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1861.] 
 
 Health in the Camp, 
 
 571 
 
 " My son," said Father Francesco, ris- 
 ing up with an air of authority, " you do 
 not undoi-stand, — there is nothing in you 
 by which you should understand. This 
 unhappy brother hath opened his case to 
 me, and I have counselled him all I know 
 of prayer and fastings and watchings and 
 mortifications. Let him persevere in the 
 same ; and if all these fail, the good Lord 
 will send the other in His own time. There 
 is an end to all things in this life, and that 
 end shall certainly come at last. Bid him 
 persevere and hope in this. — And now, 
 brother," added the Superior, with digni- 
 
 ty, " if you have no other query, time flies 
 and eternity comes on, — go, watch and 
 pray, and leave me to my prayers also." 
 
 He raised his hand with a gesture of 
 benediction, and Father Johannes, awed 
 in spite of himself, felt impelled to leave 
 the apartment. 
 
 " Is it so, or is it not ? " he said. " I 
 cannot tell. He did seem to wince and 
 turn away his head when I proposed the 
 case ; but then he made fight at last. I 
 cannot tell whether I have got any ad- 
 vantage or not; but patience! we shall 
 
 RP.P. ! " 
 
 HEALTH IN THE CAMP. 
 
 All the world has heard a great deal 
 of the sufferings and mortality of the 
 English and French armies in the late 
 Russian war ; and in most countries the 
 story has been heard to some purpose. 
 Reforms and new methods have been in- 
 stituted in almost every country in Eu- 
 rope, — so strong has been the effect of 
 the mere outline of the case, which is all 
 that has been furnished to the public. 
 The broad facts of the singular mortality 
 first, and the singular healthfulness of the 
 British army afterwards, on the same 
 spot and under the same military cir- 
 cumstances as before, have interested all 
 rulers of armies, and brought about great 
 benefits to the soldier, throughout the 
 length and breadth of Europe. Within 
 these broad outlines there was a multi- 
 tude of details which were never record- 
 ed in a systematic way, or which, for 
 good and suflicient reasons, could not be 
 made public at the time ; and these de- 
 tails are the part of the story most inter- 
 esting to soldiers actually in the field or 
 likely to be called there soon. They are 
 also deeply interesting to every order of 
 persons concerned in a civil war; for 
 such a war summons forth a citizen sol- 
 diery to form a system for themselves in 
 
 regard to the life of the march and the 
 camp, and to do the best they can for 
 that life and health which they have de- 
 voted to their country. Under such cir- 
 cumstances it cannot but be interesting 
 to the patriots in the camp and to their 
 families at home to know some facts which 
 they cannot have heard before of the 
 mistakes made at the beginning of the 
 last Russian war, and the repair of those 
 mistakes before the end of it. The prompt 
 and anxious care exercised by the Amer- 
 ican Sanitary Commission, and the be- 
 nevolent diligence bestowed on the or- 
 ganization of hospitals for the Federal 
 forces, show that the lesson of the Crimean 
 campaign has been studied in the United 
 States ; and this is an encouragement to 
 afford further illustrations of the case, 
 when new material is at command. 
 
 I am thinking most of the volunteer 
 forces at this moment, for the obvious 
 reason that their health is in greater dan- 
 ger than that of the professional soldier. 
 The regular troops live under a system 
 which is always at work to feed, clothe, 
 lodge, and entertain them: whereas the 
 volunteers are quitting one mode of life 
 for another, all the circumstances of 
 which had to be created at the shortest 
 
572 
 
 Health in the Camp. 
 
 [November, 
 
 notice. To them their first campaign must 
 be very like what it was to British soldiers 
 who had never seen war to be sent to 
 Turkey first, and then to the Crimea, to 
 live a new kind of life, and meet discom- 
 forts and dangers which they had never 
 dreamed of. I shall therefore select my 
 details with a view to the volunteers and 
 their friends in the first place. 
 
 The enthusiasm which started the vol- 
 unteers of every Northern State on their 
 new path of duty could hardly exceed 
 that by which the British troops were 
 escorted from their barrack-gates to the 
 margin of the sea. The war was univer- 
 sally approved (except by a chque of 
 peace-men) ; and there was a universal 
 confidence that the troops would do their 
 duty well, though not one man in a thou- 
 sand of them had ever seen war. As 
 they marched down to their ships, in the 
 best mood, and with every appearance 
 of health and spirit, nobody formed any 
 conception of what would happen. Par- 
 liament had fulfilled the wishes of the 
 people by voting liberal sums for the 
 due support of the troops ; the Adminis- 
 tration desired and ordered that every- 
 thing should be done for the soldier's 
 welfare ; and as far as orders and ar- 
 rangements went, the scheme was thor- 
 oughly well intended and generous. Who 
 could anticipate, that, while the enemy 
 never once gained a battle or obtain- 
 ed an advantage over British or French, 
 two-thirds of that fine stout British force 
 would perish in a few months ? Of the 
 twenty-five thousand who went out, eigh- 
 teen thousand were dead in a year ; and 
 the enemy was answerable for a very 
 small proportion of those deaths. Before 
 me lie the returns of six months of those 
 twelve, showing the fate of the troops for 
 that time ; and it furnishes the key to the 
 whole story. 
 
 In those six months, the admissions in- 
 to hospital in the Crimea (exclusive of 
 the Scutari Hospital) were 52,548. The 
 number shows that many must have en- 
 tered the hospitals more than once, as 
 well as that the place of the dead was 
 iupplied by new comers from England. 
 
 Of these, nearly fifty thousand were ab- 
 solutely untouched by the Russians. On- 
 ly 3,806 of the whole number were wound- 
 ed. Even this is not the most striking 
 circumstance. It is more impressive that 
 three-fourths of the sick sufiered unne- 
 cessarily. Seventy-five per cent, of them 
 sufiered from preventable diseases. That 
 is, the naturally sick were 12,563 ; while 
 the needlessly sick were 36,179. When 
 we look at the deaths from this number, 
 the case appears still more striking. The 
 deaths were 5,359 ; and of these scarcely 
 more than the odd hundreds were from 
 wounds, — that is, 373. Of the remain- 
 der, little more than one-tenth were un- 
 avoidable deaths. The natural deaths, 
 as we may call them, were only 521 ; 
 while the preventable deaths were 4,465. 
 Very different would have been the spir- 
 it of the parting in England, if the sol- 
 diers' friends had imagined that so small 
 a number would fall by Russian gun or 
 bayonet, or by natural sickness, while the 
 mortality from mismanagement would at 
 one season of the next year exceed that 
 of London in the worst days of the Great 
 Plague. 
 
 That the case was really what is here 
 represented was proved by the actual 
 prevention of this needless sickness dur- 
 ing the last year of the war. In the same 
 camp, and under the same circumstances 
 of warfare, the mortality was reduced, by 
 good management, to a degree unhoped 
 for by all but those who achieved it. 
 The deaths for the last half year were 
 one-third fewer than at home ! And yet 
 the army that died was composed of fine, 
 well-trained troops ; while the army that 
 lived and flourished was of a far inferior 
 material when it came out, — raw, un- 
 travelled, and unhardened to the milita- 
 ry life. 
 
 How did these things happen ? There 
 can be no more important question for 
 Americans at this time. 
 
 I will not go into the history of the 
 weaknesses and faults of the administra- 
 tion of departments at home. They have 
 been abundantly published already ; and 
 we may hope that they bear no relation 
 
1861.] 
 
 Health in the Gamp. 
 
 573 
 
 to the American case. It is more inter- 
 esting to look into the circumstances of 
 the march and the camp, for illustration 
 of what makes the health or the sickness 
 of the soldier. 
 
 Wherever the men were to provide 
 themselves with anything to eat or to 
 wear out of their pay, they were found 
 to suffer. There is no natural market, 
 with fair prices, in the neighborhood of 
 warfare ; and, on the one hand, a man 
 cannot often get what he wishes, and, 
 on the other, he is tempted to buy some- 
 thing not so good for him. If there are 
 commissariat stores opened, there is an 
 endless accumulation of business, — a 
 mass of accounts to keep of the stop- 
 pages from the men's pay. On all ac- 
 counts it is found better for all parties 
 that the wants of the soldier should be 
 altogether supplied in the form of rations 
 of varied food and drink, and of clothing 
 varying with climate and season. 
 
 In regard to food, which comes first in 
 importance of the five heads of the sol- 
 dier's wants, the English soldier was re- 
 markably helpless till he learned better. 
 The Russians cut that matter very short. 
 Every man carried a certain portion of 
 black rye bread and some spirit. No 
 cooking was required, and the men were 
 very independent. But the diet is bad ; 
 and the Russian regiments were compos- 
 ed of sallow-faced men, who died " like 
 flies" under frequently recurring epi- 
 demics. The Turks were in their own 
 country, and used their accustomed diet. 
 The French are the most apt, the most 
 practised, and the most economical man- 
 agers of food of any of the parties engag- 
 ed in the war. Their campaigns in Al- 
 geria had taught them how to help them- 
 selves; and they could obtain a decent 
 meal where an Englishman would have 
 eaten nothing, or something utterly un- 
 wholesome. The Sardinians came next, 
 and it was edifying to see how they could 
 build a fire-place and obtain a fire in a 
 few minutes to boil their pot. In other 
 ways both French and Sardinians suffer- 
 ed miserably when the British had sur- 
 mounted their misfortunes. The mortal- 
 
 ity from cholera and dysentery in the 
 French force, during the last year, was 
 uncalculated and unreported. It was so 
 excessive as, in fact, to close the war too 
 soon. The Sardinians were ravaged by 
 disease from their huts being made part- 
 ly under ground. But, so far as the prep- 
 aration of their food went, both had the 
 advantage of the British, in a way which 
 will never happen again. I believe the 
 Americans and the English are bad cooks 
 in about the same degree ; and the warn- 
 ing afforded by the one may be accepted 
 by the other. 
 
 At the end of a day, in Bulgaria or 
 the Crimea, what happened was this. 
 
 The soldiers who did not understand 
 cooking or messing had to satisfy their 
 hunger any way they could. They were 
 so exhausted that they were sure to drink 
 up their allowance of grog the first mo- 
 ment they could lay hands on it. Then 
 there was hard biscuit, a lump of very 
 salt pork or beef, as hard as a board, and 
 some coffee, raw. Those who had no 
 touch of scurvy (and they were few) 
 munched their biscuit while they poked 
 about everywhere with a knife, digging 
 up roots or cutting green wood to make 
 a fire. Each made a hole in the ground, 
 unless there was a bank or great stone at 
 hand, and there he tried, for one half- 
 hour after another, to kindle a fire. When 
 he got up a flame, there was his salt meat 
 to cook: it ought to have been soaked 
 and stewed for hours ; but he could not 
 wait; and he pulled it to pieces, and 
 gnawed what he could of it, when it was 
 barely warm. Then he had to roast his 
 coffee, which he did in the lid of his camp- 
 kettle, burning it black, and breaking it 
 as small as he could, with stones or any- 
 how. Such coffee as it would make could 
 hardly be worth the trouble. It was call- 
 ed by one of the doctors charcoal and wa- 
 ter. Such a supper could not fit a man 
 for outpost duty for the night, nor give 
 him good sleep after the toils of the day. 
 
 The Sardinians, meantime, united in 
 companies, some members of which were 
 usually on the spot to prepare supper for 
 the rest. They knew how to look for or 
 
574 
 
 Health in the Camp. 
 
 [November, 
 
 provide a shelter for their fire, if only a 
 foot high ; and how to cut three or four 
 little trenches, converging at the fire, so 
 as to afford a good draught which would 
 kindle even bad fuel. They had good 
 stews and porridge and coffee ready 
 when wanted. The French always had 
 fresh bread. They carried portable ovens 
 and good bakers. The British had flour, 
 after a time, but they did not know how 
 to make bread ; and if men volunteered 
 for the ofiice, day after day, it usually 
 turned out that they had a mind for a 
 holiday, and knew nothing of baking; 
 and their bread came out of the oven too 
 heavy, or sour, or sticky, or burnt, to be 
 eaten. As scurvy spread and deepened, 
 the doctors made eager demands on Gov- 
 ernment for lime-juice, and more lime- 
 juice. Government had sent plenty of 
 lime-juice ; but it was somehow neglect- 
 ed among the stores for twenty-four days 
 when it was most wanted, as was the sup- 
 ply of rice for six weeks when dysentery 
 was raging. All the time, the truth was, 
 as was acknowledged afterwards, that the 
 thing really wanted was good food. The 
 lime-juice was a medicine, a specific ; 
 but it could be of no real use till the 
 frame was nourished with proper food. 
 When flour, and preserved vegetables, 
 and fresh meat were served out, and there 
 were coffee-mills all through the camp, 
 the men were still unable to benefit by the 
 change as their allies did. They could 
 grind and make their coffee ; but they 
 were still without good fresh bread and 
 soup. They despised the preserved vege- 
 tables, not believing that those little cakes 
 could do them any good. When they 
 learned at last how two ounces of those 
 little cakes were equal, when well cook- 
 ed, to eight ounces of fresh vegetables, 
 and just as profitable for a stew or with 
 their meat, they duly prized them, and 
 during the final healthy period those 
 pressed vegetables were regarded in the 
 camp as a necessary of life. By that 
 time, Soyer's zeal had introduced good 
 cookery into the camp. Roads were 
 made by which supplies were continual- 
 ly arriving. Fresh meat abounded ; and 
 
 it was brought in on its own legs, so that 
 it was certain that beef was beef, and 
 mutton mutton, instead of goat's flesh 
 being substituted, as in Bulgaria. By 
 that time it was discovered that the most 
 lavish orders at home and the profusest 
 expenditure by the commissariat will not 
 feed and clothe an army in a foreign 
 country, unless there is some agency, 
 working between the commissariat and 
 the soldiers, to take care that the food 
 is actually in their hands in an eatable 
 form, and the clothes on their backs. 
 
 It is for American soldiers to judge 
 how much of this applies to their case. 
 The great majority of the volunteers must 
 be handy, self-helping men ; and bands 
 of citizens from the same towns or vil- 
 lages must be disposed and accustomed 
 to concerted action ; but cooking is prob- 
 ably the last thing they have any of them 
 turned their hand to. Much depends on 
 the source of "their food-supply. I fear 
 they live on the country they are in, — at 
 least, when in the enemy's country. This 
 is very easy living, certainly. To shoot 
 pigs or fowls in road or yard is one way 
 of getting fresh meat, as ravaging gar- 
 dens is a short way of feasting on vege- 
 tables. But supposing the forces fed 
 from a regular commissariat department, 
 is there anything to be learned from the 
 Crimean campaigns ? 
 
 The British are better supplied with 
 the food of the country, wherever they 
 are, than the French, because it is their 
 theory and practice to pay as they go; 
 whereas it is the French, or at least the 
 Bonapartist theory and practice, to " make 
 the war support itself," that is, to live up- 
 on the people of the country. In the 
 Peninsular War, the French often found 
 themselves in a desert where they could 
 not stay ; whereas, when Wellington and 
 his troops followed upon their steps, the 
 peasants reappeared from all quarters, 
 bringing materials for a daily market. In 
 the Crimea, the faithful and ready pay- 
 ments of the English commissariat insur- 
 ed plenty of food material, in the form of 
 cattle and flour, biscuit and vegetables. 
 The defect was in means of transport for 
 
1861.] 
 
 Health in the Camp. 
 
 575 
 
 bringing provisions to the camp. The 
 men were trying to eat hg,rd salt meat 
 and biscuit, when scurvy made all eating 
 difficult, while herds of cattle were wait- 
 ing to be slaughtered, and ship-loads of 
 flour were lying seven miles off. Whole 
 deck-loads of cabbages and onions were 
 thrown into the sea, while the men in 
 camp were pining for vegetable food. An 
 impracticable track lay between ; and the 
 poor fellows died by thousands before the 
 road could be made good, and transport- 
 animals obtained, and the food distribut- 
 ed among the tents and huts. Experience 
 taught the officers that the food should be 
 taken entire charge of by departments of 
 the army till it was actually smoking in 
 the mens' hands. There were agents, 
 of course, in all the countries round, to 
 buy up the cattle, flour, and vegetables 
 needed. The animals should be deliver- 
 ed at appointed spots, alive and in good 
 condition, that there might be no smug- 
 gling in of joints of doubtful character. 
 There should be a regular arrangement 
 of shambles, at a proper distance from the 
 tents, and provided with a special drain- 
 age, and means of disposing instantly of 
 the offal. Each company in the camp 
 should have its kitchen, and one or two 
 skilled cooks, — one to serve on each day, 
 with perhaps two assistants from the com- 
 pany. After the regular establishment 
 of the kitchens, there was always food 
 ready and coffee procurable for the tired 
 men who came in from the trenches or 
 outpost duty ; and it was a man's own 
 fault, if he went without a meal when off 
 duty. 
 
 It was found to be a grave mistake to 
 feed the soldiers on navy salt beef and 
 pork. Corned beef and pork salted for 
 a fortnight have far more nourishment 
 and make much less waste in the prepa- 
 ration than meat which is salted for a voy- 
 age of months. After a time, very little 
 of the hard salted meat was used at all. 
 When it was, it was considered essential 
 to serve out peas with the pork, and flour, 
 raisins, and suet, for a pudding, on salt- 
 beef days. In course of time there were 
 additions which made considerable varie- 
 
 ty: as rice, preserved potatoes, pressed 
 vegetables, cheese, dried fruits and suet 
 for puddings, sugar, coffee properly roast- 
 ed, and malt liquor. Beer and porter 
 answer much better than any kind of 
 spirit, and are worth pains and cost to 
 obtain. With such variety as this, with 
 portable kitchens in the place of the cum- 
 bersome camp-kettle per man, with fresh 
 bread, well-cooked meat and vegetables, 
 and well-made coffee, the soldiers will 
 have every chance of health that diet can 
 afford. Whereas hard and long-kept salt 
 meat, insufficiently soaked and cooked, 
 and hastily broiled meat or fowls, just 
 killed, and swallowed by hungry men 
 unskilled in preparing food, help on dis- 
 eases of the alimentary system as effectu- 
 ally as that intemperance in melons and 
 cucumbers and unripe grapes and apples 
 which has destroyed more soldiers than 
 all the weapons of all enemies. 
 
 So much for the food. Next in order 
 come the clothing, and care of the per- 
 son. 
 
 The newspapers have a great deal to 
 say, as we have all seen, about the bad- 
 ness of much of the clothing furnished to 
 the Federal troops. There is no need 
 to denounce the conduct of faithless con- 
 tractors in such a case ; and the glorious 
 zeal of the women, and of all who can 
 help to make up clothing for the army, 
 shows that the volunteers at least will be 
 well clad, if the good- will of society can 
 effect it. Whatever the form of dress, it 
 is the height of imprudence to use flimsy 
 material for it. 
 
 It seems to be everywhere agreed, in 
 a general way, that the soldier's dress 
 should be of an easy fit, in the first place ; 
 light enough for hot weather and noon 
 service, with resources of warmth for cold 
 weather and night duty. In Europe, the 
 blouse or loose tunic is preferred to every 
 other form of coat, and knickerbockers or 
 gaiters to any form of trousers. The shoe 
 or boot is the weak point of almost all 
 military forces. The French are getting 
 over it; and the English are learning 
 from them. The number of sizes and 
 proportions is, I think, five to one of 
 
576 
 
 Health in the Camp, 
 
 [November, 
 
 what it used to be in the early part of 
 the century, so that any soldier can get 
 fitted. The Duke of Wellington wrote 
 home from the Peninsula in those days, 
 — " If you don't send shoes, the army 
 can't march." The enemy marched away 
 to a long distance before the shoes arriv- 
 ed ; and when they came, they were all 
 too small. Such things do not happen 
 now ; but it often does happen that hun- 
 dreds are made footsore, and thrown out 
 of the march, by being ill-shod ; and there 
 seems reason to believe that much of the 
 lagging and apparent desertion of strag- 
 glers in the marches of the volunteers of 
 the Federal army is owing to the diffi- 
 culty of keeping up with men who walk 
 at ease. If the Southern troops are in 
 such want of shoes as is reported, that 
 circumstance alone is almost enough to 
 turn the scale, provided the Northern 
 regiments attain the full use of their feet 
 by being accurately fitted with stout shoes 
 or boots. During the darkest days in the 
 Crimea, those who had boots which would 
 stick on ceased to take them ofi*. They 
 slept in them, wet or dry, knowing, that, 
 once oS', they could never be got on 
 again. Such things cannot happen in 
 the Northern States, where the stoppage 
 of the trade in shoes to the South leaves 
 leather, skill, and time for the proper 
 shoeing of the army ; but it may not yet 
 be thoroughly understood how far the 
 practical value of every soldier depends 
 on the welfare of his feet, and how many 
 sizes and proportions of shoe are needed 
 for duly fitting a thousand men. 
 
 As for the rest, the conclusion after the 
 Crimean campaign was that flannel shirts 
 answer better than cotton on the whole. 
 If the shirt is cotton, there must be a flan- 
 nel waistcoat ; and the flannel shirt an- 
 swers the purpose of both, while it is as 
 easily washed as any material. Every 
 man should have a flannel bandage for 
 the body, in case of illness, or unusual 
 fatigue, or sudden changes of tempera- 
 ture. The make and pressure of the 
 knapsack are very important, so that the 
 weight may be thrown on the shoulders, 
 without pressure on the chest or inter- 
 
 ference with the arms. The main object 
 is the avoidance of pressure everywhere, 
 from the toe-joints to the crown of the 
 head. For this the head-covering should 
 be studied, that it may afford shelter and 
 shade from heat and light, and keep on, 
 against the wind, without pressure on the 
 temples or forehead. For this the neck- 
 tie should be studied, and the cut of the 
 coat-chest and sleeve, when coats must 
 be worn : and every man must have some 
 sort of overcoat, for chilly and damp hours 
 of duty. There is great danger in the 
 wearing of water-proof fabrics, unless they 
 are so loose as to admit of a free circula- 
 tion of air between them and the body. 
 
 With the clothing is generally connect- 
 ed the care of the person. It is often 
 made a question, With whom rests the 
 responsibility of the personal cleanliness 
 of the soldier? The medical men de- 
 clare that they do what they can, but that 
 there is nothing to be said when the men 
 are unsupplied with water ; and all per- 
 suasions are thrown away when the poor 
 fellows are in tatters, and sleeping on 
 dirty straw or the bare ground. The in- 
 dolent ones, at least, go on from day to 
 day without undressing, combing, or wash- 
 ing, till they are swarming with vermin ; 
 and then they have lost self-respect. But 
 if, before it is too late, there is an issue 
 of new shirts, boots, stockings, comforters, 
 or woollen gloves, the event puts spirit in- 
 to them ; they will strip and wash, and 
 throw out dirt and rags from their sleep- 
 ing-places, and feel respectable again. 
 
 Perhaps the first consideration should 
 be on the part of the quartermaster, 
 whose business it is to see to the supply 
 of water; and the sanitary officer has 
 next to take care that every man gets his 
 eight or ten gallons per day. If the sol- 
 diers are posted near a stream which can 
 be used for bathing and washing clothes, 
 there ought to be no difficulty ; and ev- 
 ery man may fairly be required to be as 
 thoroughly washed from head to foot ev- 
 ery day, and as clean in his inner cloth- 
 ing, as his own little children at home. 
 If on high and dry ground, where the 
 water-supply is restricted, some method 
 
1861.] 
 
 Health in the Camp. 
 
 577 
 
 and order are needed; but no pains 
 should be spared to afford each man his 
 eight or ten gallons. 
 
 This cannot be done, unless the source 
 of supply is properly guarded. When 
 unrestrained access is afforded to a spring- 
 head or pond, the water is fatally wasted 
 and spoiled. In the Crimea, the English 
 officers had to build round the spring- 
 heads, and establish a regular order in 
 getting supplied. Where there is crowd- 
 ing, dirt gets thrown in, the water is mud- 
 died, or animals are brought to drink at 
 the source. This ruins everything ; for 
 animals will not drink below, when the 
 mouth of horse, mule, or cow has touch- 
 ed the water above. The way is for 
 guardians to take possession, and board 
 over the source, and make a reservoir 
 with taps, allowing water to be taken 
 first for drinking and washing purposes, 
 a flow being otherwise provided by spout 
 and troughs for the animals, and for 
 cleansing the camp. The difference on 
 the same spot was enormous between the 
 time when a British sergeant wrote that 
 he was not so well as at home, and could 
 not expect it, not having had his shoes 
 or any of his clothes off for five months, 
 and the same time the next year, when ev- 
 ery respectable soldier was fresh and tidy, 
 with his blood flowing healthfully under 
 a clean skin. The poor sergeant said, in 
 his days of discomfort : " I wonder what 
 our sweethearts would think of us, if they 
 were to see us now, — unshaved, unwash- 
 ed, and quite old men ! " But in a year, 
 those who survived had grown young 
 again, — not shaven, perhaps, for their 
 beards were a great natural comfort on 
 winter duty, but brushed and washed, 
 in vigorous health, and gay spirits. 
 
 The next consideration is the soldier's 
 abode, — whether tent, or hut, or quar- 
 ters. 
 
 I have shown certain British doctors 
 demanding lime-juice when food was ne- 
 cessary first. In the same way, there 
 was a cry from the same quarter for peat 
 charcoal, instead of preventing the need 
 of disinfectants. Wherever men are con- 
 
 egated in large numbers, — in a cara- 
 
 VOL. vm. 37 
 
 van, at a fair in the East or a protracted 
 camp-meeting in the far West, or as a 
 military force anywhere, there is always 
 animal refuse which should not be per- 
 mitted to lie about for a day or an hour. 
 Dead camels among Oriental merchants, 
 dead horses among Western soldiers, are 
 the cause of plague. It is to be hoped 
 that there will never be a military en- 
 campment again without the appointment 
 of officers whose business it shall be to see 
 that all carrion, offal, and dirt of every 
 kind is put away into its proper place 
 instantly. For those receptacles, and 
 for stables and shambles, peat charcoal 
 is a great blessing; but it ought not to 
 be needed in or about the abodes of the 
 men. The case is different in different 
 armies. The French have a showy or- 
 derliness in their way of settling them- 
 selves on new ground, — forming their 
 camp into streets, with names painted 
 up, and opening post-office, cafis^ and 
 bazaars of camp-followers ; but they are 
 not radically neat in their ways. In a 
 few days or weeks their settlement is a 
 place of stench, turning to disease ; and 
 thus it was, that, notwithstanding their 
 fresh bread, and good cookery, and clever 
 arrangements, they were swept away by 
 cholera and dysentery, to an extent un- 
 revealed to this day, while the British 
 force, once well fed and clothed, had 
 actually only five per cent, sick from alii 
 causes, in their whole force. 
 
 The Sardinians suffered, as I have al~ 
 ready observed, from their way of mak- 
 ing their huts. They excavated a space, 
 to the depth of three or four feet, and 
 used the earth they threw out to embank- 
 the walls raised upon the edge of the ex- 
 cavation. This procured warmth in win- 
 ter and coolness in hot weather ; but the 
 interior was damp and ill-ventilated ; and 
 as soon as there was any collection of 
 refuse within, cholera and fever broke 
 out. It is essential to health that the 
 dwelling should be above ground, admit- 
 ting the circulation of air from the base to 
 the ridge of the roof, where there should 
 be an escape for it at all hours of the day 
 and night. 
 
578 
 
 Health in the Camp. 
 
 [November 
 
 Among volunteer troops in America, 
 the difficulty would naturally seem to 
 be the newness of the discipline, the 
 strangeness of the requisite obedience. 
 Something must be true of all that is 
 said of the scattering about of food, and 
 other things which have no business to 
 lie about on the ground. A soldier is 
 out of his duty who throws away a crust, 
 of bread or meat, or casts bones to dogs,' 
 or in any way helps to taint the air or 
 obstruct the watercourses or drains. It 
 may be troublesome to obey the requisi- 
 tions of the sanitary authorities ; but it is 
 the only chance for escaping camp-dis- 
 
 On the other hand, in fixing on a spot 
 for encampment, it is due to the soldier 
 to avoid all boggy places, and all places 
 where the air is stagnant from inclos- 
 ure by woods, or near burial-grounds, or 
 where the soil is unfavorable to drainage. 
 The military officer must admit the ad- 
 vice of the sanitary officer in the case, 
 though he may not be always able to 
 adopt it. When no overwhelming mili- 
 tary considerations interfere, the soldiers 
 have a right to be placed on the most 
 dry and pervious soil that may offer, in 
 an airy situation, removed from swamps 
 and dense woods, and admitting of easy 
 drainage. Wood and water used to be 
 the quartermaster's sole demands ; now, 
 good soil and air are added, and a suita- 
 ble slope of the ground, and other minor 
 requisites. 
 
 It depends on the character of the 
 country whether quarters in towns and 
 villages are best, or huts or tents. In 
 Europe, town quarters are found partic- 
 ularly fatal ; and the state of health of 
 the inmates of tents and huts depends 
 much on the structure and placing of 
 either. Precisely the same kind of hut 
 in the Crimea held a little company of 
 men in perfect health, or a set of inva- 
 lids, carried out one after another to their 
 graves. Nay, the same hut bore these 
 different characters, according to its po- 
 sition at the top of a slope, or half-way 
 down, so as to collect under its floor the 
 ^drainage from a spring. American sol- 
 
 diers, however, are hardly likely to bo 
 hutted, I suppose ; so I need say no more 
 than that in huts and tents alike it is in- 
 dispensable to health that there should be 
 air-holes, — large spaces, sheltered from 
 rain, — in the highest part of the struc- 
 ture, whether the entrance below be open 
 or closed. The sanitary officers no doubt 
 have it in charge to see that every man 
 has his due allowance of cubic feet of 
 fresh air, — in other words, to take care 
 that each tent or other apartment is well 
 ventilated, and not crowded. The men's 
 affair is to establish such rules among 
 comrades as that no one shall stop up 
 air-holes, or overcrowd the place with 
 guests, or taint the air with unwholesome 
 fumes. In the British army, bell-tents 
 are not allowed at all as hospital tents. 
 Active, healthy men may use them in 
 their resting hours ; but their condemna- 
 tion as abodes for the sick shows how 
 pressing is the duty of ventilating them 
 for the use of the strongest and healthi- 
 est. 
 
 A sound and airy tent being provided, 
 the next consideration is of bedding. 
 
 The surgeons of the British force were 
 always on the lookout for straw and hay, 
 after being informed at the outset that 
 the men could not have bedding, though 
 it was hoped there was enough for the 
 hospitals. A few nights in the dust, 
 among the old bones and rubbish of Gal- 
 lipoli, and then in the Bulgarian marsh- 
 es, showed that it would be better to be- 
 stow the bedding before the men went 
 into hospital, and sheets of material were 
 obtained for some of them to lie upon. 
 A zealous surgeon pointed out to the 
 proper officer that this bedding consisted 
 in fact of double ticking, evidently in- 
 tended as paillasses, to be stuffed with 
 straw. The straw not being granted, he 
 actually set to work to make hay ; and, 
 being well aided by the soldiers, he soon 
 saw them sleeping on good mattresses. 
 It was understood in England, and be- 
 lieved by the Government, that every 
 soldier in camp had three blankets ; and 
 after a time, this came true : but in the 
 interval, during the damp autumn and 
 
1861.] 
 
 Health in the Gamp. 
 
 679 
 
 bitter winter, they had but one. Lying 
 on wet ground, with one damp and dirty 
 blanket over them, prepared hundreds 
 for the hospital and the grave. The mis- 
 chief was owing to the jealousy of some 
 of the medical authorities, in the first 
 place, who would not see, believe, or al- 
 low to be reported, the fact that the men 
 were in any way ill-supplied, because 
 these same doctors had specified the 
 stores that would be wanted, — and next, 
 to the absence of a department for the ac- 
 tual distribution of existing stores. With 
 the bedding the case was the same as 
 with the lime-juice and the rice : there 
 was plenty ; but it was not served out till 
 too late. When the huts were inhabited, 
 in the Crimea, and the wooden platforms 
 had a dry soil beneath, and every man 
 had a bed of some sort and three blank- 
 ets, there was no more cholera or fever. 
 
 The American case is radically unlike 
 that of any of the combatants in the Cri- 
 mean War, because they are on the soil 
 of their own country, within reach of 
 their own railways, and always in the 
 midst of the ordinary commodities of life. 
 In such a position, they can with the ut- 
 most ease be supplied with whatever they 
 really want, — so profuse as are the funds 
 placed at the command of the author- 
 ities. Considering this, and the well- 
 known handiness of Americans, there 
 need surely be no disease and death 
 from privation. This may be confident- 
 ly said while we have before us the case 
 of the British in the Crimea during the 
 second winter of the war. A sanitary 
 commission had been sent out ; and 
 under their authority, and by th^ help 
 of experience, everything was rectified. 
 The healthy were stronger than ever ; 
 there was scarcely any sickness ; and the 
 wounded recovered without drawback. 
 As the British ended, the Americans 
 ought to begin. 
 
 On the last two heads of the soldier's 
 case there is little to be said here, be- 
 cause the American troops are at home, 
 and not in a perilous foreign climate, and 
 on the shores of a remote sea. Their drill 
 can hardly be appointed for wrong hours. 
 
 or otherwise mismanaged. In regard to 
 transport, they have not the embarrass- 
 ment of crowds of sick and wounded, far 
 away in the Black Sea, without any ade- 
 quate supply of mules and carriages, after 
 the horses had died off, and without any 
 organization of hospital ships at all equal 
 to the demand. Neither do they depend 
 for clothing and medicines on the arrival 
 of successive ships through the storms of 
 the Euxine ; and they will never see the 
 dreary spectacle of the foundering of a 
 noble vessel just arriving, in November, 
 with ample stores of winter clothing, 
 medicines, and comforts, which six hours 
 more would have placed in safety. Un- 
 der the head of transport, they ought to 
 have nothing to sufier. 
 
 Having gone through the separate 
 items, and looking at the case as a whole, 
 we may easily perceive that in America, 
 as in England and France and every 
 other country, the responsibility of the 
 soldier's health in camp is shared thus. 
 
 The authorities are bound so to ar- 
 range their work as that there shall be 
 no hitch through which disaster shall 
 reach the soldiery. The relations be- 
 tween the military and medical authori- 
 ties must be so settled and made clear as 
 that no professional jealousy among the 
 doctors shall keep the commanding offi- 
 cers in the dark as to the needs of their 
 men, and that no self-will or ignorance 
 in commanding officers shall neutralize 
 the counsels of the medical men. The 
 military authorities must not depend on 
 the report of any doctor who may be in- 
 competent as to the provision made for 
 the men's health, and the doctor must be 
 authorized to represent the dangers of a 
 bad encampment without being liable to 
 a recommendation to keep his opinion to 
 himself till he is asked for it. These par- 
 ticular dangers are best obviated by the 
 appointment of sanitary officers, to attend 
 the forces, and take charge of the health 
 of the army, as the physicians and sur- 
 geons take charge of its sickness. If, be- 
 sides, there is a separate department be- 
 tween the commissariat and the soldiery, 
 to see that the comforts provided are ac- 
 
580 
 
 Health in the Camp. 
 
 [November, 
 
 tually brouglit wltbin every man's grasp, 
 the authorities -will have done their part. 
 
 The rest is the soldier's own concern. 
 AVhen cruelly pressed by hardship, the 
 soldiers in Turkey and the Crimea took 
 to drinking ; and what they drank was 
 poison. The vile raki with which they 
 intoxicated themselves carried hundreds 
 to the grave as surely as arsenic would 
 have done. When, at last, they were 
 well fed, warm, clean, and comfortable, 
 and well amused in the coffee-houses 
 opened for them, there was an end, or a 
 vast diminution, of the evil of drunken- 
 ness. Good cojffee and harmless luxuries 
 were sold to them at cost price ; and books 
 and magazines and newspapers, chess, 
 draughts, and other games, were at their 
 command. The American soldiery are 
 a more cultivated set of men than these, 
 and are in proportion more inexcusable 
 for any resort to intemperance. They 
 ought to have neither the external dis- 
 comfort nor the internal vacuity which 
 have caused drunkenness in other ar- 
 mies. The resort to strong drinks so 
 prevalent in the Americans is an ever- 
 lasting mystery to Europeans, who recog- 
 nize in them a self-governing people, uni- 
 versally educated up to a capacity for in- 
 tellectual interests such as are elsewhere 
 found to be a safeguard against intem- 
 perance in drink. If the precautions in- 
 stituted by the authorities are well sup- 
 ported by the volunteers themselves, the 
 most fatal of all perils will be got rid of. 
 If not, the army will perish by a veri- 
 table suicide. But such a fate cannot be 
 in store for such an army. 
 
 There is something else almost as in- 
 dispensable to the health of soldiers as 
 sobriety, and that is subordination. The 
 true, magnanimous, patriotic spirit of sub- 
 ordination is not more necessary to mili- 
 tary achievement than it is to the per- 
 sonal composure and the trustworthiness 
 of nerve of the individual soldier. A 
 strong desire and fixed habit of obedience 
 to command relieve a man of all inter- 
 nal conflict between self-will and circum- 
 stance, and give him possession of his 
 full powers of action and endurance. If 
 
 absolute reliance on authority is a ne- 
 cessity to the great majority of mankind, 
 (which it is,) it is to the few wisest and 
 strongest a keen enjoyment when they 
 can righteously indulge in it ; and the oc- 
 casion on which it is supremely a duty — 
 in the case of military or naval service — 
 is one of privilege. Americans are less 
 accustomed than others to prompt and 
 exact obedience, being a self-governing 
 and unmilitary nation : and they may re- 
 quire some time to become aware of the 
 privileges of subordination to command. 
 But time will satisfy them of the truth ; 
 and those who learn the lesson most quick- 
 ly will be the most sensible of the advan- 
 tage to health of body, through ease of 
 mind. The abdication of self-will in re- 
 gard to the ordering of affairs, the repose 
 of reliance upon the responsible parties, 
 the exercise of silent endurance about 
 hardships and fatigues, the self-respect 
 which relishes the honor of cooperation 
 through obedience, the sense of patriotic 
 devotedness which glows through every 
 act of submission to command, — all these 
 elevated feelings tend to composure of 
 the nerves, to the fortifying of brain and 
 limb, and the genial repose and exalta- 
 tion of all the powers of mind and body. 
 I need not contrast with this the case of 
 the discontented and turbulent volunteer, 
 questioning commands which he is not 
 qualified to judge of, and complaining of 
 troubles which cannot be helped. It is 
 needless to show what wear-and-tear is 
 caused by such a spirit, and how nerve 
 and strength must, in such a case, fail in 
 the hour of effort or of crisis, and give 
 way at once before the assault of disease. 
 By the aid. of sobriety and the calm and 
 cheerful subordination of the true mili- 
 tary character, the health of the Federal 
 army may be equal to its high mission : 
 and all friends of human freedom, in all 
 lands, must heartily pray that it may be 
 
 There is another department of the 
 subject which I propose to treat of an- 
 other month: "Health in the Military 
 Hospital." 
 
1861.] ''The Stormy PetreV 581 
 
 "THE STORMY PETREL." 
 
 Where the gray crags beat back the northern main, 
 
 And all around, the ever restless waves, 
 
 Like white sea-wolves, howl on the lonely sands. 
 
 Clings a low roof, close by the sounding surge. 
 
 If, in your summer rambles by the shore, 
 
 His spray-tost cottage you may chance espy, 
 
 Enter and greet the blind old mariner. 
 
 Full sixty winters he has watched beside 
 The turbulent ocean, with one purpose warmed : 
 To rescue drowning men. And round the coast — 
 For so his comrades named him in his youth — 
 They know him as " The Stormy Petrel" still. 
 
 Once he was lightning-swift, and strong ; his eyes 
 Peered through the dark, and far discerned the wreck 
 Plunged on the reef. Then with bold speed he flew. 
 The life-boat launched, and dared the smiting rocks. 
 
 'T is said by those long dwelling near his door. 
 That hundreds have been storm-saved by his arm ; 
 That never was he known to sleep, or. lag 
 In-doors, when danger swept the seas. His life 
 Was given to toil, his strength to perilous blasts. 
 In freezing floods when tempests hurled the deep. 
 And battling winds clashed in their icy caves. 
 Scared housewives, waking, thought of him, and said, 
 " ' The Stormy Petrel ' is abroad to-night, 
 And watches from th§ cliffs." 
 
 He could not rest 
 When shipwrecked forms might gasp amid the waves. 
 And not a cry be answered from the shore. 
 
 Now Heaven has quenched his sight ; but when he hears 
 
 By his lone hearth the sullen sea-winds clang, 
 
 Or listens, in the mad, wild, drowning night. 
 
 As younger footsteps hurry o'er the beach 
 
 To pluck the sailor from his sharp-fanged death, — 
 
 The old man starts, with generous impulse thrilled, 
 
 And, with the natural habit of his heart, 
 
 Calls to his neighbors in a cheery tone. 
 
 Tells them he '11 pilot toward the signal guns, 
 
 And then, remembering all his weight of years, 
 
 Sinks on his couch, and weeps that he is blind. 
 
582 
 
 A Story of To-Day, 
 
 [November, 
 
 A STORY OF TO-DAY. 
 
 PART II. 
 
 Margaret stood looking down in her 
 quiet way at the sloping moors and fog. 
 She, too, had her place and work. She 
 thought that night she saw it clearly, and 
 kept her eyes fixed on it, as I said. They 
 plodded steadily down the wide years 
 opening before her. Whatever slow, un- 
 ending work lay in them, whatever hun- 
 gry loneliness they held for her heart, or 
 coarseness of deed, she saw it all, shrink- 
 ing from nothing. She looked at the tense 
 blue -corded veins in her wrist, full of 
 fine pure blood, — gauged herself coolly, 
 her lease of life, her power of endurance, 
 — measured it out against the work wait- 
 ing for her. The work would be long, she 
 knew. She would be old before it was 
 finished, quite an old woman, hard, me- 
 chanical, worn out. But the day would 
 be so bright, when it came, it would atone 
 for all : the day would be bright, the home 
 warm again ; it would hold all that life 
 had promised her of good. 
 
 All ? Oh, Margaret, Margaret ! Was 
 there no sullen doubt in the brave re- 
 solve ? Was there no shadow rose just 
 then, dark, ironical, blotting out father 
 and mother and home, coming nearer, 
 less alien to your soul than these, than 
 even your God? 
 
 If any such cold, masterful shadow rose 
 out of years gone, and clutched at the 
 truest life of her heart, she stifled it, and 
 thrust it down. And yet, leaning on the 
 gate, and thinking drearily, vacantly, she 
 remembered a time when God came near- 
 er to her than He did now, and came 
 through that shadow, — when, by the help 
 of that dead hope. He of whom she read 
 to-night came close, an infinitely tender 
 Helper, who, with the human love that 
 was in her heart to-day, had loved his 
 mother and John and Mary. Now, strug- 
 gle as she would for healthy hopes and 
 warmth, the world was gray and silent. 
 Her defeated woman's nature called it so, 
 bitterly. Christ was a dim ideal power, 
 
 heaven far-ofi". She doubted if it held any- 
 thing as real as that which she had losi;. 
 
 As if to bring back the old times 
 more vividly to her, there happened one 
 of those curious little coincidences with 
 which Fate, we think, has nothing to 
 do. She heard a quick step along the 
 clay road, and a muddy little terrier 
 jumped up, barking, beside her. She 
 stopped with a suddenness strange in her 
 slow movements. " Tiger I " she said, 
 stroking its head with passionate eager- 
 ness. The dog licked her hand, smelt 
 her clothes to know if she were the same : 
 it was two years since he had seen her. 
 She sat there, softly stroking him. Pres- 
 ently there was a sound of wheels jog- 
 ging down the road, and a voice singing 
 snatches of some song, one of those cheery 
 street-songs that the boys whistle. It 
 was a low, weak voice, but very pleasant. 
 Margaret heard it through the dark ; she 
 kissed the dog with a strange paleness 
 on her face, and stood up, quiet, attentive 
 as before. Tiger still kept licking her 
 hand, as it hung by her side : it was cold, 
 and trembled as he touched it. She 
 waited a moment, then pushed the dog 
 from her, as if his touch, even, caused her 
 to break some vow. He whined, but she 
 hurried away, not waiting to know how 
 he came, or with whom. Perhaps, if Dr. 
 Knowles had seen her face as she looked 
 back at him, he would have thought there 
 were depths in her nature which his prob- 
 ing eyes had never reached. 
 
 The wheels came close, and directly a 
 cart stopped at the gate. It was one of 
 those little wagons that hucksters drive ; 
 only this seemed to be a home-made affair, 
 patched up with wicker-work and bits of 
 board. It was piled up with baskets of 
 vegetables, eggs, and chickens, and on a 
 broken bench in the middle sat the driver, 
 a woman. You could not help laughing, 
 when you looked at the whole turn-out, 
 it had such a make-shift look altogether. 
 
1861.] 
 
 A Story of To-Bay. 
 
 583 
 
 The reins were twisted rope, the wheels 
 uneven. It went jolting along in such a 
 careless, jolly way, as if it would not care 
 in the least, should it go to pieces any min- 
 ute just there in the road. The donkey 
 that drew it was bony and blind of one 
 eye ; but he winked the other knowingly 
 at you, as if to ask if you saw the joke of 
 the thing. Even the voice of the owner 
 of the establishment, chirruping some idle 
 song, as I told you, was one of the cheer- 
 iest sounds you ever heard. Joel, up at 
 tlie barn, forgot his dignity to salute it 
 with a prolonged " Hillo ! " and present- 
 ly appeared at the gate. 
 
 " I 'm late, Joel," said the weak voice. 
 It sounded like a child's near at hand. 
 
 " We can trade in the dark, Lois, both 
 bein' honest," he responded, graciously, 
 hoisting a basket of tomatoes into the 
 cart, and taking out a jug of vinegar. 
 
 " Is that Lois ? " said Mrs. Howth, com- 
 ing to the gate. " Sit still, child. Don't 
 get down." 
 
 But the child, as she called her, had 
 scrambled off the cart, and stood beside 
 her, leaning on the wheel, for she was 
 helplessly crippled. 
 
 " I thought you would be down to- 
 night. I put some coffee on the stove. 
 Bring it out, Joel." 
 
 Mrs. Howth never put up the shield 
 between herself and this member of " the 
 class," — because, perhaps, she was so 
 wretchedly low in the social scale. How- 
 ever, I suppose she never gave a reason 
 for it even to herself. Nobody could help 
 being kind to Lois, even if he tried. Joel 
 brought the coffee with more readiness 
 than he would have waited on Mrs. Howth. 
 
 " Barney will be jealous," he said, pat- 
 ting the bare ribs of the old donkey, and 
 glancing wistfully at his mistress. 
 
 " Give him his supper, surely," she said, 
 taking the hint. 
 
 It was a real treat to see how Lois en- 
 joyed her supper, sipping and tasting the 
 warm coffee, her face in a glow, like an 
 epicure over some rare Falernian. You 
 would be sure, from just that little thing, 
 that no sparkle of warmth or pleasure in 
 the world slipped by her which she did 
 
 not catch and enjoy and be thankful for 
 to the uttermost. You would think, per- 
 haps, pitifully, that not much pleasure or 
 warmth would ever go down so low, with- 
 in her reach. Now that she stood on the 
 ground, she scarcely came up to the level 
 of the wheel ; some deformity of her legs 
 made her walk with a curious rolling jerk, 
 very comical to see. She laughed at it, 
 when other people did ; if it vexed her at 
 all, she never showed it. She had turn- 
 ed back her calico sun-bonnet, and stood 
 looking up at Mrs. Howth and Joel, laugh- 
 ing as they talked with her. The face 
 would have startled you on so old and 
 stunted a body. It was a child's face, 
 quick, eager, with that pitiful beauty you 
 always see in deformed people. Her eyes, 
 I think, were the kindliest, the hopefullest 
 I ever saw. Nothing but the pale thick- 
 ness of her skin betrayed the fact that set 
 Lois apart from even the poorest poor, — 
 the taint in her veins of black blood. 
 
 " Whoy ! be n't this Tiger ? " said Joel, 
 as the dog ran yelping about him. " How 
 comed yoh with him, Lois ? " 
 
 " Tiger an' his master 's good friends 
 o* mine, — you remember they alius was. 
 An* he 's back now, Mr. Holmes, — been 
 back for a month." 
 
 Margaret, walking in the porch with 
 her father, stopped. 
 
 " Are you tired, father ? It is late." 
 
 " And you are worn out, poor child ! 
 It was selfish in me to forget. Good- 
 night, dear ! " 
 
 Margaret kissed him, laughing cheer- 
 fully, as she led him to his room-door. 
 He lingered, holding her dress. 
 
 " Perhaps it will be easier for you to- 
 morrow than it was to-day ? " hesitating. 
 
 " I am sure it will. To-morrow will 
 be sure to be better than to-day." 
 
 She left him, and went away with a 
 slow step that did not echo the promise 
 of her words. 
 
 Joel, meanwhile, consulted apart with 
 his mistress. 
 
 " Of course," she said, emphatically. 
 — "You must stay until morning, Lois. 
 It is too late. Joel will toss you up a 
 bed in the loft." 
 
584 
 
 A Story of To-Day. 
 
 [November, 
 
 The queer little body hesitated. 
 
 " I can stay," she said, at last. " It 's 
 his watch at the mill to-night." 
 
 " Whose watch ? " demanded Joeh 
 
 Her face brightened. 
 
 " Father's. He 's back, mum." 
 
 Joel caught himself in a whistle. 
 
 " He 's very stiddy, Joel, — as stiddy 
 as yoh." 
 
 " I am very glad he has come back, 
 Lois," said Mrs. Howth, gravely. 
 
 At every place where Lois had been 
 that day she had told her bit of good 
 news, and at every place it had been met 
 with the same kindly smile and " I 'm glad 
 he 's back, Lois." 
 
 Yet Joe Yare, fresh from two years in 
 the penitentiary, was not exactly the per- 
 son whom society usually welcomes with 
 open arms. Lois had a vague suspicion 
 of this, perhaps ; for, as she hobbled along 
 the path, she added to her own assurance 
 of his " stiddiness " earnest explanations 
 to Joel of how he had a place in the Croft 
 Street woollen-mills, and how Dr. Knowles 
 had said he was as ready a stoker as any 
 in the furnace-rooms. 
 
 The sound of her weak, eager voice was 
 silent presently, and nothing broke the 
 quiet and cold of the night. Even the 
 morning, when it came long after, came 
 quiet and cool, — the warm red dawn 
 helplessly smothered under great waves 
 of gray cloud. Margaret, looking out in- 
 to the thick fog, lay down wearily again, 
 closing her eyes. What was the day to 
 her? 
 
 Very slowly the night was driven back. 
 An hour after, when she lifted her head 
 again, the stars were still glittering through 
 the foggy arch, like sparks of brassy blue, 
 and the sky and hills and valleys were 
 one drifting, slow-heaving mass of ashy 
 damp. Off" in the east a stifled red film 
 groped through. It was another day 
 coming; she might as well get up, and 
 live the rest of her life out; — what else 
 had she to do ? 
 
 Whatever this night had been to the 
 girl, it left one thought sharp, alive, in the 
 exhausted quiet of her brain : a cowardly 
 dread of the trial of the day, when she 
 
 would see him again. Was the old strug- 
 gle of years before coming back ? Was 
 it all to go over again ? She was worn 
 out. She had been quiet in these two 
 years : what had gone before she nev- 
 er looked back upon; but it made her 
 thankful for even this stupid quiet. And 
 now, when she had planned her life, busy 
 and useful and contented, why need God 
 have sent the old thought to taunt her ? 
 A wild, sickening sense of what might 
 have been struggled up : she thrust it 
 down, — she had kept it down all night; 
 the old pain should not come back, — it 
 should not. She did not think of the 
 love she had given up as a dream, as 
 verse -makers or sham people do; she 
 knew it to be the reality of her life. She 
 cried for it even now, with all the fierce 
 strength of her nature ; it was the best 
 she knew ; through it she came nearest 
 to God. Thinking of the day when she 
 had given it up, she remembered it with 
 a vague consciousness of having fought 
 a deadly struggle with her fate, and that 
 she had been conquered, — never had 
 lived again. Let it be ; she could not 
 bear the struggle again. 
 
 She went on dressing herself in a drea- 
 ry, mechanical way. Once, a bitter laugh 
 came on her face, as she looked into the 
 glass, and saw the dead, dull eyes, and 
 the wrinkle on her forehead. Was that 
 the face to be crowned with delicate ca- 
 resses and love? She scorned herself 
 for the moment, grew sick of herself, 
 balked, thwarted in her true life as she 
 was. Other women whom God has loved 
 enough to probe to the depths of their 
 nature have done the same, — saw them- 
 selves as others saw them : their strength 
 drying up within them, jeered at, utterly 
 alone. It is a trial we laugh at. I think 
 the quick fagots at the stake were fitter 
 subjects for laughter than the slow gnaw- 
 ing hunger in the heart of many a slight- 
 ed woman or a selfish man. They come 
 out of the trial as out of martyrdom, ac- 
 cording to their faith : you see its marks 
 sometimes in a frivolous old age going 
 down with tawdry hopes and starved eyes 
 to the grave ; you see its victory in the 
 
1861.] 
 
 A Story of To-Day. 
 
 585 
 
 freshest, fullest lives in the earth. This 
 ■woman had accepted her trial, but she 
 took it up as an inflexible fate which she 
 did not understand ; it was new to her ; 
 its solitude, its hopeless thirst were freshly 
 bitter. She loathed herself as one whom 
 God had thought unworthy of every wom- 
 an's right, — to love and be loved. 
 
 She went to the window, looking blank- 
 ly out into the gray cold. Any one with 
 keen analytic eye, noting the thin muscles 
 of this woman, the childish, scarlet lips, 
 the eyes deep, concealing, would have 
 foretold that she would conquer in the tri- 
 al, that she would force her soul down, — 
 but that the forcing down would leave the 
 weak, flaccid body spent and dead. One 
 thing was certain : no curious eyes would 
 see the struggle ; the body might be nerve- 
 less or sickly, but it had the great power 
 of reticence ; the calm with which she 
 faced the closest gaze was natural to her, 
 — no mask. When she left her room 
 and went down, the same unaltered quiet 
 that had baffled Knowles steadied her 
 step and cooled her eyes. 
 
 After you have made a sacrifice of 
 yourself for others, did you ever notice 
 how apt you were to doubt, as soon as 
 the deed was irrevocable, whether, after 
 all, it were worth while to have done 
 it ? How poor seems the good gained ! 
 How new and unimagined the agony of 
 empty hands and stifled wish! Very 
 slow the angels are, sometimes, that are 
 sent to minister I 
 
 Margaret, going down the stairs that 
 morning, found none of the chivalric un- 
 selfish glow of the night before in her 
 home. It was an old, bare house in the 
 midst of dreary moors, in which her life 
 was slowly to be worn out : that was all. 
 It did not matter ; life was short : she 
 could thank God for that at least. 
 
 She opened the house-door. A draught 
 of cold morning air struck her face, sweep- 
 ing from the west ; it had driven the fog 
 in great gray banks upon the hills, or in 
 shimmering broken swamps into the cleft 
 hollows : a vague twilight filled the space 
 left bare. Tiger, asleep in the hall, rush- 
 ed out into the meadow, barking, wild 
 
 with the freshness and cold, then back 
 again to tear round her for a noisy good- 
 morning. The touch of the dog seemed 
 to bring her closer to his master; she 
 put him away ; she dared not sufler even 
 that treachery to her purpose : because, 
 in fact, the very circumstances that had 
 forced her to give him up made it weak 
 cowardice to turn again. It was a sim- 
 ple story, yet one which she dared not 
 tell to herself; for it was not altogether 
 for her father's sake she had made the 
 sacrifice. She knew, that, though she 
 might be near to this man Holmes as 
 his own soul, she was a clog on him, — 
 stood in his way, — kept him back. So 
 she had quietly stood aside, taken up her 
 own solitary burden, and left him with 
 his clear self-reliant life, — with his Self, 
 dearer to him than she had ever been. 
 Why should it not be ? she thought, — re- 
 membering the man as he was, a master 
 among men. He was back again ; she 
 must see him. So she stood there with 
 this persistent dread running through her 
 brain. 
 
 Suddenly, in the lane by the house, she 
 heard a voice talking to Joel, — the huck- 
 ster-girl. What a weak, cheery sound it 
 was in the cold and fog ! It touched her cu- 
 riously : broke through her morbid thought 
 as anything true and healthy would have 
 done. " Poor Lois ! " she thought, with an 
 eager pity, forgetting her own intolerable 
 future for the moment, as she gathered 
 up some breakfast and went with it down 
 the lane. Morning had come ; great 
 heavy bars of light fell from behind the 
 hills athwart the banks of gray and black 
 fog ; there was shifting, uneasy, obstinate 
 tumult among the shadows ; they did not 
 mean to yield to the coming dawn. The 
 hills, the massed woods, the mist opposed 
 their immovable front, scornfully. Mar- 
 garet did not notice the silent contest un- 
 til she reached the lane. The girl Lois, 
 sitting in her cart, was looking, quiet, at- 
 tentive, at the slow surge of the shadows, 
 and the slower lifting of the slanted rays. 
 
 " T' mornin' comes grand here, Miss 
 Marg'et!" she said, lowering her voice. 
 
 Margaret said nothing in reply; the 
 
586 
 
 A Story of To-Day. 
 
 [November, 
 
 morning, she thought, was gray and cold, 
 as her own life. She stood leaning on 
 the low cart ; some strange sympathy- 
 drew her to this poor wretch, dwarfed, 
 alone in the world, — some tie of equal- 
 ity, which the odd childish face, nor the 
 quaint air of content about the creature, 
 did not lessen. Even when Lois shook 
 down the patched skirt of her flannel 
 frock straight, and settled the heaps of 
 corn and tomatoes about her, preparatory 
 for a start, Margaret kept her hand on 
 the side of the cart, and walked slowly 
 by it down the road. Once, looking at 
 the girl, she thought with a half smile 
 how oddly clean she was. The flannel 
 skirt she arranged so complacently had 
 been washed until the colors had run 
 madly into each other in sheer despera- 
 tion ; her hair was knotted with a relent- 
 less tightness into a comb such as old 
 women wear. The very cart, patched as 
 it was, had a snug, cozy look ; the masses 
 of vegetables, green and crimson and scar- 
 let, were heaped with a certain reference 
 to the glow of color, Margaret noticed, 
 wondering if it were accidental. Look- 
 ing up, she saw the girl's brown eyes fix- 
 ed on her face. They were singularly 
 soft, brooding brown. 
 
 « Ye 'r' goin' to th' mill. Miss Marg'et ? " 
 she asked, in a half whisper. 
 
 " Yes. You never go there now, 
 Lois?" 
 
 " No, 'm." 
 
 The girl shuddered, and then tried to 
 hide it in a laugh. Margaret walked on 
 beside her, her hand on the cart's edge. 
 Somehow this creature, that Nature had 
 thrown impatiently aside as a failure, so 
 marred, imperfect, that even the dogs 
 were kind to her, came strangely near 
 to her, claimed recognition by some sub- 
 tile instinct. 
 
 Partly for this, and partly striving to 
 forget herself, she glanced furtively at 
 the childish face of the distorted little 
 body, wondering what impression the 
 shifting dawn made on the unfinished 
 soul that was looking out so intently 
 through the brown eyes. What artist 
 sense had she, — what could she know — 
 
 the ignorant huckster — of the eternal 
 laws of beauty or grandeur ? Nothing. 
 Yet something in the girl's face made her 
 think that these hills, this air and sky, 
 were in fact alive to her, — real ; that 
 her soul, being lower, it might be, than 
 ours, lay closer to Nature, knew the lan- 
 guage of the changing day, of these ear- 
 nest-faced hills, of the very worms crawl- 
 ing through the brown mould. It was 
 an idle fancy ; Margaret laughed at her- 
 self for it, and turned to watch the slow 
 morning - struggle which Lois followed 
 with such eager eyes. 
 
 The light was conquering, growing 
 stronger. Up the gray arch the soft, 
 dewy blue crept gently, deepening, broad- 
 ening ; below it, the level bars of light 
 struck full on the sullen black of the 
 west, and worked there undaunted, tin- 
 ging it with crimson and imperial pur- 
 ple. Two or three coy mist-clouds, soon 
 converted to the new allegiance, drifted 
 giddily about, mere flakes of rosy blushes. 
 The victory of the day came slowly, but 
 sure, and then the full morning flushed 
 out, fresh with moisture and light and del- 
 icate perfume. The bars of sunlight fell 
 on the lower earth from the steep hills 
 like pointed swords ; the foggy swamp of 
 wet vapor trembled and broke, so touch- 
 ed, rose at last, leaving patches of damp 
 brilliance on the fields, and floated ma- 
 jestically up in radiant victor clouds, led 
 by the conquering wind. Victory : it was 
 in the cold, pure ether filling the heavens, 
 in the solemn gladness of the hills. The 
 great forests thrilling in the soft light, 
 the very sleepy river wakening under the 
 mist, chorded in with a grave bass to the 
 rising anthem of welcome to the new life 
 which God had freshly given to the world. 
 From the sun himself, come forth as a 
 bridegroom from his chamber, to the 
 flickering raindrops on the road -side 
 mullein, the world seemed to rejoice 
 exultant in victory. Homely, cheerier 
 sounds broke the outlined grandeur of 
 the morning, on which Margaret looked 
 wearily. Lois lost none of them ; no mor- 
 bid shadow of her own balked fife kept 
 their meaning from her. 
 
1861.] 
 
 A Story of To-Day. 
 
 587 
 
 The light played on the heaped vege- 
 tables in the old cart ; the bony legs of 
 the donkey trotted on with fresh vigor. 
 There was not a lowing cow in the distant 
 barns, nor a chirping swallow on the 
 fence-bushes, that did not seem to include 
 the eager face of the little huckster in 
 their morning greetings. Not a golden 
 dandelion on the road-side, not a gurgle 
 of the plashing brown water from the 
 well-troughs, which did not give a quicker 
 pleasure to the glowing face. Its curious 
 content stung the woman walking by her 
 side. What secret of recompense had 
 this poor wretch found? 
 
 " Your father is here, Lois," she said 
 carelessly, to break the silence. " I saw 
 him at the mill yesterday." 
 Her face kindled instantly. 
 " He 's home. Miss Marg'et, — yes. 
 An' it 's all right wid him. Things alius 
 do come right, some time," she added, in 
 a reflective tone, brushing a fly off Saw- 
 ney's ear. 
 
 Margaret smiled. 
 
 " Always ? Who brings them right 
 for you, Lois ? " 
 
 " The Master," she said, turning with 
 an answering smile. 
 
 Margaret was touched. The owner of 
 the mill was not a more real verity to 
 this girl than the Master of whom she 
 spoke with such quiet knowledge. 
 
 " Are things right in the mill ? " she 
 said, testing her. 
 
 A shadow came on her face ; her eyes 
 wandered uncertainly, as if her weak 
 brain were confused, — only for a mo- 
 ment. 
 
 " They '11 come right ! " she said, brave- 
 ly. " The Master '11 see to it ! " 
 
 But the light was gone from her eyes ; 
 some old pain seemed to be surging 
 through her narrow thought ; and when 
 she began to talk, it was in a bewildered, 
 doubtful way. 
 
 " It 's a black place, th' mill," she said, 
 in a low voice. " It was a good while 
 I was there : frum seven year old till six- 
 teen. 'T seemed longer t' me 'n 't was. 
 'T seemed as if I 'd been there alius, — 
 jcs' forever, yoh know. Tore I went in, 
 
 I had the rickets, they say : that 's what 
 ails me. 'T hurt my head, they 've told me, 
 — made me different frum other folks." 
 
 She stopped a moment, with a dumb, 
 hungry look in her eyes. After a while 
 she looked at Margaret furtively, with a 
 pitiful eagerness. 
 
 " Miss Marg'et, I think there is some- 
 thing wrong in my head. Did yoh ever 
 notice it ? " 
 
 Margaret put her hand kindly on the 
 broad, misshapen forehead. 
 
 " Something is wrong everywhere, Lo- 
 is," she said, absently. 
 
 She did not see the slow sigh with 
 which the gn4 smothered down whatever 
 hope had risen just then, nor the wistful 
 look of the brown eyes that brightened 
 into bravery after a while. 
 
 *' It '11 come right," she said, steadily, 
 though her voice was lower than before. 
 
 "But the mill," — Margaret recalled 
 her, 
 
 " Th' mill, — yes. There was three of 
 us, — father 'n' mother 'n' me, — 'n' pay 
 was poor. They said times was hard. 
 They was hard times. Miss Marg'et ! " 
 she said, with a nervous laugh, the brown 
 eyes strangely wandering. 
 
 " Yes, hard," — she soothed her, gent- 
 
 " Pay was poor, 'n' many things tuk 
 money." (Remembering the girl's moth- 
 er, Margaret knew gin would have cov- 
 ered the " many things.") " Worst to 
 ■ me was th' mill. I kind o' grew into 
 that place in them years : seemed to me 
 like as I was part o' th' engines, some- 
 how. Th' air used to be thick in my 
 mouth, black wi' smoke 'n' wool 'n' smells. 
 It 's better now there. I got stunted 
 then, yoh know. 'N' th' air in th' alleys 
 was worse, where we slep'. I think meb- 
 be as 't was then I went wrong in my 
 head. Miss Marg'et ! " 
 
 Her voice went lower. 
 
 " 'T is n't easy to think o' th' Master- 
 down tJiere, in them cellars. Things comes 
 right — slow there, — slow." 
 
 Her eyes grew stupid, as if looking 
 down into some dreary darkness. 
 
 "But the mill?" 
 
588 
 
 A Story of To-Day. 
 
 [November, 
 
 The girl roused herself with a sharp 
 sigh. 
 
 "In them years I got dazed in my 
 head, I think. 'T was th' air 'n' th' work. 
 I was weak alius. 'T got so that th' noise 
 o' th' looms went on in my head night 'n' 
 day, — alius thud, thud. 'N' hot days, 
 when th' hands was chaffin' *n' singin', 
 th* black wheels 'n' rollers was alive, star- 
 in' down at me, 'n' th' shadders o' th' looms 
 was Hke snakes creepin', — creepin' anear 
 all th' time. They was very good to me, 
 th' hands was, — very good. Ther' 's 
 lots o' th' Master's people down there, out 
 o* sight, that 's so low they never heard His 
 name : preachers don't go there. But 
 He '11 see to 't. He '11 not min' their 
 cursin' o' Him, seein' they don't know 
 His face, 'n' thinkin' He belongs to th' 
 gentry. I knew it wud come right wi' 
 me, when times was th' most bad. I 
 knew " 
 
 The girl was trembling now with ex- 
 citement, her hands working together, 
 her eyes set, all the slow years of ruin 
 that had eaten into her brain rising be- 
 fore her, all the tainted blood in her 
 veins of centuries of slavery and heathen- 
 ism struggling to drag her down. But 
 above all, the Hope rose clear, simple : 
 the trust in the Master : and shone in 
 her scarred face, — through her marred 
 senses. 
 
 " I knew it wud come right, alius. I 
 was alone then : mother was dead, and 
 father was gone, 'n' th' Lord thought 't 
 was time to see to me, — special as th' over- 
 seer was gettin' me an enter to th' poor- 
 house. So He sent Mr. Holmes along. 
 Then it come right I " 
 
 Margaret did not speak. Even this 
 mill-girl could talk of him, pray for him ; 
 but she never must take his name on her 
 lips! 
 
 " He got th' cart fur me, 'n' this bless- 
 ed old donkey, 'n' my room. Did yoh 
 ever see my room, Miss Marg'et ? " 
 
 Her face lighted suddenly with its pe- 
 culiar childlike smile. 
 
 " No ? Yoh '11 come some day, surely ? 
 It 's a pore place, yoh '11 think ; but it 's 
 got th' air, — th' air." 
 
 She stopped to breathe the cold morn- 
 ing wind, as if she thought to find in its 
 fierce freshness the life and brains she 
 had lost. 
 
 " Ther' 's places in them alleys V 
 dark holes. Miss Marg'et, like th' openin's 
 to hell, with th' thick smells 'n' th' sights 
 yoh 'd see." 
 
 She went back with a terrible cling- 
 ing pity to the Gehenna from which she 
 had escaped. The ill of life was real 
 enough to her, — a hungry devil down 
 in those alleys and dens. Margaret lis- 
 tened, waking to the sense of a differ- 
 ent pain in the world from her own, — 
 lower deeps from which women like her- 
 self draw delicately back, lifting their 
 gauzy dresses. 
 
 " Openin's to hell, they 're like. Peo- 
 ple as come down to preach in them think 
 that, 'pears to me, — 'n' think we 've but a 
 little way to go, bein' born so near. It 's 
 easy to tell they thinks it, — shows in 
 their looks. Miss Marg'et ! " 
 
 Her face flashed. 
 
 "Well, Lois?" 
 
 " Th' Master has His people 'mong 
 them very lowest, that 's not for such as 
 yoh to speak to. He knows 'em : men 
 'n' women starved 'n' drunk into jails 
 'n' work-houses, that 'd scorn to be cow- 
 ardly or mean, — that shows God's kind- 
 ness, through th' whiskey 'n' thievin', to 
 th' orphints or — such as me. Ther 's 
 things th' Master likes in them, 'n' it 'II 
 come right," she sobbed, " it '11 come right 
 at last ; they '11 have a chance — some- 
 where." 
 
 Margaret did not speak ; let the poor 
 girl sob herself into quiet. What had 
 she to do with this gulf of pain and 
 wrong ? Her own higher life was starv- 
 ed, thwarted. Could it be that the blood 
 of these her brothers called against her 
 from the ground ? No wonder that the 
 huckster-girl sobbed, she thought, or talk- 
 ed heresy. It was not an easy thing to 
 see a mother drink herself into the grave. 
 And yet — was she to blame ? Her Vir- 
 ginian blood was cool, high-bred ; she 
 had learned conservatism in her cradle. 
 Her life in the West had not yet quicken- 
 
1861.] 
 
 A Story of To-Bay. 
 
 589 
 
 C(l her pulse. So she put aside whatev- 
 er social mystery or wrong faced her in 
 this girl, just as you or I would have done. 
 She had her own pain to bear. Was she 
 her brother's keeper ? It was true, there 
 was wrong ; this woman's soul lay shat- 
 tered by it ; it was the fault of her blood, 
 of her birth, and Society had finished the 
 work. Where was the help ? She was 
 free, — and liberty, Dr. Knowles said, 
 was the cure for all the soul's diseases, 
 and 
 
 Well, Lois was quiet now, — ready 
 with her childish smile to be drawn into 
 a dissertation on Barney's vices and vir- 
 tues, or a description of her room, where 
 "th' air was so strong, 'n' the fruit 'n' 
 vegetables alius stayed fresh, — best in 
 this town," she said, with a bustling pride. 
 
 They went on down the road, through 
 the corn-fields sometimes, or on the riverr 
 bank, or sometimes skirting the orchards 
 or barn-yards of the farms. The fences 
 were well built, she noticed, — the barns 
 wide and snug-looking : for this county 
 in Indiana is settled by New England 
 people, as a general thing, or Pennsylva- 
 nians. They both leave their mark on 
 barns or fields, I can tell you ! The two 
 women were talking all the way. In all 
 his life Dr. Knowles had never heard 
 from this silent girl words as open and 
 eager as she gave to the huckster about 
 paltry, common things, — partly, as I said, 
 from a hope to forget herself, and partly 
 from a vague curiosity to know the strange 
 world which opened before her in this 
 disjointed talk. There were no morbid 
 shadows in this Lois's life, she saw. Her 
 pains and pleasures were intensely real, 
 like those of her class. If there were la- 
 tent powers in her distorted brain, smoth- 
 ered by hereditary vice of blood, or foul 
 air and life, she knew nothing of it. She 
 never probed her own soul with fierce 
 self-scorn, as this quiet woman by her 
 side did; — accepted, instead, the passing 
 moment, with keen enjoyment. For the 
 rest, childishly trusted " the Master." 
 
 This very drive, now, for instance, — 
 although she and the cart and Barney 
 went through the same routine every day. 
 
 you would have thought it was a new treat 
 for a special holiday, if you had seen the 
 perfect abandon with which they all threw 
 themselves into the fun of the thing. 
 Not only did the very heaps of ruby to- 
 matoes, and corn in delicate green cas- 
 ings, tremble and shine as though they 
 enjoyed the fresh light and dew, but the 
 old donkey cocked his ears, and curved 
 his scraggy neck, and tried to look as 
 like a high-spirited charger as he could. 
 Then everybody along the road knew 
 Lois, and she knew everybody, and there 
 was a mutual liking and perpetual joking, 
 not very refined, perhaps, but hearty and 
 kind. It was a new side of life for Mar- 
 garet. She had no time for thoughts of 
 self-sacrifice, or chivalry, ancient or mod- 
 ern, watching it. It was a very busy 
 ride, — something to do at every farm- 
 house : a basket of eggs to be taken in, 
 or some egg-plants, maybe, which Lois 
 laid side by side, Margaret noticed, — the 
 pearly white balls close to the heap of roy- 
 al purple. No matter how small the bas- 
 ket was that she stopped for, it brought 
 out two or three to put it in ; for Lois and 
 her cart were the event of the day for 
 the lonely farm-houses. The wife would 
 come out, her face ablaze from the oven, 
 with an anxious charge about that butter ; 
 the old man would hail her from the barn 
 to know " ef she 'd thought toh look in 
 th' mail yes'rday " ; and one or the other 
 was sure to add, " Jes' time for breakfast, 
 Lois." If she had no baskets to stop for, 
 she had " a bit o' business," which turned 
 out to be a paper she had brought for the 
 grandfather, or some fresh mint for the 
 baby, or "jes' to inquire fur th' fam'ly." 
 As to the amount that cart carried, it 
 was a perpetual mystery to Lois. Every 
 day since she and the cart went into part- 
 nership, she had gone into town with a 
 dead certainty in the minds of lookers-on 
 that it would break down in five minutes, 
 and a triumphant faith in hers in its un- 
 limited endurance. " This cart '11 be right 
 side up fur years to come," she would as- 
 sert, shaking her head. " It 's got no more 
 notion o' givin' up than me nor Barney,' — 
 not a bit." Margaret had her doubts, — 
 
590 
 
 A Story of To-Day. 
 
 [November, 
 
 and so would you, if you had heard how 
 it creaked under the load, — how they 
 piled in great straw panniers of apples : 
 black apples with yellow hearts, — scarlet 
 veined, golden pippin apples, that held 
 the warmth and light longest, — russet 
 apples with a hot blush on their rough 
 brown skins, — plums shining coldly in 
 their delicate purple bloom, — peaches 
 with the crimson velvet of their cheeks 
 aglow with the prisoned heat of a hun- 
 dred summer days. 
 
 I wish with all my heart some artist 
 would paint me Lois and her cart I Mr. 
 Kitts, the artist in the city then, used to 
 see it going past his room out by the 
 coal-pits every day, and thought about it 
 seriously. But he had his grand battle- 
 piece on hand then, — and after that he 
 went the way of all geniuses, and died 
 down into colorer for a photographer. He 
 met them, that day, out by the stone quar- 
 ry, and touched his hat as he returned Lo- 
 is's " Good-morning," and took a couple 
 of great papaws from her. She was a 
 woman, you see, and he had some of the 
 schoolmaster's old-fashioned notions about 
 women. He was a sickly-looking soul. 
 One day Lois had heard him say that there 
 were papaws on his mother's place in 
 Ohio ; so after that she always brought 
 him some every day. She was one of 
 those people who must give, if it is noth- 
 ing better than a Kentucky banana. 
 
 After they passed the stone quarry, 
 they left the country behind them, going 
 down the stubble-covered hills that fenced 
 in the town. Even in the narrow streets, 
 and through the warehouses, the strong, 
 dewy air had quite blown down and off 
 the fog and dust. Morning (town morn- 
 ing, to be sure, but still morning) was 
 shining in the red window-panes, in the 
 tossing smoke up in the frosty air, in 
 the very glowing faces of people hurry- 
 ing from market with their noses nipped 
 blue and their eyes watering with cold. 
 Lois and her cart, fresh with country 
 breath hanging about them, were not 
 so out of place, after all. House-maids 
 left the steps half-scrubbed, and helped 
 her measure out the corn and beans. 
 
 gossiping eagerly ; the newsboys " Hi-d ! " 
 at her in a friendly, patronizing way; 
 women in rusty black, with sharp, pale 
 faces, hoisted their baskets, in which usu- 
 ally lay a scraggy bit of flitch, on to the 
 wheel, their whispered bargaining ending 
 oftenest in a low " Thank ye, Lois ! "—for 
 she sold cheaper to some people than 
 they did in the market. 
 
 Lois was Lois In town or country. Some 
 subtile power lay in the coarse, distorted 
 body, in the pleading child's face, to rouse, 
 wherever they went, the same curious, 
 kindly smile. Not, I think, that dumb, 
 pathetic eye, common to deformity, that 
 cries, " Have mercy upon me, O my 
 friend, for the hand of God hath touched 
 me ! " — a deeper, mightier charm, rather: 
 a trust down in the fouled fragments of her 
 brain, even in the bitterest hour of her 
 bare, wretched life,— a faith, faith in God, 
 faith in her fellow-man, faith in herself. 
 No human soul refused to answer its sum- 
 mons. Down in the dark alleys, in the 
 very vilest of the black and white wretch- 
 es that crowded sometimes about her cart, 
 there was an undefined sense of pride in 
 protecting this wretch whose portion of 
 life was more meagre and low than theirs. 
 Something in them struggled up to meet 
 the trust in the pitiful eyes, — something 
 which scorned to betray the trust, — some 
 Christ-like power, smothered, dying, un- 
 der the filth of their life and the terror 
 of hell. Not lost. If the Great Spirit of 
 love and trust lives, not lost ! 
 
 Even in the cold and quiet of the wom- 
 an walking by her side the homely pow- 
 er of the poor huckster was not weak to 
 warm or to strengthen. Margaret left her, 
 turning into the crowded street leading to 
 the part of the town where the factories 
 lay. The throng of anxious-faced men and 
 women jostled and pushed, but she pass- 
 ed through them with a different heart 
 from yesterday's. Somehow, the morbid 
 fancies were gone ; she was keenly alive ; 
 the homely real life of this huckster had 
 fired her, touched her "blood with a more 
 vital stimulus than any tale of crusader. 
 As she went down the crooked maze of 
 dingy lanes, she could hear Lois's little 
 
1861.] 
 
 A Story of To-Day. 
 
 591 
 
 cracked bell far off: it sounded like a 
 Christmas song to her. She half smiled, 
 remembering how sometimes in her dis- 
 tempered brain the world had seemed a 
 gray, dismal Dance of Death. How ac- 
 tual it was to-day, — hearty, vigorous, 
 alive with honest work and tears and 
 pleasure ! A broad, good world to live 
 and work in, to suffer or die, if God so 
 willed it, — God, the good ! She entered 
 the vast, dingy factory ; the woollen dust, 
 the clammy air of copperas were easier 
 to breathe in ; the cramped, sordid office, 
 the work, mere trifles to laugh at ; and 
 she bent over the ledger with its hard 
 lines in earnest good -will, through the 
 slow creeping hours of the long day. 
 She noticed that the unfortunate chicken 
 was making its heart glad over a piece 
 of fresh earth covered with damp moss. 
 Dr. Knowles stopped to look at it when 
 he came, passing her with a surly nod. 
 
 " So your master 's not forgotten you," 
 he snarled, while the blind old hen cock- 
 ed her one eye up at him. 
 
 Pike, the manager, had brought in 
 some bills. 
 
 " Who 's its master ? " he said, curious- 
 ly, stopping by the door. 
 
 " Holmes, — he feeds it every morn- 
 ing." 
 
 The Doctor drawled out the words with 
 a covert sneer, watching the quiet, cold 
 face bending over the desk, meantime. 
 
 Pike laughed. 
 
 " Bah ! it 's the first thing he ever fed, 
 then, besides himself. Chickens must lie 
 nearer his heart than men." 
 
 Knowles scowled at him ; he had no 
 fancy for Pike's scurrilous gossip. 
 
 The quiet face was unmoved. When 
 he heard the manager's foot on the lad- 
 der without, he tested it again. He had 
 a vague suspicion which he was deter- 
 mined to verify. 
 
 " Holmes," he said, carelessly, " has an 
 affinity for animals. No wonder. Adam 
 must have been some such man as he, 
 when the Lord gave him ' dominion over 
 the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of 
 the air.' " 
 
 The hand paused courteously a mo- 
 
 ment, then resumed its quick, cool move- 
 ment over the page. He was not baf- 
 fled. 
 
 . " If there were such a reality as mas- 
 tership, that man was born to rule. Pike 
 will find him harder to cheat than me, 
 when he takes possession here." 
 
 She looked up now, attentive. 
 
 "He came here to take my "^ place in 
 the mills, — buy me out, — articles will 
 be signed in a day or two. I know what 
 you think,— no, — not worth a dollar. On- 
 ly brains and a soul, and he 's sold them 
 at a high figure, — threw his heart in, — 
 the purchaser being a lady. It was light, 
 I fancy, — starved out, long ago." 
 
 The old man's words were spurted out 
 in the bitterness of scorn. The girl lis- 
 tened with a cool incredulity in her eyes, 
 and went back to her work. 
 
 " Miss Heme is the lady, — my part- 
 ner's daughter. Heme and Holmes they 
 '11 call the firm. He is here every day, 
 counting future profit." 
 
 Nothing could be read on the cold still 
 face ; so he left her, cursing, as he went, 
 men who put themselves up at auction, 
 — worse than Orleans slaves. Margaret 
 laughed to herself at his passion ; as for 
 the story he hinted, it was absurd. She 
 forgot it in a moment. 
 
 Two or three gentlemen down in one 
 of the counting-rooms, just then, looked 
 at the story from another point of view. 
 They were talking low, out of hearing 
 from the clerks. 
 
 " It 's a good thing for Holmes," said 
 one, a burly, farmer-like man, who was 
 choosing specimens of wool. 
 
 " Cheap. And long credit. Just half 
 the concern he takes." 
 
 " There is a lady in the case ? " sug- 
 gested a young doctor, who, by virtue of 
 having spent six months in the South, 
 dropped his 7'-s, and talked of " niggahs" 
 in a way to make a Georgian's hair stand 
 on end. 
 
 " A lady in the case ? " 
 
 " 0-f course. Only child of Heme's. 
 He comes down with the dust as dowry. 
 Good thing for Holmes. 'Stonishin' how 
 he 's made his way up. If money 's what 
 
592 
 
 A Story of To'Bay, 
 
 [November, 
 
 he wants In this world, he 's making a 
 long stride now to 't." 
 
 The young doctor lighted his cigar, as- 
 serting that — 
 
 " Ba George, some low people did get 
 on, re-markably ! Mary Heme, now, was 
 best catch in town." 
 
 " Do you think money is what he 
 wants ? " said a quiet httle man, sitting 
 lazily on a barrel, — a clergj^man, whom 
 his clerical brothers shook their heads 
 when they named, but never argued with, 
 and bowed to with uncommon deference. 
 
 The wool-buyer hesitated with a puz- 
 zled look. 
 
 " No," he said, slowly ; " Stephen Holmes 
 is not miserly. I 've knowed him since 
 a boy. To buy place, power, perhaps, 
 eh? Yet not that, neither," he added, 
 hastily. " We think a sight of him out 
 our way, (self-made, you see,) and would 
 have had him the best office in the State 
 before this, only he was so cursedly in- 
 different." 
 
 " Indifferent, yes. No man cares much 
 for stepping-stones In themselves," said 
 the clergyman, half to himself 
 
 " Great fault of American society, espe- 
 cially In West," said the young aristocrat. 
 " Stepping-stones lie low, as my rever- 
 end friend suggests ; impudence ascends ; 
 merit and refinement scorn such dirty 
 paths," — with a mournful remembrance 
 of the last dime In his waistcoat-pocket. 
 
 " But do you," exclaimed the farmer, 
 with sudden solemnity, "do you under- 
 stand this scheme of Knowles's ? Every 
 dollar he owns is in this mill, and every 
 dollar of it is going into some castle in the 
 air that no sane man can comprehend." 
 
 " Mad as a March hare," contemptu- 
 ously muttered the doctor. 
 
 His reverend friend gave him a look, 
 — after which he was silent. 
 
 " I wish to the Lord some one would 
 persuade him out of it," persisted the 
 wool-man, earnestly looking at the quiet 
 face of his listener. " We can't spare 
 old Knowles's brain or heart while he 
 ruins himself It 's something of a Com- 
 munist fraternity : I don't know the n^me, 
 but I know the thing." 
 
 Very hard common-sense shone out of 
 his eyes just then at the clerg}Tnan, whom 
 he suspected of being one of Knowles's 
 abettors. 
 
 " There 's two ways for 'em to end. 
 If they 're made out of the top of society, 
 they get so refined, so Idealized, that ev- 
 ery particle flies off on its own special 
 path to the sun, and the Community 's 
 broke ; and if they 're made of the lower 
 mud, they keep going down, down togeth- 
 er, — they live to drink and eat, and make 
 themselves as near the brutes as they can. 
 It is n't easy to believe, Sir, but It 's true. 
 I have seen It. I 've seen every one of 
 them the United States can produce. It 's 
 facts^ Sir ; and facts, as Lord Bacon says, 
 '• are the basis of every sound specula- 
 tion.' " 
 
 The last sentence was slowly brought 
 out, as quotations were not exactly his 
 /orte, but, as he said afterwards, — " You 
 see, that nailed the parson." 
 
 The parson nodded gravely. 
 
 " You '11 find no such experiment In 
 the Bible," threw In the young doctor, 
 alluding to " serious things " as a peace- 
 offering to his reverend friend. 
 
 " One, I believe," dryly. 
 
 "Well," broke in the farmer, fold- 
 ing up his wool, " that 's neither here 
 nor there. This experiment of Knowles's 
 Is like nothing known since the Creation. 
 Plan of his own. He spends his days 
 now hunting out the gallows-birds out of 
 the dens In town here, and they 're all to 
 be transported Into the country to start a 
 new Arcadia. A few men and women 
 like himself, but the bulk is from the dens, 
 I tell you. All start fair, level ground, 
 perpetual celibacy, mutual trust, honor, 
 rise according to the stuff that 's In them, 
 — pah 1 It makes me sick ! " 
 
 " Knowles's inclination to that sort of 
 people is easily explained," spitefully lisp- 
 ed the doctor. " Blood, Sir. His moth- 
 er was a half-breed Creek, with all the 
 propensities of the redskins to fire-water 
 and ' itching palms.' Blood will out." 
 
 " Here he is," maliciously whispered 
 the wool-man. " No, it 's Holmes," he 
 added, after the doctor had started Into 
 
1861.] 
 
 A Story of To-Day. 
 
 593 
 
 a more respectful posture, and glanced 
 around frightened. 
 
 He, the doctor, rose to meet Holmes's 
 coming footstep, — "a low fellah, but al- 
 ways sure to be the upper dog in the fight, 
 goin' to marry the best catch," etc., etc. 
 The others, on the contrary, put on their 
 hats and sauntered away into the street. 
 So the day broadened hotly ; the shadows 
 of the Lombardy poplars curdling up into 
 a sluggish pool of black at their roots along 
 the dry gutters. The old schoolmaster 
 in the shade of the great horse-chestnuts 
 (brought from the homestead in the Pied- 
 mont country, every one) husked corn for 
 his wife, composing, meanwhile, a page of 
 his essay on the " Sirventes de Bertrand 
 de Born." The day passed for him as did 
 his life, half in simple-hearted deed, half 
 in vague visions of a dead world, never 
 to be real again. Joel, up in the barn by 
 himself, worked through the long day in 
 the old fashion, — pondering gravely (be- 
 ing of a religious turn) updh a sermon by 
 the Reverend Mr. Clinche, reported in the 
 " Gazette " ; wherein that disciple of the 
 meek Teacher invoked, as he did once 
 a week, the curses of the law upon his 
 political opponents, praying the Lord to 
 sweep them immediately from the face 
 of the earth. Which rendering of Chris- 
 tian doctrine was so much relished by Joel, 
 and the other leading members of Mr. 
 Clinche's church, that they hinted to him 
 it might be as well to continue choosing 
 his texts from Moses and the Prophets 
 until the excitement of the day was over. 
 The New Testament was, — well, — hard- 
 ly suited for the emergency ; did not, 
 somehow, chime in with the lesson of the 
 hour. I may remark, in passing, that this 
 course of conduct so disgusted the High- 
 Church rector of the parish, that he not 
 only ignored all new devils, (as Mr. Car- 
 lyle might have called them,) but talked 
 as if the millennium were un fait accom- 
 pli^ and he had leisure to go and hammer 
 at the poor dead old troubles of Luther's 
 time. One thing, though, about Joel: 
 while he was joining in Mr. Clinche's 
 prayer for the " wiping out " of some few 
 thousands, he was- using up all the frag- 
 
 VOL. VIII. 38 
 
 ments of the hot day in fixing a stall for 
 a half-dead old horse he had found by the 
 road-side. Let us hope, that, even if the 
 listening angel did not grant the prayer, 
 he marked down the stall at least, as a 
 something done for eternity. 
 
 Margaret, through the heat and stifling 
 air, worked steadily alone in the dusty 
 oflice, the cold, homely face bent over the 
 books, never changing but once. It was 
 a trifle then ; yet, when she looked back 
 afterwards, the trifle was all that gave the 
 day a name. The room shook, as I said, 
 with the thunderous, incessant sound of 
 the engines and the looms ; she scarcely 
 heard it, being used to it. Once, however, 
 another sound came between, — a slow, 
 quiet tread, passing through the long 
 wooden corridor, — so firm and measured 
 that it sounded like the monotonous beat- 
 ings of a clock. She heard it through the 
 noise in the far distance ; it came slowly 
 nearer, up to the door without, — passed 
 it, going down the echoing plank walk. 
 The girl sat quietly, looking out at the 
 dead brick wall. The slow step fell on her 
 brain like the sceptre of her master ; if 
 Knowles had looked in her face then, he 
 would have seen bared the secret of her 
 life. Holmes had gone by, unconscious 
 of who was within the door. She had 
 not seen him ; it was nothing but a step 
 she heard. Yet a power, the power of 
 the girl's life, shook oflT all outward masks, 
 all surface cloudy fancies, and stood up in 
 her with a terrible passion at the sound ; 
 her blood burned fiercely ; her soul look- 
 ed out from her face, her soul as it was, 
 as God knew it, — God and this man. 
 No longer a cold, clear face ; you would 
 have thought, looking at it, what a strong 
 spirit the soul of this woman would be, if 
 set free in heaven or in hell. The man 
 who held it in his power went on careless- 
 ly, not knowing that the mere sound of his 
 step had raised it as from the dead. She, 
 and her right, and her pain, were nothing 
 to him now, she remembered, staring out 
 at the taunting hot sky. Yet so vacant 
 was the sudden life opened before her 
 when he was gone, that, in the desper- 
 ation of her weakness, her mad longing 
 
594 
 
 A Story of To-Day. 
 
 [November, 
 
 to see him but once again, sbe would have 
 thrown lierself at his feet, and let the cold, 
 heavy step crush her life out, — as he 
 would have done, she thought, choking 
 down the icy smother in her throat, if it 
 had served his purpose, though it cost his 
 own heart's life to do it. He would tram- 
 ple her down, if she kept him back from 
 his end ; but be false to her, false to him- 
 self, that he would never be ! 
 
 So the hot, long day wore on, — the red 
 bricks, the dusty desk covered with wool, 
 the miserable chicken peering out, grow- 
 ing sharper and more real in the glare. 
 Life was no morbid nightmare now ; her 
 weak woman's heart found it actual and 
 near. There was not a pain nor a want, 
 from the dumb hunger in the dog's eyes 
 that passed her on the street, to her fa- 
 ther's hopeless fancies, that did not touch 
 her sharply through her own loss, with a 
 keen pity, a wild wish to help to do some- 
 thing to save others with this poor life left 
 in her hands. 
 
 So the hot day wore on in the town and 
 country ; the old sun glaring down like 
 some fierce old judge, intolerant of weak- 
 ness or shams, — baking the hard earth in 
 the streets harder for the horses' feet, dry- 
 ing up the bits of grass that grew between 
 the boulders of the gutter, scaling off the 
 paint from the brazen faces of the inter- 
 minable brick houses. He looked down 
 in that city as in every American town, 
 as in these where you and I live, on the 
 same countless maze of human faces goin<]j 
 day by day through the same monotonous 
 routine. Knowles, passing through the 
 restless crowds, read with keen eye among 
 them strange meanings by this common 
 light of the sun, — meanings such as you 
 and I might read, if our eyes were clear 
 as his, — or morbid, it may be. A com- 
 monplace crowd like this in the street 
 without : women with cold, fastidious fa- 
 ces, heavy -brained, bilious men, dapper 
 'prentices, draymen, prize-fighters, ne- 
 groes. Knowles looked about him as into 
 a seething caldron, in which the people 
 I tell you of were atoms, where the blood 
 of uncounted races was fused, but not min- 
 gled, — where creeds, philosophies, cen- 
 
 turies old, grappled hand to hand in their 
 death-struggle,— where innumerable aims 
 and beliefs and powers of intellect, smoth- 
 ered rights and triumphant wrongs, warred 
 together, struggling for victory. 
 
 Vulgar American life ? He thought it 
 a life more potent, more tragic in its his- 
 tory and prophecy, than any that has gone 
 before. People called him a fanatic. It 
 may be that he was one : yet the uncouth 
 old man, sick in soul from some gnawing 
 pain of his own life, looked into the 
 depths of human loss with a mad desire 
 to set it right. On the very faces of those 
 who sneered at him he found some traces 
 of failure or pain, something that his heart 
 carried up to God with aloud and exceed- 
 ing bitter cry. The voice of the world, 
 he thought, went up to heaven a discord, 
 unintelligible, hopeless, — the great blind 
 world, astray since the first ages ! Was 
 there no hope, no help ? 
 
 The hot sun shone down, as it had 
 done for six thousand years ; it shone on 
 open problems in the lives of these men 
 and women who walked the streets, prob- 
 lems whose end and beginning no eye 
 could read. There were places where it 
 did not shine : down in the fetid cellars, 
 in the slimy cells of the prison yonder : 
 what riddles of human life lay there he 
 dared not think of. God knows how the 
 man groped for the light, — for any voice 
 to make earth and heaven clear to him. 
 
 So the hot, long day wore on, for all of 
 them. There was another light by which 
 the world was seen that day, rarer than 
 the sunshine, purer. It fell on the dense 
 crowds, — upon the just and the unjust. It 
 went into the fogs of the fetid dens from 
 which the coarser light was barred, into 
 the deepest mires where a human soul 
 could wallow, and made them clear. It 
 lighted the depths of the hearts whose 
 outer pain and passion men were keen to 
 read in the unpitying sunshine, and bared 
 in those depths the feeble gropings for 
 the right, the loving hope, the unuttered 
 prayer. No kindly thought, no pure de- 
 sire, no weakest faith in a God and heaven 
 somewhere could be so smothered under 
 guilt that this subtile light did not search 
 
1861.] 
 
 A Story of To-Bay. 
 
 595 
 
 it out, glo'w about it, shine through it, 
 hold it up in full view of God and the 
 angels,— lighting the world other than the 
 sun had done for six thousand years. We 
 have no name for the light : it has a name, 
 — yonder. Not many eyes were clear 
 to see its shining that day ; and if they 
 did, it was as through a glass, darkly. 
 Yet it belonged to us also, in the old 
 time, the time when men could " hear 
 the voice of the Lord God in the gar- 
 den in the cool of the day." It is God's 
 light now alone. 
 
 Yet poor Lois caught faint glimpses, I 
 think, sometimes, of its heavenly clear- 
 ness. I think it was this light that made 
 the burning of Christmas fires warmer 
 for her than for others, that showed her 
 all the love and outspoken honesty and 
 hearty frolic which her eyes saw perpetu- 
 ally in the old warm-hearted world. That 
 evening, as she sat on the step of her 
 brown frame shanty, knitting at a great 
 blue stocking, her scarred face and mis- 
 shapen body very pitiful to the passers- 
 by, it was this light that gave to her face 
 its homely, cheery smile. It made her 
 eyes quick to know the message in the 
 depths of color in the evening sky, or 
 even the flickering tints of the green 
 creeper on the wall with its crimson cor- 
 nucopias filled with hot sunshine. She 
 liked clear, vital colors, this girl, — the 
 crimsons and blues. They answered her, 
 somehow. They could speak. There 
 were things in the world that like herself 
 were marred, — did not understand, — 
 were hungry to know : the gray sky, the 
 mud swamps, the tawny lichens. She 
 cried sometimes, looking at them, hard- 
 ly knowing why: she could not help 
 it, with a vague sense of loss. It seem- 
 ed at those times so dreary for them to 
 be ahve, — or for her. Other things her 
 eyes were quicker to see than ours : deli- 
 cate or grand lines, which she perpetually 
 sought for unconsciously, — in the home- 
 liest things, the very soft curling of the 
 woollen yam in her fingers, as in the 
 eternal sculpture of the mountains. Was 
 it the disease of her injured brain that 
 made all things alive to her, — that made 
 
 her watch, in her ignorant way, the grave 
 hills, the flashing, victorious rivers, look 
 pitifully into the face of some dingy mush- 
 room trodden in the mud before it scarce 
 had lived, just as we should look into hu- 
 man faces to know what they would say 
 to us ? Was it the weakness and igno- 
 rance that made everything she saw or 
 touched nearer, more human to her than 
 to you or me ? She never got used to 
 living as other people do; these sights 
 and sounds did not come to her common, 
 hackneyed. Why, sometimes, out in the 
 hills, in the torrid quiet of summer noons, 
 she had knelt by the shaded pools, and 
 buried her hands in the great slumberous 
 beds of water-lilies, her blood curdling 
 in a feverish languor, a passioned trance, 
 from which she roused herself, weak and 
 tired. 
 
 She had no self-poised artist sense, this 
 Lois, — knew nothing of Nature's laws. 
 Yet sometimes, watching the dun sea of 
 the prairie rise and fall in the crimson light 
 of early morning, or, in the farms, breath- 
 ing the blue air trembling up to heaven 
 exultant with the life of bird and forest, 
 she forgot the poor coarse thing she was, 
 some coarse weight fell off, and some- 
 thing within, not the sickly Lois of the 
 town, went out, free, like an exile dream- 
 ing of home. 
 
 You tell me, that, doubtless, in the 
 wreck of the creature's brain, there were 
 fragments of some artistic insight that 
 made her thus rise above the level of her 
 daily life, drunk with the mere beauty 
 of form and color. I do not know, — not 
 knowing how sham or real a thing you 
 mean by artistic insight. But I do know 
 that the clear light I told you of shone for 
 this girl dimly through this beauty of form 
 and color ; and ignorant, with no words 
 for her thoughts, she believed in it as the 
 Highest that she knew. I think it came 
 to her thus an imperfect language, (not 
 an outward show of tints and lines, as to 
 some artists,) — a language, the same that 
 Moses heard when he stood alone, with 
 nothing between his naked soul and God, 
 but the desert and the mountain and the 
 bush that burned with fire. I think the 
 
596 
 
 A St07y of To-Day. 
 
 [November, 
 
 weak soul of the girl staggered from its 
 dungeon, and groped through these heavy- 
 browed hills, these color-dreams, through 
 even the homely kind faces on the street, 
 to find the God that lay behind. So the 
 light showed her the world, and, making 
 its beauty and warmth divine and near 
 to her, the warmth and beauty became 
 real in her, found their homely shadows 
 in her daily life. So it showed her, too, 
 through her vague childish knowledge, 
 tbe Master in whom she believed, — show- 
 ed Him to her in everything that lived, 
 more real than all beside. The waiting 
 earth, the prophetic sky, the coarsest or 
 fairest atom that she touched was but a 
 part of Him, something sent to tell of Him, 
 — she dimly felt ; though, as I said, she 
 had no words for such a thought. Yet 
 even more real than this. There was 
 no pain nor temptation down in those 
 dark cellars where she went that He had 
 not borne, — not one. Nor was there the 
 least pleasure came to her or the others, 
 not even a cheerful fire, or kind words, 
 or a warm, hearty laugh, that she did not 
 know He sent it and was glad to do it. 
 She knew that well ! So it was that He 
 took part in her humble daily life, and 
 became more real to her day by day. 
 Very homely shadows her life gave of 
 His light, for it was His : homely, be- 
 cause of her poor way of living, and of 
 the depth to which the heavy foot of the 
 world had crushed her. Yet they were 
 there all the time, in her cheery patience, 
 if nothing more. To-night,, for instance, 
 how differently the surging crowd seem- 
 ed to her from what it did to Knowles ! 
 She looked down on it from her high 
 wood-steps with an eager interest, ready 
 with her weak, timid laugh to answer ev- 
 ery friendly call from below. She had 
 no power to see them as types of great 
 classes ; they were just so many living 
 people, whom she knew, and who, most 
 of them, had been kind to her. What- 
 ever good there was in the vilest face, 
 (and there was always something,) she 
 was sure to see it. The light made her 
 poor eyes strong for that. 
 
 She liked to sit there in the evenings, 
 
 being alone, yet never growing lonesome ; 
 there was so much that was pleasant to 
 watch and listen to, as the cool brown 
 twilight came on. If, as Knowles thought, 
 the world was a dreary discord, she knew 
 nothing of it. People were going from 
 their work now, — they had time to talk 
 and joke by the way, — stopping, or walk- 
 ing slowly down the cool shadows of the 
 pavement ; while here and there a linger- 
 ing red sunbeam burnished a window, or 
 struck athwart the gray boulder -paved 
 street. From the houses near you could 
 catch a faint smell of supper : very friend- 
 ly people those were in these houses ; she 
 knew them all well. The children came 
 out with their faces washed, to play, now 
 the sun was down : the oldest of them gen- 
 erally came to sit with her and hear a 
 story. 
 
 After it grew darker, you would see 
 the girls in their neat blue calicoes go 
 sauntering down the street with their 
 sweethearts for a walk. There was old 
 Polston and his son Sam coming home 
 from the coal-pits, as black as ink, with 
 their little tin lanterns on their caps. 
 After a while Sam would come out in his 
 suit of Kentucky jean, his face shining 
 with the soap, and go sheepishly down 
 to Jenny Ball's, and the old man would 
 bring his pipe and chair out on the pave- 
 ment, and his wife would sit on the steps. 
 Most likely they would call Lois down, 
 or come over themselves, for they were 
 the most sociable, coziest old couple you 
 ever knew. There was a great stopping 
 at Lois's door, as the girls walked past, for 
 a bunch of the flowers she brought from 
 the country, or posies, as they called them, 
 (Sam never would take any to Jenny but 
 " old man " and pinks,) and she always 
 had them ready in broken jugs inside. 
 They were good, kind girls, every one of 
 them, — had taken it in turn to sit up with 
 Lois last winter all the time she had the 
 rheumatism. She never forgot that time, 
 — never once. 
 
 Later in the evening you would see an 
 old man coming along, close by the wall, 
 with his head down, — a very dark man, 
 with gray, thin hair, — Joe Yare, Lois's 
 
1861.] 
 
 A Story of To-Day. 
 
 597 
 
 old father. No one spoke to him, — 
 people always were looking away as he 
 passed ; and if old Mr. or Mrs. Polston 
 ■were on the steps when he came up, they 
 would say, " Good -evening, Mr. Yare," 
 very formally, and go away presently. 
 Jt hurt Lois more than anything else 
 they could have done. But she bustled 
 about noisily, so that he would not notice 
 it. If they saw the marks of the ill life 
 he had lived on his old face, she did not ; 
 his sad, uncertain eyes may have been 
 dishonest to them, but they were noth- 
 ing but kind to the misshapen little soul 
 that he kissed so warmly with a " Why, 
 Lo, my little girl ! " Nobody else in the 
 world ever called her by a pet name. 
 
 Sometimes he was gloomy and silent, 
 but generailly he told her of all that had 
 happened in the mill, particularly any 
 little word of notice or praise he might 
 have received, watching her anxiously 
 until she laughed at it, and then rubbing 
 his hands cheerfully. He need not have 
 doubted Lois's faith in him. Whatever 
 the rest did, she believed in him ; she al- 
 ways had believed in him, through all the 
 dark, dark years, when he was at home, 
 and in the penitentiary. They were gone 
 now, never to come back. It had come 
 right. She, at least, thought his repen- 
 tance sincere. If the others wronged 
 him, and it hurt her bitterly that they 
 did, that would come right some day too, 
 she would think, as she looked at the tir- 
 ed, sullen face of the old man bent to the 
 window-pane, afraid to go out. They 
 had very cheerful little suppers there by 
 themselves in the odd, bare little room, as 
 homely and clean as Lois herself 
 
 Sometimes, late at night, when he had 
 gone to bed, she sat alone in the door, 
 while the moonlight fell in broad patch- 
 es over the quiet square, and the great 
 poplars stood like giants whispering to- 
 gether. Still the far sounds of the town 
 came up cheerfully, while she folded up 
 her knitting, it being dark, thinking how 
 happy an ending this was to a happy 
 day. When it grew quiet, she could hear 
 the solemn whisper of the poplars, and 
 Bometimes broken strains of music from 
 
 the cathedral in the city floated through 
 the cold and moonlight past her, far 
 off into the blue beyond the hills. All 
 the keen pleasure of the day, the warm, 
 bright sights and sounds, coarse and 
 homely though they were, seemed to fade 
 into the deep music, and make a part of 
 it. 
 
 Yet, sitting there, looking out into the 
 listening night, the poor child's face grew 
 slowly pale as she heard it. It humbled 
 her. It made her meanness, her low, 
 weak life so real to her ! There was no 
 pain nor hunger she had known that did 
 not find a voice in its inarticulate cry. 
 She ! what was she ? All the pain and 
 wants of the world must be going up to 
 God in that sound, she thought. There 
 was something more in it, — an unknown 
 meaning that her shattered brain strug- 
 gled to grasp. She could not. Her heart 
 ached with a wild, restless longing. She 
 had no words for the vague, insatiate 
 hunger to understand. It was because 
 she was ignorant and low, perhaps ; oth- 
 ers could know. She thought her Mas- 
 ter was speaking. She thought the un- 
 known meaning linked all earth and 
 heaven together, and made it plain. So 
 she hid her face in her hands, and listened 
 while the low harmony shivered through 
 the air, unheeded by others, with the mes- 
 sage of God to man. Not comprehend- 
 ing, it may be, — the poor girl, — hungry 
 still to know. Yet, when she looked up, 
 there were warm tears in her eyes, and 
 her scarred face was bright with a sad, 
 deep content and love. 
 
 So the hot, long day was over for them 
 all, — passed as thousands of days have 
 done for us, gone down, forgotten : as 
 that long, hot day we call life will be over 
 some time, and go down into the gray 
 and cold. Surely, whatever of sorrow 
 or pain may have made darkness in that 
 day for you or me, there were count- 
 less openings where we might have seen 
 glimpses of that other light than sunshine : 
 the light of ^he great Tomorrow, of the 
 land where all wrongs shall be righted. 
 If we had but chosen to see it, — if we 
 only had chosen ! 
 
598 
 
 Concerning People who carried Weight in Life. [November, 
 
 CONCERNING PEOPLE WHO CARRIED WEIGHT IN LIFE. 
 WITH SOME THOUGHTS ON THOSE WHO NEVER HAD A CHANCE. 
 
 You drive out, let us suppose, upon a 
 certain day. To your surprise and mor- 
 tification, your horse, usually lively and 
 frisky, is quite dull and sluggish. He 
 does not get over the ground as he is 
 wont to do. The slightest touch of whip- 
 cord, on other days, suffices to make him 
 dart forward with redoubled speed ; but 
 upon this day, after two or three miles, 
 he needs positive whipping, and he runs 
 very sulkily with it all. By-and-by his 
 coat, usually smooth and glossy and dry 
 thi'ough all reasonable work, begins to 
 stream like a water-cart. This will not 
 do. There is something wrong. You 
 investigate ; and you discover that your 
 'horse's work, though seemingly the same 
 as usual, is in fact immensely greater. The 
 blockheads who oiled your wheels yester- 
 day have screwed up your patent axles 
 too tightly ; the friction is enormous ; the 
 hotter the metal gets, the greater grows 
 the friction ; your horse's work is quad- 
 rupled. You drive slowly home, and se- 
 verely upbraid the blockheads. 
 
 There are many people who have to 
 go through life at an analogous disadvan- 
 tage. There is something in their con- 
 stitution of body or mind, there is some- 
 thing in their circumstances, which adds 
 incalculably to the exertion they must go 
 through to attain their ends, and which 
 holds them back from doing what they 
 might otherwise have done. Very prob- 
 ably that malign something exerted its in- 
 fluence unperceived by those around them. 
 They did not get credit for the struggle 
 they were going through. No one knew 
 what a brave fight they were making with 
 a broken right arm; no one remarked 
 that they were running the race, and 
 keeping a fair place in it, too, with their 
 legs tied together. All they do, they do 
 at a disadvantage. It is as when a no- 
 ble race-horse is beaten by a sorry hack ; 
 because the race-horse, as you might see, 
 
 if you look at the list, is carrying twelve 
 pounds additional. But such men, by 
 a desperate efibrt, often made silently 
 and sorrowfully, may (so to speak) run 
 in the race, and do well in it, though 
 you little think with how heavy a foot 
 and how heavy a heart. There are oth- 
 ers who have no chance at all. TTiey 
 are like a horse set to run a race, tied 
 by a strong rope to a tree, or weighted 
 with ten tons of extra burden. That 
 horse cannot run even poorly. The dif- 
 ference between their case and that of 
 the men who are placed at a disadvan- 
 tage is like the difierence between set- 
 ting a very near-sighted man to keep a 
 sharp look-out and setting a man who is 
 quite blind to keep that sharp look-out. 
 Many can do the work of life with diffi- 
 culty ; some cannot do it at all. In short, 
 there are people who carry weight 
 IN LIFE, and there are some who nev- 
 er HAVE A CHANCE. 
 
 And you, my friend, who are doing the 
 work of life well and creditably, — you 
 who are running in the front rank, and 
 likely to do so to the end, think kindly 
 and charitably of those who have broken 
 down in the race. Think kindly of him 
 who, sadly overweighted, is struggling 
 onwards away half a mile behind you ; 
 think more kindly yet, if that be possible, 
 of him who, tethered to a ton of granite, 
 is struggling hard and making no way at 
 all, or who has even sat down and given 
 up the struggle in dumb despair. You 
 feel, I know, the weakness in yourself 
 which would have made you break down, 
 if sorely tried like others. You know 
 there is in your armor the unprotected 
 place at which a well-aimed or a random 
 blow would have gone home and brought 
 you down. Yes, you are nearing the 
 winning-post, and you are among the 
 first ; but six pounds more on your back, 
 and you might have been nowhere. You 
 
1861.] 
 
 Concerning People who carried Weight in Life. 
 
 599 
 
 feel, by your weak heart and weary frame, 
 that, if you had been sent to the Cri- 
 mea in that dreadful first winter, you 
 would certainly have died. And you feel, 
 too, by your lack of moral stamina, by 
 your feebleness of resolution, that it has 
 been your preservation from you know 
 not what depths of shame and misery, 
 that you never were pressed very hard 
 by temptation. Do not range yourself 
 with those who found fault with a certain 
 great and good Teacher of former days, 
 because he went to be guest with a man 
 that was a sinner. As if He could have 
 gone to be guest with any man who was 
 not! 
 
 There is no reckoning up the manifold 
 impedimenta by which human beings are 
 weighted for the race of hfe ; but all may 
 be classified under the two heads of un- 
 favorable influences arising out of the 
 mental or physical nature of the human 
 beings themselves, and unfavorable influ- 
 ences arising out of the circumstances 
 in which the human beings are placed. 
 You have known men who, setting out 
 from a very humble position, have attain- 
 ed to a respectable standing, but who 
 would have reached a very much higher 
 place but for their being weighted with 
 a vulgar, violent, wrong-headed, and rude- 
 spoken wife. You have known men of 
 lowly origin who had in them the mak- 
 ings of gentlemen, but whom this single 
 malign influence has condemned to coarse 
 manners and a frowzy, repulsive home for 
 life. You have known many men whose 
 powers are crippled and their nature 
 soured by poverty, by the heavy necessi- 
 ty for calculating how far each shilling 
 will go, by a certain sense of degradation 
 that comes of sordid shifts. How can a 
 poor parson write an eloquent or spirited 
 sermon when his mind all the while is 
 running upon the thought how he is to 
 pay the baker or how he is to get shoes 
 for his children ? It will be but a dull 
 discourse which, under that weight, will 
 be produced even by a man who, favor- 
 ably placed, could have done very con- 
 siderable things. It is only a great gen- 
 
 ius here and there who can do great 
 things, who can do his best, no matter 
 at what disadvantage he may be placed ; 
 the great mass of ordinary men can make 
 little headway with wind and tide dead 
 against them. Not many trees would 
 grow well, if watered daily (let us say) 
 with vitriol. Yet a tree which would 
 speedily die under that nurture might 
 do very fairly, might even do magnificent- 
 ly, if it had fair play, if it got its chance 
 of common sunshine and shower. Some 
 men, indeed, though always hampered by 
 circumstances, have accomplished much ; 
 but then you cannot help thinking how 
 much more they might have accomplish- 
 ed, had they been placed more happi- 
 ly. Pugin, the great Gothic architect, 
 designed various noble buildings ; but I 
 beheve he complained that he never had 
 fair play with his finest, — that he was 
 always weighted by considerations of ex- 
 pense, or by the nature of the ground 
 he had to build on, or by the number of 
 people it was essential the building should 
 accommodate. And so he regarded his 
 noblest edifices as no more than hints of 
 what he could have done. He made 
 grand running in the race ; but, oh, what 
 running he could have made, if you had 
 taken off those twelve additional pounds ! 
 I dare say you have known men who la- 
 bored to make a pretty country-house on 
 a site which had some one great draw- 
 back. They were always battling with 
 that drawback, and trying to conquer it ; 
 but they never could quite succeed. And 
 it remained a real worry and vexation. 
 Their house was on the north side of a 
 high hill, and never could have its due 
 share of sunshine. Or you could not 
 reach it but by climbing a very steep as- 
 cent ; or you could not in any way get 
 water into the landscape. When Sir 
 Walter was at length able to call his own 
 a httle estate on the banks of the Tweed 
 he loved so well, it was the ugliest, bleak- 
 est, and least interesting spot upon the 
 course of that beautiful river ; and the 
 public road ran within a few yards of 
 his door. The noble-hearted man made 
 a charming dwelling at last ; but he was 
 
600 
 
 Concerning People who carried Weight in Life. [November, 
 
 fighting against Nature in the matter of 
 the landscape round it ; and you can see 
 yet, many a year after he left it, the poor 
 little trees of his beloved plantations con- 
 trasting with the magnificent timber of 
 various grand old places above and be- 
 low Abbotsford. There is something sad- 
 der in the sight of men who carried 
 weight within themselves, and who, in 
 aiming at usefulness or at happiness, 
 were hampered and held back by their 
 own nature. There are many men who 
 are weighted with a hasty temper ; weight- 
 ed with a nervous, anxious constitution ; 
 weighted with an envious, jealous dispo- 
 sition ; weighted with a strong tendency 
 to evil speaking, lying, and slandering ; 
 weighted with a grumbling, sour, discon- 
 tented spirit ; weighted with a disposition 
 to vaporing and boasting ; weighted with 
 a great want of common sense ; weighted 
 with an undue regard to what other peo- 
 ple may be thinking or saying of them ; 
 weighted with many like things, of which 
 more will be said by-and-by. When that 
 good missionary, Henry Martyn, was in 
 India, he was weighted with an irresisti- 
 ble drowsiness. He could hardly keep 
 himself awake. And it must have been 
 a burning earnestness that impelled him 
 to ceaseless labor, in the presence of such - 
 a drag-weight as that. I am not think- 
 ing or saying, my friend, that it is wholly 
 bad for us to carry weight, — that great 
 good may not come of the abatement of 
 our power and spirit which may be made 
 by that weight. I remember a greater 
 missionary than even the sainted Martyn, 
 to whom the Wisest and Kindest appoint- 
 ed that he should carry weight, and that 
 he should fight at a sad disadvantage. 
 And the greater missionary tells us that 
 he knew why that weight was appointed 
 him to carry ; and that he felt he needed 
 it all to save him from a strong tendency 
 to undue self-conceit. No one knows, now, 
 what the burden was which he bore ; but it 
 was heavy and painful ; it was " a thorn in 
 the flesh." Three times he earnestly asked 
 that it might be taken away ; but the an- 
 swer he got implied that he needed it yet, 
 and that his Master thought it a better 
 
 plan to strengthen the back than to light- 
 en the burden. Yes, the blessed lledeem- 
 er appointed that St. Paul should carry 
 weight in life ; and I think, friendly read- 
 er, that we shall believe that it is wisely 
 and kindly meant, if the like should come 
 to you and me. 
 
 We all understand what is meant, 
 when we hear it said that a man is do- 
 ing very well, or has done very well, 
 considering. I do not know whether it 
 is a Scotticism to stop short at that point 
 of the sentence. We do it, constant- 
 ly, in this country. The sentence would 
 be completed by saying, considering the 
 weight he has to carry, or the disadvan- 
 tage at tohich he works. And things 
 which are very good, considering, may 
 range very far up and down the scale of 
 actual merit. A thing which is very good, 
 considering, may be very bad, or may be 
 tolerably good. It never can be abso- 
 lutely very good ; for, if it were, you 
 would cease to use the word considering. 
 A thing which is absolutely very good, 
 if it have been done under extremely 
 unfavorable circumstances, would not be 
 described as very good, considering ; it 
 would be described as quite wonderful, 
 considering, or as miraculous, consider- 
 ing. And it is curious how people take 
 a pride in accumulating unfavorable cir- 
 cumstances, that they may overcome them, 
 and gain the glory of having overcome 
 them. Thus, if a man wishes to sign his 
 name, he might write the letters with his 
 right hand ; and though he write them 
 very clearly and well and rapidly, no- 
 body would think of giving him any cred- 
 it. But If he write his name rather bad- 
 ly with his left hand, people would say 
 it was a remarkable signature, consider- 
 ing ; and if he write his name very ill 
 indeed with his foot, people would say 
 the writing was quite wonderful, consid- 
 ering. If a man desire to walk from one 
 end of a long building to the other, he 
 might do so by walking along the floor ; 
 and though he did so steadily, swiftly, 
 and gracefully, no one would remark 
 that he had done anything worth notice. 
 
1861.] 
 
 Concerning People who carried Weight in Life, 
 
 601 
 
 But if lie choose for his path a thick rope, 
 extended from one end of the buihling to 
 the other, at a height of a hundred feet, 
 and if he walk rather slowly and awk- 
 wardly along it, he will be esteemed as 
 having done something very extraordina- 
 ry: while if, in addition to this, he is 
 blindfolded, and has his feet placed in 
 large baskets instead of shoes, he will, if 
 in any way he can get over the distance 
 between the ends of the building, be held 
 as one of the most remarkable men of 
 the age. Yes, load yourself with weight 
 which no one asks you to carry ; accu- 
 mulate disadvantages which you need 
 not face, unless you choose ; then carry 
 the weight in any fashion, and overcome 
 the disadvantages in any fashion ; and 
 you are a great man, considering : that 
 is, considering the disadvantages and the 
 weight. Let this be remembered : if a 
 man is so placed that he cannot do his 
 work, except in the face of special diffi- 
 culties, then let him be praised, if he van- 
 quish these in some decent measure, and 
 if he do his work tolerably well. But a 
 man deserves no praise at all for work 
 which he has done tolerably or done 
 rather badly, because he chose to do it 
 under disadvantageous circumstances, un- 
 der which there was no earthly call upon 
 him to do it. In this case he probably 
 is a self- conceited man, or a man of 
 wrong-headed independence of disposi- 
 tion ; and in this case, if his work be bad 
 absolutely, don't tell him that it is good, 
 considering. Refuse to consider. He 
 has no right to expect that you should. 
 There was a man who built a house en- 
 tirely with his own hands. He had never 
 learned either mason-work or carpentry : 
 he could quite well have afforded to pay 
 skilled workmen to do the work he want- 
 ed ; but he did not choose to do so. He 
 did the whole work himself. The house 
 was finished ; its aspect was peculiar. 
 The walls were off the perpendicular 
 considerably, and the windows were sin- 
 gular in shape ; the doors fitted badly, and 
 the floors were far from level. In short, 
 it was a very bad and awkward-looking 
 house ; but it was a wonderful house, 
 
 considering. And people said that it was 
 so, who saw nothing wonderful in the 
 beautiful house next it, perfect in sym- 
 metry and finish and comfort, but built 
 by men whose business it was to build. 
 Now I should have declined to admire 
 that odd house, or to express the least 
 sympathy with its builder. He chose to 
 run with a needless hundred-weight on 
 his back : he chose to walk in baskets in- 
 stead of in shoes. And if, in consequence 
 of his own perversity, he did his work 
 badly, I should have refused to recog- 
 nize it as anything but bad work. It 
 was quite different with Robinson Cru- 
 soe, who made his dwelling and his fur- 
 niture for himself, because there was no 
 one else to make them for him. I dare 
 say his cave was anything but exactly 
 square ; and his chairs and table were 
 cumbrous enough ; but they were won- 
 derful, considering certain facts which 
 he was quite entitled to expect us to con- 
 sider. Southey's Cottonian Library was 
 all quite right ; and you would have said 
 that the books were very nicely bound, 
 considering ; for Southey could not af- 
 ford to pay the regular binder's charges ; 
 and it was better that his books should 
 be done up in cotton of various hues by 
 , the members of his own family than that 
 they should remain not bound at all. 
 You will think, too, of the poor old par- 
 son who wrote a book which he thought 
 of great value, but which no publisher 
 would bring out. He was determined 
 that all his labor should not be lost to 
 posterity. So he bought types and a 
 printing-press, and printed his precious 
 work, poor man : he and his man-servant 
 did it all. It made a great many volumes ; 
 and the task took up many years. Then 
 he bound the volumes with his own hands ; 
 and carrying them to London, he placed 
 a copy of his work in each of the public 
 libraries. I dare say he might have saved 
 himself his labor. How many of my 
 readers could tell what was the title of 
 the work, or what was the name of its 
 author ? Still, there was a man who ac- 
 complished his design, in the face of 
 every disadvantage. 
 
602 
 
 Concerning PeopU who carried Weight in Life. [November, 
 
 There is a great point of diflference 
 between our feeling towards the human 
 being who runs his race much overweight- 
 ed and our feehng towards the inferior 
 animal that does the like. If you saw a 
 poor horse gamely struggling in a race, 
 with a weight of a ton extra, you would 
 pity it. Your sympathies would all be with 
 the creature that was making the best of 
 unfavorable circumstances. But it is a 
 sorrowful fact, that the drag-weight of 
 human beings not unfrequently consists 
 of things which make us angry rather 
 than sympathetic. You have seen a man 
 carrying heavy weight in life, perhaps in 
 the form of inveterate wrong-headedness 
 and suspiciousness ; but instead of pity- 
 ing him, our impulse would rather be to 
 beat him upon that perverted head. AYe 
 pity physical malformation or unhealthi- 
 ness ; but our bent is to be angry with 
 intellectual and moral malformation or 
 unhealthiness. We feel for the deform- 
 ed man, who must struggle on at that 
 Bad disadvantage ; feeling it, too, much 
 more acutely than you would readily be- 
 lieve. But we have only indignation for 
 the man weighted with far worse things, 
 and things which, in some cases at least, 
 he can just as little help. You have 
 known men whose extra pounds, or even , 
 extra ton, was a hasty temper, flying out 
 of a sudden into ungovernable bursts : or 
 a moral cowardice leading to trickery 
 and falsehood : or a special disposition 
 to envy and evil-speaking : or a veiy 
 strong tendency to morbid complaining 
 about their misfortunes and troubles : or 
 an invincible bent to be always talking 
 of their suflerings through the derange- 
 ment of their digestive organs. Now, 
 you grow angry at these things. You 
 cannot stand them. And there is a sub- 
 stratum of truth to that angry feeling. 
 A man can form his mind more than he 
 can form his body. If a man be well- 
 made, physically, he will, in ordinary 
 cases, remain so : but he may, in a mor- 
 al sense, raise a great hunchback where 
 Nature made none. He may foster a 
 malignant temper, a grumbling, fretful 
 spirit, which by manful resistance might 
 
 be much abated, if not quite put down. 
 But still, there should often be pity, where 
 we are prone only to blame. We find a 
 person in whom a truly disgusting char- 
 acter has been formed : well, if you knew 
 all, you would know that the person had 
 hardly a chance of being otherwise : the 
 man could not help it. You have known 
 people who were awfully unamiable and 
 repulsive : you may have been told how 
 very different they once were, — sweet- 
 tempered and cheerful. And surely the 
 change is a far sadder one than that 
 which has passed upon the wrinkled old 
 woman who was once (as you are told) 
 the loveliest girl of her time. Yet many 
 a one who will look with interest upon 
 the withered face and the dimmed eyes, 
 and try to trace in them the vestiges of 
 radiant beauty gone, will never think of 
 puzzling out in violent spurts of petu- 
 lance the perversion of a quick and kind 
 heart ; or in curious oddities and petti- 
 nesses the result of long and lonely years 
 of toil in which no one sympathized ; or 
 in cynical bitterness and misanthropy 
 an old disappointment never got over. 
 There is a hard knot in the wood, where 
 a green young branch was lopped away. 
 I have a great pity for old bachelors. 
 Those I have known have for the most 
 part been old fools. But the more fool- 
 ish and absurd they are, the more pity is 
 due them. I believe there is something 
 to be said for even the most unamiable 
 creatures. The shark is an unamiable 
 creature. It is voracious. It will snap 
 a man in two. Yet it is not unworthy 
 of sympathy. Its organization is such 
 that it is always suffering the most rav- 
 enous hunger. You can hardly imagine 
 the state of intolerable famine in which 
 that unhappy animal roams the ocean. 
 People talk of its awful teeth and its vin- 
 dictive eye. I suppose it is well ascer- 
 tained that the extremity of physical 
 want, as reached on rafts at sea, has driv- 
 en human beings to deeds as barbarous 
 as ever shark was accused of The worse 
 a human being is, the more he deserves 
 our pity. Hang him, if that be needful 
 for the welfare of society ; but pity him 
 
1861.] 
 
 Concerning People who carried Weight in Life. 
 
 603 
 
 even as you hang. Many a poor crea- 
 ture has gradually become hardened and 
 inveterate in guilt who would have shud- 
 dered at first, had the excess of it ul- 
 timately reached been at first presented 
 to view. But the precipice was sloped 
 off : the descent was made step by step. 
 And there is many a human being who 
 never had a chance of being good : many 
 who have been trained, and even com- 
 pelled, to evil from very infancy. Who 
 that knows anything of our great cities, 
 but knows how the poor little child, the 
 toddling innocent, is sometimes sent out 
 day by day to steal, and received in his 
 wretched home with blows and curses, if 
 be fail to bring back enough ? Who has 
 not heard of such poor little things, un- 
 successful in their sorry work, sleeping all 
 night in some wintry stair, because they 
 durst not venture back to their drunken, 
 miserable, desperate parents ? I could 
 tell things at which angels might shed 
 tears, with much better reason for doing 
 so than seems to me to exist in some of 
 those more imposing occasions on which 
 bombastic writers are wont to describe 
 them as weeping. Ah, there is One who 
 knows where the responsibility for all this 
 rests ! Not wholly with the wretched par- 
 ents : far from that. They, too, have 
 gone through the like : they had as little 
 chance as their children. They deserve 
 our deepest pity, too. Perhaps the deep- 
 er pity is not due to the shivering, starr- 
 ing child, with the bitter wind cutting 
 through its thin rags, and its blue feet on 
 the frozen pavement, holding out a hand 
 that is like the claw of some beast ; but 
 rather to the brutalized mother who could 
 thus send out the infant she bore. Sure- 
 ly the mother's condition, if we look at 
 the case aright, is the more deplorable. 
 Would not you, my reader, rather en- 
 dure any degree of cold and hunger than 
 come to this ? Doubtless, there is blame 
 somewhere, that such things should be : 
 but we all know that the blame of the 
 most miserable practical evils and fail- 
 ures can hardly be traced to particular 
 individuals. It is through the incapaci- 
 ty of scores if public servants that an 
 
 army is starved. It is through the fault 
 of millions of people that our great towns 
 are what they are : and it must be con- 
 fessed that the actual responsibility is 
 spread so thinly over so great a surface 
 that it is hard to say it rests very blackly 
 upon any one spot. Oh that we could 
 but know whom to hang, when we find 
 some flagrant, crying evil ! Unluckily, 
 hasty people are ready to be content, if 
 they can but hang anybody, without mind- 
 ing much whether that individual be more 
 to blame than many beside. Laws and 
 kings have something to do here: but 
 management and foresight on the part 
 of the poorer claisses have a great deal 
 more to do. And no laws can make 
 many persons managing or provident. 
 I do not hesitate to say, from what I have 
 myself seen of the poor, that the same 
 short-sighted extravagance, the same 
 recklessness of consequences, which are 
 frequently found in them, would cause 
 quite as much misery, if they prevailed 
 in a likb degree among people with a 
 thousand a year. But it seems as if only 
 the tolerably well-to-do have the heart to 
 be provident and self-denying. A man 
 with a few hundreds annually does not 
 marry, unless he thinks he can afford it : 
 but the workman with fifteen shillings a 
 week is profoundly indifferent to any 
 such calculation. I firmly believe that 
 the sternest of all self-denial is that prac- 
 tised by those who, when we divide man- 
 kind into rich and poor, must be classed 
 (I suppose) with the rich. But I turn 
 away from a miserable subject, through 
 which I cannot see my way clearly, and 
 on which I cannot think but with unut- 
 terable pain. It is an easy way of cut- 
 ting the knot, to declare that the rich are 
 the cause of all the sufferings of the poor ; 
 but when we look at the case in all its 
 bearings, we shall see that that is rank 
 nonsense. And on the other hand, it is 
 unquestionable that the rich are bound 
 to do something. But what ? I should 
 feel deeply indebted to any one who 
 would write out, in a few short and in- 
 telligible sentences, the practical results 
 that are aimed at in the " Song of the 
 
604 
 
 Concerning People who carried Weight in Life. [November, 
 
 Shirt." The misery and evil are mani- 
 fest : but tell us •whom to hang ; tell us 
 what to do ! 
 
 One heavy burden -with -which many 
 men are weighted for the race of life is 
 depression of spirits. I wonder whether 
 this used to be as common in former days 
 as it is now. There was, indeed, the 
 man in Homer who walked by the sea- 
 shore in a very gloomy mood ; but his 
 case seems to have been thought remark- 
 able. What is it in our modern mode 
 of Hfe and our infinity of cares, what 
 little thing is it about the matter of the 
 brain or the flow of the blood, that makes 
 the difference between buoyant cheerful- 
 ness and deep depression '? I begin to 
 think that almost all educated people, and 
 especially all whose work is mental rath- 
 er than physical, suffer more or less from 
 this indescribable gloom. And although 
 a certain amount of sentimental sadness 
 may possibly help the poet, or the imag- 
 inative writer, to produce material which 
 may be very attractive to the young and 
 inexperienced, I suppose it will be ad- 
 mitted by all that cheerfulness and hope- 
 fulness are noble and healthful stimulants 
 to worthy effort, and that depression of 
 spirits does (so to speak) cut the sinews 
 with which the average man must do the 
 work of life. You know how lightly the 
 buoyant heart carries people through en- 
 tanglements and labors under which the 
 desponding would break down, or which 
 they never would face. Yet, in thinking 
 of the commonness of depressed spirits, 
 even where the mind is otherwise very 
 free from anything morbid, we should re- 
 member that there is a strong temptation 
 to believe that this depression is more 
 common and more prevalent than it tru- 
 ly is. Sometimes there is a gloom which 
 overcasts all life, like that in which James 
 Watt lived and worked, and served his 
 race so nobly, — like that from which the 
 gentle, amiable poet, James Montgomery, 
 Buffered through his whole career. But 
 in ordinary cases the gloom is temporary 
 and transient. Even the most depress- 
 ed are not always so. Like, we know. 
 
 suggests like powerfully. If you are 
 placed in some peculiar conjuncture of 
 circumstances, or if you pass through 
 some remarkable scene, the present scene 
 or conjuncture will call up before you, in 
 a way that startles you, something like 
 itself which you had long forgotten, and 
 which you would never have remem- 
 bered but for this touch of some myste- 
 rious spring. And accordingly, a man 
 depressed in spirits thinks that he is al- 
 ways so, or at least fancies that such de- 
 pression has given the color to his life in 
 a very much greater degree than it ac- 
 tually has done so. For this dark season 
 wakens up the remembrance of many sim- 
 ilar dark seasons which in more cheerful 
 days are quite forgot ; and these cheerful 
 days drop out of memory for the time. 
 Hearing such a man speak, if he speak 
 out his heart to you, you think him incon- 
 sistent, perhaps you think him insincere. 
 You think he is saying more than he 
 truly feels. It is not so ; he feels and 
 believes it all at the time. But he is 
 taking a one-sided view of things ; he is 
 undergoing the misery of it acutely for 
 the time, but by-and-by he will see things 
 from quite a different point. A very 
 eminent man (there can be no harm in 
 referring to a case which he himself 
 made so public) wrote and published 
 something about his miserable home. He 
 was quite sincere, I do not doubt. He 
 thought so at the time. He was misera- 
 ble just then ; and so, looking back on 
 past years, he could see nothing but mis- 
 ery. But the case was not really so, one 
 could feel sure. There had been a vast 
 deal of enjoyment about his home and 
 his lot ; it was forgotten then. A man 
 in very low spirits, reading over his dia- 
 ry, somehow lights upon and dwells upon 
 all the sad and wounding things ; he in- 
 voluntarily skips the rest, or reads them 
 with but faint perception of their mean- 
 ing. In reading the very Bible, he does 
 the like thing. He chances upon that 
 which is in unison with his present mood. 
 I think there is no respect in which this 
 great law of the association of ideas holds 
 more strictly true than in the power of 
 
1861.] 
 
 Concerning People who carried Weight in Life. 
 
 605 
 
 a present state of mind, or a present 
 state of outward circumstances, to bring 
 up vividly before us all such states in 
 our past history. We are depressed, we 
 are worried ; and when we look back, 
 all our departed days of worry and de- 
 pression appear to start up and press 
 themselves upon our view to the exclu- 
 sion of anything else ; so that we are 
 ready to think that we have never been 
 otherwise than depressed and worried all 
 our life. But when more cheerful times 
 come, th*ey suggest only such times of 
 cheerfulness, and no effort will bring 
 back the depression vividly as when we 
 felt it. It is not selfishness or heartless- 
 ness, it is the result of an inevitable law 
 of mind, that people in happy circum- 
 stances should resolutely believe that it 
 is a happy world after all ; for, looking 
 back, and looking around, the mind re- 
 fuses to take distinct note of anything 
 that is not somewhat akin to its present 
 state. And so, if any ordinary man, who 
 is not a distempered genius or a great 
 fool, tells you that he is always miserable, 
 don't believe him. He feels so now, but 
 he does not always feel so. There are 
 periods of brightening in the darkest lot. 
 Very, very few live in unvarying gloom. 
 Not but that there is something very pit- 
 iful (by which I mean deserving of pity) 
 in what may be termed the Micawber 
 style of mind, — in the stage of hyster- 
 ic oscillations between joy and misery. 
 Thoughtless readers of " David Copper- 
 field" laugh at Mr. Micawber, and his 
 rapid passages from the depth of despair 
 to the summit of happiness, and back 
 again. But if you have seen or expe- 
 rienced that morbid condition, you would 
 know that there is more reason to mourn 
 over it than to laugh at it. There is 
 acute misery felt now and then; and 
 there is a pervading, never -departing 
 sense of the hollowness of the morbid 
 mirth. It is but a very few degrees bet- 
 ter than " moody madness, laughing wild, 
 amid severest woe." By depression of 
 spirits I understand a dejection without 
 any cause that could be stated, or from 
 causes which in a healthy mind would 
 
 produce no such degree of dejection. No 
 doubt, many men can remember seasons 
 of dejection which was not imaginary, 
 and of anxiety and misery whose causes 
 were only too real. You can remember, 
 perhaps, the dark time in which you 
 knew quite well what it was that made 
 it so dark. Well, better days have come. 
 That sorrowful, wearing time, which ex- 
 hausted the springs of life faster than or- 
 dinary living would have done, which 
 aged you in heart and frame before your 
 day, dragged over, and it is gone. You 
 carried heavy weight, indeed, while it 
 lasted. It was but poor running you 
 made, poor work you did, with that fee- 
 ble, anxious, disappointed, miserable 
 heart. And you would many a time 
 have been thankful to creep into a quiet 
 grave. Perhaps that season did you good. 
 Perhaps it was the discipline you needed. 
 Perhaps it took out your self-conceit, and 
 made you humble. Perhaps it disposed 
 you to feel for the griefs and cares of 
 others, and made you sympathetic. Per- 
 haps, looking back now, you can discern 
 the end it served. And now that it has 
 done its work, and that it only stings you 
 when you look back, let that time be 
 quite forgotten ! 
 
 There are men, and very clever men, 
 who do the work of life at a disadvan- 
 tage, through tJiis^ that their mind is a 
 machine fitted for doing well only one 
 kind of work, — or that their mind is a 
 machine which, though doing many things 
 well, does some one thing, perhaps a con- 
 spicuous thing, very poorly. Y'ou find it 
 hard to give a man credit for being pos- 
 sessed of sense and talent, if you hear him 
 make a speech at a public dinner, which 
 speech approaches the idiotic for its silli- 
 ness and confusion. And the vulgar mind 
 readily concludes that he who does one 
 thing extremely ill can do nothing well, 
 and that he who is ignorant on one point 
 is ignorant on all. A friend of mine, a 
 country parson, on first going to his par- 
 ish, resolved to farm his glebe for himself. 
 A neighboring farmer kindly offered the 
 parson to plough one of his fields. The 
 
606 
 
 Concerning People loho carried Weight in Life. [Xovember, 
 
 fanner said that he would send his man 
 John with a plough and a pair of horses, 
 on a certain day. " If ye 're goin' about," 
 said the farmer to the clergyman, " John 
 ■will be unco' weel pleased, if you speak 
 to him, and say it 's a fine day, or the 
 like o' that ; but dinna," said the farmer, 
 with much solemnity, "dinna say ony- 
 thing to him aboot ploughin' and sawin' ; 
 for John," he added, " is a stupid body, 
 but he has been ploughin' and sawin' all 
 his life, and he '11 see in a minute that ye 
 ken naething aboot ploughin' and sawin'. 
 And then," said the sagacious old farmer, 
 with extreme earnestness, " if he comes 
 to think that ye ken naething aboot 
 ploughin' and sawin', he '11 think that ye 
 ken naething aboot onything ! " Yes, it 
 is natural to us all to think, that, if the 
 machine breaks down at that work in 
 which we are competent to test it, then 
 the machine cannot do any work at all. 
 
 If you have a strong current of water, 
 you may turn it into any channel you 
 please, and make it do any work you 
 please. With equal energy and success 
 it will flow north or south ; it will turn a 
 corn-mill, or a threshing-machine, or a 
 grindstone. Many people live under a 
 vague impression that the human mind 
 is like that. They think, — Here is so 
 much ability, so much energy, which may 
 be turned in any direction, and made to 
 do any work ; and they are surprised to 
 find that the power, available and great 
 for one kind of work, is worth nothing 
 for another. A man very clever at one 
 thing is positively weak and stupid at 
 another thing. A very good judge may 
 be a wretchedly bad joker ; and he must 
 go through his career at this disadvan- 
 tage, that people, finding him silly at the 
 thing they are able to estimate, find it hard 
 to believe that he is not silly at every- 
 thing. I know, for myself, that it would 
 not be right that the Premier should re- 
 quest me to look out for a suitable Chan- 
 cellor. I am not competent to appreciate 
 the depth of a man's knowledge of equi- 
 ty ; by which I do not mean justice, but 
 chancery law. But, though quite unable 
 to understand how great a Chancellor 
 
 Lord Eldon was, I am quite able to esti- 
 mate how great a poet he was, also how 
 great a wit. Here is a poem by that 
 eminent person. Doubtless he regarded 
 it as a wonder of happy versification, as 
 well as instinct with the most convulsing 
 fun. It is intended to set out in a metri- 
 cal form the career of a certain judge, 
 who went up as a poor lad from Scotland 
 to England, but did well at the bar, and 
 ultimately found his place upon the bench. 
 Here is Lord Chancellor Eldon's humor- 
 ous poem : — 
 
 " James Allan Parke 
 Came naked stark 
 
 From Scotland: 
 But he got clothes, 
 Like other beaux, 
 
 In England ! " 
 
 Now the fact that Lord Eldon wrote that 
 poem, and valued it highly, would lead 
 some folk to suppose that Lord Eldon 
 was next door to an idiot. And a good 
 many other things which that Chancellor 
 did, such as his quotations from Scripture 
 in the House of Commons, and his at- 
 tempts to convince that assemblage (when 
 Attorney-General) that Napoleon I. was 
 the Apocalyptic Beast or the Little Horn, 
 certainly point towards the same conclu- 
 sion. But the conclusion, as a general 
 one, would be wrong. No doubt, Lord 
 Eldon was a wise and sagacious man as 
 judge and statesman, though as wit and 
 poet he was almost an idiot. So with 
 other great men. It is easy to remem- 
 ber occasions on which great men have 
 done very foolish things. There never 
 was a truer hero nor a greater command- 
 er than Lord Nelson ; but in some things 
 he was merely an awkward, overgrown 
 midshipman. But then, let us remember 
 that a locomotive engine, though excel- 
 lent at running, would be a poor hand at 
 flying. That is not its vocation. The 
 engine will draw fifteen heavy carriages 
 fifty miles in an hour ; and that remains 
 as a noble feat, even though it be as- 
 certained that the engine could not jump 
 over a brook which would be cleared ea- 
 sily by the veriest screw. We all see this. 
 
1861.] 
 
 Concerning People who carried Weight in Life. 
 
 607 
 
 But many of us have a confused idea that 
 a great and clever man is (so to speak) a 
 locomotive that can fly; and when it is 
 proved that he cannot fly, then we begin 
 to doubt whether he can even run. We 
 think he should be good at everything, 
 whether in his own line or not. And he 
 is set at a disadvantage, particularly in 
 the judgment of vulgar and stupid peo- 
 ple, when it is clearly ascertained that at 
 some things he is very inferior. I have 
 heard of a very eminent preacher who 
 sunk considerably (even as regards his 
 preaching) in the estimation of a certain 
 family, because it appeared that he play- 
 ed very badly at bowls. And we all 
 know that occasionally the Premier al- 
 ready mentioned reverses the vulgar er- 
 ror, and in appointing men to great places 
 is guided by an axiom which amounts to 
 just this : this locomotive can run well, 
 therefore it will fly well. This man has 
 filled a certain position well, therefore let 
 us appoint him to a position entirely dif- 
 ferent ; no doubt, he will do well there 
 too. Here is a clergyman who has edit- 
 ed certain Greek plays admirably; let 
 us make him a bishop. 
 
 It may be remarked here, that the men 
 who have attained the greatest success 
 in the race of life have generally carried 
 weight. Nitor in adversum might be the 
 motto of many a man besides Burke. It 
 seems to be almost a general rule, that 
 the raw material out of which the finest 
 fabrics are made should look very little 
 like these, to start with. It was a stam- 
 merer, of uncommanding mien, who be- 
 came the greatest orator of graceful 
 Greece. I believe it is admitted that 
 Chalmers was the most efiective preach- 
 er, perhaps the most telling speaker, that 
 Britain has seen for at least a century ; 
 yet his aspect was not commanding, his 
 gestures were awkward, his voice was 
 bad, and his accent frightful. He talked 
 of an oppning when he meant an open- 
 ing, and he read out the text of one of 
 his noblest sermons, " He that is fulthy, 
 let him be fulthy stull." Yet who ever 
 thought of these things after hearing the 
 
 good man for ten minutes? Ay, load 
 Eclipse with what extra pounds you 
 might, Eclipse would always be first I 
 And, to descend to the race-horse, he 
 had four white legs, white to the knees ; 
 and he ran more awkwardly than racer 
 ever did, with his head between his fore- 
 legs, close to the ground, like a pig. Alex- 
 ander, Napoleon, and Wellington were 
 all little men, in places where a com- 
 manding presence would have been of 
 no small value. A most disagreeably af- 
 fected manner has not prevented a bar- 
 rister with no special advantages from 
 rising with general approval to the high- 
 est places which a barrister can fill. A 
 hideous little wretch has appeared for 
 trial in a criminal court, having succeed- 
 ed in marrying seven wives at once. A 
 painful hesitation has not hindered a cer- 
 tain eminent person from being one of 
 the principal speakers in the British Par- 
 liament for many years. Yes, even dis- 
 advantages never overcome have not suf- 
 ficed to hold in obscurity men who were 
 at once able and fortunate. But some- 
 times the disadvantage was thoroughly 
 overcome. Sometimes it served no oth- 
 er end than to draw to one point the at- 
 tention and the efforts of a determined 
 will ; and that matter in regard to which 
 Nature seemed to have said that a man 
 should fall short became the thing in 
 which he attained unrivalled perfection. 
 
 A heavy drag-weight upon the powers 
 of some men is the uncertainty of their 
 powers. The man has not his powers 
 at command. His mind is a capricious 
 thing, that works when it pleases, and 
 will not work except when it pleases. I 
 am not thinking now of what to many is 
 a sad disadvantage : that nervous trepi- 
 dation which cannot be reasoned away, 
 and which often deprives them of the full 
 use of their mental abilities just when 
 they are most needed. It is a vast thing 
 in a man's favor, that whatever he can 
 do he should be able to do at any time, 
 and to do at once. For want of coolness 
 of mind, and that readiness which gener- 
 ally goes with it, many a man cannot do 
 
608 
 
 Concerning People who carried Weight in Life. [November, 
 
 himself justice; and in a deliberative 
 assembly he may be entirely beaten by 
 some flippant person who has all his 
 money (so to speak) in his pocket, while 
 the other must send to the bank for his. 
 How many people can think next day, 
 or even a few minutes after, of the pre- 
 cise thing they ought to have said, but 
 which would not come at the time ! But 
 very frequently the thing is of no value, 
 unless it come at the time when it is 
 wanted. Coming next day, it is like the 
 offer of a thick fur great-coat on a swel- 
 tering day in July. You look at the 
 wrap, and say, " Oh, if I could but have 
 had you on the December night when I 
 went to London by the limited mail, and 
 was nearly starved to death!" But it 
 seems as if the mind must be, to a cer- 
 tain extent, capricious in its action. Ca- 
 price, or what looks like it, appears of 
 necessity to go with complicated machin- 
 ery, even material. The more compli- 
 cated a machine is, the liker it grows to 
 mind, in the matter of uncertainty and 
 apparent caprice of action. The simplest 
 machine — say a pipe for conveying wa- 
 ter — will always act in precisely the 
 same way. And two such pipes, if of 
 the same dimensions, and subjected to 
 the same pressure, will always convey 
 the self-same quantities. But go to more 
 advanced machines. Take two clocks 
 or two locomotive engines, and though 
 these are made in all respects exactly 
 alike, they will act (I can answer at least 
 for the locomotive engines) quite differ- 
 ently. One locomotive will swallow a 
 vast quantity of water at once ; another 
 must be fed by driblets ; no one can say 
 why. One engine is a facsimile of the 
 other ; yet each has its character and its 
 peculiarities as truly as a man has. You 
 need to know your engine's temper be- 
 fore driving it, just as much as you need 
 to know that of your horse, or that of 
 your friend. I know, of course, there is 
 a mechanical reason for this seeming ca- 
 price, if you could trace the reason. But 
 not one man in a thousand could trace 
 out the reason. And the phenomenon, 
 as it presses itself upon us, really amounts 
 
 to this : that very complicated machinery 
 appears to have a will of its own, — ap- 
 pears to exercise something of the nature 
 of choice. But there is no machine so 
 capricious as the human mind. The great 
 poet who wrote those beautiful verses 
 could not do that every day. A good 
 deal more of what he writes is poor 
 enough ; and many days he could not 
 write at all. By long habit the mind 
 may be made capable of being put in 
 harness daily for the humbler task of 
 producing prose ; but you cannot say, 
 when you harness it in the morning, how 
 far or at what rate it will run that day. 
 
 Go and see a great organ of which 
 you have been told. Touch it, and you 
 hear the noble tones at once. The organ 
 can produce them at any time. But go 
 and see a great man ; touch him, — that 
 is, get him to begin to talk. You will be 
 much disappointed, if you expect, certain- 
 ly, to hear anything like his book or his 
 poem. A great man is not a man who is 
 always saying great things, or who is al- 
 ways able to say great things. He is a 
 man who on a few occasions has said 
 great things ; who on the coming of a 
 sufficient occasion may possibly say great 
 things again ; but the staple of his talk is 
 commonplace enough. Here is a point 
 of difference from machinery, with all 
 machinery's apparent caprice. You could 
 not say, as you pointed to a steam-engine, 
 " The usual power of that engine is two 
 hundred horses ; but once or twice it has 
 surprised us all by working up to two 
 thousand." No ; the engine is always of 
 nearly the power of two thousand horses, 
 if it ever is. But what we have been 
 supposing as to the engine is just what 
 many men have done. Poe wrote " The 
 Raven " ; he was working then up to two 
 thousand horse power. But he wrote 
 abundance of poor stuff, working at about 
 twenty-five. Read straight through the 
 volumes of Wordsworth, and I think you 
 will find traces of the engine having work- 
 ed at many different powers, varying from 
 twenty-five horses or less up two thousand 
 or more. Go and hear a really great 
 preacher, when he is preaching in his 
 
1861.] 
 
 Concerning People who carried Weight in Life. 
 
 609 
 
 own church upon a common Sunday, 
 and possibly you may hear a very ordi- 
 nary sermon. I have heard Mr. Melvill 
 preach very poorly. You must not ex- 
 pect to find people always at their best. 
 It is a- very unusual thing that even the 
 ablest men should be like Burke, who 
 could not talk with an intelligent stran- 
 ger for five minutes without convincing 
 the stranger that he had talked for five 
 minutes with a great man. And it is an 
 awful thing, when some clever youth is 
 introduced to some local poet who has 
 been told how greatly the clever youth 
 admires him, and what vast expectations 
 the clever youth has formed of his con- 
 versation, and when the local celebrity 
 makes a desperate effort to talk up to the 
 expectations formed of him. I have wit- 
 nessed such a scene ; and I can sincerely 
 say that I could not previously have be- 
 lieved that the local celebrity could have 
 made such a fool of himself He was re- 
 solved to show that he deserved his fame, 
 and to show that the mind which had pro- 
 duced those lovely verses in the country 
 newspaper could not stoop to common- 
 place things. 
 
 Undue sensitiveness, and a too lowly 
 estimate of their own powers, hang heav- 
 ily upon some men,— probably upon more 
 men than one would imagine. I believe 
 that many a man whom you would take 
 to be ambitious, pushing, and self-com- 
 placent, is ever pressed with a sad con- 
 viction of inferiority, and wishes nothing 
 more than quietly to slip through life. It 
 would please and satisfy him, if he could 
 but be assured that he is just like other 
 people. You may remember a touch of 
 nature (that is, of some people's nature) 
 in Burns ; you remember the simple ex- 
 ultation of the peasant mother, when her 
 daughter gets a sweetheart : she is " well 
 pleased to see Jier bairn respeckit like the 
 lave" that is, like the other girls round. 
 And undue humility, perhaps even befit- 
 ting humility, holds back sadly in the race 
 of life. It is recorded that a weaver in a 
 certain village in Scotland was wont dai- 
 ly to offer a singular petition ; he prayed 
 
 VOL. VIII. 39 
 
 daily and fervently for a better opinion 
 of himself Yes, a firm conviction of 
 one's own importance is a great help in 
 life. It gives dignity of bearing ; it does 
 (so to speak) lift the horse over many a 
 fence at which one with a less confident 
 heart would have broken down. But the 
 man who estimates himself and his place 
 humbly and justly will be ready to shrink 
 aside, and let men of greater impudence 
 and not greater desert step before him. 
 I have often seen, with a sad heart, in 
 the case of working people that manner, 
 difficult to describe, which comes of be- 
 ing what we in Scotland sometimes call 
 sair Jiadden down. I have seen the like 
 in educated people, too. And not very 
 many will take the trouble to seek out 
 and to draw out the modest merit that 
 keeps itself in the shade. The energetic, 
 successful people of this world are too 
 busy in pushing each for himself to have 
 time to do that. You will find that peo- 
 ple with abundant confidence, people who 
 assume a good deal, are not unfrequently 
 taken at their own estimate of themselves. 
 I have seen a Queen's Counsel walk into 
 court, after the case in which he was en- 
 gaged had been conducted so far by his 
 junior, and conducted as. well as mortal 
 could conduct it. But it was easy to 
 see that the complacent air of superior 
 strength with which the Queen's Counsel 
 took the management out of his junior's 
 hands conveyed to the jury, (a common 
 jury,) the belief that things were now to 
 be managed in quite different and vastly 
 better style. And have you not known^ 
 such a thing as that a family, not a whit 
 better, wealthier, or more respectable 
 than all the rest in the little country 
 town or the country parish, do yet, by 
 carrying their heads higher, (no mortal; 
 could say why,) gradually elbow them- 
 selves into a place of admitted social su- 
 periority ? Everybody knows exactly 
 what they are, and from what they have 
 sprung ; but somehow, by resolute as- 
 sumption, by a quiet air of being better- 
 than their neighbors, they draw ahead 
 of them, and attain the glorious advan- 
 tage of one step higher on the delicately 
 
610 
 
 Concerning People who carried Weight in Life. [November, 
 
 graduated social ladder of the district. 
 Now it is manifest, that, if such people 
 had sense to see their true position, and 
 the absurdity of their pretensions, they 
 would assuredly not have gained that ad- 
 vantage, whatever it may be worth. 
 
 But sense and feeling are sometimes 
 burdens in the race of life ; that is, they 
 sometimes hold a man back from grasp- 
 ing material advantages which he might 
 have grasped, had he not been prevented 
 by the possession of a certain measure of 
 common sense and right feeling. I doubt 
 not, my friend, that you have acquaint- 
 ances who can do things which you could 
 not do for your life, and who by doing 
 these things push their way in life. They 
 ask for what they want, and never let a 
 chance go by them. And though they 
 may meet many rebuffs, they sometimes 
 make a successful venture. Impudence 
 sometimes attains to a pitch of sublimity ; 
 and at that point it has produced a very 
 great impression upon many men. The 
 incapable person who started for a pro- 
 fessorship has sometimes got it. The 
 man who, amid the derision of the coun- 
 ty, published his address to the electors, 
 has occasionally got into the House of 
 Commons. The vulgar half- educated 
 preacher, who without any introduction 
 asked a patron for a vacant living in the 
 Church, has now and then got the living. 
 And however unfit you may be for a 
 place, and however discreditable may 
 have been the means by which you got 
 it, once you have actually held it for two 
 or three years people come to acquiesce 
 in your holding it. They accept the fact 
 that you are there, just as we accept the 
 fact that any other evil exists in this 
 world, without asking why, except on 
 very special occasions. I believe, too, 
 that, in the matter of worldly preferment, 
 there is too much fatalism in many good 
 men. They have a vague trust that Prov- 
 idence will do more than it has promised. 
 They are ready to think, that, if it is God's 
 will that they are to gain such a prize, it 
 will be sure to come their way without 
 their pushing. That is a mistake. Sup- 
 pose you apply the same reasoning to 
 
 your dinner. Suppose you sit still in 
 your study and say, "If I am to have 
 dinner to-day, it will come without effort 
 of mine ; and if I am not to have dinner 
 to-day, it will not come by any effort of 
 mine ; so here I sit still and do nothing." 
 Is not that absurd ? Yet that is what 
 many a wise and good man practically 
 says about the place in life which would 
 suit him, and which would make him hap- 
 py. Not Turks and Hindoos alone have 
 a tendency to believe in their Kismet. 
 It is human to believe in that. And we 
 grasp at every event that seems to favor 
 the belief. The other evening, in the 
 twilight, I passed two respectable-looking 
 women who seemed like domestic ser- 
 vants ; and I caught one sentence which 
 one said to the other with great apparent 
 faith. " You see," she said, " if a thing 's 
 to come your way, it '11 no gang by ye ! " 
 It was in a crowded street ; but if it had 
 been in my country parish, where every- 
 one knew me, I should certainly have 
 stopped the women, and told them, that, 
 though what they said was quite true, I 
 feared they were understanding it wrong- 
 ly, and that the firm belief we all hold in 
 God's Providence which reaches to all 
 events, and in His sovereignty which 
 orders all things, should be used to help 
 us to be resigned, after we have done 
 our best and failed, but should never be 
 used as an excuse for not doing our best. 
 When we have set our mind on any 
 honest end, let us seek to compass it by 
 every honest means ; and if we fail after 
 having used every honest means, then 
 let us fall back on the comfortable belief 
 that things are ordered by the Wisest 
 and Kindest ; then is the time for the 
 Fiat Voluntas Tua. 
 
 You would not wish, my friend, to be 
 deprived of common sense and of delicate 
 feeling, even though you could be quite 
 sure that once that drag-weight was tak- 
 en off, you would spring forward to the 
 van, and make such running in the race 
 of life as you never made before. Still, 
 you cannot help looking with a certain 
 interest upon those people who, by the 
 
1861.] 
 
 Concerning People who carried Weight in Life. 
 
 611 
 
 enabled to do things and say things which 
 you never could. I have sometimes look- 
 ed with no small curiosity upon the kind 
 of man who will come uninvited, and 
 without warning of his approach, to stay 
 at another man's house : who will stay on, 
 quite comfortable and unmoved, though 
 seeing plainly he is not wanted : who 
 will announce, on arriving, that his visit 
 is to be for three days, and who will 
 then, without farther remark, and with- 
 out invitation of any kind, remain for a 
 month or six weeks : and all the while 
 sit down to dinner every day with a per- 
 fectly easy and unembarrassed manner. 
 You and I, my reader, would rather live 
 on much less than sixpence a day than 
 do all this. We could not do it. But 
 some people not merely can do it, but can 
 do it without any appearance of effort. 
 Oh, if the people who are victimized by 
 these horse-leeches of society could but 
 gain a little of the thickness of skin which 
 characterizes the horse-leeches, and bid 
 them be off, and not return again till 
 they are invited ! To the same pachy- 
 dermatous class belong those individuals 
 who will put all sorts of questions as to 
 the private aflfairs of other people, but 
 carefully shy off from any similar confi- 
 dence as to their own affairs : also those 
 individuals who borrow small sums of 
 money and never repay them, but go on 
 borrowing till the small sums amount to 
 a good deal. To the same class may be 
 referred the persons who lay themselves 
 out for saying disagreeable things, the 
 " candid friends " of Canning, the " peo- 
 ple who speak their mind," who form 
 such pests of society. To find fault is to 
 right-feeling men a very painful thing ; 
 but some take to the work with avidity 
 and delight. And while people of culti- 
 vation shrink, with a delicate intuition, 
 from saying anything which may give pain 
 or cause uneasiness to others, there are 
 others who are ever painfully treading 
 upon the moral corns of all around them. 
 Sometimes this is done designedly : as by 
 Mr. Snarling, who by long practice has 
 attained the power of hinting and insin- 
 uating, in the course of a forenoon call, 
 
 as many unpleasant things as may ger- 
 minate into a crop of ill-tempers and wor- 
 ries which shall make the house at which 
 he called uncomfortable all that day. 
 Sometimes it is done unawares, as by 
 Mr. Boor, who, through pure ignorance 
 and coarseness, is always bellowing out 
 things which it is disagreeable to some 
 one, or to several, to hear. Which was 
 it, I wonder. Boor or Snarling, who once 
 reached the dignity of the mitre, and 
 who at prayers in his house uttered this 
 supplication on behalf of a lady visitor 
 who was kneeling beside him : " Bless 
 
 our friend, Mrs. : give her a little 
 
 more common sense ; and teach her to 
 dress a little less like a tragedy queen 
 than she does at present " ? 
 
 But who shall reckon up the countless 
 circumstances which lie like a depressing 
 burden on the energies of men, and make 
 them work at that disadvantage which 
 we have thought of under the fifjure of 
 carrying weight in life .^ There are men 
 who carry weight in a damp, marshy 
 neighborhood, who, amid bracing moun- 
 tain air might have done things which 
 now they will never do. There are men 
 who carry weight in an uncomfortable 
 house : in smoky chimneys : in a study 
 with a dismal look-out : in distance from 
 a railway-station : in ten miles between 
 them and a bookseller's shop. Give an- 
 other hundred a year of income, and the 
 poor struggling parson who preaches dull 
 sermons will astonish you by the talent 
 he will exhibit when his mind is freed 
 from the dismal depressing influence of 
 ceaseless scheming to keep the wolf from 
 the door. Let the poor little sick child 
 grow strong and well, and with how much 
 better heart will its father face the work 
 of life ! Let the clergyman who preach- 
 ed, in a spiritless enough way, to a hand- 
 ful of uneducated rustics, be placed in a 
 charge where weekly he has to address 
 a large cultivated congregation, and, 
 with the new stimulus, latent powers 
 may manifest themselves which no one 
 fancied he possessed, and he may prove 
 quite an eloquent and attractive preach- 
 
612 WTiy has the North felt aggrieved with England'^ [November, 
 
 er. A dull, quiet man, whom you es-* 
 teemed as a blockhead, may suddenly 
 be valued very differently when circum- 
 stances unexpectedly call out the solid 
 qualities he possesses, unsuspected be- 
 fore. A man devoid of brilliancy may 
 on occasion show that he possesses great 
 good sense, or that he has the power of 
 sticking to his task in spite of discourage- 
 ment. Let a man be placed where dog- 
 ged perseverance will stand him in stead, 
 and you may see what he can do when 
 he has but a chance. The especial 
 weight which has held some men back, 
 the thing which kept them from doing 
 great things and attaining great fame, 
 has been just this : that they were not 
 able to say or to write what they have 
 thought and felt. And, indeed, a great 
 poet is nothing more than the one man in 
 a million who has the gift to express that 
 which has been in the mind and heart 
 of multitudes. If even the most com- 
 monplace of human beings could write 
 all the poetry he has felt, he would pro- 
 duce something that would go straight to 
 the hearts of many. 
 
 It is touching to witness the indications 
 and vestiges of sweet and admirable 
 things which have been subjected to a 
 weight which has entirely crushed them 
 down, — things which would have come 
 out into beauty and excellence, if they 
 had been allowed a chance. You may 
 witness one of the saddest of all the loss- 
 
 es of Nature in various old maids. What 
 kind hearts are there running to waste ! 
 What pure and gentle affections blossom 
 to be blighted ! I dare say you have 
 heard a young lady of more than forty 
 sing, and you have seen her eyes fill 
 with tears at the pathos of a very com- 
 monplace verse. Have you not thought 
 that there was the indication of a tender 
 heart which might have made some good 
 man happy, and, in doing so, made her- 
 self happy, too ? But it was not to be. 
 Still, it is sad to think that sometimes 
 upon cats and dogs there should be wast- 
 ed the affection of a kindly human being ! 
 And you know, too, how often the fairest 
 promise of human excellence is never 
 suffered to come to fruit. You must look 
 upon gravestones to find the names of 
 those who promised to be the best and 
 noblest specimens of the race. They died 
 in early youth, — perhaps in early child- 
 hood. Their pleasant faces, their singu- 
 lar words and ways, remain, not often 
 talked of, in the memories of subdued 
 parents, or of brothers and sisters now 
 grown old, but never forgetting how that 
 one of the family, that was as the flower 
 of the flock, was the first to fade. It has 
 been a proverbial saying, you know, even 
 from heathen ages, that those whom the 
 gods love die young. It is but an infe- 
 rior order of human beings that makes 
 the living succession to carry on the hu- 
 man race. 
 
 WHY HAS THE NORTH FELT AGGRIEVED WITH 
 ENGLAND? 
 
 We have chosen a guarded and pas- 
 sionless wording for a topic on which we 
 wish to offer a few frankly spoken, but 
 equally passionless remarks. With the 
 bitterness and venom and exaggeration 
 of statement which both English and 
 American papers have interchanged in 
 reference to matters of opinion and mat- 
 
 ters of feeling connected with our na- 
 tional troubles we do not now intermed- 
 dle. We would not imitate it : we regret 
 it, and on our own side we are ashamed 
 of it. We have read editorials and com- 
 munications in our own papers so grossly 
 vituperative and stinging in the rancor 
 of their spirit, that it would not have 
 
1861.] 
 
 Wh^ has the North felt aggrieved with England'^ 
 
 613 
 
 surprised us, if some Englishmen, of a 
 certain class, had organized a hostile as- 
 sociation against us in revenge for our 
 truculent defiance. The real spirit of 
 bullyism, of the cockpit and the pugil- 
 istic ring, has been exhibited in this in- 
 terchange of newspaper opinion. The 
 more is the reason why we should not 
 overlook or be blind to the real griev- 
 ances in the case, nor fail to give ex- 
 pression to them in the strongest way of 
 which their emphatic, but unembittered, 
 statement will admit. Whether the Lon- 
 don " Times " is or is not an authorita- 
 tive vehicle for the utterance of average 
 English opinion, and an index, in its 
 general tone, of the prevailing sentiment 
 of that people, is a question which, so far 
 from wishing to decide, we must decline 
 to entertain, as mainly irrelevant to our 
 present purpose. As a matter of fact, 
 however, if we did accept that print as 
 an authority and a standard in English 
 opinion, we should throw more of tem- 
 per than we hope to prevent escaping 
 through our words into the remarks 
 which are to follow. That paper evi- 
 dently represents the opinion of one 
 class, perhaps of more than one class of 
 Englishmen. An intelligent American 
 reader of its comments on our affairs 
 can always read it, as even the best-in- 
 formed Englishman cannot, with the skill 
 and ability to discern its spirit, often 
 covertly mean, and to detect its mis- 
 representations, some of the grossest of 
 which are made the basis of its argu- 
 ments and inferences. From the very 
 opening of our strife to the last issue 
 of that print which has crossed the wa- 
 ter, its comments and records relatins 
 to our affairs have presented a most 
 ingenious and mischievous combination 
 of everything false, ill-tempered, ma- 
 lignant, and irritating. It is at pres- 
 ent exercising itself upon the financial 
 arrangements of our Government, and 
 uttering prophecies, falsified before they 
 have come to our knowledge, about the 
 inability or the unwillingness of our loy- 
 al people to furnish the necessary mon- 
 ey. 
 
 But enough of the London " Times." 
 We have in view matters not identified 
 with the spirit and comments of a single 
 newspaper, however influential. We have 
 in view graver and more comprehensive 
 facts, — facts, too, more significant of feel- 
 ings and opinion. Stating our point in 
 general terms, which we shall reduce to 
 some particulars before we close, we af- 
 firm frankly and emphatically, that the 
 North, we might even say this Nation, as 
 a government standing in solemn treaty 
 relations with Great Britain, has just cause 
 of complaint and offence at the prevailing 
 tone and spirit of the English people, and 
 press, and mercantile classes, towards us, 
 in view of the rebellion which is convuls- 
 ing our land. That tone and spirit have 
 not been characterized by justice, mag- 
 nanimity, or true sympathy with a noble 
 and imperilled cause ; they have not been 
 in keeping with the professions and avow- 
 ed principles of that people ; they have 
 not been consistent with the former inti- 
 mations of English opinion towards us, as 
 regards our position and our duty; and 
 they have sadly disappointed the hopes 
 on whose cheering support we had re- 
 lied when the dark hours which English 
 influence had helped to prepare for us 
 should come. 
 
 Before we proceed to our specifica- 
 tions, let us meet the suggestion often 
 thrown out, that we have been unduly 
 and morbidly sensitive to English opin- 
 ion in this matter ; and let us gratefully 
 allow for the exceptions that may require 
 to be recognized in the application of our 
 charges against the English people or 
 press as a whole. It has been said that 
 we have shown a timid and almost cra- 
 ven sensitiveness to the opinions pro- 
 nounced abroad upon our national strug- 
 gle, especially those pronounced by our 
 own kinsfolk of England. It is urged, 
 that a strong and prosperous and unit- 
 ed people, if conscious of only a rightful 
 cause, and professing the ability to main- 
 tain it, should be self-reliant, independent 
 of foreign judgment, and ready to trust to 
 time and the sure candor and fulness of 
 the expositions which it brings with it, to 
 
614 
 
 Why has the North feU aggrieved with England ? [November, 
 
 set us right before the eyes of the world. 
 But what if another nation, supposed to 
 be friendly, known even to have rec- 
 ommended and urged upon us the very 
 cause for which we are contending, rep- 
 resents it in such a contumelious and 
 disheartening way as to show us that we 
 have not even her sympathy ? Further, 
 what if there is a spirit and a tone of 
 treatment towards us which suggests the 
 possibility that at some critical moment 
 she may interfere in a way that will em- 
 barrass us and encourage our enemies ? 
 The sensitiveness of a people to the 
 possible power of mischief that may lie 
 against them in the hands of a jealous 
 neighbor, ready to be used at the will or 
 caprice of its possessor, may indicate ti- 
 midity or weakness. But Great Britain, 
 knowing very well what the feeling is, 
 ought to understand that it may consist 
 with real strength, courage, and right 
 purposes. It is notorious now to all the 
 civilized world, as a fact often ludicrous- 
 ly and sometimes lugubriously set forth, 
 that millions of sturdy English folk have 
 lived for many years, and live at this 
 hour, in a state of quaking trepidation as 
 to the designs of a single man of " ideas " 
 across their Channel. What bulletin have 
 the English people ever read from day to 
 day with such an intermittent pulse as 
 that with which they peruse quotations 
 from the " Moniteur " ? The English 
 people, whatever might have been true 
 of them once, are now the last people in 
 the world — matched and overawed as 
 they are by the French — to charge up- 
 on another people a timid sensitiveness 
 for even the slightest intimations of for- 
 eign feeling and possible intentions. 
 
 We must allow also for exceptions to 
 the sweep of the specific charges under 
 which we shall express our grievances at 
 the general course of English treatment 
 towards us. There have been messages 
 in many private letters from Englishmen 
 and Englishwomen of high public and 
 of dignified private station, there have 
 been editorials and communications in 
 a few English papers, there have been 
 brief utterances in Parlianlent, and from 
 
 leading speakers at political, mercantile, 
 literary, and religious assemblies, which 
 have shown a full appreciation of the im- 
 port of our present strife, and have con- 
 veyed to us in words of most precious 
 and grateful encouragement the assur- 
 ance that many hearts are beating with 
 ours across the sea. That the truculence 
 and venom of some of our own papers 
 may have repressed the feeling and the 
 utterance of this same sympathy in many 
 individuals and ways where it might oth- 
 erwise have manifested itself is not un- 
 natural, and is very probable. We ac- 
 knowledge most gratefully the cheer and 
 the inspiration which have come to us 
 from every word, wish, and act from 
 abroad that has recognized the stake of 
 our conflict ; and we will take for grant- 
 ed the real existence and the glowing 
 heartiness of much of the same which has 
 not been expressed, or has not reached 
 us. Farther even than this we will go 
 in tempering or qualifying the utterance 
 of our grievances. We will take for 
 granted that very much of the coldness, 
 or antipathy, or contemptuousness, or 
 misrepresentation which we have recog- 
 nized in the general treatment of us and 
 our cause by Englishmen is to be ac- 
 counted to actual ignorance or a very 
 partial understanding of our real circum- 
 stances and of the conditions of the con- 
 flict, and of the relations of parties to it. 
 De Tocqueville is universally regarded 
 among us as the only foreigner who ever 
 divined the theoretical and the practical 
 method of our institutions. Englishmen, 
 English statesmen even, have never pen- 
 etrated to the mystery of them. Many 
 intelligent British travellers have seemed 
 to wish to do so, and to have tried to do 
 so. But the study bothers them, the 
 secret bafiles them. They give it up 
 with a gruif impatience which writes on 
 their features the sentence, " You have 
 no right to have such complicated and 
 unintelligible arrangements In your gov- 
 ernments, State and Federal : they are 
 quite un-English." Our foreign kinsfolk 
 seem unwilling to realize the extent of 
 our domain, and the size of some of our 
 
1861.] 
 
 Why has the North felt aggrieved with England ? 
 
 615 
 
 States as compared with their own isl- 
 and, and incapable of understanding how 
 different institutions, forms, limitations, 
 and governmental arrangements may ex- 
 ist in the several States, independently 
 of, or in subordination to, the province 
 and administration of the Federal Gov- 
 ernment. Nearly every English journal 
 which undertakes to refer to our affairs 
 will make ludicrous or serious blunders, 
 if venturing to enter into details. The 
 "Edinburgh Review" kindly volunteered 
 to be the champion of American institu- 
 tions and products in opposition to the ex- 
 treme Toryism of the " Quarterly." Syd- 
 ney Smith took us, our authors and early 
 enterprises, under his special patronage, 
 and he wrote many favorable articles 
 of that character. One would have sup- 
 posed, that. In the necessary preparation 
 for such labors, he would have acquired 
 some geographical, statistical, and other 
 rudimentary knowledge about us, enough 
 to have kept him from gross blunders. 
 Unluckily, for him and for us, for the 
 sake of getting here on his money double 
 the interest which he could get at home, 
 and not considering that the greater the 
 promised profit the greater the risk, he 
 made investments in some of our stock 
 companies and bonds. When these in- 
 vestments proved disastrous, he raved 
 and fumed, calling upon our Govern- 
 ment — which had nothing more to do 
 with the matter than had the English 
 Parliament — to make good his losses. 
 
 We are tempted for a moment to drop 
 the graver thread of our theme to relate 
 an anecdote in Illustration of our present 
 point. It happened a few years ago that 
 we had as a household guest for two or 
 three weeks an English gentleman, well- 
 informed, courteous, and excellent, who 
 had been for several years the editor of a 
 London paper. On the day after his do- 
 mestication with us, which was within the 
 first week of his arrival at New York, 
 sitting where we are now writing, after 
 breakfast, he announced that " he had a 
 commission to execute for a friend, with a 
 person residing in Springfield." Opening 
 his note-book, he handed us a slip of pa- 
 
 per bearing the gentleman's name and ad- 
 dress, " Springfield, Ohio." Furnishing 
 him with writing-materials, we were about 
 turning to our own occupation, when, sud^ 
 denly, with a quick exclamation, as if 
 recalling something, he said, " Sure, I 
 have been in Springfield. I remember 
 a short, a very short time was allowed 
 for dinner, as I came from New York." 
 We explained, or tried to explain to him, 
 that the Springfield through which he had 
 passed and the Springfield to which he was 
 writing were in different States widely 
 separated, and that there were also sev- 
 eral other " Springfields." To this he 
 demurred, protesting that it made mat- 
 ters quite confusing to foreigners to have 
 the same names repeated in different 
 parts of the country. In vain did we 
 suggest that all confusion was avoided by 
 adding the abbreviated name of the State. 
 No ! " It was very confusing." Sudden- 
 ly, a thought occurred to us, and, refresh- 
 ing our memory by a glance at the Index 
 of our English " Road-Book," we suggest- 
 ed triumphantly that names were repeat- 
 ed for different localities in England: 
 thus, there are four Ashfords, two Dor- 
 chesters, six Hortons, seven Newports, 
 etc., etc. Our guest, with an air and ve- 
 hemence that quite outvied our triumph, 
 exclaimed, — " Oh ! but they are in dif- 
 ferent shirrrhes, in different shirrrhes 1 " 
 Sure enough, one of his own shires is a 
 larger thing to an Englishman than one 
 of our States. He lives on an island 
 which is to him larger than all the rest of 
 the world, though any one starting from 
 the centre of it, on a fast ho7'se, unless he 
 crossed the border into Scotland, could 
 scarcely ride in any direction twenty-four 
 hours without getting overboard. 
 
 To the actual ignorance or obfuscation 
 of mind of the majority of the English 
 people, as regards our country and its in- 
 stitutions, we are doubtless to refer much 
 of the ill-toned and seemingly unfriendly 
 comments made upon our affairs in their 
 organs. Thus, it is intimated to us by 
 many English writers, that they regard 
 the North now as simply undertaking to 
 patch up a Union founded and sustained 
 
eig 
 
 WTiy has the North felt aggrieved with England'^ [November, 
 
 by mean compromises, an object which 
 has already led us into many humiliating 
 concessions, — and that the moment we 
 announce that we are striking a blow for 
 Liberty, we shall have their sympathy 
 without stint or measure. No English- 
 man who really understood our affairs 
 would talk in that way. One of the chief 
 lures which instigated and encouraged the 
 Southern rebellion was the assurance, 
 adroitly insinuated by the leading trai- 
 tors into their duped followers, that oppo- 
 sition by the rest of the country to their 
 schemes would take the form of an anti- 
 slavery crusade, in which form the oppo- 
 sition would be put down by the combin- 
 ed force of those who did not belong to 
 the Republican party. They were de- 
 ceived. Opposition to them took the 
 form of a rallying by all parties to the 
 defence of the Constitution, the mainten- 
 ance of the Union. For any anti- sla- 
 very zeal to have attempted to divert 
 the aroused patriotism of the land to a 
 breach of one of its fundamental constitu- 
 tional provisions would have been treach- 
 erous and futile. The majority of our 
 enlisted patriotic soldiers would have laid 
 down their arms. If the leadings of Provi- 
 dence shall direct the thickening strife into 
 an exterminating crusade against slavery, 
 doubtless our patriots will wait on Provi- 
 dence. But we could not have started 
 in our stern work avowing that as an ob- 
 ject of our own. And as to the mean- 
 ness of our concessions and compromises 
 for Union, we have to consider what woes 
 and wrongs that Union has averted. Has 
 England no discreditable passages in her 
 own Parliamentary history ? Have her 
 attempts at governing large masses of 
 men. Christian and heathen, Roman Cath- 
 olic and Protestant, and of all sects, priv- 
 ileged and oppressed, never led her into 
 any truckling or tyrannical legislation, 
 any concessions or compromises of ideal 
 or abstract right ? 
 
 But we must come to our specifications, 
 introducing them with but a single other 
 needful suggestion. We have not to 
 complain of any acts or formal measures 
 of the English Government against us, — 
 
 nor even of the omission of any possible 
 public manifestation which might have 
 turned to our encouragement or service. 
 But it will be admitted that we have griev- 
 ances to complain of, if the tone and the 
 strain of EngUsh opinion and sentiment 
 have been such as to inspirit the South 
 and to dispirit the North. If English com- 
 ments have palliated or justified the origi- 
 nal and the incidental measures of the Re- 
 bellion, — if they have been zealous to find 
 or to exaggerate excuses for it, to over- 
 state the apparent or professed grounds 
 of it, to wink at the meannesses and out- 
 rages by which it has thriven, — if they 
 have perverted or misrepresented the 
 real issue, have ridiculed or discouraged 
 the purposes of its patriotic opponents, 
 have embarrassed or impeded their hopes 
 of success, or have prejudged or fore- 
 closed the probable result, — it will be 
 admitted, we say, that we have grievan- 
 ces against those who have so dealt by 
 us in the hour of our dismay and trial. 
 And it is an enormous aggravation of the 
 disappointment or the wrong which we 
 are bearing, that it is visited upon us by 
 England just as we have initiated meas- 
 ures for at least restraining and abating 
 the dominant power of that evil institu- 
 tion for our complicity in the support of 
 which she has long been our unsparing 
 censor. We complain generally of the 
 unsympathizing and contemptuous tone 
 of England towards us, — of the mercu- 
 rial standard by which she judges our 
 strife, — of the scarcely qualified delight 
 with which she parades our occasional 
 ill-successes and discomfitures, — of the 
 haste which she has made to find tokens 
 of a rising despotism or a military dicta- 
 torship in those measures of our Govern- 
 ment which are needful and consistent 
 with the exigencies of a state of warfare, 
 such as the suspension, on occasions, of 
 the habeas corpus^ the suppression of dis- 
 loyal publications, the employment of 
 spies, and the requisition of passports, — 
 and finally, of the contemptible service 
 to which England has tried to put our 
 last tariff, and of her evident unwilling- 
 ness to have us find or furnish the finan- 
 
1861.] 
 
 Why has the North felt aggrieved with England ? 
 
 617 
 
 ces of our war. Not to deal, however, 
 with generalities, we proceed to make 
 three distinct points of an argument that 
 crowds us with materials. 
 
 Foremost among the grievances which 
 we at the North may allege against our 
 brethren across the water — foremost, both 
 in time and In the harmful influence of 
 its working — we may specify this fact, 
 that the English press, with scarce an 
 exception, made haste. In the very earli- 
 est stages of the Southern Rebellion, to 
 judge and announce the hopeless parti- 
 tion of our Union, as an event accom- 
 plished and irrevocable. The way in 
 which this judgment was reached and 
 pronounced, the time and circumstances 
 of its utterance, and the foregone con- 
 clusions which were drawn from it, gave 
 to it a threatening and mischievous agen- 
 cy, only less prejudicial to our cause, we 
 verily believe, than would have been an 
 open alliance between England and the 
 enemies of the Republic. This haste to 
 announce the positive and accomplished 
 dissolution of our National Union was 
 forced most painfully upon our notice in 
 the darkest days of our opening strife. 
 Those who undertook to guide and in- 
 struct English opinion in the matter had 
 easy means of informing themselves about 
 the strangely fortuitous and deplorable, 
 though most opportune and favoring com- 
 bination of circumstances under which 
 " Secession " was Initiated and strength- 
 ened. They knew that the Administra- 
 tion, then in its last days of power, was 
 half- covertly, half- avowedly In sympa- 
 thy and in active cooperation with the 
 cause of rebellion. The famous " Ostend 
 Conference" had had its doings and de- 
 signs so thoroughly aired In the columns 
 of the English press, that we cannot sup- 
 pose either the editors or the readers 
 ignorant of the spirit or intentions of 
 those who controlled the policy of that 
 Administration. Early Information like- 
 wise crossed the water to them of the dis- 
 creditable and Infamous doings and plot- 
 tings of members of the Cabinet, evident- 
 ly In league with the fomenting treach- 
 ery. They knew that the head of the 
 
 Navy Department had either scattered 
 our ships of war to the ends of the earth, 
 or had moored them in helpless disability 
 at our dockyards, — that the head of the 
 War Department had been plundering 
 the arsenals of loyal States to furnish 
 weapons for Intended rebellion, — that 
 the head of the Treasury Department 
 was purloining its funds, — and that the 
 President himself, while allowing na- 
 tional forts to be environed by hostile 
 batteries, had formally announced that 
 both Secession itself and all attempts 
 to resist it were alike unconstitutional, — 
 the effect of which grave opinion was to 
 let Secession have its way till Coercion 
 would seem to be not only unconstitution- 
 al, but unavailing. Our English kinsfolk 
 also knew that our prominent diplomatic 
 agents abroad, representing solemn trea- 
 ty relations with them of this nation as a 
 unit, under sacred oaths of loyalty to it, 
 and living on generous grants from its 
 Treasury, were also In more or less of 
 active sympathy with traitorous schemes. 
 So far, it must be owned, there was little In 
 the promise of whatever might grow from 
 these combined enormities to engage the 
 confidence or the good wishes of true-heart- 
 ed persons on either side of the water. 
 
 But whatever power of mischief lay 
 in this marvellous combination of evil 
 forces, so malignly working together, the 
 Administration in which they found their 
 life and whose agencies they employed 
 was soon to yield up its fearfully dese- 
 crated trust. A new order of things, 
 representing at least the spirit and pur- 
 pose of that philanthropy and public 
 righteousness to which our English breth- 
 ren had for years been prompting us, 
 was to come in with a new Administra- 
 tion, already constitutionally recognized, 
 but not as yet put into power. It was 
 asking but little of intelligent foreigners 
 of our own blood and language, that they 
 should make due allowance for that re- 
 curring period in the terms of our Gov- 
 ernment—as easily turned to mischiev- 
 ous influences as is an interregnum in 
 a monarchy — by which there is a lapse 
 of four months between the election and 
 
618 
 
 Why has the North felt aggrieved with England'^ [November, 
 
 the inauguration of our Chief Magistrate. 
 A retiring functionary may work and 
 plan and provide an immense amount of 
 disabling, annoying, and damaging ex- 
 perience to be encountered by his suc- 
 cessor. That successor may at a dis- 
 tance, or close at hand, be an observer 
 of all this influence ; but whether it be 
 simply of a partisan or of a malignant 
 character, he is powerless to resist it, 
 and good taste and the proprieties of his 
 position seem to suggest that he make no 
 public recognition of it. Every Chief 
 Magistrate of this Republic, before its 
 present head, acceded to office with its 
 powers and dignities and facilities and 
 trusts unimpaired by his predecessor. 
 We have thought that among the thorns 
 of the pillow on which a certain " old 
 public functionary " lays his head, as he 
 watches the dismal working of elements 
 which he had more power than any oth- 
 er to have dispelled, not the least sharp 
 one must be that which pierces him with 
 the thought of the difference between the 
 position which his predecessors prepared 
 for him and that which he prepared for 
 his successor. Not among the least of 
 the claims which that successor has up- 
 on the profound and respectful sympathy 
 of all good men everywhere is the fact 
 that there has been no public utterance 
 of complaining or reproachful words from 
 his lips, reflecting upon his predecessor, 
 or even asking indulgence on the score 
 of the shattered and almost wrecked 
 fabric of which we have put him in 
 charge. We confess that we have look- 
 ed through the English papers for months 
 for some magnanimous and hlgh-souled 
 tribute of this sort to the Man who thus 
 nobly represents a sacred and imperilled 
 cause. If such tribute has been ren- 
 dered, it has escaped our notice. 
 
 Now, as we are reflecting upon the 
 tone and spirit of the English press at 
 the opening of the Rebellion, we have to 
 recall to the minds of our readers the 
 fact, that in all its early stages, even 
 down to and almost after the proclama- 
 tion of the President summoning a vol- 
 unteer force to resist it, we ourselves, at 
 
 the North, utterly refused to consider the 
 Seceders as in earnest. AVe may have 
 been stu{)ld, besotted, infatuated even, in 
 our blindness and incredulity. But none 
 the less did we, that is, the great major- 
 ity of us, regard all the threats and meas- 
 ures of the South as something less for- 
 midable and actual than open war and 
 probable or threatening revolution. We 
 were persuaded that the people of the 
 South had been wrought up by artful 
 and ambitious leaders to wild alarm that 
 the new Administration would visit out- 
 rages upon them and try to turn them 
 into a state of vassalage. Utterly un- 
 conscious as we were of any purpose to 
 trespass upon or reduce their fullest con- 
 stitutional rights, we knew how grossly 
 our intentions were misrepresented to 
 them. We applied the same measure 
 to the distance between their threats and 
 the probability that they would carry 
 them out which we knew ought to be 
 applied to the difference between our 
 supposed and our real intentions. In a 
 word, — for this is the simple truth, — we re- 
 garded the manifestations of the seceding 
 and rebelling States — or rather of the 
 leaders and their followers in them — 
 as in part bluster and in part a warning 
 of what might ensue, though it would 
 not be likely to ensue when their eyes 
 were open to the truth. We were met 
 by bold defiance, by outrageous abuse, 
 and with an almost overwhelming vent- 
 ing of falsehoods. There was boastful- 
 ness, arrogance, assured claims of suffi- 
 cient strength, and daring prophecies of 
 success, enough to have made any cause 
 triumphant, if triumph comes through 
 such means. Still we were incredulous, 
 perhaps foolishly and culpably so, — but 
 incredulous, and unintimldated, and con- 
 fident, none the less. We believed that 
 wise, forbearing, and temperate meas- 
 ures of the new Administration would 
 remove all real grievances, dispel all false 
 alarms, and at least leave open the way 
 to bloodless methods of preserving the 
 Union. Part of our infatuation consist- 
 ed in our seeing so plainly the infatu- 
 ation of the South, while we did not 
 
1861.] 
 
 WJiy has the North felt aggrieved with England ? 
 
 619 
 
 allow for the lengths of wild and reck- 
 less folly into which it might drive them. 
 We could see most plainly that either suc- 
 cess in their schemes, or failure through 
 a struggle to accomplish them, would be 
 alike ruinous to them ; that no cause 
 standing on the basis and contemplat- 
 ing the objects recognized by them could 
 possibly prosper, so long as the throne 
 of heaven had a sovereign seated upon 
 it. Full as much, then, from our con- 
 viction that the South would not insist 
 upon doing itself such harm as from 
 any fear of what might happen to us, 
 did we refuse to regard Secession as a 
 fixed fact. At the period of which we 
 are speaking, there was probably not a 
 single man at the North, of well-fur- 
 nished and well-balanced mind — Avho 
 stood clear in heart and pocket of all se- 
 cret or interested bias toward the South 
 — that deliberately recognized the prob- 
 ability of the dissolution of the Union. 
 Very few such men will, indeed, recog- 
 nize that possibility now, except as they 
 recognize the possibility of the destruc- 
 tion of an edifice of solid blocks and 
 stately columns by the grinding to pow- 
 der of each large mass of the fabric, so 
 that no rebuilding could restore it. 
 
 This was the state of mind and feel- 
 ing with which we, who had so much at 
 stake and could watch every pulsation 
 of the excitement, contemplated the as- 
 pect of our opening strife. But with the 
 first echo from abroad of its earliest an- 
 nouncements here came the most posi- 
 tive averments in the English papers, 
 with scarcely a single exception, that 
 the knell of this Union had struck. We 
 had fallen asunder, our bond was broken, 
 we had repudiated our former league or 
 fellowship, and henceforth what had been 
 a unit was to be two or more fragments, 
 in peaceful or hostile relations as the 
 case might be, but never again One. It 
 would but revive for us the first really 
 sharp and irritating pangs of this dismal 
 experience, to go over the files of papers 
 for those extracts which were like vinegar 
 to our eyes as we first read them. Their 
 substance is repeated to us in the sheets 
 
 which come by every steamer. There 
 were, of course, variations of tone and 
 spirit in these evil prognostications and 
 these raven-like croaks. Sometimes there 
 was a vein of pity, and of that kind of 
 sorrow which we feel and of that other 
 kind which we express for other people's 
 troubles. Sometimes there was a start 
 of surprise, an ejaculation of amazement, 
 or even profound dismay, at the calami- 
 ty which had come upon us. In others 
 of these newspaper comments there was 
 that unmistakable superciliousness, that 
 goading contemptuousness of self-conceit 
 and puffy disdain, which John Bull visits 
 on all "un-English" things, especially 
 when they happen under their unfortu- 
 nate aspects. In not a few of these same 
 comments there was a tone of exultation, 
 malignant and almost diabolical, as at 
 the discomfiture of a hated and danger- 
 ous rival. We have read at least three 
 English newspapers for each week that 
 has passed since our troubles began ; we 
 have been readers of these papers for a 
 score of years. In not one of them have 
 we met the sentence or the line which pro- 
 nounces hopefully, with bold assurance, 
 for the renewed life of our Union. lu 
 by far the most of them there is reiter- 
 ated the most positive and dogged aver- 
 ment that there is no future for us. We 
 are not unmindful of the manliness and 
 stout cheer with which a very few of 
 them have avowed their wish and faith 
 that the Rebels may be utterly discom- 
 fited and held up before the world in their 
 shame and friendlessness, and have coup- 
 led with these utterances words of warm 
 sympathy and approval for the North. 
 But these ill -wishes for the one party 
 and these good wishes for the other 
 party are independent of anything but 
 utter hopelessness as to the preservation 
 or the restoration of the Union. 
 
 Now some may suggest that we make 
 altogether too much of what so far is but 
 the expression of an opinion, and, at 
 worst, of an unfavorable opinion, — an 
 opinion, too, which may yet prove to be 
 correct. But the giving of an opinion on 
 some matters has all the efiect of taking 
 
620 
 
 Why has the North felt aggrieved with England'^ [November, 
 
 a side, and often helps much to decide 
 the stake. On very many accounts, this 
 expression of English opinion, at the time 
 it was uttered and with such emphasis, 
 was most unwarranted and most mis- 
 chievous. It is very easy to distribute 
 its harmful influence upon our interests 
 and prospects into three very different 
 methods, all of which combined to injure 
 or obstruct the Northern cause, — the 
 National cause. Thus, this opinion of 
 the hopelessness of our resistance of the 
 ruin of our Union was of great value to 
 the Rebels as an encouragement under 
 any misgivings they might have ; it was 
 calculated to prejudice our position in 
 the eyes of the world ; and it had a ten- 
 dency to dispirit many among ourselves. 
 A word upon each of these points. — How 
 quickening must it have been to the flag- 
 ging hopes or determination of the Rebels 
 to read in the English journals that they 
 were sure of success, that the result was 
 already registered, that they had gain- 
 ed their purpose simply by proposing it 1 
 Nor was it possible to regard this opinion 
 as not carrying with it some implication 
 that the cause of the Rebels was a just 
 one, and was sure of success, if for other 
 reasons, for this, too, among them, name- 
 ly, that it was just. Why else were the 
 Rebels so sure of a triumph? Was it 
 because of their superior strength or 
 resources ? A very little inquiry would 
 have set aside that suggestion. Was it 
 because of the nobleness of their cause ? 
 A very frank avowal from the Vice- 
 President of the assumed Confederacy 
 announced to liberty-loving Englishmen 
 that that cause was identified with a 
 slavocracy. Or was the Rebel cause to 
 succeed through the dignity and purity 
 of the means enlisted in its service V It 
 was equally well known on both sides of 
 the water by what means and appliances 
 of fraud, perfidy, treachery, and other 
 outrages, the schemes of the Rebellion 
 were initiated and pursued. If, in spite 
 of all these negatives, the English press 
 prophesies success to the Rebels, was not 
 the prophecy a great comfort and spur 
 to them? — Again, this prophecy of our 
 
 sure discomfiture prejudiced us before the 
 world. It gave a public character and 
 aspect of hopelessness to our cause ; it in- 
 vited coldness of treatment towards us ; 
 it seemed to warn off all nations from civ- 
 ing us aid or comfort ; and it virtually af- 
 firmed that any outlay of means or life by 
 us in a cause seen to be impracticable 
 would be reckless, sanguinary, cruel, and 
 inhuman. — And, once more, to those 
 among ourselves who are influenced by 
 evil prognostications, it was most dispirit- 
 ing to be told, as if by cool, unprejudiced 
 observers from outside, that no uprising 
 of patriotism, no heroism of sacrifice, no 
 combination of wisdom and power would 
 be of any avail to resist a foreordained 
 catastrophe. — In these three harmful ways 
 of influence, the ill-omened opinion reit- 
 erated from abroad had a tendency to 
 fulfil itself. The whole plea of justifica- 
 tion offered abroad for the opinion is giv- 
 en in the assertion that those who have 
 once been bitterly alienated can never 
 be brought into true harmony again, and 
 that it is impossible to govern the unwill- 
 ing as equals. England has but to read 
 the record of her own strifes and battles 
 and infuriated passages with Scotland 
 and Ireland, — between whom and her- 
 self alienations of tradition, prejudice, 
 and religion seemed to make harmony as 
 impossible as the promise of it is to these 
 warring States, — England has only to 
 refresh her memory on these points, in 
 order to relieve us of the charge of folly 
 in attempting an impossibility. So much 
 for the first grievance we allege against 
 our English brethren. 
 
 Another of our specifications of wrong 
 is involved in that already considered. 
 If English opinion decided that our na- 
 tionality must henceforth be divided, it 
 seemed also to imply that we ought to 
 divide according to terms dictated by the 
 Seceders. This was a precious judgment 
 to be pronounced against us by a sister 
 Government which was standing in sol- 
 emn treaty relations with us as a unit in 
 our nationality ! What did England sup- 
 pose had become of our Northern man- 
 hood, of the spirit of which she herself 
 
1861.] Why has the North felt aggrieved with England'^ 
 
 621 
 
 once felt the force ? There was some- 
 thing alike humiliating and exasperating 
 in this implied advice from her, that we 
 should tamely and unresistingly submit 
 to a division of continent, bays, and riv- 
 ers, according to terms defiantly and in- 
 sultingly proposed by those who had a 
 joint ownership with ourselves. How 
 would England receive such advice from 
 us under hke circumstances ? But we 
 must cut short the utterance of our feel- 
 ings on this point, that we may make 
 another specification, — 
 
 Which is, that our English critics see 
 only, or chiefly, in the fearful and mo- 
 mentous conflict in which we are en- 
 gaged, " a bursting of the bubble of De- 
 mocracy " ! Shall we challenge now the 
 intelligence or the moral principle, the 
 lack of one or the other of which is be- 
 trayed in this sneering and malignant 
 representation — this utter misrepresen- 
 tation — of the catastrophe which has be- 
 fallen our nation? Intelligent English- 
 men know full well that the issue raised 
 among us does not necessarily touch or 
 involve at a single point the principles 
 of Democracy, but stands wide apart and 
 distinct from them. We might with as 
 much propriety have said that the Irish 
 Rebellion and the Indian Mutiny show- 
 ed " the bursting of the bubble of Mon- 
 archy." The principles of Democracy 
 stand as firm and find our people as loy- 
 al to them in every little town -meeting 
 and in every legislature of each loyal 
 State in the Union as they did in the 
 days of our first enthusiastic and suc- 
 cessful trial of them. Supposing even 
 that the main assumption on which so 
 many Englishmen have prematurely vent- 
 ed their scorn were a fact ; we cannot 
 but ask if the nation nearest akin to 
 us, and professing to be guided in this 
 century by feelings which forbid a re- 
 joicing over others' great griefs, has no 
 words of high moral sympathy, no ex- 
 pressions of regretful disappointment in 
 our calamities ? Is it the first or the most 
 emphatic thing which it is most fitting 
 for Christian Englishmen to say over the 
 supposed wreck of a recently noble and 
 
 promising country, the prospered home 
 of thirty millions of God's children, — 
 that " a bubble has burst " ? We might 
 interchange with our foreign "comfort* 
 ers " a discussion by arguments and facts 
 as to whether a monarchy or a democ- 
 racy has about it more of the qualities 
 of a bubble, but the debate would be 
 irrelevant to our present purpose. We 
 believe that Democracy in its noblest and 
 all -essential and well -proved principles 
 will survive the shock which has struck 
 upon our nation, whatever the result of 
 that shock may yet prove to be. We 
 believe, further, that the principles of 
 Democracy will come out of the struggle 
 which is trying, not themselves, but some- 
 thing quite distinct from them, with a new 
 aifirmation and vindication. But let that 
 be as it may, we are as much ashamed 
 for England's sake as we are aggrieved 
 on our own account that from the ve- 
 hicles of public sentiment in " the fore- 
 most realm in the world fot all true cul- 
 ture, advanced progress, and the glorious 
 triumphs of liberty and religion," what 
 should be a profoundly plaintive lament 
 over our supposed ruin is, in reality, a 
 mocking taunt and a hateful gibe over 
 our failure in daring to try an " un-Eng- 
 lish" experiment.* 
 
 * The following precious utterances of John 
 Bull moralizing, which might have been spok- 
 en of the Thugs in India, or of some provin- 
 cial Chinese enterprise, are extracted from the 
 cotton circular of Messrs. Neill, Brothers, ad- 
 dressed to their correspondents, and dated, 
 Manchester, Aug. 21. We find the circular 
 copied in a religious newspaper published in 
 London, without any rebuke. " The North 
 will have to learn the limited extent of her 
 powers as compared with the gigantic task 
 she has undertaken. One and perhaps two 
 defeats will be insufficient to reverse the false 
 education of a lifetime. Many lessons will 
 probably be necessary, and, meantime, any 
 success the Northern troops may obtain will 
 again inflame the national vanity, and the 
 lessons of adversity will need to be learned 
 over again. More effect will probably be pro- 
 duced by sufferings at home, by the ruin of 
 the higher classes and pauperization of the 
 lower, and by the general absorption of the 
 floating capital of the country " ! There, good 
 reader, what think you of the cotton moral- 
 
622 
 
 Why has the North felt aggrieved loith England'^ [November, 
 
 The stately " Quarterly Review," in its 
 number for July, uses a little more of 
 dignity in wording the title of an article 
 upon our affairs thus, — " Democracy on 
 its Trial " ; but it makes up for the waste 
 of refinement upon its text by a lavish 
 indulgence in scurrility and falsehood in 
 its comments. As a specimen, take the 
 following. Living here in this goodly 
 city of Boston, and knowing and loving 
 well its ways and people, we are asked 
 to credit the following story, which the 
 Reviewer says he heard from " a well- 
 known traveller." The substance of the 
 story is, that a Boston merchant proposed 
 to gild the lamp over his street-door, but 
 was dissuaded from so doing by the sug- 
 gestion of a friend, that by savoring of 
 aristocracy the ornamented gas-burner 
 would offend the tyrannical people and 
 provoke violence against it ! This, the 
 latest joke in the solemn Quarterly, has 
 led many of its readers here to recall the 
 days of Madame Trollope and the Rev- 
 erend Mr. Fiddler, those veracious ^d 
 " well-known travellers." There are, we 
 are sorry to say, many gilded street-lamps, 
 burnished and blazing every night, in Bos- 
 ton. But instead of standing before the 
 houses of our merchants, they designate 
 quite a different class of edifices. Our 
 merchants, as a general thing, would ob- 
 ject, both on the score of good taste and 
 on grounds of disagreeable association 
 with the signal, to raise such an orna- 
 ment before the doors of their comfort- 
 able homes. The common people, how- 
 ever, so far from taking umbrage at the 
 spectacle, would be rather gratified by 
 the generosity of our grandees in being 
 willing to show some of their finery out 
 of doors. This would be the feelinjj 
 especially of that part of our population 
 which is composed of foreigners, who 
 have been used to the sight of such 
 demonstrations in their native countries, 
 which are not democracies. In fact, 
 we suspect that the reason why English 
 
 izing of a comfortable factor, dwelling in im- 
 maculate England, dealing with us in cotton, 
 and with the Chinese in opium? 
 
 "flunkeys" hate American "flunkeyism," 
 with its laced coachmen, etc., is because 
 mere money, by aping the insignia of 
 rank, its gewgaws and trumpery, shows 
 too plainly how much of the rank itself 
 depends upon the fabrics and demonstra- 
 tions through which it sets itself forth. 
 We can conceive that an English noble- 
 man travelling in this country, who might 
 chance in one of our cities to see a turn- 
 out with its outriders, tassels, and crests, 
 almost or quite as fine as his own, if he 
 were informed that it belonged to a ple- 
 beian who had grown vastly rich through 
 some coarse traffic, might resolve to re- 
 duce all the display of his own equipage 
 the moment he reached home. The la- 
 bored and mean-spirited purpose of the 
 writer of the aforesaid article in the 
 Quarterly, and of other writers of like 
 essays, is to find in our democracy the 
 material and occasion of everything of 
 a discreditable sort which occurs in our 
 land. Now we apprehend, not without 
 some means of observation and inquiry, 
 that the state and features of society in 
 Great Britain and in all our Northern 
 regions are almost identically the same, 
 or run in parallelisms, by which we might 
 match every phenomenon, incident, prej- 
 udice, and folly, every good and every 
 bad trait and manifestation in the one 
 place with something exactly like it in 
 the other. During a whole score of 
 years, as we have read the English jour- 
 nals and our own, the thought has over 
 and over again suggested itself to us that 
 any one who had leisure and taste for 
 the task might cut out from each series 
 of papers respectively, for a huge com- 
 monplace book, matters of a precisely 
 parallel nature in both countries. A 
 simple difference in the names of men 
 and of places would be all that would 
 appear or exist. Every noble and every 
 mean and every mixed exhibition of char- 
 acter, — every act of munificence and of 
 baseness, — every narrative of thrilling or 
 romantic interest, — every instance and 
 example of popular delusion, humbug, 
 man-worship, breach of trust, domestic 
 infelicity, and of cunning or astounding 
 
1861.] Why has the North felt aggrieved with England'^ 
 
 623 
 
 depravity and hypocrisy, — every relig- 
 ious, social, and political excitement, — 
 every panic, — and every accident even, 
 from carelessness or want of skill, — each 
 and all these have their exact parallels, 
 generally within the same year of time 
 in Great Britain and in our own coun- 
 try. The crimes and the catastrophes, 
 in each locality, have seemed almost 
 repetitions of the same things on either 
 continent. Munificent endowments of 
 charitable institutions, zeal in reforma- 
 tory enterprises and in the correction of 
 abuses, have shown that the people of 
 both regions stand upon the same plane 
 of humanity and practical Christian cul- 
 ture. The same great frauds have indi- 
 cated in each the same amount of rotten- 
 ness in men occupying places of trust. 
 Both regions have had the same sort of 
 unprincipled " railway kings " and bank- 
 ers, similar railroad disasters, similar cases 
 of the tumbling down of insecure walls, 
 and of wife-poisoning. A Chartist insur- 
 rection enlists a volunteer police in Lon- 
 don, and an apprehended riot among for- 
 eigners is met by a similar precaution in 
 one of our cities. An intermittent con- 
 troversy goes on in England about the 
 interference of religion with common ed- 
 ucation, and Boston or New York is agi- 
 tated at the same time with the ques- 
 tion about the use of the Bible in the 
 public schools. Boston rowdies mob an 
 English intermeddler with the ticklish 
 matters of our national policy, and Eng- 
 lish rowdies mob an Austrian Haynau. 
 England goes into ecstasies over the visit 
 of a Continental Prince, and our North- 
 ern States repeat the demonstration over 
 the visit of a British Prince. The Duke 
 of Wellington alarms his fellow-subjects 
 by suggesting that their national defences 
 would all prove insufficient against the 
 assaults of a certain terrible Frenchman, 
 and an American cabinet official echoes 
 the suggestion that England may, per- 
 haps, try her strength in turn against us. 
 There are evidently a great many bub- 
 bles in this world, and, for all that we 
 know to the contrary, they are all equal- 
 ly liable to burst. Some famous ones, 
 
 bright in royal hues, have burst within 
 the century. Some more of the same 
 may, not impossibly, suffer a collapse be- 
 fore the century has closed. So that, for 
 this matter, " the bubble of Democracy " 
 must take its chance with the rest. 
 
 We have one more specification to 
 make under our general statement of rea- 
 sons why the North feels aggrieved with 
 the prevailing tone of sentiment and 
 comment in the English journals in ref- 
 erence to our great calamity. We pro- 
 test against the verdict which finds ex- 
 pression in all sorts of ways and with 
 various aggravations, that, in attempting 
 to rupture our Union, and to withdraw 
 from it on their own terms, at their own 
 pleasure, the seceding States are but re- 
 peating the course of the old Thirteen 
 Colonies in declaring themselves inde- 
 pendent, and sundering their ties to the 
 mother country. There is evidently 
 the rankling of an old smart in this plea 
 for rebels, which, while it is not intended 
 to justify rebellion in itself, is devised as 
 a vindication of rebels against rebels. 
 There is manifest satisfaction and a high 
 zest, and something of the morally aw- 
 ful and solemnly remonstrative, in the 
 way in which the past is evoked to visit 
 its ghostly retribution upon us. The old 
 sting rankles in the English breast. She 
 is looking on now to see us hoist by our 
 own petard. These pamphlet pages, with 
 their circumscribed limits and their less 
 ambitious aims, do not invite an elaborate 
 dealing with the facts of the case, which 
 would expose the sophistical, if not the 
 vengeful spirit of this English plea, as 
 for rebels against rebels. A thorough 
 exposition of the relations which the 
 present Insurrection bears to the for- 
 mer Revolution would demand an essay. 
 The relations between them, however, 
 whether stated briefly or at length, would 
 be found to be simply relations of dlffisr- 
 ence, without one single point of resem- 
 blance, much less of coincidence. We 
 can make but the briefest reference to 
 the points of contrast and unlikeness be- 
 tween the two things, after asserting that 
 they have no one common feature. It 
 
624 
 
 Wliy has the North felt aggrieved with England ? [November, 
 
 miglit seem evasive in us to suggest to 
 our English critics that they should re- 
 fresh their memories about the causes and 
 the justification of our Revolution by read- 
 ing the pages of their own Burke. We 
 are content to rest our case on his ar^u- 
 ment, simply affirming that on no one 
 point will it cover the alleged parallel- 
 ism of the Southern Rebellion. 
 
 The relations of our States to each 
 other and to the Union are quite unlike 
 those in which the Colonies stood to Eng- 
 land. England claimed by right of dis- 
 covery and exploration the soil on which 
 her Colonies here were planted, though 
 she had rival claimants from the very 
 first. A large number of the Colonists 
 never had any original connection with 
 England, and owed her no allegiance. 
 Holland, Sweden, and other countries 
 furnished much of the first stock of our 
 settlers, who thought they were occupy- 
 ing a wild part of God's earth rather 
 than a portion of the English domin- 
 ions. The Colonies were not planted at 
 public charge, by Government cost or 
 enterprise. The English exiles, with 
 but slender grounds of grateful remem- 
 brance of the land they had left, brought 
 ■with them their own private means, sub- 
 dued a wilderness, extinguished the ab- 
 original titles, and slowly and wearily 
 developed the resources of the country. 
 Often in their direst straits did they de- 
 cline to ask aid from England, lest they 
 might thereby furnish a plea for her in- 
 terference with their internal affairs. Sev- 
 eral of the Colonies from the first acted 
 upon their presumed independence, and 
 resolved on the frank assertion of it as 
 soon as they might dare the venture. 
 That time for daring happened to be 
 contemporaneous with a tyrannical de- 
 mand upon them for tribute without rep- 
 resentation. Thus the relations of the Col- 
 onies to England were of a hap-hazard, 
 abnormal, incidental, and always un- 
 settled character. They might be modi- 
 fied or changed without any breach of 
 contract. They might be sundered with- 
 out perjury or perfidy. 
 
 How unlike in all respects are the re- 
 
 lations of these States to each other and 
 to the Union ! Drawn together after 
 dark days and severe trials, — solemnly 
 pledged to each other by the people 
 whom the Union raised to a full citizen- 
 ship in the Republic, — bound by a com- 
 pact designed to be without limitation of 
 time, — lifted by their consolidation to a 
 place and fame and prosperity which 
 they would never else have reached, — 
 mutually necessary to each other's thrift 
 and protection, — making a nation adapt- 
 ed by its organic constitution to the re- 
 gion of the earth which it occupies,— and 
 now, by previous memories and tradi- 
 tions, by millions of social and domestic 
 alliances, knit by heart-strings the sun- 
 dering of which will be followed by a 
 flow of the life-blood till all is spent, — 
 these terms are but a feeble setting forth 
 of the relations of these States to each 
 other and to the Union. Some of these 
 States which have been voted out of the 
 Union by lawless Conventions owe their 
 creation to the Union. Their very soil has 
 been paid for out of the public treasury. 
 Indeed, the Union is still in debt under 
 obligations incurred by their purchase. 
 
 How striking, too, is the contrast be- 
 tween the character and method of the 
 proceedings which originated and now 
 sustain the Rebellion, and those which 
 initiated and carried through the Revo- 
 lution ! The Rebellion exhibits to us a 
 complete inversion of the course of meas- 
 ures which inaugurated the Revolution. 
 " Secession " was the invention of am- 
 bitious leaders, who overrode the forms 
 of law, and have not dared to submit 
 their votes and their doings to primary 
 meetings of the people whom they have 
 driven with a despotic tyranny. In the 
 Revolution the people themselves were 
 the prime movers. Each little country 
 town and municipality of the original 
 Colonies, that has a hundred years of 
 history to be written, will point us boast- 
 fully to entries in its records showing how 
 it instructed its representatives first to 
 remonstrate against tyranny, and then 
 to resist it by successive measures, each 
 of which, with its limitations and its in- 
 
1861.] 
 
 T}ie Wild Endive, 
 
 625 
 
 creasing boldness, was dictated by tlie 
 same people. The people of Virginia, re- 
 membering the ancient precedent which 
 won them their renown, intended to fol- 
 low it in an early stage of our present 
 strife. They allowed a Convention to 
 assemble, under the express and rigid 
 condition, that, if it should see fit to ad- 
 vise any measure which would afiect the 
 relations of their State to the Union, a 
 reference should be made of it, prior to 
 any action, to the will of the people. The 
 Convention covertly and treacherously 
 abused its trust. In secret session it 
 authorized measures on the strength of 
 which the Governor of the State proceed- 
 ed to put it into hostile relations with 
 the Union. When the foregone conclu- 
 sion was at last farcically submitted to 
 the people, a perjured Senator of the 
 National Congress notified such of them 
 as would not ratify the will of the Con- 
 vention, that they must leave the State. 
 
 Once more, in our Revolution, holders 
 of office and of lucrative trusts in the in- 
 terest of England were to a man loyal 
 to the Home Government, and our inde- 
 pendence was efiected without any base 
 appliances. In the work of secession 
 
 and rebellion, the very officials and sworn 
 guardians of our Government have been 
 the foremost plotters. They have used 
 their opportunities and their trusts for 
 the most perfidious purposes. Nothing 
 but perjury in the very highest places 
 could have initiated secession and rebel- 
 lion, and to this very moment they de- 
 rive all their vigor in the council-cham- 
 ber and on the field from forsworn men, 
 most of whom have been trained from 
 their childhood, nurtured, instructed, and 
 fed, and all of whom have been fostered 
 in their manhood, and gifted with their 
 whole power for harming her, by the kind- 
 ly mother whose life they are assailing. 
 If the Man with the Withered Hand had 
 used the first thrill of life and vigor com- 
 ing into it by the word of the Great Phy- 
 sician to aim a blow at his benefactor, 
 his ingratitude would have needed to 
 stand recorded only until this year of our 
 Lord, to have been matched by deeds 
 of men who have thrown this dear land 
 of ours into universal mourning. Yet 
 our English brethren would try to per- 
 suade us that these men are but repeat- 
 ing the course and the deeds of the Amer- 
 ican Revolution ! 
 
 THE WILD ENDIVE. 
 
 Only the dusty common road, 
 The glaring weary heat ; 
 
 Only a man with a soldier's load. 
 And the sound of tired feet. 
 
 VOL. VIII. 
 
 Only the lonely creaking hum 
 
 Of the Cicada's song ; 
 Only a fence where tall weeds come 
 
 With spiked fingers strong. 
 
 Only a drop of the heaven's blue 
 
 Left in a way-side cup ; 
 Only a joy for the plodding few 
 
 And eyes that look not up. 
 
 Only a weed to the passer-by, 
 
 Growing among the rest ; — 
 Yet something clear as the light of the sky 
 
 It lodges in my breast. 
 40 
 
626 
 
 The Contrabands at Fortress Monroe. 
 
 [November, 
 
 THE CONTRABANDS AT FORTRESS MONROE. 
 
 In the month of August, 1620, a Dutch 
 man-of-war from Guinea entered James 
 River and sold " twenty negars." Such is 
 the brief record left by John Rolfe, whose 
 name is honorably associated with that of 
 Pocahontas. This was the first importa- 
 tion of the kind into the country, and the 
 source of existing strifes. It was fitting 
 that the system which from that slave- 
 ship had been spreading over the conti- 
 nent for nearly two centuries and a half 
 should yield for the first time to the logic 
 of military law almost upon the spot of its 
 origin. The coincidence may not inap- 
 propriately introduce what of experience 
 and reflection the writer has to relate of 
 a three-months' soldier's life in Virginia. 
 
 On the morning of the 22d of May last, 
 Major- General Butler, welcomed with a 
 military salute, arrived at Fortress Mon- 
 roe, and assumed the command of the De- 
 partment of Virginia. Hitherto we had 
 been hemmed up in the peninsula of 
 which the fort occupies the main part, 
 and cut off" from communication with the 
 surrounding country. Until within a few 
 days our forces consisted of about one 
 thousand men belonging to the Third and 
 Fourth Regiments of Massachusetts mili- 
 tia, and three hundred regulars. The only 
 movement since our arrival on the 20th of 
 April had been the expedition to Norfolk 
 of the Third Regiment, in which it was 
 my privilege to serve as a private. The 
 fort communicates with the main-land by 
 a dike or causeway about half a mile 
 long, and a wooden bridge, perhaps three 
 hundred feet long, and then there spreads 
 out a tract of country, well wooded and 
 dotted over with farms. Passing from 
 this bridge for a distance of two miles 
 northwestward, you reach a creek or arm 
 of the bay spanned by another wooden 
 bridge, and crossing it you are at once 
 in the ancient village of Hampton, hav- 
 ing a population of some fifteen hundred 
 inhabitants. The peninsula on which the 
 fort stands, the causeway, and the first 
 
 bridge described, are the property of the 
 United States. Nevertheless, a small pick- 
 et-guard of the Secessionists had been ac- 
 customed to occupy a part of the bridge, 
 sometimes coming even to the centre, and 
 a Secession flag waved in sight of the 
 fort. On the 13th of May, the Rebel 
 picket-guard was driven from the bridge, 
 and all the Government property was 
 taken possession of by a detachment of 
 two companies from the Fourth Regi- 
 ment, accompanied by a dozen regulars 
 with a field-piece, acting under the or- 
 ders of Colonel Dimick, the command- 
 er of the post. They retired, denouncing 
 vengeance on Massachusetts troops for 
 the invasion of Virginia. Our pickets 
 then occupied the entire bridge and a 
 small strip of the main-land beyond, cov- 
 ering a valuable well ; but still there was 
 no occupation in force of any but Gov- 
 ernment property. The creation of a new 
 military department, to the command of 
 which a major-general was assigned, was 
 soon to terminate this isolation. On the 
 13 th of May the First Vermont Regiment 
 arrived, on the 24th the Second New 
 York, and two weeks later our forces 
 numbered nearly ten thousand. 
 
 On the 23d of May General Butler 
 ordered the first reconnoitring expedi- 
 tion, which consisted of a part of the 
 Vermont Regiment, and proceeded un- 
 der the command of Colonel Phelps over 
 the dike and bridge towards Hampton. 
 They were anticipated, and when in sight 
 of the second bridge saw that it had been 
 set on fire, and, hastening forward, ex- 
 tinguished the flames. The detachment 
 then marched into the village. A parley 
 was held with a Secession officer, who rep- 
 resented thfat the men in arms in Hamp- 
 ton were only a domestic police. Mean- 
 while the white inhabitants, particularly 
 the women, had generally disappeared. 
 The negroes gathered around our men, 
 and their evident exhilaration was partic- 
 ularly noted, some of them saying, " Glad 
 
1861.] 
 
 Tlie Contrahands at Fortress Monroe, 
 
 627 
 
 to see you, Massa," and betraying the fact, 
 that, on the approach of the detachment, 
 a field-piece stationed at the bridge had 
 been thrown into the sea. This was the 
 first communication between our army 
 and the negroes in this department. 
 
 The reconnoissance of the day had more 
 important results than were anticipated. 
 Three negroes, owned by Colonel Mal- 
 lory, a lawyer of Hampton and a Rebel 
 officer, taking advantage of the terror 
 prevailing among the white inhabitants, 
 escaped from their master, skulked dur- 
 ing the afternoon, and in the night came 
 to our pickets. The next morning, May 
 24th, they were brought to General But- 
 ler, and there, for the first time, stood the 
 Major-General and the fugitive slave face 
 to face. Being carefully interrogated, it 
 appeared that they were field-hands, the 
 slaves of an officer in the Rebel service, 
 who purposed taking them to Carolina to 
 be employed in miHtary operations there. 
 Two of them had wives in Hampton, one 
 a free colored woman, and they had sev- 
 eral children in the neighborhood. Here 
 was a new question, and a grave one, on 
 which the Government had as yet devel- 
 oped no policy. In the absence of pre- 
 cedents or instructions, an analogy drawn 
 from international law was applied. Un- 
 der that law, contraband goods, which 
 are directly auxiUary to military opera- 
 tions, cannot in time of war be imported 
 by neutrals into an enemy's country, and 
 may be seized as lawful prize when the 
 attempt is made so to import them. It 
 ■will be seen, that, accurately speaking, 
 the term applies exclusively to the rela- 
 tion between a belligerent and a neutral, 
 and not to the relation between belliger- 
 ents. Under the strict law of nations, all 
 the property of an enemy may be seized. 
 Under the Common Law, the property of 
 traitors is forfeit. The humaner usage 
 of modern times favors the waiving of 
 these strict rights, but allows, without 
 question, the seizure and confiscation of 
 all such goods as are immediately aux- 
 iliary to military purposes. These able- 
 bodied negroes, held as slaves, were to 
 be employed to build breastworks, to 
 
 transport or store provisions, to serve as 
 cooks or waiters, and even to bear arms. 
 Regarded as property, according to their 
 master's claim, they could be efficiently 
 used by the Rebels for the purposes of 
 the Rebellion, and most efficiently by the 
 Government in suppressing it. Regard- 
 ed as persons, they had escaped from com- 
 munities where a triumphant rebellion 
 had trampled on the laws, and only the 
 rights of human nature remained, and 
 they now asked the protection of the Gov- 
 ernment, to which, in prevailing treason, 
 they were still loyal, and which they were 
 ready to serve as best they could. 
 
 The three negroes, being held contra- 
 band of war, were at once set to work to 
 aid the masons in constructing a new 
 bakehouse within the fort. Thencefor- 
 ward the term " contraband '* bore a new 
 signification, with which it will pass into 
 history, designating the negroes who had 
 been held as slaves, now adopted under 
 the protection of the Government. It 
 was used in official communications at 
 the fort. It was applied familiarly to the 
 negroes, who stared somewhat, inquiring, 
 " What d' ye call us that for V " Not 
 having Wheaton's " Elements " at hand, 
 we did not attempt an explanation. The 
 contraband notion was adopted by Con- 
 gress in the Act of July 6 th, which con- 
 fiscates slaves used in aiding the Insur- 
 rection. There is often great virtue in 
 such technical phrases in shaping public 
 opinion. They commend practical ac- 
 tion to a class of minds little developed 
 in the direction of the sentiments, which 
 would be repelled by formulas of a broad- 
 er and nobler import. The venerable 
 gentleman, who wears gold spectacles 
 and reads a conservative daily, prefers 
 confiscation to emancipation. He is re- 
 luctant to have slaves declared freemen, 
 but has no objection to their being de- 
 clared contrabands. His whole nature ris- 
 es in insurrection when Beecher preach- 
 es in a sermon that a thing ought to be 
 done because it is a duty, but he yields 
 gracefully when Butler issues an order 
 commanding it to be done because it is 
 a military necessity. 
 
628 
 
 Hie Contrabands at Fortress Monroe. 
 
 [November, 
 
 On the next day, Major John B. Cary, 
 another Rebel officer, late principal of an 
 academy in Hampton, a delegate to the 
 Charleston Convention, and a seceder 
 with General Butler from the Conven- 
 tion at Baltimore, came to the fort with a 
 flag of truce, and, claiming to act as the 
 representative of Colonel Mallory, de- 
 manded the fugitives. He reminded Gen- 
 eral Butler of his obligations under the 
 Federal Constitution, under which he 
 claimed to act. The ready reply was, 
 that the Fugitive-Slave Act could not be 
 invoked for the reclamation of fugitives 
 from a foreign State, which Virginia claim- 
 ed to be, and she must count it among 
 the infelicities of her position, if so far at 
 least she was taken at her word. 
 
 The three pioneer negroes were not 
 long to be isolated from their race. There 
 was no known channel of communication 
 between them and their old comrades, 
 and yet those comrades knew, or believed 
 with the certainty of knowledge, how they 
 had been received. If inquired of wheth- 
 er more were coming, their reply was, that, 
 if they were not sent back, others would 
 understand that they were among friends, 
 and more would come the next day. Such 
 is the mysterious spiritual telegraph which 
 runs through the slave population. Pro- 
 claim an edict of emancipation in the 
 hearing of a single slave on the Potomac, 
 and in a few days it will be known by 
 his brethren on the Gulf. So, on the night 
 of the Big Bethel aifair, a squad of ne- 
 groes, meeting our soldiers, inquired anx- 
 iously the way to " the freedom fort." 
 
 The means of communicating with the 
 fort from the open country became more 
 easy, when, on the 24th of May, (the 
 same day on which the first movement 
 was made from Washington into Vir- 
 ginia,) the Second New York Regiment 
 made its encampment on the Segar farm, 
 lying near the bridge which connect- 
 ed the fort with the main-land, an en- 
 campment soon enlarged by the First 
 Vermont and other New York regiments. 
 On Sunday morning. May 26th, eight 
 negroes stood before the quarters of Gen- 
 eral Butler, waiting for an audience. 
 
 They were examined in part by the Hon. 
 Mr. Ashley, M. C. from Ohio, then a 
 visitor at the fort. On May 27th, forty- 
 seven negroes of both sexes and all ages, 
 from three months to eighty-five years, 
 among whom were half a dozen entire 
 families, came in one squad. Another 
 lot of a dozen good field-hands arrived 
 the same day ; and then they continued 
 to come by twenties, thirties, and forties. 
 They were assigned buildings outside of 
 the fort or tents within. They were set 
 to work as servants to oflicers, or to store 
 provisions landed from vessels, — thus re- 
 lieving us of the fatigue duty which we 
 had previously done, except that of drag- 
 ging and mounting columbiads on the 
 ramparts of the fort, a service which 
 some very warm days have impressed on 
 my memory. 
 
 On the 27th of May, the Fourth Massa- 
 chusetts Regiment, the First Vermont, and 
 some New York regiments made an ad- 
 vance movement and occupied Newport 
 News, (a promontory named for Captain 
 Christopher Newport, the early explorer,) 
 so as more effectually to enforce the block- 
 ade of James River. There, too, negroes 
 came in, who were employed as servants 
 to the officers. One of them, when we left 
 the fort, more fortunate than his com- 
 rades, and aided by a benevolent cap- 
 tain, eluded the vigilance of the Provost 
 Marshal, and is now the curiosity of a vil- 
 lage in the neighborhood of Boston. 
 
 It was now time to call upon the Gov- 
 ernment for a policy in dealing with 
 slave society thus disrupted and disor- 
 ganized. Elsewhere, even under the 
 shadow of the Capitol, the action of mil- 
 itary officers had been irregular, and in 
 some cases in palpable violation of per- 
 sonal rights. An order of General Mc- 
 Dowell excluded all slaves from the lines. 
 Sometimes officers assumed to decide the 
 question whether a negro was a slave, 
 and deliver him to a claimant, when, 
 certainly in the absence of martial law, 
 they had no authority in the premises, 
 under the Act of Congress, — that pow- 
 er being confided to commissioners and 
 marshals. As well might a member of 
 
1861.] 
 
 The Contrabands at Fortress Monroe. 
 
 629 
 
 Congress or a State sheriff usurp the 
 function. Worse yet, in defiance of the 
 Common Law, they made color a pre- 
 sumptive proof of bondage. In one case 
 a free negro was delivered to a claim- 
 ant under this process, more summary 
 than any which the Fugitive-Slave Act 
 provides. The colonel of a Massachu- 
 setts regiment showed some practical 
 humor in dealing with a pertinacious 
 claimant who asserted title to a negro 
 found within his lines, and had brought 
 a policeman along with him to aid in en- 
 forcing it. The shrewd colonel, (a Dem- 
 ocrat he is,) retaining the policeman, put 
 both the claimant and claimed outside of 
 the lines together to try their fleetness. 
 The negro proved to be the better gym- 
 nast and was heard of no more. This 
 capricious treatment of the subject was 
 fraught with serious difficulties as well as 
 personal injuries, and it needed to be dis- 
 placed by an authorized system. 
 
 On the 27th of May, General Butler, 
 having in a previous communication re- 
 ported his interview with Major Cary, call- 
 ed the attention of the War Department 
 to the subject in a formal despatch, — 
 indicating the hostile purposes for which 
 the negroes had been or might be success- 
 fully used, stating the course he had pur- 
 sued in employing them and recording ex- 
 penses and services, and suggesting perti- 
 nent military, political, and humane con- 
 siderations. The Secretary of War, under 
 date of the 30th of May, replied, cautious- 
 ly approving the course of General But- 
 ler, and intimating distinctions between 
 interfering with the relations of persons 
 held to service and refusing to surrender 
 them to their alleged masters, which it 
 is not easy to reconcile with well-defined 
 views of the new exigency, or at least 
 with a desire to express them. The note 
 was characterized by diplomatic reserve 
 which it will probably be found difficult 
 long to maintain. 
 
 The ever-recurring question continued 
 to press for solution. On the 6 th of July 
 the Act of Congress was approved, declar- 
 ing that any person claiming the labor of 
 another to be due to him, and permitting 
 
 such party to be employed in any mili- 
 tary or naval service whatsoever against 
 the Government of the United States, 
 shall forfeit his claim to such labor, and 
 proof of such employment shall there- 
 after be a full answer to the claim. This 
 act was designed for the direction of the 
 civil magistrate, and not for the limita- 
 tion of powers derived from military 
 law. That law, founded on solus reir 
 publicce, transcends all codes, and lies out- 
 side of forms and statutes. John Quin- 
 cy Adams, almost prophesying as he ex- 
 pounded, declared, in 1842, that under 
 it slavery might be abolished. Under 
 it, therefore. Major- General Fremont, 
 in a recent proclamation, declared the 
 slaves of all persons within his depart- 
 ment, who were in arms against the Gov- 
 ernment, to be freemen, and under it has 
 given title-deeds of manumission. Sub- 
 sequently President Lincoln limited the 
 proclamation to such slaves as are in- 
 cluded in the Act of Congress, namely, 
 the slaves of Kebels used in directly hos- 
 tile service. The country had called for 
 Jacksonian courage, and its first exhibi- 
 tion was promptly suppressed. If the 
 revocation was made in deference to pro- 
 tests from Kentucky, it seems, that, while 
 the loyal citizens of Missouri appeared 
 to approve the decisive measure, they 
 were overruled by the more potential 
 voice of other communities who profess- 
 ed to understand their affairs better than 
 they did themselves. But if, as is admit- 
 ted, the commanding officer, in the pleni- 
 tude of military power, was authorized to 
 make the order within his department, 
 all human beings included in the procla- 
 mation thereby acquired a vested title 
 to their freedom, of which neither Con- 
 gress nor President could dispossess them. 
 No conclusive behests of law necessitat- 
 ing the limitation, it cannot rest on any 
 safe reasons of military policy. The one 
 slave who carries his master's knapsack 
 on a march contributes far less to the ef- 
 ficiency of the Rebel army than the one 
 hundred slaves who hoe corn on his plan- 
 tation with which to replenish its commis- 
 sariat. We have not yet emerged from 
 
630 
 
 The Contrabands at Fortress Monroe, 
 
 [November, 
 
 the fine-drawn distinctions of peaceful 
 times. We may imprison or slaughter a 
 Kebel, but we may not unloose his hold 
 on a person he has claimed as a slave. 
 We may seize all his other property with- 
 out question, lands, houses, cattle, jewels ; 
 but his asserted property in man is more 
 sacred than the gold which overlay the 
 Ark of the Covenant, and we may not pro- 
 fane it. This reverence for things assum- 
 ed to be sacred, which are not so, cannot 
 long continue. The Government can 
 well turn away from the enthusiast, how- 
 ever generous his impulses, who asks the 
 abolition of slavery on general principles 
 of philanthropy, for the reason that it al- 
 ready has work enough on its hands. It 
 may not change the objects of the war, 
 but it must of necessity at times shift its 
 tactics and its instruments, as the exigen- 
 cy demands. Its solemn and imperative 
 duty is to look every issue, however grave 
 and transcendent, firmly in the face ; and 
 having ascertained upon mature and con- 
 scientious reflection what is necessary to 
 suppress the Rebellion, it must then pro- 
 ceed with inexorable purpose to inflict 
 the blows where Rebellion is the weak- 
 est and under which it must inevitably 
 fall. 
 
 On the 30th of July, General Butler, 
 being still unprovided with adequate in- 
 structions, — the number of contrabands 
 having now reached nine hundred, — 
 applied to the War Department for fur- 
 ther directions. His inquiries, inspired 
 by good sense and humanity alike, were 
 of the most fundamental character, and 
 when they shall have received a full an- 
 swer the war will be near its end. As- 
 suming the slaves to have been the prop- 
 erty of masters, he considers them waifs 
 abandoned by their owners, in which the 
 Government as a finder cannot, howev- 
 er, acquire a proprietary interest, and 
 they have therefore reverted to the nor- 
 mal condition of those made in God's 
 image, " if not free-born, yet free-manu- 
 mitted, sent forth from the hand that 
 held them, never to return." The au- 
 thor of that document may never win a 
 victor's laurels on any renowned field, 
 
 but, depositing it in the archives of the 
 Government, he leaves a record in his- 
 tory which will outlast the traditions of 
 battle or siege. It is proper to add, that 
 the answer of the War Department, so 
 far as its meaning is clear, leaves the Gen- 
 eral uninstructed as to all slaves not con- 
 fiscated by the Act of Congress. 
 
 The documentary history being now 
 completed, the personal narrative of af- 
 fairs at Fortress Monroe is resumed. 
 
 The encampment of Federal troops 
 beyond the peninsula of the fort and in 
 the vicinity of the village of Hampton 
 was immediately followed by an hegira 
 of its white inhabitants, burning, as they 
 fled, as much of the bridge as they could. 
 On the 28th of May, a detachment of 
 troops entered the village and hoisted the 
 stars and stripes on the house of Colonel 
 Mallory. Picket-guards occupied it in- 
 termittently during the month of June. 
 It was not until the first day of July that 
 a permanent encampment was made 
 there, consisting of the Third Massachu- 
 setts Regiment, which moved from the 
 fort, the Fourth, which moved from New- 
 port News, and the Naval Brigade, all 
 under the command of Brigadier- Gen- 
 eral Pierce, — the camp being informal- 
 ly called Camp Greble, in honor of the 
 lieutenant of that name who fell brave- 
 ly in the disastrous affair of Big Bethel. 
 Here we remained until July 16th, when, 
 our term of enlistment having expired, 
 we bade adieu to Hampton, its ancient 
 relics, its deserted houses, its venerable 
 church, its trees and gardens, its con- 
 trabands, all so soon to be wasted and 
 scattered by the torch of Virginia Van- 
 dals. We passed over the bridge, the 
 rebuilding of which was completed the 
 day before, marched to the fort, exchang- 
 ed our rifle muskets for an older pattern, 
 listened to a farewell address from Gen- 
 eral Butler, bade good-bye to Colonel 
 Dimick, and embarked for Boston. It 
 was during this encampment at Hamp- 
 ton, and two previous visits, somewhat 
 hurried, while as yet it was without a 
 permanent guard, that my personal 
 knowledge of the negroes, of their feel- 
 
1861.] 
 
 The Contrabands at Fortress Monroe. 
 
 631 
 
 ings, desires, aspirations, capacities, and 
 habits of life was mainly obtained. 
 
 A few words of local history and de- 
 scription may illustrate the narrative. 
 Hampton is a town of considerable his- 
 toric interest. First among civilized men 
 the illustrious adventurer Captain John 
 Smith with his comrades visited its site 
 in 1607, while exploring the mouth of 
 James River to find a home for the first 
 colonists. Here they smoked the calu- 
 met of peace with an Indian tribe. To 
 the neighboring promontory, where they 
 found good anchorage and hospitality, 
 they gave the name of Point Comfort, 
 which it still bears. Hampton, though 
 a settlement was commenced there in 
 1610, did not become a town until 1705. 
 Hostile fleets have twice appeared be- 
 fore it. The first time was in October, 
 1775, when some tenders sent by Lord 
 Dunmore to destroy it were repulsed by 
 the citizens, aided by the Culpepper rifle- 
 men. Then and there was the first bat- 
 tle of the Revolution in Virginia. Again 
 in June, 1813, it was attacked by Ad- 
 miral Cockburn and General Beckwith, 
 and scenes of pillage followed, dishonorar 
 ble to the British soldiery. Jackson, in his 
 address to his army just before the Battle 
 of New Orleans, conjured his soldiers 
 to remember Hampton. Until the re- 
 cent conflagration, it abounded in an- 
 cient relics. Among them was St. John's 
 Church, the main body of which was of 
 imported brick, and built at the begin- 
 ning of the eighteenth century. The fury 
 of Secession irreverently destroyed this 
 memorial of antiquity and religion, which 
 even a foreign soldiery had spared. One 
 inscription in the graveyard surrounding 
 the church is as early as 1701, and even 
 earlier dates are found on tombstones 
 in the fields a mile distant. The Court- 
 House, a clumsy old structure, in which 
 was the law-office of Colonel Mallory, 
 contained judicial records of a very early 
 colonial period. Some, which I exam- 
 ined, bore date of 1634. Several old 
 houses, with spacious rooms and high or- 
 namented ceilings, gave evidence that at 
 one time they had been occupied by citi- 
 
 zens of considerable taste and rank. A 
 friend of mine found among the rub- 
 bish of a deserted house an EngUsh il- 
 lustrated edition of " Paradise Lost," of 
 the date of 1725, and Boyle's Oxford edi- 
 tion of « The Epistles of Phalaris," fa- 
 mous in classical controversy, printed in 
 1718. The proximity of Fortress Mon- 
 roe, of the fashionable watering-place 
 of Old Point, and of the anchorage of 
 Hampton Roads, has contributed to the 
 interest of the town. To this region 
 came in summer-time public men weary 
 of their cares, army and navy officers on 
 furlough or retired, and the gay daugh- 
 ters of Virginia. In front of the fort, 
 looking seaward, was the summer resi- 
 dence of Floyd; between the fort and 
 the town was that of John Tyler. Presi- 
 dent Jackson sought refuge from care 
 and solicitation at the Rip Raps, whith- 
 er he was followed by his devoted friend, 
 Mr. Blair. So at least a contraband in- 
 formed me, who said he had often seen 
 them both there. 
 
 Nevertheless, the town bore no evi- 
 dence of thrift. It looked as though it 
 were sleepy and indolent in the best of 
 times, having oysters for its chief mer- 
 chandise. The streets were paved, but 
 the pavements were of large irregular 
 stones, and unevenly laid. Few houses 
 were new, and, excepting St. John's 
 Church, the public edifices were mean. 
 All these have been swept away by the 
 recent conflagration, a waste of proper- 
 ty indefensible on any military prin- 
 ciples. The buildings might have fur- 
 nished winter-quarters for our troops, but 
 in that climate they were not necessary 
 for that purpose, perhaps not desirable, 
 or, if required, could be easily replaced 
 by temporary habitations constructed of 
 lumber imported from the North by sea. 
 But the Rebel chiefs had thrown them- 
 selves into heroic attitudes, and while 
 playing the part of incendiaries, they 
 fancied their action to be as sublime as 
 that of the Russians at Moscow. With 
 such a precedent of Vandalism, no rav- 
 ages of our own troops can hereafter be 
 complained of. 
 
632 
 
 The Contrabands at Fortress Monroe. 
 
 [November, 
 
 The prevailing exodus, leaving less than 
 a dozen white men behind, testifies the po- 
 litical feelings of the people. Only two 
 votes were thrown against the ordinance 
 of Secession. Whatever of Union senti- 
 ment existed there had been swept away 
 by such demagogues as Mallory, Gary, 
 Magruder, Shiels, and Hope. Hastily as 
 they left, they removed in most cases all 
 their furniture, leaving only the old Vir- 
 ginia sideboard, too heavy to be taken 
 away. In a few exceptional cases, from 
 the absence of the owner or other cause, 
 the house was still furnished ; but gener- 
 ally nothing but old letters, torn books, 
 newspapers, cast-oif clothing, strewed the 
 floors. Rarely have I enjoyed the hours 
 more than when roaming from cellar to 
 garret these tenantless houses. A desert- 
 ed dwelling ! How the imagination is 
 fascinated by what may have there trans- 
 pired of human joy or sorrow, — the soli- 
 tary struggles of the soul for better things, 
 the dawn and the fruition of love, the 
 separations and reunions of families, the 
 hearth-stone consecrated by affection and 
 prayer, the bridal throng, the birth of 
 new lives, the farewells to the world, the 
 funeral train. 
 
 But more interesting and instructive 
 were the features of slave-life which here 
 opened to us. The negroes who remain- 
 ed, of whom there may have been three 
 hundred of all ages, lived in small wood- 
 en shanties, generally in the rear of the 
 master's house, rarely having more than 
 one room on the lower floor, and that 
 containing an open fireplace where the 
 cooking for the master's family was done, 
 tables, chairs, dishes, and the miscellane- 
 ous utensils of household life. The mas- 
 ters had taken with them, generally, their 
 waiting -maids and house -servants, and 
 had desired to carry all their slaves with 
 them. But in the hasty preparations, — 
 particularly where the slaves were living 
 away from their master's close, or had a 
 family, — it was difficult to remove them 
 against their will, as they could skulk for 
 a few hours and then go where they pleas- 
 ed. Some voluntarily left their slaves 
 behind, not having the means to provide 
 
 for them, or, anticipating a return at no 
 distant day, desired them to stay and 
 guard the property. The slaves who re- 
 mained lived upon the little pork and 
 corn-meal that were left and the growing 
 vegetables. They had but little to do. 
 The women looked after their meagre 
 household concerns, but the men were 
 generally idle, standing in groups, or sit- 
 tino; in front of the shanties talking with 
 the women. Some began to serve our 
 oflicers as soon as we were quartered in 
 the town, while a few others set up cake- 
 stands upon the street. 
 
 It was necessary for the protection of 
 the post that some breastworks should 
 be thrown up, and a line was plan- 
 ned extending from the old cemetery 
 northward to the new one, a quarter 
 of a mile distant. Our own troops were 
 disinclined to the labor, their time be- 
 ing nearly expired, and they claiming 
 that they had done their share of fatigue 
 duty both at the fort and at Newport 
 News. A member of Brigadier-General 
 Pierce's stafl" — an efficient officer and a 
 humane gentleman — suggested the em- 
 ployment of the contrabands and the fur- 
 nishing of them with rations, an expe- 
 dient best for them and agreeable to us. 
 He at once dictated a telegram to Gen- 
 eral Butler in these words : — " Shall we 
 put the contrabands to work on the in- 
 trenchments, and will you furnish them 
 with rations ? " An affirmative answer 
 was promptly received on Monday morn- 
 ing, July 8th, and that was the first day 
 in the course of the war in which the 
 negro was employed upon the military 
 works of our army. It therefore marks 
 a distinct epoch in its progress and in its 
 relations to the colored population. The 
 writer — and henceforth his narrative 
 must indulge in the frequent use of the 
 first person — was specially detailed from 
 his post as private in Company L of the 
 Third Regiment to collect the contra- 
 bands, record their names, ages, and the 
 names of their masters, provide their tools, 
 superintend their labor, and procure their 
 rations. My comrades smiled, as I under- 
 took the novel duty, enjoying the spec- 
 
1861.] 
 
 TTie Oontrahands at Fortress Monroe. 
 
 633 
 
 tacle of a Massachusetts Kepublican con- 
 verted into a Virginia slave-master. To 
 me it seemed rather an opportunity to 
 lead them from the house of bondage nev- 
 er to return. For, whatever may be the 
 general duty to this race, to all such as 
 we have in any way employed to aid our 
 armies our national faith and our per- 
 sonal honor are pledged. The code of 
 a gentleman, to say nothing of a higher 
 law of rectitude, necessitates protection 
 to this extent. Abandoning one of these 
 faithful allies, who, if delivered up, would 
 be reduced to severer servitude because 
 of the education he had received and the 
 services he had performed, probably to be 
 transported to the remotest slave region 
 as now too dangerous to remain near its 
 borders, we should be accursed among the 
 nations of the earth. I felt assured that 
 from that hour, whatsoever the fortunes 
 of the war, every one of those enrolled 
 defenders of the Union had vindicated 
 beyond all future question, for himself, his 
 wife, and their issue, a title to American 
 citizenship, and become heir to all the 
 immunities of Magna Charta, the Decla- 
 ration of Independence, and the Consti- 
 tution of the United States. 
 
 Passing through the principal streets, 
 I told the contrabands that when they 
 heard the court-house bell, which would 
 ring soon, they must go to the court- 
 house yard, where a communication 
 would be made to them. In the mean 
 time I secured the valuable services of 
 some fellow-privates, one for a quarter- 
 master, two others to aid in superintend- 
 ing at the trenches, and the orderly-ser- 
 geant of my own company, whose expert- 
 ness in the drill was equalled only by 
 his general good sense and business ca- 
 pacity. Upon the ringing of the bell, 
 about forty contrabands came to the 
 yard. A second exploration added to 
 the number some twenty or more, who 
 had not heard the original summons. 
 They then came into the building, where 
 they were called to order and addressed. 
 I had argued to judges and juries, but I 
 had never spoken to such auditors before 
 in a court-room. I told them that the 
 
 colored men had been employed on the 
 breastworks of the Rebels, and we need- 
 ed their aid, — that they would be requir- 
 ed to do only such labor as we ourselves 
 had done, — that they should be treated 
 kindly, and no one should be obliged to 
 work beyond his capacity, or if unwell, 
 — and that they should be furnished in a 
 day or two with full soldiers' rations. I 
 told them that their masters had said they 
 were an indolent people, — that I did not 
 believe the charge, — that I was going 
 home to Massachusetts soon and should 
 be glad to report that they were as indus- 
 trious as the whites. They generally 
 showed no displeasure, some even say- 
 ing, that, not having done much for some 
 time, it was the best thing for them to be 
 now employed. Four or five men over 
 fifty years old said that they suffered from 
 rheumatism, and could not work without 
 injury. Being confirmed by the by-stand- 
 ers, they were dismissed. Other old men 
 said they would do what they could, and 
 they were assured that no more would be 
 required of them. Two of them, provid- 
 ed with a bucket and dipper, were de- 
 tailed to carry water all the time along 
 the line of laborers. Two young men 
 fretted a Httle, and claimed to be dis- 
 abled in some way. They were told 
 to resume their seats, and try first and 
 see what they could do, — to the evident 
 amusement of the rest, who knew them to 
 be indolent and disposed to shirk. A few 
 showed some sulkiness, but it all passed 
 away after the first day, when they found 
 that they were to be used kindly. One 
 well-dressed young man, a carpenter, feel- 
 ing a little better than his associates, did 
 not wear a pleasant face at first. Finding 
 out his trade, we set him to sawing the 
 posts for the intrenchments, and he was 
 entirely reconciled. Free colored men 
 were not required to work ; but one vol- 
 unteered, wishing, as he said, to do his 
 part. The contrabands complained that 
 the free colored men ought to be re- 
 quired to work on the intrenchments as 
 well as they. I thought so too, but fol- 
 lowed my orders. A few expressed some 
 concern lest their masters should punish 
 
634 
 
 The Contrabands at Fortress Monroe, 
 
 [November, 
 
 them for serving us, if they ever returned. 
 One inquired suspiciously why we took 
 the name of his master. My reply was, 
 that it was taken in order to identify 
 them, — an explanation with which he 
 was more satisfied than I was myself. 
 Several were without shoes, and said 
 that they could not drive the shovel into 
 the earth. They were told to use the 
 picks. The rest of the forenoon being 
 occupied in registering their names and 
 ages, and the names of their masters, they 
 were dismissed to come together on the 
 ringing of the bell, at two, p. m. 
 
 It had been expressly understood that 
 I was to have the exclusive control and 
 supervision of the negroes, directing their 
 hours of labor and their rests, without in- 
 terference from any one. The work it- 
 self was to be planned and superintend- 
 ed by the officers of the Third and Fourth 
 Regiments. This exclusive control of the 
 men was necessarily confided to one, as 
 different lieutenants detailed each day 
 could not feel a responsibility for their 
 welfare. One or two of these, when rests 
 were allowed the negroes, were some- 
 what disgusted, saying that negroes could 
 dig all the time as well as not. I had 
 had some years before an experience with 
 the use of the shovel under a warm sun, 
 and knew better, and I wished I could 
 superintend a corps of lieutenants and 
 apply their own theory to themselves. 
 
 At two, P. M., the contrabands came 
 together, answered to their names, and, 
 each taking a shovel, a spade, or a pick, 
 began to work upon the breastworks far- 
 thest from the village and close to the 
 new cemetery. The afternoon was very 
 warm, the warmest we had in Hampton. 
 Some, used only to household or other 
 light work, wilted under the heat, and 
 they were told to go into the cemetery and 
 lie down. I remember distinctly a corpu- 
 lent colored man, down whose cheeks the 
 perspiration rolled and who said he felt 
 badly. He also was told to go away and 
 rest until he was better. He soon came 
 back relieved, and there was no more 
 faithful laborer among them all during 
 the rest of the time. Twice or three 
 
 times in the afternoon an intermission of 
 fifteen minutes was allowed to all. Thus 
 they worked until six in the evening, 
 when they were dismissed for the day. 
 They deposited their tools in the court- 
 house, where each one of his own accord 
 carefully put his pick or shovel where he 
 could find it again, — sometimes behind a 
 door and sometimes in a sly corner or un- 
 der a seat, preferring to keep his own tool. 
 They were then informed that they must 
 come together on the ringing of the bell 
 the next morning at four o'clock. They 
 thought that too early, but they were as- 
 sured that the system best for their health 
 would be adopted, and they would after- 
 wards be consulted about changing it. 
 The next morning we did not rise quite 
 so early as four, and the bell was not 
 rung till some minutes later. The con- 
 trabands were prompt, their names had 
 been called, and they had marched to 
 the trenches, a quarter of a mile distant, 
 and were fairly at work by half-past four 
 or a quarter before five. They did ex- 
 cellent service during the morning hours, 
 and at seven were dismissed till eight. 
 The roll was then called again, absences, 
 if any, noted, and by half-past eight they 
 were at their post. They continued at 
 the trenches till eleven, being allowed 
 rests, and were then dismissed until three, 
 p. M., being relieved four hours in the 
 middle of the day, when, the bell being 
 rung and the roll called, they resumed 
 their work and continued till six, when 
 they were dismissed for the day. Such 
 were the hours and usual course of their 
 labor. Their number was increased some 
 half dozen by fugitives from the back- 
 country, who came in and asked to be 
 allowed to serve on the intrenchments. 
 The contrabands worked well, and in 
 no instance was it found necessary for 
 the superintendents to urge them. There 
 was a public opinion among them against 
 idleness, which answered for discipline. 
 Some days they worked with our soldiers, 
 and it was found that they did more work, 
 and did the nicer parts — the facings and 
 dressings — better. Colonels Packard 
 and Wardrop, under whose direction the 
 
1861.] 
 
 The Contrabands at Fortress Monroe. 
 
 635 
 
 breastworks were constructed, and Gen- 
 eral Butler, who visited them, expressed 
 satisfaction at the work which the con- 
 trabands had done. On the 14th of July, 
 Mr. Russell, of the London " Times," and 
 Dr. Bellows, of the Sanitary Commission, 
 came to Hampton and manifested much 
 interest at the success of the experiment. 
 The result was, indeed, pleasing. A sub- 
 altern officer, to whom I had insisted that 
 the contrabands should be treated with 
 kindness, had sneered at the idea of ap- 
 plying philanthropic notions in time of 
 war. It was found then, as always, that 
 decent persons will accomplish more when 
 treated at least like human beings. The 
 same principle, if we will but credit our 
 own experience and Mr. Rarey, too, may 
 with advantage be extended to our rela- 
 tions with the beasts that serve us. 
 
 Three days after the contrabands com- 
 menced their work, five days' rations 
 were served to them, — a soldier's ration 
 for each laborer, and half a ration for 
 each dependant. The allowance was 
 liberal, — as a soldier's ration, if properly 
 cooked, is more than he generally needs, 
 and the dependant for whom a half- ra- 
 tion was received might be a wife or a 
 half- grown child. It consisted of salt 
 beef or pork, hard bread, beans, rice, 
 coffee, sugar, soap, and candles, and 
 where the family was large it made a 
 considerable pile. The recipients went 
 home, appearing perfectly satisfied, and 
 feeling assured that our promises to them 
 would be performed. On Sunday fresh 
 meat was served to them in the same 
 manner as to the troops. 
 
 There was one striking feature in the 
 contrabands which must not be omitted. 
 I did not hear a profane or vulgar word 
 spoken by them during my superintend- 
 ence, a remark which it will be difficult 
 to make of any sixty-four white men tak- 
 en together anywhere in our army. In- 
 deed, the greatest discomfort of a soldier, 
 who desires to remain a gentleman in the 
 camp, is the perpetual reiteration of lan- 
 guage which no decent lips would utter 
 in a sister's presence. But the negroes, 
 so dogmatically pronounced unfit for 
 
 freedom, were in this respect models for 
 those who make high boasts of civility 
 of manners and Christian culture. Out 
 of the sixty-four who worked for us, all 
 but half a dozen were members of the 
 Church, generally the Baptist. Although 
 without a pastor, they held religious meet- 
 ings on the Sundays which we passed in 
 Hampton, which were attended by about 
 sixty colored persons and three hundred 
 soldiers. The devotions were decorously 
 conducted, bating some loud shouting by 
 one or two excitable brethren, which the 
 better sense of the rest could not suppress. 
 Their prayers and exhortations were fer- 
 vent, and marked by a simpHcity which 
 is not infrequently the richest eloquence. 
 The soldiers behaved with entire propri- 
 ety, and two exhorted them with pious 
 unction, as children of one Father, ran- 
 somed by the same Redeemer. 
 
 To this general propriety of conduct 
 among the contrabands intrusted to me 
 there was only one exception, and that 
 was in the case of Joe ; his sur- 
 name I have forgotten. He was of a va- 
 grant disposition, and an inveterate shirk. 
 He had a plausible speech and a distorted 
 imagination, and might be called a dem- 
 agogue among darkies. He bore an ill 
 physiognomy, — that of one " fit for trea- 
 sons, stratagems, and spoils." He was dis- 
 liked by the other contrabands, and had 
 been refused admission to their Church, 
 which he wished to join in order to get 
 up a character. Last, but not least, among 
 his sins, he was accustomed to beat his 
 wife, of which she accused him in my pres- 
 ence ; whereupon he justified himself on 
 the brazen assumption that all husbands 
 did the same. There was no good reason 
 to believe that he had already been tam- 
 pered with by Rebels ; but his price could 
 not be more than five dollars. He would 
 be a disturbing element among the labor- 
 ers on the breastworks, and he was a dan- 
 gerous person to be so near the lines ; we 
 therefore sent him to the fort. The last 
 I heard of him, he was at the Rip Raps, 
 bemoaning his isolation, and the butt of 
 our soldiers there, who charged him with 
 being a " Secesh," and confounded him 
 
636 
 
 The Contrabands at Fortress Monroe, 
 
 [November, 
 
 by gravely asserting that they were such 
 themselves and had seen him with the 
 " Secesh " at Yorktown. This was the 
 single goat among the sheep. 
 
 On Monday evening, July 15th, when 
 the contrabands deposited their tools in 
 the court-house, I requested them to stop 
 a moment in the yard. I made each a 
 present of some tobacco, which all the 
 men and most of the women use. As 
 they gathered in a circle around me, 
 head peering over head, I spoke to them 
 briefly, thanking them for their cordial 
 work and complimenting their behavior, 
 remarking that I had heard no profane or 
 vulgar word from them, in which they were 
 an example to us, — adding that it was 
 the last time I should meet them, as we 
 were to march homeward in the morning, 
 and that I should bear to my people a 
 good report of their industry and morals. 
 There was another word that I could not 
 leave without speaking. Never before in 
 our history had a Northern man, believ- 
 ing in the divine right of all men to their 
 liberty, had an opportunity to address 
 an audience of sixty-four slaves and say 
 what the Spirit moved him to utter, — and 
 I should have been false to all that is true 
 and sacred, if I had let it pass. I said to 
 them that there was one more word for 
 me to add, and that was, that every one 
 of them was as much entitled to his free- 
 dom as I was to mine, and I hoped they 
 would all now secure it. " Believe you, 
 boss," was the general response, and each 
 one with his rough gravelly hand grasped 
 mine, and with tearful eyes and broken 
 utterances said, " God bless you ! " " May 
 we meet in Heaven ! " " My name is 
 Jack Allen, don't forget me ! " " Remem- 
 ber me, Kent Anderson ! " and so on. 
 No, — I may forget the playfellows of my 
 childhood, my college classmates, my pro- 
 fessional associates, my comrades in arms, 
 but I will remember you and your bene- 
 dictions until I cease to breathe ! Fare- 
 well, honest hearts, longing to be free ! 
 and may the kind Providence which for- 
 gets not the sparrow shelter and protect 
 you ! 
 
 During our encampment at Hampton, 
 
 I occupied much of my leisure time in 
 conversations with the contrabands, both 
 at their work and in their shanties, en- 
 deavoring to collect their currents of 
 thought and feeling. It remains for me 
 to give the results, so far as any could be 
 arrived at. 
 
 There were more negroes of unmixed 
 African blood than we expected to find. 
 But many were entirely bleached. One 
 man, working on the breastworks, owned 
 by his cousin, whose name he bore, was 
 no darker than white laborers exposed 
 by their occupation to the sun, and could 
 not be distinguished as of negro descent. 
 Opposite our quarters was a young slave 
 woman who had been three times a moth- 
 er without ever having been a wife. You 
 could not discern in her three daugh- 
 ters, either in color, feature, or texture 
 of hair, the slightest trace of African 
 lineage. They were as light-faced and 
 fair-haired as the Saxon slaves whom the 
 Roman Pontiff, Gregory the Great, met 
 in the markets of Rome. If they were 
 to be brought here and their pedigree 
 concealed, they could readily mingle with 
 our population and marry white men, 
 who would never suspect that they were 
 not pure Caucasians. 
 
 From the best knowledge I could ob- 
 tain, the negroes in Hampton had rarely 
 been severely whipped. A locust-tree 
 in front of the jail had been used for a 
 whipping-post, and they were very de- 
 sirous that it should be cut down. It was 
 used, however, only for what are known 
 there as flagrant offences, like running 
 away. Their masters, when in ill-tem- 
 per, had used rough language and in- 
 flicted chance blows, but no one ever 
 told me that he had suffered from sys- 
 tematic cruelty or been severely whip- 
 ped, except Joe, whose character I have 
 given. Many of them bore testimony to 
 the great kindness of their masters and 
 mistresses. 
 
 Separations of families had been fre- 
 quent. Of this I obtained definite knowl- 
 edge. When I was registering the num- 
 ber of dependants, preparatory to the 
 requisition for rations, the answer occa- 
 
1861.] 
 
 The Contrabands at Fortress Monroe, 
 
 637 
 
 sionally was, " Yes, I have a wife, but 
 she is not here." " Where is she ? " 
 " She was sold off two years ago, and I 
 have not heard of her since." The hus- 
 band of the woman who took care of the 
 quarters of General Pierce had been sold 
 away from her some years before. Such 
 separations are regarded as death, and 
 the slaves re-marry. In some cases the 
 bereft one — so an intelligent negro as- 
 sured me — pines under his bereavement 
 and loses his value ; but so elastic is hu- 
 man nature that this did not appear to 
 be generally the case. The same answer 
 was given about children, — that they had 
 been sold away. This, in a slave-breed- 
 ing country, is done when they are about 
 eight years old. Can that be a mild 
 system of servitude which permits such 
 enforced separations ? Providence may, 
 indeed, sunder forever those dearest to 
 each other, and the stricken soul accepts 
 the blow as the righteous discipline of a 
 Higher Power; but when the bereave- 
 ment is the arbitrary dictate of human 
 will, there are no such consolations to 
 sanctify grief and assuage agony. 
 
 There is a universal desire among the 
 slaves to be free. Upon this point my 
 inquiries were particular, and always 
 with the same result. When we said to 
 them, " You don't want to be free, — your 
 masters say you don't," — they manifested 
 much indignation, answering, " We do 
 want to be free, — we want to be for our- 
 selves." We inquired further, " Do the 
 house slaves who wear their master's 
 clothes want to be free ? " " We never 
 heard of one who did not," was the in- 
 stant reply. There might be, they said, 
 some half-crazy one who did not care to 
 be free, but they had never seen one. 
 Even old men and women, with crooked 
 backs, who could hardly walk or see, 
 shared the same feeling. An intelligent 
 Secessionist, Lowry by name, who was 
 examined at head-quarters, admitted that 
 a majority of the slaves wanted to be 
 free. The more intelligent the slave 
 and the better he had been used, the 
 stronger this desire seemed to be. I re- 
 member one such particularly, the most 
 
 intelligent one in Hampton, known as " an 
 influential darky " (" darky " being the 
 familiar term applied by the contrabands 
 to themselves). He could read, was an 
 exhorter in the Church, and officiated in 
 the absence of the minister. He would 
 have made a competent juryman. His 
 mistress, he said, had been kind to him, 
 and had never spoken so harshly to him 
 as a captain's orderly in the Naval Brig- 
 ade had done, who assumed one day to 
 give him orders. She had let him work 
 where he pleased, and he was to bring 
 her a fixed sum, and appropriate the sur- 
 plus to his own use. She pleaded with 
 him to go away with her from Hampton 
 at the time of the exodus, but she would 
 not force him to leave his family. Still 
 he hated to be a slave, and he talked 
 like a philosopher about his rights. No 
 captive in the galleys of Algiers, not La- 
 fayette in an Austrian dungeon, ever pin- 
 ed more for free air. He had saved eigh- 
 teen hundred dollars of his surplus earn- 
 ings in attending on visitors at Old Point, 
 and had spent it all in litigation to secure 
 the freedom of his wife and children, be- 
 longing to another master, whose will had 
 emancipated them, but was contested on 
 the ground of the insanity of the testator. 
 He had won a verdict, but his lawyers 
 told him they could not obtain a judg- 
 ment upon it, as the judge was unfavor- 
 able to freedom. 
 
 The most frequent question asked of 
 one who has had any means of commu- 
 nication with the contrabands during the 
 war is in relation to their knowledge of 
 its cause and purposes, and their inter- 
 est in it. One thing was evident, — in- 
 deed, you could not talk with a slave who 
 did not without prompting give the same 
 testimony, — that their masters had been 
 most industrious in their attempts to per- 
 suade them that the Yankees were com- 
 ing down there only to get the land, — 
 that they would kill the negroes and 
 manure the ground with them, or carry 
 them off to Cuba or Hayti and sell them. 
 An intelligent man who had belonged to 
 Colonel Joseph Segar — almost the only 
 Union man at heart in that region, and 
 
638 
 
 Tlie Contrabands at Fortress Monroe. 
 
 [November, 
 
 who for that reason, being in Washing- 
 ton at the time the war began, had iwt 
 dared to return to Hampton — served the 
 staff of General Pierce. He bore the 
 highest testimony to the kindness of his 
 master, who, he said, told him to remain, 
 — that the Yankees were the friends of 
 his people, and would use them well. 
 "But," said David, — for that was his 
 name, — "I never heard of any other 
 master who talked that way, but they 
 all told the worst stories about the Yan- 
 kees, and the mistresses were more fu- 
 rious even than the masters." David, I 
 may add, spite of his good master, longed 
 to be free. 
 
 The masters, in their desperation, had 
 within a few months resorted to another 
 device to secure the loyalty of their 
 slaves. The colored Baptist minister 
 had been something of a pet among the 
 whites, and had obtained subscriptions 
 from some benevolent citizens to secure 
 the freedom of a handsome daughter of 
 his who was exposed to sale on an auc- 
 tion block, where her beauty inspired 
 competition. Some leading Secession- 
 ists, Lawyer Hope for one, working some- 
 what upon his gratitude and somewhat 
 upon his vanity, persuaded him to offer 
 the services of himself and his sons, in 
 a published communication, to the cause 
 of Virginia and the Confederate States. 
 The artifice did not succeed. He lost 
 his hold on his congregation, and could 
 not have safely remained after the whites 
 left. He felt uneasy about his betrayal, 
 and tried to restore himself to favor by 
 saying that he meant no harm to his 
 people ; but his protestations were in 
 vain. His was the deserved fate of those 
 in all ages who, victims of folly or bribes, 
 turn their backs on their fellows. 
 
 Notwithstanding all these attempts, 
 the negroes, with rare exceptions, still 
 believed that the Yankees were their 
 friends. They had learned something in 
 Presidential elections, and they thought 
 their masters could not hate us as they 
 did, unless we were their friends. They 
 believed that the troubles would some- 
 how or other help them, although they 
 
 did not understand all that was going 
 on. They may be pardoned for their 
 want of apprehension, when some of our 
 public men, almost venerable, and re- 
 puted to be very wise and philosophical, 
 are bewildered and grope blindly. They 
 were somewhat perplexed by the con- 
 tradictory statements of our soldiers, 
 some of whom, according to their wish- 
 es, said the contest was for them, and 
 others that it did not concern them at 
 all and they would remain as before. 
 If it was explained to them, that Lincoln 
 was chosen by a party who were opposed 
 to extending slavery, but who were also 
 opposed to interfering with it in Vir- 
 ginia, — that Virginia and the South had 
 rebelled, and we had come to suppress 
 the rebellion, — and although the object 
 of the war was not to emancipate them, 
 yet that might be its result, — they answer- 
 ed, that they understood the statement 
 perfectly. They did not seem inclined 
 to fight, although willing to work. More 
 could not be expected of them while 
 nothing is promised to them. What la- 
 tent inspirations they may have remains 
 to be seen. They had at first a mysteri- 
 ous dread of fire-arms, but familiarity is 
 rapidly removing that. 
 
 The religious element of their life has 
 been noticed. They said they had pray- 
 ed for this day, and God had sent Lin- 
 coln in answer to their prayers. We 
 used to overhear their family devotions, 
 somewhat loud according to their man- 
 ner, in which they prayed earnestly for 
 our troops. They built their hopes of 
 freedom on Scriptural examples, regard- 
 ing the deliverance of Daniel from the 
 lions' den, and of the Three Children from 
 the furnace, as symbolic of their coming 
 freedom. One said to me, that masters, 
 before they died, by their wills some- 
 times freed their slaves, and he thought 
 that a type that they should become free. 
 
 One Saturday evening one of them 
 asked me to call and see him at his home 
 the next morning. I did so, and he hand- 
 ed me a Bible belonging to his mistress, 
 who had died a few days before, and 
 whose bier I had helped to carry to the 
 
1861.] 
 
 TJie Contrabands at Fortress Monroe. 
 
 639 
 
 family vault. He wanted me to read to 
 him the eleventh chapter of Daniel. It 
 seemed, that, as one of the means of keep- 
 ing them quiet, the white clergymen dur- 
 ing the winter and spring had read them 
 some verses from it to show that the South 
 would prevail, enforcing passages which 
 ascribed great dominion to " the king of 
 the South," and suppressing those which 
 subsequently give the supremacy to " the 
 king of the North." A colored man who 
 could read had found the latter passages 
 and made them known. The chapter 
 is dark with mystery, and my auditor, 
 quite perplexed as I read on, remarked, 
 " The Bible is a very mysterious book." 
 I read to him also the thirty-fourth chap- 
 ter of Jeremiah, wherein the sad proph- 
 et of Israel records the denunciations by 
 Jehovah of sword, pestilence, and famine 
 against the Jews for not proclaiming lib- 
 erty to their servants and handmaids. He 
 had not known before that there were 
 such passages in the Bible. 
 
 The conversations of the contrabands 
 on their title to be regarded as freemen 
 showed reflection. When asked if they 
 thought themselves fit for freedom, and if 
 the darkies were not lazy, their answer 
 was, " Who but the darkies cleared all 
 the land round here ? Yes, there are 
 lazy darkies, but there are more lazy 
 whites." When told that the free blacks 
 had not succeeded, they answered that 
 the free blacks have not had a fair chance 
 under the laws, — that they don't dare to 
 enforce their claims agaiTist white men, 
 — that a free colored blacksmith had a 
 thousand dollars due to him from white 
 men, but he was afraid to sue for any 
 portion of it. One man, when asked 
 why he ought to be free, replied,—" I feed 
 and clothe myself and pay my master 
 one hundred and twenty dollars a year ; 
 and the one hundred and twenty dollars 
 is just so much taken from me, which 
 ought to be used to make me and my 
 children comfortable." Indeed, broken 
 as was their speech and limited as was 
 their knowledge, they reasoned abstract- 
 ly on their rights as well as white men. 
 Locke or Channing might have fortified 
 
 the argument for universal liberty from 
 their simple talk. So true is it that the 
 best thoughts which the human intellect 
 has produced have come, not from afflu- 
 ent learning or ornate speech, but from 
 the original elements of our nature, com- 
 mon to all races of men and all condi- 
 tions in life ; and genius the highest and 
 most cultured may bend with profit to 
 catch the lowliest of human utterances. 
 
 There was a very general desire among 
 the contrabands to know how to read. 
 A few had learned ; and these, in every 
 instance where we inquired as to their 
 teacher, had been taught on the sly in 
 their childhood by their white playmates. 
 Others knew their letters, but could not 
 "put them together," as they said. I 
 remember of a summer's afternoon seeing 
 a young married woman, perhaps twenty- 
 five years old, seated on a door-step with 
 her primer before her, trying to make 
 progress. 
 
 In natural tact and the faculty of 
 getting a livelihood the contrabands are 
 inferior to the Yankees, but quite equal 
 to the mass of the Southern popula- 
 tion. It is not easy to see why they 
 would be less industrious, if free, than 
 the whites, particularly as they would 
 have the encouragement of wages. There 
 would be transient difficulties at the out- 
 set, but no more than a bad system lasting 
 for ages might be expected to leave be- 
 hind. The fii-st generation might be un- 
 fitted for the active duties and responsi- 
 bilities of citizenship ; but this difficulty, 
 under generous provisions for education, 
 would not pass to the next. Even now 
 they are not so much behind the masses 
 of the whites. Of the Virginians Avho 
 took the oath of allegiance at Hampton, 
 not more than one in fifteen could write 
 his name, and the rolls captured at Hat- 
 teras disclose an equally deplorable igno- 
 rance. The contrabands might be less 
 addicted than the now dominant race to 
 bowie-knives and duels, think less of the 
 value of bludgeons as forensic arguments, 
 be less inhospitable to innocent sojourn- 
 ers from Free States, and have far in- 
 ferior skill in robbing forts and arsen- 
 
640 
 
 Tlie Contrabands at Fortress Monroe. 
 
 [November. 
 
 als, plundering the Treasury, and betray- 
 ing the country at whose crib they had 
 fattened ; but mankind would forgive 
 them for not acquiring these accomplish- 
 ments of modern treason. As a race, 
 they may be less vigorous and thrifty 
 than the Saxon, but they are more so- 
 cial, docile, and affectionate, fulfilling the 
 theory which Channing held in relation 
 to them, if advanced to freedom and civ- 
 ilization. 
 
 If in the progress of the war they 
 should be called to bear arms, there 
 need be no reasonable apprehension that 
 they would exhibit the ferocity of sav- 
 age races. Unlike such, they have been 
 subordinated to civilized life. They are 
 by nature a religious people. They have 
 received an education in the Christian 
 faith from devout teachers of their own 
 and of the dominant race. Some have 
 been taught (let us believe it) by the 
 precepts of Christian masters, and some 
 by the children of those masters, repeat- 
 ing the lessons of the Sabbath -schooL 
 The slaveholders assure us that they 
 have all been well treated. If that be 
 so, they have no wrongs to avenge. As- 
 sociated with our army, they would con- 
 form to the stronger and more disciplin- 
 ed race. Nor is this view disproved by 
 servile insurrections. In those cases, the 
 insurgents, without arms, without allies, 
 without discipline, but throwing them- 
 selves against society, against govern- 
 ment, against everything, saw no other 
 escape than to devastate and destroy with- 
 out mercy in order to get a foothold. If 
 they exterminated, it was because exter- 
 mination was threatened against them. 
 
 In the Revolution, in the army at Cam- 
 bridge, from the beginning to the close of 
 the war, against the protests of South Car- 
 olina by the voice of Edward Rutledge, 
 but with the express sanction of Washing- 
 ton, — ever just, ever grateful for patriot- 
 ism, whencesoever it came, — the negroes 
 fought in the ranks with the white men, 
 and they never dishonored the patriot 
 cause. So also at the defence of New Or- 
 leans they received from General Jackson 
 a noble tribute to their fidelity and soldier- 
 like bearing. Weighing the question his- 
 torically and reflectively, and anticipating 
 the capture of Richmond and New Or- 
 leans, there need be more serious appre- 
 hension of the conduct of some of our 
 own troops recruited in large cities than 
 of a regiment of contrabands oflicered 
 and disciplined by white men. 
 
 But as events travel faster than laws 
 or proclamations, already in this war with 
 Rebellion the two races have served to- 
 gether. The same breastworks have been 
 built by their common toil. True and 
 valiant, they stood side by side in the 
 din of cannonade, and they shared as 
 comrades in the victory of Hatteras. His- 
 tory will not fail to record that on the 
 28th day of August, 1861, when the Reb- 
 el forts were bombarded by the Federal 
 army and navy, under the command of 
 Major- General Butler and Commodore 
 Stringham, fourteen negroes, lately Vir- 
 ginia slaves, now contraband of war, 
 faithfully and without panic worked the 
 after-gun of the upper deck of the Min- 
 nesota, and hailed with a victor's pride 
 the Stars and Stripes as they again wav- 
 ed on the soil of the Carolinas. 
 
1861.] The Washers of the Shroud, 641 
 
 THE WASHEES OF THE SHROUD. 
 
 Along a river-side, I know not where, 
 I walked last night in mystery of dream ; 
 A chill creeps curdling yet beneath my hair, 
 To think what chanced me by the pallid gleam 
 Of a moon-wraith that waned through haunted air. 
 
 Pale fire-flies pulsed within the meadow mist 
 Their halos, wavering thistle-downs of light ; 
 The loon, that seemed to mock some goblin tryst, 
 Laughed ; and the echoes, huddling in affright, 
 Like Odin's hounds, fled baying down the night. 
 
 Then all was silent, till there smote my ear 
 
 A movement in the stream that checked my breath : 
 
 Was it the slow plash of a wading deer ? 
 
 But something said, " This water is of Death ! 
 
 The Sisters wash a Shroud, — ill thing to hear ! '* 
 
 I, looking then, beheld the ancient Three, 
 
 Known to the Greek's and to the Norseman's creed. 
 
 That sit in shadow of the mystic Tree, 
 
 Still crooning, as they weave their endless brede. 
 
 One song : " Time was, Time is, and Time shall be." 
 
 No wrinkled crones were they, as I had deemed, 
 But fair as yesterday, to-day, to-morrow, 
 To mourner, lover, poet, ever seemed ; 
 Something too deep for joy, too high for sorrow. 
 Thrilled in their tones and from their faces gleamed. 
 
 " Still men and nations reap as they have strawn," — 
 
 So sang they, working at their task the while, — 
 
 " The fatal raiment must be cleansed ere dawn : 
 
 For Austria ? Italy ? the Sea-Queen's Isle ? 
 
 O'er what quenched grandeur must our shroud be drawn ? 
 
 " Or is it for a younger, fairer corse. 
 That gathered States for children round his knees. 
 That tamed the wave to be his posting-horse. 
 The forest-feller, linker of the seas. 
 Bridge-builder, hammerer, youngest son of Thor's ? 
 
 " What make we, murmur'st thou, and what are we ? 
 When empires must be wound, we bring the shroud, 
 The time-old web of the implacable Three : 
 Is it too coarse for him, the young and proud ? 
 Earth's mightiest deigned to wear it ; why not he ? '* 
 
 VOL. VIIL 41 
 
642 The Washers of the Shroud. [November, 
 
 " Is there no hope ? " I moaned. " So strong, so fair ! 
 
 Our Fowler, whose proud bird would brook erewhile 
 
 No rival's swoop in all our western air ! 
 
 Gather the ravens, then, in funeral file, 
 
 For him, life's morn-gold bright yet in his hair ? 
 
 " Leave me not hopeless, ye unpitying dames ! 
 I see, half-seeing. Tell me, ye who scanned 
 The stars, Earth's elders, still must noblest aims 
 Be traced upon oblivious ocean-sands ? 
 Must Hesper join the waiUng ghosts of names ? " 
 
 " When grass-blades stiffen with red battle-dew, 
 Ye deem we choose the victors and the slain : 
 Say, choose we them that shall be leal and true 
 To the heart's longing, the high faith of brain ? 
 Yet here the victory is, if ye but knew. 
 
 " Three roots bear up Dominion : Knowledge, Will, — 
 These two are strong, but stronger yet the third, — 
 Obedience, the great tap-root, that still. 
 Knit round the rock of Duty, is not stirred, 
 Though the storm's ploughshare spend its utmost skill. 
 
 " Is the doom sealed for Hesper ? 'T is not we 
 Denounce it, but the Law before all time : 
 The brave makes danger opportunity ; 
 The waverer, paltering with the chance sublime. 
 Dwarfs it to peril : which shall Hesper be ? 
 
 " Hath he let vultures climb his eagle's seat 
 To make Jove's bolts purveyors of their maw ? 
 Hath he the Many's plaudits found more sweet 
 Than wisdom ? held Opinion's wind for law ? 
 Then let him hearken for the headsman's feet I 
 
 " Rough are the steps, slow-hewn in flintiest rock, 
 States climb to power by ; slippery those with gold 
 Down which they stumble to eternal mock : 
 No chafferer's hand shall long the sceptre hold. 
 Who, given a Fate to shape, would sell the block. 
 
 " We sing old sagas, songs of weal and woe, 
 Mystic because too cheaply understood ; 
 Dark sayings are not ours ; men hear and know, 
 See Evil weak, see only strong the Good, 
 Yet hope to balk Doom's fire with walls of tow. 
 
 " Time Was unlocks the riddle of Time Is, 
 That offers choice of glory and of gloom ; 
 The solver makes Time Shall Be surely his. — 
 
1861.] Reviews and Literary Notices, 643 
 
 But hasten, Sisters ! for even now the tomb 
 Grates its slow hinge and calls from the abyss." 
 
 " But not for him," I cried, " not yet for him, 
 Whose large horizon, westering, star by star 
 Wins from the void to where on ocean's rim 
 The sunset shuts the world with golden bar, — 
 Not yet his thews shall fail, his eye grow dim ! 
 
 " His shall be larger manhood, saved for those 
 That walk un blenching through the trial-fires ; 
 Not suffering, but faint heart is worst of woes, 
 And he no base-born son of craven sires. 
 Whose eye need droop, confronted with his foes. 
 
 " Tears may be ours, but proud, for those who win 
 Death's royal purple in the enemy's lines : 
 Peace, too, brings tears ; and 'mid the battle-din, 
 The wiser ear some text of God divines ; 
 For the sheathed blade may rust with darker sin. 
 
 " God, give us peace ! — not such as lulls to sleep. 
 
 But sword on thigh, and brow with purpose knit ! 
 
 And let our Ship of State to harbor sweep, 
 
 Her ports all up, her battle-lanterns lit. 
 
 And her leashed thunders gathering for their leap ! '* 
 
 So said I, with clenched hands and passionate pain, 
 Thinking of dear ones by Potomac's side : 
 Again the loon laughed, mocking ; and again 
 The echoes bayed far down the night, and died, 
 While waking I recalled my wandering brain. 
 
 REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES. 
 
 Sermons preached in the Chapel of Harvard ities of his mental and moral organiza- 
 
 College. By James Walker, D. D. tion, it will be found that the style and 
 
 Boston : Ticknor & Fields. 12mo. structure of these printed sermons suggest 
 
 the mode of their delivery, which is sim- 
 
 The great reputation which Dr. Walker ply the emphatic utterance of emphatic 
 
 has long enjoyed, as one of the most im- thought. The Italicized words, with which 
 
 pressive pulpit orators of the country, will the volume abounds, palpably mark the 
 
 suffer little diminution by the publication results of thinking, and arrest attention 
 
 of these specimens of his rare powers of because they are not less emphasized by 
 
 statement, argument, and illustration. To the intellect than by the type. In reflect- 
 
 the general reader, they are, to be sure, ing Dr. Walker's mind, the work at the 
 
 deprived of the fascination of his voice and same time reflects his manner, 
 
 manner ; but as the peculiarities of his elo- Every reader of these sermons will bo 
 
 cution have their source in the pecuhar- struck by their thorough reasonableness,— 
 
644 
 
 Reviews and Literary Notices. 
 
 [November, 
 
 a reasonableness which does not exclude, 
 but includes, the deepest and warmest re- 
 ligious sensibility. Moral and religious 
 feeling pervades every statement ; but the 
 feeling is still confined within a flexible 
 framework of argument, which, while it 
 enlarges with every access of emotion, is 
 always an outlying boundary of thought, 
 beyond which passion does not pass. Light 
 continually asserts itself as more compre- 
 hensive in its reach than heat ; and the no- 
 blest spiritual instincts and impulses are 
 never allowed unchecked expression as 
 sentiments, but have to submit to the re- 
 straints imposed by principles. Even in 
 the remarkable sermon entitled, " The 
 Heart more than the Head," it will be 
 found that it is the head which legitimates 
 the action of the heart. The sentiments 
 are exalted above the intellect by a pro- 
 cess purely intellectual, and the inferiority 
 of the reason is shown to be a principle 
 essentially reasonable. Thus, throughout 
 the volume, the author's mental insight 
 into the complex phenomena of our spir- 
 itual nature is always accompanied by a 
 mental oversight of its actual and possi- 
 ble aberrations. A sound, large, " round- 
 about" common sense, keen, eager, vigi- 
 lant, sagacious, encompasses all the emo- 
 tional elements of his thought. He has a 
 subtile sense of mystery, but he is not a 
 mystic. The most marvellous workings 
 of the Divine Spirit he apprehends under 
 the conditions of Law, and even in the 
 raptures of devotion he never forgets the 
 relation of cause and effect. 
 
 The style of these sermons is what 
 might be expected from the character of 
 the mind it expresses. If Dr. Walker 
 were not a thinker, it is plain that he could 
 never have been a rhetorician. He has no 
 power at all as a writer, if writing be con- 
 sidered an accomplishment which can be 
 separated from earnest thinking. Words 
 are, with him, the mere instruments for 
 the expression of things ; and he hits on 
 felicitous words only under that impatient 
 stress of thought which demands exact ex- 
 pression for definite ideas. All his words, 
 simple as they are, are therefore fairly 
 earned, and he gives to them a force and 
 significance which they do not bear in the 
 dictionary. The mind of the writer is felt 
 beating and burning beneath his phraseolo- 
 gy, stamping every word with the image 
 of a thought. Largeness of intellect, acute 
 
 discrimination, clear and explicit state- 
 ment, masterly arrangement of matter, 
 an unmistakable performance of the real 
 business of expression, — these qualities 
 make every reader of the sermons con- 
 scious that a mind of great vigor, breadth, 
 and pungency is brought into direct con- 
 tact with his own. The almost ostenta- 
 tious absence of " fine writing " only in- 
 creases the effect of the plain and sinewy 
 words. 
 
 If we pass from the form to the sub- 
 stance of Dr. Walker's teachings, we shall 
 find that his sermons are especially char- 
 acterized by practical wisdom. A scholar, 
 a moralist, a metaphysician, a theologian, 
 learned in all the lore and trained in the 
 best methods of the schools, he is distin- 
 guished from most scholars by his broad 
 grasp of every-day life. It is this quality 
 which has given him his wide influence as 
 a preacher, and this is a prominent charm 
 of his printed sermons. He brings prin- 
 ciples to the test of facts, and connects 
 thoughts with things. The conscience 
 which can easily elude the threats, the 
 monitions, and the appeals of ordinary 
 sermonizers, finds itself mastered by his 
 mingled fervor, logic, and practical knowl- 
 edge. Every sermon in the present vol- 
 ume is good for use, and furnishes both 
 inducements and aids to the formation 
 of manly Christian character. There is 
 much, of course, to lift the depressed and 
 inspire the weak ; but the great peculiar- 
 ity of the discourses is the resolute en- 
 ergy with which they grapple with the 
 worldliness and sin of the proud and the 
 strong. 
 
 The Monks of the West, from St. Benedict to 
 St. Bernard. By the Count de Mont- 
 ALEMBERT, Member of the French 
 Academy. Authorized Translation. 
 Volumes I. and II. Edinburgh and 
 London : W. Blackwood & Sons. 1861. 
 8vo. pp. xii. and 515, 549. 
 
 These volumes form the first instal- 
 ment of a work in which one of the great 
 lights of the Romish Church in our day 
 proposes to recount the glories of West- 
 ern Monasticism, and to narrate the lives 
 of some of the remarkable men who suc- 
 cessively passed from the cloister to the 
 Papal throne, or in positions scarcely less 
 
1861.] 
 
 Reviews and Liter 
 
 ary 
 
 Notices. 
 
 645 
 
 conspicuous permanently aflTected the his- 
 tory of the Church. His original design, 
 however, does not appear to have extend- 
 ed beyond writing the life of St. Bernard 
 of Clairvaux, which he intended to make 
 in some measure a complement to his life 
 of St. Elizabeth of Hungary. But he judg- 
 ed rightly, that, in order to exhibit the 
 character and influence of that remarkable 
 man under all their various aspects, it was 
 needful at the outset to retrace the ear- 
 ly historj'- of monastic institutions in the 
 West, and to show how fai> they tended to 
 prepare the way for such a man. Only a 
 part of this preliminary task has been ac- 
 complished as yet ; but enough has been 
 done to show in what spirit the historian 
 has approached his subject, how thorough- 
 ly he has explored the original sources of 
 information, and what will probably be the 
 real worth of his labors. For such a work 
 Montalembert possesses adequate and in 
 some respects peculiar qualifications. His 
 learning, eloquence, and candor will be 
 conceded by every one who is familiar 
 with his previous writings or with his pub- 
 lic life ; and at the same time he unites a 
 passionate love of liberty, everywhere ap- 
 parent in his book, with a zeal for the 
 Church, worthy of any of the monks whom 
 he commemorates. While his narrative 
 is always animated and picturesque, and 
 often rises into passages of fervid eloquence, 
 he has conducted his researches with the 
 unwearied perseverance of a mere antiqua- 
 ry, and has exhausted every source of in- 
 formation. "Every word which I have 
 written," he says, " has been drawn from 
 original and contemporary sources ; and if 
 I have quoted facts or expressions from 
 second-hand authors, it has never been 
 without attentively verifying the original 
 or completing the text. A single date, 
 quotation, or note, apparently insignifi- 
 cant, has often cost me hours and some- 
 times days of labor. I have never con- 
 tented myself with being approximatively 
 right, nor resigned myself to doubt until 
 ev^ry chance of arriving at certainty was 
 exhausted." To the spirit and temper in 
 which the book is written no well-founded 
 exception can be taken ; but considerable 
 abatement must be made from the author's 
 estimate of the services rendered by the 
 monks to Christian civilization, and no 
 Protestant will accept his views as to the 
 permanent worth of monastic institutions. 
 
 With this qualification, and with some al- 
 lowance for needless repetitions, we can- 
 not but regard his work as a most attrac- 
 tive and eloquent contribution to ecclesi- 
 astical history. 
 
 About half of the first volume is devoted 
 to a General Introduction, explanatory of 
 the origin and design of the work, but 
 mainly intended to paint the character of 
 monastic institutions, to describe the hap- 
 piness of a religious life, and to examine 
 the charges brought against the monks. 
 These topics are considered in ten chap- 
 ters, filled with curious details, and written 
 with an eloquence and an earnestness which 
 it is difficult for the reader to resist. Fol- 
 lowing this we have a short and brilliant 
 sketch of the social and political condition 
 of the Roman Empire after the conversion 
 of Constantino, exhibiting by a few mas- 
 terly touches its wide -spread corruption, 
 the feebleness of its rulers, and the utter 
 degradation of the people. The next two 
 books treat of the Monastic Precursors in 
 the East as well as in the West, and pre- 
 sent a series of brief biographical sketches 
 of the most famous monks, from St. An- 
 thony, the father of Eastern monasticism, 
 to St. Benedict, the earliest legislator for 
 the monasteries of the West. Among the 
 illustrious men who pass before us in this 
 review, and all of whom are skilfully 
 delineated, are Basil of Caesarea and his 
 friend Gregory Nazianzen, Chrysostom, 
 Jerome, Augustine, Athanasius, Martin of 
 Tours, and the numerous company of saints 
 and doctors nurtured in the great monas- 
 tery of Lerins. And though an account 
 of the saintly women who have led lives 
 of seclusion would scarcely seem to be in- 
 cluded under the title of Montalembert's 
 work, he does not neglect to add sketches 
 of the most conspicuous of them, — Eu- 
 phrosyne, Pelagia, Marcella, Furia, and 
 others. These preliminary sketches fill 
 the last half of the first volume. 
 
 The Fourth Book comprises an account 
 of the Life and Rule of St. Benedict, and 
 properly opens the history which Monta- 
 lembert proposes to narrate. It presents a 
 sufficiently minute sketch of the personal* 
 history of Benedict and his immediate fol- 
 lowers; but its chief merit is in its very- 
 ample and satisfactory exposition of the- 
 Benedictine Rule. The next book traces- 
 the history of monastic institutions in Ita- 
 ly and Spain during the sixth and sevenths 
 
646 
 
 Reviews and Literary Notices. 
 
 [November, 
 
 centuries, and includes biographical notices 
 of Cassiodorus, the founder of the once fa- 
 mous monastery of Viviers in Calabria, of 
 St. Gregory the Great, of Leander, Bish- 
 op of Seville, and his brother Isidore, of II- 
 defonso of Toledo, and of many others of 
 scarcely less renown in the early monastic 
 records. The Sixth Book is devoted to the 
 monks under the first Merovingians, and 
 is divided into five sections, treating re- 
 spectively of the conquest of Gaul by the 
 Franks, of the arrival of St. Maur in An- 
 jou and the propagation of the Benedictine 
 rule there, of the relations previously ex- 
 isting between the monks and the Mero- 
 vingians, of St. Radegund and her follow- 
 ers, and of the services of the monks in 
 clearing the forests and opening the way 
 for the advance of civilization. The Sev- 
 enth Book records the hfe of St. Colum- 
 banus, and describes at much length his 
 labors in Gaul, as well as those of his dis- 
 ciples, both in the great monastery of Lux- 
 euil and in the numerous colonies which 
 issued from it and spread over the whole 
 neighborhood, bringing the narrative down 
 to the close of the seventh century. At 
 this point the portion of Montalembert's 
 work now published terminates, leaving, 
 we presume, several additional volumes to 
 follow. For their appearance we shall look 
 with much interest. If the remainder is 
 executed in the same spirit as the portion 
 now before us, and is marked by the same 
 diligent study of the original authorities 
 and the same persuasive eloquence, it will 
 form one of the most valuable of the many 
 attractive monographs which we owe to 
 the French historians of our time, and will 
 be read with equal interest by Catholics 
 and Protestants. 
 
 Eighty Years' Progress of the United States, 
 showing the Various Channels of Industry 
 and Education through which the People 
 of the United States have arisen from a 
 British Colony to their Present National 
 ImpoHance. Illustrated with over Two 
 Hundred Engravings. New York : 51 
 John Street. Worcester: L. Stebbins. 
 Two Volumes. 8vo. 
 
 A VAST amount of useful information is 
 treasured up in these two national volumes. 
 Agriculture, commerce and trade, the cul- 
 tivation of cotton, education, the arts of de- 
 
 sign, banking, mining, steam, the fur-trade, 
 etc., are subjects of interest everywhere, 
 and the present writers seem to be special- 
 ly competent for the task they have as- 
 siuned. If the household library should 
 possess such books more frequently, less 
 ignorance would prevail on topics concern- 
 ing which every American ought to be well- 
 informed. Woful silence usually prevails 
 when a foreigner asks for statistics on any 
 point connected with our industrial prog- 
 ress, and very few take the trouble to get 
 at facts which are easy enough to be had 
 with a little painstaking. We are glad to 
 see so much good material brouglit togeth- 
 er as we find in these two well-filled vol- 
 umes. 
 
 Electro-Physiology and Electro-Therapeutics : 
 Showing the Rules and Methods for the Em- 
 ployment of Galvanism in Nervous Diseas- 
 es, etc. Second Edition, with Additions. 
 Boston : Ticknor & Fields. 1861. 
 
 At a time when the partition-wall be- 
 tween Jew and Gentile of the medical 
 world is pretty thoroughly breached, if 
 not thrown down, and quackery and im- 
 posture are tolerated as necessary evils, it 
 is agreeable to meet with a real work of 
 science, emanating from the labors of a 
 regular physician, concerning the influ- 
 ences exerted by electricity on the human 
 body, both in health and disease. 
 
 Electricity is one of the great powers of 
 Nature, pervading all matter, existing in 
 all mineral, vegetable, and animal bodies, 
 not only acting in the combinations of the 
 elements and molecules, but also serving 
 as a means for their separation from each 
 other. This imponderable fluid or power, 
 whatever it may be, whether one or two, 
 or a polarization of one force into the states 
 -f and — , is one of the most active agen- 
 cies known to man, and although not ca- 
 pable of being weighed in the balance, is 
 not found wanting anywhere in Nature. It 
 courses in great currents beneath our feet, 
 in the solid rocks of the earth, penetrat- 
 ing to the very interior of the globe, while 
 it also rushes through our atmosphere in 
 lurid flashes, and startles us with the crash 
 and roar of heaven's artillery. It gives 
 magnetic polarity to the earth, and directs 
 the needle by its influence ; for magnetic 
 attraction is only an effect of the earth's 
 
1861.] 
 
 Heviews and Literary Notices. 
 
 647 
 
 thermo-electricity, excited by the sun's 
 rays acting in a continuous course. Both 
 animal and vegetable life are dependent 
 on electric forces for their development ; 
 and many of their functions, directly or 
 indirectly, result from their agency. 
 
 If this force controls to a great de- 
 gree the living functions of our organs in 
 their healthy action, it must be that it is 
 concerned in those derangements and le- 
 sions which constitute disease and abnor- 
 mal actions or disorders. It must have 
 a remedial and the opposite effect, accord- 
 ing as it is appHed. 
 
 Is such a gigantic power to be left in 
 the hands of charlatans, or shall it be re- 
 served for application by scientific physi- 
 cians ? This is a question we must meet 
 and answer practically. 
 
 It may be asked why a force of this na- 
 ture has been so long neglected by prac- 
 tising physicians. The answer is very 
 simple, and will be recognized as true by 
 all middle-aged physicians in this country. 
 
 Eor the past fifty years it has been cus- 
 tomary to state in lectures in our medical 
 colleges, that "chemistry has nothing to 
 do with medicine " ; and since our teachers 
 knew nothing of the subject themselves, 
 they denounced such knowledge as un- 
 necessary to the physician. Electricity, 
 the great moving power in all chemical 
 actions, shared the fate of chemistry in 
 general, and met with condemnation with- 
 out trial. A young physician did not dare 
 to meddle with chemicals or with any 
 branch of natural or experimental science, 
 for fear of losing his chance of medical 
 employment by sinking the doctor among 
 bis gallipots. 
 
 Electricity, thus neglected, fell into the 
 hands of irregular practitioners, and was 
 as often used injuriously as beneficially, 
 and more frequently without any effect. 
 The absurd pretensions of galvanic baths 
 for the extraction of mercury from the 
 system will be remembered by most of 
 our citizens, and the shocking practice of 
 others is not forgotten. 
 
 It was therefore earnestly desired by 
 medical practitioners who themselves were 
 not by education competent to manage 
 electric and galvanic machinery, that some 
 medical man of good standing, who had 
 made a special study of this subject, should 
 undertake the treatment of diseases re- 
 quiring the use of electricity. Dr. Gar- 
 
 ratt was induced to undertake this im- 
 portant duty, and he has prepared a work 
 on this practice which embraces all that 
 has appeared in the writings of others, 
 both in this country and Europe, while he 
 has, from his own researches and rich ex- 
 perience, added much new matter of great 
 practical value. Among his original con- 
 tributions we note, — 
 
 1st. A definite, systematic method for 
 the application of Galvanic and Faradaic 
 currents of electricity to the human organ- 
 ism, for curing or aiding in the cure of giv- 
 en classes of diseases. (See pages 475, 479, 
 and 669 to 706 ; also Chap. 5, p. 280.) 
 
 2d. Improvements in the methods of ap- 
 plying electricity, as stated on pages 293 
 to 296, and 300, 329, and 332, which we 
 have not room to copy. 
 
 3d. He has introduced the term Fara- 
 daic current to represent the induced cur- 
 rent, first discovered by Professor Henry, 
 and so much extended in application by 
 Faraday. 
 
 4th. The determination of several defi- 
 nite points in sentient and mixed nerves, 
 often the seats of neuralgic pain, — thus cor- 
 recting Dr. Valleix's painful points. 
 
 6th. The treatment of uterine, and some 
 other female disorders, by means of the 
 induced galvanic current (pages 612 to 
 621). 
 
 A careful examination of this book shows 
 it to contain a very full r€sume of the best 
 which have been written on the subjects 
 embraced under the medical applications 
 of electricity in its various modes of devel- 
 opment, and a careful analysis of the doc- 
 trines of others ; while the author has given 
 frankly an account of cases in which he 
 has failed, as of those in which he has been 
 successful. He does not offer electric treat- 
 ment as a panacea for " all the ills which 
 flesh is heir to," but shows how far and 
 in what cases it proves beneficial. He has 
 shown that there is a right and a wrong 
 way of operating, and that mischief may 
 be done by an unskilful hand, while one 
 who is well qualified by scientific knowl- 
 edge and practical experience may do 
 much good, and in many diseases, — more 
 especially in those of the nerves, such as 
 neuralgia and partial paralysis, in which 
 remarkable cures have been effected. We 
 commend this work to the attention of med- 
 ical gentlemen, and especially to students 
 of medicine who wish to be posted up in 
 
648 
 
 Hecent American Publications. 
 
 [November. 
 
 the novel methods of treating diseases. It 
 is also a book which all scientific men may 
 consult with advantage, and which will 
 gratify the curiosity of the general scholar. 
 
 Memoir of Edward Forbes, F. R. S., Late 
 Regius Professor of Natural History in the 
 University of Edinburgh. By George 
 
 I Wilson, M. D., F. R. S. E., and Archi- 
 bald Geikie, F. R. S. E., etc. Cam- 
 bridge and London : MacMillan & Co. 
 
 Dr. Wilson did not live to finish the 
 memoir which he so ably began. The 
 great naturalist, Edward Forbes, deserved 
 the best from his contemporaries, and we 
 axe glad to have the combined labors of 
 such distinguished men as Wilson and 
 
 Geikie put forth in commemoration of 
 him. The chair of Natural History at 
 Edinburgh was honored by him whose bi- 
 ography is now before us. His advent to 
 that eminent post was everywhere hailed 
 with a unanimity that augured well for his 
 career, and no one could have been chosen 
 to succeed the illustrious Jameson for whom 
 there could have been more enthusiasm. 
 His admitted genius and the range of his 
 acquirements fully entitled him to the of- 
 fice, and all who knew him looked forward 
 to brilliant accomplishments in his varied 
 paths of science. Death closed the brief 
 years of this earnest student at the early 
 age of thirty -nine. Cut off in the prime 
 of his days, with his powers and purposes 
 but partially unfolded, he yet shows grand- 
 ly among the best men of his time. 
 
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 Great Expectations. By Charles Dickens. 
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 George W. Collord, A. M. New York. Harper 
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 Life and Adventures in the South Pacific. 
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 Eighty Years' Progress of the United States, 
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 Illustrated with over Two Hundred Engrav- 
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 bins. 2 vols. Svo. pp. 457, 455. $5.00. 
 
THE 
 
 ATLANTIC MONTHLY. 
 
 A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS. 
 
 VOL. VIII.— DECEMBER, 1861.— NO. L. 
 
 THE HOME OF LAFAYETTE. 
 
 After General Lafayette's visit to 
 the United States, in 1824, every Amer- 
 ican -who went to France went with a 
 firm conviction that he had a right to 
 take as much as he chose of the old gen- 
 tleman's time and hospitality, at his own 
 estimate of their value. Fortunately, the 
 number of travellers was not great in 
 those days, although a week seldom pass- 
 ed without bringing two or three new 
 faces to the Rue d'Anjou or La Grange. 
 It was well both for the purse and the 
 patience of the kind-hearted old man 
 that ocean steamers were still a doubtful 
 problem, and first-class packets rarely 
 over five hundred tons. 
 
 It could hardly be expected that a boy 
 of sixteen should have more discretion 
 than his elders ; and following the uni- 
 versal example of my countrymen, the 
 first use that I made of a Parisian cabrio- 
 let was to drive to No. 6, Rue d'Anjou. 
 The porte cochere was open, and the por- 
 ter in his lodge, — a brisk little French- 
 man, somewhat past middle age, with just 
 bows enough to prove his nationality, and 
 very expressive gestures, which I under- 
 stood much better than I did his words ; 
 for they said, or seemed to say, — " The 
 
 General is out, and I will take charge of 
 your letter and card." There was noth- 
 ing else for me to do, and so, handing 
 over my credentials, I gave the rest of 
 the morning to sight-seeing, and, being a 
 novice at it and alone, soon got tired and 
 returned to my hotel. 
 
 I don't know how that hotel would look 
 to me now ; but to my untrained eyes 
 of that day it looked wonderfully fine. I 
 liked the name, — the Petit Hotel Mont- 
 morenci, — for I knew enough of French 
 history to know that Montmorenci had al- 
 ways been a great name in France. Then 
 it was the favorite resort of Americans ; 
 and although I was learning the phras- 
 es in Blagdon as fast as I could, I still 
 found English by far the most agreeable 
 means of communication for everything 
 beyond an appeal to the waiter for more 
 wood or a clean toweL Table d'Hote, 
 too, brought us all together, with an abun- 
 dant, if not a rich, harvest of personal ex- 
 periences gathered during the day from 
 every quarter of the teeming city. Brad- 
 ford was there with his handsome face 
 and fine figure, — an old resident, as it 
 then seemed to me; for he had been 
 abroad two years, and could speak what 
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1861, by Ticknor and Fields, in the Clerk's Office 
 of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 
 VOL. VIII. 42 
 
650 
 
 TJie Home of Lafayette. 
 
 [December, 
 
 sounded to my ears as French-like as any 
 French I had ever heard. Poor fellow ! 
 scarce three years had passed when he 
 laid him down to his last sleep in a con- 
 vent of Jerusalem, without a friend to 
 smooth his pillow or listen to his last wish- 
 es. Of most of the others the names 
 have escaped me ; but I shall never for- 
 get how wide I opened my eyes, one even- 
 ing, at the assertion of a new-comer, that 
 he had done more for the enlightenment 
 of France than any man living or dead. 
 The incomparable gravity with which the 
 assertion was made drew every eye to 
 the speaker, who, after enjoying our as- 
 tonishment for a while, told us that he 
 had been the first to send out a whaler 
 from Havre, and had secured almost a 
 monopoly of the oil-trade. Some years 
 afterwards I made a passage with his 
 brother, and learned from him the histo- 
 ry of this Yankee enterprise, which had 
 filled two capacious purses, and substitut- 
 ed the harpoon for the pruning-knife, the 
 whale-ship for the olive-orchard, in the 
 very stronghold of the emblem of peace ; 
 and now the collier with his pickaxe has 
 driven them both from the field. But 
 the Petit Hotel Montmorenci did not 
 wait for the change. Its broad court was 
 never enlivened by gas. Its tables and 
 mantels were decked to the last hour 
 with the alabaster whiteness of those pure 
 wax tapers which shed such a soft light 
 upon your book, and grew up into such 
 formidable items in your bills. A long 
 passage — one of those luxuries of rainy, 
 muddy Paris, lined with stores that you 
 cannot help lingering over, if for noth- 
 ing else, to wonder at the fertility of the 
 human brain when it makes itself the 
 willing minister of human caprice — cov- 
 ers the whole space which the hotel stood 
 on, and unites the Neuve St. Marc with 
 the once distant Boulevard. 
 
 As I passed the porter's lodge, he hand- 
 ed me a letter. The hand was one that 
 I had never seen before ; the address was 
 in French ; and the seal, red wax thinly 
 spread, but something which had been 
 put on it before it was cool had entirely 
 effaced the impress : as I afterwards learn- 
 
 ed, it was the profile of Washington. I 
 opened it, and judge my surprise and de- 
 light on reading the following words: — 
 
 ^^ Parts, Thursday. 
 " I am very sorry not to have had the 
 pleasure to see you when you have called 
 this morning, my dear Sir. My stay in 
 town will be short. But you will find 
 me to-morrow from nine in the morning 
 until twelve. I hope we shall see you 
 soon at La Grange, which I beg of you 
 to consider as your home, being that of 
 your grandfather's most intimate friend 
 and brother-in-arms. 
 
 " Lafayette." 
 
 It was nearly eleven when I reached 
 the Rue d'Anjou and began for the first 
 time to mount the broad stairway of a 
 Parisian palace. The General's apart- 
 ments were on the entresol, with a sepa- 
 rate staircase from the first landing of 
 the principal one ; for his lameness made 
 it difficult for him to go up-stairs, and 
 the entresol, a half- story between the 
 ground floor and the first story, when, 
 as was the case here, high enough in the 
 ceiling, is one of the freest and pleasant- 
 est parts of a French house. His apart- 
 ments comprised five rooms on a line, — 
 an antechamber, a dining-room, two par- 
 lors, and a bed-room, with windows on the 
 street, — and the same number of smaller 
 rooms on a parallel line, with their win- 
 dows on the court -yard, which served 
 for his secretary and servants. The fur- 
 niture throughout was neat and plain : 
 the usual comfortable arm-chairs and so- 
 fas, the indispensable clock and mirror 
 over the mantelpiece, and in each fire- 
 place a cheerful wood-fire. There were 
 two or three servants in the antecham- 
 ber, well-dressed, but not in livery ; and 
 in the parlor, into which I was shown on 
 handing my card, two or three persons 
 waiting for an audience. Fortunately 
 for me, they were there on business, and 
 the business was soon despatched ; and 
 passing, in turn, into the reception parlor, 
 I found myself in the presence of the 
 friend of Washington and my grandfa- 
 
1861.] 
 
 The Home of Lafayette. 
 
 651 
 
 ther. He received me so cordially, with 
 such kind inquiries into the object and 
 cause of my journey, such a fatherly in- 
 terest in my plans and aims, such an ear- 
 nest repetition of the invitation he had 
 given me in his note to look upon La 
 Grange as my home, that I felt at once 
 that I was no longer without a guide and 
 protector in a foreign land. It was some 
 time before I could observe him closely 
 enough to get a just idea of his appear- 
 ance ; for I had never before been con- 
 sciously in the presence of a man who 
 had filled so many pages of real history, 
 and of the history which above all others 
 I was most interested in. I felt as if a 
 veil had been suddenly lifted, and the 
 great men I had read of and dreamed 
 of were passing before me. There were 
 the features which, though changed, had 
 so often called up a smile of welcome to 
 the lips of Washington ; there was the 
 man who had shared with my grandfa- 
 ther the perils of the Brandywine and 
 Monmouth, the long winter encampment, 
 and the wearisome summer march; the 
 man whom Napoleon had tried all the 
 fascinations of his art upon, and failed to 
 lure him from his devotion to the cause of 
 freedom ; whom Marat and Robespierre 
 had marked out for destruction, aud 
 kings and emperors leagued against in 
 hatred and fear. It was more like a 
 dream than a reality, and for the first 
 twenty minutes I was almost afraid to 
 stir for fear I might wake up and find 
 the vision gone. But when I began to 
 look at him as a being of real flesh and 
 blood, I found that Ary Scheffer's por- 
 trait had not deceived me. Features, 
 expression, carriage, all were just as it 
 had taught me to expect them, and it 
 seemed to me as if I had always known 
 him. The moment I felt this I began to 
 feel at my ease ; and though I never en- 
 tirely lost the feeling that I had a living 
 chapter of history before me, I soon learn- 
 ed to look upon him as a father. 
 
 As I was rising to go, a lady entered 
 the room, and, without waiting for an in- 
 troduction, held out her hand so cordially 
 that I knew it must be one of his daugh- 
 
 ters. It was Madame de Lasteyrie, who, 
 like her mother and sister, had shared 
 his dungeon at Olmiitz. Her English, 
 though perfectly intelligible, was not as 
 fluent as her father's, but she had no diffi- 
 culty in saying some pleasant things about 
 family friendship which made me very 
 happy. She lived in the same street, 
 though not in the same house with the 
 General, and that morning my good-for- 
 tune had brought the whole family to- 
 gether at No. 6. 
 
 The occasion was a singular one. One 
 of those heartless speculators to whom 
 our Government has too often given free 
 scope among the Indian tribes of our bor- 
 ders had brought to France a party of 
 Osages, on an embassy, as he gave them 
 to understand, but in reality with the 
 intention of exhibiting them, very much 
 as Van Amburgh exhibits his wild beasts. 
 General Lafayette was determined, if 
 possible, to counteract this abominable 
 scheme ; but as, unfortunately, there was 
 no one who could interpret for him but 
 the speculator himself, he found it diffi- 
 cult to make the poor Indians understand 
 their real position. He had already seen 
 and talked with them, and was feeling 
 very badly at not being able to do more. 
 This morning he was to receive them at 
 his house, and his own family, with one 
 or two personal friends, had been invited 
 to witness the interview. 
 
 Madame de Lasteyrie was soon follow- 
 ed by her daughters, and in a few mo- 
 ments I found myself shaking some very 
 pretty hands, and smiled upon by some 
 very pretty faces. It was something of a 
 trial for one who had never been in a 
 full drawing-room in his life, and whom 
 Nature had predestined to mauvaise Jionte 
 to the end of his days. Still I made the 
 best of it, and as there is nothing so dread- 
 ful, after all, in a bright eye and rosy lip, 
 and the General's invitation to look upon 
 his house as my home was so evidently 
 to be taken in its literal interpretation, I 
 soon began to feel at my ease. 
 
 The rooms gradually filled. Madame 
 de Maubourg came in soon after her sis- 
 ter, and, as I was talking to one of the 
 
652 
 
 The Home of Lafayette. 
 
 [December, 
 
 young ladies, a gentleman with a coun- 
 tenance not altogether unlike the Gener- 
 al's, though nearly bald, and -with what 
 was left of his hair perfectly gray, came up 
 and introduced himself to me as George 
 Lafayette. It was the last link in the 
 chain. The last letter that my grand- 
 father ever wrote to General Lafayette 
 had been about a project which they had 
 formed at the close of the war, to bring 
 up their sons — " the two George Wash- 
 ingtons" — together; and as soon after 
 General Greene's death as the necessa- 
 ry arrangement could be made, my poor 
 uncle was sent to France and placed un- 
 der the General's care. It was of him 
 that General Washington had written to 
 CoIoimI Wadsworth, " But should it turn 
 out differently, and Mrs. Greene, yourself, 
 and Mr. Rutledge" (General Greene's 
 executors) " should think proper to in- 
 trust my namesake, G. W. Greene, to 
 my care, I will give him as good an edu- 
 cation as this country (I mean North 
 America) will afford, and will bring 
 him up to either of the genteel profes- 
 sions that his friends may choose or his 
 own inclination shall lead him to pursue, 
 at my own cost and charge." " He is 
 a lively boy," wrote General Knox to 
 Washington, on returning from putting 
 him on board the French packet, " and, 
 with a good education, will probably be 
 an honor to the name of his father and 
 the pride of his friends." 
 
 I may be pardoned for dwelling a mo- 
 ment on the scanty memorials of one 
 whose name is often mentioned in the 
 letters of Washington, and whose early 
 promise awakened the fondest expecta- 
 tions. He was a beautiful boy, if the ex- 
 quisite little miniature before me may be 
 trusted, blending sweetly the more char- 
 acteristic traits of his father and mother 
 in his face, in a way that must have made 
 him very dear to both. With the officers 
 and soldiers he was a great favorite, and 
 it cost his father a hard effort to deny 
 himself the gratification of having him al- 
 ways with him at camp during the winter. 
 But the sense of paternal duty prevailed, 
 and as soon as he was thought old enough 
 
 to profit by it, he was put under the 
 charge of Dr. Witherspoon at Princeton. 
 " I cannot omit informing you," writes 
 General Washington, in 1783, " that I let 
 no opportunity slip to inquire after your 
 son George at Princeton, and that it is 
 with pleasure I hear he enjoys good 
 health, and is a fine, promising boy." 
 He remained in France till 1792, when 
 his mother's anxiety for his safety over- 
 came her desire for the completion of his 
 studies, and she wrote to Gouverneur 
 Morris, who was then in France, to send 
 him home. "Mr. Jefferson," reads the 
 autograph before me, " presents his most 
 respectful compliments to Mrs. Greene, 
 and will with great pleasure write to Mr. 
 Morris on the subject of her son's return, 
 forwarding her letter at the same time. 
 He thinks Mrs. Greene concluded that he 
 should return by the way of London. If 
 he is mistaken, she will be so good as to 
 correct him, as his letter to Mr. Morris 
 will otherwise be on that supposition." 
 He returned a large, vigorous, athletic 
 man, full of the scenes he had witnessed, 
 and ready to engage in active life with the 
 ardor of his age and the high hopes which 
 his name authorized ; for it was in the days 
 of Washington and Hamilton and Knox, 
 men who extended to the son the love 
 they had borne to the father. But his 
 first winter was to be given to his home, 
 to his mother and sisters ; and there, while 
 pursuing too eagerly his favorite sport of 
 duck-shooting from a canoe on the Sa- 
 vannah, his boat was overset, and, though 
 his companion escaped by clinging to the 
 canoe, he was borne down by the weight 
 of his accoutrements and drowned. The 
 next day the body was recovered, and 
 the vault which but six years before had 
 prematurely opened its doors to receive 
 the remains of the father was opened 
 again for the son. Not long after, his 
 family removed to Cumberland Island 
 and ceased to look upon Savannah as 
 their burial-place ; and when, for the first 
 time, after the lapse of more than thirty 
 years, and at the approach of Lafayette 
 on his last memorable visit to the United 
 States, a people awoke from their leth- 
 
1861.] 
 
 The Home of Lafayette. 
 
 G53 
 
 argy and asked where the bones of the 
 hero of the South had been laid, there 
 •was no one to point out their resting- 
 place. Happy, if what the poet tells us 
 be true, and " still in our ashes live their 
 wonted fires," that they have long since 
 mingled irrevocably with the soil of the 
 land that he saved, and can never be- 
 come associated with a movement that 
 has been disgraced by the vile flag of Se- 
 cession ! 
 
 But to return to the Rue d'Anjou. A 
 loud noise in the street announced the 
 approach of the Indians, whose appear- 
 ance in an open carriage had drawn to- 
 gether a dense crowd of sight-loving Pa- 
 risians ; and in a few moments they en- 
 tered, decked out in characteristic finery, 
 but without any of that natural grace and 
 dignity which I had been taught to look 
 for in the natives of the forest. The Gen- 
 eral received them with the dignified af- 
 fability which was the distinctive charac- 
 teristic of his manner under all circum- 
 stances ; and although there was nothing 
 in the occasion to justify it, I could not 
 help recalling Madame de Stael's com- 
 ment upon his appearance at Versailles, 
 on the fearful fifth of October : — " M. de 
 la Fayette was perfectly calm ; nobody 
 ever saw him otherwise." Withdrawing 
 with them into an inner room, he did his 
 best, as he afterwards told me, to prevail 
 upon them to return home, though not 
 without serious doubts of the honesty of 
 their interpreter. It was while this pri- 
 vate conference was going on that I got 
 my first sight of Cooper, — completing 
 my morning's experience by exchanging 
 a few words with the man, of all others 
 among my countrymen, whom I had most 
 wished to know. Meanwhile the table 
 in the dining-room was spread with cakes 
 and preserves, and before the company 
 withdrew, they had a good opportunity of 
 convincing themselves, that, if the Amer- 
 ican Indian had made but little progress 
 in the other arts of civilization, he had 
 attained to a full appreciation of the vir- 
 tues of sweetmeats and pastry. 
 
 I cannot close this portion of my sto- 
 ry without relating my second interview 
 
 with my aboriginal countrymen, not quite 
 so satisfactory as the first, but at least with 
 its amusing, or rather its laughable side. 
 I was living in Siena, a quiet old Tus- 
 can town, with barely fifteen thousand in- 
 habitants to occupy a circuit of wall that 
 had once held fifty, — but with all the re- 
 mains of its former greatness about it, 
 noble palaces, a cathedral second in beau- 
 ty to that of Milan alone, churches filled 
 with fine pictures, an excellent public 
 library, (God's blessing be upon it, for it 
 was in one of its dreamy alcoves that I 
 first read Dante,) a good opera in the 
 summer, and good society all the year 
 round. Month was gliding after month 
 in happy succession. I had dropped read- 
 ily into the tranquil round of the daily 
 life, had formed many acquaintances and 
 two or three intimate ones, and, though 
 reminded from time to time of the Gen- 
 eral by a paternal letter, had altogether 
 forgotten the specimens of the children 
 of the forest whom I had seen under his 
 roof. One evening — I do not remember 
 the month, though I think it was late in 
 the autumn — I had made up my mind 
 to stay at home and study, and was just 
 sitting down to my books, when a friend 
 came in with the air of a man who had 
 something very interesting to say. 
 
 " Quick, quick ! shut your book, and 
 come with me to the theatre." 
 
 " Impossible ! I 'm tired, and, more- 
 over, have something to do which I must 
 do to-night." 
 
 " To-morrow night will do just as well 
 for that, but not for the theatre." 
 
 " Why ? " 
 
 " Because there are some of your coun- 
 trymen here who are going to be exhibit- 
 ed on the stage, and the Countess P 
 
 and all your friends want you to come 
 and interpret for them." 
 
 " Infinitely obliged. And pray, what 
 do you mean by saying that some of 
 my countrymen are to be exhibited on 
 the stage ? Do you take Americans for 
 mountebanks ? " 
 
 " No, I don't mean that ; but it is just 
 as I tell you. Some Americans will ap- 
 pear on the stage to-night and make a 
 
654 
 
 The Home of Lafayette 
 
 [December, 
 
 speech in American, and you must come 
 and explain it to us." 
 
 I must confess, that, at first, my digni- 
 ty was a Httle hurt at the idea of an ex- 
 hibition of Americans ; but a moment's 
 reflection convinced me that I had no 
 grounds for offence, and all of a sudden 
 it occurred to me that the " Americans " 
 might be my friends of the Rue d'Anjou, 
 whose " guide and interpreter," though 
 hardly their " friend," had got them down 
 as far as Siena on the general embassy. 
 I was resolved to see, and accordingly 
 exchanging my dressing-gown and slip- 
 pers for a dress-box costume, I accom- 
 panied my friend to the theatre. My ap- 
 pearance at the pit-door was the signal for 
 nods and beckonings from a dozen boxes ; 
 but as no one could dispute the superior 
 
 claims of the Countess P , I soon 
 
 found myself seated in the front of her 
 Ladyship's box, and the chief object of 
 attention till the curtain rose. 
 
 "And now, my dear G , tell us 
 
 all about these strange countrymen of 
 yours, — how they live, — whether it is 
 true that they eat one another, — what 
 kind of houses they have, — how they 
 treat their women, — and everything else 
 that we ought to know." 
 
 Two or three years later, when Cooper 
 began to be translated, they would have 
 known better ; but now nothing could 
 convince them that I was not perfectly 
 qualified to answer all their questions 
 and stand interpreter between my coun- 
 trymen and the audience. Fortunately, 
 I had read Irving's beautiful paper in the 
 " Sketch-Book," and knew " The Last of 
 the Mohicans " by heart ; and putting to- 
 gether, as well as I could, the ideas of In- 
 dian life I had gained from these sources, 
 I accomplished my task to the entire satis- 
 faction of my interrogators. At last the 
 curtain rose, and, though reduced in num- 
 ber, and evidently much the worse for 
 their protracted stay in the land of civil- 
 ization and brandy, there they were, the 
 very Osages I had seen at the good old 
 General's. The interpreter came for- 
 ward and told his story, making them 
 chiefs of rank on a tour of pleasure. And 
 
 a burly-looking fellow, walking up and 
 down the stage with an air that gave the 
 lie to every assertion of the interpreter, 
 made a speech in deep gutturals to the 
 great delight of the listeners. Fortunate- 
 ly for me, the Italian love of sound kept 
 my companions still till the speech was 
 ended, and then, just as they were turn- 
 ing to me for a translation, the inter- 
 preter announced his intention of trans- 
 lating it for them himself. Nothing else, 
 I verily believe, could have saved my 
 reputation, and enabled me to retain my 
 place as a native-born American. When 
 the exhibition was over, — and even with 
 the ludicrousness of my part of it, to me 
 it was a sad one, — I went behind the 
 scenes to take a nearer view of these 
 poor victims of avarice. They were sit- 
 ting round a warming-pan, looking jaded 
 and worn, brutalized beyond even what 
 I had first imagined. It was my last sight 
 of them, and I was glad of it ; how far 
 they went, and how many of them found 
 their way back to their native land, I 
 never was able to learn. 
 
 Before I left the Rue d'Anjou, it was 
 arranged, that, as soon as I had seen a 
 little more of Paris, I should go to La 
 Grange. " One of the young ladies will 
 teach you French," said the General, 
 " and you can make your plans for the 
 winter at your leisure." 
 
 LA GRANGE. 
 
 It was on a bright autumn morning 
 that I started for the little village of Ro- 
 say, — some two leagues from Paris, and 
 the nearest point by diligence to La 
 Grange. A railroad passes almost equal- 
 ly near to it now, and the French dill' 
 gence, hke its English and American 
 counterpart, the stage-coach, has long 
 since been shorn of its honors. Yet it 
 was a pleasant mode of travelling, taking 
 you from place to place in a way to give 
 you a good general idea of the country 
 you were passing through, and bringing 
 you into much closer relations with your 
 fellow-travellers than you can form in a 
 rail-car. There was the crowd at the 
 
1861.] 
 
 The Home of Lafayette. 
 
 655 
 
 door of the post-house -where you stop- 
 ped to change horses, and the little troop 
 of wooden-shoed children that followed 
 you up the hill, drawling out in unison, 
 " Un peu de charite', s'il vous plait," grad- 
 ually quickening their pace as the horses 
 began to trot, and breaking all off togeth- 
 er and tumbling in a heap as they scram- 
 bled for the sous that were thrown out to 
 them. 
 
 For a light, airy people, the French 
 have a wonderful facility in making clum- 
 sy-looking vehicles. To look at a dili- 
 gence, you would say that it was impos- 
 sible to guide it through a narrow street, 
 or turn it into a gate. The only thing 
 an American would think of likening it 
 to would be three carriages of different 
 shapes fastened together. First came 
 ihe Coupe', in shape like an old-fashion- 
 ed chariot, with a seat for three per- 
 sons, and glass windows in front and 
 at the sides that gave you a full view 
 of everything on the road. This was 
 the post of honor, higher in price, and, 
 on long journeys, always secured a day 
 or two beforehand. Not the least of its 
 advantages was the amusement it afford- 
 ed you in watching the postilion and his 
 horses, — a never-failing source of merri- 
 ment ; and what to those who know how 
 important it is, in a set of hungry travel- 
 lers, to secure a good seat at table, the 
 important fact that the coupe'- door was 
 the first door opened, and the coupe- 
 passengers received as the most distin- 
 guished personages of the party. The 
 Inierieur came next : somewhat larger 
 than our common coach, with seats for 
 six, face to face, two good windows at 
 the sides, and netting above for parcels 
 of every kind and size : a comfortable 
 place, less exposed to jolts than the cou- 
 pi even, and much to be desired, if you 
 could but make sure of a back-corner and 
 an accommodating companion opposite to 
 you. Last of all was the Rotonde, with its 
 entrance from the rear, its seats length- 
 wise, room for six, and compensating in 
 part for its comparative inferiority in oth- 
 er respects by leaving you free to get in 
 and out as you chose, without consulting 
 
 the conductor. This, however, was but 
 the first story, or the rooms of state of 
 this castle on wheels. On a covered 
 dicky, directly above the coupe, and thus 
 on the very top of the whole machine, 
 was another row of passengers, with the 
 conductor in front, looking down through 
 the dust upon the world beneath them, 
 not very comfortable when the sun was 
 hot, still less comfortable of a rainy day, 
 but just in the place which of all others 
 a real traveller would wish to be in at 
 miorning or evening or of a moonlight 
 night. The remainder of the top was re- 
 served for the baggage, carefully packed 
 and covered up securely from dust and 
 rain. 
 
 I had taken the precaution to engage 
 a seat in the coupe the day before I set 
 out. Of my companions, I am sorry to 
 say, I have not the slightest recollection. 
 But the road was good, — bordered, as so 
 many French roads are, with trees, and 
 filled with a thousand objects full of in- 
 terest to a young traveller. There was 
 the roulage : an immense cart filled with 
 goods of all descriptions, and drawn by 
 four or five horses, ranged one before an- 
 other, each decked with a merry string 
 of bells, and generally rising in gradu- 
 ated proportions from the full-sized lead- 
 er to the enormous thill horse, who bore 
 the heat and burden of the day. Some- 
 times half a dozen of them would pass 
 in a row, the drivers walking together 
 and whiling away the time with stories 
 and songs. Now and then a post-chaise 
 would whirl by with a clattering of wheels 
 and cracking of whip that were general- 
 ly redoubled as it came nearer to the dili- 
 gence, and sank again, when it was pass- 
 ed, into comparative moderation both of 
 noise and speed. There were foot trav- 
 ellers, too, in abundance; and as I saw 
 them walking along under the shade of 
 the long line of trees that bordered the 
 road, I could not help thinking that this 
 thoughtful provision for the protection of 
 the traveller was the most pleasing indi- 
 cation I had yet seen of a country long 
 settled. 
 
 While I was thus looking and won- 
 
656 
 
 Tlie Home of Lafayette. 
 
 [December, 
 
 dering, and drawing perhaps the hasty 
 comparisons of a novice, I saw a gen- 
 tleman coming towards us with a firm, 
 quick step, his blue surtout buttoned tight 
 over his breast, a hght walking-stick in 
 his hand, and with the abstracted air of 
 a man who saw something beyond the 
 reach of the bodily eye. It was Cooper, 
 just returning from a visit to the Gener- 
 al, and dreaming perhaps of his forest- 
 paths or the ocean. His carriage with 
 his family was coming slowly on behind. 
 A day earlier and I should have found 
 them all at La Grange. 
 
 It was evident that the good people of 
 Rosay were accustomed to the sight of 
 travellers on their way to La Grange 
 with a very small stock of French ; for 
 I had hardly named the place, when a 
 brisk little fellow, announcing himself as 
 the guide of all the Messieurs Ameri- 
 cains, swung my portmanteau upon his 
 back and set out before me at the regular 
 jog-trot of a well-trained porter. The 
 distance was but a mile, the country lev- 
 el, and we soon came in sight of the cas- 
 tle. Castle, indeed, it was, with its point- 
 ed Norman towers, its massive walls, and 
 broad moat, — memorials of other days, 
 — and already gray with age before the 
 first roof-tree was laid in the land which 
 its owner had helped to build up to a 
 great nation. On a hill-side its appear- 
 ance would have been grand. As it was, 
 it was impressive, and particularly as first 
 seen from the road. The portcullis was 
 gone, but the arched gateway still re- 
 mained, flanked by towers that looked 
 sombre and stern, even amidst the deep 
 green of the ivy which covered the left 
 tower almost to the battlements. I was 
 afterwards told that the ivy itself had a 
 special significance,— having been plant- 
 ed by Charles Fox, during a visit to La 
 Grange not long before his death. And 
 Fox, it will be remembered, had exert- 
 ed all his eloquence to induce the Eng- 
 lish Government to demand the liberation 
 of Lafayette from Olmiitz, — an act which 
 called down upon him at the time the bit- 
 terest invectives of party rhetoric, but 
 which the historian of England now re- 
 
 cords as a bright page in the fife of one 
 of her greatest men. Ah, how different 
 would our record be, if we could always 
 follow our instinct of immortality, and in 
 all our actions look thoughtfully forward 
 to the judgment of the future ! 
 
 Passing under the massive arch, I found 
 myself in the castle court. Three sides 
 of the edifice were still standing, dark- 
 ened, indeed, and distained by the winds 
 and rains of centuries, but with an air 
 of modern comfort and neatness about 
 the doors and windows that seemed more 
 in keeping than the moat and towers 
 with the habits of the present day. The 
 other curtain had been thrown down 
 years before, — how or why nobody could 
 tell me, but not improbably in some of 
 the domestic wars which fill and defile 
 the annals of mediseval Europe. In those 
 days the loss of it must have been a seri- 
 ous one ; but for the modern occupant 
 it was a real gain,— letting in the air and 
 sunlight, and opening a pleasant view of 
 green plantations from every window of 
 the court. 
 
 A servant met me at the main en- 
 trance, a broad stairway directly oppo- 
 site the gate, and, taking my card, led 
 me up to a spacious hall, where he asked 
 me to wait while he went to announce 
 my arrival to the General. The hall 
 was a large oblong room, plainly, but 
 neatly furnished, with a piano at one 
 end, its tessellated oaken floor highly 
 polished, and communicating by folding- 
 doors with an inner room, in which I 
 caught a glimpse of a bright wood-fire, 
 and a portrait of Bailly over the man- 
 tel. On the wall, to the left of the fold- 
 ing-doors, was suspended an American 
 flag with its blue field of stars and its 
 red and white stripes looking down upon 
 me in a way that made my American 
 veins tingle. 
 
 But I had barely time to look around 
 me before I heard a heavy step on the 
 stairs, and the next moment the General 
 entered. This time he gave me a French 
 greeting, pressing me in his arms and 
 kissing me on both cheeks. " We were 
 expecting you," said he, " and you are 
 
1861.] 
 
 The Home of Lafayette, 
 
 657 
 
 in good season for dinner. Let me show 
 you your room." 
 
 If I had had my choice of all the rooms 
 in the castle, I should have chosen the 
 very one that had been assigned me. It 
 •was on the first — not the ground — floor, 
 at the end of a long vaulted gallery and 
 in a tower. There was a deep alcove 
 from the bed, — a window looking down 
 upon the calm waters of the moat, and 
 giving glimpses, through the trees, of 
 fields and woods beyond, — a fireplace 
 with a cheerful fire, which had evident- 
 ly been kindled the moment my arrival 
 was known, — the tessellated floor with 
 its waxen gloss, — and the usual furniture 
 of a French bed-room, a good table and 
 comfortable chairs. A sugar-bowl filled 
 with sparkling beet sugar, and a decan- 
 ter of fresh water, on the mantel-piece, 
 would have shown me, if there had been 
 nothing else to show it, that I was in 
 France. The General looked round the 
 room to make sure that all was comfort- 
 ably arranged for me, and then renew- 
 ing his welcome, and telling me that the 
 castle -bell would ring for dinner in 
 about half an hour, left me to take pos- 
 session of my quarters and change my 
 dress. 
 
 If I had not been afraid of getting be- 
 lated, I should have sat down awhile to 
 collect my thoughts and endeavor to 
 realize where I was. But as it was, I 
 could do little more than unpack my 
 trunk, arrange my books and writing- 
 materials on the table, and change my 
 dusty clothes, before the bell rang. Oh, 
 how that bell sounded through the long 
 corridor from its watch-tower over the 
 gateway ! And how I shrank back when 
 I found myself on the threshold of the 
 hall and saw the inner room full ! The 
 General must have divined my feelings; 
 for, the moment he saw me, he came for- 
 ward to meet me, and, taking me by the 
 arm, presented me to all the elders of the 
 party in turn. He apparently supposed, 
 that, with the start I had had in the Rue 
 d'Anjou, I should make my way among 
 the younger ones myself 
 
 It was a family circle covering three 
 
 generations : the General, his son and 
 daughter-in-law and two daughters, and 
 ten grandchildren, — among whom I was 
 glad to see some of both sexes sufficient- 
 ly near my own age to open a very 
 pleasant prospect for me whenever I 
 should have learnt French enough to 
 feel at home among them. Nor was the 
 domestic character of the group broken 
 by the presence of a son of Casimir 
 Perier, who was soon to marry George 
 Lafayette's eldest daughter, the Count 
 de Segur, the General's uncle, though 
 but a month or two his elder, and the 
 Count de Tracy, father of Madame 
 George de Lafayette, and founder of 
 the French school of Ideology, compan- 
 ions, both of them, of the General's youth, 
 and, at this serene close of a life of 
 strange vicissitudes and bitter trials, still 
 his friends. Levasseur, his secretary, who 
 had accompanied him in his visit to the 
 United States, with his German wife, 
 a young gentleman whose name I have 
 forgotten, but who was the private tutor 
 of young Jules de Lasteyrie, and Major 
 Frye, an English half- pay officer, of 
 whom I shall have a good deal more 
 to say by-and-by, completed the circle. 
 We formed a long procession to the din- 
 ing-room, and I shall never forget how 
 awkAvard I felt on finding myself walk- 
 ing, with the General's arm in mine, at 
 the head of it. There was a certain air 
 of high breeding, of respect for others 
 founded on self-respect, and a perfect 
 familiarity with all the forms of society, 
 which relieved me from much of my em- 
 barrassment by making me feel instinc- 
 tively that nobody would take unpleas- 
 ant notice of it. Still, that first dinner 
 was a trial to my nerves, though I do 
 not remember that the trial interfered 
 with my appetite. It was served, of 
 course, in courses, beginning with soup 
 and ending with fruit. Most of the dish- 
 es, as I afterwards learned, were the prod- 
 uce of the farm, and they certainly bore 
 good witness to the farmer's judgment 
 and skill. The General was a hearty 
 eater, as most Frenchmen are ; but he 
 loved to season his food with conversa- 
 
658 
 
 The Home of Lafayette. 
 
 [December, 
 
 tlon, and, much as lie relished his meals, 
 he seemed to relish the pleasant talk be- 
 tween the courses still more. As I was 
 unable to follow the conversation of the 
 table, I came in for a large share of the 
 ' General's attention, "who would turn to 
 me every now and then with something 
 pleasant to say. He had had the con- 
 sideration, too, to place one of the young 
 ladies next to me, directly on my right, 
 as I was on his ; and her English, though 
 not perfectly fluent, was fluent enough to 
 enable us to keep up a lively interlude. 
 
 On returning to the drawing-room, the 
 General led me up to a portrait of my 
 grandfather, and indulged himself for a 
 while in endeavoring to trace a resem- 
 blance between us. I say indulged ; for 
 he often, down to the last time that I 
 ever saw him, came back to this subject, 
 and seemed to take a peculiar pleasure 
 in it. He had been warmly attached 
 to General Greene, and the attachment 
 which both of them bore to Washington 
 served to strengthen their attachment to 
 each other. This portrait, a copy from 
 Peale, had been one of the fruits of his 
 last visit to the United States, and hung, 
 with those of some other personal friends, 
 — great men all of them, — on the draw- 
 ing-room wall. His Washington was a 
 bronze from Houdon's bust, and stood 
 opposite the mantel-piece on a marble 
 pedestal. Conversation and music filled 
 up the rest of the evening, and before I 
 withdrew for the night it had been ar- 
 ranged that I should begin my French 
 the next morning, with one of the young 
 ladies for teacher. And thus ended my 
 first day at La Grange. 
 
 EVERY -DAY LIFE AT LA GRANGE. 
 
 The daily life at La Grange was ne- 
 cessarily systematic. The General's po- 
 sition compelled him to see a great deal 
 of company and exposed him to con- 
 stant interruptions. He kept a kind of 
 open table, at which part of the faces 
 seemed to be changing every day. Then 
 there were his own children, with claims 
 upon his attention which he was not dis- 
 
 posed to deny, and a large family of 
 grandchildren to educate, upon all of 
 whose minds he wished to leave personal 
 impressions of their intercourse with him 
 which should make them feel how much 
 he loved and cherished them all. For- 
 tunately, the size of the castle made it 
 easy to keep the family rooms distant 
 from the rooms of the guests ; and a judi- 
 cious division of time enabled him to pre- 
 serve a degree of freedom in the midst 
 of constraint, which, though the rule in 
 Europe, American hosts in town or coun- 
 try have very little conception of. 
 
 Every one rose at his own hour, and 
 was master of his time till eleven. If he 
 wanted an early breakfast, he could have 
 a cup of cofiee or chocolate or milk in 
 his room for the asking. But the family 
 breakfast -hour was at eleven, a true 
 French breakfast, and attended with all 
 the forms of dinner except in dress. The 
 castle-bell was rung ; the household col- 
 lected in the pfrlor; and all descend- 
 ed in one order to the dining-room. It 
 was pleasant to see this morning gath- 
 ering. The General was almost always 
 among the first to come in and take his 
 stand by the fireplace, with a cordial 
 greeting for each guest in turn. As his 
 grandchildren entered, they went up to 
 offer their morning salutations to him 
 first of all, and there was the paternal 
 kiss on the forehead and a pleasant word 
 for each. His son and daughters gen- 
 erally saw him in his own room before 
 they came down. 
 
 Breakfast was a cheerful meal, served 
 in courses like dinner, and seasoned with 
 conversation, in which every one was free 
 to take a part or listen, as he felt dispos- 
 ed. There was no hurry, no confusion 
 about it; all sat down and rose at the 
 same time ; and as every one that worked 
 at all had evidently done part of his day's 
 work before he came to table, all came 
 with good appetites. Then came the 
 family walk, all starting out in a group, 
 but always sure to break up into smaller 
 groups as they went on : the natural law 
 of aflUnities never failing to make itself 
 felt, and they who found most pleasure 
 
1861.] 
 
 The Home of Lafayette. 
 
 659 
 
 in each other's society generally ending 
 their walk together. Sometimes the Gen- 
 eral would come a little way with us, but 
 soon turned off to the farm, or dropped be- 
 hind and went back to his books and let- 
 ters. An hour in the grounds passed quick- 
 ly, — too quickly, I often used to think ; 
 and then, unless, as occasionally happen- 
 ed, there was an excursion on foot which 
 all were to take part in, the members of 
 the family withdrew to their own apart- 
 ments, and the guests were left free to 
 fill up the time till dinner as they chose. 
 With books, papers, and visits from room 
 to room, or strolls about the grounds, the 
 hours never lagged; and much as one 
 day seemed like another, there was al- 
 ways something of its own to remember 
 it by. Of course, this regularity was not 
 the result of chance. Behind the visible 
 curtain was the invisible spirit guiding 
 and directing all. It was no easy task 
 to provide abundantly, and yet judicious- 
 ly, for a family always large, but which 
 might at any moment be almost doubled 
 without an hour's notice. The farm, as I 
 have already said, furnished a full propor- 
 tion of the daily supplies, and the Gen- 
 eral was the farmer. But the daily task 
 of distribution and arrangement fell to 
 the young ladies, each of whom took her 
 week of housekeeping in turn. The 
 very first morning I was admitted be- 
 hind the scenes. " If you want anything 
 before breakfast,'* said one of the young 
 ladies, as the evening circle was breaking 
 up, " come down into the butler's room 
 and get it." And to the butler's room I 
 went; and there, in a calico fitted as 
 neatly as the rich silk of the evening be- 
 fore, with no papers in her hair, with 
 nothing but a richer glow to distinguish 
 the morning from the evening face, with 
 laughing eyes and busy hands, issuing 
 orders and inspecting dishes, stood the 
 very girl with whom I was to begin at 
 nine my initiation into the mysteries of 
 French. There must have been some- 
 thing peculiar in the grass which the 
 cows fed on at La Grange ; for I used to 
 go regularly every morning for my cup 
 of milk, and it never disagreed with me. 
 
 MY FRENCH. 
 
 Oh, that lesson of French ! Two seats 
 at the snug little writing-table, and only 
 one witness of my blunders ; for nobody 
 ever thought of coming into the drawing- 
 room before the breakfast-bell. Unfortu- 
 nately for me, OUendorfi" had not yet pub- 
 lished his thefts from Manesca ; and in- 
 stead of that brisk little war of question 
 and answer, which loosens the tongue so 
 readily to strange sounds and forms the 
 memory so promptly to the combinations 
 of a new idiom, I had to struggle on 
 through the scanty rules and multitudi- 
 nous exceptions of grammar, and pick 
 my way with the help of a dictionary 
 through the harmonious sentences of 
 " Telemaque." And never had sentences 
 seemed so harmonious to my ears before ; 
 and never, I fear, before had my young 
 friend's patience been so sorely tried, or 
 her love of fun put under so unnatural a 
 restraint. " Calypso ne pouvait se conso- 
 ler" over and over and over again, her 
 rosy lips moving slowly in order to give 
 distinctness to every articulation, and her 
 blue eyes fairly dancing with repressed 
 laughter at my awkward imitation. If my 
 teacher's patience could have given me 
 a good pronunciation, mine would have 
 been perfect. Day after day she came 
 back to her task, and ever as the clock 
 told nine would meet me at the door with 
 the same genial smile. 
 
 Nearly twenty years afterwards I found 
 myself once more in Paris, and at a large 
 party at the house of the American Min- 
 ister, the late Mr. King. As I was wan- 
 dering through the rooms, looking at 
 group after group of unknown faces, my 
 eye fell upon one that I should have rec- 
 ognized at once as that of my first teacher 
 of French, if it had not seemed to me 
 impossible that twenty years could have 
 passed over it so lightly. 
 
 " Who is that lady ? *' I asked of a gen- 
 tleman near me, whom it was impossible 
 not to set down at once for an Ameri- 
 can. 
 
 " Why, that is Madame de , a 
 
 grand-daughter of General Lafayette." 
 
660 
 
 The Home of Lafayette 
 
 [December, 
 
 I can hardly account, at this quiet mo- 
 ment, for the sudden impulse that seized 
 me ; but resist it I could not ; and walk- 
 ing directly up to her, I made my lowest 
 bow, and, without giving her time to look 
 me well in the face, repeated, with all the 
 gravity I could command, " Calypso ne 
 pouvait se consoler du depart d'Ulysse." 
 
 " O ! Monsieur Greene," said she, hold- 
 ing out both her hands, "it must be 
 you!" 
 
 THE GENERAL. 
 
 General Lafayette had just en- 
 tered his seventy-first year. In his child- 
 hood he had been troubled by a weak- 
 ness of the chest which gave his friends 
 some anxiety. But his constitution was 
 naturally good, and air, exercise, and ex- 
 posure gradually wore away every trace 
 of his original debility. In person he 
 was tall and strongly built, with broad 
 shoulders, large limbs, and a general air 
 of strength, which was rather increased 
 than diminished by an evident tending 
 towards corpulency. While still a young 
 man, his right leg — the same, I believe, 
 that had been wounded in rallying our 
 broken troops at the Brandy wine — was 
 fractured by a fall on the ice, leaving him 
 lame for the rest of his days. This did 
 not prevent him, however, from walking 
 about his farm, though it cut him off from 
 the use of the saddle, and gave a halt to 
 his gait, which but for his dignity of car- 
 riage would have approached to awk- 
 wardness. Indeed, he had more dignity 
 of bearing than any man I ever saw. 
 And it was not merely the dignity of 
 self-possession, which early familiarity 
 with society and early habits of com- 
 mand may give even to an ordinary 
 man, but that elevation of manner which 
 springs from an habitual elevation of 
 thought, bearing witness to the purity 
 of its source, as a clear eye and ruddy 
 cheek bear witness to the purity of the 
 air you daily breathe. In some respects 
 he was the mercurial Frenchman to the 
 last day of his life ; yet his general bear- 
 ing, that in which he comes oftenest to 
 
 my memory, was of calm earnestness, 
 tempered and mellowed by quick sym- 
 pathies. 
 
 His method of life was very regular, — 
 the regularity of thirty years of compara- 
 tive retirement, following close upon fif- 
 teen years of active public life, begun at 
 twenty in the army of Washington, and 
 ending in a Prussian and Austrian dun- 
 geon at thirty-five. 
 
 His private apartments consisted of 
 two rooms on the second floor. The first 
 was his bed-room, a cheerful, though not 
 a large room, nearly square, with a com- 
 fortable fireplace, and a window looking 
 out upon the lawn and woods behind the 
 castle. Just outside of the bed-room, and 
 the first object that struck your eye on 
 approaching it from the gallery, was a pic- 
 ture by one of his daughters, represent- 
 ing the burly turnkey of Olmiitz in the 
 act of unlocking his dungeon-door. " It 
 is a good likeness," said the General to 
 me, the first time that he took me to his 
 rooms, — "a very good likeness. I re- 
 member the features well." From the 
 bed-room a door opened into a large tur- 
 ret-room, well lighted and airy, and which, 
 taking its shape from the tower in which 
 it stood, was almost a perfect circle. This 
 was the General's library. The books 
 were arranged in open cases, filling the 
 walls from floor to ceiling, and with a 
 neatness and order which revealed an 
 artistic appreciation of their effect. It 
 was lighted by two windows, one open- 
 ing on the lawn, the other on the farm- 
 yards, and both, from the thickness of 
 the walls, looking like deep recesses. In 
 the window that looked upon the farm- 
 yards was the General's writing-table 
 and seat. A spy-glass lay within reach, 
 enabling him to overlook the yard-work 
 without rising from his chair; and on 
 the table were his farm-books, with the 
 record of crops and improvements enter- 
 ed in regular order with his own hand. 
 Charles Sumner, who visited La Grange 
 last summer, tells me that they He there 
 still. 
 
 The library was miscellaneous, many 
 of the books being presentation -copies, 
 
1861.] 
 
 The Home of Lafayette. 
 
 661 
 
 and most of tliem neatly bound. Its pre- 
 dominant character, as nearly as I can 
 recollect, was historical ; the history in 
 which he had borne so important a part 
 naturally coming in for a full share. 
 Though not a scholar from choice, Gen- 
 eral Lafayette loved books, and was well 
 read. His Latin had stood him in stead 
 at Olmiitz for his brief communication 
 with his surgeon ; and I have a distinct 
 impression, though I cannot vouch for 
 the correctness of it, that he never drop- 
 ped it altogether. His associations were 
 too much among men of thought as well 
 as men of action, and the responsibilities 
 that weighed upon him were too grave, 
 to permit so conscientious a man to neg- 
 lect the aid of books. Of the historians 
 of our Revolution, he preferred Ramsay, 
 who had, as he said, put everything into 
 his two volumes, and abridged as well as 
 Eutropius. It was, perhaps, the pres- 
 ence of something of the same quality 
 that led him to give the preference, 
 among the numerous histories of the 
 French Revolution, to Mignet, though, in 
 putting him into my hands, he cautioned 
 me against that dangerous spirit of fatal- 
 ism, which, making man the unconscious 
 instrument of an irresistible necessity, 
 leaves him no real responsibility for evil 
 or for good. 
 
 It was in this room that he passed the 
 greater part of the time that was not giv- 
 en to his farm or his guests. I never 
 entered it without finding him at his 
 desk, with his pen or a book in hand. 
 His correspondence was so extensive that 
 he was always obliged to keep a secre- 
 tary, though a large portion of his letters 
 were written with his own hand. He 
 wrote rapidly in fact, though not rapidly 
 to the eye ; and you were surprised, in 
 seeing his hand move over the paper, 
 to find how soon it reached the bottom 
 of the sheet, and how closely it filled it 
 up. His handwriting was clear and dis- 
 tinct, neither decidedly French nor de- 
 cidedly English, — like all his habits and 
 opinions, formed early and never changed. 
 I have letters of his to my grandfather, 
 written during the Revolution, and letters 
 
 of his to myself, written fifty years after 
 it, in which it is almost impossible to 
 trace the difference between the old man 
 and the young one. English he seemed 
 to write as readily as French, although 
 a strong Gallicism would every now and 
 then slip from his pen, as it slipped from 
 his tongue. " I had to learn in a hur- 
 ry," said he, giving me one day the his- 
 tory of his English studies. "I began 
 on my passage out, as soon as I got over 
 my sea-sickness, and picked up the rest 
 in camp. I was compelled to write and 
 talk, and so I learned to write and talk. 
 The officers were very kind and never 
 laughed at me. After the peace, Colonel 
 Tarleton came over to Paris, and was 
 presented to the King one day when I 
 happened to be at Court. The King ask- 
 ed him how I spoke English. ' I cannot 
 say how he speaks it, Sire,' said the Col- 
 onel, ' but I occasionally had the good- 
 luck to pick up some of his letters that 
 were going the wrong way, and I can 
 assure your Majesty that they were very 
 well written.' " 
 
 His valet was an old soldier, who had 
 served through the Peninsular War, and 
 who moved about with the orderly gait 
 and quiet air of a man who had passed 
 his heyday under the forming influences 
 of camp discipline. He was a most re- 
 spectable-looking man, as well as a most 
 respectful servant ; and it was impossi- 
 ble to see him busying himself about the 
 General at his morning toilet, and watch 
 his dehcate handling of the lather-brush 
 and razor, without feeling, that, however 
 true the old proverb may have been in 
 other cases, Bastien's master was a hero 
 to him. 
 
 The General's dress was always sim- 
 ple, though studiously neat. His repub- 
 licanism was of the school of Washington, 
 and would have shrunk from a public 
 display of a bare neck and shirt-sleeves. 
 Blue was his usual winter color ; a frock- 
 coat in the morning, and a dress-coat for 
 dinner, and both near enough to the pre- 
 vailing fashion to escape remark. He 
 had begun serious life too early to have 
 ever been anything of a dandy, even if 
 
662 
 
 The Home of Lafayette, 
 
 [December, 
 
 Nature had seen fit to contradict her- 
 self so far as to have intended him for 
 one. 
 
 Jewelry I never saw him wear; but 
 there was one little compartment in his 
 library filled with what in a certain sense 
 might be called jewelry, and of a kind 
 that he had good reason to be proud of 
 In one of the drawers was a sword made 
 out of a key of the Bastile, and present- 
 ed to him by the city of Paris. The 
 other key he sent to Washington. When 
 he was a young man the Bastile was a 
 reality, and those keys still plied their 
 dismal work at the bidding of a power 
 as insensible to the suffering it caused 
 as the steel of which they were made. 
 Of the hundreds who with sinking hearts 
 had heard them turn in their massive 
 wards, how few had ever come back to 
 tell the tale of their misery ! Lafayette 
 himself, but for the quick wit of a ser- 
 vant-maid, might have passed there some 
 of^he youthful days that he passed at the 
 side of Washington, and gazed dimly, as 
 at a dream, in the Bastile, at what he 
 could look back upon as a proud reality 
 in Olmlitz. Another of his relics was a 
 civic crown, oak-leaf wrought in gold, the 
 gift of the city of Lyons ; but this belong- 
 ed to a later period, his last visit to Au- 
 vergne, the summer before the Revolu- 
 tion of July, and which called forth as 
 enthusiastic a display of popular affec- 
 tion as that which had greeted his last 
 visit to America. But the one which he 
 seemed to prize most was a very plain 
 pair of eye-glasses, in a simple horn case, 
 if my memory does not deceive me, but 
 which, in his estimation, neither gold nor 
 jewels could have replaced, for they had 
 once belonged to Washington. " He gave 
 them to me," said the General, " on my 
 last visit to Mount Vernon." 
 
 He was an early riser, and his work 
 began the moment he left his pillow. 
 First came his letters, always a heavy 
 drain upon his time ; for he had been so 
 long a public man that everybody felt 
 free to consult him, and everybody that 
 consulted him was sure of a polite an- 
 swer. Then his personal friends had 
 
 their claims, some of them running back 
 to youth, some the gradual accession of 
 later years, and all of them cherished with 
 that genial and confiding expansiveness 
 which was the great charm of his private 
 life, and the chief source, when he did 
 err, of his errors as a public man. Like 
 all the men of Washington's school, he 
 was systematically industrious ; and by 
 dint of system and industry his immense 
 correspondence was seldom allowed to 
 get the start of him. Important letters 
 were answered as they came, and minutes 
 or copies of the answers kept for refer- 
 ence. He seemed to love his pen, and 
 to write without effort, — never aiming, 
 it is true, at the higher graces of style, 
 somewhat diffuse, too, both in French and 
 in English, but easy, natural, idiomatic, 
 and lucid, with the distinctness of clear 
 conceptions rather than the precision of 
 vigorous conceptions, and a warmth which 
 in his public letters sometimes rose, to 
 eloquence, and in his private letters of- 
 ten made you feel as if you were listen- 
 ing instead of reading. 
 
 He was fond of anecdote, and told his 
 stories with the fluency of a man accus- 
 tomed to public speaking, and the ani- 
 mation and point of a man accustomed 
 to the society of men of wit as well as of 
 men of action. His recollections were 
 wonderfully distinct, and it always gave 
 me a peculiar thrill to hear him talk about 
 the great men he had lived and acted 
 with in both hemispheres, as familiarly 
 as if he had parted from them only an 
 hour before. It was bringing history 
 very close to me, and peopling it with 
 living beings, — beings of flesh and blood, 
 who ate and drank and slept and wore 
 clothes as we do ; for here was one of 
 them, the friend and companion of the 
 greatest among them all, whom I had 
 known through books, as I knew them 
 long before I knew him in actual life, 
 and every one of whose words and ges- 
 tures seemed to give me a clearer con- 
 ception of what they, too, must have been. 
 
 Still he never appeared to live in the 
 recollections of his youth, as most old 
 men do. His life was too active a one 
 
1861.] 
 
 A Field Night in the House of Commons. 
 
 663 
 
 for this, and the great principles he had 
 consecrated it to were too far-reaching 
 and comprehensive, too full of living, ac- 
 tual interest, too fresh and vigorous in 
 their vitality, to allow a man of his san- 
 guine and active temperament to forget 
 himself in the past when there was so 
 much to do in the present. This gave a 
 peculiar charm to his conversation ; for, 
 no matter what the subject might be, he 
 always talked like a man who believed 
 what he said, and whose faith, a living 
 principle of thought and action, was con- 
 stantly kept in a genial glow by the quick- 
 ness and depth of his sympathies. His 
 smile told this ; for it was full of sweet- 
 ness and gentleness, though with a dash 
 of earnestness about it, an under-current 
 of serious thought, that made you feel as 
 if you wanted to look behind it, and re- 
 minded you, at times, of a landscape at 
 sunset, when there is just light enough to 
 show you how many things there are in 
 it that you would gladly dwell upon, if 
 the day were only a little longer. 
 
 His intercourse with his children was 
 affectionate and confiding, — that with his 
 daughters touchingly so. They had shar- 
 ed with him two years of his captivity at 
 Olmiitz, and he seemed never to look at 
 them without remembering it. They had 
 been his companions when he most need- 
 ed companionship, and had learnt to enter 
 into his feelings and study his happiness 
 at an age when most girls are absorbed 
 in themselves. The effect of this early 
 discipline was never lost. They had 
 found happiness where few seek it, in 
 self-denial and self-control, a religious 
 cultivation of domestic affections, and a 
 thoughtful development of their minds as 
 sources of strength and enjoyment. They 
 were happy, — happy in what they had 
 done and in what they were doing, — en- 
 tering cheerfully upon the serene even- 
 ing of lives consecrated to duty, with 
 children around them to love them as 
 they had loved their father and mother, 
 and that father still with them to tell 
 them that they had never deceived him. 
 
 A FIELD NIGHT IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 
 
 To an intelligent American visiting 
 London for the first time, few places of 
 interest will present stronger attractions 
 than the House of Commons during an 
 animated debate. Commencing its exist- 
 ence with the first crude ideas of popular 
 liberty in England, steadily advancing in 
 influence and importance with the in- 
 creasing wealth and intelligence of the 
 middling class, until it came to hold the 
 purse and successfully defend the rights 
 of the people, illustrated for many gen- 
 erations by the eloquence and the states- 
 manship of the kingdom, and to-day wield- 
 ing the power and directing the destinies 
 of the foremost nation in the world, it is 
 not strange that an American, speaking 
 the same language, and proud of the same 
 ancestry, should visit with the deepest 
 
 interest the scene of so many and so im- 
 portant transactions. Especially will this 
 be the case, if by experience or obser- 
 vation he has become familiar with the 
 course of proceedings in our own legisla- 
 tive assemblies. For, although the Eng- 
 lish House of Commons is the parent of 
 all similar deliberative bodies in the civ- 
 ilized world, yet its rules and regulations 
 are in many respects essentially unique. 
 
 Assuming that many of my readers 
 have never enjoyed the opportunity of 
 " sitting out a debate " in Parliament, I 
 have ventured to hope that a description 
 of some of the distinctive features which 
 are peculiar to the House of Commons, 
 and a sketch of some of its prominent 
 members, might not be unwelcome. 
 
 In 1840 the corner-stone of the New 
 
664 
 
 A Field Night in the House of Commons. [December, 
 
 Palace of Westminster was laid, and at 
 the commencement of the session of 1852 
 the first official occupation of the House 
 of Commons took place. The House of 
 Peers was first used in 1847. It is not 
 consistent with the object of this article 
 to speak of the dimensions and general 
 appearance of this magnificent structure. 
 It is suflicient to say, that in its architec- 
 tural design, in its interior decorations, 
 and in its perfect adaptation to the pur- 
 poses for which it was erected, it is alike 
 creditable to the public spirit of the na- 
 tion, and to the improved condition of 
 the fine and useful arts in the present 
 century. 
 
 The entrance to the House of Com- 
 mons is through Westminster Hall. What 
 wealth of historical recollections is suggest- 
 ed by this name ! As, however, we are 
 dealing with the present, we dare not 
 even touch upon so fruitful a theme, but 
 must hasten through the grand old hall, 
 remarking only in passing that it is sup- 
 posed to have been originally built in 
 1097, and was rebuilt by Richard 11. in 
 1398. With a single exception, — the 
 Hall of Justice in Padua, — it is the lar- 
 gest apartment unsupported by pillars in 
 the world. Reluctantly leaving this his- 
 torical ground, we enter St. Stephen's 
 Hall. This room, rich in architectural 
 ornaments and most graceful in its pro- 
 portions, is still further adorned with 
 statues of "men who rose to eminence 
 by the eloquence and abilities they dis- 
 played in the House of Commons." Who 
 will dispute their claims to this distinc- 
 tion ? The names selected for such hon- 
 orable immortality are Selden, Hamp- 
 den, Falkland, Lord Clarendon, Lord 
 Somers, Sir Robert Walpole, Lord Chat- 
 ham, Lord Mansfield, Burke, Fox, Pitt, 
 and Grattan. 
 
 We have now reached the Great Cen- 
 tral Hall, out of which open two corri- 
 dors, one of which leads to the lobby 
 of the House of Lords. Passing through 
 the other, we find ourselves in the lobby 
 of the House of Commons. Here we 
 must pause and look about us. We are 
 in a large apartment brilliantly lighted 
 
 and richly decorated. As we stand with 
 our backs to the Great Central Hall, the 
 passage-way to the right conducts to the 
 library and refreshment rooms, that on 
 the left is the private entrance of the 
 members through the old cloisters of 
 Stephen's, that in front is the main en- 
 trance to the floor of the House. In the 
 corner on our right is a small table, gar- 
 nished with all the materials for a cold 
 lunch for the use of those members who 
 have no time for a more substantial meal 
 in the dining-room. Stimulants of vari- 
 ous kinds are not wanting ; but the habits 
 of Englishmen and the presence of vigi- 
 lant policemen prevent any abuse of this 
 privilege. The refreshments thus provid- 
 ed are open to all, and in this qualified 
 sense I may say that I have lunched 
 with Disraeli, Lord John Russell, and 
 Lord Palmerston. 
 
 But the hour has nearly come for open- 
 ing the debate ; members are rapidly ar- 
 riving and taking their seats, and we shall 
 do well to decide upon the best mode of 
 gaining admission to the House. There 
 are a few benches on the floor reserv- 
 ed, as of right, for peers and their sons, 
 and, by courtesy, for gentlemen introdu- 
 ced by them. I may be pardoned for pre- 
 suming that this high privilege is beyond 
 our reach. Our only alternative, then, 
 is the galleries. These are, the Speaker's 
 Gallery, on the south side of the House, 
 and directly opposite the Speaker's chair, 
 affording room for between twenty and 
 thirty, and the Strangers' Gallery, be- 
 hind this, with seats for about sixty. Vis- 
 itors have only these limited accommoda- 
 tions. The arrangement deprives mem- 
 bers of all temptation to " speak to the 
 galleries," and is consistent with the 
 English theory, that all debates in the 
 House should be strictly of a business 
 character. And as to anything like ap- 
 plause on the part of the spectators, what 
 punishment known to any criminal code 
 among civilized nations would be too se- 
 vere for such an offence ? 
 
 The American Minister (and of course 
 every representative of a foreign power) 
 has the right to give two cards of admis- 
 
1861.] 
 
 A Field Night in the House of Commons. 
 
 665 
 
 sion, entitling tlie bearer of each to a 
 seat in the Speaker's Gallery. But these 
 cards admit only on a specified even- 
 ing, and if not used then, are worth- 
 less. If you have called on our distin- 
 guished representative at the Court of 
 St. James, you have probably discovered 
 that his list is full for the next fortnight 
 at least, and, although the Secretary of 
 Legation politely asks your name, and 
 promises you the earliest opportunity, 
 you retire with a natural feeling of disap- 
 pointment. Many Americans, having 
 only a few days to spend in London, 
 leave the city without making any fur- 
 ther effort to visit the House of Com- 
 mons. It would certainly have been well 
 to forward, in advance of your arrival in 
 London, a written application to the Min- 
 ister ; but as this has not been done, what 
 remains ? Ask your banker for a note 
 of introduction to some member of the 
 House, and, armed with this epistle, make 
 your appearance in the lobby. Give 
 the note, with your card, to that grave, 
 clerical-looking man in a little box on 
 the left of the main entrance, and pa- 
 tiently await the approach of the " hon- 
 orable gentleman." If the Speaker's 
 Gallery is not full, he will have no diffi- 
 culty in procuring for you the desired 
 admission ; and if at leisure, he will un- 
 doubtedly spend a few moments in point- 
 ing out the distinguished men who may 
 chance to be in attendance. Be sure 
 and carry an opera-glass. Without this 
 precaution, you will not be able to study 
 to your satisfaction the faces of the mem- 
 bers, for the House is by no means bril- 
 liantly illuminated. If for any reason this 
 last expedient does not succeed, must we 
 despair for this evening ? We are on 
 the ground, and our engagements may 
 not leave another so good opportunity. 
 I have alluded to the presence of police- 
 men in the lobby. Do I dream, or has it 
 been whispered to me, that half a crown, 
 opportunely and adroitly invested, may 
 be of substantial advantage to the wait- 
 ing stranger? But by all means insist 
 on the Speaker's Gallery. The Stran- 
 gers' Gallery is less desirable for many 
 
 VOL. VIII. 43 
 
 reasons, and, being open to everybody 
 who has a member's order, is almost in- 
 variably crowded. At all events, it should 
 be reserved as a dernier resort. As an 
 illustration of the kindly feeling towards 
 Americans, I may mention, parenthetical- 
 ly, that I have known gentlemen admit- 
 ted to the Speaker's Gallery on their 
 simple statement to the door-keeper that 
 they were from the United States. On 
 one of these occasions, the official, a civ- 
 il personage, but usually grave to the 
 verge of solemnity, — the very last man 
 you would have selected as capable of 
 waggery, — assumed a comical counter- 
 feit of terror, and said, — " Bless me ! 
 we must be obliging to Americans, or 
 who knows what may come of it ? " 
 
 It should be observed, however, that 
 on a " field night " not one of the modes 
 of admission which I have described will 
 be of any service. Nothing will avail 
 you then but a place on the Speaker's 
 list, and even in that case you must be 
 promptly at your post, for " First come 
 first served" is the rule. 
 
 But we have hngered long enough in 
 the Lobby. Let us take our places in 
 the Speaker's Gallery, — for the essayist 
 has hardly less power than, according to 
 Sydney Smith, has the novelist, and a 
 few strokes of the pen shall show you 
 what many have in vain longed to see. 
 
 Once there, our attention is instantly 
 attracted by observing that almost every 
 member, who is not speaking, wears his 
 hat. This, although customary, is not 
 compulsory. Parliamentary etiquette on- 
 ly insists that a member while speaking, 
 or moving from place to place, shall be 
 uncovered. The gallery opposite the one 
 in which we are seated is for the use of 
 the reporters. That ornamental brass 
 trellis in the rear of the reporters, half 
 concealing a party of ladies, is a curious 
 compromise between what is due to tra- 
 ditional Parliamentary regulations and 
 the courtesy to which the fair sex is en- 
 titled. This relaxation of the old rules 
 dates only from the erection of the new 
 building. 
 
 The perfect order which prevails among 
 
666 
 
 A Meld Night in the House of Commons. [December, 
 
 members is another marked feature dur- 
 ing the debates. The bewigged and be- 
 robed Speaker, seated in his imposing 
 high-backed chair, seems rather to be re- 
 tained in his place out of due deference 
 to time-honored custom than because a 
 presiding officer is necessary to preserve 
 proper decorum. To be sure, demon- 
 strations of applause at a good hit, or of 
 discontent with a prosy speaker, are com- 
 mon, but anything approaching disorder 
 is of rare occurrence. 
 
 The adherence to forms and prece- 
 dents is not a little amusing. Take, for 
 example, a " division," which corresponds 
 to a call for the Ayes and Noes with us. 
 To select an instance at random, — there 
 happens this evening to be a good deal 
 of excitement about some documents 
 which it is alleged the Ministry dare not 
 produce ; so the minority, who oppose 
 the bill under debate, make a great show 
 of demanding the papers, and, not being 
 gratified, move to adjourn the debate, 
 with the design of postponing the passage 
 of the obnoxious measure. 
 
 "I move that the debate be adjourn- 
 ed." 
 
 " Who seconds ? '* 
 
 " I do." 
 
 " Those in the affirmative," etc., etc. 
 
 Feeble " Aye." 
 
 Most emphatic " No." 
 
 " The noes have it." 
 
 " No ! " " No ! " 
 
 "Aye!" "Aye!" 
 
 " Divide ! " " Divide ! " in a perfect 
 Babel of orderly confusion. 
 
 (Speaker, very solemnly and decided- 
 
 " Strangers must withdraw ! " 
 Is the gallery immediately cleared? 
 Not a bit of it. Every man retains his 
 place. Some even seem, to my fancy, to 
 look a sort of grim defiance at the Speak- 
 er, as a bold Briton should. It is simply 
 a form, which many years ago had some 
 •meaning, and, having once been used, 
 cannot be discontinued without putting 
 the Constitution in jeopardy. Five times 
 this evening, the minority, intent on post- 
 :poning the debate, call for a division, — 
 
 and as many times are strangers gravely 
 admonished to withdraw. 
 
 There are two modes of adjourning 
 the House, — by vote of the members, 
 and by want of a quorum. The method 
 of procedure in the latter case is some- 
 what peculiar, and has, of course, the 
 sanction of many generations. Suppose 
 that a dull debate on an unimportant 
 measure, numerous dinner-parties, a fash- 
 ionable opera, and other causes, have 
 combined to reduce the number of mem- 
 bers in attendance to a dozen. It certain- 
 ly is not difficult to decide at a glance that 
 a quorum (forty) is not present, and I pre- 
 sume you are every instant expecting, in 
 your innocence, to hear, "Mr. Speaker, 
 I move," etc. Pause a moment, my impa- 
 tient friend, too long accustomed to the 
 reckless haste of our Republican assem- 
 blies. Do not, even in thought, tamper 
 with the Constitution. " The wisdom of 
 our ancestors" has bequeathed another 
 and undoubtedly a better mode of arriv- 
 ing at the same result. Some member 
 quietly intimates to the Speaker that forty 
 members are not present. That dignified 
 official then rises, and, using his cocked 
 hat as an index or pointer, deliberately 
 counts the members. Discovering, as the 
 apparent result of careful examination, 
 that there really is no quorum, he de- 
 clares the House adjourned and sits down ; 
 whereupon the Sergeant-at-Arms seizes 
 the mace, shoulders it, and marches out, 
 followed by the Speaker. Then, and not 
 until then, is the ceremony complete and 
 the House duly adjourned. 
 
 This respect for traditional usage ad- 
 mits of almost endless illustration. One 
 more example must suffice. When the 
 Speaker discovers symptoms of disorder 
 in the House, he rises in his place and 
 says with all suitable solemnity, " Unless 
 Honorable Members preserve order, I 
 shall name names ! " and quiet is instant- 
 ly restored. What mysterious and appal- 
 ling consequences would result from per- 
 sistent disobedience, nobody in or out of 
 the House has ever known, or probably 
 ever will know, — at any rate, no Speak- 
 er in Parliamentary annals has been com- 
 
1861.] 
 
 A Field Night in the Bouse of Commons. 
 
 667 
 
 pelled to adopt the dreaded alternative. 
 Shall I be thought wanting in patriotism, 
 if I venture to doubt whether so simple 
 an expedient would reduce to submission 
 an insubordinate House of Representa- 
 tives at Washington? 
 
 Like everything else thoroughly Eng- 
 lish, speaking in the House of Commons 
 is eminently practical. " The bias of the 
 nation," says Mr. Emerson, " is a passion 
 for utility." Conceive of a company of 
 gentlemen agreeing to devote, gratuitous- 
 ly, a certain portion of each year to the 
 consideration of any questions which may 
 concern the public welfare, and you have 
 the theory and the practice of the House of 
 Commons. Of course there are exceptions 
 to this general statement. There are not 
 wanting constituencies represented by un- 
 fit men ; but such members are not allow- 
 ed to consume the time which belongs of 
 right to men of capacity and tried ability. 
 The test is sternly, almost despotically 
 applied. A fair trial is given to a new 
 member. If he is " up to his work," his 
 name goes on the list of men whom the 
 House will hear. If, however, his maid- 
 en speech is a failure, " farewell, a long 
 farewell" to all his political aspirations. 
 Few^ men have risen from such a fall. 
 Now and then, as in the well-known in- 
 stances of Sheridan, Disraeli, and some 
 less prominent names, real genius, aided 
 by dogged determination, has forced its 
 way upward in spite of early ill-success ; 
 but such cases are very rare. The rule 
 may work occasional injustice, but is it 
 after all so very unreasonable ? " Talk- 
 ing," they contend, " must be done by 
 those who have something to say." 
 
 Everything one sees in the House par- 
 takes of this practical tendency. There 
 are no conveniences for writing. A mem- 
 ber who should attempt to read a manu- 
 script speech would never get beyond 
 the first sentence. Nor does anybody 
 ever dream of writing out his address and 
 committing it to memory. In fact, noth- 
 ing can be more informal than their man- 
 ner in debate. You see a member rising 
 with his hat in one hand, and his gloves 
 and cane in the other. It is as if he had 
 
 just said to his neighbor, " I have taken 
 a good deal of interest in the subject un- 
 der discussion, and have been at some 
 pains to understand it. I am inclined to 
 tell the House what I think of it." So 
 you find him on the floor, or " on his 
 legs," in parliamentary phrase, carrying 
 this intention into effect in a simple, 
 business-like, straightforward way. But 
 if our friend is very long, or threatens to 
 be tedious, I fear that unequivocal and 
 increasing indications of discontent will 
 oblige him to resume his seat in undig- 
 nified haste. 
 
 Perhaps no feature of the debates in 
 the House of Commons deserves more 
 honorable mention than the high-toned 
 courtesy which regulates the intercourse 
 of members. 
 
 Englishmen have never been charged 
 with a want of spirit ; on the contrary, 
 they are proverbially " plucky," and yet 
 the House is never disgraced by those 
 shameful brawls which have given to our 
 legislative assemblies, state and national, 
 so unenviable a reputation throughout the 
 civilized world. How does this happen ? 
 To Englishmen it does not seem a very 
 difficult matter to manage. If one mem- 
 ber charges another with ungentlemanly 
 or criminal conduct, he must follow up 
 his charge and prove it, — in which case 
 the culprit is no longer recognized as a 
 gentleman ; or if he fails to make good 
 his accusation, and neglects to atone for 
 his offence by ample and satisfactory 
 apologies, he is promptly "sent to Cov- 
 entry" as a convicted calumniator. No 
 matter how high his social position may 
 have been, whether nobleman or com- 
 moner, he shall not escape the disgrace 
 he has deserved. And to forfeit one's 
 standing among English gentlemen is a 
 punishment hardly less severe than to 
 lose caste in India. In such a commu- 
 nity, what need of duels to vindicate 
 wounded honor or establish a reputation 
 for courage ? 
 
 The members of the present House of 
 Commons were elected in the spring of 
 1859. Among their number are several 
 men who, in point of capacity, eloquence. 
 
668 
 
 A Field Night in the House of Commons. [December, 
 
 and political experience, will compare not 
 unfavorably with the ablest statesmen 
 whom England has known for genera- 
 tions. I have thought that some descrip- 
 tion of their appearance and mental char- 
 acteristics might not be unacceptable to 
 American readers. As the best mode of 
 accomplishing this object, I shall select 
 an occasion, which, from the importance 
 of the question under discussion, the deep 
 interest which it awakened, and the abil- 
 ity with which it was treated, certainly 
 presented as favorable an opportunity as 
 could ever occur to form a correct opin- 
 ion of the best speaking talent in the 
 kingdom. The debate to which I allude 
 took place early in the month of July, 
 1860. 
 
 My name being fortunately on the first 
 list for the Speaker's Gallery, I had no 
 difficulty in taking my place the moment 
 the door was open. It will be readily be- 
 lieved that every seat was soon filled. In 
 front of the Speaker's Gallery is a single 
 row of seats designed for foreign ambas- 
 sadors and peers. The first man to enter 
 it was Mr. Dallas, and he was presently 
 followed by other members of the diplo- 
 matic corps, and several distinguished no- 
 blemen. 
 
 It was very interesting to an American 
 that almost the first business of the even- 
 ing concerned his own country. Some 
 member of the House asked Lord John 
 Russell, then Secretary for Foreign Af- 
 fairs, if he had received any recent de- 
 spatches from the United States relating 
 to the San Juan difficulty. It will be re- 
 membered, or would be, but for the rapid 
 march of more momentous events, that 
 only a short time before, news had reach- 
 ed England that General Harney, violat- 
 ing the explicit instructions of General 
 Scott, so wisely and opportunely issued, 
 had claimed for the United States exclu- 
 sive jurisdiction over the island of San 
 Juan. Lord John replied by stating what 
 had been the highly honorable and judi- 
 cious policy of General Scott, and the un- 
 warrantable steps subsequently taken by 
 General Harney, — that Lord Lyons had 
 , communicated information of the conduct 
 
 of General Harney to President Buchan- 
 an, who had recalled that officer, and had 
 forwarded instructions to his successor to 
 continue in the course marked out by 
 General Scott. This gratifying announce- 
 ment was greeted in the House with hear- 
 ty cheers, — a spontaneous demonstra- 
 tion of delight, which proved not only that 
 the position of aifairs on this question was 
 thought to be serious, but also the genu- 
 ine desire of Englishmen to remain in am- 
 icable relations with the United States. 
 
 To this brief business succeeded the 
 great debate of the session. Let me en- 
 deavor, at the risk of being tedious, to ex- 
 plain the exact question before the House. 
 Mr. Gladstone, in his speech on the Budg- 
 et, had pledged the Ministry to a consid- 
 erable reduction of the taxes for the com- 
 ing year. In fulfilment of this pledge, it 
 had been decided to remit the duty on pa- 
 per, thereby abandoning about £1,500,- 
 000 of revenue. A bill to carry this plan 
 into effect passed to its second reading by 
 a majority of fifty-three. To defeat the 
 measure the Opposition devoted all its en- 
 ergies, and with such success that the bill 
 passed to its third reading by the greatly 
 reduced majority of nine. Emboldened 
 by this almost victory, the Conservatives 
 determined to give the measure its coup 
 de grace in the House of Lords. The 
 Opposition leaders. Lord Derby, Lord 
 Lyndhurst, Lord Ellenborough, and oth- 
 ers, attacked the bill, and the Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer, its acknowledged au- 
 thor, with as much bitterness and severity 
 as are ever considered compatible with 
 the dignified decorum of that aristocratic 
 body ; all the Conservative forces were 
 rallied, and, what with the votes actually 
 given and the proxies, the Opposition ma- 
 jority was immense. 
 
 Now all this was very easily and verj^ 
 quickly done. The Conservatives were ex- 
 ultant, and even seemed sanguine enough 
 to believe that the Ministry had received 
 a fatal blow. But they forgot, in the first 
 flush of victory, that they were treading 
 on dangerous ground, — that they were 
 meddling with what had been regarded 
 for centuries as the exclusive privilege 
 
1861.] 
 
 A Field Night in the House of Commons. 
 
 669 
 
 of the House of Commons. English Par- 
 liamentary history teaches no clearer les- 
 son than that the right to pass "Mon- 
 ey Bills," without interference from the 
 House of Lords, has been claimed and 
 exercised by the House of Commons for 
 several generations. The public was not 
 slow to take the alarm. To be sure, sev- 
 eral causes conspired to lessen somewhat 
 the popular indignation. Among these 
 were the inevitable expenses of the Chi- 
 nese War, the certainty of an increased 
 income tax, if the bill became a law, and 
 the very small majority which the meas- 
 ure finally received in the House of Com- 
 mons. 
 
 Nevertheless, the public mind was deep- 
 ly moved. The perils of such a prece- 
 dent were evident enough to any thinking 
 man. Although the unwearied exertions 
 of Bright, Roebuck, and other leading 
 Radicals, could not arouse the people to 
 that state of unreasoning excitement in 
 which these demagogues delight, yet the 
 tone of the press and the spirit of the 
 public meetings gave proof that the im- 
 portance of the crisis was not wholly 
 underrated. These meetings were fre- 
 quent and largely attended ; inflammato- 
 ry speeches were made, strong resolutions 
 passed, and many petitions numerously 
 signed, protesting against the recent con- 
 duct of the Lords, were presented to the 
 popular branch of Parliament. 
 
 In the House of Commons the action 
 was prompt and decided. A committee 
 was immediately appointed to search for 
 precedents, and ascertain if such a pro- 
 ceeding was justified by Parliamentary 
 history. The result of this investigation 
 was anxiously awaited both by the Com- 
 mons and the nation. To the disappoint- 
 ment of everybody, the committee, after 
 patient and protracted research, submit- 
 ted a report, giving no opinion whatever 
 on the question, but merely reciting all 
 the precedents that bore on the subject. 
 
 It must be confessed that the condition 
 of affairs was not a little critical. Both 
 the strength of the Ministry and the dig- 
 nity of the House of Commons were in- 
 volved in the final decision. But, unfor- 
 
 tunately, the Ministerial party was far 
 from being a unit on the question. Bright 
 and the " Manchester School " demand- 
 ed an uncompromising and defiant atti- 
 tude towards the Lords. Lord Palmer- 
 ston was for asserting the rights and priv- 
 ileges of the Commons, but for avoiding 
 a collision. Where Mr. Gladstone would 
 be found could not be precisely predict- 
 ed ; but he was understood to be deeply 
 chagrined at the defeat of his favorite 
 measure, and to look upon the action 
 of the Peers as almost a personal insult. 
 Lord John Russell was supposed to oc- 
 cupy a position somewhere between the 
 Premier and the Chancellor of the Ex- 
 chequer. If the leaders were thus divid- 
 ed in opinion, there was no less diversity 
 of views among their followers. Some 
 did not at all appreciate the nature or 
 magnitude of the question, a few sympa- 
 thized with the Conservatives, and very 
 many were satisfied that a mistake had 
 been made in sacrificing so large a source 
 of revenue at a time when the immediate 
 prospect of war with China and the con- 
 dition of the national defences rendered 
 it important to increase, rather than di- 
 minish the available funds in the treasury. 
 The Opposition, of course, were ready to 
 take advantage of any weak points in the 
 position of their adversaries, and were 
 even hoping that the Ministerial dissen- 
 sions might lead to a Ministerial defeat. 
 
 It was under these circumstances that 
 Lord Palmerston rose to define the posi- 
 tion of the Ministry, to vindicate the hon- 
 or and dignity of the Commons, to avert 
 a collision with the House of Lords, and, 
 in general, to extricate the councils of 
 the nation from an embarrassing and dan- 
 gerous dilemma. 
 
 A word about the personnel of the Pre- 
 mier, and a glance at some of his political 
 antecedents. His Lordship has been for 
 so many years in public life, and a mark- 
 ed man among English statesmen, that, 
 either by engraving, photograph, or per- 
 sonal observation, his face is familiar to 
 many Americans. And, certainly, there 
 is nothing in his features or in the ex- 
 pression of his countenance to indicate 
 
670 
 
 A Field Night in the House of Commons. [December, 
 
 genius or even ability. He is simply a 
 burly Englishman, of middling height, 
 •with an air of constant good-humor and 
 a very pleasant understanding with him- 
 self. Perhaps the first thing about him 
 which impresses an American, accustom- 
 ed at home to dyspeptic politicians and 
 statesmen prematurely old, is his physical 
 activity. Fancy a man of seventy- six, 
 who has been in most incessant political 
 life for more than fifty years, sitting out a 
 debate of ten hours without flinching, and 
 then walking to his house in Piccadilly, 
 not less than two miles. And his body is 
 not more active than hisTmind. He does 
 something more than sit out a debate. 
 Not a word escapes him when a promi- 
 nent man is on his legs. Do not be de- 
 ceived by his lazy attitude or his sleepy 
 expression. Not a man in the House 
 has his wits more thoroughly about him. 
 Ever ready to extricate his colleagues 
 from an awkward difiiculty, to evade a 
 dangerous question, — making, with an air 
 of transparent candor, a reply in which 
 nothing is answered, — to disarm an an- 
 gry opponent with a few conciliatory or 
 complimentary words, or to demolish him 
 with a little good-humored raillery which 
 sets the House in a roar ; equally skilful 
 in attack and retreat : such, in a word, 
 is the bearing of this gay and gallant vet- 
 eran, from the beginning to the end of 
 each debate, during the entire session of 
 Parliament. He seems absolutely insen- 
 sible to fatigue. " I happened," said a 
 member of the House, writing to a friend, 
 last summer, " to follow Lord Palmerston, 
 as he left the cloak-room, the other morn- 
 ing, after a late sitting, and, as I was go- 
 ing his way, I thought I might as well see 
 how he got over the ground. At first he 
 seemed a little stifi* in the legs ; but when 
 he warmed to his work he began to pull 
 out, and before he got a third of the way 
 he bowled along splendidly, so that he 
 put me to it to keep him in view. Per- 
 haps in a few hours after that long sit- 
 ting and that walk home, and the brief 
 sleep that followed, the Premier might 
 have been seen standing bolt upright at 
 one end of a great table in Cambridge 
 
 House, receiving a deputation from the 
 country, listening with patient and cour- 
 teous attention to some tedious spokes- 
 man, or astonishing his hearers by his 
 knowledge of their affairs and his inti- 
 macy with their trade or business." On 
 a previous night, I had seen Lord Palmer- 
 ston in his seat in the House from 4 p. m. 
 until about 2 a. m., during a dull debate, 
 and was considerably amused when he 
 rose at that late or early hour, and " beg- 
 ged to suggest to honorable gentlemen," 
 that, although he was perfectly willing to 
 sit there until daylight, yet he thought 
 something was due to the Speaker, (a 
 hale, hearty man, sixteen years his jun- 
 ior,) and as there was to be a session at 
 noon of that day, he hoped the debate 
 would be adjourned. The same sugges- 
 tion had been fruitlessly made half a doz- 
 en times before ; but the Premier's man- 
 ner was irresistible, and amid great laugh- 
 ter the motion prevailed. The Speaker, 
 with a grateful smile to the member for 
 Tiverton, immediately and gladly retired, 
 but the indefatigable leader remained at 
 his post an hour longer, while the House 
 was sitting in Committee on Supplies. 
 
 But his Parliamentary duties by no 
 means fill up the measure of his public 
 labors. Deputations representing all sorts 
 of interests w^ait on him almost daily, his 
 presence is indispensable at all Cabinet 
 consultations, and as Prime Minister he 
 gives tone and direction to the domestic 
 and foreign policy of the English govern- 
 ment. How much is implied in these 
 duties and responsibilities must be ap- 
 parent to all who speak the English lan- 
 guage. 
 
 Now what is the secret of this vigorous 
 old age, after a life spent in such arduous 
 avocations ? Simply this, that a consti- 
 tution robust by nature has been pre- 
 served in its strength by regular habits 
 and out-door exercise. If I were to re- 
 peat the stories I have heard, and seen 
 stated in English newspapers, of the feats, 
 pedestrian and equestrian, performed by 
 Lord Palmerston from early manhood 
 down to the present writing, I fear I should 
 be suspected by some of my readers of 
 
1861.] 
 
 A Field Night in the House of Commons. 
 
 671 
 
 offering an insult to their understanding. 
 I must therefore content myself with say- 
 ing that very few young men of our day 
 and country could follow him in the field 
 or keep up with him on the road. 
 
 A word about Lord Palmerston's po- 
 litical antecedents. Beginning as Junior 
 Lord of the Admiralty in the Duke of 
 Portland's Ministry, in 1808, he has since 
 been once Secretary of War, five times 
 Prime Minister, and once Secretary of 
 State. From 1811 to 1831 he represent- 
 ed Cambridge University. Since 1835 
 he has represented Tiverton. It may be 
 safely asserted that no man now living in 
 England has been so long or so promi- 
 nently in public office, and probably no 
 man presents a more correct type of the 
 Liberal, although not Radical, sentiment 
 of England. 
 
 It may be well to state that on this 
 evening there was an unusually large 
 attendance of members. Not only were 
 all the benches on the floor of the House 
 filled, but the rare spectacle was present- 
 ed of members occupying seats in the 
 east and west galleries. These unfor- 
 tunates belonged to that class who are 
 seldom seen in their places, but who are 
 sometimes whipped in by zealous parti- 
 sans, when important questions are un- 
 der consideration, and a close vote may 
 be expected. Their listless faces and 
 sprawling attitudes proved clearly enough 
 that they were reluctant and bored spec- 
 tators of the scene. It deserves to be 
 mentioned, also, that, although there are 
 six hundred and fifty-six actual members 
 of the House, the final vote on the ques- 
 tion showed, that, even on that eventful 
 night, only four hundred and sixty-two 
 were present. The average attendance 
 is about three hundred. 
 
 At half-past four, the Premier rose to 
 address the House. He had already giv- 
 en due notice that he should introduce 
 three resolutions, which, considering the 
 importance of the subject, I make no 
 apology for giving in full. 
 
 " 1. That the right of granting aids 
 and supplies to the Crown is in the Com- 
 mons alone as an essential part of their 
 
 Constitution, and the limitation of all such 
 grants, as to the matter, manner, meas- 
 ure, and time, is only in them. 
 
 " 2. That, although the Lords have ex- 
 ercised the power of rejecting bills of 
 several descriptions relating to taxation 
 by negativing the whole, yet the exer- 
 cise of that power by them has not been 
 frequent, and is justly regarded by this 
 House with peculiar jealousy, as affect- 
 ing the right of the Commons to grant 
 the supplies and to provide the ways and 
 means for the service of the year. 
 
 " 3. That, to guard for the future 
 against an undue exercise of that power 
 by the Lords, and to secure to the Com- 
 mons their rightful control over taxation 
 and supply, this House has in its own 
 hands the power so to impose and remit 
 taxes, and to frame Bills of Supply, that 
 the right of the Commons as to the mat- 
 ter, manner, measure, and time may be 
 maintained inviolate." 
 
 The burden of the speech by which 
 the Premier supported these resolutions 
 was this. The assent of both Houses is 
 necessary to a bill, and each branch pos- 
 sesses the power of rejection. But in re- 
 gard to certain bills, to wit. Money Bills, 
 the House claims, as its peculiar and ex- 
 clusive privilege, the right of originating, 
 altering, or amending them. As the Lords 
 have, however, the right and power of as- 
 senting, they have also the right and pow- 
 er of rejecting. He admitted that they 
 had frequently exercised this right of re- 
 jection. Yet it must be observed, that, 
 when they had done so, it had been in 
 the case of bills involving taxes of small 
 amount, or connected with questions of 
 commercial protection. No case had 
 ever occurred precisely like this, where 
 a bill providing for the repeal of a tax 
 of large amount, and on the face of it un- 
 mixed with any other question, had been 
 rejected by the Lords. 
 
 " But, in point of fact," he continued, 
 " was there not another question involv- 
 ed ? Was it not clear, that, the bill hav- 
 ing passed by a majority greatly reduced 
 since its second reading, the Lords may 
 have thought that it would be well to give 
 
672 
 
 A Field Night in the House of Commons. [December, 
 
 the Commons further time to reflect ? In- 
 deed, was there not abundant reason to 
 believe that the Lords were not really- 
 initiating a new and dangerous policy, 
 that of claiming to be partners with the 
 House in originating and disposing of 
 Money Bills ? Therefore, would it not 
 be sufficient for the House firmly to as- 
 sert its rights, and to intimate the jeal- 
 ous care with which it intended to guard 
 against their infringement ? " 
 
 Of course, this brief and imperfect ab- 
 stract of an hour's speech can do no sort 
 of justice to its merits. It is much easier 
 to describe its effect upon the House. 
 From the moment when the Premier ut- 
 tered his opening sentence, " I rise upon 
 an occasion which will undoubtedly rank 
 as one of the first in importance among 
 those which have occurred in regard to 
 our Parliamentary proceedings," he com- 
 manded the closest attention of the House. 
 And yet he was neither eloquent, impres- 
 sive, nor even earnest. There was not 
 the slightest attempt at declamation. His 
 voice rarely rose above a conversational 
 tone, and his gestures were not so numer- 
 ous or so decided as are usual in animated 
 dialogue. His air and manner were rath- 
 er those of a plain, well-informed man 
 of business, not unaccustomed to public 
 speaking, who had some views on the sub- 
 ject under discussion which he desired to 
 present, and asked the ear of the House 
 for a short hour while he defined his po- 
 sition. 
 
 No one who did not appreciate the 
 man and the occasion would have dream- 
 ed that he was confronting a crisis which 
 might lead to a change in the Ministry, 
 and might array the two Houses of Par- 
 liament in angry hostility against each 
 other. But here lay the consummate skill 
 of the Premier. He was playing a most 
 difficult role, and he played it to perfec- 
 tion. He could not rely on the support 
 of the Radicals. He must therefore make 
 amends for their possible defection by 
 drawing largely on the Conservative 
 strength. The great danger was, that, 
 while conciliating the Conservatives by 
 a show of concession, he should alienate 
 
 his own party by seeming to concede too 
 much. Now, that the effect which he 
 aimed to produce excluded all declama- 
 tion, all attempt at eloquence, anything 
 like flights of oratory or striking figures 
 of rhetoric, nobody understood better than 
 Lord Palmerston. 
 
 In view of all these circumstances, the 
 adroitness, the ability, the sagacity, and 
 the success of his speech were most won- 
 derful. Gladstone was more philosophi- 
 cal, statesmanlike, and eloquent ; White- 
 side more impassioned and vehement ; 
 Disraeli more witty, sarcastic, and telling ; 
 but Lord Palmerston displayed more of 
 those qualities without which no one can 
 be a successful leader of the House of 
 Commons. The result was, that two of 
 the resolutions passed without a division, 
 and the third was carried by an immense 
 majority. The Prime Minister had un- 
 derstood the temper of the House, and 
 had shaped his course accordingly. As 
 we have seen, he succeeded to a marvel. 
 But was it such a triumph as a great and 
 far-reaching statesman would have de- 
 sired ? And this brings us to the other 
 side of the picture. 
 
 Dexterous, facile, adroit, politic, versa- 
 tile, — as Lord Palmerston certainly is, — 
 fertile in resources, prompt to seize and 
 use to the utmost every advantage, en- 
 dowed with unusual popular gifts, and 
 blessed with imperturbable good-humor, 
 it cannot be denied that in many of the 
 best and noblest attributes of a statesman 
 he is sadly deficient. His fondness for 
 political power and his anxiety to achieve 
 immediate success inevitably lead him to 
 resort to temporary and often unworthy 
 expedients. A manly rehance on gen- 
 eral principles, and a firm faith in the 
 ultimate triumph of right and justice, con- 
 stitute no part of his character. He lives 
 only in the present. That he is making 
 history seems never to occur to him. He 
 does not aspire to direct, but only aims to 
 follow, or at best to keep pace with public 
 opinion. What course he will pursue on 
 a given question can never be safely pre- 
 dicted, until you ascertain, as correctly as 
 he can, what is the prevaiUng temper of 
 
1861.] 
 
 A Field Night in the House of Commons, 
 
 673 
 
 the House or the nation. That he will 
 try to " make things pleasant," to concili- 
 ate the Opposition without weakening the 
 strength of his own party, you may be 
 sure ; but for any further clue to his poli- 
 cy you must consult the press, study the 
 spirit of Parliament, and hear the voice 
 of the people. I know no better illustra- 
 tion to prove the justice of this view of 
 the Premier's political failing than his 
 bearing in the debate which I am at- 
 tempting to describe. Here was a grave 
 constitutional question. The issue was a 
 simple and clear one. Had the Lords the 
 right to reject a Money Bill which had 
 passed the House ? If historical prece- 
 dents settled the question clearly, then 
 there was no difficulty in determining the 
 matter at once, and almost without dis- 
 cussion. If, however, there were no pre- 
 cedents bearing precisely on this case, 
 then it was all the more important that 
 this should be made the occasion of a set- 
 tlement of the question so unequivocal 
 and positive as effectually to guard against 
 future complication and embarrassment. 
 Now how did the Premier deal with this 
 issue ? He disregarded the homely wis- 
 dom contained in the pithy bull of Sir 
 Boyle Roche, that " the best way to avoid 
 a dilemma is to meet it plump." He 
 dodged the dilemma. His resolutions, 
 worded with ingenious obscurity, skilfully 
 evaded the important aspect of the con- 
 troversy, and two of them, the second 
 and third, gave equal consolation to the 
 Liberals and the Conservatives. So that, 
 in fact, it is reserved for some future Par- 
 liament, in which it cannot be doubted 
 that the Radical element will be more 
 numerous and more powerful, to deter- 
 mine what should have been decided on 
 tliis very evening. It was cleverly done, 
 certainly, and extorted from all parties 
 and members of every shade of political 
 opinion that admiration which the success- 
 ful performance of a difficult and critical 
 task must always elicit. But was it states- 
 manlike, or in any high sense patriotic or 
 manly ? 
 
 The Premier was followed by R. P. 
 Collier, representing Plymouth. He had 
 
 been on the committee to search for pre- 
 cedents, and he devoted an hour to show- 
 ing that there was not, in all Parliamen- 
 tary history, a single precedent justifying 
 the action of the Lords. His argument 
 was clear and convincing, and the result 
 of it was, that no bill simply imposing or 
 remitting a tax had ever in a single in- 
 stance been rejected by the Upper House. 
 In all the thirty-six cases relied on by the 
 Opposition there was always some other 
 principle involved, which furnished plau- 
 sible justification for the course adopted 
 by the Lords. 
 
 To this speech I observed that Mr. 
 Gladstone paid strict attention, occasion- 
 ally indicating his assent by an approv- 
 ing nod, or by an encouraging " Hear ! 
 Hear ! " It is rare, indeed, that any speak- 
 er in the House secures the marked atten- 
 tion or catches the eye of the Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer. 
 
 To Collier succeeded Coningham, mem- 
 ber for Brighton. Now as this honorable 
 member was prosy and commonplace, not 
 to say stupid, I should not detain my read- 
 ers with any allusion to his speech, but 
 as illustrating a prominent and very cred- 
 itable feature of the debates in the House. 
 That time is of some value, and that 
 no remarks can be tolerated, unless they 
 are intelligent and pertinent, are cardinal 
 doctrines of debate, and are quite rigid- 
 ly enforced. At the same time mere dul- 
 ness is often overlooked, as soon as it ap- 
 pears that the speaker has something to 
 say which deserves to be heard. But 
 there is one species of oratory which is 
 never tolerated for a moment, and that is 
 the sort of declamation which is designed 
 merely or mainly for home-consumption, 
 — speaking for Buncombe, as we call it. 
 The instant, therefore, that it was evi- 
 dent that Mr. Coningham was address- 
 ing, not the House of Commons, but his 
 constituents at Brighton, he was inter- 
 rupted by derisive cheers and contemp- 
 tuous groans. Again and again did the 
 indignant orator attempt to make his 
 voice heard above the confusion, but in 
 vain ; and when, losing all presence of 
 mind, he made the fatal admission, — "I 
 
674 
 
 A Field Night in the House of Commons. [December, 
 
 can tell Honorable Gentlemen that I 
 have just returned from visiting my con- 
 stituents, and I can assure the House 
 
 that more intelligent" the tumult 
 
 became so great, that the remainder of 
 the sentence was entirely lost. Seeing 
 his mistake, Mr. Coningham changed his 
 ground. "I appeal to the courtesy of 
 Honorable Members ; I do not often tres- 
 pass upon the House ; I implore them to 
 give me a patient and candid hearing." 
 This appeal to the love of " fair play," so 
 characteristic of Englishmen, produced 
 immediately the desired effect, and the 
 member concluded without further inter- 
 ruption. 
 
 Mr. Edwin James was the next promi- 
 nent speaker. He has won a wide repu- 
 tation as a barrister, chiefly in the man- 
 agement of desperate criminal cases, cul- 
 minating in his defence of Dr. Barnard, 
 charged with being accessory to the at- 
 tempted assassination of Louis Napoleon. 
 The idol of the populace, he was elected 
 by a large majority in May, 1859, as an 
 extreme Liberal or Radical, to represent 
 Marylebone in the present Parliament. 
 His warmest admirers will hardly con- 
 tend that since his election he has done 
 anything to distinguish himself, or even 
 to sustain the reputation which his suc- 
 cess as an advocate had earned for him. 
 The expensive vices to which he has long 
 been addicted have left him bankrupt in 
 character and fortune. His large profes- 
 sional income has been for some years re- 
 ceived by trustees, who have made him 
 a liberal allowance for his personal ex- 
 penses, and have applied the remainder 
 toward the payment of his debts. His 
 recent disgraceful flight from England, 
 and the prompt action of his legal breth- 
 ren in view of his conduct, render it high- 
 ly improbable that he will ever return to 
 the scene of his former triumphs and ex- 
 cesses. Besides its brevity, which was 
 commendable, his speech this evening 
 presented no point worthy of comment. 
 
 Since the opening remarks of Lord 
 Palmerston, five Radicals had addressed 
 the House. Without exception they had 
 denounced the action of the Lords, and 
 
 more than one had savagely attacked the 
 Opposition for supporting the proceedings 
 of the Upper House. They had contend- 
 ed that the Commons were becominir con- 
 es 
 
 temptible in the eyes of the nation by their 
 failure to take a manly position in de- 
 fence of their rights. To a man, they had 
 assailed the resolutions of the Premier as 
 falling far short of the dignity of the oc- 
 casion and the importance of the crisis, or, 
 at best, as intentionally ambiguous. Thus 
 far then the Radicals. The Opposition had 
 listened to them in unbroken and often 
 contemptuous silence, enjoying the differ- 
 ence of opinion in the Ministerial party, 
 but reserving themselves for some foe- 
 man worthy of their steel. Nor was there, 
 beyond a vague rumor, any clue to the 
 real position of the Cabinet on the whole 
 question. Only one member had spoken 
 for the Government, and it was more than 
 suspected that he did not quite correctly 
 represent the views of the Ministry. 
 
 If any one of my readers had been in 
 the Speaker's Gallery on that evening, 
 his attention would have been arrested 
 by a member on the Ministerial benches, 
 a little to the right of Lord Palmerston. 
 His face is the most striking in the House, 
 — grave, thoughtful, almost stern, but 
 lighting up with wonderful beauty when 
 he smiles. Usually, his air is rather ab- 
 stracted, — not, indeed, the manner of one 
 whose thoughts are wandering from the 
 business under debate, but rather of one 
 who is thinking deeply upon what is pass- 
 ing around him. His attitude is not grace- 
 ful : lolling at full length, his head rest- 
 ing on the back of the seat, and his legs 
 stretched out before him. He is always 
 neatly, but never carefully dressed, and 
 his bearing is unmistakably that of a schol- 
 ar. Once or twice since we have been 
 watching him, he has scratched a few 
 hasty memoranda on the back of an en- 
 velope, and now, amid the silence of gen- 
 eral expectation, the full, clear tones of 
 his voice are heard. He has not spoken 
 five minutes before members who have 
 taken advantage of the dulness of recent 
 debaters to dine, or to fortify themselves 
 in a less formal way for the night's work 
 
1861.] 
 
 A Field Night in the House of Commons. 
 
 675 
 
 before them, begia to flock to their seats. 
 Not an eye wanders from the speaker, and 
 the attention which he commands is of the 
 kind paid in the House only to merit and 
 abihty of the highest order. And, certain- 
 ly, the orator is not unworthy of this silent, 
 but most respectful tribute to his talents. 
 His manner is earnest and animated, his 
 enunciation is beautifully clear and dis- 
 tinct, the tones of his voice are singular- 
 ly pleasing and persuasive, stealing their 
 way into the hearts of men, and charm- 
 ing them into assent to his propositions. 
 One can easily understand why he is 
 called the " golden-tongued." 
 
 This is Mr. Gladstone, Chancellor of 
 the Exchequer, by right of eloquence, 
 statesmanship, and scholarly attainments, 
 the foremost man in England. I cannot 
 hope to give a satisfactory description of 
 his speech, nor of its effect upon the 
 House. His eloquence is of that quality 
 to which no sketch, however accurate, 
 can do justice. Read any one of his 
 speeches, as reported with astonishing 
 correctness in the London " Times," and 
 you will appreciate the clear, philosophi- 
 cal statement of political truth, — the dig- 
 nified, elevated, statesmanlike tone, — the 
 rare felicity of expression, — the rhetorical 
 beauty of style, never usurping the place 
 of argument, though often concealing the 
 sharp angles of his relentless logic, — the 
 marvellous ease with which he makes the 
 dry details of finance not only instructive, 
 but positively fascinating, — his adroit- 
 ness in retrieving a mistake, or his saga- 
 city in abandoning, in season, an inde- 
 fensible position, — the lofty and indig- 
 nant scorn with which he sometimes con- 
 descends to annihilate an insolent adver- 
 sary, or the royal courtesy of his occa- 
 sional compliments. But who shall be 
 able to describe those attributes of his 
 eloquence which address themselves on- 
 ly to the ear and eye : that clear, reso- 
 nant voice, never sinking into an inau- 
 dible whisper, and never rising into an 
 ear-piercing scream, its tones always ex- 
 actly adapted to the spirit of the words, 
 — that spare form, wasted by the severe 
 study of many years, which but a mo- 
 
 ment before was stretched in languid 
 ease on the Treasury benches, now dilat- 
 ed with emotion, — that careworn coun- 
 tenance inspired with great thoughts : 
 what pen or pencil can do justice to 
 these ? 
 
 If any one of that waiting audience has 
 been impatiently expectant of some words 
 equal to this crisis, some fearless and man- 
 ly statement of the real question at issue, 
 his wish shall be soon and most fully grat- 
 ified. Listen to his opening sentence, 
 which contains the key-note to his whole 
 speech : — "It appears to be the determi- 
 nation of one moiety of this House that 
 there shall be no debate upon the consti- 
 tutional principles which are involved in 
 this question ; and I must say, that, con- 
 sidering that gentlemen opposite are up- 
 on this occasion the partisans of a gigan- 
 tic innovation, — the most gigantic and 
 the most dangerous that has been at- 
 tempted in modern times, — I may com- 
 pliment them upon the prudence they 
 show in resolving to be its silent parti- 
 sans." After this emphatic exordium, 
 which electrified the House, and was fol- 
 lowed by such a tempest of applause as 
 for some time to drown the voice of the 
 speaker, he proceeded at once to demon- 
 strate the utter folly and error of con- 
 tending that the action of the Lords was 
 supported or justified by any precedent. 
 Of course, as a member of the Cabinet, 
 he gave his adhesion to the resolutions 
 before the House, and indorsed the speech 
 of the Premier. But, from first to last, 
 he treated the question as its importance 
 demanded, as critical and emergent, not 
 to be passed by in silence, nor yet to be 
 encountered with plausible and concilia- 
 tory expedients. He reserved to him- 
 self " entire freedom to adopt any mode 
 •which might have the slightest hope of 
 success, for vindicating by action the 
 rights of the House." 
 
 In fact, he alone of all the speakers of 
 the evening rose to " the height of the 
 great argument." He alone seemed to 
 feel that the temporary success of this or 
 that party or faction was as nothing com- 
 pared with the duty of settling definitely 
 
676 
 
 A Field Night in ike House of Commons. [December, 
 
 and for all posterity this conflict of rights 
 between the two Houses. Surveying the 
 question from this high vantage-ground, 
 what wonder that in dignity and gran- 
 deur he towered above his fellows ? Here 
 was a great mind grappling with a great 
 subject, — a mind above temporary ex- 
 pedients for present success, superior to 
 the fear of possible defeat. To denounce 
 the Conservatives for not attacking the 
 Ministerial resolutions may have been in- 
 discreet. He may have been guilty of 
 an apparent breach of Parliamentary eti- 
 quette, when he practically condemned 
 the passive policy of the Cabinet, of which 
 he was himself a leading member. But 
 may we not pardon the natural irritation 
 produced by the defeat of his favorite 
 measure, in view of the noble and patriot- 
 ic sentiments of his closing sentences ? 
 
 " I regard the whole rights of the House 
 of Commons, as they have been handed 
 down to us, as constituting a sacred in- 
 heritance, upon which I, for my part, will 
 never voluntarily permit any intrusion or 
 plunder to be made. I think that the 
 very first of our duties, anterior to the 
 duty of dealing with any legislative meas- 
 ure, and higher and more sacred than 
 any such duties, high and sacred though 
 they may be, is to maintain intact that 
 precious deposit." 
 
 The eifect of this speech was indescrib- 
 able. The applause with which he was 
 frequently interrupted, and which greet- 
 ed him as he took his seat, was such as 
 I have never heard in a deliberative as- 
 sembly. And not the least striking feat- 
 ure of this display of enthusiasm was that 
 it mainly proceeded from the extreme 
 Liberal wing of the Ministerial party, with 
 which Mr. Gladstone, representing that 
 most conservative of all English constitu- 
 encies, Oxford University, had hitherto 
 been by no means popular. For several 
 days the rumor was rife that the Chan- 
 cellor of the Exchequer would resign his 
 place in the Cabinet, and be the leader 
 of the Radicals ! But Mr. Gladstone had 
 other views of his duty, and probably he 
 was never more firmly intrenched in the 
 confidence of the nation, and more influ- 
 
 ential in the councils of the Government, 
 than he is at this moment. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone had hardly taken his 
 seat, when the long and significant si- 
 lence of the Opposition was broken by 
 Mr. Whiteside. This gentleman repre- 
 sents Dublin University, has been Attor- 
 ney-General and Solicitor- General for 
 Ireland, and was one of the most able 
 and eloquent defenders of O'Connell and 
 his friends in 1842. He is said to be the 
 only Irishman in public life who holds the 
 traditions of the great Irish orators, — the 
 Grattans, the Currans, and the Sheri- 
 dans. I will not detain my readers with 
 even a brief sketch of his speech. It was 
 very severe upon Mr. Gladstone, very 
 funny at the expense of the Radicals, 
 and very complimentary to Lord Palmer- 
 ston. As a whole, it was an admirable 
 specimen of Irish oratory. In the elan 
 with which the speaker leaped to his feet 
 and dashed at once into his subject, full 
 of spirit and eager for the fray, in his 
 fierce and vehement invective and the 
 occasional ferocity of his attacks, in the 
 fluency and fitness of his language and 
 the rapidity of his utterance, in the un- 
 studied grace and sustained energy of his 
 manner, it was easy to recognize the ele- 
 ments of that irresistible eloquence by 
 which so many of his gifted countrymen 
 have achieved such brilliant triumphs at 
 the forum and in the halls of the debate. 
 
 It might perhaps heighten the eflTect of 
 the picture, if I were to describe the ap- 
 pearance of Mr. Gladstone during the de- 
 livery of this fierce Philippic, — the con- 
 tracted brow, the compressed lip, the un- 
 easy motion from side to side, and all the 
 other customary manifestations of anger, 
 mortification, and conscious defeat. But 
 if my sketch be dull, it shall at least have 
 the homely merit of being truthful. In 
 point of fact, the whole harangue was 
 lost upon Mr. Gladstone ; for he left the 
 House immediately after making his own 
 speech, and did not return until some 
 time after Mr. Whiteside had finished. 
 In all probability he did not know how 
 unmercifully he had been handled until 
 he read his " Times " the next morning. 
 
1861.] 
 
 A Field Night in the House of Commons. 
 
 677 
 
 Six more speeches on the Liberal side, 
 loud in praise of the Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer, bitter in denunciation of the 
 Conservatives, and by no means sparing 
 the policy of the Prime Minister, follow- 
 ed in quick succession. They were all 
 brief, pertinent, and spirited ; with which 
 comprehensive criticism I must dismiss 
 them. Their delivery occupied about 
 two hours, and many members availed 
 themselves of this opportunity to leave 
 the House for a while. Some sauntered 
 on the broad stone terrace which lines 
 the Thames. Not a few regaled them- 
 selves with the popular Parliamentary 
 beverage, — sherry and soda-water; and 
 others, who had resolutely kept their 
 seats since the opening of the debate, 
 rewarded their devotion to the interests 
 of the public by a more elaborate re- 
 past. Now and then a member in full 
 evening dress would lounge into the 
 House, with that air of perfect self-sat- 
 isfaction which tells of a good dinner 
 by no means conducted on total -absti- 
 nence principles. 
 
 It was midnight when Mr. Disraeli 
 rose to address the House. For years 
 the pencil of " Punch " has seemed to 
 take particular delight in sketching for 
 the public amusement the features of this 
 well-known novehst, orator, and states- 
 man. After making due allowance for 
 the conceded license of caricature, we 
 must admit that the likeness is in the 
 main correct, and any one familiar with 
 the pages of " Punch " would recognize 
 him at a glance. The impression which 
 he leaves on one who studies his features 
 and watches his bearing is not agreeable. 
 Tall, thin, and quite erect, always dress- 
 ed with scrupulous care, distant and re- 
 served in manner, his eye dull, his lips 
 wearing habitually a half-scornful, half- 
 contemptuous expression, one can readi- 
 ly believe him to be a man addicted to 
 bitter enmities, but incapable of warm 
 friendships. 
 
 He had been sitting, as his manner is, 
 very quietly during the evening, never 
 moving a muscle of his face, save when 
 he smiled coldly once or twice at the 
 
 sharp sallies of Whiteside, or spoke, as he 
 did very rarely, to some member near 
 him. A stranger to his manner would 
 have supposed him utterly indifferent to 
 what was going on about him. Yet it is 
 probable that no member of the House 
 was more thoroughly absorbed in the de- 
 bate or watched its progress with deeper 
 interest. Excepting his political ambition, 
 Mr. Disraeli is actuated by no stronger 
 passion than hatred of Mr. Gladstone. 
 To have been a warm admirer and pro- 
 tege of Sir Robert Peel would have laid 
 a sufficient foundation for intense person- 
 al dishke. But Mr. Disraeli has other 
 and greater grievances to complain of. 
 This is not the place to enter at large 
 into the history of the political rivalry 
 between these eminent men. Enough to 
 say, that in the spring of 1852 Mr. Dis- 
 raeli realized the dream of his lifelong 
 ambition by being appointed Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer, in the Ministry of Lord 
 Derby. Late in the same year he brought 
 forward his Budget, which he defended at 
 great length and with all his ability. This 
 Budget, and the arguments by which it 
 was supported, Mr. Gladstone — who had 
 already refused to take the place in the 
 Derby Cabinet — attacked in a speech of 
 extraordinary power, demolishing one by 
 one the positions of his opponent, rebuk- 
 ing with dignified severity the license of 
 his language, and calling upon the House 
 to condemn the man and his measures. 
 Such was the effect of this speech that 
 the Government was defeated by a decid- 
 ed majority. Thus dethroned, Mr. Dis- 
 raeli had the additional mortification of 
 seeing his victorious opponent seated in 
 his vacant chair. For, in the Ministry 
 of Lord Aberdeen, which immediately 
 succeeded, Mr. Gladstone accepted the 
 appointment of Chancellor of the Ex- 
 chequer. The Budget brought forward 
 by the new Minister took by surprise even 
 those who had already formed the high- 
 est estimate of his capacity; and the 
 speech in which he defended and en- 
 forced it received the approval of Lord 
 John Russell, in the well-known and 
 well -merited compliment, that "it con- 
 
676 
 
 A Field Night in the House of Commons. [December, 
 
 tained the ablest expositions of the true 
 principles of finance ever delivered by 
 an English statesman." Since that mem- 
 orable defeat, Disraeli has lost no oppor- 
 tunity of attacking the member for Ox- 
 ford University. To weaken his won- 
 derful ascendency over the House has 
 seemed to be the wish nearest his heart, 
 and the signal failure which has thus 
 far attended all his efforts only gives a 
 keener edge to his sarcasm and increases 
 the bitterness of his spirit. That persis- 
 tent and inflexible determination which, 
 from a fashionable novelist, has raised 
 him to the dignity of leader of the Con- 
 servative party in the House of Com- 
 mons, that unsparing and cold-blooded 
 malignity which poisoned the last days of 
 Sir Robert Peel, and those powers of 
 wit and ridicule which make him so for- 
 midable an adversary, have all been im- 
 pressed into this service. 
 
 His speech this evening was only a 
 further illustration of his controlling de- 
 sire to enjoy an ample and adequate re- 
 venge for past defeats ; and, undoubted- 
 ly, Mr. Disraeli displayed a great deal 
 of a certain kind of power. He was 
 witty, pungent, caustic, full of telling 
 hits which repeatedly convulsed the House 
 with laughter, and he showed singular 
 dexterity in discovering and assailing 
 the weak points in his adversary's argu- 
 ment. Still, it was a painful exhibition, 
 bad in temper, tone, and manner. It 
 was too plainly the attempt of an unscru- 
 pulous partisan to damage a personal en- 
 emy, rather than the effort of a states- 
 man to enlighten and convince the House 
 and the nation. It was unfair, uncandid, 
 and logically weak. Its only possible 
 effect was to irritate the Liberals, with- 
 out materially strengthening the position 
 of the Conservatives. When "Dizzy** 
 had finished, the floor was claimed by 
 Lord John Russell and Mr. Bright. It 
 was sufficiently evident that members, 
 without distinction of party, desired to 
 hear the last-named gentleman, for cries 
 
 of " Bright," " Bright," came from all 
 parts of the House. The member for 
 Birmingham is stout, bluff, and hearty, 
 looking very much like a prosperous, well- 
 dressed English yeoman. He is ac- 
 knowledged to be the best declaimer in 
 the House. Piquant, racy, and enter- 
 taining, he is always listened to with in- 
 terest and pleasure ; but somehow he la- 
 bors under the prevalent suspicion of be- 
 ing insincere, and beyond a small circle 
 of devoted admirers has no influence 
 whatever in Parliament. 
 
 To the manifest discontent of the 
 House, the Speaker decided that the 
 Honorable Secretary for Foreign Affairs 
 was entitled to the floor. Lord John 
 Russell deserves a more extended his- 
 torical and personal notice than the le- 
 gitimate limits of this article will allow. 
 But, as his recent elevation to the peer- 
 age has led the English press to give a 
 review of his political antecedents, and 
 as these articles have been copied quite 
 generally into our own leading newspa- 
 pers, it may be fairly presumed that most 
 of my readers are familiar with the prom- 
 inent incidents in his long and honorable 
 public career. As a speaker he is decid- 
 edly prosy, with a hesitating utterance, a 
 monotonous voice, and an uninteresting 
 manner. Yet he is always heard with 
 respectful attention by the House, in 
 consideration of his valuable public ser- 
 vices, his intrinsic good sense, and his 
 unselfish patriotism. On the question at 
 issue, he took ground midway between 
 Lord Palmerston and Mr. Gladstone. 
 
 It was now about two, A. m. Since 
 the commencement of the debate eigh- 
 teen members had addressed the House. 
 At this point a motion prevailed to ad- 
 journ until noon of the same day. 
 
 On the reopening of the debate at that 
 hour, Mr. Bright and a few other mem- 
 bers gave their views upon the resolutions 
 of the Premier, and the final vote was 
 then taken with the result already indi- 
 cated. 
 
1861.] A Legend of the Lake, 679 
 
 A LEGEND OF THE LAKE. 
 
 Should you go to Centre-Harbor, 
 As haply you some time may, 
 
 Sailing up the Winnipisauke, 
 From the hills of Alton Bay, — 
 
 Into the heart of the highlands, 
 
 Into the north-wind free, 
 Through the rising and vanishing islands, 
 
 Over the mountain sea, — 
 
 To the little hamlet lying 
 
 White in its mountain-fold. 
 Asleep by the lake, and dreaming 
 
 A dream that is never told, — 
 
 And in the Red Hill's shadow 
 Your pilgrim home you make, 
 
 Where the chambers open to sunrise. 
 The mountains and the lake, — 
 
 If the pleasant picture wearies. 
 As the fairest sometimes will, 
 
 And the weight of the hills lies on you, 
 And the water is all too still, — 
 
 If in vain the peaks of Gunstock 
 
 Redden with sunrise fire. 
 And the sky and the purple mountains 
 
 And the sunset islands tire, — 
 
 If you turn from the in-door thrumming 
 And clatter of bowls without. 
 
 And the folly that goes on its travels 
 Bearing the city about, — 
 
 And the cares you left behind you 
 Come hunting along your track, 
 
 As Blue-Cap in German fable 
 Rode on the traveller's pack, — 
 
 Let me tell you a tender story 
 Of one who is now no more, 
 
 A tale to haunt like a spirit 
 The Winnipisauke shore, — 
 
 Of one who was brave and gentle, 
 And strong for manly strife, 
 
680 A Legend of the Lake. [December, 
 
 Riding -vvitli cheering and music 
 Into the tourney of life. 
 
 Faltering and falling midway 
 
 In the Tempter's subtle snare, 
 The chains of an evil habit 
 
 He bowed himself to bear. 
 
 Over his fresh, young manhood 
 
 The bestial veil was flung, — 
 The curse of the wine of Circe, 
 
 The spell her weavers sung. 
 
 Yearly did hill- and lake-side 
 
 Their summer idyls frame ; 
 Alone in his darkened dwelling, 
 
 He hid his face for shame. 
 
 The music of life's great marches 
 
 Sounded for him in vain ; 
 The voices of human duty 
 
 Smote on his ear like pain. 
 
 In vain over island and water 
 
 The curtains of sunset swung ; 
 In vain on the beautiful mountains 
 
 The pictures of God were hung. 
 
 The wretched years crept onward, 
 
 Each sadder than the last ; 
 All the bloom of life fell from him, 
 
 All the freshness and greenness passed. 
 
 But deep in his heart forever 
 
 And unprofaned he kept 
 The love of his saintly Mother, 
 
 Who in the grave-yard slept. 
 
 His house had no pleasant pictures ; 
 
 Its comfortless walls were bare ; 
 But the riches of earth and ocean 
 
 Could not purchase his Mother's Chair, — 
 
 The old chair, quaintly carven, 
 
 With oaken arms outspread, 
 Whereby, in the long gone twilights, 
 
 His childish prayers were said. 
 
 For thence, in his lone night-watches, 
 
 By moon or starlight dim, 
 A face full of love and pity 
 
 And tenderness looked on him. 
 
1861.] A Legend of the Lake, 681 
 
 And oft, as the grieving presence 
 
 Sat in his mother's chair, 
 The groan of his self-upbraiding 
 
 Grew into wordless prayer. 
 
 At last, in the moonless midnight, 
 
 The summoning angel came, 
 Severe in his pity, touching 
 
 The house with fingers of flame. 
 
 The red light flashed from its windows 
 
 And flared from its sinking roof ; 
 And baffled and awed before it. 
 
 The villagers stood aloof. 
 
 They shrank from the falling rafters. 
 
 They turned from the furnace-glare ; 
 But its tenant cried, " God help me ! 
 
 I must save my mother's chair." 
 
 Under the blazing portal, 
 
 Over the floor of fire, 
 He seemed, in the terrible splendor, 
 
 A martyr on his pyre I 
 
 In his face the mad flames smote him 
 
 And stung him on either side ; 
 But he clung to the sacred relic, — 
 
 By his mother's chair he died ! 
 
 O mother, with human yearnings ! 
 
 O saint, by the altar-stairs ! 
 Shall not the dear God give thee 
 
 The child of thy many prayers ? 
 
 O Christ ! by whom the loving. 
 
 Though erring, are forgiven, 
 Hast Thou for him no refuge, 
 
 No quiet place in heaven ? 
 
 Give palms to Thy strong martyrs, 
 
 And crown Thy saints with gold, 
 But let the mother welcome 
 
 Her lost one to Thy fold ! 
 
 VOL. vni. 44 
 
682 
 
 Agnes of Sorrento. 
 
 [December, 
 
 AGNES OF SORRENTO. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 ELSIE PUSHES HER SCHEME. 
 
 The good Father Antonio returned 
 from his conference with the cavalier 
 with many subjects for grave pondering. 
 This man, as he conjectured, so far from 
 being an enemy either of Church or 
 State, was in fact in many respects in 
 the same position with his revered mas- 
 ter, — as nearly so as the position of a 
 layman was likely to resemble that of an 
 ecclesiastic. His denial of the Visible 
 Church, as represented by the Pope and 
 Cardinals, sprang not from an irreverent, 
 but from a reverent spirit. To accept them 
 as exponents of Christ and Christianity 
 was to blaspheme and traduce both, and 
 therefore he only could be counted in 
 the highest degree Christian who stood 
 most completely opposed to them in spirit 
 and practice. 
 
 His kind and fatherly heart was inter- 
 ested in the brave young nobleman. He 
 sympathized fully with the situation in 
 which he stood, and he even wished suc- 
 cess to his love ; but then how was he to 
 help him with Agnes, and above all with 
 her old grandmother, without entering on 
 the awful task of condemning and expos- 
 ing that sacred authority which all the 
 Church had so many years been taught 
 to regard as infallibly inspired? Long 
 had all the truly spiritual members of the 
 Church who gave ear to the teachings of 
 Savonarola felt that the nearer they fol- 
 lowed Christ the more open was their 
 growing antagonism to the Pope and the 
 Cardinals ; but still they hung back from 
 the responsibility of inviting the people 
 to an open revolt. 
 
 Father Antonio felt his soul deeply 
 stirred with the news of the excommuni- 
 cation of his saintly master ; and he mar- 
 velled, as he tossed on his restless bed 
 through the night, how he was to meet 
 the storm. He might have known, had 
 he been able to look into a crowded as- 
 
 sembly in Florence about this time, when 
 the unterrified monk thus met the news 
 of his excommunication : — 
 
 " There have come decrees from Rome, 
 have there ? They call me a son of per- 
 dition. Well, thus may you answer : — 
 He to whom you give this name hath nei- 
 ther favorites nor concubines, but gives 
 himself solely to preaching Christ. His 
 spiritual sons and daughters, those who 
 listen to his doctrine, do not pass their 
 time in infamous practices. They con- 
 fess, they receive the communion, they 
 live honestly. This man gives himself 
 up to exalt the Church of Christ: you 
 to destroy it. The time approaches for 
 opening the secret chamber : we will 
 give but one turn of the key, and there 
 will come out thence such an infection, 
 such a stench of this city of Rome, that 
 the odor shall spread through all Chris- 
 tendom, and all the world shall be sick- 
 ened." 
 
 But Father Antonio was of himself 
 wholly unable to come to such a cour- 
 ageous result, though capable of follow- 
 ing to the death the master who should 
 do it for him. His was the true artist 
 nature, as unfit to deal with rough hu- 
 man forces as a bird that flies through 
 the air is unfitted to a hand-to-hand 
 grapple with the armed forces of the 
 lower world. There is strength in these 
 artist natures. Curious computations have 
 been made of the immense muscular pow- 
 er that is brought into exercise when a 
 swallow skims so smoothly through the 
 blue sky ; but the strength is of a kind 
 unadapted to mundane uses, and needs 
 the ether for its display. Father Anto- 
 nio could create the beautiful ; he could 
 warm, could elevate, could comfort ; and 
 when a stronger nature went before him, 
 he could follow with an unquestioning 
 tenderness of devotion: but he wanted 
 the sharp, downright power of mind that 
 could cut and cleave its way through the 
 rubbish of the past, when its institutions, 
 
1861.] 
 
 Agnes of Sorrento. 
 
 683 
 
 come to be a loathsome prison. Besides, 
 the true artist has ever an enchanted isl- 
 and of his own ; and when this world per- 
 plexes and wearies him, he can sail far 
 away and lay his soul down to rest, as 
 Cytherea bore the sleeping Ascanius far 
 from the din of battle, to sleep on flowers 
 and breathe the odor of a hundred undy- 
 ing altars to Beauty. 
 
 Therefore, after a restless night, the 
 good monk arose in the first purple of 
 the dawn, and instinctively betook him to 
 a review of his drawings for the shrine, 
 as a refuge from troubled thought. He 
 took his sketch of the Madonna and Child 
 into the morning twilight and began med- 
 itating thereon, while the clouds that 
 lined the horizon were glowing rosy 
 purple and violet with the approaching 
 day. 
 
 " See there ! " he said to himself, " yon- 
 der clouds have exactly the rosy purple 
 of the cyclamen which my little Agnes 
 loves so much ; — yes, I am resolved that 
 this cloud on which our Mother standeth 
 shall be of a cyclamen color. And there 
 is that star, like as it looked yesterday 
 evening, when I mused upon it. Me- 
 thought I could see our Lady's clear 
 brow, and the radiance of her face, and 
 I prayed that some little power might 
 be given to show forth that which trans- 
 ports me." 
 
 And as the monk plied his pencil, 
 touching here and there, and elaborating 
 the outlines of his drawing, he sang, — 
 
 " Ave, Maris Stella, 
 Dei mater alma, 
 Atque semper virgo, 
 Felix coeli porta ! 
 
 " Virgo singularis, 
 Inter omnes mitis, 
 Nos culpis solutos 
 Mites fac et castes ! 
 
 " Vitam praesta puram. 
 Iter para tutum, 
 Ut videntes Jesum 
 Semper coUaetemur! " * 
 
 * Hail, thou Star of Ocean, 
 Thou forever virgin, 
 Mother of the Lord ! 
 
 As the monk sang, Agnes soon ap- 
 peared at the door. 
 
 " Ah, my little bird, you are there ! '* 
 he said, looking up. 
 
 " Yes," said Agnes, coming forward, 
 and looking over his shoulder at his ,j 
 work. 
 
 " Did you find that young sculptor ? " 
 she asked. 
 
 " That I did, — a brave boy, too, who 
 will row down the coast and dig us mar- 
 ble from an old heathen temple, which 
 we will baptize into the name of Christ 
 and his Mother." 
 
 " Pietro was always a good boy," said 
 Agnes. 
 
 " Stay," said the monk, stepping into 
 his little sleeping-room ; " he sent you 
 this lily ; see, I havd kept it in water all 
 night." 
 
 " Poor Pietro, that was good of him I " 
 said Agnes. " I would thank him, if I 
 could. But, uncle," she added, in a hesi- 
 tating voice, " did you see anything of 
 that — other one ? " 
 
 "That I did, child, — and talked long 
 with him." 
 
 " Ah, uncle, is there any hope for 
 him ? " 
 
 "Yes, there is hope, — great hope. 
 In fact, he has promised to receive me 
 again, and I have hopes of leading him 
 to the sacrament of confession, and after' 
 that" 
 
 " And then the Pope will forgive him 1 " 
 said Agnes, joyfully. 
 
 The face of the monk suddenly fell ; 
 he was silent, and went on retouching 
 his drawing. 
 
 " Do you not think he will ? " said Ag- 
 nes, earnestly. " You said the Church 
 
 Blessed gate of Heaven, 
 Take our heart's devotion! 
 
 Virgin one and only. 
 Meekest 'mid them all, 
 From our sins set free, 
 Make us pure like thee, 
 Freed from passion's thrall ! 
 
 Grant that in pure living. 
 Through safe paths below, 
 Forever seeing Jesus, 
 Rejoicing we may go! 
 
684 
 
 Agnes of SoiTento. 
 
 [December, 
 
 was ever ready to receive the repent- 
 ant." 
 
 " The True Church will receive him," 
 said the monk, evasively ; " yes, my little 
 one, there is no doubt of it." 
 
 " And it is not true that he is captain 
 of a band of robbers in the mountains ? " 
 said Agnes. " May I tell Father Fran- 
 cesco that it is not so ? " 
 
 " Child, this young man hath suffered 
 a grievous wrong and injustice ; for he 
 is lord of an ancient and noble estate, 
 out of which he hath been driven by the 
 cruel injustice of a most wicked and 
 abominable man, the Duke di Valenti- 
 nos,* who hath caused the death of his 
 brothers and sisters, and ravaged the 
 country around with fire and sword, so 
 that he hath been driven with his retain- 
 ers to a fortress in the mountains." 
 
 " But," said Agnes, with flushed cheeks, 
 " why does not our blessed Father ex- 
 communicate this wicked duke ? Surely 
 this knight hath erred ; instead of taking 
 refuge in the mountains, he ought to 
 have fled with his followers to Rome, 
 where the dear Father of the Church 
 hath a house for all the oppressed. It 
 must be so lovely to be the father of all 
 men, and to take in and comfort all those 
 who are distressed and sorrowful, and 
 to right the wrongs of all that are op- 
 pressed, as our dear Father at Rome 
 doth!" 
 
 The monk looked up at Agnes's clear 
 glowing face with a sort of wondering 
 pity. 
 
 " Dear little child," he said, " there is 
 a Jerusalem above which is mother of 
 us all, and these things are done there. 
 
 * Ccelestis urbs Jerusalem, 
 Beata pacis visio, 
 Quae celsa de viventibus 
 Saxis ad astra tolleris, 
 Sponsaeque ritu cingeris 
 Mille angelorum millibus! ' " 
 
 The face of the monk glowed as he re- 
 peated this ancient hymn of the Church, f 
 
 * Caesar Borgia was created Due de Valen- 
 tinois by Louis XII. of France. 
 
 t This very ancient hymn is the fountain- 
 head from which through various languages 
 
 as if the remembrance of that general as- 
 sembly and church of the first-born gave 
 him comfort in his depression. 
 
 Agnes felt perplexed, and looked ear- 
 nestly at her uncle as he stooped over his 
 drawing, and saw that there were deep 
 lines of anxiety on his usually clear, pla- 
 cid face, — a look as of one who strug- 
 gles mentally with some untold trouble. 
 
 " Uncle," she said, hesitatingly, " may 
 I tell Father Francesco what you have 
 been telling me of this young man ? " 
 
 "No, my little one, — it were not best. 
 In fact, dear child, there be many things 
 in his case impossible to explain, even to 
 you ; — but he is not so altogether hope- 
 less as you thought ; in truth, I have great 
 hopes of him. I have admonished him 
 to come here no more, but I shall see 
 him again this evening." 
 
 Agnes wondered at the heaviness of 
 her own Httle heart, as her kind old un- 
 cle spoke of his coming there no more. 
 Awhile ago she dreaded his visits as a 
 most fearful temptation, and thought per- 
 haps he might come at any hour ; now 
 she was sure he would not, and it was as- 
 tonishing what a weight fell upon her. 
 
 " Why am I not thankful ? " she asked 
 herself. " Why am I not joyful ? Why 
 should I wish to see him again, when I 
 should only be tempted to sinful thoughts, 
 and when my dear uncle, who can do so 
 much for him, has his soul in charge ? 
 And what is this which is so strange in 
 his case ? There is some mystery, after 
 all, — something, perhaps, which I ought 
 not to wish to know. Ah, how little can 
 we know of this great wicked world, and 
 of the reasons which our superiors give 
 for their conduct ! It is ours humbly to 
 obey, without a question or a doubt. Ho- 
 ly Mother, may I not sin through a vain 
 curiosity or self-will ! May I ever say, as 
 thou didst, ' Behold the handmaid of the 
 Lord ! be it unto me according to His 
 word!'" 
 
 have trickled the various hymns of the Celes- 
 tial City, such as — 
 
 " Jerusalem, my happy home ! " 
 and Quarles's — 
 
 " mother dear, Jerusalem ! " 
 
1861.] 
 
 Agnes of Sorrento. 
 
 G85 
 
 And Agnes went about her morning 
 devotions with fervent zeal, and did not 
 see the monk as he dropped the pencil, 
 and, covering his face with his robe, seem- 
 ed to wrestle in some agony of prayer. 
 
 " Shepherd of Israel," he said, " why 
 hast Thou forgotten this vine of Thy plant- 
 ing? The boar out of the wood doth 
 •waste it, the wild beast of the field doth 
 devour it. Dogs have encompassed Thy 
 beloved ; the assembly of the violent have 
 surrounded him. How long, O Lord, 
 holy and true, dost Thou not judge and 
 avenge ? " 
 
 " Now, really, brother," said Elsie, com- 
 ing towards him, and interrupting his med- 
 itations in her bustling, business way, 
 yet speaking in a low tone that Agnes 
 should not hear, — " I want you to help me 
 with this child in a good common-sense 
 fashion : none of your high-flying notions 
 about saints and angels, but a little good 
 common talk for every-day people that 
 have their bread and salt to look after. 
 The fact is, brother, this girl must be 
 married. I went last night to talk with 
 Antonio's mother, and the way is all open 
 as well as any living girl could desire. 
 Antonio is a trifle slow, and the high- 
 flying hussies call him stupid ; but his 
 mother says a better son never breathed, 
 and he is as obedient to all her orders 
 now as when he was three years old. 
 And she has laid up plenty of household 
 stufi* for him, and good hard gold pieces 
 to boot : she let me count them my- 
 self, and I showed her that which I had 
 scraped together, and she counted it, and 
 we agreed that the children that come 
 of such a marriage would come into the 
 world with something to stand on. Now 
 Agnes is fond of you, brother, and per- 
 haps it would be well for you to broach 
 the subject. The fact is, when I begin 
 to talk, she gets her arms round my old 
 neck and falls to weeping and kissing me 
 at such a rate as makes a fool of me. If 
 the child would only be rebellious, one 
 could do something; but this love takes 
 all the stifi'ness out of one's joints ; and 
 she tells me she never wants a husband, 
 and she will be content to live with me 
 
 all her life. The saints know it is n't for 
 my happiness to put her out of my old 
 arms ; but I can't last forever, — my old 
 back grows weaker every year ; and 
 Antonio has strong arms to defend her 
 from all these roystering fellows who 
 fear neither God nor man, and swoop up 
 young maids as kites do chickens. And 
 then he is as gentle and manageable as 
 a this-year ox ; Agnes can lead him by 
 the horn, — she will be a perfect queen 
 over him ; for he has been brought up to 
 mind the women." 
 
 "Well, sister," said the monk, "hath 
 our little maid any acquaintance with 
 this man ? Have they ever spoken to- 
 gether ? " 
 
 "Not much. I have never brought 
 them to a very close acquaintance ; and 
 that is what is to be done. Antonio is 
 not much of a talker ; to tell the truth, 
 he does not know as much to say as our 
 Agnes : but the man's place is not to say 
 fine things, but to do the hard work that 
 shall support the household." 
 
 " Then Agnes hath not even seen 
 him ? " 
 
 " Yes, at different times I have bid her 
 regard him, and said to her, ' There goes 
 a proper man and a good Christian, — a 
 man who minds his work and is obedient 
 to his old mother : such a man wUl make 
 a right good husband for some girl some 
 day.' " 
 
 " And did you ever see that her eye 
 followed him with pleasure ? " 
 
 " No, neither him nor any other man, 
 for my little Agnes hath no thought of 
 that kind ; but, once married, she will 
 like him fast enough. All I want is to 
 have you begin the subject, and get it 
 into her head a little." 
 
 Father Antonio was puzzled how to 
 meet this direct urgency of his sister. 
 He could not explain to her his own pri- 
 vate reasons for believing that any such 
 attempt would be utterly vain, and only 
 bring needless distress on his little favor* 
 ite. He therefore answered, — 
 
 " My good sister, all such thoughts lie 
 so far out of the sphere of us monks, that 
 you could not choose a worse person for 
 
686 
 
 Agnes of Sorrento, 
 
 [December, 
 
 such an errand. I have never had any 
 communings with the child than touch- 
 ing the beautiful things of my art, and 
 concerning hymns and prayers and the 
 lovely world of saints and angels, where 
 they neither marry nor are given in mar- 
 riage ; and so I should only spoil your en- 
 terprise, if I should put my unskilful hand 
 to it." 
 
 " At any rate," said Elsie, " don't you 
 approve of my plan ? " 
 
 " I should approve of anything that 
 would make our dear little one safe and 
 happy, but I would not force the matter 
 against her inclinations. You will always 
 regret it, if you make so good a child shed 
 one needless tear. After all, sister, what 
 need of haste ? 'T is a young bird yet. 
 Why push it out of the nest ? When 
 once it is gone, you will never get it 
 back. Let the pretty one have her lit- 
 tle day to play and sing and be happy. 
 Does she not make this garden a sort 
 of Paradise with her little ways and her 
 sweet words ? Now, my sister, these all 
 belong to you ; but, once she is given to 
 another, there is no saying what may 
 come. One thing only may you count 
 on with certainty : that these dear days, 
 when she is all day by your side and 
 sleeps in your bosom all night, are over, — 
 she will belong to you no more, but to a 
 strange man who hath neither toiled nor 
 wrought for her, and all her pretty ways 
 and dutiful thoughts must be for him." 
 
 " I know it, I know it," said Elsie, 
 with a sudden wrench of that jealous love 
 which is ever natural to strong, passion- 
 ate natures. " I 'm sure it is n't for my 
 own sake I urge this. I grudge him the 
 girl. After all, he is but a stupid head. 
 What has he ever done, that such good- 
 fortune should befall him ? He ought to 
 fall down and kiss the dust of my shoes 
 for such a gift, and I doubt me much if 
 he will ever think to do it. These men 
 think nothing too good for them. I be- 
 lieve, if one of the crowned saints in 
 heaven were offered them to wife, they 
 would think it all quite natural, and not 
 a whit less than their requirings." 
 
 " Well, then, sister," said the monk. 
 
 soothingly, " why press this matter ? why 
 hurry ? The poor little child is young ; 
 let her frisk like a lamb, and dance like 
 a butterfly, and sing her hymns every 
 day like a bright bird. Surely the Apos- 
 tle saith, *He that giveth his maid in mar- 
 riage doeth well, but he that giveth her 
 not doeth better.' " 
 
 " But I have opened the subject al- 
 ready to old Meta," said Elsie ; " and if 
 I don't pursue it, she will take it into 
 her head that her son is lightly regarded, 
 and then her back will be up, and one 
 may lose the chance ; and on the whole, 
 considering the money and the fellow, 
 I don't know a safer way to settle the 
 girl." 
 
 " Well, sister, as I have remarked," 
 said the monk, " I could not order my 
 speech to propose anything of this kind 
 to a young maid ; I should so bungle that 
 I might spoil all. You must even pro- 
 pose it yourself." 
 
 "I would not have undertaken it,** 
 said Elsie, " had I not been frightened 
 by that hook-nosed old kite of a cava- 
 lier that has been sailing and perching 
 round. We are two lone women here, 
 and the times are unsettled, and one 
 never knows, that hath so fair a prize, 
 but she may be carried off, and then 
 no redress from any quarter." 
 
 " You might lodge her in the con- 
 vent," said the monk. 
 
 " Yes, and then, the first thing I should 
 know, they would have got her away from 
 me entirely. I have been well pleased 
 to have her much with the sisters hither- 
 to, because it kept her from hearing the 
 foolish talk of girls and gallants, — and 
 such a flower would have had every wasp 
 and bee buzzing round it. But now the 
 time is coming to marry her, I much doubt 
 these nuns. There 's old Jocunda is a 
 sensible woman, who knew something of 
 the world before she went there, — but 
 the Mother Theresa knows no more than 
 a baby ; and they would take her in, and 
 make her as white and as thin as that 
 moon yonder now the sun has risen ; and 
 little good should I have of her, for I 
 have no vocation for the convent, — it 
 
1861.] 
 
 Agnes of Sorrento. 
 
 687 
 
 Would kill me in a week. No, — she has 
 seen enough of the convent for the pres- 
 ent. I will even take the risk of watch- 
 ing her myself. Little has this gallant 
 seen of her, though he has tried hard 
 enough ! But to-day I may venture to 
 take her down with me." 
 
 Father Antonio felt a little conscience- 
 smitten in listening to these triumphant 
 assertions of old Elsie ; for he knew that 
 she would pour all her vials of wrath on 
 his head, did she know, that, owing to his 
 absence from his little charge, the dread- 
 ed invader had managed to have two 
 interviews with her grandchild, on the 
 very spot that Elsie deemed the fortress 
 of security ; but he wisely kept his own 
 counsel, believing in the eternal value 
 of silence. In truth, the gentle monk 
 lived so much in the unreal and celestial 
 world of Beauty, that he was by no means 
 a skilful guide for the passes of common 
 life. Love, other than that ethereal kind 
 which aspires towards Paradise, was a 
 stranger to his thoughts, and he con- 
 stantly erred in attributing to other peo- 
 ple natures and purposes as unworldly 
 and spiritual as his own. Thus had he 
 fallen, in his utter simplicity, into the 
 attitude of a go-between protecting the 
 advances of a young lover with the shad- 
 ow of his monk's gown, and he became 
 awkwardly conscious, that, if Elsie should 
 find out the whole truth, there would be 
 no possibility of convincing her that what 
 had been done in such sacred simplicity 
 on all sides was not the basest manoeuv- 
 ring. 
 
 Elsie took Agnes down with her to the 
 old stand in the gateway of the town. On 
 their way, as had probably been arran- 
 ged, Antonio met them. We may have 
 introduced him to the reader before, who 
 likely enough has forgotten by this time 
 our portraiture ; so we shall say again, 
 that the man was past thirty, tall, straight, 
 well-made, even to the tapering of his 
 well -formed limbs, as are the generali- 
 ty of the peasantry of that favored re- 
 gion. His teeth were white as sea-pearl ; 
 his cheek, though swarthy, had a deep, 
 healthy flush ; and his great velvet black 
 
 eyes looked straight out from under their 
 long silky lashes, just as do the eyes of 
 the beautiful oxen of his country, with 
 a languid, changeless tranquillity, betok- 
 ening a good digestion, and a well-fed, 
 kindly animal nature. He was evidently 
 a creature that had been nourished on 
 sweet juices and developed in fair pas- 
 tures, under genial influences of sun and 
 weather, — one that would draw patiently 
 in harness, if required, without troubling 
 his handsome head how he came there, 
 and, his labor being done, would stretch 
 his healthy body to rumination, and rest 
 with serene, even unreflecting quietude. 
 
 He had been duly lectured by his 
 mother, this morning, on the propriety 
 of commencing his wooing, and was com- 
 ing towards them with a bouquet in his 
 hand. 
 
 " See there," said Elsie, — " there is our 
 young neighbor Antonio coming towards 
 us. There is a youth whom I am willing 
 you should speak to, — none of your ruf- 
 fling gallants, but steady as an ox at his 
 work, and as kind at the crib. Happy 
 will the girl be that gets him for a hus- 
 band ! " 
 
 Agnes was somewhat troubled and sad- 
 dened this morning, and absorbed in cares 
 quite new to her life before ; but her na- 
 ture was ever kindly and social, and it 
 had been laid under so many restrictions 
 by her grandmother's close method of 
 bringing up, that it was always ready to 
 rebound in favor of anybody to whom she 
 allowed her to show kindness. So, when 
 the young man stopped and shyly reach- 
 ed forth to her a knot of scarlet poppies 
 intermingled with bright vetches and wild 
 blue larkspurs, she took it gi'aciously, and, 
 frankly beaming a smile into his face, 
 said, — 
 
 " Thank you, my good Antonio ! " Then 
 fastening them in the front of her bodice, 
 — " There, they are beautiful ! " she said, 
 looking up with the simple satisfaction of 
 a child. 
 
 " They are not half so beautiful as you 
 are," said the young peasant; "every- 
 body likes you." 
 
 " You are very kind, I am sure," said 
 
688 
 
 Agnes of Sorrento, 
 
 [December, 
 
 Agnes. "I like everybody, as far as 
 grandmamma thinks it best." 
 
 " I am glad of that," said Antonio, 
 " because then I hope you will like me." 
 
 " Oh, yes, certainly, I do ; grandmam- 
 ma says you are very good, and I like 
 all good people." 
 
 " Well, then, pretty Agnes," said the 
 young man, " let me carry your basket." 
 
 " Oh, you don't need to; it does not 
 tire me." 
 
 " But I should like to do something for 
 you," insisted the young man, blushing 
 deeply. 
 
 "Well, you may, then," said Agnes, 
 who began to wonder at the length of 
 time her grandmother allowed this con- 
 versation to go on without interrupting it, 
 as she generally had done when a young 
 man was in the case. Quite to her aston- 
 ishment, her venerable relative, instead 
 of sticking as close to her as her shadow, 
 was walking forward very fast without 
 looking behind. 
 
 " Now, Holy Mother," said that excel- 
 lent matron, "do help this young man 
 to bring this affair out straight, and give 
 an old woman, who has had a world of 
 troubles, a little peace in her old age ! " 
 
 Agnes found herself, therefore, quite 
 unusually situated, alone in the company 
 of a handsome young man, and apparent- 
 ly with the consent of her grandmother. 
 Some girls might have felt emotions of 
 embarrassment, or even alarm, at this new 
 situation ; but the sacred loneliness and 
 seclusion in which Agnes had been edu- 
 cated had given her a confiding fearless- 
 ness, such as voyagers have found in the 
 birds of bright foreign islands which have 
 never been invaded by man. She look- 
 ed up at Antonio with a pleased, admir- 
 ing smile, — much such as she would have 
 given, if a great handsome stag, or other 
 sylvan companion, had stepped from the 
 forest and looked a friendship at her 
 through his large liquid eyes. She seem- 
 ed, in an innocent, frank way, to like to 
 have him walking by her, and thought 
 him very good to carry her basket, — 
 though, as she told him, he need not do 
 it, it did not tire her in the least. 
 
 " Nor does it tire me, pretty Agnes," 
 said he, with an embarrassed laugh. " See 
 what a great fellow I am, — how strong I 
 Look, — I can bend an iron bar in my 
 hands ! I am as strong as an ox, — and I 
 should like always to use my strength for 
 you." 
 
 " Should you ? How very kind of you I 
 It is very Christian to use one's strength 
 for others, like the good Saint Christo- 
 pher." 
 
 " But I would use my strength for you 
 because — I love you, gentle Agnes ! " 
 
 " That is right, too," replied Agnes. 
 " We must all love one another, my good 
 Antonio." 
 
 " You must know what I mean," said 
 the young man. "I mean that I want 
 to marry you." 
 
 " I am sorry for that, Antonio," replied 
 Agnes, gravely ; " because I do not want 
 to marry you. I am never going to mar- 
 ry anybody." 
 
 " Ah, girls always talk so, my moth- 
 er told me ; but nobody ever heard of a 
 girl that did not want a husband ; that is 
 impossible," said Antonio, with simplici- 
 ty- . ■ . 
 
 " I believe girls generally do, Antonio ; 
 
 but I do not : my desire is to go to the 
 convent." 
 
 " To the convent, pretty Agnes ? Of 
 all things, what should you want to go to 
 the convent for? You never had any 
 trouble. You are young, and handsome, 
 and healthy, and almost any of the fel- 
 lows would think himself fortunate to get 
 you." 
 
 " I would go there to hve for God and 
 pray for souls," said Agnes. 
 
 " But your grandmother will never let 
 you ; she means you shall marry me. I 
 heard her and my mother talking about 
 it last night; and my mother bade me 
 come on, for she said it was all settled." 
 
 " I never heard anything of it," said 
 Agnes, now for the first time feeling 
 troubled. " But, my good Antonio, if you 
 really do like me and wish me well, you 
 will not want to distress me ? " 
 
 " Certainly not." 
 
 « Well, it will distress me very, very 
 
1861.] 
 
 Agnes of Sorrento. 
 
 689 
 
 much, if you persist in wanting to marry 
 me, and if you say any more on the sub- 
 ject." 
 
 " Is that really so ? " said Antonio, fix- 
 ing his great velvet eyes with an honest 
 stare on Agnes. 
 
 " Yes, it is so, Antonio ; you may rely 
 upon it." 
 
 " But look here, Agnes, are you quite 
 sure ? Mother says girls do not always 
 know their mind." 
 
 " But I know mine, Antonio. Now you 
 really will distress and trouble me very 
 much, if you say anything more of this 
 sort." 
 
 " I declare, I am sorry for it," said the 
 young man. "Look ye, Agnes, — I did 
 not care half as much about it this morn- 
 ing as I do now. Mother has been say- 
 ing this great while that I must have a 
 wife, that she was getting old ; and this 
 morning she told me to speak to you. I 
 thought you would be all ready, — indeed 
 I did." 
 
 " My good Antonio, there are a great 
 many very handsome girls who would be 
 glad, I suppose, to marry you. I believe 
 other girls do not feel as I do. Giulletta 
 used to laugh and tell me so." 
 
 " That Giulletta was a splendid girl," 
 said Antonio. " She used to make great 
 eyes at me, and try to make me play the 
 fool ; but my mother would not hear of 
 her. Now she has gone off with a fellow 
 to the mountains." 
 
 « Giulietta gone ? " 
 
 " Yes, have n't you heard of it ? She 's 
 gone with one of the fellows of that dash- 
 ing young robber-captain that has been 
 round our town so much lately. All the 
 girls are wild after these mountain fel- 
 lows. A good, honest boy like me, that 
 hammers away at his trade, they think 
 nothing of; whereas one of these fellows 
 with a feather in his cap has only to 
 twinkle his finger at them, and they are 
 off like a bird." 
 
 The blood rose in Agnes's cheeks at 
 this very unconscious remark; but she 
 walked along for some time with a coun- 
 tenance of grave reflection. 
 
 They had now gained the street of the 
 
 city, where old Elsie stood at a little dis- 
 tance waiting for them. 
 
 " Well, Agnes," said Antonio, " so you 
 really are in earnest ? " 
 
 " Certainly I am." 
 
 " Well, then, let us be good friends, at 
 any rate," said the young man. 
 
 " Oh, to be sure, I will," said Agnes, 
 smiling with all the brightness her lovely 
 face was capable of "You are a kind, 
 good man, and I like you very much. I 
 will always remember you kindly." 
 
 " Well, good-bye, then," said Antonio, 
 offering his hand. 
 
 " Good-bye," said Agnes, cheerfully giv- 
 ing hers. 
 
 Elsie, beholding the cordiality of this 
 parting, comforted herself that all was 
 right, and ruffled all her feathers with 
 the satisfied pride of a matron whose 
 family plans are succeeding. 
 
 " After all," she said to herself, " broth- 
 er was right, — best let young folks settle 
 these matters themselves. Now see the 
 advantage of such an education as I have 
 given Agnes ! Instead of being betroth- 
 ed to a good, honest, forehanded fellow, 
 she might have been losing her poor sil- 
 ly heart to some of these lords or gal- 
 lants who throw away a girl as one does 
 an orange when they have sucked it. 
 Who knows what mischief this cavalier 
 might have done, if I had not been so 
 watchful ? Now let him come prying 
 and spying about, she will have a hus- 
 band to defend her. A smith's hammer 
 is better than an old woman's spindle, 
 any day." 
 
 Agnes took her seat with her usual air 
 of thoughtful gravity, her mind seeming to 
 be intensely preoccupied, and her grand- 
 mother, though secretly exulting in the 
 supposed cause, resolved not to open the 
 subject with her till they were at home 
 or alone at night. 
 
 " I have my defence to make to Father 
 Francesco, too," she said to herself, " for 
 hurrying on this betrothal against his ad- 
 vice ; but one must manage a little with 
 these priests, — the saints forgive me ! I 
 really think sometimes, because they can't 
 marry themselves, they would rather see 
 
690 
 
 Agnes of Sorrento, 
 
 [December, 
 
 every pretty girl in a convent than with 
 a husband. It *s natural enough, too. 
 Father Francesco will be like the rest of 
 the world : when he can't help a thing, 
 he will see the will of the Lord in it." 
 
 Thus prosperously the world seemed 
 to go with old Elsie. Meantime, when 
 her back was turned, as she was kneeling 
 over her basket, sorting out lemons, Agnes 
 happened to look up, and there, just un- 
 der the arch of the gateway, where she 
 had seen him the first time, sat the cava- 
 lier on a splendid horse, with a white 
 feather streaming backward from his 
 black riding-hat and dark curls. 
 
 He bowed low and kissed his hand to 
 her, and before she knew it her eyes 
 met his, which seemed to flash light and 
 sunshine all through her; and then he 
 turned his horse and was gone through 
 the gate, while she, filled with self-re- 
 proach, was taking her little heart to 
 task for the instantaneous throb of hap- 
 piness which had passed through her 
 whole being at that sight. She had not 
 turned away her head, nor said a prayer, 
 as Father Francesco told her to do, be- 
 cause the whole thing had been sudden 
 as a flash; but now it was gone, she 
 prayed, " My God, help me not to love 
 him ! — let me love Thee alone ! " But 
 many times in the course of the day, as 
 she twisted her flax, she found herself 
 wondering whither he could be going. 
 Had he really gone to that enchanted 
 cloud-land, in the old purple Apennines, 
 whither he wanted to carry her, — gone, 
 perhaps, never to return? That was 
 best. But was he reconciled with the 
 Church ? Was that great, splendid soul 
 that looked out of those eyes to be for- 
 ever lost, or would the pious exhortations 
 of her uncle avail ? And then she thought 
 he had said to her, that, if she would go 
 with him, he would confess and take the 
 sacrament, and be reconciled with the 
 Church, and so his soul be saved. 
 
 She resolved to tell this to Father 
 
 Francesco. Perhaps he would No, 
 
 — she shivered as she remembered the 
 severe, withering look with which the holy 
 father had spoken of him, and the awful- 
 
 ness of his manner, — he would never con- 
 sent. And then her grandmother 
 
 No, there was no possibility. 
 
 Meanwhile Agnes's good old uncle sat 
 in the orange-shaded garden, busily per- 
 fecting his sketches; but his mind was 
 distracted, and his thoughts wandered, — 
 and often he rose, and, leaving his draw- 
 ings, would pace up and down the little 
 place, absorbed in earnest prayer. The 
 thought of his master's position was hour- 
 ly growing upon him. The real world 
 with its hungry and angry tide was each 
 hour washing higher and higher up on 
 the airy shore of the ideal, and bearing 
 the pearls and enchanted shells of fancy 
 out into its salt and muddy waters. 
 
 " Oh, my master, my father ! " he said, 
 "is the martyr's crown of fire indeed 
 waiting thee ? Will God desert His own ? 
 But was not Christ crucified? — and the 
 disciple is not above his master, nor the 
 servant above his lord. But surely Flor- 
 ence will not consent. The whole city 
 will make a stand for him; — they are 
 ready, if need be, to pluck out their eyes 
 and give them to him. Florence will 
 certainly be a refuge for him. But why 
 do I put confidence in man ? In the 
 Lord alone have I righteousness and 
 strength." 
 
 And the old monk raised the psalm, 
 ^'■Quare fremunt genies" and his voice 
 rose and fell through the flowery recesses 
 and dripping grottoes of the old gorge, 
 sad and earnest like the protest of the 
 few and feeble of Christ's own against 
 the rushing legions of the world. Yet, 
 as he sang, courage and holy hope came 
 into his soul from the sacred words, — just 
 such courage as they afterwards brought 
 to Luther, and to the Puritans in later 
 times. 
 
 CHAPTER XYII. 
 THE monk's departure. 
 
 The three inhabitants of the little 
 dovecot were sitting in their garden af- 
 ter supper, enjoying the cool freshness. 
 The place was perfumed with the smell 
 of orange-blossoms, brought out by gen- 
 
1861.] 
 
 Agnes of Sorrento. 
 
 691 
 
 tie showers that had fallen during the 
 latter part of the afternoon, and all three 
 felt the tranquillizing effects of the sweet 
 evening air. The monk sat bending over 
 his drawings, resting the frame on which 
 they lay on the mossy garden-wall, so 
 as to get the latest advantage of the 
 rich golden twilight which now twinkled 
 through the sky. Agnes sat by him on 
 the same wall, — now glancing over his 
 shoulder at his work, and now leaning 
 thoughtfully on her elbow, gazing pen- 
 sively down into the deep shadows of 
 the gorge, or out where the golden light 
 of evening streamed under the arches of 
 the old Roman bridge, to the wide, bright 
 sea beyond. 
 
 Old Elsie bustled about with unusual 
 content in the lines of her keen wrinkled 
 face. Already her thoughts were run- 
 ning on household furnishing and bri- 
 dal finery. She unlocked an old chest 
 which from its heavy quaint carvings of 
 dark wood must have been some relic 
 of the fortunes of her better days, and, 
 taking out of a little till of the same a 
 string of fine silvery pearls, held them 
 Tip admiringly to the evening light. 
 A splendid pair of pearl ear-rings also 
 was produced from the same recepta- 
 cle. 
 
 She sighed at first, as she looked at 
 these things, and then smiled with rath- 
 er an air of triumph, and, coming to 
 "where Agnes reclined on the wall, held 
 them up playfully before her. 
 
 " See here, little one ! " she said. 
 
 " Oh, what pretty things ! — where did 
 they come from ? " said Agnes, innocent- 
 
 " Where did they ? Sure enough ! 
 Little did you or any one else know 
 old Elsie had things like these 1 But 
 she meant her little Agnes should hold 
 up her head with the best. No girl in 
 Sorrento will have such wedding finery 
 as this ? " 
 
 " Wedding finery, grandmamma," said 
 Agnes, faintly, — " what does that mean ? " 
 
 " What does that mean, sly-boots ? 
 Ah, you know well enough ! What were 
 you and Antonio talking about all the 
 
 time this morning ? Did he not ask you 
 to marry him ? " 
 
 " Yes, grandmamma ; but I told him I 
 was not going to marry. You promised 
 me, dear grandmother, right here, the 
 other night, that I should not marry till 
 I was willing ; and I told Antonio I was 
 not willing," 
 
 " The girl says but true, sister," said 
 the monk ; " you remember you gave her 
 your word that she should not be married 
 till she gave her consent willingly." 
 
 " But, Agnes, my pretty one, what can 
 be the objection ? " said old Elsie, coax- 
 ingly. " Where will you find a better- 
 made man, or more honest, or more kind ? 
 — and he is handsome ; — and you will 
 have a home that all the girls will en- 
 vy." 
 
 " Grandmamma, remember, you prom- 
 ised me, — you promised me," said Ag- 
 nes, looking distressed, and speaking ear- 
 nestly. 
 
 " Well, well, child ! but can't I ask a 
 civil question, if I did ? What is your 
 objection to Antonio ? " 
 
 " Only that I don't want to be mar- 
 ried." 
 
 "Now you know, child," said Elsie, 
 " I never will consent to your going to 
 a convent. You might as well put a 
 knife through my old heart as talk to me 
 of that. And if you don't go, you must 
 marry somebody ; and who could be bet- 
 ter than Antonio ? " 
 
 " Oh, grandmamma, am I not a good 
 girl ? What have I done, that you are 
 so anxious to get me away from you ? " 
 said Agnes. " I like Antonio well enough, 
 but I like you ten thousand times better. 
 Why cannot we live together just as we 
 do now ? I am strong. I can work a 
 great deal harder than I do. You ought 
 to let me work more, so that you need 
 not work so hard and tire yourself, — 
 let me carry the heavy basket, and dig 
 round the trees." 
 
 " Pooh ! a pretty story ! " said Elsie. 
 " We are two lone women, and the times 
 are unsettled; there are robbers and 
 loose fellows about, and we want a pro- 
 tector." 
 
692 
 
 Agnes of Sorrento. 
 
 [December, 
 
 " And is not the good Lord our protec- 
 tor? — has He not always kept us, grand- 
 mother ? " said Agnes. 
 
 " Oh, that 's well enough to say, but 
 folks can't always get along so ; — it 's 
 far better trusting the Lord with a good 
 strong man about, — like Antonio, for in- 
 stance. I should like to see the man that 
 •would dare be uncivil to Jiis wife. But 
 go your ways, — it 's no use toiling away 
 one's life for children, who, after all, won't 
 turn their little finger for you." 
 
 " Now, dear grandmother," said Agnes, 
 " have I not said I would do everything 
 for you, and work hard for you ? Ask me 
 to do anything else in the world, grand- 
 mamma ; I will do anything to make you 
 happy, except marry this man, — that I 
 cannot." 
 
 " And that is the only thing I want 
 you to do. Well, I suppose I may as 
 well lock up these things ; I see my gifts 
 are not cared for." 
 
 And the old soul turned and went in 
 quite testily, leaving Agnes with a griev- 
 ed heart, sitting still by her uncle. 
 
 " Never weep, little one," said the kind 
 old monk, when he saw the silent tears 
 falling one after another ; " your grand- 
 mother loves you, after all, and will come 
 out of this, if we are quiet." 
 
 " This is such a beautiful world," said 
 Agnes, " who would think it would be 
 such a hard one to live in ? — such bat- 
 tles and conflicts as people have here ! " 
 
 " You say well, little heart ; but great 
 is the glory to be revealed ; so let us have 
 courage." 
 
 " Dear uncle, have you heard any ill- 
 tidings of late ? " asked Agnes. " I no- 
 es o 
 
 ticed this morning you were cast down, 
 and to-night you look so tired and sad." 
 
 "Yes, dear child, — heavy tidings have 
 indeed come. My dear master at Flor- 
 ence is hard beset by wicked men, and 
 in great danger, — in danger, perhaps, of 
 falling a martyr to his holy zeal for the 
 blessed Jesus and his Church." 
 
 " But cannot our holy father, the Pope, 
 protect him ? You should go to Rome 
 directly and lay the case before him." 
 
 " It is not always possible to be pro- 
 
 tected by the Pope," said Father Anto- 
 nio, evasively. " But I grieve much, dear 
 child, that I can be with you no longer. 
 I must gird up my loins and set out for 
 Florence, to see with my own eyes how 
 the battle is going for my holy master." 
 
 " Ah, must I lose you, too, my dear, 
 best friend ? " said Agnes. " What shall 
 I do ? " 
 
 " Thou hast the same Lord Jesus, and 
 the same dear Mother, when I am gone. 
 Have faith in God, and cease not to 
 pray for His Church, — and for me, too." 
 
 " That I will, dear uncle ! I will pray 
 for you more than ever, — for prayer now 
 will be all my comfort. But," she add- 
 ed, with hesitation, " oh, uncle, you prom- 
 ised to visit him I " 
 
 " Never fear, little Agnes, — I will do 
 that. I go to him this very night, — now, 
 even, — for the daylight waxes too scant 
 for me to work longer." 
 
 " But you will come back and stay 
 with us to-night, uncle ? " 
 
 " Yes, I will, — but to-morrow morning 
 I must be up and away with the birds ; 
 and I have labored hard all day to fin- 
 ish the drawings for the lad who shall 
 carve the shrine, that he may busy him- 
 self thereon in my absence." 
 
 " Then you will come back ? " 
 
 " Certainly, dear heart, I will come 
 back ; of that be assured. Pray God it 
 be before long, too." 
 
 So saying, the good monk drew his 
 cowl over his head, and, putting his port- 
 folio of drawings under his arm, began 
 to wend his way towards the old town. 
 
 Agnes watched him departing, her 
 heart in a strange flutter of eagerness 
 and solicitude. What were these dread- 
 ful troubles which were coming upon her 
 good uncle ? — who those enemies of the 
 Church that beset that saintly teacher 
 he so much looked up to ? And why was 
 lawless violence allowed to run such riot 
 in Italy, as it had in the case of the 
 unfortunate cavalier? As she thought 
 things over, she was burning with a re- 
 pressed desire to do something herself 
 to abate these troubles. 
 
 " I am not a knight," she said to her- 
 
1861.] 
 
 Agnes of Sorrento. 
 
 fe93 
 
 self, "and I cannot fight for the good 
 cause. I am not a priest, and I cannot 
 argue for it. I cannot preach and con- 
 vert sinners. What, then, can I do ? I 
 can pray. Suppose I should make a pil- 
 grimage ? Yes, — that would be a good 
 ■work, and I will. I will walk to Rome, 
 praying at every shrine and holy place; 
 and then, when I come to the Holy City, 
 whose very dust is made precious with 
 the blood of the martyrs and saints, I 
 will seek the house of our dear father, 
 the Pope, and entreat his forgiveness for 
 this poor soul. He will not scorn me, 
 for he is in the place of the blessed Jesus, 
 and the richest princess and the poorest 
 maiden are equal in his sight. Ah, that 
 will be beautiful ! Holy Mother," she 
 said, falling on her knees before the 
 shrine, " here I vow and promise that I 
 will go praying to the Holy City. Smile 
 on me and help me ! " 
 
 And by the twinkle of the flickering 
 lamp which threw its light upon the pic- 
 ture, Agnes thought surely the placid face 
 brightened to a tender maternal smile, and 
 her enthusiastic imagination saw in this 
 an omen of success. 
 
 Old Elsie was moody and silent this 
 evening, — vexed at the thwarting of her 
 schemes. It was the first time that the 
 idea had ever gained a foothold in her 
 mind, that her docile and tractable 
 grandchild could really have for any 
 serious length of time a will opposed to 
 her own, and she found it even now dif- 
 ficult to believe it. Hitherto she had 
 shaped her life as easily as she could 
 mould a biscuit, and it was all plain sail- 
 ing before her. The force and decision 
 of this young will rose as suddenly upon 
 her as the one rock in the middle of the 
 ocean which a voyager unexpectedly dis- 
 covered by striking on it. 
 
 But Elsie by no means regarded the 
 game as lost. She mentally went over 
 the field, considering here and there 
 what was yet to be done. 
 
 The subject had fairly been broached. 
 Agnes had listened to it, and parted in 
 friendship from Antonio. Now his old 
 mother must be soothed and pacified; 
 
 and Antonio must be made to perse- 
 vere. 
 
 " What is a girl worth that can be won 
 at the first asking ? " quoth Elsie. " De- 
 pend upon it, she will fall to thinking of 
 him, and the next time she sees him she 
 will give him a good look. The girl 
 never knew what it was to have a lov- 
 er. No wonder she does n't take to it 
 at first; there 's where her bringing up 
 comes in, so difierent from other girls'. 
 Courage, Elsie ! Nature will speak in its 
 own time." 
 
 Thus soliloquizing, she prepared to go 
 a few steps from their dwelling, to the 
 cottage of Meta and Antonio, which was 
 situated at no great distance. 
 
 "Nobody will think of coming here 
 this time o' night," she said, " and the 
 girl is in for a good hour at least with 
 her prayers, and so I think I may ven- 
 ture. I don't really like to leave her, 
 but it 's not a great way, and I shall be 
 back in a few moments. I want just to 
 put a word into old Meta's ear, that she 
 may teach Antonio how to demean him- 
 self." 
 
 And so the old soul took her spinning 
 and away she went, leaving Agnes ab- 
 sorbed in her devotions. 
 
 The solemn starry night looked down 
 steadfastly on the little garden. The even- 
 ing wind creeping with gentle stir among 
 the orange-leaves, and the falling waters 
 of the fountain dripping their distant, 
 solitary way down from rock to rock 
 through the lonely gorge, were the on- 
 ly sounds that broke the stillness. 
 
 The monk was the first of the two to 
 return ; for those accustomed to the hab- 
 its of elderly cronies on a gossiping ex- 
 pedition of any domestic importance will 
 not be surprised that Elsie's few moments 
 of projected talk lengthened impercepti- 
 bly into hours. 
 
 Agnes came forward anxiously to meet 
 her uncle. He seemed wan and haggard, 
 and trembling with some recent emo- 
 tion. 
 
 "What is the matter with you, dear 
 uncle ? " she asked. " Has anything hap- 
 pened ? " 
 
694 
 
 Agnes of Sorrento, 
 
 [December, 
 
 " Nothing, child, nothing. I have only 
 been talking on painful subjects, deep 
 perplexities, out of which I can scarcely 
 see my way. Would to God this night 
 of life were past, and I could see morn- 
 ing on the mountains ! " 
 
 "My uncle, have you not, then, suc- 
 ceeded in bringing this young man to the 
 bosom of the True Church ? " 
 
 " Child, the way is hedged up, and 
 made almost impassable by difficulties 
 you little wot of. They cannot be told to 
 you ; they are enough to destroy the faith 
 of the very elect." 
 
 Agnes's heart sank within her ; and the 
 monk, sitting down on the wall of the 
 garden, clasped his hands over one knee 
 and gazed fixedly before him. 
 
 The sight of her uncle, — generally 
 so cheerful, so elastic, so full of bright 
 thoughts and beautiful words, — so utter- 
 ly cast down, was both a mystery and a 
 terror to Agnes. 
 
 " Oh, my uncle," she said, " it is hard 
 that I must not know, and that I can do 
 nothing, when I feel ready to die for this 
 cause ! What is one little life ? Ah, 
 if I had a thousand to give, I could melt 
 them all into it, like little drops of rain 
 in the sea ! Be not utterly cast down, 
 good uncle ! Does not our dear Lord 
 and Saviour reign in the heavens yet ? '* 
 
 " Sweet little nightingale ! " said the 
 monk, stretching his hand towards her. 
 " Well did my master say that he gained 
 strength to his soul always by talking 
 with Christ's little children ! " 
 
 " And all the dear saints and angels, 
 they are not dead or idle either," said 
 Agnes, her face kindling ; " they are 
 busy all around us. I know not what 
 this trouble is you speak of; but let us 
 think what legions of bright angels and 
 holy men and women are caring for us.' 
 
 " Well said, well said, dear child ! 
 There is, thank God, a Church Trium- 
 phant, — a crowned queen, a glorious 
 bride ; and the poor, struggling Church 
 Militant shall rise to join her ! What mat- 
 ter, then, though our way lie through dun- 
 geon and chains, through fire and sword, 
 if we may attain to that glory at last ? " 
 
 " Uncle, are there such dreadful things 
 really before you ? " 
 
 " There may be, child. I say of my 
 master, as did the holy Apostles : ' Let us 
 also go, that we may die with him.' I 
 feel a heavy presage. But I must not 
 trouble you, child. Early in the morn- 
 ing I will be up and away. I go with 
 this youth, whose pathway lies a certain 
 distance along mine, and whose company 
 I seek for his good as well as my pleas- 
 ure." 
 
 " You go with him f " said Agnes, with 
 a start of surprise. 
 
 " Yes ; his refuge in the mountains lies 
 between here and Rome, and he hath 
 kindly offered to bring me on my way 
 faster than I can go on foot ; and I would 
 fain see our beautiful Florence as soon 
 as may be. O Florence, Florence, Lily 
 of Italy ! wilt thou let thy prophet per- 
 ish ? " 
 
 " But, uncle, if he die for the faith, he 
 will be a blessed martyr. That crown is 
 worth dying for," said Agnes. 
 
 " You say well, little one, — you say 
 well ! ' Ex oribus parvulorum.' But one 
 shrinks from that in the person of a 
 friend which one could cheerfully wel- 
 come for one's self. Oh, the blessed 
 cross ! never is it welcome to the flesh, 
 and yet how joyfully the spirit may walk 
 under it ! " 
 
 "Dear uncle, I have made a solemn 
 vow before our Holy Mother this night," 
 said Agnes, " to go on a pilgrimage to 
 Rome, and at every shrine and holy 
 place to pray that these great afflictions 
 which beset all of you may have a hap- 
 py issue." 
 
 " My sweet heart, what have you 
 done ? Have you considered the unset- 
 tled roads, the wild, unruly men that are 
 abroad, the robbers with which the 
 mountains are filled ? " 
 
 " These are all Christ's children and 
 my brothers," said Agnes ; " for them 
 was the most holy blood shed, as well as 
 for me. They cannot harm one who 
 prays for them." 
 
 " But, dear heart of mine, these un- 
 godly brawlers think little of prayer; and 
 
1861.] 
 
 Agnes of Sorrento. 
 
 695 
 
 this beautiful, innocent little face will but 
 move the vilest and most brutal thoughts 
 and deeds." 
 
 " Saint Agnes still lives, dear uncle, — 
 and He who kept her in worse trial. I 
 shall walk through them all pure as 
 snow, — I am assured I shall. The star 
 which led the wise men and stood over 
 the young child and his mother will lead 
 me, too." 
 
 " But your grandmother ? " 
 
 " The Lord will incline her heart to 
 go with me. Dear uncle, it does not 
 beseem a child to reflect on its elders, 
 yet I cannot but see that grandmamma 
 loves this world and me too well for her 
 soul's good. This journey will be for her 
 eternal repose." 
 
 " Well, well, dear one, I cannot now 
 advise. Take advice of your confessor, 
 and the blessed Lord and his holy Moth- 
 er be with you ! But come now, I would 
 soothe myself to sleep ; for I have need 
 of good rest to-night. Let us sing to- 
 gether our dear master's hymn of the 
 Cross." 
 
 And the monk and the maiden sang 
 together : — 
 
 " lesu, sommo conforto, 
 Tu sei tutto 11 mlo amore 
 E '1 mio beato porto, 
 E santo Redentore. 
 
 gran bouta, 
 
 Dolce pieta, 
 
 Felice quel che teco unito sta ! 
 
 " La croce e '1 Crocifisso 
 Sla nel mio cor scolpito, 
 Ed io sia senipre affisso 
 In gloria ov' egli h ito ! " * 
 
 As the monk sang, his soul seemed to 
 fuse itself into the sentiment with that 
 natural grace peculiar to his nation. He 
 walked up and down the little garden, 
 apparently forgetful of Agnes or of any 
 earthly presence, and in the last verses 
 stretched his hands towards heaven with 
 streaming tears and a fervor of utterance 
 indescribable. 
 
 The soft and passionate tenderness of 
 the Italian words must exhale in an Eng- 
 lish translation, but enough may remain 
 to show that the hymns with which Sa- 
 vonarola at this time sowed the mind of 
 Italy often mingled the Moravian quaint- 
 ness and energy with the Wesleyan purity 
 and tenderness. One of the great means 
 of popular reform which he proposed was 
 the supplanting of the obscene and licen- 
 tious songs, which at that time so general- 
 ly defiled the minds of the young, by re- 
 
 * Jesus, best comfort of my soul. 
 Be thou my only love. 
 My sacred saviour from my sins, 
 My door to heaven above ! 
 O lofty goodness, love divine, 
 Blest is the soul made one with thine ! 
 
 Alas, how oft this sordid heart 
 
 Hath wounded thy pure eye ! 
 Yet for this heart upon the cross 
 
 Thou gav'st thyself to die ! 
 
 " Deh, quante volte ofFeso 
 T' ha r alma e '1 cor meschino, 
 E tu sei in croce steso 
 Per salvar me, tapino ! 
 
 Ah, would I were extended there. 
 
 Upon that cold, hard tree, 
 Where I have seen thee, gracious Lord, 
 
 Breathe out thy life for me ! 
 
 lesu, fuss' io confitto 
 Sopra quel duro ligno, 
 Dove ti vedo afflitto, 
 lesu, Signor benigno ! 
 
 Cross of my Lord, give room ! give room ! 
 
 To thee my flesh be given ! 
 Cleansed in thy fires of love and pain. 
 
 My soul rise pure to heaven ! 
 
 " croce, fammi loco, 
 E le mie membra prendi, 
 Che del tuo dolce foco 
 II cor e r alma accendi ! 
 
 Burn in my heart, celestial flame, 
 
 With memories of him, 
 Till, from earth's dross refined, I rise 
 
 To join the seraphim! 
 
 Infiamma il mio cor tanto 
 Deir amor tuo divino, 
 Ch' io arda tutto quanto, 
 Che paia un serafino ! 
 
 Ah, vanish each unworthy trace 
 Of earthly care or pride, 
 
 Leave only, graven on my heart, 
 The Cross, the Crucified ! 
 
m^ 
 
 A New CounterUasL 
 
 [December 
 
 liglous words and melodies. The cliil- 
 dren and young people brought up under 
 his influence were sedulously stored with 
 treasures of sacred melody, as the safest 
 companions of leisure hours, and the sur- 
 est guard against temptation. 
 
 " Come now, my little one," said the 
 monk, after they had ceased singing, as 
 he laid his hand on Agnes's head. " I 
 am strong now ; I know where I stand. 
 And you, my little one, you are one of 
 my master's ' Children of the Cross.' You 
 must sing the hymns of our dear master, 
 that I have taught you, when I am far 
 away. A hymn is a singing angel, and 
 goes walking through the earth, scatter- 
 ing the devils before it. Therefore he 
 who creates hymns imitates the most 
 excellent and lovely works of our Lord 
 God, who made the angels. These 
 hymns watch our chamber-door, they sit 
 upon our pillow, they sing to us when 
 we awal^e ; and therefore our master was 
 resolved to sow the minds of his young 
 people with them, as our lovely Italy is 
 sown with the seeds of all colored flowers. 
 How lovely has it often been to me, as I 
 sat at my work in Florence, to hear the 
 little children go by, chanting of Jesus 
 and Mary, — ■ and young men singing to 
 
 young maidens, not vain flatteries of 
 their beauty, but the praises of the One 
 only Beautiful, whose smile sows heaven 
 with stars like flowers ! Ah, in my day 
 I have seen blessed times in Florence ! 
 Truly was she worthy to be called the 
 Lily City ! — for all her care seemed to 
 be to make white her garments to receive 
 her Lord and Bridegroom. Yes, though 
 she had sinned like the Magdalen, yet 
 she loved much, like her. She washed 
 His feet with her tears, and wiped them 
 with the hair of her head. Oh, my beau- 
 tiful Florence, be true to thy vows, be 
 true to thy Lord and Governor, Jesus 
 Christ, and all shall be well ! " 
 
 " Amen, dear uncle ! " said Agnes. " I 
 will not fail to pray day and night, 
 that thus it may be. And now, if you 
 must travel so far, you must go to rest. 
 Grandmamma has gone long ago. I saw 
 her steal by as we were singing." 
 
 " And is there any message from my 
 little Agnes to this young man ? " asked 
 the monk. 
 
 " Yes. Say to him that Agnes prays 
 daily that he may be a worthy son and 
 soldier of the Lord Jesus." 
 
 " Amen, sweet heart ! Jesu and His 
 sweet Mother bless thee ! " 
 
 A NEW COUNTERBLAST. 
 
 " He that taketh tobacco saith he cannot leave it, it doth bewitch him."- 
 TO Tobacco. 
 
 • King James's Counterblast 
 
 America is especially responsible to 
 the whole world for tobacco, since the 
 two are twin-sisters, born to the globe in 
 a day. The sailors first sent on shore by 
 Columbus came back with news of a new 
 continent and a new condiment. There 
 was solid land, and there was a novel 
 perfume, which rolled in clouds from the 
 lips of the natives. The fame of the 
 two great discoveries instantly began to 
 overspread the world; but the smoke 
 travelled fastest, as is its nature. There 
 
 are many races which have not yet heard 
 of America : there are very few which 
 have not yet tasted of tobacco. A plant 
 which was originally the amusement of a 
 few savage tribes has become in a few 
 centuries the fancied necessary of life to 
 the most enlightened nations of the earth, 
 and it is probable that there is nothing 
 cultivated by man which is now so uni- 
 versally employed. 
 
 And the plant owes this width of ce- 
 lebrity to a combination of natural qual- 
 
1861.] 
 
 A New Counterblast. 
 
 697 
 
 ities so remarkable as to yield great di- 
 versities of good and evil fame. It was 
 first heralded as a medical panacea, " the 
 most sovereign and precious weed that 
 ever the earth tendered to the use of 
 man," and was seldom mentioned, in the 
 sixteenth century, without some reveren- 
 tial epithet. It was a plant divine, a 
 canonized vegetable. Each nation had 
 its own pious name to bestow upon it. 
 The French called it herhe sainie, herhe 
 sacree, herhe propre a tous maux, jmna- 
 cee antarctique, — the Italians, lierha san- 
 ta croce, — the Germans, Jieilig wund- 
 kraut. Botanists soberly classified it as 
 herha panacea and herha sancta, and Ge- 
 rard in his " Herbal " fixed its name fi- 
 nally as Sana sancta Indorum, by which 
 title it commonly appears in the profes- 
 sional recipes of the time. Spenser, in 
 his " Faerie Queene," bids the lovely Bel- 
 phoebe gather it as " divine tobacco," 
 and Lilly the Euphuist calls it " our ho- 
 ly herb Nicotian," ranking it between 
 violets and honey. It was cultivated in 
 France for medicinal purposes solely, for 
 half a century before any one there used 
 it for pleasure, and till within the last 
 hundred years it was familiarly prescrib- 
 ed, all over Europe, for asthma, gout, ca- 
 tarrh, consumption, headache ; and, in 
 short, was credited with curing more dis- 
 eases than even the eighty-seven which 
 Dr. Shew now charges it with producing. 
 So vast were the results of all this san- 
 itary enthusiasm, that the use of tobacco 
 in Europe probably reached its climax in 
 a century or two, and has since rather 
 diminished than increased, in proportion 
 to the population. It probably appeared 
 in England in 1586, being first used in 
 the Indian fashion, by handing one pipe 
 from man to man throughout the compa- 
 ny ; the medium of communication being 
 a silver tube for the higher classes, and a 
 straw and walnut-shell for the baser sort. 
 Paul Hentzner,, who travelled in Eng- 
 land in 1598, and Monsieur Misson, who 
 wrote precisely a century later, note al- 
 most in the same words " a perpetual 
 use of tobacco " ; and the latter suspects 
 that this is what makes " the generality 
 
 VOL. VIII. 45 
 
 of Englishmen so taciturn, so thoughtful, 
 and so melancholy." In Queen Eliza- 
 beth's time, the ladies of the court " would 
 not scruple to blow a pipe together very 
 socially." In 1614 it was asserted that 
 tobacco was sold openly in more than 
 seven thousand places in London, some 
 of these being already attended by that 
 patient Indian who still stands seduc- 
 tive at tobacconists' doors. It was also 
 estimated that the annual receipts of 
 these estabhshments amounted to more 
 than three hundred thousand pounds. 
 Elegant ladies had their pictures painted, 
 at least one in 1650 did, with pipe and 
 box in hand. Rochefort, a rather apoc- 
 ryphal French traveller in 1672, report- 
 ed it to be the general custom in Enghsh 
 homes to set pipes on the table in the 
 evening for the females as well as males 
 of the family, and to provide children's 
 luncheon-baskets with a well-filled pipe, 
 to be smoked at school, under the direct- 
 ing eye of the master. In 1703, Law- 
 rence Spooner wrote that " the sin of the 
 kingdom in the intemperate use of tobac- 
 co swelleth and increaseth so daily that I 
 can compare it to nothing but the waters 
 of Noah, that swelled fifteen cubits above 
 the highest mountains." The deluge reach- 
 ed its height in England — so thinks 
 the amusing and indefatigable Mr. Fair- 
 holt, author of " Tobacco and its Associa- 
 tions" — in the reign of Queen Anne. 
 Steele, in the " Spectator," (1711,) de- 
 scribes the snufi*-box as a rival to the fan 
 among ladies ; and Goldsmith pictures the 
 belles at Bath as entering the water in 
 full bathing costume, each provided with 
 a small floating basket, to hold a snuff- 
 box, a kerchief, and a nosegay. And 
 finally, in 1797, Dr. Clarke complains of 
 the handing about of the snuff-box in 
 churches during worship, " to the great 
 scandal of religious people," — adding, 
 that kneeling in prayer was prevented by 
 the large quantity of saliva ejected in all 
 directions. In view of such formidable 
 statements as these, it is hardly possible 
 to believe that the present generation 
 surpasses or even equals the past in the 
 consumption of tobacco. 
 
698 
 
 A New Coimterhlast. 
 
 [December, 
 
 And all this sudden popularity -was in 
 spite of a vast persecution which sought 
 to unite all Europe against this indul- 
 gence, in the seventeenth century. In 
 llussia, its use was punishable with am- 
 putation of the nose ; in Berne, it ranked 
 next to adultery among offences ; San- 
 dys, the traveller, saw a Turk led through 
 the streets of Constantinople mounted 
 backward on an ass with a tobacco-pipe 
 thrust through his nose. Pope Urban 
 VllL, in 1624, excommunicated those 
 who should use it in churches, and Inno- 
 cent XII., in 1690, echoed the same 
 anathema. Yet within a few years af- 
 terwards travellers reported that same 
 free use of snuff in Romish worship which 
 still astonishes spectators. To see a priest, 
 during the momentous ceremonial of 
 High Mass, enliven the occasion by a 
 voluptuous pinch, is a sight even more 
 astonishing, though perhaps less disagree- 
 able, than the well-used spittoon which 
 decorates so many Protestant pulpits. 
 
 But the Protestant pulpits did their full 
 share in fighting the habit, for a time at 
 least. Among the Puritans, no man could 
 use tobacco publicly, on penalty of a fine 
 of two and sixpence, or in a private dwell- 
 ing, if strangers were present ; and no 
 two could use it together. That iron pipe 
 of Miles Standish, still preserved at Ply- 
 mouth, must have been smoked in solitude 
 or not at all. This strictness was gradu- 
 ally relaxed, however, as the clergy took 
 up the habit of smoking ; and I have seen 
 an old painting, on the panels of an an- 
 cient parsonage in Newburyport, repre- 
 senting a jovial circle of portly divines 
 sitting pipe in hand around a table, with 
 the Latin motto, " In essentials unity, in 
 non-essentials liberty, in all things char- 
 ity." Apparently the tobacco was one 
 of the essentials, since there was unity 
 respecting that. Furthermore, Captain 
 Underbill, hero of the Pequot War, boast- 
 ed to the saints of having received his 
 assurance of salvation " while enjoying 
 a pipe of that good creature, tobacco," 
 " since when he had never doubted it, 
 •though he should fall into sin." But it 
 is melancholy to relate that this fall did 
 
 presently take place, in a very flagrant 
 manner, and brought discredit upon to- 
 bacco conversions, as being liable to end 
 in smoke. 
 
 Indeed, some of the most royal wills 
 that ever lived in the world have meas- 
 ured themselves against the tobacco-plant 
 and been defeated. Charles I. attempt- 
 ed to banish it, and in return the sol- 
 diers of Cromwell puffed their smoke 
 contemptuously in his face, as he sat a 
 prisoner in the guard-chamber. Crom- 
 well himself undertook it, and Evelyn 
 says that the troopers smoked in triumph 
 at his funeral. Wellington tried it, and 
 the artists caricatured him on a pipe's 
 head with a soldier behind him defying 
 with a whiff that imperial nose. Louis 
 Napoleon is said to be now attempting 
 it, and probably finds his subjects more 
 ready to surrender the freedom of the 
 press than of the pipe. 
 
 The more recent efforts against tobac- 
 co, like most arguments in which morals 
 and physiology are mingled, have lost 
 much of their effect through exaggera- 
 tion. On both sides there has been en- 
 listed much loose statement, with some 
 bad logic. It is, for instance, unreason- 
 able to hold up the tobacco-plant to gen- 
 eral indignation because Linnasus classed 
 it with the natural order Luridce^ — since 
 he attributed the luridness only to the col- 
 or of those plants, not to their character. 
 It is absurd to denounce it as belonging 
 to the poisonous nightshade tribe, when 
 the potato and the tomato also apper- 
 tain to that perilous domestic circle. It 
 is hardly fair even to complain of it for 
 yielding a poisonous oil, when these two 
 virtuous plants — to say nothing of the 
 peach and the almond — will under suf- 
 ficient chemical provocation do the same 
 thing. Two drops of nicotine will, indeed, 
 kill a rabbit ; but so, it is said, will two 
 drops of solanine. Great are the re- 
 sources of chemistry, and a well-regu- 
 lated scientific mind can detect some- 
 thing deadly almost anywhere. 
 
 Nor is it safe to assume, as many do, 
 that tobacco predisposes very powerfully 
 to more dangerous dissipations. The non- 
 
 i 
 
1861.] 
 
 A New Counterblast, 
 
 699 
 
 smoking Saxons were probably far more 
 intemperate in drinking than the modern 
 English; and Lane, the best authority, 
 points out that wine is now far less used 
 by the Orientals than at the time of the 
 " Arabian Nights," when tobacco had not 
 been introduced. And in respect to yet 
 more perilous sensual excesses, tobacco is 
 now admitted, both by friends and foes, 
 to be quite as much a sedative as a stimu- 
 lant. 
 
 The point of objection on the ground 
 of inordinate expense is doubtless better 
 taken, and can be met only by substan- 
 tial proof that the enormous outlay is a 
 wise one. Tobacco may be " the ano- 
 dyne of poverty," as somebody has said, 
 but it certainly promotes poverty. This 
 narcotic lulls to sleep all pecuniary econ- 
 omy. Every pipe may not, indeed, cost 
 so much as that jewelled one seen by 
 Dibdin in Vienna, which was valued at 
 a thousand pounds ; or even as the Ger- 
 man meerschaum which was passed from 
 mouth to mouth through a whole regiment 
 of soldiers till it was colored to perfection, 
 having never been allowed to cool,— a bill 
 of one hundred pounds being ultimately 
 rendered for the tobacco consumed. But 
 how heedlessly men squander money on 
 this pet luxury ! By the report of the 
 English University Commissioners, some 
 ten years ago, a student's annual tobacco- 
 bill often amounts to forty pounds. Dr. 
 Solly puts thirty pounds as the lowest an- 
 nual expenditure of an English smoker, 
 and knows many who spend one hundred 
 and twenty pounds, and one three hun- 
 dred pounds a year, on tobacco alone. In 
 this country the facts are hard to obtain, 
 but many a man smokes twelve four- 
 cent cigars a day, and many a man four 
 twelve-cent cigars, — spending in either 
 case about half a dollar a day and not 
 far from two hundred dollars per annum. 
 An industrious mechanic earns his two 
 dollars and fifty cents a day or a clerk 
 his eight hundred dollars a year, spends 
 a quarter of it on tobacco, and the rest on 
 his wife, children, and miscellaneous ex- 
 penses. 
 
 But the impotency which marks some 
 
 of the stock arguments against tobacco 
 extends to most of those in favor of it. 
 My friend assures me that every one 
 needs some narcotic, that the American 
 brain is too active, and that the influence 
 of tobacco is quieting, — great is the en- 
 joyment of a comfortable pipe after din- 
 ner. I grant, on observing him at that 
 period, that it appears so. But I also 
 observe, that, when the placid hour has 
 passed away, his nervous system is more 
 susceptible, his hand more tremulous, his 
 temper more irritable on slight occa- 
 sions, than during the days when the 
 comfortable pipe chances to be omitted. 
 The only effect of the narcotic appears, 
 therefore, to be a demand for another 
 narcotic ; and there seems no decided ad- 
 vantage over the life of the birds and 
 bees, who appear to keep their nervous 
 systems in tolerably healthy condition 
 with no narcotic at all. 
 
 The argument drawn from a compari- 
 son of races is no better. Germans are 
 vigorous and Turks are long-lived, and 
 they are all great smokers. But certain- 
 ly the Germans do not appear so viva- 
 cious, nor the Turks so energetic, as to 
 afford triumphant demonstrations in be- 
 half of the sacred weed. Moreover, the 
 Eastern tobacco is as much milder than 
 ours as are the Continental wines than 
 even those semi-alcoholic mixtures which 
 prevail at scrupulous communion-tables. 
 And as for German health, Dr. Schneider 
 declares, in the London " Lancet," that it 
 is because of smoke that all his educated 
 countrymen wear spectacles, that an im- 
 mense amount of consumption is produced 
 in Germany by tobacco, and that English 
 insurance companies are proverbially cau- 
 tious in insuring German lives. Dr. Car- 
 lyon gives much the same as his obser- 
 vation in Holland. These facts may be 
 overstated, but they are at least as good 
 as those which they answer. 
 
 Not much better is the excuse alleged 
 in the social and genial influences of to- 
 bacco. It certainly seems a singular way 
 of opening the lips for conversation by 
 closing them on a pipe-stem, and it would 
 rather appear as if Fate designed to gag 
 
700 
 
 A New Counterblast. 
 
 [December, 
 
 the smokers and let the non-smokers talk. 
 But supposing it otherwise, does it not 
 mark a condition of extreme juvenility 
 in our social development, if no resources 
 of intellect can enable a half-dozen intel- 
 ligent men to be agreeable to each other, 
 without applying the forcing process, by 
 turning the room into an imperfectly or- 
 ganized chimney ? Brilliant women can 
 be brilliant without either wine or tobac- 
 co, and Napoleon always maintained that 
 •without an admixture of feminine wit 
 conversation grew tame. Are all male 
 beings so much stupider by nature than 
 the other sex, that men require stimu- 
 lants and narcotics to make them mutual- 
 ly endurable ? 
 
 And as the conversational superiori- 
 ties of woman disprove the supposed so- 
 cial inspirations of tobacco, so do her more 
 refined perceptions yet more emphatical- 
 ly pronounce its doom. Though belles 
 of the less mature description, eulogistic 
 of sophomores, may stoutly profess that 
 they dote on the Virginian perfume, yet 
 cultivated womanhood barely tolerates 
 the choicest tobacco-smoke, even in its 
 freshness, and utterly recoils from the 
 stale suggestions of yesterday. By what- 
 ever enthusiasm misled, she finds some- 
 thing abhorrent in the very nature of the 
 thing. In vain did loyal Frenchmen bap- 
 tize the weed as the queen's own favor- 
 ite, Herha Catherince Medicce; it is easier 
 to admit that Catherine de' Medici was 
 not feminine than that tobacco is. Man 
 also recognizes the antagonism ; there is 
 scarcely a husband in America who would 
 not be converted from smoking, if his wife 
 resolutely demanded her right of moiety 
 in the cigar-box. No Lady Mary, no 
 loveliest Marquise, could make snufi- 
 taking beauty otherwise than repugnant 
 to this generation. Rustic females who 
 habitually chew even pitch or spruce- 
 gum are rendered thereby so repulsive 
 that the fancy refuses to pursue the hor- 
 ror farther and imagine it tobacco ; and 
 all the charms of the veil and the fan 
 can scarcely reconcile the most fumacious 
 American to the cigarrito of the Spanish 
 fair. How strange seems Barton's pic- 
 
 ture of General Jackson puffing his long 
 clay pipe on one side of the fireplace 
 and Mrs. Jackson puffing hers on the 
 other ! No doubt, to the heart of the 
 chivalrous backwoodsman those smoke- 
 dried lips were yet the altar of early 
 passion, — as that rather ungrammatical 
 tongue was still the music of the spheres ; 
 but the unattractiveness of that conju- 
 gal counterblast is Nature's own protest 
 against smoking. 
 
 The use of tobacco must, therefore, be 
 held to mark a rather coarse and childish 
 epoch in our civilization, if nothing worse. 
 Its most ardent admirer hardly paints it 
 into his picture of the Golden Age. It 
 is difficult to associate it with one's fan- 
 cies of the noblest manhood, and Miss 
 Muloch reasonably defies the human im- 
 agination to portray Shakspeare or Dan- 
 te with pipe in mouth. Goethe detested 
 it ; so did Napoleon, save in the form of 
 snuff*, which he apparently used on Tal- 
 leyrand's principle, that diplomacy was 
 impossible without it. Bacon said, " To- 
 bacco-smoking is a secret delight serving 
 only to steal away men's brains." New- 
 ton abstained from it : the contrary is of- 
 ten claimed, but thus says his biographer, 
 Brewster, — saying that " he would make 
 no necessities to himself." Franklin says 
 he never used it, and never met with one 
 of its votaries who advised him to follow 
 the example. John Quincy Adams used 
 it in early youth, and after thirty years of 
 abstinence said, that, if every one would 
 try abstinence for three months, it would 
 annihilate the practice, and add five years 
 to the average length of human life. 
 
 In attempting to go beyond these gen- 
 eral charges of waste and foolishness, and 
 to examine the physiological results of the 
 use of tobacco, one is met by the contra- 
 dictions and perplexities which haunt all 
 such inquiries. Doctors, of course, disa- 
 gree, and the special cases cited triumph- 
 antly by either side are ruled out as excep- 
 tional by the other. It is like the question 
 of the precise degree of injury done by al- 
 coholic drinks. To-day's newspaper writes 
 the eulogy of A. B., who recently died at 
 the age of ninety-nine, without ever tast- 
 
1861.] 
 
 A New CounterhlasL 
 
 701 
 
 ing ardent spirits ; to-morrow's will add 
 the epitaph of C. D., aged one hundred, 
 who has imbibed a quart of rum a day 
 since reaching the age of indiscretion ; and 
 yet, after all, both editors have to admit 
 that the drinking usages of society are 
 growing decidedly more decent. It is 
 the same with the tobacco argument. In- 
 dividual cases prove nothing either way ; 
 there is such a range of vital vigor in dif- 
 ferent individuals, that one may withstand 
 a life of error, and another perish in spite 
 of prudence. The question is of the gen- 
 eral tendency. It is not enough to know 
 that Dr. Parr smoked twenty pipes in an 
 evening, and lived to be seventy-eight; 
 that Thomas Hobbes smoked thirteen, 
 and survived to ninety-two ; that Brissiac 
 of Trieste died at one hundred and six- 
 teen, with a pipe in his mouth ; and that 
 Henry Hartz of Schleswig used tobacco 
 steadily from the age of sixteen to one 
 hundred and forty-two ; nor would any 
 accumulation of such healthy old sinners 
 prove anything satisfactory. It seems rath- 
 er overwhelming, to be sure, when Mr. 
 Fairholt assures us that his respected fa- 
 ther " died at the age of seventy-two : he 
 had been twelve hours a day in a tobacco- 
 manufactory for nearly fifty years ; and 
 he both smoked and chewed while busy 
 in the labors of the workshop, sometimes 
 in a dense cloud of steam from drying the 
 damp tobacco over the stoves; and his 
 health and appetite were perfect to the 
 day of his death : he was a model of mus- 
 cular and stomachic energy ; in which his 
 son, who neither smokes, snuffs, nor chews, 
 by no means rivals him." But until we 
 know precisely what capital of health the 
 venerable tobacconist inherited from his 
 fathers, and in what condition he trans- 
 mitted it to his sons, the statement cer- 
 tainly has two edges. 
 
 For there are facts equally notorious 
 on the other side. It is not denied that 
 it is found necessary to exclude tobacco, 
 as a general rule, from insane asylums, 
 or that it produces, in extreme cases, 
 among perfectly sober persons, effects 
 akin to delirium tremens. Nor is it de- 
 nied that terrible local diseases follow it, — 
 
 as, for instance, cancer of the mouth, which 
 has become, according to the eminent sur- 
 geon, Brouisson, the disease most dreaded 
 in the French hospitals. He has perform- 
 ed sixty-eight operations for this, within 
 fourteen years, in the Hospital St. Eloi, 
 and traces it entirely to the use of tobac- 
 co. Such facts are chiefly valuable as 
 showing the tendency of the thing. Where 
 the evils of excess are so glaring, the ad- 
 vantages of even moderate use are ques- 
 tionable. Where weak persons are made 
 insane, there is room for suspicion that 
 the strong may suffer unconsciously. You 
 may say that the victims must have been 
 constitiitionally nervous ; but where is the 
 native-born American who is not ? 
 
 In France and England the recent in- 
 quiries into the effects of tobacco seem 
 to have been a little more systematic 
 than our own. In the former country, 
 the newspapers state, the attention of 
 the Emperor was called to the fact that 
 those pupils of the Polytechnic School 
 who used this indulgence were decided- 
 ly inferior in average attainments to the 
 rest. This is stated to have led to its 
 prohibition in the school, and to the 
 forming of an anti-tobacco organization, 
 which is said to be making great progress 
 in France. I cannot, however, obtain 
 from any of our medical libraries any 
 satisfactory information as to the French 
 agitation, and am led by private advices 
 to believe that even these general state- 
 ments are hardly trustworthy. The re- 
 cent English discussions are, however, 
 more easy of access. 
 
 " The Great Tobacco Question," as 
 the controversy in England was called, 
 originated in a Clinical Lecture on Par 
 ralysis, by Mr. Solly, Surgeon of St. 
 Thomas's Hospital, which was published 
 in the " Lancet," December 13, 1856. He 
 incidentally spoke of tobacco as an im- 
 portant source of this disease, and went 
 on to say, — "I know of no single vice 
 which does so much harm as smoking. 
 It is a snare and a delusion. It soothes 
 the excited nervous system at the time, 
 to render it more irritable and feeble ul- 
 timately. It is like opium in this respect ; 
 
702 
 
 A New Counterblast 
 
 [December, 
 
 and if you want to know all the wretch- 
 edness which this drug can produce, you 
 should read the ' Confessions of an Eng- 
 lish Opium-Eater.* " This statement was 
 presently echoed by J. Ranald Martin, 
 an eminent surgeon, " whose Eastern 
 experience rendered his opinion of im- 
 mense value," and who used language al- 
 most identical with that of Mr. Solly : — 
 " I can state of my own observation, that 
 the miseries, mental and bodily, which I 
 have witnessed from the abuse of cigar- 
 smoking, far exceed anything detailed in 
 the ' Confessions of an Opium-Eater.' " 
 
 This led off a controversy which con- 
 tinued for several months in the columns 
 of the " Lancet," — a controversy con- 
 ducted in a wonderfully good-natured 
 spirit, considering that more than fifty 
 physicians took part in it, and that these 
 were almost equally divided. The de- 
 bate took a wide range, and some inter- 
 esting facts were elicited : as that Lord 
 Raglan, General Markham, and Admi- 
 rals Dundas and Napier always aban- 
 doned tobacco from the moment when 
 they were ordered on actual service ; 
 that nine-tenths of the first-class men at 
 the Universities were non-smokers; that 
 two Indian chiefs told Power, the actor, 
 that " those Lidians who smoked gave 
 out soonest in the chase " ; and so on. 
 There were also American examples, 
 rather loosely gathered : thus, a remark 
 of the venerable Dr. Waterhouse, made 
 many years ago, was cited as the con- 
 temporary opinion of " the Medical Pro- 
 fessor in Harvard University " ; also it 
 was mentioned, as an acknowledged fact, 
 that the American physique was rapid- 
 ly deteriorating because of tobacco, and 
 that coroners' verdicts were constantly 
 being thus pronounced on American 
 youths : " Died of excessive smoking." 
 On the other hand, that eminent citizen 
 of our Union, General Thomas Thumb, 
 was about that time professionally exam- 
 ined in London, and his verdict on to- 
 bacco was quoted to be, that it was " one 
 of his chief comforts " ; also mention was 
 made of a hapless quack who announced 
 himself as coming from Boston, and who, 
 
 to keep up the Yankee reputation, issued 
 a combined advertisement of " medical 
 advice gratis" and "prime cigars." 
 
 But these stray American instances 
 were of course quite outnumbered by 
 the English, and there is scarcely an ill 
 which was not in this controversy charg- 
 ed upon tobacco by its enemies, nor a 
 physical or moral benefit which was not 
 claimed for it by its friends. According 
 to these, it prevents dissension and dysp- 
 noea, inflammation and insanity, saves 
 the waste of tissue and of time, blunts 
 the edge of grief and lightens pain. " No 
 man was ever in a passion with a pipe in 
 his mouth." There are more female lu- 
 natics chiefly because the fumigatory ed- 
 ucation of the fair sex has been neglect- 
 ed. Yet it is important to notice that 
 these same advocates almost outdo its 
 opponents in admitting its liability to 
 misuse, and the perilous consequences. 
 " The injurious efiects of excessive smok- 
 ing," — " there is no more pitiable object 
 than the inveterate smoker," — " seden- 
 tary life is incompatible with smoking," 
 
 — highly pernicious, — general debility, 
 
 — secretions all wrong, — cerebral soft- 
 ening, — partial paralysis, — trembling 
 of the hand, — enervation and depres- 
 sion, — great irritability, — neuralgia, — 
 narcotism of the heart : this Chamber of 
 Horrors forms a part of the very Temple 
 of Tobacco, as builded, not by foes, but by 
 worshippers. " All men of observation 
 and experience," they admit, " must be 
 able to point to instances of disease and 
 derangement from the abuse of this lux- 
 ury." Yet they advocate it, as the same 
 men advocate intoxicating drinks ; not 
 meeting the question, in either case, 
 whether it be wise, or even generous, for 
 the strong to continue an indulgence 
 which is thus confessedly ruinous to the 
 weak. 
 
 The controversy had its course, and 
 ended, like most controversies, without 
 establishing anything. The editor of the 
 " Lancet," to be sure, summed up the 
 evidence very fairly, and it is worth 
 while to quote him : — "It is almost un- 
 necessary to make a separate inquiry 
 
1861.] 
 
 A New Counterblast. 
 
 703 
 
 into the pathological conditions which 
 follow upon excessive smoking. Abun- 
 dant evidence has been adduced of the 
 gigantic evils which attend the abuse of 
 tobacco. Let it be granted at once that 
 there is such a thing as moderate smok- 
 ing, and let it be admitted that we can- 
 not accuse tobacco of being guilty of the 
 whole of Cullen's * Nosology ' ; it 4ill re- 
 mains that there is a long catalogue of 
 frightful penalties attached to its abuse." 
 He then proceeds to consider what is to 
 be called abuse: as, for instance, smok- 
 ing more than one or two cigars or pipes 
 daily, — smoking too early in the day or 
 too early in life, — and in general, the 
 use of tobacco by those with whom it 
 does not agree, — which rather reminds 
 one of the early temperance pledges, 
 which bound a man to drink no more 
 rum than he found to be good for him. 
 But the Chief Justice of the Medical 
 Court finally instructs his jury of read- 
 ers that young men should give up a 
 dubious pleasure for a certain good, and 
 abandon tobacco altogether: — " Shun the 
 habit of smoking as you would shun self- 
 destruction. As you value your phys- 
 ical and moral well-being, avoid a habit 
 which for you can offer no advantage to 
 compare with the dangers you incur." 
 
 Yet, after all, neither he nor his wit- 
 nesses seem fairly to have hit upon what 
 seem to this present writer the two in- 
 controvertible arguments against tobac- 
 co; one being drawn from theory, and 
 the other from practice. 
 
 First, as to the theory of the thing. The 
 laws of Nature warn every man who uses 
 tobacco for the first time, that he is deal- 
 ing with a poison. Nobody denies this 
 attribute of the plant ; it is " a narcotic 
 poison of the most active class." It is 
 not merely that a poison can by chemical 
 process be extracted from it, but it is a poi- 
 son in its simplest form. Its mere appli- 
 cation to the skin has often produced un- 
 controllable nausea and prostration. Chil- 
 dren have in several cases been killed 
 by the mere application of tobacco oint- 
 ment to the head. Soldiers have simu- 
 lated sickness by placing it beneath the 
 
 armpits, — though in most cases our reg- 
 iments would probably consider this a 
 mistaken application of the treasure. To- 
 bacco, then, is simply and absolutely a 
 poison. 
 
 Now to say that a substance is a poi- 
 son is not to say that it inevitably kills ; 
 it may be apparently innocuous, if not 
 incidentally beneficial. King Mithri- 
 dates, it is said, learned habitually to 
 consume these dangerous commodities ; 
 and the scarcely less mythical Du Chail- 
 lu, after the fatigues of his gorilla war- 
 fare, found decided benefit from two 
 ounces of arsenic. But to say that a 
 substance is a poison is to say at least that 
 it is a noxious drug, — that it is a medi- 
 cine, not an aliment, — that its efiects are 
 pathological, not physiological, — and that 
 its use should therefore be exceptional, 
 not habitual. Not tending to the preser- 
 vation of a normal state, but at best to 
 the correction of some abnormal one, its 
 whole value, if it have any, lies in the rar- 
 ity of its application. To apply a pow- 
 erful drug at a certain hour every day 
 is like a schoolmaster's whipping his pu- 
 pil at a certain hour every day : the vic- 
 tim may become inured, but undoubted- 
 ly the specific value of the remedy must 
 vanish with the repetition. 
 
 Thus much would be true, were it 
 proved that tobacco is in some cases ap- 
 parently beneficial. No drug is bene- 
 ficial, when constantly employed. But, 
 furthermore, if not beneficial, it then is 
 injurious. As Dr. Holmes has so forcibly 
 expounded, every medicine is in itself 
 hurtful. All noxious agents, according 
 to him, cost a patient, on an average, five 
 per cent, of his vital power ; that is, twen- 
 ty times as much would kill him. It is 
 believed that they are sometimes indi- 
 rectly useful ; it is known that they are 
 always directly hurtful. That is, I have 
 a neighbor on one side who takes tobacco 
 to cure his dyspepsia, and a neighbor on 
 the other side who takes blue pill for his 
 infirmities generally. The profit of the 
 operation may be sure or doubtful ; the 
 outlay is certain, and to be deducted in 
 any event. I have no doubt, my dear 
 
704 
 
 A New Counterblast, 
 
 [December, 
 
 Madam, that your interesting son has 
 learned to smoke, as he states, in order 
 to check that very distressing toothache 
 which so hindered his studies ; but I sin- 
 cerely think it would be better to have 
 the affliction removed by a dentist at a 
 cost of fifty cents than by a drug at an 
 expense of five per cent, of vital pow- 
 er. 
 
 Fortunately, when it comes to the prac- 
 tical test, the whole position is conceded 
 to our hands, and the very devotees of 
 tobacco are false to their idol. It is not 
 merely that the most fumigatory parent 
 dissuades his sons from the practice ; but 
 there is a more remarkable instance. If 
 any two classes can be singled out in the 
 community as the largest habitual con- 
 sumers of tobacco, it must be the college 
 students and the city " roughs " or " row- 
 dies," or whatever the latest slang name 
 is, — for these roysterers, like oysters, in- 
 cline to names with an r in. Now the 
 " rough," when brought to a physical cli- 
 max, becomes the prize-fighter ; and the 
 college student is seen in his highest con- 
 dition as the prize-oarsman ; and both 
 these representative men, under such cir- 
 cumstances of ambition, straightway aban- 
 don tobacco. Such a concession, from 
 such a quainter, is worth all the denun- 
 ciations of good Mr. Trask. Appeal, O 
 anxious mother ! from Philip smoking to 
 Philip training. What your progeny will 
 not do for any considerations of ethics or 
 economy, — to save his sisters' olfactories 
 or the atmosphere of the family altar, — 
 that he does unflinchingly at one word 
 from the stroke-oar or the commodore. 
 In so doing, he surrenders every inch of 
 the ground, and owns unequivocally that 
 he is in better condition without tobacco. 
 The old traditions of training are in some 
 other respects being softened : strawber- 
 ries are no longer contraband, and the 
 last agonies of thirst are no longer a part 
 of the prescription ; but training and to- 
 bacco are still incompatible. There is 
 not a regatta or a prize-fight in which the 
 betting would not be seriously affected 
 by the discovery that either party used 
 the beguiling weed. 
 
 The argument is irresistible, — or rath- 
 er, it is not so much an argument as a 
 plea of guilty under the indictment. The 
 prime devotees of tobacco voluntarily 
 abstain from it, like Lord Raglan and 
 Admiral Napier, when they wish to be 
 in their best condition. But are we ever, 
 any of us, in too good condition ? Have 
 all the%anitary conventions yet succeed- 
 ed in detecting one man, in our high- 
 pressure America, who finds himself too 
 well ? If a man goes into training for 
 the mimic contest, why not for the actual 
 one ? If he needs steady nerves and a 
 cool head for the play of life, — and even 
 prize-fighting is called " sporting,"— why 
 not for its earnest ? Here we are all 
 croaking that we are not in the health in 
 which our twentieth birthday found us, 
 and yet we will not condescend to the 
 wise abstinence which even twenty prac- 
 tises. Moderate training is simply a ra- 
 tional and healthful life. 
 
 So palpable is this, that there is strong 
 reason to believe that the increased at- 
 tention to physical training is operating 
 against tobacco. If we may trust litera- 
 ture, as has been shown, its use is not 
 now so great as formerly, in spite of the 
 vague guesses of alarmists. " It is esti- 
 mated," says Mr. Coles, "that the con- 
 sumption of tobacco in this country is 
 eight times as great as in France and 
 three times as great as in England, in 
 proportion to the population " ; but there 
 is nothing in the world more uncertain 
 than " It is estimated." It is frequently 
 estimated, for instance, that nine out of 
 ten of our college students use tobacco ; 
 and yet by the statistics of the last grad- 
 uating class at Cambridge it appears that 
 it is used by only thirty-one out of sev- 
 enty-six. I am satisfied that the extent 
 of the practice is often exaggerated. In a 
 gymnastic club of young men, for instance, 
 where I have had opportunity to take the 
 statistics, it is found that less than one- 
 quarter use it, though there has never 
 been any agitation or discussion of the 
 matter. These things indicate that it 
 can no longer be claimed, as Moliere as- 
 serted two centuries ago, that he who 
 
1861.] 
 
 The Wolves, 
 
 705 
 
 lives Tvithout tobacco is not worthy to 
 live. 
 
 And as there has been some exagger- 
 ation in describing the extent to which 
 Tobacco is King, so there has doubt- 
 less been some overstatement as to the 
 cruelty of his despotism. Enough, how- 
 ever, remains to condemn him. The 
 present writer, at least, has the firmest 
 conviction, from personal observation and 
 experience, that the imagined benefits of 
 tobacco-using (which have never, perhaps, 
 been better stated than in an essay which 
 appeared in this magazine, in August, 
 1860) are ordinarily an illusion, and its 
 evils a far more solid reality, — that it 
 stimulates only to enervate, soothes only 
 to depress, — that it neither permanently 
 calms the nerves nor softens the temper 
 nor enlightens the brain, but that in the 
 
 end its tendencies are precisely the oppo- 
 sites of these, beside the undoubted inci- 
 dental objections of costliness and un- 
 cleanness. When men can find any oth- 
 er instance of a poisonous drug which is 
 suitable for daily consumption, they will 
 be more consistent in using this. When 
 it is admitted to be innocuous to those 
 who are in training for athletic feats, it 
 may be possible to suppose it beneficial 
 to those who are out of training. Mean- 
 while there seems no ground for its sup- 
 porters except that to which the famous 
 Robert Hall was reduced, as he says, by 
 " the Society of Doctors of Divinity." He 
 sent a message to Dr. Clarke, in return 
 for a pamphlet against tobacco, that he 
 could not possibly refute his arguments 
 and could not possibly give up smok- 
 
 THE WOLVES. 
 
 Ye who listen to stories told. 
 
 When hearths are cheery and nights are cold, 
 
 Of the lone wood-side, and the hungry pack 
 That howls on the fainting traveller's track, — 
 
 Flame-red eyeballs that waylay, 
 
 By the wintry moon, the belated sleigh, — 
 
 The lost child sought in the dismal wood. 
 The little shoes and the stains of blood 
 
 On the trampled snow, — O ye that hear, 
 With thrills of pity or chills of fear, 
 
 Wishing some angel had been sent 
 To shield the hapless and innocent, — 
 
 Know ye the fiend that is crueller far 
 
 Than the gaunt gray herds of the forest are ? 
 
 Swiftly vanish the wild fleet tracks 
 Before the rifle and woodman's axe : 
 
706 The Wolves. [December. 
 
 But hark to the comhig of unseen feet, 
 Pattering by night through the city street ! 
 
 Each wolf that dies in the woodland brown 
 Lives a spectre and haunts the town. 
 
 By square and market they slink and prowl, 
 In lane and alley they leap and howl. 
 
 All night they snuff and snarl before 
 
 The poor patched window and broken door. 
 
 They paw the clapboards and claw the latch, 
 At every crevice they whine and scratch. 
 
 Their tongues are subtle and long and thin, 
 And they lap the living blood within. 
 
 Icy keen are the teeth that tear, 
 Red as ruin the eyes that glare. 
 
 Children crouched in corners cold 
 Shiver in tattered garments old, 
 
 And start from sleep with bitter pangs 
 
 At the touch of the phantoms' viewless fangs. 
 
 Weary the mother and worn with strife, 
 Still she watches and fights for life. 
 
 But her hand is feeble, and weapon small : 
 One httle needle against them all ! 
 
 In evil hour the daughter fled 
 
 From her poor shelter and wretched bed. 
 
 Through the city's pitiless solitude 
 To the door of sin the wolves pursued. 
 
 Fierce the father and grim with want. 
 His heart is gnawed by the spectres gaunt. 
 
 Frenzied stealing forth by night. 
 
 With whetted knife, to the desperate fight. 
 
 He thought to strike the spectres dead, 
 But he smites his brother man instead. 
 
 O you that listen to stories told. 
 
 When hearths are cheery and nights are cold, 
 
1861.] A Story of To-Day, 707 
 
 Weep no more at the tales you hear, 
 
 The danger is close and the wolves are near. 
 
 Shudder not at the murderer's name, 
 Marvel not at the maiden's shame. 
 
 Pass not by with averted eye 
 
 The door where the stricken children cry. 
 
 But when the beat of the unseen feet 
 Sounds by night through the stormy street, 
 
 Follow thou where the spectres glide ; 
 Stand like Hope by the mother's side ; 
 
 And be thyself the angel sent 
 
 To shield the hapless and innocent 
 
 He gives but little who gives his tears, 
 He gives his best who aids and cheers. 
 
 He does well in the forest wild 
 
 Who slays the monster and saves the child ; 
 
 But he does better, and merits more, 
 
 W^ho drives the wolf from the poor man's door. 
 
 A STORY OF TO-DAY. 
 
 PART III. 
 
 Now that I have come to the love part made your hair stand on end only to read 
 
 of ray story, I am suddenly conscious of of them, — dyed at their birth clear through 
 
 dingy common colors on the palette with with Pluto's blackest poison, going about 
 
 which I have been painting. I wish I had perpetually seeking innocent maidens and 
 
 some brilliant dyes. I wish, with all my unsophisticated old men to devour. That 
 
 heart, I could take you back to that " Once was the time for holding up virtue and 
 
 upon a time " in which the souls of our vice ; no trouble then in seeing which 
 
 grandmothers delighted, — the time which were sheep and which were goats ! A 
 
 Dr. Johnson sat up all night to read about person could write a story with a moral 
 
 in " Evelina," — the time when all the to it, then, I should hope ! People that 
 
 celestial virtues, all the earthly graces were born in those days had no fancy for 
 
 were revealed in a condensed state to going through the world with half-and-half 
 
 man through the blue eyes and sumptu- characters, such as we put up with ; so 
 
 ous linens of some Belinda Portman or Nature turned out complete specimens of 
 
 Lord Mortimer. None of your good- each class, with all the appendages of dress, 
 
 hearted, sorely-tempted villains then ! It fortune, et cetera, chording decently. At 
 
708 
 
 A Story of To-Day. 
 
 [December, 
 
 least, so those veracious histories say. The 
 heroine, for instance, gUdes into hfe full- 
 charged with rank, virtues, a name three- 
 syllabled, and a white dress that never 
 needs washing, ready to sail through dan- 
 gers dire into a triumphant haven of mat- 
 rimony ; — all the aristocrats have high 
 foreheads and cold blue eyes ; all the peas- 
 ants are old women, miraculously grateful, 
 in neat check aprons, or sullen-browed in- 
 surgents planning revolts in caves. 
 
 Of course, I do not mean that these 
 times are gone : they are alive ( in a mod- 
 ern fashion) in many places in the world ; 
 some of my friends have described them 
 in prose and verse. I only mean to say 
 that I never was there ; I was born un- 
 lucky. I am willing to do my best, but I 
 live in the commonplace. Once or twice 
 I have rashly tried my hand at dark con- 
 spiracies, and women rare and radiant in 
 Italian bowers ; but I have a friend who 
 is sure to say, " Try and tell us about 
 the butcher next door, my dear." If I 
 look up from my paper now, I shall be 
 just as apt to see our dog and his kennel 
 as the white sky stained with blood and 
 Tyrian purple. I never saw a full-blood- 
 ed saint or sinner in my life. The cold- 
 est villain I ever knew was the only son 
 of his mother, and she a widow, — and a 
 kinder son never lived. I have known 
 people capable of a love terrible in its 
 strength ; but I never knew such a case 
 that some one did not consider its expe- 
 diency as " a match " in the light of dol- 
 lars and cents. As for heroines, of course 
 I know beautiful women, and good as fair. 
 The most beautiful is delicate and pure 
 enough for a type of the Madonna, and 
 has a heart almost as warm and holy 
 as hers who was blessed among wom- 
 en. (Very pure blood is in her veins, 
 too, if you care about blood.) But at 
 home they call her Tode for a nickname ; 
 all we can do, she will sinjr, and sinpf 
 through her nose ; and on washing-days 
 she often cooks the dinner, and scolds 
 wholesomely, if the tea-napkins are not 
 in order. Now, what is anybody to do 
 with a heroine like that ? I have known 
 old maids in abundance, with pathos and 
 
 sunshine in their lives ; but the old maid 
 of novels I never have met, who abandon- 
 ed her soul to gossip, — nor yet the other 
 type, a life-long martyr of unselfishness. 
 They are mixed generally, and are not 
 unlike their married sisters, so far as I can 
 see. Then as to men, certainly I know 
 heroes. One man, I knew, as high a chev- 
 alier in heart as any Bayard of them all ; 
 one of those souls simple and gentle as a 
 woman, tender in knightly honor. He 
 was an old man, with a rusty brown coat 
 and rustier wig, who spent his life in a 
 dingy village office. You poets would 
 have laughed at him. Well, well, his 
 history never will be written. The kind, 
 sad, blue eyes are shut now. There is 
 a little farm -graveyard overgrown with 
 pinvet and wild grape-vines, and a flat- 
 tened grave where he was laid to rest; 
 and only a few who knew him when they 
 were children care to go there, and think 
 of what he was to them. But it was not 
 in the far days of Chivalry alone, I think, 
 that true and tender souls have stood in 
 the world unwelcome, and, hurt to the 
 quick, have turned away and dumbly 
 died. Let it be. Their lives are not 
 lost, thank God ! 
 
 I meant only to ask you, How can I 
 help it, if the people in my story seem 
 coarse to you, — if the hero, unlike all 
 other heroes, stopped to count the cost 
 before he fell in love, — if it made his fin- 
 gers thrill with pleasure to touch a full 
 pocket-book as well as his mistress's hand, 
 — not being withal, this Stephen Holmes, 
 a man to be despised ? A hero, rather, 
 of a peculiar type, — a man, more than oth- 
 er men : the very mould of man, doubt 
 it who will, that women love longest and 
 most madly. Of course, if I could, I 
 would have blotted out every meaimess 
 or flaw before I showed him to you; I 
 would have given you Margaret an impet- 
 uous, whole-souled woman, glad to throw 
 her life down for her father without one 
 bitter thought of the wife and mother she 
 might have been ; I would have painted 
 her mother tender as she was, forgetting 
 how pettish she grew on busy days : but 
 what can I do ? I must show you men 
 
1861.] 
 
 A Story of To-Day. 
 
 709 
 
 and women as they are in that especial 
 State of the Union where I live. In all 
 the others, of course, it is very different. 
 Now, being prepared for disappointment, 
 will you see my hero ? 
 
 He had sauntered out from the city for 
 a morning walk,— not through the hills, as 
 Margaret went, going home, but on the 
 other side, to the river, over which you 
 could see the Prairie. We are in Indi- 
 ana, remember. The sunlight was pure 
 that morning, powerful, tintless, the true 
 wine of life for body or spirit. Stephen 
 Holmes knew that, being a man of deli- 
 cate animal instincts, and so used it, just 
 as he had used the dumb-bells in the morn- 
 ing. All things were made for man, were 
 n't they? He was leaning against the 
 door of the school-house, — a red, flaunt- 
 ing house, the daub on the landscape : but, 
 having his back to it, he could not see it, 
 so through his half-shut eyes he suffered 
 the beauty of the scene to act on him. 
 Suffered : in a man, according to his 
 creed, the will being dominant, and all 
 influences, such as beauty, pain, religion, 
 permitted to act under orders. Of course. 
 
 It was a peculiar landscape, — like the 
 man who looked at it, of a thoroughly 
 American type. A range of sharp, dark 
 hills, with a sombre depth of green shad- 
 ow in the clefts, and on the sides massed 
 forests of scarlet and flame and crimson. 
 Above, the sharp peaks of stone rose into 
 the wan blue, wan and pale themselves, 
 and wearing a certain air of fixed calm, 
 the type of an eternal quiet. At the base 
 of the hills lay the city, a dirty mass of 
 bricks and smoke and dust, and at its far 
 edge flowed the Wabash,— deep here, tint- 
 ed with green, writhing and gurgling and 
 curdling on the banks over shelving ledges 
 of lichen and mud-covered rock. Beyond 
 it yawned the opening to the great West, 
 — the Prairies. Not the dreary deadness 
 here, as farther west. A plain dark russet 
 in hue,— for the grass was sun-scorched, — 
 stretching away into the vague distance, 
 intolerable, silent, broken by hillocks and 
 puny streams that only made the vastness 
 and silence more wide and heavy. Its 
 limitless torpor weighed on the brain ; the 
 
 eyes ached, stretching to find some break 
 before the dull russet faded into the am- 
 ber of the horizon and was lost. An 
 American landscape : of few features, 
 simple, grand in outline as a face of one 
 of the early gods. It lay utterly motion- 
 less before him, not a fleck of cloud in 
 the pure blue above, even where the mist 
 rose from the river ; it only had glorified 
 the clear blue into clearer violet. 
 
 Holmes stood quietly looking ; he could 
 have created a picture like this, if he nev- 
 er had seen one ; therefore he was able to 
 recognize it, accepted it into his soul, and 
 let it do what it would there. 
 
 Suddenly a low wind from the far Pa- 
 cific coast struck from the amber line 
 where the sun went down. A faint trem- 
 ble passed over the great hills, the broad 
 sweeps of color darkened from base to 
 summit, then flashed again, — while be- 
 low, the prairie rose and fell like a dun 
 sea, and rolled in long, slow, solemn 
 waves. 
 
 The wind struck so broad and fiercely 
 in Holmes's face that he caught his breath. 
 It was a savage freedom, he thought, in 
 the West there, whose breath blew on 
 him, — the freedom of the primitive man, 
 the untamed animal man, self-reliant and 
 self-assertant, having conquered Nature. 
 Well, this fierce masterful freedom was 
 good for the soul, sometimes, doubtless. 
 It was old Knowles's vital air. He won- 
 dered if the old man would succeed in 
 his hobby, if he could make the slavish 
 beggars and thieves in the alleys yonder 
 comprehend this fierce freedom. They 
 craved leave to live on sufferance now, 
 not knowing their possible divinity. It 
 was a desperate remedy, this sense of un- 
 checked liberty ; but their disease was des- 
 perate. As for himself, he did not need 
 it; that element was not lacking. In a 
 mere bodily sense, to be sure. He felt 
 his arm. Yes, the cold rigor of this new 
 life had already worn off much of the 
 clogging weight of flesh, strengthened the 
 muscles. Six months more in the West 
 would toughen the fibres to iron. He 
 raised an iron weight that lay on the 
 steps, carelessly testing them. For the 
 
710 
 
 A Story of To-Day. 
 
 [December, 
 
 rest, he was going back here ; something 
 of the cold, loose freshness got into his 
 brain, he believed. In the two years of 
 absence his power of concentration had 
 been stronger, his perceptions more free 
 from prejudice, gaining every day deli- 
 cate point, acuteness of analysis. He drew 
 a long breath of the icy air, coarse with 
 the wild perfume of the prairie. No, his 
 temperament needed a subtiler atmos- 
 phere than this, rarer essence than mere 
 brutal freedom. The East, the Old World, 
 was his proper sphere for self - develop- 
 ment. He would go as soon as he could 
 command the means, leaving all c1o<ts be- 
 hind. All? His idle thought balked here, 
 suddenly ; the sallow forehead contracted 
 sharply, and his gray eyes grew in an in- 
 stant shallow, careless, formal, as a man 
 who holds back his thought. There was 
 a fierce warring in his brain for a mo- 
 ment. Then he brushed his Kossuth hat 
 with his arm, and put it on, looking out at 
 the landscape again. Somehow its mean- 
 ing was dulled to him. Just then a muddy 
 terrier came up, and rubbed itself against 
 his knee. " Why, Tige, old boy ! " he 
 said, stooping to pat it kindly. The hard, 
 shallow look faded out, and he half smil- 
 ed, looking in the dog's eyes. A curious 
 smile, unspeakably tender and sad. It 
 was the idiosyncrasy of the man's face, 
 rarely seen there. He might have looked 
 with it at a criminal, condemning him to 
 death. But he would have condemned 
 him, and, if no hangman could be found, 
 would have put the rope on with his own 
 hands, and then most probably would have 
 sat down pale and trembling, and analyz- 
 ed his sensations on paper, — being sin- 
 cere in all. 
 
 He sat down on the school-house step, 
 which the boys had hacked and whittled 
 rough, and waited; for he was there by 
 appointment, to meet Dr. Knowles. 
 
 Knowles had gone out early in the 
 morning to look at the ground he was 
 going to buy for his Phalanstery, or what- 
 ever he chose to call it. He was to bring 
 the deed of sale of the mill out with him 
 for Holmes. The next day it was to be 
 signed. Holmes saw him at last lumber- 
 
 ing across the prairie, wiping the perspira- 
 tion from his forehead. Summer or win- 
 ter, he contrived to be always hot. There 
 was a cart drawn by an old donkey com- 
 ing along beside him. Knowles was talk- 
 ing to the driver. The old man clapped 
 his hands as stage-coachmen do, and drew 
 in long draughts of air, as if there were 
 keen life and promise in every breath. 
 They came up at last, the cart empty, and 
 drying for the day's work after its morn- 
 ing's scrubbing, Lois's pock-marked face 
 all in a glow with trying to keep Barney 
 awake. She grew quite red with pleas- 
 ure at seeing Holmes, but went on quick- 
 ly as the men began to talk. Tige fol- 
 lowed her, of course ; but when she had 
 gone a little way across the prairie, they 
 saw her stop, and presently the dog came 
 back with something in his mouth, which 
 he laid down beside his master, and bolted 
 off. It was only a rough wicker-basket 
 which she had filled with damp plushy 
 moss, and half-buried in it clusters of 
 plumy fern, delicate brown and ashen 
 lichens, masses of forest-leaves all shaded 
 green with a few crimson tints. It had 
 a clear woody smell, like far-off myrrh. 
 The Doctor laughed as Holmes took it 
 up. 
 
 " An artist's gift, if it is from a mulat- 
 to," he said. " A born colorist." 
 
 The men were not at ease, for some 
 reason ; they seized on every trifle to 
 keep oflT the subject which had brought 
 them together. 
 
 " That girl's artist-sense is pure, and 
 her religion, down under the perversion 
 and ignorance of her brain. Curious, eh ? " 
 
 " Look at the top of her head, when 
 you see her," said Holmes. " It is neces- 
 sity for such brains to worship. They let 
 the fire lick their blood, if they happen 
 to be born Parsees. This girl, if she had 
 been a Jew when Christ was born, would 
 have known him as Simeon did." 
 
 Knowles said nothing, — only glanced 
 at the massive head of the speaker, with 
 its overhanging brow, square develop- 
 ment at the sides, and lowered crown, 
 and smiled significantly. 
 
 " Exactly," laughed Holmes, putting 
 
1861.] 
 
 A Story of To-Day. 
 
 Ill 
 
 his hand on his head. " Crippled there by 
 my Yorkshire blood, — my mother. Nev- 
 er mind ; outside of this life, blood or cir- 
 cumstance matters nothing." 
 
 They walked on slowly towards town. 
 Surely there was nothing in the bill-of- 
 sale which the old man had in his pocket 
 but a mere matter of business ; yet they 
 were strangely silent about it, as if it 
 brought shame to some one. There was 
 an embarrassed pause. The Doctor went 
 back to Lois for relief 
 
 "I think it is the pain and want of 
 such as she that makes them susceptible 
 to religion. The self in them is so starv- 
 ed and humbled that it cannot obscure 
 their eyes ; they see God clearly." 
 
 " Say rather," said Holmes, " that the 
 soul is so starved and blind that it can- 
 not recognize itself as God." 
 
 The Doctor's intolerant eye kindled. 
 
 " Humph ! So that 's your creed ! 
 Not Pantheism. Ego sum. Of course 
 you go on with the conjugation : / have 
 been, I shall he. I, — that covers the 
 whole ground, creation, redemption, and 
 commands the hereafter ? " 
 
 " It does so," said Holmes, coolly. 
 
 " And this wretched huckster carries 
 her deity about her, — her self-existent 
 soul ? How, in God's name, is her life 
 to set it free ? " 
 
 Holmes said nothing. The coarse sneer 
 could not be answered. Men with pale 
 faces and heavy jaws like his do not car- 
 ry their religion on their tongue's end ; 
 their creeds leave them only in the slow 
 oozing life-blood, false as the creeds may 
 be. 
 
 Knowles went on hotly, half to him- 
 self, seizing on the new idea fiercely, as 
 men and women do who are yet groping 
 for the truth of life. 
 
 " What is it your Novalis says ? ' The 
 true Shechinah is man.' You know no 
 higher God ? Pooh ! the idea is old 
 enough ; it began with Eve. It works 
 slowly. Holmes. In six thousand years, 
 taking humanity as one, this self- exist- 
 ent soul should have clothed itself with 
 a freer, royaller garment than poor Lois's 
 body, — or mine," he added, bitterly. 
 
 " It works slowly," said the other, qui- 
 etly. " Faster soon, in America. There 
 are yet many ills of life for the divinity 
 witliin to conquer." 
 
 " And Lois and the swarming mass 
 yonder in those dens ? It is late for 
 them to begin the fight?" 
 
 " Endurance is enough for them here. 
 Their religions teach them that they could 
 not bear the truth. One does not put a 
 weapon into the hands of a man dying 
 of the fetor and hunger of the siege." 
 
 " But what will this life, or the lives to 
 come, give to you champions who know 
 the truth ? " 
 
 " Nothing but victory," he said, in a 
 low tone, looking away. 
 
 Knowles looked at the pale strength 
 of the iron face. 
 
 " God help you, Stephen ! " he broke 
 out, his shallow jeering falling off. " For 
 there is a God higher than we. The ills 
 of fife you mean to conquer will teach it 
 to you. Holmes. You '11 find the Some- 
 thing above yourself, if it 's only to curse 
 Him and die." 
 
 Holmes did not smile at the old man's 
 heat, — walked gravely, steadily. 
 
 There was a short silence. The old 
 man put his hand gently on the other's 
 arm. 
 
 " Stephen," he hesitated, " you 're a 
 stronger man than I. I know what you 
 are ; I 've watched you from a boy. But 
 you 're wrong here. I 'm an old man. 
 There 's not much I know in life, — 
 enough to madden me. But I do know 
 there 's something stronger, — some God 
 outside of the mean devil they call ' Me.* 
 You '11 learn it, boy. There 's an old 
 story of a man like you and the rest of 
 your sect, and of the vile, mean, crawling 
 things that God sent to bring him down. 
 There are such things yet. Mean pas- 
 sions in your divine soul, low, selfish things, 
 that will get the better of you, show you 
 what you are. You '11 do all that man 
 can do. But they are coming, Stephen 
 Holmes ! they 're coming ! " 
 
 He stopped, startled. For Holmes had 
 turned abruptly, glancing over at the city 
 with a strange wistfulness. It was over 
 
712 
 
 A Story of To-Day, 
 
 [December, 
 
 in a moment. He resumed the slow, 
 controlling walk beside him. They went 
 on in silence into town, and when they 
 did speak, it was on indifferent subjects, 
 not referring to the last. The Doctor's 
 heat, as it usually did, boiled out in spasms 
 on trifles. Once he stumped his toe, and, 
 I am sorry to say, swore roundly about 
 it, just as he would have done in the 
 new Arcadia, if one of the jail-birds com- 
 prising that colony had been ungrateful 
 for his advantages. Philanthropists, for 
 some curious reason, are not the most 
 amiable members of small families. 
 
 He gave Holmes the roll of parchment 
 he had in his pocket, looking keenly at 
 him, as he did so, but only saying, that, if 
 he ifteant to sign it, it would be done to- 
 morrow. As Holmes took it, they stop- 
 ped at the great door of the factory. He 
 went in alone, Knowles going down the 
 street. One trifle, strange in its way, he 
 remembered afterwards. Holding the 
 roll of paper in his hand that would 
 make the mill his, he went, in his slow, 
 grave way, down the long passage to the 
 loom-rooms. There was a crowd of por- 
 ters and firemen there, as usual, and he 
 thought one of them hastily passed him 
 in the dark passage, hiding behind an 
 engine. As the shadow fell on him, his 
 teeth chattered with a chilly shudder. 
 He smiled, thinking how superstitious 
 people would say that some one trod on 
 his grave just then, or that Death looked 
 at him, and went on. Afterwards he 
 thought of it. Going through the office, 
 the fat old book-keeper. Huff, stopped him 
 with a story he had been keeping for 
 him all day. He liked to tell a story to 
 Holmes ; he could see into a joke ; it 
 did a man good to hear a fellow laugh 
 like that. Holmes did laugh, for the story 
 was a good one, and stood a moment, then 
 went in, leaving the old fellow chuckling 
 over his desk. Huff did not know how, 
 lately, after every laugh, this man felt a 
 vague scorn of himself, as if jokes and 
 laughter belonged to a self that ought to 
 have been dead long ago. Perhaps, if 
 the fat old book-keeper had known it, he 
 would have said that the man was better 
 
 than he knew. But then, — poor Huff! 
 He passed slowly through the long alleys 
 between the great looms. Overhead the 
 ceiling looked like a heavy maze of iron 
 cylinders and black swinging bars and 
 wheels, all in swift, ponderous motion. 
 It was enough to make a brain dizzy with 
 the clanging thunder of the engines, the 
 whizzing spindles of red and yellow, and 
 the hot daylight glaring over all. The 
 looms were watched by women, most of 
 them bold, tawdry girls of fifteen or six- 
 teen, or lean-jawed women from the hills, 
 wives of the coal-diggers. There was a 
 breathless odor of copperas. As he went 
 from one room to another up through the 
 ascending stories, he had a vague sensa- 
 tion of being followed. Some shadow lurk- 
 ed at times behind the engines, or stole af- 
 ter him in the dark entries. Were there 
 ghosts, then, in mills in broad daylight ? 
 None but the ghosts of Want and Hun- 
 ger and Crime, he might have known, that 
 do not wait for night to walk our streets : 
 the ghosts that poor old Knowles hoped 
 to lay forever. 
 
 Holmes had a room fitted up in the 
 mill, where he slept. He went up to it 
 slowly, holding the paper tightly in one 
 hand, glancing at the operatives, the work, 
 through his furtive half-shut eye. Noth- 
 ing escaped him. Passing the windows, 
 he did not once look out at the prophetic 
 dream of beauty he had left without. In 
 the mill he was of the mill. Yet he went 
 slowly, as if he shrank from the task wait- 
 ing for him. Why should he ? It was a 
 simple matter of business, this transfer of 
 Knowles's share in the mill to himself; to- 
 day he was to decide whether he would 
 conclude the bargain. If any dark his- 
 tory of wrong lay underneath, if this sim- 
 ple decision of his was to be the strug- 
 gle for life and death with him, his cold, 
 firm face told nothing of it. Let us be 
 just to him, stand by him, if we can, in 
 the' midst of his desolate home and deso- 
 late life, and look through his cold, sor- 
 rowful eyes at the deed he was going to 
 do. Dreary enough he looked, going 
 through the great mill, despite the power 
 in his quiet face. A man who had strength 
 
1861.] 
 
 A Story of To-Day. 
 
 713 
 
 to be alone ; yet, I think, ■with all his 
 strength and power, his mother could not 
 have borne to look back from the dead 
 that day, to see her boy so utterly alone. 
 The day was the crisis of his life, looked 
 forward to for years ; he held in his hand 
 a sure passport to fortune. Yet he thrust 
 the hour off, perversely, trifling with idle 
 fancies, pushing from him the one ques- 
 tion which all the years past and to come 
 had left for this day to decide. 
 
 Some such idle fancy it may have been 
 that made the man turn from the usual 
 way down a narrow passage into which 
 opened doors from small offices. Marga- 
 ret Howth, he had learned to-day, was in 
 the first one. He hesitated before he did 
 it, his sallow face turning a trifle paler; 
 then he went on in his hard, grave way, 
 "wondering dimly if she remembered his 
 step, if she cared to see him now. She 
 used to know it, — she was the only one in 
 the world who ever had cared to know it, 
 
 — silly child ! Doubtless she was wiser 
 now. He remembered he used to think, 
 that, when this woman loved, it would be 
 as he himself would love, with a simple 
 trust which the wrong of years could not 
 
 touch. And once he had thought 
 
 Well, well, he was mistaken. Poor Mar- 
 garet ! Better as it was. They were noth- 
 ing to each other. She had put him from 
 her, and he had suffered himself to be 
 put away. Why, he would have given 
 up every prospect of life, if he had done 
 otherwise ! Yet he wondered bitterly 
 if she had thought him selfish, — if she 
 thought it was money he cared for, as 
 the others did. It mattered nothing what 
 they thought, but it wounded him intol- 
 erably that she should wrong him. Yet, 
 with all this, whenever he looked for- 
 ward to death, it was with the certainty 
 that he should find her there beyond. 
 There would be no secrets then ; she 
 would know then how he had loved her 
 always. Loved her ? Yes ; he need not 
 hide it from himself, surely. 
 
 He was now by the door of the office ; 
 
 — she was within. Little Margaret, poor 
 little Margaret ! struggling there day af- 
 ter day for the old father and mother. 
 
 VOL. VIII. 46 
 
 What a pale, cold little child she used 
 to be ! such a child ! yet kindling at his 
 look or touch, as if her veins were filled 
 with subtile flame. Her soul was — like 
 his own, he thought. He knew what it 
 was, — he only. Even now he glowed 
 with a man's triumph to know he held the 
 secret life of this woman bare in his hand. 
 No other human power could ever come 
 near her ; he was secure in possession. 
 She had put him from her ; — it was bet- 
 ter for both, perhaps. Their paths were 
 separate here ; for she had some unreal 
 notions of duty, and he had too much to 
 do in the world to clog himself with cares, 
 or to idle an hour in the rare ecstasy of 
 even love like this. 
 
 He passed the office, not pausing in his 
 slow step. Some sudden impufse made 
 him put his hand on the door as he brush- 
 ed against it : just a quick, light touch ; but 
 it had all the fierce passion of a caress. 
 He drew it back as quickly, and went on, 
 wiping a clammy sweat from his face. 
 
 The room he had fitted up for himself 
 was whitewashed and barely furnished ; 
 it made one's bones ache to look at the 
 iron bedstead and chairs. Holmes's nat- 
 ural taste was more glowing, however 
 smothered, than that of any saffron-robed 
 Sybarite. It needed correction, he knew, 
 and this was the discipline. Besides, he 
 had set apart the coming three or four 
 years of his life to make money in, enough 
 for the time to come. He would devote 
 his whole strength to that work, and so 
 be sooner done with it. Money, or place, 
 or even power, was nothing but means 
 to him : other men valued them because 
 of their influence on others. As his work 
 in the world was only the development, 
 of himself, it was different, of course. 
 What would it matter to his soul the 
 day after death, if millions called his 
 name aloud in blame or praise ? Would, 
 he hear or answer then ? What would 
 it matter to him then, if he had starved, 
 with them or ruled over them ? People 
 talked of benevolence. What would it 
 matter to him then, the misery or happir 
 ness of those yet working in this paltry 
 life of ours ? In so far as the exercise 
 
714 
 
 A Story of To-Day. 
 
 [December, 
 
 of kindly emotions or self-denial develop- 
 ed the higher part of his nature, it was 
 to be commended ; as for its effect on 
 others, that he had nothing to do with. 
 He practised self-denial constantly to 
 strengthen the benevolent instincts. That 
 very morning he had given his last dol- 
 lar to Joe Byers, a half-starved cripple. 
 " Chucked it at me," Joe said, " like as 
 he 'd give a bone to a dog, and be damn- 
 ed to him! Who thanks him?" To 
 tell the truth, you will find no fairer ex- 
 ponent than this Stephen Holmes of the 
 great idea of American sociology, — that 
 the object of life is to grow. Circumstan- 
 ces had forced it on him, partly. Sitting 
 now in his room, where he was counting 
 the cost of becoming a merchant prince, 
 
 could look back to the time of a boy- 
 -uod passed in the depths of ignorance 
 and vice. He knew what this Self with- 
 in him was ; he knew how it had forced 
 him to grope his way up, to give this 
 hungry, insatiate soul air and freedom 
 and knowledge. All men around him 
 were doing the same, — thrusting and jost- 
 ling and struggling, up, up. It was the 
 American motto. Go ahead ;' mothers 
 taught it to their children ; the whole sys- 
 tem was a scale of glittering prizes. He at 
 least saw the higher meaning of the truth ; 
 he had no low ambitions. To lift this 
 self up into a higher range of being when 
 it had done with the uses of this, — that 
 was his work. Self-salvation, self-eleva- 
 tion, — the ideas that give birth to, and 
 destroy half of our Christianity, half of 
 our philanthropy ! Sometimes sleeping 
 instincts in the man struggled up to as- 
 sert a divinity more terrible than this 
 growing self-existent soul that he purified 
 and analyzed day by day: a depth of 
 tender pity for outer pain ; a fierce long- 
 ing for rest, on something, in something, 
 he cared not what. He stifled such rebel- 
 lious promptings, — called them morbid. 
 He called it morbid, too, the passion now 
 that chilled his strong blood, and wrung 
 out these clammy drops on his forehead, 
 at the mere thought of this girl below. 
 
 He shut the door of his room tightly : 
 he had no time to-day for lounging visitors. 
 
 For Holmes, quiet and steady, was sought 
 for, if not popular, even in the free-and- 
 easy "West ; one of those men who are un- 
 willingly masters among men. Just and 
 mild, always ; with a peculiar gift that 
 made men talk their best thoughts to 
 him, knowing they would be understood ; 
 if any core of eternal flint lay under the 
 simple, truthful manner of the man, no- 
 body saw it. 
 
 He laid the bill of sale on the table ; it 
 was an altogether practical matter on 
 which he sat in judgment, but he was go- 
 ing to do nothing rashly. A plain busi- 
 ness document : he took Dr. Knowles's 
 share in the factory ; the payments made 
 with short intervals ; John Heme was 
 to be his indorser : it needed only the 
 names to make it valid. Plain enough ; 
 no hint there of the tacit understanding 
 that the purchase-money was a wedding 
 dowry ; even between Heme and him- 
 self it never was openly put into words. 
 If he did not marry Miss Heme, the mill 
 was her father's ; that of course must be 
 spoken of, arranged to-morrow. If he 
 took it, then ? if he married her ? Holmes 
 had been poor, was miserably poor yet, 
 with the position and habits of a man of 
 refinement. God knows it was not to 
 gratify those tastes that he clutched at 
 this money. All the slow years of work 
 trailed up before him, that were gone, — of 
 hard, wearing work for daily bread, when 
 his brain had been starving for knowl- 
 edge, and his soul dulled, debased with 
 sordid trading. Was this to be always ? 
 Were these few golden moments of life 
 to be traded for the bread and meat he 
 ate ? To eat and drink, — was that what 
 he was here for ? 
 
 As he paced the floor mechanically, some 
 vague recollection crossed his brain of a 
 childish story of the man standing where 
 the two great roads of life parted. They 
 were open before him now. Money, mon- 
 ey, — he took the word into his heart as a 
 miser might do. With it, he was free from 
 these carking cares that were making his 
 mind foul and muddy. If he had money ! 
 Slow, cool visions of triumphs rose before 
 him outlined on the years to come, prac- 
 
1861.] 
 
 A Story of To-Day. 
 
 715 
 
 tical, if Utopian. Slow and sure successes 
 of science and art, where his brain could 
 work, helpful and growing. Far off, yet 
 surely to come, — surely for him, — a day 
 to come when a pure social system should 
 be universal, should have thrust out its 
 fibres of light knittin<j into one the na- 
 tions of the earth, when the lowest slave 
 should find its true place and rightful 
 work, and stand up, knowing itself divine. 
 " To insure to every man the freest devel- 
 opment of his faculties " : he said over the 
 hackneyed dogma again and again, while 
 the heavy, hateful years of poverty rose 
 before him that had trampled him down. 
 " To insure to him the freest develop- 
 ment," he did not need to wait for St. 
 Simon, or the golden year, he thought 
 with a dreary gibe ; money was enough, 
 and — Miss Heme. 
 
 It was curious, that, when this woman, 
 whom he saw every day, came up in 
 his mind, it was always in one posture, 
 one costume. You have noticed that pe- 
 culiarity in your remembrance of some 
 persons ? Perhaps you would find, if 
 you looked closely, that in that look or 
 indelible gesture which your memory has 
 caught there lies some subtile hint of 
 the tie between your soul and theirs. 
 Now, when Holmes had resolved cool- 
 ly to weigh this woman, brain, heart, 
 and flesh, to know how much of a hin- 
 drance she would be, he could only see 
 her, with his artist's sense, as delicate a 
 bloom of coloring as eye could crave, in 
 one immovable posture, — as he had seen 
 her once in some masquerade or tableau 
 vivant. June, I think it was, she chose 
 to represent that evening, — and with her 
 usual success ; for no woman ever knew 
 more thoroughly her material of shape or 
 color, or how to work it up. Not an ill- 
 chosen fancy, either, that of the moist, 
 warm month. Some tranced summer's 
 day might have drowsed down into such 
 a human form by a dank pool, or on the 
 thick grass-crusted meadows. There was 
 the full contour of the limbs hid under 
 warm green folds, the white flesh that 
 glowed when you touched it as if some 
 smothered heat lay beneath, the sleeping 
 
 face, the amber hair uncoiled in a lan- 
 guid quiet, while yellow jasmines deep- 
 ened its hue into molten sunshine, and a 
 great tiger-lily laid its sultry head on her 
 breast. June ? Could June become in- 
 carnate with higher poetic meaning than 
 that which this woman gave it ? Mr. 
 Kitts, the artist I told you of, thought 
 not, and fell in love with June and her 
 on the spot, which passion became quite 
 unbearable after she had graciously per- 
 mitted him to sketch her, — for the ben- 
 efit of Art. Three medical students and 
 one attorney Miss Heme numbered as 
 having been driven into a state of dogged 
 despair on that triumphal occasion. Mr. 
 Holmes may have quarrelled with the 
 rendering, doubting to himself if her lip 
 were not too thick, her eye too brassy and 
 pale a blue for the queen of months; 
 though I do not believe he thought at all 
 about it. Yet the picture clung to his 
 memory. 
 
 As he slowly paced the room to-day, 
 thinking of this woman as his wife, light 
 blue eyes and yellow hair and the un- 
 clean sweetness of jasmine -flowers mix- 
 ed with the hot sunshine and smells of 
 the mill. He could think of her in no 
 other light. He might have done so ; for 
 the poor girl had her other sides for view. 
 She had one of those sharp, tawdry intel- 
 lects whose possessors are always reckon- 
 ed " brilliant women, fine talkers." She 
 was (aside from the necessary sarcasm 
 to keep up this reputation) a good-hu- 
 mored soul enough, — when no one stood 
 in her way. But if her shallow virtues or 
 vices were palpable at all to him to-day, 
 they became one with the torpid beauty 
 of the oppressive summer day, and weigh- 
 ed on him alike with a vague disgust. 
 The woman luxuriated in perfume ; some 
 heavy odor always hung about her. 
 Holmes, thinking of her now, fancied he 
 felt it stifling the air, and opened the 
 window for breath. Patchouli or cop- 
 peras, — what was the difference ? The 
 mill and his future wife came to him to- 
 gether ; it was scarcely his fault, if he 
 thought of them as one, or muttered, 
 "Damnable clog!" as he sat down to 
 
716 
 
 A Story of To-Day. 
 
 [December, 
 
 write, his cold eye growing colder. But 
 Le did not argue the question any longer ; 
 decision had come keenly in one moment, 
 fixed, unalterable. 
 
 If, through the long day, the starved 
 heart of the man called feebly for its nat- 
 ural food, he called it a paltry weakness ; 
 or if the old thought of the quiet, pure lit- 
 tle girl in the office below came back to 
 him, he — he wished her well, he hoped she 
 might succeed in her work, he would al- 
 ways be ready to lend her a helping hand. 
 So many years (he was ashamed to think 
 how many) he had built the thought 
 of this girl as his wife into the future, 
 put his soul's strength into the hope, as 
 if love and the homely duties of husband 
 and father were what life was given for ! 
 A boyish fancy, he thought. He had 
 not learned then that all dreams must 
 yield to self-reverence and self-growth. 
 As for taking up this life of poverty and 
 soul-starvation for the sake of a little love, 
 it would be an ignoble martyrdom, the 
 sacrifice of a grand unmeasured Rfe to a 
 shallow pleasure. He was no longer a 
 young man now ; he had no time to waste. 
 Poor Margaret ! he wondered if it hurt 
 her now. 
 
 He left the writing in the slow, quiet 
 way natural to him, and after a while 
 stooped to pat the dog softly, who was 
 trying to lick his hand, — with the hard 
 fingers shaking a little, and a smothered 
 fierceness in the half-closed eye, like a 
 man who is tortured and alone. 
 
 There is a miserable drama acted in 
 other homes than the Tuileries, when 
 men have found a woman's heart in their 
 way to success, and trampled it down 
 under an iron heel. Men like Napoleon 
 must live out the law of their natures, I 
 suppose, — on a throne or in a mill. 
 
 So many trifles that day roused the 
 under-current of old thoughts and old 
 hopes that taunted him, — trifles, too, that 
 he would not have heeded at another 
 time. Pike came in on business, a bunch 
 of bills in his hand. A wily, keen eye 
 he had, looking over them, — a lean face, 
 emphasized only by cunning. No won- 
 der Dr. Knowles cursed him for a " slip- 
 
 pery customer," and was cheated by him 
 the next hour. While he and Holmes 
 were counting out the bills, a httle white- 
 headed girl crept shyly in at the door, 
 and came up to the table, — oddly dress- 
 ed, in an old-fashioned frock fastened 
 with great horn buttons, and with an old- 
 fashioned anxious pair of eyes, the color 
 of blue Delft. Holmes smoothed her hair, 
 as she stood beside them ; for he never 
 could help caressing children or dogs. 
 Pike looked up sharply,— then half smil- 
 ed, as he went on counting. 
 
 "Ninety, ninety -five, and one hun- 
 dred, all right," — tying a bit of tape 
 about the papers. "My Sophy, Mr. 
 Holmes. Good girl, Sophy is. Bring 
 her up to the mill sometimes," he said, 
 apologetically, " on 'count of not leaving 
 her alone. She gets lonesome at th' 
 house." 
 
 Holmes glanced at Pike's felt hat lying 
 on the table : there was a rusty strip of 
 crape on it. 
 
 " Yes," said Pike, in a lower tone, 
 " I 'm father and mother, both, to Sophy 
 now." 
 
 " I had not heard," said Holmes, kind- 
 ly. " How about the boys, now ? " 
 
 " Pete and John 's both gone West," 
 the man said, his eyes kindling eagerly. 
 " 'S fine boys as ever turned out of In- 
 diana. Good eddications I give 'em 
 both. I 've felt the want of that all my 
 life. Good eddications. Says I, 'Now, 
 boys, you 've got your fortunes, nothing 
 to hinder your bein' President. Let 's 
 see what stuff *s in ye,' says I. So they 
 're doin' well. Wrote fur me to come 
 out in the fall. But I 'd rather scratch 
 on, and gather up a little for Sophy here, 
 before I stop work." 
 
 He patted Sophy's tanned httle hand 
 on the table, as if beating some soft tune. 
 Holmes folded up the bills. Even this 
 man could spare time out of his hard, 
 stingy hfe to love, and be loved, and to 
 be generous ! But then he had no higher 
 aim, knew nothing better. 
 
 " Well," said Pike, rising, " in case you 
 take th' mill, Mr. Holmes, I hope we '11 
 be agreeable. I '11 strive to do my best," 
 
1861.] 
 
 A Story of To-Bay. 
 
 717 
 
 — in the old fawning manner, to which 
 Hohnes nodded a curt reply. 
 
 The man stopped for Sophy to gather 
 up her bits of broken China with which 
 she was making a tea-party on the table, 
 and went down-stairs. 
 
 Towards evening Holmes went out, — 
 not going through the narrow passage 
 that led to the offices, but avoiding it 
 by a circuitous route. If it cost him 
 any pain to think why he did it, he 
 showed none in his calm, observant 
 face. Buttoning up his coat as he 
 went: the October sunset looked as if 
 it ought to be warm, but he was death- 
 ly cold. On the street the young doctor 
 beset him again with bows and news : 
 Cox was his name, I believe ; the one, 
 you remember, who had such a Talley- 
 rand nose for ferreting out successful 
 men. He had to bear with him but for 
 a few moments, however. They met a 
 crowd of workmen at the corner, one of 
 whom, an old man freshly washed, with 
 honest eyes looking out of horn specta- 
 cles, waited for them by a fire-plug. It 
 was Polston, the .coal- digger, — an ac- 
 quaintance, a far-off kinsman of Holmes, 
 in fact. 
 
 " Curious person making signs to you, 
 yonder," said Cox ; " hand, I presume." 
 
 " My cousin Polston. If you do not 
 know him, you '11 excuse me ? " 
 
 Cox sniffed the air down the street, 
 
 and twirled his rattan, as he went. The 
 
 coal-digger was abrupt and distant in his 
 
 greeting, going straight to business. 
 
 " I will keep yoh only a minute, Mr. 
 
 Holmes" 
 
 " Stephen," corrected Holmes. 
 The old man's face warmed. 
 " Stephen, then," holding out his hand, 
 " sence old times dawn't shame yoh, Ste- 
 phen. That 's hearty, now. It 's only a 
 wured I want, but it 's immediate. Con- 
 cernin' Joe Yare, — Lois's father, yoh 
 know ? He 's back." 
 
 " Back ? I saw him to-day, following 
 me in the mill. His hair is gray ? I think 
 it was he." 
 
 " No doubt. Yes, he 's aged fast, 
 down in the lock-up; goin' fast to the 
 
 end. Feeble, pore-like. It 's a bad life, 
 Joe Yare's ; I wish 'n' 't would be better 
 
 to the end " 
 
 He stopped with a wistful look at 
 Holmes, who stood outwardly attentive, 
 but with little thought to waste on Joe 
 Yare. The old coal-digger drummed on 
 the fire-plug uneasily. 
 
 " Myself, 't was for Lois's sake I thowt 
 on it. To speak plain, — yoh '11 mind 
 that Stokes affair, th' note Yare brought ? 
 Yes ? Ther' 's none knows o' that but 
 yoh an' me. He 's safe, Yare is, only fur 
 yoh an' me. Yoh speak the wured an* 
 back he goes to the lock-up. Fur life. 
 D' yoh see ? " 
 " I see." 
 
 " He 's tryin' to do right, Yare is." 
 The old man went on, trying not to 
 be eager, and watching Holmes's face. 
 "He 's tryin'. Sendin* him back — 
 yoh know how that '11 end. Seems like 
 as we 'd his soul in our hands. S'pose, 
 — what d' yoh think, if we give him a 
 chance ? It 's yoh he fears. I see him 
 a-watchin' yoh ; what d' yoh think, if we 
 give him a chance ? ** catching Holmes's 
 sleeve. " He 's old, an' he 's tryin'. Heh ? " 
 Holmes smiled. 
 
 " We did n't make the lav he broke. 
 Justice before mercy. Have n't I heard 
 you talk to Sam in that way, long ago ?" 
 The old man loosened his hold of 
 Holmes's arm, looked up and down the 
 street, uncertain, disappointed. 
 
 "The law. Yes. That's right! Yoh 're 
 a just man, Stephen Holmes." 
 
 "And yet?" 
 
 " Yes. I dun'no'. Law 's right, but 
 Yare 's had a bad chance, an' he 's tryin'. 
 An* we *re sendin' him to hell. Some- 
 thin' *s wrong. But I think yoh 're a just 
 man," looking keenly in Holmes's face. 
 
 " A hard one, people say," said Holmes, 
 after a pause, as they walked on. 
 
 He had spoken half to himself, and re- 
 ceived no answer. Some blacker shadow 
 troubled him than old Yare's fate. 
 
 " My mother was a hard woman, -^ 
 you knew her?" he said, abruptly. 
 
 " She was just, like yoh. She was one 
 o' th' elect, she said. Mercy 's fur them, 
 
718 
 
 Health in the Hospital. 
 
 [December, 
 
 — an' outside, justice. It 's a narrer 
 showin', I 'm thinkinV 
 
 " My father was outside," said Holmes, 
 some old bitterness rising up in his tone, 
 his gray eye lighting with some unre- 
 venged wrong. 
 
 Polston did not speak for a moment. 
 
 " Dunnot bear malice agin her. They 're 
 dead, now. It was n't left fur her to judge 
 him out yonder. Yoh 've yer father's 
 eyes, Stephen, 'times. Hungry, pitiful, 
 like women's. His got desper't' 't th' 
 last. Drunk hard, — died of 't, yoh know. 
 But she killed him, — th' sin was writ 
 down fur her. Never was a boy I loved 
 like him, when we was boys." 
 
 There was a short silence. 
 
 *' Yoh 're like yer mother," said Polston, 
 striving for a lighter tone. "Here," — 
 motioning to the heavy iron jaws. " She 
 never — let go. Somehow, too, she 'd 
 the law on her side in outward show- 
 in', an' th' right. But I hated religion, 
 knowin' her. Well, ther' 's a day of mak- 
 in' things clear, comin'." 
 
 They had reached the corner now, 
 and Polston turned down the lane. 
 
 " Yoh '11 think o' Yare's case ? " he 
 said. 
 
 " Yes. •But how can I help it," 
 Holmes said, lightly, " if I am like my 
 mother here ? " — putting his hand to his 
 mouth. 
 
 " God help US, how can yoh ? It 's 
 harrd to think father and mother leave 
 
 their souls fightin' in their childern, cos 
 th' love was wantin' to make them one 
 here." 
 
 Something glittered along the street as 
 he spoke : the silver mountings of a low- 
 hung phaeton drawn by a pair of Mex- 
 ican ponies. One or two gentlemen on 
 horseback were alongside, attendant on a 
 lady within. She turned her fair face, 
 and pale, greedy eyes, as she passed, and 
 lifted her hand languidly in recognition 
 of Holmes. Polston's face colored. 
 
 "I 've heered," he said, holding out 
 his grimy hand. " I wish yoh well, 
 Stephen, boy. So *11 the old 'oman. 
 Yoh '11 come an' see us, soon ? Ye 'r' look- 
 in' fagged, an' yer eyes is gettin' more like 
 yer father's. I 'm glad things is takin' 
 a good turn with yoh ; an' yoh '11 never 
 be like him, starvin' fur th' kind wured, 
 an' havin' to die without it. I 'm glad 
 yoh 've got true love. She 'd a fair face, 
 I think. I wish yoh well, Stephen." 
 
 Holmes shook the grimy hand, and then 
 stood a moment looking back to the mill, 
 from which the hands were just coming, 
 and then down at the phaeton moving 
 idly down the road. How cold it was 
 growing ! People passing by had a sick- 
 ly look, as if they were struck by the 
 plague. He pushed the damp hair back, 
 wiping his forehead, with another glance 
 at the mill- women coming out of the gate, 
 and then followed the phaeton down the 
 hill. 
 
 HEALTH IN THE HOSPITAL. 
 
 In preparing to do the duty of society 
 towards the wounded or sick soldier, the 
 first consideration is. What is a Military 
 Hospital ? No two nations seem to have 
 answered this question in the same way ; 
 yet it is a point of the first importance to 
 them all. 
 
 When England went to war last time, 
 after a peace of forty years, the only idea 
 in the minds of her military surgeons was 
 
 of Regimental Hospitals. There was to 
 be a place provided as an infirmary for a 
 certain number of soldiers; a certain num- 
 ber of orderlies were to be appointed as 
 nurses ; and the regimental doctor and 
 hospital-sergeant were to have the charge 
 of the inmates. In each of these Regi- 
 mental Hospitals there might be patients 
 ill of a great variety of disorders, from 
 the gravest to the lightest, all to be treat- 
 
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