THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
SELECTIONS 
 
 FROM 
 
 AMERICAN AUTHORS 
 
 PRINTED IN THE ADVANCED 
 STYLE OF PITMAN'S SHORTHAND 
 
 NE\V YORK 
 
 ISAAC PITMAN & SONS, THE PHONOGRAPHIC DRPOI 
 2 \\ EST 45TH STREET 
 
 AND AT LONDON, BATH AND MELBOURNE 
 
 TORONTO, CANADA 
 The Commercial TeM-Book Co. 
 
 OR 
 T'tt C>M>, Clark Co.. Litinf d 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE BUCCANEER'S TREASURE (Washington Irving) ? 
 
 MY EDITING (Mark Twain) . . ' . . 10 
 
 A VENERABLE IMPOSTO-R (Bret Harte) . . 1H 
 THE AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST TABLE (Oliver 
 
 Wendell Holmes) ..... 23 
 
 THE WAY TO WEALTH (Benjamin Franklin) . 28 
 
 THE TELL-TALE HEART (Edgar Allan Poe) . 4 : 
 
 GREATNESS IN COMMON LIFE (W. E, Channing) 5' 
 
 THE STORY OF A DRUM (Bret Harte) . . 64 
 
 THE PROCESSION OF LIFE (Nathaniel Hawthorne) 1'. 
 
 A MELTING STORY (Mark Twain) 9*- 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST TABLE (O. W. 
 
 Holmes') ...... li 
 
Selections from American Authors. 
 
 THE BUCCANEER'S TREASURE. 
 
 BY WASHINGTON IRVING. 
 
 1 ' \\ r olfert Webber had carried home a fresh stock of stores 
 ..ad notions to ruminate upon. These accounts of pots of 
 money and Spanish treasures, buried here and there and 
 (.-verywhere about the rocks and bays of these wild shores, 
 de him almost dizzy. The doctor had often heard the 
 rumours of treasure being buried in various parts of the 
 island, and had long been anxious to get in the traces of it. 
 The circumstances unfolded to him awakened all his 
 cupidity ; he had not a doubt of money being buried 
 somewhere in the neighbourhood of the mysterious crosses, 
 and offered to join Wolfert in the search. 
 
 The great church clock struck ten as Wolfert and the 
 doctor passed by the churchyard, and the watchmen 
 bawled, in hoarse voice, a long and doleful " All's well ! " 
 A deep sleep had already fallen upon this primitive little 
 
 449529 
 
SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN AUTHORS. 
 
 burgh. Nothing disturbed this awful silence, excepting 
 now and then the bark of some profligate, night-walking 
 dog, or the serenade of some romantic cat. 
 
 They found the old fisherman waiting for them, smoking 
 his pipe in the stern of his skiff, which was moored just in 
 front of his little cabin. A pickaxe^and spade were lying 
 in the bottom of the boat, with a dark lantern, and a stone 
 bottle of good Dutch courage, in which honest Sam, no 
 doubt, put even more faith than the doctor in^his drugs. ' 
 
 Thus, then, did these three worthies embark in their 
 cockleshell of a skiff upon this nocturnal expedition. The 
 tide was rising and running rapidly up the Sound. The 
 current bore them along almost without the aid of an oar. 
 They now landed, and lighting the lantern, gathered their 
 various implements and proceeded slowly through the 
 bushes. Every sound startled them, even that of their 
 own footsteps among the dried leaves ; and the hooting of 
 
THE BUCCANEER S TREASURE. 
 
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 a screech-owl from the shattered chimney of a neighbouring 
 ruin made their blood run cold. 
 
 The lantern was now held by Wolfert Webber, while the 
 doctor produced a divining rod. It was a forked twig, one 
 end of which was grasped firmly hi each hand ; while the 
 centre forming the stem, pointed perpendicularly upwards. 
 The doctor moved this wand about, within a certain dis- 
 tance of the earth, from place to place, but for some time 
 without any effect : while Wolfert kept the light of the 
 lantern turned full upon it, and watched it with the most 
 breathless interest. At length the rod began slowly to 
 turn. The doctor grasped it with great earnestness, his 
 hands trembling with the agitation of his mind. The 
 wand continued to turn gradually, until at length the stem 
 had reversed its position, and pointed perpendicularly 
 downward, and remained pointing to one spot as fixedly 
 as the needle to the pole. 
 
SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN AUTHORS. 
 
 '% 
 
 "XI ~ >" 
 
 .<f\ / , 3-v/- 
 
 " This is the spot ! " said the doctor, in an almost 
 inaudible tone. 
 
 Wolfert's heart was in his throat. 
 
 " Shall I dig ? " said the negro, grasping the spade. 
 
 " No ! " rephed the little doctor hastily. He now ordered 
 his companions to keep close by him, and to maintain the 
 most inflexible silence ; that certain precautions must be 
 taken, and ceremonies used, to prevent the evil spirits, 
 which kept about buried treasure, from doing them any 
 harm. While Wolfert held the lantern, the doctor, by the 
 aid of his spectacles, read off several forms of conjuration 
 in Latin and German. He then ordered Sam to seize the 
 pickaxe and proceed to work. The close-bound soil gave 
 obstinate signs of not having been disturbed for many a 
 year. After having picked his way through the surface, 
 Sam came to a bed of sand and gravel, which he threw 
 briskly to right and left with the spade. 
 
THE BUCCANEER'S TREASURE. 
 
 The negro continued his labours and had already digged 
 a considerable hole. At last the spade of the old fisher- 
 man struck upon something that sounded hollow ; the sound 
 vibrated to Wolfert's heart. He struck his spade again 
 
 " "Tis a chest," said Sam. 
 
 " Full of gold, I'll warrant it ! " cried Wolfert, clasping 
 his hands with rapture. 
 
 Scarcely had he uttered the words, when a sound from 
 above caught his ear. He cast up his eyes, and lo ! by 
 the expiring light of the nre, he beheld, just over the disk 
 of the rock, what appeared to be the grim visage of the 
 drowned buccaneer, grinning hideously down upon him. 
 
 Wolfert gave a loud cry, and let fall the lantern. His 
 panic communicated itself to his companions. The negro 
 leaped out of the hole ; the doctor dropped his book and 
 basket, and began to pray in German. All was horror and 
 
SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN AUTHORS. 
 
 "~b 
 
 confusion. The fire was scattered about, the lantern ex- 
 tinguished. In their hurry they ran against and con- 
 founded one another. The doctor ran one way, the negro 
 another, and Wolfert made for the waterside. As he 
 plunged, struggling onward through bush and brake, he 
 heard the tread of someone in pursuit. He scrambled 
 frantically forward. The footsteps gained upon him. He 
 felt himself grasped by his cloak, when suddenly his 
 pursuer was attacked in turn. 
 
 One of the combatants was disposed of, but whether 
 friend or foe, Wolfert could not tell, or whether they might 
 or not both be foes. He heard the survivor approach, and 
 his terror revived. He saw, where the profile of the rocks 
 rose against the horizon, a human form advancing. He 
 could not be mistaken it must be the buccaneer. Whither 
 should he fly ? a precipice was on one side, a murderer on 
 the other. The enemy approached he was close at hand. 
 Wolfert attempted to let himself down the face of the cliff. 
 
THE BUCCANEER'S TREASURE. 
 
 His cloak caught in a thorn that grew on the edge. He was 
 jerked from off his feet, and held dangling in the air, half 
 choked by the string with which his careful wife had 
 fastened the garment round his neck. Wolfert thought 
 his last moment was arrived ; already had he committed 
 his soul to St. Nicholas, when the string broke, and he 
 tumbled down the bank, bumping from rock to rock, and 
 bush to bush, and leaving the red cloak fluttering, like a 
 bloody banner in the air. 
 
 It was a long while before Wolfert came to himself. 
 When he opened his eyes, the ruddy streaks of morning 
 were already shooting up the sky. He found himself lying in 
 the bottom of a boat, grievously battered. He attempted 
 to sit up, but he was too sore and stiff to move. A voice 
 requested him, in friendly accents, to lie still. He turned 
 his eyes towards the speaker it was Dirk Waldron. He 
 had dogged the party at the earnest request of Dame 
 Webber and her daughter, who with the laudable curiosity 
 
10 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN AUTHORS. 
 
 V -* ..L..~. .s 
 
 MY EDITING. 
 
 BY MARK TWAIN. 
 
 J_a 
 
 of their sex had pried into the secret consultations of 
 Wolfert and the doctor. Dirk had been completely 
 distanced in following the light skiff of the fisherman, 
 and had just come in time to rescue the poor digger 
 from his pursuer. 
 
 Thus ended this perilous enterprise. The doctor and 
 black Sam severally found their way back, each having 
 some tale of peril to relate. As to poor Wolfert, instead 
 of returning in triumph, laden with bags of gold, he was 
 borne home on a shutter, followed by a rabble rout of 
 curious urchins. 
 
 The sensation of being at work once again was luxurious, 
 and I wrought all the week with unflagging pleasure. We 
 went to press, and I waited a day with some solicitude to 
 see whether my effort was going to attract any notice. As 
 I left the office, toward sundown, a group of men and boys 
 at the foot of the stairs dispersed with one impulse, and 
 
MY EDITING. 11 
 
 ' v:^:. /v '.:..^.v..'..-...S. 
 
 gave me passage-way, and I heard one or two of them say 
 " That's hini ! " I was naturally pleased by this incident. 
 The next morning I found a similar group at the foot of 
 the stairs, and scattered couples and individuals standing 
 here and there in the street, and over the way, watching 
 me with interest. The group separated and fell back as I 
 approached, and I heard a man say, " Look at his eye ! " 
 I pretended not to observe the notice I was attracting, but 
 secretly I was pleased with it, and was purposing to write 
 an account of it to my aunt. I went up the short flight 
 of stairs, and heard cheery voices and a ringing laugh as I 
 drew near the door, which I opened, and caught a glimpse 
 of two young, rural-looking men, whose faces blanched and 
 lengthened when they saw me, and then they both plunged 
 through the window, with a great crash. I was surprised. 
 In about half-an-hour an old gentleman, with a flowing 
 beard and a fine but rather austere face, entered, and sat 
 down at my invitation. He seemed to have something on 
 his mind. He took off his hat and set it on the floor, and 
 
12 
 
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 got out of.it a red silk handkerchief and a copy of our 
 paper. He put the paper on his lap, and, while he polished 
 his spectacles with his handkerchief, he said : 
 " Are you the new editor ? " 
 I said I was. 
 
 " Have you ever edited an agricultural paper before ? " 
 " No,' I said ; " this is my first attempt." 
 Then this old person got up and tore his paper all into 
 small shreds, and stamped on them, and broke several 
 things with his cane, and said I did not know as much as 
 a cow ; and then went out, and banged the door after 
 him ; and, in short, acted in such a way that I fancied he 
 was displeased about something. But, not knowing what 
 the trouble was, I could not be any help to him. 
 
 But. these thoughts were quickly banished when the 
 regular editor walked in. (T though* to myself, " Now, 
 
MY EDITING. 13 
 
 .,:. \^r. J * 
 ' 
 
 :. o^o ^ .^, . x ..:...v, ..'. 
 
 if you had gone to Egypt, as I recommended you to, I 
 might have had a chance to get my hand in ; but you 
 wouldn't do it, and here you are. T sort of expected you.") 
 
 The editor was looking sad, and perplexed, and dejected. 
 He surveyed the wreck which that old rioter and those two 
 young farmers had made, and then said : 
 
 " This is a sad business a very sad business. There is 
 the mucilage bottle broken, and six panes of glass, and a 
 spittoon, and two candlesticks. But that is not the worst. 
 The reputation of the paper is injured, and permanently, 
 I fear. True, there never was such a call for the paper 
 before, and it never sold such a large edition or soared to 
 such celebrity ; but does one want to be famous for lunacy, 
 and prosper upon the infirmities of his mind ? My friend, 
 as I am an honest man, the street out here is full of people, 
 and others are roosting on the fences, waiting to get a 
 
14 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN AUTHORS. 
 
 " J . tf-s x W *-/]- ^ n V 
 
 glimpse of you, because they think you are crazy. And 
 well they might, after reading your editorials. They are a 
 disgrace to journalism. Why, what put it into your head 
 that you could edit a paper of this nature ? 
 
 " You do not seem to know the first rudiments of agri- 
 culture. You speak of a furrow and a harrow as being the 
 same thing ; you talk of the moulting season for cows ; 
 and you recommend the domestication of the pole-cat on 
 account of its playfulness and its excellence as a ratter. 
 Your remark that clams will lie quiet if music be played 
 to them was superfluous entirely superfluous. Nothing 
 disturbs clams. Clams atoays lie quiet. Clams care 
 nothing whatever about music. Ah, heavens and earth, 
 friend ! if you had made the acquiring of ignorance the 
 study of your life, you could not have graduated with 
 higher honour than you could to-day. I never saw any- 
 thing like it. Your observation that the horse-chestnut, 
 as an article of commerce, is steadily 'gaining in favour is 
 
MY EDITING. 15 
 
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 simply calculated to destroy this journal. I want you to 
 throw up your situation and go. I want no more holiday 
 I could not enjoy it ii I had it. Certainly not with you 
 in my chair. I would always stand in dread ot what you 
 might be going to recommend next. It makes me lose all 
 patience every time I think oi your discussing oyster-beds 
 under the head oi ' Landscape Gardening.' I want you to 
 go. Nothing on earth could persuade me to take another 
 holiday. Oh ! why didn't you tell me that you didn't 
 know anything about agriculture ? " 
 
 " Tell you, you cornstalk, you cabbage, you son oi a 
 cauliflower ! It is the first time I ever heard such an un- 
 feeling remark. I tell you I have been in the editorial 
 business going on fourteen years, and it is the first time 
 I ever heard of a man's having to know anything in order 
 to edit a newspaper. You turnip ! 
 
 " I take my leave, sir ! Since I have been treated as 
 you' have treated me, I am perfectly willing to go. But I 
 
16 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN AUTHORS. 
 
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 A VENERABLE IMPOSTOR. 
 
 BY BRET HARTE. 
 
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 have done my duty. I have fulfilled my contract, as far 
 as I was permitted to do it. I said I could make your 
 paper of interest to all classes, and I have. I said I could 
 run your circulation up to twenty thousand copies, and if 
 I had had two more weeks I would have done it. And I 
 would have given you the best class of readers that ever 
 an agricultural paper had not a farmer in it, nor a solitary 
 individual who could tell a water-melon from a peach-vine 
 to save his life. You are the loser by this rupture, not I, 
 Pie-plant. Adios." I then left. 
 
 As I glance across my table, I am somewhat distracted 
 by the spectacle of a venerable head, whose crown occa- 
 sionally appears beyond, at about its level. The appari- 
 tion of a very small hand, whose fingers are bunchy, and 
 have the appearance of being slightly webbed, which is 
 frequently lifted above the table in a vain and impotent 
 attempt to reach the inkstand, always affects me as a 
 
A VENERABLE IMPOSTOR. 
 
 17 
 
 ^ ^ '--- ! ' ' J 
 
 novelty at each recurrence of the phenomenon. Yet both 
 the venerable head and the bunchy fingers belong to an 
 individual with whom I am familiar, and to whom, for 
 certain reasons hereafter described, I choose to apply the 
 epithet written above this article. 
 
 His advent in the family was attended with peculiar 
 circumstances. He was received with some concern, the 
 number of retainers having been increased by one in honour 
 of his arrival. He appeared to be weary his pretence was 
 that he had come from a long journey, so that for days, 
 weeks, and even months, he did not leave his bed, except 
 when he was carried. But it was remarkable that his 
 appetite was invariably regular and healthy, and that his 
 meals, which he required should be brought to him, were 
 seldom rejected. During this time he had little conversa- 
 tion with the family, his knowledge of our vernacular being 
 limited, but occasionally spoke to himself in his own lan- 
 guage a foreign tongue. The difficulties attending this 
 
 2 (105) 
 
18 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN AUTHORS. 
 
 ^> v C I < I _' 
 ' ^-1 " 
 
 eccentricity were obviated by the young woman who had 
 from the first taken him under her protection, being, 
 like the rest of her sex, peculiarly open to impositions, 
 and who at once disorganised her own tongue to suit his. 
 This was effected by the contraction of the syllables of 
 some words, the addition of syllables to others, and an 
 ingenious disregard for tenses and the governing powers of 
 the verb. The same singular law which impels people in 
 conversation with foreigners to imitate their broken Eng- 
 lish governed the family in their communications with him. 
 He received these evidences of his power with an indiffer- 
 ence not wholly free from scorn ! The expression of his 
 eye would occasionally denote that his higher nature re- 
 volted from them. I have no doubt myself that his wants 
 were frequently misinterpreted ; that the stretching forth 
 of his hands towards the moon and stars might have been 
 the performance of some religious rite peculiar to his own 
 country, which was in ours misconstrued into a desire for 
 physical nourishment. His repetition of the word " goo- 
 goo," which was subject to a variety of opposite 
 
A VENERABLE IMPOSTOR. 19 
 
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 interpretations, when taken in conjunction with his size, in 
 my mind seemed to indicate his aboriginal or Aztec origin. 
 I incline to this belief, as it sustains the impression I have 
 already hinted at, that his extreme youth is a simulation 
 and deceit ; that he is really older and has lived before 
 at some remote period, and that his conduct fully justifies 
 his title as " A Venerable Impostor." A variety of cir- 
 cumstances corroborate this impression : his tottering 
 walk, which is a senile as well as a juvenile condition ; his 
 venerable head, thatched with such imperceptible hair 
 that, at a distance, it looks like a mild aureola ; and his 
 imperfect dental exhibition. But besides these physical 
 peculiarities may be observed certain moral symptoms, 
 which go to disprove his assumed youth. He is in the 
 habit of falling into reveries, caused, I have no doubt, by 
 some circumstance which suggests a comparison with his 
 experience in his remoter boyhood, or by some serious 
 retrospection of the past years. He has been detected 
 lying awake at times when he should have been asleep, 
 
20 
 
 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN AUTHORS. 
 
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 engaged in curiously comparing the bed-clothes, walls, and 
 furniture with some recollection of his youth. At such 
 moments he has been heard to sing softly to himself frag- 
 ments of some unintelligible composition, which probably 
 still linger in his memory, as the echoes of a music he has 
 long outgrown. He has the habit of receiving strangers 
 with the familiarity of one who had met them before, and 
 to whom their antecedents and peculiarities were matters 
 of old acquaintance ; and so unerring is his judgment of 
 their previous character, that when he withholds his con- 
 fidence I am apt to withhold mine. It is somewhat re- 
 markable that while the maturity of his years and the 
 respect due to them is denied by man, his superiority and 
 venerable age is never questioned by the brute creation. 
 The dog treats him with a respect and consideration 
 accorded to none others, and the cat permits a familiarity 
 which I should shudder to attempt. It may be considered 
 an evidence of some Pantheistic quality in his previous 
 education that he seems to recognise a fellowship even in 
 
A VENERABLE IMPOSTOR. 21 
 
 inarticulate objects ; he has been known to verbally ad- 
 dress plants, flowers, and fruit, and to extend his confidence 
 to such inanimate objects as chairs and tables. There can 
 be little doubt that, in the remote period of his youth, 
 these objects were endowed with not only sentient natures, 
 but moral capabilities, and he is still in the habit of beat- 
 ing them when they collide with him, and of pardoning 
 them with a kiss. 
 
 As he has grown older rather, let me say, as we have 
 approximated to his years he has, in spite of the apparent 
 paradox, lost much of his senile gravity. It must be 
 confessed that some of his actions of late appear to our 
 imperfect comprehension inconsistent with his extreme 
 age. A habit of marching up and down with a string tied 
 to a soda-water bottle ; a disposition to ride anything that 
 could, by any exercise of the liveliest fancy, be made to 
 assume equine proportions ; a propensity to blacken his 
 venerable white hair with ink and coal-dust ; and an 
 omnivorous appetite, which did not stop at chalk, clay, 
 
22 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN AUTHORS. 
 
 or cinders ; were peculiarities not calculated to excite 
 respect. 
 
 In fact, he would seem to have become demoralised, 
 and when, after a prolonged absence the other day, he was 
 finally discovered standing upon the front steps addressing 
 a group of delighted children out of his limited vocabulary, 
 the circumstance could only be accounted for as the 
 garrulity of age. 
 
 But I lay aside my pen amidst an ominous silence and 
 the disappearance of the venerable head from my plane 
 of vision. As I step to the other side of the table, I find 
 that sleep has overtaken him in an overt act of hoary 
 wickedness. The very pages I have devoted to an exposi- 
 tion of his deceit he has quietly abstracted, and I find 
 them covered with cabalistic figures and wild-looking 
 hieroglyphs, traced with his forefinger dipped in ink, which 
 doubtless in his own language conveys a scathing commen- 
 tary on my composition. But he sleeps peacefully, and 
 
THE AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST TABLE. 23 
 
 THE AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST 
 TABLE. 
 
 BY OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
 
 there is something in his face which tells me that he has 
 already wandered away to that dim region of his youth 
 where I cannot follow him. And as there comes a strange 
 stirring at my heart when I contemplate the immeasurable 
 gulf which lies between us, and how slight and feeble as 
 yet is his grasp on this world and its strange realities, I 
 find, too late, that I also am. a willing victim of the 
 " Venerable Impostor." 
 
 I wonder if anybody ever finds fault with anything I say 
 at this table when it is repeated ? I hope they do, I am 
 sure. I should be very certain that I said nothing of much 
 significance, if they did not. 
 
 Did you never, in walking in the fields, come across a 
 large flat stone, which had lain, nobody knows how long, 
 just where you found it, with the grass forming a little 
 hedge, as it were, all round it, close to its edges, and have 
 
24 
 
 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN AUTHORS. 
 
 VV-:^ ^ 
 
 you not, in obedience to a kind of feeling that told you it 
 had been lying there long enough, insinuated your stick 
 or your foot or your fingers under its edge and turned it 
 over as a housewife turns a cake, when she says to herself, 
 " It's done brown enough by this time ? " What an odd 
 revelation, and what an unforeseen and unpleasant surprise 
 to a small community, the very existence of which you 
 had not suspected, until the sudden dismay and scattering 
 among its members produced by your turning the old 
 stone over ! Blades of grass flattened down, colourless, 
 matted together, as if they had been bleached and ironed ; 
 hideous crawling creatures, motionless, slug-like creatures, 
 young larvae, perhaps more horrible in their pulpy stillness 
 than even in the infernal wriggle of maturity ! But no 
 sooner is the stone turned and the wholesome light of day 
 let upon this compressed and blinded community of creep- 
 ing things, than all of them which enjoy the luxury of legs 
 and some of them have a good many rush round wildly. 
 
THE AUTOCRAT OK THE BREAKFAST TABLE. 
 
 25 
 
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 butting each other and everything in their way, and end 
 in a general stampede for underground retreats from the 
 region poisoned by sunshine. Next year you will find the 
 grass growing tall and green where the stone lay ; the 
 ground-bird builds her nest where the beetle had his hole ; 
 the dandelion and the buttercup are growing there, and 
 the broad fans of insect angels open and shut over their 
 golden disks, as the rhythmic waves of blissful conscious- 
 ness pulsate through their glorified being. 
 
 The young fellow whom they call John saw fit to say, 
 in his very familiar way, at which I do not choose to 
 take offence, but which I sometimes think it necessary to 
 repress, that I was coming it rather strong on the 
 butterflies. 
 
 No, I replied ; there is meaning in each of those images, 
 the butterfly as well as the others. The stone is ancient 
 error. The grass is human nature borne down and 
 bleached of all its colour by it. The shapes which are 
 seen beneath are the crafty beings that thrive in darkness, 
 and the weaker organisms kept helpless by it. He who 
 
26 
 
 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN AUTHORS. 
 
 turns the stone over is whosoever puts the staff of truth 
 to the old lying incubus, no matter whether he do it with 
 a serious face or a laughing one. The next year stands for 
 the coming time. Then shall the nature which had lain 
 blanched and broken rise in its full stature and native hues 
 in the sunshine. Then shall God's minstrels build their 
 nests in the hearts of a new-born humanity. Then shall 
 beauty Divinity taking outlines and colour light upon 
 the souls of men as the butterfly, image of the beatified 
 spirit rising from the dust, soars from the shell that held 
 a poor grub, which would never have found wings, had 
 not the stone been lifted. 
 
 You never need think you can turn over any old false- 
 hood without a terrible squirming and scattering of the 
 horrid little population that dwells under it. 
 
 Every real thought on every real subject knocks the 
 wind out of somebody or other. As soon as his breath 
 comes back, he very probably begins to expend it in hard 
 
THE AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST TABLE. 27 
 
 words. These are the best evidence a man can have that 
 he has said something it was time to say. Dr. Johnson 
 was disappointed in the effect of one of his pamphlets. 
 " I think I have not been attacked enough for it," he said ; 
 " attack is the reaction ; I never think I have hit hard 
 unless it rebounds." 
 
 If a fellow attacked my opinions in print, would I reply ? 
 Not I. Do you think I don't understand what my friend 
 the Professor long ago called the hydrostatic paradox of 
 controversy ? 
 
 Don't know what that means ? Well, I will tell you. 
 You know that, if you had a bent tube, one arm of which 
 was the size of a pipe-stem, and the other big enough 
 to hold the ocean, water would stand at the same height 
 in one as in the other. Controversy equalizes fools and 
 wise men in the same way and the fools know it. 
 
THE WAY TO WEALTH. 
 
 BY BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 v 
 
 Courteous reader, I have heard that nothing gives an 
 author so great pleasure as to find his works respectfully 
 quoted by others. Judge, then, how much I must have 
 been gratified by an incident I am going to relate to you. 
 I stopped my horse lately where a great number of people 
 were collected at an auction of merchants' goods. The 
 hour of the sale not being come, they were conversing on 
 the badness of the times ; and one of the company called 
 to a plain, clean, old man, with white locks, " Pray, 
 Father Abraham, what think you of the times ? Will not 
 these heavy taxes quite ruin the country ? How shall we 
 ever be able to pay them ? What would you advise us 
 to ? " Father Abraham stood up and replied, " If you 
 would have my advice, I will give it you in short ; for 
 ' A word to the wise is enough,' as Poor Richard says." 
 They joined in desiring him to speak his mind, and 
 gathering round him, he proceeded as follows. 
 
 " Friends," said he, " the taxes are indeed very heavy, 
 and, if those laid on by the government were the only 
 
 28 
 
THE WAY TO WEALTH. 29 
 
 ones we had to pay, we might more easily discharge them ; 
 but we have many others, and much more grievous to some 
 of us. We are taxed twice as much by our idleness, three 
 times as much by our pride, and four times as much by 
 our folly ; and from these taxes the commissioners cannot 
 ease or deliver us, by allowing an abatement. However, 
 let us hearken to good advice, and something may be done 
 for us ; ' God helps them that help themselves/ as Poor 
 Richard says. 
 
 " I. It would be thought a hard government that should 
 tax its people one-tenth part of their time, to be employed 
 in its service ; but idleness taxes many of us much more ; 
 sloth, by bringing on diseases, absolutely shortens life. 
 ' Sloth like rust, consumes faster than labour wears ; while 
 the used key is always bright,' as Poor Richard says. ' But 
 dost thou love life, then do not squander time, for that is 
 the stuff life is made of, ' as Poor Richard says. How much 
 more than is necessary do we spend in sleep, forgetting 
 
30 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN AUTHORS. 
 
 that ' The sleeping fox catches no poultry, ' and that ' There 
 will be sleeping enough in the grave/ as Poor Richard says. 
 " ' If time be of all things the most precious, wasting 
 time must be,' as Poor Richard says, ' the greatest prodi- 
 gality ; ' since, as he elsewhere tells us, ' Lost time is never 
 found again ; and what we call time enough, always proves 
 little enough.' Let us then up and be doing, and doing to 
 the purpose ; so by diligence shall we do more with less 
 perplexity. ' Sloth makes all things difficult, but industry 
 all easy ; ' and ' He that riseth late must trot all day, and 
 shall scarce overtake his business at night ; ' while ' Lazi- 
 ness travels so slowly, that Poverty soon overtakes him. 
 Drive thy business, let not that drive thee ; ' and ' Early 
 to bed, and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, 
 and wise,' as Poor Richard says. 
 
THE WAY TO WEALTH. 31 
 
 i ' S\ Q V 
 
 ./ ---- <5 \. V V| 
 
 " So what signifies wishing and hoping for better times ? 
 We may make these times better if we bestir ourselves. 
 ' Industry need not wish, and he that lives upon hopes will 
 die fasting. There are no gains without pains ; then help, 
 hands, for I have no lands ; ' or, if I have, they are smartly 
 taxed. ' He that hath a trade hath an estate ; and he 
 that hath a calling hath an office of profit and honour,' as 
 Poor Richard says ; but then the trade must be worked 
 at and the calling followed, or neither the estate nor the 
 office will enable us to pay our taxes. If we are industrious 
 we shall never starve ; for ' At the working-man's house 
 hunger looks in, but dare not enter.' Nor will the bailiff 
 or the constable enter, for ' Industry pays debts, while 
 despair increaseth them.' What though you have found 
 no treasure, nor has any rich relation left you a legacy, 
 ' Diligence is the mother of good luck, and God gives all 
 things to industry. Then plough deep while sluggards 
 sleep, and you shall have corn to sell and to keep. ' Work 
 
32 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN AUTHORS. 
 
 while it is called to-day, for you know not how much you 
 may be hindered to-morrow. ' One to-day is worth two 
 to-morrows,' as Poor Richard says ; and further, ' Never 
 leave that till to-morrow which you can do to-day.' If 
 you were a servant, would you not be ashamed that a good 
 master should catch you idle ? Are you then your own 
 master ? Be ashamed to catch yourself idle, when there 
 is so much to be done for yourself, your family, your 
 country, and your king. Handle your tools without mit- 
 tens ; remember that ' The cat in gloves catches no mice,' 
 as Poor Richard says. It is true there is much to be done, 
 and perhaps you are weak-handed ; but stick to it steadily 
 and you will see great effects ; for ' Constant dropping wears 
 away stones ; ' and ' By diligence and patience the mouse 
 ate in two the cable ; ' and ' Little strokes fell great oaks.' 
 " Methinks I hear some of you say, ' Must a man afford 
 himself no leisure ? ' I will tell thee, my friend, what Poor 
 Richard says : ' Employ thy time well, if thou meanest 
 
THE WAY TO WEALTH. 33 
 
 .....N...^- Y, j \_ 
 
 to gain leisure ; and, since thou art not sure of a minute, 
 throw not away an hour. ' Leisure is time for doing some- 
 thing useful ; this leisure the diligent man will obtain, but 
 the lazy man never ; for ' A life of leisure and a life of 
 laziness are two things. Many, without labour, would live 
 by their wits only, but they break for want of stock ; ' 
 whereas industry gives comfort, and plenty and respect. 
 ' Fly pleasures, and they will follow you. The diligent 
 spinner has a large shift ; and now I have a sheep and a 
 cow, everybody bids me good morrow.' 
 
 " II. But with our industry we must likewise be steady, 
 settled, and careful, and oversee our own affairs, with our 
 own eyes, and not trust too much to others ; for, as Poor 
 Richard says, " ' I never saw an oft-removed tree, 
 
 Nor yet an oft-removed family, 
 That throve so well as those that settled be. ' 
 3 (105) 
 
34 
 
 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN AUTHORS. 
 
 'V, 
 
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 And again, ' Three removes are as bad as a fire ; ' and 
 again, ' Keep thy shop, and thy shop will keep thee ; ' and 
 again, ' If you would have your business done, go ; if not, 
 send.' And again, 
 
 " ' He that by the plough would thrive, 
 
 Himself must either hold or drive.' 
 
 And again, ' the eye of a master will do more work than 
 both his hands ; ' and again, ' Want of care does us more 
 damage than want of knowledge ; ' and again, ' Not to 
 oversee workmen is to leave them your purse open.' 
 Trusting too much to others' care is the ruin of many ; 
 for ' In the affairs of this world men are saved, not by 
 faith, but by the want of it ; ' but a man's own care is 
 profitable ; for, ' If you would have a faithful servant, 
 and one that you like, serve yourself. A little neglect may 
 breed great mischief ; for want of a nail the shoe was lost ; 
 for want of a shoe the horse was lost ; and for want of a 
 horse the rider was lost, being overtaken and slain by the 
 
THE WAY TO WEALTH. 35 
 
 enemy ; all for want of a little care about a horse-shoe 
 nail.' 
 
 " III. So much for industry, my friends, and attention 
 to one's own business ; but to these we must add frugality, 
 if we would make our industry more certainly successful. 
 A man may, if he knows not how to save as he gets, keep 
 his nose all his life to the grindstone and die not worth a 
 groat at last. ' A fat kitchen makes a lean will ; ' and 
 
 " ' Many estates are spent in the getting, 
 
 Since women for tea forsook spinning and knitting, 
 And men for punch forsook hewing and splitting.' 
 
 ' If you would be wealthy, think of saving as well as of 
 getting. The Indies have not made Spain rich, because 
 her outgoes are greater than her incomes. 
 
 " Away then with your expensive follies, and you will 
 not then have so much cause to complain of hard times, 
 
36 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN AUTHORS. 
 
 heavy taxes, and chargeable families ; for 
 
 ' Women and wine, game and deceit, 
 
 Make the wealth small and the want great.' 
 And further, ' What maintains one vice would bring up two 
 children.' You may think, perhaps, that a little tea, or a 
 little punch now and then, diet a little more costly, clothes 
 a little finer, and a little entertainment now and then, can 
 be no great matter ; but remember, ' Many a little makes 
 a mickle.' Beware of little expenses ; ' A small leak will 
 sink a great ship,' as Poor Richard says ; and again, ' Who 
 dainties love, shall beggars prove ; ' and moreover, ' Fools 
 make feasts, and wise men eat them.' 
 
 " Here you are all got together at this sale of fineries 
 and knick-knacks. You call them goods ; but, if you do 
 not take care, they will prove evils to some of you. You 
 expect they will be sold cheap, and perhaps they may for 
 less than they cost ; but if you have no occasion for them, 
 
THE WAY TO WEALTH. 37 
 
 U 
 
 ,. \ .'.. 
 
 3: '>...'.. < -..".. ^r.. 
 
 'V V ~..,..; TV V? 
 
 Y 
 
 they must be dear to you. Remember what Poor Richard 
 says : ' Buy what thou hast no need of, and ere long thou 
 shalt sell thy necessaries.' And again, ' At a great penny- 
 worth pause a while. ' He means, that perhaps the cheapness 
 is apparent only and not real ; or the bargain, by straiten- 
 ing thee in thy business, may do thee more harm than good. 
 For in another place he says, ' Many have been ruined by 
 buying good pennyworths.' Again, ' it is foolish to lay out 
 money in a purchase of repentance ; ' and yet this folly is 
 practised every day at auctions, for want of minding the 
 A Imanac. Many a one, for the sake of finery on the back, 
 have gone with a hungry belly and half-starved their 
 families. ' Silks and satins, scarlet and velvets, put out 
 the kitchen fire,' as Poor Richard says. 
 
 " These are not the necessaries of life ; they can scarcely 
 be called the conveniences ; and yet, only because they 
 look pretty, how many want to have them ! By these, and 
 
 449529 
 
38 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN AUTHORS. 
 
 N \/ . L < w; 
 
 ") fe; ^> 
 
 other extravagances, the genteel are reduced to poverty, 
 and forced to borrow of those whom they formerly despised, 
 but who, through industry and frugality, have maintained 
 their standing ; in which case it appears plainly, that ' A 
 ploughman on his legs is higher than a gentleman on his 
 knees,' as Poor Richard says. Perhaps they have had a 
 small estate left them, which they knew not the getting of ; 
 they think, ' It is day and will never be night ; ' that a 
 little to be spent out of so much is not worth minding ; 
 but ' Always taking out of the meal-tub and never putting 
 in, soon comes to the bottom/ as Poor Richard says ; and 
 then, ' When the well is dry, they know the worth of 
 water.' But this they might have known before, if they 
 had taken his advice. ' If you would know the value of 
 money, go and try to borrow some ; for he that goes a 
 borrowing goes a sorrowing,' as Poor Richard says ; and 
 indeed so does he that lends to such people, when he goes 
 to get it in again. Poor Dick further advises, and says, 
 
THE WAY TO WEALTH. 39 
 
 * V- * '..*-:. *> H; 
 
 " ' Fond pride of dress is sure a very curse ; 
 
 Ere fancy you consult, consult your purse.' 
 And again, ' Pride is as loud a beggar as Want, and a great 
 deal more saucy. ' When you have bought one fine thing, 
 you must buy ten more, that your appearance may be all 
 of a piece ; but Poor Dick says, ' It is easier to suppress 
 the first desire, than to satisfy all that follow it.' And it 
 is as truly folly for the poor to ape the rich, as for the frog 
 to swell in order to equal the ox. 
 
 " ' Vessels large may venture more, 
 
 But little boats should keep near shore.' 
 It is, however, a folly soon punished ; for as Poor Richard 
 says, ' Pride that dines on vanity, sups on contempt. 
 Pride breakfasted with Plenty, dined with Poverty, and 
 supped with Infamy.' And, after all, of what use is this 
 pride of appearance, for which so much is risked, so much 
 is suffered ? It cannot promote health nor ease pain ; it 
 
40 
 
 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN AUTHORS. 
 
 makes no increase of merit in the person ; it creates envy ; 
 it hastens misfortune. 
 
 " But what madness must it be to run in debt for these 
 superfluities ? We are offered, by the terms of this sale, 
 six months' credit ; and that, perhaps, has induced some 
 of us to attend it, because we cannot spare the ready money, 
 and hope now to be fine without it. But, ah ! think what 
 you do when you run in debt ; you give to another power 
 over your liberty. If you cannot pay at the time, you 
 will be ashamed to see your creditor ; you will be in fear 
 when you speak to him ; you will make poor, pitiful, 
 sneaking excuses, and, by degrees, come to lose your 
 veracity, and sink into base, downright lying ; for ' The 
 second vice is lying, the first is running in debt," as Poor 
 Richard says ; and again, to the same purpose, ' Lying 
 rides upon Debt's back ; ' whereas a free-born Englishman 
 ought not to be ashamed nor afraid to see or speak to any 
 man living. But poverty often deprives a man of all spirit 
 
THE WAY TO WEALTH. 
 
 41 
 
 > 
 
 and virtue. ' It is hard for an empty bag to stand upright.' 
 " What would you think of that prince, or of that 
 government, who should issue an edict forbidding you to 
 dress like a gentleman or gentlewoman, on pain of imprison- 
 ment or servitude ? Would you not say that you were 
 free, have a right to dress as you please, and that such an 
 edict would be a breach of your privileges, and such a 
 government tyrannical ? And yet you are about to put 
 yourself under such tyranny, when you run in debt for such 
 dress ! Your creditor has authority, at his pleasure, to 
 deprive you of your liberty, by confining you in jail till 
 you shall be able to pay him. When you have got your 
 bargain, you may, perhaps, think little of payment ; but, 
 as Poor Richard says, ' creditors have better memories 
 than debtors ; creditors are a superstitious sect, great 
 observers of set days and times.' The day comes round 
 before you are aware, and the demand is made before you 
 are prepared to satisfy it ; or, if you bear your debt in 
 
42 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN AUTHORS. 
 
 I . 
 
 mind, the term, which at first seemed so long, will, as it 
 lessens, appear extremely short. Time will seem to have 
 added wings to his heels as well as his shoulders. ' Those 
 have a short Lent who owe money to be paid at Easter.' 
 At present, perhaps, you may think yourselves in thriving 
 circumstances, and that you can bear a little extravagance, 
 without injury ; but 
 
 " ' For age and want save while you may ; 
 
 No morning sun lasts the whole day." 
 Gain may be temporary and uncertain, but ever while you 
 live, expense is constant and certain ; and ' It is easier to 
 build two chimneys than to keep one in fuel,' as Poor 
 Richard says ; so ' Rather go to bed supperless, than rise 
 in debt.' 
 
 " ' Get what you can, and what you get hold ; 
 
 'Tis the stone that will turn all your lead into gold. ' 
 
THE WAY TO WEALTH. 43 
 
 "IV. C I, ^, o..r. 
 
 And, when you have got the Philosopher's Stone, sure you 
 will no longer complain of bad times or the difficulty of 
 paying taxes. 
 
 "IV. This doctrine, my friends, is reason and wisdom ; 
 but, after all, do not depend too much upon your own 
 industry, and frugality, and prudence, though excellent 
 things : for they may all be blasted, without the blessing 
 of Heaven ; and, therefore, ask that blessing humbly, and 
 be not uncharitable to those that at present seem to want 
 it, but comfort and help them. Remember, Job suffered 
 and was afterwards prosperous. 
 
 " And now, to conclude, ' Experience keeps a dear 
 school, but fools will learn in no other,' as Poor Richard 
 says, and scarce in that ; for, it is true, ' We may give 
 advice, but we cinnot give conduct.' However, remember 
 this, ' They that will not be counselled, cannot be helped ; 
 and further, that, ' If you will not hear Reason, she will 
 surely rap your knuckles/ as Poor Richard says." 
 
SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN AUTHORS. 
 
 Thus the old gentleman ended his harangue. The people 
 heard it and approved the doctrine ; and immediately 
 practised the contrary, just as if it had been a common 
 sermon ; for the auction opened and they began to buy 
 extravagantly. I found the good man had thoroughly 
 studied my almanacks, and digested all I had dropped on 
 these topics during the course of twenty-five years. The 
 frequent mention he made of me must have tired anyone 
 else ; but my vanity was wonderfully delighted with it, 
 though I was conscious that not a tenth part of the wisdom 
 was my own, which he had ascribed to me, but rather the 
 gleanings that I had made of the sense of all ages and 
 nations. However, I resolved to be the better for the echo 
 of it ; and, though I had at first determined to buy stuff 
 for a new coat, I went away resolved to wear my old one a 
 little longer. Reader, if thou wilt do the same, thy profit 
 will be as great as mine. I am, as ever, thine to serve 
 thee, RICHARD SAUNDERS. 
 
THE TELL-TALE HEART. 
 
 BY EDGAR ALLAN POE. 
 
 c > <> 
 
 >.<.. ^? . i .: . *p.: 
 
 ~ I / \ * 1 V < * 
 
 fJ V " V , / <i_P .. . . 7>y.. _, * ... ^ . . 
 
 V. ^ X. v . s "^ o> - r.. *, C, 
 
 True ! nervous, very, very, dreadfully nervous I have 
 been and am ; but why will you say that I am mad ? 
 The disease had sharpened my senses, not destroyed, not 
 dulled them. Above all, was the sense of hearing acute. 
 I heard all things in the Heaven and in the earth. I heard 
 many things in hell. How, then, am I mad ? Hearken ! 
 and observe how healthily, how calmly I can tell you the 
 whole story. 
 
 It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my 
 brain, but, once conceived, it haunted me day and night. 
 Object there was none. Passion there was none. I loved 
 the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never 
 given me insult. For his gold I had no desire. I think it 
 was his eye ! Yes, it was this ! One of his eyes resembled 
 that of a vulture a pale, blue eye with a film over it. 
 Whenever it fell upon me my blood ran cold, and so by 
 
 45 
 
46 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN AUTHORS. 
 
 degrees, very gradually, I made up my mind to take the 
 life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye for ever. 
 Now, this is the point. You fancy me mad. Madmen 
 know nothing. But you should have seen me. You 
 should have seen how wisely I proceeded with what cau- 
 tion with what foresight with what dissimulation, I 
 went to work ! I was never kinder to the old man than 
 during the whole week before I killed him. And every 
 night, about midnight, I turned the latch of his door, and 
 opened it oh, so gently ! And then, when I had made an 
 opening sufficient for my head, I put in a dark lantern all 
 closed, closed so that no light shone out ; and then I 
 thrust in my head. Oh, you would have laughed to see 
 how cunningly I thrust it in ! I moved it slowly, very, 
 very slowly, so that I might not disturb the old man's 
 sleep. It took me an hour to place my whole head within 
 the opening so far that I could see him as he lay upon his 
 bed. Ha ! would a madman have been so wise as this ? 
 
THE TELL-TALE HEART. 47 
 
 , V I PS / ^o .C?, I 0..^..% 
 
 And then when my head was well in the room, I undid the 
 lantern cautiously oh, so cautiously cautiously (for the 
 hinges creaked) ! I undid it just so much that a single 
 thin ray fell upon the vulture eye. And this I did for 
 seven long nights, every night just at midnight ; but I 
 found the eye always closed, and so it was impossible to do 
 the work, for it was not the old man who vexed me, but 
 his evil eye. And every morning, when the day broke, I 
 went boldly into the chamber and spoke courageously to 
 him, calling him by name in a hearty tone, and inquiring 
 how he had passed the night. So you see he would have 
 been a very profound old man, indeed, to suspect that every 
 night, just at twelve, I looked in upon him while he slept. 
 Upon the eighth night I was more than usually cautious 
 in opening the door. A watch's minute-hand moves more 
 quickly than did mine. Never before that night had I felt 
 the extent of my own powers, of my sagacity. I could 
 scarcely contain my feelings of triumph. To think that 
 
48 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN AUTHORS. 
 
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 there I was opening the door little by little, and he not 
 even to dream of my secret deeds or thoughts. I fairly 
 chuckled at the idea ; and perhaps he heard me, for he 
 moved on the bed suddenly as if startled. Now you may 
 think that I drew back but no. His room was as black 
 as pitch with the thick darkness (for the shutters were close 
 fastened through fear of robbers), and so I knew that he 
 could not see the opening of the door, and I kept pushing 
 it on steadily, steadily. 
 
 I had my head in, and was about to open the lantern, 
 when my thumb slipped upon the tin fastening, and the 
 old man sprang up in the bed, crying out, " Who's there ? " 
 
 I kept quite still and said nothing. For a whole hour I 
 did not move a muscle, and in the meantime I did not hear 
 him lie down. He was still sitting up in bed, listening ; 
 just as I have done night after night, hearkening to the 
 dead watches in the wall. 
 
THE TELL-TALE HEART. 49 
 
 Presently I heard a slight groan, and I knew it was the 
 groan of mortal terror. It was not a groan of pain or of 
 grief oh no ! It was the low, stifled sound that arises 
 from the bottom of the soul when overcharged with awe. 
 I knew the sound well. Many a night, just at midnight, 
 when all the world slept, it has welled up from my own 
 bosom, deepening, with its dreadful echo, the terrors that 
 distracted me. I say I knew it well. I knew what the 
 old man felt, and pitied him, although I chuckled at heart. 
 I knew that he had been lying awake ever since the first 
 slight noise when he had turned in the bed. 
 
 His fears had been ever since growing upon him. He 
 had been trying to fancy them causeless, but could not. 
 He had been saying to himself, " It is nothing but the 
 wind in the chimney, it is only a mouse crossing the 
 floor ; " or, " It is merely a cricket which has made a single 
 chirp." Yes, he had been trying to comfort himself with 
 these suppositions ; but he had found all in vain. All in 
 vain, because Death, in approaching him, had stalked with 
 
 4 <i5) 
 
50 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN AUTHORS. 
 
 -: r A- ---. -a.- ^ V-* 
 
 his black shadow before him, and enveloped the victim. 
 And it was the mournful influence of the unperceived 
 shadow that caused him to feel, although he neither saw 
 nor heard, to feel the presence of my head within the room. 
 
 When I had waited a long time, very patiently, without 
 hearing him lie down, I resolved to open a little a very, 
 very little crevice in the lantern. So I opened it you 
 cannot imagine how stealthily, stealthily until at length 
 a single dim ray, like the thread of the spider, shot out 
 from the crevice and fell upon the vulture eye. 
 
 It was open, wide, wide open, and I grew furious as I 
 gazed upon it. I saw with perfect distinctness all a dull 
 blue, with a hideous veil over it that chilled the very mar- 
 row in my bones ; but I could see nothing else of the old 
 man's face or person, for I had directed the ray as if by 
 instinct precisely upon the damned spot. 
 
THE TELL-TALE HEART. 51 
 
 And now have I not told you that what makes you mis- 
 take for madness is but over-acuteness of the senses ? 
 Now, I say, there came to my ears a low, dull, quick sound, 
 such as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton. I knew 
 that sound well, too. It was the beating of the old man's 
 heart. It increased my fury, as the beating of a drum 
 stimulates the soldier into courage. 
 
 But even yet I refrained, and kept still. I scarcely 
 breathed. I held the lantern motionless. I tried how 
 steadily I could maintain the ray upon the eye. Meantime 
 the hellish tattoo of the heart increased. It grew quicker 
 and quicker, and louder and louder every instant. The old 
 man's terror must have been extreme \ It grew louder, I 
 say, louder every moment I do you mark me well ? I 
 have told you that I am nervous ; so I am. And now, at 
 the dread hour of the night, amid the dreadful silence of 
 that old house, so strange a noise as this excited me to 
 uncontrollable terror. Yet, for some minutes longer I 
 
52 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN AUTHORS. 
 
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 refrained and stood still. But the beating grew louder, 
 louder. I thought the heart must burst. And now a new 
 anxiety seized me the sound would be heard by a neigh- 
 bour ! The old man's hour had come ! With a loud yell 
 I threw open the lantern and leaped into the room. He 
 shrieked once once only. In an instant I dragged him to 
 the floor, and pulled the heavy bed over him. I then 
 smiled gaily, to find the deed so far done. But for many 
 minutes the heart beat on with a muffled sound. This, 
 however, did not vex me ; it would not be heard through 
 the wall. At length it ceased. The old man was dead. 
 I removed the bed and examined the corpse. Yes, he was 
 stone, stone dead. I placed my hand upon the heart and 
 held it there many minutes. There was no pulsation. He 
 was stone dead. His eye would trouble me no more. 
 
 If still you think me mad, you will think me so no longer 
 when I describe the wise precautions I took for the con- 
 cealment of the body. The night waned, and I worked 
 hastily, but in silence. 
 
THE TELL-TALE HEART. 53 
 
 ^x X X x-\v ) 
 
 I tf<ok ii[) tlirce planks from the flooring of the chamber, 
 and deposited all between the scantlings. I then replaced 
 the boards so cleverly, so cunningly, that no human eye 
 not even /m could have detected anything wrong. There 
 was nothing to wash out no stain of any kind no blood- 
 spot whatever. I had been too wary for that. 
 
 When I had made an end of these labours it was four 
 o'clock still dark as midnight. As the bell sounded the 
 hour, there came a knocking at the street door. I went 
 down to open it with a light heart for what had I now 
 to fear ? There entered three men, who introduced them- 
 selves, with perfect suavity, as officers of the police. A 
 shriek had been heart! by a neighbour during the night ; 
 suspicion of foul play had been aroused ; information had 
 been lodged at the police-court, and they (the officers) had 
 been deputed to search the premises. 
 
54 
 
 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN AUTHORS. 
 
 I smiled, for zt7/a/ had I to fear ? I bade the gentlemen 
 welcome. The shriek, I said, was my own in a dream. 
 The old man, I mentioned, was absent in the country. I 
 took my visitors all over the house. I bade them search 
 search well. I led them, at length, to his chamber, I 
 showed them his treasures, secure, undisturbed. In the 
 enthusiasm of my confidence, I brought chairs into the 
 room, and desired them here to rest from their fatigues, 
 while I myself, in the wild audacity of my perfect triumph, 
 placed my own seat upon the very spot beneath which 
 reposed the corpse of the victim. 
 
 The officials were satisfied. My manner had convinced 
 them. I was singularly at ease. They sat, and while I 
 answered cheerily, they chatted of familiar things. But 
 ere long, I felt myself getting pale and wished them gone 
 My head ached, and I fancied a ringing in my ears ; but 
 still they sat, and still chatted. The ringing became more 
 
THE TELL-TALE HEART. 55 
 
 ,_ ' o i 
 
 v ~\' - \- v H ^ ' / * \*s* 
 
 - ^ -Gr ' ' 
 
 distinct ; it continued and became more distinct. I 
 talked more freely to get rid of the feeling ; but it con- 
 tinued and gained definiteness until, at length, I found 
 that the noise was not within my ears. 
 
 No doubt I now grew very pale ; but I talked more 
 fluently, and with a heightened voice. Yet the sound in- 
 creased and what could I do ? It wets a loiv, dull, quick 
 sound much such a sound as a watch makes when enveloped 
 in cotton. I gasped for breath and yet the officials heard 
 it not. I talked more quickly more vehemently ; but 
 the noise steadily increased. I arose and argued about 
 trifles, in a high key, and with violent gesticulations ; but 
 the noise steadily increased. Why would they not be- 
 gone ? I paced the floor to and fro with heavy strides, 
 as if excited to fury by the observations of the men but 
 the noise steadily increased. O God ! What could I do ? 
 I foamed I raved I swore ! I swung the chair upon 
 which I had been sitting, and grated it upon the boards ; 
 
56 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN AUTHORS. 
 
 GREATNESS IN COMMON LIFE. 
 
 BY W. E. CHANNING. 
 
 but the noise arose over all and continually increased. It 
 grew louder louder louder ! And still the men chatted 
 pleasantly, and smiled. Was it possible they heard not ? 
 Almighty God ! no, no ! They heard they suspected 
 they knew ! they were making a mockery of my horror ! 
 this I thought, and this I think. But anything was 
 better than this agony ! Anything was more tolerable 
 than this derision. I could bear those hypocritical smiles 
 no longer ! I felt that I must scream or die ! And now 
 again ! hark ! louder ! louder ! louder ! louder ' 
 
 " Villains ! " I shrieked, " dissemble no more ! I admit 
 the deed ! tear up the planks ! here, here ! it is the 
 beating of his hideous heart ! " 
 
 My strong interest in the mass of the people is founded, 
 not on their usefulness to the community, so much as on 
 what they are in themselves. Their condition is indeed 
 obscure ; but their importance is not on this account a 
 
GREATNESS IN COMMON LIFE. 
 
 \vliit the less. The multitude of men cannot, from the 
 nature of the case, be distinguished ; for the very idea of 
 distinction is that a man stands out from the multitude. 
 They make little noise and draw little notice in their nar- 
 row spheres of action ; but still they have their full pro- 
 portion of personal worth and even of greatness. Indeed, 
 every man in every condition is great. It is only our own 
 diseased sight which makes him little. A man is great as 
 a man, be he where or what he may. The grandeur of his 
 nature turns to insignificance all outward distinctions. 
 His powers of intellect, of conscience, of love, of knowing 
 God, of perceiving the beautiful, of acting on his own mind, 
 on outward nature, and on his fellow-creatures, these are 
 glorious prerogatives. Through the vulgar error of under- 
 valuing what is common, we are apt indeed to pass these 
 by as of little worth. But, as in the outward creation, so 
 in the soul, the common is the most precious. Science and 
 art may invent splendid modes of illuminating the apart- 
 ments of the opulent ; but these are all poor and worthless 
 
58 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN AUTHORS. 
 
 compared with the common light which the sun sends into 
 all our windows, which he pours freely, impartially over 
 hill and valley, which kindles daily the eastern and western 
 sky ; and so the common lights of reason, and conscience, 
 and love, are of more worth and dignity than the fare 
 endowments which give celebrity to a few. Let us not 
 disparage that nature which is common to all men ; for no 
 thought can measure its grandeur. It is the image of God, 
 the image even of His infinity, for no limits can be set to 
 its unfolding. He who possesses the divine powers of the 
 soul is a great being, be his place what it may. You may 
 clothe him with rags, may immure him in a dungeon, may 
 chain him to slavish tasks. But he is still great. You 
 may shut him out of your houses ; but God opens to him 
 heavenly mansions. He makes no show indeed in the 
 streets of a splendid city ; but a clear thought, a pure 
 affection, a resolute act of a virtuous will, have a dignity 
 quite of another kind, and far higher than accumulations 
 
GREATNESS IN COMMON LIFE. 59 
 
 of brick and granite and plaster and stucco, however cun- 
 ningly put together, or though stretching far beyond our 
 sight. 
 
 Nor is this all. If we pass over this grandeur of our 
 common nature, and turn our thoughts to that compara- 
 tive greatness, which draws chief attention, and which 
 consists in the decided superiority of the individual to the 
 general standard of power and character, we shall find 
 this as free and frequent a growth among the obscure and 
 unnoticed as in more conspicuous walks of life. The truly 
 great are to be found everywhere, nor is it easy to say in 
 what condition they spring up most plentifully. Real 
 greatness has nothing to do with a man's sphere. It does 
 not lie in the magnitude of his outward agency, in the 
 extent of the effects which he produces. The greatest men 
 may do comparatively little abroad. Perhaps the greatest 
 in our city at this moment are buried in obscurity. Gran- 
 deur of character lies wholly in force of soul, that is, in the 
 force of thought, moral principle, and love, and this may 
 
60 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN AUTHORS. 
 
 <\ ' /^V L ^ '"Xi ^V 
 
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 be found in the humblest condition of life. A man brought 
 up to an obscure trade, and hemmed in by the wants of a 
 growing family, may, in his narrow sphere, perceive more 
 clearly, discriminate more keenly, weigh evidence more 
 wisely, seize on the right means more decisively, and have 
 more presence of mind in difficulty, than another who has 
 accumulated vast stores of knowledge by laborious study ; 
 and he has more of intellectual greatness. Many a man 
 who has gone but a few miles from home, understands 
 human nature better, detects motives, and weighs char- 
 acter more sagaciously, than another who has travelled 
 over the known world, and made a name b}' his reports of 
 different countries. It is force of thought which measures 
 intellectual, and so it is force of principle which measures 
 moral greatness, that highest of human endowments, that 
 brightest manifestation of the Divinity. The greatest man 
 is he who chooses the right with invincible resolution, who 
 resists the sorest temptations from within and without, 
 
GREATNESS IN COMMON LIFE. 
 
 61 
 
 who bears the heaviest burden cheerfully, who is calmest 
 in storms, and most fearless under menace and frowns, 
 whose reliance on truth, on virtue, on God, is most unfalter- 
 ing ; and is this a greatness which is apt to make a show, 
 or which is likely to abound in conspicuous station 1 The 
 solemn conflicts of reason with passion ; the victories of 
 moral and religious principle over urgent and almost irre- 
 sistible solicitations to self-indulgence ; the hardest sacri- 
 fices of duty, those of deep-seated affection and of the 
 heart's fondest hopes ; the consolations, hopes, joy and 
 peace of disappointed, persecuted, scorned, deserted vir- 
 tue ; these are of course unseen ; so that the true great- 
 ness of human life is almost wholly out of sight. Perhaps 
 in our presence the most heroic deed on earth is done in 
 some silent spirit, the loftiest purpose cherished, the most 
 generous sacrifice made, and we do not suspect it. I be- 
 lieve this greatness to be most common among the multi- 
 tude, whose names are never heard. Among common 
 people will be found more of hardship borne manfully, 
 more of unvarnished truth, more of religious trust, more 
 
62 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN AUTHORS. 
 
 .V..., .' ^-S>, A... e- ~f', '-, 
 
 of that generosity which gives what the giver needs himself, 
 and more of a wise estimate of life and death, than among 
 the more prosperous. 
 
 And evren in regard to influence over other beings which 
 is thought the peculiar prerogative of distinguished station, 
 I believe that the difference between the conspicuous and 
 the obscure does not amount to much. Influence is to be 
 measured, not by the extent of surface it covers, but by its 
 kind. A man may spread his mind, his feelings, and 
 opinions, through a great extent ; but, if his mind be a 
 low one, he manifests no greatness. A wretched artist 
 may fill a city with daubs, and by a false showy style 
 achieve a reputation ; but the man of genius, who leaves 
 behind him one grand picture in which immortal beauty 
 is embodied, and which is silently to spread a true taste 
 in his art, exerts an incomparably higher influence. Now 
 the noblest influence on earth is that exerted on character ; 
 and he who puts forth this does a great work, no matter 
 
GREATNESS IN COMMON LIFE. 
 
 63 
 
 how narrow or obscure his sphere. The father and mother 
 of an unnoticed family, who, in their seclusion, awaken 
 the mind of one child to the idea and love of perfect good- 
 ness, who awaken in him a strength of will to repel all 
 temptation, and who send him out prepared to profit by 
 the conflicts of life, surpass in influence a Napoleon break- 
 ing the world to his sway. And not only is their work 
 higher in kind ; who knows but that they are doing a 
 greater work even as to extent of surface than the con- 
 queror ? Who knows but that the being whom they 
 inspire with holy and disinterested principles may com- 
 municate himself to others ; and that, by a spreading 
 agency of which they were the silent origin, improvements 
 may spread through a nation, through the world ? Tn 
 these remarks you will see why I feel and express a deep 
 interest in the obscure in the mass of men. The distinc- 
 tions of society vanish before the light of these truths. I 
 attach myself to the multitude, not because they are voters 
 and have political power ; but because they are men, and 
 have within their reach the most glorious prizes of humanity. 
 
THE STORY OF A DRUM, 
 
 " About four years ago," began the Doctor, " I attended 
 a course of lectures in a certain city. One of the professors 
 invited me to his house on Christmas night. I was very 
 glad to go, as I was anxious to see one of his sons, who, 
 though only twelve years old, was said to be very clever. 
 There was a pleasant party that night. All the children 
 of the neighbourhood were there, and among them the 
 Professor's clever son, Rupert, as they called him, a thin 
 little chap, tall for his age, fair and delicate. His health 
 was feeble, his father said ; he seldom ran about and 
 played with other boys, preferring to stay at home and 
 brood over his books, and compose what he called his 
 verses. 
 
 " Well, we had a Christmas-tree, and we had been laugh- 
 ing and talking, calling off the names of the children who 
 had presents on the tree, and everybody was very happy 
 
 64 
 
THE STORY OF A DRUM. 65 
 
 and joyous, when one of the children suddenly said, ' Here's 
 something for Rupert ; and what do you think it is ? ' 
 
 " We all guessed : ' A desk ; ' ' A copy of Milton ; ' 
 ' A gold pen ; ' 'A rhyming dictionary. ' ' No ? what then ? ' 
 
 ' ' A drum ! ' 
 
 " Sure enough there it was. A good-sized, bright, new, 
 brass-bound drum, with a slip of paper on it, with the 
 inscription, ' FOR RUPERT.' 
 
 " Of course we all laughed, and thought it a good joke. 
 ' You see you're to make a noise in the world, Rupert ! ' 
 said one. ' Here's parchment for the poet,' said another. 
 ' Rupert's last work in sheepskin covers,' said a third. 
 ' Give us a classical tune, Rupert,' said a fourth ; and so 
 on. But Rupert seemed too mortified to speak ; he 
 changed colour, bit his lips, and finally burst into a pas- 
 sionate fit of crying, and left the room. Then those who 
 had joked him felt ashamed, and everybody began to ask 
 5 (105) 
 
66 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN AUTHORS. 
 
 who had put the drum there. But no one knew. Rupert 
 did not come downstairs again that night, and the party 
 soon after broke up. 
 
 " I had almost forgotten those things, for the war of the 
 Rebellion broke out the next spring, and I was appointed 
 surgeon in one of the new regiments, and was on my way 
 to the seat of war. But I had to pass through the city 
 where the Professor lived, and there I met him. My first 
 question was about Rupert. The Professor shook his head 
 sadly. ' He's not so well,' he said ; ' he has been declining 
 since last Christmas, when you saw him. A very strange 
 case, but go and see him yourself ; it may distract his 
 mind and do him good.' 
 
 " I went accordingly to the Professor's house, and found 
 Rupert lying on a sofa, propped up with pillows. Around 
 him were scattered his books, and, what seemed in singular 
 contrast, that drum was hanging on a nail, just above his 
 head. His face was thin and wasted ; there was a red 
 
THE STORY OF A DRUM. 67 
 
 spot on either cheek, and his eyes were very bright and 
 widely opened. He was glad to see me, and when I told 
 him where I was going, he asked a thousand questions 
 about the war. I thought I had thoroughly diverted his 
 mind from its sick and languid fancies, when he suddenly 
 grasped my hand and drew me towards him. 
 
 ' Doctor,' said he, in a low whisper, ' you won't laugh 
 at me if I tell you something ? ' 
 
 ' No, certainly not,' I said. 
 
 ' You remember that drum ? ' he said, pointing to the 
 glittering toy that hung against the wall. ' You know, 
 too, how it came to me. A few weeks after Christmas, I 
 was lying half asleep here, and the drum was hanging on 
 the wall, when suddenly I heard it beaten ; at first, low 
 and slowly, then faster and louder, until its rolling filled 
 the house. In the middle of the night, I heard it again. 
 I did not dare to tell anybody about it, but I have heard 
 it every night ever since. Sometimes it is played softly, 
 
68 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN AUTHORS. 
 
 sometimes loudl}', but always quickening to a long roll, 
 so loud and alarming that I have looked to see people 
 coming into my room to ask what was the matter. But 
 I think, Doctor, that no one hears it but myself.' 
 
 " I thought so, too, but I asked him if he had heard it 
 at any other times. 
 
 " ' Once or twice in the daytime,' he replied, ' when I 
 have been reading or writing ; then very loudly, as though 
 it were angry, and tried in that way to attract my attention 
 from my books. 
 
 " I looked into his face, and placed my hand upon his 
 pulse. His eyes were very bright, and his pulse a little 
 flurried and quick. I then tried to explain to him that 
 he was very weak, and that his senses were very acute, as 
 most weak people's are ; and how that when he read, or 
 grew interested and excited, or when he was tired at night, 
 the throbbing of a big artery made the beating sound he 
 
THE STORY OF A DRUM. 
 
 69 
 
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 \\C-A.\^L. He listened to me with a sad smile of unbelief, 
 but thanked me, and in a little while I went away. 
 
 " I left the city that very day, and in the excitement of 
 battlefields and hospitals, I forgot all about little Rupert. 
 
 " Not long after we had a terrible battle, in which a 
 portion of our army was surprised and driven back with 
 great slaughter. Entering the barn that served for a 
 temporary hospital, I went at once to work. 
 
 " I turned to a tall, stout Vermonter, who was badly 
 wounded in both thighs, but he held up his hands and 
 begged me to help others first who needed it more than he. 
 I did not at first heed his request, for this kind of unsel- 
 fishness was very common in the army ; but he went on 
 ' For God's sake, Doctor, leave me here ; there is a 
 drummer-boy of our regiment a mere child dying, if he 
 isn't dead now. Go and see him first. He lies over there. 
 He saved more than one life. He was at his post in the 
 
70 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN AUTHORS. 
 
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 panic this morning, and saved the honour of the regiment ' 
 I was so much impressed by the man's manner that I 
 passed over to where the drummer lay with his drum 
 beside him. I gave one glance at his face and yes, it 
 was Rupert. 
 
 " Well ! well ! it needed not the chalked cross which my 
 brother surgeons had left upon the rough board whereon 
 he lay to show how urgent was the relief he sought ; it 
 needed not the prophetic words of the Vermonter, nor the 
 damp that mingled with the brown curls that clung to his 
 pale forehead, to show how hopeless it was now. I called 
 him by name. He opened his eyes larger, I thought, in 
 the new vision that was beginning to dawn upon him 
 and recognized me. He whispered, ' I'm glad you are 
 come, but I don't think you can do me any good.' 
 
 " I could not tell him a lie. I could not say anything 
 I only pressed his hand in mine, as he went on. 
 
THE STORY OF A DRUM. 71 
 
 \ ' ") *~N 
 
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 ' But you will see father, and ask him to forgive me. 
 Nobody is to blame but myself. It was a long time before 
 I understood why the drum came to me on Christmas night, 
 and why it kept calling to me every night, and what it 
 said. I know it now. The work is done, and I am con- 
 tent. Tell father it is better as it is. I should have lived 
 only to worry and perplex him, and something in me tells 
 me this is right.' 
 
 " He lay still for a moment, and then, grasping my hand, 
 said, 
 
 " ' Hark ! ' 
 
 " I listened, but heard nothing but the suppressed 
 moans of the wounded men around me. ' The drum,' he 
 said, faintly ; ' don't you hear it ? The drum is calling 
 me.' 
 
 " He reached out his arm to where it lay, as though he 
 would embrace it. 
 
 " ' Listen,' he went on, ' it's the reveille. There are the 
 ranks drawn up in review. Don't you see the sunlight 
 
72 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN AUTHORS. 
 
 THE PROCESSION OF LIFE. 
 
 BY NATHANIEL HAWTHOKNE. 
 
 flash down the long line of bayonets ? Their faces are 
 shining they present arms there comes the General ; 
 but his face I cannot look at, for the glory round his head. 
 He sees me ; he smiles, it is And with a name upon 
 his lips that he learned long ago, he stretched himself 
 wearily upon the planks, and lay quite still." 
 
 Life figures itself to me as a festal or funereal procession. 
 All of us have our places, and are to move onward under 
 the direction of the Chief Marshal. The grand difficulty 
 results from the invariably mistaken principles on which 
 the deputy marshals seek to arrange this immense con- 
 course of people, so much more numerous than those that 
 train their interminable length through streets and high- 
 ways in times of political excitement. Their scheme is 
 ancient, far beyond the memory of man, or even the record 
 of history, and has hitherto been very little modified by the 
 innate sense of something wrong, and the dim perception 
 
THE PROCESSION OF LIFE. 73 
 
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 --^ c/ i^. ^!.V> % ^..^L.CI 
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 of better metliods, that have disquieted all the ages 
 through which the procession has taken its march. Its 
 members are classified by the merest external circum- 
 stances, and thus are more certain to be thrown out of their 
 true positions than if no principle of arrangement were 
 attempted. In one part of the procession we see men of 
 landed estate or moneyed capital gravely keeping each 
 other company, for the preposterous reason that they 
 chance to have a similar standing in the tax-gatherer's 
 book. Trades and professions march together with 
 scarcely a more real bond of union. In this manner, it 
 cannot be denied, people are disentangled from the mass 
 and separated into various classes according to certain 
 apparent relations ; all have some artificial badge which 
 the world, and themselves among the first, learn to con- 
 sider as a genuine characteristic. Fixing our attention on 
 such outside shows of similarity or difference, we lose sight 
 of those realities by which nature, fortune, fate, or Provi- 
 dence has constituted for every man a brotherhood, 
 
74 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN AUTHORS. 
 
 wherein it is one great office of human wisdom to classify 
 him. When the mind has once accustomed itself to a 
 proper arrangement of the Procession of Life, or a true 
 classification of society, even though merely speculative, 
 there is thenceforth a satisfaction which pretty well suffices 
 for itself without the aid of any actual reformation in the 
 order of march. 
 
 For instance, assuming to myself the power of marsha'ling 
 the aforesaid procession, I direct a trumpeter to send forth 
 a blast loud enough to be heard from hence to China ; 
 and a herald, with world-pervading voice, to make pro- 
 clamation for a certain class of mortals to take their places. 
 What shall be their principle of union ? After all, an 
 external one, in comparison with many that might be 
 fcund, yet far more real than those which the world has 
 selected for a similar purpose. Let all who are afflicted 
 with like physical diseases form themselves into ranks. 
 
 Our first attempt at classification is not very successful. 
 
THE PROCESSION OF LIFE. 
 
 It may gratify the pride of aristocracy to reflect that 
 disease, more than any other circumstance of human life, 
 pays due observance to the distinctions which rank and 
 wealth, and poverty and lowliness, have established among 
 mankind. Some maladies are rich and precious, and only 
 to be acquired by the right of inheritance or purchased 
 with gold. Of this kind is the gout, which serves as a 
 bond of brotherhood to the purple-visaged gentry who 
 obey the herald's voice, and painfully hobble from all 
 civilized regions of the globe to take their post in the grand 
 procession. In mercy to their toes, let us hope that the 
 nvuvh may not be long. The dyspeptics, too, are people 
 of good standing in the world. For them the earliest sal- 
 mon is caught in our eastern rivers, and the shy woodcock 
 stains the dry leaves with his blood in his remotest haunts, 
 and the turtle comes from the far Pacific Islands to be 
 gobbled up in soup. They can afford to flavour all their 
 dishes with indolence, which, in spite of the general 
 opinion, is a sauce more exquisitely piquant than appetite 
 won by c-xcrcisc. Apoplexy is another highly respectable 
 
76 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN AUTHORS. 
 
 ^ -k" V ) 
 
 disease. We will rank together all who have the symptom 
 of dizziness in the brain, and as fast as any drop by the 
 way supply their places with new members of the board 
 of aldermen. 
 
 On the other hand, here come whole tribes of people, 
 whose physical lives are but a deteriorated variety of life, 
 and themselves a meaner species of mankind ; so sad an 
 effect has been wrought by the tainted breath of cities, 
 scanty and unwholesome food, destructive modes of labour, 
 and the lack of those moral supports that might partially 
 have counteracted such bad influences. Behold here a 
 train of house painters, all afflicted with a peculiar sort of 
 colic. Next in place we will marshal those workmen in 
 cutlery, who have breathed a fatal disorder into their lungs 
 with the impalpable dust of steel. Tailors and shoe- 
 makers, being sedentary men, will chiefly congregate into 
 one part of the procession, and march under similar ban- 
 ners of disease ; but among them we may observe here and 
 
THE PROCESSION OF LIFE. 
 
 77 
 
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 there a sickly student, who has left his health between the 
 leaves of classic volumes ; and clerks, likewise, who have 
 caught their deaths on high official stools ; and men of 
 genius too, who have written sheet after sheet with pens 
 dipped in their heart's blood. These are a wretched, quak- 
 ing, short-breathed set. But what is this cloud of pale- 
 cheeked, slender girls, who disturb the ear with the multi- 
 plicity of their short, dry coughs ? They are seamstresses, 
 who have plied the daily and nightly needle in the service 
 of master tailors and close-fisted contractors, until now it 
 is almost time for each to hem the borders of her own 
 sliroud. Consumption points their place in the procession. 
 With their sad sisterhood are intermingled many youthful 
 maidens who have sickened in aristocratic mansions, and 
 for whose aid science has unavailingly searched its volumes, 
 and whom breathless love has watched. In our ranks the 
 rich maiden and the poor seamstress may walk arm in arm 
 We might find innumerable other instances, where the 
 bond of mutual disease^ not to speak of nation-sweeping 
 
78 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN AUTHORS. 
 
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 pestilence embraces high and low, and makes the king 
 brother of the clown. But it is not hard to own that 
 disease is the natural aristocrat. Let him kee.p his state, 
 and have his established orders of rank, and wear his royal 
 mantle of the colour of a fever flush ; and let the noble and 
 wealthy boast their own physical infirmities, and display 
 their symptoms as the badges of high station. All things 
 considered, these are as proper subjects of human pride as 
 any relations of human rank that men can fix upon. 
 
 Sound again, thou deep-breathed trumpeter ! and herald 
 with thy voice of might, shout forth another summons that 
 'shall reach the old baronial castles of Europe, and the 
 rudest cabin of our western wilderness ! What class is 
 next to take its place in the procession of mortal life ? Let 
 it be those whom the gifts of intellect have united in a 
 noble brotherhood. 
 
 Ay, this is a reality, before which the conventional dis- 
 tinctions of society melt away like a vapour when we would 
 
THE PROCESSION OF LIFE. 
 
 79 
 
 /V: 
 
 -4~* i 
 
 v_> ' ""7 - T - ' J 
 
 grasp it with the hand. Were Byron now alive, and Burns, 
 the iirst would come from his ancestral abbey, flinging 
 aside, although unwillingly, the inherited honours of a 
 thousand years, to take the arm of the mighty peasant 
 who grew immortal while he stooped behind his plough. 
 These are gone ; but the hall, the farmer's fireside, the hut, 
 perhaps the palace, the counting room, the workship, the 
 village, the city, life's high places and low ones, may all 
 produce their poets, whom a common temperament per- 
 vades like an electric sympathy. Peer or ploughman, we 
 will muster them pair by pair and shoulder to shoulder. . . . 
 Yet the longer I reflect the less am I satisfied with the 
 idea of forming a separate class of mankind on the basis of 
 high intellectual power. At best it is but a higher develop- 
 ment of innate gifts common to all. Perhaps, moreover, 
 he whose genius appears deepest and truest excels his 
 
80 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN AUTHORS. 
 
 V _- . X 
 
 fellows in nothing save the knack of expression ; he throws 
 out occasionally a lucky hint at truths of which every soul 
 is profoundly, though unutterably conscious. Therefore, 
 though we suffer the brotherhood of intellect to march on- 
 ward together, it may be doubted whether their peculiar 
 relation will not begin to vanish as soon as the procession 
 shall have passed beyond the circle of this present world. 
 But we do not classify for eternity. 
 
 And next, let the trumpet pour forth a funereal wail, and 
 the herald's voice give breath in one vast cry to all the 
 groans and grievous utterances that are audible throughout 
 the earth. We appeal now to the sacred bond of sorrow, 
 and summon the great multitude who labour under similar 
 afflictions to take their places in the march. 
 
 How many a heart that would have been insensible to 
 any other call has responded to the doleful accents of that 
 voice ! It has gone far and wide, and high and low, and 
 left scarcely a mortal roof unvisited. Indeed, the principle 
 is only too universal for our purpose, and unless we limit 
 
THE PROCESSION OF LIFE. 
 
 81 
 
 v\,,.r. Y 
 
 ), \ ib 
 
 v 
 
 9 \ * ~ "~i / 
 
 - v n 
 
 V J '- V^A ^ ^ X 
 
 '^ ^^Jkw-iu, 
 
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 c/\<~- 
 
 it will quite break up our classification of mankind, and 
 convert the whole procession into a funeral train. We will, 
 therefore, be at some pains to discriminate. Here comes 
 a lonely rich man ; he has built a noble fabric for his 
 dwelling-house, with a front of stately architecture and 
 marble floors and doors of precious woods ; the whole 
 structure is as beautiful as a dream and as substantial as 
 the native rock. But the visionary shapes of a long pos- 
 terity, for whose home this mansion was intended have 
 faded into nothingness since the death of the founder's only 
 son. The rich man gives a glance at his sable garb in one 
 of the splendid mirrors of his drawing-room, and descending 
 a flight of lofty steps, instinctively offers his arm to yonder 
 poverty-stricken widow in the rusty black bonnet, and with 
 a check apron over her patched gown. The sailor boy, who 
 was her sole earthly stay, was washed overboard in a late 
 tempest. This couple from the palace and th'e almshouse 
 are but the types of thousands more who represent the 
 
 6 (105) 
 
82 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN AUTHORS. 
 
 I V, . 
 
 "7,.. I, c 
 
 ^> . /^o I S '. XV 
 CP 
 
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 dark tragedy of life, and seldom quarrel for the upper 
 parts. Grief is such a leveller, with its own dignity and its 
 own humility, that the noble and the peasant, the beggar 
 and the monarch, will waive their pretensions to external 
 rank without the omciousness of interference on our part. 
 If pride the influence of the world's false distinctions 
 remain in the heart, then sorrow lacks the earnestness 
 which makes it holy and reverend. It loses its reality and 
 becomes a miserable shadow. On this ground we have an 
 opportunity to assign over multitudes who would willingly 
 claim places here to other parts of the procession. If the 
 mourner have anything dearer than his grief he must seek 
 his true position elsewhere. There are so many unsub- 
 stantial sorrows which the necessity of our mortal state 
 begets on idleness, that an observer, casting aside senti- 
 ment, is sometimes led to question whether there be any 
 real woe, except absolute physical suffering and the loss of 
 closest friends. A crowd who exhibit what they deem to 
 
THE PROCESSION OF LIFE. 83 
 
 be broken hearts and among them many lovelorn maids 
 and bachelors, and men of disappointed ambition in arts 
 or politics, and the poor who were once rich, or who have 
 sought to be rich in vain the great majority of these may 
 ask admittance into some other fraternity. There is no 
 room here. Perhaps we may institute a separate class 
 where such unfortunates will naturally fall into the pro- 
 cession. Meantime let them stand aside and patiently 
 await their time. 
 
 If our trumpeter can borrow a note from the doomsday 
 trumpet blast, let him, sound it now. The dread alarum 
 should make the earth quake to its centre, for the herald is 
 about to address mankind with a summons to which even 
 the purest mortal may be sensible of some faint responding 
 echo in his breast. In many bosoms it will awaken a still 
 small voice more terrible than its own reverberating uproar. 
 
 The hideous appeal has swept round the globe. Come 
 all ye guilty ones, and rank yourselves in accordance with 
 
84 
 
 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN AUTHORS. 
 
 the brotherhood of crime. This, indeed, is an awful sum- 
 mons. I almost tremble to look at the strange partner- 
 ships that begin to be formed, reluctantly, but by the 
 invincible necessity of like to like in this part of the pro- 
 cession. A forger from the state prison seizes the arm of 
 a distinguished financier. How indignantly does the latter 
 plead his fair reputation upon 'Change and insist that his 
 operations, by their magnificence of scope, were removed 
 into quite another sphere of morality than those of his 
 pitiful companion ! But let him cut the connection, if he 
 can. Here comes a murderer with his clanking chains, 
 and pairs himself horrible to tell with as pure and up- 
 right a man, in all observable respects, as ever partook of 
 the consecrated bread and wine. He is one of those, per- 
 chance the most hopeless of all sinners, who practise such 
 an exemplary system of outward duties, that even a deadly 
 crime may be hidden from their own sight and remem- 
 brance, under this unreal frostwork. Yet he now finds 
 his place. . . . 
 
THE PROCESSION OF LIFE. 85 
 
 Many will be astonished at the fatal impulse that drags 
 them thitherward. Nothing is more remarkable than the 
 various deceptions by which guilt conceals itself from the 
 perpetrator's conscience, and oftenest, perhaps, by the 
 splendour of its garments. Statesmen, rulers, generals, and 
 all men who act over an extensive sphere, are most liable 
 to be deluded in this way ; they commit wrong, devasta- 
 tion, and murder, on so grand a scale, that it impresses 
 them as speculative rather than actual ; but in our pro- 
 cession we iind them linked in detestable conjunction with 
 the meanest criminals whose deeds have the vulgarity of 
 petty details. Here 'the effect of circumstances and acci- 
 dent is done away, and a man finds his rank according to 
 the spirit of his crime, in whatever shape it may have been 
 developed. 
 
 We have called the Evil ; now let us call the Good. The 
 trumpet's brazen throat should pour heavenly music over 
 the earth, and the herald's voice go forth with the sweetness 
 
86 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN AUTHORS. 
 
 \o 
 
 of an angel's accent, as if to summon each upright man 
 to his reward. But how is this ? Does none answer 
 to the call ? Not one : for the just, the pure, the true, 
 and all who might most worthily obey it, shrink sadly back, 
 as most conscious of error and imperfection. Then let the 
 summons be to those whose pervading principle is Love. 
 This classification will embrace all the truly good, and none 
 in whose souls there exists not something that may expand 
 itself into a heaven, both of well-doing and felicity. 
 
 The first that presents himself is a man of wealth, who 
 has bequeathed the bulk of his property to a hospital ; his 
 ghost, methinks, would have a better right here than his 
 living body. But here they come, the genuine benefactors 
 of their race. Some have wandered about the earth with 
 pictures of bliss in their imagination, and with hearts that 
 shrank sensitively from the idea of pain and woe, yet have 
 
THE PROCESSION OF MFH. 
 
 87 
 
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 >f x=> Vv (A. b V^-~x ... 
 
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 \~ S-V!/X*.N,.4>-tS? 
 
 studied all varieties of misery that human nature can 
 endure. The prison, the insane asylum, the squalid cham- 
 ber of the alms-house, the manufactory where the demon 
 of machinery annihilates the human soul, and the cotton 
 liekl where God's image becomes a beast of burden ; to 
 these and every other scene where man wrongs or neglects 
 his brother, the apostles of humanity have penetrated. 
 This missionary, black with India's burning sunshine, shall 
 give his arm to a pale-faced brother who has made himself 
 familiar with the infected alleys and loathsome haunts of 
 vice in one of our own cities. The generous founder of a 
 college shall be the partner of a maiden lady of narrow 
 substance, one of whose good deeds it has been to gather a 
 little school of orphan children. If the mighty merchant 
 whose benefactions are reckoned by thousands of dollars, 
 deem himself worthy, let him join the procession with her 
 whose love has proved itself by watchings at the sick bed 
 and all those lowly offices which bring her into actual con- 
 tact with disease and wretchedness. And with those 
 whose impulses have guided them to benevolent actions, 
 
88 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN AUTHORS. 
 
 we will rank others to whom Providence has assigned a 
 different tendency and different powers. Men who have 
 spent their lives in generous and holy contemplation for 
 the human race ; those who, by a certain heavenliness of 
 spirit, have purified the atmosphere around them, and thus 
 supplied a medium in which good and high things may be 
 projected and performed give to these a lofty place among 
 the benefactors of mankind, although no deed, such as the 
 world calls deeds, may be recorded of them. There are 
 some individuals of whom we cannot conceive it proper 
 that they should apply their hands to any earthly instru- 
 ment or work out any definite act ; and others, perhaps not 
 less high, to whom it is an essential attribute to labour ^in 
 body as well as spirit, for the welfare of their brethren. 
 Thus, if we find a spiritual sage whose unseen, inestimable 
 influence has exalted the moral standard of mankind, we 
 will choose for his companion some poor labourer who has 
 wrought for love in the potato field of a neighbour poorer 
 than himself. 
 
THE PROCESSION OF LIFE. 
 
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 \ " ' 
 
 >>4- 
 
 I I ' /" ^O W" Vf 
 
 <*^ ' "-^'" "7 f 
 
 ^ .\ V .T > 7% C _,, > \ .., t . .?. o .>?. / 
 
 \Ve have summoned this various multitude and, to the 
 credit of our nature, it is a large one on the principle of 
 Love. It is singular, nevertheless, to remark the shyness 
 that exists among many members of the present class, all 
 of whom we might expect to recognise one another by the 
 freemasonry of mutual goodness, and to embrace like 
 brethren, giving God thanks for such various specimens of 
 human excellence. But it is far otherwise. Each sect 
 surrounds its own righteousness with a hedge of thorns. 
 It is difficult for the good Christian to acknowledge the 
 good Pagan ; almost impossible for the good Orthodox to 
 grasp the hand of the good Unitarian, leaving to their 
 Creator to settle the matters in dispute, and giving their 
 mutual efforts strongly and trustingly to whatever right 
 thing is too evident to be mistaken. Then again, though 
 the heart be large, yet the mind is often of such moderate 
 dimensions as to be exclusively filled up with one idea. 
 When a good man has long devoted himself to a particular 
 
90 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN AUTHORS. 
 
 V ' < 
 
 kind of beneficence to one species of reform he is apt to 
 become narrowed into the limits of the path wherein he 
 treads, and to fancy that there is no other good to be done 
 on earth but that selfsame good to which he has put his 
 hand, and in the very mode that best suits his own con- 
 ceptions. All else is worthless. His scheme must be 
 wrought out by the united strength of the whole world's 
 stock of love, or the world is no longer worthy of a position 
 in the universe. Moreover, powerful Truth, being the rich 
 grape juice expressed from the vineyard of the ages, has 
 an intoxicating quality, when imbibed by any save a 
 powerful intellect, and often, as it were, impels the quaffer 
 to quarrel in his cups. For these reasons, strange to say, 
 it is harder to contrive a friendly arrangement of these 
 brethren of love and righteousness, in the procession of 
 life, than to unite even the wicked, who, indeed, are 
 chained together by their crimes. The fact is too 
 preposterous for tears, too lugubrious for laughter. 
 
THE PROCESSION OF LIFE. 91 
 
 * 
 
 But, let good men push and elbow one another as they 
 may during their earthly march, all will be peace among 
 them when the honourable array of their procession shall 
 tread on heavenly ground. There they will doubtless find 
 that they have been working each for the other's cause, 
 and that every well-delivered stroke, which, with an honest 
 purpose, any mortal struck, even for a narrow object, was 
 indeed stricken for the universal cause of good. Their own 
 view may be bounded by country, creed, profession, the 
 diversities of individual character -but above them all is 
 the breadth of Providence. How many, who have deemed 
 themselves antagonists, will smile hereafter, when they 
 look back upon the world's wide harvest field, and 
 perceive that, in unconscious brotherhood, they were 
 helping to bind the selfsame sheaf ! 
 
 But, come ! The sun is hastening westward, while the 
 march of human life, that never paused before, is delayed 
 by our attempt to rearrange its order. It is desirable to 
 find some comprehensive principle, that shall render our 
 task easier by bringing thousands into the ranks where 
 
92 
 
 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN AUTHORS. 
 
 t 
 
 hitherto we have brought one. Therefore let the trumpet, 
 if possible, split its brazen throat with a louder note than 
 ever, and the herald summon all mortals who, from what- 
 ever cause, have lost, or never found, their proper places 
 in the world. 
 
 Obedient to this call, a great multitude come together, 
 most of them with a listless gait, betokening weariness of 
 soul, yet with a gleam of satisfaction in their faces, at a 
 prospect of at length reaching those positions which, 
 hitherto, they have vainly sought. But here will be 
 another disappointment ; for we can attempt no more 
 than merely to associate, in one fraternity, all who are 
 afflicted with the same vague trouble. Some great mis- 
 take in life is the chief condition of admittance into this 
 class. Here are members of the learned professions, whom 
 Providence endowed with special gifts for the plough, the 
 forge, and the wheelbarrow, or for the routine of unintel- 
 lectual business. We will assign to them, as partners in 
 
THE PROCESSION OF LIFE. 
 
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 the march, those lowly labourers and handicraftsmen, who 
 have pined, as with a dying thirst, after the unattainable 
 fountains of knowledge. The latter have lost less than 
 their companions ; yet more, because they deem it infinite. 
 Perchance the two species of unfortunates may comfort 
 one another. . . . 
 
 Shall we bid the trumpet sound again ? It is hardly 
 worth the while. There remain a few idle men of fortune, 
 and people of crooked intellect or temper, all of whom, may 
 find their like, or some tolerable approach to it, in the 
 plentiful diversity of our latter class. There too, as his 
 ultimate destiny, must we rank the dreamer, who, all his 
 life long, has cherished the idea that he was peculiarly apt 
 for something, but never could determine what it was ; 
 and there the most unfortunate of men, whose purpose 
 it has been to enjoy life's pleasures, but to avoid a manful 
 struggle with its toil and sorrow. The remainder, if any, 
 may connect themselves with whatever rank of the 
 
94 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN AUTHORS. 
 
 procession they shall find best adapted to their tastes and 
 consciences. The worst possible fate would be to remain 
 behind, shivering in the solitude of time, while all the 
 world is on the move towards eternity. Our attempt to 
 classify society is now complete. The result may be any- 
 thing but perfect : yet better to give it the very lowest 
 praise than the antique rule of the herald's office, or the 
 modern one of the tax-gatherer, whereby the accidents and 
 superficial attributes, with which the real nature of indi- 
 viduals has least to do, are acted upon as the deepest 
 characteristics of mankind. Our task is done ! Now let 
 the grand procession move ! 
 
 Yet pause a while ! We had forgotten the Chief Marshal. 
 
 Hark ! That world-wide swell of solemn music, with 
 the clang of a mighty bell breaking forth through its regu- 
 lated uproar, announces his approach. He comes ; a 
 severe, sedate, immovable, dark rider, waving his trun- 
 cheon of universal sway, as he passes along the lengthened 
 
THE PROCESSION OF LIFE. 
 
 c 
 
 95 
 
 Si ) \..^...S> e- \, .<. 
 
 line, on the pale horse of the Revelation. It is Death ! 
 Who else could assume the guidance of a procession that 
 comprehends all humanity ? And, if some, among these 
 many millions, should deem themselves classed amiss, yet 
 let them take to their hearts the comfortable truth, that 
 Death levels us all into one great brotherhood, and that 
 another state of being will surely rectify the wrong of this. 
 Then breathe thy wail upon the earth's wailing wind, thou 
 band of melancholy music, made up of every sigh that 
 the human heart, unsatisfied, has uttered ! There is yet 
 triumph in thy tones. And now we move ! Beggars in 
 their rags, and Kings trailing the regal purple in the dust ; 
 the Warrior's gleaming helmet ; the Priest in his sable 
 robe ; the hoary grandsire, who has run life's circle and 
 come back to childhood ; the ruddy Schoolboy with his 
 golden curls, frisking along the march ; the Artisan's stuff 
 jacket ; the Noble's star-decorated coat ; the whole pre- 
 senting a motley spectacle, yet with a dusky grandeur 
 brooding over it. Onward, onward, into that dimness 
 where the lights of Time, which have blazed along the 
 
SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN AUTHORS. 
 
 A MELTING STORY. 
 
 BY MARK TWAIN. 
 
 procession, are flickering in their sockets ! And whither ! 
 We know not ; and Death, hitherto our leader, deserts us 
 by the wayside as the tramp of our innumerable footsteps 
 echoes beyond his sphere. He knows not, more than we, 
 our destined goal. But God, who made us, knows, and will 
 not leave us on our toilsome and doubtful march, either 
 to wander in infinite uncertainty, or perish by the way ! 
 
 " Yes," remarked the old gentleman from the Eastern 
 States, folding his hands and steadying his gaze upon a 
 mark on the floor, " I did know a story a little incident 
 of our simple daily life in Vermont, which might perhaps 
 not be considered too old-fashioned to interest you whilst 
 we are waiting here for the stage." 
 
 " Pray proceed," we all cried in a chorus together ; and 
 the old gentleman again folded his hands and began : 
 
 "One winter evening, a country storekeeper in the 
 Green Mountain State was about closing up for the night, 
 
A MELTING STORY. 
 
 and while standing in the snow outside, putting up the 
 window shutters, saw through the glass a lounging worth- 
 less fellow within grab a pound of fresh butter from the 
 shelf, and conceal it in his hat. 
 
 " The act was no sooner detected than the revenge was 
 hit upon, and a very few minutes found the Green Moun- 
 tain storekeeper at once indulging his appetite for fun to 
 the fullest extent, and paying off the thief with a facetious 
 sort of torture, for which he would have gained a premium 
 from the old Inquisition. 
 
 " ' I say, Seth.' said the storekeeper, coming in and clos- 
 ing the door after him, slapping his hands over his shoulders 
 and stamping the snow off his feet 
 
 " Seth had his hand on the door, his hat on his head, 
 ind the roll of butter in his hat, anxious to make his exit 
 as soon as possible. 
 
 " ' - I say, Seth, sit down. I reckon, now, on such a 
 cold night as this a little something warm would not hurt 
 a fellow.' 
 7 <ios) 
 
SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN AUTHORS. 
 
 cri v.\ P..J. 
 * j 
 
 " Seth felt very uncertain. He had the butter, and was 
 exceedingly anxious to be off ; but the temptation of some- 
 thing warm sadly interfered with his resolution to go. 
 
 " This hesitation was settled by the owner of the butter 
 taking Seth by the shoulders and planting him, in a seat 
 close to the stove, where he was in such a manner cornered 
 in by the boxes and barrels that, while the grocer stood 
 before him, there was no possibility of getting out ; and 
 right in this very place, sure enough, the storekeeper sat 
 down. 
 
 " ' Seth, we'll have a little warm Santa Cruz,' said the 
 Green Mountain grocer ; so he opened the stove door, and 
 stuffed in as many sticks as the place would admit : 
 ' without it you'd freeze going out such a night as this.' 
 
 " Seth already felt the butter settling down closer to his 
 hair, and he jumped up, declaring he must go. 
 
A MELTING STORY. 99 
 
 A , ' x? ^, 1.;...^...^... 
 
 ". I ^ ^ > \ 1 N ^_ .!^.. 
 
 " ' Not till you have something warm, Seth. Come, 
 I've got a story to tell you.' 
 
 " And Seth was again rushed into his seat by his cunning 
 tormentor. 
 
 " ' Oh, it's so hot here.' said the petty thief, attempting 
 to rise. 
 
 " ' Sit down don't be in such a hurry,' retorted the 
 grocer, pushing him back into his chair. 
 
 " ' But I've got the cows to fodder and the wood to 
 split I must be going,' said the persecuted chap. 
 
 " ' But you mustn't tear yourself away, Seth, in this 
 manner. Sit down, let the cows take care of themselves, 
 and keep yourself easy. You appear to be a little fidgety,' 
 said the roguish grocer, with a wicked leer. 
 
 " The next thing was the production of two smoking 
 glasses of hot toddy, the very sight of which, in Seth's 
 
100 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN AUTHORS. 
 
 present situation, would have made the hair stand erect 
 upon his head had it not been well oiled and kept down 
 by the butter. 
 
 " ' Seth, I will give you a toast, now, and you can butter 
 it yourself,' said the grocer, with an air of such consummate 
 simplicity, that poor Seth believed himself unsuspected. 
 
 " ' Seth, here's here's a Christmas Goose, well roasted 
 eh ? I tell you, it's the greatest in creation. And, 
 Seth, don't you never use hog's fat, or common cooking 
 butter, to baste it with. Come, take your butter I 
 mean, Seth, take your toddy.' 
 
 " Poor Seth now began to smoke as well as melt, and his 
 mouth was hermetically sealed up, as though he had been 
 born dumb. 
 
 " Streak after streak of butter came pouring from under 
 his hat, and his handkerchief was already soaked with the 
 greasy overflow. 
 
A MELTING STORY. 101 
 
 " Talking away as if nothing was the matter, the fun- 
 loving grocer kept stuffing wood into the stove, while poor 
 Seth sat upright, with his back against the counter, and 
 his knees touching the red-hot furnace before him. 
 
 " ' Cold night this,' said the grocer. ' Why, Seth, you 
 seem to perspire as if you were warm. Why don't you 
 take your hat off ? Here, let me put your hat away.' 
 
 " ' No ! ' exclaimed poor Seth at last. ' No ! I must 
 go! 
 
 ' ' Let me out ! 
 
 " ' I ain't well ! 
 
 " ' Let me go ! ' 
 
 " A greasy cataract was now pouring down the poor 
 m.m's face and neck, and soaking into his clothes, and 
 trickling down his body into his boots, so that he was 
 literally in a perfect bath of oil. 
 
102 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN AUTHORS. 
 
 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST 
 TABLE. 
 
 BY OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
 
 " ' Well, good night, Seth,' said the humorous Vermonter 
 ' if you will go ! ' And adding, as he started out of the 
 door ' I say, Seth, I reckon the fun I have had out of you 
 is worth ninepence, so I shan't charge you for that pound 
 of butter in your hat.' ' 
 
 Nobody talks much that doesn't say unwise things, 
 things he didn't mean to say ; as no person plays much 
 without striking a false note sometimes. Talk to me, is 
 only spading up the ground for crops of thought. I cannot 
 answer for what will turn up. If I could, it would not be 
 talking, but " speaking my piece." Better, I think, the 
 hearty abandonment of one's self to the suggestions of the 
 moment, at the risk of an occasional slip of the tongue, 
 perceived the instant it escapes, but just one syllable too 
 late, than the royal reputation of never saying a foolish 
 thing. 
 
TDK PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST TABLE. 103 
 
 The boarders were pleased to say that they were glad 
 to get me back. One of them ventured a compliment, 
 namely that I talked as if I believed what I said. This 
 was apparently considered something unusual, by its being 
 mentioned. 
 
 One who means to talk with entire sincerity, I said, 
 always feels himself in danger of two things, namely an 
 affectation of bluntness, like that of which Cornwall 
 accuses Kent in " Lear," and actual rudeness. What a 
 man wants to do, in talking with a stranger, is to get and 
 to give as much of the best and most real life that belongs 
 to the two talkers as the time will let him. Life is short, 
 and conversation apt to run to mere words. Mr. Hue, I 
 think it is, who tells us some very good stories about the 
 way in which two Chinese gentlemen contrive to keep up 
 a long talk without saying a word which has any meaning 
 in it. Something like this is occasionally heard on this side 
 of the Great Wall. The best Chinese talkers I know are 
 
104 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN AUTHORS. 
 
 some pretty women whom I meet from time to time. 
 Pleasant, airy, complimentary, the little flakes of flattery 
 glimmering in their talk ; their accents flowing on in a 
 soft ripple, never a wave, and never a calm ; words 
 nicely fitted but never a coloured phrase or a high-flavoured 
 epithet ; they turn air into syllables so gracefully that we 
 iind meaning for the music they make as we find faces in 
 the coals and fairy palaces in the clouds. There is some- 
 thing very odd, though, about this mechanical talk. 
 
 You have sometimes been in a train on the railroad 
 when the engine was detached a long way from the station 
 you were approaching ? Well, you have noticed how 
 quietly and rapidly, the cars kept on, just as if the loco- 
 motive were drawing them. ? Indeed, you would not have 
 suspected that you were travelling on the strength of a 
 dead fact if you had not seen the engine running away from 
 you on a side-track. Upon my conscience, I believe some 
 of these pretty women detach their minds entirely, some- 
 times, from their talk, and, what is more, that we never 
 know the difference. Their lips let off the fluty syllables 
 
THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST TABLE. 105 
 
 just as their fingers would sprinkle the music drops from 
 their pianos ; unconscious habit turns the phrase of 
 thought into words just as it does that of music into notes. 
 Well, they govern the world, for all that, these sweet- 
 lipped women, because beauty is the index of a larger 
 fact than wisdom. 
 
 The Bombazine wanted an explanation. 
 Madam, said I, wisdom is the abstract of the past, but 
 beauty is the promise of the future. 
 
 All this, however, is not what I was going to say. 
 Here am I, suppose, seated, we will say, at a dinner- table, 
 alongside of an intelligent Englishman. We look in each 
 other's faces we exchange a dozen words. One thing is 
 settled : we mean not to offend each other to be per- 
 fectly courteous more than courteous ; for we are the 
 entertainer and the entertained, and cherish particularly 
 amiable feelings to each other. The claret is good : and if 
 
106 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN AUTHORS. 
 
 A '. 
 
 y a T b ...u..^ v < 
 
 our blood reddens a little with its warm crimson, we are 
 none the less kind for it. 
 
 1 don't think people that talk over their victuals are 
 
 like to say anything very great, especially if they get their 
 heads muddled with strong drink before they begin 
 jabbering. 
 
 The Bombazine uttered this with a sugary sourness, as 
 if the words had been steeped in a solution of acetate of 
 lead. The boys of my time used to call a hit like this a 
 " side-winder." 
 
 I must finish this woman. 
 
 Madam, I said, the Great Teacher seems to have been 
 fond of talking as he sat at meat. Because this was a good 
 while ago, in a far-off place, you forget what the true fact 
 of it was, that those were real dinners, where people were 
 
THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST TABLE. 107 
 
 hungry and thirsty, and where you met a very miscellane- 
 ous company. Probably there was a great deal of loose 
 talk among the guests : at any rate, there was always wine, 
 we may believe. 
 
 Whatever may be the hygienic advantages or disadvan- 
 tages of wine, and I, for one, except for certain particular 
 ends, believe in water, and, I blush to say it, in black tea, 
 there is no doubt about its being the grand specific 
 against dull dinners. A score of people come together in 
 all moods of mind and body. The problem is, in the space 
 of one hour, more or less, to bring them all into the same 
 condition of slightly exalted life. Food alone is enough 
 for one person, perhaps, talk, alone, for another ; but 
 the grand equalizer and fraternizer, which works up the 
 radiators to their maximum radiation, and the absorbents 
 to their maximum receptivity, is now just where it was 
 rhen 
 
 " The conscious water saw its Lord and blushed," 
 
108 SKIECT10NS FROM AMERICAN AUTHORS. 
 
 r 
 
 . L^~~^... v ....f\.. f^.-...\..l x s_s>: o, 1. 
 
 \ / 3r" / ^ / <*y~?''^., . C ../~^~' .V. 
 
 when six great vessels containing water, the whole 
 amounting to more than a hogshead-full, were changed 
 into the best of wine. I once wrote a song about wine, in 
 which I spoke so warmly of it, that I was afraid some would 
 think it was written inter pocula ; whereas it was composed 
 in the bosom of my family, under the most tranquillizing 
 domestic influences. 
 
 The Divinity-Student turned towards me, looking 
 mischievous. Can you tell me, he said, who wrote a song 
 for a temperance celebration once, of which the following 
 is a verse ? 
 
 Alas for the loved one, too gentle and fair 
 The joys of the banquet to chasten and share ; 
 Her eye lost its light that his goblet might shine, 
 And the rose of her cheek was dissolved in his wine ! 
 I did, I answered. What are you going to do about it ? 
 I will tell you another line I wrote long ago : 
 
 Don't be " consistent," but be simply true. 
 
THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST TABLE. 109 
 
 (; - < 
 
 The longer I live, the more I am satisfied of two things : 
 first, that the truest lives are those that are cut rose- 
 diamond-fashion, with many facets answering to the man}' 
 planed aspects of the world about them : secondly, that 
 society is always trying in some way or other to grind us 
 down to a single flat surface. It is hard work to resist 
 this grinding-down action. Now give me a chance. Better 
 eternal and universal abstinence than the brutalities of 
 those days that made wives and mothers and daughters 
 and sisters blush for those whom they should have hon- 
 oured, as they came reeling home from their debauches ! 
 Yet better even excess than lying and hypocrisy ; and if 
 wine is upon all our tables, let us praise it for its colour 
 and fragrance and social tendency, so far as it deserves, 
 and not hug a bottle in the closet, and pretend not to 
 know the use of a wine-glass at a public dinner ! I think 
 you will find that people who honestly mean to be true 
 really contradict themselves much more rarely than those 
 who try to be " consistent." But a great many things we 
 say can be made to appear contradictory, simply because 
 
110 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN AUTHORS. 
 
 *-.^.:-~:. v* :: i % s?. i 
 
 t 7 ^^ 
 
 \ '^^ ' "f L ^ x 
 
 o k > b 
 
 > eJ 
 
 XXX 
 
 they are partial views of a truth, and may often look unlike 
 at first, as a front view of a face and its profile often do. 
 
 Language is a solemn thing. It grows out of life 
 out of its agonies and ecstasies, its wants and its weariness. 
 Every language is a temple, in which the soul of those who 
 speak it is enshrined. Because Time softens its outlines 
 and rounds the sharp angles of its cornices, shall a fellow 
 take a pickaxe to help time ? Let me tell you what comes 
 of meddling with things that can take care of themselves. 
 A friend of mine had a watch given him, when he was a boy, 
 a " bull's eye," with a loose silver case that came off like 
 an oyster-shell from its contents ; you know them the cases 
 that you hang on your thumb, while the core, or the real 
 watch, lies in your hand, as naked as a peeled apple. Well, 
 he began with taking off the case and so on ; from one liberty 
 to another, until he got it fairly open, and there were the 
 works, as good as if they were alive crown-wheel, balance- 
 wheel, and all the rest, all right except one thing ; there 
 
THE PROFESSOR AT TIIK BREAKFAST TABLfi. Ill 
 
 was a confounded little hair had got entangled round the 
 balance-wheel. So my young Solomon got a pair of 
 tweezers, and caught hold of the hair very nicely, and 
 pulled it right out, without touching any of the wheels 
 when buzz ! and the watch had done up twenty-four 
 hours in double magnetic-telegraph time ! The English 
 language was wound up to run some thousands of years, 
 I trust ; but if everybody is to be pulling at everything 
 he thinks is a. hair, our grand-children will have to make 
 the discovery that it is a hair-s^n'wg, and the old Anglo- 
 Norman soul's-timekeeper will run down, as so many other 
 dialects have done before it. I can't stand this meddling 
 any better than you, sir. But we have a great deal to be 
 proud of in the lifelong labours of that old lexicographer, 
 and we mustn't be ungrateful. Besides, don't let us 
 deceive ourselves, the war of the dictionaries is only a 
 disguised rivalry of cities, colleges, and especially of pub- 
 lishers. After all, it is likely that the language will shape 
 
112 
 
 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN AUTHORS. 
 
 itself by larger forces than phonography and dictionary- 
 making. You may spade up the ocean as much as you 
 like, and harrow it afterwards, if you can but the moon 
 will still lead the tides, and the winds will form their 
 surface. 
 
 Printed by Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons, Ltd., Bath, England. 
 C (105) 
 
This book is DUE on the last 
 date stamped below 
 
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