure and pain, to teach him the correct use of his material powers. * All nature is a system of checks and balances, of rewards and punishments, progressively developing humanity. 1 Man is the earthly climax towards whose welfare all else is subservient. Heaven contributes its wisdom to open to him a horizon of growth as limitless as eternity. The experiences and laws of earth are, if he will, the germs of a new life, the joys of which mortal thought cannot conceive, nor tongue express. I conceive marriage to be the most important of his preparatory experiences, as not only comprising the discipline of all his faculties, but as being typi cal of his future destiny in his final union to the highest good. Hence it is important to rightly 314 THE DOCTRINE AND LESSON OF LIFE. understand its principles. The external marriage has relation to the wants of material life children, society, property, and the state ; the internal mar riage relates to spiritual life the affections, sympa thies, affinities of thought and feeling, all those intangible but deathless ties that bind souls into unity. Self-interest is the connecting link of the first ; self-sacrifice, of the last. The more the former accumulates, the more jealous it becomes ; the more the latter gives, the more it desires to bestow, find ing its highest happiness in another s, each soul reacting upon the other in perpetual variety and increase, till all nature administers to their joy. The secret of connubial happiness lies in connect ing the former presupposing favorable physical conditions, for affinities of temperaments are all- important with the intertwining affections of the latter. The few that succeed in this find a joy so complete that to the sceptical it seems delusive, and to the hopeful a beacon of eternity planted on the shores of time to light them through its shoals. But I would speak to the vast multitude of the discontented, so vast that no man can number them, that find in matrimony only a lesser social evil than being single ; to that smaller yet numer ous body, who, by divorces, associations, and denun ciations, by the abandonment of homes, the preach ings of free-love, or the practice of libertinage, protest against their bondage, or seek a remedy from out of the very causes of their disappointments ; those who from legal rush into illegal vice; those who cry aloud in their slavery ; those patient ones, too, whose THE DOCTRINE AND LESSON OF LIFE. 315 silent wail of wronged selfhood, though unheard on earth, reaches heaven; and, above all, those minds that feel for others in their own wrongs, and in sincerity and earnestness inquire the remedy ; to all such I would ask to suggest a thought which may aid them either to bear in hope or act with right judgment. The two extremes of Reform advocated by the ultraists of each view meet in practice. That is, the externalists seek a remedy in physical variety for the satiety of a single passion ; while the inter nalists, in claiming equal freedom for the spirit, arrive at virtually the same result. The former live only in the body ; and the latter, forgetting that earth-life implies physical bondage, in striving to escape it, fall into the same error. Both are wrong. God has wedded flesh and soul in this life, and no man may put them asunder. While on the earth, we must live in compliance with its laws, which allow full scope for moral agencies. In no way can we better prepare ourselves for the future than by the im provement of the present. Those who disturb the just balance of soul and body, either by living in idle ecstasy or sensual indulgence, are equally mistaken. In proportion as soul or body obtains an isolated ascendency, in that degree the object of their union is defeated, and either moral or physical death must ensue. There is undoubtedly an earth- period fixed by a general law for each condition of human life. It is wiser, therefore, that all individ uals fulfil their allotted time, striving faithfully to execute their mixed mission. Spirit cannot exist 316 THE DOCTRINE AND LESSON OF LIFE. in this sphere apart from body. As soon as the latter becomes too coarse or feeble to be the partner of the former, it departs for a more congenial home. Life is necessarily objective. Death is the agent of a benevolent law, which benefits man by releasing him from the lesser to the wider sphere of progress. In its natural course it is no bugbear, but a friend. Confide in it, and its apparent evil resolves itself into general good ; the temporary gives way to the eternal. Mistaken marriages can be made self-corrective, not so much in relation to present as to future happiness. External force, or the machinery of reform moving by masses through vulgar propagan- dism ; will not effect this object, The evil comes from within, and must be met from within. The kingdom to be won is not of this world, though the victory is over it. As self-knowledge improves, so will marriage better answer its intent. All reform must be individual. Out of the issues of each heart comes the general good or evil. Let, then, each one therefore strive to meet the moral want of his age in himself, and his neighbor will grow better in spite of himself. Each man has but one soul to save, but so linked is he in the economy of nature that he can not exalt himself without exalting another. So, in sinning, our atmosphere taints our neighbors . Man kind do not voluntarily choose evil. They arrive at it in their misguided pursuit of good, deceived by selfish passions, and voluntary or involuntary igno rance. The responsibility is, however, none the less theirs, and no one ever escapes the consequences THE DOCTRINE AND LESSON OF LIFE. 317 of any act or motive, whether good or bad. Divine law is inflexible. Man can no more break a law of God than he can create a soul. He can substitute a lesser law for a greater, an inferior for a superior principle. But to kill is as much by the permission of God as to pray. It is the use of the law accord ing to his free-will which makes man more or less a sinner. Neither is there any forgiveness of sins. Each act and thought 1 is as unvariable in its appro priate results as that the fruits of summer succeed the blossoms of spring, or that the frost nips the bud. We must all bear our own sins, and in some degree our neighbors also ; because, being linked together in true or false interests, whatever of good or evil affects one extends an influence through out all. How can marriage be made self-corrective ? In the first place, by not vainly combating the tie. Bound to earth by physical laws, knowing moral action only through physical agencies, in short, conceiving of nothing that acts or thinks except in shape and body, we must reconcile ourselves to our captivity, and in receiving enjoyment from our material nature be reconciled to obedience to its laws. Man voluntarily selects his wife, with his instincts and knowledge to guide, added to hers to reject or approve. An external ceremony conse crates the act, and is its public symbol. The virtual abolition of ceremony, aiming at greater latitude of sexual intercourse, will not make marriage more fruitful in harmony. On the contrary, the disruption of external ties, the frequent breakings up and 27* 318 THE DOCTRINE AND LESSON OF LIFE. reforming of family circles,, the renewal of passion by the edge of variety, the anarchy among children, and the confusion of all outward decorum and interest, which must result from the negation of the binding character of the legal rite, except when humanity makes judicial interference a duty, all this must operate to render even an uncongenial union a lesser social danger than absolute freedom of the sexual will. Such a freedom can only be justified in the ulti mate stage of moral progress, when to will is to be right ; when the mind becomes so enlightened and the affections so purified that their action is divine. Then, and not till then, can man be intrusted with perfect freedom. Secondly, marriage can be made self-corrective by viewing it in its true sense, as a school in which to train the virtues for heaven. If its trials are sore, so are its years few. Time is a mere artificial measure of events belonging only to our embryo condition. We shall no more recollect it in relation to our sorrow, when our souls are expanded into eternity, than does the fledged bird its previous cramped position within the egg. Cannot we be patient in view of Paradise ? True, our sympathies pine, our hearts grow weary, our thoughts rebel, our bones ache, and we are well-nigh altogether miserable. Yet not altogether: for where is the household that admits not of the exercise of love, of tenderness, of hope, of faith, of patience, of charity, of forgiveness, of Ion g-suffe ring? Is not fealty to truth for its own sake worth striving for ? THE DOCTRINE AND LESSON OF LIFE. 319 Christ says, "Do good to those that hate yon, that you may be the children of your Father which is in heaven." Here we have the PROMISE. The soul that perfects itself in these virtues is winning a happier hereafter than if it were merely to rival Bacon in learning, or Shakspeare in genius. Be comforted, mourning ones ! As you tread humbly and firmly the path of daily duty, for sufficient unto the morrow is the morrow s duty, so are you training your souls to be welcomed into the joy of your God. Such is the sole sure basis of Reform. The individual heart must be purified and expanded. Love and Wisdom must therein unite. Then heaven begins on earth, and desolate hearthstones rejoice. It matters comparatively little what may be the nature of external bonds, if the spirit sanctify the hardest lot, and patiently await its call home. Let each man and woman guard well his or her actions and motives, self-examining and self-denying, acting love to their neighbor and leaning oil God ; and so shall all make a more rapid progress towards happi ness and freedom than if emperors leagued with popes, or the people with their presidents, to legis late the widest reforms that ever were dreamed of. In the degree that each individual disciplines his heart, legislation becomes obsolete for that one. By him written codes come to be viewed as the ne cessity only of a dark age. What need has the truly enlightened man for the legal hieroglyphics of an infant race ? What need the righteous man for prisons and armories ? All men, in the progress 320 THE DOCTRINE AND LESSON OF LIFE. of their moral being, will finally grow to view these things curiously, as now all civilized men wonder at judicial torture, and the pyramids of the Nile. Has not the ripened man a perfect law within him self, self-directing, self-acting and self-speaking? Who shall say that the possibility of one man may not become the experience of all mankind, when reform takes perfect root Within ? FINIS. __ T LLIPS, SAMPSON, & CO. S PUBLICATIONS, HISTORY. HISTORY OF THE REIGN OF PfllLIP II By William H. Prescott. With Portraits, Maps, Plates, &o, Two volumes, 8vo. Price, hi muslin, $2 per volume. Tho reign of Philip the Second, embracing the last half of the sixteenth century, is one of the most important as well as interesting portions of modern history. It is necessary to glance only at some of the principal events. 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