HALF-HOTJ&S
WITH THE
BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
SELECTED AND ARRANGED BY
CHARLES MORRIS.
VOL. II.
PHILADELPHIA:
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY.
1896.
Copyright, 1886, by J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY.
ps
07
V.3.
OOE"TEIsrTS.
SUBJECT. AtTTHOB. PA0B
Pompeii and Heroulaneum W. D. HOWELLS 7
Nancy Blynn's Lovers J. T. TROWBRIDGB 18
Baby Bell THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH . 35
Ascending Ktaadn HENRY DAVID THOHEAD . . 39
Impressions of Niagara MARGARET FULLER OSSOLI . 47
Poe THOMAS W. HIGGINSON ... 57
Review of the History of Slavery .... GEORGE BANCROFT 64
Sam Lawson, the Village Do-Nothing . . HARRIET BEECHER STOWE . 74
The Courtin' JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL . . 87
Primitive Forms of the Ordeal HENRY C. LEA 90
The Progress and Prospects of Literature
in America R. W. GRISWOLD 99
Crocodiles on the St. John's WILLIAM BARTHAM .... 108
Life in Philadelphia in 1800 JOHN B. McMASTEB .... 115
Seeds and Swine FREDERICK S. COZZENS . . . 129
Among the Laurels ELIZABETH AKERS ALLEN . 138
Author-Worship HENRY T. TUCKEBMAN . . . 142
Religious Experience JONATHAN EDWARDS .... 146
Resolutions for Conduct of Life " " .... 147
The Freedom of the Will " " .... 150
The Times that Tried Men's Soula .... THOMAS PAINE 152
The Maiden and the Rattlesnake W. G. SIMMS 163
The Sheriff of Calaveras BRET HARTE 170
Prelude to " Among the Hills" J. G. WHITTIER 181
Second Inaugural Address ABRAHAM LINCOLN .... 185
Gettysburg Oration " " .... 188
Winter Life and Scenery in Siberia .... GEORGE KENNAN 189
A Siberian Aurora " " 196
The Bluebird ALEXANDER WILSON .... 201
A Sojourn in Arcady ABBA G. WOOLSON 07
3
4 CONTENTS.
SUBJECT. AUTHO*. PAOM
Sunshine and Hope VARIOUS 217
Happiness J. R. LOWELL 217
Boyhood Days WASHINGTON ALLSTON . . . 219
Betrothed Anew E. C. STEDMAN 219
The Wine-Cup C. F. HOFFMAN 220
The Toast MARY KYLE DALLAS . . . 221
Dolce Far Niente CHARLES G. HALPINE . . . 222
The Basking Soul ANONYMOUS 223
Sunshine " 224
A Successful Ruse JOHN P. KENNEDY 226
The Moon in the Mill-Pond JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS' . . 238
Life and Scenery on the Congo HENRY M. STANLEY .... 244
The Conditions of English Thought . . . GEORGE S. MORRIS .... 255
The Culprit Fay JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE . . 265
The Origin of Language W. D. WHITNEY 272
A Declaration of Love W. D. HOWELLS 284
Life in Brushland " JOHN DARBY" 292
The American Revolution JARED SPARKS 302
Interview of Hadad and Tamar J. A. HILLHOUSE 307
Outwitting a Lawyer J. G. HOLLAND 312
Why I Left the Anvil ELIHU BURRITT 326
Our Debt to our Ancestors T. D. WOOLSEY 331
Don Quixote GEORGE TICKNOR 339
Kit Carson's Ride JOAQUIN MILLER 346
Through the Lines G. W. CABLE 351
The Light of the Harem SUSAN E. WALLACE .... 361
The Heat and Light of the Sun C. A. YOUNG 375
A Banquet at Aspasia's LYDIA MARIA CHILD . . . 380
The Owl-Critic JAMES T. FIELDS 388
Aunt Quimby ELIZA LESLIE 391
Tommy MARY A. DODGE 407
Farewell Address GEORGE WASHINGTON ... 416
Winter Pleasures E. H. ROLLINS 420
Shadow and Grief VARIOUS 431
The Flight of Youth R. H. STODDAHD 431
Resignation H. W. LONGFELLOW .... 431
The Death-Bed JAMES ALDRICH 432
Perdita ANONYMOUS 433
Nearer Home PHCEBE GARY 433
The Voiceless 0. W. HOLMES 434
The Haunted Palace . . E. A. Pos . . 435
CONTENTS. 5
SUBJECT. AUTHOR. PAO1
Pomp's Religious Experience ANONYMOUS , . 437
My Notion of Music S. P. PAETON 442
Boston Blessings and Beans " " 445
Unknown Acquaintances " " 446
Life and its Mysteries " " 449
The Ruins of Uxmal FELIX L. OSWALD 451
Care of the Body M. V. TERHUNE 467
Spring-Time and Boyhood DONALD G. MITCHELL . . . 475
The Notch of the White Mountains . . . TIMOTHY DWICHT 483
Song of the Redwood-Tree WALT WHITMAN 489
Josiah Allen's Wife calls on the President . MARIETTA HOLLET .... 494
Deacon Quirk's Opinions E. S. PHELPS ....... 503
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
VOL. II.
PAGE
FALLS op NIAGARA, CANADIAN SIDE Frontispiece.
OLD BARTRAM HOUSE, PHILADELPHIA 108
FRANCIS BRET HARTE 170
WILLIAM D. HOWELLS 284
THE LIGHT OF THE HAREM 363
A KEUNION AT THE HOUSE OF ASPASIA . . 382
HALF-HOURS
WITH THE
BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
POMPEII AND HERCULANEUM.
W. D. HOWELLS.
[William Dean Howells, who has recently risen into distinguished
prominence as an American novelist of the first order of ahility, is a
native of Ohio, where he was born in 1837. His works are somewhat
wide in scope, embracing novels, travels, and poems. There are no
more delicate bits of word-painting than some of the scenes in " Vene
tian Life" and " Italian Journeys," from the latter of which we offer
a selection. These are among his earlier works. More recently his
attention has been given to fiction, in which he has attained a position
of great popularity. His method is to depict life as it actually exists,
devoid of all romance, and wearing its every-day garb. Yet he has a
shrewd insight into character, and analyzes it with effective clearness.
He has written several plays and short character-dramas.]
POMPEII is, in truth, so full of marvel and surprise that
it would be unreasonable to express disappointment with
Pompeii in fiction. And yet I cannot help it. An exu
berant carelessness of phrase in most writers and talkers
who describe it had led me to expect much more than it
was possible to find there. In my Pompeii I confess that
the houses had no roofs : in fact, the rafters which sus-
7
8 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [How ELLS
tained the tiles being burnt, how could the roofs help fall
ing in ? But otherwise my Pompeii was a very complete
affair : the walls all rose to their full height ; door- ways
and arches were perfect ; the columns were all unbroken
and upright; putting roofs on my Pompeii, you might
have lived in it very comfortably. The real Pompeii is
different. It is seldom that any wall is unbroken ; most
columns are fragmentary ; and, though the ground-plan?
are always distinct, very few rooms in the city are per
feet in form, and the whole is much more ruinous than 1
thought.
But this ruin once granted, and the idle disappoint
ment at its greatness overcome, there is endless material
for study, instruction, and delight. It is the revelation of
another life, and the utterance of the past is here more
perfect than anywhere else in the world. Indeed, I think
that the true friend of Pompeii should make it a matter
of conscience, on entering the enchanted city, to cast out
of his knowledge all the rubbish that has fallen into it
from novels and travels, and to keep merely the facts of
the town's luxurious life and agonizing death, with such
incidents of the eruption as he can remember from the
description of Pliny. These are the spells to which the
sorcery yields, and with these in your thought you can
rehabilitate the city until Yentisei seems to be a valet de
place of the first century, and yourselves a set of blond
barbarians to whom he is showing off the splendors of
one of the most brilliant towns of the empire of Titus.
Those sad furrows in the pavement become vocal with
the joyous rattle of chariot-wheels on a sudden, and you
prudently step up on the narrow sidewalks and rub along
by the little shops of wine, and grain, and oil, with which
the thrifty voluptuaries of Pompeii flanked their street-
doors. The counters of these shops run across their fronts,
HOWELLSJ POMPEII AND HERCULANEUM. 9
and are pierced with round holes on the top, through
which you see dark depths of oil in the jars below, and
not sullen lumps of ashes ; those stately amphorae behind
are full of wine, and in the corners are bags of wheat.
" This house, with a shop on either side, whose is it,
XXVI. ?"
"It is the house of the great Sallust, my masters.
Would you like his autograph ? I know one of his slaves
who would sell it."
You are a good deal stared at, naturally, as you pass by,
for people in Pompeii have not much to do, and, besides,
a Briton is not an every-day sight there, as he will be
one of these centuries. The skins of wild beasts are little
worn in Pompeii ; and those bold-eyed Roman women
think it rather odd that we should like to powder our
shaggy heads with brick-dust. However, these are mat
ters of taste. "We, for our part, cannot repress a feeling
of disgust at the loungers in the street, who, XXYI. tells
us, are all going to soak themselves half the day in the
baths yonder ; for, if there is in Pompeii one thing more
offensive than another to our savage sense of propriety,
it is the personal cleanliness of the inhabitants. "We little
know what a change for the better will be wrought in
these people with the lapse of time, and that they will
yet come to wash themselves but once a year, as we do.
(The reader may go on doing this sort of thing at some
length for himself, and may imagine, if he pleases, a boast
ful conversation among the Pompeians at the baths, in
which the barbarians hear how Agricola has broken the
backbone of a rebellion in Britain, and in which all the
speakers begin their observations with " Ho I my Lepi-
dus I" and " Ha ! my Diomed I" In the mean time we
return to the present day, and step down the Street of
Plenty along with Ventisei.) . . .
10 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HowELL*
The cotton whitens over two-thirds of Pompeii yet in
terred : happy the generation that lives to learn the won
drous secrets of that sepulchre ! For, when you have once
been at Pompeii, this phantasm of the past takes deeper
hold on your imagination than any living city, and becomes
and is the metropolis of your dream-land forever. O mar
vellous city ! who shall reveal the cunning of your spell ?
Something not death, something not life, something that
is the one when you turn to determine its essence as the
other ! What is it comes to me at this distance of that
which I saw in Pompeii ? The narrow and curving, but
not crooked, streets, with the blazing sun of that Nea
politan November falling into them, or clouding their
wheel-worn lava with the black, black shadows of the
many-tinted walls ; the houses, and the gay columns of
white, yellow, and red ; the delicate pavements of mosaic ;
the skeletons of dusty cisterns and dead fountains ; in
animate garden-spaces with pygmy statues suited to their
littleness ; suites of fairy bedchambers, painted with ex
quisite frescos ; dining-halls with joyous scenes of hunt
and banquet on their walls; the ruinous sites of tem
ples ; the melancholy emptiness of booths and shops and
jolly drinking-houses ; the lonesome tragic theatre, with
a modern Pompeian drawing water from a well there;
the baths with their roofs perfect yet, and the stucco
bass-reliefs all but unharmed ; around the whole, the city
wall crowned with slender poplars ; outside the gates, the
long avenue of tombs, and the Appian Way stretching
on to StabijB ; and, in the distance, Vesuvius, brown and
bare, with his fiery breath scarce visible against the cloud
less heaven ; these are the things that float before my
fancy as I turn back to look at myself walking those en
chanted streets, and to wonder if I could ever have been
eo blest.
HOWKLLS] POMPEII AND HERCULANEUM. 11
For there is nothing on the earth, or under it, like
Pompeii. . . .
The plans of nearly all the houses in the city are alike :
the entrance-room next the door ; the parlor or drawing-
room next that ; then the impluvium, or unroofed space in
the middle of the house, where the rains were caught and
drained into the cistern, and where the household used to
come to wash itself, primitively, as at a pump ; the little
garden, with its painted columns, behind the impluvium,
and, at last, the dining-room. There are minute bed
chambers on either side, and, as I said, a shop at one side
in front, for the sale of the master's grain, wine, and oil.
The pavements of all the houses are of mosaic, which, in
the better sort, is very delicate and beautiful, and is found
sometimes perfectly uninjured. An exquisite pattern, often
repeated, is a ground of tiny cubes of white marble with
dots of black dropped regularly into it. Of course there
were many picturesque and fanciful designs, of which the
best have been removed to the Museum in Naples; but
several good ones are still left, and (like that of the Wild
Boar) give names to the houses in which they are found.
But, after all, the great wonder, the glory, of these
Pompeian houses is in their frescos. If I tried to give
an idea of the luxury of color in Pompeii, the most gor
geous adjectives would be as poorly able to reproduce a
vivid and glowing sense of those hues as the photography
which now copies the drawing of the decorations : so I do
not try.
I know it is a cheap and feeble thought, and yet, let
the reader please to consider: A workman nearly two
thousand years ago laying upon the walls those soft lines
that went to make up fauns and satyrs, nymphs and naiads,
heroes and gods and goddesses ; and getting weary and
lying down to sleep, and dreaming of an eruption of the
12 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HOWELLB
mountain ; of the city buried under a fiery hail, and slum
bering in its bed of ashes seventeen centuries ; then of its
being slowly exhumed, and, after another lapse of years,
of some one coming to gather the shadow of that dreamer's
work upon a plate of glass, that he might infinitely re
produce it and sell it to tourists at from five francs to fifty
centimes a copy, I say, consider such a dream, dreamed
in the hot heart of the day, after certain cups of Yesuvian
wine ! What a piece of Katzenjammer (I can use no milder
term) would that workman think it when he woke again !
Alas I what is history and the progress of the arts and
sciences but one long Katzenjammer f
Photography cannot give, any more than I, the colors
of the frescos, but it can do the drawing better, and, 1
suspect, the spirit also. I used the word workman, and
not artist, in speaking of the decoration of the walls, for
in most cases the painter was only an artisan, and did his
work probably by the yard, as the artisan who paints
walls and ceilings in Italy does at this day. But the old
workman did his work much more skilfully and tastefully
than the modern, threw on expanses of mellow color,
delicately panelled off the places for the scenes, and pen
cilled in the figures and draperies (there are usually more
of the one than the other) with a deft hand. Of course
the houses of the rich were adorned by men of talent ;
but it is surprising to see the community of thought and
feeling in all this work, whether it be from cunninger or
clumsier hands. The subjects are nearly always chosen
from the fables of the gods, and they are in illustration
of the poets, Homer and the rest. To suit that soft, lux
urious life which people led in Pompeii, the themes are
commonly amorous, and sometimes not too chaste : there
is much of Bacchus and Ariadne, much of Venus and
Adonis, and Diana bathes a good deal with her nymphs,
HOWELLS] POMPEII AND HERCULANEUM. 13
not to mention frequent representations of the toilet of
that beautiful monster which the lascivious art of the
time loved to depict. One of the most pleasing of all
the scenes is that in one of the houses, of the Judgment
of Paris, in which the shepherd sits upon a bank in an
attitude of ineffable and flattered importance, with one
leg carelessly crossing the other, and both hands resting
lightly on his shepherd's crook, while the goddesses before
him await his sentence. Naturally, the painter has done
his best for the victress in this rivalry, and you see
"Idalian Aphrodite beautiful,"
as she should be, but with a warm and piquant spice of
girlish resentment in her attitude, that Paris should pause
for an instant, which is altogether delicious.
" And I beheld great Here's angry eyes."
Awful eyes! How did the painter make them? The
wonder of all these pagan frescos is the mystery of the
eyes, still, beautiful, unhuman. You cannot believe that
it is wrong for those tranquil-eyed men and women to do
evil, they look so calm and so unconscious in it all ; and
in the presence of the celestials, as they bend upon you
those eternal orbs, in whose regard you are but a part of
space, you feel that here art has achieved the unearthly.
I know of no words in literature which give a sense (noth
ing gives the idea) of the stare of these gods, except that
magnificent line of Kingsley's, describing the advance
over the sea toward Andromeda of the oblivious and
unsympathizing Nereids. They floated slowly up, and
their eyes
"Stared on her, silent and still, like the eyes in the house of the
idols."
ii. 2
X 4 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HowELLS
The colors of this fresco of the Judgment of Paris are
still so fresh and bright that it photographs very well ;
but there are other frescos wherein there is more visible
perfection of line, but in which the colors are so dim that
they can only be reproduced by drawings. One of these
is the wounded Adonis cared for by Yenus and the Loves ;
in which the story is treated with a playful pathos won
derfully charming. The fair boy leans in the languor of
his hurt toward Yenus, who sits utterly disconsolate be
side him, while the Cupids busy themselves with such
slight surgical offices as Cupids may render : one prepares
a linen bandage for the wound, another wraps it round
the leg of Adonis, another supports one of his heavy arms,
another finds his own emotions too much for him and
pauses to weep. It is a pity that the colors of this beau
tiful fresco are grown so dim, and a greater pity that most
of the other frescos in Pompeii must share its fate, and
fade away. The hues are vivid when the walls are first
uncovered and the ashes washed from the pictures, but
then the malice of the elements begins anew, and rain and
sun draw the life out of tints which the volcano failed to
obliterate. In nearly all cases they could be preserved by
throwing a roof above the walls ; and it is a wonder that
the government does not take this slight trouble to save
them.
Among the frescos which told no story but their own,
we were most pleased with one in a delicately-painted
little bedchamber. This represented an alarmed and fur
tive man, whom we at once pronounced The Belated Hus
band, opening a door with a night-latch. Nothing could
have been better than this miserable wretch's cowardly
haste and cautious noiselessness in applying his key: ap
prehension sat upon his brow, confusion dwelt in his guilty
eye. He had been out till two o'clock in the morning,
HOWKLLS] POMPEII AND HERCULANEUM. 15
electioneering for Pansa, the friend of the people (" Pansa,
and Eoman gladiators," "Pansa, and Christians to the
Beasts," was the platform), and he had left his placens
uxor at home alone with the children, and now within this
door that placens uxor awaited him 1 ...
The afternoon on which we visited Herculaneum was
in melancholy contrast to the day we spent in Pompeii.
The lingering summer had at last saddened into something
like autumnal gloom, and that blue, blue sky of Naples
was overcast. So, this second draught of the spirit of the
past had not only something of the insipidity of custom,
but brought rather a depression than a lightness to our
hearts. There was so little of "Herculaneum : only a few
hundred yards square are exhumed, and we counted the
houses easily on the fingers of one hand, leaving the
thumb to stand for the few rods of street that, with its
flagging of lava and narrow border of foot-walks, lay be
tween; and though the custodian, apparently moved at
our dejection, said that the excavation was to be resumed
the very next week, the assurance did little to restore our
cheerfulness. Indeed, I fancy that these old cities must
needs be seen in the sunshine by those who would feel
what gay lives they once led : by dimmer light they are
very sullen spectres, and their doom still seems to brood
upon them. I know that even Pompeii could not have
been joyous that sunless afternoon, for what there was to
see of mournful Herculaneum was as brilliant with colors
as anything in the former city. Nay, I believe that the
tints of the frescos and painted columns were even brighter,
and that the walls of the houses were far less ruinous, than
those of Pompeii. But no house was wholly freed from
lava, and the little street ran at the rear of the buildings,
which were supposed to front on some grander avenue not
yet exhumed. It led down, as the custodian pretended,
16 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HowELLS
to a wharf, and he showed an iron ring in the wall of the
House of Argo, standing at the end of the street, to which,
he said, his former fellow-citizens used to fasten their boats,
though it was all dry enough there now.
There is evidence in Herculaneum of much more ambi
tious architecture than seems to have been known in Pom
peii. The ground-plan of the houses in the two cities is
alike ; but in the former there was often a second story, as
was proven by the charred ends of beams still protruding
from the walls, while in the latter there is only one house
which is thought to have aspired to a second floor. The
House of Argo is also much larger than any in Pompeii,
and its appointments were more magnificent. Indeed, wo
imagined that in this more purely Greek town we felt an
atmosphere of better taste in everything than prevailed
in the fashionable Roman watering-place, though this, too,
was a summer resort of the " best society" of the empire.
The mosaic pavements were exquisite, and the little bed
chambers dainty and delicious in their decorations. The
lavish delight in color found expression in the vividest
hues upon the walls, and not only were the columns of
the garden painted, but the foliage of the capitals was
variously tinted. The garden of the House of Argo was
vaster than any of the classic world which we had yet
seen, and was superb with a long colonnade of unbroken
columns. Between these and the walls of the houses was
a pretty pathway of mosaic, and in the midst once stood
marble tables, under which the workmen exhuming the
city found certain crouching skeletons. At one end was
the dining-room, of course, and painted on the wall was a
lady with a parasol.
I thought all Herculaneum sad enough, but the prolu
sion of flowers growing wild in this garden gave it a yet
more tender and pathetic charm. Here where so long
Ho WELLS] POMPEII AND HERCULANEUM. 17
ago the flowers had bloomed, and perished in the terrible
blossoming of the mountain that sent up its fires in the
awful similitude of Nature's harmless and lovely forms,
and showered its destroying petals all abroad was it not
tragic to find again the soft tints, the graceful shapes, the
sweet perfumes, of the earth's immortal life ? Of them
that planted and tended and plucked and bore in their
tosoms and twined in their hair these fragile children of
the summer, what witness in the world ? Only the crouch
ing skeletons under the tables. Alas and alas !
The skeletons went with us throughout Herculaneum,
and descended into the cell, all green with damp, under
the basilica, and lay down, fettered and manacled, in the
place of those found there beside the big bronze kettle
in which the prisoners used to cook their dinners. How
ghastly the thought of it was ! If we had really seen this
kettle and the skeletons there as we did not we could
not have suffered more than we did. They took all the
life out of the House of Perseus, and the beauty from his
pretty little domestic temple to the Penates, and this was
all there was left in Herculaneum to see.
" Is there nothing else ?" we demand of the custodian.
" Signori, this is all."
" It is mighty little."
" Perdoni, signori ! ma "
" Well," we say sourly to each other, glancing round at
the walls of the pit on the bottom of which, the bit of
city stands, " it is a good thing to know that Herculaneum
amounts to nothing."
2*
18 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [TBOWBKIDQB
NANCY BLYNN'S LOVERS.
J. T. TROWBRIDGE.
[The lists of American humor are well and ably filled. It is ques
tionable if any European literature can vie with that of the United
States in the variety of its humorous productions. And of our puro
humorists, both in prose and in verse, none holds a higher position than
John Townsend Trowbridge. In the amusing short tale he is an artist
of great ability, and some of his situations are uproariously funny.
From his volume entitled " Coupon Bonds" we select, not the most
amusing of its stories, but the one we can give in the most complete
form. Mr. Trowbridge was born in Monroe County, New York, in
1827. He has contributed much to periodicals, and several volumes
of his contributions, in prose and in verse, have been published.]
WILLIAM TANSLEY, familiarly called Tip, having finished
his afternoon's work in Judge Boxton's garden, milked
the cows, and given the calves and pigs their supper,
not forgetting to make sure of his own, stole out of the
house with his Sunday jacket and the secret intention of
going " a-sparking."
Tip's manner of setting about this delicate business was
characteristic of his native shrewdness. He usually went
well provided with gifts ; and on the present occasion,
before quitting the Judge's premises, he " drew upon" a
certain barrel in the barn, which was his bank, where he
had made, during the day, frequent deposits of green corn,
of the diminutive species called tucket, smuggled in from
the garden, and designed for roasting and eating with the
"Widow Blynn's pretty daughter. Stealthily, in the dusk,
stopping now and then to listen, Tip brought out the little
milky ears from beneath the straw, crammed his pockets
with them, and packed full the crown of his old straw
hat ; then, with the sides of his jacket distended, his trou
sers bulged, and a toppling weight on his head, he peeped
TROWBRIDGE] NANCY BLFNN'S LOVERS. 19
cautiously from the door to see that the way was clear
for an escape to the orchard, and thence, '"cross lots," to
the Widow Blynn's house.
Tip was creeping furtively behind a wall, stooping, with
one hand steadying his hat and the other his pockets, when
a voice called his name.
It was the voice of Cephas Boxton. Now, if there was
a person in the world whom Tip feared and hated, it was
" that Cephe," and this for many reasons, the chief of
which was that the Judge's son did, upon occasions, flirt
with Miss Nancy Blynn, who, sharing the popular preju
dice in favor of fine clothes and riches, preferred, appar
ently, a single passing glance from Cephas to all Tip's
gifts and attentions.
Tip dropped down behind the wall.
" Tip Tansley !" again called the hated voice.
But the proprietor of that euphonious name, not choos
ing to answer to it, remained quiet, one hand still support
ing his hat, the other his pockets, while young Boxton, to
whom glimpses of the aforesaid hat, appearing over the
edge of the wall, had previously been visible, stepped
quickly and noiselessly to the spot. Tip crouched, with
his unconscious eyes in the grass ; Cephas watched him
good-humoredly, leaning over the wall.
" If it isn't Tip, what is it ?" And Cephas struck one
Bide of the distended jacket with his cane. An ear of
corn dropped out. He struck the other side, and out
dropped another ear. A couple of smart blows across the
back succeeded, followed by more corn ; and at the same
time Tip, getting up, and endeavoring to protect his
pockets, let go his hat, which fell off, spilling its contents
in the grass.
" Did you call ?" gasped the panic-stricken Tip.
The rivals stood with the wall between them, as ludi-
20 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [TROWBRIDGB
crous a contrast, I dare assert, as ever two lovers of one
woman presented.
Tip, abashed and afraid, brushed the hair out of his
eyes and made an unsuccessful attempt to look the hand
some and smiling Cephas in the face.
"Do you pretend you did not hear with all these
ears ?" said the Judge's son.
" I I was a-huntin' for a shoe-string," murmured Tip,
casting dismayed glances along the ground. " I lost one
here some'eres."
" Tip," said Cephas, putting his cane under Master Tans-
ley's chin to assist him in holding up his head, " look me in
the eye, and tell me, what is the difference 'twixt you
and that corn?"
" I d'n' know what ?" And, liberating his chin, Tip
dropped his head again, and began kicking again in the
grass in search of the imaginary shoe-string.
" That is lying on the ground, and you are lying on
your feet," said Cephas.
Tip replied that he was going to the woods for bean
poles, and that he took the corn to feed the cattle in the
" back pastur', 'cause they hooked."
" I wish you were as innocent of hooking as the cattle
are !" said the incredulous Cephas. " Go and put the sad
dle on Pericles."
Tip proceeded in a straight line to the stable, his
pockets dropping corn by the way ; while Cephas, laugh
ing quietly, walked up and down under the trees.
" Hoss's ready," muttered Tip from the barn door.
Instead of leading Pericles out, he left him in the stall,
and climbed up into the hay-loft to hide, and brood over
his misfortune until his rival's departure. It was not
alone the affair of the stolen corn that troubled Tip ; but
from the fact that Pericles was ordered, he suspected that
TROWBRIDGE] NANCY BLYNN'S LOVERS. 21
Cephas likewise purposed paying a visit to Nancy Blynn.
Resolved to wait and watch, he lay under the dusty roof,
chewing the bitter cud of envy, and now and then a stem
of new-mown timothy, till Cephas entered the stalls be
neath, and said, "Be still!" in his clear, resonant tones, to
Pericles.
Pericles uttered a quick, low whinny of recognition, and
ceased pawing the floor.
" Are you there, Cephas ?" presently said another voice.
It was that of the Judge, who had followed his son into
the barn. Tip lay with his elbows on the hay, and lis
tened.
" Going to ride, are you ? Who saddled this horse ?"
" Tip," replied Cephas.
"He didn't half curry him. Wait a minute. I'm
ashamed to let a horse go out looking so."
And the Judge began to polish off Pericles with wispa
of straw.
" Darned ef I care !" muttered Tip.
" Cephas," said the Judge, " I don't want to make you
vain, but I must say you ride the handsomest colt in the
county. I'm proud of Pericles. Does his shoe pinch him
lately ?"
"Not since 'twas set. He looks well enough, father.
Your eyes are better than mine," said Cephas, " if you can
Bee any dust on his coat."
" I luf to rub a colt, it does 'em so much good," re
joined the Judge. " Cephas, if you are going by 'Squire
Stedman's, I'd like to have you call and get that mort
gage."
" I don't think I shall ride that way, father. I'll go for
it in the morning, however."
" Never mind, unless you happen that way. Just hand
me a wisp of that straw, Cephas."
22 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
Cephas handed his father the straw. The Judge rubbed
away some seconds longer, then said, carelessly, " If you
are going up the mountain, I wish you would stop and
tell Colby I'll take those lambs, and send for 'em next
freek."
" I'm not sure that I shall go as far as Colby's," replied
Cephas.
"People say" the Judge's voice changed slightly
"you don't often get farther than the Widow Blynn's
when 3'ou travel that road. How is it ?"
" Ask the widow," said Cephas.
" Ask her daughter, more like," rejoined the Judge.
Tip Tansley, more excited than he had ever been in his
life, waited until the two had left the barn ; then, creeping
over the hay. hitting his head in the dark against the low
rafters, he slid from his hiding-place, carefully descended
the stairs, gathered up what he could find of the scattered
ears of tucket, and set out to run through the orchard
and across the fields to the Widow Blynn's cottage. The
evening was starry, and the edges of the few dark clouds
that lay low in the east predicted the rising moon. Halt
ing only to climb fences, or to pick up now and then the
corn that persisted in dropping from his pockets, or to
scrutinize some object that he thought looked " pokerish"
in the dark, prudently shunning the dismal woods on one
side, and the pasture where the " hooking" cattle were on
the other, Tip kept on, 'and arrived, all palpitating and
perspiring, at the widow's house, just as the big red moon
was coming up amidst the clouds over the hill. He had
left a good deal of his corn and all his courage behind him
in his flight ; for Tip, ardently as he loved the beautiful
.Nancy, could lay no claim to her on the poetical ground
that " the brave deserve the fair."
TROWBRIDGK] NANCY BLYNN'S LOVERS. 23
With, uncertain knuckles Tip rapped on the humble
door, having first looked through the kitchen window
and seen the widow sitting within, sewing by the light of
a tallow candle.
" Good-evening, William," said Mrs. Blynn, opening the
door, with her spectacles on her forehead, and her work
gathered up in her lap under her bent figure. " Come in ;
take a chair."
" Guess I can't stop," replied Tip. sidling into the room
with his hat on. " How's all the folks ? Nancy to hum ?"
" Nancy's up-stairs ; I'll speak to her. Nancy," called
the widow at the chamber door, " Tip is here ! Better
take a chair while you stop," she added, smiling upon the
visitor, who always, on arriving, "guessed he couldn't
stop," and usually ended by remaining until he was sent
away.
" Wai, may as well ; jest as cheap settin' as standin',"
said Tip, depositing the burden of his personality weight,
one hundred and forty-six pounds upon one of the creaky,
splint-bottomed chairs. " Pooty warm night, kind o',"
raising his arm to wipe his face with his sleeve; upon
which an ear of that discontented tucket took occasion
to tumble upon the floor. " Hello ! what's that ? By gra
cious, if 'ta'n't green corn ! Got any fire ? Guess we'll
have a roast."
And Tip, taking off his hat, began to empty his stuffed
pockets into it.
" Law me !" said the widow, squinting over her work.
" I thought your pockets stuck out amazin' ! I ha'n't had
the first taste of green corn this year. It's real kind o'
thoughtful in you, Tip ; but the fire's all out, and we can't
think of roastin' on't to-night, as I see."
" Mebby Nancy will," chuckled Tim. " Ain't she comin'
down ? Any time to-night, Nancy !" cried Tip, raising hia
24 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
voice, to be heard by his beloved in her retreat. " You
do'no what I brought ye !"
Now, sad as the truth may sound to the reader sympa
thizing with Tip, Nancy cared little what he had brought,
and experienced no very ardent desire to come down and
meet him. She sat at her window, looking at the stars,
and thinking of somebody who she had hoped would visit
her that night. But that somebody was not Tip ; and
although the first sound of his footsteps had set her heart
fluttering with expectation, his near approach, breathing
fast and loud, had given her a chill of disappointment,
almost of disgust, and she now much preferred her own
thoughts, and the moonrise through the trees in the di
rection of Judge Boxton's house, to all the green corn and
all the green lovers in New England. Her mother, how
ever, who commiserated Tip, and believed as much in
being civil to neighbors as she did in keeping the Sabbath,
called again, and gave her no peace until she had left the
window, the moonrise, and her romantic dreams, and de
scended into the prosaic atmosphere of the kitchen and
of Tip and his corn.
How lovely she looked, to Tip's eyes ! Her plain, neat
calico gown, enfolding a wonderful little rounded embodi
ment of grace and beauty, seemed to him an attire fit for
any queen or fairy that ever lived. But it was the same
old tragic story over again : although Tip loved Nancy,
Nancy loved not Tip. However he might flatter himself,
her regard for him was on the cool side of sisterly, sim
ply the toleration of a kindly heart for one who was not
to blame for being less bright than other people.
She took her sewing and sat by the table, oh, so beau
tiful ! Tip thought, and enveloped in a charmed atmos
phere which seemed to touch and transfigure every
object except himself. The humble apartment, the splint-
TROWBKIDGE] NANCY BLFNN'S LOVERS. 25
bottomed chairs, the stockings drying on the pole, even
the widow's cap and gown, and the old black snuffers on
the table, all, save poor, homely Tip, stole a ray of grace
from the halo of her loveliness.
Nancy discouraged the proposition of roasting corn,
and otherwise deeply grieved her visitor by intently work
ing and thinking, instead of taking part in the conversa
tion. At length a bright idea occurred to him.
" Got a slate and pencil ?"
The widow furnished the required articles. He then
found a book, and, using the cover as a rule, marked out
the plan of a game.
"Fox and geese, Nancy; ye play?" And, having
pricked off a sufficient number of kernels from one of the
ears of corn, and placed them upon the slate for geese, he
selected the largest he could find for a fox, stuck it upon
a pin, and proceeded to roast it in the candle.
" Which'll ye have, Nancy ?" pushing the slate toward
her : " take your choice, and give me the geese ; then beat
me if you can ! Come, won't ye play ?"
"Oh, dear, Tip, what a tease you are !" said Nancy. " I
don't want to play. I must work. Get mother to play
with you, Tip."
"She don't wanter!" exclaimed Tip. "Come, Nancy;
then I'll tell ye suthin' I heard jest 'fore I come away,
euthin' 'bout you !"
And Tip, assuming a careless air, proceeded to pile up
the ears of corn, log-house fashion, upon the table, while
Nancy was finishing her seam.
" About me ?" she echoed.
"You'd ha' thought so!" said Tip, slyly glancing over
the corn as he spoke, to watch the effect on Nancy.
" Cephe and the old man had the all-firedest row, tell
you !"
II. B 3
26 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [TROWBRIDGB
He hitched around in his chair, and, resting his elbows
on his knees, looked up, shrewd and grinning, into her
face.
" William Tansley, what do you mean ?"
" As if you couldn't guess ! Cephe was comin' to see
you to-night; but he won't," chuckled Tip. "Say! ye
veady for fox and geese ?"
" How do you know that ?" demanded Nancy.
" 'Cause I heard I The old man stopped him, and Cephe
was goin' to ride over him, but the old man was too much
for him ; he jerked him off the hoss, and there they had
it, lickety-switch, rough-and-tumble, till Cephe give in, and
told the old man, ruther'n have any words, he'd promise
never to come and see you ag'in if he'd give him three
thousand dollars ; and the old man said 'twas a bargain !"
"Is that true, Tip?" cried the widow, dropping her
work and raising her hands.
" True as I live and breathe, and draw the breath of life,
and have a livin' bein" I" Tip solemnly affirmed.
"Just as I always told you, Nancy!" exclaimed the
widow. " I knew how it would be. I felt sartin Cephas
couldn't be depended upon. His father never'd hear a
word to it, I always said. Now don't feel bad, Nancy ;
don't mind it. It'll be all for the best, I hope. Now,
don't, Nancy ; don't, I beg and beseech."
She saw plainly by the convulsive movement of the
girl's bosom and the quivering of her lip that some pas
sionate demonstration was threatened. Tip meanwhile
had advanced his chair still nearer, contorting his neck
and looking up with leering malice into her face until his
nose almost touched her cheek.
" What do ye think now of Cephe Boxton ?" he asked,
tauntingly ; " hey ?"
A stinging blow upon the ear rewarded his impertinence,
TROWBRIDGE] NANCY BLYNN'S LOVERS. 27
aud he recoiled so suddenly that his chair went over and
threw him sprawling upon the floor.
" Gosh all hemlock !" he muttered, scrambling to his
feet, rubbing first his elbow, then his ear. " What's that
fur, I'd like to know, knockin' a feller down?"
" What do I think of Cephas Boxton ?" cried Nancy.
" I think the same I did before, why shouldn't I ?
Your slander is no slander. Now sit down and behave
yourself, and don't put your face too near mine, if you
don't want your ears boxed !"
" Why, Nancy, how could you ?" groaned the widow.
Nancy made no reply, but resumed her work very much
as if nothing had happened.
" Hurt you much, William ?"
"Not much; only it made my elbow sing like all Je-
rewsalem ! Never mind ; she'll find out ! Where's my
hat?"
" You ain't going, be ye ?" said Mrs. Blynn, with an air
of solicitude.
" I guess I ain't wanted here," mumbled Tip, pulling his
hat over his ears. He struck the slate, scattering the fox
and geese, and demolished the house of green corn. " You
can keep that ; I don't want it. Good-night, Miss Blynn."
Tip placed peculiar emphasis upon the name, and fum
bled a good while with the latch, expecting Nancy would
say something ; but she maintained a cool and dignified
silence, and, as nobody urged him to stay, he reluctantly
departed, his heart full of injury, and his hopes collapsed
like his pockets.
For some minutes Nancy continued to sew intently and
fast, her flushed face bowed over the seam ; then suddenly
her eyes blurred, her fingers forgot their cunning, the
needle shot blindly hither and thither, and the quickly-
drawn thread snapped in twain.
28 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [TROWRRIDGK
" Nancy ! Nancy ! don't !" pleaded Mrs. Blynn ; " I beg
of ye, now don't !"
" Oh, mother," burst forth the young girl, with sobs,
' I am so unhappy ! "What did I strike poor Tip for ? Ho
did not know any better. I am always doing something
so wrong ! He could not have made up the story. Cephas
would have come here to-night, I know he would."
"Poor child! poor child!" said Mrs. Blynn. "Why
couldn't you hear to me ? I always told you to be carefu,
and not like Cephas too well. But maybe Tip didn't un
derstand. Maybe Cephas will come to-morrow, and then
all will be explained."
"Cephas is true, I know, I know!" wept Nancy, "but
his father "
ft $ $ * $ $ *
One evening it was stormy, and Nancy and her mother
were together in the plain, tidy kitchen, both sewing and
both silent; gusts of rain lashing the windows, and the
cat purring in a chair. Nancy's heart was more quiet
than usual ; for, although expectation was not quite ex
tinct, no visitor surely could be looked for on such a night.
Suddenly, however, amidst the sounds of the storm, she
heard footsteps and a knock at the door. Yet she need
not have started and changed color so tumultuously, for
the visitor was only Tip.
" Good-evenin'," said young Master Tansley, stamping,
pulling off his dripping hat, and shaking it. " I'd no idee
it rained so! I was goin' by, and thought I'd stop in.
Ye mad, Nancy ?" And he peered at the young girl from
beneath his wet hair with a bashful grin.
Nancy's heart was too much softened to cherish any
resentment, and with suffused eyes she begged Tip to for
give the blow.
" Wai, I do'no' what I'd done to be knocked down fur,"
IROWBRIBGE] NANCF BLYNN'S LOVERS. 29
began Tip, with a pouting and aggrieved air ; " though I
e'pose I dew, tew. But I guess what I told ye turned out
about so, after all; didn't it, hey?"
At Nancy's look of distress, Mrs. Blynn made signs for
Tip to forbear. But he had come too far through the
darkness and rain with an exciting piece of news to bo
thus easily silenced.
" I ha'n't brought ye no corn this time, for I didn't know
as you'd roast it if I did. Say, Nancy ! Cephe and the
old man had it ag'in to-day ; and the Judge forked over
the three thousand dollars ; I seen him ! He was only
waitin' to raise it. It's real mean in Cephe, I s'pose you
think. Mebby 'tis ; but, by gracious ! three thousand
dollars is a 'tarnal slue of money !"
Hugely satisfied with the effect this announcement pro
duced, Tip sprawled upon a chair and chewed a stick,
like one resolved to make himself comfortable for the
evening.
" Saxafrax, ye want some ?" he said, breaking off with
his teeth a liberal piece of the stick. " Say, Nancy ! ye
needn't look so mad. Cephe has sold out, I tell ye ; and
when I offer ye saxafrax ye may as well take some."
Not without effort Nancy held her peace ; and Tip, ex
tending the fragment of the sassafras-root which his teeth
had split off, was complacently urging her to accept it,
" 'Twas real good," when the sound of hoofs was heard ;
a halt at the gate ; a horseman dismounting, leading his
animal to the shed; a voice saying, "Be still, Pericles!"
and footsteps approaching the door.
"Nancy! Nancy!" articulated Mrs. Blynn, scarcely less
agitated than her daughter, " he has come !"
" It's Cephe !" whispered Tip, hoarsely. " If he should
ketch me here ! I I guess I'll go ! Confound that Cephe,
anyhow !"
n. 3*
30 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [TROWBRIDGK
Rap, rap ! two light, decisive strokes of a riding-whip
on the kitchen door.
Mrs. Blynn glanced around to see if everything was tidy ;
and Tip, dropping his sassafras, whirled about and wheeled
about like Jim Crow in the excitement of the moment.
" Mother, go !" uttered Nancy, pale with emotion, hur
riedly pointing to the door.
She made her escape by the stairway ; observing which,
the bewildered Tip, who had indulged a frantic thought
of leaping from the window to avoid meeting his dread
rival, changed his mind and rushed after her. Unadvised
of his intention, and thinking only of shutting herself from
the sight of young Boxton, Nancy closed the kitchen door
rather severely upon Tip's fingers ; but his fear rendered
him insensible to pain, and he followed her, scrambling up
the dark staircase just as Mrs. Blynn admitted Cephas.
Nancy did not immediately perceive what had occurred ;
but presently, amidst the sounds of the rain on the roof
and of the wind about the gables, she heard the unmis
takable perturbed breathing of her luckless lover.
"Nancy," whispered Tip, "where be ye? I've 'most
broke my head ag'in' this blasted beam !"
" What are you here for ?" demanded Nancy.
" 'Cause I didn't want him to see me. He won't stop
but a minute ; then I'll go down. I did give my head the
all-firedest tunk !" said Tip.
Mrs. Blynn opened the door to inform Nancy of the
arrival of her visitor, and the light from below, partially
illuminating the fugitive's retreat, showed Tip in a sitting
posture on one of the upper stairs, diligently rubbing that
portion of his cranium which had come in collision with
the beam.
" Say, Nancy, don't go I" whispered Tip ; " don't leave
me here in the dark !"
NANCT BLYNN'S LOVERS. 31
Nancy had too many tumultuous thoughts of her own
to give much heed to his distress; and, having hastily
arranged her hau - and dress by the sense of touch, she
glided by him, bidding him keep quiet, and descended the
stairs to the door, which she closed after her, leaving
him to the wretched solitude of the place, which ap
peared to him a hundredfold more dark and dreadful than
before.
Cephas in the mean time had divested himself of his
oil-cloth capote, and entered the neat little sitting-room,
to which he was civilly shown by the widow. " Nancy'll
be down in a minute." And, placing a candle upon the
mantel-piece, Mrs. Blynn withdrew.
Nancy, having regained her self-possession, appeared
mighty dignified before her lover; gave him a passive
hand; declined, with averted head, his proffered kiss; and
seated herself at a cool and respectable distance.
"Nancy, what is the matter?" said Cephas, in mingled
amazement and alarm. " You act as though I was a ped
dler and you didn't care to trade."
" You can trade, sir, you can make what bargains you
please, with others ; but " Nancy's aching and swelling
heart came up and choked her.
" Nancy ! what have I done ? "What has changed you
so? Have you forgotten the last time I was here?"
" 'Twould not be strange if I had, it was so long ago !"
Poor Nancy spoke cuttingly ; but her sarcasm was as a
sword with two points, which pierced her own heart quite
as much as it wounded her lover's.
" Nancy," said Cephas, and he took her hand again, so
tenderly that it was like putting heaven away to with
draw it, " couldn't you trust me ? Hasn't your heart as
sured you that I could never stay away from you so with
out good reasons ?"
32 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [TROWBRII>GE
"Oh, I don't doubt but you had reasons!" replied
Nancy, with a bursting anguish in her tones. " But such
reasons 1"
" Such reasons ?" repeated Cephas, grieved and repelled.
" Will you please inform me what you mean ? For, as I
live, I am ignorant."
" Ah, Cephas ! it is not true, then," cried Nancy, with
sudden hope, " that your father "
"What of my father?"
" That he has offered you money "
A vivid emotion flashed across the young man's face.
" I would have preferred to tell you without being ques
tioned so sharply," he replied. " But, since hearsay has
got the start of me and brought you the news, I can only
answer he has offered me money."
" To buy you to hire you "
" Not to marry any poor girl : that's the bargain,
Nancy," said Cephas, with the tenderest of smiles.
" And you have accepted ?" cried Nancy, quickly.
" I have accepted," responded Cephas.
Nancy uttered not a word.
"I came to tell you all this; but I should have told
you in a different way, could I have had my choice,"
said Cephas. " What I have done is for your happiness
as much as my own. My father threatened to disin
herit me if I married a poor girl ; and how could I bear
the thought of subjecting you to such a lot? He has
given me three thousand dollars ; I only received it to
day, or I should have come to you before; for, Nancy,
do not look so strange ! it is for you, this money, do
you hear?"
He attempted to draw her towards him, but she sprang
indignantly to her feet.
'* Cephas ! you offer me money !"
TROWBKIDGE] NANCY BLYNN'S LOVERS. 33
" Nancy !" Cephas caught her and folded her in his
arms, " don't you understand ? It is your dowry ! You
are no longer a poor girl. I promised not to marry any
poor girl, but I never promised not to marry you. Accept
the dowry; then you will be a rich girl, and my wife,
my wife, Nancy !"
" Oh, Cephas ! is it true ? Let me look at you !" She
held him firmly, and looked into his face, and into his deep,
tender eyes. " It is true !"
What more was said or done I am unable to relate ; for
about this time there came from another part of the house
a dull, reverberating sound, succeeded by a rapid series of
concussions, as of some ponderous body descending in a
swift but irregular manner from the top to the bottom of
the stairs. It was Master William Tansley, who, groping
about in the dark with intent to find a stove-pipe hole at
which to listen, had lost his latitude and his equilibrium,
and tumbled from landing to landing, in obedience to the
dangerous laws of gravitation. Mrs. Blynn flew to open
the door ; found him helplessly kicking on his back, with
his head in the rag-bag ; drew him forth by one arm ; as
certained that he had met with no injuries which a little
salve would not heal ; patched him up almost as good <vs
new ; gave him her sympathy and a lantern to go homo
with ; and kindly bade him good-night.
So ended Tip Tansley's unfortunate love-affair; and I
am pleased to relate that his broken heart recovered from
its hurt almost as speedily as his broken head.
A month later the village clergyman was called to ad
minister the vows of wedlock to a pair of happy lovers
in the Widow Blynn's cottage; and the next morning
there went abroad the report of a marriage which sur
prised the good people of the parish generally, and Judge
Boxton more particularly.
II. C
34 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [TROWBRIDOE
In the afternoon of that day, Cephas rode home to pay
his respects to the old gentleman and ask him if he would
like an introduction to the bride.
"Cephas!" cried the Judge, filled with wrath, smiting,
his son's written agreement with his angry hand, "look
here ! your promise ! Have you forgotten ?"
" Read it, please," said Cephas.
"In consideration," hegan the Judge, running his
troubled eye over the paper, ..." I do hereby pledge
myself never, at any time, or in any place, to marry any
poor girl."
" You will find," said Cephas, " that I have acted accord
ing to the strict terms of our agreement. And I have the
honor to inform you, sir, that I have married a person
who, with other attractions, possesses the handsome trifle
of three thousand dollars."
The Judge fumed, made use of an oath or two, and
talked loudly of disinheritance and cutting off with a
shilling.
" I should be very sorry to have you do such a thing,"
rejoined Cephas, respectfully; "but, after all, it isn't as
though I had not received a neat little fortune by the
way of my wife."
A retort so happy that the Judge ended with a hearty
acknowledgment of his son's superior wit, and an invita
tion to come home and lodge his lovely encumbrance be
neath the parental roof.
Thereupon Cephas took a roll of notes from his pocket.
" All jesting aside," said he, " I must first square a little
matter of business with which my wife has commissioned
me. She is more scrupulous than the son of my father,
and she refused to receive the money until I had promised
to return it to you as soon as we should be married. And
here it is."
ALDRICH] BABY BELL. 35
" Fie, fie !" cried the Judge. " Keep the money. She's
a noble girl, after all, too good for a rogue like you !"
"I know it!" said Cephas, humbly, with tears in his
eyes ; for recollections of a somewhat wild and wayward
youth, mingling with the conscious possession of so much
love and happiness, melted his heart with unspeakable
contrition and gratitude.
BABY BELL.
THOMAS BAILEY ALDKICH.
[The author of the beautiful selection which we give below was
born at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in 1836. His life has been spent
in literary pursuits, he having been editorially connected with several
newspapers and having contributed largely to the magazines. His
poetry has not been great in quantity, but is exquisite in quality, every
verse being worked into form with the care which a gem-cutter ex
pends upon a precious stone. To Mr. Aldrich we are indebted for
some of the choicest bits of lyric poetry in the language. He has also
written several prose works, of which " The Story of a Bad Boy" be
came at once a favorite with the reading public.]
HAVE you not heard the poets tell
How came the dainty Baby Bell
Into this world of ours ?
The gates of heaven were left ajar :
With folded hands and dreamy eyes,
Wandering out of Paradise,
She saw this planet, like a star,
Hung in the glistening depths of even,
Its bridges, running to and fro,
O'er which the white-winged Angels go,
Bearing the holy Dead to heaven.
36 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
She touched a bridge of flowers, those feet,
So light they did not bend the bells
Of the celestial asphodels,
They fell like dew upon the flowers :
Then all the air grew strangely sweet 1
And thus came dainty Baby Bell
Into this world of ours.
She came and brought delicious May.
The swallows built beneath the eaves ;
Like sunlight, in and out the leaves
The robins went, the livelong day ;
The lily swung its noiseless bell ;
And o'er the porch the trembling vine
Seemed bursting with its veins of wine.
How sweetly, softly, twilight fell 1
Oh, earth was full of singing birds
And opening springtide flowers,
When the dainty Baby Bell
Came to this world of ours !
Oh, Baby, dainty Baby Bell,
How fair she grew from day to day !
What woman-nature filled her eyes,
What poetry within them lay,
Those deep and tender twilight eyes,
So full of meaning, pure and bright
As if she yet stood in the light
Of those oped gates of Paradise.
And so we loved her more and more :
Ah, never in our hearts before
Was love so lovely born !
We felt we had a link between
This real world and that unseen,
The land beyond the morn ;
ALDBICH] BABY BELL. 37
And for the love of those dear eyes,
For love of her whom God led forth
(The mother's being ceased on earth
When Baby came from Paradise),
For love of Him who smote our lives
And woke the chords of joy and pain,
We said, Dear Christ ! our hearts bent down
Like violets after rain.
And now the orchards, which were white
And red with blossoms when she came,
Were rich in autumn's mellow prime :
The clustered apples burnt like flame,
The soft-cheeked peaches blushed and fell,
The folded chestnut burst its shell,
The grapes hung purpling in the grange ;
And time wrought just as rich a change
In little Baby Bell.
Her lissome form more perfect grew,
And in her features we could trace,
In softened curves, her mother's face.
Her angel-nature ripened too :
We thought her lovely when she came,
But she was holy, saintly now :
Around her pale angelic brow
We saw a slender ring of flame I
God's hand had taken away the seal
That held the portals of her speech ;
And oft she said a few strange words
Whose meaning lay beyond our reach.
She never was a child to us.
We never held her being's key ;
We could not teach her holy things :
She was Christ's self in purity.
II. 4
434930
38 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [ALimica
It came upon us by degreed,
"We saw its shadow ere it fell,
The knowledge that our God had sent
His messenger for Baby Bell.
We shuddered with unlanguaged pain,
And all our hopes were changed to fears,
And all our thoughts ran into tears
Like sunshine into rain.
"We cried aloud in our belief,
" Oh, smite us gently, gently, God !
Teach us to bend and kiss the rod,
And perfect grow through grief."
Ah ! how we loved her, God can tell ;
Her heart was folded deep in ours.
Our hearts are broken, Baby Bell I
At last he came, the messenger,
The messenger from unseen lands :
And what did dainty Baby Bell ?
She only crossed her little hands,
She only looked more meek and fair I
"We parted back her silken hair,
"We wove the roses round her brow,
"White buds, the summer's drifted snow,
"Wrapt her from head to foot in flowers. . .
And thus went dainty Baby Bell
Out of this world of ours !
THOKEAU! ASCENDING KTAADN. 39
ASCENDING KTAADN.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU.
[A devoted lover of nature, with whom he lived in close and ardent
intimacy, Thoreau avoided man with a seeming eccentricity, which
arose less from actual dislike to human companionship than from a
greater attraction to the study of nature in her most secret haunte
and recesses. For two years he lived a hermit life on the shores of
Lake Walden, near Concord, his native town. The result of his com
munion with nature we have in " Walden," in which the finer aspects
of the woods, the fields, and the skies are delineated with wonderful
truth and delicacy of appreciation. In the words of Hawthorne, " Mr
Thoreau dedicated his genius with such entire love to the fields, hills,
and waters of his native town, that he made them known and interest
ing to all reading Americans and to people over the sea. . . . While
he used in his writings a certain petulance of remark in reference to
churches and churchmen, he was a person of rare, tender, and absolute
religion, a person incapable of any profanation." It is said that
he never went to church, never voted, and never paid a tax to the
State, a form of eccentricity that is certainly not to be commended.
Thoreau was well versed in classical and Oriental literature, but lived
a sort of vagrant life, without profession or declared aim in exist
ence. In the following selection, taken from his " Maine Woods,"
are clearly displayed the workings of an original mind, which occu
pies the position of an envoy from nature to man, rather than that
of one from man to nature. He was born in 1817, and died in
1862.]
AT length we reached an elevation sufficiently bare
to afford a view of the summit, still distant and blue,
almost as if retreating from us. A torrent, which proved
to be the same we had crossed, was seen tumbling down
in front, literally from out of the clouds. But this glimpse
at our whereabouts was soon lost, and we were buried in
the woods again. The wood was chiefly yellow birch,
spruce, fir, mountain-ash, or round-wood, as the Maine
40 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [THOREAU
people call it, and moose-wood. It was the worst kind of
travelling ; sometimes like the densest scrub-oak patches
with us. The cornel, or bunch-berries, were very abun
dant, as well as Solomon's seal and moose-berries. Blue
berries were distributed along our whole route; and in
one place the bushes were drooping with the weight of
the fruit, still as fresh as ever. It was the 7th of Septem
ber. Such patches afforded a grateful repast, and served
to bait the tired party forward. When any lagged behind,
the cry of " blueberries" was most effectual to bring them
up. Even at this elevation we passed through a moose-
yard, formed by a large, flat rock, four or five rods square,
where they tread down the snow in winter. At length,
fearing that if we held the direct course to the summit
we should not find any water near our camping-ground,
wo gradually swerved to the west, till, at four o'clock, we
struck again the torrent which I have mentioned, and
here, in view of the summit, the weary party decided to
camp that night.
While my companions were seeking a suitable spot for
this purpose, I improved the little daylight that was left
in climbing the mountain alone. We were in a deep and
narrow ravine, sloping up to the clouds at an angle of
nearly forty-five degrees, and hemmed in by walls of rock,
which were at first covered with low trees, then with im
penetrable thickets of scraggy birches and spruce-trees,
and with moss, but at last bare of all vegetation but li
chens, and almost continually draped in clouds. Follow
ing up the course of the torrent which occupied this, and
I mean to lay some emphasis on this word up, pulling
myself up by the side of perpendicular falls of twenty 01
thirty feet, by the roots of firs and birches, and then, per
haps, walking a level rod or two in the thin stream, for
it took up the whole road, ascending by huge steps, as it
THOREAU] ASCENDING KTAADN. 41
were, a giant's stairway, down which a river flowed, I had
soon cleared the trees, and paused on the successive shelves,
to look hack over the country. The torrent was from fif
teen to thirty feet wide, without a tributary, and seem
ingly not diminishing in breadth as I advanced ; but still
it came rushing and roaring down, with a copious tide,
over and amidst masses of bare rock, from the very clouds,
as though a waterspout had just burst over the mountain.
Leaving this at last, I began to work my way, scarcely
less arduous than Satan's anciently through Chaos, up the
nearest, though not the highest, peak, at first scrambling
on all-fours over the tops of ancient black spruce-trees
(Abies nigrd), old as the flood, from two to ten or twelve
feet in height, their tops flat and spreading, and their foli
age blue, and nipt with cold, as if for centuries they had
ceased growing upward against the bleak sky, the solid
cold. I walked some good rods erect upon the tops of
these trees, which were overgrown with moss and moun
tain-cranberries. It seemed that in the course of time
they had filled up the intervals between the huge rocks,
and the cold wind had uniformly levelled all over. Here
the principle of vegetation was hard put to it. There was
apparently a belt of this kind running quite round the
mountain, though, perhaps, nowhere so remarkable as
here. Once, slumping through, I looked down ten feet,
into a dark and cavernous region, and saw the stem of a
spruce, on whose top I stood as on a mass of coarse basket-
work, fully nine inches in diameter at the ground. These
holes were bears' dens, and the bears were even then at
home. This was the sort of garden I made my way over,
for an eighth of a mile, at the risk, it is true, of treading
on some of the plants, not seeing any path through it,
certainly the most treacherous and porous country I ever
travelled.
ii. 4*
42 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [THOREAU
11 Nigh foundered, on he fares,
Treading the crude consistence, half on foot,
Half flying."
But nothing could exceed the toughness of the twigs : not
one snapped under my weight, for they had slowly grown.
Having slumped, scrambled, rolled, bounced, and walked,
by turns, over this scraggy country, I arrived upon a side-
hill, or rather side-mountain, where rocks, gray, silent
rocks, were the flocks and herds that pastured, chewing a
rocky cud at sunset. They looked at me with hard gray
eyes, without a bleat or a low. This brought me to the
skirt of a cloud, and bounded my walk that night. But
I had already seen that Maine country when I turned
about, waving, flowing, rippling, down below.
When I returned to my companions, they had selected
a camping-ground on the torrent's edge, and were resting
on the ground : one was on the sick-list, rolled in a blanket,
on a damp shelf of rock. It was a savage and dreary
scenery enough ; so wildly rough, that they looked long
to find a level and open space for the tent. We could not
well camp higher, for want of fuel ; and the trees here
seemed so evergreen and sappy that we almost doubted
if they would acknowledge the influence of fire ; but fire
prevailed at last, and blazed here too, like a good citizen
of the world. Even at this height we met with frequent
traces of moose, as well as of bears. As here was no
cedar, we made our bed of coarser-feathered spruce ; but
at any rate the feathers were plucked from the live tree.
It was, perhaps, even a more grand and desolate place for
a night's lodging than the summit would have been, being
in the neighborhood of those wild trees, and of the tor
rent. Some more aerial and finer-spirited winds rushed
and roared through the ravine all night, from time to time
arousing our fire and dispersing the embers about. It
THOREAU] ASCENDING KTAADN. 43
was as if we lay in the very nest of a young whirlwind.
At midnight, one of my bedfellows, being startled in his
dreams by the sudden blazing up to its top of a fir-tree
whose green boughs were dried by the heat, sprang up,
with a cry, from his bed, thinking the world on fire, and
drew the whole camp after him.
In the morning, after whetting our appetite on some
raw pork, a wafer of hard bread, and a dipper of con
densed cloud or waterspout, we all together began to make
our way up the falls which I have described, this time
choosing the right-hand or highest peak, which was not
the one I had approached before. But soon my compan
ions were lost to my sight behind the mountain-ridge in
my rear, which still seemed ever retreating before me, and
I climbed alone over huge rocks, loosely poised, a mile or
more, still edging toward the clouds ; for, though the day
was cl'ear elsewhere, the summit was concealed by mist.
The mountain seemed a vast aggregation of loose rocks,
as if some time it had rained rocks, and they lay as they
fell on the mountain-sides, nowhere fairly at rest, but
leaning on each other, all rocking-stones, with cavities
between, but scarcely any soil or smoother shelf. They
were the raw materials of a planet, dropped from an un
seen quarry, which the vast chemistry of nature would
anon work up, or work down, into the smiling and ver
dant plains and valleys of earth. This was an undone
extremity of the globe; as in lignite we see coal in the
process of formation.
At length I entered within the skirts of the cloud which
seemed forever drifting over the summit, and yet would
never be gone, but was generated out of that pure air as
fast as it flowed away; and when, a quarter of a mile
farther, I reached the summit of the ridge, which those
who have seen in clearer weather say is about five miles
44 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [THOREAD
long, and contains a thousand acres of table-land, I was
deep within the hostile ranks of clouds, and all objects
were obscured by them. Now the wind would blow me
out a yard of clear sunlight, wherein I stood ; then a gray,
dawning light was all it could accomplish, the cloud-line
ever rising and falling with the wind's intensity. Some
times it seemed as if the summit would be cleared in a
few moments, and smile in sunshine ; but what was gained
on one side was lost on another. It was like sitting in a
chimney and waiting for the smoke to blow away. It
was, in fact, a cloud-factory : these were the cloud-works,
and the wind turned them off done from the cool, bare
rocks. Occasionally, when the windy columns broke in
to me, I caught sight of a dark, damp crag to the right or
left, the mist driving ceaselessly between it and me. It
reminded me of the creations of the old epic and dramatic
poets, of Atlas, Yulcan, the Cyclops, and Prometheus.
Such was Caucasus and the rock where Prometheus was
bound. jEschylus had no doubt visited such scenery as
this. It was vast, Titanic, and such as man never inhabits.
Some part of the beholder, even some vital part, seems to
escape through the loose grating of his ribs as he ascends.
He is more lone than you can imagine. There is less of
substantial thought and fair understanding in him than
in the plains where men inhabit. His reason is dispei-sed
and shadowy, more thin and subtle, like the air. Vast,
Titanic, inhuman Nature has got him at disadvantage,
caught him alone, and pilfers him of some of his divine
faculty. She does not smile on him as in the plains. She
seems to say sternty, Why came ye here before your time ?
This ground is not prepared for you. Is it not enough
that I smile in the valleys? I have never made this soil
for thy feet, this air for thy breathing, these rocks for thy
neighbors. I cannot pity nor fondle thee here, but forever
THOREATT] ASCENDING KTAADN. 45
relentlessly drive thee hence to where I am kind. "Why
seek me where I have not called thee, and then complain
because you find me but a stepmother ? Shouldst thou
freeze or starve, or shudder thy life away, here is no shrine,
nor altar, nor any access to my ear.
" Chaos and ancient Night, I come no spy
With purpose to explore or to disturb
The secrets of your realm, but . . .
... as my way
Lies through your spacious empire up to light."
The tops of mountains are among the unfinished parts
of the globe, whither it is a slight insult to the gods to
climb and pry into their secrets and try their effect on
our humanity. Only daring and insolent men, perchance,
go there. Simple races, as savages, do not climb moun
tains ; their tops are sacred and mysterious tracts never
visited by them. Pomola is always angry with those who
climb to the summit of Ktaadn. . . .
Perhaps I most fully realized that this was primeval,
untamed, and forever untamable Nature, or whatever else
men call it, while coming down this part of the mountain.
We were passing over " Burnt Lands," burnt by lightning,
perchance, though they showed no recent marks of fire,
hardly so much as a charred stump, but looked rather like
a natural pasture for the moose and deer, exceedingly wild
and desolate, with occasional strips of timber crossing
them, and low poplars springing up, and patches of blue
berries here and there. I found myself traversing them
familiarly, like some pasture run to waste, or partially
reclaimed by man ; but when I reflected what man, what
brother or sister or kinsman of our race, made it and
claimed it, I expected the proprietor to rise up and dis
pute my passage. It is difficult to conceive of a region
46 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [THOREAU
uninhabited by man. "We habitually presume his pres
ence and influence everywhere. And yet we have not
seen pure Nature, unless we have seen her thus vast and
drear and inhuman, though in the midst of cities. Nature
has here something savage and awful, though beautiful.
I looked with awe at the ground I trod on, to see what
' the Powers had made there, the form and fashion and
material of their work. This was that Earth of which
we have heard, made out of Chaos and Old Night. Here
was no man's garden, but the unhandselled globe. It was
not lawn, nor pasture, nor mead, nor woodland, nor lea,
nor arable, nor waste-land. It was the fresh and natural
surface of the planet Earth, as it was made for ever and
ever, to be the dwelling of man, we say, so Nature
made it, and man may use it if he can. Man was not to
be associated with it. It was Matter, vast, terrific, not
his Mother Earth that we have heard of, not for him to
tread on, or be buried in, no, it were being too familiar
even to let his bones lie there, the home, this, of Neces
sity and Fate. There was there felt the presence of a
force not bound to be kind to man. It was a place for
heathenism and superstitious rites, to be inhabited by
men nearer of kin to the rocks and to wild animals than
we. We walked over it with a certain awe, stopping,
from time to time, to pick the blueberries which grew
there and had a smart and spicy taste. Perchance where
our wild pines stand, and leaves lie on their forest floor, in
Concord, there were once reapers, and husbandmen planted
grain ; but here not even the surface had been scarred by
man, but it was a specimen of what God saw fit to make
this world. What is it to be admitted to a museum, to
see a myriad of particular things, compared with being
shown some star's surface, some hard matter in its home !
I stand in awe of my body, this matter to which I am
OSSOLI] IMPRESSIONS OF NIAGARA. 47
bound has become so strange to me. I fear not spirits,
ghosts, of which I am one, that my body might, but I
fear bodies, I tremble to aeet them. What is this Titan
that has possession of me ? Talk of mysteries ! Think
of our life in nature, daily to be shown matter, to come
in contact with it, rocks, trees, wind on our cheeks I the
solid earth ! the actual world ! the common sense ! Contact I
Contact! Who are we ? where are we ?
IMPRESSIONS OF NIAGARA.
MARGARET FULLER OSSOLI.
[Margaret Fuller was born at Cambridgeport, Massachusetts, in 1810.
She displayed remarkable precocity as a student, and while yet quite
young was looked upon as a prodigy of learning, in those days in
which few learned women had as yet appeared in America. Brilliant
conversational powers, and excellent ability as a lecturer, brought her
prominently before the literary world, while her writings were received
with high favor by some of the leading critics, though they have since
greatly declined in public estimation, and seem to our eyes of secondary
value as literary efforts. "We append one of the most attractive of her
descriptive essays. In 1846 she went to Europe, and in December,
1847, was married, at Kome, to the Marquis Ossoli, an Italian noble
man. On her return to her native country she perished, with her hus
band and child, in the wreck of the brig Elizabeth, July 19, 1850.]
NIAGARA, June 10, 1843.
SINCE you are to share with me such foot-notes as may
be made on the pages of my life during this summer's
wanderings, I should not be quite silent as to this magnifi
cent prologue to the, as yet, unknown drama. Yet I, like
others, have little to say, where the spectacle is, for once,
great enough to fill the whole life, and supersede thought,
48 BEST AMERICA N A UTHORS. [OssoLi
giving us only its own presence. " It is good to be here,"
is the best, as the simplest, expression that occurs to the
mind.
We have been here eight days, and I am quite willing
to go away. So great a sight soon satisfies, making us
content with itself, and with what is less than itself. Our
desires, once realized, haunt us again less readily. Having
" lived one day," we would depart, and become worthy to
live another.
"We have not been fortunate in weather, for there cannot
be too much or too warm sunlight for this scene, and the
skies have been lowering, with cold, unkind winds. My
nerves, too much braced up by such an atmosphere, do not
well bear the continual stress of sight and sound. For
here there is no escape from the weight of a perpetual
creation ; all other forms and motions come and go, the
tide rises and recedes, the wind, at its mightiest, moves
in gales and gusts, but here is really an incessant, an in
defatigable motion. Awake or asleep, there is no escape,
still this rushing round you and through you. It is in this
way I have most felt the grandeur, somewhat eternal, if
not infinite.
At times a secondary music rises ; the cataract seems to
seize its own rhythm and sing it over again, so that the
ear and soul are roused by a double vibration. This is
some effect of the wind, causing echoes to the thundering
anthem. It is very sublime, giving the effect of a spirit
ual repetition through all the spheres.
When I first came, I felt nothing but a quiet satisfaction.
I found that drawings, the panorama, etc., had given me
a clear notion of the position and proportions of all ob
jects here; I knew where to look for everything, and
everything looked as I thought it would.
Long ago, I was looking from a hill-side with a friend
OSSOLI] IMPRESSIONS OF NIAGARA. 49
at one of the finest sunsets that ever enriched this world.
A little cow-boy, trudging along, wondered what we could
be gazing at. After spying about some time, he found
it could only be the sunset, and looking, too, a moment,
he said, approvingly, " That sun looks well enough ;" a
speech worthy of Shakespeare's Cloten, or the infant Mer
cury, up to everything from the cradle, as you please to
take it.
Even such a familiarity, worthy of Jonathan, our na
tional hero, in a prince's palace, or "stumping," as he
boasts to have done, "up the Vatican stairs, into the
Pope's presence, in my old boots," I felt here ; it looks
really well enough, I felt, and was inclined, as you sug
gested, to give my approbation as to the one object in the
world that would not disappoint.
But all great expression, which, on a superficial survey,
seems so easy as well as so simple, furnishes, after a while,
to the faithful observer, its own standard by which to
appreciate it. Daily these proportions widened and tow
ered more and more upon my sight, and I got, at last, a
proper foreground for these sublime distances. Before
coming away, I think I really saw the full wonder of the
scene. After a while it so drew me into itself as to inspire
an undefined dread, such as I never knew before, such as
may be felt when death is about to usher us into a new
existence. The perpetual trampling of the waters seized
my senses. I felt that no other sound, however near,
could be heard, and would start and look behind me for
a foe. I realized the identity of that mood of nature in
which these waters were poured down with such absorb
ing force, with that in which the Indian was shaped on
the same soil. For continually upon my mind came, un
sought and unwelcome, images, such as never haunted it
before, of naked savages stealing behind me with uplifted
II. c d 5
50 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [OssoLi
tomahawks; again and again this illusion recurred, and
even after I had thought it over, and tried to shake it off.
I could not help starting and looking behind me.
As picture, the falls can only be seen from the British
side. There they are seen in their veils, and at sufficient
distance to appreciate the magical effects of these, and the
light and shade. From the boat, as you cross, the effects
and contrasts are more melodramatic. On the road back
from the whirlpool we saw them as a reduced picture with
delight. But what I liked best was to sit on Table Eock,
close to the great fall. There all power of observing de
tails, all separate consciousness, was quite lost.
Once, just as I had seated myself there, a man came to
take his first look. He walked close up to the fall, and,
after looking at it a moment, with an air as if thinking
how he could best appropriate it to his own use, he spat
into it.
This trait seemed wholly worthy of an age whose love
of utility is such that the Prince Puckler Muskau suggests
the probability of men coming to put the bodies of their
dead parents in the fields to fertilize them, and of a
country such as Dickens has described; but these will
not, I hope, be seen on the historic page to be truly the
age or truly the America. A little leaven is leavening
the whole mass for other bread.
The whirlpool I like very much. It is seen to advantage
after the great falls; it is so sternly solemn. The river
cannot look more imperturbable, almost sullen, in its mar
ble green, than it does just below the great fall ; but the
slight circles that mark the hidden vortex seem to whisper
mysteries the thundering voice above could not proclaim.
a meaning as untold as ever.
It is fearful, too, to know, as you look, that whatever
has been swallowed by the cataract is like to rise suddenly
OSSOLI] IMPRESSIONS OF NIAGARA. 51
to light here, whether uprooted tree, or body of man or
bird.
The rapids enchanted me far beyond what I expected ;
they are so swift that they cease to seem so; you can
think only of their beauty. The fountain beyond the
Moss Islands I discovered for myself, and thought it for
some time an accidental beauty which it would not do to
leave, lest I might never see it again. After I found it
permanent, I returned many times to watch the play of
its crest. In the little water-fall beyond, Nature seems, as
she often does, to have made a study for some larger de
sign. She delights in this, a sketch within a sketch, a
dream within a dream. IVherever we see it, the lines of
the great buttress in the fragment of stone, the hues of
the water-fall copied in the flowers that star its bordering
mosses, we are delighted ; for all the lineaments becomo
fluent, and we mould the scene in congenial thought with
its genius.
People complain of the buildings at Niagara, and fear
to see it further deformed. I cannot sympathize with
such an apprehension : the spectacle is capable of swallow
ing up all such objects ; they are not seen in the great
whole, more than an earthworm in a wide field.
The beautiful wood on Goat Island is full of flowers ;
many of the fairest love to do homage here. The wake-
robin and May-apple are in bloom now ; the former, white,
pink, green, purple, copying the rainbow of the fall, and
fit to make a garland for its presiding deity when he
walks the land, for they are of imperial size, and shaped
like stones for a diadem. Of the May-apple, I did not
raise one green tent without finding a flower beneath.
And now farewell, Niagara. I have seen thee, and I
think all who come here must in some sort see thee ; thou
art not to be got rid of as easily as the stars. I will be
J2 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [OssoLi
here again beneath some flooding July moon and sun.
Owing to the absence of light, I have seen the rainbow
)nly two or three times by day ; the lunar bow not at all.
ffowever, the imperial presence needs not its crown,
/hough illustrated by it.
General Porter and Jack Downing were not unsuitable
figures here. The former heroically planted the bridges
by which we cross to Goat Island, and the wake-robin-
crowned genius has punished his temerity with deafness,
which must, I think, have come upon him when he sunk
the first stone in the rapids. Jack seemed an acute and
entertaining representative of Jonathan, come to look at
his great water-privilege. He told us all about the Ameri
canisms of the spectacle ; that is to say, the battles that
have been fought here. It seems strange that men could
fight in such a place ; but no temple can still the personal
griefs and strifes in the breasts of its visitors.
No less strange is the fact that, in this neighborhood,
an eagle should be chained for a plaything. When a child,
I used often to stand at a window from which I could see
an eagle chained in the balcony of a museum. The peo
ple used to poke at it with sticks, and my childish heart
would swell with indignation as I saw their insults, and
the mien with which they were borne by the monarch-
bird. Its eye was dull, and its plumage soiled and shabby,
yet in its form and attitude all the king was visible, though
sorrowful and dethroned. I never saw another of the
family till, when passing through the Notch of the White
Mountains, at that moment glowing before us in all the
panoply of sunset, the driver shouted, " Look there 1" and,
following with our eyes his upward-pointing finger, we
saw, soaring slow in majestic poise above the highest sum
mit, the bird of Jove. It was a glorious sight, yet I know
not that I felt more on seeing the bird in all its natural
OSSOLI] IMPRESSIONS OF NIAGAR .. 53
freedom and royalty than when, imprisoned and insulted,
he had filled my early thoughts with the Byronic " silent
rages" of misanthropy.
Now, again, I saw him a captive, and addressed hy the
vulgar with the language they seem to find most ap
propriate to such occasions, that of thrusts and blows.
Silently, his head averted, he ignored their existence, as
Plotinus or Sophocles might that of a modern reviewer.
Probably he listened to the voice of the cataract, and felt
that congenial powers flowed free, and was consoled,
though his own wing was broken.
The story of the Keel use of Niagara interested me a
little. It is wonderful that men do not oftener attach
their lives to localities of great beauty, that, when once
deeply penetrated, they will let themselves so easily be
borne away by the general stream of things, to live any
where and anyhow. But there is something ludicrous in
being the hermit of a show-place, unlike St. Francis in his
mountain-bed, where none but the stars and rising sun
ever saw him.
There is also a " guide to the falls," who wears his title
labelled on his hat ; otherwise, indeed, one might as soon
think of asking for a gentleman usher to point out the
moon. Yet why should we wonder at such, when we
have Commentaries on Shakespeare, and Harmonies of
the Gospels?
And now you have the little all I have to write. Can
it interest you? To one who has enjoyed the full life of
any scene, of any hour, what thoughts can be recorded
about it seem like the commas and semicolons in the para
graph, mere stops. Yet I suppose it is not so to the ab
sent. At least, I have read things about Niagara, music,
and the like, that interested me. Once I was moved by
Mr. Greenwood's remark, that he could not realize this
ii. 5*
54 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [Ossoti
marvel till, opening his eyes the next morning after he
had seen it, his doubt as to the possibility of its being still
there taught him what he had experienced. I remember
this now with pleasure, though, or because, it is exactly
the opposite to what I myself felt. For all greatness
affects different minds, each in "its own particular kind,"
and the variations of testimony mark the truth of feel
ing.*
I will here add a brief narrative of the experience of
another, as being much better than anything I could
write, because more simple and individual :
"Now that I have left this ' Earth- wonder,' and the
emotions it excited are past, it seems not so much like
profanation to analyze my feelings, to recall minutely and
accurately the effect of this manifestation of the Eternal.
But one should go to such a scene prepared to yield en
tirely to its influences, to forget one's little self and one's
little mind. To see a miserable worm creep to the brink
of this falling world of waters, and watch the trembling
of its own petty bosom, and fancy that this is made alone
to act upon him, excites derision ? No, pity."
As I rode up to the neighborhood of the falls, a solemn
awe imperceptibly stole over me, and the deep sound of
the ever-hurrying rapids prepared my mind for the lofty
emotions to be experienced. When I reached the hotel,
I felt a strange indifference about seeing the aspiration
of my life's hopes. I lounged about the rooms, read the
* " Somewhat avails, in one regard, the mere sight of beauty with
out the union of feeling therewith. Carried away in memory, it hangs
there in the lonely hall as a picture, and may some time do its mes
sage. I trust it may be so in my case, for I saw every object far more
clearly than if I had been moved and filled with the presence, and
my recollections are equally distinct and vivid." Extracted from
Manuscript Notes of this Journey left by Margaret Fuller. ED.
OSSOLI] IMPRESSIONS OF NIAGARA. 55
stage-bills upon the walls, looked over the register, and.
finding the name of an acquaintance, sent to see if he was
still there. "What this hesitation arose from, I know not :
perhaps it was a feeling of my unworthiness to enter this
temple which nature has erected to its God.
At last, slowly and thoughtfully I walked down to the
bridge leading to Goat Island, and when I stood upon this
frail support, and saw a quarter of a mile of tumbling,
rushing rapids, and heard their everlasting roar, my emo
tions overpowered me, a choking sensation rose to my
throat, a thrill rushed through my veins, " my blood ran
rippling to my fingers' ends." This was the climax of
the effect which the falls produced upon me. Neither
the American nor the British fall moved me as did these
rapids. For the magnificence, the sublimity, of the lat
ter, I was prepared by descriptions and by paintings.
When I arrived in sight of them I merely felt, " Ah, yes !
here is the fall, just as I have seen it in a picture." When
I arrived at the Terrapin Bridge, I expected to be over
whelmed, to retire trembling from this giddy eminence,
and gaze with unlimited wonder and awe upon the im
mense mass rolling on and on ; but, somehow or other, I
thought only of comparing the effect on my mind with
what I had read and heard. I looked for a short time,
and then, with almost a feeling of disappointment, turned
to go to the other points of view, to see if i was not mis
taken in not feeling any surpassing emotion at this sight.
But from the foot of Biddle's Stairs, and the middle of the
river, and from below the Table Rock, it was still " barren,
barren all."
Provoked with my stupidity in feeling most moved in
the wrong place, I turned away to the hotel, determined
to set off for Buffalo that afternoon. But the stage did
not go, and after nightfall, as there was a splendid moon,
56 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [OssoLl
I went down to the bridge, and leaned over the parapet,
where the boiling rapids came down in their might. It
was grand, and it was also gorgeous ; the yellow rays of
the moon made the broken waves appear like auburn
tresses twining around the black rocks. But they did not
inspire me as before. I felt a foreboding of a mightier
emotion to rise up and swallow all others, and I passed OQ
to the Terrapin Bridge. Everything was changed; the
misty apparition had taken off its many-colored crown
which it had worn by day, and a bow of silvery white
spanned its summit. The moonlight gave a poetical in-
definiteness to the distant parts of the waters, and, while
the rapids were glancing in her beams, the river below
the falls was black as night, save where the reflection of
the sky gave it the appearance of a shield of blued steel.
No gaping tourists loitered, eying with their glasses or
sketching on cards the hoary locks of the ancient river-
god. All tended to harmonize with the natural grandeur
of the scene. I gazed long. I saw how here mutability
and unchangeableness were united. I surveyed the con
spiring waters rushing against the rocky ledge to over
throw it at one mad plunge, till, like toppling ambition,
o'erleaping themselves, they fall on t'other side, expanding
into foam ere they reach the deep channel where they
creep submit lively away.
Then arose in my breast a genuine admiration, and a
humble adoration of the Being who was the architect of
this and of all. Happy were the first discoverers of Ni
agara, those who could come unawares upon this view and
upon that, whose feelings were entirely their own. With
what gusto does Father Hennepin describe "this great
downfall of water," " this vast and prodigious cadence of
water, which falls down after a surprising and astonishing
manner, insomuch that the universe does not afford its
HIQGINSON] FOE. 57
parallel. 'Tis true Italy and Swedeland boast of some
such things, but we may well say that they be sorry pat
terns when compared with this of which we do now speak."
POE.
THOMAS W. HIGGINSON.
[We make the following selection from one of our most genial es
sayists, whose nature-studies are not surpassed in poetical grace and
delicacy of discernment by any in the language, while his critical
essays on authors show a mind in intimate rapport with his subject.
Poe has never been treated with more felicity than in the essay given
below. Mr. Higginson is the author of several volumes of essays,
vigorous in thought and graceful in style; of " Malbone, an Oldport
Romance," in which life in Newport is delineated with a happy power
which John G-. Saxe has compared to that of Hawthorne ; and of
" Army Life in a Black Kegiment," describing actual experiences of
the author, who commanded a regiment of colored soldiers in the civil
war. Mr. Higginson was born in 1823, in Cambridge, Massachusetts,
where he still resides.]
IT happens to us rarely in our lives to come consciously
into the presence of that extraordinary miracle we call
genius. Among the many literary persons whom I have
happened to meet, at home or abroad, there are not half a
dozen who have left an irresistible sense of this rare qual
ity ; and, among these few, Poe stands next to Hawthorne
in the vividness of personal impression he produced. I
saw him but once ; and it was on that celebrated occasion,
in 1845, when he startled Boston by substituting his boy
ish production, " Al Aaraaf," for the more serious poem
which he was to have delivered before the Lyceum. There
was much curiosity to see him ; for his prose-writings had
58 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HiaoixsoN
been eagerly read, at least among college-students, and his
poems were just beginning to excite still greater atten
tion. After a rather solid and very partisan address by
Caleb Gushing, then just returned from his Chinese em
bassy, the poet was introduced. I distinctly recall his
face, with its ample forehead, brilliant eyes, and narrow
ness of nose and chin ; an essentially ideal face, not noble,
yet anything but coarse ; with the look of over-sensitive
ness which when uncontrolled may prove more debasing
than coarseness. It was a face to rivet one's attention in
any crowd, yet a face that no one would feel safe in loving.
It is not perhaps strange that I find or fancy in the por
trait of Charles Baudelaire, Poe's French admirer and
translator, some of the traits that are indelibly associated
with that one glimpse of Poe.
I remember that when introduced he stood with a sort
of shrinking before the audience, and then began, in a thin,
tremulous, hardly musical voice, an apology for his poem,
and a deprecation of the expected criticism of the Boston
public ; reiterating this in a sort of persistent, querulous
way, which did not seem like satire, but impressed me at
the time as nauseous flattery. It was not then generally
known, nor was it established for a long time after, even
when he had himself asserted it, that the poet was him
self born in Boston ; and no one can now tell, perhaps,
what was the real feeling behind the apparently syco
phantic attitude. When, at the end, he abruptly began
the recitation of his rather perplexing poem, everybody
looked thoroughly mystified. The verses had long since
been printed in his youthful volume, and had reappeared
within a few days, if I mistake not, in Wiley & Putnam's
edition of his poems ; and they produced no very distinct
impression on the audience until Poe began to read the
maiden's song in the second part. Already his tones had
HIGGINSON] POE. 59
been softening to a finer melody than at first, and when
he came to the verse,
" Ligeia ! Ligeia !
My beautiful one !
"Whose harshest idea
"Will to melody run,
Oh, is it thy will
On the breezes to toss ?
Or capriciously still,
Like the lone albatross,
Incumbent on night
(As she on the air),
To keep watch with delight
On the harmony there ?"
his voice seemed attenuated to the finest golden thread ;
the audience became hushed, and, as it were, breathless ;
there seemed no life in the hall but his ; and every sylla
ble was accentuated with such delicacy, and sustained with
such sweetness, as I never heard equalled by other lips.
When the lyric ended, it was like the ceasing of the gypsy's
chant in Browning's " Flight of the Duchess ;" and I re
member nothing more, except that in walking back to
Cambridge my comrades and I felt that we had been under
the spell of some wizard. Indeed, I feel much the same
in the retrospect, to this day.
The melody did not belong, in this case, to the poet's
voice alone : it was already in the words. His verse, when
he was willing to give it natural utterance, was like that
of Coleridge in rich sweetness, and, like that, was often
impaired by theories of structure and systematic experi
ments in metre. Never in American literature, I think,
was such a fountain of melody flung into the air as when
" Lenore" first appeared in " The Pioneer j" and never did
fountain so drop downward as when Poe rearranged it in
60 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HIGGINSON
its present form. The irregular measure had a beauty as
original as that of " Christabel ;" and the lines had an
ever-varying, ever-lyrical cadence of their own, until their
author himself took them and cramped them into couplets.
What a change from
" Peccavimus!
But rave not thus !
And let the solemn song
Go up to God so mournfully that she may feel no wrong 1"
to the amended version, portioned off in regular lengths,
thus:
" Peccavimus I but rave not thus I and let a Sabbath song
Go up to God so solemnly, the dead may feel no wrong."
Or, worse yet, when he introduced that tedious jingle of
slightly- varied repetition which in later years reached its
climax in lines like these :
" Till the fair and gentle Eulalie became my blushing bride,
Till the yellow-haired young Eulalie became my smiling bride."
This trick, caught from Poe, still survives in our litera
ture, made more permanent, perhaps, by the success of
his " Raven." This poem, which made him popular, seems
to me far inferior to some of his earlier and slighter effu
sions ; as those exquisite verses " To Helen," which are
among our American classics, and have made
" The glory that was Greece,
And the grandeur that was Home,"
a permanent phrase in our language.
Poe's place in purely imaginative prose-writing is as
unquestionable as Hawthorne's. He even succeeded,
HIGGINSOK] POE. 61
which Hawthorne did not, in penetrating the artistic in
difference of the French mind ; and it was a substantial
triumph, when we consider that Baudelaire put himself
or his friends to the trouble of translating even the pro
longed platitudes of " Eureka" and the wearisome narra
tive of " Arthur Gordon Pym." Neither Poe nor Haw
thorne has ever been fully recognized in England ; and
3 r et no Englishman of our time, not even De Quincey, has
done any prose imaginative work to be named with theirs.
But in comparing Poe with Hawthorne we see that the
genius of the latter has hands and feet as well as wings,
BO that all his work is solid as masonry, while Poe's is
broken and disfigured by all sorts of inequalities and imi
tations ; he not disdaining, for want of true integrity, to
disguise and falsify, to claim knowledge that he did not
possess, to invent quotations and references, and even, as
Griswold showed, to manipulate and exaggerate puffs of
himself. . . .
But, making all possible deductions, how wonderful re
mains the power of Poe's imaginative tales, and how im
mense is the ingenuity of his puzzles and disentangle-
ments ! The conundrums of "Wilkie Collins never renew
their interest after the answer is known ; but Poe's can
be read again and again. It is where spiritual depths are
to be touched, that he shows his weakness ; where he at
tempts it, as in " William Wilson," it seems exceptional ;
where there is the greatest display of philosophic form,
he is often most trivial, whereas Hawthorne is often pro-
foundest when he has disarmed you by his simplicity.
The truth is, that Poe lavished on things comparatively
superficial those great intellectual resources which Haw
thorne reverently husbanded and used. That there is
something behind even genius to make or mar it, this is
the lesson of the two lives.
ii. 6
62 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HiaaiNSOS
Poe makes one of his heroes define another as " that
monstrum horrendum, an unprincipled man of genius." It
is in the malice and fury of his own critical work that his
low moral tone most betrays itself. No atmosphere can
be more belittling than that of his " New York Literati :"
it is a mass of vehement dogmatism and petty personali
ties, opinions warped by private feeling, and varying from
page to page. He seemed to have absolutely no fixed
standard of critical judgment, though it is true that there
was very little anywhere in America during those acrimo
nious days, when the most honorable head might be cov
ered with insult or neglect, while any young poetess who
smiled sweetly on Poe or Griswold or Willis might find
herself placed among the Muses. Poe complimented and
rather patronized Hawthorne, but found him only " pecu
liar, and not original ;" saying of him, " He has not half the
material for the exclusiveness of literature that he has for
its universality," whatever that may mean ; and finally he
tried to make it appear that Hawthorne had borrowed
from himself. He returned again and again to the attack
on Longfellow as a wilful plagiarist, denouncing the trivial
resemblance between his " Midnight Mass for the Dying
Year" and Tennyson's " Death of the Old Year" as " be
longing to the barbarous class of literary piracy." To
make this attack was, as he boasted, "to throttle the
guilty ;" and while dealing thus ferociously with Long
fellow, thus condescendingly with Hawthorne, he was
claiming a foremost rank among American authors for
obscurities now forgotten, such as Mrs. Amelia B. Welby
and Estelle Anne Lewis. No one ever did more than Poe
to lower the tone of literary criticism in this .country ; and
the greater his talent, the greater the mischief.
As a poet he held for a time the place earlier occupied
by Byron, and later by Swinburne, as the patron saint of
HIGGINSON] FOE. 63
all -wilful boys suspected of genius and convicted at least,
of its infirmities. He belonged to the melancholy class
of wasted men, like the 'German Hoffmann, whom per
haps of all men of genius he most resembled. No doubt,
if we are to apply any standard of moral weight or sanity
to authors, a proposal which Poe would doubtless have
ridiculed, it can only be in a very large and generous
way. If a career has only a manly ring to it, we can for
give many errors, as in reading, for instance, the auto
biography of Benvenuto Cellini, carrying always his life
in his hand amid a brilliant and reckless society. But
the existence of a poor Bohemian, besotted when he has
money, angry and vindictive when the money is spent,
this is a dismal tragedy, for which genius only makes the
footlights burn with more lustre. There is a passage in
Keats's letters, written from the haunts of Burns, in
which he expresses himself as filled with pity for the
poet's life : " he drank with blackguards, he was miser
able ; we can see horribly clear in the works of such a
man his life, as if we were God's spies." Yet Burns's
sins and miseries left his heart unspoiled, and this cannot
be said of Poe. After all, the austere virtues the virtues
of Emerson, Hawthorne, Whittier are the best soil for
genius.
I like best to think of Poe as associated with his be
trothed, Sarah Helen Whitman, whom I saw sometimes
in her later years. That gifted woman had outlived her
early friends and loves and hopes, and perhaps her liter
ary fame, such as it was : she had certainly outlived her
recognized ties with Poe, and all but his memory. There
she dwelt in her little suite of rooms, bearing youth still
in her heart and in her voice, and on her hair also, and in
her dress. Her dimly-lighted parlor was always decked,
here and there, with scarlet ; and she sat, robed in white,
64 BEST AMERICA* AUTHORS,
with her back always turned to the light, thus throwing
a discreetly-tinted shadow over her still thoughtful and
noble face. She seemed a person embalmed while still
alive : it was as if she might dwell forever there, prolong
ing into an indefinite future the tradition of a poet's love ;
and when we remembered that she had been Poe's be
trothed, that his kisses had touched her lips, that she still
believed in him and was his defender, all criticism might
well, for her sake, be disarmed, and her saintly life atone
{bar his stormy and sad career.
REVIEW OF THE HISTORY OF SLAVERY.
GEORGE BANCROFT.
[ A biographical notice of the dtinguhed author of "The Historr
of the United States" tartly called for. We need only say that lie
was bora at Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1800, studied in tb* Univer-
siws of Harvard and Gottingen, and coiMrfd his historical labors
by the "History of the fMtwimfrr* of the United States," of which
the tntTohuM appeared in 1834 TW tenth and concluding ToftuM
of a great historical work was published in 1874. An an historian
i exalted position, his work being noted alike for
in the study of authorities, critical judgment in
of ofceriak, tuesuy of style, picturesque descriptive pn^my
and great erudition. It takes its place among UK.
gnat histories of tike world.]
WHILE Virginia, by the concesskm of a representative
government, was constituted the asylum of liberty, it b*-
rTr the abode of hereditary bondsmen.
Slavery and the slave-trade are older than the records of
human society : they are found to have existed wherever
the savage hunter began to assume the habits of pas-
BASCBOTT] REVIEW OF THE HISTORY OF SLAVERY. 65
toral or agricultural life ; and, with the exception of Aus
tralasia, they have extended to every portion of the globe.
The oldest monuments of human labor on the Egyptian
soil are the results of slave-labor. The founder of the
Jewish people was a slave-holder and a purchaser of
slaves. The Hebrews, when they broke from their oim
thraldom, planted slavery in the promised land. Tyre,
the oldest commercial city of Phoenicia, was, like Baby
lon, a market " for the persons of men."
Old as are the traditions of Greece, slavery is older.
The wrath of Achilles grew out of a quarrel for a slave ;
Grecian dames had servile attendants ; the heroes before
Troy made excursions into the neighboring villages and
towns to enslave the inhabitants Greek pirates, roving,
like the corsairs of Barbary, in quest of men, laid the
foundations of Greek commerce ; each commercial town
was a slave-mart ; and every cottage near the sea-side was
in danger from the kidnapper. Greeks enslaved each
other. The language of Homer was the mother-tongue
of the Helots ; the Grecian city that warred on its neigh
bor city made of its captives a source of profit ; the hero
of Macedon sold men of his own kindred and language
into hopeless slavery. More than four centuries before
the Christian era, Alcidamas, a pupil of Gorgias, taught
that " God has sent forth all men free ; nature has made
no man slave." While one class of Greek authors of that
period confounded the authority of master and head of a
family, others asserted that the relation of master and
slave is conventional ; that freedom is the law of nature,
which knows no difference between master and slave ;
that slavery is the child of violence, and inherently un
just. " A man, O my master," so speaks the slave in a
comedy of Philemon, "because he is a slave, does not
cease to be a man. He is of the same flesh with you.
ii. 6*
66 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [BANCROFT
Nature makes no slaves." Aristotle, though he recognizes
"living chattels" as a part of the complete family, has
left on record his most deliberate judgment, that the prize
of freedom should be placed within the reach of every
slave. Yet the idea of universal free labor was only u
dormant bud, not to be quickened for many centuries.
Slavery hastened the fall of the commonwealth of Rome.
The power of the father to sell his children, of the cred
itor to sell his insolvent debtor, of the warrior to sell his
captive, carried it into the bosom of every family, into
the conditions of every contract, into the heart of every
unhappy land that was invaded by the Roman eagle. The
slave-markets of Rome were filled with men of various
nations and colors. " Slaves are they !" writes Seneca ;
"say that they are men." The golden-mouthed orator
Dion inveighs against hereditary slavery as at war with
right. " By the law of nature, all men are born free," are
the words of Ulpian. The Roman digests pronounce
slavery " contrary to nature."
In the middle age the pirate and the kidnapper and the
conqueror still continued the slave-trade. The Saxon race
carried the most repulsive forms of slavery to England,
where not half the population could assert a right to free
dom, and where the price of a man was but four times the
price of an ox. In defiance of severe penalties, the Saxons
long continued to sell their own kindred into slavery on
the continent. Even after the conquest, slaves were ex
ported from England to Ireland, till, in 1102, a national
Bynod of the Irish, to remove the pretext for an invasion,
decreed the emancipation of all their English slaves.
The German nations made the shores of the Baltic the
scenes of the same traffic ; and the Dnieper formed tho
highway on which Russian merchants conveyed slaves
from the markets of Russia to Constantinople. The
BANCROFT] REVIEW OF THE HISTORY OF SLA VERY. 67
wretched often submitted to bondage as the only refuge
from want. But it was the long wars between German
and Slavonic tribes which imparted to the slave-trade so
great activity that in every country of "Western Europe
the whole class of bondmen took and still retain the name
< f Slaves.
In Sicily, natives of Asia and Africa were exposed for
sale. From extreme poverty the Arab father would pawn
even his children to the Italian merchant. Rome itself
long remained a mart where Christian slaves were exposed
for sale, to supply the market of Mahometans. The Ve
netians purchased alike infidels and Christians, and sold
them again to the Arabs in Sicily and Spain. Christian
and Jewish avarice supplied the slave-market of the Sara
cens. The trade, though censured by the church and pro-
nibited by the laws of Venice, was not effectually checked
till the mere presence in a Venetian ship was made the
sufficient evidence of freedom.
In the twelfth century, Pope Alexander III. had writ
ten that, " nature having made no slaves, all men have an
equal right to liberty." Yet, as among Mahometans the
captive Christian had no alternative but apostasy or ser
vitude, the captive infidel was treated in Christendom with
corresponding intolerance. In the camp of the leader
whose pious arms redeemed the sepulchre of Christ from
the mixed nations of Asia and Libya, the price of a wai-
horse was three slaves. The Turks, whose law forbade
the enslaving of Mussulmans, continued to sell Christian
and other captives; and Smith, the third President of
Virginia, relates that he was himself a runaway from
Turkish bondage.
All this might have had no influence on the destinies
of America but for the long and doubtful struggles be
tween Christians and Moors in the west of Europe, where >
68 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [BANCROFT
for more than seven centuries, the two religions were ar
rayed against each other, and bondage was the reciprocal
doom of the captive. France and Italy were filled with
Saracen slaves ; the number of them sold into Christian
bondage exceeded the number of all the Christians ever
sold by the pirates of Barbary. The clergy felt no sym
pathy for the unbeliever. The final victory of the Span
iards over the Moors of Granada, an event contemporary
with the discovery of America, was signalized by a great
emigration of the Moors to the coasts of Northern Africa,
where each mercantile city became a nest of pirates, and
every Christian the wonted booty of the corsair : an in
discriminate and retaliating bigotry gave to all Africans
the denomination of Moors, and without scruple reduced
them to bondage.
The clergy had broken up the Christian slave-markets
at Bristol and at Hamburg, at Lyons and at Rome. In
language addressed half to the courts of law and half to
the people, Louis X., by the advice of the jurists of France,
in July, 1315, published the ordinance that, by the law of
nature, every man ought to be born free ; that serfs were
held in bondage only by a suspension of their early and
natural rights; that liberty should be restored to them
throughout the kingdom so far as the royal power ex
tended ; and every master of slaves was invited to follow
his example by bringing them all back to their original
state of freedom. Some years later, John de Wycliffo
asserted the unchristian character of slavery. At the
epoch of the discovery of America the moral opinion of
the civilized world had abolished the trade in Christian
slaves, and was demanding the emancipation of the serfs ;
but the infidel was not yet included within the pale of
humanity.
Yet negro slavery is not an invention of the white man.
BANCROFT] REVIEW OF THE HISTORY OF SLAVERY. fc
As Greeks enslaved Greeks, as Anglo-Saxons dealt in An
glo-Saxons, so the earliest accounts of the land of the black
men bear witness that negro masters held men of their
own race as slaves, and sold them to others. This the
oldest Greek historian commemorates. Negro slaves were
seen in classic Greece, and were known at Eome and in
the Eoman Empire. About the year 990, Moorish mer
chants from the Barbary coast reached the cities of Ni-
gritia, and established an uninterrupted exchange of Sar
acen and European luxuries for the gold and slaves of
Central Africa.
Not long after the conquests of the Portuguese in Bar
bary, their navy frequented the ports of Western Africa ;
and the first ships, which, in 1441, sailed so far south as
Cape Blanco, returned not with negroes, but with Moors.
These were treated as strangers, from whom information
respecting their native country was to be derived. An
tony Gonzalez, who had brought them to Portugal, was
commanded to restore them to their ancient homes. He
did so ; and the Moors gave him as their ransom not gold
only, but " black Moors" with curled hair. Negro slaves
immediately became an object of commerce. The historian
of the maritime discoveries of Spain even claims that she
anticipated the Portuguese. The merchants of Seville
imported gold dust and slaves from the western coast of
Africa; so that negro slavery was established in Anda
lusia, and " abounded in the city of Seville," before the
first voyage of Columbus.
The adventurers of those days by sea, joining the creed
of bigots with the designs of pirates and heroes, esteemed
as their rightful plunder the wealth of the countries
which they might discover, and the inhabitants, if Chris
tians, as their subjects ; if infidels, as their slaves. There
was hardly a convenient harbor on the Atlantic frontier
70 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [BANCROFT
of the United States which was not entered by slavers.
The red men of the wilderness, unlike the Africans, among
whom slavery had existed from immemorial time, would
never abet the foreign merchant in the nefarious traffic.
Fraud and force remained, therefore, the means by which,
near Newfoundland or Florida, on the shores of the At
lantic, or among the Indians of the Mississippi valley,
Cortereal and Yasquez de Ayllon, Porcallo and Soto, and
private adventurers, transported the natives of North
America into slavery in Europe and the Spanish West
Indies. Columbus himself, in 1494, enslaving five hundred
native Americans, sent them to Spain, that they might be
publicly sold at Seville. The generous Isabella, in 1500,
commanded the liberation of the Indians held in bondage
in her European possessions. Yet her active benevolence
extended neither to the Moors nor to the Africans ; and
even her compassion for the men of the New World was
but transient. The commissions for making discoveries,
issued a few days before and after her interference to
rescue those whom Columbus had enslaved, reserved for
herself and Ferdinand a fourth part of the slaves which
the new kingdoms might contain. The slavery of Indians
was recognized as lawful.
A royal edict of 1501 permitted negro slaves, born in
slavery among Christians, to be transported. Within two
years there were such numbers of Africans in Hispani-
ola that Ovando, the governor of the island, entreated
that their coming might be restrained. For a short timo
the Spanish government forbade the introduction of negro
slaves who had been bred in Moorish families, and allowed
only those who were said to have been instructed in the
Christian faith to bo transported to the West Indies, under
the plea that they might assist in converting infidel na
tions. But, after the culture of sugar was begun, the
BANCROFT] REVIEW OF THE HISTORY OF SLAVERY. 71
system of slavery easily overcame the scruples of men in
power. King Ferdinand himself sent from Seville fifty
slaves to labor in the mines, and promised to send more ;
and, because it was said that one negro could do the work
of four Indians, the direct transportation of slaves from
Guinea to Hispaniola was. in 1511, enjoined by a royal
ordinance, and deliberately sanctioned by successive de
crees. Was it not natural that Charles V., a youthful
monarch, at his accession in 1516, should have readily
granted licenses to the Flemings to transport negroes to
the colonies? The benevolent Las Casas, who felt for the
native inhabitants of the New World all that the purest
missionary zeal could inspire, and who had seen them
vanish away like dew before the cruelties of the Spaniards
while the African thrived under the tropical sun, in 1517
suggested that negroes might still further be employed to
perform the severe toils which they alone could endure.
The board of trade at Seville was consulted, to learn how
many slaves would be required ; four for each Spanish
emigrant had been proposed ; deliberate calculation fixed
the number at four thousand a year. In 1518 the mo
nopoly, for eight years, of annually importing four thou
sand slaves into the West Indies was granted by Charles
V. to La Bresa, one of his favorites, and was sold to the
Genoese. The buyers of the contract purchased their
slaves of the Portuguese, to whom a series of papal bulls
had indeed granted the exclusive commerce with Western
Africa ; but the slave-trade between Africa and America
was never expressly sanctioned by the see of Rome. Leo
X. declared that "not the Christian religion only, but
Nature herself, cries out against the state of slavery."
Paul III., two years after he had given authority to make
slaves of every English person who would not assist in
the expulsion of Henry VIII., in two separate briefs im-
72 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [BANCROFT
precated a curse on the Europeans who should enslave
Indians, or any other class of men. Ximenes, the stern
grand-inquisitor, the austere but ambitious Franciscan,
refused to sanction the introduction of negroes into His-
paniola, believing that the favorable climate would in
crease their numbers and infallibly lead them to a success
ful revolt. Hayti, the first spot in America that received
African slaves, was the first to set the example of African
liberty.
The odious distinction of having first interested England
in the slave-trade belongs to Sir John Hawkins. In 1562
he transported a large cargo of Africans to Hispaniola ;
the rich returns of sugar, ginger, and pearls attracted the
notice of Queen Elizabeth ; and five years later she took
shares in a new expedition, though the commerce, on the
part of the English, in Spanish ports, was by the law of
Spain illicit, as well as by the law of morals detestable.
Conditional servitude, under indentures or covenants,
had from the first existed in Virginia. Once at least
James sent over convicts, and once at least the city of
London a hundred homeless children from its streets.
The servant stood to his master in the relation of a
debtor, bound to discharge by his labor the costs of
emigration. White servants came to be a usual article
of merchandise. They were sold in England to be trans
ported, and in Virginia were to be purchased on ship
board. Not the Scots only, who were taken in the field
of Dunbar, were sold into servitude in New England, but
the royalist prisoners of the battle of Worcester. The
leaders in the insurrection of Penruddoc, in spite of the
remonstrance of Haselrig and Henry Yane, were shipped
to America. At the corresponding period, in Ireland, the
exportation of Irish Catholics was frequent. In 1672, the
average price in the colonies, where five years of service
BANCROFT] REVIEW OF THE HISTORY OF SLAVERY. 73
were due, was about ten pounds, while a negro was worth
twenty or twenty-five pounds.
The condition of apprenticed servants in Virginia dif
fered from that of slaves chiefly in the duration of their
bondage ; the laws of the colony favored their early en
franchisement. But this state of labor easily admitted
the introduction of perpetual servitude. In the month
of August, 1619, five years after the commons of France
had petitioned for the emancipation of every serf in every
fief, a Dutch man-of-war entered James River and landed
twenty negroes for sale. This is the sad epoch of the
introduction of negro slavery ; but the traffic would have
been checked in its infancy had it remained with the
Dutch. Thirty years after this first importation of Afri
cans, Virginia to one black contained fifty whites; and,
after seventy years of its colonial existence, the number
of its negro slaves was proportionably much less than in
several Northern States at the time of the war of inde
pendence. Had no other form of servitude been known
in Virginia than of men of the same race, every difficulty
would have been promptly obviated. But the Ethiopian
and Caucasian races were to meet together in nearly
equal numbers beneath a temperate zone. Who could
foretell the issue ? The negro race, from its introduction,
was regarded with disgust, and its union with the whites
forbidden under ignominious penalties.
II. D
74 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [Srow
SAM LAWSON, THE VILLAGE DO-NOTHING.
HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.
[The author of the celebrated " Uncle Tom's Cabin, ' daughter of
the Rev. Lyman Beecher, and sister of the noted pulpit-orator Henry
Ward Beecher, was born at Litchfield, Connecticut, in 1812. The im
mediate and extraordinary popularity of the work above named is one
of the curiosities of literature, and its total sale was unpreoedentedly
large. Mrs. Stowe has written many other novels, in all of which she
displays an insight into human nature, rich powers of description,
earnest pathos, and a command of language unsurpassed by those of
any other American novelist. " Oldtown Folks," from which we take
our selection, is a more polished and finished work than " Uncle Tom's
Cabin," and as a character-picture of New England life in a past gen
eration it must be viewed as a work of high art. It has not its equal,
in this respect, in American literature.]
" WAL, naow, Horace, don't ye cry so. "Why, I'm railly
eunsarned for ye. Why, don't you s'pose your daddy's
better off? "Why, sartin Jdo. Don't cry, there's a good
boy, now. I'll give ye my jack-knife, now."
This was addressed to me the day after my father's
death, while the preparations for the funeral hung like a
pall over the house, and the terror of the last cold mys
tery, the tears of my mother, and a sort of bustling dreari
ness on the part of my aunts and grandmother, all con
spired to bear down on my childish nerves with fearful
power. It was a doctrine of those good old times, no less
than of many in our present days, that a house invaded
by death should be made as forlorn as hands could make
it. It should be rendered as cold and stiff, as unnatural, as
dead and corpse-like, as possible, by closed shutters, looking-
glasses pinned up in white sheets, and the locking up and
hiding out of sight of any pleasant little familiar object
which would be thought out of place in a sepulchre. This
SAM LA WSON, THE VILLAGE DO-NOTHING. 75
work had been driven through with unsparing vigor by
Aunt Lois, who looked like one of the Fates as she remorse
lessly cleared away every little familiar object belonging
to my father, and reduced every room to the shrouded
stillness of a well-kept tomb.
Of course no one thought of looking after ine. It was
not the fashion of those days to think of children, if only
they would take themselves off out of the way of the
movements of the grown people ; and so I had run out
into the orchard back of the house, and, throwing myself
down on my face under an apple-tree in the tall clover, I
gave myself up to despair, and was sobbing aloud in a
nervous paroxysm of agony, when these words were ad
dressed to me. The speaker was a tall, shambling, loose-
jointed man, with a long, thin visage, prominent watery
blue eyes, very fluttering and seedy habiliments, who oc
cupied the responsible position of first do-nothing-in-ordi-
nary in our village of Oldtown, and as such I must intro
duce him to my readers' notice.
Every New England village, if you only think of it,
must have its do-nothing as regularly as it has its school-
house or meeting-house. Nature is always wide awake
in the matter of compensation. Work, thrift, and indus
try are such an incessant steam-power in Yankee life, that
society would burn itself out with intense friction were
there not interposed here and there the lubricating power
of a decided do-nothing, a man who won't be hurried )
and won't work, and will take his ease in his own way, in
spite of the whole protest of his neighborhood to the con
trary. And there is on the face of the whole earth no do-
nothing whose softness, idleness, general inaptitude to
labor, and everlasting, universal shiftlessness can compare
with that of this worthy, as found in a brisk Yankee
village.
76 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
Sam Lawson filled this post with ample "honor in Old-
town. He was a fellow dear to the souls of all " us boys"
in the village, because, from the special nature of his po
sition he never had anything more pressing to do thun
croon and gossip with us. He was ready to spend hours
in tinkering a boy's jack-knife or mending his skate, or
start at the smallest notice to watch at a woodchuck's
hole, or give incessant service in tending a dog's sprained
paw. He was always on hand to go fishing with us on
Saturday afternoons ; and I have known him to sit hour
after hour on the bank, surrounded by a troop of boys,
baiting our hooks and taking off our fish. He was a soft
hearted old body, and the wrigglings and contortions of our
prey used to disturb his repose, so that it was a regular
part of his work to kill the fish by breaking their necks
when he took them from the hooks.
" "Why, lordy massy, boys," he would say, " I can't bear
to see no kind o' critter in torment. These 'ere pouts
ain't to blame for bein' fish, and ye ought to put 'em out
of their misery. Fish hes their rights as well as any
on us."
Nobody but Sam would have thought of poking through
the high grass and clover on our back lot to look me up,
as I lay sobbing under the old apple-tree, the most in
significant little atom of misery that ever bewailed the
inevitable.
Sam was of respectable family, and not destitute of
education. He was an expert in at least five or six differ
ent kinds of handicraft, in all of which he had been pro
nounced by the knowing ones to be a capable workman,
" if only he would stick to it." He had a blacksmith's shop,
where, when the fit was on him, he would shoe a horse
better than any man in the county. No one could supply
a missing screw, or apply a timely brace, with more adroit-
STOWE] SAM LA WSON, THE VILLAGE DO-NOTHING. 77
ness. He could mend cracked china so as to be almost as
good as new ; he could use carpenter's tools as well as a
born carpenter, and would doctor a rheumatic door or a
shaky window better than half the professional artisans
in "wood. No man could put a refractory clock to rights
with more ingenuity than Sam, that is, if you would
give him his time to be about it.
I shall never forget the wrath and dismay which he
roused in my aunt Lois's mind by the leisurely way in
which, after having taken our own venerable kitchen
clock to pieces, and strewn the fragments all over the
kitchen, he would roost over it in endless incubation, tell
ing stories, entering into long-winded theological discus
sions, smoking pipes, and giving histories of all the other
clocks in Oldtown, with occasional memoirs of those in
Needmore, the North Parish, and Podunk, as passively
indifferent to all her volleys of sarcasm and contempt, her
stinging expostulations and philippics, as the sailing old
moon is to the frisky, animated barking of some puppy
dog of earth.
" Why, ye see, Miss Lois," he would say, " clocks can't
be druv; that's jest what they can't. Some things can be
druv, and then ag'in some things can't, and clocks is that
kind. They's jest got to be humored. Now, this 'ere's a
'mazin' good clock ; give me my time on it, and I'll have
it so 'twill keep straight on to the Millennium."
" Millennium !" says Aunt Lois, with a snort of infinite
contempt.
" Yes, the Millennium," says Sam, letting fall his work
in a contemplative manner. " That 'ere's an interestin'
topic, now. Parson Lothrop he don't think the Millennium
will last a thousand years. What's your 'pinion on that
pint, Miss Lois?"
" My opinion is," said Aunt Lois, in her most nipping
ii. 7*
78 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
tones, " that if folks don't mind their own business, and
do with their might what their hand finds to do, the Mil
lennium won't come at all."
" Wai, you see, Miss Lois, it's just here, one day is
with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years
as one day."
" I should think you thought a day was a thousand
years, the way you work," said Aunt Lois.
" Wai," said Sam, sitting down with his back to his
desperate litter of wheels, weights, and pendulums, and
meditatively caressing his knee as he watched the sailing
clouds in abstract meditation, "ye see, ef a thing's or
dained, why it's got to be, ef you don't lift a finger. That
'ere's so now, ain't it ?"
" Sam Lawson, you are about the most aggravating
creature I ever had to do with. Here you've got our
clock all to pieces, and have been keeping up a perfect
hurrah's nest in our kitchen for three days, and there you
sit maundering and talking with your back to your work,
fussing about the Millennium, which is none of your busi
ness, or mine, as I know of! Do either put that clock
together or let it alone !"
" Don't you be a grain uneasy, Miss Lois. Why, I'll
have your clock all right in the end, but I can't be druv.
Wai, I guess I'll take another spell on't to-morrow or
Friday."
Poor Aunt Lois, horror-stricken, but seeing herself ac
tually in the hands of the imperturbable enemy, now es
sayed the tack of conciliation. " Now do, Lawson, just
finish up this job, and I'll pay you down, right on the
spot ; and you need the money."
"I'd like to 'blige ye, Miss Lois; but ye see money ain't
everything in this world. Ef I work tew long on one
thing, my mind kind o' gives out, ye see ; and, besides,
STOWE] SAM LAWSON, THE VILLAGE DO-NOTHING. 79
I've got some 'sponsibilities to 'tend to. There's Mrs.
Captain Brown, she made me promise to come to-day and
look at the nose o' that 'ere silver teapot o' hern ; it's kind
o' sprung a leak. And then I 'greed to split a little oven-
wood for the "VViddah Pedee, that lives up on the Shelburn
road. Must visit the widdahs in their affliction, Scriptur'
says. And then there's Hepsy : she's allers a-castin' it up
at me that I don't do nothing for her and the chil'en ; but
then, lordy massy, Hepsy hain't no sort o' patience. Why,
jest this mornin' I was a-tellin' her to count up her mar-
cies, and I 'clare for't if I didn't think she'd 'a' throwed
the tongs at me. That 'ere woman's temper railly makes
me consarned. "Wai, good-day, Miss Lois. I'll be along
igain to-morrow or Friday, or the first o' next week."
And away he went with long, loose strides down the vil
lage street, while the leisurely wail of an old fuguing tuno
floated back after him,
" Thy years are an
Etarnal day,
Thy years are an
Etarnal day."
"An eternal torment," said Aunt Lois, with a snap.
" I'm sure, if there's a mortal creature on this earth that
I pity, it's Hepsy Lawson. Folks talk about her scold
ing: that Sam Lawson is enough to make the saints in
heaven fall from grace. And you can't do anything with
him : it's like charging bayonet into a wool-sack."
Now, the Hepsy thus spoken of was the luckless woman
whom Sam's easy temper, and a certain youthful reputa
tion for being a capable fellow, had led years before into
the snares of matrimony with him, in consequence of
which she was encumbered with the bringing-up of six
children on very short rations. She was a gnarly, com-
80 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [Slow*
pact, efficient little pepper-box of a woman, with snapping
black eyes, pale cheeks, and a mouth always at half-cock,
ready to go off with some sharp crack of reproof at the
shoreless, bottomless, and tideless inefficiency of her hus
band. It seemed to be one of those facts of existence
that she could not get used to, nor find anywhere in her
brisk, fiery little body a grain of cool resignation for
Day after day she fought it with as bitter and intense a
vigor, and with as much freshness of objurgation, as if it
had come upon her for the first time, just as a sharp,
wiry little terrier will bark and bark from day to day,
with never-ceasing pertinacity, into an empty squirrel-hole.
She seemed to have no power within her to receive and as
similate the great truth that her husband was essentially,
and was to be and always would be, only a. do-nothing.
Poor Hepsy was herself quite as essentially a do-some
thing, an early-rising, bustling, driving, neat, efficient,
capable little body, who contrived, by going out to day's
works, washing, scrubbing, cleaning, by making vests
for the tailor, or closing and binding shoes for the shoe
maker, by hoeing corn and potatoes in the garden at most
unseasonable hours, actually to find bread to put into the
mouths of the six young ravens aforesaid, and to clothe
them decently. This might all do very well ; but when
Sam who believed with all his heart in the modern doc
trines of woman's rights so far as to have no sort of ob
jection to Hepsy's sawing wood or hoeing potatoes if she
chose would make the small degree of decency and pros
perity the family had attained by these means a text on
which to preach resignation, cheerfulness, and submission,
then Hepsy's last cobweb of patience gave out, and she
often became, for the moment, really dangerous, so that
Sam would be obliged to plunge hastily out of doors to
avoid a strictly personal encounter.
STOWE] SAM LAWSON, THE VILLAGE DO-NOTHING. 81
It was not to be denied that poor Hepsy really was a
scold, in the strong old Saxon acceptation of the word.
She had fought life single-handed, tooth and nail, with all
the ferocity of outraged sensibilities, and had come out of
the fight scratched and dishevelled, with few womanly
graces. The good-wives of the village, versed in the outs
and ins of their neighbors' affairs, while they admitted
that Sam was not all he should be, would sometimes roll
up the whites of their eyes mysteriously, and say, " But
then, poor man, what could you expect, when he hasn't a
happy home ? Hepsy's temper is, you know," etc., etc.
The fact is, that Sam's softly easy temper and habits of
miscellaneous handiness caused him to have a warm corner
in most of the households. No mothers ever are very
hard on a man who always pleases the children ; and
every one knows the welcome of a universal gossip, who
carries round a district a wallet of choice bits of neigh
borhood information.
Kow, Sam knew everything about everybody. He
could tell Mrs. Major Broad just what Lady Lothrop gave
for her best parlor carpet, that was brought over from Eng
land, and just on what occasions she used the big silver
tankard, and on what they were content with the little
one, and how many pairs of long silk stockings the min
ister had, and how many rows of stitching there were
on the shoulders of his Sunday shirts. He knew just all
that was in Deacon Badger's best room, and how many
silver tablespoons and teaspoons graced the beaufet in the
corner, and when each of his daughters was born, and
just how Miss Susy came to marry as she did, and who
wanted to marry her and couldn't. He knew just the
cost of Major Broad's scarlet cloak and shoe-buckles, and
how Mrs. Major had a real Ingy shawl up in her " cam-
phire" trunk, that cost nigh as much as Lady Lothrop's
82 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [STOWE
Nobody had made love, or married, or had children born,
or been buried, since Sam was able to perambulate the
country, without his informing himself minutely of every
available particular; and his unfathomable knowledge on
these subjects was an unfailing source of popularity.
Besides this, Sam was endowed with no end of idle ac
complishments. His indolence was precisely of a turn
that enjoyed the excitement of an occasional odd bit of
work with which he had clearly no concern, and which
had no sort of tendency toward his own support or that
of his family. Something so far out of the line of practi
cal utility as to be in a manner an artistic labor would
awaken all the energies of his soul. His shop was a per
fect infirmary for decayed articles of virtu from all the
houses for miles around. Cracked china, lame teapots,
broken shoe-buckles, rickety tongs, and decrepit fire-irons,
all stood in melancholy proximity, awaiting Sam's happy
hours of inspiration ; and he was always happy to sit down
and have a long, strictly confidential conversation concern
ing any of these with the owner, especially if Hepsy were
gone out washing, or on any other work which kept her
at a safe distance.
Sam could shave and cut hair as neatly as any barber,
and was always in demand up and down the country
to render these offices to the sick. He was ready to go
for miles to watch with invalids, and a very acceptable
watcher he made, beguiling the night hours with endless
stories and legends. He was also an expert in psalmody,
having in his youth been the pride of the village singing-
school. In those days he could perform reputably on the
bass-viol in the choir of a Sunday with a doleful ness and
solemnity of demeanor in the highest degree edifying,
though he was equally ready of a week-evening in scrap
ing on a brisk little fiddle, if any of the thoughtless ones
STOWK] SAM LAWSON, THE VILLAGE DO-NOTHING. 83
Canted a performer at a husking- or a quilting frolic.
Sam's obligingness was many-sided, and he was equally
prepared at any moment to raise a funeral psalm or whis
tle the time of a double-shuffle.
But the more particular delight of Sam's heart was in
funerals. He would walk miles on hearing the news of
a dangerous illness, and sit roosting on the fence of the
premises, delighted to gossip over the particulars, but
ready to come down at any moment to do any of the odd
turns which sickness in a family makes necessary; and
when the last earthly scene was over, Sam was more than
ready to render those final offices from which the more
nervous and fastidious shrink, but in which he took almost,
a professional pride.
The business of an undertaker is a refinement of modern
civilization. In simple old days neighbors fell into one
another's hands for all the last wants of our poor mortal
ity ; and there were men and women of note who took a
particular and solemn pride in these mournful offices.
Sam had in fact been up all night in our house, and, hav
ing set me up in the clover, and comforted me with a jack-
knife, he proceeded to inform me of the particulars.
" Why, ye see, Horace, I ben up with 'em pretty mucn
all night ; and I laid yer father out myself, and I never
see a better-lookin' corpse. It's a 'mazin' pity your daddy
hed such feelin's 'bout havin' people come to look at him,
'cause he does look beautiful, and it's ben a long time
since we've hed a funeral, anyway, and everybody was
expectin' to come to his'n, and they'll all be dissap'inted
if the corpse ain't show'd ; but then, lordy massy, folks
oughtn't to think hard on't ef folks hes their own way
'bout their own funeral. That 'ere's what I've ben a-
tellin' on 'em all, over to the tavern and round to the store.
Why, you never see sich a talk as there was about it
84 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [STOWK
There was Aunt Sally Morse, and Betsey and Patsy Sawin,
and Mis' Zeruiah Bacon, come over early to look at the
corpse, and when they wasn't let in, you never heerd sich
a jawin'. Betsey and Patsy Sawin said that they allers
suspected your father was an infidel, or some sich, and
now they was clear; and Aunt Sally she asked who made
his shroud, and when she heerd there wasn't to be none,
he was laid out in his clothes, she said she never heerd
euch unchristian doin's. that she always had heerd he
had strange opinions, but she never thought it would come
to that."
" My father isn't an infidel ; and I wish I could kill 'em
for talking so," said I, clinching my jack-knife in my
small fist, and feeling myself shake with passion.
" Wai, wal, I kind o' spoke up to 'em about it. I wasn't
a-goin' to hear no sich jaw ; and says I, ' I think ef there
is anybody that knows what's what about funerals I'm
the man, fur I don't s'pose there's a man in the county
that's laid out more folks, and set up with more corpses,
and ben sent for fur and near, than I have, and my opin
ion is that mourners must always follow the last directions
gi'n to 'em by the person. Ef a man hesn't a right to
have the say about his own body, what hes he a right to ?'
Wal, they said that it was putty well of me to talk so,
when I had the privilege of settin' up with him, and seein'
all that was to be seen. ' Lordy massy,' says I, ' I don't see
why ye need envi me ; 'tain't my fault that folks thinks
it's agreeable to have me round. As to bein' buried in
his clothes, why, lordy massy, 'tain't nothin' so extraor
dinary. In the old country great folks is very often laid
out in their clothes. 'Member, when I was a boy, old Mr.
Sanger, the minister in Deerbrook, was laid out in his
gown and bands, with a Bible in his hands, and he looked
as nateral as a pictur'. I was at Parson Eider's funeral,
STOWE] SAM LA WSON, THE VILLAGE DO-NOTHING. 85
down to Wrentham. He was laid out in white flannel.
But then there was old Captain Bigelow, down to the Pint
there, he was laid out regular in his rigimentals, jest as
he wore 'em in the war, epaulets and all.' Wai, now,
Horace, your daddy looks jest as peaceful as a psalm-tune.
Now, you don't know, jest as nateral as if he'd only jest
gone to sleep. So ye may set your heart at rest 'bout
him."
It was one of those beautiful serene days of October,
when the earth lies as bright and still as anything one
can dream of in the New Jerusalem, and Sam's homely
expressions of sympathy had quieted me somewhat. Sam,
tired of his discourse, lay back in the clover, with his
hands under his head, and went on with his moralizing :
" Lordy massy, Horace, to think on't, it's so kind o'
solemnizin' ! It's one's turn to-day, and another's to-mor
row. We never know when our turn'll come." And Sam
raised a favorite stave,
" And must these active limbs of mine
Lie mouldering in the clay ?"
" Active limbs ! I guess so !" said a sharp voice, whicn
came through the clover-heads like the crack of a rifle.
" Well, I've found you at last. Here you be, Sam Lawson,
lyin' flat on your back at eleven o'clock in the morning,
and not a potato dug, and not a stick of wood cut to get
dinner with ; and I won't cut no more, if we never have
dinner. It's no use a-humorin' you, doin' your work for
you. The more I do, the more I may do : so come home,
won't you ?"
" Lordy massy, Hepsy," said Sam, slowly erecting him
self out of the grass, and staring at her with white eyes,
" you don't ought to talk so. I ain't to blame. I hed to
ii 8
86 **<ST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
sit up with Mr. Holyoke all night, and help 'em lay him
out at four o'clock this mornin'."
" You're always everywhere but where you've business
to be," said Hepsj T , " and helpin' and doin' for everybody
but your own. For my part, I think charity ought to
begin at home. You're everywhere, up and down and
round, over to Shelbun, down to Podunk, up to North
Parish ; and here Abram and Kiah Stebbins have been
waitin' all the morning with a horse they brought all the
way from Boston to get you to shoe."
" Wai, now, that 'ere shows they know what's what. I
told Kiah that ef they'd bring that 'ere horse to me I'd
tend to his huffs."
" An be off lying in the mowing, like a patridge, when
they come after ye. That's one way to do business," said
Hepsy.
"Hepsy, I was just a miditatin'. Ef we don't miditate
sometimes on all these 'ere things, it'll be wus for us by
and by."
" Meditate ! I'll help your meditations in a way you
won't like, if you don't look out. So now you come home,
and stop your meditatin', and go to doin' somethin'. I
told 'em to come back this afternoon, and I'd have you on
the spot if 'twas a possible thing," said the very practical
Hepsy, laying firm hold of Sam's unresisting arm and
leading him away captive.
LOWELL] THE COURTIN 1 . 87
THE COURTIN',
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
[The humorous pastoral was never more neatly conceived and
amusingly executed than in Lowell's " Courtin'," one of those in
imitable bits of poetry which appear but once in a generation am'
form in themselves a fame for their authors.]
GOD makes sech nights, all white an' still
Fur'z you can look or listen,
Moonshine an' snow on field an' hill,
All silence an' all glisten.
Zekle crep' up quite unbeknown
An' peeked in thru' the winder,
An' there sot Huldy all alone,
'ith no one nigh to hender.
A fireplace filled the room's one side
With half a cord o' wood in,
There warn't no stoves (tell comfort died)
To bake ye to a puddin'.
The wa'nut logs shot sparkles out
Towards the pootiest, bless her,
An' leetle flames danced all about
The chiny on the dresser.
Agin the chimbley crook-necks hung,
An' in amongst 'em rusted
The old queen's-arm thet gran'ther Young
Fetched back from Concord busted.
88 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [LowELT
The very room, coz she was in,
Seemed warm from floor to ceilin',
An' she looked full ez rosy ag'in
Ez the apples she was peelin'.
'Twas kin' o' kingdom-come to look
On sech a blessed cretur ;
A dog-rose blushin' to a brook
Ain't modester nor sweeter.
He was six foot o* man, A 1,
Clear grit an' human natur' ;
None couldn't quicker pitch a ton
Nor dror a furrer straighter.
He'd sparked it with full twenty gals,
Hed squired 'em, danced 'em, druv 'em,
Fust this one, an' then thet, by spells,
All is, he couldn't love 'em.
But long o' her his veins 'ould run
All crinkly like curled maple ;
The side she breshed felt full o' sun
Ez a south slope in Ap'il.
She thought no v'ice hed sech a swing
Ez hisn in the choir ;
My ! when he made Ole Hunderd ring,
She knowed the Lord was nigher.
An' she'd blush scarlit, right in prayer,
When her new meetin'-bunnet
Felt somehow thru' its crown a pair
O' blue eyes sot upon it.
LOWELL] THE COURTING
Thet night, I tell ye, she looked some I
She seemed to've got a new soul,
For she felt sartin-sure he'd come,
Down to her very shoe-sole.
She heered a foot, an' knowed it tu,
A-raspin' on the scraper ;
All ways to once her feelin's flew,
Like sparks in burnt-up paper.
He kin' o' 1'itered on the mat,
Some doubtfle o' the sekle ;
His heart kep' goin' pity-pat,
But hern went pity Zekle.
An' yit she gin her cheer a jerk
Ez though she wished him furder,
An' on her apples kep' to work,
Parin' away like murder,
" fou want to see my Pa, I s'pose ?"
" "Wai. ... no .... I come designin' "
" To see my Ma ? She's sprinklin' clo'es
Ag'in' to-morrer's i'nin'."
To say why gals acts so or so,
Or don't, 'ould be presumin' ;
Mebby to mean yes an' say no
Comes nateral to women.
He stood a spell on one foot fust,
Then stood a spell on t'other,
An' on which one he felt the wust
He couldn't ha' told ye nuther.
:i. 8*
90 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
Says he, " I'd better call ag'in ;"
Says she, "Think likely, Mister;"
Thet last word pricked him like a pin,
An' .... Wai, he up an' kist her.
"When Ma bimeby upon 'em slips,
Huldy sot pale ez ashes,
All kin' o' smily roun' the lips
An' teary roun' the lashes.
For she was jes' the quiet kind
Whose naturs never vary,
Like streams that keep a summer mind
Snow-hid in Jenooary.
The blood clost roun' her heart felt glued
Too tight for all expressing
Tell mother see how metters stood,
An' gin 'em both her blessin'.
Then her red come back like the tide
Down to the Bay o' Fundy,
An' all I know is, they was cried
In meetin' come nex' Sunday.
PRIMITIVE FORMS OF THE ORDEAL.
HENRY C. LEA.
[Mr. Lea comes from a family of high intelligence and literary
standing. He is the grandson of Mathew Carey, one of our earliest
writers on Political Economy, and a son of Isaac Lea, of high note as
an American naturalist. Mr. Lea was born in Philadelphia in 1825.
LEA] PRIMITIVE FORMS OF THE ORDEAL. 91
As a publisher he succeeded to the business of the celebrated publish
ing-house of Mathew Carey & Sons, established in the last century. As
an author he has devoted himself to certain phases of history hereto
fore but imperfectly treated. His "Superstition and Force," " His
torical Sketch of Sacerdotal Celibacy in the Christian Church," and
" Studies in Church History" are works of great learning and value.
From the first-named we ofler an illustrative extract.]
TURNING to the still savage races of the Old "World, we
everywhere find these superstitions in full force. Africa
furnishes an ample store of them, varying from the cru
dest simplicity to the most deadly devices. Among the
Kalabarese, for instance, the afia-edet-ibom is administered
with the curved fang of a snake, which is dexterously
inserted under the lid and around the ball of the eye of
the accused ; if innocent, he is expected to eject it by
rolling the eye, while, if unable to do so, it is removed
with a leopard's tooth, and he is condemned. Even ruder,
and more under the control of the operator, is the afla-
ibnot-idiok, in which a white and a black line are drawn on
the skull of a chimpanzee : this is held up before the de
fendant, when an apparent attraction of the white line
towards him demonstrates his innocence, or an inclination
of the black line in his direction pronounces his guilt.
More formidable than these is the ordeal-nut, containing
a deadly poison which causes frothing at the mouth, con
vulsions, paralysis, and speedy death. In capital cases, or
even when sickness is attributed to hostile machinations,
the abiadiong, or sorcerer, decides who shall undergo the
trial ; and, as the active principle of the nut can be ex
tracted by preliminary boiling, judicious liberality on the
part of the individual selected is supposed to render the
ordeal comparatively harmless.
Throughout a wide region of Western Africa, one of the
most popular forms of ordeal is that of the red water, or
92 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [LEA
<l sassy-bark." In the neighborhood of Sierra Leone, as
described by Dr. Winterbottom, it is administered by re
quiring the accused to fast for twelve hours and then to
swallow a small quantity of rice. After this the infusion
of the bark is taken in large quantities, as much as a gal
lon being sometimes employed : if it produces emesia, so
as to eject all of the rice, the proof of innocence is com
plete, but if it fails in this, or if it acts as a purgative, the
accused is pronounced guilty. It has narcotic properties,
also, a manifestation of which is likewise decisive against
the sufferer. Among some of the tribes this is determined
by placing on the ground small sticks about eighteen
inches apart, or by forming an archway of limbs of trees
bent to the ground, and requiring the patient to pick his
way among them, a feat rendered difficult by the vertigi
nous effects of the poison. Although death not infre
quently results from the ordeal itself, yet the faith reposed
in these trials is so absolute that, according to Dr. Living
stone, they are demanded with eagerness by those accused
of witchcraft, confident in their own innocence, and be
lieving that the guilty alone can suffer. When the red
water is administered for its emetic effects, the popular
explanation is that the fetish enters with the draught,
examines the heart of the accused, and, on finding him
innocent, returns with the rice as evidence. A system
directly the reverse of all this is found in Ashantee, where
sickness in the ordeal is a sign of innocence, and the lex
talionis is strictly observed. When evidence is insufficient
to support a charge, the accuser is made to take an oath
as to the truth of his accusation, and the defendant is then
required to chew a piece of odum wood and drink a pitcher
of water. If no ill effects ensue, he is deemed guilty, and
is put to death ; while if he becomes sick, he is acquitted,
and the accuser suffers in his stead.
LEA] PRIMITIVE FORMS OF THE ORDEAL. 93
Further to the east in the African continent, the Niam-
Niam and the neighboring tribes illustrate the endless
variety of form of which the ordeal is susceptible. These
savages resort to various kinds of divination, which are
equally employed as a guidance for the future in all im
portant undertakings and as means to discover the guilt
or the innocence of those accused of crime. The principal
of these is the borru, in which two polished pieces of
damma wood are rubbed together, after being moistened
with a few drops of water. If they glide easily on each
other, the sign is favorable ; if they adhere together, it is
unfavorable. Life and death are also brought in play, but
vicarious victims are made the subject of experiment.
Thus, a cock is taken and its head is repeatedly immersed
in water until the creature is rigid and insensible ; if it
recovers, the indication is favorable, if it dies, adverse.
Or an oil extracted from the bengye wood is administered
to a hen, and the same conclusions are drawn from its
survival or death.
In Madagascar the poison ordeal is less humanely ad
ministered, with a decoction of the deadly nut of the Tan-
gena (Tanghinia venenifera). One of the modes of its
application is evidently based on the same theory as the
ordeal of red water and rice, to which it bears a notable
resemblance. A fowl is boiled, and three pieces of its skin
are placed in the broth. Then a cupful of the decoction
of the Tangena nut is given to the accused, followed by
the same quantity of the broth, with the pieces of skin.
Unless the poison speedily causes vomiting, it soon kills
the patient, which is a satisfactory proof of his guilt. If
vomiting ensues, it is kept up by repeated doses of the
broth and warm water, and if the bits of skin are ejected
the accused is declared innocent ; but if they are retained
he is deemed convicted and is summarily despatched with
94 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [LEA
another bowl of the poison. In the persecutions of 1836
and 1849 directed against the Malagasy Christians, many
of the converts were tried with the Tangena nut, and
numbers of them perished.
Springing from the same belief is the process used in
Tahiti for discovering the criminal in cases of theft. The
priest, when applied to, digs a hole in the clay floor of his
hut, fills it with water, and stands over it with a young
plantain in his hand, while invoking his god. The deity
thereupon conducts the spirit of the thief over the water,
and his reflection is recognized by the priest.
The races of the Indian Archipelago are fully equipped
with resources of the same kind for settling doubtful cases.
o
Among the Dyaks of Borneo questions for which no other
solution is apparent are settled by giving to each litigant
a lump of salt, which they drop simultaneously into water,
and he whose lump dissolves soonest is adjudged the loser;
or each takes a living shell and places it on a plate, when
lime-juice is squeezed over them, and the one whose shell
first moves under his gentle stimulant is declared the
winner.
The black Australioid Khonds of the hill-districts of
Orissa confirm the universality of these practices by
customs peculiar to themselves which may be assumed as
handed down by tradition from prehistoric times. Not
only do they constantly employ the ordeals of boiling
water and oil and red-hot iron, which they may have bor
rowed from their Hindu neighbors, but they administer
judicial oaths with imprecations that are decidedly of the-
character of ordeals. Thus, an oath is taken on a tiger's
skin, with an invocation of destruction from that animal
upon the perjured ; or upon a lizard's skin, whose scalinesa
is invited upon him who may forswear himself; or over
an ant-hill, with an imprecation that he who swears falsely
LEA] PRIMITIVE FORMS OF THE ORDEAL. 95
may be reduced to powder. A more characteristic ordeal
is that used in litigation concerning land, when a portion
of earth from the disputed possession is swallowed by
each claimant, in the belief that it will destroy him whose
pretensions are false. On very solemn occasions, a sheep
is killed in the name of Tari Pennu, the dreadful earth-
goddess ; rice is then moistened with its blood, and this is
administered, in the full conviction that she will slay the
rash litigant who insults her power by perjury.
The hill-tribes of Eajmahal, who represent another of
the pre-Aryan Indian races, furnish us with further de
velopments of the same principle, in details bearing a
marked analogy to those practised by the most diverse
families of mankind. Thus, the process by which the
guilt of Achan was discovered (Joshua vii. 16-18), and
that by which, as we shall see hereafter, Master Anselm
proposed to identify the thief of the sacred vessels of Laon,
are not unlike the ceremony used when a district is rav
aged by tigers or by pestilence, which is regarded as a
retribution for sin committed by some inhabitant, whose
identification thus becomes all-important for the salvation
of the rest. In the process known as Satane a person sits
on the ground with a branch of the bale-tree planted op
posite to him ; rice is handed to him to eat in the name
of the village of the district, and when the one is named
in which the culprit lives, he is expected to throw up the
rice. Having thus determined the village, the same plan
is adopted with respect to each family in it, and when tho
family is identified, the individual is discovered in the
same manner. Another form, named Cherreen, is not un
like the ordeal of the Bible and key, not as yet obsolete
among Christians. A stone is suspended by a string, and
the names of the villages, families, and individuals are
repeated, when it indicates the guilty by its vibrations.
96 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [LEA
Thieves are also discovered and convicted by these pro
cesses, and by another mode known as Gobereen, which is
a modification of the hot- water ordeal. A mixture of cow-
dung, oil, and water is made to boil briskly in a pot. A
ring is thrown in, and each suspected person, after in
voking the Supreme Deity, is required to find and bring
out the ring with his hand, the belief being that the in
nocent will not be burned, while the guilty will not be
able to put his hand into the pot, as the mixture will rise
up to meet it.
Reverting to the older races, we find no trace of formal
ordeals in the fragmentary remains out of which Egyp
tologists thus far have succeeded in reconstructing the
antique civilization of the Nile valley ; but the intimate
dependence of man on the gods, and the daily interposi
tion of the latter in human affairs, taught by the prophets
of the temples and reverently accepted by the people,
render it almost certain that in some shape or other the
divine judgment was frequently consulted in judicial pro
ceedings where human wisdom was at fault. This prob
ably took the form of reference to the oracles which
abounded in every Egyptian nome. Indeed, a story re
lated by Herodotus would seem to show that such an
interpellation of the divine power was habitual in prose
cutions when evidence of guilt was deficient. Aames II.,
before he gained the crown, was noted for his reckless and
dissolute life, and was frequently accused of theft and
carried to the nearest oracle, when he was convicted or
acquitted according to the response. On ascending the
throne, he paid great respect to the shrines where he had
been condemned, and neglected altogether those where he
had been absolved, saying that the former gave true and
the latter lying responses.
The Semitic races, while not giving to the ordeal the
LEA] PRIMITIVE FORMS OF THE ORDEAL. 97
development which it has received among the Aryans,
still afford sufficient manifestation of its existence among
them. Chaldean and Assyrian institutions have not as
yet been sufficiently explored for us to state with positive-
ness whether or not the judgment of God was a recognized
resource of the puzzled dispenser of justice ; but the prob
abilities are strongly in favor of some processes of the kind
being discovered when we are more fully acquainted with
their judicial system. The constant invocation of the
gods, which forms so marked a feature of the cuneiform
inscriptions, indicates a belief in the divine guidance of
human affairs which could hardly fail to find expression
in direct appeals for light in the administration of justice.
The nearest approach, however, to the principle of the
ordeal which has thus far been deciphered is found in the
imprecations commonly expressed in contracts, donations,
and deeds, by which the gods are invoked to shed all the
curses that can assail humanity on the heads of those who
shall evade the execution of their plighted faith, or seek
to present false claims. Akin to this, moreover, was the
penalty frequently expressed in contracts, whereby their
violation was to be punished by heavy fines, the greater
part of which was payable into the treasury of some
temple.
Among the Hebrews, as a rule, the interposition of
Yahveh was expected directly, without the formulas
which human ingenuity has invented to invite and ascer
tain the decisions of the divine will. Still, the combat of
David and Goliath has been cited as a model and justifica
tion of the judicial duel ; and there are some practices
described in Scripture which are strictly ordeals, and
which were duly put forth by the local clergy throughout
Europe when struggling to defend the system against the
prohibitions of the Papacy. When the man who blas-
ii, E g 9
98 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [LBA
phemed the Lord (Levit. xxiv. 11-16) was kept in ward
" that the mind of the Lord might be showed them," and
the Lord ordered Moses to have him stoned by the whole
congregation, we are not told the exact means adopted to
ascertain the will of Yahveh, but the appeal was identical
in principle with that which prompted the mediaeval judg
ment of God. The use of the lot, moreover, which was
so constantly employed in the most important and sacred
matters, was not a mere appeal to chance, but was a sacred
ceremony performed " before the Lord at the door of the
tabernacle of the congregation" to learn what was the
decision of Yahveh. The lot was also used, if not as a
regular judicial expedient, at all events in unusual cases
as a mode of discovering criminals, and its results were
held to be the undoubted revelation of Omniscience. It
is more than probable that the Urim and Thummim were
lots, and that they were not infrequently used, as in the
cases of Achan and Jonathan. And the popular belief in
the efficacy of the lot is manifested in Jonah's adventure
(Jonah i. 7), when the sailors cast lots to discover the sin
ner whose presence brought the tempest upon them. The
most formal and absolute example of the ordeal, however,
was the Bitter "Water by which conjugal infidelity was
convicted and punished (Numb. v. 11-31). This curious
and elaborate ceremony, which bears so marked an anal
ogy to the poison ordeals, was abandoned by order of R.
Johanan ben Saccai about the time of the Christian era,
and is too well known to require more than a passing al
lusion to the wealth of Haggadistic legend and the inter
minable controversies and speculations to which it has
given rise. I may add, however, that Aben Ezra and
other Jewish commentators hold that when Moses burnt
the golden calf and made the Israelites drink the water
in which its ashes were cast (Exod. xxxii. 20), he admin-
GRISWOLD] PROGRESS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE. 99
istered an ordeal, like that of the Bitter Water, which in
some way revealed those who had been guilty of idolatry,
so that the Levites could slay them ; and Selden explains
this by reference to a tradition according to which the
gold of the calf reddened the beards of those who had
worshipped it, and thus rendered them conspicuous.
THE PROGRESS AND PROSPECTS OF LITERATURE IN
AMERICA.
R. W. GRISWOLD.
[Kufus "Wilmot Griswold is best known as the editor of several valu
able compilations of American literature, entitled " The Prose Writers
of America," " The Poets and Poetry of America," and " The Female
Poets of America." In these works ho shows excellent judgment and
discrimination in his biographical and critical notices of the authors
treated, and displays an attractive literary style of his own. From his
introduction to " The Prose Writers of America," in which the con
ditions and prospects of American literature are treated at considerable
length, we select a statement of his general views on the subject. He
was born in Benson, Kutland County, Vermont, in 1815, and died in
New York City in 1857.]
I NEED not dwell upon the necessity of Literature and
Art to a people's glory and happiness. History with all
her voices joins in one judgment upon this subject. Our
legislators, indeed, choose to consider them of no conse
quence, and while the States are convulsed by claims from
the loom and the furnace for protection, the demands of the
parents of freedom, the preservers of arts, the dispensers
of civility, are treated with silence. But authors and
artists have existed and do exist here in spite of such
100 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [GRISWOL&
outlawry ; and, notwithstanding the obstacles in our con
dition, and the discouragements of neglect, the Anglo-
Saxon race in the United States have done as much in the
fields of Investigation, Reflection, Imagination, and Taste,
in the present century, as any other twelve millions of
people about our average number for this period in the
world.
Doubtless there are obstacles, great obstacles, to the
successful cultivation of letters here ; but they are not so
many nor so important as is generally supposed. The
chief difficulty is a want of patriotism, mainly proceeding
from and perpetuated by the absence of a just law of
copyright. There is indeed no lack of that spurious love
of country which is ever ready to involve us in aimless
and disgraceful war ; but there is little genuine and lofty
national feeling; little clear perception of that which
really deserves affection and applause ; little intelligent
and earnest effort to foster the good we possess or acquire
the good we need.
It has been the fate of colonists in all ages to consider
the people from among whom they made their exodus
both morally and intellectually superior to themselves,
and the parent state has had thus a kind of spiritual
added to her political sovereignty. The American prov
inces quarrelled with England, conquered, and became a
separate nation ; and we have since had our own Presi
dents and Congresses ; but England has continued to do
the thinking of a large class here, of men who have
arrogated to themselves the title of critics, of our sham
sort of men, in all departments. We have had no confi
dence in ourselves ; and men who lack self-reliance are
rarely successful. We have not looked into our own hearts.
We have not inquired of our own necessities. When we
have written, instead of giving a free voice to the spirit
GRISWOLD] PROGRESS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE. 101
within us, we have endeavored to write after some foreign
model. We have been so fearful of nothing else as of
an Americanism, in thought or expression. He has been
deemed greatest who has copied some transatlantic author
with most successful servility. The noisiest demagogue
who affects to despise England will scarcely open a book
which was not written there. And if one of our country
men wins some reputation among his fellows, it is gener
ally because he has been first praised abroad.
The commonly urged barriers to literary advancement
supposed to exist in our form of government, the nature
of our institutions, the restless and turbulent movements
of our democracy, and the want of a wealthy and privi
leged class among us, deserve little consideration. Tumult
and strife, the clashing of great interests and high excite
ments, are to be regarded rather as aids than as obstacles
to intellectual progress. Prom Athens came the choicest
literature and the finest art. Her philosophers, so calm
and profound, her poets, the dulcet sounds of whose lyres
still charm the ears of succeeding ages, wrote amid con
tinual upturnings and overthrows. The best authors of
Eome also were senators and soldiers. Milton, the great
est of the prose writers as well as the greatest of the
poets of England, lived in the Commonwealth, and par
ticipated in all its political and religious controversies.
And what repose had blind Mseonides, or Camoens, or
Dante, or Tasso? In the literature of Germany and
France, too, the noblest works have been produced amid
the shocks of contending elements.
Nor is the absence of a wealthy class, with leisure for
such tranquil pursuits, to be much lamented. The privi
leged classes of all nations have been drones. We have,
in the Southern States of this republic, a large class, with
ample fortunes, leisure, and quiet; but they have done
n. 9*
102 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [GRISWOLD
comparatively nothing in the fields of intellectual exer
tion, except when startled into spasmodic activity by con
flicts of interest with the North.
To say truth, most of the circumstances usually set
down as barriers to eesthetical cultivation here are directly
or indirectly advantageous. The real obstacles are gener
ally of a transient kind. Many of them are silently dis
appearing; and the rest would be soon unknown if we
had a more enlightened love of country, and the making
of our laws were not so commonly confided to a sort of
men whose intellects are too mean or whose principles are
too wicked to admit of their seeing or doing what is just
and needful in the premises. That property which is most
actual, the only property to which a man's right is posi
tive, unquestionable, indefeasible, exclusive, his genius,
conferred as by letters patent from the Almighty, is held
to be not his, but the public's, and therefore is not brought
into use. . . . Nevertheless, much has been accomplished ;
great advancement has been made against the wind and
tide ; and at this time the aspects and prospects of our
affairs are auspicious of scarcely anything more than
of the successful cultivation of National Literature and
National Art.
I use the word National because whatever we do well
must be done in a national spirit. The tone of a great
work is given or received by the people among whom it
is produced, and so is national, as an effect or as a cause.
While the spirit which animates the best literature of any
country must be peculiar to it, its subjects may be chosen
from the world. It is absurd to suppose that Indian chiefs
or republican soldiers must be the characters of our works
of imagination, or that our gloomy forests, or sea-like
prairies, or political committee rooms must be their scenes.
Paradise Lost and Utopia are as much portions of British
GRISWOLD] PROGRESS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE. 103
Literature as Alfred, or London Assurance. It may be
regarded as one of the greatest dangers to which our lit
erature is exposed, indeed, that so many are mistaken as
to what should distinguish it. Some writers, by no means
destitute of abilities, in their anxiety to be national have
merely ceased to be natural. Their works may be origi
nal, but the men and manners they have drawn have no
existence. Least of all do they exist in America. The
subjects for the novelist and the poet in our own country
are to be preferred because they are striking from their
freshness, and because the physical condition of a country,
having a powerful influence upon the character of its in
habitants, naturally furnishes the most apposite illustra
tions of their feelings and habits ; but a " national work"
may as well be written about the builders of the Pyramids
as about the mound-builders. In our literature we must
regard all men as equal in point of privilege, the church
as the whole company of God's acceptable worshippers,
the state as a jomt stock in which every one holds a share.
It must be addressed to the national feelings, vindicate
the national principles, support the national honor, be
animated by an expansive sympathy with humanity. It
must teach that the interests of man are the highest con
cern of men. . . .
There is an absurd notion abroad that we are to create
an entirely new literature. Some critics in England ex
pect us, who write the same language, profess the same
religion, and have in our intellectual firmament the same
Bacon, Sidney, and Locke, the same Spenser, Shakespeare,
and Milton, to differ more from themselves than they
differ from the Greeks and the Eomans, or from any of
the moderns. This would be harmless, but that many
persons in this country, whose thinking is done abroad, are
constantly echoing it, and wasting their little productive
104 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [GRISWOLD
energy in efforts to comply with the demand. But there
never was and never can be an exclusively national litera
ture. All nations are indebted to each other and to pre
ceding ages for the means of advancement ; and our own,
which from our various origin may be said to be at the
confluence of the rivers of time which have swept through
every country, can with less justice than any other be
looked to for mere novelties in art and fancy. The ques
tion between us and other nations is not who shall most
completely discard the Past, but who shall make best use
of it. The Past belongs not to one people, but to those
who best understand it. It cannot be studied too deeply,
for unless men know what has been accomplished they
will exhaust themselves in unfolding enigmas that have
been solved, or in pursuing ignes-fatui that have already
disappointed a thousand expectations. The Eeformation
had an extraordinary influence upon the literatures of the
world, and some such influence has been exerted by our
Revolution and the establishment of our institutions. The
intellectual energy of America has been felt far more in
Europe than its own, for the period of our national ex
istence, has been felt here; and with all the enslaving
deference to foreign authority and all the imitation of
foreign models of which we have had to complain in our
inferior authors, there has been no want of the truest
nationality in our Franklin, Webster, Channing, Cooper,
Prescott, Bancroft, Bryant, Whittier, and others, in almost
every department, who have written with an integrity of
understanding and feeling.
It has been objected to our society that it is too prac
tical. It has been supposed that this national character
istic forbids the expectation of great achievements in the
highest domains of art. But the question Cui bono f should
always be entertained. Utility is in everything the truest
GRISWOLD] PROGRESS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE. 105
of principles, though more intelligence and liberality than
belong to a low state of civilization are necessary to its
just appreciation and application. "Whatever contributes
to the growth and satisfaction of the mind, whatever has
in it any absolute beauty, is beginning to be regarded as
not less useful than that which ministers to our physical
necessities. All works, even of imagination, must have in
them something of genuineness and earnestness. Poets,
and novelists, and essayists, when they write, must look
not only into their minds, but into their hearts. To per
sons of the sensibility and refinement which are insepa
rable from high cultivation, all truth is of a practical value,
and in the most aerial creations it will be demanded by the
first order of critics.
The old sources of intellectual excitement seem to be
wellnigh exhausted. Love will still be sung, but in no
sweeter strains than those of Petrarch or Tasso ; Courage
such as is celebrated by the old poets and romancers is
happily in disrepute; Eeligion, as it has commonly ap
peared in the more elegant forms of literature, has not
been of a sort that ennobles man or pleases God ; and
Ambition, for the most part, has been of a more grovelling
kind than may be looked for under the new forms of
society. Christian virtue is no longer the observance of
senseless pagan forms that have been baptized, but " the
love of truth, for its own beauty and sweetness j" and the
desire of man is not so much to win titles and power, as
the consciousness or the reputation of doing something
that shall entitle him to the general respect and gratitude.
The materials among us for the externals of literature
have been referred to. The elements of its vitality and
power, which are most clearly apprehended in this century,
though in their nature universal, for many reasons are
likely to be most active with us. "Peace on earth, and
106 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [GRISWOLD
good will to man," is here to be the principle of life and
progress, in Letters, as in Religion and Politics.
Considering the present condition of society, that new
inventions are constantly releasing immense numbers from
a portion of the toil required for the satisfaction of physi
cal necessities, and giving to all more opportunity for in
tellectual pursuits ; that steam and electricity are making
of the world a common neighborhood, knitting its remotest
parts together by interchange of fabrics and thoughts ;
that the press, in the United States alone, scatters every
hour more than the contents of the Alexandrian Library,
and is increasing in refinement and energy with the ex
pansion of its issues ; and that associations for moral and
intellectual improvement were never more numerous or
efficient, we cannot doubt that the Progress of Civiliza
tion in the coming age will be rapid and universal. This
country, which is the centre of the new order of things,
is destined to be the scene of the greatest conflicts of
opinion. Much as has been done here in literature and
art, much as we have surpassed all reasonable expectation
in the works of our philosophers, orators, historians, and
poets, while clearing away the primeval forests, organizing
society, and establishing the institutions of scientific and
literary culture, we have not yet that distinct image of
the feelings of the nation, in a great body of works in all
the departments of reflection, imagination, and taste, of
which the auspicious commencement of our literature,
and our advantageous position with regard to the most
important subjects of research and speculation, justify the
hope. Schools may be well endowed, and individuals may
labor with loving earnestness upon their life-poems, but
the whole people, by recognizing the principle of beauty
as a law of life, and cheering with their encouragement
its teachers who shall deserve their best approval, and by
GRISWOLD] PROGRESS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE. 107
cherishing a hearty love of our country, and making
ceaseless efforts to render it in all respects worthy of
affection, must aid in rearing the noble structure of a
National Literature that shall fulfil our promise to man
kind, and realize the prophecy which nearly a century ago
was made of our destiny by one of the wisest of the sons
of Europe.
The Muse, disgusted at an age and clime
Barren of every glorious theme,
In distant lands now waits a better time,
Producing subjects worthy fame.
In happy climes, where from the genial sun
And virgin earth such scenes ensue,
The force of art by nature seems outdone,
And fancied beauties by the true ;
In happy climes, the seat of innocence,
Where nature guides and virtue rules ;
Where men shall not impose for truth and sense
The pedantry of courts and schools,
There shall be sung another golden age,
The rise of empires and of arts,
The good and great, inspiring epic rage,
The wisest heads and noblest hearts.
Not such as Europe breeds in her decay,
Such as she bred when fresh and young,
When heavenly flame did animate her clay,
By future poets shall be sung.
Westward the course of empire takes its way ;
The first four acts already past,
A fifth shall close the drama with the day :
Time's noblest offspring is the last.
BERKELEY.
108 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [BABTKAM
CROCODILES ON THE ST. JOHN'S.
WILLIAM BARTRAM.
[The history of American science in the eighteenth century is Con
fined to a very few names, of which by far the best known are those
of Benjamin Franklin and the two Bartrams, father and son. John
Bartram was born in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, in 1701. He
und Franklin were the first Americans to gain a European reputation
as scientists, Linnaeus pronouncing John Bartram " the greatest nat
ural botanist in the world." He established a fine botanical garden
near Philadelphia, enriched with many rare plants. This garden still
remains, having in its centre the quaint old stone mansion built by
Bartram with his own hands. He died in 1777. His son William,
born in 1739, was equally active in botanical pursuits, and made a
five-years' exploration of the natural productions of the region from
the Carolinas to Florida. The work in which this expedition is de
scribed, " Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, and
East and West Florida," is full of interesting and valuable informa
tion, descriptive of a state of nature which no longer exists. Croco
dile-hunters in Florida, for instance, might not care to find their game
in such profusion as is described in the following vivid narrative.
William Bartram died in 1823.]
THE evening was temperately cool and calm. The
crocodiles began to roar and appear in uncommon num
bers along the shores and in the river. I fixed my camp
in an open plain, near the utmost projection of the prom
ontory, under the shelter of a large live-oak, which
stood on the highest part of the ground and but a few
yards from my boat. From this open, high situation I
had a free prospect of the river, which was a matter
of no trivial consideration to me, having good reason
to dread the subtle attacks of the alligators, who were
crowding about my harbor. Having collected a good
quantity of wood for the purpose of keeping up a light
BARTRAM] CROCODILES ON THE ST. JOHN'S. 109
and smoke during the night, I began to think of pre
paring my supper, when, upon examining my stores, I
found but a scanty provision. I thereupon determined, as
the most expeditious way of supplying my necessities, to
take my bob and try for some trout. Aboiit one hundred
yards above my harbor began a cove or bay of the river,
out of which opened a large lagoon. The mouth or
entrance from the river to it was narrow, but the waters
soon after spread and formed a little lake, extending into
the marshes : its entrance and shores within I observed
to be verged with floating lawns of the pistia and nym-
phea and other aquatic plants : these I knew were excel
lent haunts for trout.
The verges and islets of the lagoon were elegantly
embellished with flowering plants and shrubs ; the laugh
ing coots, with wings half spread, were tripping over the
little coves and hiding themselves in the tufts of grass ;
young broods of the painted summer teal, skimming the
still surface of the waters, and following the watchful
parent unconscious of danger, were frequently surprised
by the voracious trout; and he, in turn, as often by the
subtle, greedy alligator. Behold him rushing forth from
the flags and reeds. His enormous body swells. His
plaited tail, brandished high, floats upon the lake. The
waters like a cataract descend from his opening jaws.
Clouds of smoke issue from his dilated nostrils. The
earth trembles with his thunder. When immediately
from the opposite coast of the lagoon emerges from the
deep his rival champion. They suddenly dart upon each
other. The boiling surface of the lake marks their rapid
course, and a terrific conflict commences. They now sink
to the bottom, folded together in horrid wreaths. The
water becomes thick and discolored. Again they rise.
Their jaws clap together, re-echoing through the deep
ii. 10
110 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [BARTRAM
surrounding forests. Again they sink, when the contest
ends at the muddy bottom of the lake, and the vanquished
makes a hazardous escape, hiding himself in the muddy,
turbulent waters and sedge on a distant shore. The proud
victor exulting returns to the place of action. The shores
and forests resound his dreadful roar, together with the
triumphing shouts of the plaited tribes around, witnesses
of the horrid combat.
My apprehensions were highly alarmed after being a
spectator of so dreadful a battle. It was obvious that
every delay would but tend to increase my dangers and
difficulties, as the sun was near setting, and the alligators
gathered around my harbor from all quarters. From
these considerations I concluded to be expeditious in
my trip to the lagoon in order to take some fish. Not
thinking it prudent to take my fusee with me, lest I
might lose it overboard in case of a battle, which I had
every reason to dread before my return, I therefore fur
nished myself with a club for my defence, went on board,
and, penetrating the first line of those which surrounded
my harbor, they gave way ; but, being pursued by several
very large ones, I kept strictly on the watch, and paddled
with all my might towards the entrance of the lagoon,
hoping to be sheltered there from the multitude of my
assailants ; but ere I had half-way reached the place I was
attacked on all sides, several endeavoring to overset the
canoe. My situation now became precarious to the last
degree : two very large ones attacked me closely, at the
same instant, rushing up with their heads and part of
their bodies above the water, roaring terribly and belching
floods of water over me. They struck their jaws together
so close to my ears as almost to stun me, and I expected
every moment to be dragged out of the boat and instantly
devoured. But I applied my weapons so effectually about
BARTRAM] CROCODILES ON THE ST. JOHN'S. HI
me, though at random, that I was so successful as to beat
them off a little; when, finding that they designed to
renew the battle, I made for the shore, as the only means
left me for my preservation ; for by keeping close to it I
should have my enemies on one side of me only, whereas
I was before surrounded by them ; and there was a prob
ability, if pushed to the last extremity, of saving myself
by jumping out of the canoe on shore, as it is easy to out
walk them on land, although comparatively as swift as
lightning in the water. I found this last expedient alone
could fully answer my expectations, for as soon as I
gained the shore they drew off and kept aloof. This was
a happy relief, as my confidence was in some degree re
covered by it. On recollecting myself, I discovered that
I had almost reached the entrance of the lagoon, and de
termined to venture in, if possible, to take a few fish, and
then return to my harbor, while daylight continued ; for
I could now, with caution and resolution, make my way
with safety along shore ; and indeed there was no other
way to regain my camp, without leaving my boat and
making my retreat through the marshes and reeds, which,
if I could even effect, would have been in a manner
throwing myself away, for then there would have been
no hopes of ever recovering my bark and returning in
safety to any settlements of men. I accordingly proceeded,
and made good my entrance into the lagoon, though not
without opposition from the alligators, who formed a line
across the entrance, but did not pursue me into it ; nor
was I molested by any there, though there were some
very large ones in a cove at the upper end. I soon caught
more trout than I had present occasion for, and the air
was too hot and sultry to admit of their being kept for
many hours, even though salted or barbecued. I now
prepared for my return to camp, which I succeeded in
112 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [BARTRAM
with but little trouble, by keeping close to the shore; yet
I was opposed upon re-entering the river out of the lagoon,
and pursued near to my landing (though not closely at
tacked), particularly by an old daring one, about twelve
feet in length, who kept close after me ; and when I
stepped on shore and turned about, in order to draAv up
my canoe, he rushed up near my feet, and lay there for
some time, looking me in the face, his head and shoulders
out of water. I resolved he should pay for his temerity,
and, having a heavy load in my fusee, I ran to my camp,
and, returning with my piece, found him with his foot on
the gunwale of the boat, in search offish. On my coming
up he withdrew sullenly and slowly into the water, but
soon returned and placed himself in his former position,
looking at me, and seeming neither fearful nor anyway
disturbed. I soon despatched him by lodging the contents
of my gun in his head, and then proceeded to cleanse and
prepare my fish for supper, and according^ took them out
of the boat, laid them down on the sand close to the water,
and began to scale them ; when, raising my head, I saw
before me, through the clear water, the head and shoulders
of a very large alligator, moving slowly towards me. I
instantly stepped back, when, with a sweep of his tail, he
brushed off several of my fish. It was certainly most
providential that I looked up at that instant, as the mon
ster would probably in less than a minute have seized and
dragged me into the river. This incredible boldness of
the animal disturbed me greatly, supposing there could
now be no reasonable safety for me during the night but
by keeping continually on the watch : I therefore, as soon
as I had prepared the fish, proceeded to secure myself and
effects in the best manner I could. In the first place, I
hauled my bark up on the shore, almost clear out of the
water, to prevent their oversetting or sinking her ; after
BAKTRAM] CROCODILES ON THE ST. JOHN'S. 113
this, every movable was taken out and carried to my camp,
which was but a few yards off; then, ranging some dry
wood in such order as was the most convenient, I cleared
the ground round about it, that there might be no impedi
ment in my way in case of an attack in the night, either
from the water or the land ; for I discovered by this time
that this small isthmus, from its remote situation and
fruitfulness, was resorted to by bears and wolves. Hav
ing prepared myself in the best manner I could, I charged
my gun and proceeded to reconnoitre my camp and the
adjacent grounds ; when I discovered that the peninsula
and grove, at the distance of about two hundred yards
from my encampment, on the land side, were invested by
a cypress-swamp, covered with water, which below was
joined to the shore of the little lake, and above to the
marshes surrounding the lagoon : so that I was confined
to an island exceedingly circumscribed, and I found there
was no other retreat for me, in case of an attack, but by
either ascending one of the large oaks or pushing off with
my boat.
It was by this time dusk, and the alligators had nearly
ceased their roar, when I was again alarmed by a tumult
uous noise that seemed to be in my harbor and therefore
engaged my immediate attention. Returning to my camp,
I found it undisturbed, and then continued on to the ex
treme point of the promontory, where I saw a scene, new
and surprising, which at first threw my senses into such
u tumult that it was some time before I could comprehend
what was the matter ; however, I soon accounted for the
prodigious assemblage of crocodiles at this place, which
exceeded everything of the kind I had ever heard of.
How shall I express myself so as to convey an adequate
idea of it to the reader and at the same time avoid raising
suspicions of my veracity ? Should I say that the river
u. h 10*
114 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [BARTRAM
(in this place) from shore to shore, and perhaps near half
a mile above and below me, appeared to be one solid bank
of fish, of various kinds, pushing through this narrow
pass of St. Juan's into the little lake, on their return down
the river, and that the alligators were in such incredible
numbers, and so close together from shore to shore, that
it would have been easy to have walked across on their
heads, had the animals been harmless ? What expressions
can sufficiently declare the shocking scene that for some
minutes continued, while this mighty army of fish were
forcing the pass ? During this attempt, thousands, I may
say hundreds of thousands, of them were caught and
swallowed by the devouring alligators. I have seen an
alligator take up out of the water several great fish at a
time, and just squeeze them betwixt his jaws, while the
tails of the great trout flapped about his eyes and lips ere
he had swallowed them. The horrid noise of their closing
jaws, their plunging amidst the broken banks of fish, and
rising with their prey some feet upright above the water,
the floods of water and blood rushing out of their mouths,
and the clouds of vapor issuing from their wide nostrils,
were truly frightful. This scene continued at intervals
during the night, as the fish came to the pass. After this
eight, shocking and tremendous as it was, I found myself
somewhat easier and more reconciled to my situation,
being convinced that their extraordinary assemblage here
was owing to this annual feast of fish, and that they were
BO well employed in their own element that I had little
occasion to fear their paying me a visit.
It being now almost night, I returned to my camp,
where I had left my fish broiling and my kettle of rice
stewing ; and, having with me oil, pepper, and salt, and
excellent oranges hanging in abundance over my head (a
valuable substitute for vinegar), I sat down and regaled
MC.MASTEK] LIFE IN PHILADELPHIA IN 1800. 115
myself cheerfully. Having finished my repast, I rekindled
my fire for light, and, whilst I was revising the notes of
my past day's journey, I was suddenly roused with a
noise behind me toward the mainland. I sprang up on
my feet, and, listening, I distinctly heard some creature
wading in the water of the isthmus. I seized my gun
and went cautiously from my camp, directing my steps
towards the noise: when I had advanced about thirty
yards, I halted behind a coppice of orange-trees, and soon
perceived two very large bears, which had made their way
through the water, and had landed in the grove, about one
hundred yards' distance from me, and were advancing
towards me. I waited until they were within thirty yards
of me ; they there began to snuff and look towards my
camp : I snapped my piece, but it flashed, on which they
both turned about and galloped off, plunging through
the water and swamp, never halting, as I suppose, until
they reached fast land, as I could hear them leaping and
plunging a long time. They did not presume to return
again, nor was I molested by any other creature, except
being occasionally awakened by the whooping of owls,
screaming of bitterns, or the wood-rats running amongst
the leaves.
LIFE IN PHILADELPHIA IN 1800.
JOHN B. McMASTER.
[Of late historical works there are none which have attracted more
attention, or have been more favorably received, than the " History of
the People of the United States," by John Bach McMaster. The two
volumes of this work so far issued are full of those minute details of
social and industrial conditions, and matters of popular interest, which
116 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [McMxsTEK
readers now demand as an essential part of all true history. Mr.
McMaster was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1852. Since 1883 he
has been professor of history in the University of Pennsylvania.]
THE law then required every householder to be a fire
man. His name might not appear on the rolls of any of
the fire-companies, he might not help to drag through the
streets the lumbering tank which served as a fire-engine,
but he must at least have in his hall-pantry, or beneath
the stairs, or hanging up behind his shop door, four
leathern buckets inscribed with his name, and a huge bag
of canvas or of duck. Then, if he were aroused at the
dead of night by the cry of fire and the clanging of every
church-bell in the town, he seized his buckets and his bag,
and, while his wife put a lighted candle in the window
to illuminate the street, set off for the fire. The smoke
or the flame was his guide, for the custom of fixing the
place of the fire by a number of strokes on a bell had not
yet come in. When at last he arrived at the scene he
found there no idle spectators. Each one was busy.
Some hurried into the building and filled their sacks with
such movable goods as came nearest to hand. Some joined
the line that stretched away to the water, and helped to
pass the full buckets to those who stood by the flames.
Others took posts in a second line, down which the empty
pails were hastened to the pump. The house would often
be half consumed when the shouting made known that
the engine had come. It was merely a pump mounted
over a tank. Into the tank the water from the buckets
was poured, and pumped thence by the efforts of a dozen
men. No such thing as a suction-hose was seen in Phila
delphia till 1794. A year later one was made which
became the wonder of the city. The length was one
hundred and sixty feet. The material was canvas, and,
to guard against decay, was carefully steeped in brine
McHASTER] LIFE IN PHILADELPHIA IN 1800. 117
The fire-buckets, it was now thought, should be larger,
and a motion to that effect was made in the Common
Council. But when it was known that the new buckets,
if ordered, must hold ten quarts, the people protested.
Ten quarts would weigh twenty pounds, and the bucket
five pounds more. This was too much ; for, as everybody
knew, the lines at a fire were often made up of boys and
'ads not used to passing heavy weights. Eight quarts
was enough. Much could also be accomplished by cutting
the city into fire-wards and giving a different color to the
buckets of each ward. They could then be quickly sorted
when the fire was put out. At New London five fire
wardens took charge of the engines and all who aided in
putting out fires. To disobey a warden's order was to
incur a fine of one pound. If a good leatherp bucket was
not kept hanging in some convenient place in the house,
and shown to the warden when he called, six shillings a
month was exacted as punishment. At New York, how
ever, it was long before the buckets gave way to the hose.
There, if a householder were old, or feeble, or rich, and
not disposed to quit a warm bed to carry his buckets to
the fire, he was expected at least to send them by his
servant or his slave. When the flames had been extin
guished, the buckets were left in the street, to be sought
out and brought home again by their owners. If the
constables performed this duty, the corporation exacted a
six-shilling fine for each pail. This was thought excessive,
and caused much murmuring and discontent. Some people
undoubtedly, it was said, were careless in looking for their
buckets after a fire. These could easily be made diligent
by a small fine. A great one was a strong temptation to
the constables to hide away the buckets to get the reward.
Others, again, having come down the line empty, were
tossed into the river so carelessly as to fill and sink in-
118 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [McMASTBB
stantly. Innocent people were thus put to needless ex
pense. Let some one be appointed and paid to fill the
buckets properly. While so disagreeable a part was vol
untary, it was very hard to find a man to do it well. It
would be wise, also, to renew the old custom of inspecting
chimneyB, stoves, and ash-houses. They were fruitful
sources of fire.
That nothing should be left undone that could lessen
the chances of destruction by fire was most important.
Few buildings and little property were at that time in
sured. The oldest company in New York had existed but
twelve years. Forty-five years had not gone by since the
first fire-insurance policy in America began to run. Early
in February, 1752, a notice came out in the Pennsylvania
Gazette inviting such prudent citizens of Philadelphia as
wished to insure their houses from loss by fire, to meet at
the court-house. There, every seventh day, subscriptions
would be taken till the thirteenth of April. Many came,
and, on the April day named in the notice, chose twelve
directors and a treasurer. At the head of the poll stood
Benjamin Franklin. He has, therefore, often been sup
posed to have founded the Philadelphia Contributorship
for the Insurance of Houses from Loss by Fire. But the
father of fire-insurance in the United States is, beyond a
doubt, John Smith. The contributors took risks in Phila
delphia, and in so much of the country as lay within ten
miles of the town. The rate was twenty shillings on a
hundred pounds. The policy was for seven years. The
premium was in the nature of a loan. Every man who
insured his dwelling or his shop left a few shillings with
the treasurer, had his property surveyed, and in a week's
time, if all went well, deposited the premium. The con
tributors then nailed their " mark" to the front of his
building. When the seven years were out, the money was
McMlSTEB] LIFE IN PHILADELPHIA IN 1800. 119
returned without interest, or the insurance renewed. It
was announced, however, that the company would take no
risks on houses surrounded by shade-trees. They inter
fered with the use of buckets, and the huge syringe which,
at that time, every man carried to the fire with his pail.
A rival, therefore, started up, took these dangerous risks,
and assumed as the mark it fastened to patrons' houses
the image of a green tree.
The houses thus covered by insurance were, in general,
of a comfortable but unpretentious sort. They were all
alike, both without and within, and each had on the lower
floor two connecting rooms. If the owner were a trades
man, the front room was his shop. If he were a lawyer,
it was his ofiice. If a doctor, it was there he saw his pa
tients, compounded his prescriptions, and kept his drugs ;
for only the great practitioners then sent their patients to
the apothecary. The rear room was for family use. There
they met at meal-time, and in the evening there they sat
and drank tea. Above-stairs the front room extended
across the whole house. People of fashion spoke of it as
the tea-room or the drawing-room ; but among those who
affected no fashion it passed by the name of parlor. In,
it the tea-parties by invitation were held. On such occa
sions the hostess alone sat at the table. The guests were
scattered about the room, and to them the servants brought
tea and rusks and cake, and sometimes fruit and wine.
"When the gathering was less formal, when some friends
or neighbors, as the custom was, had come in unbidden to
tea, the little room behind the office or the shop was used.
Then all sat about the long table, and, tea over, listened
to music and songs. Every man and woman who had
wen a fair voice was in turn called on to sing. The others,
it was expected, could at least play. Among instruments
the German flute was a favorite, and for women the four-
120 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [McMASTEB
stringed guitar; but not the violin. That was ungenteel,
for Lord Chesterfield had pronounced it so. To the ac
companiment of the guitar and flute the men sang hunt
ing-songs, and the women Scotch ballads and English airs
" Water parted from the Sea," " Fair Aurora, pray thee
Stay," " In Infancy our Hopes and Fears," " Bess of Bed
lam," and " Queen Mary's Lament," were favorites every
where. There were those who heard with delight " Hark,
away to the Downs," and " I love them All."
There were others also who looked down on such inno
cent amusement with contempt. To their ears no musio
was pleasing which did not form part of some French
opera and was not to be heard at a concert in a tea-garden
or a public hall. French manners had corrupted them.
Since the fall of the Bastile, it was said complainingly, every
Republican must dress like a Frenchman, and every Fed
eralist like a subject of King George. If you happen to
oppose the administration, you must go regularly to the
shop of M. Sansculotte, before whose door is a flaring
liberty-pole, painted tricolor and surmounted with a red
cap of liberty, and have your hair cut a la Brutus ; your
pantaloons must fit tight to the leg and come down to
your yellow top-boots, or, better yet, your shoes. If you
persist in wearing breeches and silk stockings and square-
toed boots, then are you an old fogy, or a Federalist, which
is the same thing, and must inscribe your brass buttons,
" Long live the President."
The folly of the French dress was a source of never-
ending amusement. Satire, raillery, invective, the lamen
tations of the weeping philosopher, and the exhortations
of the preacher, were exhausted in ^ain. Dress became
every season more and more hideous, more and more
uncomfortable, more and more devoid of good sense and
good taste. Use and beauty ceased to be combined. The
McMASTER] LIFE IN PHILADELPHIA IN 1800. 121
pantaloons of a beau went up to his armpits ; to get into
them was a morning's work, and, when in, to sit down
was impossible. His hat was too small to contain his
handkerchief, and was not expected to stay on his head.
His hair was brushed from the crown of his head toward
his forehead, and looked, as a satirist of that day truly
said, as if he had been fighting an old-fashioned hurricane
backward. About his neck was a spotted linen necker
chief; the skirts of his green coat were cut away to a
mathematical point behind ; his favorite drink was brandy,
and his favorite talk of the last French play. Then there
was the " dapper beau," who carried a stick much too
short to reach the ground, twisted his Brutus-cropped
hair into curls, and, upon the very crown of his head,
wore a hat of a snuff-box size. But the politest man on
earth was the shopkeeping beau. He would jump over
a counter four feet high to pick up a lady's handkerchief,
made the handsomest bows, said the best things, and could
talk on any subject, from the odor of a roll of pomatum
to the vulgarity of not wearing wigs.
Even these absurdities were not enough, and, when 1800
began, fashion was more extravagant still. Then a beau
was defined as anything put into a pair of pantaloons
with a binding sewed round the top and called a vest.
The skirts of the coat should be pared away to the width
of a hat-band, and, if he was doomed to pass his time in
the house, he would require a heavy pair of round-toed
jack-boots with a tassel before and behind. These pro
vided, lift him, said the satirist, lift him by the cape of the
coat, pull his hair over his face, lay a hat on his forehead,
put spectacles on his nose, and on no account let his hands
escape from the pockets of his pantaloons. Women were
thought worse than the men. To determine the style of
their dress, Fashion, Decency, and Health, the statement
II.- F 11
122 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [McMxsTEB
was, ran a race. Decency lost her spirits, Health was
bribed by a quack-doctor, so Fashion won.
Such must drink tea in the alcoves, the arbors, the
shady walks, of Gray's Garden. They must visit Bush
Hill, hear the music, see the fireworks, and watch the
huge figure walk about the grounds. For them, too, were
the Assembly and the play. The Assembly-Eoom was at
Oeller's Tavern, and made one of the sights of the town.
The length was sixty feet. The walls were papered in
the French fashion, and adorned with Pantheon figures,
festoons, pilasters, and groups of antique drawings. Across
one end was a fine music-gallery. The rules of the As
sembly were framed and hung upon the wall. The man
agers had entire control. Without their leave, no lady
could quit her place in the dance, nor dance out of her
set, nor could she complain if they placed strangers or
brides at the head of the dance. The ladies were to rank
in sets and draw for places as they entered the room.
Those who led might call the dances alternately. When
each set had danced a country-dance, a cotillion might be
had if eight ladies wished it. Gentlemen could not come
into the room in boots, colored stockings, or undress. At
Hanover gentlemen were forbidden to enter the ball-room
" without breeches," or to dance " without coats."
Equally fine in its decorations was the theatre. Travel
lers were divided in their opinion as to whether the finest
house was at Charleston, or Boston, or Philadelphia. Bui
it seems to have been at Philadelphia. Great sums had
been laid out on the building. Gilders and painters, fres-
coers and carvers, had been brought from England to
assist in the decoration, and, mindful of the opposition
once made by the good people of the city, the managers
put Tip over the stage the words, " The Eagle suffers the
little Birds to sing." One who saw the place in 1794
McMASTER] LIFE IN PHILADELPHIA IN 1800. 123
declares that it reminded him of an English playhouse.
The scenes, the plays, the names of the actors ; the ladies
in small hats of checkered straw, or with hair in full dress
or put up in the French way, or, if they chanced to be
young, arranged in long ringlets that hung down their
backs; the men, in round hats and silk-striped coats
with high collars of English make, might well have pro
duced that effect. More than one of the players had
often been seen by the crowds that frequented the
Haymarket Theatre at London. No seats were reserved.
No tickets were sold at the door. No programmes wero
distributed. No ushers were present. Gentlemen who
left the theatre during the play, to drink flip at a neigh
boring tavern, were given printed checks as they passed
out, which, if they came back, would admit them. Out
of this custom grew three evils. Some, not intending to
return, gave away their checks to idle boys and disorderly
persons, who thus gained admittance and annoyed the
audience. Again, crowds of half-grown lads hung about
the doors and, as every one came out, beset him with de
mands for a check. In this way the tickets passed into
the hands of counterfeiters, and were sold for a shilling
to persons of low character. All this, the proprietors de
clared, was ruinous to good morals, and, in a public appeal,
begged their patrons not to give their checks to loungers.
The curtain went up at an hour when the men of our time
have scarcely returned to their homes. The entertain
ment was long and varied. Pieces now thought enough
for one night's amusement were then commonly followed
by farces and comedies, dances and tragedies, songs, pan
tomimes, and acrobatic feats. These were called interlocu
tory entertainments, and came in between the acts of the
tragedy or before and just after the farce. Sometimes
the jealousy of Othello would be relieved by the New
124 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [McMASTBR
Federal Bow- Wow, in which the singer would imitate in
succession the surly dog, the knowing dog, the king dog,
the sitting dog, the barking dog, till pit and gallery were
convulsed with laughter. Again it would be a banjo dance,
or a hornpipe by some actress of note. If " Ca ira" were
sung, the Federalists would not be quiet till Yankee Doodle
was given, whereupon the gallery would join in the chorus.
On particular occasions the programme would be made to
suit the day. On the twenty-second of February, 1797,
the Federal Street Theatre at Boston made a great display
of illuminations and transparencies, covered the pit, and
spread a fine supper on a table which stretched from the
boxes to the stage. The Haymarket Theatre, not to be
outdone, decorated its walls, had an ode written for the oc
casion, and played the tragedy of " Bunker Hill." A few
months later, when, after many trials, the famous ship
Constitution left her ways, the evening performance at the
Haymarket closed with " The Launch, or Huzza for the
Constitution," and a fine representation of the ship. As
much as three thousand dollars are known to have been
expended on the scenery of a single piece. The income of
a single night reached sixteen hundred dollars. . . .
The theatre was looked upon, and justly, as an insti
tution of questionable morality. The playhouse was not
then the quiet and well-ordered place it has since become.
Both actors and audience took liberties that would now
be thought intolerable. On one occasion, at Alexandria,
whither a company always went in racing- season, some
of the players forgot their parts. They supplied the
omissions with lines of their own composition, and even
went so far as to recite ribald passages. Thereupon they
were threatened with a pelting of oranges, eggs, and
hard apples. At another time, at Richmond, the actors
came upon the stage with books in their hands and read
MCMASTER] LIFE IN PHILADELPHIA IN 1800. 125
their parts. Some ventured to appear before the audi
ence in a state of gross intoxication. Much of the illusion
of the scenery, it was said, was yet further destroyed by
the voice of the prompter, which could be heard in all
parts of the house. From Charleston came complaints
of the misbehavior of the young men. They would enter
the theatre carrying what might well be called bludgeons,
but what they had named tippies, would keep up an in
cessant rapping on the seats, and, when remonstrance was
made, had been known to declare that a theatre, like a
tavern, was a place where a man, having paid the price of
admission, was free to do as he liked. One evening a fight
took place in the gallery. The play was instantly stopped,
the offender seized, brought upon the stage, and exposed
to public view. The performance then went smoothly on,
till a bottle was suddenly flung from the gallery to the
pit. This was too much. The men in the pit went up
into the gallery in a body, laid hold on the culprit, dragged
him on the stage, and demanded that a public apology
should be made. He refused, and was at once driven from
the house.
In the theatres at the North it often happened that the
moment a well-dressed man entered the pit he at once
became a mark for the wit and insolence of the men in
the gallery. They would begin by calling on him to doff
his hat in mark of inferiority, for the custom of wearing
hats in the theatre was universal. If he obeyed, he was
loudly hissed and troubled no more. If he refused, abuse,
oaths, and indecent remarks were poured out upon him.
He was spit at, pelted with pears, apples, sticks, stones,
and empty bottles, till he left the house. As " the blades
in the gallery" were poor marksmen, the neighbors of the
man aimed at were the chief sufferers. On one occasion
the orchestra was put to flight and some instruments
ii. 11*
126 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
broken. Then the manager came on the stage and begged
" the men in the gallery to be quiet : if they were not, he
should be compelled during all future performances to
keep the gallery shut." . . .
The stage-coach was little better than a huge covered
box mounted on springs. It had neither glass windows,
nor door, nor steps, nor closed sides. The roof was upheld
by eight posts which rose from the body of the vehicle,
and the body was commonly breast-high. From the top
were hung curtains of leather, to be drawn up when the
day was fine, and let down and buttoned when rainy and
cold. Within were four seats. Without was the baggage.
Fourteen pounds of luggage were allowed to be carried
free by each passenger. But if his portmanteau or his
brass-nail-studded hair trunk weighed more, he paid for it
at the same rate per mile as he paid for himself. Under
no circumstances, however, could he be permitted to take
with him on the journey more than one hundred and fifty
pounds. When the baggage had all been weighed and
strapped on the coach, when the horses had been attached
and the way-bill made out, the eleven passengers were
summoned, and, clambering to their seats through the
front of the stage, sat down with their faces toward the
driver's seat. On routes where no competition existed
progress was slow, and the travellers were subjected to all
manner of extortion and abuse. " Brutality, negligence,
and filching," says one, "are as naturally expected by
people accustomed to travelling in America as a mouth,
a nose, and two eyes are looked for in a man's face."
Another set out one day in March, 1796, to go from
Frenchtown to New Castle, on the Delaware. Seventeen
miles separated the two towns, a distance which, he de
clares, a good healthy man could have passed over in four
hours and a half. The stage-coach took six. When it
McM ASTER] LIFE IN PHILADELPHIA IN 1800. 127
finally reached New Castle it was high noon, the tide was
making, the wind was fair, and the boat for Philadelphia
was ready at the wharf. Yet he was detained for an hour
and a half, " that the innkeeper might scrub the passengers
out of the price of a dinner." Dinner over, the boat set
sail and ran up the river to within two miles of Gloucester
Point. There, wind and tide failing, the vessel dropped
anchor for the night. Some passengers, anxious to go on
by land, were forced to pay half a dollar each to be rowed
to the shore. At one in the morning the tide again turned.
But the master was then drunk, and, when he could be
made to understand what was said, the tide was again
ebbing, and the boat aground. Evening came before the
craft reached Philadelphia. The passengers were forty-
eight hours on board. Another came from New York by
stage and by water. He was almost shipwrecked in the
bay, lost some of his baggage at Amboy, was nearly left
by the coach, and passed twenty hours going sixteen miles
on the Delaware. The captain was drunk. The boat
three times collided with vessels coming up the river. A
gentleman set out in February to make the trip from
Philadelphia to Baltimore. Just beyond Havre de Grace
the axle broke. A cart was hired and the passengers
driven to the next stage-inn. There a new coach was
obtained, which, in the evening, overset in a wood.
Toward daylight the whole party, in the midst of a
shower of rain and snow, found shelter and breakfast at a
miserable house three miles from Baltimore. But the host
would not suffer one of them to dry his clothes by the
kitchen stove. When an editor in the town was asked to
publish an account of their trip he refused. The owners
of the coach-line might, he said, hinder the circulation of
his newspaper. To add to the vexation of such delays,
" the Apostolic Assembly of the State of Delaware" had
128 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [McMxsTER
forbidden stage-coaches to cross their " hand's-breadth of
territory" on the Sabbath. The worst bit of road in the
country seems to have been between Elkton, in Maryland,
and the Susquehanna Ferry. There the ruts were so deep
that, as the wheels were about to enter one, the driver
would call upon the passengers to lean out of the opposite
side of the coach, to prevent the vehicle being overturned.
" Now, gentlemen," he would say, " to the right." " Now,
gentlemen, to the left."
Yet another traveller had quitted Philadelphia for New
York. All went smoothly till the coach drew near to the
town of Brunswick. There one of a rival line was over
taken, and a race begun. At Elizabethtown a young
woman, well mounted, rode up behind the coach and at
tempted to pass. In an instant half the men on the stage
began to revile her most shamefully, raised a great shout,
frightened her horse, and all but unseated her. One,
indeed, ventured to expostulate. But he was quickly
silenced by the question, " What ! suffer anybody to take
the road of us ?" At New York three of the passengers
found lodgings in a single room at an inn. The custom
was a general one, and of all customs was the most offen
sive to foreigners. No such thing, it was said, was ever
seen in the British Isles. There every decent person not
only had a bed, but even a room, to himself, and, if he
were so minded, might lock his door. In America, how
ever, the traveller sat down at the table of his landlord,
slept in the first bed he found empty, or, if all were taken,
lay down on one beside its occupant without so much as
asking leave or caring who the sleeper might be. If he
demanded clean sheets, he was looked upon as an aristo
crat, and charged well for the trouble he gave ; for the
bedclothes were changed at stated times, and not to suit
the whims of travellers.
COZZENS] SEEDS AND SWINE. 129
SEEDS AND SWINE.
FREDERICK SPRAGUE COZZENS.
[From the " Sparrowgrass Papers" of F. S. Cozzens, a volume in
which shrewd observations on life in the country are mingled with
much sprightly humor, we extract one of its most amusing portions.
The author was a native of New York, where he was born in 1818.
He died in 1869. His writings were principally contributed to the
Knickerbocker and Putnam's Magazines. Several volumes of his
works in prose and verse have been published.]
IT is a good thing to have an old-fashioned fireplace
in the country, a broad-breasted, deep-chested chimney-
piece, with its old-fashioned fender, its old-fashioned and
irons, its old-fashioned shovel and tongs, and a goodly
show of cherry-red hickory, in a glow, with its volume
of blue smoke curling up the thoracic duct. " Ah, Mrs.
Sparrowgrass, what would the country be without a chim
ney-corner and a hearth ? Do you know," said I, " the
little fairies dance upon the hearth-stone when an heir is
born in a house ?" Mrs. Sparrowgrass said she did not
know it, but, she said, she wanted me to stop talking
about such things. " And the cricket," said I, " how
cheerful its carol on the approach of winter!" Mrs. S.
said the sound of a cricket made her feel melancholy.
" And the altar and the hearth-stone ; symbols of religion
and of home ! Before one the bride, beside the other
the wife ! No wonder, Mrs. Sparrowgrass, they are sacred
things, that mankind have ever held them inviolable,
and preserved them from sacrilege, in all times, and in all
countries. Do you know," said I, " how dear this hearth
is to me?" Mrs. Sparrowgrass said, with hickory wood
at eight dollars a cord, it did not surprise her to hear me
130 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [CozzEWs
grumble. " If wood were twenty dollars a cord I would
not complain. Here we have everything,
1 content,
Retirement, rural quiet, friendship, books,
Ease and alternate labor, useful life ;'
and as I sit before our household altar," said I, placing my
hand upon the mantel, " with you beside me, Mrs. S., I
feel that all the beautiful fables of poets are only truths
in parables when they relate to the hearth-stone, the
heart-stone, I may say, of home!"
This fine sentiment did not move Mrs. Sparrowgrass a
whit. She said she was sleepy. After all, I begin to
believe sentiment is a poor thing in the country. It does
very well in books and on the stage, but it will not answer
for the rural districts. The country is too genuine and
honest for it. It is a pretty affectation, only fit for artifi
cial life. Mrs. Peppergrass may wear it, with her rouge
and diamonds, in a drawing-room, but it will not pass cur
rent here, any more than the simulated flush of her cheeks
can compare with that painted in the skin of a rustic
beauty by the sun and air.
"Mrs. Sparrowgrass," said I, "let us have some nuts
and apples, and a pitcher of Binghamton cider : we have
a good cheerful fire to-night, and why should we not
enjoy it ?"
When Mrs. Sparrowgrass returned from giving direc
tions about the fruit and cider, she brought with her a
square paper box full of garden-seeds. To get good gar
den-seeds is an important thing in the country. If you
depend upon an agricultural warehouse you may be dis
appointed. The way to do is, to select the best specimens
from your own raising : then you are sure they are fresh,
At least. Mrs. Sparrowgrass opened the box. First she
COZZENS] SEEDS AND SWINE. 131
took out a package of seeds wrapped up in a newspaper ;
then she took out another package tied up in brown paper ;
then she drew forth a bundle that was pinned up, then
another that was taped up, then another twisted up;
then out came a bursted package of watermelon-seeds,
then a withered ear of corn, then another package of
watermelon-seeds from another melon, then a handful
of split okra-pods, then handsful of beans, peas, squash -
seeds, melon-seeds, cucumber-seeds, sweet corn, evergreen
corn, and other germs. Then another bursted paper of
watermelon-seeds. There were watermelon-seeds enough
to keep half the county supplied with this refreshing arti
cle of luxury. As the treasures were spread out on the
table, there came over me a feeling that reminded me of
Christmas times, when the young ones used to pant down
stairs, before dawn, lamp in hand, to see the kindly toy-
gifts of Santa Glaus. Then the Mental Gardener, taking
Anticipation by the hand, went forth into the future gar
den : peas sprouted out in round leaves ; tomato put forth
his aromatic spread ; sweet corn thrust his green blades
out of many a hillock ; lettuce threw up his slender
spoons ; beans shouldered their way into the world, like
Mi} eases, with the old beans on their backs ; and water
melon and cucumber, in voluptuous play, sported over the
beds like truant school-boys.
" Here are sweet peas, on tiptoe for a flight,
With wings of gentle flush o'er delicate white,
And taper fingers catching at all things,
To bind them all about with tiny rings."
" Now," said I, " Mrs. Sparrowgrass, let us arrange these
in proper order : I will make a chart of the garden on a
piece of paper, and put everything down with a date, to be
planted in its proper time." Mrs. Sparrowgrass said she
Z 32 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [CozzENs
thought that an excellent plan. " Yes," I replied, tasting
the cider, " we will make a garden to-night on paper, a
ground-plan, as it were, and plant from that. Now, Mrs.
S., read off the different packages."
Mrs. Sparrowgrass took up a paper, and laid it aside,
and then another, and laid it aside. " I think," said she,
as the third paper was placed upon the table, " I did not
write any names on tho seeds; but I believe I can tell
them apart. These," said she, " are watermelon." " Very
well ; what next ?" " The next," said Mrs. S., " is either
muskmelon- or cucumber-seed." " My dear," said I, " we
want plenty of melons, for the summer, but I do not wish
to plant half an acre of pickles by mistake : can't you be
sure about the matter?" Mrs. Sparrowgrass said she
could not. " Well, then, lay the paper down and call off
the next." " The next are not radishes, I know," said
Mrs. S. ; "they must be summer cabbages." "Are you
sure now, Mrs. Sparrowgrass?" said I, getting a little
out of temper. Mrs. Sparrowgrass said she was sure of
it, because cabbage-seed looked exactly like turnip-seed.
" Did you save turnip-seed also ?" said I. Mrs. Sparrow
grass replied that she had provided some, but they must
be in another paper. " Then call off the next : we will
plant them for cabbages, whether or no." " Here is a
name," said Mrs. Sparrowgrass, brightening up. "Read
it," said I, pen in hand. " Watermelons, not so good,"
said Mrs. S. " Lay that paper with the rest, and proceed/'
" Corn," said Mrs. Sparrowgrass, with a smile. " Variety ? :>
" Pop, I am sure." " Good ! now we begin to see daylight."
" Squash," said Mrs. Sparrowgrass. " Winter or summer ?"
" Both." " Lay that paper aside, my dear." ' Tomato."
" Red or yellow ?" Mrs. Sparrowgrass said she had pinned
up the one and tied up the other, to distinguish them, but
it was so long ago she had forgot which was which.
COZZENS] SEEDS AND SWINE. 133
" Never mind," said I : " there is one comfort ; they can
not bear without showing their colors. Now for the
next." Mrs. Sparrowgrass said, upon tasting the tomato-
seed, she was sure they were bell-peppers. " Very well ;
BO much is gained : we are sure of the capsicum. The
next." " Beans," said Mrs. Sparrowgrass.
There is one kind of bean in regard to which I have a
prejudice. I allude to the asparagus bean, a sort of long-
winded esculent, inclined to be prolific in strings. It does
not climb very high on the pole, but crops out in an abun
dance of pods, usually not shorter than a bill of extras
after a contract, and, although interesting as a curious
vegetable, still not exactly the bean to be highly com
mended by your city guests when served up to them at
table. When Mrs. Sparrowgrass, in answer to my question
as to the particular species of bean referred to, answered,
" Limas," I felt relief at once. " Put the Limas to the
right with the sheep, Mrs. S. ; and as for the rest of the
seeds, sweep them into the refuse-basket. I will add
another stick to the fire, pare an apple for you and an
apple for me, light a cigar, and be comfortable. What is
the use of fretting about a few seeds more or less ? But
next year we will mark all the packages with names, to
prevent mistakes; won't we, Mrs. Sparrowgrass?"
There has been a great change in the atmosphere within
a few days. The maple twigs are all scarlet and yellow
fringes ; the sod is verdurous and moist ; in the morning
a shower of melody falls from the trees around us, where
bluebirds and " pewees" are keeping an academy of music.
Off on the river there is a long perspective of shad-poles,
apparently stretching from shore to shore, and here and
there a boat, with picturesque fishermen at work over the
gill-nets. Now and then a shad is held up ; in the distance
it has a starlight glitter against the early morning sun.
n. 12
134 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [COZZENS
The fruit-trees are bronzed with buds. Occasionally a
feeble fly creeps along, like a valetudinarian too early
in the season at a watering-place. The marshes are all
a-whistle with dissipated bull-frogs, who keep up their
revelry at unseemly hours. Our great Polander is in
high cluck, and we find eggs in the hens' nests. It is
SPRING ! It is a good thing to have spring in the country.
People grow young again in the spring in the country.
The world, the old globe itself, grows young in the spring,
and why not Mr. and Mrs. Sparrowgrass ? The city, in
the spring, is like the apples of Sodom, "fair and pleasant
to behold, but dust and ashes within." But who shall
sing or say what spring is in the country ?
" To what shall I compare it?
It has a glory, and naught else can share it :
The thought thereof is awful, sweet, and holy,
Chasing away all worldliness and folly."
" Mrs. Sparrowgrass," said I, " the weather is beginning
to be very warm and spring-like ; how would you like to
have a little festaf" Mrs. Sparrowgrass said that, in her
present frame of mind, a fester was not necessary for her
happiness. I replied, "I meant a festa, not a fester; a
little fete, a few friends, a few flowers, a mild sort of spring
dinner, if you please; some music, claret, fresh lettuce,
lamb and spinach,- and a breakfast of eggs fresh laid in
the morning, with rice-cakes and coffee." Mrs. Sparrow
grass said she was willing. " Then," said I, " Mrs. S., I
will invite a few old friends, and we will have an elegant
time." So, from that day we watched the sky very
closely for a week, to ascertain the probable course of the
clouds, and consulted the thermometer to know what
chance there was of having open windows for the occa
sion. The only drawback that stood in the way of per-
COZZENS] SEEDS AND SWINE. 135
feet enjoyment was, our lawn bad been balf rooted out
of existence by an irruption of predatory pigs. It was
vexatious enough to see our lawn bottom-side up on a
festive occasion. But I determined to have redress for it.
Upon consulting with the best legal authority in the vil
lage, I was told that I could obtain damages by identify
ing the animals and commencing suit against the owners.
As I had not seen the animals, I asked Mrs. Sparrowgrass
if she could identify them. She said she could not.
" Then," said I to my legal friend, " what can I do ?" He
replied that he did not know. " Then," said I, " if they
come again, and I catch them in the act, can I fire a gun
among them?" He said I could, but that I would be
liable for whatever damage was done them. " That," said
I, " would not answer : my object is to make the owner
suffer, not the poor quadrupeds." He replied that the only
sufferers would probably be the pigs and myself. Then I
asked him, if the owner recovered against me, whether I
could bring a replevin suit against him. He said that,
under the Constitution of the United States, such a suit
could be brought. I asked him if I could recover. He
said I could not. Then I asked him what remedy I could
have. He answered that if I found the pigs on my grounds
I could drive them to the pound, then call upon the fence-
viewers, get them to assess the damages done, and by this
means mulct the owner for the trespass. This advice
pleased me highly : it was practical and humane. I de
termined to act upon it, and slept soundly upon the reso
lution. The next day our guests came up from town. I
explained the lawn to them, and, having been fortified on
legal points, instructed them as to the remedy for tres
pass. The day was warm and beautiful ; our doors and
windows were thrown wide open. By way of offset to the
appearance of the lawn, I had contrived, by purchasing
136 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
an expensive little bijou of a vase and filling it with sweet-
breathing flowers, to spread a rural air of fragrance
throughout the parlor. The doors of the bay-window
open on the piazza ; in one door-way stood a tray of deli
cate confections, upon two slender quartette-tables. These
were put in the shade to keep cool. I had suborned an
Italian to bring them up by hand, in pristine sharpness
and beauty of outline. I was taking a glass of sherry
with our old friend Captain Bacon, of the U. S. Navy,
when suddenly our dogs commenced barking. We keep
our dogs chained up by daylight. Looking over my glass
of sherry, I observed a detachment of the most villanous-
looking pigs rooting up my early-pea-patch. " Now," said
I. " captain," putting down my glass deliberately, " I will
show you some fun ; excuse me for a few minutes ;" and
with that I bowed significantly to our festal guests. They
understood at once that etiquette must give way when
pea-patch was about being annihilated. I then went out,
unchained the dogs, and commenced driving the pigs out
of the garden. After considerable trampling of all my
early vegetables, under the eyes of my guests, I managed
to get the ringleader of the swinish multitude into my
parlor. He was a large, powerful-looking fellow, with a
great deal of comb, long legs, mottled complexion, and
ears pretty well dogged. He stood for a moment at bay
against the sofa, then charged upon the dogs, ran against
the centre-table, which he accidentally upset, got headed
off by Captain Bacon, who came to the rescue, darted
under our quartette-tables, making a general distribu
tion of confectionery, and finally got cornered in the
piazza.
By this time I was so much exasperated that I was
capable of taking the life of the intruder, and probably
should have done so had my gun not been at the gun-
COZZENS] SEEDS AND SWINE. 137
smith's. In striking at him with a stick, I accidentally hit
one of the dogs such a blow as to disable him. But I was
determined to capture the destroyer and put him in the
pound. After some difficulty in getting him out of the
piazza, I drove him into the library and finally out in the
ground. The rest of his confederates were there, quietly
feeding on the remains of the garden. Finally I found
myself on the hot high-road, with all my captives and one
dog, in search of the pound. Not knowing where the
pound was, after driving them for a quarter of a mile I
made inquiry of a respectable-looking man, whom I met,
In corduroy breeches, on the road. He informed me that
he did not know. I then fell in with a colored boy, who
told me the only pound was at Dobb's Ferry. Dobb's
Ferry is a thriving village about seven miles north of the
Nepperhan. I made a bargain with the colored boy for
three dollars, and by his assistance the animals were safely
lodged in the pound. By this means I was enabled to re
turn to my guests. Next day I found out the owner. I
got the fence-viewers to estimate the damages.
The fence-viewers looked at the broken mahogany and
estimated. I spoke of the vase, the flowers (green-house
flowers), and the confectionery. These did not appear to
strike them as damageable. I think the fence-viewers
are not liberal enough in their views. The damages done
to a man's temper and constitution shall be included, if
ever I get to be fence-viewer ; to say nothing of exotica
trampled under foot, and a beautiful dessert ruthlessly
destroyed by unclean animals. Besides that, we shall
not have a pea until everybody else in the village has
done with peas. We shall be late in the season with our
early peas. At last an advertisement appeared in the
county paper, which contained the decision of the fence-
viewers, to wit :
ii. 12*
138 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [CozzENa
WEST-CHESTER COUNT r, )
> ss.
TOWN OF YONKERS. J
WE, THE SUBSCRIBERS, FENCE-VIEWERS of said town, having been
applied to by Samson Sparrowgrass, of said town, to appraise the dam
ages done by nine hogs, five wintered (four spotted and one white)
and four spring pigs (two white), distrained by him doing damage on
his lands, and having been to the place, and viewed and ascertained
the damages, do hereby certify the amount thereof to be three dollars,
and that the fees for our services are two dollars. Given under our
hands, this day of , 185-.
DANIEL MALMSEY, 1 Fence-viewers
PETER ASSMANSHAUSER, J
The above hogs are in the Pound at Dobb's Ferry.
CORNELIUS CORKWOOD, Pound-Master.
" Under the circumstances," said I, " Mrs. Sparrowgrass.
what do you think of the pound as a legal remedy ?" Mrs.
S. said it was shameful. " So I think, too ; but why should
we repine ? The birds sing, the sky is blue, the grass is
green side up, the trees are full of leaves, the air is balmy,
and the children, God bless them 1 are happy. Why should
we repine about trifles ? If we want early peas we can
buy them ; and as for the vase, flowers, and confectionery,
they would have been all over with by this time if the
pigs had not been here. There is no use to cry, like
Alexander, for another world: let us enjoy the one we
have, Mrs. Sparrowgrass."
AMONG THE LAURELS.
ELIZABETH AKERS ALLEN.
[The poetess from whom we select the following thoughtful and
gracefully-written poem is best known under her pseudonyme of
" Florence Percy," and as the author of the favorite poem, " liock me
ALLEN] AMONG THE LAURELS. 139
to Sleep, Mother." She was born at Strong, Maine, in 1832, and was
first married to Mr. Paul Alters, the sculptor, and afterwards to Mr.
E. M. Allen, of New York.]
The sunset's gorgeous dyes
Paled slowly from the skies,
And the clear heaven was waiting for the stars,
As side by side we strayed
Along a sylvan glade,
And found our pathway crossed by rustic bars.
Beyond the barrier lay
A green and tempting way,
Arched with fair laurel-trees, a-bloom and tall,
Their cups of tender snow
Edged with a rosy glow,
And warm, sweet shadows trembling over all.
The chestnuts sung and sighed,
The solemn oaks replied,
And distant pine-trees crooned in cradling tones j
While music low and clear
Gushed from the darkness near,
Where a shy brook went tinkling over stones.
Soft mosses, damp and sweet,
Allured our waiting feet,
And brambles veiled their thorns with treacherous
bloom ;
While tiny flecks of flowers,
Which owned no name of ours,
Added their mite of beauty and perfume.
And hark! a hidden bird,
To sudden utterance stirred.
140 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
As by a wondrous love too great to bear
With voiceless silence long,
Burst into passionate song,
Filling with his sweet trouble all the air.
Then one, whose eager soul
Could brook no small control,
Said, " Let us thread this pleasant path, dear friend :
If thus the way can be
So beautiful to see,
How much more beautiful must be the end I
" Follow ! this solitude
May shrine the haunted wood,
Storied so sweetly in romance and rhyme,
Secure from human ill,
And rarely peopled still
By Fauns and Dryads of the olden time,
" A spot of hallowed ground,
By mortal yet unfound,
Sacred to nymph and sylvan deity,
Where foiled Apollo glides,
And bashful Daphne hides
Safe in the shelter of her laurel-tree I"
" Forbear!" the other cried ;
" Oh, leave the way untried I
Those joys are sweetest which we only guess ;
And the impatient soul
That seeks to grasp the whole
Defeats itself by its own eagerness.
ALLEN] AMONG THE LAURELS. 141
" Let us not rudely shake
The dew-drop from the brake
Fringing the borders of this haunted dell :
All the delights which are
The present and the far
Lose half their charm by being known too well !
" And he mistakes who tries
To search all mysteries,
Who leaves no cup undrained, no path untracked :
Who seeks to know too much
Brushes with ruthless touch
The bloom of Fancy from the brier of Fact.
" Keep one fair myth aloof
From hard and actual proof,
Preserve some dear delusions as they seem ;
Since the reality,
How bright soe'er it be,
Shows dull and tame beside our marvellous dream.
" Leave this white page unscored,
This rare realm unexplored,
And let dear Fancy roam there as she will :
Whatever page we turn,
However much we learn,
Let there be something left to dream of still I"
Wherefore, for aught we know,
The golden apples grow
In the green vale to which that pathway leads,
The spirits of the wood
Still haunt its solitude,
And Pan sits piping there among the reeds !
142 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [TucKiRMAi.
AUTHOR-WORSHIP.
HENRY THEODORE TUCKERMAN.
[The author here named was born in Boston in 1813. He died in
1871. His literary work was mainly of a critical character, and was
marked by fine discernment and much delicacy of appreciation. In
art-criticism he occupied a high rank, his works in this field being
"Artist Life, or Sketches of American Painters," and "Book of the
Artists." He also wrote " Thoughts on the Poets," " Characteristics
of Literature," " Biographical Essays," etc. The selection given
below probably repeats the experience of many college students of
literature.]
" High is our calling, friend 1 Creative Art,
Whether the instrument of words she use,
Or pencil pregnant with ethereal hues,
Demands the service of a mind and heart,
Though sensitive, yet in their weakest part
Heroically fashioned, to infuse
Faith in the whispers of the lonely muse,
While the whole world seems adverse to desert."
WORDSWORTH.
SOME of the fondest illusions of our student life and
companionship were based on literary fame. The only
individuals of the male gender who then seemed to us
(indiscriminate and mutual lovers of literature) worthy
of admiration and sympathy were authors. Our ideal of
felicity was the consciousness of distributing ideas of vital
significance and causing multitudes to share a sentiment
born in a lonely heart. The most real and permanent
sway of which man is capable we imagined that of ruling
and cheering the minds of others through the medium of
literature. Our herbals were made up of flowers from the
graves of authors ; their signatures were our only auto
graphs. The visions that haunted us were little else than
a boundless panorama that displayed scenes in their lives.
We used continually to see, in fancy, Petrarch beside a
TTTCKERMAN] A UTHOR- WORSHIP. 143
fountain, under a laurel, with the sweet penseroso look
visible in his portraits ; Dante in the corridor of a monas
tery, his palm laid on a friar's breast, and his stern feat
ures softened as he craved the only blessing life retained
for him, peace; rustic Burns, with his dark eye proudly
meeting the curious stare of an Edinburgh coterie; Ca-
moens breasting the waves with the Lusiad between his
teeth ; Johnson appalling Bos well with his emphatic " Sir;"
Milton his head like that of a saint encircled with rays
seated at the organ ; Shakespeare walking serenely,
and with a benign and majestic countenance, beside the
Avon; Steele jocosely presiding at table with liveried
bailiffs to pass the dishes ; the bright face of Pope loom
ing up from his deformed body in the cool twilight of a
grotto ; Yoltaire's sneer withering an auditor through a
cloud of snuff; Moliere reading his new comedy to the
old woman ; Landor standing in the ilex path of a Tuscan
villa ; Savage asleep on a bulk at midnight in one of the
London parks ; Dryden seated in oracular dignity in his
coffee-house arm-chair ; Metastasio comparing notes with a
handsome prima donna at Yienna ; Alfieri with a magnifi
cent steed in the midst of the Alps ; Swift stealing an in
terview with Miss Johnson, or chuckling over a chapter
of Gulliver; the funeral pyre of Shelley lighting up a
solitary crag on the shores of the Mediterranean; and
Byron, with marble brow and rolling eye, guiding the
helm of a storm-tossed boat on the Lake of Geneva!
Such were a few only of the tableaux that haunted our
imaginations. We echoed heartily Akenside's protest
against the sermon on Glory :
<c Come, then, tell me, sage divine,
Is it an oflence to own
That our bosoms e'er incline
Towards immortal Glory's throne?
144 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [TUOKERMAN
For with me nor pomp nor pleasure,
Bourbon's might, Braganza's treasure,
So can fancy's dream rejoice,
So conciliate reason's choice,
As one approving word of her impartial voice.
" If to spurn at noble praise
Be the passport to thy heaven,
Follow thou those gloomy ways ;
No such law to me was given ;
Nor, I trust, shall I deplore me,
Faring like my friends before me ;
Nor a holier place desire
Than Timoleon's arms acquire,
And Tully's curule chair, and Milton's golden lyre."
In our passion for native authors we revered the mem
ory of Brockden Brown, and detected in his romantic
studies the germs of the supernatural school of fiction ;
we nearly suffocated ourselves in the crowded gallery of
the old church at Cambridge, listening to Sprague's Phi
Beta Kappa poem ; and often watched the spiritual figure
of the " Idle Man," and gazed on the white locks of our
venerable painter, with his " Monaldi" and " Paint King"
vividly remembered. We wearied an old friend of Brain-
ard's by making him repeat anecdotes of the poet, and
have spent hours in the French coffee-house which Halleck
once frequented, eliciting from him criticisms, anecdotes,
or recitations of Campbell. New Haven people that came
in our way were obliged to tell all they could remember of
the vagaries of Percival and the elegant hospitality of Hill-
house. We have followed Judge Hopkinson through the
rectangular streets of his native metropolis, with the tune
of " Hail Columbia" humming in our ears, and kept a
curious eye on Howard Payne through a whole evening
party, fondly cognizant of "Sweet Home." Beaumont
TUCKERMAN] AUTHOR-WORSHIP. 145
and Fletcher were our Damon and Pythias. The mem
orable occurrence of our childhood was the advent of a
new Waverley novel, and of our youth a fresh Edinburgh
Review. "We loved plum color, because poor Goldy was
vain of his coat of that hue, and champagne, partly be
cause Schiller used to drink it when writing; we saved
orange-peel because the author of the " Rambler" liked it,
and put ourselves on a course of tar- water, in imitation of
Berkeley. Roast pig had a double relish for us after we
had read Elia's dissertation thereon. We associated gold
fish and china jars with Gray, skulls with Dr. Young, the
leap of a sturgeon in the Hudson with Drake's " Culprit
Fay," pine-trees with Ossian, stained-glass windows with
Keats (who set one in an immortal verse), fortifications
with Uncle Toby, literary breakfasts with Rogers, water
fowl with Bryant, foundlings with Rousseau, letter- writing
with Madame de Sevigne, bread-and-butter with the author
of Werther, daisies with Burns, and primroses with Words
worth. Mrs. Thrale's acceptance of Piozzi was a serious
trouble to our minds ; and whether " little Burney" would
be happy after her marriage with the noble emigre was
a problem that made us really anxious until the second
part of her Diary was procurable and relieved our solici
tude. An unpatriotic antipathy to the Pilgrim Fathers
was quelled by the melodious pa3an of Mrs. Hemans;
and we kept vigils before a portrait of Mrs. Norton, at
an artist's studio, with a chivalric desire to avenge her
w rongs.
ii. o * 13
146 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [EDWARDS
RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE.
JONATHAN EDWARDS.
[It is a somewhat surprising fact that America should produce, in
its pioneer days, a metaphysical thinker who for logical power and
mental ability has never heen surpassed in this country, if in the world.
Such a thinker was Jonathan Edwards, born at "Windsor, Connecticut,
October 5, 1703. His celebrated work on " The Freedom of the Will"
exhibits a subtilty of thought and an exhaustive accuracy of reasoning
which no philosophical logician has ever exceeded. His doctrine that
the principle of necessity is compatible with freedom of the will and
with human responsibility is worked out with the closest and inost
searching logic, and proves its point as clearly as anything can be
proved which depends upon an ideal conception as its basis. We select
a short passage from this notable argument, together with some extracts
which show the unusual precocity of Edwards as a thinker. He began
to study Latin at six, was writing philosophical essays at ten, and is
said to have completely reasoned out his doctrine of the freedom of the
will at seventeen years of age. The passage on his religious feelings
was written before his seventeenth year, and his remarkable series of
[Resolutions, seventy in number, of which we give but a portion, were
written before he was twenty years old. He died in 1758.]
NOT long after I first began to experience these things
[namely, new apprehensions and ideas of Christ, of the
work of redemption, and of the way of salvation by him],
I gave an account to my father of some things that had
passed in my mind. I was pretty much affected by the
discourse we had together ; and, when the discourse was
ended, I walked abroad alone, in a solitary place in my
father's pasture, for contemplation. And as I was walk
ing there, and looking upon the sky and clouds, there
came into my mind so sweet a sense of the glorious majesty
and grace of God, as I know not how to express. I seemed
to see them both in a sweet conjunction ; majesty and
EDWARDS] RESOLUTIONS. 117
meekness joined together. It was a sweet, and gentle,
and holy majesty; and also a majestic meekness; aii awful
sweetness ; a high, and great, and holy gentleness.
After this my sense of divine things gradually increased,
and became more and more lively, and had more of that
inward sweetness. The appearance of everything was
altered ; there seemed to be, as it were, a calm, sweet cast
or appearance of divine glory in almost everything. God's
excellency, his wisdom, his purity, and love, seemed to
appear in everything; in the sun, moon, and stars ; in the
clouds and blue sky ; in the grass, flowers, trees ; in the
water and all nature ; which used greatly to fix my mind.
I often used to sit and view the moon for a long time ; and,
in the day, spent much time in viewing the clouds and
sky, to behold the sweet glory of God in these things ; in
the mean time singing forth, with a low voice, my con
templations of the Creator and Eedeemer. And scarce
anything, among all the works of nature, was so sweet to
me as thunder and lightning : formerly nothing had been
so terrible to me. Before, I used to be uncommonly ter
rified with thunder, and to be struck with terror when I
saw a thunder-storm rising; but now, on the contrary, it
rejoiced me. I felt God, if I may so speak, at the first ap
pearance of a thunder-storm, and used to take the oppor
tunity, at such times, to fix myself in order to view the
clouds, and see the lightnings play, and hear the majestic
and awful voice of God's thunders, which oftentimes was
exceedingly entertaining, leading me to sweet contempla
tions of my great and glorious God.
RESOLUTIONS.
1. Resolved, That I will do whatsoever I think to be
most to the glory of God and my own good, profit, and
pleasure, in the whole of my duration, without any con-
148 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [EDWARDS
sideration of the time, whether now, or never so many
myriads of ages hence.
2. Resolved, To do whatever I think to be my duty, and
most for the good and advantage of mankind in general.
3. Resolved, Never to lose one moment of time, but to
improve it in the most profitable way I possibly can.
4. Resolved. To live with all my might while I do live.
5. Resolved^ Never to do anything which I should be
afraid to do if it were the last hour of my life.
6. Resolved^ To be endeavoring to find out fit objects of
liberality and charity.
7. Resolved) Never to do anything out of revenge.
8. Resolved) Never to suffer the least motions of anger
towards irrational beings.
9. Resolved) Never to speak evil of any one so that it
shall tend to his dishonor, more or less, upon no account
except for some real good.
10. Resolved) That I will live so as I shall wish I had
done when I come to die.
11. Resolved) To live so, at all times, as I think is best
in my most devout frames, and when I have the clearest
notions of the things of the gospel and another world.
12. Resolved) To maintain the strictest temperance in
eating and drinking.
13. Resolved) Never to do anything which, if I should
see in another, I should count a just occasion to despise
him for, or to think any way the more meanly of him.
14. Resolved) To study the Scriptures so steadily, con-
Btantly, and frequently, as that I may find, and plainly
perceive, myself to grow in the knowledge of the same.
15. Resolved) Never to count that a prayer, nor to let that
pass as a prayer, nor that as a petition of a prayer, which
is so made that I cannot hope that God will answer it ; nor
that as a confession which I cannot hope God will accept.
EDWARDS j RESOLUTIONS. 145)
16. Resolved, Never to say anything at all against any
body, but when it is perfectly agreeable to the highest de
gree of Christian honor, and of love to mankind, agreeable
to the lowest humility and sense of my own faults and
failings, and agreeable to the golden rule ; often, when I
have said anything against any one, to bring it to, and
try it strictly by, the test of this resolution.
17. Resolved, In narrations, never to speak anything but
the pure and simple verity.
18. Resolved, Never to speak evil of any, except I have
Borne particular good call to it.
19. Resolved, To inquire every night, as I am going to
bed, wherein I have been negligent, what sin I have com
mitted, and wherein I have denied myself; also, at the
end of every week, month, and year.
20. Resolved, Never to do anything of which I so much
question the lawfulness, as that I intend, at the same time,
to consider and examine afterwards whether it be lawful
or not ; unless I as much question the lawfulness of the
omission.
21. Resolved, To inquire every night, before I go to bed,
whether I have acted in the best way I possibly could,
with respect to eating and drinking.
22. Resolved, Never to allow the least measure of any
fretting or uneasiness at my father or mother. Resolved,
to suffer no effects of it, so much as in the least alteration
of speech, or motion of my eye ; and to be especially care
ful of it with respect to any of our family.
23. On the supposition that there never was to be bui,
one individual in the world, at any one time, who was
properly a complete Christian, in all respects of a right
stamp, having Christianity always shining in its true lus
tre, and appearing excellent and lovely, from whatever
part and under whatever character viewed: Resolved, to
ii. 13*
150 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [EDWAKD3
act just as I would do if I strove with all my might to be
that one, who should live in my time.
THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL.
if the Will, which we find governs the members of the
body, and determines their motions, does also govern
itself, and determines its own actions, it doubtless deter
mines them the same way, even by antecedent volitions.
The Will determines which way the hands and feet shall
move, by an act of choice ; and there is no other way of
the Will's determining, directing, or commanding anything
at all. Whatsoever the Will commands, it commands by
an act of the Will. And if it has itself under its com
mand, and determines itself in its own actions, it doubtless
does it the same way that it determines other things
which are under its command. So that if the freedom of
the Will consists in this, that it has itself and its own
actions under its command and direction, and its own
volitions are determined by itself, it will follow, that every
free volition arises from another antecedent volition, di
recting and commanding that : and if that directing voli
tion be also free, in that also the Will is determined:
that is to say, that directing volition is determined by
another going before that ; and so on, till we come to the
first volition in the whole series ; and if that first volition
be free, and the Will self-determined in it, then that is
determined by another volition preceding that. Which
is a contradiction; because, by the supposition, it can have
none before it, to direct or determine it, being the first in
the train. But if that first volition is not determined by
any preceding act of the Will, then that act is not deter
mined by the Will, and so is not free in the Arminian
notion of freedom, which consists in the Will's self-deter
mination. And if that first act of the Will which deter-
EDWABDS] FREEDOM OF THE WILL. 151
mines and fixes the subsequent acts be not free, none of
the following acts which are determined by it can be free.
If we suppose there are five acts in the train, the fifth and
last determined by the fourth, and the fourth by the third,
the third by the second, and the second by the first ; if
the first is not determined by the Will, and so not free,
then none of them are truly determined by the "Will : that
is, that each of them are as they are, and not otherwise,
is not first owing to the "Will, but to the determination of
the first in the series, which is not dependent on the Will,
and is that which the Will has no hand in determining.
And this being that which decides what the rest shall be,
and determines their existence ; therefore the first deter
mination of their existence is not from the Will. The
case is just the same if, instead of a chain of five acts of
the Will, we should suppose a succession of ten, or an
hundred, or ten thousand. If the first act be not free,
being determined by something out of the Will, and this
determines the next to be agreeable to itself, and that the
next, and so on ; none of them are free, but all originally
depend on, and are determined by, some cause out of the
Will ; and so all freedom in the case is excluded, and no
act of the Will can be free, according to this notion of
freedom. If we should suppose a long chain of ten thou
sand links, so connected, that if the first link moves, it
will move the next, and that the next ; and so the whole
chain must be determined to motion, and in the direction
of its motion, by the motion of the first link ; and that is
moved by something else ; in this case, though all the
links, but one, are moved by other parts of the samp>
chain, yet it appears that the motion of no one, nor the
direction of its motion, is from any self-moving or self-
determining power in the chain, any more than if every
link were immediately inoved by something that did not
152 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [PAINE
belong to the chain. If the Will be not free in the first
act, which causes the next, then neither is it free in the
next, which is caused by that first act ; for though indeed
the Will caused it, } T et it did not cause it freely ; because
the preceding act, by which it was caused, was not free.
And again, if the Will be not free in the second act, so
neither can it be in the third, which is caused by that ;
because, in like manner, that third was determined by au
act of the Will that was not free. And so we may go on
to the next act, and from that to the next; and how long
soever the succession of acts is, it is all one ; if the first
on which the whole chain depends, and which determines
all the rest, be not a free act, the Will is not free in causing
or determining any one of those acts ; because the act by
which it determines them all is not a free act ; and there
fore the Will is no more free in determining them, than if
it did not cause them at all. Thus, this Arminian notion
of Liberty of the Will, consisting in the Will's Self-deter
mination, is repugnant to itself, and shuts itself wholly
out of the world.
THE TIMES THAT TRIED MEN'S SOULS.
THOMAS PAINE.
[Among the literary artists of the Revolutionary period of American
history Paine occupied a very high rank, through his vigor of thought
and peculiar vividness of expression, his fearless patriotism and hroad
grasp of the true political relations and rights of mankind. Born in
England in 1737, it was not until 1774 that he emigrated to America.
Yet he must have been deeply imbued from his youth with the revo
lutionary sentiment and with hatred of kingcraft, for he very soon
afterwards issued his famous pamphlet " Common Sense," which is full
PAINE] THE TIMES THAT TRIED MEN'S SOULS. 153
of original democratic thought and performed a valuable work in
teaching the principles of republicanism to the American people. The
depressed feeling which prevailed in the winter of 1776-77 was met
Dy him with the stirring appeals of " The Crisis," a periodical which
appeared irregularly and had a highly beneficial influence. We copy
the most famous of the papers of the "Crisis." For vigor, fearless
ness, and patriotism no Kevolutionary document surpasses it, while it
paints the situation with a vividness which seems to take us back in
person to " the times that tried men's souls." In 1791 Paine wrote his
" Rights of Man," in reply to Burke's " Keflections on the French
Revolution." This also was a highly valuable addition to democratic
literature, and attained great popularity. He lived in Paris during
the French Revolution, and narrowly escaped the guillotine. In 1795
he published his deistical work, " The Age of Reason." The religious
radicalism of this book gave great offence, and has covered Paine 's
name with an obloquy through which his important aid to the cause
of human liberty has been almost lost sight of. He returned to the
United States in 1802, and died in New York in 1809.]
THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer
soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink
from the service of his country ; but he that stands it NOW,
deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny,
like hell, is not easily conquered ; yet we have this con
solation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more
glorious the triumph. "What we obtain too cheap, we
esteem too lightly : 'tis dearness only that gives everything
its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon
its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial
an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated. Brit
ain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared
that she has a right (not only to TAX, but) " to BIND MS in
ALL CASES WHATSOEVER;" and if being bound in that manner
is not slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery
upon earth. Even the expression is impious, for so un
limited a power can belong only to GOD.
Whether the independence of the continent was de-
154 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
clared too soon, or delayed too long, I will not now enter
into as an argument : my own simple opinion is, that had
it been eight months earlier it would have been much
better. We did not make a proper use of last winter,
neither could we, while we were in a dependent state.
However, the fault, if it were one, was all our own : wo
have none to blame but ourselves. But no great deal is
lost yet : all that Howe has been doing for this month
past is rather a ravage than a conquest, which the spirit
of the Jerseys a year ago would have quickly repulsed,
and which time and a little resolution will soon recover.
I have as little superstition in me as any man living,
but my secret opinion has ever been, and still is, that Grod
Almighty will not give up a people to military destruction,
or leave them unsupportedly to perish, who had so ear
nestly and so repeatedly sought to avoid the calamities of
war by every decent method which wisdom could invent.
Neither have I so much of the infidel in me as to suppose
that He has relinquished the government of the world,
and given us up to the care of devils ; and, as I do not, I
cannot see on what grounds the king of Britain can look
up to heaven for help against us : a common murderer, a
highwayman, or a housebreaker has as good a pretence
as he.
'Tis surprising to see how rapidly a panic will some
times run through a country. All nations and ages have
been subject to them : Britain has trembled like an ague
at the report of a French fleet of flat-bottomed boats ;
and in the fourteenth century the whole English army,
after ravaging the kingdom of France, was driven back
like men petrified with fear ; and this brave exploit was
performed by a few broken forces collected and headed
by a woman, Joan of Arc. Would that heaven might
inspire some Jersey maid to spirit up her countrymen,
PAINE] THE TIMES THAT TRIED MEN'S SOULS. 155
and save her fair fellow-sufferers from ravage and ravish
ment ! Yet panics, in some cases, have their uses : they
produce as much good as hurt. Their duration is always
short ; the mind soon grows through them, and acquires
a firmer habit than before. But their peculiar advantage
is, that they are the touchstones of sincerity and hypoc
risy, and bring things and men to light which might
otherwise have lain forever undiscovered. In fact, they
have the same effect on secret traitors which an imaginary
apparition would have upon a private murderer. They
sift out the hidden thoughts of man, and hold them up in
public to the world. Many a disguised tory has lately
shown his head, that shall penitentially solemnize with
curses the day on which Howe arrived upon the Delaware.
As I was with the troops at Fort Lee, and marched
vvith them to the edge of Pennsylvania, I am well ac
quainted with many circumstances which those who lived
at a distance know but little or nothing of. Our situa
tion there was exceedingly cramped, the place being on a
narrow neck of land between the North Eiver and the
Hackensack. Our force was inconsiderable, being not
one-fourth so great as Howe could bring against us. We
had no army at hand to have relieved the garrison, had
we shut ourselves up and stood on the defence. Our
ammunition, light artillery, and the best part of our
stores had been removed, upon the apprehension that
Howe would endeavor to penetrate the Jerseys, in which
case Fort Lee could be of no use to us ; for it must occur
to every thinking man, whether in the army or not, that
these kind of field forts are only for temporary purposes,
and last in use no longer than the enemy directs his force
against the particular object which such forts are raised
to defend. Such was our situation and condition at Fort
Lee on the morning of the 20th of November, when an
156 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
officer arrived with information that the enemy, with two
hundred boats, had landed about seven or eight miles
above. Major-General Greene, who commanded the gar
rison, immediately ordered them under arms, and sent
express to his Excellency General Washington at the
town of Hackensack, distant by the way of the ferry six
miles. Our first object was to secure the bridge over the
Hackensack, which laid up the river between the enemy
and us, about six miles from us and three from them.
General Washington arrived in about three-quarters of an
hour, and marched at the head of the troops towards the
bridge, which place I expected we should have a brush
for : however, they did not choose to dispute it with us,
and the greatest part of our troops went over the bridge,
the rest over the ferry, except some which passed at a
mill on a small creek, between the bridge and the ferry.
and made their way through some marshy grounds up to
the town of Hackensack, and there passed the river. We
brought off as much baggage as the wagons could contain,
the rest was lost. The simple object was to bring off the
garrison, and to march them on till they could be strength
ened by the Jersey or Pennsylvania militia, so as to be
enabled to make a stand. We stayed four days at Newark,
collected in our outposts, with some of the Jersey militia,
and marched out twice to meet the enemy, on information
of their being advancing, though our numbers were greatly
inferior to theirs. Howe, in my little opinion, committed
a great error in generalship in not throwing a body of
forces off from Staten Island through Amboy, by which
means he might have seized all our stores at Brunswick
and intercepted our march into Pennsylvania. But, if
we believe the powers of hell to be limited, we must like
wise believe that their agents are under some providential
control.
PAINE] THE TIMES THAT TRIED MEN'S SOULS. 157
I shall not now attempt to give all the particulars of
our retreat to the Delaware ; suffice it for the present to
say that both officers and men, though greatly harassed
and fatigued, frequently without rest, covering, or pro
vision, the inevitable consequences of a long retreat, bore
it with a manly and martial spirit. All their wishes were
one. which was that the country would turn out and help
them to drive the enemy back. Voltaire has remarked
that King "William never appeared to full advantage but
in difficulties and in action : the same remark may be
made of General "Washington, for the character fits him.
There is a natural firmness in some minds which can
not be unlocked by trifles, but which, when unlocked, dis
covers a cabinet of fortitude ; and I reckon it among
those kind of public blessings, which we do not imme
diately see, that God hath blest him with uninterrupted
health, and given him a mind that can even flourish upon
care.
I shall conclude this paper with some miscellaneous
remarks on the state of our affairs, and shall begin with
asking the following question : Why is it that the enemy
have left the New England provinces, and made these
middle ones the seat of war ? The answer is easy : New
England is not infested with tories, and we are. I have
been tender in raising the cry against these men, and used
numberless arguments to show them their danger; lut
it will not do to sacrifice a world to either their folly or
their baseness. The period is now arrived in which either
they or we must change our sentiments, or one or both
must fall. And what is a tory ? Good God ! what is he ?
I should not be afraid to go with an hundred whigs against
a thousand tories, were they to attempt to get into arms.
Every tory is a coward ; for a servile, slavish, self-inter
ested fear is the foundation of toryism ; and a man under
IT 14
158 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
such influence, though he may be cruel, never can be
brave.
But, before the line of irrecoverable separation be drawn
between us, let us reason the matter together. Your con
duct is an invitation to the enemy, yet not one in a thou
sand of you has heart enough to join him. Howe is as
much deceived by you as the American cause is injured
by you. He expects you will all take up arms, and flock
to his standard with muskets on your shoulders. Your
opinions are of no use to him, unless you support him
personally ; for 'tis soldiers, and not tories, that he wants.
I once felt all that kind of anger, which a man ought
to feel, against the mean principles that are held by the
tories. A noted one, who kept a tavern at Amboy, was
standing at his door, with as pretty a child in his hand,
about eight or nine years old, as 'most I ever saw, and,
after speaking his mind as freely as he thought was pru
dent, finished with this unfatherly expression, " Well ! give
me peace in my day." Not a man lives on the continent
but fully believes that a separation must some time or
other finally take place, and a generous parent should have
said, "If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my
child may have peace." And this single reflection, well
applied, is sufficient to awaken every man to duty. Not
a place upon earth might be so happy as America. Her
situation is remote from all the wrangling world, and she
had nothing to do but to trade with them. A man may
easily distinguish in himself between temper and principle,
and I am as confident, as I am that God governs the world,
that America will never be happy till she gets clear of
foreign dominion. Wars, without ceasing, will break out
till that period arrives, and the continent must in the end
be conqueror; for though the flame of liberty may some
times cease to shine, the coal can never expire.
PAINE] THE TIMES THAT TRIED MEN'S SOULS. 159
America did not, nor does not, want force ; but she wanted
a proper application of that force. Wisdom is not the
purchase of a day, and it is no wonder that we should err
at the first setting off. From an excess of tenderness, we
were unwilling to raise an army, and trusted our cause
to the temporary defence of a well-meaning militia. A
summer's experience has now taught us better ; yet with
those troops, while they were collected, we were able to
set bounds to the progress of the enemy, and, thank God 1
they are again assembling. I always considered a militia
as the best troops in the world for a sudden exertion, but
they will not do for a long campaign. Howe, it is prob
able, will make an attempt on this city : should he fail on
this side the Delaware, he is ruined ; if he succeeds, our
cause is not ruined. He stakes all on his side against a
part on ours ; admitting he succeeds, the consequence will
be, that armies from both ends of the continent will march
to assist their suffering friends in the middle States ; for
he cannot go everywhere, it is impossible. I consider
Howe as the greatest enemy the tories have ; he is bring
ing a war into their country, which, had it not been for
him and partly for themselves, they had been clear of.
Should he now be expelled, I wish, with all the devotion
of a Christian, that the names of whig and tory may
never more be mentioned ; but should the tories give him
encouragement to come, or assistance if he come, I as sin
cerely wish that our next year's arms may expel them
from the continent, and the Congress appropriate their
possessions to the relief of those who have suffered in
well-doing. A single successful battle next year will set
tle the whole. America could carry on a two-years' war
by the confiscation of the property of disaffected persons,
and be made happy by their expulsion. Say not that this
is revenge ; call it rather the soft resentment of a suffer-
160 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
ing people, who, having no object in view but the good of
all, have staked their own all upon a seemingly doubtful
event. Yet it is folly to argue against determined hard
ness ; eloquence may strike the ear, and the language of
sorrow draw forth the tear of compassion, but nothing
can reach the heart that is steeled with prejudice.
Quitting this class of men, I turn with the warm ardor
of a friend to those who have nobly stood, and are yet de
termined to stand the matter out. I call not upon a few,
but upon all ; not on t his State or that State, but on every
State; up and help us; lay your shoulders to the wheel;
better have too much force than too little, when so great
an object is at stake. Let it be told to the future world,
that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and
virtue could survive, that the city and the country, alarmed
at one common danger, came forth to meet and to repulse
it. Say not that thousands are gone ; turn out your tens
of thousands ; throw not the burden of the day upon
Providence, but "show your faith by your works," that God
may bless you. It matters not where you live, or what
rank of life you hold, the evil or the blessing will reach
you all. The far and the near, the home counties and the
back, the rich and the poor, will suffer or rejoice alike.
The heart that feels not now is dead : the blood of his
children will curse his cowardice, who shrinks back at a
time when a little might have saved the whole, and made
them happy. I love the man that can smile in trouble,
that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave
by reflection. "Tis the business of little minds to shrink ;
bat he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves
his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death. My
own line of reasoning is to myself as straight and clear
as a ray of light. Not all the treasures of the world, so
far as I believe, could have induced me to support an offen-
PAINE] THE TIMES THAT TRIED MEN'S SOULS. 161
sive war, for I think it murder ; but if a thief break into
my house, burn and destroy my property, and kill or
threaten to kill me, or those that are in it, and to " bind
me in all cases whatsoever" to his absolute will, am I to
Buffer it ? What signifies it to me whether he who does it
is a king or a common man ; my countryman or not my
countryman ; whether it is done by an individual villain
or an army of them ? If we reason to the root of things
we shall find no difference ; neither can any just cause
be assigned why we should punish in the one case and
pardon in the other. Let them call me rebel, and welcome,
I feel no concern from it ; but I should suffer the misery
of devils were I to make a whore of my soul by swear
ing allegiance to one whose character is that of a sottish,
stupid, stubborn, worthless, brutish man. I conceive like
wise a horrid idea in receiving mercy from a being who
at the last day shall be shrieking to the rocks and moun
tains to cover him, and fleeing with terror from the orphan,
the widow, and the slain of America.
There are cases which cannot be overdone by language,
and this is one. There are persons too who see not the
full extent of the evil which threatens them ; they solace
themselves with hopes that the enemy, if they succeed,
will be merciful. It is the madness of folly to expect
mercy from those who have refused to do justice ; and
even mercy, where conquest is the object, is only a trick
of war : the cunning of the fox is as murderous as the
violence of the wolf; and we ought to guard equally
against both. Howe's first object is, partly by threats
and partly by promises, to terrify or seduce the people to
deliver up their arms and receive mercy. The ministry
recommended the same plan to Gage, and this is what the
tories call making their peace ; " a peace which passeth all
understanding" indeed ! A peace which would be the im-
ii. I 14*
162 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [PAINS
mediate forerunner of a worse ruin than any wo have
yet thought of. Ye men of Pennsylvania, do reason upon
these things ! Were the back counties to give up their
arms, they would fall an easy prey to the Indians, who
are all armed. This perhaps is what some tories would
not be sorry for. Were the home counties to deliver up
their arms, they would be exposed to the resentment of
the back counties, who would then have it in their power
to chastise their defection at pleasure. And were any one
State to give up its arms, that State must be garrisoned
by all Howe's army of Britons and Hessians to preserve
it from the anger of the rest. Mutual fear is a principal
link in the chain of mutual love, and woe be to that State
that breaks the compact. Howe is mercifully inviting you
to barbarous destruction, and men must be either rogues
or fools that will not see it. I dwell not upon the vapors
of imagination ; I bring reason to your ears ; and in lan
guage as plain as A, B, C, hold up truth to your eyes.
I thank God that I fear not. I see no real cause for
fear. I know our situation well, and can see the way
out of it. While our army was collected, Howe dared not
risk a battle, and it is no credit to him that he decamped
from the White Plains, and waited a mean opportunity to
ravage the defenceless Jerseys ; but it is great credit to
us, that, with an handful of men, we sustained an orderly
retreat for near an hundred miles, brought off our ammu
nition, all our field-pieces, the greatest part of our stores,
and had four rivers to pass. None can B&y that our retreat
was precipitate, for we were near three weeks in perform
ing it, that the country might have time to come in.
Twice we marched back to meet the enemy, and remained
out till dark. The sign of fear was not seen in our camp,
and had not some of the cowardly and disaffected inhabi
tants spread false alarms through the country, the Jerseys
SIMMS] THE MAIDEN AND THE RATTLESNAKE. 163
had never been ravaged. Once more we are again col
lected and collecting ; our new army at both ends of the
continent is recruiting fast, and we shall be able to open
the next campaign with sixty thousand men, well armed
and clothed. This is our situation, and who will may
know it. By perseverance and fortitude we have the
prospect of a glorious issue : by cowardice and submission,
the sad choice of a variety of evils, a ravaged country
a depopulated city habitations without safety, and slavery
without hope our homes turned into barracks and bawdy-
houses for Hessians, and a future race to provide for whose
fathers we shall doubt of. Look on this picture, and weep
over it ! and if there yet remains one thoughtless wretch
who believes it not, let him suffer it unlamented.
PHILADELPHIA, December 23, 1776.
THE MAIDEN AND THE RATTLESNAKE.
W. G. SIMMS.
[William Gilmore Simms, the most prolific and popular novelist 01
the South, was a native of Charleston, South Carolina, where he was
horn in 1806. He died in 1870. He wrote in all some thirty novels,
fourteen volumes of poetry, and many miscellaneous works. Of his
poems the hest is " Atalantis, a Drama of the Sea." " The Partisan,"
" The Yemassee," and " Beauchampe" are considered his best novels.
Their literary value is not of the higher grade, though his works have
considerable merit and are often interestingly written. Our selec
tion is from " The Yemassee." The heroine meets with her startling
adventure while in the woods waiting the coming of her lover.]
" HE does not come, he does not come," she murmured,
as she stood contemplating the thick copse spreading be
fore her, and forming the barrier which terminated the
164 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [SIMMS
beautiful range of oaks which constituted the grove. How
beautiful was the green and garniture of that little copse
of wood ! The leaves were thick, and the grass around
lay folded over and over in bunches, with here and there
a wild flower gleaming from its green and making of it a
beautiful carpet of the richest and most various texture.
A small tree rose from the centre of a clump around which
a wild grape gadded luxuriantly ; and, with an incoherent
sense of what she saw, she lingered before the little clus
ter, seeming to survey that which, though it seemed to
fix her eye, yet failed to fill her thought. Her mind
wandered, her soul was far away ; and the objects in her
vision were far other than those which occupied her im
agination. Things grew indistinct beneath her eye. The
eye rather slept than saw. The musing spirit had given
holiday to the ordinary senses, and took no heed of the
forms that rose, and floated, or glided away, before them.
In this way, the leaf detached made no impression upon
the sight that was yet bent upon it ; she saw not the bird,
though it whirled, untroubled by a fear, in wanton circles
around her head ; and the black snake, with the rapidity
of an arrow, darted over her path without arousing a
single terror in the form that otherwise would have shiv
ered at its mere appearance. And yet, though thus indis
tinct were all things around her to the musing mind of
the maiden, her eye was yet singularly fixed, fastened,
as it were, to a single spot, gathered and controlled by a
single object, and glazed, apparently, beneath a curious
fascination.
Before the maiden rose a little clump of bushes, bright
tangled leaves flaunting wide in glossiest green, with vines
trailing over them, thickly decked with blue and crimson
flowers. Her eye communed vacantly with these; fast
ened by.a star-like shining glance, a subtle ray, that shot
SIMMS] THE MAIDEN AND THE RATTLESNAKE. 165
out from the circle of green leaves, seeming to be their
very eye, and sending out a fluid lustre that seemed to
stream across the space between and find its way into her
own eyes. Very piercing and beautiful was that subtle
brightness, of the sweetest, strangest power. And now
the leaves quivered and seemed to float away, only to re
turn, and the vines waved and swung around in fantastic
mazes, unfolding ever-changing varieties of form and color
to her gaze ; but the star-like eye was ever steadfast,
bright and gorgeous gleaming in their midst, and still
fastened, with strange fondness, upon her own. How
beautiful, with wondrous intensity, did it gleam, and di
late, growing larger and more lustrous with every ray
which it sent forth ! And her own glance became intense,
fixed also ; but with a dreaming sense that conjured up
the wildest fancies, terribly beautiful, that took her soul
away from her, and wrapt it about as with a spell. She
would have fled, she would have flown ; but she had not
power to move. The will was wanting to her flight. She
felt that she could have bent forward to pluck the gem-
like thing from the bosom of the leaf in which it seemed
to grow, and which it irradiated with its bright white
gleam ; but ever as she aimed to stretch forth her hand
and bend forward, she heard a rush of wings and a shrill
scream from the tree above her,- such a scream as the
mock-bird makes when angrily it raises its dusky crest
and flaps its wings furiously against its slender sides.
Such a scream seemed like a warning, and, though yet un-
awakened to full consciousness, it startled her and forbade
her effort. More than once, in her survey of this strange
object, had she heard that shrill note, and still had it car
ried to her ear the same note of warning, and to her mind
the same vague consciousness of an evil presence. But the
star-like eye was yet upon her own, a small, bright eye,
166 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [SIMMS
quick like that of a bird, now steady in its place and ob
servant seemingly only of hers, now darting forward with
all the clustering leaves about it, and shooting up towards
her, as if wooing her to seize. At another moment, riveted
to the vine which lay around it, it would whirl round and
round, dazzlingly bright and beautiful, even as a torch
waving hurriedly by night in the hands of some playful
boy; but in all this time the glance was never taken
from her own : there it grew, fixed, a very principle of
light, and such a light, a subtle, burning, piercing, fas
cinating gleam, such as gathers in vapor above the old
grave and binds us as we look, shooting, darting directly
into her eye, dazzling her gaze, defeating its sense of dis
crimination, and confusing strangely that of perception.
She felt dizzy ; for, as she looked, a cloud of colors bright,
gay, various colors floated and hung like so much drapery
around the single object that had so secured her attention
and spellbound her feet. Her limbs felt momently more
and more insecure, her blood grew cold, and she seemed
to feel the gradual freeze of vein by vein throughout her
person.
At that moment a rustling was heard in the branches
of the tree beside her, and the bird, which had repeatedly
uttered a single cry above her, as it were of warning, flew
away from his station with a scream more piercing than
ever. This movement had the effect, for which it really
seemed intended, of bringing back to her a portion of the
consciousness she seemed so totally to have been deprived
of before. She strove to move from before the beautiful
but terrible presence, but for a while she strove in vain.
The rich, star-like glance still riveted her own, and the
subtle fascination kept her bound. The mental energies,
however, with the moment of their greatest trial, now
gathered suddenly to her aid; and, with a desperate
SIMMS] THE MAIDEN AND THE RATTLESNAKE. 167
effort, but with a feeling still of most annoying uncer
tainty and dread, she succeeded partially in the attempt,
and threw her arms backwards, her hands grasping the
neighboring tree, feeble, tottering, and depending upon
it for that support which her own limbs almost entirely
denied her. With her movement, however, came the
full development of the powerful spell and dreadful mys
tery before her. As her feet receded, though but a
single pace, to the tree against which she now rested,
the audibly-articulated ring, like that of a watch when
wound up with the verge broken, announced the naturu
of that splendid yet dangerous presence, in the form of
the monstrous rattlesnake, now but a few feet before her,
lying coiled at the bottom of a beautiful shrub, with
which, to her dreaming eye, many of its own glorious
hues had become associated. She was at length con
scious enough to perceive and to feel all her danger ; but
terror had denied her the strength necessary to fly from
her dreadful enemy. There still the eye glared beauti
fully bright and piercing upon her own ; and, seemingly
in a spirit of sport, the insidious reptile slowly unwound
himself from his coil, but only to gather himself up again
into his muscular rings, his great flat head rising in the
midst, and slowly nodding, as it were, towards her, the
eye still peering deeply into her own, the rattle still
slightly ringing at intervals, and giving forth that para
lyzing sound which, once heard, is remembered forever.
The reptile all this while appeared to be conscious of,
and to sport with, while seeking to excite, her terrors.
Now, with its flat head, distended mouth, and curving
neck, would it dart forward its long form towards her,
its fatal teeth, unfolding on either side of its upper jaw,
seeming to threaten her with instantaneous death, while
its powerful eye shot forth glances of that fatal power
168 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [SIMMS
of fascination, malignantly bright, which, by paralyzing,
with a novel form of terror and of beauty, may readily
account for the spell it possesses of binding the feet of
the timid and denying to fear even the privilege of flight.
Could she have fled ! She felt the necessity ; but the
power of her limbs was gone ; and there still it lay, coil
ing and uncoiling, its arching neck glittering like a ring
3f brazed copper, bright and lurid, and the dreadful
beauty of its eye still fastened, eagerly contemplating iho
victim, while the pendulous rattle still rang the death-
note, as if to prepare the conscious mind for the fate
which is momently approaching to the blow. Meanwhile,
the stillness became death-like with all surrounding ob
jects. The bird had gone with its scream and rush. The
breeze was silent. The vines ceased to wave. The leaves
faintly quivered on their stems. The serpent once more
lay still ; but the eye was never once turned away from
the victim. Its corded muscles are all in coil. They have
but to unclasp suddenly, and the dreadful folds will be
upon her, its full length, and the fatal teeth will strike,
and the deadly venom which they secrete will mingle
with the life-blood in her veins.
The terrified damsel, her full consciousness restored,
but not her strength, feels all the danger. She sees that
the sport of the terrible reptile is at an end. She cannot
now mistake the horrid expression of its eye. She strives
to scream, but the voice dies away, a feeble gurgling in
her throat. Her tongue is paralyzed ; her lips are sealed ;
once more she strives for flight, but her limbs refuse their
office. She has nothing left of life but its fearful conscious
ness. It is in her despair that, a last effort, she succeeds
to scream, a single wild cry, forced from her by the accu
mulated agony ; she sinks down upon the grass before her
enemy, her eyes, however, still open, and still looking
SIMMS] THE MAIDEN AND THE RATTLESNAKE. 169
upon those which he directs forever upon them. She sees
him approach, now advancing, now receding, now swell
ing in every part with something of anger, while his
neck is arched beautifully like that of a wild horse under
the curb ; until, at length, tired, as it were, of play, like
the cat with its victim, she sees the neck growing larger
and becoming completely bronzed as about to strike,
the huge jaws unclosing almost directly above her, the
long, tubulated fang, charged with venom, protruding from
the cavernous mouth, and she sees no more ! Insensi
bility came to her aid, and she lay almost lifeless under
the very folds of the monster.
In that moment the copse parted, and an arrow,
piercing the monster through and through the neck, bore
his head forward to the ground, alongside of the maiden,
while his spiral extremities, now unfolding in his own
agony, were actually, in part, writhing upon her person.
The arrow came from the fugitive Occonestoga, who had
fortunately reached the spot in season on his way to the
Block House. He rushed from the copse as the snake
fell, and, with a stick, fearlessly approached him where he
lay tossing in agony upon the grass. Seeing him advance,
the courageous reptile made an effort to regain his coil,
shaking the fearful rattle violently at every evolution
which he took for that purpose ; but the arrow, completely
passing through his neck, opposed an unyielding obstacle
to the endeavor ; and, finding it hopeless, and seeing the
new enemy about to assault him, with something of the
spirit of the white man under like circumstances, he
turned desperately round, and, striking his charged fangs,
so that they were riveted in the wound they made, into
a susceptible part of his own body, he threw himself over
with a single convulsion, and, a moment after, lay dead
beside the utterly unconscious maiden,
ii. n 15
170 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HARTK
THE SHERIFF OF CALAVERAS.
BRET HARTE.
[Francis Bret Harte was born at Albany, New York, in 1839. He
went to California in 1864, where he soon entered the journalistic pro
fession, and quickly acquired reputation as a skilful humorist, poet,
and novelist, his work embodying the peculiar flavor of Western life
and character to a degree unequalled by any of his competitors in this
field. His short stories, such as " The Luck of Roaring Camp," are
strongly original in plot and incident, and are excellent renderings
of the peculiarities of life in the mining districts, while his poems,
though mainly dependent for popularity on their dialectical oddity
and their burlesque humor, often reach a much higher level of poetic
merit. He is a keen delineator of the pioneer character, and repre
sents the varieties of individuals in the mining camps with photo
graphic correctness. We offer an illustrative selection from his novel
of " Gabriel Conroy." It must be premised that Gabriel is a simple-
minded, thoroughly honest and upright giant of the mining districts,
who has been suspected of the murder of a Mexican sharper. He is
under arrest, and a vigilance committee has determined to make short
work of him. Their plans are overheard by Jack Hamlin, a noted
gambler, who rides in all haste to the rescue of his friend Gabriel. It
is, however, mainly to display the well-drawn picture of the Sheriff of
Calaveras that we present this selection.]
AT nine o'clock half a dozen men lounged down the
main street and ascended the upper loft of Briggs' ware
house. In ten or fifteen minutes a dozen more from
different saloons in the town lounged as indifferently
in the direction of Briggs', until at half-past nine the
assemblage in the loft numbered fifty men. During this
interval a smaller party had gathered, apparently as
accidentally and indefinitely as to purpose, on the steps
of the little two-story brick court-house in which the
prisoner was confined. At ten o'clock a horse was furi
ously ridden into town, and dropped exhausted at the
FRANCIS BRET HARTE.
HAKTE] THE SHERIFF OF CALAVERAS. 171
outskirts. A few moments later a man hurriedly crossed
the plaza toward the court-house. It was Mr. Jack
Hamlin. But the Three Yoices had preceded him, and
from the steps of the court-house were already uttering
the popular mandate.
It was addressed to a single man, a man who, deserted
by his posse and abandoned by his friends, had for the
last twelve hours sat beside his charge, tireless, watchful,
defiant, and resolute, Joe Hall, the Sheriff of Calaveras !
He had been waiting for this summons, behind barricaded
doors, with pistols in his belt, and no hope in his heart ;
a man of limited ideas and restricted resources, constant
to only one intent, that of dying behind those bars, in
defence of that legal trust which his office and an extra
fifty votes at the election only two months before had put
into his hands. It had perplexed him for a moment that
he heard the voices of some of these voters below him
clamoring against him, but above their feebler pipe always
rose another mandatory sentence, " We command you to
take and safely keep the body of Gabriel Conroy," and,
being a simple man, the recollection of the quaint phrase
ology strengthened him and cleared his mind. Ah me !
I fear he had none of the external marks of a hero ; as I
remember him, he was small, indistinctive, and fidgety,
without the repose of strength ; a man who at that ex
treme moment chewed tobacco and spat vigorously on the
floor ; who tweaked the ends of his scanty beard, paced
the floor, and tried the locks of his pistols. Presently he
stopped before Gabriel, and said, almost fiercely,
" You hear that ? they are coming !"
Gabriel nodded. Two hours before, when the contem
plated attack of the Vigilance Committee had been re
vealed to him, he had written a few lines to Lawyer
Maxwell, which he intrusted to the sheriff. He had
172 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HARTB
then relapsed into his usual tranquillity, serious, simple,
and, when he had occasion to speak, diffident and apolo
getic.
" Are you going to help me ?" continued Hall.
"In course," said Gabriel, in quiet surprise, "ef you
say so. But don't ye do nowt ez would be gettin' your
self into troubil along o' me. I ain't worth it. Maybe
it 'ud be jest as square ef ye handed me over to them
chaps out yer, allowin' I was a heep o' troubil to you, and
reckonin' you'd about hed your sheer o' the keer o' me,
and kinder passin' me round. But ef you do feel obli
gated to take keer o' me, ez hevin' promised the jedges
and jury" (it is almost impossible to convey the gentle
deprecatoriness of Gabriel's voice and accent at this junc
ture), " why," he added, " I'm with ye. I'm thar ! You
understand me !"
He rose slowly, and with quiet but powerfully signifi
cant deliberation placed the chair he had been sitting on
back against the wall. The tone and act satisfied the
sheriff. The seventy-four-gun ship, Gabriel Conroy, was
clearing the decks for action.
There was an ominous lull in the outcries below, and
then the solitary lifting up of a single voice, the Potential
Voice of the night before ! The sheriff walked to a
window in the hall and opened it. The besieger and be
sieged measured each other with a look. Then came the
Homeric chaff:
" Git out o' that, Joe Hall, and run home to your mother.
She's getting oneasy about ye I"
" The h 11 you say !" responded Hall, promptly, " and
the old woman in such a hurry she had to borry Al.
Barker's hat and breeches to come here ! Run home, old
gal, and don't parse yourself off for a man ag'in !"
"This ain't no bluff, Joe Hall! Why don't ye call?
HARTE] THE SHERIFF OF CALAVERAS. 173
Yer's fifty men ; the returns are ag'in' ye, and two pre
cincts yet to hear from." (This was a double thrust, at
Hall's former career as a gambler, and the closeness of his
late election vote.)
" All right ! send 'em up by express, mark 'em C. O. D "
(The previous speaker was the expressman.)
"Blank you! Git!"
" Blank you ! Come on !"
Here there was a rush at the door, the accidental dis
charge of a pistol, and the window was slammed down.
Words ceased, deeds began.
A few hours before, Hall had removed his prisoner trom
the uncertain tenure and accessible position of the cells
below to the open court-room of the second floor, inacces
sible by windows, and lit by a skylight in the roof, above
the reach of the crowd, whose massive doors were barri
caded by benches and desks. A smaller door at the side,
easily secured, was left open for reconnoitring. The ap
proach to the court-room was by a narrow stairway, half
way down whose length Gabriel had thrust the long court
room table as a barricade to the besiegers. The lower
outer door, secured by the sheriif after the desertion of
his underlings, soon began to show signs of weakening
under the vigorous battery from without. From the
landing the two men watched it eagerly. As it slowly
yielded, the sheriif drew back toward the side-door and
beckoned Gabriel to follow ; but with a hasty sign Gabriel
suddenly sprang forward and dropped beneath the table
as the door with a crash fell inward, beaten from its
hinges. There was a rush of trampling feet to the stair
way, a cry of baffled rage over the impeding table, a sud
den scramble up and upon it, and then, as if on its own
volition, the long table suddenly reared itself on end, and,
staggering a moment, toppled backward with its clinging
II. 15*
174 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HARTS
human burden on the heads of the thronging mass below.
There was a cry, a sudden stampede of the Philistines to
the street, and Samson, rising to his feet, slowly walked
to the side-door . and re-entered the court-room. But at
the same instant an agile besieger who, unnoticed, had
crossed the Rubicon, darted from his concealment, and
dashed by Gabriel into the room. There was a shout from
the sheriff, the door was closed hastily, a shot, and the
intruder fell. But the next moment he staggered to his
knees, with outstretched hands : " Hold up ! I'm yer to
help ye !"
It was Jack Hamlin ! haggard, dusty, grimy ; his gay
feathers bedraggled, his tall hat battered, his spotless shirt
torn open at the throat, his eyes and cheeks burning with
fever, the blood dripping from the bullet-wound in his
leg, but still Jack Hamlin, strong and audacious. By a
common instinct both men dropped their weapons, ran and
lifted him in their arms.
" There ! shove that chair under me ! that'll do," said
Hamlin, coolly. " We're even now, Joe Hall : that shot
wiped out old scores, even if it has crippled me and lost
ye my valuable aid. Dry up ! and listen to me, and then
leave me here ! There's but one way of escape. It's up
there 1" (he pointed to the skylight.) " The rear wall
hangs over the Wingdam ditch and gully. Once on the
roof, you can drop over with this rope, which you must
unwind from my body, for I'm d d if I can do it myself.
Can you reach the skylight ?"
" There's a step-ladder from the gallery," said the sheriff,
joyously. " But won't they see us, and be prepared ?"
" Before they can reach the gully by going round, you'll
be half a mile away in the woods. But what in blank are
you waiting for? Go! You can hold on here for ten
minutes more if they attack the same point; but if they
HARTE] THE SHERIFF OF CALAVERAS. 175
think of the skylight, and fetch ladders, you're gone in!
Go."
There was another rush on the staircase without ; the
surging of an immense wave against the heavy folding
doors, the blows of pick and crowbar, the gradual yield
ing of the barricade a few inches, and the splintering of
benches by a few pistol-shots fired through the springing
crevices of the doors. And yet the sheriff hesitated. Sud
denly Gabriel stooped down, lifted the wounded man to
his shoulder as if he had been an infant, and, beckoning
to the sheriif, started for the gallery. But he had not
taken two steps before he staggered and lapsed heavily
against Hall, who, in his turn, stopped and clutched the
railing. At the same moment the thunder of the be
siegers seemed to increase ; not only the door, but the
windows rattled, the heavy chandelier fell with a crash,
carrying a part of the plaster and the elaborate cornice
with it, a shower of bricks fell through the skylight,
and a cry, quite distinct from anything heard before, rose
from without. There was a pause in the hall, and then
the sudden rush of feet down the staircase, and all was
still again. The three men gazed in each other's whitened
faces.
" An earthquake," said the shei-iff.
" So much the better," said Jack. " It gives us time.
Forward !"
They reached the gallery and the little step-ladder
that led to a door that opened upon the roof, Gabriel pre
ceding with his burden. There was another rush up
the staircase without the court-room, but this time there
was no yielding in the door: the earthquake that had
shaken the foundations and settled the walls had sealed
it firmly.
Gabriel was first to step out on the roof, carrying Jack
176 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HARTE
Hamlin. But as he did so another thrill ran through the
building, and he dropped on his knees to save himself from
falling, while the door closed smartly behind him. In
another moment the shock had passed, and Gabriel, put
ting down his burden, turned to open the door for the
sheriff. But, to his alarm, it did not yield to his pressure :
the earthquake had sealed it as it had the door below, and
Joe Hall was left a prisoner.
It was Gabriel's turn to hesitate and look at his com -
panion. But Jack was gazing into the street below. Then
he looked up and said, "We must go on now, Gabriel ; for
for they've got a ladder !"
Gabriel rose again to his feet and lifted the wounded
man. The curve of the domed roof was slight. In the
centre, on a rough cupola or base, the figure of Justice,
fifteen feet high, rudely carved in wood, towered above
them with drawn sword and dangling scales. Gabriel
reached the cupola and crouched behind it, as a shout
rose from the street below that told he was discovered.
A few shots were fired. One bullet embedded itself in
the naked blade of the Goddess, and another, with cruel
irony, shattered the equanimity of her balance. " Un
wind the cord from me," said Hamlin. Gabriel did so.
"Fasten one end to the chimney or the statue." But the
chimney was levelled by the earthquake, and even the
statue was trembling on its pedestal. Gabriel secured
the rope to an iron girder of the skylight, and, crawling
on the roof, dropped it cautiously over the gable. But
it was several feet too short, too far for a cripple to
drop ! Gabriel crawled back to Hamlin. " You must go
first," he said, quietly. " I will hold the rope over the
gable. You can trust me."
Without waiting for Hamlin's reply, he fastened the
rope under his arms and half lifted, half dragged him to
HARTE] THE SHERIFF OF CALAVERAS. 177
the gable. Then, pressing his hand silently, he laid him
self down and lowered the wounded man safely to the
ground. He had recovered the rope again, and, crawling
to the cupola, was about to fasten the line to the iron
girder, when something slowly rose above the level of the
roof beyond him. The uprights of a ladder !
The Three Yoices had got tired of waiting a reply to
their oft-reiterated question, and had mounted the ladder
by way of forcing an answer at the muzzles of their
revolvers. They reached the level of the roof, one after
another, and again propounded their inquiry. And then,
as it seemed to their awe-stricken fancy, the only figure
there the statue of Justice awoke to their appeal.
Awoke ! leaned towards them, advanced its awful sword
and shook its broken balance, and then, toppling forward
with one mighty impulse, came down upon them, swept
them from the ladder, and silenced the Yoices forever!
And from behind its pedestal Gabriel arose, panting, pale,
but triumphant.
[The night was spent by the fugitives in a secret hiding-place, and
the next morning, accompanied by Gabriel's young sister Oily and by
Hamlin's negro servant Pete, who had joined them in the mean time,
they resumed their flight. What followed we give in the narrative
1 of the author.]
Gabriel rose, and, lifting Mr. Hamlin in his arms with
infinite care and tenderness, headed the quaint procession.
Mr. Hamlin, perhaps recognizing some absurdity in the
situation, forbore exercising his querulous profanity on
the man who held him helpless as an infant, and Oily and
Pete followed slowly behind.
Their way led down Reservoir Cafion, beautiful, hope
ful, and bracing in the early morning air. A few birds,
awakened by the passing tread, started into song a mo
ment, and then were still. "With a cautious gentleness
ii. m
178 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [
habitual to the man, Gabriel forbore, as he strode along,
to step upon the few woodland blossoms yet left to the dry
summer woods. There was a strange fragrance in the air,
the light odors liberated from a thousand nameless herbs,
the faint, melancholy spicing of dead leaves. There was,
moreover, that sense of novelty which Nature always
brings with the dawn in deep forests ; a fancy that during
the night the earth had been created anew, and was fresh
from the Maker's hand, as yet untried by burden or tribu
lation, and guiltless of a Past. And so it seemed to the
little caravan albeit fleeing from danger and death that
yesterday and its fears were far away, or had, in some
unaccountable way, shrunk behind them in the west with
the swiftly-dwindling night. Oily once or twice strayed
from the trail to pick an opening flower or lingering berry ;
Pete hummed to himself the fragment of an old camp-
meeting song.
And so they walked on, keeping the rosy dawn and its
promise before them. From time to time the sound of
far-off voices came to them faintly. Slowly the light
quickened ; morning stole down the hills upon them stealth
ily, and at last the entrance of the cafion became dimly
outlined. Oily uttered a shout and pointed to a black ob
ject moving backward and forward before the opening.
It was the wagon and team awaiting them. Olly's shout
was answered by a whistle from the driver, and they
quickened their pace joyfully; in another moment they
would be beyond the reach of danger.
Suddenly a voice that seemed to start from the ground
before them called on Gabriel to stop ! He did so uncon
sciously, drawing Hamlin closer to him with one hand,
and with the other making a broad protecting sweep
toward Oily. And then a figure rose slowly from the
ditch at the road-side and barred their passage.
HARTE] THE SHERIFF OF CALAVERAS. 179
It was only a single man! A small man, bespattered
with the slime of the ditch and torn with brambles ; a
man exhausted with fatigue and tremulous with nervous
excitement, but still erect and threatening. A man whom
Gabriel and Hamlin instantly recognized, even through
his rags and exhaustion. It was Joe Hall, the sheriff
of Calaveras. He held a pistol in his right hand, even
while his left exhaustedly sought the support of a tree.
By a common instinct both men saw that, while the hand
was feeble, the muzzle of the weapon covered them.
" Gabriel Conroy, I want you," said the apparition.
" He's got us lined ! Drop me," whispered Hamlin,
hastily ; " drop me ! I'll spoil his aim."
But Gabriel, by a swift, dexterous movement that seemed
incompatible with his usual deliberation, instantly trans
ferred Hamlin to his other arm, and, with his burden com
pletely shielded, presented his own right shoulder squarely
to the muzzle of Hall's revolver.
" Gabriel Conroy, you are my prisoner," repeated the
voice.
Gabriel did not move. But over his shoulder as a rest
dropped the long, shining barrel of Jack's own favorite
duelling-pistol, and over it glanced the bright eye of its
crippled owner. The issue was joined 1
There was a death-like silence.
"Go on!" said Jack, quietly. "Keep cool, Joe. For
if you miss him, you're gone in ; and, hit or miss, Tve got
you sure !"
The barrel of Hall's pistol wavered a moment, from
physical weakness, but not from fear. The great heart
behind it, though broken, was undaunted.
" It's all right," said the voice, fatefully. " It's all right,
Jack ! Ye'll kill me, I know ! But ye can't help sayin',
arter all, that I did my duty to Calaveras as the sheriff,
180 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HART*
and 'specially to them twenty-five men ez elected me over
Boggs ' I ain't goin' to let ye pass. I've been on this yer
hunt, up and down this cafion, all night. Hevin' no possy,
I reckon I've got to die yer in my tracks. All right!
But ye'll git into thet wagon over my dead body, Jack,
over my dead body, sure."
Even as he spoke these words he straightened himself
to his full height, which was not much, I fear, and
steadied himself by the tree, his weapon still advanced and
pointing at Gabriel, but with such an evident and hope
less contrast between his determination and his evident
inability to execute it that his attitude impressed his
audience less with his heroism than its half-pathetic ab
surdity.
Mr. Hamlin laughed. But even then he suddenly felt
the grasp of Gabriel relax, found himself slipping to his
companion's feet, and the next moment was deposited
carefully but ignominiously on the ground by Gabriel,
who strode quietly and composedly up to the muzzle of
the sheriff's pistol.
" I am ready to go with ye, Mr. Hall," he said, gently,
putting the pistol aside with a certain large, indifferent
wave of the hand, " ready to go with ye, now, at onct !
But I've one little favor to ax ye. This yer pore young
man, ez yur wounded unbeknownst," he said, pointing to
Hamlin, who was writhing and gritting his teeth in help
less rage and fury, "ez not to be tuk with me, nor for
me I Thar ain't nothin' to be done to him. He hez been
dragged inter this fight. But I'm ready to go with ye
now, Mr. Hall, and am sorry you got into the troubil
along o' me."
WHITTIER] PRELUDE TO "AMONG THE HILLS." 181
PRELUDE TO "AMONG THE HILLS."
JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.
[Whittier stands too high in the ranks of American poets to require
more than a passing commeDt at our hands ; and as a philanthropist
and reformer he occupies as elevated a position before the American
people. Of wholly estimable modern characters the " Quaker Poet"
and Kalph Waldo Emerson may be named in connection, as men who
stand at the high-tide mark of moral elevation. But, while Emerson
dwelt to some extent in the clouds, and looked down on the world from
afar, Whittier has always lived on the human level, with a heart
overflowing with sympathy and touched by all the woes and wants
of man. His best poems are all marked by deep feeling, while in
poetic power they are often of the highest grade of merit. There is
nowhere in poetry a more clean-cut and sharply-outlined word-picture
than that of the " Life without an Atmosphere," in the poem given
below. Whittier was born at Haverhill, Massachusetts, in 1808. His
family belonged to the denomination of Friends, in which religious
community he has always remained. He early identified himself
with the anti-slavery party, edited a newspaper in its interest, and
was one of the most earnest advocates of the cause, in favor of which
many of his poems were written. His poems are nearly all of a lyrical
character, and are instinct with the true spirit of the lyric.]
ALONG the road-side, like the flowers of gold
The tawny Incas for their gardens wrought,
Heavy with sunshine droops the golden-rod,
And the red pennons of the cardinal-flowers
Hang motionless upon their upright staves.
The sky is hot and hazy, and the wind,
Wing- weary with its long flight from the south,
Unfelt ; yet, closely scanned, yon maple leaf
With faintest motion, as one stirs in dreams,
Confesses it. The locust by the wall
Stabs the noon-silence with his sharp alarm.
A single hay-cart down the dusty road
ii. 16
182 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WHITTIKB
Creaks slowly, with its driver fast asleep
On the load's top. Against the neighboring hill,
Huddled along the stone wall's shady side,
The sheep show white, as if a snow-drift still
Defied the dog-star. Through the open door
A drowsy smell of flowers gray heliotrope,
And white sweet clover, and shy mignonette
Comes faintly in, and silent chorus lends
To the pervading symphony of peace.
No time is this for hands long overworn
To task their strength ; and (unto Him be praise
Who giveth quietness !) the stress and strain
Of years that did the work of centuries
Have ceased, and we can draw our breath once more
Freely and full. So, as yon harvesters
Make glad their nooning underneath the elms
With tale and riddle and old snatch of song,
I lay aside grave themes, and idly turn
The leaves of memory's sketch-book, dreaming o'er
Old summer pictures of the quiet hills,
And human life, as quiet, at their feet.
And yet not idly all. A farmer's son,
Proud of field-lore and harvest-craft, and feeling
All their fine possibilities, how rich
And restful even poverty and toil
Become when beauty, harmony, and love
Sit at their humble hearth as angels sat
At evening in the patriarch's tent, when man
Makes labor noble, and his farmer's frock
The symbol of a Christian chivalry
Tender and just and generous to her
Who clothes with grace all duty, still, I know
'WHITTIER] PRELUDE TO "AMONG THE HILLS." 183
Too well the picture has another side,
How wearily the grind of toil goes on
Where love is wanting, how the eye and ear
And heart are starved amidst the plenitude
Of nature, and how hard and colorless
Is life without an atmosphere. I look
Across the lapse of half a century,
And call to mind old homesteads, where no flower
Told that the spring had come, but evil weeds,
Nightshade and rough-leaved burdock, in the place
. Of the sweet door- way greeting of the rose
And honeysuckle, where the house-walls seemed
Blistering in sun, without a tree or vine
To cast the tremulous shadow of its leaves
Across the curtainless windows from whose panes
Fluttered the signal rags of shiftlessness ;
Within, the cluttered kitchen-floor, unwashed
(Broom-clean I think they called it) ; the best room
Stifling with cellar damp, shut from the air
In hot midsummer, bookless, pictureless
Save the inevitable sampler hung
Over the fireplace, or a mourning piece,
A green-haired woman, peony-cheeked, beneath
Impossible willows ; the wide-throated hearth
Bristling with faded pine boughs half concealing
The piled-up rubbish at the chimney's back ;
And, in sad keeping with all things about them,
Shrill, querulous women, sour and sullen men,
Untidy, loveless, old before their time,
With scarce a human interest save their own
Monotonous round of small economies,
Or the poor scandal of the neighborhood ;
Blind to the beauty everywhere revealed,
Treading the May-flowers with regardless feet;
184 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WHITTIEB
For them the song-sparrow and the bobolink
Sang not, nor winds made music in the leaves ;
For them in vain October's holocaust
Burned, gold and crimson, over all the hills,
The sacramental mystery of the woods ;
Church-goers, fearful of the unseen Powers,
But grumbling over pulpit-tax and pew-rent,
Saving, as shrewd economists, their souls
And winter pork with the least possible outlay
Of salt and sanctity ; in daily life
Showing as little actual comprehension
Of Christian charity and love and duty
As if the Sermon on the Mount had been
Outdated like a last year's almanac :
Eich in broad woodlands and in half-tilled fields,
And yet so pinched and bare and comfortless,
The veriest straggler limping on his rounds,
The sun and air his sole inheritance,
Laughed at a poverty that paid its taxes,
And hugged his rags in self-complacency !
Not such should be the homesteads of a land
Where whoso wisely wills and acts may dwell
As king and lawgiver, in broad-acred state,
"With beauty, art, taste, culture, books, to make
His hours of leisure richer than a life
Of fourscore to the barons of old time.
Our yeoman should be equal to his home
Set in the fair, green valleys, purple-walled,
A man to match his mountains, not to creep
Dwarfed and abased below them. I would fain
In this light way (of which I needs must own,
With the knife-grinder of whom Canning sings,
" Story, God bless you ! I have none to tell you !")
LIN-COLK] SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 185
Invite the eye to see and heart to feel
The beauty and the joy within their reach,
Home, and home loves, and the beatitudes
Of nature free to all. Haply in years
That wait to take the places of our own,
Heard where some breezy balcony looks down
On happy homes, or where the lake in the moon
Sleeps dreaming of the mountains, fair as Ruth,
In the old Hebrew pastoral, at the feet
Of Boaz, even this simple lay of mine
May seem the burden of a prophecy,
Finding its late fulfilment in a change
Slow as the oak's growth, lifting manhood up
Through broader culture, finer manners, love,
And reverence, to the level of the hills.
SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
[The reputation of Abraham Lincoln is not based upon ability in
literature, yet he occupies a recognized position in this field by his
orations, which are characterized by a forcible directness of thought,
and a grasp of the true nature and spirit of democratic institutions,
which will give them a long life in the history of American oratory.
We refer in particular to the two short orations given below, the
"Second Inaugural" and the " Gettysburg Address," which contain
sentiments well worthy to become the accepted mottoes of the Ameri
can republic.]
FELLOW-COUNTRYMEN, At this second appearing to take
the oath of the Presidential office, there is less occasion
for an extended address than there was at the first. Then,
TI. 16*
186 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
a statement, somewhat in detail, of a course to be pursued
seemed very fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration
of four years, during which public declarations have been
constantly called forth on every point and phase of the
great contest which still absorbs the attention and en
grosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could
be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all
else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to
myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and en
couraging to all. With high hope for the future, no pre
diction in regard to it is ventured.
On the occasion corresponding to this, four years ago,
all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil
war. All dreaded it, all sought to avoid it. While the
inaugural address was being delivered from this place, de
voted altogether to saving the Union without war, insur
gent agents were in the city, seeking to destroy it without
war, seeking to dissolve the Union, and divide the effects
by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war ; but one of
them would make war rather than let the nation survive,
and the other would accept war rather than let it perish ;
and the war came.
One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves,
not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in
the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a pecu
liar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest
was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, per
petuate, and extend this interest was the object for which
the insurgents would rend the Union by war, while the
government claimed no right to do more than to restrict
the territorial enlargement of it.
Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or
the duration which it has already attained. Neither an
ticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with.
LINCOLN] SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 187
or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each
looked for an easier triumph, and a result less funda
mental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and
pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against
the other. It may seem strange that any men should
dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread
from the sweat of other men's faces. But let us judge
not. that we be not judged. The prayer of both could
not be answered. That of neither has been answered
fully. The Almighty has his own purposes. " Woe unto
the world because of offences, for it must needs be that
offences come ; but woe to that man by whom the offence
cometh."
If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of
these offences, which, in the providence of God, must
needs come, but which, having continued through his ap
pointed time, he now wills to remove, and that he gives to
both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to
those by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein
any departure from those divine attributes which the be
lievers in a living God always ascribe to him ?
Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this
mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if
God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the
bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited
toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn
with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the
sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it
must be said that " the judgments of the Lord are true
and righteous altogether."
"With malice towards none, with charity for all, with
firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let
us strive on, to finish the work we are in, to bind up the
nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the
188 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [LINCOLN
battle, and for his widow and his orphans, to do all which
may achieve and cherish a just and a lasting peace among
ourselves and with all nations.
GETTYSBURG ORATION.
Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought
forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in Lib
erty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are
created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing
whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so
dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle
field of that war. We are met to dedicate a portion of it
as the final resting-place of those who here gave their
lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting
and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot
consecrate, we cannot hallow, this ground. The brave
men, living and dead, who struggled here, have conse
crated it far above our power to add or detract. The world
will little note nor long remember what we say here, but
it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the
living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work
that they have thus far so nobly carried on. It is rather
for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining
before us ; that from these honored dead we take increased
devotion to the cause for which they here gave the last
full measure of devotion ; that we here highly resolve that
the dead shall not have died in vain, that the nation shall,
under God, have a new birth of freedom, and that govern
ment of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall
not perish from the earth.
KENNAN] WINTER LIFE AND SCENERY IN SIBERIA. 189
WINTER LIFE AND SCENERY IN SIBERIA.
GEORGE KENNAN.
[The failure of the first Atlantic telegraph cable led the Western
Union Telegraph Company to attempt the arduous undertaking of
reaching Europe by a telegraphic line through British America and
Siberia, and a party of engineers was sent to the latter country in 1865
to make the preliminary explorations. The adventures of these pio
neers are described in a highly interesting manner by George Kennan,
one of their number, in his " Tent Life in Siberia," which is perhaps
the best description extant of the dreary northwest of that country.
It may be stated here that, after two or three years of hard engineering
labor, the enterprise was abandoned. We copy the author's graphic
narrative of a sleighing expedition in search of a party of Americans
who had been landed in Northwestern Siberia months before, and had
been snowed in. To this we add a spirited account of a remarkably
brilliant display of the Arctic aurora.]
ON the eleventh day after our departure from Anadyrsk,
toward the close of the long twilight which succeeds an
Arctic day, our little train of eleven sledges drew near the
place where, from Chookchee accounts, we expected to
find the long-exiled party of Americans. The night was
clear, still, and intensely cold, the thermometer at sunset
marking forty-four degrees below zero, and sinking rap
idly to 50 as the rosy flush in the west grew fainter
and fainter and darkness settled down upon the vast
steppe. Many times before, in Siberia and Kamtchatka,
I had seen Nature in her sterner moods and winter garb ;
but never before had the elements of cold, barrenness, and
desolation seemed to combine into a picture so dreary as
the one which was presented to us that night near Behr-
ing's Straits. Far as the eye could pierce the gathering
gloom in every direction lay the barren steppe, like a
boundless ocean of snow, blown into long wave-like ridges
190 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
by previous storms. There was not a tree, nor a bush,
nor any sign of animal or vegetable life, to show that wo
were not travelling on a frozen ocean. All was silence
and desolation. The country seemed abandoned by God
and man to the Arctic Spirit, whose trembling banners of
auroral light flared out fitfully in the north in token of
his conquest and dominion. About eight o'clock the full
moon rose huge and red in the east, casting a lurid glare
over the vast field of snow ; but, as if it too were under
the control of the Arctic Spirit, it was nothing more than
the mockery of a moon, and was constantly assuming the
most fantastic and varied shapes. Now it extended itself
laterally into a long ellipse, then gathered itself up again
into the semblance of a huge red urn, lengthened out to a
long, perpendicular bar with rounded ends, and finally be
came triangular. It can hardly be imagined what added
wildness and strangeness this blood-red distorted moon
gave to a scene already wild and strange. "We seemed to
have entered upon some frozen, abandoned world, where
all the ordinary laws and phenomena of nature were sus
pended, where animal and vegetable life were extinct, and
from which even the favor of the Creator had been with
drawn. The intense cold, the solitude, the oppressive
silence, and the red, gloomy moonlight, like the glare of
a distant but mighty conflagration, all united to excite in
the mind feelings of awe, which were perhaps intensified
by the consciousness that never before had any human
being, save a few "Wandering Chookchees, ventured in
winter upon these domains of the Frost King. There was
none of the singing, joking, and hallooing with which our
drivers were wont to enliven a night-journey. Stolid and
unimpressible though they might be, there was something
in the scene which even they felt and were silent. Hour
after hour wore slowly and wearily away until midnight.
KENNAN] WINTER LIFE AND SCENERY IN SIBERIA. 191
We had passed by more than twenty miles the point on
the river where the party of Americans was supposed to
be ; but no sign had been found of the subterranean house
or its projecting stove-pipe, and the great steppe still
stretched away before us, white, ghastly, and illimitable
as ever. For nearly twenty-four hours we had travelled
without a single stop, night or day, except one at sunrise
to rest our tired dogs ; and the intense cold, fatigue, anxiety,
and lack of warm food began at last to tell upon our silent
but suffering men. We realized for the first time the haz
ardous nature of the adventure in which we were en
gaged, and the almost absolute hopelessness of the search
which we were making for the lost American party. We
had not one chance in a hundred of finding at midnight
on that vast waste of snow a little buried hut, whose loca
tion we did not know within fifty miles, and of whose very
existence we were by no means certain. Who could tell
whether the Americans had not abandoned their subter
ranean house two months before, and removed with some
friendly natives to a more comfortable and sheltered situ
ation ? We had heard nothing from them later than De
cember 1, and it was now February. They might in
that time have gone a hundred miles down the coast look
ing for a settlement, or have wandered far back into the
interior with a band of Eeindeer Chookchees. It was not
probable that they would have spent four months in that
dreary, desolate region without making an effort to escape.
Even if they were still in their old camp, however, how
were we to find them ? We might have passed their little
underground hut unobserved hours before, and might now
be going farther and farther away from it, from wood, and
from shelter. It had seemed a very easy thing, before we
left Anadyrsk, to simply go down the river until we came
to a house on the bank or saw a stove-pipe sticking out
192 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
of a snow-drift ; but now, two hundred and fifty or three
hundred miles from the settlement, in a temperature of
fifty degrees below zero, when our lives perhaps depended
upon finding that little buried hut, we realized how wild
had been our anticipations and how faint were our pros
pects of success. The nearest wood was more than fifty
miles behind us, and in our chilled and exhausted condi
tion we dared not camp without a fire. We must go either
forward or back, find the hut within four hours, or aban
don the search and return as rapidly as possible to the
nearest wood. Our dogs were beginning already to show
unmistakable signs of exhaustion, and their feet, swollen
with long travel, had cracked open between the toes and
were now spotting the white snow with blood at every
step. Unwilling to give up the search while there re
mained any hope, we still went on to the eastward, along
the edges of high, bare bluffs skirting the river, separating
our sledges as widely as possible, and extending our line
so as to cover a greater extent of ground. A full moon,
now high in the heavens, lighted up the vast, lonely plain
on the north side of the river as brilliantly as day ; but its
whiteness was unbroken by any dark object, save here
and there little hillocks of moss and swamp grass from
which the snow had been swept by furious winds.
We were all suffering severely from cold, and our fur
hoods and the breasts of our fur coats were masses of
white frost which had been formed by our breaths. I had
put on two heavy reindeer-skin kookhlankas, weighing
in the aggregate about thirty pounds, belted them tightly
about the waist with a sash, drawn their thick hoods up
over my head and covered my face with a squirrel-skin
mask, but, in spite of all, I could only keep from freezing
by running beside my sledge. Dodd said nothing, but
was evidently disheartened and half frozen; while the
KKNNAN] WINTER LIFE AND SCENERY IN SIBERIA. 193
natives sat silently upon their sledges, as if they expected
nothing and hoped for nothing. Only Gregorie and an
old Chookchee whom we had brought with us as a guide
showed any energy or seemed to have any confidence in
the ultimate discovery of the party. They went on in
advance, digging everywhere in the snow for wood, ex
amining carefully the banks of the river, and making
occasional detours into the snowy plain to the northward.
At last Dodd, without saying anything to me, gave his
spiked stick to one of the natives, drew his head and arms
into the body of his fur coat, and lay down upon his
sledge to sleep, regardless of my remonstrances, and pay
ing no attention whatever to my questions. He was
evidently becoming stupefied by the deadly chill, which
struck through the heaviest furs, and which was con
stantly making insidious advances from the extremities
to the seat of life. He probably would not live through
the night unless he could be roused, and might not live
two hours. Discouraged by his apparently hopeless con
dition, and exhausted by the constant struggle to keep
warm, I finally lost all hope, and reluctantly decided to
abandon the search and camp. By stopping where we
were, breaking up one of our sledges for firewood, and
boiling a little tea, I thought that Dodd might be revived ;
but to go on to the eastward seemed to be needlessly
risking the lives of all without any apparent prospect of
discovering the party or of finding wood. I had just
given the order to the natives nearest me to camp, when
I thought I heard a faint halloo in the distance. All the
blood in my veins suddenly rushed with a great throb
to the heart as I threw back my fur hood and listened.
Again a faint, long-drawn cry came back through the
still atmosphere from the sledges in advance. My dogs
pricked up their ears at the startling sound and dashed
ii. i n 17
194 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
eagerly forward, and in a moment I came upon several
of our leading drivers gathered in a little group around
what seemed to be an old overturned whale-boat which
lay half buried in snow by the river's bank. The foot
print in the sand was not more suggestive to Robinson
Crusoe than was this weather-beaten, abandoned whale-
boat to us, for it showed that somewhere in the vicinity
there was shelter and life. One of the men a few
moments before had driven over some dark, hard object
in the snow, which he at first supposed to be a log of
drift-wood ; but, upon stopping to examine it, he found it
to be an American whale-boat. If ever we thanked God
from the bottom of our hearts, it was then. Brushing
away with my mitten the long fringe of frost which hung
to my eyelashes, I looked eagerly around for a house;
but Gregorie had been quicker than I, and a joyful shout
from a point a little farther down the river announced
another discovery. I left my dogs to go where they chose,
threw away my spiked stick, and started at a run in the
direction of the sound. In a moment I saw Gregorie and
the old Chookchee standing beside a low mound of snow,
about a hundred yards back from the river-bank, exam
ining some dark object which projected from its smooth
white surface. It was the long-talked-of, long-looked- for
stove-pipe ! The Anadyr River party was found.
The unexpected discovery late at night of this party
of countrymen, when we had just given up all hope of
shelter, and almost of life, was a godsend to our disheart
ened spirits, and I hardly knew in my excitement what I
did. I remember now walking hastily back and forth in
front of the snow-drift, repeating softly to myself at every
step, " Thank God ! thank God !" but at the time 1 was
not conscious of anything except the great fact of our
safety. Dodd, who had been roused from his half-frozen
KENNAN] WINTER LIFE AND SCENERY IN SIBERIA. 195
lethargy by the strong excitement of the discovery, now
suggested that we try and find the entrance to the house
and get in as quickly as possible, as he was nearly dead
with the cold and exhaustion. There was no sound of
life in the lonely snow-drift before us, and the inmates, if
it had any, were evidently asleep. Seeing no sign any
where of a door, I walked up on the drift, and shouted
down through the stove-pipe, in tremendous tones, " Halloo
the house!" A startled voice from under my feet de
manded, " Who's there ?"
"Come out and see ! Where's the door?"
My voice seemed to the astounded Americans inside to
come out of the stove, a phenomenon which was utterly
unparalleled in all their previous experience; but they
reasoned very correctly that any stove which could ask
in good English for the door in the middle of the night
had an indubitable right to be answered; and they re
plied in a hesitating and half-frightened tone that the
door was " on the southeast corner." This left us about
as wise as before. In the first place, we did not know
which way southeast was ; and in the second, a snow
drift could not properly be described as having a corner.
I started around the stove-pipe, however, in a circle, with
the hope of finding some sort of an entrance. The in
mates had dug a deep ditch or trench about thirty feet
in length for a door-way, and had covered it over with
sticks and reindeer-skins to keep out the drifting snow.
Stepping incautiously upon this frail roof, I fell through,
just as one of the startled men was coming out in his
shirt and drawers, holding a candle above his head, and
peering through the darkness of the tunnel to see who
would enter. The sudden descent through the roof of
such an apparition as I knew myself to be, was not cal-
culated to restore the steadiness of startled nerves. I
196 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [KENNA
had on two heavy " kookhlankas," which swelled out my
figure to gigantic proportions, two thick reindeer-skin
hoods with long, frosty fringes of black bear-skin were
pulled up over my head, a squirrel-skin mask frozen into
a sheet of ice concealed my face, and nothing but the eyes
peering out through tangled masses of frosty hair showed
that the furs contained a human being. The man took
two or three frightened steps backward and nearly dropped
his candle. I came in such a " questionable shape" that
he might well demand " whether my intents were wicked
or charitable." As I recognized his face, however, and
addressed him again in English, he stopped ; and, tearing
off my mask and fur hoods, I spoke my name. Never
was there such rejoicing as that which then took place in
that little underground cellar, as I recognized in the ex
iled party two of my old comrades and friends, to whom
eight months before I had bid good-by as the Olga sailed
out of the Golden Gate of San Francisco. I little thought,
when I shook hands with Harder and Robinson then, that
I should next meet them at night in a little snow-covered
cellar on the great lonely steppes of the lower Anadyr.
A SIBERIAN AURORA.
Among the few pleasures which reward the traveller
for the hardships and dangers of life in the far north,
there are none which are brighter or longer remembered
than the magnificent auroral displays which occasionally
illumine the darkness of the long polar night and light
up with a celestial glory the whole blue vault of heaven.
No other natural phenomenon is so grand, so mysterious,
BO terrible in its unearthly splendor, as this : the veil
which conceals from mortal eyes the glory of the eternal
throne seems drawn aside, and the awed beholder is lifted
KBNNAN] WINTER LIFE AND SCENERY IN SIBERIA. 197
out of the atmosphere of his daily life into the immediate
presence of God.
On the 26th of February, while we were all yet living
together at Anadyrsk, there occurred one of the grandest
displays of the Arctic aurora which had been observed
there for more than fifty years, and which exhibited such
unusual and extraordinary brilliancy that even the natives
were astonished. It was a cold, dark, but clear winter's
night, and the sky in the earlier part of the evening
showed no signs of the magnificent illumination which
was already being prepared. A few streamers wavered
now and then in the north, and a faint radiance like that
of the rising moon shone above the dark belt of shrubbery
which bordered the river ; but this was a common occur
rence, and it excited no notice or remark. Late in the
evening, just as we were preparing to go to bed, Dodd
happened to go out of doors for a moment to look after
his dogs ; but no sooner had he reached the outer door of
the entry than he came rushing back, his face ablaze with
excitement, shouting, "Kennan! Robinson! Come out,
quick !" "With a vague impression that the village must
be on fire, I sprang up, and, without stopping to put on
any furs, ran hastily out, followed closely by Eobinson,
Harder, and Smith. As we emerged into the open air
there burst suddenly upon our startled eyes the grandest
exhibition of vivid, dazzling light and color of which the
mind can conceive. The whole universe seemed to be on
fire. A broad arch of brilliant prismatic colors spanned
the heavens from east to west like a gigantic rainbow,
with a long fringe of crimson and yellow streamers
stretching up from its convex edge to the very zenith.
At short intervals of one or two seconds, wide, luminous
bands, parallel with the arch, rose suddenly out of the
northern horizon and swept with a swift, steady majesty
II. 17*
198 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
across the whole heavens, like long breakers of phospho
rescent light rolling in from some limitless ocean of space.
Every portion of the vast arch was momentarily wa
vering, trembling, and changing color, and the brilliant
streamers which fringed its edge swept back and forth in
great curves, like the fiery sword of the angel at the gate
of Eden. In a moment the vast auroral rainbow, with all
its wavering streamers, began to move slowly up towards
the zenith, and a second arch of equal brilliancy formed
directly under it, shooting up another long, serried row of
slender colored lances toward the North Star, like a bat
talion of the celestial host presenting arms to its com
manding angel. Every instant the display increased in
unearthly grandeur. The luminous bands revolved swiftly,
like the spokes of a great wheel of light, across the
heavens ; the streamers hurried back and forth with swift,
tremulous motion from the ends of the arches to the centre,
and now and then a great wave of crimson would surge
up from the north and fairly deluge the whole sky with
color, tingeing the white, snowy earth far and wide with
its rosy reflection. But as the words of the prophecy,
" And the heavens shall be turned to blood," formed them
selves upon my lips, the crimson suddenly vanished, and
a lightning flash of vivid orange startled us with its wide,
all-pervading glare, which extended even to the southern
horizon, as if the whole volume of the atmosphere had
suddenly taken fire. I even held my breath a moment,
as I listened for the tremendous crash of thunder which
it seemed to me must follow this sudden burst of vivid
light ; but in heaven or earth there was not a sound to
break the calm silence of night, save the hastily-muttered
prayers of the frightened native at my side, as he crossed
himself and kneeled down before the visible majesty of
God. I could not imagine any possible addition which
E.ENNAN] WINTER LIFE AND SCENERY IN SIBERIA. 199
even Almighty power could make to the grandeur of the
aurora as it now appeared. The rapid alternations of
crimson, blue, green, and yellow in the sky were reflected
so vividly from the white surface of the snow that the
whole world seemed now steeped in blood, and then quiv
ering in an atmosphere of pale, ghastly green, through
which shone the unspeakable glories of the mighty crim
son and yellow arches. But the end was not yet. As we
watched with upturned faces the swift ebb and flow of
these great celestial tides of colored light, the last seal
of the glorious revelation was suddenly broken, and both
arches were simultaneously shivered into a thousand par
allel perpendicular bars, every one of which displayed in
regular order, from top to bottom, the seven primary
colors of the solar spectrum. From horizon to horizon
there now stretched two vast curving bridges of colored
bars, across which we almost expected to see, passing and
repassing, the bright inhabitants of another world. Amid
cries of astonishment and exclamations of " God have
mercy !" from the startled natives, these innumerable bars
began to move, with a swift dancing motion, back and
forth along the whole extent of both arches, passing each
other from side to side with such bewildering rapidity
that the eye was lost in the attempt to follow them. The
whole concave of heaven seemed transformed into one
great revolving kaleidoscope of shattered rainbows. Never
had I even dreamed of such an aurora as this ; and I am
not ashamed to confess that its magnificence at that mo
ment overawed and frightened me. The whole sky, from
zenith to horizon, was " one molten mantling sea of color
and fire, crimson and purple, and scarlet and green, and
colors for which there are no words in language and no
ideas in the mind, things which can only be conceived
while they are visible." The " signs and portents" in the
200 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
heavens were grand enough to herald the destruction of a
world : flashes of rich, quivering color, covering half the
sky for an instant and then vanishing like summer light
ning ; brilliant green streamers shooting swiftly but si
lently up across the zenith ; thousands of variegated bars
sweeping past each other in two magnificent arches, and
great luminous waves rolling in from the interplanetary
spaces and breaking in long lines of radiant glory upon
the shallow atmosphere of a darkened world.
With the separation of the two arches into component
bars it reached its utmost magnificence, and from that
time its supernatural beauty slowly but steadily faded.
The first arch broke up, and soon after it the second ; the
flashes of color appeared less and less frequently; the
luminous bands ceased to revolve across the zenith ; and
in an hour nothing remained in the dark starry heavens
to remind us of the aurora, except a few faint Magellan
clouds of luminous vapor.
I am painfully conscious of my inability to describe as
they should be described the splendid phenomena of a
great polar aurora; but such magnificent effects cannot
be expressed in a mathematical formula, nor can an inex
perienced artist reproduce with a piece of charcoal the
brilliant coloring of a Turner landscape. I have given
only faint hints, which the imagination of the reader must
fill up. But be assured that no description, however faith
ful, no flight of the imagination, however exalted, can
begin to do- justice to a spectacle of such unearthly gran
deur. Until man drops his vesture of flesh and stands
in the presence of Deity, he will see no more striking
manifestation of the " glory of the Lord, which is terri
ble," than that presented by a brilliant exhibition of the
Arctic aurora.
WILSON] THE BLUEBIRD. 201
THE BLUEBIRD.
ALEXANDER WILSON.
[Alexander Wilson, the father of American ornithology, was born
at Paisley, Scotland, in 1766. He acquired some reputation in his
native land as a poet, before coming to America in 1794. His first
employment in this country was as a weaver, and afterwards as a
school-teacher, near Philadelphia. The advice and instruction of
William Bartram the botanist induced him to study the birds of
America. In this pursuit he made a pedestrian tour through Western
New York, then a primeval wilderness. This tour was described by
him in a lively poem entitled " The Foresters." The result of his
labors was a valuable work on ornithology, issued by him in seven
volumes, which was completed in 1813. It was admirably done, the
birds being pictured with great care and exactness, and was the true
pioneer of Audubon's later and magnificent work. Worn out with
his excessive labor, Wilson died in 1813. Two additional volumes of
his work were edited after his death. His descriptive passages are
written in a lively and imaginative style, and possess value from the
close observation of nature which they manifest. In his mind the
instincts of the poet and the man of science were united.]
THE pleasing manners and sociable disposition of this
little bird entitle him to particular notice. As one of the
first messengers of spring, bringing the charming tidings
to our very doors, he bears his own recommendation
always along with him, and meets with a hearty wel
come from everybody.
Though generally accounted a bird of passage, yet so
early as the middle of February, if the weather be open,
he usually makes his appearance about his old haunts,
the barn, orchard, and fence-posts. Storms and deep
snows sometimes succeeding, he disappears for a time,
but about the middle of March is again seen, accompanied
by his mate, visiting the box in the garden, or the hole in
202 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [ WILSON
the old apple-tree, the cradle of some generations of his
ancestors. "When he first begins his amours," says a
curious and correct observer, " it is pleasing to behold his
courtship, his solicitude to please and to secure the favor
of his beloved female. He uses the tenderest expressions,
Bits close by her, caresses and sings to her his most en
dearing warblings. "When seated together, if he espies
an insect delicious to her taste, he takes it up, flies with
it to her, spreads his wing over her, and puts it in her
mouth." If a rival makes his appearance, for they are
ardent in their loves, he quits her in a moment, attacks
and pursues the intruder as he shifts from place to place,
in tones that bespeak the jealousy of his affection, con
ducts him, with many reproofs, beyond the extremities of
his territory, and returns to warble out his transports of
triumph beside his beloved mate. The preliminaries being
thus settled, and the spot fixed on, they begin to clean
out the old nest and the rubbish of the former year, and
to prepare for the reception of their future offspring.
Soon after this, another sociable little pilgrim (Motacilla
domestica, house wren) also arrives from the south, and,
finding such a snug berth preoccupied, shows his spite by
watching a convenient opportunity and, in the absence of
the owner, popping in and pulling out sticks, but takes
special care to make off as fast as possible.
The female lays five, and sometimes six, eggs, of a pale
blue color, and raises two, and sometimes three, broods in
a season ; the male taking the youngest under his particu
lar care while the female is again sitting. Their princi
pal food are insects, particularly large beetles, and others
of the coleopterous kinds that lurk among old, dead, and
decaying trees. Spiders are also a favorite repast with
them. In fall they occasionally regale themselves on the
berries of the sour gum, and, as winter approaches, on
WILSON] THE BLUEBIRD. 203
those of the red cedar, and on the fruit of a rough, hairy
vine that runs up and cleaves fast to the trunks of trees.
Eipe persimmons is another of their favorite dishes ; and
many other fruits and seeds which I have found in their
stomachs at that season, which, being no botanist, I am
unable to particularize. They are frequently pestered
with a species of tape-worm, some of which I have taken
from their intestines of an extraordinary size, and, in
some cases, in great numbers. Most other bii'ds are also
plagued with these vermin ; but the bluebird seems more
subject to them than any I know, except the woodcock.
An account of the different species of vermin, many of
which, I doubt not, are nondescripts, that infest the plu
mage and intestines of our birds, would of itself form an
interesting publication ; but, as this belongs more prop
erly to the entomologist, I shall only, in the course of this
work, take notice of some of the most remarkable, and
occasionally represent them on the same plate with those
birds upon which they are usually found.
The usual spring and summer song of the bluebird is a
soft, agreeable, and oft-repeated warble, uttered with open,
quivering wings, and is extremely pleasing. In his mo
tions and general character he has great resemblance to
the robin-redbreast of Britain, and had he the brown
olive of that bird, instead of his own blue, could scarcely
be distinguished from him. Like him, he is known to
almost every child, and shows as much confidence in man
by associating with him in summer, as the other by his
familiarity in winter. He is also of a mild and peaceful
disposition, seldom fighting or quarrelling with other
birds. His society is courted by the inhabitants of the
country, and few farmers neglect to provide for him, in
some suitable place, a snug little summer-house, ready
fitted and rent-free. For this he more than sufficiently
204 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [
repays them by the cheerfulness of his song and the mul
titude of injurious insects which he daily destroys. To
wards fall that is, in the month of October his song
changes to a single plaintive note, as he passes over the
yellow, many-colored woods; and its melancholy air re
calls to our minds the approaching decay of the face of
nature. Even after the trees are stripped of their leaves,
he still lingers over his native fields, as if loath to leave
them. About the middle or end of November few or
none of them are seen ; but with every return of mild
and open weather we hear his plaintive note amidst the
fields, or in the air, seeming to deplore the devastations
of winter. Indeed, he appears scarcely ever totally to
forsake us, but to follow fair weather through all its jour-
neyings till the return of spring. . . .
The bluebird is six inches and three-quarters in length,
the wings remarkably full and broad ; the whole upper
parts are of a rich sky-blue, with purple reflections ; the
bill and legs are black ; inside of the mouth, and soles of
the feet, yellow, resembling the color of a ripe persimmon ;
the shafts of all the wing- and tail-feathers are black ;
throat, neck, breast, and sides, partially under the wings,
chestnut ; wings, dusky black at the tips ; belly and vent,
white; sometimes the secondaries are exteriorly light
brown, but the bird has in that case not arrived at his ful)
color. The female is easily distinguished by the dullei
cast of the back, the plumage of which is skirted with
light brown, and by the red on the breast being much
fainter, and not descending nearly so low as in the male ;
the secondaries are also more dusky. This species is
found over the whole United States ; in the Bahama
Islands, where many of them winter; as also in Mexico,
Brazil, and Guiana.
Mr. Edwards mentions that the specimen of this bird
WILSON] THE BLUEBIRD. 205
which he was favored with was sent from the Bermudas ;
and, as these islands abound with the cedar, it is highly
probable that many of those birds pass from our con
tinent thence, at the commencement of winter, to enjoy
the mildness of that climate as well as their favorite food.
As the bluebird is so regularly seen in winter after the
continuance of a few days of mild and open weather, it
has given rise to various conjectures as to the place of his
retreat ; some supposing it to be in close, sheltered thick
ets lying to the sun ; others the neighborhood of the sea,
where the air is supposed to be more temperate, and where
the matters thrown up by the waves furnish him with a
constant and plentiful supply of food. Others trace him
to the dark recesses of hollow trees and subterraneous
caverns, where they suppose he dozes away the winter,
making, like Eobinson Crusoe, occasional reconnoitring
excursions from his castle whenever the weather happens
to be favorable. But amidst the snows and severities of
winter I have sought for him in vain in the most favorable
sheltered situations of the Middle States, and not only in
the neighborhood of the sea, but on both sides of the
mountains. I have never, indeed, explored the depths of
caverns in search of him, because I would as soon expect
to meet with tulips and butterflies there, as bluebirds;
but among hundreds of woodmen, who have cut down
trees of all sorts and at all seasons, I have never heard
one instance of these birds being found so immured in
winter; while in the whole of the Middle and Eastern
States the same general observation seems to prevail, that
the bluebird always makes his appearance in winter after
a few days of mild and open weather. On the other hand,
I have myself found them numerous in the woods of North
and South Carolina in the depth of winter, and I have
also been assured by different gentlemen of respectability,
ii. 18
206 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WILSON
who have resided in the islands of Jamaica, Cuba, and the
Bahamas and Bermudas, that this very bird is common
there in winter. We also find, from the works of Her
nandez, Piso, and others, that it is well known in Mexico,
Guiana, and Brazil ; and, if so, the place of its winter re
treat is easily ascertained, without having recourse to all
' the trumpery of holes and caverns, torpidity, hibernation,
and such ridiculous improbabilities.
Nothing is more common in Pennsylvania than to see
large flocks of these birds, in spring and fall, passing at
considerable heights in the air, from the south in the'
former and from the north in the latter season. I have
seen, in the month of October, about an hour after sunrise,
ten or fifteen of them descend from a great height and
settle on the top of a tall detached tree, appearing, from
their silence and sedateness, to be strangers, and fatigued.
After a pause of a few minutes, they began to dress and
arrange their plumage, and continued so employed for ten
or fifteen minutes more; then, on a few warning notes
being given, perhaps by the leader of the party, the whole
remounted to a vast height, steering in a direct line for
the southwest. In passing along the chain of the Bahamas
towards the West Indies, no great difficulty can occur,
from the frequency of these islands ; nor even to the Ber
mudas, which are said to be six hundred miles from the
nearest part of the continent. This may seem an extraor
dinary flight for so small a bird ; but it is nevertheless a
fact that it is performed. If we suppose the bluebird in
this case to fly only at the rate of a mile per minute,
which is less than I have actually ascertained him to do
overland, ten or eleven hours would be sufficient to ac
complish the journey, besides the chances he would have
Df resting-places by the way, from the number of vessels
Shat generally navigate those seas. In like manner, two
WOOLSON] A SOJOURN IN ARGADY. 207
days at most, allowing for numerous stages for rest, would
conduct him from the remotest regions of Mexico to any
part of the Atlantic States. When the natural history of
that part of the continent and its adjacent isles is better
known, and the period at which its birds of passage arrive
and depart are truly ascertained, I have no doubt but these
suppositions will be fully corroborated.
A SOJOURN IN ARCADY.
ABBA G. WOOLSON.
[Abba Goold Woolson was born at Windham, Maine, in 1838. She
has lectured on English literature, and is the author of " Woman in
American Society," " Dress Keform," " Browsings among Books," etc.
We offer a characteristic selection from the first-named of these works.
Its vein of humor is an agreeable addition to the good sense with
which the whole book is replete.]
WHEN the ornamental young lady leaves her city nomo
to indulge for a while in the sweets of a country life, she
is in a fair way to study one phase of American society
hitherto unknown to her, and to learn from it a few pro
saic truths. Poets and romancers have made her familiar
with the scenery of their pastorals ; and though she has
no hope of finding the hill-sides of her new resort sprinkled
with coy little shepherdesses, who sit with crooks and
garlanded hats amid flocks of sleepy sheep, while love
sick swains blow oaten pipes at their feet, yet she does
fancy that something not altogether alien to the pretty,
idyllic existence that had got into books will be possible
to her there.
After a few weeks she will realize that nowhere are the
208 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WOOLSON
hard, bare facts of material life so squarely faced as in our
own country towns, where not only the beauty of poetry
and art, but even the charms of Nature herself, find little
or no recognition. She will learn, too, that between her
own occupation and amusements and those of her country
sisters there is scarcely more correspondence than if she
had been born on the opposite side of the globe.
These thoughts could not but arise when my friend
Madge came in this morning to bid us good-by. She is
off to-day for her summer campaign ; this time neither to
the sea-side, the Springs, nor the White Hills, but to an
old-fashioned farm-house somewhere in Vermont. The
town is charming and retired, she tells me ; the house a
roomy old mansion, neat and quiet, and embowered under
great elms; and the family an independent farmer and
wife, who never had a boarder before, and who consent to
take her only as a favor. It promises a novel existence to
this city maiden, who has spent her summer days among
the crowds at fashionable watering-places ; and she is en
chanted at the prospect of so complete a change.
In a burst of friendly confidence, she declared herself
sick of the world, this poor little nun, just turned of
eighteen, and as fine a butterfly as one would wish to see.
Great hotels have become to her stupid abodes, where
there is nothing to be done, from morning till night, but
to dress, and eat, and drift about the piazzas. Flirting
to which, I grieve to say, she is not averse she asserts to
be impossible in such places, for there is not a young man
to be met there nowadays, at least nobody worth killing.
And so it is that she decides to turn her back upon all
vain pomps and vanities, and betake herself to utter se
clusion; though, in spite of her sighs, she intends, no
doubt, to emerge in time for next winter's round of parties
and balls.
A SOJOURN IN ARCADY. 209
STou should have heard her rhapsodize so gloriously
over the delights she is to find in this new retreat. Such
feasting on fruits and berries and cream, such rambles
through wood and meadow, such sound, refreshing slum
ber at night, and such siestas at .noonday ! One would
think she was to live, like the butterflies, by sipping
nectar from flower-cups and sleeping in the cool, rocking
tents of the lilies. Especially was she rejoiced that she
would not have to spend her days in dressing and adorn
ing herself, as if there were a place where Madge would
not do that ! Were she to be cast away on a desert island,
she could no more keep from braiding her crimps and
looping up her overskirts in the latest style than a bird
could keep from singing in a wilderness. Wherever she
goes she must take her finery and her fashions. Trains
of vaporous muslin will float over the sanded floors of
that old farm-house, crisp, pale silks rustle in the rush-
bottomed chairs, and the prim front chamber be turned
into a bewildered boudoir, with French gewgaws run
ning riot over the tall bureau-tops, and bournous and In
dian mantles littering the straight tables. Somewhere
among the hay-makers will wander a jaunty hat and a
scarlet cloak ; for it is much to be feared lest this pretty
charmer may seek to astound the natives with her gay
adornments, and even to get up desperate flirtations with
the farmers' sons, if only, like Lady Clara Yere de Vere,
" to break a country heart for pastime, ere she goes to
town."
Now that my friend is gone, and her pleasant laugh
and merry stories will be heard no more for so many
weeks, I fall to dreaming over all that she has said. She
is a winsome little body, and one would fain believe that
she is to walk straight into the lovely Arcady that she
has pictured for herself. It would have been cruel to
ii. o 18*
210 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [
throw even a sprinkle of cold water over her rosy expec
tations ; though countless fears beset me when she averred
that this worthy couple knew nothing of boarders and
took her only out of kindness. And their farm-house
may prove, after all, the abode of a neat-handed Phyllis
and an obliging Corydon, who shall consult her city tastes
and provide all things her soul can desire.
It is to be hoped that Madge will have her feasting, at
least; she is so weary of sherbets and ices and oyster-
pies, and had such glowing visions of her country fare.
She was to breakfast, she said, on fresh eggs and broiled
chicken ; revel, at dinner, on half a dozen kinds of vege
tables just pulled from the vines ; and sup on great bowls
of cream and dishes of berries, cooler and sweeter than
any she ever ate before. Stamped cakes of butter, hard
as stone and yellow as gold, loomed vaguely in her talk ;
there was to be bread, light and snowy and piled in wafer
slices ; sugary cakes filled with caraway-seeds ; custards
and jellies, and curds of new cheese. All this she was to
eat in some breezy room, looking out under vine-sprays
upon a blossoming garden.
But, oh, what if Phyllis gives her fried steak for break
fast, as no doubt Phyllis will, and not sirloin at that, and
would no more think of broiling a chicken, nor of broil
ing anything, than if such a mode of cooking was never
invented? What if the eggs be sent to market; and
omelettes unknown ; and the cream skimmed off for
churning; and the bread heavy and green and odorous
with saleratus? What if fried pork be served for her
dinner ; and fish never seen ; and vegetables and berries
be few, for lack of fingers to pick them ; and dried cake
and underdone pies hold the places of honor at the rural
teas? What if ice is a myth ; and the butter melts with
fervent heat ; and water simmers in the pitcher ? What
WOOLSOK] A SOJOURN IN ARCADE. 211
if Corydon sits down to table in his shirt-sleeves, nevei
dreaming that he thus commits the unpardonable sin ; and
the blinds be shut close in the face of the flies, so that no
glimpse of leaf or garden can be had ? Such things have
been ; but it would be cruel for Madge to find them in the
paradise of her dreams.
What visions she conjured up of sound, unbroken sleep
the whole night long ! for she was " to rise with the lark
and with the lark to bed," as she told us in her pretty
bravura, and was sure she should sleep like a top. Just
how a top sleeps, or what precise hours the larks keep,
she would be puzzled to tell ; but it is plain she means to
atone thoroughly for last winter's revelries. A cricket
on the hearth was to sing her to sleep ; and she revealed
a dim notion that the sheets were to smell of lavender,
like those in the inn where Ik. Walton lodged so comfort
ably when he went a-fishing. Madge thinks that all the
world goes to bed by gaslight, reposes on hair mattresses
under fleecy blankets, and has an exhaustless supply of
fresh water pouring into marble basins. But in that best
chamber there is a bed of live geese-feathers, the pride of
Phyllis's heart ; and over that a layer of cotton coverlets,
and pillows so small that she must set them on end to
keep her head on a breathing-level. In place of her bath
room, one pitcher of water holds the odor of a decayed
cistern in its yellow depths ; and towels are limited in
supply, and fine as cambric handkerchiefs. She thought
to lean on her window-sill after twilight, gazing at the
midsummer moon and inhaling the dewy fragrance of the
fields ; but that window goes up with a jerk, and stops
midway where no button exists to hold it; and a full
canopy of cloth enshrouds its panes, and sends its fringed
edges flapping into her eyes. Then a shade of green
paper most unmanageable of things that be rattles
2 '2 .REST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WOOLSON
under it at every wind-stir, and submits to be rolled up
only after Madge has resolved never to succumb.
Vexations, indeed, abound ; but it is not her part to
complain, nor to give orders to a hostess who does not
suspect that there can be a change for the better in any
part of her house. So, when the kerosene lamp which
Madge takes to her room has gone through all its amiable
tricks of smoking fiercely against the chimney, exhaling
pestiferous odors, and finally succumbing altogether to a
sudden whiff of air, she will pick her way about by star
light, like a little owl, or will secretly purloin a tallow
candle, and set it ablaze before the mirror where she
braids her tresses. And this mirror must be reckoned
among her troubles, for it is fixed to the wall so that it
cannot be swung, and deigns to reveal only the tops of
her crimps to her upturned gaze.
Moreover, Madge likes to sleep in the morning as long
as she pleases, and is wont to indulge in delicious naps
after the rest of her city household are astir. This repre
hensible habit will find no countenance in the new abode.
No one calls her, to be sure; but, at what seems the mid
dle of the night, robins begin noisy chatterings in the
great elms, so that she is wide awake before dawn. A
little later, and all the chickens, ducks, and geese gather
for a parade under her window and clamor for their
rations. Stealing up from the kitchen comes a clatter of
pots and pans, dread forewarnings of breakfast at hand ;
and the adjoining yard resounds with the whetting of
Corydon's scythes. Sound sleeping in Arcady after day
break Madge finds to be an impossible thing.
But nothing deprives her of her delightful rambles;
though she is aware that strolling about is not a favorite
pastime in that region, and that scaling stone walls is
regarded as highly unbecoming in a young lady. She
WOOLSON] A SOJOURN IN ARCADF. 21b
discovers, also, that her raptures over the beauty of
whiteweed, clover, and potato-blossoms are looked upon
as evidences of a disordered mind ; but she ties them into
bouquets for the tea-table, nevertheless, and is fond of ar
ranging them in her hair. Corydon is too kind to tell her
that she treads down his tall grass most wofully when
she hunts for strawberries, and that he would rather have
a hail-storm lodge in his wheat than to see her wandering
through it ; so she roams everywhere at will. All other
exercise is denied her ; for no one has any time to spend
in driving about for sight-seeing, and as for riding horse
back, there is not a lady's saddle to be found in the town
Madge considers the best parlor a dark and gloomy
cave ; and she makes a sitting-room of the steps of the
piazza, in the shade of the lilac-trees, much to the surprise
of Phyllis, who never sits down outside the four walls of
her domain. As the little gypsy leans her head back
against the clapboards of the house, and looks up into
the great horse-chestnut before her, she sees, in her mind's
eye, a light hammock swinging within the shade and the
coolness, and she fancies how entrancing it would be to
lie there and read her novel, with the sweet breeze stirring
the leaves.
But she has an instinctive sense that it would not do to
mention this dream, and that such indolence with malice
prepense would meet with little favor here. For the first
time in her life she feels that she is an incongruity amid
her surroundings. It seems, somehow, to be a crime for
her to have journeyed hither only to be idle and to enjoy
herself. She does imagine, however, that the young hay
maker who comes up to dinner with Corydon, and who
blushes so violently when she passes him the butter, must
be wonder-struck and delighted by her delicate beaut"
and strange, rich attire. And that he surely ought to b<
214 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WooLSOif
"When he finds himself served by such a wondrous little
goddess, with speech more silvery and courteous than he
ever heard before, he should feel tempted to go down on
his knees before her, mentally at least, and be willing to
prove himself her abject slave. Her crimped tresses
should be threads of spun gold to his dazed vision, her
eyes soft, luminous stars, her Greek brow and chin for
Madge has a Greek brow and chin should set him tc
thinking of that divine stranger whom ^Eneas and his
comrade met in the woods beyond Carthage.
But, alas I the young haymaker never read the poets,
ancient or modern; and he entertains no chivalric non
sense about woman. He regards her as a wise provision
of nature for getting dinners ready when men are hungry
and for taking care of the house when they are gone ; and,
provided she can put a meal of victuals upon the table in
good shape when the clock strikes twelve, do a smart
churning before breakfast, have the family wash out on
the line in advance of her neighbors, knit blue woollen
stockings in the evening without a waste of kerosene, and
spend no time in gadding or gossiping, he has nothing to
say against her, anyhow. But our Madge does not know
how to do anything like this ; she is, at best, but one of
the idle lilies that neither toil nor spin. And such beings,
though they may embarrass him with their finery and
manners, appear to him useless drones. It is to be feared
that he even calls her a lazy lounger, good for nothing
but to spend money and to make folks wait upon her.
So, when she crosses the field in her white morning-dress,
with its fluted ruffles and bright, flying sash-ends, it is
well that she does not hear what the young haymaker is
saying, as he stands there wiping his scythe with grass,
for it is not at all gallant or complimentary.
Madge is on her way to the wood when she passes the
WOOLSON] A SOJOURN IN ARCADY. 215
field ; and she means to find there a pleasant spot for
reading the novel she has under her arm. I see her
making off toward the hill in the hot sun, and even hear
the pale, silvery lichens crunch beneath her fc-otsteps.
Startled sheep hound away before the apparition of this
gorgeous little fairy, as she heaves into sight over the
pasture-hill ; and long branches bend and rustle behind
her, as she disappears within the wood, into the realm of
ferns and cool mosses. There are snakes sometimes in
those woods ; their glassy eyes watch her now from under
damp leaves, and her skirt-hem almost brushes against
their forked tongues as she moves along. Overhead,
bead-like eyes look down upon her, in hushed observance,
from silent boughs. She seats herself within the spread
ing roots of an old tree, and thinks she has at last realized
one of her dreams. Leaf-shadows shimmer over the pages
that she spreads before her ; and the trickle of the brook
near by sounds infinitely sweet. Through half-shut eyes
she takes in the full beauty of the scene, and then turns to
her book, and is lost to all but the adventures of Angelina
and her noble knight. The inhabitants of the wood dare
to breathe and to move about as before. Birds twitter
faintly from the boughs ; a couple of daddy-long-legs start
out on a race around the broad brim of her Leghorn hat ;
and sundry strange bugs go prospecting over the folds of
her flowing skirt. Soon a grasshopper climbs to her
shoulder, to wink his long horns under her very eyes;
and a score of mosquitoes begin their mazy dance before
her face. A little jewelled hand waves them away, and
finally plucks a fern-leaf to beat about in self-defence.
Just then Madge starts to hear a great rustling and
trampling behind her, and the near breathing of some
dreadful creature whom she does not stop to see. Had
she turned, she would have beheld only a pair of soft.
216 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WooLSO*
liquid eyes peering through the bushes, such eyes as Juno
herself was said to have, and a pair of budding horns
amid the leaves ; for a young heifer has come upon tho
scene of action, and is wondering who this visitor may be.
But Madge does chance to discern the snake in his covert ;
and fearful is the smothered cry and sudden the plunges
with which she departs headlong from her paradise. She
snatches the Leghorn hat by its ribbon, thereby finishing
the race of the daddy-long-legs at the second heat, and
bringing the explorations of insect scouting-parties to an
untimely end. The birds, the heifer, the bugs, the mos
quitoes, the snakes, all pause to stare once more as she
departs ; and once more the scarlet-cloaked fairy is seen
upon the top of the pasture-hill. Rough scrambling it
has proved for the French slippers ; their rosettes are
filled with sticks and grasses ; and the train of vaporous
muslin has caught on a tree-stump, and its hem is rent in
twain. Madge will never again venture within that wood ;
it is to her, ever after, the fearsome home of snakes and
goblins ; an enchanted forest, haunted by shapes upon
which she dares not look.
Will Madge tell us of these her troubles in Arcady when
she returns in the fall, and we are so glad to look once
more into her face and to hear the cheery carol of her
greeting ? Whatever her sorrows may be, and they shall
be heard with decorous patience, it will delight us to
behold that in spite of them all she has grown to be a full-
faced, nut-brown maid, with a fresh sparkle in her eyes
and a stronger love of home in her heart.
LOWELL] SUNSHINE AND HOPE. 217
SUNSHINE AND HOPE.
The brightness and the shadow of life, the hopes that beacon us
onward with their rainbowed light, and the griefs that cloud the path
way of our years, have alike given inspiration to the poet, whose song
now sparkles with gayety, now touches our hearts with its affecting
pathos. It is our present purpose to group some of the light-hearted
and hopeful strains, which we may follow, farther on, with a sim
ilar cluster of songs of the shadow-land. The opening stanzas of
Lowell's " Ode to Happiness" will serve as a fitting introduction to
our theme.
SPIRIT, that rarely comest now,
And only to contrast my gloom,
Like rainbow-feathered birds that bloom
A moment on some autumn bough
That, with the spurn of their farewell,
Sheds its last leaves, thou once didst dwell
"With me year-long, and make intense
To boyhood's wisely vacant days
Their fleet but all-sufficing grace
Of trustful inexperience
While soul could still transfigure sense,
And thrill, as with love's first caress
At life's mere unexpectedness.
Pays when my blood would leap and run ;
As full of sunshine as a breeze,
Or spray tossed up by summer seas
That doubts if it be sea or sun ;
Days that flew swiftly, like the band
That played in Grecian games at strife
And passed from eager hand to hand
The onward-dancing torch of life.
II. K 19
218 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [LOWELL
Wing-footed ! thou abid'st with him
Who asks it not ; but he who hath
Watched o'er the waves thy waning path
Shall nevermore behold returning
Thy high-heaped canvas shoreward yearning I
Thou first reveal'st to us thy face
Turned o'er the shoulder's parting grace,
A moment glimpsed, then seen no more,
Thou whose swift footsteps we can trace
Away from every mortal door.
Nymph of the unreturning feet,
How may I win thee back ? But no,
I do thee wrong to call thee so ;
'Tis I am changed, not thou art fleet :
The man thy presence feels again,
Not in the blood, but in the brain,
Spirit, that lov'st the upper air,
Serene and passionless and rare,
Such as on mountain-heights we find
And wide-viewed uplands of the mind,
Or such as scorns to coil and sing
Hound any but the eagle's wing
Of souls that with long upward beat
Have won an undisturbed retreat,
Where, poised like winged victories,
They mirror in relentless eyes
The life broad-basking 'neath their feet,
Man ever with his Now at strife,
Pained with first gasps of earthly air,
Then praying Death the last to spare,
Still fearful of the ampler life. .
Memory is an essential element of the happiness of mature lite, as
hope is of our youthful joys, and we look back to boyhood with eyes
STEDMAN] SUNSHINE AND HOPE. 219
that lose signt of its griefs and regret its vanished pleasures. This
feeling has been charmingly expressed by "Washington Allston, the
artist-poet.
Ah ! then how sweetly closed those crowded days,
The minutes parting one by one like rays
That fade upon a summer's eve !
But oh ! what charm, or magic numbers,
Can give me back the gentle slumbers
Those weary, happy days did leave,
When by my bed I saw my mother kneel,
And with her blessing took her nightly kiss?
Whatever Time destroys, he cannot this :
E'en now that nameless kiss I feel.
The sunshine of the outer world beautifully illustrates the sunshine
of the heart in the " Betrothed Anew" of Edmund Clarence Stedman.
The sunlight fills the trembling air,
And balmy days their guerdons bring ;
The Earth again is young and fair,
And amorous with musky spring.
The golden nurslings of the May
In splendor strew the spangled green,
And hues of tender beauty play,
Entangled where the willows lean.
Mark how the rippled currents flow ;
What lustres on the meadows lie !
And, hark ! the songsters come and go,
And trill between the earth and sky.
Who told us that the years had fled,
Or borne afar our blissful youth ?
220 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
Such joys are all about us spread,
We know the whisper was not truth.
The birds that break from grass and grove
Sing every carol that they sung
When first our veins were rich with love
And May her mantle round us flung.
O fresh-lit dawn I immortal life !
Earth's betrothal, sweet and true,
With whose delights our souls are rife,
And aye their vernal vows renew !
Then, darling, walk with me this morn ;
Let your brown tresses drink its sheen ;
These violets, within them worn,
Of floral fays shall make you queen.
What though there comes a time of pain
When autumn winds forebode decay ?
The days of love are born again ;
That fabled time is far away !
And never seemed the land so fair
As now, nor birds such notes to sing,
Since first within your shining hair
1 wove the blossoms of the spring.
The flowing gayety of the following song must serve as excuse for
its praise of the wine-cup, happily no longer one of the essentials of
joyous occasions.
Sparkling and bright in liquid light
Does the wine our goblets gleam in,
DALLAS] SUNSHINE AND HOPE. 221
With hue as red as the rosy bed
Which a bee would choose to dream in.
Then fill to-night, with hearts as light,
To loves as gay and fleeting
As bubbles that swim on the beaker's brim
And break on the lips while meeting.
Oh, if Mirth might arrest the flight
Of Time through Life's dominions,
We here awhile would now beguile
The graybeard of his pinions,
To drink to-night, with hearts as light,
To loves as gay and fleeting
As bubbles that swim on the beaker's brim
And break on the lips while meeting.
But since Delight can't tempt the wight,
Nor fond Regret delay him,
Nor Love himself can hold the elf,
Nor sober Friendship stay him,
We'll drink to-night, with hearts as light,
To loves as gay and fleeting
As bubbles that swim on the beaker's brim
And break on the lips while meeting.
CHARLES FENNO HOFFMAN.
We may offer as antidote to the subtle poison of the preceding stram
" The Toast" of Mary Kyle Dallas.
Pop ! went the gay cork flying,
Sparkled the gay champagne ;
By the light of a day that was dying
He filled up their goblets again.
" Let the last, best toast be ' Woman,
Woman, dear woman !' " said he :
M. 19*
222 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HALPINI
" Empty your glass, my darling,
When you drink to your sex with me."
But she caught his strong brown fingers,
And held them tight as in fear,
And through the gathering twilight
Her voice fell on his ear :
" Nay, ere you drink, I implore you,
By all that you hold divine,
Pledge a woman in tear-drops
Rather by far than in wine !
" By the woes of the drunkard's mother,
By his children who beg for bread,
By the fate of her whose beloved one
Looks on the wine when 'tis red,
By the kisses changed to curses,
By the tears more bitter than brine,
By many a fond heart broken,
Pledge no woman in wine."
From the joy of sunshine, hope, love, and wine, we come to that of
blissful laziness, under skies without a cloud, and with a heart empty
of care, other than that the sun may always shine. The utter idleness
of the Italian dolce far niente is thus neatly paraphrased by Charles
G. Halpine, the " Miles O'Reilly" of war times.
My friend, my chum, my trusty crony,
We were designed, it seems to me,
To be two happy lazzaroni,
On sunshine fed and macaroni,
Far off by some Sicilian sea.
From dawn to eve in the happy land
No duty on us but to lie
ANONYMOUS] SUNSHINE AND HOPE. 223
Straw-hatted on the shining sand,
With bronzing chest and arm and hand,
Beneath the blue Italian sky.
There, with the mountains idly glassing
Their purple splendors in the sea,
To watch the white-winged vessels passing
(Fortunes for busier fools amassing),
This were a heaven to you and me ;
Our meerschaums coloring cloudy brown,
Two young girls coloring with a blush,
The blue waves with a silver crown,
The mountain-shadows dropping down,
And all the air in perfect hush :
Thus should we lie in the happy land,
Nor fame, nor power, nor fortune miss,
Straw-hatted on the shining sand,
With bronzing chest and arm and hand,
Two loafers couched in perfect bliss.
Halpine's picture of the dolce far niente of the body may be fitly
followed by a peculiarly original poetic rendering of the " sweet do-
nothing" of the soul, by an unknown writer.
My sou", lies out like a basking hound,
A hound that dreams and dozes ;
Along my life my length I lay,
I fill to-morrow and yesterday,
I am warm with the suns that have long since set,
I am warm with the summers that are not yet,
And like one that dreams and dozes,
Softly afloat on a sunny sea,
Two worlds are whispering over me,
224 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [ANONYMOUS
And there blows a wind of roses
From the backward shore to the shore before,
From the shore before to the backward shore,
And, like two clouds that meet and pour
Each through each, till core in core
A single self reposes,
The nevermore and evermore
Above me mingles and closes ;
As my soul lies out like a basking hound,
And wherever it lies seems happy ground,
And when, awakened by some sweet sound,
A dreamy eye uncloses,
I see a blooming world around,
And lie amid primroses,
Years of sweet primroses,
Springs to be, and springs for me,
Of distant dim primroses.
With the following verses from another anonymous author, to whom
the sunshine of life is a more vital and persistent element than its
shadow, we close this poetic symposium.
SUNSHINE.
Our griefs are soon forgot ;
They were, and they are not,
And the happy-hearted world little cares for vanished
pains ;
But we fill the cup of pleasure
To so deep and brimming measure
That the subtle overflowing spirit all our being stains.
E'en perils dark and frightful
Yield memories delightful,
From the granite cliffs of trouble golden grains of pleas
ure won :
ANONYMOUS] SUNSHINE AND HOPE. 225
Through life's midnight we grope
Unto many a starry hope,
And the deepest, drearest shadow hides the glad beams
of the sun.
In passionate ebb and flow
The sullen waves of woe
Gushing on us in a torrent sweep our warm hearts bare
of love,
But on the deepest tide
The ark of hope will ride,
And an earth green through the deluge greets the white
wings of our dove.
With tender lips, relief
Smiles down the pang of grief;
On a mist of falling tear-drops is our bow of promise
built ;
And the cruel hand of death
Unto Eden openeth,
Heaven drinks the rare rich wine of life from Earth's
rent goblet spilt.
Lapt in a. sunny dream
We float adown life's stream,
Though the chilling winter winds blow across a dismal
wold;
Summer fancies swim and dart
Through the sunshine of the heart,
While the world without us shivers in the bleak December
cold.
226 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [KENNEDY
A SUCCESSFUL RUSE.
JOHN P. KENNEDY.
[Among the novels of the last generation those of John Pendleton
Kennedy occupied an important place in public favor, from the liveli
ness of their descriptions and their historical accuracy. Of these W9
may name " Swallow Barn," " Eoh of the Bowl," and " Horse Shoe
Robinson," from the latter of which we make our extract. The
author was born in Baltimore, in 1795. He served in the war of 1812,
and was afterwards a member of the Maryland legislature, and of the
United States House of Representatives. He was made Secretary of
the Navy in 1852, and died in August, 1870.]
ON the morning that succeeded the night in which
Horse Shoe Robinson arrived at Musgrove's, the stout
and honest sergeant might have been seen, about eight
o'clock, leaving the main road from Ninety-Six at the
point where that leading to David Ramsay's separated
from it, and cautiously urging his way into the deep forest
by the more private path into which he had entered. The
knowledge that Innis was encamped along the Ennoree,
within a short distance of the mill, had compelled him to
make an extensive circuit to reach Ramsay's dwelling,
whither he was now bent ; and he had experienced con
siderable delay in his morning journey, by finding him
self frequently in the neighborhood of small foraging-
parties of Tories, whose motions he was obliged to watch
for fear of an encounter. He had once already been com
pelled to use his horse's heels in what he called "fair
flight," and once to ensconce himself a full half-hour under
cover of the thicket afforded him by a swamp. He now,
therefore, according to his own phrase, "dived into the
little road that scrambled down through the woods
towards Ramsay's, with all his eyes about him, looking
KENNEDY] A SUCCESSFUL RUSE. 227
out as sharply as a fox on a foggy morning ;" and, with
this circumspection, he was not long in arriving within
view of Ramsay's house. Like a practised soldier, whom
frequent frays have taught wisdom, he resolved to recon
noitre before he advanced upon a post that might be in pos
session of an enemy. He therefore dismounted, fastened
his horse in a fence-corner, where a field of corn concealed
him from notice, and then stealthily crept forward until
he came immediately behind one of the out-houses.
The barking of a house-dog brought out a negro boy,
to whom Robinson instantly addressed the query,
" Is your master at home ?"
" No, sir. He's got his horse, and gone off more than
an hour ago."
" Where is your mistress ?"
" Shelling beans, sir."
" I didn't ask you," said the sergeant, " what she i
doing, but where she is."
" In course, she is in the house, sir," replied the negro,
with a grin.
" Any strangers there ?"
" There was plenty on 'em a little while ago, but they've
been gone a good bit."
Robinson, having thus satisfied himself as to the safety
of his visit, directed the boy to take his horse and lead
him up to the door. He then entered the dwelling.
" Mistress Ramsay," said he, walking up to the dame, who
was occupied at a table, with a large trencher before her,
in which she was plying that household thrift which the
negro described, " luck to you, ma'am, and all your hoube !
I hope you haven't none of these clinking and clattering
bullies about you, that are as thick over this country as
the frogs in the kneading-troughs, that they tell of."
" Good lack, Mr. Horse Shoe Robinson !" exclaimed the
.38 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [KENNEDT
matron, offering the sergeant her hand. ""What has
brought you here? What news? Who are with you?
For patience' sake, tell me !"
" I am alone," said Kobinson, " and a little wettish,
mistress," he added, as he took off his hat and shook the
water from it ; " it has just sot up a rain, and looks as if
it was going to give us enough on't. You don't mind
doing a little dinner- work of a Sunday, I see : shelling of
beans, I s'pose, is tantamount to dragging a sheep out of
a pond, as the preachers allow on the Sabbath, ha, ha !
Where's Davy ?"
"He's gone over to the meeting-house on Ennoree,
hoping to hear something of the army at Camden. Per
haps you can tell us the news from that quarter?"
" Faith, that's a mistake, Mistress Ramsay. Though I
don't doubt that they are hard upon the scratches by this
time. But at this present speaking I command the flying
artillery. We have but one man in the corps, and that's
myself; and all the guns we have got is this piece of ord
nance that hangs in this old belt by my side" (pointing
to his sword), " and that I captured from the enemy at
Blackstock's. I was hoping I mought find John Eamsay
at home : I have need of him as a recruit."
" Ah, Mr. Robinson, John has a heavy life of it over
there with Sumter. The boy is often without his nat
ural rest or a meal's victuals ; and the general thinks so
much of him that he can't spare him to come home. I
haven't the heart to complain, as long as John's service is
of any use, but it does seem, Mr. Robinson, like needless
tempting of the mercies of Providence. We thought that
he might have been here to-day ; yet I am glad he didn't
come, for he would have been certain to get into trouble.
Who should come in this morning, just after my husband
had cleverly got away on his horse, but a young cock-a-
KENNEDY] A SUCCESSFUL RUSE. 229
whoop ensign that belongs to Ninety-Six, and four great
Scotchmen with him, all in red coats ; they had been out
thieving, I warrant, and were now going home again.
And who but theyl Here they were, swaggering all
about my house, and calling for this and calling for that,
as if they owned the fee-simple of everything on the
plantation. And it made my blood rise, Mr. Horse Shoe,
to see them run out in the yard and catch up my chickens
and ducks and kill as many as they could string about
them, and I not daring to say a word : though I did give
them a piece of my mind, too."
"Who is at home with you?" inquired the sergeant,
eagerly.
" Nobody but my youngest boy, Andrew," answered the
dame. " And then the filthy toping rioters " she con
tinued, exalting her voice.
" What arms have you in the house ?" asked Robinson,
without heeding the dame's rising anger.
" We have a rifle, and a horseman's pistol that belongs
to John. They must call for drink, too, and turn my
house, of a Sunday morning, into a tavern "
" They took the route towards Ninety-Six, you said,
Mistress Eamsay ?"
" Yes, they went straight forward upon the road. But,
ok you, Mr. Horse Shoe, you're not thinking of going
rter them ?"
"Isn't there an old field, about a mile from this, on
, uat road ?" inquired the sergeant, still intent upon his
<wn thoughts.
"There is," replied the dame, "with the old school
iuse upon it."
" A lop-sided, rickety log cabin in the middle of the field.
. m I right, good woman ?"
" Yes."
ii 20
230 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [KENNED*
" And nobody lives in it ? It has no door to it ?"
" There ha'n't been anybody in it these seven years."
" I know the place very well," said the sergeant, thought-
fully : " there is woods just on this side of it."
" That's true," replied the dame. " But what is it you
are thinking about, Mr. Eobinson ?"
"How long before this rain began was it that they
quitted this house ?*'
" Not above fifteen minutes."
" Mistress Ramsay, bring me the rifle and pistol, both,
and the powder-horn and bullets."
"As you say, Mr. Horse Shoe," answered the dame, as
she turned round to leave the room ; " but I am sure I
can't suspicion what you mean to do."
In a few moments the woman returned with the weap
ons, and gave them to the sergeant.
" Where is Andy ?" asked Horse Shoe.
The hostess went to the door and called her son ; and
almost immediately afterwards a sturdy boy, of about
twelve or fourteen years of age, entered the apartment,
his clothes dripping with rain. He modestly and shyly
seated himself on a chair near tho door, with his soaked
hat flapping down over a face full of freckles, and not less
rife with the expression of an open, dauntless hardihood
of character.
" How would you like a scrummage, Andy, with them
Scotchmen that stole your mother's chickens this morn-
mg?" asked Horse Shoe.
"I'm agreed," replied the boy, "if you will tell me what
to do."
" You are not going to take the boy out on any of your
desperate projects, Mr. Horse Shoe?" said the mother,
with the tears starting instantly into her eyes. " You
wouldn't take such a child as that into danger !"
KENNEDY] A SUCCESSFUL RUSE. 231
"Bless your soul, Mistress Eamsay, there aren't no
danger about it ! Don't take on so. It's a thing that is
either done at a blow, or not done; and there's an end
of it. I want the lad only to bring home the prisoners
for me, after I have took them."
" Ah, Mr. Eobinson, I have one son already in these
wars, G-od protect him ! and you men don't know how a
mother's heart yearns for her children in these times. I
cannot give another," she added, as she threw her arms
over the shoulders of the youth and drew him to her
bosom.
" Oh, it ain't nothing," said Andrew, in a sprightly tone.
" It's only snapping of a pistol, mother. Pooh ! If I'm
not afraid, you oughtn't to be."
" I give you my honor, Mistress Eamsay," said Eobin-
eon, " that I will bring or send your son safe back in one
hour, and that he shan't be put in any sort of danger
whatsomedever. Come, that's a good woman I"
" You are not deceiving me, Mr. Eobinson ?" asked the
matron, wiping away a tear. " You wouldn't mock the
sufferings of a weak woman in such a thing as this ?"
" On the honesty of a sodger, ma'am," replied Horse
Shoe, " the lad shall be in no danger, as I said before,
whatsomedever."
" Then I will say no more," answered the mother.
" But, Andy, my child, be sure to let Mr. Eobinson keep
before you."
Horse Shoe now loaded the fire-arms, and, having slung
the pouch across his body, he put the pistol into the hands
of the boy ; then, shouldering his rifle, he and his young
ally left the room. Even on this occasion, serious as it
might be deemed, the sergeant did not depart without
giving some manifestation of that light-heartedness which
no difficulties ever seemed to have the power to conquer.
232 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [KENXBDT
He thrust his head back into the room, after he had
crossed the threshold, and said, with an encouraging
laugh, " Andy and me will teach them, Mistress Ramsay,
Pat's point of war : we will surround the ragamuffins."
" Now, Andy, my lad," said Horse Shoe, after he had
mounted Captain Peter, "you must get up behind me.
Turn the lock of your pistol down," he continued, as the
boy sprang upon the horse's rump, " and cover it with the
flap of your jacket, to keep the rain off. It won't do to
hang fire at such a time as this."
The lad did as he was directed, and Horse Shoe, having
secured his rifle in the same way, put his horse up to a
gallop and took the road in the direction that had been
pursued by the soldiers.
As soon as our adventurers had gained a wood, at the
distance of about half a mile, the sergeant relaxed his
speed and advanced at a pace a little above a walk.
" Andy," he said, " we have got rather a ticklish sort of
a job before us : so I must give you your lesson, which
you will understand better by knowing something of my
plan. As soon as your mother told me that these thiev
ing villains had left her house about fifteen minutes before
the rain came on, and that they had gone along upon
this road, I remembered the old field up here and the little
log hut in the middle of it ; and it was natural to suppose
that they had just got about near that hut when this rain
came up ; and then it was the most supposable case in the
world that they would naturally go into it, as the dryest
place they could find. So now you see it's my calculation
that the whole batch is there at this very point of time.
We will go slowly along until we get to the other end of
this wood, in sight of the old field ; and then, if there is
no one on the lookout, we will open our first trench : you
know what that means, Andy ?"
KENNEDY] A SUCCESSFUL RUSE. 233
" It means, I s'pose, that we'll go right smack at them,"
replied Andrew.
" Pretty exactly," said the sergeant. " But listen to
me. Just at the edge of the woods you will have to get
down and put yourself behind a tree. I'll ride forward,
as if I had a whole troop at my heels ; and if I catch
them, as I expect, they will have a little fire kindled, and,
as likely as not, they'll be cooking some of your mother's
fowls."
" Yes, I understand," said the boy, eagerly.
"No, you don't," replied Horse Shoe; "but you will
when you hear what I am going to say. If I get at them
ona wares they'll be mighty apt to think they are sur
rounded, and will bellow like fine fellows for quarters.
And thereupon, Andy, I'll cry out, ' Stand fast !' as if I
was speaking to my own men ; and when you hear that,
you must come up full tilt, because it will be a signal to
you that the enemy has surrendered. Then it will be
your business to run into the house and bring out the
muskets as quick as a rat runs through a kitchen ; and
when you have done that, why, all's done. But if you
should hear any popping of fire-arms, that is, more than
one shot, which I may chance to let off, do you take that
for a bad sign, and get away as fast as you can heel it.
You comprehend ?"
" Oh, yes," replied the lad, " and I'll do what you want,
and more too, maybe, Mr, Eobinson."
" Captain Eobinson, remember, Andy : you must call rne
captain, in the hearing of these Scotsmen."
" I'll not forget that, neither," answered Andrew.
By the time that these instructions were fully impressed
upon the boy, our adventurous forlorn hope, as it may
fitly be called, had arrived at the place which Horse Shoe
had designated for the commencement of active operations.
IT 20*
234 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [KENNEDY
They had a clear view of the old field ; and it afforded
them a strong assurance that the enemy was exactly
where they wished him to be, when they discovered smoke
arising from the chimney of the hovel. Andrew was soon
posted behind a tree, and Robinson only tarried a. moment
to make the boy repeat the signals agreed on, in order to
ascertain that he had them correctly in his memory.
Being satisfied from this experiment that the intelligence
of his young companion might be depended upon, he
galloped across the intervening space, and in a few seconds
abruptly reined up his steed in the very door-way of the
hut. The party within was gathered around a fire at the
further end ; and in the corner near the door were four
muskets thrown together against the wall. To spring
from his saddle and thrust himself one pace inside of the
door was a movement which the sergeant executed in an
instant, shouting at the same time,
" Halt ! File off right and left to both sides of the house,
and wait orders. I demand the surrender of all here,"
he said, as he planted himself between the party and their
weapons. " I will shoot down the first man who budges a
foot."
" Leap to your arms !" cried the young officer who com
manded the little party inside of the house. " Why do
you stand?"
" I don't want to do you or your men any harm, young
man," said Robinson, as he brought his rifle to a level,
" but, by my father's son, I will not leave one of you to
be put upon a muster-roll, if you raise a hand at this
moment I"
Both parties now stood for a brief space eying each
other, in a fearful suspense, during which there was
an expression of doubt and irresolution visible on the
countenances of the soldiers as they surveyed the broad
XJSH*DY] A SUCCESSFUL RUSE. 235
propoiuoi.a and met the stern glance of the sergeant;
whilst the delay, also, began to raise an apprehension in
the mind of Robinson that his stratagem would be dis
covered.
"Shall I let loose upon them, captain?" said Andrew
Ramsay, now appearing, most unexpectedly to Robinson,
at the door of the hut. " Come on, boys!" he shouted, as
he turned his face towards the field.
" Keep them outside of the door. Stand fast !" cried
the doughty sergeant, with admirable promptitude, in the
new and sudden posture of his affairs caused by this op
portune appearance of the boy. "Sir, you see that it's
not worth while fighting five to one; and I should be
sorry to be the death of any of your brave fellows : so
take my advice, and surrender to the Continental Congress
and this scrap of its army which I command."
During this appeal the sergeant was ably seconded by
the lad outside, who was calling out first on one name and
then on another, as if in the presence of a troop. The
device succeeded, and the officer within, believing the
forbearance of Robinson to be real, at length said,
"Lower your rifle, sir. In the presence of a superior
force, taken by surprise and without arms, it is my duty
to save bloodshed. "With the promise of fair usage and
the rights of prisoners of war, I surrender this little for-
aging-party under my command."
" I'll make the terms agreeable," replied the sergeant.
" Never doubt me, sir. Right-hand file, advance, and re
ceive the arms of the prisoners !"
" I'm here, captain," said Andrew, in a conceited tone,
as if it were a mere occasion of merriment ; and the lad
quickly entered the house and secured the weapons, re
treating with them some paces from the door.
" Now, sir," said Horse Shoe to the ensign, " your sword,
236 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [KEKNEDT
and whatever else you mought have about you of the
ammunitions of war!"
The officer delivered up his sword and a pair of pocket-
pistols.
As Horse Shoe received these tokens of victory, he
asked, with a lambent smile, and what he intended to be
an elegant and condescending composure, "Your name?
if I mought take the freedom."
" Ensign St. Jermyn, of his majesty's seventy-first regi
ment of light infantry."
"Ensign, your sarvent," added Horse Shoe, still pre
serving this unusual exhibition of politeness. " You have
defended your post like an old sodger, although you ha'n't
much beard on your chin ; but, seeing you have given up,
you shall be treated like a man who has done his duty.
You will walk out now, and form yourselves in line at the
door. I'll engage my men shall do you no harm : they
are of a marciful breed."
When the little squad of prisoners submitted to this
command, and came to the door, they were stricken with
equal astonishment and mortification to find, in place of
the detachment of cavalry which they expected to see,
nothing but a man, a boy, and a horse. Their first emo
tions were expressed in curses, which were even succeeded
by laughter from one or two of the number. There seemed
to be a disposition, on the part of some, to resist the au
thority that now controlled them, and sundry glances
were exchanged which indicated a purpose to turn upon
their captors. The sergeant no sooner perceived this than
he halted, raised his rifle to his breast, and at the same
instant gave Andrew Ramsay an order to retire a few
paces and to fire one of the captured pieces at the first
man who opened his lips.
" By my hand," he said, " if I find any trouble in taking
KENNEDY] A SUCCESSFUL RUSE. ^37
you, all five, safe away from this here house, I will thin
your numbers with your own muskets! And that's as
good as if I had sworn to it."
" You have my word, sir," said the ensign. " Lead on."
"By your leave, my pretty gentleman, you will lead,
and I'll follow," replied Horse Shoe. " It may be a new
piece of drill to you, but the custom is to give the prisoners
the post of honor."
" As you please, sir," answered the ensign. " Where do
you take us to ?"
" You will march back by the road you came," said the
sergeant.
Finding the conqueror determined to execute summary
martial law upon the first who should mutiny, the prison
ers submitted, and marched in double file from the hut
back towards Eamsay's, Horse Shoe, with Captain Peter's
bridle dangling over his arm, and his gallant young auxil
iary, Andrew, laden with double the burden of RobinsoL
Crusoe (having all the fire-arms packed upon his shoul
ders), bringing up the rear. In this order victors and
vanquished returned to David Ramsay's.
" Well, I have brought you your ducks and chickens
back, mistress," said the sergeant, as he halted the prison
ers at the door, " and, what's more, I have brought home
a young sodger that's worth his weight in gold."
"Heaven bless my child! my boy, my brave boy!"
cried the mother, seizing the lad in her arms, and unheed
ing anything else in the present perturbation of her feel
ings. " I feared ill would come of it ; but Heaven has
preserved him. Did he behave handsomely, Mr. Robinson ?
But I am sure he did."
"A little more venturesome, ma'am, than I wanted him
to be," replied Horse Shoe. " But he did excellent sarvice.
These are his prisoners, Mistress Ramsay : I should never
238 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HARRIS
have got them if it hadn't been for Andy. In these drum
ming and fifing times the babies suck in quarrel with their
mothers' milk. Show me another boy in America that's
made more prisoners than there was men to fight them
with, that's all !"
THE MOON IN THE MILL-POND.
JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS.
[The " Uncle Remus" sketches of Joel C. Harris opened up a new
field in American literature, which has heen thoroughly worked by its
first discoverer. Until these sketches were published, no idea was en
tertained of the rich stores of folk-lore among the negroes of the South.
These stories undoubtedly owe something to their editor, and Uncle
Remus himself is a unique creation. Yet no one questions that they
are in the main due to the negro imagination. And it is of interest,
in this connection, to find that the fox of European folk-lore is here
replaced by Brother Rabbit, who acts as the cunning mischief-maker
throughout this whole range of fable-literature.]
ONE night when the little boy made his usual visit to
Uncle Remus, he found the old man sitting up in his chair
fast asleep. The child said nothing. He was prepared to
exercise a good deal of patience upon occasion, and the
occasion was when he wanted to hear a story. But, in
making hhnself comfortable, he aroused Uncle Remus
from his nap.
" I let you know, honey," said the old man, adjusting
his spectacles, and laughing rather sheepishly, " I let
you know, honey, w'en I gits my head r'ar'd back dat
away, en my eyeleds shot, en my mouf open, en my chin
p'intin' at de rafters, den dey's some mighty quare g wines-
on in my min'. Dey is dat, des ez sho ez youer settin' dar.
Wen I fus year you comin' down de paf," Uncle Remus
HARRIS] THE MOON IN THE MILL-POND. 239
continued, rubbing his beard thoughtfully, " I 'uz sorter
fear'd you mought 'spicion dat I done gone off on my
journeys fer ter see ole man Nod."
This was accompanied by a glance of inquiry, to which
the little boy thought it best to respond.
" Well, Uncle Eemus," he said, " I did think I heard
you snoring when I came in."
" Now you see dat !" exclaimed Uncle Kemus, in a tone
of grieved astonishment ; "you see dat! Man can't lean
hisse'f 'pun his 'membunce, 'ceppin' dey's some un fer ter
come high-primin' roun' en 'lowin' dat he done gone ter
sleep. Shoo ! Wen you stept in dat do' dar I 'uz right
in 'mungs some mighty quare notions, mighty quare
notions. Dey ain't no two ways ; ef I 'uz ter up en let
on 'bout all de notions w'at I gits in 'mungs, folks 'ud
hatter come en kyar me off ter de place where dey puts
'stracted people.
"Atter I sop up my supper," Uncle Kermis went on,
" I tuck'n year some flutterments up dar 'mungs de rafters,
en I look up, en dar wuz a Bat sailin' 'roun'. 'Eoun' en
'roun', en 'roun' she go, und' de rafters, 'bove de rafters,
en ez she sail she make noise lak she grittin' 'er toofies.
JSTow, w'at dat Bat atter, I be bless ef I kin tell you, but
dar she wuz ; 'roun' en 'roun', over en under. I ax 'or
w'at do she want up dar, but she ain't got no time fer
ter tell ; 'roun' en 'roun', en over en under. En bimeby,
out she flip, en I boun' she grittin' 'er toofies en gwine
'roun' en 'roun' out dar, en dodgin' en flippin' des lak de
elements wuz full er rafters en cobwebs.
"Wen she flip out I le'nt my head back, I did, en
'twa'n't no time 'fo' I git mix up wid my notions. Dat
Bat wings so limber en 'er will so good dat she done done
'er day's work dar 'fo' you could 'er run ter de big house
en back. De Bat put me in min' er folks," continued
240 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
"Uncle Remus, settling himself back in his chair, " en folks
put me in min' er de creeturs."
Immediately the little boy was all attention.
"Dey wuz times," said the old man, with something
like a sigh, "w'en de creeturs 'ud segashuate tergedder
des like dey ain't had no fallin' out. Dem wuz de times
w'en old Brer Rabbit 'ud 'ten' lak he gwine quit he
'havishness, en dey'd all go 'roun' des lak dey b'long ter
de same fambly connection.
" One time atter dey bin gwine in cohoots dis away,
Brer Rabbit 'gun ter feel his fat, he did, en dis make 'im
gLt projecky terreckly. De mo' peace w'at dey had, de
mo' wuss Brer Rabbit feel, twel bimeby he git restless in
de min'. Wen de sun shine he'd go en lay off in de grass
en kick at de gnats, en nibble at de mullen-stalk, en wal
ler in de san'. One night atter supper, w'iles he 'uz ro-
mancin' 'roun', he run up wid ole Brer Tarrypin, en atter
dey shuck ban's dey sot down on de side er de road en
run on 'bout ole times. Dey talk en dey talk, dey did, en
bimeby Brer Rabbit say it done come ter dat pass whar
he bleedz ter have some fun, en Brer Tarrypin 'low dat
Brer Rabbit des de ve'y man he bin lookin' fer.
" ' "Well, den,' sez Brer Rabbit, sezee, ' we'll des put
Brer Fox, en Brer Wolf, en Brer B'ar on notice, en ter-
morrer night we'll meet down by de mill-pon' en have a
little fishin'-frolic. I'll do de talkin',' sez Brer Rabbit,
aezee, ' en you kin set back en say yea,' sezee.
" Brer Tarrypin laugh.
" ' Ef I ain't dar,' sezee, ' den you may know de grass
hopper done fly 'way wid me,' sezee.
" ' En you neenter bring no fiddle, n'er,' sez Brer Rabbit,
eezee, ' kaze dey ain't gwine ter be no dancin' dar,' sezee.
" Wid dat," continued Uncle Remus, " Brer Rabbit put
out fer home, en went ter bed, en Brer Tarrypin bruise
HAKRIS] THE MOON IN THE MILL-POND. 24 i
'roun' en make his way todes de place so he kin be dar
'gin de 'p'inted time.
" Nex' day Brer Rabbit sont wud ter de yuther creeturs,
en dey all make great 'miration, kaze dey ain't think 'bout
dis deyse'f. Brer Fox he 'low, he did, dat he gwine atter
Miss Meadows en Miss Motts, en de yuther gals.
" Sho nutf, w'en de time come dey wuz all dar. Brer
B'ar he fotch a hook en line ; Brer Wolf he fotch a hook
en line ; Brer Fox he fotch a dip-net ; en Brer Tarrypin,
not ter be outdone, he fotch de bait."
" What did Miss Meadows and Miss Motts bring ?" the
little boy asked.
Uncle Remus dropped his head slightly to one side, and
looked over his spectacles at the little boy.
(l Miss Meadows en Miss Motts," he continued, " dey
tuck'n stan' way back fum de aidge er de pon' en squeal
eve'y time Brer Tarrypin shuck de box er bait at um.
Brer B'ar 'low he gwine ter fish fer mud-cats ; Brer Wolf
'low he gwine ter fish fer horneyheads ; Brer Fox 'low he
gwine ter fish fer peerch fer de ladies ; Brer Tarrypin 'low
he gwine ter fish fer minners ; en Brer Rabbit wink at
Brer Tarrypin' en 'low he gwine ter fish fer suckers.
" Dey all git ready, dey did, en Brer Rabbit march up
'ter de pon' en make fer ter th'ow he hook in de water,
but des 'bout dat time hit seem lak he see sump'n, De
t'er creeturs, dey stop en watch his motions. Brer Rab^
bit he drap he pole, he did, en he stan' dar scratchin' ho
head en lookin' down in de water.
" De gals dey 'gun ter git oneasy w'en dey see dis, en
Miss Meadows she up en holler out, she did,
" ' Law, Brer Rabbit, w'at de name er goodness de marter
in dar?'
"Brer Rabbit scratch he head an look in de water.
Miss Motts she hilt up 'er petticoats, she did, en 'low she
II. L q 21
242 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HARRIS
monstus fear'd er snakes. Brer Eabbit keep on scratchin'
en lookin'.
" Bimeby he fetch a long bref, he did, en he 'low,
" ' Ladies en gentermuns all, we des might ez well make
tracks fum dish yer place, kaze dey ain't no fishin' in dat
pon' fer none er dish yer crowd.'
" Wid dat, Brer Tarrypin he scramble up ter de aidgo
en look over, en he shake he head, en 'low,
"'Tooby sho', tooby sho' ! Tut-tut-tut !' en den he
crawl back, he did, en do lak he wukkin' he min.'
" ' Don't be skeert, ladies, kaze we'er boun' ter take keer
un you, let come w'at will, let go w'at mus',' sez Brer
Eabbit, sezee. 'Accidents got ter happen unter we all,
des same ez dey is unter yuther folks ; en dey ain't nuth-
in' much de marter, 'ceppin' dat de Moon done drap in do
water. Ef you don't b'leeve me you kin look fer yo'se'f,'
sezee.
" Wid dat dey all went ter de bank en lookt in ; en, sho'
nuff, dar lay de Moon, a-swingin' en a-swayin' at de bot
tom er de pon'."
The little boy laughed. He had often seen the reflec
tion of the sky in shallow pools of water, and the start
ling depths that seemed to lie at his feet had caused him
to draw back with a shudder.
" Brer Fox he look in, he did, en he 'low, ' "Well, well,
well !' Brer Wolf he look in, en he 'low, ' Mighty bad,
mighty bad !' Brer B'ar he look in, en he 'low, ' Turn,
turn, turn I' Be ladies dey look in, en Miss Meadows sho
squall out, ( Ain't dat too much ?' Brer Rabbit he look in
ag'in, en he up en 'low, he did,
" ' Ladies en gentermuns, you all kin hum en haw, but
less'n we gits dat Moon out er de pon' dey ain't no fish
kin be ketch 'roun' yer dis night ; en ef you'll ax Brer
Tarrypin he'll tell you de same.'
HARRIS] THE MOON IN THE MILL-POND. 243
" Den dey ax how kin dey git de Moon out er dar, en
Brer Tarrypin 'low dey better lef ' dat wid Brer Eabbit.
Brer Eabbit lie shot he eyes, he did, en make lak he wuk-
kin he min'. Bimeby he up 'n' 'low,
" ' De nigb.es' way out'n dish yer diffikil is fer ter sen'
roun' yer too ole Mr. Mud-Turkle en borry his sane, en
drag dat Moon up fum dar,' sezee.
" ' I 'clar ter gracious I mighty glad you mention dat,'
says Brer Tarrypin, sezee. ' Mr. Mud-Turkle is setch clos't
kin ter me dat I calls 'im Unk Muck, en I lay ef you sen'
dar atter dat sane you won't fine Unk Muck so mighty
disaccomerdatin.'
" "Well," continued Uncle Eemus, after one of his tan
talizing pauses, " dey sont atter de sane, en w'iles Brer
Eabbit wuz gone, Brer Tarrypin he 'low dat he done year
tell time en time ag'in dat dem w'at fine de Moon in de
water en fetch 'im out, lakwise dey ull fetch out a pot er
money. Dis make Brer Fox, en Brer Wolf, en Brer B'ar
feel mighty good, en dey 'low, dey did, dat long ez Brer
Eabbit been so good ez ter run atter de sane, dey ull do
de sanein'.
" Time Brer Eabbit git back, he see how de Ian' lay, en
he make lak he wanter go in atter de Moon. He pull off
he coat, en he 'uz fixin' fer ter shuck he wescut, but de
yuther creeters dey 'low dey wan't gwine ter let dry-foot
man lak Brer Eabbit go in de water. So Brer Fox he
tuck holt er one staff er de sane, Brer Wolf he tuck holt
er de yuther staff, en Brer B'ar he wade 'long behime fer
ter lif de sane 'cross logs en snags.
" Dey make one haul no Moon ; n'er haul no Moon ,
n'er haul no Moon. Den bimeby dey git out furder fum
de bank. Water run in Brer Fox year, he shake he head ;
water run in Brer Wolf year, he shake he head ; water
run in Brer B'ar year, he shake he head. En de fus news
244 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [STANLEI
you know, w'iles dey wuz a-shakin', dey come to whar de
bottom shelfed off. Brer Fox he step off en duck hisse'f ;
den Brer Wolf duck hisse'f; en Brer B'ar he make a
splunge en duck hisse'f; en, bless gracious, dey kick en
splatter twel it look lak dey 'uz gwine ter slosh all de
water outer de mill-pon'.
" Wen dey come out, de gals 'uz all a-snickerin' en a-
gigglin', en dey well mought, 'kaze, go whar you would,
dey wan't no wuss-lookin' creeturs dan dem ; en Brer
Rabbit he holler, sezee,
" ' I speck you all, gents, better go home en git some
dry duds, en n'er time we'll be in better luck,' sezee. ' I
hear talk dat de Moon'll bite at a hook ef you take fools
fer baits, en I lay dat's de onliest way fer ter ketch 'er,'
sezee.
"Brer Fox en Brer Wolf en Brer B'ar went drippin'
off, en Brer Rabbit en Brer Tarrypin dey went home wid
de gals."
LIFE AND SCENERY ON THE CONGO.
HENRY M. STANLEY.
[Among the numerous adventurous explorers of modern times it
would be difficult to find one with so interesting a personal history,
and with such indomitable perseverance and ready shrewdness and
energy, as Henry M. Stanley. He was born in Wales in 1840, reared
in a poor-house, and went to sea at fifteen. Reaching New Orleans,
he changed his original name of John Rowlands for that of a gentle
man who had befriended him. During the war he entered the Con
federate service, was taken prisoner, and afterwards served in the
United States navy. He accompanied the British army to Abyssinia
in 1867 as correspondent of the New York Herald, penetrated Africa
in search of Livingstone in 1871-72, and crossed the continent in the
STANLEY] LIFE AND SCENERY ON THE CONGO. 245
the region of the Congo from 1874 to 1878. His work on " The Congo,''
from which we select, is the result of a later expedition to that region,
undertaken in the interests of commerce and civilization, and as agent
of the African International Association and of the King of Belgium.]
BEYOND the village was low forested land, which either
came in dense black towering masses of impenetrable
vegetation to the water-side, or else ran in great semi
circles half enclosing grassy flats, whereon the hippo
potami fed at night-time.
The Congo was now enormously wide; from five to
eight channels separated one from another by as many
lines of islets (some of which were miles in length), on
which the Landolfia florida, or rubber-plant, flourished, of
the value of which the natives as yet know nothing.
Tamarinds, baobab, bombax, redwood, Elais guineensis,
palm-tree, wild date-palm, Calamus indicus, with the hardy
stink-wood, made up a dense mass of trees and creepers
of such formidable thickness that no one was even inspired
to examine what treasures of plants might be revealed by
a closer investigation of the vegetable life thriving on
these humps of dark alluvium in mid-Congo.
Few could imagine that a slow ascent up the Congo in
steamers going only two and a half knots against the
current of the great river could be otherwise than monot
onous. Taken as a whole, the scenery of the Upper
Congo is uninteresting; perhaps the very slow rate of
ascent has left that impression. But we were also tired
of the highland scenery in the Lower Congo. We de
clared ourselves tired of looking at naked rock cliffs, and
rufous ragged slopes six hundred feet in height. Before
we were through the circular enlargement of the Congo
at Stanley Pool we also confessed ourselves wearied ; when
we voyaged up along the base of the massive mountain-
lines above it to Chumbiri we sighed for a change ; and
ii. 21*
246 BESr AMERICAN AUTHORS. [STANLKI
now, when we have a month's journey by islets, low
shores, of grassy levels, and banks of thick vegetation
and forest, we are menaced with the same ennui. But let
us be just. Our feeling of weariness arises from the fact
that our accommodations are so limited that we are
obliged to sit down or stand up all the long way. The
eyes, the only organs exercised, are easily sated. The
weariness is only created by our compulsory inactivity.
Our eyes are feasting continually upon petty details, oi
the nature of which we are scarcely conscious. The flit
ting of a tiny sun-bird ; the chirping weavers at their
nests ; the despondent droop of a long calamus which
cannot find support, and which, like the woodbine, flour
ishes best when it has a tall stem to cling to ; the bamboo-
like reeds; the swaying tufted head of an overgrown
papyrus ; the floating by of a Pistia stratiotes ; a flock
of screeching parrots hurrying by overhead ; that great
yawning hippopotamus lazily preparing for a plunge into
his watery bed ; that log-like form of the crocodile, roused
from his meditations, loath to go, but compelled by the
whirr of paddle-wheels to submerge himself; those
springing monkeys, skurrying in their leafy homes away
from the increasing noise ; that white-collared fish-eagle
outspreading his wings for flight ; that darting diver and
little kingfisher hurrying ahead, heralding our approach ;
yonder flock of black ibis alarmingly screaming their
harsh cries; that little blue-throated fantail which has
just hopped away from the yellow- blossomed acacia-bush ;
those little industrious wagtails pecking away so briskly
on the sandy strip by the edge of the forest ; there is a
jay which has just fled into the woods ; look at those
long-legged flamingoes at that spit of land ; and but the
details are endless, for every minute of time has its inci
dent. As for your own fancies, during this day-trance,
STANLEY] LIFE AND SCENERY ON THE CONGO. 247
created mainly by what you see as the banks glide
steadily past, who will dare to fathom them ? They come
in rapid succession on the mind, in various shapes, rank
after rank. Unsteadfast as the gray clouds which you
see to the westward, they pile into cities, and towns, and
mountains, growing ever larger, more intense, but still
ever wavering and undergoing quick transitions of form.
The flowing river; the vast dome of sky; the aspiring
clouds on the horizon; the purpling blue, as well as the
dark spectral isles of the stream; the sepulchral gloom
beneath the impervious forest foliage; those swaying
reeds ; that expanse of sere-colored grassy plain ; that
gray clay bank, speckled with the red roots of some
shrub ; that narrow pathway through the forest all sug
gest some new thought, some fancy which cannot be long
pursued, since it is constantly supplanted by other ideas
suggested by something new, which itself is but a mo
mentary flash.
But supposing that a steamer similar to those we have
on the Mississippi bore you up the Congo, rushing up
stream at the rate of twelve knots an hour against the
current, while you could travel up and down a long, broad
deck protected by a sun-proof awning, with luxurious
board and lodging at your command, your view of the
Congo would be very different. I do believe you would
express a preference for it to any river known to you.
You would naturally think of comparisons. The Rhine ?
Why, the Rhine, even including its most picturesque
parts, is only a microscopic miniature of the Lower
Congo; but we must have the Rhine steamer, and its
wine and food and accommodations, to be able to see it
properly. The Mississippi? The Congo is one and a
half times larger than the Mississippi, and certainly from
eight to ten times broader. You may take your choice
248 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [STANLEY
of nearly a dozen channels, and you will see more beauti
ful vegetation on the Congo than on the American river.
The latter lacks the palm and the calamus, while the
former has a dozen varieties of the palm. Besides, it
possesses herds of hippopotami, crocodiles innumerable;
monkeys are gleefully romping on the islands and the
main ; elephants are standing sentry-like in the twilight
of the dark forests by the river-side; buffaloes red and
black are grazing on the rich grass-plains ; there are
flocks of ibis, black and white parrots, paroquets, and
guinea-fowl. The Mississippi is a decent grayish-colored
stream, confined between two low banks, with here and
there a town of frame houses and brick. The Congo is
of a tea-color on its left half, and on its right half it is
nearly chalky white. You take your choice, tea or milk,
red or Rhine wine. And as for the towns, why, I hope
the all-gracious Providence will bless our labor, and they
will come by and by: meantime there is room enough,
and to spare, to stow the half of Europe comfortably on
its spacious borders. The Nile ? Ask any of those gal
lant English soldiers who have tugged their way among
the Nile cataracts, what they think of the Nile to spend
a holiday upon. The Danube ? Ah, it is not to be men
tioned with the Congo for scenery. The Volga? Still
worse. The Amazon ? By no means. You will have to
ascend very far up the Amazon before you will see any
thing approaching Congo scenery.
Well, you must admit, then, that if the Congo could be
seen from the deck of a commodious steamer, this feeling
of weariness which we have to contend against now while
o
ascending at this snail's pace against the current, because
we have no room to move about, would be replaced by a
more grateful and a cheerier mood.
At 5 P.M. we generally camp, after an advance of from
STANLEY] LIFE AND SCENERY ON THE CONGO. 249
twenty to thirty miles up river. Thirty miles would be
unusually good progress, because there is fuel to be cut
with axes and saws, and it will take till nine o'clock at
night to cut sufficient for next day's steaming. From 5
to 6.30 P.M. all hands excepting the cooks are engaged in
gathering wood, half-dead logs, or dead trees, which have
to be cut into portable sizes for transport to the camp.
When darkness falls, a great fire is lit, under the light of
which the wood-choppers fall to and cut the logs into foot
lengths for the boilers. The sound of smiting axes rings
through the dark grove, to be re-echoed by the opposite
forest and borne along the face of the river to a great
distance. It is varied by the woodman's chant ; a chorus
is struck up, and under its stirring vocal notes a new im
petus is given, and the axes are struck stirringly rapid.
What a moral lesson for vapid-minded white men might
be drawn from these efforts of untutored blacks to get
through their tasks !
Meantime, at dusk, each steamer's crew of white officers
and passengers will be found around their dinner-tables
on deck, or on the bank if the camp has permitted it,
the lamplight tingeing their faces with a rosier hue than
the sallow complexion which the sun has bestowed on
them.
Of food there is abundance, but not much variety. It
may comprise soup of beans or vegetables, followed by
toasted chikwanga (cassava bread), fried or stewed fowl,
a roast fowl, or a roast leg of goat-meat, a dish of desic
cated potatoes, and, if we have been fortunate in our pur
chases, some sweet potatoes, or yams, roast bananas,
boiled beans, rice and curry, or rice with honey, or rice
and milk, finishing with tea, or coffee, or palm-wine.
It is insipid food for breakfast and dinner throughout
a term of three years. A few months of this diet makes
250 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [STANLEY
the European sigh for his petit verre, Astrachan caviar,
mock-turtle, salmon, with sauce Hollandaise, filet de
bceuf, with perhaps a pastete and poularde mit compote und
salat. For, if a German, how ever can he live without his
dear compote? Then, how nice, he thinks, would fruit,
cheese, and dessert be on the Congo! How glorious a
view of Congo life one could take when exhilarated by
half a pint of champagne !
I think, indeed, that the eternal " fowl" of the Congo,
and the unvarying slices of chikwanga, with which our
young officers are fed, deserve three-fourths of the blame
now lavished on " murderous Africa." It is only a grand
moral manhood like Livingstone's that rises above these
petty vanities of a continental stomach. Think of his
thirty-two years' life in Africa, and of the unsophisticated
manikins who to-day are digging their eyes out with
weeping at the memories of a European restaurant before
they have been scarcely three months out !
There is not much to converse about on the Congo after
our stomachs are full of the heavy chikwanga, and, as we
all know that
" The time of life is short ;
To spend that little basely were too long,"
we retire early, to spend it well in sleeping, that we may
be better fitted for the next day's weary voyaging up the
great African river.
Ungende was our first night's camp above Bolobo.
The By-yanzi were very friendly at first, but at sunset
their fears made them hostile, and they were not quieted
until all our people were ordered to make their reedy
couches near the steamers.
The next day we travelled up by very pleasant hills.
We passed villages, banana-groves, palmy groups, and
STANLEY] LIFE AND SCENERY ON THE CONGO. 251
deep-green forest in agreeable alternations. These are
the Levy Hills, and end at the magnificent and airy red
bluffs of lyumbi. The people looked out upon us in
stupid wonder from under the shade of their bananas,
seemingly saying, " What curious phase of existence have
we entered upon now ? Yerily, an epoch has dawned
upon our lives ; but what it signifies let those answer who
can !"
And we, looking out from under our awnings, appear
to say, " Ay, gaze, O men and women, upon these three
symbols of civilization. Ye see things to-day which the
oldest and wisest inhabitant of your land never heard or
dreamed of; and yet they are but tiny types of self-
moving leviathans that plough the raging sea by night as
well as by day 1"
Two hours above lyumbi we lost our way. The chan
nels were numerous. A reedy flat had appeared above
lyumbi, to which we clung in order not to lose sight of
the mainland ; and coming to a narrow creek we ran in,
expecting, although its direction was a little too easterly,
that perhaps we should emerge on the Congo. There was
a sluggish current in it, and we kept on, but after seven
teen miles it narrowed, and reeds finally stopped further
passage, and we had to return, opposite the village of
Ikulu.
We had not perceived many villages as we had steamed
along ; but in coming back we sighted about twenty canoes
in the creek advancing towards us. They had appeared
from some direction through the reeds. These, on seeing
us, hastily turned back ; but, wishing to know from them
which route to take, the En Avant cast off the whale-
boat which she had been towing, and steamed after them
at full speed.
Not until we had run five miles could we overtake the
252 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [STANLEY
flying flotilla, and then we found that their crews were
women, who, to escape us, dashed into the reeds and
splashed clumsily with water up to their necks to reach
the shore. Not a word would they answer, but stood, on
reaching the shore, sulkily regarding us. As we steamed
six knots an hour, an idea may be gained of the speed
which the natives when pressed in their canoes attain.
These also were mere fishing-pirogues. Had they been
war-canoes it is likely our steamer would have been beaten
in the race.
On the 31st of May we had a tolerably fair journey, but
the wind blew down river, and impeded us. Two trading-
canoes, with twenty paddlers in each, were overtaken,
which kept pace with us the rest of the day, and camped
sociably with us on a park-like terrace, which showed soft
young grass, while the forest ran in a deep black semi
circle behind us. The By-yanzi canoe-men were bound
for Ubangi.
On the 1st of June, after following a dense forest for
nine hours, we drew near another settlement. Our pro
visions were running exceedingly low. Eighty colored
men and seven Europeans consume at least two hundred
and fifty pounds' weight of food daily. Since leaving Bo-
lobo, nearly half a ton weight of provisions had been eaten.
It behooved us then to prepare ourselves for barter with
the community in view, which our guides called Lukolela
The settlement ran along a crescented bend of the river,
above a steep clay bank ranging from five feet to twenty-
five feet above the water, in a clearing cut out of the finest
forest I had yet seen. The trees had not been much
thinned, so that from a distance, but for the gray gleam
of huts and the green sheen of bananas, it would have
been difficult to tell that a settlement so large as Lukolela
existed here. The islands also showed glorious growths
STANLEY] LIFE AND SCENERY ON THE CONGO. 253
of timber. We began steaming slowly tbe while, to in
itiate acquaintance at the very lowest village. There
was no answer rendered, but the groups of bronze-bodied
people grew larger and more numerous. We unrolled crim
son savelist, bright-red royal handkerchiefs, striped floren-
tines, lengths of blue baft, held out fistfuls of brass rods,
and suspended long necklaces of brightest beads. Msenne
of Mswata stood up on the cabin-deck of the En Avant,
the observed of all observers, admired for his pose and his
action, and delivered his oration with a voice which might
be envied by an auctioneer :
" Ho, Wy-yanzi, tribesmen of Lukolela, sons of luka and
Mungawa, whose names are beloved by my lord and chief
Gobila ! Ho, you men ! Know you not Gobila, Gobila
of Mswata, the friend of Wy-yanzi ? Said Gobila to me,
' Here, take Bula Matari, the only Bula Matari, the good
Bula Matari !' "
" Hush, Msenne ! that is not the way to speak. You
are laughing at me," I urged, for my modesty waa
shocked.
" Never mind ; Msenne knows the way into the heart
of the Wy-yanzi. Ha ! it takes me to conquer their ob
duracy.
" Wy-yanzi of Lukolela, here sits Bula Matari ! He has
come here to make friends with you. He wants food. He
is prepared to pay well. Now is the time for luka and
Mungawa to show themselves kind friends to Bula Matari."
Then up and spoke Ibaka's slaver:
" See here, men of Lukolela, we are the servants of
Ibaka, Ibaka of Bolobo ! Ibaka has made brotherhood
with Bula Matari. Ibaka commanded us to take him to
you. Let your chiefs, luka and Mungawa, come out and
give the good word."
The steamers held on their way. The stentorian accents
ii. 22
254 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [STANLKI
of IVTsenne were heard far above the escape of waste steam.
The cloths were unrolled before every village. At the
third village, however, a reply came that all the chiefs
were dead, and that small-pox had decimated the inhab
itants, and that famine was killing the people that were
left!
"Frightful!" we exclaimed. "But those men on the
banks look too fat to be suffering from famine."
We came to the upper extremity of the community,
which occupied about five miles of the left bank, and half
an hour later we came to where the Congo contracted and
issued out a stately united flood one and a half miles wide
from the right bank to the left bank. Hoping that if we
camped in the neighborhood we should be followed, we
prepared to put up for the night in the forest.
As we anticipated, the natives soon came up, and fowls,
goats, ripe and green plantains and bananas, cassava rolls,
cassava flour, sweet potatoes, yams, eggs, and palm oil
were bartered so speedily that by sunset we had sufficient
to last two or three days. Still, as we were ignorant how
far we might have to proceed before meeting with another
market so well supplied as this, we agreed to resume the
marketing next morning.
At sunrise the following day canoe after canoe appeared,
and the barter was so successfully conducted that we had
soon secured three dozen fowls, four goats, a sheep, and eight
days' rations for each member of the colored force. The
fear the natives entertained of the strange steamer was
now changed for liveliest admiration. We were no longer
supposed to be laden with mischief, but full of "good
things." They had informed us that they were dying of
famine yesterday, but this day plenty had come back to
them, their chiefs lived, and no plague or pest decimated
the people 1
MORBIS] THE CONDITIONS OF ENGLISH THOUGHT. 255
We asked them slyly what was the cause of this re
markable change.
" Oh," they replied, " why do you remember what we
said in our fear of you ? Neither our oldest people nor
their fathers before them ever saw or heard of such things
as these," pointing to the steamers.
THE CONDITIONS OF ENGLISH THOUGHT.
GEORGE S. MORRIS.
[America, like England, has few thinkers of a philosophical turn
of mind, if we accept the word " philosophy" in its metaphysical
interpretation. "We are too practical a people for that, and by no
means inclined, like so many of the Germans, to evolve a universe out
of the purely ideal, very pretty to look at, but with no more solid
substratum than the tail of a comet. Yet we are not quite without
writers of a metaphysical turn of thought, and our present extract is
from one of these, Mr. G. S. Morris, late professor of philosophy
in Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, author of " British Thought
and Thinkers," and editor of an American edition of the works of the
principal German philosophers, now in course of publication.]
SCHOPENHAUER made a familiar thought famous by
putting it in a simple but striking and epigrammatic
form. Die Welt ist meine Vorstellung, said he. The world
is for me an idea. It is a representation in my mind. To
how many of us has not this thought occurred, with some
thing of a dazing, dreamy effect, as we have mused on
the complete dependence of our idea of the universe, or
all that therein may be, on our own minds 1 I can re
member how, as a mere boy, more than once, in an even
ing revery, an experience somewhat in this vein came to
256 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [MORRIS
me. All my boyish ideas of things seemed, as pure crea
tions of my own fancy, to melt away, and there remained,
as the whole sum and substance of the universe, only the
abstract, but otherwise empty and uninstructive, and, by
any law of sufficient reason, inexplicable, necessity of being,
plus a dull, confused, and yet thoroughly unique, and for
this reason indescribable, sensation, as of a chaos of shape
less elementSj moving noiselessly among each other, a
plenum of scarcely greater value than an absolute vacuum.
Then came the return to what is termed the literal fact
of experience, or, better, to the world such as, under the
influence of a dawning mental activity, guided by sensi
tive experience and by instruction, it had actually shaped
itself in my imagination, the earth, with its green fields
and forest-covered mountains, the world-inhabited heavens,
the changing seasons, man and his past history and unre-
vealed earthly destiny, not to mention the myriad little
and familiar things which would necessarily crowd the
foreground of such a picture in a boy's mind. The view
which a moment before had demonstrated so signally its
capability of dissolving, recovered its relative consistency
and became again a slowly-changing panorama of a world,
or of " the world," as it was for me. It was into such a
conception of a world a conception kaleidoscopic, ap
parently half arbitrary, half accidental that I, following
anwittingly a bent common to the universal mind of man.
was more or less blindly seeking to introduce order and
permanence. What must be ? Why must anything be ?
Why must all things be ? Such a rock of rational necessity
as a successful answer to these questions would have fur
nished I was (though unconscious of the full significance
of my striving) seeking, in order to arrest and fix the
quicksands of a Vorstellung, or idea of the universe, of
which I only knew (with Schopenhauer) that it was mine.
MORRIS] THE CONDITIONS OF ENGLISH THOUGHT. 257
I need hardly say that the immediate result of my reflec
tions was tolerably negative. I have indicated, however,
in the narration of this experience, the elements of a
problem which presents itself to mankind in all climes
and ages. It is, if I may so express it, to effectuate a sort
of rational anatomy of existence, or, at least, of our ideas
of it. The sea itself would not move in billowy motions
if it had no fixed boundaries. The blood flows in tracks
marked out in veins and arteries. The soft and yielding
flesh adheres to a firm framework of bone. So man would
find in his whole conception of things the skeleton of
rational necessity, about which the multifarious or appar
ently fortuitous elements of that conception may group
themselves, or the rather by which the order of then-
grouping is determined. The "idea" which was but a
changing picture in the imagination a representation
must change to an idea which shall be a rational type,
a self-evidencing law, an all-sufficient, all-explaining, all-
necessitating reason. The varying and inexplicable ele
ment furnished in sense and sensuous imagination must
crystallize in the majestic forms of eternal thought, of
reason divine. It is this mental work which Goethe, in
noble lines, attributes to the angels who constitute the
" heavenly hosts." The gracious benediction and command
which the Divine Being addresses to them runs thus :
" Das TVerdende, das ewig wirkt und lebt,
TJmfass' euch mit der Liebe holden Schranken,
Und was in schwankender Erscheinung schwebt,
Befestiget mit dauernden Gedanken 1"
Prolog im Himmel : Faust.
Thus the world which was "my idea" (in Schopen
hauer's phrase) is to be transformed, in its measure, into
the image, or rather into a participation, of the divine
ii. r 22*
258 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [MoRHiB
idea of the world. The evanescent is to give way to the
permanent. The passive reception of appearances is to
give place to an active apprehension of realities.
I have thus stated, in outline, the grand and compre
hensive motive which underlies all finite thought as such,
and which therefore reveals itself, clearly or obscurely, in
all the thought of man. It were easy to show, in detail,
how it governs at once the systematic inquiries of philo
sophical speculation, the exact inquiries of physical science,
and the freer intuitions of poetic fancy, as well as, also,
the sober contemplations of history. Nor would it be
more difficult to show that in this presupposed ideal of
stable Truth believed to be attainable for man : else why
and how strive after it? moral and {esthetic elements
are intrinsically involved. But to attempt this here would
bo to go aside from the purpose of our present inquiry, as
well as to repeat a labor already well performed by others.
My object now is only to direct attention to the uni
versally observable fact that men, finding themselves in,
or in possession of, a mental world, which is at first (as re
gards their own insight*) so largely, or exclusively, subject
ive, variable, phenomenal (and so, to use Kant's metaphor,
like a restless ocean), believe in a continent of objective,
stable Truth, think that they have glimpses of it, seek to
approach it and set up way-marks (in their literature and
institutions) of their progress toward it, and by their
notion (or knowledge) of it form their judgments as to
the significance and value of human life and history,
and of the physical universe itself. And it is through
the different notions which the men, the thinkers, of an
epoch, a race, a clime, a great nation, form and express
concerning the geography of this continent, through the
spiritual colors of which they profess to have caught
glimpses, the maxims of hope, of conviction, or of despair,
MORRIS] THE CONDITIONS OF ENGLISH THOUGHT. 259
sorrowful, reckless, or even blasphemous, which they have
inscribed upon the guide-posts set up by them, it is
through all these, and through other signs flowing from,
or otherwise necessarily connected with, these, that the
peculiar complexion, the special attitude or tendency, of
the thought of a particular epoch or nation is known and
judged. . . .
I say, then, that the question as to the peculiar complex-
tiou. or tendency of a nation's thought is a question as to
the peculiar stripe of its idealism. A materialistic habit
of thought is not native to the human or to any other
full-grown mind, for mind is simply deceived when it
thinks it sees and understands in or concerning matter
anything but the reflection (however dim) of its own per
fections. Further, a nation's, like an individual's, thought
is judged by the conceptions current in it concerning the
world, life, and man. "Without the interest, perennial, in
exhaustible, which attaches to such conceptions, imagina
tion itself would lose its glow, and the subtler hues of
thought and feeling would become fitful, fatuous, unmean
ing, or rather would sink into a dull and leaden monotone
of lifeless color. Nor does it make matters any clearer
the rather it confuses them to disguise, or seek to dis
guise, the fact that the questions which revolve about
these conceptions are strictly philosophical ones, and that
every characteristically spiritual activity of man, in ita
products in literature, art, polity, social organism, civiliza
tion, strictly imply, and in their measure exhibit, a phi
losophy of human life and of the whole universe of human
thought or knowledge. At the same time I scarcely need
to say that the individual men, or even nations, in whose
thought and works the foregoing truths are illustrated,
may have no definite consciousness of the fact that they
are virtually philosophizing. They may even feel and
260 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [Mounts
profess a decided repugnance to philosophical speculation,
strictly and technically so called.
Precisely this is the case with the English mind, whose
first and most prominent characteristic may perhaps be
described as consisting in this, namely, that its interest is
far more concentrated upon the vital and practical side of
truth than upon the abstract or theoretical side. Truth,
in its living, effective power, so absorbs its attention that
little care is left for inquiries concerning its ultimate grounds
and guarantees, or for laborious exactness in the statement
of it. Possession is nine-tenths of the law. The English
nation possess genuine- character. Character is vitalized
truth. In their national character the English possess a
body of such truth, in the power and through the inspira
tion of which they have been enabled to work out (during
a period of twelve hundred years) an historical destiny
of the most honorable and glorious kind. Faith in this
truth is faith in themselves. To relinquish it would be
moral suicide ; to doubt of it, moral treason. Its warrant
is found in its historic power, in its present vitality. This
truth the English possess, or perhaps it were truer to say
that it possesses them ; and possession, I repeat, is nine-
tenths of the law. Under these circumstances, inquiry
concerning the remaining one-tenth, the validity of title
by which possession is held, may naturally appear to a
" practical people" idle, and almost frivolous.
The only other nation known to Occidental history
which has possessed anything like so palpable and con
sistent a character as the English, namely, the Eomans,
in like manner, and even in a more marked degree, were
remarkable for their almost absolute neglect of abstract
speculation. Their old-fashioned reverence for law and
duty, and their self-respect, were ideal forces which
in them and through thqm and fitted them for
MORRIS] THE CONDITIONS OF ENGLISH THOUGHT. 261
the rough and solid work of world-subjugation. No
wonder that they felt a greater interest in the practical
solution of living, flesh-and-blood problems, which the
progress of events forced upon them, than in their theo
retical explanation. If the ideal, which is the only essen
tial, side of human nature has a really sustaining support
and source of constant nourishment in a sterling national
character, it is by no means an obviously superficial ques
tion to ask why human nature should bother itself con
tinually about such subtilties as the ultimate constitution
and ground of existence, the abstract conditions and laws
of perfect humanity, the sources of moral obligation, the
meaning of beauty's charms, the intrinsic value .of human
life. Certainly, to err through neglect of such matters
'for such a reason and not, for example, like the Span
iards of the last two centuries, by reason of mental indo
lence and effeminacy is a noble error. ....
If the record of the English, namely, in the history of
philosophy proper is not a shining one, if indeed they
have no properly national philosophy at all which can be
called either deeply ,and thoroughly or even brilliantly
reasoned, yet they have solid endowments, which have
been influential, and in some directions splendid, in their
past fruit, and which are quite sufficient to justify sub
stantial hopeful expectations for the future. The strong
or marked sides of the English mind are three, -the re
ligious, the scientific, and the poetic. Religion and sci
ence, in different ways, furnish problems to philosophy.
The poetic faculty, the power of creative imagination, is
the pledge of speculative ability.
On the religious side the English share with their Teu
tonic ancestors and neighbors in a certain depth and sin
cerity of spirit, which is opposed to all sham, is never
long satisfied with mere appearance, admits no separation
262 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [MORRIS
of substance from form, and demands, along with a formal
assent to the doctrines proposed to faith, an inward ex
perience of the power of truth, accompanied by appro
priate works. In other words, the English are genuinely
religious. This appears throughout their whole history.
The tone of aspiration, of adoration, of deep, sometimes
fierce, religious earnestness, which is struck in what Mr.
Stopford Brooke terms " the first true English poem," the
poem of Caedmon, reappears in all the critical epochs of
the development of English life, and has thoroughly per
meated English manners and literature. The key-note of
the Reformation was struck in England in the fourteenth
century, and no nation has been more tenacious in main
taining its fruits than the English. But, it need not bo
said, a genuine religious spirit is necessarily idealistic. It
carries with it the habit of referring actions to moral
standards of judgment, of seeing in events a providential
agency, of regarding the universe as an outcome of the di
vine will and in some sense a constant manifestation of di
vine reason. Only, in the matter of religion, the intensely
practical attitude of the English, their sense, perhaps, of
the substance of religion as a vital element absolutely es
sential to individual and national life, and as something
already safely in their grasp, in their possession, seems to
me to render them impatient of inquiries relative to the
ultimate warrant of faith. The immediate, practical war
rant of religious faith may indeed be found in vital expe
rience and in historic power. Such a faith is not to bo
stigmatized as absolutely blind and unreasonable. Yet it
is far short of insight. It is not faith resting on and illu
minated by intelligence. If reasonable, it is not wholly
rational. It implies a childhood in understanding, against
which the Apostle of Christianity to the Gentiles utters
an express warning. A conseouence of the religious at-
MORRIS] THE CONDITIONS OF ENGLISH THOUGHT. 263
titude of the English mind to which I am now referring is,
or has often been, a disposition to cut short inquiry and
to cleave knots of difficulty with the oracular utterance,
" Thus it is written," forgetting that, legitimate as this
course may be under given circumstances, it cannot al
ways be pursued without inducing a fatal bondage to the
letter, "which killeth," in distinction from the spirit,
which, illuminating and giving sight, also "giveth life."
This is, in its measure, precisely such a substitution of
mechanism for intelligence and life as, in other fields of
exploration, English science-philosophy has sought to ef
fectuate. Another and a related consequence of the same
mental attitude has been a disposition to restrict the
sphere of human reason by emphasizing the existence of a
sphere of mysterious and essentially unintelligible truth,
somehow made known to man in terms, but for the rest
only to be unquestioningly received by him as an uncon
ditional prerequisite for the restoration and preservation
of his soul's health. . . .
On the whole, both in religion and in science, I think
we may say with obvious truth that the characteristic
disposition of the English mind is to lay hold upon al
leged revealed or natural laws of fact, in their immediate,
practical relation to the life and interests of men, and as
narrowly observable in detail with the microscopic vision
of sense. With this goes a tendency to neglect that more
comprehensive and penetrative mental labor which traces
the rational connection of all law with its birthplace in
the mind and will of an Absolute Spirit. Eeligion and
Science (by which latter I understand all results of the
application of the mathematico-mechanical method, or all
systematic knowledge of phenomena) occupy, on the whole,
exclusively the theoretical interests of the English mind.
Philosophy (stigmatized often as metaphysical jargoii") i
264 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [MORRIS
their common waste-basket. (I shall have more fitting
occasion hereafter to examine and characterize more in
detail the scientific attitude of the English mind.)
This, however, is only one, and that the least inspiring,
half of our picture. Along with and in spite of this to
a philosophic mind exasperating self-limitation and self-
obfuscation of the English upon those lines of theoretical
inquiry which would lead directly to philosophy, we find
that this nation possesses, in the language of a German
historian, " a pre-eminent gift for poetry, perhaps the
most perfect that has ever fallen to the lot of any people."
And this poetic gift is not a mere talent, it is real genius.
It is not satisfied with pleasing outward forms and tones
alone. It is all-penetrating. It ranges over the whole
scale of the heart's emotions. It does not shrink back
from any flights of intellect. For it nature is peaceful
and gay, or wild and darkly significant. With it human
life is an idyl, or more frequently a drama, in which in
visible powers are the actors. Human life is a theatre of
actions heroic, comical, or tragic, or the portal to an
" Undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns,"
and from which, it is fully recognized, no just soul would
fain return. " Among all the nations which participate in
our modern civilization," says, further, the author above
quoted, " the classical nation in poetry is the English."
Now, I have spoken above of the poetic faculty of the
English, their power of creative imagination, as the pledge
of their speculative ability. And indeed the close relation
between poetic and philosophic endowment has long been
recognized, since Plato's time, for example, before whom
it had been amply illustrated in notable instances. The
difference between the poet and the philosopher is one of
THE CULPRIT FAY. 265
system and of systematic intelligence, rather than of in
spiration. The leading interpreters, even of scientific
method, among the English of to-day recognize the es
sential necessity of a certain poetic gift, a " scientific im
agination," as it is called, for the purposes of scientific
discovery. In the British poets, accordingly, we find the
best British philosophy. "What English moralist, for ex
ample, is equal to William Shakespeare, who is not only
the real historian of the modern mind (an ofiice which of
itself implies profound philosophic insight), but also, in
the language of the title-page of a recent German publi
cation, " der Philosoph der sittlichen Weltordnung" "the
philosopher of the moral order of the world" ? What
professed English philosopher has possessed so profound
an appreciation of the idealistic philosophy of nature as
Wordsworth? What religious philosopher in England
has approached the subtlest problems of religious thought
with more sympathetic and discerning insight than Cole
ridge? What living English thinker has fathomed in
well-reasoned, systematic prose the dark questions of
theodicy, and illuminated them more brilliantly with the
light of rational faith and insight, than Tennyson? Not
to mention many others, whose poetic flights have been
ballasted with solid weights of thought.
THE CULPRIT FAY.
JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE.
[" The Culprit Fay" is the most purely imaginative poem in Ameri
can literature, and displays a depth of fancy that has seldom been sur
passed. It is the principal work of the author, the ugh his shorter
poem " To the American Flag" is the one by which he is best known.
II. M 23
266 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [DRAKE
Joseph Rodman Drake was born in New York in 1795, and his first
literary work consisted of humorous and satirical verses, published in
the Evening Post, under the signature of "Croaker." The "Cul
prit Fay" is too long to give here in full, and we extract some of its
more prettily-conceived verses, as an illustration of the whole. In
the opening verses the fays are seen assembling, in countless numbers.
44 in the middle watch of a summer's night."]
THEY come from beds of lichen green,
They creep from the mullein's velvet screen ;
Some on the backs of beetles fly
From the silver tops of moon-touched trees,
Where they swung in their cobweb hammocks high
And rocked about in the evening breeze ;
Some from the hum-bird's downy nest,
They had driven him out by elfin power,
And, pillowed on plumes of his rainbow breast,
Had slumbered there till the charmed hour;
Some had lain in the scoop of the rock,
With glittering ising-stars inlaid,
And some had opened the four-o'clock
And stole within its purple shade.
And now they throng the moonlight glade,
Above below on every side,
Their little minim forms arrayed
In the tricksy pomp of fairy pride I
[The purpose of the assembly is thus given :]
For an ouphe has broken his vestal vow ;
He has loved an earthly maid,
And left for her his woodland shade ;
He has lain upon her lip of dew,
And sunned him in her eye of blue,
Fanned her cheek with his wing of air,
Played in the ringlets of her hair,
DRAKE] THE CULPRIT FAY. 267
Arid, nestling on her snowy breast,
Forgot the lily-king's behest.
For this the shadowy tribes of air
To the elfin court must haste away :
And now they stand expectant there,
To hear the doom of the culprit fay.
[The fairy tribunal condemns the criminal ouphe to perform the fol
io wing difficult labors :]
" Thou shalt seek the beach of sand
"Where the water bounds the elfin land ;
Thou shalt watch the oozy brine
Till the sturgeon leaps in the bright moonshine,
Then dart the glistening arch below,
And catch a drop from his silver bow.
The water-sprites will wield their arms
And dash around, with roar and rave,
And vain are the woodland spirits' charms,
They are the imps that rule the wave.
Yet trust thee in thy single might :
If thy heart be pure and thy spirit right,
Thou shalt win the warlock fight.
u If the spray -bead gem be won,
The stain of thy wing is washed away :
But another errand must be done
Ere thy crime be lost for aye ;
Thy flame- wood lamp is quenched and dark,
Thou must re-illume its spark.
Mount thy steed and spur him high
To the heavens' blue canopy ;
And when thou seest a shooting star,
Follow it fast, and follow it far :
The last faint spark of its burning train
Shall light the elfin lamp again.
268 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
Thou hast heard our sentence, fay :
Hence ! to the water-side away 1"
[The fay plunges into the wave in quest of the sturgeon, but is met
by a host of the thorny and prickly inhabitants of the waters.]
Up spring the spirits of the waves,
From the sea-silk beds in their coral caves ;
With snail-plate armor snatched in haste,
They speed their way through the liquid waste :
Some are rapidly borne along
On the mailed shrimp or the prickly prong,
Some on the blood-red leeches glide,
Some on the stony star-fish ride,
Some on the back of the lancing squab,
Some on the sideling soldier-crab,
And some on the jellied quarl, that flings
At once a thousand streamy stings.
They cut the wave with the living oar,
And hurry on to the moonlight shore,
To guard their realms and chase away
The footsteps of the invading fay.
[The activity of the army of the waves ia described with mucn
vigor.]
Fearlessly he skims along;
His hope is high, and his limbs are strong,
He spreads his arms like the swallow's wing,
And throws his feet with a frog-like fling j
His locks of gold on the waters shine,
At his breast the tiny foam-bees rise,
His back gleams bright above the brine,
And the wake-line foam behind him lies.
DRAKE] THE CULPRIT FAY. 269
But the water-sprites are gathering near
To check his course along the tide ;
Their warriors come in swift career
And hem him round on every side.
On his thigh the leech has fixed his hold,
The quarl's long arms are round him rolled,
The prickly prong has pierced his skin,
And the squab has thrown his javelin,
The gritty star has rubbed him raw,
And the crab has struck with his giant claw ;
He howls with rage, and he shrieks with pain,
He strikes around, but his blows are vain j
Hopeless is the unequal fight.
"Fairy ! naught is left but flight.
He turned him round, and fled amain
With hurry and dash to the beach again ;
He twisted over from side to side,
And laid his cheek to the cleaving tide.
The strokes of his plunging arms are fleet,
And with all his might he flings his feet ;
But the water-sprites are round him still.
To cross his path and work him ill,.,
They bade the wave before him rise,
They flung the sea-fire in his eyes,
And they stunned his ears with the scallop-stroke,
"With the porpoise heave and the drum-fish croak.
Oh, but a weary wight was he
When he reached the foot of the dog- wood tree I
[Healing his wounds with fairy remedies, he essays the task again,
this time taking a purple mussel-shell as a boat. The " drop from the
silver bow" of the darting sturgeon is caught, and the fay gains the
shore again, triumphant. He now arms for his second emprise. The
arming is beautifully described :]
II. 23*
270 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [DRAKE
He put his acorn helmet on ;
It was plumed of the silk of the thistle-down.
The corslet plate that guarded his breast
Was once the wild bee's golden vest ;
His cloak, of a thousand mingled dyes,
Was formed of the wings of butterflies ;
His shield was the shell of a lady-bug queen,
Studs of gold on a ground of green ;
And the quivering lance which he brandished bright
Was the sting of a wasp he had slain in fight.
Swift he bestrode his fire-fly steed ;
He bared his blade of the bent-grass blue ;
He drove his spurs of the cockle-seed,
And away like a glance of thought he flew,
To skim the heavens, and follow far
The fiery trail of the rocket-star. . . .
Up to the vaulted firmament
His path the fire-fly courser bent,
And at every gallop on the wind
He flung a glittering spark behind :
He flies like a feather in the blast
Till the first light cloud in heaven is past. . .
Up to the cope careering swift,
In breathless motion fast,
Fleet as the swallow cuts the drift
Or the sea-roc rides the blast,
The sapphire sheet of eve is shot,
The sphered moon is past,
The earth but seems a tiny blot
On a sheet of azure cast.
Oh, it was sweet, in the clear moonlight,
To tread the starry plain of even,
DRAKE] THE CULPRIT FAY. 271
To meet the thousand eyes of night
And feel the cooling breath of heaven !
But the elfin made no stop or stay
Till he came to the bank of the milky- way ;
Then he checked his courser's foot,
And watched for the glimpse of the planet-shoot.
# $ # $ afc # #
[He is successful in his object, and on his return the joyous sprites
thus welcome him :]
Ouphe and goblin ! imp and sprite !
Elf of eve ! and starry fay !
Ye that love the moon's soft light,
Hither hither wend your way ;
Twine ye in a jocund ring,
Sing and trip it merrily,
Hand to hand, and wing to wing,
Round the wild witch-hazel tree.
Hail the wanderer again
With dance and song, and lute and lyre j
Pure his wing, and strong his chain,
And doubly bright his fairy fire.
Twine ye in an airy round,
Brush the dew and print the lea ;
Skip and gambol, hop and bound,
Bound the wild witch-hazel tree.
The beetle guards our holy ground ;
He flies about the haunted place,
And if mortal there be found
He hums in his ears and flaps his face ;
The leaf-harp sounds our roundelay,
The owlet's eyes our lanterns be :
272 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
Thus we sing, and dance, and play,
Eound the wild witch-hazel tree.
But hark ! from tower on tree-top high
The sentry elf his call has made :
A streak is in the eastern sky.
Shapes of moonlight ! flit and fade !
The hill-tops gleam in morning's spring,
The skylark shakes his dappled wing,
The day-glimpse glimmers on the lawn,
The cock has crowed, and the fays are gone,
THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE.
W. D. WHITNEY.
[The science of philology, which has elicited so many profound
and admirable treatises in recent times from the scholars of Europe,
has also had ardent students in America, whose work bears fair com
parison with that of their European competitors. Among these Pro
fessor Whitney stands at the head, his philological labors being nowhere
surpassed J n depth, accuracy, and scientific value. We append a short
extract from his "Language and the Study of Language," mainly
us illustrative of his style. William Dwight Whitney was born at
Northampton, Massachusetts, in 1827. His diligent philological labors
in American and German universities brought him the professorship
of Sanskrit and comparative philology at Yale College, which he still
holds. He has written several works and many periodical articles,
all marked by learning, judgment, and clear insight into his subject.]
WE may fairly claim, in the first place, that the subject
has been very greatly simplified, stripped of no small part
of its difficulty and mystery, by what has already been
proved as to the history of speech. Did we find no traces
WHITNEY] THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 273
of a primitive condition of language different from its
later manifestations, did it appear to us as from the very
beginning a completely-developed apparatus, of compli
cated structure, with distinct signs for objects, qualities,
activities, and abstract conceptions, with its mechanism
for the due expression of relations, and with a rich vocab
ulary, then might we well shrink back in despair from
the attempt to explain its origin, and confess that only a
miracle could have produced it, that only a superhuman
agency could have placed it in human possession. But
we have seen that the final perfection of the noblest lan
guages has been the result of a slow and gradual devel
opment, under the impulse of tendencies and through the
instrumentality of processes which are even yet active in
every living tongue ; that all this wealth has grown by
long accumulation out of an original poverty ; and that
the actual germs of language were a scanty list of form
less roots, representing a few of the most obvious sensible
acts and phenomena appearing in ourselves, our fellow-
creatures, and the nature by which we are surrounded.
We have now left us only the comparatively easy task
of satisfying ourselves how men should have come into
possession of these humble rudiments of speech.
And our attention must evidently first be directed to
the inquiry whether those same inventive and shaping
powers of man which have proved themselves capable of
creating out of monosyllabic barrenness the rich abun
dance of inflective speech were not also equal to the task
of producing the first poor hoard of vocables. There are
those who insist much on what they are pleased to term
the divine origin of language ; who think it in some way
derogatory to the honor of the Creator to deny that he
devised roots, and words, and, by some miraculous and ex
ceptional agency, put them ready-made into the mouths
274 PEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [ WHITNEY
of the first human beings. Of such we would ask whether,
after all, language can be in this sense only a divine gift
to man ; whether the hand of the Creator is any the less
clearly to be seen, and need be any the less devoutly
acknowledged, in its production, if we regard man him
self as having been created with the necessary impulses
and the necessary capacities for forming language, and
then as having possessed himself of it through their
natural and conscious workings. Language, articulate
speech, is a universal and exclusive characteristic of man ;
no tribe of human kind, however low, ignorant, and
brutish, fails to speak ; no race of the lower animals,
however highly endowed, is able to speak : clearly, it was
just as much a part of the Creator's plan that we should
talk as that we should breathe, should walk, should eat
and drink. The only question is, whether we began to
talk in the same manner as we began to breathe, as our
blood began to circulate, by a process in which our own
will had no part ; or, as we move, eat. clothe, and shelter
ourselves, by the conscious exertion of our natural powers,
by using our divinely-given faculties for the satisfaction
of our divinely-implanted necessities.
That the latter supposition is fully sufficient to account
for our possession of speech cannot with any show of
reason be denied. Throughout its whole traceable his
tory, language has been in the hands of those who have
spoken it, for manifold modification, for enrichment, for
adaptation to the varying ends of a varying knowledge
and experience ; nineteenth-twentieths, at the least, of the
speech we speak is demonstrably in this sense our own
work : why should the remaining twentieth be thought
otherwise? It is but a childish philosophy which can
see no other way to make out a divine agency in human
language than by regarding that agency as specially and
WHITNEY] THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 275
miraculously efficient in the first stage of formation of
language. We may fairly compare it with the wisdom of
the little girl who, on being asked who made her, replied.
" God made me a little baby so high" (dropping her hand
to within a foot of the floor), " and I grew the rest." The
power which originates is not to be separated from that
which maintains and develops : both are one, one in their
essential nature, one in their general mode of action. "We
might as well claim that the letters of the alphabet, that
the simple digits, must have been miraculously revealed,
for elements out of which men should proceed to develop
systems of writing and of mathematical notation, as that
the rudiments of spoken speech, the primitive signs of
mental conceptions, must have had such an origin.
In short, our recognition of language as an institution,
as an instrumentality, as no integral system of natural
and necessary representatives of thought, inseparable
from thought or spontaneously generated by the mind,
but, on the contrary, a body of conventional signs, de
riving their value from the mutual understanding of one
man with another ; and, farther, our recognition of the
history of this institution as being not a mere succession
of changes wrought upon something which still remains
the same in essential character, but a real development,
effected by human forces, whose operations we can trace
and understand, these take away the whole ground on
which the doctrine of the divine origin of language, as
formerly held, reposed. The origin of language is divine,
in the same sense in which man's nature, with all its ca
pacities and acquirements, physical and moral, is a divine
creation ; it is human, in that it is brought about through
that nature, by human instrumentality.
It is hardly necessary to make any farther reference to
an objection, already once alluded to, which some minds
276 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WniTNKT
may be tempted to raise against our whole construction
of the course of linguistic history out of the evidences of
composition, phonetic corruption, transfer of meaning, and
the other processes of linguistic growth, which we find in
all the material of human speech. The inquiry, namely,
has sometimes been raised, whether it was not perfectly
possible for the Creator to frame and communicate to
mortals a primitive language filled with such apparent
signs of previous development, as well as one which
should have the aspect of a new creation. Of course,
must be our reply ; nothing is theoretically impossible to
Omnipotence : but to suppose that it has pleased God to
work thus is to make the most violent and inadmissible
of assumptions, one which imputes to him a wholly de
grading readiness to trifle with, even to deliberately mis
lead and deceive, the reason which he has implanted in
his creatures. It is precisely of a piece with the sugges
tion once currently thrown out, when the revelations of
geology were first beginning to be brought to light, that
fossils and stratifications and such like facts proved noth
ing; since God, when he made the rocks, could just as
well have made them in this form and with these con
tents as otherwise. With men who can seriously argue
upon such assumptions it is simply impossible to discuss
a historical question : all the influences of historical sci
ence are thrown away upon them ; they are capable of be
lieving that a tree which they have not themselves seen
spring up from the seed was created whole in the state in
which they find it, without gradual growth ; or even that
a house, a watch, a picture, were produced just as they
are, by the immediate action of almighty power.
We may here fittingly follow out a little farther an
analogy more than once suggested in our preceding dis
cussions, and one which, though some may deem it homely
WHITNEY] THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 277
and undignified, is genuine and truly illustrative, and there
fore not wanting in instruction : it is the analogy between
language and clothing and shelter, as alike results of
men's needs and men's capacities. Man was not created,
like the inferior races, with a frame able to bear all the
vicissitudes of climate to which he should be subjected;
nor yet with a natural protective covering of hair or wool,
capable of adapting itself to the variety of the seasons :
every human being is born into the world naked and
cringing, needing protection against exposure and defence
from shame. Gifted is man, accordingly, with all the
ingenuity which he requires in order to provide for this
need, and placed in the midst of objects calculated to
answer to his requirements, suitable materials for his
ingenuity to work upon ready to his hand. And hence it
is hardly less distinctively characteristic of man to be
clad than to speak; nor is any other animal so univer
sally housed as he. Clothing began with the simplest
natural productions, with leaves and bark, with skins of
wild animals, and the like ; as shelter with a cave, a hole
in the ground, the hollow of a tree, a nest of interwoven
branches. But ingenuity and taste, with methods per
fected and handed down from generation to generation,
made themselves, more and more, ministers to higher and
less simple needs : the craving after comfort, ease, variety,
grace, beauty, sought satisfaction ; and architecture by
degrees became an art, and dress-making a handicraft,
each surrounded by a crowd of auxiliary arts and handi
crafts, giving occupation to no insignificant part of the
human race, calling into action some of its noblest endow
ments, and bringing forth forms of elegance and beauty,
embodiments of conceptions, realizations of ideals, pro
duced by long ages of cultivation, and capable neither of
being conceived nor realized until after a protracted course
TT 24
278 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WHITNET
of training. So was it also with language. Man was not
created with a mere gamut of instinctive cries, nor yet
with a song like the bird's, as the highest expression of
his love and enjoyment of life : he had wants, and capaci
ties of indefinite improvement, which could be satisfied
and developed only through means of speech ; nor was he
treated by nature with a disappointing and baffling nig
gardliness in respect to them; he was furnished also with
organs of speech, and the power to apply their products
to use in the formation of language. His first beginnings
were rude and insufficient, but the consenting labor of
generations has perfected them, till human thought has
been clothed in garments measurably worthy of it, and
an edifice of speech has been erected, grander, more beau
tiful, and more important to our race than any other
work whatever of its producing. There are races yet
living whose scanty needs and inferior capacities have
given them inferior forms of speech, as there are races
which have not striven after, or been able to contrive,
any but the rudest raiment, the meanest shelter. But the
child now born among us is dressed in the products of
every continent and every clime, and housed, it may be,
in an edifice whose rules of construction have come down
from Egypt and Greece, through generations of archi
tects and craftsmen ; as he is also taught to express him
self in words and forms far older than the pyramids, and
elaborated by a countless succession of thinkers and
speakers.
This comparison might profitably be drawn out in yei
fuller detail, but I forbear to urge it farther, or to call
attention to any other of the aspects in which it may
be made to cast light upon the development of speech.
Enough has been said, as I hope, to make plain that the
assumption of miraculous intervention, of superhuman
WHITNEY! THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 279
agency, in the first production of speech, is, so far as
linguistic science is concerned, wholly gratuitous, called
for by nothing which is brought to light by our study of
language and of its relations to the nature and history
of man.
It is next of primary and fundamental importance that
we make clear to ourselves what is the force directly
and immediately impelling to the production of speech.
Speech, wo know, is composed of external audible signs
for internal acts, for conceptions, for ideas, taking that
word in its most general sense. But why create such
signs? The doctrine, now, is by no means uncommon,
that thought seeks expression by an internal impulse;
that it is even driven to expression by an inward neces
sity ; that it cannot be thought at all without incorpora
tion in speech ; that it tends to utterance as the fully-
matured embryo tends to burst its envelop and to come
forth into independent life. This doctrine is, in my view,
altogether erroneous : I am unable to see upon what it
is founded, if not upon arbitrary assumption, combined
with a thorough misapprehension of the relation between
thought and its expression. It is manifestly opposed to
all the conclusions to which we have been thus far led by
our inquiries into the nature and office of speech. Speech
is not a personal possession, but a social ; it belongs, not
to the individual, but to the member of society. No item
of existing language is the work of an individual; for
what we may severally choose to say is not language
until it be accepted and employed by our fellows. The
whole development of speech, though initiated by the
acts of individuals, is wrought out by the community.
That is a word, no matter what may be its origin, its
length, its phonetic form, which is understood in any com
munity, however limited, as the sign of an idea ; and their
280 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WHITNEY
mutual understanding is the only tie which connects it
with that idea. It is a sign which each one has acquired
from without, from the usage of others; and each has
learned the art of intimating by such signs the internal
acts of his mind. Mutual intelligibility, we have seen, is
the only quality which makes the unity of a spoken
tongue ; the necessity of mutual intelligibility is the only
force which keeps it one ; and the desire of mutual intel
ligibility is the impulse which called out speech. Man
speaks, then, primarily, not in order to think, but in
order to impart his thought. His social needs, his social
instincts, force him to expression. A solitary man would
never frame a language. Let a child grow up in utter
seclusion, and, however rich and suggestive might be the
nature around him, however full and appreciative his
sense of that which lay without and his consciousness of
that which went on within him, he would all his life re
main a mute. On the other hand, let two children grow
up together, wholly untaught to speak, and they would
inevitably devise, step by step, some means of expression
for the purpose of communication ; how rudimentary, of
what slow growth, we cannot tell, and, however interest
ing and instructive it would be to test the matter by ex
periment, humanity forbids us ever to hope or desire to
do so: doubtless the character of the speech produced
would vary with difference of capacity, with natural or
accidental difference of circumstances ; but it is incon
ceivable that human beings should abide long in each
other's society without efforts, and successful efforts, at in
telligent interchange of thought. Again, let one who had
grown up even to manhood among his fellows, in full and
free communication with them, be long separated from
them and forced to live in solitude, and he would unlearn
his native speech by degrees through mere disuse, and bo
WHITNEY] THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 281
found at last unable to converse at all, or otherwise than
lamely, until he had recovered by new practice his former
facility of expression. While a Swiss Family Robinson
keep up their language, and enrich it with names for all
the new and strange places and products with which their
novel circumstances bring them in contact, a Robinson
Crusoe almost loses his for lack of a companion with
whom to employ it. We need not, however, rely for this
conclusion upon imaginary cases alone. It is a well-
known fact that children who are deprived of hearing
even at the age of four or five years, after they have
learned to speak readily and well, and who are thus cut
oif from vocal communication with those around them,
usually forget all they had learned, and become as mute
as if they had never acquired the power of clothing their
thoughts in words. The internal impulse to expression
is there, but it is impotent to develop itself and produce
speech : exclusion from the ordinary intercourse of man
with man not only thwarts its progress, but renders it
unable to maintain itself upon the stage at which it had
already arrived.
Language, then, is the spoken means whereby thought
is communicated ; and it is only that. Language is not
thought, nor is thought language; nor is there a mys
terious and indissoluble connection between the two, as
there is between soul and body, so that the one cannot
exist and manifest itself without the other. There can
hardly be a greater and more pernicious error, in linguis
tics or in metaphysics, than the doctrine that language
and thought are identical. It is, unfortunately, an error
often committed, both by linguists and by metaphysicians.
" Man speaks because he -thinks," is the dictum out of
which more than one scholar has proceeded to develop his
system of linguistic philosophy. The assertion, indeed, is
ii. 24*
282 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WHITNBY
not only true, but a truism ; no one can presume to claim
that man would speak if lie did not think ; but no fair
logical process can derive any momentous conclusions from
so loose a premise. So man would not wear clothes if he
had not a body ; he would not build spinning mules and
jennies if cotton did not grow on bushes, or wool on sheep's
backs : yet the body is more than raiment, nor do cotton-
bushes and sheep necessitate wheels and water-power.
The body would be neither comfortable nor comely, if
not clad ; cotton and wool would be of little use, but for
machinery making quick and cheap their conversion into
cloth; and, in a truly analogous way, thought would be
awkward, feeble, and indistinct, without the dress, the
apparatus, which is afforded it in language. Our denial
of the identity of thought with its expression does not
compel us to abate one jot or tittle of the exceeding value
of speech to thought : it only puts that value upon its
proper basis.
That thought and speech are not the same is a direct
and necessary inference, I believe, from more than one of
the truths respecting language which our discussions have
already established ; but the high importance attaching to
a right understanding of the point will justify us in a brief
review of those truths in their application to it. In the
first place, we have often had our attention directed to the
imperfection of language as a full representation of thought.
Words and phrases are but the skeleton of expression,
hints of meaning, light touches of a skilful sketch er's pen
cil, to which the appreciative sense and sympathetic mind
must supply the filling up and coloring. Our own mental
acts and states we can review in our consciousness in mi
nute detail, but we can never perfectly disclose them to
another by speech ; nor will words alone, with whatever
sincerity and candor they may be uttered, put us in pos-
WHITNEY] THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 283
session of another's consciousness. In anything but the
most objective scientific description, or the dryest reason
ing on subjects the most plain and obvious, we want more
or less knowledge of the individuality of the speaker or
writer, ere we can understand him intimately, his style
of thought and sentiment must be gathered from the to
tality of our intercourse with him, to make us sure that
we penetrate to the central meaning of any word he utters;
and such study may enable us to find deeper and deeper
significance in expressions that once seemed trivial or
commonplace. A look or tone often sheds more light upon
character or intent than a flood of words could do. Humor,
banter, irony, are illustrations of what tone, or style, or
perceived incongruity can accomplish in the way of im
pressing upon words a different meaning from that which
they of themselves would wear. That language is impo
tent to express our feelings, though often, perhaps, pleaded
as a form merely, is also a frequent genuine experience ;
nor is it for our feelings alone that the ordinary conven
tional phrases, weakened in their force by insincere and
hyperbolical use, are found insufficient : apprehensions,
distinctions, opinions, of every kind, elude our efforts at
description, definition, intimation. How often must we
labor, by painful circumlocution, by gradual approach and
limitation, to place before the minds of others a concep
tion which is clearly present to our own consciousness !
How often, when we have the expression nearly complete,
we miss a single word that we need, and must search for
it, in our memories or our dictionaries, perhaps not finding
it in either! How different is the capacity of ready and
distinct expression in men whose power of thought is not
unlike ! he whose grasp of mind is the greatest, whose re
view of the circumstances that should lead to a judgment
is most comprehensive and thorough, whose skill of in-
284 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HOWELLS
ferenee is most unerring, may be, much more than anothei
of far weaker gifts, awkward and clumsy of speech. Ho\v
often we understand what one says better than he himself
says it, and correct his expression, to his own gratification
and acceptance! And if all the resources of expression
are not equally at the command of all men of equal men
tal force and training, so neither are they, at their best,
adequate to the wealth of conception of him who wields
them : that would be but a poorly-stored and infertile
mind which did not sometimes feel the limited capacity
of language and long for fuller means of expression.
A DECLARATION OF LOVE.
W. D. HOWELLS.
[To understand the following scene, which we extract from " Th
Rise of Silas Lapham," one of the most characteristic of Howells's
novels, some preliminary remarks are needed. Silas Lapham, a rich,
honest, but unrefined paint-manufacturer, is desirous of gaining an en
trance for himself, his wife, and his two daughters into the aristocratic
circles of Boston society. Mainly for this purpose he takes into his
employment a youthful member of the bluest blood of Boston, with
whom both the daughters at once fall in love, though one of them
closely conceals this fact. The other, the beauty of the family, makes
no secret of her feelings, and has every reason to believe that the
young man is paying his addresses to her. But he is really in love
with the plain and witty sister, and astounds her with a declaration of
his affection in the scene which we give below. Her strange behavior
is in anticipation of the awkward family complication which she fore
sees, and of which her lover has no prevision.]
HE took the chair she gave him, and looked across at
her, where she sat on the other side of the hearth, in a
chair lower than his, with her hands dropped in her lap,
WILLL'.M D. HOWELLS
HOWELLS] A DECLARATION OF LOVE. 285
and the back of her head on her shoulders as she looked
up at him. The soft-coal fire in the grate purred and
flickered ; the drop-light cast a mellow radiance on her
face. She let her eyes fall, and then lifted them for an
irrelevant glance at the clock on the mantel.
" Mother and Irene have gone to the Spanish Students'
concert."
" Oh, have they ?" asked Corey ; and he put his hat,
which he had been holding in his hand, on the floor beside
his chair.
She looked down at it, for no reason, and then looked
up at his face, for no other, and turned a little red. Corey
turned a little red himself. She who had always been so
easy with him now became a little constrained.
' Do you know how warm it is out-of-doors ?" he asked.
" No ; is it warm ? I haven't been out all day."
" It's like a summer night."
She turned her face towards the fire, and then started
abruptly. " Perhaps it's too warm for you here ?"
11 Oh, no ; it's very comfortable."
" I suppose it's the cold of the last few days that's still
in the house. I was reading with a shawl on when you
came."
" I interrupted you ?"
" Oh, no. I had finished the book. I was just lookiug
over it again."
" Do you like to read books over ?"
" Yes ; books that I like at all."
" What was it ?" asked Corey.
The girl hesitated. " It has rather a sentimental name.
Did you ever read it ? ' Tears, Idle Tears.' "
" Oh, yes ; they were talking of that last night . it's &
famous book with ladies. They break their hearts over
it. Did it make you cry ?"
286 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HOWJCLU
" Oh, it's pretty easy to cry over a book." said Penel
ope, laughing ; " and that one is very natural till you
come to the main point. Then the naturalness of all the
rest makes that seem natural too ; but I guess it's rather
forced."
" Her giving him up to the other one ?"
" Yes, simply because she happened to know that the
other one had cared for him first. Why should she have
done it ? What right had she ?"
" I don't know. I suppose that the self-sacrifice "
" But it wasn't self-sacrifice, or not self-sacrifice alone
She was sacrificing him too, and for some one who couldn't
appreciate him half as much as she could. I'm provoked
with myself when I think how I cried over that book,
for I did cry. It's silly it's wicked for any one to do
what that girl did. Why can't they let people have a
chance to behave reasonably in stories ?"
"Perhaps they couldn't make it so attractive," sug
gested Corey, with a smile.
" It would be novel, at any rate," said the girl. " But
BO it would in real life, I suppose," she added.
" I don't know. Why shouldn't people in love behave
sensibly ?"
" That's a very serious question," said Penelope, gravely.
"I couldn't answer it." And she left him the embarrass
ment of supporting an inquiry which she had certainly
instigated herself. She seemed to have finally recovered
her own ease in doing this. "Do you admire our
autumnal display, Mr. Corey ?"
"Your display?"
" The trees in the square. ' We think it's quite equal to
an opening at Jordan & Marsh's."
"Ah, I'm afraid you wouldn't let me be serious even
about your maples."
HOWELLS] A DECLARATION OF LOVE. 287
" Oh, yes, I should, if you like to be serious."
"Don't you?"
"Well, not about serious matters. That's the reason
that book made me cry."
" You make fun of everything. Miss Irene was telling
me last night about you."
" Then it's no use for me to deny it so soon. I must
give Irene a talking to."
" I hope you won't forbid her to talk about you !"
She had taken up a fan from the table, and held it, now
between her face and the fire, and now between her face
and him. Her little visage, with that arch, lazy look in
it, topped by its mass of clusky hair, and dwindling from
the full cheeks to the small chin, had a Japanese effect in
the subdued light, and it had the charm which comes to
any woman with happiness. It would be hard to say how
much of this she perceived that he felt. They talked
about other things awhile, and then she came back to
what he had said. She glanced at him obliquely round
her fan, and stopped moving it. " Does Irene talk about
me?" she asked.
" I think so, yes. Perhaps it's only I who talk about
you. You must blame me if it's wrong," he returned.
" Oh, I didn't say it was wrong," she replied. " But I
hope if you said anything veiy bad of me you'll let me
know what it was, so that I can reform "
" No, don't change, please !" cried the young man.
Penelope caught her breath, but went on resolutely,
" or rebuke you for speaking evil of dignities." She
looked down at the fan, now flat in her lap, and tried to
govern her hand, but it trembled, and she remained look
ing down. Again they let the talk stray, and then it was
he who brought it back to themselves, as if it had not
left them.
288 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HowtLLs
" I have to talk of you," said Corey, " because I get to
talk to you so seldom."
"You mean that I do all the talking when we're
together?" She glanced sidewise at him; but she red
dened after speaking the last word.
" We're so seldom together," he pursued.
"I don't know what you mean "
"Sometimes I've thought I've been afraid that you
avoided me."
" Avoided you ?"
" Yes ! Tried not to be alone with me."
She might have told him that there was no reason why
she should be alone with him, and that it was very
strange he should make this complaint of her. But she
did not. She kept looking down at the fan, and then she
lifted her burning face and looked at the clock again.
"Mother and Irene will be sorry to miss you," she
gasped.
He instantly rose and came towards her. She rose too,
and mechanically put out her hand. He took it as if to
say good-night. " I didn't mean to send you away," she
besought him.
" Oh, I'm not going," he answered, simply. " I wanted
to say to say that it's I who make her talk about you
to say I There is something I want to say to you ;
I've said it so often to myself that I feel as if you must
know it." She stood quite still, letting him keep her
hand, and questioning his face with a bewildered gaze.
"You must know she must have told you she must
have guessed " Penelope turned white, but outwardly
quelled the panic that sent the blood to her heart. " I
I didn't expect I hoped to have seen your father but I
must speak now, whatever I love you !"
She freed her hand from both of those he had closed
HOWELLS! A DECLARATION OF LOVE. 289
upon it, and went back from him across the room with a
sinuous spring. "Mel" Whatever potential complicity
had lurked in her heart, his words brought her only
immeasurable dismay.
He came towards her again. " Yes, you. Who else ?"
She fended him off with an imploring gesture. " [
thought I it was "
She shut her lips tight, and stood looking at him where
he remained in silent amaze. Then her words came again,
Bhudderingly. " Oh, what have you done ?"
" Upon my soul," he said, with a vague smile, " I don't
know. I hope no harm ?"
" Oh, don't laugh !" she cried, laughing hysterically
herself. " Unless you want me to think you the greatest
wretch in the world !"
" I ?" he responded. " For heaven's sake, tell me what
you mean !"
" You know I can't tell you. Can you say can you
put your hand on your heart and say that you say you
never meant that you meant me all along ?"
" Yes ! yes ! Who else ? I came here to see youi
father, and to tell him that I wished to tell you this to
ask him But what does it matter ? You must have
known it you must have seen and it's for you to answer
me. I've been abrupt, I know, and I've startled you ; but,
if you love me, you can forgive that to my loving you so
long before I spoke."
She gazed at him with parted lips.
"Oh, mercy! What shall I do ? If it's true what
you say you must go !" she said. "And you must never
come any more. Do you promise that ?"
" Certainly not," said the young man. " Why should I
promise such a thing so abominably wrong? I could
obey if you didn't love me "
ii. N t 25
290 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HOWELLS
" Oh, I don't ! Indeed I don't ! Now will you obey ?"
" No. I don't believe you."
' Oh !"
He possessed himself of her hand again.
" My love my dearest ! What is this trouble, that you
can't tell it ? It can't be anything about yourself. If it
is anything about any one else, it wouldn't make the least
difference in the world, no matter what it was. I would
be only too glad to show by any act or deed I could that
nothing could change me towards you."
" Oh, you don't understand !"
" No, I don't. You must tell me."
" I will never do that."
" Then I will stay here till your mother comes, and ask
her what it is."
" Ask her t"
11 Yes ! Do you think I will give you up till I know why
I must ?"
" You force me to it ! Will you go if I tell you, and
never let any human creature know what you have said
to me?"
" Not unless you give me leave.'
"That will be never. Well, then " She stopped.
and made two or three ineffectual efforts to begin again.
" No, no 1 I can't. You must go !"
" I will not go !"
" You said you loved me. If you do, you will go."
He dropped the hands he had stretched towards her,
and she hid her face in her own.
" There !" she said, turning it suddenly upon him. " Sit
down there. And will you promise me on your honor
not to speak not to try to persuade me not to touch
me ? You won't touch me ?"
" I will obey you, Penelope."
HOWELLS] . A DECLARATION OF LOVE. 291
" As if you were never to see me again ? As if I were
dying?"
" I will do what you say. But I shall see you again ,
and don't talk of dying. This is the beginning of life "
"No. It's the end," said the girl, resuming at last
something of the hoarse drawl which the tumult of her
feeling had broken into those half-articulate appeals. She
sat down too, and lifted her face towards him. " It's the
end of life for me, because I know now that I must have
been playing false from the beginning. You don't know
what I mean, and I can never tell you. It isn't my secret ;
it's some one else's. You you must never come here
again. I can't tell you why, and you must never try to
know. Do you promise ?"
" You can forbid me. I must do what you say."
" I do forbid you, then. And you shall not think I am
cruel "
" How could I think that ?"
" Oh, how hard you make it !"
Corey laughed for very despair. " Can I make it easier
by disobeying you ?"
" I know I am talking crazily. But I'm not crazy."
" No, no," he said, with some wild notion of comforting
her ; " but try to tell me this trouble ! There is nothing
under heaven no calamity, no sorrow that I wouldn't
gladly share with you, or take all upon myself if I
could !"
" I know ! But this you can't. Oh, my "
" Dearest ! "Wait ! Think I Let me ask your mother
your father "
She gave a cry.
"No! If you do that, you will make me hate you!
"Will you "
The rattling of a latch-key was heard in the outer door
292 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [DARBY
" Promise !" cried Penelope.
" Oh, I promise !"
"Good-by!" She suddenly flung her arms round his
neck, and, pressing her cheek tight against his, flashed
out of the room by one door as her father entered it by
another.
LIFE IN BRUSHLAND.
JOHN DARBY.
["John Darby" is the nom^de-plume assumed by Dr. James E.
Garretson, a physician of Philadelphia, who has made the charms and
advantages of country life the basis of several enthusiastic works.
" Brushland," as will appear from our selection, is the sandy-soiled
and forest-covered region of Southern New Jersey, at first sight seeming
utterly unfitted for agriculture, yet which has proved remarkably pro
lific in the growth of the vine, small fruits, and "garden-truck" in
general. It has become a very important source of fruit and vege
table supply to the two great neighboring cities of New York and
Philadelphia, while German cultivators have succeeded in making parts
of it a veritable " American Khine." The following description of its
two main vine-growing districts may be of interest to our readers.]
IF the author of the "Deserted Village" be right in
his assertion that "every rood of ground maintained its
man," these Jersey barrens are capable of affording sup
port to all the unemployed of the United States. Let
the rood be changed for a twenty-acre farm, and homes
are to be found in them for all the houseless in the two
great cities bordering the region.
Jersey brush is not a home in itself: quite the contrary.
Many is the man who has come to grief amid its scrub-
oaks. Many another will lay down the budget of his
hopes among its brambles and briers, cursing the fate that
DARBY] LIFE IN BRUSHLAND. 293
led him to what he is to find a dreary disappointment.
To flourish in Brushland is to carry into it common sense
and energy. To starve in its woods is not to take into
them judgment and industry. The man who would make
for himself amid Brushland cheapness the results of Jo-
hannisberg must be sure that, in locating his vine-hill, he
buys red clay and gravel. He who would have a vintage
smacking of the bouquet that lives about the Chateau-
Margaux must not be uncertain as to the percentage of
potash, iron, and soluble silicates to be analyzed from his
soil.
Reminded of wine-growing is to recall many pleasant
experiences enjoyed with the growers. Egg Harbor and
Vineland are the regions of this most delightful industry.
The possibility of the whole brush country for the profit
able raising of the vine, and of fruit generally, is some
thing that home-seekers might wisely consider. Certainly
it is the case that here growing weather comes earliest
and stays latest. Undeniably, a seed dropped in the
ground is sure to come to something if the ghost of a
chance be allowed it. It happened the writer on an
occasion to be invited to meet in the brush a commission
of gentlemen appointed by the Legislature of New Jersey
to make explorations of a character similar to some en
gaging at the time his own attention. The day of meeting
was a hot one, and after a long morning spent in digging
out specimens of soil and in detouring here and there
through trackless places, a ride was proposed to what,
again using Carlyle's word, and adding to it, we will call
" Weissnichtwozweitens." Assuredly, as one at least of
the party was concerned, it was a ride having no objective
point, but influenced solely by the accidents of roads that
might be met with. It was certainly a narrow way in
which we found ourselves immediately on leaving the
ii. 25*
294 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [DARBT
street of the village, so narrow as to beget at once the
thought " Suppose we meet somebody ?" Where did the
road lead ? To see the most of the particular locality was
the special object ; plenty of time was just then at the
author's command. Where the single track went was not
a matter of the slightest consequence ; it led somewhere,
that was enough.
What a surprise when a sudden turn in the road showed
an ending of the brush, introducing a scene fair as eye
could desire to look on ! Flatness was lost in undulation ;
sterility replaced by fruitfulness. Along the sides of many
hills of gentle elevation were seen the dressers tying up
their vines. From every direction came songs from the
lips of the workers, borne by a hazy atmosphere. The
scene was not at all American. It was an involuntary
motion of the eye that turned to look for the Rheinfluss.
Vineyards in every direction. Houses exhibiting both
means and taste. Here, perched on the top of the highest
hill, a beer-brewery. One place, beautiful as a picture,
showed a garden filled with long tables; evidently a
pleasure-resort ; German, very German ; one on taking a
seat would unconsciously have given his order in the
Sprache des Vaterlandes. But the people to fill up these
long tables ; where did the convivialists come from ? Who
could manage to find so out-of-the-way an Anpflanzungf
Turning up a lane, bordered on either side by rows of
vines, our excursion found a terminus before what, at first
sight, might readily enough have been mistaken for a
house-roof lying upon the ground. This, however, was a
wine-vault, the roof acting the part of a water-shed.
It is not to qualify the hearty welcome given our little
party by any reference to the official character associated
with it. The proprietor represented his vines, the vines
expressed the proprietor. There was plenty of wine.
DARBY] LIFE IN BRUSHLAND. 295
there were plenty of vintages. " Would we inspect the
vault ?"
And we did inspect the vault ; we inspected the wine ;
and as well we inspected the vintages. From sixty-eight
to seventy-eight; ten glorious gatherings poured into
casks from the wine-bottles hung by God's creative power
on the vines of the hill-side. It is our misfortune never
to have been in Leipsic, consequently we have never sat
among the mould-covered barrels where Faust sat. Here,
however, was an Auerbach's in the woods. Over the bar
rels were inches of mould ; over the walls were dark stains
made by the flare of lamp and torch. The vault we were
in is an oblong square, pillars of masonry supporting the
roof at short intervals. In entering it we had passed
through a small trap in the floor of the roof. Looking
up from below, this floor-roof impressed us as being of
stone. The barrels, of which there was row after row,
were piled one upon the other, reaching almost to the
ceiling. No attempt seemed to have been made to keep
them free from mould, cask after cask lying in a union
which appeared not to have been disturbed for years.
What the value of mould is in a wine-vault was not
known to any of the visiting inspectors ; that, however,
it is a something to be cherished and valued by the vint
ner is a matter of which our entertainer did not leave us
in doubt. In a picture of this same vault, shown in a
little book published by the Camden & Atlantic Railway
Company, the walls are painted white, and the place
throughout is as light as a mid-day sun might possibly
make it ; in reality, it is a cave full of twilight and of
weird imaginations, and so full, withal, of ghostly hiding-
places, that were it not that Goethe has so plainly and
irrefutably exhibited that Mephistopheles differs nothing
tn his habits from a modern gentleman, one would incline,
296 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [DARBT
when in it, to keep his wits about him out of fear of tho
devil.
" Sixty-eight," said the host, flowing into half a dozen
glasses the holdings of a self-acting pump. Sixty-eight
was drunk and pronounced excellent. "Sixty-nine!"
Sixty-nine was a welcome draught. " Seventy !" " Sev
enty-one! Seventy-two! Seventy -three!" Seventy-
three needed a lesson for its appreciation. "So," said tho
vintner, putting a teaspoonful of the wine into his mouth
and drawing bubbles of air through it. Half a dozen
mouths received half a dozen teaspoonsful and made bub
bles. This idea was new ; the result carried the day ; the
declaration for the Franklin '73 was unanimous.
" Jolhink !" said the vintner, brimming the pump with
what evidently was his peculiar predilection. To see the
expression of triumph on the face of the grower was to
find reflected on one's self the flame of his enthusiasm.
Did he feel a shade of disappointment that the Franklin
'73 held the day ? One, at least, of the tasters must ex
cuse the preference, in that he judged by tannates and
ferrum rather than by palate and nostril. Perhaps, how
ever, after all, it was the result of a first experience at
bubbl e-making.
The door, as stated, through which our party had en
tered the place, was a small trap cut in the water-shed.
Until after the trial of the vintages, when we came more
leisurely to look about, it had not happened to any of us
to inquire after a more roomy means of egress. The
great tuns constituting the ground-floor of vessels cer
tainly had never been brought through the trap, or if, as
suggested by one of the party, an incoming had been in
the shape of staves, how was there to be an outgoing in
the form of hogsheads? Six speculating inquirers had
repeated before them the problem of the English King :
DARBY] LIFE IN BRUSHLAND. 297
here was another dumpling with an apple inside. How
is an apple got inside of a dumpling ? It was an attend
ant, who had not partaken of the vintages, that somewhat
later pointed out a door in one of the sides of the vault
quite big enough to pass a brewer's distributing- wagon.
Auerbach's cellar had not only Mephistopheles, but as
well its poet. But not Leipsic alone is the home of
the muse. There, in the very midst of Jersey brush,
in a gloomy vault under ground,. Inspiration was found
among wine-barrels, and Eeflection, arms akimbo, sitting
surrounded by mould. Poetry is not necessarily rhyme,
nor is philosophy compulsorily long-drawn words. Who
had composed the bars and who written the lines which
the flare of the torch showed on the walls of a recess in
which we found ourselves? One familiar with German
might not fail to understand that the composition had
been thought out in that tongue, and afterwards put into
a language less familiar to the thinker. "Whether it was
the wine that had been drank, the rich, full, adagio-timed
voice of our host, or whether the vein of philosophy
struck a responsive chord, it matters not to consider.
Never was song or chant greeted more rapturously ; never
certainly has that fungus-lined old cellar echoed with
heartier encore.
The writer would like to put back into their native
tongue the words chanted in the wine-vault. He would
like to telephone into the ear of the reader the rich sturdi-
ness of the voice that sang. He would like to mellow a
critic's heart with draughts of the Franklin '73. More
even than this : he would like that his reader might enjoy
with him the associations that are, even at this moment,
about him, of Weissnichtwozweitens. Divested of the
frame of its charms, here follows what the wine-grower
sang to his guests ;
298 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [DARBY
" Here among my wine-barrels will I reflect on the meaning of evils
escaped by me ; evils which lie in wait for dwellers in great cities.
" Here, where it is never too hot or too cold, will I rest in thankful
ness of my good ; good which is the heritage of him who eschews bad.
" Here, distraction far removed from me, will I pause in my work
to consider of wine ; wine, which while it cheers and lifts up, as well
scourges and pulls down.
" Here, beneath the face of the ground, will I consider of running
streams ; streams which the God gives me in form of wine for my
barrels.
" I will account that I am not the maker but the gatherer of in
spired water; water wherein is yearly repeated the miracle of the
marriage-feast.
" I will take to my heart consciousness that the God can do no evil ;
evil I will teach myself to understand as the abuse of good.
" I will join in no foolish hue and cry against the meaning of wine ;
wine, when vilified, is as slops thrown in the face of its maker.
" Leipsic I will not regret ; my vineyard shall be my Leipsic :
Leipsic where if there be no Faust there is no Mephistopheles.
" World 1 world 1 What is a man's world but his mind? Mind,
which in its wisdom or folly makes or unmakes.
" Toast ! I hold high the brimming beaker for a toast to the God :
God who beautifies, but who denies not to man the power to desolate."
Experiences quite as strange as those of the city are met
with in the brush. Among those same vineyards of the
Egg Harbor region the writer stopped on one occasion to
ask for a draught of water, when a plainly-dressed dame
presented the pitcher, who was found familiar with all
the modern languages of Southern Europe, and who, in
her day, had called down the plaudits of so critical an
audience as assembles in the Grand Opera-House at Milan.
From Italy to the Jersey barrens is a long distance, but
the lady seemed to have no regret for the change. It was
a generous and delicious refreshment, not of water, but
DABBY] LIFE IN BRUSHLAND. 299
of wine, that was given by the retired prima donna, and
it was bestowed with a grace not unbecoming a queen of
song. An interview with the lady's husband showed a
spouse not unworthy so accomplished a wife. There was
limping and halting among the Latin and German verbs
with which we endeavored to make ourselves understood,
the one by the other ; the lameness was not, however, on
the part of the farmer.
But to find the odd things and oddities of the barrens
go to Vineland. Miss Duhring, in her charming book,
" Philosophers and Fools," classifies the articles. At
Vineland she would be at fault. I am not at all prepared
to commit myself as to the residents. I think them phi
losophers ; people generally do not agree with me. At
Vineland are found the men who grow long hair, and the
women who cut it short ; males who wear petticoats, and
females who have made the exchange for trousers. There
is, about the locality, a monstrous amount of sense or
nonsense. One paying his fare in the cars can go and see,
deciding for himself.
Searching for entertainment, I had over and again been
in Vineland. To this day no one there knows my name.
I stop and gossip with the specimen who has woman's
rights at her tongue's end. She is a Yankee, you may be
sure ; she " wants to know," she pronounces how " heow."
She sniffs the air of the clouds when I inadvertently drop
a word about the lord of creation. Dr. So-and-So, name
unknown, not he, but a she, going by upon a wall-eyed
horse, never mind the position, stops to learn the row ;
the row is all on one side. I put the women by the ears
and draw off to a neighboring lot where Jonathan is
framing a good-sized dry-goods-box kind of structure,
designed to accommodate a front door and a pair of green-
painted window-shutters.
300 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
I have had many a good talk with Jonathan, and hav
learned many valuable facts from him. He knows every
thing. You can tell him nothing. Unfortunately, he
knows too much. He sets up his packing-box too often
upon the sand, mistaking it for rock. His sanguinity is
refreshing. Although his ten-acre lot is only a brush-
heap, next year he is to dig dollars out of it. You need
not suggest a market for this, or sale for that ; what he is
after is strawberries. He expects to show after a " spell"
a " tarnal site" better specimen of the fruit than Middle
States people ever read about or " beared tell on." " He'll
do it ; by the eternal Jehoshaphat he will."
A curious place, truly. I am in earnest when I suggest
that the people may be philosophers. Assuredly it would
not be easy to find a region where so much is got out of
so little. The settlement is a plain counting thousands
of acres. Where drains are required you find ditches.
Where fences are ordinarily used law is made to take
their place. Yines and trees skirt the road-side. Fruit
hangs over your head as you pass along. Nobody steals.
The crates of berries sent by this community to the
markets of the two great equidistant cities of Philadelphia
and New York are fully fabulous as to number ; tons is
what the people count their produce by. Besides raising
the berries they make the boxes. Go to Yineland to learn
economy. A shaving from a hoop-pole is made to sur
round a quart of fruit. A pumpkin is hung up to dry, a
dead tomato-vine saving the price of string. A boy's winter
cap comes off a squirrel's back. A girl's summer head-gear
is the twisting and twining of leaves and flowers.
Not all the houses of Vineland are up-ended dry-goods
boxes. Some are large. A few are very tasteful. Tbo
centre of the colony is a street a mile in length. Ambi
tious stores have already commenced a process of dete-
DARBY] LIFE IN BRUSHLAND. 301
rioration by hanging in their windows the fashion-plates
of the day. From a fashion-plate to a woman's shoulders
is not a long distance. From a Paris dress to extreme
feminity is a shorter distance. Go soon if you want to
Bee the woman in pantaloons. . . .
Discoursing of Vineland reminds of a place some few
miles below it. There is a certain station squat down upon
a sand-hill ; squat expresses the impression produced.
That is all about the station. You leave the cars there.
This brushland region is full of cedar-water streams.
Cedar- water in its purity ! Do not set up your judgment
on water until you have seen and tasted that found in the
cedar regions of the Jersey barrens. Black, cold, sweet,
it is unlike all the fluids of the earth. Its blackness is
not opacity, it is transparency. Obstruct its running by
a handful of pebbles, and you have the peculiar sparkle
of a diamond. Drink it, or perhaps it is the air you
breathe in connection with the drink, and you are lifted
up by some exhilaration unfelt ever before. Not very far
from the station referred to is a stream of this cedar-
water that well deserves a poet's pen to write its praise.
By the arbored banks of the runnel Hygeia may be as
sumed to have set up one of her trysting-places. One
stretches himself in the shade of the dense foliage, won
dering if accident has not revealed to him the hiding-
place of the fountain searched for so vainly and so long
by Ponce de Leon. The place is not, however, without
its drawback.
" Mosquitoes !"
I have been there often, and have yet to meet one.
The drawback is getting to it. If you hire a wagon and
ride, the road breaks you up. Bump, bump : a set of
axles is good for one trip. To walk is well ; only ycu are
not to have ankles too susceptible to the depressing in-
ii. 26
302 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [SPARKS
fluence of water-soaked pantaloon-legs. It was an idea
once seriously entertained by the writer to build for him
self a summer box at the site of the beautiful stream, an
idea which would undoubtedly have had a fruition had it
not been for fear of an accidental spark from a passing
locomotive, or of an ash carelessly thrown aside from a
tramp's pipe. Not unique, it is yet anomalous, that here,
within a stone-throw of a health-and-pleasure-seeking pop
ulation, passing and repassing almost hourly to and from
the sea, a place so beautiful exists known alone to the
dryads and to a few peregrinating loiterers. Some time
it will be discovered by Boniface; some time the sweet
water will be polluted by beer-dregs.
THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION,
JARED SPARKS.
f Jftred Sparks, a distinguished biographer and historian, was born
in Connecticut in 1789. He became a minister of the Unitarian de
nomination in 1819. From 1823 to 1830 he was editor of the North
American Review. His first biographical work was the " Life of John
Ledyard" (1829). But his most important production in this field is
" The Life and Writings of George Washington," in twelve volumes, a
work which Griswold characterizes as " in all respects as nearly perfect
as possible." He edited the complete works of Franklin, and wrote
a large number of biographical essays. For several years before his
death in 1866 he is said to have been engaged on a History of the
American Revolution. As a writer he had an attractive style, and
was very accurate, impartial, and exhaustive.]
THE causes of the Revolution, so fertile a theme of
speculation, are less definite than have been imagined.
SPARKS] THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 303
The whole series of colonial events was a continued and
accumulating cause. The spirit was kindled in England ;
it went with Robinson's congregation to Holland ; it
landed with them at Plymouth ; it was the basis of the
first constitution of these sage and self-taught legislators ;
it never left them nor their descendants. It extended to
the other colonies, where it met with a kindred impulse,
was nourished in every breast, and became rooted in the
feelings of the whole people.
The Eevolution was a change of forms, but not of sub
stance ; the breaking of a tie, but not the creation of a
principle ; the establishment of an independent nation,
but not the origin of its intrinsic political capacities.
The foundations of society, although unsettled for the
moment, were not essentially disturbed ; its pillars were
shaken, but never overthrown. The convulsions of war
subsided, and the people found themselves, in their local
relations and customs, their immediate privileges and en
joyments, just where they had been at the beginning.
The new forms transferred the supreme authority from
the King and Parliament of Great Britain to the hands
of the people. This was a gain, but not a renovation ; a
security against future encroachments, but not an exemp
tion from any old duty, nor an imposition of any new
one, farther than that of being at the trouble to govern
themselves.
Hence the latent cause of what has been called a revo
lution was the fact that the political spirit and habits in
America had waxed into a shape so different from those
in England that it was no longer convenient to regulate
them by the same forms. In other words, the people had
grown to be kings, and chose to exercise their sovereign
prerogatives in their own way. Time alone would have
effected the end, probably without so violent an explosion,
304 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [SPARKS
had it not been hastened by particular events, which may
be denominated the proximate causes.
These took their rise at the close of the French War,
twelve years before the actual contest began. Eelieved
from future apprehensions of the French power on the
frontiers, the colonists now had leisure to think of them
selves, of their political affairs, their numbers, their United
States. At this juncture, the most inauspicious possible
for the object in view, the precious device of taxing the
colonies was resorted to by the British ministry, which,
indeed, had been for some time a secret scheme in the
cabinet, and had been recommended by the same saga
cious governor of Virginia who found the people in such
a republican way of acting that he could not manage them
to his purpose.
The fruit of this policy was the Stamp Act, which has
been considered a primary cause ; and it was so, in the
same sense that a torch is the cause of a conflagration,
kindling the flame, but not creating the combustible
materials. Effects then became causes, and the trium
phant opposition to this tax was the cause of its being
renewed on tea and other articles, not so much, it was
avowed, for the amount of revenue it would yield, as to
vindicate the principle that Parliament had a right to tax
the colonies. The people resisted the act, and destroyed
the tea, to show that they likewise had a principle, for
which they felt an equal concern.
By these experiments on their patience, and these
struggles to oppose them, their confidence was increased,
as the tree gains ptrength at its root by the repeated
blasts of the tempest against its branches. From this
time a mixture of causes was at work: the pride of
power, the disgrace of defeat, the arrogance of office, on
the one hand ; a sense of wrong, indignant feeling, and
SPARKS] THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 305
enthusiasm for liberty, on the other. These were second
ary, having slight connection with the first springs of
the Revolution, or the pervading force by which it was
kept up, although important filaments in the net- work of
history.
The acts of the Eevolution derive dignity and interest
from the character of the actors and the nature and mag
nitude of the events. It has been remarked that in all
great political revolutions men have arisen possessed of
extraordinary endowments adequate to the exigency of
the time. It is true enough that such revolutions, or
any remarkable and continued exertions of human power>
must be brought to pass by corresponding qualities in the
agents ; but whether the occasion makes the men, or men
the occasion, may not always be ascertained with exact
ness. In either case, however, no period has been adorned
with examples more illustrious, or more perfectly adapted
to the high destiny awaiting them, than that of the Amer
ican Eevolution.
Statesmen were at hand, who, if not skilled in the art
of governing empires, were thoroughly imbued with the
principles of just government, intimately acquainted with
the history of former ages, and, above all, with the con
dition, sentiments, and feelings of their countrymen. If
there were no Eichelieus nor Mazarins, no Cecils nor
Chathams, in America, there were men who, like The-
mistocles, knew how to raise a small state to glory and
greatness.
The eloquence and the internal counsels of the Old
Congress were never recorded; we know them only in
their results ; but that assembly, with no other power than
that conferred by the suffrage of the people, with no other
influence than that of their public virtue and talents, and
without precedent to guide their deliberations, unsup-
ii. u 2f"
306 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS [SPARKS
ported even by the arm of law or of ancient usages,
that assembly levied troops, imposed taxes, and for years
not only retained the confidence and upheld the civil
existence of a distracted country, but carried through a
perilous war under its most aggravating burdens of sacri
fice and suffering. Can we imagine a situation in which
were required higher moral courage, more intelligence
and talent, a deeper insight into human nature and the
principles of social and political organizations, or, indeed,
any of those qualities which constitute greatness of char
acter in a statesman ? See, likewise, that work of wonder,
the Confederation, a union of independent states, con
structed in the very heart of a desolating war, but with
a beauty and strength, imperfect as it was, of which the
ancient leagues of the Amphictyons, the Achseans, the
Lycians, and the modern Confederacies of Germany, Hol
land, Switzerland, afford neither exemplar nor parallel.
In their foreign affairs these same statesmen showed no
less sagacity and skill, taking their stand boldly in the
rank of nations, maintaining it there, competing with the
tactics of practised diplomacy, and extorting from the
powers of the world not only the homage of respect, but
the proffers of friendship.
The American armies, compared with the embattled
legions of the Old World, were small in numbers, but the
soul of a whole people centred in the bosom of these more
than Spartan bands, and vibrated quickly and keenly with
every incident that befell them, whether in the feats of
valor or the acuteness of their sufferings. The country
was one wide battle-field, in which not merely the life-
blood, but the dearest interests, the sustaining hopes, of
every individual, were at stake. It was not a war of
pride and ambition between monarchs, in which an island
or a province might be the award of success ; it was a
HILLHOUSE] INTERVIEW OF HAD AD AND TAMAR. 307
contest for personal liberty and civil rights, coming down
in its principles to the very sanctuary of home and the
fireside, and determining for every man the measure of
responsibility he should hold over his own condition, pos
sessions, and happiness. The spectacle was grand and
new, and may well be cited as the most glowing page in
the annals of progressive man.
INTERVIEW OF HADAD AND TAMAR.
J. A. HILLHOUSE.
[James A. Hillhouse was born in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1789.
His first poem, "The Judgment, a Vision," appeared in 1812. He
afterwards wrote three dramas, entitled " Percy's Masque," " Hadad,"
and "Demetria," which have been much admired. He died in 1841.
We select a portion of a scene from " Hadad." This drama is based on
the assumed former intercourse between man and spirits, good and bad,
Hadad is a fallen angel, in the guise of a Syrian prince, who visits
Jerusalem in the time of King David and falls in love with Tamar,
the sister of Absalom. As will be seen from our extract, the success
of the suit of the seeming heathen prince is made dependent upon his
conversion to a belief in Jehovah.]
The garden of ABSALOM'S house on Mount Zion, near the palace, over'
looking the city. TAMAR sitting by a fountain.
Tarn. How aromatic evening grows ! The flowers
And spicy shrubs exhale like onycha ;
Spikenard and henna emulate in sweets.
Blest hour ! which He, who fashioned it so fair,
So softly glowing, so contemplative,
Hath set, and sanctified to look on man.
And lo I the smoke of evening sacrifice
308 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HILLHOTJS*
Ascends from out the tabernacle. Heaven,
Accept the expiation, and forgive
This day's offences \ Ha ! the wonted strain,
Precursor of his coming ! Whence can this
It seems to flow from some unearthly hand
[Enter HADAD.]
Had. Does beauteous Tamar view, in this clear fount,
Herself, or heaven ?
Tarn. Nay, Hadad, tell me whence
Those sad, mysterious sounds.
Had. What sounds, dear princess ?
Tarn. Surely, thou know'st ; and now I almost think
Some spiritual creature waits on thee.
Had. I heard no sounds, but such as evening sends
Up from the city to these quiet shades ;
A blended murmur sweetly harmonizing
With flowing fountains, feathered minstrelsy,
And voices from the hills.
Tarn. The sounds I mean
Floated like mournful music round my head,
From unseen fingers.
Had. When?
Tarn. Now, as thou earnest.
Had. 'Tis but thy fancy, wrought
To ecstasy; or else thy grandsire's harp
Resounding from his tower at eventide.
I've lingered to enjoy its solemn tones,
Till the broad moon, that rose o'er Olivet,
Stood listening in the zenith ; yea, have deemed
Viols and heavenly voices answered him.
Tarn. But these
Had. Were we in Syria, I might say
The Naiad of the fount, or some sweet Nymph,
HILLHOUSE] INTERVIEW OF HAD AD AND TAMAR. 309
The goddess of these shades, rejoiced in thee,
And gave thee salutations ; but I fear
Judah would call me infidel to Moses.
Tarn. How like my fancy 1 When these strains precede
Thy steps, as oft they do, I love to think
Some gentle being who delights in us
Is hovering near, and warns me of thy coming ,
But they are dirge-like.
Had. Youthful fantasy,
Attuned to sadness, makes them seem so, lady.
So evening's charming voices, welcomed ever,
As signs of rest and peace, the watchman's call,
The closing gates, the Levite's mellow trump,
Announcing the returning moon, the pipe
Of swains, the bleat, the bark, the housing-bell,
Send melancholy to a drooping soul.
Tarn. But how delicious are the pensive dreams
That steal upon the fancy at their call !
Had. Delicious to behold the world at rest.
Meek labor wipes his brow, and intermits
The curse, to clasp the younglings of his cot ;
Herdsmen and shepherds fold their flocks, and hark!
What merry strains they send from Olivet !
The jar of life is still ; the city speaks
In gentle murmurs ; voices chime with lutes
Waked in the streets and gardens ; loving pairs
Eye the red west in one another's arms ;
And nature, breathing dew and fragrance, yields
A glimpse of happiness, which He, who formed
Earth and the stars, had power to make eternal.
Tarn. Ah, Hadad, meanest thou to reproach the Friend
Who gave so much, because he gave not all ?
Had,. Perfect benevolence, methinks, had willed
Unceasing happiness, and peace, and joy ;
310 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HILLHOUSB
Filled the whole universe of human hearts
With pleasure, like a flowing spring of life.
Tarn. Our Prophet teaches so, till man's rebellion.
Had. Rebellion I Had he 'leaguered Heaven itself
With beings powerful, numberless, and dreadful,
Mixed onset 'midst the lacerating hail,
And snake-tongued thunderbolts, that hissed and stung
Worse than eruptive mountains, this had fallen
Within the category. But what did man ?
Tasted an apple ! and the fragile scene,
Eden, and innocence, and human bliss,
The nectar-flowing streams, life-giving fruits,
Celestial shades, and amaranthine flowers,
Vanish ; and sorrow, toil, and pain, and death.
Cleave to him by an everlasting curse.
Tarn. Ah ! talk not thus.
Had. Is this benevolence ?
Nay, loveliest, these things sometimes trouble me ;
For I was tutored in a brighter faith.
Our Syrians deem each lucid fount and stream,
Forest and mountain, glade and bosky dell,
Peopled with kind divinities, the friends
Of man, a spiritual race allied
To him by many sympathies, who seek
His happiness, inspire him with gay thoughts,
Cool with their waves, and fan him with their airs.
O'er them, the Spirit of the Universe,
Or Soul of Nature, circumfuses all
With mild, benevolent, and sun-like radiance,
Pervading, warming, vivifying earth,
As spirit does the body, till green herbs,
And beauteous flowers, and branchy cedars rise ;
And shooting stellar influence through her caves,
Whence minerals and gems imbibe their lustre.
HI^HOUSE] INTERVIEW OF HADAD AND TAMAR. 311
Tarn. Dreams, Hadad, empty dreams.
Had. These deities
They invocate with cheerful, gentle rites,
Hang garlands on their altars, heap their shrines
With Nature's bounties, fruits, and fragrant flowers.
Not like yon gory mount that ever reeks
Tarn. Cast not reproach upon the holy altar.
Had. Nay, sweet. Having enjoyed all pleasures here
That Nature prompts, but chiefly blissful love,
At death, the happy Syrian maiden deems
Her immaterial flies into the fields,
Or circumambient clouds, or crystal brooks,
And dwells, a deity, with those she worshipped,
Till time or fate return her in its course
To quaff, once more, the cup of human joy.
Tarn. But thou believ'st not this ?
Had. I almost wish
Thou didst ; for I have feared, my gentle Tamar,
Thy spirit is too tender for a law
Announced in terrors, coupled with the threats
Of an inflexible and dreadful Being,
"Whose word annihilates, who could arrest
The sun in heaven, or, if he pleased, abolish
Light from creation, and leave wretched man
To darkness. . . .
Nay, nay, I grieve thee : 'tis not for myself,
But that I fear these gloomy things oppress
Thy soul, and cloud its native sunshine.
Tarn. (In tears, clasping her hands.)
Witness, ye heavens ! Eternal Father, witness I
Blest God of Jacob ! Maker ! Friend ! Preserver I
That with my heart, my undivided soul,
I love, adore, and praise thy glorious name,
Confess thee Lord of all, believe thy laws
312 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HOLLAND
Wise, just, and merciful, as they are true.
Oh, Hadad, Hadad ! you misconstrue much
The sadness that usurps me : 'tis for thee
i grieve, for hopes that fade, for your lost soul,
And my lost happiness.
Had. Oh, say not so,
Beloved princess. "Why distrust my faith ?
Tarn. Thou know'st, alas! my weakness; but, remember,
I never, never will be thine, although
The feast, the blessing, and the song were past,
Though Absalom and David called me bride,
Till sure thou own'st with truth and love sincere
The Lord Jehovah.
OUTWITTING A LAWYER.
J. G. HOLLAND.
[Popular as have been the works of Josiah G. Holland, they have
met with a severe reception from critics, and certainly do not merit a
very high niche in the temple of literary fame. Yet Jim Fenton, the
backwoodsman of " Sevenoaks," is a character that would do credit
to any novelist, and stands as a redeeming feature in Holland's some
what commonplace sensationalism. We give one of the numerous
amusing scenes in which this racy character appears. In addition
to his novels, Holland has attained a reputation by his Timothy Tit-
comb letters, and his dramatic poem of " Bittersweet," which gained
a high degree of popularity, and is his most meritorious work.]
HE spent a delightful week among his friends in the old
village, learned about Jim Fenton and the way to reach
him, and on a beautiful spring morning, armed with
fishing-tackle, started from Sevenoaks for a fortnight's
absence in the woods. The horses were fresh, the air
HOLLAND] OUTWITTING A LAWYER. 313
sparkling, and at mid-afternoon he found himself standing
by the river-side, with a row of ten miles before him in a
birch canoe, whose hiding-place Mike Conlin had revealed
to him during a brief call at his house. To his unused
muscles it was a serious task to undertake, but he was
not a novice, and it was entered upon deliberately and
with a prudent husbandry of his power of endurance.
Great was the surprise of Jim and Mr. Benedict, as they
sat eating their late supper, to hear the sound of the
paddle down the river, and to see approaching them a
city gentleman, who, greeting them courteously, drew up
in front of their cabin, took out his luggage, and presented
himself.
" Where's Jim Fenton?" said Yates.
" That's me. Them as likes me calls me Jim, and them
as don't like me wall, they don't call."
" Well, I've called, and I call you Jim."
" All right ; let's see yer tackle," said Jim.
Jim took the rod that Yates handed to him, looked it
over, and then said, " When ye come to Sevenoaks ye
didn't think o' goin' a-fishin'. This 'ere tackle wasn't
brung from the city, and ye ain't no old fisherman. This
is the sort they keep down to Sevenoaks.''
"No," said Yates, flushing; "I thought I should find
near you the tackle used here, so I didn't burden myself."
" That seems reasonable," said Jim, " but it ain't. A
trout's a trout anywhere, an' ye hain't got no reel. Ye
never fished with anything but a white birch pole in yer
life."
Yates was amused, and laughed. Jim did not laugh.
He was just as sure that Yates had come on some errand
for which his fishing-tackle was a cover, as that he had
come at all. He could think of but one motive that would
bring the man into the woods, unless he came for sport,
TT. o 27
314 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HOLLAND
and for sport he did not believe his visitor had come at
all. He was not dressed for it. None but old sportsmen,
with nothing else to do, ever came into the woods at that
season.
" Jim, introduce me to your friend," said Yates, turning
to Mr. Benedict, who had dropped his knife and fork and
sat uneasily witnessing the meeting and listening to the
conversation.
" Well, I call 'im Number Ten. His name's Williams ;
an' now, if ye ain't too tired, perhaps ye'll tell us what
they call ye to home."
" Well, I'm Number Eleven, and my name's Williams,
too."
" Then, if yer name's Williams, an' ye're Number 'leven,
ye want some supper. Set down an' help yerself."
Before taking his seat, Yates turned laughingly to Mr.
Benedict, shook his hand, and "hoped for a better ac
quaintance."
Jim was puzzled. The man was no ordinary man ; he
was good-natured ; he was not easily perturbed ; he was
there with a purpose, and that purpose had nothing to do
with sport.
After Yates had satisfied his appetite with the coarse
food before him, and had lighted his cigar, Jim drove
directly at business.
" What brung ye here ?'* said he.
" A pair of horses and a birch canoe."
' Oh I I didn't know but 'twas a mule and a bandanner
honkercher," said Jim. " And whar be ye goin' to sleep
to-night ?"
" In the canoe, I suppose, if some hospitable man doesn't
invite me to sleep in his cabin."
"An' if ye sleep in his cabin, what be ye goin' to do to-
morrer ?"
HOLLAND] OUTWITTING A LAWYER. 315
Get up."
" An' clear out ?"
" Not a bit of it."
""Well, I love to see folks make themselves to home;
but ye don't sleep in no cabin o' mine till I know who ye
be, an' what ye're arter."
"Jim, did you ever hear of entertaining angels un
aware ?" And Yates looked laughingly into his face.
" No, but I've hearn of angels entertainin' theirselves en
tin-ware, an' I've had 'em here."
"Do you have tin-peddlers here?" inquired Yates, look
ing around him.
" No, but we have paupers sometimes." And Jim looked
Yates directly in the eye.
" What paupers ?"
" Prom Sevenoaks."
" And do they bring tin-ware ?"
" Sartin they do ; leastways, one on 'em did, an' I never
seen but one in the woods, an' he come here one night
tootin' on a tin horn an' blowin' about bein' the angel
Gabr'el. Do you see my har ?"
" Bather bushy, Jim."
" Well, that's the time it come up, an' it's never been
tired enough to lay down sence."
"What became of Gabriel?"
" I skeered 'im, and he went off into the woods per-
tendin' he was tryin' to catch a bullet. That's the kind
o' ball I allers use when I have a little game with a rovin 1
angel that comes kadoodlin' round me."
"'Did you ever see him afterward ?" inquired Yates.
" Yes, I seen him. He laid down one night under a tree,
an' ho wasn't called to breakfast, an' he never woke up.
So I made up my mind he'd gone to play angel some-
wheres else, an' I dug a hole an' put 'im into it, an' he
316 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HOLLAND
hain't never riz, if so be he wasn't Number 'leven an' hifl
name was Williams."
Yates did not laugh, but manifested the most eager
interest.
"Jim," said he, "can you show me his bones, and swear
to your belief that he was an escaped pauper ?"
" Easy."
" Was there a man lost from the poor-house about that
time?"
" Yes, an' there was a row about it, an' arterward old
Buffum was took with knowin' less than he ever knowed
afore. He always did make a fuss about breathin', so he
give it up."
" Well, the man you buried is the man I'm after."
"Yes, an' old Belcher sent ye. I knowed it. I smelt
the old feller when I heern yer paddle. When a feller
works for the devil it ain't hard to guess what sort of a
angel he is. Ye must feel mighty proud o' yer belongin's."
" Jim, I'm a lawyer ; it's my business. I do what I'm
hired to do."
"Well," responded Jim, "I don't know nothin' about
lawyers, but I'd rather be a natural-born cuss nor a hired
one."
Yates laughed, but Jim was entirely sober. The lawyer
saw that he was unwelcome, and that the sooner he was
out of Jim's way the better that freely-speaking person
would like it. So he said, quietly,
" Jim, I see that I am not welcome, but I bear you no
ill will. Keep me to-night, and to-morrow show me this
man's bones, and sign a certificate of the statements you
have made to me, and I will leave you at once."
The woodsman made no more objection, and the next
morning after breakfast the three men went together and
found the place of the pauper's burial. It took but a few
HOLLAND] OUTWITTING A LAWYER. 317
minutes to disinter the skeleton, and, after a silent look at
it, it was again buried, and all returned to the cabin.
Then the lawyer, after asking further questions, drew up
a paper certifying to all the essential facts in the case,
and Jim signed it.
"Now, how be ye goin' to git back to Sevenoaks?"
inquired Jim.
" I don't know. The man who brought me in is not to
come for me for a fortnight."
" Then ye've got to huff it," responded Jim.
" It's a long way."
" Ye can do it as fur as Mike's, an' he'll be glad to git
back some o' the hundred dollars that old Belcher got out
of him."
" The row and the walk will be too much."
" I'll take ye to the landing," said Jim.
"I shall be glad to pay you for the job," responded
Yates.
" An' ef ye do," said Jim, " there'll be an accident, an'
two men'll get wet, an' one on 'em'll stan' a chance to be
drownded."
" Well, have your own way," said Yates.
It was not yet noon, and Jim hurried off his visitor.
Yates bade good-by to Benedict, jumped into Jim's boat,
and was soon out of sight down the stream. The boat
fairly leaped through the water under Jim's strong and
steady strokes, and it seemed that only an hour had
passed when the landing was discovered.
They made the whole distance in silence. Jim, sitting
at his oars, with Yates in the stern, had watched the
lawyer with a puzzled expression. He could not read
him. The man had not said a word about Benedict. He
had not once pronounced his name. He was evidently
amused with something, and had great difficulty in sup-
ii. 27*
318 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HOLLAND
pressing a smile. Again and again the amused expression
suffused the lawyer's face, and still, by an effort of will, it
was smothered. Jim was in torture. The man seemed
to be in possession of some great secret, and looked as
if he only waited an opportunity beyond observation to
burst into a laugh.
" What the devil be ye thinkin' on ?" inquired Jim, at
last.
Yates looked him in the eyes, and replied, coolly,
" I was thinking how well Benedict is looking."
Jim stopped rowing, holding his oars in the air. He was
dumb. His face grew almost livid, and his hair seemed to
rise and stand straight all over his head. His first im
pulse was to spring upon the man and throttle him ; but
a moment's reflection determined him upon another course.
He let his oars drop into the water, and then took up the
rifle, which he always carried at his side. Raising it to
his eye, he said,
"Now, Number 'leven, come an' take my seat. Ef ye
make any fuss, I'll tip ye into the river, or blow yer brains
out. Any man that plays traitor with Jim Fenton gits
traitor's fare."
Yates saw that he had made a fatal mistake, and that it
was too late to correct it. He saw that Jim waa danger
ously excited, and that it would not do to excite him fur
ther. He therefore rose, and, with feigned pleasantry,
said he should be very glad to row to the landing.
Jim passed him and took a seat in the stern of the boat.
Then, as Yates took up the oars, Jim raised his rifle, and,
pointing it directly at the lawyer's breast, said,
" Now, Sam Yates, turn this boat round."
Yates was surprised in turn, bit his lips, and hesitated.
"Turn this boat round, or I'll fix ye so't I can see
through ye plainer nor I do now."
HOLLAND] OUTWITTING A LAWYER. 319
" Surely, Jim, you don't mean to have me row back. I
haven't harmed you."
" Turn this boat round, quicker nor lightnin'."
" There, it's turned," said Yates, assuming a smile.
" Now row back to Number Nine."
"Come, Jim," said Yates, growing pale with vexation
and apprehension, " this fooling has gone far enough."
" Not by ten mile," said Jim.
" You surely don't mean to take me back. You have no
right to do it. I can prosecute you for this."
" Not if I put a bullet through ye, or drown ye."
" Do you mean to have me row back to Number Nine ?"
" I mean to have you row back to Number Nine, or go
to the bottom leakin'," responded Jim.
Yates thought a moment, looked angrily at the deter
mined man before him, as if he were meditating some rash
experiment, and then dipped his oars and rowed up-stream.
Great was the surprise of Mr. Benedict late in the
afternoon to see Yates slowly rowing toward the cabin,
and landing under cover of Jim's rifle, and the blackest
face that he had ever seen above his good friend's shoul
ders.
When the boat touched the bank, Jim, still with his
rifle pointed at the breast of Sam Yates, said,
"Now git out, an' take a bee-line for the shanty, an' see
how many paces you make on't."
Yates was badly blown by his row of ten miles on the
river, and could hardly stir from his seat ; but Mr. Bene
dict helped him up the bank, and then Jim followed him
on shore.
Benedict looked from one to the other with mingled
surprise and consternation, and then said,
" Jim, what does this mean ?"
" It means," replied Jim, " that Number 'leven, an' his
320 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HOLLAND
name is Williams, forgot to 'tend to his feelin's over old
Tilden's grave, an' I've axed 'im to come back an' use up
his clean hankerchers. He was took with a fit o' knowin'
somethin', too, an' I'm goin' to see if I can cure 'im. It's
a new sort o' sickness for him, and it may floor 'im."
" I suppose there is no use in carrying on this farce any
longer," said Yates. "I knew you, Mr. Benedict, soon
after arriving here, and it seems that you recognized me ;
and now, here is my hand. I never meant you ill, and I
did not expect to find you alive. I have tried my best to
make you out a dead man, and so to report you ; but Jim
has compelled me to come back and make sure that you
are alive."
" No, I didn't," responded Jim. " I wanted to let ye
know that I'm alive, and that I don't 'low no hired cusses
to come snoopin' round my camp, an' goin' off with a haw-
haw buttoned up in their jackets, without a thrashin'."
Benedict, of course, stood thunderstruck and irresolute.
He was discovered by the very man whom his old perse
cutor had sent for the purpose. He had felt that the dis
covery would be made sooner or later, intended, indeed,
that it should be made, but he was not ready.
They all walked to the cabin in moody silence. Jim
felt that he had been hasty, and was very strongly in
clined to believe in the sincerity of Yates ; but he knew
it was safe to be on his guard with any man who was in
the employ of Mr. Belcher. Turk saw there was trouble,
and whined around his master, as if inquiring whether
there was anything that he could do to bring matters to
an adjustment.
"No, Turk; he's my game," said Jim. "Ye couldn't
eat 'im, no more nor ye could a muss-rat."
There were just three seats in the cabin, two camp-
Btools and a chest
HOLLAND] OUTWITTING A LAWYER. 321
" That's the seat for ye," said Jim to Yates, pointing to
the chest. " Jest plant yerself thar. Thar's somethin' in
that 'ere chest as'll make ye tell the truth."
Yates looked at the chest and hesitated.
" It ain't powder," said Jim, " but it'll blow ye worse
nor powder, if ye don't tell the truth."
Yates sat down. He had not appreciated the anxiety
of Benedict to escape discovery, or he would not have
been so silly as to bruit his knowledge until he had left
the woods. He felt ashamed of his indiscretion, but, as
he knew that his motives were good, he could not but
feel that he had been outraged.
" Jim, you have abused me," said he. " You have mis
understood me ; and that is the only apology that you can
make for your discourtesy. I was a fool to tell you what
I knew, but you had no right to serve me as you have
served me."
" P'raps I hadn't," responded Jim, doubtfully.
Yates went on :
" I have never intended to play you a trick. It may be
a base thing for me to do, but I intended to deceive Mr.
Belcher. He is a man to whom I owe no good will. He
has always treated me like a dog, and he will continue the
treatment so long as I have anything to do with him ; but
he found me when I was very low, and he has furnished
me with the money that has made it possible for me to
redeem myself. Believe me, the finding of Mr. Benedict
was the most unwelcome discovery I ever made."
" Ye talk reasonable," said Jim ; " but how be I goin' to
know that ye're tellin' the truth ?"
" You cannot know," replied Yates. " The circumstances
are all against me, but you will be obliged to trust me.
You are not going to kill me ; you are not going to harm
me ; for you would gain nothing by getting my ill will.
II. V
322 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HOLLAND
I forgive your indignities, for it was natural for you to bo
provoked, and I provoked you needlessly, childishly, in
fact ; but, after what I have said, anything further in that
line will not be borne."
" I've a good mind to lick ye now," said Jim, on hearing
himself defied.
" You would be a fool to undertake it," said Yates.
" Well, what be ye goin' to tell old Belcher, anyway ?"
inquired Jim.
" I doubt whether I shall tell him anything. I have no
intention of telling him that Mr. Benedict is here, and I
do not wish to tell him a lie, I have intended to tell him
that in all my journey to Sevenoaks I did not find the
object of my search, and that Jim Fenton declared that
but one pauper had ever come into the woods and died
there."
" That's the truth," said Jim. " Benedict ain't no pau
per, nor hain't been since he left the poor-house."
" If he knows about old Tilden," said Yates, " and I'm
afraid he does, he'll know that I'm on the wrong scent.
If he doesn't know about him, he'll naturally conclude
that the dead man was Mr. Benedict. That will answer
his purpose."
" Old Belcher ain't no fool," said Jim.
"Well," said Yates, "why doesn't Mr. Benedict come
out like a man and claim his rights ? That would relieve
me, and settle all the difficulties of the case."
Benedict had nothing to say for this, for there was what
he felt to be a just reproach in it.
" It's the way he's made," replied Jim, " leastways,
partly. When a man's be'n hauled through hell by the
har, it takes 'im a few days to git over bein' dizzy an' find
his legs ag'in ; an' when a man sells himself to old Belcher,
he mustn't squawk an' try to git another feller to help
HOLLAND] OUTWITTING A LAWYER. 323
Mm out of 'is bargain. Ye got into't, an' ye must git out
on't the best way ye can."
" What would you have me do ?" inquired Yates.,
" I want to have ye sw'ar, an' sign a Happy David."
"A what?"
" A Happy David. Ye ain't no lawyer if ye don't know
what a Happy David is, and can't make one."
Yates recognized, with a smile, the nature of the instru
ment disguised in Jim's pronunciation and conception,
and inquired^
" "What would you have me to swear to ? "
" To what I tell ye."
"Yery well. I have pen and paper with me, and am
ready to write. Whether I will sign the paper will depend
upon its contents."
"Be ye ready?"
" Yes."
" Here ye have it, then, ' I solem-ny sw'ar, s'weip me !
that I hain't seen no pauper, in no woods, with his- name
as Benedict.' "
Jim paused, and Yates, having completed the sentence,
waited. Then Jim muttered to himself,
" With his name as Benedict with, his name is Benedict,
with his name was Benedict."
Then, with a puzzled look, he said,
" Yates, can't ye doctor that a little ?"
" Whose name was Benedict," suggested Yates,
"Whose name was Benedict," continued Jim. "Now
read it over, as fur as ye've got."
" ' I solemnly swear that I have seen no pauper in thf
woods whose name was Benedict.' "
" Now look a-here, Sam Yates ; that sort o' thing won't
do. Stop them tricks. Ye don't know me, an' ye don't
know whar ye're settin', if you think that'll go down."
324 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HOLLAND
"Why, what's the matter?"
" I tolled ye that Benedict was no pauper, an' ye say
that ye've seen no pauper whose name was Benedict.
That's jest tellin' that he's here. Oh, ye can't come that
game ! Now begin ag'in, an' write jest as I give it to ye.
' I solem-ny sw'ar, s'welp me ! that I hain't seen no pauper,
in no woods, whose name was Benedict.' "
" Done," said Yates ; " hut it isn't grammar."
" Hang the grammar !" responded Jim : " what I want
is sense. Now jine this on : ' An' I solem-ny sw'ar, s'welp
me ! that I won't blow on Benedict, as isn't a pauper, no
more nor Jim Fenton is ; an' if so be as I do blow on
Benedict, I give Jim Fenton free liberty, out and out, to
lick me without goin' to lor but takin' the privlidge
of self-defence.' "
Jim thought a moment. He had wrought out a large
phrase.
" I guess," said he, " that covers the thing. Ye under
stand, don't ye, Yates, about the privlidge of self-defence ?"
" You mean that I may defend myself if I can, don't you ?"
" Yes. With the privlidge of self-defence. That's fair,
an' I'd give it to a painter. Now read it all over."
Jim put his head down between his knees, the better to
measure every word, while Yates read the complete doc
ument. Then Jim took the paper, and, handing it to
Benedict, requested him to see if it had been read cor
rectly. Assured that it was all right, Jim turned his eyes
eeverely on Yates, and said,
" Sam Yates, do ye s'pose ye've any idee what it is to
be licked by Jin? Fenton ? Do ye know what ye're sw'arin'
to ? Do ye reelize that I wouldn't leave enough on ye to
pay for havin' a funeral ?"
Yates laughed, and said that he believed he understood
the nature of an oath.
HOLLAND] OUTWITTING A LAWYER. 325
" Then sign yer Happy David," said Jim.
Yates wrote his name, and passed the paper into Jim's
hands.
" Now," said Jim, with an expression of triumph on his
face, " I s'pose ye don't know that ye've been settin' on a
Bible ; but it's right under ye, in that chest, and it's heam
and seen the whole thing. If ye don't stand by yer
Happy David, there'll be somethin' worse nor Jim Fenton
arter ye, an' when that comes ye can jest shet yer eyes
and gi'en it up."
This was too much for both Yates and Benedict. They
looked into each other's eyes and burst into a laugh. But
Jim was in earnest, and not a smile crossed his rough
face.
" Now," said he, " I want to do a little sw'arin' myself,
and I want ye to write it."
Yates resumed his pen, and declared himself to be in
readiness.
" I solem-ny sw'ar," Jim began, " s'welp me ! that I
will lick Sam Yates as is a lawyer with the privlidge
of self-defence if he ever blows on Benedict as is not a
pauper no more nor Jim Fenton is an' I solem-ny
sw'ar, s'welp me ! that I'll foller 'im till I find 'im, an' lick
'im with the privlidge of self-defence."
Jim would have been glad to work in the last phrase
again, but he seemed to have covered the whole ground,
and so inquired whether Yates had got it all down.
Yates replied that he had.
" I'm a-goin' to sign that, an' ye can take it along with
ye. Swap seats."
Yates rose, and Jim seated himself upon the chest.
" I'm a-goin' to sign this, settin' over the Bible. I ain't
goin' to take no advantage on ye. Now we're squar',"
said he, as he blazoned the document with his coarse and
ii 28
326 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [BtraRirr
clumsy sign-manual. " Put that in yer pocket, an' keep
it for five year."
" Is the business all settled ?" inquired Yates.
" Clean," replied Jim.
"When am I to have the liberty to go out of the
woods ?"
"Ye ain't goin* out o' the woods for a fortnight. Ye're
a-goin' to stay here, an' have the best fishin' ye ever had
in yer life. It'll do ye good, an' ye can go out when yer
man comes arter ye. Ye can stay to the raisin,' an' gi'en
us a little lift with the other fellers that's coniin'. Ye'll
be as strong as a boss when ye go out."
An announcement more welcome than this could not
have been made to Sam Yates ; and, now that there was
no secrecy between them, and confidence was restored, he
looked forward to a fortnight of enjoyment. He laid
aside his coat, and, as far as possible, reduced his dress to
the requirements of camp life. Jim and Mr. Benedict
were very busy, so that he was obliged to find his way
alone, but Jim lent him his fishing-tackle, and taught him
how to use it ; and, as he was an apt pupil, he was soon
able to furnish more fish to the camp than could be used.
WHY I LEFT THE ANVIL.
ELIHU BUEEITT.
[Elihu Burritt, the " Learned Blacksmith" of New England, is one
of the several instances on record in which determined study has over
come the most discouraging obstacles. In his early life, while work
ing for his bread at the anvil, he pursued the study of language in the
intervals of his labor, and by earnest application succeeded in learning
numerous tongues. He became widely known for his linguistic ac
quirements, and applied himself to literature, writing "Sparks from
BURRITT] WHY I LEFT THE ANVIL, 327
the Anvil," " Thoughts at Home and Abroad," and several other works.
His writings are not very exact in thought and style, yet are written
with a degree of enthusiasm, and possess a fair share of merit, if we
consider the circumstances of their production. The author was born
in Connecticut in 1810. He died in 1879.]
I SEE it ; you would ask me what I have to say for my
self for dropping the hammer and taking up the quill, as
a member of your profession. I will be honest now, and
tell you the whole story. I was transposed from the anvil
to the editor's chair by the genius of machinery. Don't
smile, friends: it was even so. I had stood and looked
for hours on those thoughtless iron intellects, those iron-
fingered, sober, supple automatons, as they caught up a
bale of cotton, and twirled it in the twinkling of an eye
into a whirlwind of whizzing shreds, and laid it at my
feet in folds of snow-white cloth, ready for the use of our
most voluptuous antipodes. They were wonderful things,
these looms and spindles ; but they could not spin thoughts ;
there was no attribute of divinity in them, and I admired
them, nothing more. They were excessively curious, but
I could estimate the whole compass of their doings and
destiny in finger-power : so I came away, and left them
spinning cotton.
One day I was tuning my anvil beneath a hot iron,
and busy with the thought that there was as much intel
lectual philosophy in my hammer as any of the enginery
a-going in modern times, when a most unearthly scream
ing pierced my ears. I stepped to the door, and there it
was, the great Iron Horse ! Yes, he had come, looking
for all the world like the great Dragon we read of in
Scripture, harnessed to half a living world and just landed
on the earth, where he stood braying in surprise and in
dignation at the " base use" to which he had been turned.
I saw the gigantic hexaped move with a power that made
328 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [BtnwiTT
the earth tremble for miles. I saw the army of human
beings gliding with the velocity of the wind over the iron
track, and droves of cattle travelling in their stables at
the rate of twenty miles an hour toward their city
Blaughter-house. It was wonderful. The little busy-bee
machinery of the cotton-factory dwindled into insignifi
cance before it. Monstrous beast of passage and burden !
it devoured the intervening distance and welded the cities
together! But for its furnace heart and iron sinews it
was nothing but a beast, an enormous aggregation of
horse-power. And I went back to the forge with unim
paired reverence for the intellectual philosophy of my
hammer.
Passing along the street one afternoon, I heard a noise
in an old building, as of some one puffing a pair of bellows.
So, without more ado, I stepped in, and there, in the cor
ner of a room, I saw the chef-d'oeuvre of all the machinery
that has ever been invented since the birth of Tubal Cain.
In its construction it was as simple and unassuming as a
cheese-press. It went with a lever, with a lever longer,
stronger, than that with which Archimedes promised to
lift the world.
" It is a printing-press," said a boy standing by the ink-
trough with a queueless turban of brown paper on his
head. " A printing-press 1" I queried musingly to myself.
" A printing-press ? What do you print ?" I asked.
"Print?" said the boy, staring at me doubtfully: "why,
we print thoughts." " Print thoughts ?" I slowly re
peated after him ; and we stood looking at each other in
mutual admiration, he in the absence of an idea, J in the
pursuit of one. But I looked at him the hardest, and he
left another ink-mark on his forehead from a pathetic
motion of his left hand to quicken the apprehension of
my meaning. "Why, yes," he reiterated, in a tone of
BTJRRITT] WHY I LEFT THE ANVIL. 329
forced confidence, as if passing an idea which, though
having been current a hundred years, might still be coun
terfeit, for all he could show on the spot, " we print
thoughts, to be sure." " But, my boy," I asked, in honest
soberness, "what are thoughts? and how can you get
hold of them to print them ?" " Thoughts are what come
out of people's minds," he replied. "Get hold of them,
indeed ? Why, minds aren't nothing you can get hold of,
nor thoughts either. All the minds that ever thought,
and all the thoughts that minds ever made, wouldn't make
a ball as big as your fist. Minds, they say, are just like
air; you can't see them; they don't make any noise, nor
have any color ; they don't weigh anything. Bill Deep-
cut, the sexton, says that a man weighs just as much when
his mind has gone out of him as he did before. No, sir, all
the minds that ever lived wouldn't weigh an ounce Troy."
" Then how do you print thoughts ?" I asked. " If
minds are as thin as air, and thoughts thinner still, and
make no noise, and have no substance, shade, or color,
and are like the winds, and more than the winds, any
where in a moment, sometimes in heaven, sometimes on
earth, and the waters under the earth, how can you get
hold of them? how can you see them when caught, or
show them to others ?"
Ezekiel's eyes grew luminous with a new idea, and,
pushing his ink-roller proudly across the metallic page of
the newspaper, he replied, " Thoughts work and walk in
things that make tracks; and we take them tracks and
stamp them on paper, or iron, or wood, or stone, or what
not. This is the way we print thoughts. Don't you
understand ?"
The pressman let go the lever and looked interrogatively
at Ezekiel, beginning at the patch on his stringless bro-
gans, and following up with his eye to the top of the boy's
ii. 28*
330 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [BuRiurr
brown-paper buff cap. Ezekiel comprehended the felicity
of his illustration, and, wiping his hands on his tow apron,
gradually assumed an attitude of earnest exposition. I
gave him an encouraging wink, and so he went on.
"Thoughts make tracks," he continued, impressively,
as if evolving a new phase of the idea by repeating it
slowly. Seeing we assented to this proposition inquir
ingly, he stepped to the type-case, with his eye fixed
admonishingly upon us. " Thoughts make tracks," ho
repeated, arranging in his left hand a score or two of
metal slips, " and with these here letters we can take the
exact impression of every thought that ever went out of
the heart of a human man ; and we can print it, too,"
giving the inked form a blow of triumph with his fist;
" we can print it, too, give us paper and ink enough, till
the great round earth is blanketed around with a coverlid
of thoughts, as much like the pattern as two peas."
Ezekiel seemed to grow an inch with every word, and the
brawny pressman looked first at him, and then at the
press, with evident astonishment. " Talk about the mind's
living forever I" exclaimed the boy, pointing patronizingly
at the ground, as if mind was lying there incapable of
immortality until the printer reached it a helping hand ;
" why, the world is brimful of live, bright, industrious
thoughts, which would have been dead, as dead as stone,
if it hadn't been for boys like me who have run the ink-
rollers. Immortality, indeed I why, people's minds," he
continued, with his imagination climbing into the pro
fanely sublime, " people's minds wouldn't be immortal if
it wasn't for the printers, at any rate in this here plan
etary burying-ground. We are the chaps what manufac
ture immortality for dead men," he subjoined, slapping the
pressman graciously on the shoulder. The latter took it
as if dubbed a knight of the legion of honor, for the boy
WOOLSEY] OUR DEBT TO OUR ANCESTORS. 331
had put the mysteries of his profession in sublime apoca
lypse. " Give us one good healthy mind," resumed Ezekiel,
" to think for us, and we will furnish a dozen worlds as
big as this with thoughts to order. Give us such a man,
and we will insure his life ; we will keep him alive forever
among the living. He can't die, no way you can fix it,
when we once have touched him with these here bits of
inky pewter. He shan't die nor sleep. We will keep his
mind at work on all the minds that live on the earth, and
all the minds that shall come to live here as long as the
world stands."
"Ezekiel," I asked, in a subdued tone of reverence,
" will you print my thoughts, too ?"
"Yes, that I will," he replied, "if you will think some
of the right kind."
"Yes, that we will," echoed the pressman.
And I went home and thought, and Ezekiel has printed
my " thought-tracks" ever since.
OUR DEBT TO OUR ANCESTORS.
T. D. WOOLSEY.
[Theodore Dwight Woolsey was born in New York City in 1801.
He early became eminent as a Greek scholar, and filled the position of
professor of Greek language and literature in Yale College from 1831
to 1846. He was then elected president of the college, which post he
held, with high distinction, till his resignation in 1871. He is the
author of several text-books on the Greek classics, and of other valua
ble works. Our extract is from " The Eeligion of the Past and the
Future," a volume of excellently-written theological addresses.]
IN any case, a principle of the widest application is
brought before us, that no individual, in the strictest
332 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WOOLSKT
sense, begins his own work ; that all enter into and carry
out the labors of others ; and so, too, that all the genera
tions of the world reap the fields their forefathers sowed;
that there is a dependence, a succession, in all the labors
of men, a running account kept up by each present age to
the credit of the whole past, and especially to the credit
of its immediate predecessors.
This is indeed a characteristic of man in which he differs
almost wholly from the best-endowed animals. They, in
their successive generations, reach the same point of
maturity, act out the characters of their races to about
the same degree of perfection, and die without advancing
their kind or leaving any new store of power or enjoy
ment to their posterity. If man, by taming and training
them, can in a degree improve their breeds, even his action
has the least effect upon their races as wholes. The indi
viduals may be more graceful, or strong, or useful ; but no
quality of self-improvement has entered into the species.
Man, on the other hand, the feeblest of creatures at his
birth and the most dependent, is able to retain, transmit,
record, and plan ; by his social and moral instincts he
forms commonwealths and makes laws; he learns from
others ; he communicates to others ; he trains the young
members of the community up to the measure of its
knowledge and wisdom; he invents and spreads inven
tions ; he thus builds a tower of one platform upon an
other, reaching toward the skies, from which, as its stories
ascend, he holds nearer converse with heaven and casts
his eye over ampler spaces of earth.
Now, for all this the labor of one generation will not
suffice ; but there must be constant, world- wide work and
transmission. Human progress consists in this : that men
have labored with body, with mind, and each next age
Las entered into their labors. It is possible, indeed, for a
WOOLSKY] OUR DEBT TO OUR ANCESTORS. 333
generation to send nothing of value down the stream of
time : nay, it may obliterate or corrupt, and so put its
successors into a worse position than if it had not existed.
Such retrograde movements show that the law of prog
ress is not a fatal one, nor dependent solely on the stores
of knowledge that have been laid up ; but, on the other
hand, there is no other law of progress aside from this
which we have before us: that each generation, by the
help of its predecessors' toil handed down and retained,
adds something to the general stock for the benefit of
coming ages. Nor does God, when He intervenes in
human history by supernatural revelations, disturb this
law, for forthwith the truth, the power, the moral ad
vancement, are leaven thrown into an age or a people, or
possibly into a single mind, to leaven the whole world
afterward by the same process by which human improve
ments produce their effect. And we ought not to separate
progress from G-od, as some do, for He is in it all, whether
it springs directly from something done by man, or from
His own revelation. He is in all invention ; in all learn
ing and science the plan throughout is His. Bezaleel,
the ingenious artificer of the tabernacle, was animated by
His spirit; and so all genius, all power, that starts the
world forward, is as truly a part of His world-plan as is
the Christian scheme of redemption.
I. Let us consider, in some of its particulars, this plan
of God for the human race, that each generation enters
into the labors of its predecessors, reaping what they
have sown, while at the same time, if it is true to its ap
pointed work, it hands over something more to posterity
than it had received. Reflect, then, first on the labors
which the teachers of mankind have undergone in order that
the world might reach its present state of advancement.
The class of teachers may be divided into two portions,
334 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WooLSET
into such as transmit only and such as also originate.
The first act directly on those who are just following
them in the order of time ; the others have a much wider
field of direct action ; they are the teachers of all time,
the " masters of all who know." To few is it given, out
of the whole human race, thus to act over many ages
and through many lands. The greatest portion either
move the thought of their own times in new channels,
or, in a more humble office still, simply make known to
others what they themselves have learned. Yet all these
teachers have labored, and men are entered into their
labors. They have labored hard and long. Men, as they
enjoy a work of art or give themselves to the study of a
work of philosophy, must not suppose that everything
flowed smoothly when the composition was going on, or
that there were no difficulties in the preparation. " He
that goeth forth weeping, bearing precious seed," is the fit
motto for all who have employed their minds for the
benefit of mankind. What agony of mind have inventors
endured, what anxiety and heart-sickness, what unfruit
ful experiments, reaching through long years, have they
tried, before success crowned their efforts ! The same is
true of any work of art which has long kept its place in
the heart of a nation or of the world. A work of genius
is the essence, it may be, of a whole life, the condensed
knowledge, judgment, skill, that make up the man. So,
too, in all the sciences, as in the philosophy of thought or
of morals, what perplexities has a mind contended with,
what hope and patience has it spent, what weighings of
evidence, what reflection, what consultation, have been
needed, before the painful work of composition began ! It
must not be supposed that glimpses of truth are vouch
safed to those that skim over the surface of things in the
spirit of curiosity or amusement; nor that inventions
WOOLSET] OUR DEBT TO OUR ANCESTORS. 335
enter vacant minds unsought and in full perfection ; nor
that to the great poet or painter even the labor of compo
sition or correction, severe as it is, at all compares with
that preparatory thought and work on which the whole
achievement depended.
So, also, the other class of teachers, whose office it is to
put knowledge derived from others into form, and to train
the minds of their generations, they too have labored
long and earnestly in order to fit themselves for their
work. The conscientious instructor has gone through
three series of toils: he has labored hard to learn as he
would have his scholars labor, he has qualified himself by
still severer toil for his special duty, and then comes the
new office of imparting and guiding from day to day, the
hardest labor of all, because the fruits of it do not at once
appear.
Now, into the labors of these classes of teachers and
trainers each new generation of the educated enters. You,
my friends, are debtors to the past, and, indeed, to the
remote past. For you Aristotle thought his best thoughts,
though they may have taken new shapes before they
reached your minds; for you the Greek poets and the
English of high renown have sung their strains ; for you
art has brought to light its treasures ; for you discoverers
have ventured into untrodden seas ; a thousand forgotten
names have lived and wrought for your benefit, without
whom, it may be, society would have been far behind its
present point of advancement. For you, too, the teacher
of the present has spent the best hours of his life, has
thought his best thought, has patiently drilled and incul
cated, that you may enter into his labors and may, if you
will, go beyond him in cultivation and in wisdom. Small,
perhaps, is the proficiency which you may have seemed
to yourselves to have made under his training, for the
336 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WOOLSET
natural and one of the best fruits of a true education is to
reveal to us how little we know, and how far we are from
the heights of perfect science. But perhaps in the years
to come, even although the knowledge and power gained
here may be indistinguishable from that which other mas
ters or yourselves have procured for you, you will grate
fully attribute something of your culture and something
of your success to those who have labored for you here.
They will then, perhaps, be beyond the reach of your
acknowledgments ; they may be little conscious of what
they have done for you ; they can see but little fruit, of
course, from the toils of each faithfully-spent day ; but if
it should appear that some good thought of theirs was
fruitful in your minds, some ideal of patient, finished
scholarship was awakened within you, some solid prep
aration was given you for the work of a true life, then
will they deserve to be remembered, and you will be called
by such remembrances to hand down what they have im
parted, and whatever else you shall have gained by your
own labor, to the next generation.
II. Other men have labored in the practical spheres of
life, and we are entered into their labors. Here there
arise before us all who have labored for the social, politi
cal, moral, religious welfare of man, from the mother, into
whose hands all the tender beginnings of practical life are
committed, through every faithful teacher and faithful
example, up to the founders of states, and the founders
of religion, up, even, to the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.
It is to be observed in regard to these laborers both
that their work is of all importance and that it is neces
sary for the success of those other laborers who work in
the fields of science. For life is more than thought, and
without a well-ordered life there can be little progress in
thought. Such is the action of the moral nature on the
WOOLSEY] OUR DEBT TO OUR ANCESTORS.
mind that a bad soul is unfitted for all the science that is
directly concerned with life ; it is warped and blinded by
selfish interests, it often falls into doubt, and is wanting
in those higher impulses which are of such aid in in
tellectual pursuits. Nor is the sway of society over the
individual less marked. A corrupt society, a vicious gov
ernment, are uncivilizing agents of the greatest power,
not merely by their neglect or repression of what is good,
but by their sympathy with positive evil. And above all
the other influences rises religion in its power to ennoble
or to degrade the soul, to fill it with fear and falsehood,
or to raise it to a communion with God and with His
thoughts.
It is to be observed, further, in regard to these laborers
in the vineyard of life, that their work never ends. The
results of knowledge stay in the world, but society and
government are ever changing ; religion at one time
reigns, at another is conquered by doubt or vice, so that
there is an endless struggle here between the powers of
corruption and the powers of progress, a struggle in
which the interests of science also are involved. Had
the race been good enough to have retained the faint
primeval knowledge and faith of God, had it been able,
by reason of its moral strength, to have instituted every
where just societies and governments, in sympathy with
all truth and goodness, centuries ago, without question,
the point of advancement which we have now reached
would have been left out of sight, and a state of mankind
have been begun of which we only dream almost without
hope. The path of the reformers, civilizers, purifiers, has
been up-hill against reigning corruptions, against the
hankering of man for a slothful, unthinking life ; in short,
against that lapse of souls from God for which Christ
furnishes the only all-sufficient remedy. . . .
338 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WOOLSKI
And we are entered into their labors. Your studies of
history, my young friends, will have taught you what
thanks you owe to the struggles and contests of good
men in the past, nor need you go back beyond the few
last years for one of the most striking illustrations. In
order that a reign of justice in our land should be secured,
that we should no longer be the reproach of the civilized
world, as a nation of freemen holding four millions of
slaves in perpetual bondage and justifying our curse as
an institution of God, how many hundred thousands have
given up their lives and how many cries of mourners have
resounded through the land ! We have gained a precious
inheritance, precious at its beginning, to be more precious
as years roll on, but at what a cost! So also the whole
history of our land speaks of labor ; of labor the fruits of
which we are now enjoying. The toil and agony of mind
which the first pilgrims endured in their separation from
their homes, in their contests with the wild men and the
wilderness, in their want and uncertainty ; the struggles
and sacrifices of the Eevolution, easily read on a few
pages of history, but hard enough to bear, these have
sent down to us an inheritance more precious than has
fallen to any other people. Or, if you go farther back,
and read the record of each important addition to English
history, of every new charter or petition or declaration
of right, of every resistance against tyranny and every
bulwark of freedom, remember that each of these had its
contest, its patience, and that your acknowledged rights
of speech, of worship, of secure possession, of a share in
the commonwealth, have cost many lives of men who
have left no name, many sorrows of the unnoticed, and
that thousands have been preparing the way for your era
of light and freedom. Nor are the labors of reformers of
less moment. You are in a better state of society than
TICLNOR] DON QUIXOTE. 339
fell to the lot of your fathers, because divinely-gifted men
saw what were the evils that obstructed human progress,
and had courage and patience enough to oppose them.
Some one voice, perhaps, was lifted up amid derision and
persecution, some one worked on hoping against hope, and
died committing his cause to the few select ones who were
as fearless and as loving as he. Then by slow degrees the
stream widened and became a resistless flood to change
the face of society. The fruits of all this belong to you.
But you could not have these fruits, gathered by the
patriot and the reformer, at your command, unless also a
higher class of laborers in the spiritual field had co-oper
ated with them and prepared the way for them. The
preacher of righteousness and the martyr were the fore
runners of freedom and of all improvement in society.
The martyr did not think, perhaps, when he expressed
his devotion to Christ by a painful death, that anything
great was to grow out of it : he only acted out what he
felt. But these religious laborers have changed the face
of the world. They have brought into literature and art
new ideas of purity and spirituality, into life another
standard of character, by which all truthfulness, honor,
justice, and benevolence are duly valued
DON QUIXOTE.
GEORGE TICKNOK.
[From Ticknor's excellent " History of Spanish Literature" we ex
tract his description of the celebrated Knight of La Mancha, as a very
interesting treatment of a subject of great literary interest and impor
tance. The history named is a work of high value, and on its publica
tion at once gained a recognized place in historical literature. It La*
340 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
been highly eulogized by eminent critics of all countries. Mr. Ticknor
was born in Boston in 1791. In 1863 he published a valuable " Life
of William H. Prescott." He died in 1871.]
AT the very beginning of the work [" Don Quixote"]
he [Cervantes] announces it to be his solo purpose to break
down the vogue and authority of books of chivalry, and
at the end of the whole he declares anew, in his own
person, that " he had had no other desire than to render
abhorred of men the false and absurd stories contained in
books of chivalry ;" exulting in his success, as an achieve
ment of no small moment. And such, in fact, it was ; for
we have abundant proof that the fanaticism for these
romances was so great in Spain during the sixteenth
century as to have become matter of alarm to the more
judicious. Many of the distinguished contemporary au
thors speak of its mischiefs, and among the rest Fernandez
de Oviedo, the venerable Luis de Granada, Luis de Leon,
Luis Yives, the great scholar, and Malon de Chaide, who
wrote the eloquent " Conversion of Mary Magdalen."
Guevara, the learned and fortunate courtier of Charles
the Fifth, declares that "men did read nothing in his
time but such shameful books as 'Amadis de Gaula,'
'Tristan,' 'Primaleon,' and the like;" the acute author
of " The Dialogue on Languages" says that the ten years
he passed at court he wasted in studying " Florisando,"
" Lisuarte," " The Knight of the Cross," and other such
books, more than he can name ; and from different sources
we know, what, indeed, we may gather from Cervantes
himself, that many who read these fictions took them for
true histories. At last they were deemed so noxious
that in 1553 they were prohibited by law from being
printed or sold in the American colonies, and in 1555 the
Bame prohibition, and even the burning of all copies of
them extant in Spain itself, was earnestly asked for by
TICKNOR] DON QUIXOTE. 341
the Cortes. The evil, in fact, had become formidable, and
the wise began to see it.
To destroy a passion that had struck its roots so deeply
in the character of all classes of men, to break up the
only reading which at that time could be considered
widely popular and fashionable, was certainly a bold
undertaking, and one that marks anything rather than
a scornful or broken spirit, or a want of faith in what
is most to be valued in our common nature. The great
wonder is, that Cervantes succeeded. But that he did
there is no question. No book of chivalry was written
after the appearance of Don Quixote, in 1605 ; and from
the same date, even those already enjoying the greatest
favor ceased, with one or two unimportant exceptions, to
be reprinted ; so that from that time to the present they
have been constantly disappearing, until they are now
among the rarest of literary curiosities ; a solitary in
stance of the power of genius to destroy by a single
well-timed blow an entire department, and that, too, a
flourishing and favored one, in the literature of a great
and proud nation.
The general plan Cervantes adopted to accomplish this
object, without, perhaps, foreseeing its whole course, and
still less all its results, was simple as well as original. In
1605 he published the First Part of Don Quixote, in
which a country gentleman of La Mancha full of genuine
Castilian honor and enthusiasm, gentle and dignified in
his character, trusted by his friends, and loved by his
dependants is represented as so completely crazed by
long reading the most famous books of chivalry that he
believes them to be true, and feels himself called on to
become the impossible knight-errant they describe, nay,
actually goes forth into the world to defend the oppressed
and avenge the injured, like the heroes of his romances.
n. 29*
342 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
To complete his chivalrous equipment, which he had
begun by fitting up for himself a suit of armor strange to
his century, he took an esquire out of his neighborhood ;
a middle-aged peasant, ignorant and credulous to excess,
but of great good-nature ; a glutton and a liar ; selfish
and gross, yet attached to his master; shrewd enough
occasionally to see the folly of their position, but always
amusing, and sometimes mischievous, in his interpreta
tions of it. These two sally forth from their native village
in search of adventures, of which the excited imagination
of the knight, turning windmills into giants, solitary inns
into castles, and galley-slaves into oppressed gentlemen,
finds abundance wherever he goes ; while the esquire
translates them all into the plain prose of truth with an
admirable simplicity quite unconscious of its own humor,
and rendered the more striking by its contrast with the
lofty and courteous dignity and magnificent illusions of
the superior personage. There could, of course, be but
one consistent termination of adventures like these. The
knight and his esquire suffer a series of ridiculous discom
fitures, and are at last brought home, like madmen, to
their native village, where Cervantes leaves them, with
an intimation that the story of their adventures is by no
means ended. . . .
The latter half of Don Quixote is a contradiction of the
proverb Cervantes cites in it, that second parts were
never yet good for much. It is, in fact, better than the
first. It shows more freedom and vigor; and, if the
caricature is sometimes pushed to the very verge of what
is permitted, the invention, the style of thought, and,
indeed, the materials throughout, are richer, and the
finish is more exact. The character of Sanson Carrasco,
for instance, is a very happy, though somewhat bold,
addition to the original persons of the drama; and the
TICKNOR] DON QUIXOTE.
adventures at the castle of the Duke and Duchess, where
Don Quixote is fooled to the top of his bent ; the manage
ments of Sancho as governor of his island ; the visions
and dreams of the cave of Montesinos ; the scenes with
Koque G-uinart, the freebooter, and with Gines de Pas-
samonte, the galley-slave and puppet-show man ; together
with the mock-heroic hospitalities of Don Antonio Moreno
at Barcelona, and the first defeat of the knight there, are
all admirable. In truth, everything in this Second Part,
especially its general outline and tone, shows that time
and a degree of success he had not before known had
ripened and perfected the strong manly sense and sure in
sight into human nature which are visible in nearly all his
works, and which here become a part, as it were, of his
peculiar genius, whose foundations had been laid, dark and
deep, amidst the trials and sufferings of his various life.
But throughout both parts Cervantes shows the im
pulses and instincts of an original power with most
distinctness in his development of the characters of Don
Quixote and Sancho, in whose fortunate contrast and
opposition is hidden the full spirit of his peculiar humor,
and no small part of what is most effective in the entire
fiction. They are his prominent personages. He delights,
therefore, to have them as much as possible in the front
of his scene. They grow visibly upon his favor as he
advances, and the fondness of his liking for them makes
him constantly produce them in lights and relations as
little foreseen by himself as they are by his readers. The
knight, who seems to have been originally intended for a
parody of the Amadis, becomes gradually a detached,
separate, and wholly independent personage, into whom
is infused so much of a generous and elevated nature,
such gentleness and delicacy, such a pure sense of honor,
and such a warm love for whatever is noble and good,
344 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [TiCKNOR
that we feel almost the same attachment to him that the
barber and the curate did, and are almost as ready as his
family was to mourn over his death.
The case of Sancho is, again, very similar, and perhaps
in some respects stronger. At first he is introduced as
the opposite of Don Quixote, and used merely to bring
out his master's peculiarities in a more striking relief. It
is not until we have gone through nearly half of the First
Part that he utters one of those proverbs which form
afterwards the staple of his conversation and humor ; and
it is not till the opening of the Second Part, and, indeed,
not till he comes forth, in all his mingled shrewdness and
credulity, as governor of Barataria, that his character is
quite developed and completed to the full measure of its
grotesque yet congruous proportions.
Cervantes, in truth, came at last to love these creations
of his marvellous power as if they were real, familiar per
sonages, and to speak of them and treat them with an
earnestness and interest that tend much to the illusion
of his readers. Both Don Quixote and Sancho are thus
brought before us like such living realities that at this
moment the figures of the crazed, gaunt, dignified knight
and of his round, selfish, and most amusing esquire dwell
bodied forth in the imaginations of more, among all con
ditions of men throughout Christendom, than any other
of the creations of human talent. The greatest of the
great poets Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Milton have
no doubt risen to loftier heights, and placed themselves in
more imposing relations with the noblest attributes of
our nature; but Cervantes always writing under the
unchecked impulse of his own genius, and instinctively
concentrating in his fiction whatever was peculiar to the
character of his nation has shown himself of kindred to
all times and all lands; to the humblest degrees of culti-
TICKNOR] DON qUIXOTE. 345
vation as well as to the highest ; and has thus, beyond all
other writers, received in return a tribute of sympathy
and admiration from the universal spirit of humanity. . . .
The romance, however, which he threw so carelessly
from him, and which, I am persuaded, he regarded rather
as a bold effort to break up the absurd taste of his time
for the fancies of chivalry than as anything of more seri
ous import, has been established by an uninterrupted and,
it may be said, an unquestioned success ever since, both
as the oldest classical specimen of romantic fiction, and as
one of the most remarkable monuments of modern genius.
But, though this may be enough to fill the measure of
human fame and glory, it is not all to which Cervantes is
entitled; for, if we would do him the justice that would
have been most welcome to his own spirit, and even if we
would ourselves fully comprehend and enjoy the whole of
his Don Quixote, we should, as we read it, bear in mind
that this delightful romance was not the result of a youth
ful exuberance of feeling and a happy external condition,
nor composed in his best years, when the spirits of its
author were light and his hopes high ; but that with all
its unquenchable and irresistible humor, with its bright
views of the world, and its cheerful trust in goodness and
virtue it was written in his old age, at the conclusion of
a life nearly every step of which had been marked with
disappointed expectations, disheartening struggles, and
sore calamities; that he began it in a prison, and that
it was finished when he felt the hand of death pressing
heavy and cold upon his heart. If this be remembered
as we read, we may feel, as we ought to feel, what admira
tion and reverence are due not only to the living power
of Don Quixote, but to the character and genius of Cer
vantes ; if it be forgotten or underrated, we shall fail in
regard to both.
346 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [MiLLKB
KIT CARSON'S RIDE.
JOAQUIN MILLER.
[Cincinnatus Heine Miller, who has adopted the nom-de-plume above
given, was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1842. His life, however, is
identified with the Far West, and his poetry is the embodiment in
verse of the unconventional pioneer life. He accompanied Walker
in his buccaneering invasion of Honduras in 1860, and his poetical
description of this expedition has many beautiful and highly-animated
passages. The poem which we quote below seems full of the spirit of
the wild West, and the terrors of a prairie-fire could not be more
graphically delineated.]
WE lay in the grasses and the sunburnt clover
That spread on the ground like a great brown cover
Northward and southward, and west and away
To the Brazos, to where our lodges lay,
One broad and unbroken sea of brown,
Awaiting the curtains of night to come down
To cover us over and conceal our flight
With my brown bride, won from an Indian town
That lay in the rear the full ride of a night.
We lay low in the grass on the broad plain levels,
Old Bevels and I, and my stolen brown bride ;
And the heavens of blue and the harvest of brown
And beautiful clover were welded as one,
To the right and the left, in the light of the sun.
" Forty full miles, if a foot, to ride,
Forty full miles, if a foot, and the devils
Of red Comanches are hot on the track
When once they strike it. Let the sun go down
Soon, very soon," muttered bearded old Bevels,
As he peered at the sun, lying low on his back,
MILLER] KIT CARSON'S RIDE. 347
Holding fast to his lasso. Then he jerked at his steed,
And he sprang to his feet, and glanced swiftly around,
And then dropped, as if shot, with his ear to the ground ;
Then again to his feet, and to me, to my bride,
While his eyes were like fire, his face like a shroud,
His form like a king, and his beard like a cloud,
And his voice loud and shrill, as if blown from a reed,
" Pull, pull in your lassos, and bridle to steed,
And speed you, if ever for life you would speed,
And ride for your lives, for your lives you must ride 1
For the plain is aflame, the prairie on fire,
And feet of wild horses hard flying before
I hear like a sea breaking high on the shore,
While the buifalo come like a surge of the sea,
Driven far by the flame, driving fast on us three,
As a hurricane comes, crushing palms in his ire."
We drew in the lassos, seized saddle and rein,
Threw them on, sinched them on, sinched them over again,
And again drew the girth, cast aside the macheers,
Cut away tapidaros, loosed the sash from its fold,
Cast aside the catenas red-spangled with gold,
And gold-mounted Colt's, the companions of years,
Cast the silken serapes to the wind in a breath,
And so bared to the skin sprang all haste to the horse,
As bare as when born, as when new from the hand
Of God, without word, or one word of command ;
Turned head to the Brazos in a red race with death,
Turned head to the Brazos with a breath in the hair
Blowing hot from a king leaving death in his course ;
Turned head to the Brazos with a sound in the air
Like the rush of an army, and a flash in the eye
Of a red wall of fire reaching up to the sky,
Stretching fierce in pursuit of a black rolling sea
348 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [MiLLKR
Bushing fast upon us, as the wind sweeping free
And afar from the desert blew hollow and hoarse.
Not a word, not a wail from a lip was let fall,
Not a kiss from my bride, not a look nor low call
Of love-note or courage ; but on o'er the plain
So steady and still, leaning low to the mane,
With the heel to the flank and the hand to the rein,
Rode we on, rode we three, rode we nose and gray nose,
Reaching long, breathing loud, as a creviced wind blows:
Yet we broke not a whisper, we breathed not a prayer,
There was work to be done, there was death in the air,
And the chance was as one to a thousand for all.
Gray nose to gray nose, and each steady mustang
Stretched neck and stretched nerve till the arid earth rang.
And the foam from the flank and the croup and the neck
Flew around like the spray on a storm-driven deck.
Twenty miles ! . . . thirty miles ... a dim distant speck . . .
Then a long reaching line, and the Brazos in sight,
And I rose in my seat with a shout of delight.
I stood in my stirrup and looked to my right,
But Revels was gone ; I glanced by my shoulder
And saw his horse stagger ; I saw his head drooping
Hard down on his breast, and his naked breast stooping
Low down to the mane, as so swifter and bolder
Ran reaching out for us the red-footed fire.
To right and to left the black buffalo came,
A terrible surf on a red sea of flame
Rushing on in the rear, reaching high, reaching higher.
And he rode neck to neck to a buffalo bull,
The monarch of millions, with shaggy mane full
Of smoke and of dust, and it shook with desire
Of battle, with rage and with bellowings loud
MILLER] KIT CARSON'S RIDE. 349
And unearthly, and up through its lowering cloud
Came the flash of his eyes like a half-hidden fire,
While his keen crooked horns, through the storm of his
mane,
Like black lances lifted and lifted again ;
And I looked but this once, for the fire licked through,
And he fell and was lost, as we rode two and two.
I looked to my left then, and nose, neck, and shoulder
Sank slowly, sank surely, till back to my thighs ;
And up through the black blowing veil of her hair
Bid beam full in mine her two marvellous eyes,
With a longing and love, yet a look of despair
A nd of pity for me, as she felt the smoke fold her,
And flames reaching far for her glorious hair.
Her sinking steed faltered, his eager eyes fell
To and fro and unsteady, and all the neck's swell
Did subside and recede, and the nerves fall as dead.
Then she saw sturdy Pache still lorded his head,
With a look of delight ; for nor courage nor bribe,
Nor naught but my bride, could have brought him to me.
For he was her father's, and at South Santafee
Had once won a whole herd, sweeping everything down
In a race where the world came to run for the crown.
And so when I won the true heart of my bride
My neighbor's and deadliest enemy's child,
And child of the kingly war-chief of his tribe
She brought me this steed to the border the night
She met Bevels and me in her perilous flight
From the lodge of the chief to the North Brazos side;
And said, so half guessing of ill as she smiled,
As if jesting, that I, and I only, should ride
The fleet-footed Pache, so if kin should pursue
I should surely escape without other ado
II. 30
350 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [
Than to rido, without blood, to the North Brazos side,
And await her, and wait till the next hollow moon
Hung her horn in the palms, when surely and soon
And swift she would join me, and all would be well
"Without bloodshed or word. And now, as she fell
From the front, and went down in the ocean of fire,
The last that I saw was a look of delight
That I should escape, a love, a desire,
Yet never a word, not one look of appeal,
Lest I should reach hand, should stay hand or stay heel
One instant for her in my terrible flight.
Then the rushing of fire around me and under,
And the howling of beasts, and a sound as of thunder,
Beasts burning and blind and forced onward and over,
As the passionate flame reached around them, and wove
her
Red hands in their hair, and kissed hot till they died,
Till they died with a wild and desolate moan,
As a sea heart-broken on the hard brown stone. . . .
And into the Brazos ... I rode all alone,
All alone, save only a horse long-limbed
And blind and bare and burnt to the skin.
Then, just as the terrible sea came in
And tumbled its thousands hot into the tide,
Till the tide blocked up and the swift stream brimmed
In eddies, we struck on the opposite side.
CABLE] THROUGH THE LINES. 351
THROUGH THE LINES.
G. W. CABLE.
[George ~W. Cable was born in New Orleans in 1844. He served ir
the Confederate army, and for some time afterwards was engaged in
business in his native city, but for several years he has devoted him
self entirely to literary pursuits. His novels all of recent date have
been widely read, and are highly popular from their freshness and
vivacity and the novelty of the Creole life which they chronicle.
Their dialect is something new and strange. Since 1884 Mr. Cable
has become very popular as a reader and lecturer, his own works
forming the basis of his readings. From " Dr. Sevier" we extract the
following exciting description of the endeavor of a wife, who has been
refused a pass, to make her way through the Confederate lines and
join her husband, who is dangerously ill at New Orleans.]
THE scene and incident now to be described are without
date. As Mary recalled them, years afterward, they hung
out against the memory a bold, clear picture, cast upon it
as the magic-lantern casts its tableaux upon the darkened
canvas. She had lost the day of the month, the day of
the week, all sense of location, and the points of the com
pass. The most that she knew was that she was some
where near the meeting of the boundaries of three States.
Either she was just within the southern bound of Ten
nessee, or the extreme northeastern corner of Mississippi,
or else the northwestern corner of Alabama. She was
aware, too, that she had crossed the Tennessee River, that
the sun had risen on her left and had set on her right,
and that by and by this beautiful day would fade and pass
from this unknown land, and the firelight and lamplight
draw around them the home-groups under the roof-trees
here where she was a homeless stranger, the same as in
the home-lands where she had once loved and been be
loved.
352 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [CABLB
She was seated in a small, light buggy drawn by one
good horse. Beside her the reins were held by a rather
tall man, of middle age, gray, dark, round-shouldered, and
dressed in the loose blue flannel so much worn by fol
lowers of the Federal camp. Under the stiff" brim of his
soft-crowned black hat a pair of clear eyes gave a con
tinuous playful twinkle. Between this person and Mary
protruded, at the edge of the buggy-seat, two small
bootees that have already had mention, and from his
elbow to hers, and back to his, continually swayed
drowsily the little golden head to which the bootees
bore a certain close relation. The dust of the highway
was on the buggy and the blue flannel and the bootees.
It showed with special boldness on a black sun-bonnet
that covered Mary's head, and that somehow lost all its
homeliness whenever it rose sufficiently in front to show
the face within. But the highway itself was not there :
it had been left behind some hours earlier. The buggy
was moving at a quiet jog along a " neighborhood road,"
with unploughed fields on the right and a darkling woods-
pasture on the left. By the feathery softness and paleness
of the sweet-smelling foliage you might have guessed it
was not far from the middle of April, one way or another;
and by certain allusions to Pittsburg Landing as a place
of conspicuous note you might have known that Shiloh
had been fought. There was that feeling of desolation in
the land that remains after armies have passed over, lot
them tread never so lightly.
"D'you know what them rails is put that way fur?"
asked the man. He pointed down with his buggy-whip
just off the road-side, first on one hand and then on the
other.
" No," said Mary, turning the sun-bonnet's limp front
toward the questioner and then to the disjointed fence on
CABLE] THROUGH THE LINES. 353
her nearer side: "that's what I've been wondering for
days. They've been ordinary worm fences, haven't
they ?"
"Jess so," responded the man, with his accustomed
twinkle. " But I think I see you oncet or twicet lookin'
at 'em and sort o' tryin' to make out how come they got
into that shape." The long-reiterated TV's of the rail-
fence had been pulled apart into separate Vs, and the
two sides of each of these had been drawn narrowly to
gether, so that what had been two parallel lines of fence,
with the lane between, was now a long double row of
wedge-shaped piles of rails, all pointing into the woods
on the left.
"How did it happen?" asked Mary, with a smile of
curiosity.
" Didn't happen at all ; 'twas jess done by live men, and
in a powerful few minutes at that. Sort o' shows what
we're approachin' unto, as it were, eh ? Not but they's
plenty behind us done the same way, all the way back
into Kentuck', as you already done see ; but this's been
done sence the last rain, and it rained night afore last."
" Still I'm not sure what it means," said Mary. " Has
there been fighting here ?"
" Go up head," said the man, with a facetious gesture.
" See ? The fight came through these here woods, here.
'Tain't been much over twenty-four hours, I reckon, since
every one o' them-ah sort o' shut-up-fan-shape sort o' fish-
traps had a gray-jacket in it layin' flat down an' firin'
through the rails, sort o' random-like, only not much so."
His manner of speech seemed a sort of harlequin patch
work from the bad English of many sections, the outcome
of a humorous and eclectic fondness for verbal deformi
ties. But his lightness received a sudden check.
" Heigh-h-h ! " he gravely and softly exclaimed, gathor-
II.* 30*
354 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [CABLB
ing the reins closer, as the horse swerved and dashed
ahead. Two or three buzzards started up from the road
side, with their horrid flapping and whiff of quills, and
circled low overhead. " Heigh-h-h I " he continued, sooth
ingly. " Ho-o-o-o ! Somebody lost a good nag there, a
six-pound shot right through his head and neck. Who
ever made that shot killed two birds with one stone,
eho 1" He was half risen from his seat, looking back. As
he turned again, and sat down, the drooping black sun-
bonnet quite concealed the face within. He looked at it
a moment. " If you think you don't like the risks, we can
Btill turn back."
" No," said the voice from out the sun-bonnet : " go on."
" If we don't turn back now we can't turn back at all."
" Go on," said Mary. " I can't turn back."
" You're a good soldier," said the man, playfully again.
" You're a better one than me, I reckon : I kin turn back
frequently, as it were. I've done it ' many a time and oft, 1
as the felleh says."
Mary looked up with feminine surprise. He made a
pretence of silent laughter, that showed a hundred crows' -
feet in his twinkling eyes.
About the middle of that night Mary Eichling was sit
ting very still and upright on a large dark horse that stood
champing his Mexican bit in the black shadow of a great
oak. Alice rested before her, fast asleep against her bosom.
Mary held by the bridle another horse, whose naked saddle
tree was empty. A few steps in front of her the light of
the full moon shone almost straight down upon a narrow
road that just there emerged from the shadow of woods
on either side and divided into a main right fork and a
much smaller one that curved around to Mary's left. Off
in the direction of the main fork the sky was all aglow
CABLE] THROUGH THE LINES. 355
with camp-fires. Only just here on the left there was a
cool and grateful darkness.
She lifted her head alertly. A twig crackled under a
tread, and the next moment a man came out of the bushes
at the left, and without a word took the bridle of the led
horse from her fingers and vaulted into the saddle. The
hand that rested a moment on the cantle as he rose
grasped a " navy six." He was dressed in dull homespun,
but ho was the same who had been dressed in blue. He
turned his horse and led the way down the lesser road.
"If we'd of gone three hundred yards further," he
whispered, falling back and smiling broadly, " we'd 'a' run
into the pickets. I went nigh enough to see the vedettes
settin' on their hosses in the main road. This here ain't
no road ; it just goes up to a nigger quarters. I've got
one o' the niggers to show us the way."
"Where is he?" whispered Mary; but, before her com
panion could answer, a tattered form moved from behind
a bush a little in advance and started ahead in the path,
walking and beckoning. Presently they turned into a
clear, open forest, and followed the long, rapid, swinging
stride of the negro for nearly an hour. Then they halted
on the bank of a deep, narrow stream. The negro made
a motion for them to keep well to the right when they
should enter the water. The white man softly lifted Alice
to his arms, directed and assisted Mary to kneel in her
saddle with her skirts gathered carefully under her, and
so they went down into the cold stream, the negro first,
with arms outstretched above the flood, then Mary, and
then the white man, or, let us say plainly, the spy, with
the unawakened child on his breast. And so they rose
out of it on the farther side without a shoe or garment
wet save the rags of their dark guide.
Again they followed him, along a line of stake-and-
356 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [CABLE
rider fence, with the woods on one side and the bright
moonlight flooding a field of young cotton on the other.
Now they heard the distant baying of house-dogs, now
the doleful call of the chuck-will's- widow ; and once
Mary's blood turned, for an instant, to ice, at the un
earthly shriek of the hoot-owl just above her head. At
length they found themselves in a dim, narrow road, and
the negro slopped.
"Dess keep dish yeh road fo' 'bout half-mile, an' you
etrak' 'pon de broad, main road. Tek de right, an' you
go whah yo' fancy tek you."
" Good-by," whispered Mary.
" Good-by, miss," said the negro, in the same low voice.
" Good-by, boss : don't you fo'git you promise tek me thoo
to de Yankee' when you come back. I 'feered you gwine
fo'git it, boss."
The spy said he would not, and they left him. The
half-mile was soon passed, though it turned out to be a
mile and a half, and at length Mary's companion looked
back, as they rode single file, with Mary in the rear, and
said, softly, " There's the road," pointing at its broad, pale
line with his six-shooter.
As they entered it and turned to the right, Mary, with
Alice again in her arms, moved somewhat ahead of her
companion, her indifferent horsemanship having com
pelled him to drop back to avoid a prickly bush. His
horse was just quickening his pace to regain the lost
position, when a man sprang up from the ground on tbe
farther side of the highway, snatched a carbine from the
earth, and cried, "Halt!"
The dark, recumbent forms of six or eight others could
be seen, enveloped in their blankets, lying about a few red
coals. Mary turned a frightened look backward and met
the eyes of her companion.
CABLKJ THROUGH THE LINES. 357
" Move a little faster," said he, in a low, clear voice. As
she promptly did so, she heard him answer the challenge.,
His horse trotted softly after hers.
" Don't stop us, my friend : we're taking a sick child to
the doctor."
" Halt, you hound !" the cry rang out ; and, as Mary
glanced back, three or four men were just leaping into
the road. But she saw, also, her companion, his face suf
fused with an earnestness that was almost an agony, rise
in his stirrups, with the stoop of his shoulders all gone,
and wildly cry,
" Go !"
She smote the horse and flew. Alice awoke and
screamed.
"Hush, my darling!" said the mother, laying on the
withe ; " mamma's here. Hush, darling ! mamma's here.
Don't be frightened, darling baby ! O God, spare my
child !" and away she sped.
The report of a carbine rang out and went rolling away
in a thousand echoes through the wood. Two others fol
lowed in sharp succession, and there went close by Mary's
ear the waspish whine of a minie-ball. At the same mo
ment she recognized once, twice, thrice, -just at her
back where the hoofs of her companion's horse were clat
tering the tart rejoinders of his navy six.
" Go !" he cried, again. " Lay low ! lay low ! cover the
child !" But his words were needless. With head bowed
forward and form crouched over the crying, clinging child,
with slackened rein and fluttering dress, and sun-bonnet
and loosened hair blown back upon her shoulders, with
lips compressed and silent prayers, Mary was riding for
life and liberty and her husband's bedside.
" Oh, mamma ! mamma !" wailed the terrified little one.
"Go on! Go on!" cried the voice behind: "they're
358 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [CAUL*
saddling up! Go! go! "We're goin' to make it! "We're
goin' to make it ! Go-o-o !"
Half an hour later they were again riding abreast, at a
moderate gallop. Alice's cries had been quieted, but she
still clung to her mother in a great tremor. Mary and
her companion conversed earnestly in the subdued tone
that had become their habit.
" No, I don't think they followed us fur," said the spy.
"Seem like they's jess some scouts, most likely a-comin'
in to report, feelin' pooty safe and sort o' takin' it easy
and careless; 'dreamin' the happy hours away,' as the
felleh says. I reckon they sort o' believed my story, too ;
the little gal yelled so sort o' skilful. "We kin slack up
some more now ; we want to get our critters lookin' cool
and quiet ag'in as quick as we kin, befo' we meet up with
somebody." They reined into a gentle trot. He drew
his revolver, whose emptied chambers he had already re
filled. " D'd you hear this little felleh sing ' Listen to the
mockin'-bird' ?"
"Yes," said Mary; "but I hope it didn't hit any of
them."
He made no reply.
" Don't you ?" she asked.
He grinned.
" D'you want a felleh to wish he was a bad shot ?"
" Yes," said Mary, smiling.
" Well, seein' as you're along, I do. For they wouldn't
givo us up so easy if I'd 'a' hit one. Oh, mine was only
sort o' complimentary shots, much as to say, ' Same to
you, gents,' as the felleh says."
At an abrupt angle of the road Mary's heart leaped into
her throat to find herself and her companion suddenly face
to face with two horsemen in gray, journeying leisurely
CABLE] THROUGH THE LINES. 359
toward them on particularly good horses. One wore a
slouched hat, the other a Federal officer's cap. They
were the first Confederates she had ever seen eye to eye.
" Ride on a little piece and stop," murmured the spy.
The strangers lifted their hats respectfully as she passed
them.
" Gents," said the spy, " good-morning !" He threw a
leg over the pommel of his saddle, and the three men
halted in a group. One of them copied the spy's atti
tude. They returned the greeting in kind.
"What command do you belong to?" asked the lone
stranger.
" Simmons's battery," said one. " Whoa !" to his horse.
" Mississippi ?" asked Mary's guardian.
" Rackensack," said the man in the blue cap.
" Arkansas," said the other, in the same breath. " What
is your command ?"
"Signal service," replied the spy. "Reckon I look
mighty like a citizen jess about now, don't I ?" He gavi>
them his little laugh of self-depreciation, and looked
toward Mary, where she had halted and was letting her
horse nip the new grass of the road-side.
" See any troops along the way you come ?" asked the
man in the hat.
" No ; on'y a squad o' fellehs back yonder who was all
unsaddled and fast asleep, and jumped up worse scared'u
a drove o' wile hogs. We both sort o' got a little mad,
and jess swapped a few shots, you know, kind o' tit for
tat, as it were. Enemy's loss unknown." He stooped
more than ever in the shoulders, and laughed. The men
were amused. " If you see 'em, I'd like you to mention
me " He paused to exchange smiles again. " And tell
'em the next time they see a man hurryin' along with a
lady and sick child to see the doctor, they better hold
360 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [CABLE
their fire till they sho he's on'y a citizen." He let his
foot down into the stirrup again, and they all smiled
broadly. "Good-morning!" The two parties went their
ways.
"Jess as leave not of met with them two buttermilk
rangers," said the spy, once more at Mary's side; "but,
seein' as thah we was, the oniest thing was to put on all
the brass I had."
Prom the top of the next hill the travellers descended
into a village lying fast asleep, with the morning star
blazing over it, the cocks calling to each other from their
roosts, and here and there a light twinkling from a kitchen
window, or a lazy axe-stroke smiting the logs at a wood
pile. In the middle of the village one lone old man, half
dressed, was lazily opening the little wooden " store" that
monopolized its commerce. The travellers responded to
his silent bow, rode on through the place, passed over and
down another hill, met an aged negro, who passed on the
road-side, lifting his forlorn hat and bowing low, and, as
soon as they could be sure they had gone beyond his
sight and hearing, turned abruptly into a dark wood on
the left. Twice again they turned to the left, going very
warily through the deep shadows of the forest, and so re
turned half round the village, seeing no one. Then they
stopped and dismounted at a stable-door, on the outskirts
of the place. The spy opened it with a key from his own
pocket, went in, and came out again with a great armful
of hay, which he spread for the horses' feet to muffle their
tread, led them into the stable, removed the hay again,
and closed and locked the door.
" Make yourself small," he whispered, " and walk fast."
They passed by a garden-path up to the back porch and
door of a small unpainted cottage. He knocked, three
eoft, measured taps.
WALLACE] THE LIGHT OF THE HAREM. 361
" Day's breakin'," he whispered, again, as he stood with
Alice asleep in his arms, while somebody was heard stir
ring within.
"Sam?" said a low, wary voice just within the un
opened door.
" Sister," softly responded the spy, and the door swung
inward, and revealed a tall woman, with an austere but
good face, that could just be made out by the dim light
of a tallow candle shining from the next room. The
travellers entered, and the door was shut.
THE LIGHT OF THE HAREM.
SUSAN E. WALLACE.
[" The Storied Sea," a vivacious description of a trip up the Medi
terranean, and of life and incidents among its bordering peoples,
is the source of the richly-colored picture of life in the harem which
we give below. It reads like a chapter from the "Arabian Nights'
Entertainments" written with a Western pen. The writer is Mrs.
Susan E. Wallace, the wife of General Lew. Wallace, and the work is
based on actual observations during her residence in Constantinople,
where her husband was United States minister from 1881 to 1885.]
IT was in the land of crumbling, cities, strange religions,
deserted fanes ; of quiet men, in twisted turbans and long
beards; of placid women, with faces shrouded like the
faces of the dead, as pale and as calm. Tranquil prisoners,
with respite to drive and walk about the streets, and for
a brief space of time escape bolt and bars, in charge of
armed attendants. A land silent as though Time him
self had dropped to sleep and broken his emptied hour
glass.
II. Q 31
362 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WALLACE
By the bluest and clearest of seas there is a deep bay,
where the navies of the world might ride at anchor. The
sweeping curves of its shores are drawn as by an artist's
hand, and from its margin rise terraced heights, like the
hanging gardens of Babylon. Toward the west are hills,
with capes of olive green, from which the breeze blows
deliciously cool in the hottest days. Away to the south
tall, slim minarets point toward the glittering god of the
ancient Persian, and dwarf the rounded domes below by
the ethereal grace of their tapering spires. Close to the
water's edge stands a palace worthy the golden prime of
Haroun al Raschid, nobly built of white and pink marble,
the latter brought from Egypt. In the distance, under a
sky that would be dazzling were it not so soft, it shines
like a temple of alabaster and silver.
Its crowning glory is a central dome, rising in peerless
beauty, like a globe of ice or of crystal, and seeming to
hang in air. Mirrored in the glassy water, the plume-like
pillars and slender turrets are a picture to make one in
love with its builder. He had the soul of an artist who
measured the span of its rhythmic arches and told the
heights of its colonnades, harmonious to the eye as choice
music to the ear. He must have toiled years to embody
in this result his study of the beautiful. The architect
was a Spaniard, and he had the same creative faculty
(this man who worked in formless stone) that the poet
has who brings his idea out of hidden depths, polishes his
work with elaborate care, nor leaves it till every line is
wrought to perfect finish. Under a despotic government
architecture that is magnificent flourishes, though all
other arts languish. Among a semi-civilized people kings
prefer this expression of power, because it is readily un
derstood, demanding no instruction, no book or guide.
He who runs may read, be it the stupendous monument
THE LIGHT OF THE HAREM.
WALLACE] THE LIGHT OF THE HAREM. 363
of Cheops or the airy pinnacles of Solyman the Magnifi
cent. The wish is to give form which shall compel the
entire people to admiring astonishment of works they
cannot hope to imitate.
Let us call this the Palace of Delight, for there dwells
in the luxury and aroma of the furthest East Nourrnahal,
the Light of the Harem, and we were invited to see hei,
the bulbul, the rose, the Pearl of the Orient, the bride
of Prince Feramorz. Dear reader, do you know how
come the brides in this strange country ? Do you think
it a wooing of an innocent, laughing girl, who, as in lands
of social freedom, lays her light hand, with her heart in
it, in yours? A prize won in an emulous game, where
beauty is weighed against all beside which the world has
to offer, and he who has the right divine may carry her
off from Love's shining circle to be the centre of another
of his own creation ? There was no flavor of American
matches in this betrothal, no hint of golden afternoons in
shady lanes, nights of moonlit silence, and dreams better
than sleep, of wedding-bells in festal rooms, and orange-
flowers that leave a sweetness outlasting the waste of
years. Nor was it like European marriages, say tho
French or Italian, where a demure young girl is taken
from the convent, and by her parents given to the most
eligible parti, of whom she is not allowed an opinion,
whom she sees not one hour alone till after the ceremony,
in which her dot is the first, second, and third considera
tion.
Nor yet is it brought about like the weddings in kings'
palaces, by negotiations for babies in the cradle, long,
tedious betrothal, interviews at proper times, in proper
places, and presences appointed, where exact proprieties
are observed by the happy or unhappy pair. Nor was
the contract made as of old, in plains not very far distant
364 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WALLACE
from this, when Abraham sent out his most trusted ser
vant as a business agent a travelling man, if you please
seeking a bride for his son Isaac. By no such devious
windings did our princess come to the altar. The lovely
Nourmahal was bought at private sale for ten thousand
pieces of gold, and thus the marriage was accomplished.
It is not our business to inquire whether the bargain was
made in the shadow of the black tents of the Bedouin, or
on the frosty heights of Caucasus, or in some verdant
vale in Araby the Blest. It was to a better condition,
came she from dissolute races, like the Georgian, or bar
barian hordes, like the Tartar and Circassian, where the
bride's portion is a sheepskin, a sack of barley, a hand-
mill, and an earthen pan. It was a moment of melan
choly disenchantment when I first learned how she had
reached the rank and power of princess, by what means
been lifted from desert sand and gypsy poverty to eider
down and silken luxury, and made a true believer, walk
ing in the paths of the faithful. To be young, beautiful,
and beloved is heaven ; she was this, and, it was said,
sweet as summer cherries withal.
Our amiable inquiries about what is not our concern
availed little. Her history was colorless till the fated
hour came when its blank page should be illuminated and
glow with tropic splendor. She was a chosen beauty;
princes seldom sigh in vain ; and, so long as men have
eyes to see, fair women will wear purple and sit on thrones.
Our names were sent in ten days before the date of the
reception, a day which stands apart in memory in the
year 1881, in the Time of the Scattering of Eoses, or, as
we would say, in the month of August.
The heaviest iron-clads might lie close to the quay
where we landed. So pure is the water and so intensely
clear that, at the depth of four fathoms, fish swim and
WALLACE] THE LIGHT OF THE HAREM. 365
bright stones lie as though close beneath the calm surface.
Marble steps lead to the water ; and when our little boat
neared them, two sentinels, moveless as statues, appeared,
clad in the picturesque costume of the Tunisian kavasse,
all gold embroidery and dazzling color, even to the holsters
of pistols and the sides of the long-topped boots. A wall,
perhaps thirty feet high, made of rough stone, was broken
by a gate of iron, light as net- work, evidently of French
construction. Its double valves flew open at our approach,
and as quickly closed when we entered the garden. Two
jet-black attendants were in waiting, from that degraded
class of men to whom princes safely trust their treasures.
The word " harem" means " the reserved," and these were
part of the reserve-guard, hideous Ethiops of the ex-
tremest type, with flattened nose and lips, swollen rolls
of dingy flesh. Their misshapen skulls were hidden by
that singular formation called a fez. When the Creator
gave these creatures life, he denied them all else. Con
demned by nature to a perpetual mourning suit, they had
revenge in gorgeous costume, which must have been con
soling. To perfect their ugliness, both were badly pitted
with small-pox. After the long-continued obeisances of
the East, they stood with folded arms and downcast eyes,
fixed as the stone lions beside the gate.
The garden was small, the narrow walks paved with
black and white pebbles, laid in graceful arabesque pat
terns, rimmed with a fanciful border of tiles. We had
scented, out in the bay, the heavy fragrance of roses we
call damask ; masses of bloom, crowded in beds or lining
alleys reddened by their blossoms. The terraces were
high and narrow, their sheer sides banks of ivy, honey
suckle, and myrtle, a tangle of running vines, giving
the feeling of wildness and seclusion in its untamed
luxuriance. There the acacia " waved her yellow hair,"
ii. 31*
366 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WALLACE
most exquisite of trees, delicate as some high-born lady
a frail beauty in her trembling lace-work of fine leaves.
Beneath its branches was a swing of manilla cord, with a
cushion tasselled and fringed with gold. Bees hummed,
butterflies darted through the air like flying leaves, and
humming-birds hovered over the purple bells of a creeper
to me unknown. Up higher were dense shades of laurel
and lemon, pomegranate, with scarlet buds, close thickets
of bay and of citron, walks set with daisies and violets,
bordered by heliotrope and lavender. Highest on the
hill, accented with clear outline against the speckless
sapphire, stood the round-topped cedars of the Orient,
reminders of Lebanon, and the palm, swaying its green
plumes. Most honored of trees, for, says the devout
Moslem, " Thou must honor thy paternal aunt, the date-
palm, for she was created of the earth of which Adam
was made." In the centre of the garden a fountain threw
a glancing column skyward and fell in an alabaster basin,
where gold-fish swam among white lilies and the azure
lotus of Persia. A tiny stream, brought from the snowy
sides of some distant mountain, ran in wayward grace
over vari-colored pebbles, laid with studied carelessness
and nicest attention to effect, a copy of nature. On ita
rim a long-legged stork stood, intent on his prey. A
miniature pavilion, a gracious retreat from the sun, was
roofed with vines, from which hung pendent the scarlet
passion-flower. Oh, it was beautiful ! beautiful ! All
flowers consecrated by poetry, religion, and love grew
there. Even the rough wall was covered like the verdu
rous wall of the first garden, which lay eastward in Eden.
Could it be possible the trail of the serpent is over it all ?
Rather let me believe it the Earthly Paradise of the
Prophet or the Paradise Eegained of the Christian.
"We could not loiter, for Nourraahal was waiting. From
WALLACE] THE LIGHT OF THE HAREM. 367
the entrance-hall to which men are admitted, called " the
place of greeting," slave-girls emerged to meet us and
drew up in lines, through which we passed. We crossed
an outer court, open to the sky, with cool marble pave
ment, under an arched way, to a hall covered with India
matting. Beyond was a spacious rotunda, a fountain
dancing in the centre under the dome, which rested on
pillars of lapis-lazuli. I counted eight fragile supporting
columns of bright blue veined with white. Overhead
were traceries in blue and gold, pendent stalactites, the
" honeycomb ceilings" of the Moorish kings ; the tints of
the Alhambra were in the inlaying of many colors, and
gilt texts of the Koran on the walls. The builder had
that most romantic of castles in heart and eye when he
planned the Palace of Delight. We slowly crossed the
circular space (everything moves slowly here), stopping
only to admire a sultana-bird, with purple breast, in an
ivory cage, and a few white doves, that with many a flirt
and flutter bathed in the bright water, or on the rim
of the pool cooed and twined their beaks together, with
outstretched wings, undisturbed by our approach. Be
yond was the reception-room, called Dares-Saadet (Abode
of Felicity), where the Pearl of the Orient was to be seen.
It was screened by a portiere made of Lahore shawls fig
ured with palm-leaves, elephants, and pagodas, a quaint
and costly drapery, drawn back for us to pass under. Aa
we entered, a crowd of slave-girls formed lines, between
which we passed, young natives from the mountains of
the Atlas, with vicious eyes and sidelong glances. One
was a light mulatto, with crisp hair and downcast look
reminding me of the old days of slavery. They were
dressed in cheap, gay, checked silks, made like our morn
ing wrappers, belts of tinsel, large silver ear-rings with
grotesque heads of animals in front. White muslin tur-
368 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WALLACK
bans covered their heads, their hands were thin and wiry,
and they bore the meek, passive manner of all women
of the East. Two sides of the room were of glass, the
one overlooking the bay latticed with iron, painted white,
which banished the prison-look it would otherwise have.
Velvety rugs of Bochara and Korassan were laid here
and there over the floor of blue and white mosaic. A
broad, low divan of pale-blue silk ran around the apart
ment. Voild tout. No pictures on the marble walls, no
books, no bric-d-brac, no trumpery "collections," ceramics,
aesthetic trash, grave or gay, nor muffling hangings,
these are not Oriental luxuries, but, instead, a cool,
shady emptiness, plenty of space for the breeze to flutter
the gauzy curtains and carry the echo of the plash and
drip of the fountains.
At the furthest end, reclining on pillows of silk and lace,
rested the lady we sought. One little foot, in red velvet
slipper, was first seen below wide trousers of yellow silk ;
a loose robe of white silk, embroidered with gold thread,
was partly covered by a sleeveless jacket of crimson,
dotted with seed-pearl ; a broad, variegated sash wound
the slender waist. Half concealing the arms was a light
scarf, airy as the woven wind of the ancients. A head
band, with diamond pendants, fringed her forehead ; a
riviere of diamonds circled the bare throat ; and here and
there solitary drops flashed in the braids of her night-
black hair. Among the billowy cushions and vaporous
veilings rose the young face, oh, what a revelation of
beauty! uplifted in a curious, questioning way, to see
what manner of women these are, who come from the
ends of the earth, with unveiled faces, and go about the
world alone, and have to think for themselves, poor
things ! The expression was that of a lovely child wak
ing from summer slumber in the happiest humor, ready
WALLACE! THE LIGHT OF THE HAREM. 369
for play. A sensitive, exquisite face, fair as the first of
women while the angel was yet unfallen. A perfect oval,
the lips a scarlet thread, and, oh, those wonderful Asiatic
eyes ! lustrous, coal-black, long rather than round, beam
ing under the joined eyebrows of which the poet Hafiz
sings.
The edges of the eyelids were blackened with kohl,
which Orientals use to intensify the brilliance of the bright
est eyes under the sun. The most common kind is smoke-
black, made by burning frankincense or shells of almonds.
Sometimes an ore of lead is used in fine powder. Our
American girls make a miserable bungle of it, smearing
the whole eyelids, giving a ghastly and unnatural effect,
very different from the thin line of antimony applied by
a probe of ivory dipped in the powder and skilfully drawn
on the tip edges of the lids.
Nourmahal did not rise, but held out one jewelled hand,
dimpled as a baby's, with nails and finger-ends dyed pink
with henna, five clustering rose-buds. The magic of
beauty made us her subjects. We kissed the little fingers
loyally, and yielded ourselves willing captives, ready to
be dragged at her chariot-wheels. My life-long notions
of the subjection of women (see Stuart Mill) and the
wretchedness of prisoners pining in palatial splendors
vanished at the first glance ; went down at a touch, like
the wounded knight in the lists of Templestowe. She
smiled, and hoped we were well; then followed suitable
inquiries as to health and journeys, and expressions of
the charm of finding it all out. Our interpreter was an
Armenian lady with the gift of tongues. When con
versation is filtered through three languages, it becomes
very thin ; even such a bold and spirited remark as " This
is a happy day for me ; I shall never forget it," was robbed
of half its spice and flavor by the time it reached the ear
ii. y
370 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WALLACE
for which it was intended. I ventured the high assertion
that we had sailed six thousand miles on purpose to lay
our homage at her blessed feet ; which rhetorical nourish
was received with a childish nod at about what it was
worth. Somehow, she did not seem so enchanted with
her new worshippers as they were with her. It appeared
the Beauty had never seen the sea except from shore.
" What is it like when you are in the middle of thu
dark water ?"
" Had she seen the Great Desert ?"
" Yes, many times, and had trembled when awful col
umns of dust swept across it, moved by the wings of evil
genii."
" It was like that ; wide, still, a desert of water more
lonely than any land."
" Do many people drown there ?" she asked of the mys
terious horror.
" Yery few. You would have no fear."
" Because I shall never go on it," she said, triumphantly,
and laughed, showing teeth like pomegranate-seeds, and
shook the diamond-drops on her forehead, so delighted
was she with the simple wit.
Suddenly changing her tone, she asked, " Why do you
wear black dresses ?"
I have never seen an Eastern woman, of high or low
degree, in a black garment of any make. Even their
shoes are gayly embroidered. Dismal and coarse three
elderly women in the conventional black silks and poke-
bonnets must appear to one clad in elegant draperies of
various and brilliant dyes, whose eyes ever rested on tints
to which the rainbow is dim.
" It is the custom of our country for women to go out
in black," we answered.
" How sad !" said Beauty j and it did seem sad in that
WALLACE] THE LIGHT OF THE HAREM. 371
light and lovely room, all sunshine and vivid color. "We
were in love with her, and again declared our love. She
accepted the admiration as one well used to such extrava
gance, and clapped her hands after the fashion of ladies
of the "Arabian Nights." At the signal, the slaves dis
appeared, except one old woman and the negroes, silent
as ghosts, beside the Lahore drapery. In a few minutes
five slaves returned, each carrying a small round table of
cedar, inlaid with scraps of mother-of-pearl. Five others
followed, with lighted cigarettes, lying each in a silver
saucer, and coffee in tiny cups, about the size of a giant's
thimble, resting in a silver filigree holder set round with
diamonds.
" My new friends have come so far," said Nourmahal,
" they must be tired. Take a cigarette and refresh your
selves."
I rather awkwardly adjusted the holder of amber and
ventured one faint whiff. Imagine my astonishment at
seeing my friend, whose name with difficulty I suppress,
puff away like a dissipated old smoker ! The Armenian
was native and to the manner born. Kourmahal smoked,
of course, and a lulling calm succeeded the excitement of
the brilliant conversation reported above. While feeling
round in my brain for a subject of common interest
adapted to our hostess's capacity and mine, I tried a sip
of the coffee. It was strong enough to bear up an egg,
thick with grounds, and bitter as death. I pretended to
deep enjoyment of the dose, and sipped it, drop by drop,
to the bitter end.
Nourmahal clapped her hands again, and the ten virgins
took away the saucers. I think none of them were fool
ish, for they fell into line without effort, each one treading
in the footsteps of her predecessor, at an interval to avoid
her train.
372 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WALLACE
Presently they returned, with gold-fringed napkins, and
silver cups of sherbet flavored with quince, and a con
serve of rose-leaves. Wishing to appear easy as pos
sible and thoroughly Oriental, I trifled with the delicious
nectar, cooled with snow, and was not half through when
the attendant picked up my table of cedar and pearl and
disappeared with it. How I regret not having swallowed
the Olympian food at railroad speed ! for it was the first
ice I had seen for many months. It is not court etiquette
to ask receipts, and, after a sigh of regret for what I shall
never taste again, I returned to the fascination of a triple-
tongued conversation.
"In this charming palace you must be very happy.
How do you pass the time ?"
The dimples deepened in the cheeks of Beauty. " Pass
the time ? pass the time ?" she dreamily repeated, playing
with the knotted fringes of her scarf. " I do not pass it ,
it passes itself!" and again she laughed, and the laughter
was sweet as the tenderest voice can make it.
" Are you fond of music ?"
Three ladies in black: "Oh! very!" "Oh! very!"
"Oh! very!"
"Then you shall be amused." She clapped the rose-
leaf palms, and in marched eight women musicians (we
aw no men that day but the harem-guard"), bearing
stringed instruments, curious-looking things, like over
grown violins and half-finished guitars, and a round shell,
with strings across, beaten with two sticks.
Didst ever hear Arabic music, beloved ?
No ? Then never hast thou known sorrow.
Since Jubal first struck the gamut, there can have been
no improvement in these compositions. How long the
exercises lasted I am unable to record ; but I do know we
grew old fast under the beat, beat, hammer, hammer, in
WALLACE] THE LIGHT OF THE HAREM. 373
the terse, unmeaning notes of the banjo. In the brief
interval at the end of a peculiarly agonizing strain sung
by the mulatto, I seized the moment to ask what were
the words of the song, and was told it is a serenade, very
ancient, dating back to the Times of Ignorance, before
the coming of Mohammed, whose tomb is covered with
the splendor of unceasing light. I afterward obtained a
copy of the madrigal, and give it in rough translation.
It is doubtful if the almond-eyed Juliet came down from
her lattice after the anguish of that performance on the
nina.
On a steed shod with fire I come,
And weary is my heart with waiting,
Awakened it feels a vague unrest.
Chorus :
thou whose shape is that of the cypress,
And whose mouth is the opening rose-bud,
1 am here, faithful as thy shadow.
Thy eyebrows are the form of an arch,
The shafts of thy lashes are unsparing,
And the scars which they leave are bleeding.
O thou whose shape, etc.
Queen rose, thy slave Kaschid is beggared.
His whole heart is only one wound ;
Smile but once, and his head will touch the stars.
O thou whose shape, etc.
As we passed out of the salon, each of us received a box
of crimson andem* wood, wrapped in tissue-paper. " To
be opened when you reach home," said the interpreter.
The doves had gone to their nests, for the shades of
* A precious perfumed wood of India.
n. 32
374 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WALLACE
evening were in the rotunda ; the sultana-bird, with head
under its wing, was a purple ball ; the moon was high
over the enchanted garden which the King of the Genii
had made for Prince Feramorz. A tame gazelle, wearing
a collar of silver bells, followed us to the gate, and in a
fond, endearing way laid its pretty head on my arm and
looked in my face, the most appealing glance of a weary
prisoner, longing for the freedom of Judah's hills, the
mild thyme of Hermon, and the mountains of spices.
Those eyes had a human expression, which has never left
my memory. I have seen it in the wistful gaze of young
mothers, in the yearning eyes of those who have so long
mourned that the grief has become a softened sorrow.
Well do they name the love-song " gazelle."
Before the gate we suddenly paused, at the same in
stant, moved by the same impulse, and turned to look for
one moment more on the Palace and Garden of Delight.
We felt we should not see its like again, for there are few
such gardens in the world. The Paradise palms were
whispering their secrets, and the pines wailed in answer
to the sea-breeze as harp-strings answer to the harper's
hand. The moonlight tipped each leaf with silver; the
flowers were pale, but not faded ; heaven and earth were
still, breathless, as we grow when feeling most. A bird,
a little brown thing, like a wren, flew out of a thicket of
laurels and hid among the starry blossoms of the mag
nolia. Then hark ! that wondrous note. I should have
recognized it even if Thalia had not lifted a hushing
finger and said, under her breath, " Believe me, love, it is
the nightingale."
It was the nightingale, and the voice (so sweet, so sweet
J hear it yet, and shall hear it at intervals forever) was
more stilling than very silence. That wild melody was
not the legendary plaint of the love-lorn mate, leaning
YOUNG] THE HEAT AND LIGHT OF THE SUN. 375
her breast against a thorn, but rather an ecstatic strain
from a soul so full it must tell its rapture or die. Its
charm was past all telling, beyond the reach of words.
Still, as I write, hundreds of miles away, after months of
rapid travel, my heart thrills with the echo of its ineffable
sweetness. The doe (the winsome thing, with the haunt
ing eyes) leaned heavily against my arm while we stood
and listened. Night was fallen, for in these latitudes it
makes brief mingling with day. It is only to meet and
kiss in a crimson blush and part again. " Good-by for
ever," we said, as the lock snapped in the iron valves.
The voice of the bulbul followed us through the perfumed
dusk, like an invisible angel allowed to pass the guarded
gates of Eden and cheer the homely pilgrims on their
way.
Freshly the breeze blew, and the briny smell of the sea
was tonic, after the languors of the palace. The rich and
balmy eve invited to silence. Under a trance we floated
between blue and blue (whether in the body or out of the
body I cannot tell) in the supreme delight of a day unreal
in its poetic lights, so like the stuff which dreams are
made of, I sometimes wonder which was dream and which
reality.
THE HEAT AND LIGHT OF THE SUN.
C. A. YOUNG.
[Charles Augustus Toung, the astronomer, was born in New Hamp
shire in 1834. He has been professor of mathematics and astronomy
in several Western colleges, and in 1877 became professor of astronomy
at Princeton College. His spectroscopic studies, and researches into
the physics and chemistry of the sun, are of high scientific value. He
376 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [Youisa
has written much on scientific subjects, his principal work being " The
Sun," from which we extract some interesting passages.]
SUNLIGHT is the intensest radiance at present known.
It far exceeds the brightness of the calcium-light, and
is not rivalled even by the most powerful electric arc.
Either of these lights interposed between the eye and the
surface of the sun appears as a black spot upon the disk
We can measure with some accuracy the total quantity
of sunlight, and state the amount in " candle-power :" the
figure which expresses the result is, however, so enormous
that it fails to convey much of an idea to the mind : it is
1,575,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 ; fifteen hundred and
seventy-five billions of billions, enumerated in the Eng
lish manner, which requires a million million to make a
billion; or one octillion five hundred and seventy-five
septillion, if we prefer the French enumeration.
The " candle-power," which is the unit of light goner-
ally employed in photometry, is the amount of light given
by a sperm-candle weighing one-sixth of a pound and
burning a hundred and twenty grains an hour. An ordi
nary gas-burner, consuming five feet of gas hourly, gives,
if the gas is of standard quality, from twelve to sixteen
times as much light. The total light of the sun is, there
fore, about equivalent to one hundred billion billion of
such gas-jets. . . .
Thus far we have considered only the total light emitted
by the sun. The question of the intrinsic brightness of
his surface is a different though connected one, depending
for its solution upon the same observations, combined with
a determination of the light-radiating areas in the dif
ferent cases. Since a candle-flame at the distance of one
metre looks considerably larger than the disk of the sun,
it is evident that it must be a good deal more than seventy
thousand times less brilliant. In fact, it would have to be
YOUNG] THE HEAT AND LIGHT OF THE SUN. 377
at a distance of about 1.65 metres to cover the same area
of the sky as the sun does, and therefore the solar surface
must exceed by a hundred and ninety thousand times tho
average brightness of the candle-flame. . . .
One of the most interesting observations upon the
brightness of the sun is that of Professor Langley, who a
few years ago (in 1878) made a careful comparison between
the solar radiation and that from the blinding surface of
the molten metal in a Bessemer " converter." The bril
liance of this metal is so great that the dazzling stream
of melted iron, which, at one stage of the proceedings, is
poured in to mix with the metal already in the crucible,
" is deep brown by comparison, presenting a contrast like
that of dark coffee poured into a white cup." The com
parison was so conducted that, intentionally, every advan
tage was given to the metal in comparison with the sun
light, no allowances being made for the losses encountered
by the latter during its passage through the smoky air of
Pittsburg to the reflector which threw its rays into the
photometric apparatus. And yet, in spite of all this dis
advantage, the sunlight came out Jive thousand three hundred
times brighter than the dazzling radiance of the incandes
cent metal. . . .
If the amount of solar light is enormous, as compared
with terrestrial standards, the same thing is still moro
true of the solar heat, which admits of somewhat more
accurate measurement, since we are no longer dependent
on a unit so unsatisfactory as the "candle-power," and
can substitute thermometers and balances for the human
eye.
It is possible to intercept a beam of sunshine of known
dimensions, and make it give up its radiant energy to a
weighed mass of water or other substance, to measure
accurately the rise of temperature produced in a given
II. 32*
378 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [Yoimo
time, and from these data to calculate the whole amount
of heat given off by the sun in a minute or a day.
Pouillet and Sir John Herschel seem to have been the
first fairly to grasp the nature of the problem, and to in
vestigate the subject in a rational manner. . . .
Herschel preferred to express his results in terms of
melting ice, and put it in this way : the amount of heat
received on the earth's surface, with the sun in the zenith,
would melt an inch thickness of ice in two hours and
thirteen minutes nearly.
Since there is every reason to believe that the sun's
radiation is equal in all directions, it follows that, if the
sun were surrounded by a great shell of ice, one inch
thick and a hundred and eighty-six million miles in diam
eter, its rays would just melt the whole in the same time.
If, now, we suppose this shell to shrink in diameter, re
taining, however, the same quantity of ice by increasing
its thickness, it would still be melted in the same time.
Let the shrinkage continue until the inner surface touches
the photosphere, and it would constitute an envelope more
than a mile in thickness, through which the solar fire
would still thaw out its way in the same two hours and
thirteen minutes, at the rate, according to Herschel's
determinations, of more than forty feet a minute. Her-
echel continues that, if this ice were formed into a rod
45.3 miles in diameter, and darted toward the sun with
the velocity of light, its advancing point would be melted
off as fast as it approached, if by any means the whole
of the solar rays could be concentrated on the head. Or,
to put it differently, if we could build up a solid column
of ice from the earth to the sun, two miles and a quarter
in diameter, spanning the inconceivable abyss of ninety-
three million miles, and if then the sun should concentrate
his power upon it, it would dissolve and melt, not in an
YOUNG] THE HEAT AND LIGHT OF THE SUN. 379
hour, nor a minute, but in a single second : one swing of
the pendulum, and it would be water ; seven more, and it
would be dissipated into vapor.
In formulating this last statement we have, however,
employed, not Herschel's figures, but those resulting from
later observations, which increase the solar radiation about
twenty-five per cent., making the thickness of the ice
crust which the sun would melt off of his own surface in
a minute to be much nearer fifty feet than forty.
To put it a little more technically, expressing it in terms
of the modern scientific units, the sun's radiation amounts
to something over a million calories per minute for each
square metre of his surface, the calory, or heat-unit, being
the quantity of heat which will raise the temperature of
a kilogramme of water one degree centigrade.
An easy calculation shows that to produce this amount
of heat by combustion would require the hourly burning
of a layer of anthracite coal more than sixteen feet (five
metres) thick over the entire surface of the sun, nine-
tenths of a ton per hour on each square foot of surface,
at least nine times as much as the consumption of the
most powerful blast-furnace known to art. It is equiva
lent to a continuous evolution of about ten thousand horse
power on every square foot of the sun's whole area. As
Sir William Thomson has shown, the sun, if it were com
posed of solid coal and produced its heat by combustion,
would burn out in less than six thousand years.
Of this enormous outflow of heat the earth of course
intercepts only a small portion, about ^.Tinr.Tfjnr.TU-iF. But
even this minute fraction is enough to melt yearly, at the
earth's equator, a layer of ice something over one hundred
and ten feet thick. If we choose to express it in terms of
"power," we find that this is equivalent, for each square
foot of surface, to more than sixty tons raised to the
380 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [CHILD
height of a mile ; and, taking the whole surface of the
earth, the average energy received from the sun is over
fifty mile-tons yearly, or one horse-power continuously
acting, to every thirty square feet of the earth's surface.
Most of this, of course, is expended merely in maintain
ing the earth's temperature; but a small portion, perhaps
T^W f tne whole, as estimated by Helmholtz, is stored
away by animals and vegetables, and constitutes an abun
dant revenue of power for the whole human race.
A BANQUET AT ASPASIA'S.
LYDIA MARIA CHILD.
[The author from whom we select the following interesting repro
duction of a scene from the life of ancient Greece was a well-known
writer of novels and of juvenile literature, and an able advocate of
the anti-slavery cause. Her " Progress of Keligious Ideas" (in three
volumes) cannot be praised as manifesting the careful discrimination
necessary to an historical work, and her reputation must rest on her
other writings, which are of much literary value. The selection we
give is from "Philothea: a Grecian Komance." The conversation at
Aspasia's seems to possess the flavor of the genuine " Attic salt." Mrs.
Child was born in Massachusetts in 1802. She died in 1880.]
THE room in which the guests were assembled was
furnished with less of Asiatic splendor than the private
apartment of Aspasia ; but in its magnificent simplicity
there was a more perfect manifestation of ideal beauty.
It was divided in the middle by eight Ionic columns,
alternately of Phrygian and Pentelic marble. Between
the central pillars stood a superb statue from the hand
of Phidias, representing Aphrodite guided by Love and
CHILD] A BANQUET AT ASPASIA'S. 381
crowned by Peitho, goddess of Persuasion. Around the
walls were Phoebus and Hermes in Parian marble, and the
nine Muses in ivory. A fountain of perfumed water, from
the adjoining room, diffused coolness and fragrance as it
passed through a number of concealed pipes and finally
flowed into a magnificent vase supported by a troop of
Naiades.
In a recess stood the famous lion of Myron, surrounded
by infant Loves, playing with his paws, climbing his back,
and decorating his neck with garlands. This beautiful
group seemed actually to live and move in the clear light
and deep shadows derived from a silver lamp suspended
above.
The walls were enriched with some of the choicest
paintings of Apollodorus, Zeuxis, and Polygnotus. Near
a fine likeness of Pericles, by Aristolaus, was Aspasia,
represented as Chloris scattering flowers over the earth
and attended by winged Hours.
It chanced that Pericles himself reclined beneath his
portrait, and, though political anxiety had taken from his
countenance something of the cheerful freshness which
characterized the picture, he still retained the same ele
vated beauty, the same deep, quiet expression of intel
lectual power. At a short distance, with his arm resting
'on the couch, stood his nephew, Alcibiades, deservedly
called the handsomest man in Athens. He was laughing
with Hermippus, the comic writer, whose shrewd, sar
castic, and mischievous face was expressive of his calling.
Phidias slowly paced the room, talking of the current
news with the Persian Artaphernes. Anaxagoras reclined
near the statue of Aphrodite, listening and occasionally
speaking to Plato, who leaned against one of the marble
pillars, in earnest conversation with a learned Ethiopian.
The gorgeous apparel of the Asiatic and African guests
382 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [CHILD
contrasted strongly with the graceful simplicity of Grecian
costume. A saffron-colored mantle and a richly-embroid
ered Median vest glittered on the person of the venerable
Artaphernes. Tithonus, the Ethiopian, wore a skirt of
ample folds, which scarcely fell below the knee. It was
of the glorious Tyrian hue, resembling a crimson light
shining through transparent purple. The edge of the
garment was curiously wrought with golden palm-leaves.
It terminated at the waist in a large roll, twined with
massive chains of gold, and fastened by a clasp of the
far-famed Ethiopian topaz. The upper part of his person
was uncovered and unornamented, save by broad brace
lets of gold, which formed a magnificent contrast with the
sable color of his vigorous and finely-proportioned limbs.
As the ladies entered, the various groups came forward
to meet them ; and all were welcomed by Aspasia with
earnest cordiality and graceful self-possession. While the
brief salutations were passing, Hipparete, the wife of
Alcibiades, came from an inner apartment, where she had
been waiting for her hostess. She was a fair, amiable
young matron, evidently conscious of her high rank. The
short blue tunic, which she wore over a lemon -colored
robe, was embroidered with golden grasshoppers ; and on
her forehead sparkled a jewelled insect of the same species.
It was the emblem of unmixed Athenian blood ; and
Hipparete alone of all the ladies present had a right to
wear it. Her manners were an elaborate copy of Aspasia,
but deprived of the powerful charm of unconsciousness,
which flowed like a principle of life into every motion of
that beautiful enchantress. . . .
At a signal from Plato, slaves filled the goblets with
wine, and he rose to propose the usual libation to the
gods. Every Grecian guest joined in the ceremony,
singing, in a recitative tone,
CHILD] A BANQUET AT ASPASIA'S. 383
" Dionysus, this to thee,
God of warm festivity !
Giver of the fruitful vine,
To thee we pour the rosy wine !"
Music from the adjoining room struck in with the
chorus, and continued for some moments after it had
ceased.
For a short time the conversation was confined to the
courtesies of the table, as the guests partook of the de
licious viands before them. Plato ate olives and bread
only ; and the water he drank was scarcely tinged with
Lesbian wine. Alcibiades rallied him upon this abstemi
ousness ; and Pericles reminded him that even his great
pattern, Socrates, gave Dionysus his dues, while he wor
shipped the heaven-born Pallas.
The philosopher quietly replied, "I can worship the
fiery god of Yintage only when married with Nymphs of
the Fountain."
"But tell me, O Anaxagoras and Plato," exclaimed
Tithonus, " if, as Hermippus hath said, the Grecian phi
losophers discard the theology of the poets ? Do ye not
believe in the gods ?"
Plato would have smiled, had he not reverenced the
simplicity that expected a frank and honest answer to a
question so dangerous. Anaxagoras briefly replied, that
the mind which did not believe in divine beings must be
cold and dark indeed.
"Even so," replied Artaphernes, devoutly: "blessed be
Oromasdes, who sends Mithras to warm and enlighten
the world! But what surprises me most is, that you
Grecians import new divinities from other countries as
freely as slaves, or papyrus, or marble. The sculptor
of the gods will scarcely be able to fashion half their
images."
384 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [CHILD
"If the custom continues," rejoined Phidias, "it will
indeed require a lifetime as long as that conferred upon
the namesake of Tithonus."
" Thanks to the munificence of artists, every deity has
a representative in my dwelling," observed Aspasia.
" I have heard strangers express their surprise that the
Athenians have never erected a statue to the principle of
Modesty" said Hermippus.
" So much the more we need that we enshrine her image
in our own hearts," rejoined Plato.
The sarcastic comedian made no reply to this quiet re
buke. Looking toward Artaphernes, he continued : " Tell
me, O servant of the great king, wherein the people of
your country are more wise in worshipping the sun than
we who represent the same divinity in marble."
"The principles of the Persian religion are simple,
steady, and uniform," replied Artaphernes; "but the
Athenian are always changing. You not only adopt
foreign gods, but sometimes create new ones, and admit
them into your theology by solemn act of the great
council. These circumstances have led me to suppose
that you worship them as mere forms. The Persian
Magi do indeed prostrate themselves before the rising sun ;
but they do it in the name of Oromasdes, the universal
Principle of Good, of whom that great luminary is the
visible symbol. In our solemn processions, the chariot
sacred to Oromasdes precedes the horse dedicated to
Mithras ; and there is deep meaning in the arrangement.
The Sun and the Zodiac, the Balance and the Eule, are
but emblems of truths, mysterious and eternal. As the
garlands we throw on the sacred fire feed the flame, rather
than extinguish it, so the sublime symbols of our religion
are intended to preserve, not to conceal, the truths within
them."
CHILD] A BANQUET AT ASPASIA'S. 385
" Though you disclaim all images of divinity," rejoined
Aspasia, "yet we hear of your Mithras pictured like a
Persian king, trampling on a prostrate ox."
With a smile, Artaphernes replied, "I see, lady, that
you would fain gain admittance to the Mithraic cave ; but
its secrets, like those of your own Eleusis, are concealed
from all save the initiated."
" They tell us," said Aspasia, " that those who are ad
mitted to the Eleusinian mysteries die in peace, and go
directly to the Elysian fields, while the uninitiated wander
about in the infernal abyss."
" Of course," said Anaxagoras, " Alcibiades will go di
rectly to Elysium, though Solon groped his way in dark
ness."
The old philosopher uttered this with imperturbable
gravity, as if unconscious of satirical meaning ; but some
of the guests could scarcely repress a smile, as they recol
lected the dissolute life of the young Athenian.
" If Alcibiades spoke his real sentiments," said Aspasia,
" I venture to say he would tell us that the mystic baskets
of Demeter, covered with long purple veils, contain nothing
half so much worth seeing as the beautiful maidens who
carry them."
She looked at Pericles, and saw that he again cautioned
her, by raising the rose toward his face, as if inhaling its
fragrance.
There was a brief pause, which Anaxagoras interrupted
l>y saying, " The wise can never reverence images merely
as images. There is a mystical meaning in the Athenian
manner of supplicating the gods with garlands on their
heads and bearing in their hands boughs of olive twined
with wool. Pallas, at whose birth, we are told, gold rained
upon the earth, was unquestionably a personification of
wisdom. It is not to be supposed that the philosophers
ii. R z 33
386 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [CHILD
of any country consider the sun itself as anything more
than a huge ball of fire ; but the sight of that glorious
orb leads the contemplative soul to the belief in one Pure
Intelligence, one Universal Mind, which in manifesting
itself produces order in the material world and preserves
the unconfused distinction of infinite varieties."
" Such, no doubt, is the tendency of all reflecting minds,"
said Phidias; "but, in general, the mere forms are wor
shipped, apart from the sacred truths they represent.
The gods we have introduced from Egypt are regarded by
the priests of that learned land as emblems of certain
divine truths brought down from ancient times. They
are like the Hermae at our doors, which outwardly appear
to rest on inexpressive blocks of stone, but when opened
they are found to contain beautiful statues of the gods
within them. It is not so with the new fables which the
Greeks are continually mixing with their mythology.
Pygmalion, as we all know, first departed from the rigid
outline of ancient sculpture, and impressed life and motion
upon marble. The poets, in praise of him, have told us
that his ardent wishes warmed a statue into a lovely and
breathing woman. The fable is fanciful and pleasing in
itself; but will it not hereafter be believed as reality?
Might not the same history be told of much that is be
lieved ? It is true," added he, smiling, " that I might be
excused for favoring a belief in images, since mortals are
ever willing to have their own works adored."
" What does Plato respond to the inquiries of Phidias ?"
asked Artaphernes.
The philosopher replied, " Within the holy mysteries of
our religion is preserved a pure and deep meaning, as the
waters of Arethusa flow uncontaminated beneath the earth
and the sea. I do not presume to decide whether all that
is believed has the inward significancy. I have over deemed
A BANQUET AT ASPASTA'S. 387
such speculations unwise. If the chaste daughter of La-
tona always appears to my thoughts veiled in heavenly
purity, it is comparatively unimportant whether I can
prove that Acteon was torn by his dogs for looking on
the goddess with wanton eyes. Anaxagoras said wisely
that material forms lead the contemplative mind to the
worship of ideal good, which is in its nature immortal
and divine. Homer tells us that the golden chain resting
upon Olympus reaches even to the earth. Here we see
but a few of the last links, and those imperfectly. "We
are like men in a subterranean cave, so chained that they
can look only forward to the entrance. Far above and
behind us is a glowing fire; and beautiful beings, of every
form, are moving between the light and us poor fettered
mortals. Some of these bright beings are speaking, and
others are silent. We see only the shadows cast on the
opposite wall of the cavern by the reflection of the fire
above ; and if we hear the echo of voices, we suppose it
belongs to those passing shadows. The soul, in its present
condition, is an exile from the orb of light ; its ignorance
is forgetfulness ; and whatever we can perceive of truth,
or imagine of beauty, is but a reminiscence of our former
more glorious state of being. He who reverences the
gods, and subdues his own passions, returns at last to the
blest condition from which he fell. But to talk, or think,
about these things with proud impatience, or polluted
morals, is like pouring pure water into a miry trench :
he who does it disturbs the mud, and thus causes the
clear water to become defiled. "When Odysseus removed
his armor from the walls, and carried it to an inner
apartment, invisible Pallas moved before him with her
golden lamp, and filled the place with radiance divine
Telemachus, seeing the light, exclaimed, ' Surely, my
father, some of the celestial gods are present.' "With deep
388 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [FIELD
wisdom, the king of Ithaca replied, ' Be silent. Bestrain
your intellect, and speak not.' "
" I am rebuked, O Plato," answered Phidias ; " and from
henceforth, when my mind is dark and doubtful, I will
remember that transparent drops may fall into a turbid
well. Nor will I forget that sometimes, when I have
worked on my statues by torch-light, I could not perceive
their real expression, because I was carving in the shadow
of my own hand."
" Little can be learned of the human soul and its con
nection with the Universal Mind," said Anaxagoras:
" these sublime truths seem vague and remote, as Phcea-
cia appeared to Odysseus like a vast shield floating on the
surface of the distant ocean.
" The glimmering uncertainty attending all such specu
lations has led me to attach myself to the Ionic sect,
who devote themselves entirely to the study of outward
nature."
" And this is useful," rejoined Plato. " The man who is
to be led from a cave will more easily see what the
heavens contain by looking to the light of the moon and
the stars than by gazing on the sun at noon-day."
THE OWL-CRITIC.
JAMES T. FIELDS.
" WHO stuffed that white owl ?" No one spoke in the
shop;
The barber was busy, and he couldn't stop ;
The customers, waiting their turns, were all reading
The Daily, the Herald, the Post, little heeding
FIBLD] THE OWL-CRITIC. 389
The young man who blurted out such a blunt question ;
Not one raised a head, or even made a suggestion ;
And the barber kept on shaving.
" Don't you see, Mister Brown,"
Cried the youth, with a frown,
" How wrong the whole thing is,
How preposterous each wing is,
How flattened the head is, how jammed down the neck
is,
In short, the whole owl, what an ignorant wreck 'tis !
I make no apology ;
I've learned owl-eology,
I've passed days and nights in a hundred collections,
And cannot be blinded to any deflections
Arising from unskilful fingers that fail
To stuff a bird right, from his beak to his tail.
Mister Brown ! Mister Brown !
Do take that bird down,
Or you'll soon be the laughing-stock all over town 1"
And the barber kept on shaving.
" I've studied owls,
And other night fowls,
And I tell you
"What I know to be true :
An owl cannot roost
With his limbs so unloosed ;
No owl in this world
Ever had his claws curled,
Ever had his legs slanted,
Ever had his bill canted,
Ever had his neck screwed
Into that attitude.
ii. 33*
390 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [FIELD
He can't do it, because
'Tis against all bird laws.
Anatomy teaches,
Ornithology preaches,
An owl has a toe
That can't turn out so !
I've made the white owl my study for years,
And to see such a job almost moves me to tears!
Mister Brown, I'm amazed
You should be so gone crazed
As to put up a bird
In that posture absurd !
To look at that owl really brings on a dizziness ;
The man who stuffed him don't half know his business I*
And the barber kept on shaving
" Examine those eyes.
I'm filled with surprise
Taxidermists should pass
Off on you such poor glass ;
So unnatural they seem
They'd make Audubon scream,
And John Burroughs laugh
To encounter such chaff.
Do take that bird down :
Have him stuffed again, Brown 1"
And the barber kept on shaving
" With some sawdust and bark
I could stuff in the dark
An owl better than that.
I could make an old hat
Look more like an owl
Than that horrid fowl,
LESLIE] AUNT QUIMBY. 391
Stuck up there so stiff like a side of coarse leather.
In fact, about Mm there's not one natural feather."
Just then, with a wink and a sly normal lurch,
The owl, very gravely, got down from his perch,
Walked round, and regarded his fault-finding critic
(Who thought he was stuffed) with a glance analytic,
And then fairly hooted, as if he should say,
" Your learning's at fault this time, anyway ;
Don't waste it again on a live bird, I pray.
I'm an owl j you're another. Sir Critic, good-day 1"
And the barber kept on shaving.
AUNT QUIMBY.
ELIZA LESLIE.
[Fifty years ago Miss Leslie was a power in Philadelphia society,
from the cutting satire of her highly-popular stories, in which the
mushroom aristocracy of the day were handled with little mercy, and
in some cases their actual names used in narratives of no compli
mentary character. Aunt Quimby, with her inconveniently exact
memory, served as one of these whips for family pride, by relating
incidents in the ancestral history of the aristocracy which had the in
convenience of having actually occurred. Miss Leslie's style, though
intensely practical, had marked humor, and her stories were widely
read. In addition she was the author of a once noted " Cookery
Book," and of other works of a similar character. She was born in
Philadelphia in 1787, and died in 1858.]
IN the mean time Mrs. Quimby continued to call on the
attention of those around her. To some the old lady was
a source of amusement, to others of disgust and annoy
ance. By this time they all understood who she was, and
392 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [LESLIB
how she happened to be there. Fixing her eyes on a
very dignified and fashionable-looking young lady, whom
she had heard addressed as Miss Lybrand, and who, with
several others, was sitting nearly opposite, " Pray, miss,"
said Aunt Quimby, " was your grandfather's name Moses?"
" It was," replied the young lady.
" Oh ! then you must be a grand-daughter of old Moses
Lybrand, who kept a livery-stable up in Race Street ; and
his son Aaron always used to drive the best carriage,
after the old man was past doing it himself. Is your
father's name Aaron ?"
"No, madam," said Miss Lybrand, looking very red.
" My father's name is Richard."
" Richard : he must have been one of the second wife's
children. Oh! I remember seeing him about when he
was a little boy. He had a curly head, and on week-days
generally wore a gray jacket and corduroy trousers ; but
he had a nice bottle-green suit for Sunday. Yes, yes:
they went to our church, and sat up in the gallery. And
he was your father, was he? Then Aaron must have
been your own uncle. He was a very careful driver for a
young man. He learnt of his father. I remember just
after we were first married, Mr. Quimby hiring Moses
Lybrand's best carriage to take me and my bridesmaids
and groomsmen on a trip to Germantown. It was a yel
low coachee with red curtains, and held us all very well
with close packing. In those days people like us took
their wedding-rides to Germantown and Frankford and
Darby, and ordered a dinner at a tavern with custards
and whips, and came home in the evening. And the
highfliers, when they got married, went as far as Chester
or Dunks's Ferry. They did not then start off from the
church door and scour the roads all the way to Niagara
just because they were brides and grooms ; as if that was
LESLIE] AUNT qUIMBY. 393
any reason for flying their homes directly. But pray
what has become of your uncle Aaron ?"
" I do not know," said the young lady, looking much
displeased. " I never heard of him."
" But did not you tell me your grandfather's name was
Moses ?"
" There may have been other Moses Lybrands."
" Was not he a short, pock-marked man, that walked a
little lame, with something of a cast in his right eye ? or,
I won't be positive, maybe it was in the left ?"
"I am very sure papa's father was no such looking
person," replied Miss Lybrand ; " but I never saw him :
he died before I was born."
" Poor old man," resumed Mrs. Quimby : " if I remem
ber right, Moses became childish many years before his
death."
Miss Lybrand then rose hastily, and proposed to her
immediate companions a walk farther into the woods ;
and Myrtilla, leaving the vicinity of Mr. Smith, came
forward and joined them, her friends making a private
signal to her not to invite the aforesaid gentleman to
accompany them.
Aunt Quimby saw them depart, and, looking round,
said, " Why, Mr. Smith, have the girls given you the slip ?
But, to be sure, they meant you to follow them."
Mr. Smith signified that he had no courage to do so
without an invitation, and that he feared he had already
been tiring Miss Cheston.
"Pho, pho!" said Mrs. Quimby: "you are quite too
humble. Pluck up a little spirit, and run after the girls."
"I believe," replied he, "I cannot take such a liberty."
" Then I'll call Captain Cheston to introduce you to
some more gentlemen. Here, Bromley "
"]So, no," said Mr. Smith, stopping her apprehensively:
394 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
"I would rather not intrude any farther upon his kind
ness."
" I declare, you are the shamefacedest man I ever saw
in my life I Well, then, you can walk about, and look at
the trees and bushes ; there's a fine large buttonwood, and
there's a sassafras ; or you can go to the edge of the bank,
and look at the river, and watch how the tide goes down
and leaves the splatter-docks standing in the mud. See
how thick they are at low water ! I wonder if you
couldn't count them? And maybe you'll see a wood-
shallop pass along, or maybe a coal-barge. And who
knows but a sturgeon may jump out of the water, and
turn head over heels and back again ? It's quite a hand
some sight."
(rood Mr. Smith did as he was bidden, and walked about
and looked at things, and probably counted the splatter-
docks, and perhaps saw a fish jump.
" It's all bashfulness, nothing in the world but bashful-
ness," pursued Mrs. Quimby. " That's the only reason
Mr. Smith don't talk."
" For my part," said a very elegant-looking girl, " I am
perfectly willing to impute the taciturnity of Mr. Smith
(and that of all other silent people) to modesty. But yet
I must say that, as far as I have had opportunities of ob
serving, most men above the age of twenty have sufficient
courage to talk, if they know what to say. When the
head is well furnished with ideas, the tongue cannot habit
ually refrain from giving them utterance."
"That's a very good observation," said Mrs. Quimby,
" and suits me exactly. But as to Mr. Smith, I do believe
it's all bashfulness with him. Between ourselves (though
the British consul warrants him respectable), I doubt
whether he was ever in such genteel society before ; and
maybe he thinks it his duty to listen and not to talk, poor
LESLIE] AUNT QUIMBY. 395
man. But then he ought to know that in our country he
need not be afraid of nobody, and that here all people are
equal, and one is as good as another."
"Not exactly," said the young lady. ""We have in
America, as in Europe, numerous gradations of mind,
manners, and character. Politically we are equal, as far
as regards the rights of citizens and the protection of the
laws ; and also we have no privileged orders. But indi
vidually it is difficult for the refined and the vulgar, the
learned and the ignorant, the virtuous and the vicious,
to associate familiarly and indiscriminately, even in a re
public."
The old lady looked mystified for a few moments, and
then proceeded: "As you say, people's different. "We
can't be hail-fellow-well-met with Tom, Dick, and Harry ;
but, for my part, I think myself as good as anybody."
No one contradicted this opinion, and just then a gen
tleman came up and said to the young lady, " Miss At-
wood, allow me to present you with a sprig of the last
wild roses of the season. I found a few still lingering on
a bush in a shady lane just above."
" ' I bid their blossoms in my bonnet wave,' "
said Miss At wood, inserting them amid one of the ribbon
bows.
" Atwood, Atwood," said Aunt Quimby : " I know the
name very well. Is not your father Charles Atwood, who
used to keep a large wholesale store in Front Street ?"
" I have the happiness of being that gentleman's daugh
ter," replied the young lady.
" And you live up Chestnut now, don't you, among the
fashionables ?"
" My father's house is up Chestnut Street."
" Your mother was a Boss, wasn't she ?"
396 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
" Her maiden name was Ross."
" I thought so," proceeded Mrs. Quimby. " I remem
ber your father very well. He was the son of Tommy
Atwood, who kept an ironmonger's shop down Second
Street by the New Market. Your grandfather was a
very obliging man, rather fat. I have often been in hia
store when we lived down that way. I remember once
of buying a waffle-iron of him, and when I tried it and
found it did not make a pretty pattern on the waffles I
took it back to him to change it ; but, having no other
pattern, he returned me the money as soon as I asked
him. And another time he had the kitchen tongs mended
for me without charging a cent, when I put him in mind
that I had bought them there ; which was certainly very
genteel of him. And no wonder he made a fortune, as
all people do that are obliging to their customers and
properly thankful to them." . . .
When the last carriage drew up, there was a buzz all
round : " There is the baron, there is the Baron von
Klingenberg, as usual, with Mrs. Blake Bentley and her
daughters."
After the new arrivals had been conducted by the
Chestons to the house, and adjusted their dresses, they
were shown into what was considered the drawing-room
part of the woods, and accommodated with seats. But it
was very evident that Mrs. Blake Bentley's party were
desirous of keeping chiefly to themselves, talking very
loudly to each other, and seemingly resolved to attract
the attention of every one around.
" Bromley," said Mrs. Quimby, having called Captain
Cheston to her, " is that a baron ?"
" That is the Baron von Klingenberg."
" "Well, between ourselves, he's about as ugly a man as
ever I laid my eyes on. At least he looks so at that
LESLIE] AUNT qUIMBY. 397
distance. A clumsy fellow, with high shoulders and a
round back, and his face all over hair, and as bandy as he
can be, besides. And he's not a bit young, neither."
"Barons never seem to me young," said Miss Turret-
ville, a young lady of the romantic school, " but counts
always do."
" I declare, even Mr. Smith is better-looking," pursued
Aunt Quimby, fixing her eyes on the baron. " Don't you
think so, miss ?"
"I think nothing about him," replied the fair Turret
ville.
"Mr. Smith," said Myrtilla, "perhaps is not actually
ugly, and if properly dressed might look tolerably ; but
he is too meek, and too weak. I wasted much time in
trying to entertain him as I sat under the tree, but he
only looked down and simpered, and scarcely ventured
a word in reply. One thing is certain, I shall take no
further account of him."
" Now, Myrtilla, it's a shame to set your face against
the poor man in this way. I dare say he is very good."
" That is always said of stupid people."
" No doubt it would brighten him wonderfully if you
were to dance with him when the ball begins."
" Dance !" said Myrtilla ; " dance with him ! Do you
suppose he knows either a step or a figure ? No, no ; I
shall take care never to exhibit myself as Mr. Smith's
partner; and I beg of you, Aunt Quimby, on no account
to hint such a thing to him. Besides, I am already en
gaged three sets deep." And she ran away on seeing that
Mr. Smith was approaching. . . .
" This assemblage," said the baron, " somewhat reminds
me of the annual fetes I give to my serfs in the park that
surrounds my castle at the cataract of the Rhine."
Miss Turretville had just come up, leaning on the arm
ii. 34
393 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [LESLIE
of Myrtilla Cheston. " Let us try to get nearer to the
baron," said she : " he is talking about castles. Oh, I am
so glad that I have been introduced to him ! I met him
the other evening at Mrs. De Mingle's select party, and
he took my fan out of my hand and fanned himself with
it. There is certainly an elegant ease about European
gentlemen that our Americans can never acquire."
" Where is the ease and elegance of Mr. Smith ?" thought
Myrtilla, as she looked over at that forlorn individual
shrinking behind Aunt Quimby.
" As I was saying," pursued the baron, lolling back in
his chair and applying to his nose Mrs. Bentley's magnifi
cent essence-bottle, " when I give these fetes to my serfs I
regale them with Westphalia hams from my own hunting-
grounds, and with hock from my own vineyards."
" Dear me ! ham and hock !" ejaculated Mrs. Quimby.
"Baron," said Miss Turretville, "I suppose you have
visited the Hartz Mountains ?"
" My castle stands on one of them."
" Charming ! Then you have seen the Brocken ?"
" It is directly in front of my ramparts."
" How delightful ! Do you never imagine that on a
stormy night you hear the witches riding through the
air, to hold their revels on the Brocken? Are there still
brigands in the Black Forest ?"
" Troops of them. The Black Forest is just back of
my own woods. The robbers were once so audacious as
to attack my castle, and we had a bloody fight. But we
at length succeeded in taking all that were left alive."
" What a pity ! Was their captain anything like Charles
de Moor ?"
" Just such a man."
" Baron," observed Myrtilla, a little mischievously, " the
situation of your castle must be unique, in the midst of
LESLIE] AUNT QUIMBY. 399
the Hartz Mountains, at the falls of the Rhine, with the
Brocken in front, and the Black Forest behind."
"You dote on the place, don't you?" asked Miss Tur-
retville. " Do you live there always ?"
" No : only in the hunting-season. I am equally at
home in all the capitals of the Continent. I might, per
haps, be chiefly at my native place, Vienna, only my
friend the emperor is never happy but when I am with
him ; and his devotion to me is rather overwhelming.
The truth is, one gets surfeited with courts and kings and
princes : so I thought it would be quite refreshing to take
a trip to America, having great curiosity to see what sort
of a place it is. I recollect, at the last court ball, the em
peror was teasing me to waltz with his cousin the Arch
duchess of Hesse-Hoblingen, who he feared would be
offended if I neglected her. But her serene highness
dances as if she had a cannon-ball chained to each foot,
and so I got off by flatly telling my friend the emperor
that if women chose to go to balls in velvet and ermine
and with coronets on their heads they might get princes
or some such people to dance with them, as, for my part,
it was rather excruciating to whirl about with persons in
heavy royal robes."
"Is it possible?" exclaimed Miss Turretville. "Did
you venture to talk so to an emperor? Of course before
next day you were loaded with chains and immured in a
dungeon, from which I suppose you escaped by a subter
ranean passage."
" Not at all. My old crony the emperor knows his man:
so he only laughed, and slapped me on the shoulder, and I
took his arm and we sauntered off together to the other
end of the grand saloon. I think I was in my hussar uni
form ; I recollect that evening I broke my quizzing-glass
and had to borrow the Princess of Saxe-Blinkenbersr's."
400 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [LESLIE
""Was it very elegant? set round with diamonds?"
asked Miss Matilda Bentley, putting up to her face a hand
on which glittered a valuable brilliant.
" Quite likely it was ; but I never look at diamonds ;
one gets so tired of them. I have not worn any of mine
these seven years. I often joke with my friend Pi-ince
Esterhazy about his diamond coat, that he will persist in
wearing on great occasions. Its glitter really incommodes
my eyes when he happens to be near me, as he generally
is. Wheneve^ he moves you may track him by the gems
that drop from it, and you may hear him far off by their
continual tinkling as they fall."
" Only listen to that, Mr. Smith !" said Aunt Quimby
aside to her protege. " I do not believe there is such a
man in the world as that Hester Hazy, with his diamond
coat, that he's telling all this rigmarole about. It sound?
like one of Mother Bunch's tales."
" I rather think there is such a man," said Mr. Smith.
" Nonsense, Mr. Smith ! Why, you're a greater goose
than I supposed."
Mr. Smith assented by a meek bow.
Dinner was now announced. The gentlemen conducted
the ladies, and Aunt Quimby led Mr. Smith ; but she could
not prevail on him to take a seat beside her, near the head
of the table, and directly opposite to the baron and his
party. He humbly insisted on finding a place for himself
very low down, and seemed glad to get into the neighbor
hood of Captain Cheston, who presided at the foot. . . .
When the dessert was set on, and the flow of soul was
Hucceeding to the feast which, whether of reason or not,
had been duly honored, Mrs. Quimby found leisure to look
around and resume her colloquy.
" I believe, madam, your name is Bentley," said she to
the lofty -looking personage directly opposite.
LESLIE! AUNT QUIMBF. 401
" I am Mrs. Blake Bentley," was the reply, with an im
perious stare that was intended to frown down all further
attempts at conversation. But Aunt Quimby did not
comprehend repulsion, and had never been silenced in her
life : so she proceeded,
" I remember your husband very well. He was a son
of old Benny Bentley, up Second Street, that used to keep
the sign of the Adam and Eve, but afterwards changed it
to the Liberty-Tree. His wife was a Blake : that was tho
way your husband came by his name. Her father was an
upholsterer, and she worked at the trade before she was
married. She made two bolsters and three pillows for me
at different times ; though I'm not quite sure it was not
two pillows and three bolsters. He had a brother, Billy
Blake, that was a painter: so he must have been your
husband's uncle."
" Excuse me," said Mrs. Blake Bentley, " I don't under
stand what you are talking about. But I'm very sure
there were never any artist people in the family."
" Oh, Billy Blake was a painter and glazier both," re
sumed Mrs. Quimby. " I remember him as well as if he
was my own brother. We always sent for him to mend
our broken windows. I can see him now, coming with
his glass-box and his putty. Poor fellow ! he was em
ployed to put a new coat of paint on Christ Church
steeple, which we thought would be a good job for him ;
but the scaffold gave way, and he fell down and broke his
leg "We lived right opposite, and saw him tumble. It's
a mercy he wasn't killed right out. He was carried home
on a hand-barrow. I remember the afternoon as well as
if it were yesterdaj^. "We had a pot-pie for dinner that
day ; and I happened to have on a new calico gown, a
green ground with a yellow sprig in it : I have some of
the pieces now in patchwork."
ii. aa 34*
402 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [LESLIB
Mrs. Blake Bentley gave Mrs. Quimby a look of un
qualified disdain, and then, turning to the baron, whis
pered him to say something that might stop the mouth
of that abominable old woman. And, by way of begin
ning, she observed aloud, " Baron, what very fine plums
these are !"
"Yes," said the baron, helping himself to them pro
fusely ; " and apropos to plums, one day when I happened
to be dining with the King of Prussia there were some very
fine peaches at table (we were sitting, you know, trifling
over the dessert), and the king said to me, ' Klingenberg,
my dear fellow, let's try which of us can first break that
large looking-glass by shooting a peach-stone at it.' "
"Bear me! what a king!" interrupted Mrs. Quimby.
"And now I look at you again, sir (there ! just now, with
your head turned to the light), there's something in your
face that puts me in mind of Jacob Stimbel, our Dutch
young man that used to live with us and help to do the
work. Mr. Quimby bought him at the wharf out of a
redemptioner ship. He was to serve us three years ; but
before his time was up he ran away (as they often do),
and went to Lancaster, and set up his old trade of a car
penter, and married a bricklayer's daughter, and got rich,
and built houses, and had three or four sons. I think I
heard that one of them turned out a pretty bad fellow.
I can see Jake Stimbel now, carrying the market -basket
after me, or scrubbing the pavement. Whenever I look
at you I think of him. Maybe he was some relation of
yours, as you both came from Germany."
" A relation of mine, madam !" said the baron.
" There now ! there's Jake Stimbel to the life ! He had
just that way of stretching up his eyes and drawing down
his mouth when he did not know what to say, which
was usually the case after he stayed on errands."
LESLIE] AUNT QUIMBY. 403
The baron contracted his brows and bit his lips.
" Fix your face as you will," continued Mrs. Quimby,
" you are as like him as you can look. I am sure I ought
to remember Jacob Stimbel, for I had all the trouble of
teaching him to do his work, besides learning him to talk
American ; and as soon as he had learnt, he cleared him
self oif, as I told you, and run away from us."
The baron now turned to Matilda Bentley, and endeav
ored to engage her attention by an arnest conversation
in an undertone ; and Mrs. Bentley looked daggers at
Aunt Quimby, who said, in a low voice, to a lady that sat
next to her,
" What a pity Mrs. Bentley has such a violent way with
her eyes ! She'd be a handsome woman if it was not for
that." . . .
The dancers had just taken their places for the first set,
when they were startled by the shrieks of a woman, which
seemed to ascend from the river-beach below. The gen
tlemen and many of the ladies ran to the edge of the bank
to ascertain the cause ; and Aunt Quimby, looking down
among the first, exclaimed, " Oh, mercy ! if there isn't Mr.
Smith a-collaring the baron, and Miss Matilda a-screaming
for dear life !"
" The baron collaring Mr. Smith, you mean," said Myr-
tilla, approaching the bank.
" No, no ! I mean as I say. Why, who'd think it was
in Mr. Smith to do such a thing ? Oh, see ! only look
how he shakes him ! And now he gives him a kick.
Only think of doing all that to a baron ! but I dare say
he deserves it. He looks more like Jake Stimbel than
ever."
Captain Cheston sprung down the bank (most of the
other gentlemen running after him), and, immediately
reaching the scene of action, rescued the foreigner, who
404 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [LESLIE
seemed too frightened to oppose any effectual resistance
to his assailant.
"Mr. Smith," said Captain Cheston, "what is the mean
ing of this outrage? and in the presence of a lady, too !"
" The lady must excuse me," replied Mr. Smith, " for it
is in her behalf I have thus forgotten myself so far as to
chastise on the spot a contemptible villain. Let us con
vey Miss Bentley up the bank, for she seems greatly
agitated, and I will then explain to the gentlemen the
extraordinary scene they have just witnessed."
" Only hear Mr. Smith, how he's talking out !" exclaimed
Aunt Quimby. " And there's the baron fellow putting up
his coat-collar and sneaking off round the corner of the
bank. I'm so glad he's turned out a scamp !"
Having reached the top of the bank, Matilda Bentley
who had nearly fainted was laid on a bench and con
signed to the care of her mother and sisters. A flood of
tears came to her relief; and while she was indulging in
them, Mrs. Bentley joined the group who were assembled
round Mr. Smith and listening to his narrative.
Mr. Smith explained that he knew this soi-disant Baron
von Klingenberg to be an impostor and a swindler. That
he had, some years since, under another name, made his
appearance in Paris as an American gentleman of German
origin and large fortune, but soon gambled away all his
money. That he afterwards, under different appellations,
visited the principal cities of the Continent, but always
left behind the reputation of a swindler. That he had
Been him last in London, in the capacity of valet to the
real Baron von Klingenberg, who, intending a visit to the
United States, had hired him as being a native of America
and familiar with the country and its customs; but, an
unforeseen circumstance having induced that gentleman
to relinquish this transatlantic voyage, his American valet
LESLIE] AUNT QUIMBY. 405
robbed him of a large sum of money and some valuable
jewels, stole also the letters of introduction which had
been obtained by the real baron, and with them had evi
dently been enabled to pass himself for his master. To
this explanation Mr. Smith added that while wandering
among the trees on the edge of the bank he had seen the
impostor on the beach below, endeavoring to persuade
Miss Bentley to an elopement with him, proposing that
they should repair immediately to a place in the neighbor
hood where the railroad-cars stopped on their way to New
York, and from thence proceed to that city, adding, " You
know there is no overtaking a railroad-car: so all pursuit
of us will be in vain ; besides, when once married all will
be safe, as you are of age, and mistress of your own for
tune." " Finding," continued Mr. Smith, " that he was
likely to succeed in persuading Miss Bentley to accompany
him, 1 could no longer restrain my indignation, which
prompted me to rush down the bank and adopt summary
measures in rescuing the young lady from the hands of so
infamous a scoundrel, whom nothing but my unwilling
ness to disturb the company prevented me from exposing
as soon as I saw him."
" Don't believe him !" screamed Mrs. Blake Bentley.
" Mr. Smith, indeed ! Who is to take his word ? "Who
knows what Mr. Smith is ?"
" I do !" said a voice from the crowd ; and there stepped
forward a gentleman who had arrived in a chaise with a
friend about half an hour before. " I had the pleasure of
knowing him intimately in England, when I was minister
to the court of St. James's."
" Maybe you bought your tins at his shop ?" said Aunt
Quimby.
The ex-ambassador, in a low voice, exchanged a few
words with Mr. Smith, and then, taking his hand, pre-
406 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
eented him as the Earl of Huntingford, adding, " The only
tin he deals in is that produced by his extensive mines in
Cornwall."
The whole company were amazed into a silence of some
moments, after which there was a general buzz of favor
able remark ; Captain Cheston shook hands with him, and
all the gentlemen pressed forward to be more particularly
introduced to Lord Huntingford.
"Dear me!" said Aunt Quimby; "to think that I
should have been so sociable with a lord, and a real one,
too ! And to think how he drank tea at Billy Fairfowl's
in the back parlor, and ate bread-and-butter just like any
other man ! And how he saved Jane and picked up
Johnny ! I suppose I must not speak to you now, Mr.
Smith, for I don't know how to begin calling you my
lord. And you don't seem like the same man, now that
you can look and talk like other people ; and excuse my
saying so even your dress looks genteeler."
" Call me still Mr. Smith, if you choose," replied Lord
Huntingford; and, turning to Captain Cheston, he con
tinued, " Under that name I have had opportunities of
obtaining much knowledge of your unique and interesting
country, knowledge that will be useful to me all the
remainder of my life, and that I could not so well have
acquired in my real character." . . .
When the fete was over, Lord Huntingford returned to
the city with his friend the ex-minister. At parting ho
warmly expressed his delight at having had an opportunity
of becoming acquainted with Captain Cheston and his
ladies ; and Aunt Quimby exclaimed, " It's all owing to
me. If it had not been for me, you might never have
known them. I always had the character of bringing
good luck to people: so it's no wonder I'm so welcome
everywhere."
DODGB] TOMMY. 407
TOMMY.
MARY A. DODGE.
r Tt is no easy matter to select from among the many witty and
piquant paragraphs of the popular " Gail Hamilton." Her aggressive
warfare upon things as they are has undoubtedly had a wholesome
effect upon American society. In fact, common sense is the ruling
characteristic of her writings, but this usually unpalatable food is so
well spiced in them as to become a very agreeable mental provender.
From her many works we select an amusing bit of " Country Living
and Country Thinking." Miss Dodge is a native of Hamilton, Massiv-
chusetts, where she was born in 1838.]
SOMETIMES when I am sitting in my room I hear a
prolonged " g-a-a-h !" Then I know that Tommy is out.
Tommy has escaped from his keepers, and is pursuing his
investigations in the world at large. So I go to the win
dow, and a pink gleam flashes up from the grass, and
there, sure enough, is Tommy, climbing up towards the
house with slow, tottering, uncertain steps, but with a
face indicative of a desperate resolve to get somewhere,
and with both arms acting as balancing-poles. Then I
call out, "Hul-\Q\ little Tom-mee /" and everything changes.
The arms drop, the feet stop, the resolution fades out of
his face. He looks blankly towards all points of the
compass, and when finally his eyes alight on me, what a
smile! An ordinary curve of his generous Irish lips
doesn't seem at all adequate to his feelings. He smiles
latitudinally and longitudinally, away round towards
the back of his head, up to his nose, and down into hja
chin. Out goes his right arm as far as it can stretch,
with the fat forefinger extended towards me, and a more
intense "g-a-a-h!" bursts from the little throat. Then,
with renewed energy, he resumes his travels. He does
408 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [DoDGK
very well so long as the ascent is gradual, but when it
becomes abrupt his troubles begin. It isn't the tumbling
down, however, that hurts him ; like all the rest of us,
he can do that very easily; but it is the getting up again
thut plays the mischief. He rears himself on his toes and
fingers, and there he stands, a round-backed little qu^u-
ruped, utterly at a loss what to do next ; for Tommy does
not yet understand the use of his knees. If he thinks I
am looking at him, he will stand there and squeal till
he becomes convinced that I have gone away and left him
to his own resources, which I generally do; when he
drops, or rolls, or squirms along, in some illegal and un-
anatomical way, and at last stands radiant in the porch.
Then he steers straightway to the side-lights. Those
side-lights are an unfailing source of admiring wonder.
If somebody is on the opposite side to play bo-peep, he is
ecstatic. If nobody is there, he is calmly blissful.
Tommy is a great nuisance during the " fall cleaning."
He is always getting into the soapsuds and hot water
generally. I volunteered once to take charge of him. I
was going to tack down a carpet. Tommy looked on in
amazement. Then he got down on the floor and tried to
take the tacks in his soft fingers. I rapped the soft fingers
with my carpet-hammer. He gave one yell, and drew
them back. I kept on with my work. In a minute the
soft fingers were creeping in among the tacks. Anothei
rap, another yell, another creep, rap I yell ! creep, till I
grew tired of rapping, if he did not of being rapped. I
suppose I didn't hit quite hard enough ; but one doesn't
like to take liberties with other people's babies. Then I
took hold of him by the back of his frock with one hand,
carried him, with head and feet hanging, to the farthest
side of the room, and deposited him in a corner. I had
hardly driven one tack in, before the little rascal was
DODGE] TOMMY. 409
rounding up his back again under my very eyes. I
gathered him up once more, and dumped him in the
corner as before. Evidently it was fine fun for him.
Nothing could exceed the alacrity with which he crawled
over to me. In despair, I at length put up the tacks, and
proceeded to arrange some curtain-fixtures. Tommy was
suspiciously still for several minutes, and when I went to
ascertain the cause I found he had got a bucket of sea-
sand that had been left in the room, had emptied it on
the carpet, and was flinging it about in royal style. I
regretted to stop his enjoyment, for I have a fondness for
sand myself, but it did not seem to be appropriate under
the circumstances, and I scooped it up as well as I could,
and put it beyond his reach. The next time I looked at
him, which was in about a quarter of a minute, he was ex
erting himself to the utmost in pushing a large pitcher off
the lower part of the wash-hand-stand. I caught it just as
it was toppling over the brink, and before I could get that
out of harm's way he had tumbled a writing-desk out of
a chair, scattering pens, ink, and paper in all directions.
I saw at once that if I was going to take care of Tommy
I must " give my mind to it." I took him into the kitchen,
as the place best prepared to resist his incursions. He
struck a bee-line for the stove, and covered himself with
crock. I couldn't undertake to wash him, but I mopped
him up a little, put on his hat, and took him out to walk.
Everything went on blithely till I turned to go home;
then he raised the standard of rebellion. Tommy seldom
cries, but he has a gamut of most surprising squeals at his
command. On the present occasion he exhibited them in
wonderful variety and with remarkable compass of sound.
I might say every step was a squeal. The neighborhood
rushed to the windows, not unreasonably fearing a repeti
tion of " the babes in the wood." I covered his eyes, and
II. s 35
410 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [DODGE
swung him around rapidly three or four times, to bewilder
him so that he should not know which way he was going.
But Tommy was too old a bird to be caught by such chaff.
He pulled backward, sidewise, every way but the way he
ought to have pulled. I sat down on the root of an old
elm-tree, and gazed at him in silent despair. He smiled
back at me serene as a summer morning, but the moment
I showed symptoms of starting he showed symptoms of
squealing, till at length I conquered my compunctions,
took him up in my arms, crock and all, and carried him
home.
Tommy has a little black kitten, and the understanding
between them is wonderful to see. Whenever you see
Tommy's pink dress, you may be sure the kitty's glossy
fur is not far off ; and she whisks around him and tanta
lizes him in the most provoking manner. Sometimes they
both run a steeple-chase after her tail : kitty is too wise by
far to let anything so valuable as her tail get into the
clutch of those undiscriminating fingei*s ; but she frisks
and gambols around him delightfully, and Tommy turns,
too, as fast as he can, and doesn't know that the flashing
tail is never to be got hold of by him. It is surprising
how slowly children develop compared with other animals.
Tommy's kitten is a good deal younger than he, yet she
makes nothing of climbing up to the ridge-pole of the
barn after the doves, which she never catches, or scudding
up the tall cherry-tree and peeping down at Tommy from
the upper branches. I believe she does it to excite his
envy.
Tommy is intimate only with the kitten, but he makes
friends with the chickens, and cultivates the acquaintance
of the pig by throwing the clothes-pins over into his pen.
An old rooster, nearly as tall as himself, seems to have
attracted his especial regard. His efforts to catch him aro
DODGB] TOMMY. 411
persistent, though as yet unsuccessful. He evidently has
perfect faith in his ultimate success, however, and every
time Booster heaves in sight Tommy makes a lurch after
him with both arms extended. Booster understands per
fectly how matters stand, and preserves a dignified com
posure till Tommy gets within a foot of him, when he
leisurely withdraws. Tommy stops a moment, takes a
survey, and goes at it again.
The days, and the weeks, and the months pass on, and
Tommy's rich Irish blood ripens in the summer sunshine.
His tottering legs grow firmer. His dimpled arms fore
bode strength. As I sit at my window, I see the apple-
trees in the orchard grow white with bloom, and under
them my best silk umbrella is marching about, as the courts
say, without any visible means of support. While I gaze
in astonishment, it suddenly gives a lurch, and reveals
Tommy under its capacious dome in a seventh heaven of
ecstasy. Or I am startled, while sitting alone in the warm
afternoon, by seeing a blue eye just a naked, human
eye peering in through the lowest chink of a closed
blind opening on the porch. It turns out to belong to
Tommy, who by standing on tiptoe in the porch can just
get one eye in range. Now I see him trotting down tho
lane alone, clad in a gay scarlet frock, et prceterea nihil, his
fat little legs brown with dirt, his white neck, face, and
arms mottled with the same, and his curly hair a jungle.
From his abstracted and eager manner, I infer that he is
bent on some grave errand. "Where going, Tommy?" I
call, suspicious of a secret expedition. " O-gah-gi-bah !"
shouts Tommy, without slackening his pace. Out comes
his mother, with a twig, and gives chase. Tommy be
comes cognizant of a fire in the rear, and his eager walk
tumbles into a trot, for he feels that he is verily guilty,
and knows that he is easily accessible ; but fate overtakes
412 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [DoDGK
him, and he is borne ignominiously back. Then his
mother explains that she had just been trying on his new
frock, and had remarked that she must get some buttons,
and so Tommy had stolen away and was going "over-
shop-get-buttons."
Accidents, we are told, will happen in the best of fami
lies, and Tommy awoke one morning and found that his
nose was out of joint. A little, lumpy baby sister had
sadly deranged the machinery of his life, and he didn't
know what to make of it. Formerly, when he stole out
doors unawares, his pretty young mother used to run out
after him and toss him up in her stout, bare arms into the
house. Now an old woman in a cap came, and brought
her hand down very heavily on his sensitiveness. Then,
too, he was ousted out of his cradle by the interloper, and
his life was in a fair way of becoming a burden to him.
But his good nature never failed. To be sure, he would
throw the plates, and the flat-irons, and the coal, into the
cradle, but it was probably " all in fun." When I went in
to see " the baby," the first time, he pointed to it with
great exultation, and, as soon as the blanket was rolled
down, first poked his finger into her eyes, and then, quick
as thought, gave her a rousing slap on the cheek. Baby
screamed, as she had a right to do, and Tommy had the slap
returned with compound interest, as he richly deserved.
Yet, in senseless, instinctive fashion, in his wild, Irish
way, Tommy loved his baby sister. The little life drooped
and died while the roses were yet in bloom. Tommy's
baby sister was borne to her burial, and Tommy's heart
was troubled with a blind fear. What it was he did not
know, but something was wrong. He lingered about the
cradle where she lay, and when the tiny form was taken
up to be placed in the coffin he plucked wildly at her
white robe, crying bitterly, and refused to be comforted
DODGE] TOMMY. 413
Darling little Tommy! The very thought of your
happy face, white and soft, and fine as a lily-cup, of your
merry blue eyes, with their long, curling, black eyelashes,
of your bungling little feet and your meddlesome little
fingers, warms my heart. If I could have my way, you
should always stay just as you are now, only having your
face washed semi-occasionally. But I cannot have my
way, and you will by and by run to school barefoot, and
wear blue overalls, and smoke bad tobacco in a dingy pipe,
and carry a hod, and vote the " Dimmocratic ticket."
So I said last year, with foolish human prophecy, and
now, behold ! there is no Democratic ticket to vote, and
there is no Tommy to vote it. For Tommy is gone.
Never any more while I live shall the gleam of his shining
hair light up the greensward, or the irregular thumping
of his copper-toed shoes bring music to my ears as he
stumbles up the yard and clatters across the kitchen floor.
A dreamy October morning, all gold ano amethyst with
the haze of the Indian summer, took him beyond my
eight over the blue waters to the fair island of his fathers,
which has been to me ever since a " summer isle of Eden,
lying in dark purple spheres of sea ;" and it seemed to me
for the moment that nothing would be so delightful,
nothing looked so winning, as to leave this surging, eager,
battling land, and sail over the sea with Tommy, and live
quietly in a little brown cottage on the border of Donegal
bog, with a well-burnt pipe in the cupboard, plenty of
peat on the fire, potatoes smoking in the ashes, a fine fat
pig in the corner, and nothing to be careful or troubled
about all the days of my life.
"While I grieve for Tommy gone, I reflect that he would
probably be a little pest if he had stayed. Already his
feet were swift to do mischief. His rosy lips could swear
you as round an oath as any Flanders soldiers, and he beat
ii. 35*
414 BEST AMERICA* AUTHORS. [Doer
the calf, and chased the hens, and worried the sheep, and
poked the cow, and pulled the cat's tail, and worked the
key out of the door and lost it, and was perpetually carry
ing off the hoe and making the gravel fly, and surrepti
tiously possessing himself of the whip. Fumble, rattle,
Tommy is at the door; creak, creak, he has got it
open ; thump, thump, thump, he is making for the whip ;
silence, he is getting it down. " Tommy ! Tomm^ !
don't touch the whip, will you ?" " No," says Tommy,
stoutly, in the very act of marching off with it firmly
clasped in both hands, brandishing it right and left, and
whisking every living thing, and dead one too, that came
in his way, or that didn't, either, for that matter.
In the warm, moonlight evening, Tommy sits again in
a high chair in the porch, and his mother tells me of the
home to which she is going in Ireland, and of the schools
which Tommy will attend, and the books that he will
study, and she promises to send me one to look at ; but I
greatly fear it will never reach me. As the conversation
proceeds, I am driven into a corner and forced to admit
that I do not reckon among my acquisitions an acquaint
ance with the Irish language. She is silent for a moment,
and never fails in the politeness of her race ; but I do not
think I shall ever quite recover the ground which that
revelation cost me. I fear me my reputation is perma
nently lowered. Tommy, climbing in and out of his high
chair, up his mother's neck, and down the porch steps,
wiggling everywhere and clawing everything, takes part
in the pleasant chat. " Where are you going, Thomas, by
and by ?" asks his mother, designing to show his paces.
" K-t-ty, k-t-ty," gurgles Tommy, making a dive after the
kitten. "Now, Thomas," says she, drawing him back
with a strong arm, "tell 'em where you're going next
month, in a ship, you know, over the water." " Cow,"
DODGE] TOMMY.
says Tommy, perversely, having a mortal aversion to
water, wholesale and retail. But I know a quick way to
his tongue. " Tommy, tell me where you are going, and
I'll give you a sugar-plum." " Irle," says he, with a fine
brogue, rapidly coming to his senses. " An tell 'em
what'll your gran'father be sayin' to you when he seefa
you." A pink peppermint in my hand becoming visible
to the naked eye, he answers, promptly, "Ye! gal Tom!
wi ! ko ! yah ! bk !" which, being interpreted, means,
" Here comes Tom with the clock on his back," referring
to a clock which is to be carried with them, and which
he evidently believes will be his own personal luggage.
Sometimes his answer turns into " Here's Tom, coming in
at the door !" which seems to me to indicate a decided
dramatic power. " Tommy," I say, pathetically, " I am
afraid you will forget all about me when you go to Ire
land." " Iss," roars Tommy, backing out from under his
chair. " But I want you not to forget. Stand still, now,
and tell me what my name is." " Yah !" shouts Tommy,
jumping up and down. "Yah what?" "Yah Yah!"
And even when the last morning comes, when Tommy,
gay with scarlet frock and feather and " bran-new" shoes,
is borne in his mother's arms up the steps to say his last
good-by, the hard-hearted little pagan is utterly unmoved
by her tears, and only jounces up and down, and cries,
"Kide! Horse!" and, in virtue of a dough-nut in each
fist, marches off for fatherland, triumphant.
But Ireland is glorified henceforth. I see no more there
want, nor squalor, nor suffering, but verdurous meadow -
depths, and a little child crowned with myrtle and ar
butus flinging around him the crushed wealth of daisy
and prim-roses and gold-cups, while his upturned face,
shining against the morning sun, is as it were the face of
an angel.
416 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WASHINOTON
FAREWELL ADDRESS.
GEORGE WASHINGTON.
i [Of Washington biographically we have nothing to say. There
must he very few of our readers who are not familiar with his biog-
raphy. He takes a position in general literature mainly by his " Fare
well Address to the People of the United States," one of the most
notable and valuable documents that was ever issued by the leader
of a state, and one which, while the United States exists, must ever
remain a portion of its cherished literary treasures. It is written in a
clear, eloquent, and forcible manner, and the advice which it gives, if
it had had proper weight upon the minds of the American people,
might have saved us from the untold horrors of the civil war.]
. . . THE unity of government, which constitutes you
one people, is also now dear to you. It is justly so ; for
it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence,
the support of your tranquillity at home ; your peace
abroad ; of your safety ; of your prosperity ; of that very
liberty which you so highly prize. But, as it is easy to
foresee that, from different causes and from different quar
ters, much pains will be taken, many artifices employed,
to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth ; as
this is the point in your political fortress against which
the batteries of internal and external enemies will be
most constantly and actively, though often covertly and
insidiously, directed, it is of infinite moment that you
should properly estimate the immense value of your na
tional union to your collective and individual happiness;
that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immova
ble attachment to it, accustoming yourselves to think
and speak of it as of the palladium of your political safety
and prosperity ; watching for its preservation with jeal
ous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest
WASHINGTON] FAREWELL ADDRESS. 417
oven a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned ,
and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every
attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the
rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together
the various parts. . . .
To the efficacy and permanency of your union, a gov
ernment for the whole is indispensable. ~No alliances,
however strict, between the parts can be an adequate sub
stitute : they must inevitably experience the infractions
and interruptions which all alliances in all times have ex
perienced. Sensible of this momentous truth, you have
improved upon your first essay, by the adoption of a
Constitution of government better calculated than your
former for an intimate union, and for the efficacious man
agement of your common concerns. This government,
the offspring of our own choice, uninfluenced and unawed,
adopted upon full investigation and mature deliberation,
completely free in its principles, in the distribution of
its powers, uniting security with energy, and containing
within itself a provision for its own amendment, has a
just claim to your confidence and your support. Respect
for its authority, compliance with its laws, acquiescence
in its measures, are duties enjoined by the fundamental
maxims of true liberty. The basis of our political sys
tems is the right of the people to make and to alter their
Constitutions of government. But the Constitution which
at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authen
tic- act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon
all. The very idea of the power and the right of the
people to establish government, presupposes the duty of
every individual to obey the established government.
All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all com
binations and associations, under whatever plausible char
acter, with the real design to direct, control, counteract,
ii. bb
418 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WASHINGTON
or awe the regular deliberation and action of the con
stituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental
principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize
faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force, to
put in the place of the delegated will of the nation the
will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising
minority of the community ; and, according to the alter
nate triumphs of different parties, to make the public
administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incon
gruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of con
sistent and wholesome plans digested by common councils
and modified by mutual interests. However combinations
or associations of the above description may now and then
answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of
time and things, to become potent engines by which cun
ning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to
subvert the power of the people, and to usurp for them
selves the reins of government ; destroying afterwards
the very engines which have lifted them to unjust do
minion.
Towards the preservation of your government and the
permanency of your present happy state, it is requisite
not only that you steadily discountenance irregular oppo
sition to its acknowledged authority, but also that you
resist with care the spirit of innovation upon its princi
ples, however specious the pretexts. One method of
assault may be to effect, in the forms of the Constitution,
alterations which will impair the energy of the system,
and thus to undermine what cannot be directly over
thrown. In all the changes to which you may be invited,
remember that time and habit are at least as necessary to
fix the true character of governments as of other human
institutions; that experience is the surest standard by
which to test the real tendency of the existing Constitu-
WASHINGTON] FAREWELL ADDRESS. 419
tion of a country ; that facility in changes, upon the credit
of mere hypothesis and opinion, exposes to perpetual
change, from the endless variety of hypothesis and opin
ion ; and remember, especially, that for the efficient man
agement of your common interests in a country so exten
sive as ours, a government of as much vigor as is consistent
with the perfect security of liberty is indispensable. Lib
erty itself will find in such a government, with powers
properly distributed and adjusted, its surest guardian. It
is, indeed, little else than a name, where the government
is too feeble to withstand the enterprises of faction, to
confine each member of the society within the limits
prescribed by the laws, and to maintain all in the secure
and tranquil enjoyment of the rights of person and prop
erty. . . .
Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political
prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable sup
ports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of pa
triotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars
of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of
men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the
pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A vol
ume could not trace all their connections with private
and public felicity. Let it simply be asked, where is the
security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense
of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the in
struments of investigation in the courts of justice? And
let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality
can be maintained without religion. Whatever may bo
conceded to the influence of refined education on minds
of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid
us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclu
sion of religious principle.
'Tis substantially true that virtue or morality is a
420 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [ROLLINS
necessary spring of popular government. The rule, in
deed, extends with more or less force to every species of
free government. Who that is a sincere friend to it can
look with indifference upon attempts to shake the founda
tion of the fabric ?
Promote, then, as an object of primary importance,
institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In
proportion as the structure of a government gives force
to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should
be enlightened. . . .
WINTER PLEASURES.
E. H. ROLLINS.
["New England Bygones," the work of Ellen H. Rollins, a lady
" to the manner horn," is so dainty and full in its picturesque descrip
tions of home life in the country that it is well worthy of the popular
favor into which it has risen. From its many interesting chapters we
select one descriptive of winter life and scenery in New England,
which is partly good for all time, partly has in it the flavor of a past
which has been left behind in the rapid course of American progress
Mrs. Rollins was born in Wakefield, New Hampshire, in 1831, and
died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1881.]
How utterly transforming to the country is the first
positive snow-fall of winter 1 It is a thing of life ; it
clings and hangs everywhere. Its great, fluffy ridges and
folds put out of sight fences and rocks and hillocks and
highways, and bleach the gray surface of the landscape
into a dazzling whiteness. Under this new veneering
the most untidy farm-houses are beautiful, and the worst-
tilled fields as good as the best. "Waking up into such a
change some winter morning is like going into a new
ROLLINS] WINTER PLEASURES. 421
world. It is coming out from the gray mourning of the
almost dead year into a sublime white silence.
Every country-born person can recall such greeting of
an early snow, to meet which he has gone forth with
elastic step and heart. Slowly and picturesquely motion
is thrust upon the scene. Walkers, scuffling through the
light snow, trail slender paths along; smoke coils from
chimneys ; cattle are let into the sunny barn-yards ; life
spills out from the farm-houses ; troughs are chopped free
from ice ; men begin to hack at the wood-piles and draw
water from the wells ; teams are harnessed ; children start
for school ; the new landscape is alive with workers,
thrust out with startling distinctness from its snow back
ground.
Directly off from roofs and fences and rocks and higher
hillocks, with the sun's march, slips this snow covering,
and from the beautiful, evanescent picture arises another,
with added warmth and life and color. To one driving
through a forest at such a time it is as if fairies had
been at work and laden its minutest twigs with a rare
white burden. Snow-clad old wood, through which I
passed years ago on my way to my grandfather's farm,
you are as lovely in memory as you were in reality then.
It is early morning. The air seems to crackle with the
magic of frost-work. Fleecy fringes are falling from the
overburdened branches and fling over me great, foam-
like flakes; the horses' hoofs sink deep and noiselessly.
Footprints of wild animals are thick in the wood, and all
along the wayside are tracks of squirrels, rabbits, and
such harmless things. Loaded teams grow frequent, and
sleighs fly past. The sound of bells is crisp and loud.
Betsy pricks up her ears and flings out a spray -like cloud
on either side. The little dog following after shoots over
the wall, bounding neck deep into the unbroken snow
n. 36
422 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [ROLLINS
sniffs at the tiny footmarks of game, plunges into the
wood, and I hear him barking shortly after far ahead.
Twigs begin to snap. There is a crackle through the
wood, the sun is climbing up, the snow is melting, and,
falling from the trees, sinks with a fluffy sound into the
cooler bed below. Sharp and distinct is the voice of this
dissolving panorama. As the sun gets power, the snow
garment shrinks, and all of a sudden it glides off from the
grim old wood.
Often a mist or a rain, coming upon the newly-fallen
snow, crystallizes it into solid shapes, and the sun gives
to this frost-work a bewildering beauty. Nothing could
surpass my old wood thus clad. It was a sublime, many-
arched, crystal cathedral, outlined with flashing bright
ness. What a transient thing it was ! As quickly as the
sun gilded it, just so quickly did it demolish it. Glittering
pillar and frieze and cornice suddenly disintegrated, and
under the gray, naked old trees thick-strewn twigs and
fast-melting icicles were all that was left of this palace of
carved ice.
How short the winter days used to seem ! how clear-cut
they were by snow and cold and lack of growing life!
What winters those were of forty years ago, when snow
drifts blotted out the features of a landscape and levelled
the country into a monotonous white plain ; when people
woke in the morning to find their windows blocked up, and
the chief labor of months was to keep their roads open.
Much joy the young people got out of these same snow
drifts. The crusts which hid the fences gave them ample
coasting-fields, and they burrowed like rabbits in the
drifts. I remember a village, beloved by Boreas, which
was beset by mimic Laplanders, who used to call out to
surprised travellers from their caves in the piled-up way
side. In this same village the adventurous boy used to
KOLLINS] WINTER PLEASURES. 423
shoot over highway and fence, across fields, past a frozen
brook, up to the edge of a forest a mile off. His small
craft was liable to strand by the way, and lucky was he if
he did not bring up against the jagged bark of some out
standing tree. His sled was home-made, of good wood,
mortised and pinned together, and shod with supple
withes, which with use took a polish like glass, and had
seldom to be renewed.
Boys and girls slid and coasted through their childhood,
and this keen challenge of the north winds, this flinging
of muscle against the rude forces of winter, shaped and
strengthened them for after-labor. They glided along the
highway, over the ruts made by iron-shod wood-sleds;
they guttered the snow-drifts with tracks ; and wherever
the rain had settled and frozen in the fields or by the
wayside, they cleared and cut up the ponds with their
swift-flying feet. Ploughing knee-deep through freshly-
fallen snows to the village school, roughly clad, rosy-
cheeked, joyous, they eagerly beset passing sleds and
sleighs, hanging to stakes and clinging to runners, from
which they tumbled into the school-house entry, stamping
it full of snow. The girls were not a whit behind the
boys in their clamor and agility. They slid down the
steep snow-banks and up and down the ice-paths, swift
and fearless, and burst into the school-room almost as
riotously as the boys.
Tea-drinkings were the usual social diversions of the
farm-house winter life. They were prim occasions, on
which the best china, linen, and silver were brought out.
Pound-cake and pies and cheese and dough-nuts and cold
meats were set forth, and guests partook of them with
appetites sharpened by the rarity of the occasion. Neigh
bors from miles away were liable, on any winter's evening,
to drive into my grandfather's yard for a social cup of tea.
424 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
The women took off their wraps, smoothed their cap-
borders, and planted themselves, knitting-work in hand,
before the hearth in the best room. The men put up
their horses, and, coming back, they stamped their feet
furiously in the entry, and blustered into the sitting-
room, filling it with frosty night-air. They talked of the
weather, of the condition of their stock, of how the past-
year's crops held out, and told their plans for the coming
year. The women gossiped of town affairs, the minister,
the storekeeper's latest purchase, of their dairies, and
webs, and linens, and wools, keeping time with flying
fingers to the tales they told. The unconscious old clock
in the corner kept ticking away the while, and Hannah,
in the next room, set in order the repast, to which they
did ample justice, growing more garrulous when inspired
by the fine flavor of hospitality. They came and also
went away early. When the outer door and big gate had
closed after them, there had also gone out with them all
extra movement and bustle from the household. Every
spoon and fork and plate was already in its place, the
remnants of the feast had disappeared, and the family
was ready to take up on the morrow the slackened thread
of its working ways.
The leave-takings of these ancient hosts and guests
were simple and beautiful. They shook hands and passed
salutations and good wishes with as much gravity as if
they had been going to some far land ; and the pleasure
which the visitors avowed in the graciousness shown them
was heart-felt. Merrily jingled their bells from out the
farm-yard into the highway, and, softly dying out with
distance, the sound came back from the far-off hills in
pleasant echo.
Tender, true hospitality, simple customs, rare entertain
ments, you left no sting, no weariness, behind you. You
ROLLINS] WINTER PLEASURES. 425
gave and impoverished not. You were ungilded, but dig
nified and decorous, healthful and pleasure-giving. If
you were plain, you were not inelegant, for your silver
was pure, your china quaint and costly, your linens were
fine-twined, your viands were well cooked and wholesome.
You were simply served to simple guests, but not without
etiquette and the essence of style. The host carved with
dexterity, and the hostess, in her busy passes, was in
stinctively observant of the tastes and needs of her guests.
That which garments lacked in material and make, the
ruddy firelight imparted to them, painting these robust
farmers and matrons into rarely-costumed pictures. "What
of high culture was wanting to their speech was given to
it by the sweet piety and purity of it. They talked of
what made up their daily lives, and that was the yearly
marvels and glories of ever-dying, ever-renewing nature.
The men, discoursing of winds and rains and cattle and
grasses and trees and grains, stumbled upon many truths
of high philosophy, and, reviewing with earnest faith the
sermons of the Sabbath-day, showed themselves well
grounded in all gospel doctrine. The women, innocently
prattling of the webs they wove, drawing in and out the
threads of much discourse, mixed with it many a fine-spun
sentiment, and the golden overshot of the few but keenly-
relished diversions of their serious lives. The serving-
maid and serving-man, listening to them, and catching
the glow of the firelight past them, went into the back
ground of the picture, to be quaint creatures of remem
bered scenes. They themselves, observant and reverent
of their elders, felt the sweets of hospitality in their own
hearts, and in ministering generously unto others were
themsolves being ministered unto.
The winter lull of vegetation was often spent by my
grandmother and Hannah in the spinning and dyeing ami
ii. 36*
426 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [KOLLINS
weaving of woollen fabrics, to be afterwards fashioned into
quilts. The most esteemed of these were made of glossy,
dark flannel, lined with yellow, with a slight wadding of
carded wool. For such a quilt the best fleece was set
aside, and many dyes steeped in the chimney-corner.
Fastened to a frame, it was in summer the fine needle
work of the house. Neighbors invited to tea helped to
prick into it, stitch by stitch, the shapes of flowers and
leaves. They came early and bent over it with grim zeal,
helped on by the gradual showing of the pattern. They
loved to take out the pins and roll up the thing, counting
its coils with delight. The quilting of it was hard work,
but the women called this rest, and were made happy by
such simple variation of labor. They kept up their
harmless babble until sundown, when one, more anxious
than the rest, catching sight of a returning herd, would
exclaim, " The cows are coming, and I must go." Shortly
they might all be seen hurrying hither and thither through
green lanes, back to the cares which they had for a few
hours shifted.
The finishing of this quilt made a gala day for the
neighborhood. It was unrolled and cut out with much
excitement. When Hannah took it to the porch door to
shake it out, the women all followed her, clutching its
edges, remarking upon the plumpness of the stitched
leaves and the fineness of its texture. It was truly a
beautiful thing, for it was a growth of the farm, an ex
pression of the life of its occupants, a fit covering for
those who made it.
The winter diversions of the young people were just
as simple as those of their elders. What could be quainter
than the singing-school, held in a country school-house,
with its rows of tallow candles planted along the desks,
and its loud-voiced master pitching his tunes ? The young
KOLLINS] WINTER PLEASURES. 427
men sat on one side and the maidens on the other. Its
wild music was heard far away. The tunes sung were of
long repute, and what was wanting in melody and har
mony was made up by the zeal with which they were
roared out. To many of the singers the walk home was
the best of all, when, in undertone, they lengthened out
the melodies which had been taught them.
Apple-bees and spelling-matches sometimes brought to
gether the fathers and mothers of the district, as well as
their sons and daughters. The former were apt to mean
frolics, which carried more confusion than profit into a
farmer's kitchen. The latter were the occasions of much
healthy merriment.
After all, the true zest to these diversions was given to
them by the bright moonlight which generally brought
them to pass. It was a welcome comer, and turned the
introverted evening life of the farm-houses out into illu
minated lanes and highways. Solemn highways on gray
winter evenings ; one got easily bewildered in them and
thrown off from his track. Objects loomed up out of the
snow, and harmless things took strange shapes and looked
ghostly in distance and whiteness. Horses were apt to
shy, runners bounced with a sharp click upon the uneven
path, and bells rang sharply in the clear, cold air. Merry,
merry bells, telling of coming and departing guests, the
one jocund voice of winter, putting the traveller in heart,
making glad the listening ear, ringing right joyously into
farm lano and yard, who does not welcome with delight
the old-time jingle? The sound of country bells, struck
out by the slow, measured pace of farm-horses, was of
prolonged measure. It was deep, too, because the bells
were made large and of good metal. The peculiar sound
of each farmer's bells became as much his personal posses
sion as his own voice, and they were quite sure to last his
428 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
lifetime. As much as the winds the bells gave voice to
the season. It was joyous mostly, yet with a wild pathos
in its music when dying out in tortuous country ways,
with that sad indistinctness of any sound which had well-
nigh passed into silence.
Akin to the bells for sweetness of expression were tho
farm-house lights, starring the landscape and telling tho
traveller of peaceful in-door life. Driving through tho
country, silent with the rest of winter, one cannot over
estimate the companionship and friendliness of the lighted
windows of outlying habitations. The breaking of a
farm-light upon your sight is like the grasp of a living
hand, and with it comes out to you the peace of firesides ;
by it, unawares, people send forth to you the warm glow
of hospitality. An unlighted house in the sparsely-settled
country is most forlorn. It is a body without a soul, a
thing which ought to be alive and is not.
In the simplicity of ancient country life the homespun
curtains were seldom let down at eventide. The farm
houses were mostly the length of a lane from the road
side, and so the pictures of their in-door life were sent out
from their small windows through a softened perspective.
What could be better than the white-headed old man
dozing in one chimney-corner, the dear old grandmother
nodding in the other, the middle-aged son and daughter
resting over light work, the back-log, getting ready for
its raking up, the walls hung with tokens of sleeping
child-life, such as slates, caps, and comforters, homely
things, catching the light of dying embers ?
How bright the winter sunsets were, how clear and
starlit the nights, how bracing and electric the air, how
much more generous than harsh was that climate which,
while it blotted out vegetation, at the same time spread
over the landscape a great spectacular glory I
KOLLINS] WINTER PLEASURES. 42U
Shut in by frost-work from sight of the out-of-doora
world, have you never, when a child, breathed upon an
icy pane, and, through the loophole thus made, caught a
condensed view of the glories of a winter's day ?
Picturesque upon snow were the most common move
ments of farm-life. Men, chopping logs, seemed more like
players than workers. With what steady swing their
axes rose and fell ! how these glittered in the sunshine !
The chips that flew freely about, tilted at all angles, how
fresh they were, with their prettily-marked lines of yearly
growth, their shaggy bark, and their scent of sap ! The
sound of the axe was resonant and cheery, putting life
into a farm-yard. It echoed still more pleasantly from a
woodland, whence it came with a muffled indistinctness,
like a regular pulse-beat of labor. The choppers seemed
never to tire ; only they stopped now and then to bran
dish their stiffened arms and gaze at their growing piles
with thrifty pride. They wore mittens of blue and white,
striped, or knit in a curious pattern, called "chariot-
wheels," by the housewives. Many of them had leathern
patches upon thumb and palm.
How contentedly the cattle stood chewing their cuds
and blinking their eyes ; looking askance at the long
icicles which hung from eaves of barns and trickled drops
upon their backs ! Women came out with baskets and
buckets for wood and water, and, in the silent attitude of
labor, paused for a moment and basked in the sunshine.
Wood-laden sleds dragged along the highway, with boys
and girls clinging to their stakes; and the teamsters'
shouts to " Broad" and " Bright" mingled with the chatter
and laughter of boys and girls. Eoofs, lazily drying,
smoked in the sunshine; and you heard the weather-
wise farmer saying to his neighbor, " It thaws in the sun
to-day."
430 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [ROLLINS
Beautiful was the heavily-coiling smoke in tho crisp
morning air. How deliciously its opaque whiteness was
piled against a background of sky I What a charming
aerial welcome it was from the morning life of the farm
house !
Beautiful was the fantastic piling of storm-clouds, fore-
i unners of winds ; and beautiful were the rugged drifts
made by flying snows.
Hush ! I am young again. The homely scenes have
all come back, the old workers into their old ways and
places, and the earth they deal with wraps them about
with its splendor. Snow King, grand old Master, variously
carving out the features of a winter landscape, I salute
you!
Dear dwellers in that old-fashioned home, I salute you
also ! You seem to me in memory as stately and as beau
tiful as one of the tall oaks of your own possessions.
Nature was your godmother. She led you in childhood
through her fields and pastures and woodlands. She dis
tilled for you the best balsams of her trees and shrubs.
You unwittingly quaffed them as you went with her, and
they gave you health and strength and lease of a long
life. They inoculated you with a taste for pure pleasures.
Your frames, your manners, your desires, your whole
life, had a flavor of the land that bore you. You were
the true outgrowth, the real aborigines, the rightful, har
monious, delightful denizens of the soil, you long-dead,
but never-to-be-forgotten dwellers in my grandfather's
home I
STODDARD! SHADOW AND GRIEF. 431
SHADOW AND GRIEF.
The pcems of shadow far outnumber those of sunshine, as if the
tenderness and pathos of a grieving heart were more native to the
poetic sentiment than the gay heedlessness of happy days and merry
thoughts. Some few of these songs with the shadow of Borrow upon
them we here append. The flight of the fresh joyousness of youth,
" never again" to return, is neatly rendered in song hy Stoddard.
THERE are gains for all our losses,
There are balms for all our pain :
But when youth, the dream, departs,
It takes something from our hearts,
And it never comes again.
We are stronger, and are better,
Under manhood's sterner reign :
Still we feel that something sweet
Followed youth, with flying feet,
And will never come again.
Something beautiful is vanished,
And we sigh for it in vain ;
We behold it everywhere,
On the earth, and in the air,
But it never comes again !
Longfellow, whose song is ever full of the wine of human sym
pathy, thus counsels the grieving to resignation under the affliction
of the death-angel :
There is no flock, however watched and tended,
But one dead lamb is there I
There is no fireside, howsoe'er defended,
But has one vacant chair I
432 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [ALDBICH
The air is full of farewells to the dying
And mournings for the dead ;
The heart of Rachel, for her children crying,
Will not be comforted.
Let us be patient ! These severe afflictions
Not from the ground arise,
But oftentimes celestial benedictions
Assume this dark disguise.
"We see but dimly through the mist and vapors ;
Amid these earthly damps
What seem to us but sad, funereal tapers
May be heaven's distant lamps. . . .
And though at times, impetuous with emotion
And anguish long suppressed,
The swelling heart heaves moaning like the ocean,
That cannot be at rest,
We will be patient, and assuage the feeling
We may not wholly stay,
By silence sanctifying, not concealing,
The grief that must have way.
This beautifully -rendered sentiment may be fitly followed by James
Aldrich's " Death-Bed" verses :
Her suffering ended with the day ;
Yet lived she at its close,
And breathed the long, long night away
In statue-like repose.
But when the sun, in all his state,
Illumed the eastern skies,
She passed through glory's morning gate,
And walked in Paradise.
CARY] SHADOW AND GRIEF. *33
Another poet, who prefers to remain in the list of the anonymous,
thus sings the song of the mourner who grieves and will not bo
comforted :
PERDITA.
Under the snows she sleepeth,
Under the cold, immaculate snows,
And my heart is bitter with grief and pain,
For I know, though June brings back the rose,
That my lily will never bloom again,
My pure, pale lily that sleepeth.
Beneath the violet lying ;
No Spring, with its tender and warm excess
Of life and passion, of bud and bloom,
No Summer's infinite loveliness,
Can reach to the depth of that silent tomb
Wherein my love is lying.
In vain they tell me she liveth,
"With her warm, sweet face and her tender eyes,
In some divine Beyond, afar :
I only know that out of my skies
Has faded and vanished the morning star :
Not unto me she liveth.
Death, however, has its consolations, as well as its thoughts ot
gloom. In Phoebe Cary's sweetest song it holds out hands of wel
come to clasp our outreaching hands of hope and trust.
NEARER HOME.
One sweetly solemn thought
Comes to me o'er and o'er :
I'm nearer home to-day
Than I ever have been before ;
n. T ee 37
434 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HOLMES
Nearer my Father's house,
Where the many mansions be ;
Nearer the great white throne ;
Nearer the crystal sea ;
Nearer the bound of life,
Where we lay our burdens down ;
Nearer leaving the cross ;
Nearer gaining the crown.
But lying darkly between,
Winding down through the night,
Is the silent, unknown stream
That leads at last to the light.
Closer and closer my steps
Come to the dread abysm ;
Closer Death to my lips
Presses the awful chrism.
Oh, if my mortal feet
Have almost gained the brink ;
If it be I am nearer home
Even to-day than I think ;
Father, perfect my trust ;
Let my spirit feel in death
That her feet are firmly set
On the rock of a living faith !
"We append one other poem, through which runs, like a dark veil
through the rock of life, the sentiment of heart-pain and hopelessness
THE VOICELESS.
We count the broken lyres that rest
Where the sweet wailing singers slumber,
POE] SHADOW AND GRIEF. 435
But o'er their silent sister's breast
The wild-flowers who will stoop to number?
A few can touch the magic string,
And noisy Fame is proud to win them :
Alas for those that never sing,
But die with all their music in them 1
Nay, grieve not for the dead alone
Whose song has told their heart's sad story ;
Weep for the voiceless, who have known
The cross without the crown of glory I
Not where Leucadian breezes sweep
O'er Sappho's memory-haunted billow,
But where the glistening night-dews weep
On nameless sorrow's churchyard pillow.
O hearts that break and give no sign,
Save whitening lip and fading tresses,
Till Death pours out his cordial wine
Slow-dropped from Misery's crushing presses,
If singing breath or echoing chord
To every hidden pang were given,
What endless melodies were poured,
As sad as earth, as sweet as heaven !
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.
Foe's musical allegory ends with the same despairing view of humam
life,
THE HAUNTED PALACE.
In the greenest of our valleys,
By good angels tenanted,
Once a fair and stately palace
(Eadiant palace) reared its head.
436 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [PoK
In the monarch Thought's dominion
It stood there 1
Never seraph spread a pinion
Over fabric half so fair.
Banners yellow, glorious, golden,
On its roof did float and flow
(This, all this, was in the olden
Time long ago) ;
And every gentle air that dallied
In that sweet day,
Along the ramparts plumed and pallid,
A winged odor went away.
Wanderers in that happy valley
Through two luminous windows saw
Spirits moving musically,
To a lute's well-tuned law,
Bound about a throne, where, sitting
(Porphyrogene 1)
In state his glory well befitting,
The ruler of the realm was seen.
And all with pearl and ruby glowing
"Was the fair palace door,
Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing,
And sparkling evermore,
A troop of Echoes, whose sweet duty
Was but to sing,
In voices of surpassing beauty,
The wit and wisdom of their King.
But evil things, in robes of sorrow,
Assailed the monarch's high estate
ANONYMOUS] POMP'S RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 437
(Ah ! let us mourn, for never morrow
Shall dawn upon him desolate) ;
And round about his home the glory-
That blushed and bloomed
Is but a dim-remembered story
Of the old time entombed.
And travellers now within that valley
Through the red-litten windows see
Vast forms that move fantastically
To a discordant melody,
While, like a ghastly, rapid river,
Through the pale door
A hideous throng rush out forever,
And laugh but smile no more.
EDGAK A. POE.
POMP'S RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE.
ANONYMOUS.
["The Colonel's Opera-Cloak," one of the most amusing of recent
books, is one of the " No Name Series" of Messrs. Koberts Brothers,
a series of anonymous novels whose high literary character has given
them a well-deserved popularity with American readers. The unknown
author of the " Colonel's Opera-Cloak" has certainly touched the ex
treme of the ridiculous in the well-drawn picture of the colonel's shift
less family and the remarkable adventures of the cloak. The old
negro's idea of heaven and of religious duty, which we give, is among
the most amusing parts of the work.]
" Dis yere death's a mighty myste'ous thing, Miss Les
lie," said Pomp, as the two sat, a short time after this, on
n. 37*
438 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [ANONYMOUS
the kitchen stairs, waiting for the kettle to boil. Stairs
were much approved of as seats by the St. Johns : they
were always safe ; and chairs were treacherous, and never
could be depended on.
" Yes, Pomp," said Leslie : " a few days ago and we
could ask Jasper what he knew or felt or thought ; and
now, if we asked him, he couldn't tell us so that we could
understand."
"Why, Miss Leslie," asked Pomp, in sudden alarm,
"why couldn't we un'stan' him? Yer don't 'spect he'll
talk de wrong way, like de Jew in de pawn-shop, or de
Chinyman, does yer, so't I can't un'stan' him when I
gits dar? I hope he ain't gwine to git so larned dat I
shall hev to be int'duced to him ! Does yer tink, Miss
Leslie, dey grows up, or stays de way dey was when dey
goes in ?"
" I don't know," said Leslie, who tried in her simple
way to be good, and in so trying wrought out a sweet
and Christ-like religion. " I don't know : only the hymn
says,
' We shall know each other there.'
I reckon, Pomp, it will be just as if we had been away
from our friends for a good while, and when we saw them
again they were changed, and were gentler and kinder
and more beautiful, and we should see that they were dif
ferent, and yet they'd be the same. We'd know them as
soon as they spoke, even though it was in a dark rocm
and we didn't know they were there."
Pomp's tearful eyes glistened with pride.
"Bar's good comfort in dat, Miss Leslie," ho said.
"'Pears like de Lord's speakin' froo yer. 'Pears like I
Bees John Jasper now, all dressed up an' lookin' as good
as Massa Tom ; yit he'll be my boy an' yer boy ; an' I
ANONYMOUS] POMP'S RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 439
done reckon dat chile won't leave his eyes off dat gate
a-watchin' fur yer an' fur me.
" De way to Prov'dence is pas' findin' out, Miss Leslie,"
added he, piously rolling his eyes. " Somehow, I don't
look wid no respec', no more, on de Colonel's op'ra-cloak.
I feels, somehow or nudder, dat ef dat cloak had done his
duty, dat chile would be tumblin' down-stairs, or suthin',
dis minute here. I tole Jasper, on Monday, not to go out
widout puttin' on de op'ra cloak, fear he'd cotch cold in
his chist ; an' nowhar could he fin' it. 'Pears sometimes
's ef dat cloak had got legs on to it dat we can't see, an'
jes' walked itself off an' hid under tings an' behin" tings.
I shouldn't never have foun' whar it was a-hidin', ef I
hedn't loa' my shoe, an' I was scoochin' down, lookin'
under ev'ryting, an' dar was dat op'ra-cloak a-squeezin'
in 'tween de wall an' de sofy, whar nobody wouldn't
never hev looked fur it.
" Why, we might hev gone away from dis house, an'
never hev foun' it, Miss Leslie, an' what would de Colonel
hev said? I reckon I knows !"
" Oh, Pomp," said Leslie, the tears filling her beautiful
eyes, " don't wish Jasper back ! He's better off than we
are."
"Yes," said Pomp: "I reckon he's better off; an' yit
he was putty good off when he was here. Ef yer count
up what folks call massies, he hed mos' on 'em. He hedn't
no gran'ma', but there's a good many folks hain't. I hain't
got no gran'ma', no, nor no gran'fa', nuther ; but I don'
tink much 'bout it, 'cept when I hears folks speakin' on
'em. But how'll dis be ? John Jasper's mo'er died when
he was a little baby. She won't know him: he won't
know her, 'less his gran'ma' tells him who she is. But,
den," said Pomp, falling into confusion in his genealogies,
as many others have done, " his gran'ma' she never seen
440 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [ANONYMOUS
Jasper I It's me dat bed ought to passed away fust, to
Lev bed tings all straighted up. 'Pears like nothin' don't
go straight, ef I isn't dar to 'tend to it."
" I reckon things will go right in heaven without you,
Pomp," said Leslie, with a faint smile ; " but I am sure
they wouldn't here in this family. I wish we were like
the Douglases. Everything goes so smoothly there, and
they are so good ! They help poor people, and they cro
to mission-schools."
Pomp looked very solemn.
" I used to be awful 'ligious," be said. " I used to go
to heaps o' woods-meetin's, an' I hollered louder'n any one
on 'em. Why, Miss Leslie, I was baptized in de Rappa-
hannick, in jes' de spot, in de very water, dat Gen'l
Washin'ton was baptized in, no, 'twasn't Gen'l Washin'-
ton, nuther: 'twas Joyce Heth. I done 'member she was
Gen'l Washin'ton's nuss ! So I was baptized on hysteric
groun', yer see I
" Oh, I got 'ligion, in dem days, so dere wa'n't no doin'
nothin' wid me ; but," Pomp sighed, " I ain't bed no time
dese las' years fur 'ligion. I'se had to see to all o' yer."
" They all ran away but you," said Leslie : " that was
when I was very little."
" Yes, dey got free, an' so dey run off. Dey said I was
a fool to stay here ; but I 'membered what I done promise
to ole Missus when she was a-dyin'. Says she, ' Don't yer
never leave Miss Marie, 'cause she's hard to git 'long wid,
an' nobody can't git 'long wid her 'cept jes' yer.' An' den
de colonel he got pore, an' I wa'n't goin' to cl'ar out when
my frien's gits pore. Dat's de time when yer wants yer
frien's.
" My brudder he's in PhiPdelphy. He's got a barber's
shop, an' he goes out ha'r-dressin', he can't do it no bet
ter nor I kin, an' he makes heaps o' money. He dresses
ANOHTMOUS! POMP'S RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 441
up mighty fine, dey says, an' goes scootin' round wid a
cane, an' one o' dem high-top hats, like Massa Tom's. He's
putty high in meetin's, too ! He passes de box, an' he's
one ob de deacons. I 'spect he'll be powerful high in de
kingdom. But de good Lord he'll 'cuse me, I 'spect ; fur
I can't git no time to be 'ligious, dar's suthin' to do allers.
I don't seem to git froo.
""When we gits settled ag'in, I must look up my 'ligion.
I ain't kep' but a little on't, -jes' to say my pra'ers, an' do
my duty, an' love de Lord an' ev'rybody, dat is, ev'ry-
body 'cept 'cept Massa Cavello ; but, den, he don't 'mount
to much."
" I think that is pretty much the whole of religion,"
said Leslie. " It always comforts me to know that you
pray for us, Pomp ; and I'm sure nobody in the world is
so unselfish as you."
" Oh, I ain't onselfish," said Pomp. " I hasn't never
done tings fur folks. I hasn't visited 'em in prison, an'
I hasn't gin clo'es to nobody, an' I hain't fed nobody what
was hungry, 'cept de boys, of course : dey's ben hungry
times 'nuf, an' I'se put dere clo'es on times 'nuf, too.
" Now, jes' look at dat kittle !" cried Pomp. " I can't
talk to nobody, but dat kittle gits so res'less an' biles over
pokin' up de kiver like he couldn't wait tell I gits dar I"
" Pomp 1" cried Clarence, coming to the stairs. " Hurry
up, there 1 I'm 'most starved to death. Isn't supper 'most
ready ?"
" Well," said Leslie, rising, " I almost wish I was where
Jasper is. What's the use of being raised, to wish, half
the time, you hadn't been born ?"
Pomp wiped his tears away.
442 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [PABTOX
MY NOTION OF MUSIC.
6. P. PARTON.
[The spicy writer who, some thirty years ago, figured under the
pseudonyme of " Fanny Fern," and whose " Fern Leaves" and other
works attained great popularity, was a sister of N. P. Willis, the poet,
her actual name being Sarah Payson Willis. She married James
Parton, the able biographical author. She was born in 1811, and died
in 1872. The extracts we give are from " Caper Sauce," and are fair
specimens of her humor, pathos, and shrewd worldly wisdom.]
I'VE been defending myself from the charge of "noi
knowing what music is." Perhaps I don't know. But
when I go to a fashionable concert, and the lady " artiste"
I believe that is the regulation- word, comes out in her
best bib and tucker, with a gilt battle-axe in her back
hair, and a sunflower in her bosom, led by the tips of
her white gloves, by the light of a gleaming bracelet,
and stands there twiddling a sheet of music, preparatory
to the initiatory scream, I feel like screaming myself.
Now, if she would just trot on, in her morning gown,
darning a pair of stockings, and sit naturally down in her
old rocking-chair, and give me "Auld Robin Gray," in
stead of running her voice up and down the scales for an
hour to show me how high and how low she can go with
out dropping down in a fit, I'd like it. One trial of her
voice that way, to test its capacity, satisfies me. It is as
good as a dozen, and a great deal better. I don't want to
listen to it a whole evening. I will persist that running
up and down the scales that way isn't "music." Then, if
you only knew the agony I'm in when, drawing near the
end of one of her musical gymnastics, she essays to wind
up with one of those swift, deafening, don't-stop-to-breathe-
finales, you would pity me. I get hysterical. I wish she
PABTON] MY NOTION OF MUSIC. 443
would split her throat at once, or stop. I want to be let
out. I want the roof lifted. I feel a cold perspiration
breaking out on my forehead. I know that presently she
will catch up that blue-gauze skirt and skim out that side-
door, only to come and do it all over again, in obedience
to that dead-head encore. You see, all this machinery
disenchants me. It takes away my appetite, like telling
me at dinner how much beef is a pound. I had rather
the ropes and pulleys of music would keep behind the
curtain.
Of course my "taste is not cultivated," and, moreover,
the longer I live the less chance there is of it. On that
point I'm what country-folks call "sot." Sometimes,
when passing one of these concerts-rooms of an evening, I
have caught a note that I took home with me. Caught it
with the help of the darkness, and the glimmering stars,
and the fresh wind on my forehead, and a blessed igno
rance of the distorted mouth and the heaving millinery
that sent it forth. But take me w, and you'll have an
hysterical maniac. The solemn regulation faces, looking
at that " music," set me bewitched to laugh and outrage
that fashion-drilled and kidded audience. Bless you, /
can't help it. I had rather hear Dinah sing " Old John
Brown" over her wash-tub. I had rather go over to Mr.
Beecher's church some Sunday night and hear that vast
congregation swell forth Old Hundred, with each man and
woman's soul so in it that earthly cares and frets are no
more remembered than the old garments we cast out of
sight.
When the words of a favorite hymn are read from the
pulpit, and I am expecting the good old-fashioned tune
that has been wedded to it since my earliest recollection,
and instead I am treated to a series of quirks and quavers
by a professional quartette, I can't help wishing myself
444 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
where the whole congregation sing with the heart and the
understanding, in the old-fashioned manner. I can have
"opera" on week-days, and scenery and fine dresses thrown
in. Sunday I want Sunday, not opera in neglige.
Of course it is high treason for me to make such an
avowal; so, while I am in for it, I may as well give
another twist to the rope that is round my neck. The
other night I went to hear " The Messiah." The worda
are lovely, and as familiar to my Puritan ears as the
" Assembly's Catechism ;" but when they kept on repeat
ing, " The Lord is in his hoi the Lord is in is in his hoi
is in the Lord is in his hoi" and when the leader,
slim, and clothed in inky black, kept his arms going like
a Jack-in-a-box, I grew anything but devout. The ludi
crous side of it got the better of me ; and when my com
panion, who pretends to be no Christian at all, turned to
me, who am reputed to be one, in a state of exaltation,
and said, " Isn't that grand, Fanny ?" he could have wished
that the tears in my eyes were not hysterical from long-
suppressed laughter. He says he never will take me
there again ; and I only hope he will keep his word. All
the "music" I got out of it was in one or two lovely
" solos."
Now, what I want to know is, which has the most
love for genuine music, he or I ?
The fact is, I like to find my music in unexpected, simple
ways, where the machinery is not visible, like the galvanic
gyrations of that "leader," for instance. That kind of
thing recalls too vividly my old "fa-sol-la" singing-school,
where the boys pulled my curls and gave me candy and
misspelt notes.
There is evidently something wanting in my make-up
with regard to " music," when I can cry at the singing of
the following simple verses by the whole congregation in
PARTON] BOSTON BLESSINGS AND BEANS. 445
church, and do the opposite at the scientific performance
of " The Messiah." Listen to the verses :
" Pass me not, O gentle Saviour,
Hear my humble cry ;
While on others thou art smiling,
Do not pass me by.
Saviour, Saviour,
Hear my humble cry.
" If I ask him to receive me,
Will he say me nay ?
Not till earth and not till heaven
Shall have passed away."
BOSTON BLESSINGS AND BEANS.
New England, all hail to thy peerless thrift ! Thou art
cranky and crotchety ; thou art " sot," uncommon " sot,"
in thy ways, owing doubtless to the amiable sediment of
English blood in thy veins. Thou wilt not be cheated in
a bargain, even by thy best friend ; but, in the mean time,
that enableth thy large heart to give handsomely when
charity knocks at thy door. Thy pronunciation may be
peculiar; but, in the mean time, what thou dost not know,
and cannot do, is rarely worth knowing or doing. Thou
never hast marble, and silver, and plate-glass, and statu
ary in thy show-parlors, and shabby belongings where the
world does not penetrate. Thou hast not stuccoed walls
with big cracks in them, or anything in thy domiciles
hanging as it were by the eyelids. Every nail is driven
BO that it will stay ; every hinge hung so that it will work
thoroughly. Every bolt and key and lock perform their
duty like a martinet, so long as a piece of them endures.
If thou hast a garden, be it only a square foot, it is made
the most of, with its " long saace," and " short saace" and
" wimmin's notions," in the shape of flowers and caraway -
11. 38
446 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
seed, to chew on Sunday, when the minister gets as far as
" seventeenthly," and carnal nature will fondly recur to
the waiting pot of baked beans in the kitchen oven. O
New England, here could I shed salt tears at the thought
of thy baked beans, for Gotham knows them not. Alluding
to that edible, I am met with a pitying sneer, accompanied
with that dread word to snobs, "provincial!" It is ever
thus, my peerless, with the envy which cannot attain to
the perfection it derides. For you should see, my thrifty
New England, the watery, white-livered, tasteless, swimmy,
sticky poultice which Gotham christens " baked beans."
My soul revolts at it. It is an unfeeling, wretched
mockery of the rich, brown, crispy, succulent contents
of that " platter" yes, platter I will say it ! which erst
delighted my eyes in the days when I swallowed the
Catechism without a question as to its infallibility.
UNKNOWN ACQUAINTANCES.
You have none? Then I am sorry for you. Much of
my pleasure in my daily walks is due to them. Perhaps
you go over the ground mechanically, with only dinner
or business in your eye when you shall reach your jour
ney's end. Perhaps you " don't see a soul," as you express
it. Perhaps you have no "soul" yourself; only a body,
of which you are very conscious, and whose claims upon
you outweigh every other consideration. That is a pity.
I wouldn't go round that treadmill for all the mines of
Golconda ! It always makes me think of that melancholy
old horse one sees, pawing rotatory wood, at the way-
stations, on the railroad-tracks ; and because the sight
makes every bone in me ache, my particular window-seat
in the car is always sure to command a view of him.
Now, come what will, I'll not be that horse. You may if
you like, and I will cling to my dreams. I shan't live in
PAKTON] UNKNOWN ACQUAINTANCES. 447
this world forever, and I won't hurry over the ground and
never see a sweet face as it flits past me, or a grand one,
or a sorrowful one. I won't be deaf to the rippling laugh
of a little child or the musical voice of a refined woman.
It may be only two words that she shall speak, but they
shall have a pleasant significance for me. Then there are
strange faces I meet every day which I hope to keep on
meeting till I die. Who was such an idiot as to say that
" no woman ever sees beauty in another" ? I meet every
day a face that no man living could admire more than
myself; soulful as well as beautifuL Lovely, blue, pensive
eyes ; golden hair, waving over a pure white forehead ;
cheeks like the heart of a " blush rose ;" and a grieved
little rosy mouth, like that of a baby to whom for the
first time you deny something, fearing lest it grow too
wilful. I think that day lost in which I do not meet that
sweet face, framed in its close mourning-bonnet. Were I
a man, it is to that face I should immediately "make love."
Make love ? Alas ! I did not think how terribly sig
nificant was this modern term when I used it. Let no
man make love to that face. But if there is one who can
be in dead earnest, and stay so, I give my consent, pro
vided he will not attempt to change the expression of that
mouth.
I have another acquaintance. I don't care to ask,
'" Who is that man ?" I know that he has lived his life
and not slept it away. I know that it has been a pure
and a good one. It is written in his bright, clear, un
clouded eye ; in his springing step ; in the smile of content
upon his lip ; in the lift of his shoulders ; in the poise of
his head ; in the free, glad look with which he breathes in
his share of the warm sunshine. Were he taken to the
bedside of a sick man, it seems to me the very sight of
him were health.
448 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [PARTON
I used to have many unknown acquaintances among the
little children in the parks ; but, what with French nurses
and silk velvet coats, I have learned to turn my feet else
where. It gives me the heart-ache to see a child slapped
for picking up a bright autumn leaf, though it may chance
to be " dirty ;" or denied a smooth, round pebble, on ac
count of a dainty little glove that must be kept immacu
late. I get out of temper, and want to call on all their
mothers and fight Quixotic battles for the poor little
things, as if it w r ould do any good ; as if mothers who
dress their children that way to play, cared for anything
but their looks.
Then I have some unknown acquaintances in the yard
of a large house in the upper part of Broadway. I never
asked who lives in the house ; but I thank him for the
rare birds of brilliant plumage who walk to and fro in it,
or perch upon the window-sills or steps, as proudly con-
Bcious of their gay feathers as the belles who rustle past.
I love to imagine the beautiful countries they came from,
and the flowers that blossomed there, and the soft skies
that arched over them. I love to see them pick up their
food so daintily, and, with head on one side, eye their many
admirers looking through the fence, as if to say, Beat that
if you can in America ! Ah ! my birdies, stop your crow
ing ; just wait a bit and see how the " American eagle" is
going to come out, and how each time they who have
tried to clip his wings have only found that it made them
grow broader and stronger. Soft skies and sweet flowers
are very nice things, birdies ; but rough winds and freedom
are better for the soul.
I have said nothing of unknown acquaintances among
my favorite authors. How many times did I not so hate
the sight of a pen when " school is let out" have I longed
to express to them my love and gratitude ! Nor, judging
PAKTON] LIFE AND ITS MYSTERIES. 449
by myself, could I ever say, " they do not need it ;" since
there are, or should be, moments in the experience of all
writers when they regard with a dissatisfied eye what
they have already given to the world, when sympathetic,
appreciative words, warm from the heart, are hope and
inspiration to the receiver.
LIFE AND ITS MYSTERIES.
Was there ever a romance in that man or that woman's
life? I used to ask myself, as I looked upon a hard face
which stoicism seemed to have frozen over through the
long years. "Was there ever a moment when for that man,
or woman, love transfigured everything, or the want of it
threw over the wide earth the pall of unrest ? Have they
ever wept, or laughed, or sighed, or clasped hands in pas
sionate joy or sorrow ? Had they any life ? Or have
they simply vegetated like animals? Did they see any
beauty in rock, mountain, sky, or river, or was this green
earth a browsing-place, nothing more ?
I never ask those questions now ; for I know how much
fire may be hidden under a lava-crusted exterior. I know
that though the treasure-chest may sometimes be locked
when it is empty, oftener beneath the fastening lies the
wealth which the right touch can at any moment set free.
There are divers masks worn in this harlequin world of
ours. Years ago I met, in travelling, a lady who seemed
to me the very embodiment of fun and frolic. Like a
humming-bird, she never was still; alighting now here,
now there, wheresoever were sunshine, sweetness, and
perfume. One day, as we were rambling in the woods,
we sat down to rest under a tree, after our frolicking.
Some little word of mine, as I drew her head into my lap
and smoothed the hair on her temples, transformed her.
With a sharp, quick cry of agony, she threw her arma
n dd 38*
450 LEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [PARTON
about my neck, weeping as I never saw a woman weep.
When she was quiet came the sad story. The trouble
battled with, and bravely borne. The short, joyous years ;
then the long days, and nights, and weeks, and months,
so full of desolation and bitterness, and life yet at its
meridian. How should she meet the long, slow-moving
years ? That was the question she asked me. " Toll me
how ! you who know tell me how !"
And this was the woman I thought frivolous and pleas
ure-seeking ! Wearing beneath that robe the penitential
cross, reminding her at every moment, with its sharp
twinge of pain, that, try as she might, she could never fly
from herself.
How often, when I have been inclined to judge harshly,
have I thought of that Gethsemane cry ! It is sorrowful
how we misjudge each other in this busy world. How
very near we may be to a warm heart, and yet be frozen !
How carelessly we pass by the pool of Bethesda, with its
waiting crowd, without thinking that we might be the
angel to trouble the waters! This thought is often op
pressive to me in the crowd of a city hurrying home at
nightfall. What burden does this man or that woman
carry, known only to their Maker? How many among
them may be just at the dividing-line between hope and
despair! And how some faces remind you of a dumb
animal, who bears its pain meekly and mournfully, yet
cringing lest some careless foot should, at any moment,
render it unendurable; haunting you as you go to your
home as if you were verily guilty in ignoring it.
Have you never felt this? and, although you may
have been cheated and imposed upon seventy times seven,
can you wholly stifle it? and ought you to try, even
though you know how well the devil can wear the livery
of heaven?
OSWALD] THE RUINS OF UXMAL. 451
I think it is this that, to the reflecting and observing,
makes soul and body wear out so quickly in the city,
these constantly-recurring, unsolvable problems, which
cloud faith and make life terrible, instead of peaceful and
sweet; which lead us sometimes to look upon the little
child, so dear to us, with such cowardly fear that it would
be a relief to lay it, then and there, in the arms of the
Good Shepherd, lest it, too, stray away from the fold.
THE RUINS OF UXMAL.
FELIX L. OSWALD.
[The author from whose works we select our present Half-Hour is a
naturalist of rising reputation as a close observer and an attractive
writer. He is a native of Belgium, where he was born in 1845. His
works are "Physical Education," " Summerland Sketches," "Zoo
logical Sketches," etc. From "Summerland Sketches," an enthusi
astic narrative of travel in the tropical region of Mexico, Yucatan,
etc., we take the following interesting description of a visit to the most
striking of the forest-buried cities of the older civilization of America,
with a preliminary account of the original discovery of these extraor
dinary ruins.]
" EVERY tomb is a cradle," says Jean Paul; and his
apothegm holds good wherever the organism of Nature
exerts its functions in undisturbed harmony. Life is
the heir of Death ; every mouldering plant fertilizes an
after-growth of its kind, and if the races of mankind suc
ceeded each other as the trees of the forest, a superior
spirit might view the decay of an oak and of a nation
with equal unconcern.
But, while the fading flowers of the old year may con-
sole us with the hope of a coming spring, our lament over
452 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [OSWALD
the withered empires of the Old "World has a deeper
significance : the dying nations of the East have involved
their fields and forests in an equal fate ; the lands that
know them no more have themselves withered, and no
spring can restore the prime of an exhausted soil. From
Eastern Persia to Western Morocco, Earth has thus per
ished together with her inhabitants : Vishnu has resigned
his power to Shiva, and the Buddhistic Nirvan, the final
departure of the Genius of Life, has already begun for
some of the fairest countries ever brightened by the sun
of the Juventus Mundi.
The western shores of the Atlantic, too, have seen the
rise and decline of mighty empires : the ruins of Uxmal
equal those of Nineveh in grandeur as well as in the hope
lessness of their decay, but the soil of Yucatan has sur
vived its tyrants. In the struggle between Chaos and
Cosmos the organic powers have here prevailed, and the
sylvan deities have resumed their ancient sway.
There is a well-defined ridge of tertiary limestone forma
tion which divides the table-lands of the eastern peninsula
from the wooded lowlands of the west, and the ruins of
Uxmal, Chichen, Izamal, and Macoba have all been dis
covered in the western timber-lands, but have nowhere
betrayed their existence by the diminished exuberance of
the vegetation. Their walls are hedged, interlocked, and
covered with trees, and while the Oriental archaeologist
has to grope in the sand-drifts of burning deserts, his
transatlantic colleague can thus pursue his studies in the
shade of a forest-region whose living wonders may well
divide his attention with the marvels of the past. Eighty
years ago the district of Macoba and Belonchen was an
unexplored wilderness. The Jesuit missionaries of Valla-
dolid had recorded an Indian tradition about the vestigea
of a giant city in the neighborhood of Merida, but their
OSWALD] THE RUINS OF UXMAL. 453
vague descriptions were supposed to refer to the large
teocalli near the convent of Sacrificios, and the rediscovery
of the Casas Grandes seems to have been as complete a
surprise to the citizens of Merida as the exhumation of
Pompeii to the burghers of Nola and Castellamare.
The great treasure-trove of 1829 has often been ascribed
to the Baron Frederic de "Waldeck, though since the pub
lication of his memoirs in 1837 his countrymen have never
claimed that honor. His subsequent explorations made
Uxmal the Mecca of American antiquarians, but the
amusing account of the original discovery, as given in the
" Voyage Pittoresque," proves that in archaeology, not less
than in other sciences, the better part of our knowledge
is what Lessing called a " museum of collected curiosities,
discovered by accident and independently of each other."
On the evening of the 1st of November, 1828, Don Pancho
Yegros, a Yucatan planter, and his guest, Dr. Lewis
Mitchel, a Scotch surgeon of Sisal harbor, returned from
a hunting expedition in the Sierra Marina, and, seeking
shelter from the threatening weather, happened to come
across an Indian wood-chopper, who guided them to a
sacristia, an old Indian temple in the depths of the forest.
They lighted a fire, and, having noticed some curious
sculptures in a sort of peristyle, the Scotchman proceeded
to inspect the interior of the building. The masonry was
covered with dust and spider-webs, but the application of
wet rags discovered a triple row of bas-relief decorations
running along the walls horizontally and at equal inter
vals, and between the roof and the upper lintel of the door
the limestone slabs were covered with small figures which
seemed too irregular for simple ornaments, and might be
hieroglyphic symbols. After daybreak the Scotchman
rummaged a pile of debris behind the temple, and un
earthed the torso of a little image, which he pocketed
454 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [OSWALD
with an enthusiasm that puzzled the Spanish planter a
much as his Indian serf. The natives were unable to give
any satisfactory account of the building, and, taking his
leave, the doctor requested his host to interview the old
Indian residents of the neighborhood in regard to the
problematic temple, and rode away with the promise to
renew his visit in the course of the year.
" Isn't it strange," said Don Yegros when he was alone
with his peon, " that we have lived here for a lifetime
without suspecting that there was such a curiosity in our
neighborhood? Why, that caballero tells me that some
of his countrymen would buy those pictured stones for
their weight in silver I"
" He gave me half a dollar anyhow," chuckled the In
dian. " He ought to take those countrymen of his to the
north end of the sierra : in the chaparral of the Eio Ma-
coba there is a square league of ground just covered with
such empty old buildings."
The hacendado turned on his heel : " Are you deranged ?
A square league of such ruins! You do not mean build
ings like that we slept in last night ?"
" No, sefior ; very different buildings, houses as high
as yours, and forty times as long. One of them has more
rooms in it than there are tiles on your roof, and long
galleries with sculptured heads and figures."
Don Yegros stood speechless for a moment. " Mil de-
monios !" he burst out when the stolid countenance of his
serf told him that the fellow was in sober earnest. " Why,
in the name of your five senses, could you not tell us that
a minute sooner? Did you not see how delighted the
caballero was to find that one old broken statue ?"
" He liked it, did he ? Well, I didn't know that, sefior.
I found a much prettier one in that same place a few
years ago, and took it to our village priest, but came very
OSWALD] THE RUINS OF UXMAL. 455
near getting a good hiding for it. He smashed it, and
cursed it for an idolatrous monster and me for a monstrous
idiot."
" Well, so you are. Get on that horse now, and I give
you just twenty minutes to overtake the caballero and
bring him back here. Why, man, you came very near
missing the only opportunitj r you ever had of being of
any use in the world."
The caballero and the opportunity were retrieved, and
on the next day the peon led an exploring-party to the
jungles of the Rio Macoba, where they had to make their
way through all the obstacles of a pathless wilderness,
but on the third day found themselves in the midst of
a liana-shrouded Pompeii, and entered different edifices
whose dimensions so far exceeded the expectations of
their archaeological companion that he decided to return
at once and carry the news to the foreign residents of
Sisal. They had discovered the ruins of Uxmal, which
rival those of Thebes and Persepolis in beauty and gran
deur as well as in extent, and stand unequalled and un-
approached among the architectural relics of our own
continent. While volumes had been written about the
clumsy burrows of the Mound-builders and the naked
brick walls on the Eio Gila, this city of palaces had slum
bered in its forest shroud, unexplored by any visitor save
the prying catamount and the silent tribe of the tropical
bats, and, but for the accident of the rain-storm on that
November night of 1828, might thus have slumbered for
ever, like the lost Atlantis in her ocean grave. . . .
In the winter of 1872 the long-delayed work [of investi
gation] was commenced in earnest. The dimensions of
the ancient city were found to exceed even the conjectures
of Baron Waldeck. The muralla, or rampart-wall, was
traced southward to a quarter of a mile beyond the Eio
456 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [OSWALD
Macoba and east to the foot-hills of the Sierra de Belon-
chen, and must have enclosed an area of at least twelve
English square miles. To clear such a space of its jungle-
maze and the organic deposits of centuries would have
exhausted the scanty appropriation, and the trustees of
the fund had to content themselves with clearing the
main buildings and conpecting them by avenues with
each other and with the carriage-road that is now finished
to San Lorenzo, where it connects with the old military
highway to Merida. Even thus the undertaking could
only be completed by employing peons, or Indian serfs,
whom the neighboring planters volunteered to furnish
gratis, the trustees only providing their food and the
necessary tools.
For the same work of destruction and obstruction
which the fire-deluge of Mount Vesuvius accomplished in
a single night has here been effected by the silent progress
of arboreal vegetation and decay in a manner which illus
trates the scientific axiom that in dynamics force and time
are convertible factors. The mixture of ashes and porous
lava which covers the city of Pompeii is far easier to re
move than the tegumen of mould, gnarled roots, and
tanglewood that has spread itself over the ruins of Uxmal.
Like the coils of a boa-constrictor, the flexible arms of
the lianas and the cordero-vines have wound themselves
around the columns and projecting rocks; nay, forced
their sprouts through the crevices of the thickest avails,
sending out lateral shoots along the inner surface, so that
often their grip can only be broken at the risk of break
ing the building at the same time. Trees were found
which had incorporated themselves with a detached pillar
or window-sill after wrenching it from its place, or by
growing completely around it if it proved immovable;
and it has been supposed that the remarkable absence of
OSWALD] THE RUINS OF UXMAL. 457
smaller buildings is owing to this cause. They were dis
integrated by trees and vines that had fastened themselves
upon them and in the course of their growth dislodged
them from their foundations. Only the enormous weight
of the larger edifices could preserve them from the same
fate. If much longer, would have been a different ques
tion ; but the buildings which have so far stood their
ground are now probably safe. . . .
[We proceed to the personal investigations of the author and his
friends.]
We left our baggage in the antechamber, and tethered
our mules on the north side of the building in a sort of
moat with plenty of grass and weeds. Seen from the
distance, our casa resembled a Spanish inn with a Moorish
court-yard below and a row of small bedrooms above, but
in its original dimensions it seemed to have extended along
the entire length of the moat, which is flanked with the
vestiges of a foundation- wall for a distance of more than
sixty yards beyond the present east end of the building.
The woods behind the moat are intersected by a similar
wall, which at different places rises to a height of twenty
feet. "El Quartel the Barracks we call this building,"
said the captain : " the large hall below is supposed to be
the drill-shed."
No other ruins were in sight, but on the summit of
a rock-strewn acclivity the woods opened and revealed a
grayish stone pile rising like a mountain rather than like
a building from a wilderness of weeds and debris, but
assuming "more symmetrical outlines as the road ap
proaches. A quadrangular esplanade, with a range of
stone steps, leads up to a narrow terrace that forms the
foundation of a mound of Cyclopean blocks, house-shaped,
but craggy and cliff-like from the massiveness of the pillara
ii. u 39
458 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [OswxLr
and walls. The entire structure rising to a height of
eighty-four feet, with a facade of three hundred and
twenty and a circumference of eight hundred feet, it
stands there with its open arid desolate doors like an an
tediluvian skeleton, " La Casa del Gobernador, the most
massive, though not the highest, of the main buildings,"
says our guide.
At Uxmal the Spaniards have illustrated that talent for
nomenclature which has made them such useful pioneers
in the river- and mountain-labyrinths of the New World.
All the houses, temples, and caves, and even the more
conspicuous statues, have their names, most of them sin
gularly appropriate as well as pretty. If Yucatan was a
province of prehistoinc Mexico, and Uxmal the state cap
ital, the house on the double terrace must have been the
residence of the governor. These high portals with their
carved columns, and these sculptured walls, were not built
for a granary or a fort, and the character of the bas-
reliefs, as well as the absence of altars and idols, makes
It unlikely that the edifice was a temple.
From the upper terrace to the third story the walls are
entirely covered with ornaments that might be described
as sculptured mosaic, each figure being formed by a com
bination of carved stones. These sculptures represent
human heads, colossal figures, fantastic birds and quad
rupeds, and every variety of arabesques, which, viewed at
a certain angle, give the walls the appearance of those
rough-hewn granite blocks our architects love to display
over the entrance of a tunnel or massive gateway. The
lower halls are partly obstructed by a pile of debris, for
the range of stairs leading to the second floor has fallen
down, and has been replaced by a wooden ladder. The
most interesting rooms are on the second and third floors,
which also connect with outer galleries bordered by long
OSWALD] THE RUINS OF UXMAL. 459
balustrades of graceful fretwork. According to the meas
urements of Senor Devegas, the walls of these two stories
contain thirty -four hundred yards or nearly two English
miles of bas-relief, most of them at a height of about
four feet from the floor, and running along the wall in an
unbroken row, the lower border being on a line with the
lintels of the windows and doors. These decorations are
often coarse in execution and defective in the details of
design, but the total impression is nevertheless strangely
pleasing. There are long processions of men-at-arms,
groups of animals and stars, the latter perhaps astro
logical symbols, and countless faces (portraits our guide
called them) in profile, some of them distinguished by a
turban-like head-dress. One of the more elaborate groups
represents a warrior promenading on a row of prostrate
bodies, probably a symbol of royal power if not a memo
rial of a martial triumph. Another shows a procession
of mutilated men, one-legged, armless, or entirely dismem
bered, which our cicerone supposed to be a regiment of
veterans returning from war, but which may possibly
havj had an allegorical significance. In one of the third-
story rooms a portion of the floor is paved with a coarse
mosaic representing a battle between light-armed and
naked giants and warriors of smaller stature but well
equipped with a panoply of heavy arms. The faces and
attitudes of the antagonists are well distinguished, and
the whole conveys the impression of having been sug
gested by an actual occurrence, perhaps an encounter
between the citizen-soldiers of the ancient empire and
some savage tribe of the northern forests. It has been
observed that the black marble which is used in the com
position of these and other mosaics is not found anywhere
in Yucatan, and must have been brought from Central
Mexico, if not from Cuba.
460 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [OSWALD
Before the arrival of the present superintendent this
building was infested with every possible variety of creep
ers and air-plants: in the basement their growth was
somewhat checked by lack of sunshine, but in the upper
stories they formed a continuous tapestry along the walls
of every apartment, and vestiges of these expletive deco
rations still defy the pruning-hook of the mayoral. The
arm of an idol here and there or the head of a long-
snouted animal is wreathed with leaves like a thyrsus-staff,
and many of the coarse arabesques around the larger re-
tratos are mingled with the delicate folioles of a twining
grenadilla. With a sort of vegetable instinct, most of
these intruders have pierced the walls at places where the
convolution of their tendrils is favored by a pilaster or the
protuberances of a bas-relief.
The next turn of the road leads to the plaza, or market-
square, a partly-cleared field of about sixty acres, offering
a view of the three largest and most interesting buildings
in Uxmal, the Casa de las Monjas, the Palomal, and the
Casa del Enano. The largest of these and, indeed, the
largest architectural relic of our continent is the Casa de
las Monjas, the " House of the Nuns," so called from the
vast number of little cell-like apartments. There are
eighty-seven larger and half a hundred smaller rooms,
besides extensive corridors and several halls, distributed
over a three-story building of four wings, which enclose
what may have been a spacious courtyard, but now re
sembles a neglected garden.
Entering from the north, you pass through a gateway
supported by pillars of enormous thickness, and an inner
vestibule that communicates with a broad gallery or in
terior veranda, stone-paved and inviting by the grotto-like
coolness of its shady recesses. The builders of this city
were not acquainted with the keystone arch, but formed
OSWALD] THE RUINS OF UXMAL 461
their vaults by overlapping stones, held in place by the
weight of the superstructure and covered with a large slab
or with lintels of wood, the latter being found over every
door and window whose horizontal diameter exceeds two
feet. The wood used for these lintels is of iron toughness
and texture, and has been identified with a species of
lignum-vitae that is found in the mountains of Guatemala,
but nowhere in Yucatan or Eastern Mexico. From the
middle of the first flight of steps upward the walls are
decorated with glaring pictures, checkered and polychro
matic like a collection of butterflies, though a pale carmine
and a brilliant golden yellow predominate. Frescos the
mayoral calls them, but the process of their production
seems to have involved a preliminary plastering of the
walls with a grayish-brown substance that makes an ef
fective foil for the brighter tints, and the employment of a
very durable varnish that would explain the freshness and
the metallic lustre of some of the colors. On the second
floor the cells begin, and monopolize the two larger wings
of that story. Few of them are provided with more than
one aperture, either a door communicating with the cor
ridor or a window opening upon the outer gallery, their
average size being five yards square by four high. Many
cells in the second story are paved with polished and
variegated marble slabs, while the walls opposite the en
trance are covered with pictures ; and if the dwelling was
a nunnery the convent rules cannot have been very ascetic,
the character of these retratos being decidedly secular,
BO much so, indeed, that some of the artists must have
belonged to what poor Southey called the "Satanic school."
The windows are festooned with rock-ivy and grenadilla-
vines with small red pipe-flowers, and in one of the lower
rooms an abeto-bush, a species of juniper, has forced its
way through the masonry of the floor and of a sort of
"n. 39*
462 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [OSWALD
stone bench near the window, rising from the flags like a
Christmas-tree from a table.
All the cornices and window-sills of these countless
chambers, all the balustrades of the long galleries and
the balconies overhanging the court, are ornamented with
bas-relief figures, colored stuccoes, and sculptured mosaic,
carved with an unrivalled richness and variety of detail;
and if it is true that a portion of the material was brought
from a great distance, the treasures of a wealthy empire
must have been lavished on the Casa de las Monjas. Seftor
Escalante, an intelligent Mexican architect, estimates that
even with all the raw material on hand the present cost
of such a building would exceed four million piasters, and
thinks that the carvings of some of the larger pillars
would employ a hard-working statuary for six months.
Bats are now the only tenants of this sculptured Coliseum,
since a colony of monos chicos, or Mexican raccoons, that
had established themselves in the basement, were ejected
by order of the mayoral. . . .
Proceeding southward and upward, we reach the plat
form of a little hill, and are brought face to face with a
dome-like pile of colossal dimensions, the Casa del Enano,
or "House of the Dwarf," so called from the narrowness
of the sally-port, which is, in fact, a mere loop-hole in what
originally may have been the second story, the basement
having been buried by avalanches of debris that have
tumbled from the decaying walls. A tower encircled by
galleries that contract toward the top is the nucleus of
this pile, and leads to a circular platform of about forty
yards in circumference. The strength of this central
tower has supported the building, but the galleries with
their substructures have collapsed all around, and give to
the whole the appearance of a conical mound covered with
a wilderness of broken fragments and weeds. Goats, and
OSWALD] THE RUINS OF UXMAL. 463
even cows, frequent the slopes of this artificial hill, and
make their way to the very top, where mountain-breezes
and patches of rank wall-grass reward them for the some
what arduous ascent.
The interior of the edifice forms a striking contrast to
this rustic outside. After passing (on all-foui's) through
the loop-hole above mentioned, the visitor finds himself in
the vestibule of the tower-hall, which he enters through
a portal of pillar-like buttresses. This hall seems formerly
to have been lighted from above; but the wall on the
south side is now full of cracks and holes, which serve as
so many windows, but have admitted rain as well as sun
shine, as attested by a considerable pool at the lower end
of the sloping floor. The wall on the west side rises like
a terrace or a range of colossal stairs, tier above tier,
receding a yard and a half after every three yards of ele
vation. The upper tier is a shapeless mass of ruins, con
nected with the ceiling and the opposite walls by a net
work of liana-coils, some of which have become detached
with the crumbling stones and hang across the hall like
tight-ropes in a circus-tent. But farther down the verti
cal surfaces of the terrace are covered with hieroglyphics,
while the intermediate levels afford seats for a large
assembly of "idols," as the Spaniards call them indis
criminately, though the plurality of these shapes seems
to have been suggested by the exigencies of symmetry,
since they reappear at equal intervals from a common
centre, and may have been nothing but architectural ex
travaganzas, like the caryatides and griffins of our Gothio
chapels. The human or rather anthropoid shapes were
idols, to judge by their central positions and heroic pro
portions, and some of them are as composite, though not
quite as monstrous, as the divinities of a Hindoo pagoda.
On a special pedestal about four feet above the floor sits
464 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
a four-armed giant with a disproportionately large but not
altogether repulsive face, and with a corselet that resem
bles the scaly hide of a crocodile. Two of his arms are
akimbo ; the other pair are extended, with the palms of
the hands down, as if in the act of delivering a bene
diction. Just above him, on the third terrace, stands
the semi-torso of a youth with a coronet of spikes or
rays upon his head and a sort of rosary wound about
his waist. Both his arms are broken off at the elbow, but
seem to have been lifted above his head or to have sup
ported a shield, like a similar but smaller statue farther
up. The figure is supposed to be a symbol of the Chasca.
or evening star, whose statues in the old Peruvian tem
ples were distinguished by a halo of vertical rays. In
the menagerie of animals and animal fragments there are
six elephants' heads, distributed in the corners of three
successive tiers. Whatever they are intended to represent,
the curled and tapering trunks and pendent ears are de
cidedly elephantine, and even the small piggish eyes are
characteristic of pachyderms, though it ought to be men
tioned that the tusks are uniformly omitted. These heads
have caused a good deal of curious speculation, since even
the illiterate Yucatecos know that only imported elephants
have ever displayed their trunks on this side of the At
lantic. Did the fauna of prehistoric Mexico include ele
phants, or had the builders of this city preserved traditions
of a transatlantic fatherland, India, Siam, or Southern
Africa? Or may it be possible that ante-Columbian vis
itors from the East had carried elephants, or the pictures
or descriptions of such animals, to the "Western World ?
Quien sabef But it would certainly be curious if un
assisted fancy had produced such congruous combinations.
The hieroglyphics that alternate with the sculptured
rows are subdivided by vertical mouldings at irregular
OSWALD] THE RUINS OF UXMAL. 465
intervals, forming longer or shorter quadrangles that seem
to enclose separate inscriptions. Many of these mouldings
are ornamented with a sort of arabesque, while the elabo
rate characters are strongly suggestive of an important
meaning. Different recent visitors have copied such in
scriptions in extenso, but it is to be feared that their labors
have been in vain : the key to that picturesque alphabet
has been lost forever.
The ghost-ridden natives give the casas a wide berth,
but the House of the Dwarf is an object of their especial
dread. Mezequenho, the Good Spirit, was never properly
worshipped by the citizens of Uxmal, they say; and
when the boundary between his patience and his wrath
was passed he turned the entire population into stone and
confined them in this building. But after sunset the pet
rified assembly revives, and woe to the wight that passes
the Casa del Enano in a moonless night ! The north side
of the building looks, indeed, as fantastic as any castle in
Fairydom : a lofty dome, crowned with a tuft of vegeta
tion not unlike a colossal cactus or a gigantic skull with a
wisp of hair standing on end and bristling in the breeze,
while the shroud of creepers forms a compact mass of
foliage from the middle terrace i.e., from a height of
sixty-five feet to the ground, recalling the legend of
Dornrdschen's Burg circumvallated with a rampart of wil-
dering roses.
Southwest of the Casa del Enano there are different
smaller buildings, too rude and artless or too far advanced
in decay to merit a separate description, though I might
mention the Casa de la Yieja, the "House of the Old
"Woman," an ivy-mantled, snug little cottage with a balcony
and a single alcove ; and the Casa Cerrada, or " Closed
House," a cubic mass of masonry without any opening-
whatever, a watch-tower, perhaps, or a mausoleum..
u. ee
466 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [OSWALD
Besides these buildings the excavations have brought
to light a considerable number of detached statues, ter
races, paved court-yards, etc., and some miscellaneous ob
jects whose significance is as problematic as that of the
hieroglyphics. There are an amphitheatre and an artificial
lake, both excavated from the solid rock ; a " tennis-court"
or gymnasium, paved, and encircled by a low wall ; and a
nameless rotunda with fragments of carved columns. On
an artificial mound northeast of the Casa Cerrada stands
a double-headed sphinx, twelve feet long and five feet
high, and a little farther back a six-sided nondescript cut
from a single block and with a polished surface about
eight feet square. Some American merchants from Sisal
had the bad taste to christen it the " Altar of Abraham,"
and the mayoral, in commemoration of their visit, now
calls it the " Altar of Abraham Lincoln," which is certainly
worse ; but Lincoln is popular in Mexico.
I have already referred to the open-air museum on
the river-terrace, where the superintendent has amassed a
ship-load of idols and sculptured tablets. He boasts that
he has hieroglyphic slabs enough now to roof the largest
building in Yucatan ; and the excavations which are still
progressing will probably increase his collection.
Neither the descent of man nor the purpose of the
Pyramids is shrouded in deeper mystery than the origin
of these ruins. All we know with certainty is this : that
they antedate the advent of Columbus by a period which
reaches far beyond the oldest records and traditions of
the American aborigines, for that Uxmal was not built
by the Aztecs is positively demonstrated by architectural
and archaeological evidence, and indirectly by the entire
absence of local tradition.
TBRHTINK] CARE OF THE BODY.
CARE OF THE BODY.
M. V. TERHUNE.
[" Marion Harland," under which pseudonyme Mrs. Terhune has
long been known, is the author of numerous popular novels, of which
the first published, "Alone," has been most widely read. Kecently
she has entered a new field, in her " Common Sense in the Household"
and other works on domestic economy, and her " Eve's Daughters,"
" Our Daughters," etc. Our selection is from " Eve's Daughters," a
volume full of sensible and excellently-presented advice to women.
Mrs. Terhune (Mary Virginia Hawes) is a native of Virginia, where
she was born about 1837.]
THERE is nothing in the history of human folly more
egregiously inconsistent than the admixture of vanity
and aversion, the loving care and gross neglect, manifested
by most young women with regard to their bodies. She
whom we saw, awhile ago, disdainfully scouting the pros
pect of intellectual veneer and varnish, concentrates the
attention she bestows upon her physique upon the exterior.
The hidden works rust and clog and are worn into useless-
ness by attrition, disregarded by the owner who should
also be the kindly keeper. It is true, as you remind me,
that the body is, at best, but the vehicle of the higher
being, the spiritual and mental, the immortal essence that
shall outlive by all eternity to come this crumbling house
of our pilgrimage, this urn wherein the soul tarries for a
night. So the train that bears a living freight of a thou
sand souls from the eastern to the western ocean is but
an ingenious combination of mechanical powers. What
is your opinion of the engineer who remits his watch of
every joint and bar of the locomotive, who lets his fire
go down, or the boiler run dry ?
The girl who devotes an hour a day for a fortnight to
468 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
learning how to " do" the fantastic scallops of her fore-
top, or to dispose her hack-hair in a graceful coil or knot ;
who discourses seriously of the absolute necessity of
spending at least ten minutes each morning in cleaning,
trimming, and polishing, by help of a dainty set of uten
sils, the finger-nails that in consequence of this atten
tion are like pink sea-shells or curled rose-petals ; who
studies the effect upon her style and complexion of coif
fure, cut, and color as diligently as she cons Xenophon's
Anabasis or Spherical Trigonometry, cannot with any
show of reason affect contempt of her corporeal substance.
She does love her body the outside of it with idola
trous affection that absorbs and dwarfs many worthier
emotions. Her neglect of the exquisite machinery it
encases is as puerile as it would be to pass hours in bur
nishing the outside of a watch she never takes the pains
to wind up.
If I return once and again upon this branch of our sub
ject, it is because of my conviction that imperfect appre
ciation of its value is the main cause of the national in-
validism of our sex. The climate has to do with it in so
far as extremes of heat and cold, long rain, deep snows,
and spring mire, hinder out-door exercise. But if mothers
and daughters believed in the need of physical culture
with one-half the earnestness they feel in the matter of
intellectual improvement, these obstacles would lose their
formidableness in less than one generation.
I hold firmly, furthermore, to the opinion that the rapid
degeneration of women foreigners after a short residence
in our country is owing chiefly, if not altogether, to their
adoption of certain, and those the least desirable, of oui
modes of life.
Bridget, whose ideas of in-door comfort have been
formed upon the smoky interior of a bog-trotter's cabin
TEBHTTNE] CARE OF THE BODY. 469
wai'med by a handful of peat and lighted by a farthing
rush-candle, soon learns, with the prodigality of genuine
parvenuism, to fill the range up to the warped, red-hot
plate with coal at five dollars a ton. She demands a drop-
light upon the kitchen gas-burner, and "wouldn't do a
hand's turn in a situation where she had to put her foot
out o' doors to draw water or to fetch in kindlin'-wood for
the fire." Thin boots take the place of the stout brogans
in which she used to tramp four or five miles to market
or to church in all weathers. Her walks are now confined
to a stroll in her best clothes to church on Sunday, and to
the house of an " acquaintance" after dark on week-days.
She washes in a steaming-hot laundry, and, without ex
changing her wet slippers for rubbers, or donning shawl
or hood, goes into the windy back-yard, perhaps covered
with snow, to hang out the clothes. The climate begins
to tell on her after a year or two of this sort of work,
and what wonder ? If these violent variations upon her
former self and existence are insufficient to break her
down, there are not wanting accessories to the unholy
deed in her close bedroom, where the windows are never
opened in winter unless by her disgusted employer ; in
the mountainous feather-bed and half-dozen blankets with
out which she is quick to declare that she " could not get
a wink o' slape at night, bavin' been used to kapin' warm
all her life." Add that she devours meat three times a
day with the rapacity of long-repressed carnivorousnesa
and keeps the teapot on the stove from morning until
night, that she "could live upon sweets" of the most
unwholesome and most expensive varieties, and abhors
early breakfasts, and we wax charitable toward our
maligned climate.
Dr. Beard says of "American women, even of direct
German and English descent," "Subject a part of the
ii. 40
470 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [TERHUNB
year to the tyranny of heat, and a part to the tyranny
of cold, they grow unused to leaving the house : to live
in-doors is the rule ; it is a rarity to go out, as with those
of Continental Europe it is to go in."
Bridget and Gretchen are overgrown children, gross
and undisciplined. If one of them bruises her head or
cuts her finger, she will wail or howl like a yearling baby
Without work they cannot have savory victuals or fine
clothes: hence they must labor so many hours per diem.
Thought and planning seldom go further, especially if the
settled purpose of catching husbands whose wages will
relieve them from the necessity of "living out" be ac
cepted as an extension of their clumsy scheming.
Still, Bridget is an imitative animal, and develops with
civilization into a sort of aptness in this respect. She
apes " the quality," while affecting to consider herself as
good as anybody else. Before she can be reformed, her
mistress must regulate her own habits and those of her
daughters in accordance with the dictates of reason and
a right knowledge of established hygienic laws. Our
domestics, Celtic, Gaelic, Teutonic, American of African
descent, being human creatures of habit, copy their em
ployers' language, and, to some extent, their bearing. In
some instances the resemblance, unintentional though it
may be, is absurdly accurate. The maid models her ap
parel after that of the young ladies of the house, and
grafts upon her brogue or patois the intonations of her
mistress. These are tokens, and not trivial ones, of the
involuntary homage paid by ignorance to knowledge.
"When Mrs. Lofty and her daughters reckon pure air and
abundance of exercise out-of-doors, wholesome food, sound
sleep in cold rooms, stout shoes in wet weather, and in
variable cleanliness of person, among the necessaries of
life and requisites to beauty, when they prohibit feather-
TERHUNE] CARE OF THE BODY. 471
beds as unfashionable abominations, and tea-tippling as
vulgar, the kitchen cabinet will follow suit, slowly, but
inevitably.
Until then, I fear that " the sons of the New World"
will be disappointed in the effect upon the next genera
tion of their " magnificent experiment," should their fresh-
blooded foreign wives take up their residence in America.
The simple truth is that the expression " care of the
health" conveys to the average listener the instant thought
of remedial measures. nothing more, and nothing less.
It is unnatural, argues the popular intellect, for a well
person to think constantly of preserving bodily soundness,
unless it is threatened or has been recently imperilled. A
burnt child dreads the fire. That a child that has never
been scorched should habitually keep at a safe distance
from the flame is without precedent, if not opposed to
rational expectation. Yet the average listener, with the
popular intellect, if he is a man, greases the wheels and
looks to the linch-pins of his wagon before he sets off on
a journey; has the sense to be angry with himself, as
well as ashamed, when a worn-out breeching-strap gives
way in going down-hill, or the swivel-tree, he " now re
members has been cracked this great while," snaps asunder
behind a skittish horse. The dullest household drudge
shakes out and removes the ashes and adjusts the dampers
before she makes up her morning fires.
We have spoken together, and more than once, of the
propriety of creating a stomachic or dietetic conscience.
It is every whit as important to cultivate conscientious
ness in all respects towards the oft-defrauded, incessantly
ill-used body. In your schedule of study and recreation,
leave blanks to be filled out generously by the fulfilment
of the duties you owe to this co-laborer with soul and
mind. Do not be startled when I enjoin that, should the
472 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
mental duty clash with the physical, it is the former that
ought, with a young growing girl, to yield to the asser
tion of the latter. It is folly in a sick girl to study, an
error which she should perceive instinctively, however
unversed she may be in the details of physiology. In
you, who know why the blood pumped through artery
and vein thickens, or thins, or falters, why your head
aches and dumb nausea throw the cold sweat to tho
congesting surface, it is SIN.
You have no more right to eat or drink what you know
will disagree with your digestion than you have to drop
a furtive pinch of arsenic, just enough to sicken her
slightly, into your school-fellow's cup of tea. It is as
truly your duty to eat regularly and enough of whole
some, strength-giving food, wisely adapted to your needs,
as to pray, " Give us this day our daily bread." Faith
without sensible works does not brinsr about miracles in
o
our age. There is the same sin in kind, if not in degree,
in omitting your "constitutional" walk to study a hard
lesson you would like to make sure of for to-morrow, that
there is in picking your neighbor's pocket or cheating her
in a bargain. Both are dishonest actions, and, in the long
but certain run of justice, both are sure to be punished.
Put yourself in thought outside of your body ; make an
inventory of its capabilities and necessities. It is your
soul's nearest neighbor. See to it that the soul loves it as
itself.
If your teachers are sagacious and just in apportioning
seasons for rest, exercise, and recreation, your duty is the
easier. If they are negligent of this in their mistaken
zeal for the intellectual advancement of their pupils, be a
higher law unto yourself. It is the ignoramus or the
shirk who waits to be warned by the ominous creak of
the wheel that the oilless axle is heated and a break-down
TERHUNE] CARE OF THE BODY. 473
imminent. It may be "plucky" to persist in studying,
with a blind headache that would distract a girl of weaker
will out of all power of concentration. It is undoubtedly
foolhardy.
I have in my mind now a gifted woman who told me, in
the course of a talk upon the conservation of forces, how
Hne had read and made an elaborate digest of a scientific
treatise while her head was bound about with ice-cloths
to assuage the anguished throbbing of her temples, and
her eyes could bear no more light than the one powerful
ray admitted between the curtains to fall over her left
ahoulder directly upon the page.
Another rash adventurer of the same sex, determined
to lose no time in her musical education, was propped up
in bed during her convalescence from a spell of typhoid
fever. Her exercise-book was set up before her on a
frame, and she practised first thirty minutes, then an hour,
finally two hours, each day, in dumb show upon a key
board pencilled on a pillow. She has been in her grave for
twenty years now. Her friends were wont to tell pride-
fully of the heroic battle with languor and pain I have
described, and regret in the same breath that " that fever
left her a mere wreck. "With strength and health she would
doubtless have accomplished much in the musical world."
The heroine of headache and scientific tastes still lives
and still fights with bodily ills as with a visible Apollyon.
She cannot walk across the room without assistance, so
abject is the ruin of the nervous system ; and in every
day she dies a hundred deaths with tic-douloureux and
sciatica. We may reiterate here, with a different applica
tion, Dr. Beard's words :
" So inevitable was this result, that, had it been other
wise, one might well suspect that the law of causation
had been suspended."
ii. 40*
474 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
It is, then, absurd, and as cruel as foolish, to lash on
with whip and spur a faithful servitor to whom you owe
the liberty to study at all. How unwise and short-sighted
is the self-will you vaunt, let an abler pen than mine tell
you, and in formula instead of illustration. Dr. Anstie,
in a treatise upon "Neuralgia," which I commend to
the perusal of all afflicted with that malady, thus writes :
" In the abnormal strain that is being put on the brain in
many cases by a forcing plan of education, we shall per
ceive a source not merely of exhaustive expenditure of
nervous power, but of secondary irritation of centres like
the medulla oblongata, that are probably already somewhat
lowered in power of vital resistance and proportionably
irritable."
The medulla oblongata is, as your physiological books
have taught you, a marrowy, oblong body connecting the
spinal cord with the brain. To strain this delicate nerve-
centre is to deplete the nervous tissues more rapidly than
they can be repaired. In more direct terms, it is to sap
the citadel of Eeason and of Life. To irritate the me
dulla oblongata is to risk brain-fever. Excessive mental
application without recuperation of mind and body, loss
of sleep, stress of excited thought, particularly upon one
agitating theme, are both strain and irritation.
You have a fixed income of physical energy. Your
" pluck" is mental force. The two together accomplish
the finest results of which human kind is capable. The
bodily powers are the treasure-house in which Nature has
deposited your wealth, the dowry settled upon you as
your birthright, to be controlled by yourself alone, with
your parents as trustees during your infancy and child
hood. Their judicious management has augmented the
original deposit, until you find yourself now in possession
of a handsome competency, invested in stocks that will
MITCHELL] SPRING-TIME AND BOYHOOD. 475
yield fair and ample returns. "We will call the will-power
or moral force the checks that draw upon the invested
sums. So long as only the regularly- accruing interest is
used up by your daily and yearly expenses you are none
the poorer, and the community in which you live is the
richer for what you throw into general circulation. From
the day in which you begin to draw upon the principal,
the interest becomes smaller. The necessity of accumu
lation obtrudes itself if you would not be gradually im
poverished.
SPRING-TIME AND BOYHOOD.
DONALD G. MITCHELL.
["Ik Marvel," under which pseudonyme Donald G. Mitchell has
long been known, stands as the author of several beautifully-written
books, of a philosophically reflective character, which have enjoyed a
high degree of favor with the reading public. The " Keveries of a
Bachelor" and " Dream-Life" but put into words the thoughts which
float through every imaginative mind, and in reading them we seem
to behold our own waking dreams mirrored on the printed page. Mr.
Mitchell is the author of several other works, among them a record
of a tour in Europe, and "Dr. Johns," an ably-written novel. The
selection given below is from " Dream-Life." Mr. Mitchell was born
at Norwich, Connecticut, in 1822.]
THE old chroniclers made the year begin in the season
of frosts ; and they have launched us upon the current of
the months from the snowy banks of January. I love
better to count time from Spring to Spring : it seems to
me far more cheerful to reckon the year by blossoms than
by blight.
Bernardin de St. Pierre, in his sweet story of Virginia,
makes the bloom of the cocoa-tree, or the growth of the
476 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [MITCHELL
banana, a yearly and a loved monitor of the passage of
her life. How cold and cheerless in the comparison would
be the icy chronology of the North ! So many years have
I seen the lakes locked, and the foliage die !
The budding and blooming of Spring seem to belong
pioperly to the opening of the months. It is the season
of the quickest expansion, of the warmest blood, of the
readiest growth ; it is the boy-age of the year. The birds
sing in chorus in the Spring, just as children prattle ;
the brooks run full, like the overflow of young hearts ;
the showers drop easily, as young tears flow ; and the
whole sky is as capricious as the mind of a boy.
Between tears and smiles, the year, like the child,
struggles into the warmth of life. The Old Year say
what the chronologists will lingers upon the very lap
of Spring, and is only fairly gone when the blossoms of
April have strown their pall of glory upon his tomb and
the bluebirds have chanted his requiem.
It always seems to me as if an access of life came with
the melting of the winter's snows, and as if every rootlet
of grass, that lifted its first green blade from the matted
debris of the old year's decay, bore my spirit upon it,
nearer to the largess of Heaven.
I love to trace the break of Spring step by step ; I love
even those long rain-storms, that sap the icy fortresses
of the lingering winter, that melt the snows iipon the
hills, and swell the mountain-brooks, that make the pools
heave up their glassy cerements of ice, and hurry down
the crashing fragments into the wastes of ocean.
I love the gentle thaws that you can trace, day by day,
by the stained snow-banks, shrinking from the grass, and
by the quiet drip of the cottage eaves. I love to search
out the sunny slopes under some northern shelter, where
the reflected sun does double duty to the earth, and
MITCHELL] SPRING-TIME AND BOYHOOD. 477
where the frail hepatica, or the faint blush of the arbutus,
in the midst of the bleak March atmosphere, will touch
your heart, like a hope of heaven in a field of graves.
Later come those soft, smoky days, when the patches of
winter grain show green under the shelter of leafless
woods, and the last snow-drifts, reduced to shrunken skel
etons of ice, lie upon the slope of northern hills, leaking
uway their life.
Then the grass at your door grows into the color of the
sprouting grain, and the buds upon the lilacs swell and
burst. The peaches bloom upon the wall, and the plums
wear bodices of white. The sparkling oriole picks string
for his hammock on the sycamore, and the sparrows twit
ter in pairs. The old elms throw down their dingy flowers,
and color their spray with green ; and the brooks, where
you throw your worm or the minnow, float down whole
fleets of the crimson blossoms of the maple. Finally the
oaks step into the opening quadrille of spring, with gray
ish tufts of a modest verdure, which by and by will be
long and glossy leaves. The dog- wood pitches his broad,
white tent in the edge of the forest ; the dandelions lie
along the hillocks, like stars in a sky of green ; and the
wild cherry, growing in all the hedge-rows, without other
culture than God's, lifts up to Him thankfully its tremu
lous white fingers.
Amid all this come the rich rains of Spring. The affec
tions of a boy grow up with tears to water them; and the
year blooms with showers. But the clouds hover over
an April sky timidly, like shadows upon innocence. The
showers come gently, and drop daintily to the earth,
with now and then a glimpse of sunshine to make the
drops bright, like so many bubbles of joy.
The rain of winter is cold, and it comes in bitter scuds
that blind you; but the rain of April steals upon you
478 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
coyly, half reluctantly, yet lovingly, like the steps of a
bride to the altar.
It does not gather like the storm-clouds of winter, gray
and heavy along the horizon, and creep with subtle and
insensible approaches (like age) to the very zenith ; but
there are a score of white-winged swimmers afloat, ihat
your eye has chased as you lay beguiled with the delieiouH
warmth of an April sun; nor have you scarce noticed
that a little bevy of those floating clouds had grouped
together in a sombre company. But presently you see
across the fields the dark gray streaks, stretching like
lines of mist from the green bosom of the valley to that
spot of sky where the company of clouds is loitering;
and with an easy shifting of the helm the fleet of swim
mers come, drifting over you, and drop their burden into
the dancing pools, and make the flowers glisten and the
eaves drip with their crystal bounty.
The cattle linger by the watercourses, cropping eagerly
the firstlings of the grass ; and childhood laughs joyously
at the warm rain, or under the cottage roof catches with
eager ear the patter of its fall.
And with that patter on the roof so like to the
patter of childish feet my story of boyish dreams shall
begin.
It is an old garret, with big brown rafters; and the
boards between are stained darkly with the rain-storms
of fifty years. And as the sportive April shower quicKens
its flood, it seems as if its torrents would come dashing
through the shingles upon you, and upon your play. But
they will not ; for you know that the old roof is strong,
and that it has kept you, and all that love you, for long
years from the rain and from the cold ; you know that the
hardest storms of winter will only make a little oozing
leak, that trickles down, leaving homely brown stains.
MITCHELL] SPRING-TIME AND BOYHOOD. 479
You love that old garret-roof; and you nestle down
under its slope with a sense of its protecting power that
no castle-walls can give to your maturer years. Ay, your
heart clings in boyhood to the roof-tree of the old family
garret with a grateful affection and an abiding confidence,
that the after-years whatever may be their successes or
their honors can never re-create. Under the roof-tree
of his home the boy feels SAFE : and where in the whole
realm of life, with its bitter toils and its bitterer tempta
tions, will he feel safe again ?
But this you do not know. It seems only a grand old
place ; and it is capital fun to search in its corners, and
drag out some bit of quaint furniture, with a leg broken,
and lay a cushion across it, and fix your reins upon the
lion's claws of the feet, and then gallop away ! And you
offer sister Nelly a chance, if she will be good; and throw
out very patronizing words to little Charlie, who is
mounted upon a much humbler horse, to wit, a decrepit
nursery-chair, as he of right should be, since he is three
years your junior.
I know no nobler forage-ground for a romantic, venture
some, mischievous boy, than the garret of an old family
mansion on a day of storm. It is a perfect field of chiv
alry. The heavy rafters, the dashing rain, the piles of
spare mattresses to cai-ouse upon, the big trunks to hide
in, the ancient white coats and hats hanging in obscuro
corners, like ghosts, are great ! And it is so far away from
the old lady who keeps rule in the nursery, that there is
no possible risk of a scolding for twisting off the fringe
of the rug. There is no baby in the garret to wake up.
There is no " company" in the garret to be disturbed by
the noise. There is no crotchety uncle, or grandmamma,
with their everlasting " Boys, boys !" and then a look of
such horror I
480 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [MITCHELL
There is great fun in groping through a tall barrel of
books and pamphlets, on the lookout for startling pictures ;
and there are chestnuts in the garret drying, which you
have discovered on a ledge of the chimney ; and you elide
a few into your pocket, and munch them quietly, giving
now and then one to Nelly, and begging her to keep silent,
for you have a great fear of its being forbidden fruit.
Old family garrets have their stock, as I said, of cast
away clothes of twenty years gone by; and it is rare
sport to put them on, buttoning in a pillow or two for the
sake of good fulness ; and then to trick out Nelly in some
strange-shaped head-gear, and ancient brocade petticoat
caught up with pins, and in such guise to steal cautiously
down-stairs, and creep slyly into the sitting-room, half
afraid of a scolding, and very sure of good fun, trying
to look very sober, and yet almost ready to die with the
laugh that you know you will make. And your mother
tries to look harshly at little Nelly for putting on her
grandmother's best bonnet ; but Nelly's laughing eyes for
bid .it utterly ; and the mother spoils all her scolding with
a perfect shower of kisses.
After this you go, marching very stately, into the nurs
ery, and utterly amaze the old nurse, and make a deal of
wonderment for the staring, half-frightened baby, who
drops his rattle, and makes a bob at you as if he would
jump into your waistcoat-pocket.
But you grow tired of this ; you tire even of the swing,
and of the pranks of Charlie ; and you glide away into a
corner with an old, dog's-eared copy of " Eobinson Crusoe,"
and you grow heart and soul into the story, until you
tremble for the poor fellow with his guns behind the pal
isade, and are yourself half dead with fright when you
peep cautiously over the hill with your glass and see the
cannibals at their orgies around the fire.
MITCHELL! SPRING-TIME AND BOYHOOD. 481
Yet, after all, you think the old fellow must have had a
capital time with a whole island to himself; and you think
you would like such a time yourself, if only Nelly and
Charlie could be there with you. But this thought does
not come till afterward : for the time you are nothing but
Crusoe ; you are living in his cave with Poll the parrot,
and are looking out for your goats and man Friday.
You dream what a nice thing it would be for you to
slip away some pleasant morning not to York, as young
Crusoe did, but to New York and take passage as a
sailor; and how, if they knew you were going, there
would be such a world of good-byes ; and how, if they did
not know it, there would be such a world of wonder !
And then the sailor's dress would be altogether such a
jaunty affair ; and it would be such rare sport to lie off
upon the yards far aloft, as you have seen sailors in pic
tures, looking out upon the blue and tumbling sea. No
thought now, in your boyish dreams, of sleety storms, and
cables stiffened with ice, and crashing spars, and great ice
bergs towering fearfully around you !
You would have better luck than even Crusoe; you
would save a compass, and a Bible, and stores of hatchets,
and the captain's dog, and great puncheons of sweetmeats
(which Crusoe altogether overlooked) ; and you would
save a tent or two, which you could set up on the shore,
and an American flag, and a small piece of cannon, which
you could fire as often as you liked. At night you would
sleep in a tree, though you wonder how Crusoe did it,
and would say the prayers you had been taught to say at
home, and fall to sleep, dreaming of Nelly and Charlie.
At sunrise, or thereabouts, you would come down, feel
ing very much refreshed, and make a very nice breakfast
off of smoked herring and sea-bread, with a little currant
jam and a few oranges. After this you would haul ashore
iiv // 41
482 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [MITCHELL
a chest or two of the sailors' clothes, and, putting a few
large jack-knives in your pocket, would take a stroll over
the island, and dig a cave somewhere, and roll in a cask
or two of sea-bread. And you fancy yourself growing
after a time very tall and corpulent, and wearing a mag
nificent goat-skin cap trimmed with green ribbons and set
off with a plume. You think you would have put a few
more guns in the palisade than Crusoe did, and charged
them with a little more grape.
After a long while, you fancy, a ship would arrive which
would carry you back ; and you count upon very great
surprise on the part of your father and little Nelly, as
you march up to the door of the old family mansion, with
plenty of gold in your pocket, and a small bag of cocoa-
nuts for Charlie, and with a great deal of pleasant talk
about your island far away in the South Seas.
Or perhaps it is not Crusoe at all that your eyes
and your heart cling to, but only some little story about
Paul and Virginia ; that dear little Virginia ! how many
tears have been shed over her, not in garrets only, or by
boys only !
You would have liked Virginia, you know you would ;
but you perfectly hate the beldame aunt who sent for her
to come to France ; you think she must have been like
the old schoolmistress who occasionally boxes your ears
with the cover of the spelling-book, or makes you wear
one of the girls' bonnets, that smells strongly of paste
board and calico.
As for black Domingue, you think he was a capital old
fellow ; and you think more of him and his bananas than
you do of the bursting, throbbing heart of poor Paul. As
yet Dream-life does not take hold on love. A little ma
turity of heart is wanted to make up what the poets call
sensibility. If love should come to be a dangerous, chi-
DWIGHT] THE NOTCH OF THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 483
valric matter, as in the case of Helen Mar and "Wallace,
you can very easily conceive of it, and can take hold of
all the little accessories of male costume and embroidering
of banners ; but as for pure sentiment, such as lies in the
sweet story of Bernardin de St. Pierre, it is quite beyond
you.
The rich, soft nights, in which one might doze in his
hammock, watching the play of the silvery moon-beams
upon the orange-leaves and upon the waves, you can
understand ; and you fall to dreaming of that lovely Isle
of France, and wondering if Virginia did not perhaps
have some relations on the island, who raise pineapples,
and such sort of things, still.
And so, with your head upon your hand, in your
quiet garret corner, over some such beguiling story, your
thought leans away from the book into your own dreamy
cruise over the sea of life.
THE NOTCH OF THE WHITE MOUNTAINS.
TIMOTHY DWIGHT.
[Our present selection is from one of the American authors of the
eighteenth century. The list of these authors is not a long one, yet it
contains several names which have attained a high position in tho
literary world, and among these that of Timothy Dwight must he in
cluded. He was a native of Massachusetts, where he was horn in
1752. He died in 1817. His first literary work was in verse, and con
sisted of "The Conquest of Canaan," an epic poem completed when
he was twenty-two years of age. He wrote much other poetry, hut
his reputation rests upon his prose works, which are of high literary
value. They are mainly theological. His " Theology Explained and
Defended" has heen one of the most widely read of such works in the
484 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [DwiGHT
English language. Of secular writings his chief work is " Travels in
New England and New York," from which our selection is taken. It
is in four volumes, and is highly valuable for its historical, statistical,
and topographical information, and for its record of American society
and manners in the early part of the present century. It is written in a
fluent and glowing style, and displays close observation and an ardent
love of the beauties of nature.]
THE Notch of the White Mountains is a phrase appro
priated to a very narrow defile, extending two miles in
length between two huge cliffs apparently rent asunder
by some vast convulsion of nature. . . . The entrance
of the chasm is formed by two rocks standing perpendicu
larly at the distance of twenty-two feet from each other ;
one about twenty feet in height, the other about twelve.
Half of the space is occupied by the brook mentioned as
the head-stream of the Saco ; the other half by the road.
The stream is lost and invisible beneath a mass of frag
ments partly blown out of the road and partly thrown
down by some great convulsion.
When we entered the Notch we were struck with the
wild and solemn appearance of everything before us. The
scale on which all the objects in view were formed was the
scale of grandeur only. The rocks, rude and ragged in a
manner rarely paralleled, were fashioned and piled on each
other by a hand operating only in the boldest and most
irregular manner. As we advanced, these appearances
increased rapidly. Huge masses of granite, of every
abrupt form, and hoary with a moss which seemed the
product of ages, recalling to the mind the saxum vetustum
of Yirgil, speedily rose to a mountainous height. Before
us the view widened fast to the southeast. Behind us it
closed almost instantaneously, and presented nothing to
the eye but an impassable barrier of mountains.
About half a mile from the entrance of the chasm we
DWIGHT] THE NOTCH OF THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 485
saw, iii full view, the most beautiful cascade, perhaps, in
the world. It issued from a mountain on the right, about
eight hundred feet above the subjacent valley, and at the
distance of about two miles from us. The stream ran
over a series of rocks almost perpendicular, with a course
so little broken as to preserve the appearance of a uniform
current, and yet so far disturbed as to be perfectly white.
The sun shone with the clearest splendor from a station
in the heavens the most advantageous to our prospect ;
and the cascade glittered down the vast steep like a stream
of burnished silver.
At the distance of three-quarters of a mile from the
entrance we passed a brook known in this region by the
name of the Flume, from the strong resemblance to that
object exhibited by the channel which it has worn for a
considerable length in a bed of rocks, the sides being per
pendicular to the bottom. This elegant piece of water we
determined to examine further, and, alighting from our
horses, walked up the acclivity perhaps a furlong. The
stream fell from a height of two hundred and forty or two
hundred and fifty feet over three precipices ; the second
receding a small distance from the front of the first, and
the third from that of the second. Down the first and
second it fell in a single current ; and down the third in
three, which united their streams at the bottom in a fine
basin, formed by the hand of nature in the rocks immedi
ately beneath us. It is impossible for a brook of this size
to be modelled into more diversified or more delightful
forms, or for a cascade to descend over precipices more
happily fitted to finish its beauty. The cliffs, together
with a level at their foot, furnished a considerable open
ing, surrounded by the forest. The sunbeams, penetrat
ing through the trees, painted here a great variety of
fine images of light, and edged an equally numerous
ii. 41*
486 REST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
diversified collection of shadows; both dancing on the
waters, and alternately silvering and obscuring their
course. Purer water was never seen. Exclusively of its
murmurs, the world around us was solemn and silent.
Everything assumed the character of enchantment ; and
had I been educated in the Grecian mythology I should
scarcely have been surprised to find an assemblage of
Dryads, Naiads, and Oreades sporting on the little plain
below our feet. The purity of this water was discernible
not only by its limpid appearance and its taste, but from
several other circumstances. Its course is wholly over
hard granite ; and the rocks and the stones in its bed and
at its side, instead of being covered with adventitious
substances, were washed perfectly clean, and by their
neat appearance added not a little to the beauty of the
scenery. . . .
From this spot the mountains speedily began to open
with increased majesty, and in several instances rose to a
perpendicular height little less than a mile. The bosom
of both ranges was overspread, in all the inferior regions,
by a mixture of evergreens with trees whose leaves are
deciduous. The annual foliage had been already changed
by the frost. Of the effects of this change it is, perhaps,
impossible for an inhabitant of Great Britain, as I have
been assured by several foreigners, to form an adequate
conception without visiting an American forest. When
I was a youth I remarked that Thomson had entirely
omitted, in his Seasons, this fine part of autumnal imagery.
Upon inquiring of an English gentleman the probable
cause of the omission, he informed me that no such scenery
existed in Great Britain. In this country it is often among
the most splendid beauties of nature. All the leaves of
trees which are not evergreens are by the first severe
frost changed from their verdure towards the perfection
THE NOTCH OF TH& WHITE MOUNTAINS. 487
of that color which they are capable of ultimately as
suming, through yellow, orange, and red, to a pretty deep
brown. As the frost affects diiferent trees, and the differ
ent leaves of the same tree, in very different degrees, a
vast multitude of tinctures are commonly found on those
of a single tree, and always on those of a grove or forest.
These colors also, in all their varieties, are generally full,
and in many instances are among the most exquisite which
are found in the regions of nature. Different sorts of
trees are susceptible of different degrees of this beauty.
Among them the maple is pre-eminently distinguished by
the prodigious varieties, the finished beauty, and the in
tense lustre of its hues ; varying through all the dyes
between a rich green and the most perfect crimson, or,
more definitely, the red of the prismatic image.
There is, however, a sensible difference in the beauty of
this appearance of nature in different parts of the country,
even where the forest trees are the same. I have seen nf
tract where its splendor was so highly finished as in the
region which surrounds Lancaster for a distance of thirty
miles. The colors are more varied and more intense ; and
the numerous evergreens furnish, in their deep hues, the
best groundwork of the picture.
I have remarked that the annual foliage on these moun
tains had been already changed by the frost. Of course,
the darkness of the evergreens was finely illumined by
the brilliant yellow of the birch, the beech, and the cherry,
and the more brilliant orange and crimson of the maple.
The effect of this universal diffusion of gay and splendid
light was to render the preponderating deep green more
solemn. The mind, encircled by this scenery, irresistibly
remembered that the light was the light of decay, au
tumnal and melancholy. The dark was the gloom of
evening, approximating to night. Over the whole the
488 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [DvriGUT
azure of the sky cast a deep, misty blue, blending, toward
the summits, every other hue, and predominating over all.
As the eye ascended these steeps, the light decayed,
and gradually ceased. On the inferior summits rose
crowns of conical firs and spruces. On the superior emi
nences, the trees, growing less and less, yielded to the
chilling atmosphere, and marked the limit of forest vege
tation. Above, the surface was covered with a mass of
shrubs, terminating, at a still higher elevation, in a
shroud of dark-colored moss.
As we passed onward through this singular valley, oc
casional torrents, formed by the rains and dissolving
snows at the close of winter, had left behind them, in
many places, perpetual monuments of their progress, in
perpendicular, narrow, and irregular paths of immense
length, where they had washed the precipices naked and
white, from the summit of the mountain to the base.
Wide and deep chasms also at times met the eye, both
on the summits and the sides, and strongly impressed the
imagination with the thought that a hand of immeasurable
power had rent asunder the solid rocks and tumbled them
into the subjacent valley. Over all, hoary cliffs, rising
with proud supremacy, frowned awfully on the world
below, and finished the landscape.
By our side, the Saco was alternately visible and lost,
and increased almost at every step by the junction of
tributary streams. Its course was a perpetual cascade,
and with its sprightly murmurs furnished the only con
trast to the majestic scenery around us.
WHITMAN] SONG OF THE REDWOOD-TREE. 489
SONG OF THE REDWOOD-TREE.
WALT WHITMAN.
[We can only say of Walt Whitman's poetry that it is never likely
to become popular. Its lack of rhyme and rhythm reduces it to the
form of prose, above which its poetical power seldom elevates it. It
is frequently a rhapsody, without beginning, middle, or end, and,
though full of imaginative fervor, and with many passages of fine
power, there is an apotheosis of the grosser bodily element, and a lack
of the spiritual element of thought. The poem we quote has a deeper
and more elevating significance than is usual with the author, and if
judiciously pruned might take high rank in the poetic world. Walt
Whitman was born in 1819, at West Hills, Long Island.]
I.
A CALIFORNIA song,
A prophecy and indirection, a thought impalpable to
breathe as air,
A chorus of dryads, fading, departing, or hamadryads
departing,
A murmuring, fateful, giant voice, out of the earth and
sky,
Voice of a mighty dying tree in the redwood forest dense.
Farewell, my brethren,
Farewell, earth and sky, farewell, ye neighboring waters,
My time has ended, my term has come.
Along the northern coast,
Just back from the rock-bound shore and the caves,
In the saline air from the sea, in the Mendocino country,
With the surge for bass and accompaniment low and
hoarse,
With crackling blows of axes sounding musically, driven
by strong arms,
490 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WHITMAN
Eiven deep by the sharp tongues of the axes, there in the
redwood forest dense,
I heard the mighty tree its death-chant chanting.
The choppers heard not, the camp-shanties echoed not,
The quick-eared teamsters and chain and jack-screw men
heard not,
As the wood-spirits came from their haunts of a thousand
years to join the refrain,
But in my soul I plainly heard,
Murmuring out of its myriad leaves,
Down from its lofty top rising two hundred feet high,
Out of its stalwart trunk and limbs, out of its foot-thick
bark,
That chant of tie seasons and time, chant not of the past
only but the future.
You untold life of me,
And all you venerable and innocent joys,
Perennial hardy life of me with joys 'mid rain and many a
summer sun,
And the white snows and night and the wild winds ;
O the great patient rugged joys, my soul's strong joys un~
recked by man
(For know I bear the soul befitting me, I too have conscious'
ness, identity,
And all the rocks and mountains have, and all the earth),
Joys of the life befitting me and brothers mine,
Our time, our term has come.
Nor yield we mournfully, majestic brothers.
We who have grandly filled our time ;
With Nature's calm content, with tacit huge delight,
WHITMAN] SONG OF THE REDWOOD-TREE. 491
We welcome what we wrought for through the past,
And leave the field for them.
For them predicted long,
For a superber race, they too to grandly fill their time,
For them we abdicate, in them ourselves, ye forest kings !
In them these skies and airs, these mountain-peaks, Shasta,
Nevadas,
These huge precipitous cliffs, this amplitude, these valleys, far
Yosemite,
To be in them absorbed, assimilated.
Then to a loftier strain,
Still prouder, more ecstatic, rose the chant,
As if the heirs, the deities of the "West,
Joining with master-tongue bore part.
Not wan from Asia's fetiches,
Nor red from Europe's old dynastic slaugnter-house
(Area of murder-plots of thrones, with scent left yet of wars
and scaffolds everywhere"),
~But come from Nature's long and harmless throes, peacefully
builded thence,
These virgin lands, lands of the Western shore,
To the new culminating man, to you, the empire new,
You promised long, we pledge, we dedicate.
You occult deep volitions,
You average spiritual manhood, purpose of all, poised on
yourself, giving not taking law,
You womanhood divine, mistress and source of all, whence life
and love and aught that comes from life and love,
You unseen moral essence of all the vast materials of America
(age upon age working in death the same as life),
492 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [WHITMAN
You that, sometimes known, oftener unknown, really shape and
mould the New World, adjusting it to Time and Space,
You hidden national will lying in your abysms, concealed but
ever alert,
You past and present purposes tenaciously pursued, maybe
unconscious of yourselves,
Unswerved by all the passing errors, perturbations of the
surface ;
You vital, universal, deathless germs, beneath all creeds, arts,
statutes, literatures,
Here build your homes for good, establish here, these areas
entire, lands of the Western shore,
We pledge, we dedicate to you.
For man of you, your characteristic race,
Here may be hardy, sweet, gigantic grow, here tower propor
tionate to Nature,
Here climb the vast pure spaces unconfined, unchecked by wall
or roof,
Here laugh with storm or sun, here joy, here patiently inure,
Here heed himself, unfold himself (not others' formulas heed),
here fill his time,
To duly fall, to aid, unrecked at last,
To disappear, to serve.
Thus on the northern coast;
In the echo of teamsters' calls and the clinking chains, and
the music of choppers' axes,
The falling trunk and limbs, the crash, the muffled shriek,
the groan,
Such words combined from the redwood-tree, as of voices
ecstatic, ancient and rustling,
The century-lasting, unseen dryads, singing, withdrawing,
All their recesses of forests and mountains leaving,
WHITMAN] SONG OF THE REDWOOD-TREE. 493
From the Cascade range to the "Wasatch, or Idaho far, or
Utah,
To the deities of the modern henceforth yielding,
The chorus and indications, the vistas of coming humanity,
the settlements, features all,
In the Mendocino woods I caught.
ii.
The flashing and golden pageant of California,
The sudden and gorgeous drama, the sunny and ample lands,
The long and varied stretch from Puget Sound to Colorado
south,
Lands bathed in sweeter, rarer, healthier air, valleys and
mountain cliffs ;
The fields of Nature long prepared and fallow, the silent,
cyclic chemistry,
The slow and steady ages plodding, the unoccupied surface
ripening, the rich ores forming beneath ;
At last the New arriving, assuming, taking possession,
A swarming and busy race settling and organizing every
where,
Ships coming in from the whole round world, and going
out to the whole world,
To India and China and Australia and the thousand island
paradises of the Pacific,
Populous cities, the latest inventions, the steamers on the
rivers, the railroads, with many a thrifty farm, with
machinery,
And wool and wheat and the grape, and diggings of yellow
gold.
in.
But more in you than these, lands of the "Western shore
(These but the means, the implements, the standing-
ground),
n. 42
494 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HoLLEr
I see in you, certain to come, the promise of thousands of
years, till now deferred,
Promised to be fulfilled, our common kind, the race.
The new society at last, proportionate to Nature,
In man of you, more than your mountain-peaks or stalwart
trees imperial,
In woman more, far more, than all your gold or vines, or
even vital air.
Fresh come, to a new world indeed, yet long prepared,
I see the genius of the modern, child of the real ana
ideal,
Clearing the ground for broad humanity, the true Amer
ica, heir of the past so grand,
To build a grander future.
JOSIAH ALLEN'S WIFE CALLS ON THE PRESIDENT.
MARIETTA HOLLEY.
[Of recent dialectical works of humor those of Marietta Holley
have attained an extraordinary popularity, and the " opinions" of
Josiah Allen's -wife are widely quoted. In fact, under their nonsense
there is revealed a vein of shrewd common sense which appeals to all
who possess a shred of this somewhat uncommon quality. " Josiah
Allen's Wife," " My Opinions and Betsy Bobbet's," and other works
of the author, are a melange of ridiculous conversations and sensible
observations on general subjects, while "Sweet Cicely," her latest
work, deals with keen wit with the questions of intemperance, political
rascality, and the like crying evils of the land. Josiah Allen takes
toe political fever badly, and his wife, much exercised in mind thereat,
HOLLET] MRS. ALLEN CALLS ON THE PRESIDENT. 495
finally concludes to visit Washington, and take the advice of the
President on the disturbing question. This interview with the Presi
dent is a fair example of the author's style.]
AND so we wended our way down the broad, beautiful
streets towards the "White House.
Handsomer streets I never see. I had thought Jones-
ville streets wus middlin' handsome and roomy. Why,
two double wagons can go by each other with perfect
safety, right in front of the grocery-stores, where there is
lots of boxes too ; and wimmen can be a-walkin' there too
at the same time, hefty ones.
But, good land 1 loads of hay could pass each other here,
and droves of dromedaries, and camels, and not touch each
ather, and then there would be lots of room for men and
wimmen, and for wagons to rumble, and perioguers to
float up and down if perioguers could sail on dry land.
Roomier, handsomer, well-shadeder streets I never want
to see, nor don't expept to. Why, Jonesville streets are
like tape compared with 'em ; and Loontown and Toad
Holler, they are like thread, No. 50 (allegory).
Bub Smith wus well acquainted with the President's
hired man, so he let us in without parlay.
I don't believe in talkin' big as a general thing. But
thinks'es I, Here I be, a-holdin' up the dignity of Jones
ville : and here I be, on a deep, heart-searchin' errent to
the Nation. So I said, in words and axents a good deal
like them I have read of in " Children of the Abbey" and
" Charlotte Temple,"
" Is the President of the "United States within ?"
He said he was, but said sunthin' about his not receiving
calls in the mornings.
But 1 says in a very polite way, for I like to put folks
at their ease, presidents or peddlers or anything,
" It hain't no matter at all if he hain't dressed up ; of
496 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HOLLEI
course he wuzn't expectin' company. Josiah don't drees
up mornin's."
And then he says something about " he didn't know but
he was engaged."
Says I, " That hain't no news to me, nor the Nation.
We have been a-hearin' that for three years, right along.
And if he is engaged, it hain't no good reason why he
shouldn't speak to other wimmen, good, honorable mar
ried ones too."
" "Well," says he, finally, " I will take up your card."
"No, you won't!" says I, firmly. "I am a Methodist!
I guess I can start off on a short tower without takin' a
pack of cards with me. And if I had 'em right here in
my pocket, or a set of dominoes, I shouldn't expect to
take up the time of the President of the United States
a-playin' games at this time of the day." Says I, in deep
tones, "I am a-carrien' errents to the President that the
world knows not of."
He blushed up red ; he was ashamed ; and he said " he
would see if I could be admitted."
And he led the way along, and I follered, and the boy.
Bub Smith had left us at the door.
The hired man seemed to think I would want to look
round some ; and he walked sort o' slow, out of courtesy.
But, good land! how little that hired man knew my
feelin's, as he led me on, I a-thinkin' to myself,
'Here I am, a-steppin' where G-. "Washington strode."
Oh the grandeur of my feelins' ! The nobility of 'em ! and
the quantity ! Why, it was a perfect sight.
But right into these exalted sentiments the hired man
intruded with his frivolous remarks, worse than frivo
lous.
He says agin something about " not knowin' whether
the President would be ready to receive me."
BOLLEY] MRS. ALLEN CALLS ON THE PRESIDENT. 497
And I stepped down sudden from that lofty piller I had
trod on in my mind, and says I,
" I tell you agin, I don't care whether he is dressed up
or not. I come on principle, and I shall look at him
through that eye, and no other."
"Wall," says he, turnin' sort o' red agin (he was
ashamed), "have you noticed the beauty of the didos?"
But I kep' my head right up in the air nobly, and
never turned to the right or the left ; and says I,
" I don't see no beauty in cuttin' up didos, nor never
did. I have heard that they did such things here in
"Washington, D. C., but I do not choose to have my atten
tion drawed to 'em."
But I pondered a minute, and the word " meetin'-house"
struck a fearful blow ag'inst my conscience j and I says,
in milder axents,
" If I looked upon a dido at all, it would be, not with
a human woman's eye, but the eye of a Methodist. My
duty draws me : point out the dido, and I will look at it
through that one eye."
And he says, " I was a-talkin' about the walls of this
room."
And I says, " Why couldn't you say so in the first place ?
The idee of skairin' folks! or tryin' to," I added ; for I
hain't easily skairt.
The walls wus perfectly beautiful, and so wus the ceilin'
and floors. There wuzn't a house in Jonesville that could
compare with it, though we had painted our meetin'-house
over at a cost of upwards of 28 dollars. But it didn't
come up to this not half. President Arthur has got
good taste ; and I thought to myself, and I says to the
hired man, as I looked round and see the soft richness and
quiet beauty and grandeur of the surroundings,
" I had just as lives have him pick me out a calico dress
11. gg 42*
498 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HoLLET
as to pick it out myself. And that is sayin' a great deal."
says I. " I am always very putickuler in calico : richness
and beauty is what I look out for, and wear."
Jest as I wus sayin' this, the hired man opened a door
into a lofty, beautiful room ; and says he,
''Step in here, madam, into the antick room, and I'll see
if the President can see you ;" and he started off sudden,
bein' called. And I jest turned round and looked after
him, for I wanted to enquire into it. I had heard of their
cuttin' up anticks at Washington, I had come prepared
for it ; but I didn't know as they was bold enough to come
right out and have rooms devoted to that purpose. And
I looked all round the room before I ventured in. But it
looked neat as a pin, and not a soul in there ; and thinks'es
I, " It hain't probable their day for cuttin' up anticks. I
guess I'll venture." So I went in.
But I sot pretty near the edge of the chair, ready to
jump at the first thing I didn't like. And I kep' a close
holt of the boy. I felt that I was right in the midst of
dangers. I had feared and foreboded, oh, how I had
feared and foreboded about the dangers and deep perils of
"Washington, D. C. ! And here I wuz, the very first thing,
invited right in broad daylight, with no excuse or any
thing, right into a antick room.
Oh, how thankful, how thankful I wuz that Josiah
Allen wuzn't there !
I knew, as he felt a good deal of the time, an antick
room was what he would choose out of all others. And I
felt stronger than ever the deep resolve that Josiah Allen
should not run. He must not be exposed to such dangers,
with his mind as it wuz, and his heft. I felt that he would
Buckumb.
And I wondered that President Arthur, who I had
always heard was a perfect gentleman, should come to
HOLLKY] MRS. ALLEN CALLS ON THE PRESIDENT. 499
have a room called like that, but s'posed it was there
when he went. I don't believe he'd countenance any
thing of the kind.
I was jest a-thinkin' this when the hired man come
back, and said,
" The President would receive me."
" Wall," says I, calmly, " I am ready to be received."
So I follered him ; and he led the way into a beautiful
room, kinder round, and red-colored, with lots of elegant
pictures and lookin'-glasses and books.
The President sot before a table covered with books and
papers ; and, good land ! he no need to have been afraid
and hung back ; he was dressed up slick, slick enough
for meetin', or a parin'-bee, or anything. He had on a
sort of a gray suit, and a rose-bud in his button-hole.
He was a good-lookin' man, though he had a middlin'
tired look in his kinder brown eyes as he looked up.
I had calculated to act noble on that occasion, as I ap
peared before him who stood in the large, lofty shoes of
the revered G-. "W. and sot in the chair of the (nearly)
angel Garfield. I had thought that likely as not, entirely
unbeknown to me, I should soar right off into a eloquent
oration. For I honored him as a President. I felt like
neighborin' with him on account of his name, Allen !
(That name I took at the alter of Jonesville, and pure
love.)
But how little can we calculate on future contingencies,
or what we shall do when we get there ! As I stood be
fore him, I only said what I had said before on a similar
occasion, these simple words, that yet mean so much, so
much,
" Allen, I have come !"
He, too, was overcome by his feelin's : I see he wuz.
His face looked fairly solemn ; but, as he is a perfect gee-
600 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HOLLBT
tleman, he controlled himself, and said quietly these words,
that, too, have a deep import,
" I see you have."
He then shook hands with me, and I with him. I, too,
am a perfect lady. And then he drawed up a chair for
me with his own hands (hands that grip holt of the same
helium that G. W. had gripped holt of. O soul! be calm
when I think on't), and asked me to set down ; and con
sequently I sot.
I leaned my umberell in a easy, careless position against
a adjacent chair, adjusted my long green veil in long,
graceful folds, I hain't vain, but I like to look well, and
then I at once told him of my errents. I told him
" I had brought three errents to him from Jonesville,
one for myself, and two for Dorlesky Burpy."
He bowed, but didn't say nothin' : he looked tired.
Josiah always looks tired in the mornin' when he has got
his milkin' and barn-chores done, so it didn't surprise me.
And bavin' calculated to tackle him on my own errent
first, consequently I tackled him.
I told him how deep my love and devotion to my
pardner wuz.
And he said " he had heard of it."
And I says, " I s'pose so. I s'pose such things will
spread, bein' a sort of a rarity. I'd heard that it had got
out, 'way beyend Loontown, and all round."
" Yes," he said, " it was spoke of a good deal."
" Wall," says I, " the cast-iron love and devotion I feel
for that man don't show off the brightest in hours of
joy and peace. It towers up strongest in dangers and
troubles." And then I went on to tell him how Josiah
wanted to come there as senator, and what a dangerous
place I had always heard Washington wuz, and how I
had felt it was impossible for me to lay down on my goose-
HOLLKY] MRS. ALLEN CALLS ON THE PRESIDENT. 501
feather pillow at home, in peace and safety, while my
pardner was a-grapplin' with dangers of which I did not
know the exact size and heft. And so I had made up my
mind to come ahead of him, as a forerunner on a tower,
to see jest what the dangers wuz, and see if I dast trust
my companion there. "And now," says I, "I want you
to tell me candid," says I. " Your settin' in George Wash
ington's high chair makes me look up to you. It is a
sightly place; you can see fur; your name bein' Allen
makes me feel sort o' confidential and good towards you,
and I want you to talk real honest and candid with
me." Says I, solemnly, " I ask you, Allen, not as a poli
tician, but as a human bein', would you dast to let Josiah
come ?"
Says he, " The danger to the man and the nation de
pends a good deal on what sort of a man it is that comes."
Then was a tryin' time for me. I would not lie, neither
would I brook one word against my companion, even from
myself. So I says,
" He is a man that has traits and qualities, and sights
of 'em."
But, thinkin' that I must do so, if I got true informa
tion of dangers, I went on, and told of Josiah's political
aims, which I considered dangerous to himself and the
nation. And I told him of The Plan, and my dark fore-
bodin's about it.
The President didn't act surprised a mite. And finally
he told me, what I had always mistrusted, but never knew,
that Josiah had wrote to him all his political views and
aspirations, and offered his help to the government. And
says he, " I think I know all about the man."
" Then," says I, " you see he is a good deal like other
men."
And he said, sort o' dreamily, " that he was."
502 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [HOLLET
And then again silence rained. He was a-thinkin', I
knew, on all the deep dangers that hedged in Josiah Allen
and America if he come. And a-musin' on all the proba
ble dangers of the Plan. And a-thinkin' it over how to
do jest right in the matter, right by Josiah, right by the
nation, right by me.
Finally the suspense of the moment wore onto me too
deep to bear, and I says, in almost harrowin' tones of
anxiety and suspense,
""Would it be safe for my pardner to come to Washing
ton ? "Would it be safe for Josiah, safe for the nation ?"
Says I, in deeper, mournfuller tones,
" "Would you would you dast to let him come ?"
He said, sort o' dreamily, " that those views and aspira
tions of Josiah's wasn't really needed at Washington, they
had plenty of them there ; and "
But I says, " I must have a plainer answer to ease my
mind and heart. Do tell me plain, would you dast ?"
He looked full at me. He has got good, honest-looking
eyes, and a sensible, candid look onto him. He liked me,
I knew he did from his looks, a calm, Methodist-Epis
copal likin', nothin' light.
And I see in them eyes that he didn't like Josiah's
political idees. I see that he was afraid, as afraid as death,
of that plan ; and I see that he considered Washington as
a dangerous, dangerous place for grangers and Josiah
Aliens to be a-roamin' round in. I could see that he
dreaded the sufferin's for me and for the nation if the
Hon. Josiah Allen was elected.
But still he seemed to hate to speak ; and wise, cautious
conservatism, and gentlemanly dignity, was wrote down
on his linement. Even the red rose-bud in his button
hole looked dretful good-natured, but close-mouthed.
I don't know as he would have spoke at all agin, if I
I'HELPS] DEACON qUIRK'S OPINIONS. 503
hadn't uttered once more them soul -harro win' words,
" Would you dost ?"
Pity and good feelin' then seemed to overpower for a
moment the statesman and courteous diplomat.
And he said, in gentle, gracious tones, " If I tell you
just what I think, I would not like to say it officially, but
would say it in confidence, as from an Allen to an Allen."
Says I, " It sha'n't go no further."
And so I would warn everybody that it must not be
told.
Then says he, " I will tell you. I wouldn't dast."
Says I, " That settles it. If human efforts can avail,
Josiah Allen will not be United States Senator." And
says I, "You have only confirmed my fears. I knew,
feelin' as he felt, that it wuzn't safe for Josiah or the nation
to have him come."
Agin he reminded me that it was told to me in confi
dence, and agin I want to say that it must be kep'.
DEACON QUIRK'S OPINIONS.
E. S. PHELPS.
[Among the many original and highly-interesting stories of Eliza
beth Stuart Phelps, " The Gates Ajar," from which our selection is
taken, has attained the highest popularity, from its original method of
dealing with a question of absorbing importance. The long-entertained
idea of the conditions of life in heaven has grown to appear sadly
lacking in the elements of probability, and for years has failed to ap
peal to the judgment of thinkers. Yet Miss Phelps was the first to
attack it strongly in a work adapted to popular reading, and to put
upon record a more probable view of the heavenly conditions and
occupations. The avidity with which the work has been read it
504 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [PHELPS
having reached a sale of nearly fifty thousand shows that it appealed
to a wide-spread secret sentiment and struck the key-note of a new
range of views concerning celestial happiness. Her other works, " The
Story of Avis," " Men, Women, and Ghosts," etc., are equally original
and attractive in style. Miss Phelps was born in Boston in 1844.
Her mother, of the same name, was the author of "Sunnyside," "A
Peep at Number Five," and other works, once widely popular.]
AUNT WINIFRED has been hunting up a Sunday-school
class for herself and one for me ; which is a venture that
I never was persuaded into undertaking before. She her
self is fast becoming acquainted with the poorer people
of the town.
I find that she is a thoroughly busy Christian, with a
certain " week-day holiness" that is strong and refreshing,
like a west wind. Church-going, and conversations on
heaven, by no means exhaust her vitality.
She told me a pretty thing about her class : it happened
the first Sabbath that she took it. Her scholars are young
girls of from fourteen to eighteen years of age, children
of church-members, most of them. She seemed to have
taken their hearts by storm. She says, " They treated
me very prettily, and made me love them at once."
Clo Bentley is in the class; Clo is a pretty, soft-eyed
little creature, with a shrinking mouth, and an absorbing
passion for music, which she has always been too poor to
gratify. I suspect that her teacher will make a pet of
her. She says that in the course of her lesson, or, in her
words,
" While we were all talking together, somebody pulled
my sleeve, and there was Clo in the corner, with her great
brown eyes fixed on me. ' See here !' she said, in a whis
per, ' I can't be good ! I would be good if I could only
just have a piano.'
" ' Well, Clo,' I said, ' if you will be a good girl, and go
PHELPS] DEACON QUIRK'S OPINIONS. 505
to heaven, I think you will have a piano there, and play
just as much as you care to.'
" You ought to have seen the look the child gave me !
Delight and fear and incredulous bewilderment tumbled
over each other, as if I had proposed taking her into a
forbidden fairy-land.
" ' Why, Mrs. Forceythe ! Why, they won't let anybody
have a piano up there ! not in heaven T
" I iaid down the question-book, and asked what kind
of place she supposed that heaven was going to be.
" ' Oh,' she said, with a dreary sigh, ' I never think
about it when I can help it. I suppose we shall all just
stand there !'
'"And you?' I asked of the next, a bright girl with
snapping eyes.
" ' Do you want me to talk good, or tell the truth ?' she
answered me. Having been given to understand that she
was not expected to 'talk good' in my class, she said,
with an approving, decided nod, ' Well, then ! I don't
think it's going to be anything nice anyway. No, I don't !
I told my last teacher so, and she looked just as shocked,
and said I never should go there as long as I felt so.
That made me mad, and I told her I didn't see but I
should be as well off in one place as another, except for
the fire.'
" A silent girl in the corner began at this point to look
interested. ' I always supposed,' said she, ' that you just
floated round in heaven you know all together some
thing like jujube paste !'
"Whereupon I shut the question-book entirely, and
took the talking to myself for a while.
" ' But I never thought it was anything like that,' in
terrupted little Clo, presently, her cheeks flushed with
excitement. 'Why, I should like to go, if it is like that!
ii. w 43
506 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
I never supposed people talked, unless it was about con
verting people, and saying your prayers, and all that.'
" Now, weren't those ideas alluring and comforting for
young girls in the blossom of warm human life ? They
were trying with all their little hearts to ' be good,' too,
some of them, and had all of them been to church and
Sunday-school all their lives. Never, never, if Jesus
Christ had been Teacher and Preacher to them, would He
have pictured their blessed endless years with Him in such
bleak colors. They are not the hues of his Bible."
We took a trip to-day to East Homer for butter. Neither
angels nor principalities could convince Phoebe that any
butter but " Stephen David's" might, could, would, or
should be used in this family. So to Mr. Stephen David's,
a journey of four miles, I meekly betake myself at stated
periods in the domestic year, burdened with directions
about firkins and half-firkins, pounds and half-pounds, salt
and no salt, churning and " working over;" some of which I
remember and some of which I forget, and to all of which
Phoebe considers me sublimely incapable of attending.
The afternoon was perfect, and we took things leisurely,
letting the reins swing from the hook, an arrangement
to which Mr. Tripp's old gray was entirely agreeable,
and, leaning back against the buggy-cushions, wound along
among the strong, sweet pine-smells, lazily talking, or
lazily silent, as the spirit moved, and as only two people
who thoroughly understand and like each other can talk
or be silent.
We rode home by Deacon Quirk's, and, as we jogged
by, there broke upon our view a blooming vision of the
Deacon himself, at work in his potato-field with his son
and heir, who, by the way, has the reputation of being
the most awkward fellow in the township.
PHELPS] DEACON QUIRK'S OPINIONS. 507
The amiable church-officer, having caught sight of us,
left his work, and, coming up to the fence " in rustic mod
esty unscared," guiltless of coat or vest, his calico shirt
sleeves rolled up to his huge brown elbows, and his dusty
straw hat flapping in the wind, rapped on the rails with
his hoe-handle as a sign for us to stop.
" Are we in a hurry?" I asked, under my breath.
" Oh, no," said Aunt Winifred. " He has somewhat to
say unto me, I see by his eyes. I have been expecting it.
Let us hear him out. Good-afternoon, Deacon Quirk."
" Good-afternoon, ma'am. Pleasant day?"
She assented to the statement, novel as it was.
"A very pleasant day," repeated the Deacon, looking
for the first time in his life, to my knowledge, a little un
decided as to what he should say next. " Remarkable fine
day for riding. In a hurry ?"
""Well, not especially. Did you want anything of me?"
"You're a church-member, aren't you, ma'am?" asked
the Deacon, abruptly.
"lam."
" Orthodox ?"
" Oh, yes," with a smile. " You had a reason for asking ?"
" Yes, ma'am ; I had, as you might say, a reason for
asking."
The Deacon laid his hoe on the top of the fence, and his
arms across it, and pushed his hat on the back of his head
in a becoming and argumentative manner.
" I hope you don't consider that I'm taking liberties if
1 have a little religious conversation with you, Mrs.
Forceythe."
" It is no offence to me if you are," replied Mrs. For
ceythe, with a twinkle in her eye ; but both twinkle ana
words glanced off from the Deacon.
" My wife was telling me last night," he began, with an
508 BEST AMERICAN- AUTHORS.
ominous cough, " that her niece, Clotildy Bentley, Mosea
Bentley's daughter, you know, and one of your bentimen-
tal girls, that reads poetry, and is easy enough led away
by vain delusions and false doctrine, was under your
charge at Sunday-school. Now, Clotildy is intimate with
my wife, who is her aunt on her mother's side, and
always tries to do her duty by her, and she told Mrs.
Quirk what you'd been a-saying to those young minds on
the Sabbath."
He stopped, and observed her impressively, as if he ex
pected to see the guilty blushes of arraigned heresy cov
ering her amused, attentive face.
" I hope you will pardon me, ma'am, for repeating it,
but Clotildy said that you told her she should have a
pianna in heaven. A pianna, ma'am !"
" I certainly did,'' she said, quietly.
" You did ? Well, now, I didn't believe it, nor I wouldn't
believe it, till I'd asked you 1 I thought it warn't more
than fair that I should ask you, before repeating it, you
know. It's none of my business, Mrs. Forceythe, any
more than that I take a general interest in the spiritooal
welfare of the youth of our Sabbath-school ; but I am
very much surprised ! I am very much surprised !"
" I am surprised that you should be, Deacon Quirk. Do
you believe that God would take a poor little disappointed
girl like Clo, who has been all her life here forbidden the
enjoyment of a perfectly innocent taste, and keep her in
His happy heaven eternal years without finding means to
giatifyit? I don't."
" I tell Clotildy I don't see what she wants of a pianna-
forte," observed " Clotildy's" uncle, sententiously. " She
can go to singin'-school, and she's been in the choir ever
since I have, which is six years come Christmas. Besides,
I don't think it's our place to speckylate on the mysteries
PBELP*] DEACON qUIRK'S OPINIONS. 509
of the heavenly spere. My wife told her that she mustn't
belr.ve any such things as that, which were very irrever-
en fc , and contrary to the Scriptures, and Clo went home
wing. She said, 'It was so pretty to think about.' It
i very easy to impress these delusions of fancy on the
oung."
"Pray, Deacon Quirk," said Aunt Winifred, leaning
earnestly forward in the carriage, " will you tell me what
there is ' irreverent' or ' unscripturaF in the idea that there
will be instrumental music in heaven ?"
"Well," replied the Deacon, after some consideration,
"come to think of it, there will be harps, I suppose.
Harpers harping with their harps on the sea of glass.
But I don't believe there will be any piannas. It's a
dreadfully material way to talk about that glorious world,
to my thinking."
" If you could show me wherein a harp is less ' material'
than a piano, perhaps I should agree with you."
Deacon Quirk looked rather nonplussed for a minute.
" What do you suppose people will do in heaven ?" she
asked again.
" Glorify God," said the Deacon, promptly recovering
himself, " glorify God, and sing Worthy the Lamb ! We
shall be clothed in white robes with palms in our hands,
and bow before the Great White Throne. We shall be
engaged in such employments as befit sinless creatures in
a spiritooal state of existence."
" Now, Deacon Quirk," replied Aunt Winifred, looking
him over from head to foot, old straw hat, calico shirt,
blue overalls, and cowhide boots, coarse, work-worn hands,
and " narrow forehead braided tight," "just imagine
yourself, will you ? taken out of this life this minute, as
you stand here in your potato-field" (the Deacon changed
his position with evident uneasiness), " and put into an-
ii. 43*
510 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS. [PHELPS
other life, not anybody else, but yourself, just as you
left this spot, and do you honestly think that you should
be happy to go and put on a white dress and stand still in
a choir with a green branch in one hand and a singing-
book in the other, and sing and pray and never do any
thing but sing and pray, this year, next year, and every
year forever ?"
" We-ell," he replied, surprised into a momentary flash
of carnal candor, " I can't say that I shouldn't wonder for
a minute, maybe, how Abinadab would ever get those potatoes
hoed without me. Abinadab ! go back to your work !"
The graceful Abinadab had sauntered up during the
conversation, and was listening, hoe in hand and mouth
open. He slunk away when his father spoke, but came
up again presently on tiptoe when Aunt Winifred was
talking. There was an interested, intelligent look about
his square and pitifully-embarrassed face, which attracted
my notice.
" But then," proceeded the Deacon, re-enforced by the
sudden recollection of his duties as a father and a church-
member, "that couldn't be a permanent state of feeling,
you know. I expect to be transformed by the renewing
of my mind to appreciate the glories of the New Jerusa
lem, descending out of heaven from God. That's what I
expect, marm. Now, I heerd that you told Mrs. Bland,
or that Mary told her, or that she heerd it someway, that
you said you supposed there were trees and flowers and
houses and such in heaven. I told my wife I thought
your deceased husband was a Congregational minister,
and I didn't believe you ever said it; but that's the
rumor."
Without deeming it necessary to refer to her " deceased
husband," Aunt Winifred replied that "rumor" was quite
right.
PHELPS] DEACON QUIRK'S OPINIONS. 511
"Well," said the Deacon, with severe significance, "I
believe in a spiritooal heaven."
I looked him over again, hat, hoe, shirt, and all ;
scanned his obstinate old face with its stupid, good eyes
and animal mouth. Then I glanced at Aunt Winifred as
she leaned forward in the afternoon light; the white,
finely-cut woman, with her serene smile and rapt, saintly
eyes, every inch of her, body and soul, refined not only
by birth and training, but by the long nearness of her
heart to Christ.
"Of the earth, earthy. Of the heavens, heavenly."
The two faces sharpened themselves into two types.
Which, indeed, was the better able to comprehend a
" spiritooal heaven" ?
" It is distinctly stated in the Bible, by which I suppose
we shall both agree," said Aunt Winifred, gently, "that
there shall be a new earth, as well as new heavens. It is
noticeable, also, that the descriptions of heaven, although
a series of metaphors, are yet singularly earth-like and
tangible ones. Are flowers and skies and trees less ' spirit
ual' than white dresses and little palm-branches ? In fact,
where are you going to get your little branches without
trees ? What could well be more suggestive of material
modes of living, and material industry, than a city marked
into streets and alleys, paved solidly with gold, walled in
and barred with gates who e e jewels are named and
counted, and whose very length and breadth are measured
with a celestial surveyor's chain ?"
"But I think we'd ought to stick to what the Bible
says," answered the Deacon, stolidly. " If it says golden
cities and doesn't say flowers, it means cities and doesn't
mean flowers. I dare say you're a good woman, Mrs.
Forceythe, if you do hold such oncommon doctrine, and I
don't doubt you mean well enough, but I don't think that
512 BEST AMERICAN AUTHORS.
we ought to trouble ourselves about these mysteries of a
future state. J'm willing to trust them to God !"
The evasion of a fair argument by this self-sufficient
spasm of piety was more than I could calmly stand, and I
indulged in a subdued explosion, Auntie says it sounded
like Fourth-of-July crackers touched off under a wet barrel.
" Deacon Quirk ! do you mean to imply that Mrs. For-
ceythe does not trust it to God ? The truth is, that the
existence of such a world as heaven is a fact from which
you shrink. You know you do ! She has twenty thoughts
about it where you have one ; yet you set up a claim to
superior spirituality 1"
" Mary, Mary, you are a little excited, I fear. God is a
Spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in
spirit and in truth!"
The relevancy of this last I confess myself incapable of
perceiving, but the good man seemed to be convinced that
he had made a point, and we rode off leaving him under
that blissful delusion.
END OF VOL. II.
L 006 212417 7
A 001 287 707 2