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CORNELL

UNIVERSITY

LIBRARY


FROM

Charles William Wason




THE

CONTINENTAL MONTHLY.


DEVOTED TO

Literature and National Policy.

VOL. II.

JULY-DECEMBER, 1862.


New York: JOHN F. TROW, 50 GREENE STREET. (FOR THE PROPRIETORS).

1862.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1862, by

JOHN F. TROW,

For the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for
the Southern District of New York.

JOHN F. TROW,

Printer, Stereotyper and Electrotyper, 48 & 50 Greene Street, New York.

ENTERED, according to an Act of Congress, in the year 1882 by JAMES B.
GILMORE, in the Clerk of the Office of the District Court of the United
States for the Southern District of New-York.

JOHN A. GRAY PRINTER




The Continental Monthly:

Devoted to Literature and National Policy.



CONTENTS.----No. VII

What shall be the end?                   1
Bone Ornaments,                          5
The Molly O'Molly Papers. No. V.,        6
Glances from the Senate-Gallery,        10
Maccaroni and Canvas. No. V.,           14
For the Hour of Triumph,                26
In Transitu,                            27
Among the Pines,                        28
Was He Successful?                      48
Newbern as it was and is,               58
Our Brave Times,                        62
The Crisis and the Parties,             65
I Wait,                                 69
Taking the Census,                      70
The Peloponnesus in March,              74
Adonium,                                82
Polytechnic Institutes,                 83
Slavery and Nobility vs. Democracy,     89
Watching the Stag,                     105
Literary Notices,                      106
Editor's Table,                        109


SLAVERY AND NOBILITY vs. DEMOCRACY.

This article, written by a gentleman who, for fifteen years, was one of
the most prominent citizens of Texas, will be found worthy of most
attentive perusal.


WATCHING THE STAG

An unfinished Poem by FITZ-JAMES O'BRIEN, we give as it came wet from
the pen of its lamented author.




INDEX TO VOLUME II.

                                             PAGE
Among the Pines. Edmund Kirke, 28, 127
An Englishman in South Carolina, 689
Adorium, 82
A True Romance. Isabella McFarlane, 190
A Physician's Story, 667
Astor and the Capitalists of New York. W. Frothingham, 207
A Merchant's Story. Edmund Kirke, 232, 328, 451, 560, 719
American Student Life, 266
Author Borrowing, 285
Anthony Trollope on America, 302
A Military Nation. Charles G. Leland, 453
A Southern Review. Charles G. Leland, 466
Aurora. Hon. Horace Greeley, 622

Bone Ornaments. Charles G. Leland, 5

Cambridge and its Colleges, 662
Corn is King, 237

Editor's Table, 109, 241, 369, 481, 638, 750
Eighteen Hundred and Sixty-Two, U.S. Johnson, 442

For the Hour of Triumph, 26
Flower Arranging, 444

Glances from the Senate Gallery. G.W. Towle, 10, 154
Gold. Hon. E.J. Walker, 743

Helter-Skelter Papers, 175
Hopeful Tackett. Richard Wolcott, 262
Huguenots of New York City. Hon. G.P. Disosway, 193
Henry Thomas Buckle, 253

In Transitu, 27
I Wait, 69

John McDonogh. Alexander Walker, 165
John Bull to Jonathan, 265
John Neil, 295

La Vie Poetique, 679
Literary Notices, 106, 238, 866, 478, 636, 747
London Fogs and London Poor, 404

Maccaroni and Canvas. Henry P. Leland, 14, 144, 290, 383, 591

Newbern as it Was and Is. F. Kidder, 58
National Unity. Hon. Horace Greeley, 357

On Guard. John G. Nicolay, 706
Our Brave Times, 62
Our Wounded. C.K. Tuckerman, 465
One of the Million. Caroline Chesebro', 541

Polytechnic Institutes. Charles G. Leland, 83

Railway Photographs. Isabella McFarlane, 708
Rewarding the Army. Charles G. Leland, 161
Reminiscences of Andrew Jackson, 318
Red, Yellow, and Blue, 535

Slavery and Nobility _vs._ Democracy. Lorenzo Sherwood, 89
Southern Rights, 143
Sketches of the Orient. Hon. J.P. Brown, 179
Shakspeare's Richard III. Rev. E.G. Holland, 320
Shoulder Straps. Henry Morford, 342
Sir John Suckling, 397
Southern Hate of the North. Horace Greeley, 448
Something we have to Think of, and to Do. C.S. Henry, LL.D., 657
Stewart, and the Dry Goods Trade of New York. W. Frothingham, 528

Thank God for All. Charles G. Leland, 718

The Molly O'Molly Papers, 6, 200, 257
The Crisis and the Parties. C.G. Leland, 65
Taking the Census, 70
The Ash Tree. Charles G. Leland, 682
The Obstacles to Peace. A Letter to an Englishman.
Hon. Horace Greeley, 714
The Freed Men of the South. Hon. F.P. Stanton, 730
The Peloponnesus in March, 74
The Last Ditch. Charles G. Leland, 159
The Bone of our Country, 198
The Soldier and the Civilian. C.G. Leland, 281
The Negro in the Revolution, 324
The Children in the Wood. Henry Morford, 354
The Constitution as It Is. C.S. Henry, LL.D., 377
Tom Winter's Story. G.W. Chapman, 416
The White Hills in October. C.M. Sedgwick, 423
The Union. Hon. E.J. Walker, 457, 572, 641
The Causes of the Rebellion. Hon. F.P. Stanton, 513, 695
The Wolf Hunt. Charles G. Leland, 580
The Poetry of Nature, 581
The Proclamation, 603
The Press in the United States. Hon. F.L. Stanton, 604
The Homestead Bill. Hon. R.J. Walker, 627

Up and Act. Charles G. Leland, 314
Unheeded Growth. John Neil, 534

What shall be the End? Hon. J.W. Edmonds, 1
Was He Successful? 48, 218, 360, 470, 610, 734
Watching the Stag. Fitz-James O'Brien, 105
Witches, Elves and Goblins, 184
Wounded. Henry P. Leland, 206
Word-Murder, 524



Vol. II.--July, 1862.--No. 1.



WHAT SHALL BE THE END?


If we look to the development of slavery the past thirty years, we shall
see that the ideas of Calhoun respecting State Sovereignty have had a
mighty influence in gradually preparing the slave States for the course
which they have taken. Slavery, in its political power, has steadily
become more aggressive in its demands. A morbid jealousy of Northern
enterprise and thrift, with the contrast more vivid from year to year,
of the immeasurable superiority of free labor, has brought about a
growing aversion, in the South, to the free States, until with every
opportunity presented for pro-slavery extension, there has resulted the
present organized combination of slave States that have seceded from the
Union. When the mind goes back to the early formation of our Government
and the adoption of the Constitution, it will be found that an entire
revolution of opinion and feeling has taken place upon the subject of
slavery. From being regarded, as formerly, an evil by the South, it is
now proclaimed a blessing; from being viewed as opposed to the whole
spirit and teachings of the Bible, it is now thought to be of divine
sanction; from being regarded as opposed to political liberty, and the
elevation of the masses, the popular doctrine now is, that slavery is
the corner-stone of republican institutions, and essential for a manly
development of character upon the part of the white population. Formerly
slavery was looked upon as peculiarly pernicious to the diffusion of
wealth and the progress of national greatness; now the South is
intoxicated with ideas of the profitableness of slave labor, and the
power of King Cotton in controlling the exchanges of the world. And the
same change has taken place in relation to the African slave-trade.
While the laws of the land brand as piracy the capture of negroes upon
their native soil, and the transportation of them over the ocean, it is
nevertheless true that a mighty change in Southern opinion has taken
place in respect to the character of this business. It is not looked
upon with the same horror as formerly. It is apologized for, and in some
places openly defended as a measure indispensable to the prosperity of
the cotton States. As a natural inference from the theory of those who
hold to the views of Calhoun upon State sovereignty, the doctrine of
coercion in any form by the Federal Union is denounced, and to attempt
to put it in practice even so far as the protection of national property
is concerned, is construed into a war upon the South. Thus, while it is
perfectly proper for the slave States to steal, and plunder the nation
of its property, to leave the Union at their pleasure, and to do every
thing in their power to destroy the unity of the National Government, it
is made out that to attempt to recover the property of the Federal Union
is unjustifiable aggression upon the slave States. Thus we see eleven
States in a confederate capacity openly making war upon the Federal
Government, and compelling it either into a disgraceful surrender of its
rights as guaranteed by the Constitution, or war for self-defense. Fort
Sumter was not allowed to be provisioned, nor was there any disposition
manifested to permit its possession in any manner honorable to the
Government, although its exclusive property. It must be surrendered
unconditionally, or be attacked.

The worst feature connected with the secession movement is the hot haste
with which the most important questions connected with the interests of
the people are hurried through. The ordinance of secession is not fairly
submitted to the people, but a mere oligarchy of desperate men
themselves assume to declare war, and exercise all the prerogatives of
an independent and sovereign government. And yet the terms submitted in
the Crittenden Resolutions as a peace-offering to the seceding States to
win them back by concessions from the North, present a spectacle quite
as mournful for the cause of national unity and dignity as the open
rebellion of the seceding States. The professed aim of these States is
either a reconstruction of the Constitution in a way that shall
nationalize slavery and give it supreme control, or a forcible
disruption of the Union. What are the terms proposed that alone appear
to satisfy the South? They may be briefly comprehended in a short
extract from a speech delivered by Senator Wilson, of Massachusetts,
February 21, 1861:

     'But the Senator from Kentucky asks us of the North by irrepealable
     constitutional amendments to recognize and protect slavery in the
     Territories now existing, or hereafter acquired south of thirty-six
     degrees, thirty minutes; to deny power to the Federal Government to
     abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, in the forts,
     arsenals, navy-yards, and places under the exclusive jurisdiction
     of Congress; to deny the National Government all power to hinder
     the transit of slaves through one State to another; to take from
     persons of the African race the elective franchise, and to purchase
     territory in South-America, or Africa, and send there, at the
     expense of the Treasury of the United States, such free negroes as
     the States may desire removed from their limits. And what does the
     Senator propose to concede to us of the North? The prohibition of
     slavery in Territories north of thirty-six degrees and thirty
     minutes, where no one asks for its inhibition, where it has been
     made impossible by the victory of Freedom in Kansas, and the
     equalization of the fees of the slave Commissioners.'

Here we have the true position in which the free States are placed
toward the slaveholding States. Seven States openly throw off all
allegiance to the Federal Union, do not even profess to be willing to
come back upon any terms, and then such conditions are proposed by the
other slaveholding States as leads to the repudiation of the
Constitution in its whole spirit and import upon the subject of slavery.
The alternative, in reality, is either civil war or the surrender of the
Constitution into the hands of pro-slavery men to be molded just as it
may suit their convenience. The price they ask for peace is simply the
liberty to have their own way, and that the majority should be willing
to submit to the minority. They aim for a reconstruction of the Union
that shall incorporate the Dred Scott decision into the whole policy of
the Government and make slavery the supreme power of the country, and
all other interests subservient to it. The North has its choice of two
evils--unconditional and unqualified submission to the demands of
slavery, or civil war. It is expected, since the country has yielded
step by step to the exactions of slavery ever since the Government wastates will keep on yielding until the South
has nothing more to ask for, and the North has nothing more to give.
With such a servile compliance, the free States are assured that they
will have no difficulty in keeping the peace. But the question to be
decided is: Is such a kind of peace worth the price demanded for it? May
it not be true that great as is the evil of civil war, it is less an
evil than an unresisting acquiescence to the exactions of slavery, and
the admission that any State that pleases can leave the Union? The
theory of secession involves, if admitted, a greater disaster to the
Federal Union than even the slow eating at its vitals of the cancer of
slavery. National unity, one country, the sovereignty of the
Constitution, are all sacrificed by secession. It involves in it either
the worst anarchy or the worst despotism. United, the States can stand,
and command the respect of the world, but secession is an enemy to the
country, the most cruel. Rev. Dr. Breckinridge, of Kentucky, most
forcibly says:

     'Every man who has any remaining loyalty to the nation, or any hope
     and desire for the restoration of the seceding States to the
     Confederacy, must see that what is meant by the outcry against
     coërcion is in the interest, of secession, and that what is meant
     is, in effect, that the Federal Government must be terrified or
     seduced into complete coöperation with the revolution which it was
     its most binding duty to have used all its power and influence to
     prevent.'

Jefferson Davis, in his late message, says: 'Let us alone, let us go,
and the sword drops from our hands.' But what does this involve? The
admission of the right of secession, which, as has been proved, is fatal
to all national unity and preservation. Even if this arrogant demand was
complied with, would peace be thus possible? Would not the breaking up
of the Union involve the people in calamities that no patience, or
wisdom upon the part of the North could avert? Remember a long border in
an open country, stretching from the Atlantic, possibly even to the
Pacific, is to be defended. Will the bordering people sink down from
war, and all its exasperations, and become as peaceful as lambs?
Constituted as human nature now is, will the dissolution of the Union
create with the great North and South the experience of millennium
prediction, 'The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall
lie down with the kid, and the calf and the young lion and fatling
together; and a little child shall lead them'? Here is a line crossed by
great rivers; we are to shut up the mouth of the Chesapeake bay, on Ohio
and Western Virginia; we are to ask the Western States to give up the
mouth of the Mississippi to a foreign power. Is it reasonable to suppose
that no provocation will occur on this long frontier? Will no slaves run
away? What is to be gained by a dissolution of the Union? Not peace; for
if, when united, there exists such cause of dissension, the evil will be
tenfold greater when separated. Not national aggrandizement, for
division brings weakness, imbecility, and a loss of self-respect; it
invites aggressions from foreign powers, and compels to submission to
insults that otherwise would not be given. Not general competence, for
the South is quite as dependent upon the North as the North upon the
South.

Disunion is a violent disruption of great material interests that now
are wedded together. The dream of separate State sovereignty, our great
Union split into two or more confederacies, prosperous and peaceable, is
Utopian. So far from the secession doctrine carried out leading to peace
and prosperity, it can only lead to perpetual war and adversity. The
request to be 'let alone,' is simply a request that the nation should
consent to see the Constitution and Union overthrown, slavery
triumphant, and the great problem that a free people can not choose its
own rulers against the will of a minority prove a disgraceful failure.
It is a request that a nation should purchase a temporary peace at the
price of all that is dear to its liberty and self-respect. The arrogance
of the demand '_to be let alone_,' is only equaled by the iniquity of
the means resorted to, to break up the best Government under the sun.
The question of disunion, of separate State sovereignty, was fully
discussed by our fathers. Thus Hamilton, whose foresight history has
proved to be prophetic, says:

     'If these States should be either wholly disunited, or only united
     in partial Confederacies, a man must be far gone in Utopian
     speculations, who can seriously doubt that the subdivisions into
     which they might be thrown would have frequent and violent contests
     with each other. To presume a want of motives for such contests, as
     an argument against their existence, would be to forget that men
     are ambitious, vindictive, and rapacious. To look for a
     continuation of harmony between a number of independent,
     unconnected sovereignties, situated in the same neighborhood, would
     be to disregard the uniform course of human events, and to set at
     defiance the accumulated experience of ages.'

From a consideration of the true import of the Constitution, in relation
to slavery and the fallacy and wickedness of the doctrine of Secession,
we are now prepared to deduce, from what has been said, the following
reflections: First, the war in which the nation is now plunged should
have strictly for its great end, the restoration of the Constitution and
the Union to its original integrity; all side issues, all mere party
questions should be now merged in one mighty effort, one persevering and
self-sacrificing aim to maintain the Constitution and the Union. As
essential for this purpose, it is indispensable that all the rights
guaranteed to loyal citizens in the slave States should be respected.
The reason is two-fold. First, this war, upon the part of the North, is
for the maintenance of the Constitution as our fathers gave it to us.
Its object is not a crusade against slavery. What may be the results of
the war in relation to slavery is one thing; what should be the simple
purpose of the North is another. That this war, however it may turn,
will be disastrous to slavery, is evident from a great variety of
considerations. But that we should pretend to fight for the Constitution
and the Union, and yet against its express provisions, in respect to
those held in bondage by loyal citizens, is simply to act a part
subversive of the true intent of the Constitution. To violate its
provisions, in relation to loyal citizens South, is in the highest
degree impolitic and suicidal. It is the constant aim of the enemies now
in armed rebellion against the Union, to misrepresent the North upon
this very point. By systematic lying, they have induced thousands South
to believe that the election of Lincoln was designed as an act of war
upon slave institutions, and to subvert the Constitution that protects
them in all that they call their property.

There is nothing that the rebels South are more anxious to see than the
Government adopting a policy that will give them a plausible pretense
for continuing in rebellion. The Constitution places the local
institution of slavery under the exclusive control of those States where
it exists. Its language, faithfully interpreted, is simply this: Your
own domestic affairs you have a right to manage as you please, so long
as you do not trespass upon the Union, or seek its ruin. All loyal
citizens should be encouraged to stand by the Union in every Southern
State, with the unequivocal declaration that all their rights will be
respected, and that their true safety, even as noblest interests, must
lie in upholding the North in the effort made to put down the vilest
rebellion under the sun. My second reflection is, that those South, who
are in armed rebellion against the Constitution and the Union, must make
up their minds to take what the fortune of war gives them. This
rebellion should be bandied without gloves. The North should permit
nothing to stand in the way of a complete and permanent triumph. As
Northern property is all confiscated South; as Union men there are
treated with the utmost barbarity; as nothing held by the lovers of the
Union is respected, the greatest injury in the end to the Constitution
and the Union is, an unwise clemency to armed rebellion. In this
death-struggle to test the vital question, whether the majority shall
rule, let there be no holding back of money or men. Dear as war may be,
a dishonorable peace will prove much dearer. Great as may be the
sufferings of the camp and the battle-field, yet the prolonged tortures
of a murdered Union, a violated Constitution, and Secession rampant over
the country, will be found to be greater. My third reflection is, that
the main cause of our civil war is slavery. It has now assumed gigantic
proportions of mischief, and with its hand upon the very throat of the
Constitution and the Union, it seeks its death. The worst feature
connected with it has ever been, that it is satisfied with no
concession, and the more it has, the more it asks. By the very admission
of the chiefs of this rebellion, it is confessedly got up for the sake
of slavery, and to make it the corner-stone of the new Confederacy of
States. The real issue involved by the rebellion is, complete
independence of the North, the dissolution of the Union, and exclusive
possession of all the territories south of Mason and Dixon's line; or
reconstruction upon such conditions as would result in the repudiation
of the old Constitution, the nationalization of slavery, and giving
complete political control to a slaveholding minority of the country.
This rebellion has placed the North where it must conquer, for its own
best interests, and dignity, and the salvation of free institutions. It
must conquer, to command future friendship and that respect without
which Union itself is a mockery. Let the South see that the North can
not be beaten, and the universal consciousness of this fact will command
an esteem, and the useful fear of committing offense, that will do more
to keep the peace than all the abject professions or humble submissions
in the world. Having found out that the North not only is conscious of
its rights, but has the willingness and the ability to defend them, it
is certain that the country will yet have as much peace, general thrift,
and noble enterprise with the onward march of virtue and intelligence,
as may be reasonably expected of any community upon the face of the
earth.




            BONE ORNAMENTS.


        Silent the lady sat alone:
        In her ears were rings of dead men's bone;
        The brooch on her breast shone white and fine,
        'Twas the polished joint of a Yankee's spine;
        And the well-carved handle of her fan,
        Was the finger-bone of a Lincoln man.
        She turned aside a flower to cull,
        From a vase which was made of a human skull;
        For to make her forget the loss of her slaves,
        Her lovers had rifled dead men's graves.
        Do you think I'm describing a witch or ghoul?
        There are no such things--and I'm not a fool;
        Nor did she reside in Ashantee;
        No--the lady fair was an F.F.V.




THE MOLLY O'MOLLY PAPERS.


V.


'Hearts are trumps,' is a gambler's cant phrase. That depends on the
game you are playing. In many of the games of life the true trump cards
are Diamonds; which, according to the fortune-teller's lore, stand for
wealth. Indeed, Hearts are by many considered so valueless that they are
thrown away at the very outset; whereas they should, like trumps, only
be played as a last resort. No trick that can be won with any other
card, should be taken with a heart--the card will be gone and nothing to
show for it. If you wish wealth, win it if you can--honestly, of
course--but don't throw in the heart. Are you ambitious--would you win
honor? Very well, if for political honor you can endure it to be spit
upon by the crowd, to have all manner of abuse heaped on you and your
_forbears_ to the remotest generation--a ceremony that in Africa follows
the election, but is 'preliminary to the crowning,' but in this country
is preliminary to the election--but if you can make up your mind to pass
through this ordeal, well and good--but don't throw in the heart.... Yet
in games on which is staked all that is worth playing for, 'hearts _are_
trumps;' and he who holds the lowest card, stands a better chance of
winning than he who has none, though in his hand may be all the aces of
the others, diamonds included. But, lest I go too far beyond the
analogy--as I might ignorantly do, being unskilled in the many games of
cards--I will drop the figurative.... Keep your heart for faith, love,
friendship, for God, your country, and truth. And where the heart is
given, it should be unreservedly. Its allegiance is too often withheld
where it is due, yet this is better than a half-way loyalty; there
should be no _if_, followed by self-interest.... The seal of confederate
nobles, opposed to some measures of Peter IV. of Aragon, 'represents the
king sitting on his throne, with the confederates kneeling in a
suppliant attitude, around, to denote their loyalty and unwillingness to
offend. But in the back-ground, tents and lines of spears are
discovered, as a hint of their ability and resolution to defend
themselves.' ... This kind of allegiance no true heart will ever give.

I take it for granted that you have a heart--not merely anatomically
speaking, an organ to circulate the blood, but a something that prompts
you to love, to self-sacrifice, to scorn of meanness, and, it may be, to
good, honest hatred. All metals can be separated from their ores; but
meanness is inseparable from some natures, so it is impossible to hate
the sin without hating the sinner; we can't, indeed, conceive of it in
the abstract. I don't mean hate in a malignant sense--here I may as well
express my scorn of that sly hatred that is too cowardly to knock a man
down, but quietly trips him up.

It is well enough for those who think that 'life is a jest,' (and a
bitter, sarcastic one it must be to them,) to mock at all nobler
feelings and sentiments of the heart. None do they more contemn than
friendship. I would not 'sit in the seat' of these 'scornful,' however
they may have found false friends. Yet every man capable of a genuine
friendship himself, will in this world find at least one true friend.
Oxygen, which comprises one fifth of the atmosphere, is said to be
highly magnetic; and any ordinary, healthy soul can extract magnetism
enough from the very air he breathes to draw at least one other soul.
Some people have an amazing power of absorption and retention of this
magnetism. You feel irresistibly drawn toward them--and it is all right,
for they are noble, true souls. There is a great difference between
their attractive force and that kind of 'power of charming' innocence
that villainy often has--just as I once saw a cat charm a bird, which
circled nearer and nearer till it almost brushed the cat's whiskers--and
had he not been chased away, he would have that day daintily
lunched--and there would have been one songster less to join in that
evening's vespers.

False----s there are--I will not call them false _friends_--this noun
should never follow that adjective. To what shall I liken them--to the
young gorilla, that even while its master is feeding it, looks
trustingly in his face and thrusts forth its paw to tear him? Who blames
the gorilla? Torn from its dam, caged or chained, it owes its captor a
grudge. To the serpent? The story of the warming of the serpent in the
man's bosom, is a mere fable. No man was ever fool enough to warm a
serpent in his bosom. And the serpent never crosses the path of man if
he can help it. The most deadly is that which is too sluggish to get out
of his way--therefore bites in self-defense. And the serpent generally
gives some warning hiss, or a rattle. Indeed, almost every animal gives
warning of its foul intent. The shark turns over before seizing its
prey. But tre seizing its
prey. But the false friend (I am obliged to couple these words) takes
you in without changing his side.... In truth, a man, if he has a vice,
be it treachery or any other, goes a little beyond the other animals,
even those of which it is characteristic. We say, for instance, of a
treacherous man, _He is a serpent_; but it would be hyperbole to call a
serpent _a treacherous man_.

But these false friends, who deceive you out of pure malignity, who
would rather injure you than not, who, perhaps, have an old, by you
long-forgotten, grudge, and become your apparent friends to pay you
back--these are few. Human nature, with all its depravity, is seldom so
completely debased. But there are many who are only selfishly your
friends. When you most need their friendship, where is it? When some
great calamity sweeps over you, and, bowed and weakened, you would lean
on this friendship, though it were but a 'broken reed,' you stretch
forth your hand--feel but empty space.

Then there are some who let go the hand of a friend because they feel
sure of him, to grasp the extended hand of a former enemy. Politicians,
especially, do this. An enemy can not so easily be transformed into a
friend. As in those paintings of George III., on tavern-signs, after the
Revolution changed to George Washington, there will still be the same
old features.... The opposite of this is what every generous nature has
tried. To revive a dying friendship, this is impossible. If you find
yourself losing your friendship for a person, there must be some reason
for it. If the former dear name is becoming indistinct on the tablet of
your heart, the attempt to re-write it will entirely obliterate it. It
is said that a sure way to obliterate any writing, is to attempt to
re-write it.... But it is not true that 'hot love soon cools.' With all
my faults--and to say that I am an O'Molly is to admit that I have
faults, and I am not sure that I would wish to be without them. To speak
paradoxically, a fault in some cases does better than a virtue--as on
some organs 'the wrong note in certain passages has a better effect than
the right.' But, as I was saying, with all my faults, I have never yet
changed toward a friend; I will not admit even to the ante-chamber of my
heart a single thought untrue to my friend. Though it is true my friends
are so few that I could more than count them on my fingers, had I but
one hand.... And these few friends--what shall I say of them? They have
become so a part of my constant thoughts and feelings, so a part of
myself, that I can not project them--if I may so speak--from my own
interior self, so as to portray them. Have you not such friends? Are
there none whom to love has become so a _habit_ of your life that you
are almost unconscious of it--that you hardly think of it, any more than
you think--_'I breathe'_?

There is probably no one who has not some time in his or her life felt
the dreariness of fancied friendliness. I can recall in my own
experience at least one time when this dreary feeling came over me. It
was during a twilight walk home from a visit. I can convey to you no
idea of the utter loneliness of the unloved feeling; it seemed that not
even the love of God was mine, or if it was, there was not individuality
enough in it; it was so diffused; this one, whom I disliked--that
insignificant person, might share in it. I know not how long I indulged
in these thoughts, with my eyes on the ground, or seeing all things 'as
though I saw them not,' but when I did raise them to take cognizance of
any thing, there was, a few degrees above the horizon, the evening star;
it shone as entirely on me as though it shone on me _exclusively_. It is
thus, I thought, with _His_ love; thus it melts into each individual
soul. Such gentle thoughts as these, long after the star had sunk behind
the western mountains, were a calm light in my soul. And I awoke the
next morning, the old cheerful

MOLLY O'MOLLY.




VI.


I have often thought what splendid members of the diplomatic corps women
would make, especially married women. As much delicate management is
required of them, they have as much financiering to do as any minister
plenipotentiary of them all. Let a woman once have an object in view,
and 'o'er bog, or steep, through strait, rough, dense or rare; with
head, hands, or feet, _she_ pursues _her_ way, and swims, or sinks, or
wades, or creeps, or flies;' but _she attains her object_.

You poor, hood-winked portion of humanity--man--you think you know
woman; that she 'can't pull the wool over your eyes.' Just take a
retrospective view. Did your wife ever want any thing that she didn't
somehow get it? Whether a new dress, or the dearest secret of your soul,
she either, Delilah-like, wheedled it out of you, or, in a passion, you
almost _flung_ it at her, as an enraged monkey flings cocoa-nuts at his
tormentor.

And how she has changed your habits, has turned the course of your life,
made it flow in the channel _she_ wished, instead of, as heretofore,
'wandering at its own sweet will,' as the gently-winding but useless
brook has been converted into a mill-race.

There is Mr. Jones. Before he married, as free and easy a man as ever
smoked a meerschaum. Mrs. Jones is considered a pattern woman; but of
that you can judge for yourself. Her first reformation was in regard to
his club, from which he returned home late, redolent of brandy-punch,
and lavish of _my dears_. All she could say to him had no effect, till,
after the birth of little Nellie, she joined a Ladies' Reading Society,
meeting on his club evening; he wouldn't leave the baby to the care of a
servant, consequently staid at home himself.

He was also in the habit of resorting to the gymnasium, ostensibly for
exercise, as he was dyspeptic; but his wife suspected it was more to
meet his old cronies. Finding retrenchment necessary, and looking on
gymnastics somewhat as a Yankee looks on a fine stream that turns no
mill, she dismissed one of the servants, and so arranged it that the
surplus strength that formerly so ran to waste should make the fires,
rock the cradle, and split certain hickory logs. Very soon Mr. Jones,
who is a lawyer, found his business so much increased that he was
obliged to remain in his office all day, except at meal-time; after
which, however heartily he might have eaten, he never complained of
indigestion. With this, thrifty Mrs. Jones was delighted, till one day
she surprised him in his office, enveloped in tobacco-smoke, with
elevated feet, reading a nice new novel; you may be sure that after
that, she insisted on the exercise. As their family increased, thinking
still further retrenchment necessary, she gently broached the
relinquishing of the meerschaum. Finding him obstinate in his
opposition, she one day accidentally broke it. It was one that he had
been coloring for years; he had devoted time and attention to it, that,
if properly directed, might have made him a German philosopher, an
antiquary, or a profound theologian; or, if devoted to his law studies,
would have fitted him for Chief-Justice of the United States.

The countryman who mistook for a bell-rope the cord attached to a
shower-bath, was not more astonished at the result of pulling it, than
she was at the result of this trifling accident. Such an overwhelming
torrent of abuse as was poured on her devoted head; such an array of
offenses as was marshaled before her; Banquo's issue wasn't a
circumstance to the shadowy throng. She had recourse to woman's only
means of assuaging the angry passions of man--tears, (you know the
region of constant precipitation is a perpetual calm;) but these,
instead of operating like oil poured on the troubled waters, were rather
like oil thrown on the fire. Pleading her delicate health, she hinted
that his unkindness would kill her, and that, when she was gone, her
sweet face would haunt him. Muttering something about one consolation,
ghosts couldn't speak till spoken to, and he was sure he wouldn't break
the spell of silence, he picked up his hat and strode out of the house,
slamming the door after him. For a while, Mrs. Jones was struck with
consternation; she felt somewhat as the woman must have felt who, in
attempting to pull up a weed, overturned the monument that crushed her;
and, though not quite crushed by the weight of Mr. Jones's indignation,
she only resolved to give no more tugs at the weed that had taken such
deep root in his heart; and that, if he brought home another meerschaum,
(which he did that evening,) it was best to ignore its existence. Mrs.
Jones says she believes that the meerschaum absorbs 'the disagreeable'
of a man's temper, as it is said to absorb that of tobacco; at least,
her husband is never so serene as when smoking one. Indeed, it is said
that the fiercest birds of prey can be tamed by tobacco-smoke.

Don't think that after this little _contretemps_ all Mrs. Jones's
authority was at an end; no, indeed; though she had, by stroking the
wrong way the docile, domestic animal, roused him into a tiger, she
hastened to smooth him down; and time would fail me to give even a list
of her reforms.

After having heard her story, as I did, chiefly from her own lips, my
wonder at the immense Union army, raised on such short notice, was
considerably diminished. 'Extremes meet.' Probably Union and disunion
sentiments met in the mind of many a volunteer Jones. Then, too, I used
to wonder at the ease with which men apparently forget their buried
wives, and marry again; and, as I then had a great respect for the race,
thought their hearts must be very rich, new affections spring up with
such amazing rapidity; like the soil of the tropics, whose vegetation is
hardly cut down before there is a new, luxuriant growth. I've, however,
since come to the conclusion, that the poor man, somehow feeling that he
must marry, chooses in a manner at random, having, the first time, taken
the greatest care, and 'caught a Tartar,' in the same sense that the man
had with whom the phrase originated, that is, _the Tartar had caught
him_.

In my childhood I was particularly fond of the hoidenish amusement of
jumping out of our high barn-window, and landing on the straw
underneath. The first few times I went to the edge--then drew
back--looked again--almost sprang--again stepped back--till finally I
took the leap. Thus old bachelors take the matrimonial leap--not so
widowers--how is it to be accounted for? Well, brother man, (for this is
the nearest relationship to you that I can claim,) you do about as well
in this way as in any other. You are destined to be taken in as
effectually as was Jonah, when he made that 'exploration of the
interior,' or, as was the fly, when Dame Spider's 'parlor' proved to be
a dining-room.

Sam Slick says that 'man is common clay--woman porcelain.' Alas! there
is but little genuine porcelain. It is a pity that you couldn't contrive
to have a few jars before matrimony, to crack off some of the glazing,
and show the true character of the ware.

And you, sister woman, learn a lesson from the 'tiny nautilus,' which,
'by yielding, can defy the most violent ragings of the sea.' And, though
man is so nicely adapted to your management that it is obviously the end
of his creation, remember Mrs. Jones's trifling miscalculation in regard
to the meerschaum, and--_'N'eveillez pas le chat qui dort.'_

Abruptly yours, MOLLY O'MOLLY.




GLANCES FROM THE SENATE-GALLERY.


The comparative excellence of different periods of eloquence and
statesmanship affords a subject of curious and profitable contemplation.
The action of different systems of government, encouraging or depressing
intellectual effort, the birth of occasions which elicit the powers of
great minds, and the peculiar characteristics of the manner of thinking
and speaking in different countries, are observable in considering this
topic. s led the writer frequently to visit the
United States Senate Chamber, and to place mentally the intellectual
giants of that body in contrast with their predecessors on the same
scene, and with the eminent orators and statesmen of other countries and
other ages; and the result of such comparisons has always been to awaken
national pride, and to convince that the polity bequeathed us by our
fathers, no less than the distinctive genius of the race, have
practically demonstrated that a free system is the most prolific in the
production of animated oratory and vigorous statesmanship. Undoubtedly,
the golden age of American eloquence must be fixed in the time of
General Jackson, when Webster, Clay, Calhoun, Rives, Woodbury, and Hayne
sat in the Upper House; and whatever may be our wonder, when we
contemplate the brilliant orations of the British statesmen who shone
toward the close of the last century, if we turn from Burke to Webster,
from Pitt to Calhoun, from Fox to Clay, and from Sheridan to Randolph
and to Rives, Americans can not be disappointed by the comparison. Since
the death of the last of that illustrious trio, whose equality of powers
made it futile to award by unanimity the superiority to either, and yet
whose greatness of intellect placed them by common assent far above all
others, the eloquence of the Senate has been less brilliant and less
interesting. And yet it has not fallen below a standard of eloquence
equal, if not superior, to that of any other nation. Unlike the English
and the French, who have to go back more than half a century to deplore
their greatest Senators and Ministers, the grave closed over the
greatest American intellects within the memory of the present
generation; and the contrast between the Senate of to-day and the Senate
of a score of years ago, is too striking, perhaps, to give us an
impartial idea of the abilities which now guide the nation.

The Senate which is at present deliberating on the gravest questions
which our legislature has been called upon to consider since the
establishment of the Constitution, is, without doubt, inferior in point
of eminent talent, to the Senate of Webster's time, and even to the
Senate which closed its labors on the day of Mr. Lincoln's inauguration.
In this latter body were three men, who, though far below the great trio
preceding them, still occupied in a measure their commanding influence
on the floor and before the country: one of whom now holds an Executive
office, another sits in the Lower House, and the third has passed away
from the scenes of his triumphs forever. Mr. Seward, whose keen logic,
accurate statement of details, and imperturbable coolness, remind one of
Pitt and Grey, was considered, while Senator from New-York, as the
leading Statesman of the body, and was the nucleus around which
concentrated the early adherents of the now dominant party. Mr.
Crittenden's fervent and earnest declamation, wise experience, and
good-nature, gave him a high rank in the respect and esteem of his
colleagues, while his age and life-long devotion to the service of the
state, endowed him with unusual authority. The lamented Douglas, who
surpassed every other American statesman in casual discussion, and whose
name will rank with that of Fox, in the art of extempore debate, could
not fail to be the leader of a large party, and the popular idol of a
large mass, by the manly energy of his character, his devotion to
popular principles, and a rich and sonorous eloquence, which convinced
while it delighted.

It must also in candor be admitted, that the secession of the Southern
Senators from the floor, made a decided breach in the oratorical
excellence of that body. However villainous their statesmanship, and to
whatever traitorous purposes they lent the power of their eloquence,
there were several from the disaffected States who were eminent in a
skillful and brilliant use of speech. Probably the man who possessed the
most art in eloquence, and who united a keen and plausible sophistry
with great brilliancy of language and declamation with the highest
skill, was Benjamin, of Louisiana. Born a Hebrew, and bearing in his
countenance the unmistakable indications of Jewish birth, his person is
small, thick, and ill-proportioned; his expression is far less
intellectual than betokening cunning, while his whole manner fails to
give the least idea, when he is not speaking, of the wonderful powers of
his mind.

Shrewd and unprincipled, devoting himself earnestly and without the
least scruple of conscience to two objects--the acquisition of money and
the success of treason--he yet concealed the true character of his
designs under an apparently ingenuous and fervent delivery, and in the
garb of sentiments worthy a Milton or a Washington. His voice, deeply
musical, and uncommonly sweet, enhanced the admiration with which one
viewed his matchless delivery, in which was perfect grace, and entire
harmony with the expressions which fell from his lips. How mournful a
sight, to see one so nobly gifted, leading a life of baseness and vice,
devoting his immortal qualities to the vilest selfishness, and to the
betrayal of his country and of liberty! Should the descendant of an
oppressed and persecuted race take part with oppressors? Senator
Benjamin is a renegade to the spirit of freedom which animated his
ancestors.

He who, among the Southern Senators, ranked as an orator next to
Benjamin, now leads the rebellious hosts against the flag under which he
was reared, and lends his unquestioned powers to the demolition of the
great Republic of which he was once a brilliant ornament. Certainly
endowed with more forethought and practical wisdom than any of his
Democratic colleagues, well qualified by his calm survey of every
question and every political movement, to lead a large party, and
forcible and ironical in debate, Jefferson Davis stood at the head of
the disaffected in the Senate, as he now does in the field. Cautious and
deliberate in speech, he yet never failed to launch out in strong
invective, and to make effective use of irony in his attacks. He is in
personal appearance, rather small and thin, with a refined and decidedly
intellectual countenance, and a not unamiable expression. His health
alone prevented his rising to the first rank of American orators; and
what of his statesmanship was not directed to the accomplishment of
partisan purposes, gave him much consideration. He was incapable, from
a weak constitution, of sustaining, at great length, the vivacity and
energy with which he commenced his speeches; and therefore, their sharp
sarcasm and great power, made them appear more considerable in print
than in the delivery. Even after he had enlisted all his energies in the
detestable scheme which he is now trying to fulfill, his prudence halted
at the rash idea he had embraced; and he attempted for a moment to stem
the torrent, by voting for the Crittenden propositions. His delivery was
graceful and dignified, his manner sometimes courteous, often
contemptuous, and always impressive. His eloquence consisted rather in
the lucid logic and deliberate thought evinced than for rhetorical
beauty or range of imagination; occasionally, however, he would diverge
from the plain thread of argument, and rise to declamation of striking
brilliancy and power. Over-quick, with all his natural phlegm, to
discern and to resent personal affronts--oftentimes when there was no
occasion therefor--he was a favorable exemplar of that peculiar, and to
our mind, somewhat incomprehensible quality, which the Southern people
glory in, and which they dignify by the stately epithet of 'chivalry.'
On the whole, he must be regarded as the ablest, and therefore the most
culpable and dangerous of the insurgent leaders; and he may, perhaps, be
considered the first of Southern statesmen since the time of Calhoun.

Another Senator who occupied a high rank as a partisan and statesman
among the Southern Democracy, was Hunter, of Virginia. He is a
thickly-built person, with a countenance possessing but little
expression, and far from intellectual; and would rather be noticed by
one sitting in the gallery for the negligence of his dress, utter want
of dignity, and exceedingly unsenatorial bearing, than for any other
external qualities. But when he had spoken a few moments, a decided
soundness of head, and shrewdness, appeared to enter into the
composition of his mind. No man in the Senate had a juster idea of
financial philosophy; and his services on the Committee devoted to that
department, were highly appreciated by every one. He was, however,
little trusted by loyal Senators, and his frequent professions of
devotion to the Union, failed to conceal the bent of his mind toward
those with whom he is now in intimate concert. Sincerity had least place
of all the virtues in his breast; and his hypocrisy, somewhat hidden by
the apparent ingenuousness and conciliatory address of his manner,
became manifest in actions and votes, rather than in words. He was, so
far as can now be ascertained, one of the prime movers of the Senatorial
cabal, or caucus, which was devoted either to the complete dominance of
the Southern element in the Union, or to their forcible secession from
the Union; and was probably as active and earnest a traitor, long before
the doctrine of secession was ventured upon, as the most fiery of
South-Carolina fire-eaters. Mr. Hunter is, in private, courteous and
affable, and, indeed, in the debates in which he took part, he never
transgressed the rules of respect due to his colleagues, or violated the
dicta of parliamentary etiquette.

His colleague, Mason, is an irritable, petulant, arrogant man, not
without a certain ability in debate, but censorious, and unconfined by
the restraints of decency in his tirades against the North. He was 'one
of the finest-looking men,' if we speak phrenologically, in the last
Senate; and would always be noticed for his dignified manner and fine
head, by a stranger visiting the Chamber for the first time. We have
briefly noticed him, rather on account of the notoriety recently
attached to his name by the 'Trent' affair, than from his prominence
among Southern orators and statesmen--his talent, being, in fact, of a
decidedly mediocre description.

While speaking of Mason, it will be _apropos_ to allude to his late
companion in trouble, John Slidell, who was certainly the shrewdest
politician and party tactician among his friends on the north side of
the chamber; he is indeed the Nestor of intriguers. From the time when,
early in life, he aspired to, and in a degree succeeded in controlling
the politics of the Empire City, up to this hour, when he is with
snake-like subtleness attempting to poison French honor, his career has
been a series of successful intrigues. Utterly devoid of moral
principle, he resembles his late colleague, Benjamin, in the immorality
of his life, and the baseness of his ends, attained by as base means. He
is rather a good-looking man, short, with snowy-white hair and red face,
his countenance indicative of the secretiveness and cunning of his
character. He was rather the caucus adviser and manager than one of the
orators of his party; seldom speaking, and never except briefly and to
the point. Imagination in him has been warped and made torpid by a life
of dissipation, as well as by his practical tendencies. He is, like many
other Southern statesmen, courteous and pleasing in social conversation;
but is heartless, selfish, and malignant in his enmities.

Robert Toombs stood deservedly high in the traitorous cabal in the
Senate; for, to a bold and energetic spirit, great arrogance of manner,
and activity, he added a powerful mind and a clear head. In the street,
he would strike you as a self-conceited, bullying, contemptuous person,
with brains in the inverse proportion to his body, which was large and
apparently strong. His manner, when addressing the Senators, had indeed
much of an overbearing and insolent spirit; but the impression, in
regard to his character, after hearing him speak, was much better than
before. There was an indication of strength behind the bullying,
blustering air which he put on, which raised one's respect for his
attainments. One of the most rabid and uncompromising of secession
leaders, and bigoted in his hatred of the North, he was yet, in private,
a courteous and hospitable gentleman, and, apparently at least, frank in
the expression of opinion. Probably he had as little principle in
political and social life as most of his associates in treason; while
his great self-reliance, activity, and mental ability gave him a very
high position in their confidence. He was tall and stout, though not
corpulent; and was very negligent of his toilet and dress. Self-conceit
was written on his countenance, and displayed itself in his arrogant
assumptions of superiority. But his method of dealing with his Northern
opponents was open and bold, although insolent and overbearing, and not
like Hunter, Davis, and Benjamin, using ingenious sophistry and hidden
sarcasm, cautiously smoothing over their real purpose, by rhetoric and
elegant sentiment. Mr. Toombs became early an object of peculiar dislike
to Northern men, by the rude ingenuousness with which he announced the
last conclusions of his political creed, and the intolerable insolence
with which, not heeding the admonitions of his more cautious
confederates, he thundered out his anathemas of hatred and vengeance on
what he was pleased to call 'Northern tyranny.' It was only when the
crisis came, that others unfolded together their base character and
their hypocrisy. Davis, who had been fondled by New-Englanders but a
year or two since, and Hunter, who had cried for peace and compromise,
standing forth at last in the true light of traitors, and thereby
proclaiming their past life a game of hypocrisy. Toombs, therefore, who
was an original fire-eater, and hence could not be called a hypocrite,
has become less an object of hatred to us of the loyal States, than
those who, while they sat at the cabinet councils, or were admitted to
the confidence of the Executive, or were sent to foreign courts, or
presided over the Upper House, were using the power of such high trusts
for the consummation of a conspiracy against their country, yet
retaining the cant of patriotism and feigning a devotion to the Union.
We have dwelt almost exclusively, in the present chapter, upon Senators
whose highest honors have been tarnished or obliterated by the gravest
of crimes, that of treason toward a vast community. But it has been
with the idea that the least should be presented first, and that the
greater should close the scene; as in royal processions, the monarch
always brings up the rear. We conceive that the great talents which we
have acknowledged, and which doubtless all will agree with us in
acknowledging, the leaders of the Southern rebellion to possess, only
enhance the magnitude of their offense, and serve to illustrate with
greater force the enormity of their purposes. That a brainless fanatic
like Lord George Gordon, or the Neapolitan fisherman, Massaniello,
should stir up tremendous agitation, may be matter for critical study,
but is hardly a subject of wonder. But that men gifted with exalted
ability, undoubted caution, well-balanced intellect, and apparently
refined reason, all of which have been appreciated and acknowledged,
should propound an erroneous doctrine of a chaotic system, and proceed
to the violence of civil war, on what they must know to be a false and
heretical plea, can only remind us of those devils who have been
pictured by the matchless art of Milton, of Dante, and of Goethe, as
possessing stately intellects with perfectly vicious hearts. We propose,
in a future number, if these remarks on public characters are
acceptable, to continue our remarks, by introducing the loyal Senators
of the last Congress, a band of men who will be found to equal in
talent, and immeasurably to surpass in moral rectitude and earnest
patriotism, the bad company from whom we now part.




MACCARONI AND CANVAS.


V.

THE GRECO.


The Café Greco, like the belle of many seasons, lights up best at night.
In morning, in _deshabille_, not all the venerability of its age can
make it respectable. Caper declares that on a fresh, sparkling day, in
the merry spring-time, he once really enjoyed a very early breakfast
there; and that, with the windows of the Omnibus-room open, the fresh
air blowing in, and the sight of a pretty girl at the fourth-story
window of a neighboring house, feeding a bird and tending a rose-bush,
the old café was rose-colored.

This may be so; but seven o'clock in the evening was _the_ time when the
Greco was in its prime. Then the front-room was filled with Germans, the
second room with Russians and English, the third room--the Omnibus--with
Americans, English, and French, and the fourth, or back-room, was brown
with Spaniards. The Italians were there, in one or two rooms, but in a
minority; only those who affected the English showed themselves, and
aired their knowledge of the Anglo-Saxon tongue and habits.

'I habituate myself,' said a red-haired Italian of the Greco to Caper,
'to the English customs. I myself lave with hot water from foot to head,
one time in three weeks, like the English. It is an idea of the most
superb, and they tell me I am truly English for so performing. I have
not yet arrive to perfection in the lessons of box, but I have a smart
cove of a bool-dog.'

Caper told him that his resemblance to an English 'gent' was perfect, at
which the Italian, ignorant of the meaning of that fearful word, smiled
assent.

The waiter has hardly brought you your small cup of _caffe nero_, and
you are preparing to light a cigar, to smoke while you drink your
coffee, when there comes before you a wandering bouquet-seller. It is,
perhaps, the dead of winter; long icicles are hanging from fountains,
over which hang frosted oranges, frozen myrtles, and frost-nipped
olives, Alas! such things are seen in Rome; and yet, for a dime you are
offered a bouquet of camellia japonicas. By the way, the name camellia
is derived from _Camellas_, a learned Jesuit; probably _La Dame aux
Camélias_ had not a similar origin. You don't want the flowers.

'Signore,' says the man, 'behold a ruined flower-merchant!'

You are unmoved. Have you not seen or heard of, many a time, the
heaviest kind of flour-merchants ruined by too heavy speculations, burst
up so high the crows couldn't fly to them; and heard this without
changing a muscle of your face?

'But, signore, do buy a bouquet to please your lady?'

'Haven't one.'

'_Altro_!' answers the man, triumphantly, 'whom did I see the other day,
with these eyes, (pointing at his own,) in a magnificent carriage,
beside the most beautiful _Donna Inglesa_ in Rome? _Iddio giusto_!'....
At this period, he sees he has made a ten strike, and at once follows it
up by knocking down the ten-pin boy, so as to clear the alley, thus:
'For _her_ sake, signore.'

You pay a paul, (and give the bouquet to--your landlady's daughter,)
while the departing _mercante di fiori_ assures you that he never, no,
never expects to make a fortune at flowers; but if he gains enough to
pay for his wine, he will be very tipsy as long as he lives!

Then comes an old man, with a chessboard of inlaid stone, which he
hasn't an idea of selling; but finds it excellent to 'move on,' without
being checkmated as a beggar without visible means of s'port. The first
time he brought it round, and held it out square to Caper, that cool
young man, taking a handful of coppers from his pocket, arranged them as
checkers on the board, without taking any notice of the man; and after
he had placed them, began playing deliberately. He rested his chin on
his hand, and with knitted brows, studied several intricate moves; he
finally jumped the men, so as to leave a copper or two on the board; and
bidding the old man good-night, continued a conversation with Rocjean,
commenced previous to his game of draughts.

Next approaches a hardware--merchant, for, in Imperial Rome, the peddler
of a colder clime is a merchant, the shoemaker an artist, the artist a
professor. The hardware-man looks as if he might be 'touter' to a
broken-down brigand. All the razors in his box couldn't keep the small
part of his face that is shaved from wearing a look as if it had been
blown up with gunpowder, while the grains had remained embedded there.
He tempts you with a wicked-looking knife, the pattern for which must
have come from the _litreus_ of Etruria, the land called the _mother of
superstitions_, and have been wielded for auguries amid the howls and
groans of lucomones and priests. He tells you it is a Campagna-knife,
and that you must have one if you go into that benighted region; he says
this with a mysterious shake of his head, as if he had known Fra Diavolo
in his childhood and Fra 'Tonelli in his riper years. The
crescent-shaped handle is of black bone; the pointed blade long and
tapering; the three notches in its back catch into the spring with a
noise like the alarum of a rattle-snake. You conclude to buy one--for a
curiosity. You ask why the blade at the point finishes off in a circle?
He tells you the government forbids the sale of sharp-pointed knives;
but, signore, if you wish to _use it_, break off the circle under your
heel, and you have a point sharp enough to make any man have an
_accidente di freddo_, (death from cold--steel.)

Victor Hugo might have taken his character of Quasimodo from the wild
figure who now enters the Greco, with a pair of horns for sale; each
horn is nearly a yard in length, black and white in color; they have
been polished by the hunchback until they shine like glass. Now he
approaches you, and with deep, rough voice, reminding you of the lowing
of the large grey oxen they once belonged to, begs you to buy them. Then
he facetiously raises one to each side of his head, and you have a
figure that Jerome Bosch would have rejoiced to transfer to canvas. His
portrait has been painted by more than one artist.

Caper, sitting in the Omnibus one evening with Rocjean, was accosted by
a very seedy-looking man, with a very peculiar expression of face,
wherein an awful struggle of humor to crowd down pinching poverty
gleamed brightly. He offered for sale an odd volume of one of the early
fathers of the Church. Its probable value was a dime, whereas he wanted
two dollars for it.

'Why do you ask such a price?' asked Rocjean, 'you never can expect to
sell it for a twentieth part of that.'

'The moral of which,' said the seedy man, no longer containing the
struggling humor, but letting it out with a hearty laugh; 'the moral of
which is--give me half a baioccho!'

Ever after that, Caper never saw the man, who henceforth went by the
name of _La Morale é un Mezzo Baioccho_! without pointing the moral with
a copper coin. Not content with this, he once took him round to the
_Lepre_ restaurant, and ordered a right good supper for him. Several
other artists were with him, and all declared that no one could do
better justice to food and wine. After he had eaten all he could hold,
and drank a little more than he could carry, he arose from table, having
during the entire meal sensibly kept silence, and wiping his mouth on
his coat-sleeve, spoke:

'The moral this evening, signori, I shall carry home in my stomach.'

As he was going out of the restaurant, one of the artists asked him why
he left two rolls of bread on the table; saying they were paid for, and
belonged to him.

'I left them,' said he, 'out of regard for the correct usages of
society; but, having shown this, I return to pocket them.'

This he did at once, and Caper stood astonished at the seedy-beggar's
phraseology.

In addition to these characters, wandering musicians find their way into
the café, jugglers, peddlers of Roman mosaics and jewelry, plaster-casts
and sponges, perfumery and paint-brushes. Or a peripatetic shoemaker,
with one pair of shoes, which he recklessly offers for sale to giant or
dwarf. One morning he found a purchaser--a French artist--who put them
on, and threw away his old shoes. Fatal mistake. Two hours afterward,
the buyer was back in the Greco, with both big toes sticking out of the
ends of his new shoes, looking for that _cochon_ of a shoemaker.

To those who read men like books, the Greco offers a valuable
circulating library. The advantage, too, of these artistical works is,
that one needs not be a Mezzofanti to read the Russian, Spanish, German,
French, Italian, English, and other faces that pass before one
panoramically. There sits a relation of a hospodar, drinking Russian
tea; he pours into a large cup a small glass of brandy, throws in a
slice of lemon, fills up with hot tea. Do you think of the miles he has
traveled, in a _telega_, over snow-covered steppes, and the smoking
_samovar_ of tea that awaited him, his journey for the day ended? Had he
lived when painting and sculpture were in their ripe prime, what a fiery
life he would have thrown into his works! As it is, he drinks cognac,
hunts wild-boars in the Pontine marshes--and paints Samson and Delilah,
after models.

The Spanish artist, over a cup of chocolate, has lovely dreams, of burnt
umber hue, and despises the neglected treasures left him by the Moors,
while he seeks gold in--castles in the air.

The German, with feet in Italy and head far away in the Fatherland,
frequents the German-club in preference to the Greco; for at the club is
there not lager beer?.... In imperial Rome, there are lager beer
breweries! He has the profundities of the esthetical in art at his
finger-ends; it is deep-sea fishing, and he occasionally lands a whale,
as Kaulbach has done; or very nearly catches a mermaid with Cornelius.
Let us respect the man--he _works_.

The French artist, over a cup of black coffee, with perhaps a small
glass of cognac, is the lightning to the German thunder. If he were
asked to paint the portrait of a potato, he would make eyes about it,
and then give you a little picture fit to adorn a boudoir. He does every
thing with a flourish. If he has never painted Nero performing that
celebrated violin-solo over Rome, it is because he despaired of
conveying an idea of the tremulous flourish of the fiddle-bow. He reads
nature, and translates her, without understanding her. He will prove to
you that the cattle of Rosa Bonheur are those of the fields, while he
will object to Landseer that his beasts are those of the guinea
cattle-show. He blows up grand facts in the science of art with
gunpowder, while the English dig them out with a shovel, and the Germans
bore for them. He finds Raphael, king of pastel artists, and never
mentions his discovery to the English. He is more dangerous with the
_fleurette_ than many a trooper with broadsword. Every thing that he
appropriates, he stamps with the character of his own nationality. The
English race-horse at Chantilly has an air of curl-papers about his mane
and tail.

The Italian artist--the night-season is for sleep.

The English artist--hearken to Ruskin on Turner! When one has hit the
bull's-eye, there is nothing left but to lay down the gun, and go and
have--a whitebait dinner.

The American artist--there is danger of the youthful giant kicking out
the end of the Cradle of Art, and 'scatterlophisticating rampageously'
over all the nursery.

'I'd jest give a hun-dred dol-lars t'morrow, ef I could find out a way
to cut stat-tures by steam,' said Chapin, the sculptor.

'I can't see why a country with great rivers, great mountains, and great
institutions generally, can not produce great sculptors and painters,'
said Caper sharply, one day to Rocjean.

'It is this very greatness,' answered Rocjean, 'that prevents it. The
aim of the people runs not in the narrow channel of mountain-stream, but
with the broad tide of the ocean. In the hands of Providence, other
lands in other times have taken up painting and sculpture with their
whole might, and have wielded them to advance civilization. They have
played--are playing their part, these civilizers; but they are no longer
chief actors, least of all in America. Painting and sculpture may take
the character of subjects there; but their rôle as king is--played out.'

'Much as you know about it,' answered Caper, 'you are all theory!'

'That maybe,' quoth Rocjean; 'you know what THEOS means in Greek, don't
you?'




AMONG THE WILD BEASTS.


There came to Rome, in the autumn, along with the other travelers, a
caravan of wild beasts, ostensibly under charge of Monsieur Charles, the
celebrated Tamer, rendered illustrious and illustrated by Nadar and
Gustave Doré, in the _Journal pour Rire_. They were exhibited under a
canvas tent in the Piazza Popolo, and a very cold time they had of it
during the winter. Evidently, Monsieur Charles believed the climate of
Italy belonged to the temperance society of climates. He erred, and
suffered with his '_superbe et manufique_ ÉLLLLLÉPHANT!' 'and when we
reflec', ladies _and_ gentlemen, that there _are_ persons, forty and
even fifty years old, who have never seen the Ellllephant!!!...and who
DARE TO SAY so!!!...' Monsieur Charles made his explanations with teeth
chattering.

Caper, anxious to make a sketch of a very fine Bengal tiger in the
collection, easily purchased permission to make studies of the animals
during the hours when the exhibition was closed to the public; and as
he went at every thing vigorously, he was before long in possession of
several fine sketches of the tiger and other beasts, besides several
secrets only known to the initiated, who act as keepers.

The royal Bengal tiger was one of the finest beasts Caper had ever seen,
and what he particularly admired was the jet-black lustre of the stripes
on his tawny sides and the vivid lustre of his eyes. The lion curiously
seemed laboring under a heavy sleep at the very time when he should have
been awake; but then his mane was kept in admirable order. The hair
round his face stood out like the bristles of a shoe-brush, and there
was a curl in the knob of hair at the end of his tail that amply
compensated for his inactivity. The hyenas looked sleek and happy, and
their teeth were remarkably white; but the elephant was the constant
wonder of all beholders. Instead of the tawny, blue-gray color of most
of his species, he was black, and glistened like a patent-leather boot;
while his tusks were as white as--ivory; yea, more so.

'I don't understand what makes your animals look so bright,' said Caper
one day to one of the keepers.

'Come here to-morrow morning early, when we make their toilettes, and
you'll see,' replied the man, laughing. 'Why, there's that old hog of a
lion, he's as savage and snaptious before he has his medicine as a
corporal; and looks as old as Methusaleh, until we arrange his beard and
get him up for the day. As for the ellllephant ... ugh!'

Caper's curiosity was aroused, and the next morning, early, he was in
the menagerie. The first sight that struck his eye was the elephant,
keeled over on one side, and weaving his trunk about, evidently as a
signal of distress; while his keeper and another man were--blacking-pot
and shoe-brushes in hand--going all over him from stem to stern.

'Good day,' said the keeper to him, 'here's a pair of boots for you! put
outside the door to be blacked every morning, for five francs a day.
It's the dearest job I ever undertook...and the boots are ungrateful!
Here, Pierre,' he continued to the man who helped him, 'he shines
enough; take away the breshes, and bring me the sand-paper to rub up his
tusks. Talk about polished beasts! I believe, myself, that we beat all
other shows to pieces on this 'ere point. Some beasts are more knowing
than others; for example, them monkeys in that cage there. Give that big
fool of a shimpanzy that bresh, Pierre, and let the gentleman see him
operate on tother monkeys.'

Pierre gave the large monkey a brush, and, to Caper's astonishment, he
saw the animal seize it with one paw, then springing forward, catch a
small monkey with the other paw, and holding him down, in spite of his
struggles, administer so complete a brushing over his entire body that
every hair received a touch. The other monkeys in the cage were in the
wildest state of excitement, evidently knowing from experience that they
would all have to pass under the large one's hands; and when he had
given a final polish to the small one, he commenced a vigorous chase for
his mate, an aged female, who, evidently disliking the ordeal, commenced
a series of ground and lofty tumblings that would have made the fortune
of even the distinguished--Léotard. In vain: after a prolonged chase, in
which the inhabitants of the cage flew round so fast that it appeared to
be full of flying legs, tails, and fur, the large monkey seized the
female and, regardless of her attempts to liberate herself, he brushed
her from head to foot, to the great delight of a Swiss soldier, an
infantry corporal, who had entered the menagerie a few minutes before
the grand hunt commenced.

'Ma voi!' said the Swiss, pronouncing French with a broad German accent,
'it would keef me krate bleshur to have dat pig monkey in my gombany. He
would mak' virst rait brivate.'

The keeper, who was still polishing away with sand-paper at the
elephant's tusks, and who evidently regarded the soldier with great
contempt, said to him:

'He would have been there long since--only he knows too much.'

'_Ma voi_! that's the reason you're draining him vor a Vrench gavalry
gombany. Vell, I likes dat.'

'Oh! no,' said the keeper, 'his principles an't going to allow him to
enter our army.'

'Vell, what are his brincibles?'

'To serve those who pay best!' quoth the Frenchman, who, in the firm
faith that he had said a good thing, called Pierre to help him adorn the
lion, and turned his back on the Swiss, who, in revenge, amused himself
feeding the monkeys with an old button, a stump of a cigar, and various
wads of paper.

The keeper then gave the lion a narcotic, and after this medicine,
combed out his mane and tail, waxed his mustache, and thus made his
toilette for the day. The tiger and leopards had their stripes and spots
touched up once a week with hair-dye, and as this was not the day
appointed, Caper missed this part of the exhibition. The hyenas
submitted to be brushed down; but showed strong symptoms of mutiny at
having their teeth rubbed with a toothbrush and their nails pared.

In half an hour more, the keeper's labors were over, and Caper, giving
him a present for his inviting him to assist as spectator at _la
toilette bien béte_, or beastly dressing, walked off to breakfast,
evidently thinking that _Art_ was not dead in that menagerie, whatever
Rocjean might say of its state of health in the world at large.

'To think,' soliloquized Caper, 'to think of what a bootless thing it
is, to shoe-black o'er an elephant!'




ROMAN MODELS.


The traveler visiting Rome notices in the Piazza di Spagna, along the
Spanish steps, and in the Condotti, Fratina and Sistina streets, either
sunning themselves or slowly sauntering along, many picturesquely-dressed
men, women, and children, who, as he soon learns, are the
professional models of the artists. For a fee of from fifty
cents to a dollar, they will give their professional services for a
sitting four hours in length, and those of them who are most in demand
find little difficulty during the 'business season,' say from the months
of November to May, in earning from one and a half to two dollars, and
even more, every day. Many of them, living frugally, manage to make what
is considered a fortune among the _contadini_ in a few years; and Hawks,
the English artist, who spent a summer at Saracenesca, found, to his
astonishment, that one of the leading men of the town, one who loaned
money at very large interest, owned property, and who was numbered among
the heavy wealthy, was no other than a certain Gaetano, he had more than
once used as model, at the price of fifty cents a sitting.

The government prohibiting female models from posing nude in the
different life-schools, it consequently follows that they pose in
private studios, as they choose; this interdiction does not extend to
the male models; and when Caper was in Rome, he had full opportunities
offered him to draw from these in the English Academy, and in the
private schools of Gigi and Giacinti. Supported by the British
government, the English artist has, free of all expense, at this truly
National Academy, opportunities to sketch from life, as well as from
casts, and has, moreover, access to a well-chosen library of books. With
a generosity worthy of all praise, American artists are admitted to the
English Academy, with full permission to share with Englishmen the
advantages of the life-school, free of all cost; a piece of liberality
that well might be copied by the French Academy, without at all
derogating from its high position--on the Pincian Hill.

If Gigi's school is still kept up, (it was in a small street near the
Trevi fountain,) we would advise the traveler in search of the
picturesque by all means to visit it, particularly if it is in the same
location it was when Caper was there. It was over a stable, in the
second story of a tumble-down old house, frequented by dogs, cats,
fleas, and rats; in a room say fifty feet long by twenty wide. A
semi-circle of desks and wooden benches went round the platform where
stood the male models nude, or on other evenings, male and female models
in costumes, Roman or Neapolitan. Oil lamps gave enough light to enable
the artists who generally attended there to draw, and color in oils or
water-colors, the costumes. The price of admittance for the costume
class was one paul, (ten cents,) and as the model only posed about two
hours, the artists had to work very fast to get even a rough sketch
finished in that short time. Americans, Danes, Germans, Spaniards,
French, Italians, English, Russians, were numbered among the attendants,
and more than once, a sedate-looking English-woman or two would come in
quietly, make a sketch, and go away unmolested and almost unnoticed.

More than three-quarters of the sketches made by Caper at Gigi's
costume-class were taken from models in standing positions. At the end
of the first hour, they had from ten to fifteen minutes allowed them to
rest; but these minutes were seldom wasted by the artist, who improved
them to finish the lines of his drawing, or dash in color. The powers of
endurance of the female models were better than those of the men; and
they would strike a position and keep it for an hour, almost immovable.
Noticeable among these women, was one named Minacucci, who, though over
seventy years old, had all the animation and spirit of one not half her
age; and would keep her position with the steadiness of a statue. She
had, in her younger days, been a model for Canova; had outlived two
generations; and was now posing for a third. If you have ever seen many
figure-paintings executed in Rome, your chance is good to have seen
Minacucci's portrait over and over again. Caper affirms that of any
painting made in Rome from the years 1856 to 1860, introducing an
Italian head, whether a Madonna or sausage-seller, he can tell you the
name of the model it was painted from nine times out of ten! The fact
is, they do want a new model for the Madonna badly in Rome, for Giacinta
is growing old and fat, and Stella, since she married that cobbler, has
lost her angelic expression. The small boy who used to pose for angels
has smoked himself too yellow, and the man who stood for Charity has
gone out of business.

'I have,' said Caper to me the other day, 'too much respect for the
public to tell them who the man with red hair and beard used to pose
for; but he has taken to drinking, and it's all up with him.'

Spite of fleas, rats, squalling cats, dog-fights, squealing of horses,
and braying of donkeys, lamp-smoke, and heat or cold, the hours passed
by Caper in Gigi's old barracks were among the pleasantest of his Roman
life. There was such novelty, variety, and brilliancy in the costumes to
be sketched, that every evening was a surprise; save those nights when
Stella posed, and these were known and looked forward to in advance. She
always insured a full class, and when she first appeared, was the beauty
of all the models.

Caper was sitting one afternoon in Rocjean's studio, when there was a
tap at the door.

'_Entrate_!' shouted Rocjean, and in came a female model, called Rita.
It was the month of May, business was dull; she wanted employment.
Rocjean asked her to walk in and rest herself.

'Well, Rita, you haven't any thing to do, now that the English have all
fled from Rome before the malaria?'

'Very little. Some of the Russians are left up there in the Fratina; but
since the Signore Giovanni sold all his paintings to that rich Russian
banker, _diavolo_! he has done nothing but drink champagne, and he don't
want any more models.'

'What is the Signore Giovanni's last name?' asked Caper.

'Who knows, Signore Giacomo? I don't. We others (_noi altri_) never can
pronounce your queer names, so we find out the Italian for your first
names, and call you by that. Signore Arturo, the French artist, told me
once that the English and Russians and Germans had such hard names they
often broke their front-teeth out trying to speak them; but he was
joking. _I_ know the real, true reason for it.'

'Come, let us have it,' said Rocjean.

'_Accidente_! I won't tell you; you will be angry.'

'No we won't,' spoke Caper, 'and what is more, I will give you two pauls
if you will tell us. I am very curious to know this reason.'

'_Bene_, now the _prete_ came round to see me the other day; it was when
he purified the house with holy water, and he asked me a great many
questions, which I answered so artlessly, yes, so artlessly! whew! [here
Miss Rita smiled artfully.] Then he asked me all about you heretics, and
he told me you were all going to--be burned up, as soon as you died; for
the Inquisition couldn't do it for you in these degenerate days. After a
great deal more twaddle like this, I asked him why you heretics all had
such hard names, that we others never could speak them? Then he looked
mysterious, so! [here Miss Rita diabolically winked one eye,] and said
he: 'I will tell you, _per Bacco_! hush, it's because they are so
abominably wicked, never give any thing to OUR Church, never have no
holy water in their houses, never go to no confession, and are such
monsters generally, that their police are all the time busy trying to
catch them; but their names are so hard to speak that when the police go
and ask for them, nobody knows them, and so they get off; otherwise,
their country would have jails in it as large as St. Peter's, and they
would be full all the time!'

'H'm!' said Rocjean, 'I suppose you would be afraid to go to such
horrible countries, among such people?'

'Not I,' spoke Rita,'didn't Ida go to Paris, and didn't she come back to
Rome with such a magnificent silk dress, and gold watch, and such a
bonnet! all full of flowers, and lace, and ribbons? Oh! they don't eat
'nothing but maccaroni' there! And they don't have priests all the time
sneaking round to keep a poor girl from earning a little money honestly,
and haul her up before the police if her _carta di soggiorno_ [permit to
remain in Rome] runs out. I wish [here Rita stamped her foot and her
eyes flashed] Garibaldi would come here! Then you would see these black
crows flying, _Iddio giusto_! Then we would have no more of these
_arciprete_ making us pay them for every mouthful of bread we eat, or
wine we drink, or wood we burn.'

'Why,' said Caper, 'they don't keep the baker-shops, and wine-shops, and
wood-yards, do they?'

'No,' answered Rita, 'but they speculate in them, and Fra 'Tonelli makes
his cousins and so on inspectors; and they regulate the prices to suit
themselves, and make oh! such tremen-di-ous fortunes. [Here Rita opened
her eyes, and spread her hands, as if beholding the elephant.] Don't I
remember, some time ago, how, when the Pope went out riding, he found
both sides of the way from the Vatican to San Angelo crowded with people
on their knees, groaning and calling to him. Said he to Fra 'Tonelli:

''What are these poor people about?'

''Praying for your blessed holiness,' said he, while his eyes sparkled.

''But,' said the Pope, 'they are moaning and groaning.'

''It's a way the _poblaccio_ have,' answered 'Tonelli, 'when they pray.'

'The Pope knew he was lying, so, when he went home to the Vatican, he
sent for one of his faithful servants, and said he:

''Santi, you run out and see what all this shindy is about?'

'So Santi came back and told him 'Tonelli had put up the price of bread,
and the people were starving. So the Pope took out a big purse with a
little money in it, and said he:

''Here, Santi, you go and buy me ten pounds of bread, and get a bill
for it, and have it receipted!'

'So Santi came back with bread, and bill all receipted, and laid it down
on a table, and threw a cloth over it. By and by, in comes 'Tonelli.
Then the Pope says to him, kindly and smiling:

''I am confident I heard the people crying about bread to-day; now, tell
me truly, what is it selling for?'

'Then 'Toneli told him such a lie. [Up went Rita's hands and eyes.]

'Then the Pope says, while he looked so [knitting her brows]:

''Oblige me, if you please, by lifting up that cloth.'

'And'Tonelli did.

'Bread went down six _baiocchi_ next morning!'

'By the way, Rita,' asked Rocjean, 'where is your little brother,
Beppo?'

'Oh! he's home,' she answered, 'but I wish you would ask your friend
Enrico, the German sculptor, if he won't have him again, for his model.'

'Why, I thought he was using him for his new statue?'

'He was; but oh! so unfortunately, last Sunday, father went out to see
his cousin John, who lives near Ponte Mole, and has a garden there, and
Beppo went with him; but the dear little fellow is so fond of fruit,
that he ate a pint of raw horse-beans!'

'Of all the fruit!' shouted Caper.

'_Si, signore_, it's splendid; but it gave Beppo the colic next day, and
when he went to Signore Enrico's studio to pose for Cupid, he twisted
and wrenched around so with pain, that Signore Enrico told him he looked
more like a little devil than a small love; and when Beppo told him what
fruit he had been eating, Signore Enrico bid him clear out for a savage
that he was, and told him to go and learn to eat them boiled before he
came back again.'

'I will speak to the Signore Enrico, and have him employ him again,'
said Rocjean.

'Oh! I wish you would, for the Signore Enrico was very good to Beppo;
besides, his studio is a perfect palace for cigar-stumps, which Beppo
used to pick up and sell--that is, all those he and father didn't smoke
in their pipes.'

'Make a sketch, Caper,' said Rocjean, 'of Cupid filling up his quiver
with cigar-stumps, while he holds one between his teeth. There's a model
love for you! Now, give Rita those two pauls you promised her, and let
her go. _Adio_!'




            GIULIA DI SEGNI.


            (_Lines found written on the back of a sketch
                in Caper's portfolio._)

            By Roman watch-tower, on the mountaintop,
            We stood, at sunset, gazing like the eagles
            From their cloud-eyrie, o'er the broad Campagna,
            To the Albanian hills, which boldly rose,
            Bathed in a flood of red and pearly light.
            Far off, and fading in the coming night,
            Lay the Abruzzi, where the pale, white walls
            Of towns gleamed faintly on their purple sides.

            The evening air was tremulous with sounds:
            The thrilling chirp of insects, twittering birds,
            Barking of shepherds' fierce, white, Roman dogs;
            While from the narrow path, far down below,
            We heard a mournful rondinella ring,
            Sung by a home-returning mountaineer.

            Then, as the daylight slowly climbed the hills,
            And the soft wind breathed music to their steps,
            O'er the old Roman watch-tower marched the stars,
            In their bright legions--conquerors of night--
            Shedding from silver armor shining light;
            As once the Roman legions, ages past,
            Marched on to conquest o'er the Latin way,
            Gleaming, white-stoned, so far beneath our gaze.

            GIULIA DI SEGNI, 'mid the Volscians born,
            Streamed in thy veins that fiery, Roman blood,
            Curled thy proud lip, and fired thy eagle eyes.
            Faultless in beauty, as the noble forms
            Painted on rare Etrurian vase of old;
            How life, ennobled by thy love, swept on,
            Serene, above the mean and pitiful!

            Stars! that still sparkle o'er old Segni's walls,
            Oh! mirror back to me one glance from eyes
            That yet may watch you from that Roman tower.




MR. BROWN BUYS A PAINTING.


Caper's uncle, from St. Louis, Mr. William Browne, one day astonished
several artists who were dining with him:

'My young men,' said he, 'there is one thing pleases me very much about
you all, and that is, you never mention the word Art; don't seem to care
any thing more about the old masters than I would about a lot of old
worn-out broom-sticks; and if I didn't know I was with artists in Rome,
the crib--no, what d' ye call it?'

'The manger?' suggested Rocjean.

'Yes,' continued Uncle Bill, 'the manger of art, I should think I was
among a lot of smart merchants, who had gone into the painting business
determined to do a right good trade.'

'Cash on delivery,' added Caper.

'Yes, be sure of that. Well, I like it; I feel at home with you; and as
I always make it a point to encourage young business men, I am going to
do my duty by one of you, at any rate. I shan't show favor to my nephew,
Jim, any more than I do to the rest. And this is my plan: I want a
painting five feet by two, to fill up a place in my house in St. Louis;
it's an odd shape, and that is so much in my favor, because you haven't
any of you a painting that size under way, and can all start even. I'll
leave the subject to each one of you, and I'll pay five hundred dollars
to the man who paints the best picture, who has his done within seven
days, _and puts the most work on it_! Do you all understand?'

They replied affirmatively.

'But what the thunder,' asked Caper, 'are those of us who don't win the
prize, going to do with paintings of such a size, left on our hands?
Nobody, unless a steamboat captain, who wants to ornament his berths,
just that size, and relieve the tedium of his passengers, would ever
think of buying them.'

'Well,' replied Uncle Bill, 'I don't want smart young men like you all,
to lose your time and money, so I'll buy the balance of the paintings
for what the canvas and paints cost, and give two dollars a day for the
seven days employed on each painting. Isn't that liberal?'

'Like Cosmo de Medici,' answered Rocjean; 'and I agree to the terms in
every particular, especially as to putting the most work on it! There
are four competitors--put down their names. Légume, you will come in,
won't you?'

'Certainly I will, by Jing!' answered the French artist, who prided
himself on his knowledge of English, especially the interjections.

'Then,' continued Rocjean, 'Caper, Bagswell, Légume, and I, will try for
your five hundred dollar prize. When shall we commence?'

'To-day is Tuesday,' replied Uncle Bill; 'say next Monday--that will
give you plenty of time to get your frames and canvases. So that ends
all particulars. There are two friends of mine here from the United
States, one, Mr. Van Brick, of New York, and the other, Mr. Pinchfip, of
Philadelphia, whom I think you all met here last week.'

'The thin gentleman with hair very much brushed, be Gad?' asked Légume.

'I don't remember as to his hair,' answered Uncle Bill, 'but that's the
man. Well, these two I know will act as vampires, and I am sure you will
be pleased with their verdict. Monday after next, therefore, we will all
call, so be ready.'

       *       *       *       *       *

The four artists took the whole thing as a joke, but determined to paint
the pictures; and at Caper's suggestion, each one agreed, as there was a
play of words in the clause, 'most work on it,' to puzzle Uncle Bill,
and have the laugh on him.

On the day appointed to decide the prize, Uncle Bill, accompanied by
Messrs. Van Brick and Pinchfip, called first at Légume's studio; they
found him in the Via Margutta, (in English, Malicious street,) in a
light, airy room, furnished with a striking attention to effect. On his
easel was a painting of the required size, representing Louis XV. at
Versailles, surrounded by his lady friends. By making the figures of the
ladies small, and crowding them, Légume managed to get a hundred or two
on the canvas. A period in their history to which Frenchmen refer with
so much pleasure, and with which they are so conversant, was treated by
the artist with professional zeal. The merits of the painting were
carefully canvassed by the two judges. Mr. Pinchfip found it exceedingly
graceful, neat, and pretty. Mr. Van Brick admired the females, remarking
that he should like to be in old Louis's place. To which Légume bowed,
asserting that he was sure he was in every way qualified to fill it. Mr.
Van Brick determined in his mind to give the artist a dinner, at
Spillman's, for that speech.

Mr. Pinchfip took notes in a book; Mr. Van Brick asked for a light to a
cigar. The former congratulated the artist; the latter at once asked him
to come and dine with him. Mr. Pinchfip wished to know if he was related
to the Count Légume whom he had met at Paris. Mr. Van Brick told him he
would bring his friend Livingston round to buy a painting. Mr. Pinchfip
said that it would afford him pleasure to call again. Mr. Van Brick gave
the artist his card, and shook hands with him:...and the judges were
passing out, when Légume asked them to take one final look at the
painting to see if it had not the _most work_ on it. Mr. Van Brick
instantly turned toward it, and running over it with his eye, burst into
an uncontrollable fit of laughter.

'If the others beat that, I am mistaken,' said he. 'Look at there!'
calling the attention of Uncle Bill and Mr. Pinchfip to a fold of a
curtain on which was painted, in small letters,

'MOST WORK.'

'I say, Browne,' continued Mr. Van Brick, 'he is too many for you; and
if the one who puts 'most work' on his painting is to win the five
hundred dollars, Légume's chance is good.'

'Very ingenious,' said Mr. Pinchfip, 'very; it is a legitimate play upon
words. But legally, I can not affirm that I am aware of any precedent
for awarding Mr. Browne's money to Monsieur Légume on this score.'

'We will have to make a precedent, then,' spoke Van Brick, 'and do it
illegally, if we find that he deserves the money. But time flies, and we
have the other artists to visit.'

They next went to Bagswell's studio, in the Viccolo dei Greci, and found
him in a large room, well furnished, and having a solidly comfortable
look; the walls ornamented with paintings, sketches, costumes, armor;
while in a good light under its one large window, was his painting. They
found he had left his beaten track of historical subjects, and in the
_genre_ school had an interior of an Italian country inn--a
kitchen-scene. It represented a stout, handsome country girl, in
Ciociara costume, kneading a large trough of dough, while another girl
was filling pans with that which was already kneaded, and two or three
other females were carrying them to an oven, tended by a man who was
piling brush-wood on the fire. The painting was very life-like, and for
the short time employed on it, well finished. It wanted the fire and
dash of Légume's painting, but its truthfulness to life evidently made a
deep impression on Uncle Bill. Stuck on with a sketching-tack to one
corner was a piece of paper, on which was marked the number of hours
employed each day on the work; it summed up fifty-four hours, or an
average each day of nearly eight hours' work on it.

Mr. Pinchfip's note-book was again called into play. Mr. Van Brick had
another cigar to smoke, remarking that the artist had triple work in his
picture--head, bread, and prize-work: his picture representing working
in, over, and for bread!

They next went to see Rocjean, in the Corso; they found him in a
bournouse, with a fez on his head, a long chibouk in his mouth, smoking
away, extended at full length on a settee, which he insisted was a
divan. There was a glass bottle holding half a gallon of red wine on a
table near him, also a bottle of Marsala, and half a dozen glasses.
There was a roaring wood-fire in his stove--for it was December, and the
day was overcast and cool.

'This is the most out and out comfortable old nest I've seen in Rome,'
said Mr. Van Brick, as they entered; 'and as for curiosities and
plunder, you beat Barnum. _Will I take a glass of wine_? I am there!'

Rocjean filled up glasses. Mr. Pinchfip declining, as he never drank
before dinner, neither did he smoke before dinner. He told them that the
late Doctor Phyzgig, who had always been their (the Pinchfips') family
physician, had absolutely forbidden it.

No one made any remark to this, unless Mr. Van Brick's expressive face
could be translated as observing, in a quiet manner, that the late
Doctor was possibly dyspeptic, and probably nervous.

Rocjean's painting represented a view of the Claudian aqueduct,
mountains in the distance; bold foreground, shepherd with flocks, a
wayside shrine, peasants kneeling in front of it. Over all, bold cloud
effects. A very ponderous volume balanced on top of the picture, and
leaning against the easel, invited Uncle Bill's attention, and he asked
Rocjean why he had put it there? The artist answered that it was a folio
copy of _Josephus_, his works, and, as he was anxious to comply with the
terms of Mr. Browne, he had placed it there in order to put the _most
work_ on it.

Mr. Pinchfip having asked Rocjean why, in placing that book there, he
was like a passenger paying his fare to the driver of an omnibus?

The latter at once answered:

'I give it up.'

'So you do,' replied Pinchfip. 'You are quick, sir, at answering
conundrums.'

Mr. Brick saw it. Finally Uncle Bill was made to comprehend.

'Very excellent, sir; very ingenious! Philadelphians may well be proud
of the high position they have as punsters, utterers of _bon mots_ and
conundrums,' said Rocjean; 'I have had the comfort of living in your
city, and thoroughly appreciating your--markets.'

After Rocjean's the judges and Uncle Bill went to Caper's studio. As
they entered his room they found that ingenious youth walking, in his
shirt-sleeves, in as large a circle as the room would permit, bearing on
his head a large canvas, while a quite pretty female model, named
Stella, sat on a sofa, marking down something on a piece of paper, using
the sole of her shoe for a writing-desk.

'We-ell!' said Uncle Bill.

'One more round,' quoth Caper, with unmoved countenance, 'and I will be
with you. That will make four hundred and fifty, won't it, Stella?'

'_Eh, Gia_, one more is all you want.' And making an extra scratch with
a pencil, the female model surveyed the new-comers with a triumphant
air, plainly saying: 'See there! I can write, but I am not proud.'

'What are you about, Jim?'

'Look at that painting!' answered Caper. 'The Blessing of the Donkeys,
Horses, etc.; it is one of the most imposing ceremonies of the Church.
As my specialty is animal, I have chosen it for my painting; and not
contented with laboring faithfully on it, I have determined, in order to
put the thing beyond a doubt as to my gaining the prize, to put the
_most work_ on it of any of my rivals; so I have actually, as Stella
will tell you, carried it bodily four hundred and fifty times round this
studio.'

'Instead of a painting, I should think you would have made a panting of
it,' spoke Mr. Van Brick.

'The idea seems to me artful,' added Mr. Pinchfip, 'but after all, this
pedestrian work was not on the painting, but under it; therefore,
according to Blackstone on contracts, this comes under the head of a
consideration _do, ut facias_, see vol. ii. page 360. How far moral
obligation is a legal consideration, see note, vol. iii. p. 249
Bossanquet and Puller's Reports. The principle _servus facit, ut herus
det_, as laid down by....'

'Jove!' exclaimed Uncle Bill, 'couldn't you stop off the torrent for one
minute? I'm drowning--I give up--do with me as you see fit.'

       *       *       *       *       *

'And now,' said Mr. Van Brick, 'that we have seen the four paintings,
let us, Mr. Pinchfip, proceed calmly to discover who has won the five
hundred dollars. Duly, deliberately, and gravely, let us put the four
names on four slips of paper, stir them up in a hat. Mr. Browne shall
then draw out a name, the owner of that name shall be the winner.'

It was drawn, and by good fortune for him, Bagswell won the five hundred
dollars. Thus Uncle Bill Browne bought one painting for a good round
sum, and three others at the stipulated price. Which one of the four had
the _most work_ on it, is, however, an unsettled question among three of
the artists, to this day.




            FOR THE HOUR OF TRIUMPH.


            Victory comes with a palm in her hand,
              With laurel upon her brow;
            Cypress is clinging about her feet,
            But its dark blossoms are red and sweet,
              And the weeping mourners bow.

            It is well. Through her tears, the widow smiles
              To the child upon her knee;
            'Thou'rt fatherless, darling; but he fell
            Gallantly fighting, and long and well,
              For the banner of the free!'

            Then, weeping: 'Alas! for my lost, lost love;
              Alas! for my own weak heart;
            I know, when the storm shall pass away,
            My boy, in manhood, would blush to say:
              'My blood had therein no part."

            The maiden her lover weeps, unconsoled,
              So desolate is her gloom;
            But a voice falls softly through the air,
            Whispering comfort to her despair,
              'Love _here_ hath fadeless bloom.'

            The father laments for his boy, who fell
              By Cumberland's river-side;
            The sister, her brother loved the best,
            Whose blood, in the dark and troubled West,
              The father of waters dyed.

            The mother--oh! silence your Spartan tales--
              Says bravely, hushing a moan:
            'I have yet _one_ left. My boy! go on;
            Rear freedom's banner high in the sun!'
              Then sits in the house alone.

            To die for one's country is sweet, indeed!
              To fight for the right is brave;
            But there are brave hearts who vainly wait
            Till triumph shall find them desolate,
              Their hopes in a far-off grave.

            O mourners! be patient; the end shall come;
              The beautiful years of peace.
            Remember! though hearts rebel the while
            You hide your tears with a mournful smile,
              That tyranny soon shall cease.

            For victory comes, a palm in her hand,
              Fresh garlands about her brow;
            But the cypress trailing under her feet,
            With crimson blossoms, by tears made sweet,
              Shall wreathe with the laurel now.




                       IN TRANSITU.


            When the acid meets the alkali,
            How they sputter, snap, and fly!
            Such a crackling, such a pattering!
            Such a hissing, such a spattering!

            All in foaming discord tossed,
            One would swear that all is lost.
            Yet the equivalents soon blend,
            All comes right at last i' the end.

            Country mine!--'tis so with thee.
            Wait--and all will quiet be!
            Men, while working out a mission,
            Must not fear the fierce transition.




AMONG THE PINES.


I sauntered out, after the events recorded in the last paper, to inhale
the fresh air of the morning. A slight rain had fallen during the night,
and it still moistened the dead leaves which carpeted the woods, making
an extended walk out of the question; so, seating myself on the trunk of
a fallen tree, in the vicinity of the house, I awaited the hour for
breakfast. I had not remained there long before I heard the voices of my
host and Madam P---- on the front piazza:

'I tell you, Alice, I can not--must not do it. If I overlook this, the
discipline of the plantation is at an end.'

'Do what you please with him when you return,' replied the lady, 'but do
not chain him up, and leave me, at such a time, alone. You know Jim is
the only one I can depend on.'

'Well, have your own way. You know, my darling, I would not cause you a
moment's uneasiness, but I must follow up this d----d Moye.'

I was seated where I could hear, though I could not see the speakers,
but it was evident from the tone of the last remark, that an action
accompanied it quite as tender as the words. Being unwilling to overhear
more of a private conversation, I rose and approached them.

'Ah! my dear fellow,' said the Colonel, on perceiving me, 'are you
stirring so early? I was about to send to your room to ask if you'll go
with me up the country. My d----d overseer has got away, and I must
follow him at once.'

'I'll go with pleasure,' I replied. 'Which way do you think Moye has
gone?'

'The shortest cut to the railroad, probably; but old Cæsar will track
him.'

A servant then announced breakfast--an early one having been prepared.
We hurried through the meal with all speed, and the other preparations
being soon over, were in twenty minutes in our saddles, and ready for
the journey. The mulatto coachman, with a third horse, was at the door,
ready to accompany us, and as we mounted, the Colonel said to him:

'Go and call Sam, the driver.'

The darky soon returned with the heavy, ugly-visaged black who had been
whipped, by Madam P----'s order, the day before.

'Sam,' said his master, 'I shall be gone some days, and I leave the
field-work in your hands. Let me have a good account of you when I
return.'

'Yas, massa, you shill dat,' replied the negro.

'Put Jule--Sam's Jule--into the field, and see that she does full
tasks,' continued the Colonel.

'Hain't she wanted 'mong de nusses, massa?'

'Put some one else there--give her field-work; she needs it.'

I will here explain that on large plantations the young children of the
field-women are left with them only at night, being herded together
during the day in a separate cabin, in charge of nurses. These nurses
are feeble, sickly women, or recent mothers; and the fact of Jule's
being employed in that capacity was evidence that she was unfit for
out-door labor.

Madam P----, who was waiting on the piazza to see us off, seemed about
to remonstrate against this arrangement, but she hesitated a moment, and
in that moment we had bidden her 'Good-by,' and galloped away.

We were soon at the cabin of the negro-hunter, and the coachman
dismounting, called him out.

'Hurry up, hurry up,' said the Colonel, as Sandy appeared, 'we haven't a
moment to spare.'

'Jest so, jest so, Cunnel; I'll jine ye in a jiffin,' replied he of the
reddish extremities.

Emerging from the shanty with provoking deliberation--the impatience of
my host had infected me--the clay-eater slowly proceeded to mount the
horse of the negro, his dirt-bedraggled wife, and clay-incrusted
children, following close at his heels, and the younger ones huddling
around for the tokens of paternal affection usual at parting. Whether it
was the noise they made, or their frightful aspect, I know not, but the
horse, a spirited animal, took fright on their appearance, and nearly
broke away from the negro, who was holding him. Seeing this, the Colonel
said:

'Clear out, you young scarecrows. Into the house with you.'

'They hain't no more scarecrows than yourn, Cunnel J----,' said the
mother, in a decidedly belligerent tone. 'You may 'buse my old man--he
kin stand it--but ye shan't blackguard my young 'uns!'

The Colonel laughed, and was about to make a good-natured reply, when
Sandy yelled out:

'Gwo enter the house and shet up, ye ---- ----.'

With this affectionate farewell, he turned his horse and led the way up
the road.

The dog, who was a short distance in advance, soon gave a piercing howl,
and started off at the speed of a reindeer. He had struck the trail, and
urging our horses to their fastest speed, we followed.

We were all well mounted, but the mare the Colonel had given me was a
magnificent animal, as fleet as the wind, and with a gait so easy that
her back seemed a rocking-chair. Saddle-horses at the South are trained
to the gallop--Southern riders deeming it unnecessary that one's
breakfast should be churned into a Dutch cheese by a trotting nag, in
order that one may pass for a good horseman.

We had ridden on at a perfect break-neck pace for half an hour, when the
Colonel shouted to our companion:

'Sandy, call the dog in; the horses won't last ten miles at this
gait--we've a long ride before us.'

The dirt-eater did as he was bidden, and we soon settled into a gentle
gallop.

We had passed through a dense forest of pines, but were emerging into a
'bottom country,' where some of the finest deciduous trees, then brown
and leafless, but bearing promise of the opening beauty of spring,
reared, along with the unfading evergreen, their tall stems in the air.
The live-oak, the sycamore, the Spanish mulberry, the mimosa, and the
persimmon, gayly festooned with wreaths of the white and yellow
jessamine, the woodbine and the cypress-moss, and bearing here and there
a bouquet of the mistletoe, with its deep green and glossy leaves
upturned to the sun--flung their broad arms over the road, forming an
archway grander and more beautiful than any the hand of man ever wove
for the greatest heroes the world has worshiped.

The woods were free from underbrush, but a coarse, wiry grass, unfit for
fodder, and scattered through them in detached patches, was the only
vegetation visible. The ground was mainly covered with the leaves and
burs of the pine.

We passed great numbers of swine, feeding on these burs, and now and
then a horned animal browsing on the cypress-moss where it hung low on
the trees. I observed that nearly all the swine were marked, though they
seemed too wild to have ever seen an owner, or a human habitation. They
were a long, lean, slab-sided race, with legs and shoulders like a deer,
and bearing no sort of resemblance to the ordinary hog except in the
snout, and that feature was so much longer and sharper than the nose of
the Northern swine, that I doubt if Agassiz would class the two as one
species. However, they have their uses--they make excellent bacon, and
are 'death on snakes;' Ireland itself is not more free from the
serpentine race than are the districts frequented by these long-nosed
quadrupeds.

'We call them Carolina race-horses,' said the Colonel, as he finished an
account of their peculiarities.

'Race-horses! Why, are they fleet of foot?'

'Fleet as deer. I'd match one against an ordinary horse at any time.'

'Come, my friend, you're practicing on my ignorance of natural history.'

'Not a bit of it. See! there's a good specimen yonder. If we can get him
into the road, and fairly started, I'll bet you a dollar he'll beat
Sandy's mare on a half-mile stretch--Sandy to hold the stakes and have
the winnings.'

'Well, agreed,' I said, laughing, 'and I'll give the pig ten rods the
start.'

'No,' replied the Colonel, 'you can't afford it. He'll _have_ to start
ahead, but you'll need that in the count. Come, Sandy, will you go in
for the pile?'

I'm not sure that the native would not have run a race with Old Nicholas
himself, for the sake of so much money. To him it was a vast sum; and as
he thought of it, his eyes struck small sparks, and his enormous beard
and mustachio vibrated with something that faintly resembled a laugh.
Replying to the question, he said:

'Kinder reckon I wull, Cunnel; howsomdever, I keeps the stakes, anyhow?'

'Of course,' said the planter, 'but be honest--win if you can.'

Sandy halted his horse in the road, while the planter and I took to the
woods on either side of the way. The Colonel soon maneuvered to separate
the selected animal from the rest of the herd, and, without much
difficulty, got him into the road, where, by closing down on each flank,
we kept him till he and Sandy were fairly under way.

'He'll keep to the road when once started,' said the Colonel, laughing,
'and he'll show you some of the tallest running you ever saw in your
life.'

Away they went. At first the pig seemed not exactly to comprehend the
programme, for he cantered off at a leisurely pace, though he held his
own. Soon, however, he cast an eye behind him--halted a moment to
collect his thoughts and reconnoiter--and then, lowering his head and
elevating his tail, put forth all his speed. And such speed! Talk of a
deer, the wind, or a steam-engine--their gait is not to be compared with
it. Nothing in nature I have ever seen run--except, it may be, a
Southern tornado, or a Sixth Ward politician--could hope to distance
that pig. He gained on the horse at every pace, and I soon saw that my
dollar was gone!

'In for a shilling in for a pound,' is the adage, so turning to the
Colonel, I said, as intelligibly as my horse's rapid steps, and my own
excited risibilities would allow:

'I see I've lost, but I'll go you another dollar that you can't beat the
pig!'

'No--sir!' the Colonel got out in the breaks of his laughing explosions;
'you can't hedge on me in that manner. I'll go a dollar that _you_ can't
do it, and your mare is the fastest on the road. She won me a thousand
not a month ago.'

'Well, I'll do it; Sandy to have the stakes.'

'Agreed,' said the Colonel, and away we went.

The swinish racer was about a hundred yards ahead when I gave the mare
the reins, and told her to go. And she did go. She flew against the wind
with a motion so rapid that my face, as it clove the air, felt as if
cutting its way through a solid body, and the trees, as we passed,
seemed taken with a panic, and running for dear life in the opposite
direction.

For a few moments I thought the mare was gaining, and I turned to the
Colonel with an exultant look.

'Don't shout till you win, my boy,' he called out from the distance
where I was fast leaving him and Sandy.

_I did not shout_, for spite of all my efforts the space between me and
the pig seemed to widen. Yet I kept on, determined to win, till, at the
end of a short half-mile, we reached the Waccamaw--the swine still a
hundred yards ahead! There his pig-ship halted, turned coolly around,
eyed me for a moment, then quietly and deliberately trotted off into the
woods.

A bend in the road kept my companions out of sight for a few moments,
and when they came up I had somewhat recovered my breath, though the
mare was blowing hard, and reeking with foam.

'Well,' said the Colonel, 'what do you think of our bacon 'as it runs'?'

'I think the Southern article can't be beat, whether raw or cooked,
standing or running.'

At this moment the hound, who had been leisurely jogging along in the
rear, disdaining to join in the race in which his dog of a master and I
had engaged, came up, and dashing quickly on to the river's edge, set up
a most dismal howling. The Colonel dismounted, and clambering down the
bank, which was there twenty feet high, and very steep, shouted out:

'The d--d Yankee has swum the stream!'

'Why so?' Tasked.

'To cover his tracks and delay pursuit; but he has overshot the mark.
There is no other road within ten miles, and he must have taken to this
one again beyond here. He's lost twenty minutes by that maneuver. Come,
Sandy, call on the dog, we'll push on a little faster.'

'But he tuk to t'other bank, Cunnel. Shan't we trail him thar?' asked
Sandy.

'And suppose he found a boat here,' I suggested, 'and made the shore
some ways down?'

'He couldn't get Firefly into a boat--we should only waste time in
scouring the other bank. The swamp this side the next run has forced him
into the road within five miles. The trick is transparent. He took me
for a fool,' replied the Colonel, answering both questions at once.

I had reined my horse out of the road, and when my companions turned to
go, was standing at the edge of the bank, overlooking the river.
Suddenly I saw, on one of the abutments of the bridge, what seemed a
long, black log--strange to say, _in motion!_

'Colonel,' I shouted, 'see there! a living log, as I'm a white man!'

'Lord bless you,' cried the planter, taking an observation, 'it's an
alligator!'

I said no more, but pressing on after the hound, soon left my companions
out of sight. For long afterward, the Colonel, in a doleful way, would
allude to my lamentable deficiency in natural history--particularly in
such branches as bacon and 'living logs.'

I had ridden about five miles, keeping well up with the hound, and had
reached the edge of the swamp, when suddenly the dog darted to the side
of the road, and began to yelp in the most frantic manner. Dismounting,
and leading my horse to the spot, I made out plainly the print of
Firefly's feet in the sand. There was no mistaking it--that round shoe
on the off fore-foot. (The horse had, when a colt, a cracked hoof, and
though the wound was outgrown, the foot was still tender.) These prints
were dry, while the tracks we had seen at the river were filled with
water, thus proving that the rain ceased while the overseer was passing
between the two places. He was then not far off.

The Colonel and Sandy soon rode up.

'Caught a living log! eh, my good fellow?' asked my host, with a laugh.

'No; but here's the overseer as plain as daylight; and his tracks not
wet!'

Quickly dismounting, he examined the ground, and then exclaimed:

'The d--l! it's a fact--here not four hours ago! He has doubled on his
tracks since, I'll wager, and not made twenty miles--we'll have him
before night, sure! Come, mount--quick.'

We sprang into our saddles, and again pressed rapidly on after the dog,
who followed the scent at the top of his speed.

Some three miles more of wet, miry road took us to the run of which the
Colonel had spoken. Arrived there, we found the hound standing on the
bank, wet to the skin, and looking decidedly chop-fallen.

'Death and d--n!' shouted the Colonel; 'the dog has swum the run, and
lost the trail on the other side! The d--d scoundrel has taken to the
water, and balked us after all! Take up the dog, Sandy, and try him
again over there.'

The native spoke to Cæsar, who bounded on to the horse's back in front
of his master. They then crossed the stream, which there was about fifty
yards wide, and so shallow that in the deepest part the water only
touched the horse's breast, but it was so roiled by the recent rain that
we could not distinguish the foot-prints of the horse beneath the
surface.

The dog ranged up and down on the opposite bank, but all to no purpose:
the overseer had not been there. He had gone either up or down the
stream--in which direction, was now the question. Calling Sandy back to
our side of the run, the Colonel proceeded to hold a 'council of war.'
Each one gave his opinion, which was canvassed by the others, with as
much solemnity as if the fate of the Union hung on the decision.

The native proposed we should separate--one go up, another down the
stream, and the third, with the dog, follow the road; to which he
thought Moye had finally returned. Those who should explore the run
would easily detect the horse's tracks where he had left it, and then
taking a straight course to the road, we could all meet some five miles
further on, at a place indicated.

I gave in my adhesion to Sandy's plan, but the Colonel overruled it on
the ground of the waste of time to be incurred in thus recovering the
overseer's trail.

'Why not,' he said, 'strike at once for the end of his route? Why follow
the slow steps he took in order to throw us off the track? He has not
come back to this road. Six miles below there is another one leading
also to the railway. He has taken that. We might as well send Sandy and
the dog back at once, and go on by ourselves.'

'But if bound for the Station, why should he wade through the creek
here, sis miles out of his way? Why not go straight on by the road?' I
asked.

'Because he knew the dog would track him, and he hoped by taking to the
run to make me think he had crossed the country instead of striking for
the railroad.'

I felt sure the Colonel was wrong, but knowing him to be tenacious of
his own opinions, I made no further objection.

Directing Sandy to call on Madam P---- and acquaint her with our
progress, he then dismissed the negro-hunter, and we once more turned
our horses up the road.

The next twenty miles, like our previous route, lay through an unbroken
forest, but as we left the water-courses, we saw nothing but the gloomy
pines, which there--the region being remote from the means of
transportation--were seldom tapped, and presented few of the openings
that invite the weary traveler to the dwelling of the hospitable
planter.

After a time the sky, which had been bright and cloudless all the
morning, grew overcast and gave out tokens of a coming storm. A black
cloud gathered in the west, and random flashes darted from it far off in
the distance; then gradually it neared us; low mutterings sounded in the
air, and the tops of the tall pines a few miles away, were lit up now
and then with a fitful blaze, all the brighter for the deeper gloom that
succeeded. Then a terrific flash and peal broke directly over us, and a
great tree, struck by a red-hot bolt, fell with a deafening crash,
half-way across our path. Peal after peal followed, and then the
rain--not filtered into drops as it falls from our colder sky, but in
broad, blinding sheets, poured full and heavy on our shelterless heads.

'Ah! there it comes!' shouted the Colonel. 'God have mercy upon us!'

Suddenly a crashing, crackling, thundering roar rose above the storm,
filling the air, and shaking the solid earth till it trembled beneath
our horses' feet, as if upheaved by a volcano. Nearer and nearer the
sound came, till it seemed that all the legions of darkness were
unloosed in the forest, and were mowing down the great pines as the
mower mows the grass with big scythe. Then an awful, sweeping crash
thundered directly at our backs, and turning round, as if to face a
foe, my horse, who had borne the roar and the blinding flash till then,
unmoved, paralyzed with dread, and panting for breath, sunk to the
ground; while close at my side the Colonel, standing erect in his
stirrups, his head uncovered to the pouring sky, cried out:

'THANK GOD, WE ARE SAVED!'

There--not three hundred yards in our rear, had passed the
TORNADO--uprooting trees, prostrating dwellings, and sending many a soul
to its last account, but sparing us for another day! For thirty miles
through the forest it had mowed a swath of two hundred feet, then moved
on to stir the ocean to its briny depths.

With a full heart, I remounted, and turning my horse, pressed on in the
rain. We said not a word till a friendly opening pointed the way to a
planter's dwelling. Then calling to me to follow, the Colonel dashed up
the by-path which led to the mansion, and in five minutes we were
warming our chilled limbs before the cheerful fire that roared and
crackled on its broad hearth-stone.

The house was a large, old-fashioned frame building, square as a
packing-box, and surrounded, as all country dwellings at the South are,
by a broad, open piazza. Our summons was answered by its owner, a
well-to-do, substantial, middle-aged planter, wearing the ordinary
homespun of the district, but evidently of a station in life much above
the common 'corn-crackers' I had seen at the country meeting-house. The
Colonel was an acquaintance, and greeting us with great cordiality, our
host led the way directly to the sitting-room. There we found a bright,
blazing fire, and a pair of bright, blazing eyes, the latter belonging
to a blithesome young woman of about twenty, with a cheery face, and a
half-rustic, half-cultivated air, whom our new friend introduced to us
as his wife.

'I regret not having had the pleasure of meeting Mrs. S---- before, but
am very happy to meet her now,' said the Colonel, with all the
well-bred, gentlemanly ease that distinguished him.

'The pleasure is mutual, Colonel J----,' replied the lady, 'but thirty
miles in this wild country should not have made a neighbor so distant as
you have been.'

'Business, madam, is at fault, as your husband knows. I have much to do;
and besides, all my connections are in the other direction--with
Charleston.'

'It's a fact, Sally, the Colonel is the d----st busy man in these parts.
Not content with a big plantation and three hundred niggers, he looks
after all South-Carolina, and the rest of creation to boot,' said our
host.

'Tom will have his joke, madam, but he's not far from the truth.'

Seeing we were dripping wet, the lady offered us a change of clothing,
and retiring to a chamber, we each appropriated a suit belonging to our
host, giving our own to a servant to be dried.

Arrayed in the fresh apparel, we soon rejoined our friends in the
sitting-room. The new garments fitted the Colonel tolerably well, but
though none too long, they were a world too wide for me, and, as my wet
hair hung in smooth, flat folds down my cheeks, and my limp shirt-collar
fell over my linsey coat, I looked for all the world like a cross
between a theatrical Aminadab Sleek and Sir John Falstaff, with the
stuffing omitted. When our hostess caught sight of me in this new garb,
she rubbed her hands together in great glee, and, springing to her feet,
gave vent to a perfect storm of laughter--jerking out between the
explosions:

'Why--you--you--look jest like--a scare-crow.'

There was no mistaking that hearty, hoidenish manner; and seizing both
of her hands in mine, I shouted: 'I've found you out--you're a
'country-woman' of mine--a clear-blooded Yankee!'

'What! _you_ a Yankee!' she exclaimed, still laughing, 'and here with
this horrid 'seceshener,' as they call him.'

'True as preachin', ma'am,' I replied, adopting the drawl--'all the way
from Down East, and Union, tu, stiff as buckram.'

'Du tell!' she exclaimed, swinging my hands together as she held them in
hers. 'If I warn't hitched to this ere feller, I'd give ye a smack right
on the spot. I'm _so_ glad to see ye.'

'Do it, Sally--never mind _me_,' cried her husband, joining heartily in
the merriment.

Seizing the collar of my coat with both hands, she drew my face down
till my lips almost touched hers, (I was preparing to blush, and the
Colonel shouted, 'Come, come, I shall tell his wife,') but then, turning
quickly on her heel, she threw herself into a chair, exclaiming, 'I
wouldn't mind, but the _old man would be jealous;_' and adding to the
Colonel, 'You needn't be troubled, sir; no Yankee girl will kiss _you_
till you change your politics.'

'Give me that inducement, and I'll change them on the spot,' said the
Colonel.

'No, no, Dave, 'twouldn't do,' replied the planter, 'the conversion
wouldn't be genuwine--besides, such things arn't proper, except with
blood-relations--and all the Yankees, you know, are first-cousins.'

The conversation then subsided into a more placid mood, but lost none of
its genial good-humor. Refreshments were soon set before us, and while
partaking of them I gathered from our hostess that she was a Vermont
country-girl, who, some three years before, had been induced by liberal
pay, to come South as a teacher. A sister accompanied her, who, about a
year after their arrival, had married a neighboring planter. Wishing to
be near the sister, our hostess had also married and settled down for
life in that wild region. 'I like the country very well,' she added;
'it's a great sight easier living here than in Vermont; but I do hate
these lazy, shiftless, good-for-nothing niggers; they are _so_ slow, and
_so_ careless, and _so_ dirty, that I sometimes think they will worry
the very life out of me. I du believe I'm the hardest mistress in all
the district.'

I learned from her that a majority of the teachers at the South are from
the North, and principally, too, from New-England. Teaching is a very
laborious employment there, far more so than with us, for the
Southerners have no methods like ours, and the same teacher usually has
to hear lessons in branches all the way from Greek and Latin to the
simple A B C. The South has no system of public instruction; no common
schools; no means of placing within the reach of the sons and daughters
of the poor even the elements of knowledge. While the children of the
wealthy are most carefully educated, it is the policy of the ruling
class to keep the great mass of the people in ignorance; and so long as
this policy continues, so long will that section be as far behind the
North as it now is in all that constitutes the elements of prosperity
and true greatness.

The afternoon wore rapidly and pleasantly away in the genial society of
our wayside friends. Politics were discussed, (our host was a Union
man,) the prospects of the turpentine crop talked over, the recent news
canvassed, the usual neighborly topics touched upon, and--I hesitate to
confess it--a considerable quantity of corn-whisky disposed of, before
the Colonel discovered, all at once, that it was six o'clock, and we
were still seventeen miles from the railway station. Arraying ourselves
again in our dried garments, we bade a hasty but regretful 'good-by' to
our hospitable entertainers, and once more took to the road.

The storm had cleared away, but the ground was heavy with the recent
rain, and our horses were sadly jaded with the ride of the morning. We
therefore gave them the reins, and as they jogged on at their leisure,
it was ten o'clock at night before we reached the little hamlet of
W----Station, in the State of North-Carolina.

A large hotel, or station-house, and about a dozen log-shanties made up
the village. Two of these structures were negro-cabins; two were small
groceries, in which the vilest alcoholic compounds were sold at a bit
(ten cents) a glass; one was a lawyer's office, in which was the
post-office, and a justice's court, where, once a month, the small
offenders of the vicinity 'settled up their accounts;' one was a
tailoring and clothing establishment, where breeches were patched at a
dime a stitch, and payment taken in tar and turpentine; and the rest
were private dwellings of one apartment, occupied by the grocers, the
tailor, the switch-tender, the post-master, and the negro _attachés_ of
the railroad. The church and the school-house--the first buildings to go
up in a Northern village, I have omitted to enumerate, because--they
were not there.

One of the natives told me that the lawyer was a 'stuck-up critter;' 'he
don't live; he don't--he puts-up at th' hotel.' And the hotel! Would
Shakspeare, had he known of it, have written of taking one's _ease_ at
his inn? It was a long, framed building, two stories in hight, with a
piazza extending across its side, and a front door crowded as closely
into one corner as the width of the joist would permit. Under the
piazza, ranged along the wall, was a low bench, occupied by about forty
tin wash-basins and water-pails, with coarse, dirty crash towels
suspended on rollers above them. By the side of each of these towels
hung a comb and a brush, to which a lock of every body's hair was
clinging, forming in the total a stock sufficient to establish any
barber in the wig business.

It was, as I have said, ten o'clock when we reached the station.
Throwing the bridles of our horses over the hitching-posts at the door,
we at once made our way to the bar-room. That apartment, which was in
the rear of the building, and communicated with by a long, narrow
passage, was filled almost to suffocation, when we entered, by a cloud
of tobacco-smoke, the fumes of bad whisky, and a crowd of drunken
chivalry, through whom the Colonel with great difficulty elbowed his way
to the counter, where 'mine host' and two assistants were dispensing
'liquid death,' at the rate of ten cents a glass, and of ten glasses a
minute.

'Hello, Colonel! how ar' ye?' cried the red-faced liquor-vender, as he
caught sight of my companion, and--relinquishing his lucrative
employment for a moment--took the Colonel's hand.

'Quite well, thank you, Miles,' said the Colonel, with a certain
patronizing air, 'have you seen my man Moye?'

'Moye, no! What's up with him?'

'He's run away with my horse, Firefly--I thought he would have made for
this station. At what time does the next train go up?'

'Wal, it's due half arter 'leven, but 'taint gin'rally 'long till nigh
one.'

The Colonel was turning to join me at the door, when a well-dressed
young man of very unsteady movements, who was filling a glass at the
counter, and staring at him with a sort of dreamy amazement, stammered
out: 'Moye--run--run a--way, zir! that--k--kant be--by G--d. I
know--him, zir--he's a--a friend of mine, and--I'm--I'm d--d if he an't
hon--honest.'

'About as honest as the Yankees run,' replied the Colonel: 'he's a d--d
thief, sir!'

'Look here--here, zir--don't--don't you--you zay any--thing 'gainst--the
Yankees. D--d if--if I an't--one of 'em mezelf--zir,' said the fellow
staggering toward the Colonel.

'_I_ don't care _what_, you are; you're drunk.'

'You lie--you--you d--d 'ris--'ristocrat--take that,' was the reply, and
the inebriated gentleman aimed a blow, with all his unsteady might, at
the Colonel's face.

The South-Carolinian stepped quickly aside, and dexterously threw his
foot before the other, who--his blow not meeting the expected
resistance--was unable to recover himself, and fell headlong to the
floor. The Colonel turned on his heel, and was walking quietly away,
when the sharp report of a pistol sounded through the apartment, and a
ball tore through the top of his boot, and lodged in the wall within
two feet of where I was standing. With a spring, quick and sure as the
tiger's, the Colonel was on the drunken man. Wrenching away the weapon,
he seized the fellow by the necktie, and drawing him up to nearly his
full hight, dashed him at one throw to the other side of the room. Then
raising the revolver he coolly leveled it to fire.

But a dozen strong men were on him. The pistol was out of his hand, and
his arms were pinioned in an instant; while cries of 'Fair play, sir!'
'He's drunk!' 'Don't hit a man when he's down,' and other like
exclamations, came from all sides.

'Give _me_ fair play, you d--d North-Carolina hounds,' cried the
Colonel, struggling violently to get away, 'and I'll fight the whole
posse of you.'

'One's 'nuff for _you_, ye d--d fire-eatin' 'ristocrat,' said a long,
lean, bushy-haired, be-whiskered individual who was standing near the
counter: 'ef ye wan't ter fight, _I'll_ 'tend to yer case to onst. Let
him go, boys,' he continued as he stepped toward the Colonel, and parted
the crowd that had gathered around him: 'give him the shootin'-iron, and
let's see ef he'll take a man thet's sober.'

I saw serious trouble was impending, and stepping forward, I said to the
last speaker: 'My friend, you have no quarrel with this gentleman. He
has treated that man only as you would have done.'

'P'raps thet's so; but he's a d--d hound of a Seseshener thet's draggin'
us all to h--l; it'll do th' cuntry good to git quit of one on 'em.'

'Whatever his politics are, he's a gentleman, sir, and has done you no
harm--let me beg of you to let him alone.'

'Don't beg any thing for me, Mr. K----' growled the Colonel through his
barred teeth, 'I'll fight the d--d corn-cracker, and his whole race, at
once.'

'No you won't, my friend. For the sake of those at home you won't,' I
said, as I took him by the arm, and partly led, partly forced, him
toward the door.

'And who in h--l ar ye?' asked the 'corn-cracker,' planting himself
squarely in my way.

'I'm on the same side of politics with you, Union to the core!' I
replied.

'Ye ar! Union! Then giv us yer fist,' said he, grasping me by the hand,
'by----it does a feller good to see a man dressed in yer cloes thet
haint 'fraid ter say he's Union, so close to South-Car'lina, tu, as this
ar! Come, hev a drink: come, boys--all round--let's liquor!'

'Excuse me now, my dear fellow--some other time I'll be glad to join
you.'

'Jest as ye say, but thar's my fist, enyhow.'

He gave me another hearty shake of the hand, and the crowd parting, I
made my way with the Colonel out of the room. We were followed by Miles,
the landlord, who, when we had reached the front of the entrance-way,
said: 'I'm right sorry for this row, gentlemen; but th' boys will hev a
time when they git together.'

'Oh! never mind,' said the Colonel, who had recovered his coolness; 'but
why are all these people here?'

'Thar's a barbecue cumin' off to-morrer on the camp-ground, and the
house is cram full.'

'Is that so?' said the Colonel, then turning to me he added, 'Moye has
taken the railroad somewhere else; I must get to a telegraph-office at
once, to head him off. The nearest one is Wilmington. With all these
rowdies here, it will not do to leave the horses alone--will you stay
and keep an eye on them over to-morrow?'

'Yes, I will, cheerfully.'

'Thar's a mighty hard set round har now, Cunnel,' said the landlord;
'and the most peaceable git inter scrapes ef they han't no friends.
Hadn't ye better show the gentleman some of your'n, 'fore you go?'

'Yes, yes, I didn't think of that. Who is here?'

'Wal, thar's Cunnel Taylor, Bill Barnes, Sam Heddleson, Jo' Shackelford.
Andy Jones, Rob Brown, and lots of others.'

'Where's Andy Jones?'

'Reckon he's turned in; I'll see.' As the landlord opened a door which
led from the hall, the Colonel said to me: 'Andy is a Union man, but
he'd fight to the death for me.'

'Sal!' called out the hotel-keeper.

'Yas, massa, I'se har,' was the answer from a slatternly woman, awfully
black in the face, who soon thrust her head from the door.

'Is Andy Jones har?' asked Miles.

'Yas, massa, he'm turned in up thar on de table.'

We followed the landlord into the apartment. It was the dining-room of
the hotel, and by the dim light which came from a smoky fire on the
hearth, I saw it contained about a hundred people, who, wrapped in
blankets, bed-quilts and traveling-shawls, and disposed in all
conceivable attitudes, were scattered about on the hard floor and
tables, sleeping soundly. The room was a long, low apartment--extending
across the whole front of the house--and had a wretched, squalid look.
The fire, which was tended by the negro-woman, (she had spread a blanket
on the floor, and was keeping a drowsy watch over it for the night,) had
been recently replenished with green wood, and was throwing out thick
volumes of black smoke, which, mixing with the effluvia from the lungs
of a hundred sleepers made up an atmosphere next to impossible to
breathe. Not a window was open, and not an aperture for ventilation
could be seen!

Carefully avoiding the arms and legs of the recumbent chivalry, we
picked our way, guided by the negro-girl, to the corner of the room
where the Unionist was sleeping. Shaking him briskly by the shoulder,
the Colonel called out: 'Andy! Andy! wake up!'

'What--what the d----l is the matter?' stammered out the sleeper,
gradually opening his eyes, and raising himself on one elbow, 'Lord
bless you, Cunnel, is thet you? what in----brought _you_ har?'

'Business, Andy. Come, get up, I want to see you, and I can't talk
here.'

The North-Carolinian slowly rose, and throwing his blanket over his
shoulders, followed us from the room. When we had reached the open air
the Colonel introduced me to his friend, who expressed surprise, and a
great deal of pleasure, at meeting a Northern Union man in the Colonel's
company.

'Look after our horses, now, Miles; Andy and I want to talk,' said the
planter to the landlord, with about as little ceremony as he would have
shown to a negro.

I thought the white man did not exactly relish the Colonel's manner, but
saying: 'All right, all right, sir,' he took himself away.

The night was raw and cold, but as all the rooms of the hotel were
occupied, either by sleepers or carousers, we had no other alternative
than to hold our conference in the open-air. Near the railway-track a
light-wood fire was blazing, and, obeying the promptings of the frosty
atmosphere, we made our way to it. Lying on the ground around it,
divested of all clothing except a pair of linsey trowsers and a flannel
shirt, and with their naked feet close to its blaze--roasting at one
extremity, and freezing at the other--were several blacks, the
switch-tenders and woodmen of the station--fast asleep. How human beings
could sleep in such circumstances seemed a marvel, but further
observation convinced me that the Southern negro has a natural aptitude
for that exercise, and will, indeed, bear more exposure than any other
living thing. Nature in giving him such powers of endurance, seems to
have specially fitted him for the life of hardship and privation to
which he is born.

The fire-light enabled me to scan the appearance of my new acquaintance.
He was rather above the medium height, squarely and somewhat stoutly
built, and had an easy and self-possessed, though rough and unpolished
manner. His face, or so much of it as was visible from underneath a
thick mass of reddish gray hair, denoted a firm, decided character; but
there was a manly, open, honest expression about it that won your
confidence in a moment. He wore a slouched hat and a suit of the
ordinary 'sheep's-gray,' cut in the 'sack' fashion, and hanging loosely
about him. He seemed a man who had made his own way in the world, and I
subsequently learned that appearances did not belie him. The son of a
'poor white' man, with scarcely the first rudiments of book-education,
he had, by sterling worth, natural ability, and great force of
character, accumulated a handsome property, and acquired a leading
position in his adopted district. Though on 'the wrong side of
politics,' his personal popularity was so great that for several
successive years he had been elected to represent his county in the
State Legislature. The Colonel, though opposed to him in politics--and
party feeling at the South runs so high that political opponents are
seldom personal friends--had, in the early part of his career, aided him
by his indorsements; and Andy had not forgotten the service. It was easy
to see that while two men could not be more unlike in character and
appearance than my host and the North-Carolinian, they were warm and
intimate friends.

'So, Moye has been raisin h--l gin'rally, Cunnel,' said my new
acquaintance after a time. 'I'm not surprised. I never did b'lieve in
Yankee nigger-drivers--sumhow it's agin natur for a Northern man to go
Southern principles quite so strong as Moye did.'

'Which route do you think he has taken?' asked the Colonel.

'Wal, I reckon arter he tuk to the run, he made fur the mountings. He
know'd you'd head him on the traveled routes; so he's put, I think, fur
the Missusippe, where he'll sell the horse and make North.'

'I'll follow him,' said the Colonel, 'to the ends of the earth. If it
costs me five thousand dollars, I'll see him hung.'

'Wal,' replied Andy, laughing, 'if he's gone North, you'll need a
extradition treaty to kotch him. South-Car'lina, I b'lieve, has set up
fur a furrin country.'

'That's true,' said the Colonel, also laughing, 'she's 'furrin' to the
Yankees, but not to the old North State.'

'D----d if she han't,' replied the North-Carolinian, 'and now she's got
out on our company, I swear she must keep out. We'd as soon think of
goin' to h--l in summer time, as of joining partnership with her.
Cunnel, you're the only decent man in the State--d----d if you
han't--and your politics are a'most bad 'nuff to spile a township. It
allers seemed sort o' queer to me, thet a man with such a mighty good
heart as your'n could be so short in the way of brains.'

'Well, you're complimentary,' replied the Colonel, with the utmost good
nature, 'but let's drop politics; we never could agree, you know. What
shall I do about Moye?'

'Go to Wilmington, and telegraph all creation: wait a day to har, then
if you don't har, go home, hire a native overseer, and let Moye go to
the d---l. Ef it'll du you any good, I'll go to Wilmington with you,
though I did mean to give you secesheners a little h--l here to-morrer.'

'No, Andy, I'll go alone. 'Twouldn't be patriotic to take you away from
the barbecue. You'd 'spile' if you couldn't let off some gas soon.'

'I du b'lieve I shud. Howsumdever, thar's nary a thing I wouldn't do for
you--you knows thet?'

'Yes, I do, and I wish you'd keep an eye on my Yankee friend here, and
see he don't get into trouble with any of the boys--there'll be a hard
set 'round, I reckon.'

'Wal, I will,' said Andy, 'but all he's to du is--keep mouth shet.'

'That seems easy enough,' I replied, laughing.

A desultory conversation followed for about an hour, when the
steam-whistle sounded, and the up-train arrived. The Colonel got on
board, and bidding us 'good-night,' went on to Wilmington. Andy then
proposed we should look up sleeping accommodations. It was useless to
seek quarters at the hotel, but an empty car was on the turn-out, and
bribing one of the negroes, we got access to it, and were soon stretched
at full length on two of its hard-bottomed seats.

       *       *       *       *       *

The camp-ground was about a mile from the station, and pleasantly
situated in a grove, near a stream of water. It was in frequent use by
the camp-meetings of the Methodist denomination, which sect, at the
South, is partial to these rural religious gatherings. Scattered over
it, with an effort at regularity, were about forty small but neat log
cottages, thatched with the long leaves of the turpentine-pine, and
chinked with branches of the same tree. Each of these houses was floored
with leaves or straw, and large enough to afford sleeping accommodations
for about ten person, provided they spread their bedding on the ground,
and lay tolerably close together. Interspersed among the cabins were
about a dozen canvas tents, which evidently had been erected for this
especial occasion.

Nearly in the centre of the group of huts, a rude sort of scaffold, four
or five feet high, and surrounded by a rustic railing, served for the
speaker's stand. It would seat about a dozen persons, and was protected
by a roof of pine-boughs, interlaced together so as to keep off the sun,
without affording protection from the rain. In the rear of this stand
were two long tables, made of rough boards, and supported on stout
joists, crossed on each other in the form of the letter X. A canopy of
green boughs shaded the grounds, and the whole grove, which was
perfectly free from underbrush, was carpeted with the soft, brown leaves
of the pine.

Being fatigued with the ride of the previous day, I did not awake till
the morning was well advanced, and it was nearly ten o'clock when Andy
and I took our way to the camp-ground. Avoiding the usual route, we
walked on through the forest. It was mid-winter, and vegetation lay dead
all around us, awaiting the time when spring should breathe into it the
breath of life and make it a living thing. There was silence and rest in
the deep wood. The birds were away on their winter wanderings; the
leaves hung motionless on the tall trees, and nature seemed resting from
her ceaseless labor, and listening to the soft music of the little
stream which sung a cheerful song as it rambled on over the roots and
fallen branches that blocked its way. But soon a distant murmur arose,
and we had not proceeded far before as many sounds as were heard at
Babel made a strange concert about our ears. The lowing of the ox, the
neighing of the horse, and the deep braying of another animal, mingled
with a thousand human voices, came through the woods. But above and over
all rose the stentorian tones of the stump speaker,

    'As he trod the shaky platform,
    With the sweat upon his brow.'

About a thousand persons were already assembled on the ground, and a
more motley gathering I never beheld. All sorts of costumes and all
classes of people were there; but the genuine back-woods corn-crackers
composed the majority of the assemblage. As might be expected, much the
larger portion of the audience were men; still I saw some women and not
a few children, many of the country people having taken advantage of the
occasion to give their families a holiday. Some occupied benches in
front of the stand, though a larger number were seated around in groups,
within hearing of the speaker, but paying very little attention to what
he was saying. A few were whittling, a few pitching quoits, or playing
leap-frog, and quite a number were having a quiet game of whist, euchre,
or 'seven-up.'

The speaker was a well-dressed, gentlemanly-looking man, and a tolerably
good orator. He seemed accustomed to addressing a jury, for he displayed
all the adroitness in handling his subject, and in appealing to the
prejudices of his hearers, that we see in successful special pleaders.
But he overshot his mark. To nine out of ten of his audience, his words
and similes, though correct and sometimes beautiful, were as
unintelligible as the dead languages. He advocated immediate,
unconditional secession; and I thought from the applause which met his
remarks, whenever he seemed to make himself understood, that the large
majority of those present were of the same way of thinking.

He was succeeded by a heavy-browed, middle-aged man, slightly bent, and
with hair a little turned to gray, but still hale, athletic, and in the
prime and vigor of manhood. His pantaloons and waistcoat were of the
common home-spun, and he used, now and then, a word of the country
dialect; but as a stump-speaker, he was infinitely superior to the more
polished orator who had preceded him.

He, too, advocated secession as a right and a duty--separation, now and
forever from the dirt-eating, money-loving Yankees, who, he was ashamed
to say, had the same ancestry, and worshiped the same God as himself. He
took the bold ground that slavery is a curse to both the black and the
white, but that it was forced upon this generation before it was born,
by these same greedy, grasping Yankees, who would sell not only the
bones and sinews of their fellowmen, but--worse than that--their own
souls, for gold. It was forced upon them without their consent, and now
that it had become interwoven with all their social life, and was a
necessity of their very existence, the hypocritical Yankees would take
it from them, because, forsooth, it was a sin and a wrong--as if _they_
had to bear its responsibility, or the South could not settle its own
account with its Maker!

'Slavery is now,' he continued, 'indispensable to us. Without it,
cotton, rice, and sugar will cease to grow, and the South will starve.
What if it works abuses? What if the black, at times, is overburdened,
and his wife and daughters debauched? Man is not perfect any
where--there are wrongs in every society. It is for each one to give his
account, in such matters, to his God. But in this are we worse than
they? Are there not abuses in society at the North? Are not their
laborers overworked? While sin here hides itself under cover of the
night, does it not there stalk abroad at noonday? If the wives and
daughters of blacks are debauched here, are not the wives and daughters
of whites debauched there? and will not a Yankee barter away the
chastity of his own mother for a dirty dollar? Who fill our brothels?
Yankee women! Who load our penitentiaries, crowd our whipping-posts,
debauch our slaves, and cheat and defraud us all? Yankee men! And I say
unto you, fellow-citizens,' and here the speaker's form seemed to dilate
with the wild enthusiasm which possessed him, ''come out from among
them; be ye separate, and touch not the unclean thing,' and thus saith
the Lord God of hosts, who will guide you, and lead you, if need be, to
battle and to victory!'

A perfect storm of applause followed. The assemblage rose, and one long
wild shout rent the old woods, and made the great trees tremble. It was
some minutes before the uproar subsided; when it did, a voice near the
speaker's stand called out: 'Andy Jones!' The call was at once echoed by
another voice, and soon a general shout for 'Andy!' 'Union Andy!' 'Bully
Andy!' went up from the same crowd which a moment before had so wildly
applauded the secession speaker.

Andy rose from where he was seated beside me, and quietly ascended the
steps of the platform. Removing his hat, and passing to his mouth a huge
quid of tobacco, from a tin box in his pantaloons-pocket, he made
several rapid strides up and down the speaker's stand, and then turned
squarely to the audience.

The reader has noticed a tiger pacing up and down in his cage, with his
eyes riveted on the human faces before him. He has observed how he will
single out some individual, and finally stopping short in his rounds,
turn on him with a look of such intense ferocity as makes a man's blood
stand still, and his very breath come thick and hard, as he momentarily
expects the beast will tear away the bars of his cage and leap forth on
the obnoxious person. Now, Andy's fine, open, manly face had nothing of
the tiger in it, but for a moment, I could not divest myself of the
impression, as he halted in his walk up and down the stage, and turned
full and square on the previous speaker--who had taken a seat among the
audience near me--that he was about to spring upon him. Riveting his eye
on the man's face, he at last slowly said:

'A man stands har and quotes Scriptur agin his feller-man, and forgets
thet 'God made of one blood all nations thet dwell on the face of the
'arth.' A man stands har and calls his brother a thief, and his mother a
harlot, and axes us to go his doctrines! I don't mean his brother in the
Scriptur' sense, nor his mother in a fig'rative sense, but I mean the
brother of his own blood, and the mother that bore him; for HE,
gentlemen, (and he pointed his finger directly at the recent speaker,
while his words came slow and heavy with intense scorn,) HE is a Yankee!
And now, I say, gentlemen, d--n sech doctrins; d--n sech principles; and
d--n the man thet's got a soul so black as to utter 'em!'

A breathless silence fell on the assemblage, as the person alluded to
sprang to his feet, his face on fire, and his voice thick and broken
with intense rage, and yelled out: 'Andy Jones, by ----, you shall
answer for this!'

'Sartin', said Andy, coolly inserting his thumbs in the armholes of his
waistcoat; 'eny whar you likes--har--now--ef 'greeable to you.'

'I've no weapon here, sir, but I'll give you a chance mighty sudden,'
was the fierce reply.

'Suit yourself' said Andy, with perfect imperturbability; 'but as you
han't jest ready, s'pose you set down and har me tell 'bout your
relation: they're a right decent set--them as I knows--and I'll swar
they're 'shamed of you.'

A buzz went through the crowd, and a dozen voices called out, 'Be civil,
Andy'--'Let him blow'--'Shet up'--'Go in, Jones'--with other like
elegant exclamations.

A few of his friends took the aggrieved gentleman aside, and, soon
quieting him, restored order.

'Wal, gentlemen,' resumed Andy, 'all on you know whar I was raised--over
thar in South-Car'lina. I'm sorry to say it, but it's true. And you all
know my father was a pore man, who couldn't give his boys no chance--and
ef he could, thar warn't no schules in the district--so we couldn't hev
got no book-larning ef we'd been a minded to. Wal, the next plantation
to whar we lived was old Cunnel J----'s, the father of this Cunnel. He
was a d--d old nullifier, jest like his son--but not half so decent a
man. Wal, on his plantation was an old nigger called Uncle Pomp, who'd
sumhow larned to read. He was a mighty good nigger, and he'd hev been in
heaven long afore now ef the Lord hadn't a had sum good use for him down
har--but he'll be thar yet a d--d sight sooner than sum on us white
folks--that's sartin. Wal, as I was saying, Pomp could read, and when I
was 'bout sixteen, and had never seed the inside of a book, the old
darkey said to me one day--he was old then, and thet was thirty years
ago--wal, he said to me: 'Andy, chile, ye orter larn to read--'twould be
ob use to ye when you're grow'd up, and it moight make you a good and
'spected man. Now, come to ole Pomp's cabin, and he'll larn you, Andy,
chile.' I reckon I went. He hadn't nothin' but a Bible and Watts' Hymns;
yet we used to stay thar all the long winter evenings, and by the light
of the fire--we war both so durned pore we couldn't raise a candle
atween us--wal, by the light of the fire he larned me, and 'fore long I
could spell right smart.

'Now, jest think on thet, gentlemen! I, a white boy, and, 'cordin' to
the Declaration of Independence, jest as good blood as the old Cunnel,
bein' larned to read by an old slave, and that old slave a'most worked
to death, and takin' his nights, when he orter hev been a restin' his
old bones, to larn me! I'm d--d if he don't get to heaven for that one
thing, if for nothin' else.

'Wal, you all know the rest--how, when I'd grow'd up, I settled har, in
the old North State, and how the young Cunnel backed my paper and set
me a runnin' at turpentinin'. P'r'aps you don't think this has much to
do with the Yankees, but it has a durned sight, as ye'll see raather
sudden. Wal, arter a while, when I'd got a little 'forehanded, I begun
shippin' my truck to York and Bosting; and at last my Yankee factor, he
come out har, inter the backwoods, to see me, and says he: 'Jones, come
North and take a look at us.' I'd sort o' took to him. I'd had lots to
do with him afore ever I seed him, and I allers found him as straight as
a shingle. Wal, I went North, and he took me round, and showed me how
the Yankees does things. Afore I knowed him, I allers thought--as
p'r'aps most on ye do--that the Yankee war a sort o' cross atween the
devil and a Jew; but how do you s'pose I found 'em? I found that they
_sent the pore man's children to schule_. FREE--and that the
schulehouses war a d--d sight thicker than the bugs in Miles Privett's
beds! and thet's saying a heap, for ef eny on you kin sleep in his
house, excep' he takes to the soft side of the floor, I'm d--d. Yas, the
pore man's children are larned thar FREE!--all on 'em--and they've jest
so good a chance as the sons of the rich man! Now, arter that, do you
think that I--as got all my schulin' from an old slave, by the light of
a borrored pine-knot--der you think that _I_ kin say any thing agin the
Yankees? P'r'aps they _do_ steal--though I don't know it--p'r'aps they
_do_ debauch thar wives and darters, and sell thar mothers' vartue for
dollers--but ef they do, I'm d--d ef they don't send pore children ter
schule--and that's more'n we do--and let me tell you, until we do, we
must count on thar bein' cuter and smarter nor we are.

'This gentleman, too, my friends, who's been a givin' sech a hard
settin' down ter his own relation, arter they've broughten him up and
givin' him sech a good schulein' for nothin', he says the Yankees want
to interfere with our niggers. Now, thet han't so, and they couldn't ef
they would, 'cause it's agin the Constitution--and they stand on the
Constitution a durned sight solider nor we do. Didn't thar big
gun--Daniel Webster--didn't he make mince-meat o' South-Carolina Hayne
on that ar subject? But I tell you they han't a mind to meddle with our
niggers; they're a goin' ter let us go ter h--l our own way--and we're
goin' thar mighty fast, or I hevn't read the last census.'

'P'r'aps you han't heerd on th' Ab'lisheners, Andy?' cried a voice from
among the audience.

'Wal, I reckon I hev,' responded the orator. 'I've heerd on 'em, and
seed 'em, too. When I was North I went ter one on thar conventions, and
I'll tell you how they look. They've all long, wimmin's hair, and thin,
shet lips, with big, bawlin' mouths, and long, lean, tommerhawk
faces--'bout as white as vargin dip--and they all talk through the nose,
[giving a specimen,] and they look for all the world jest like the
South-Car'lina fire-eaters--and they _are_ as near like 'em as two peas,
excep' they don't swar quite so bad, but they make up for that in
prayin'--and prayin' too much, I reckon, when a man's a d--d hippercrit,
is 'bout as bad as swearin'. But I tell you, the decent folks up North
han't ab'lisheners. They look on 'em jest as we do on mad dogs, the
itch, or the nigger-traders.

'Now, 'bout this secession bis'ness--though tan't no use ter talk on
thet, 'cause this State never'll secede--South-Car'lina has done it, and
I'm raather glad she has, for though I was born thar, I say she orter
hev gone to h--l long ago, and now she's got thar--_let her stay!_ But,
'bout thet bis'ness, I'll tell you a story.

'I know'd an old gentleman once by the name o' Uncle Sam, and he'd a
heap o' sons. They war all likely boys--and strange ter tell, though
they'd all the same mother, and she a white woman, 'bout half on 'em war
colored--not black, but sorter half-and-half. Now, the white sons war
well-behaved, industrious, hard-workin' boys, who got 'long well,
edicated that children, and allers treated the old man decently; but the
mulatter fellers war a pesky set--though some on 'em war better nor
others. They wouldn't work, but set up for airystocrocy--rode in
kerriges, kept fast hosses, bet high, and chawed tobaccer like the
devil. Wal, the result was, _they_ got out at the elbows, and 'cause
they warn't gettin' 'long quite so fast as the white 'uns--though that
war all thar own fault--they got jealous, and one, on 'em, who was
blacker nor all the rest--a little feller, but terrible big on
braggin'--he packed up his truck one night, and left the old man's
house, and swore he'd never come back. He tried ter make the other
mulatters go 'long too, but they put thar fingers ter thar nose, and
says they: 'No you don't!' _I_ was in favor o' lettin' on him stay out
in the cold, but the old man was a bernevolent old critter--so _he_
says: 'Now, sonny, you jest come back and behave yourself, and I'll
forgive you all on your old pranks, and treat you jest as I allers used
ter; but, ef you won't, why, I'll make you--that's all!'

'Now, gentlemen, that querrelsome, oneasy, ongrateful, tobaccer-chawin',
high-bettin', hoss-racin', big-braggin', nigger-stealin',
wimmin-whippin', yaller son of the devil, is South-Car'lina; and ef she
don't come back and behave herself in futur', I'm d--d ef she won't be
ploughed with fire, and sowed with salt, and--Andy Jones will help ter
do it.'

The speaker was frequently interrupted in the course of his remarks by
uproarious applause--but as he closed and descended from the platform,
the crowd sent up cheer after cheer, and a dozen strong men, making a
seat of their arms, lifted him from the ground, and bore him to the head
of the table, where dinner was in waiting.

The whole of the large assemblage then fell to eating. The dinner was
made up of the barbecued beef and the usual mixture of viands found on a
planter's table, with water from the little brook hard by, and a
plentiful supply of corn-whisky. (The latter beverage, I thought, had
been subjected to the rite of immersion, for it tasted wonderfully like
water.)

Songs and speeches were intermingled with the masticating exercises, and
the whole company were soon in the best of humor.

During the meal I was introduced by Andy to a large number of the
'natives,' he taking special pains to tell each one that I was a Yankee,
and a Union man, but always adding, as if to conciliate all parties,
that I was also a guest and a friend of _his_ very particular friend,
'that d--d seceshener, Cunnel J----.'

Before we left the table, the secession orator happening near, Andy rose
from his seat, and extended his hand to him, saying:

'Tom, you think I 'sulted you--p'r'aps I did--but you 'sulted my Yankee
friend har, and your own relation, and I hed to take it up, jest for the
looks o' the thing. Come, thar's my hand; I'll fight you ef you want
ter, or we'll say no more 'bout it--jest as you like.'

'Say no more about it, Andy,' said the gentleman, very cordially; 'let's
drink and be friends.'

They drank a glass of whisky together, and then leaving the table,
proceeded to where the ox had been barbecued, to show me how cooking on
a large scale is done at the South.

In a pit about eight feet deep, twenty feet long, and ten feet wide,
laid up on the side with stones, a fire of hickory had been made, over
which, after the wood had burned down to coals, a whole ox, divested of
its hide and entrails, had been suspended on an enormous spit. Being
turned often in the process of cooking, the beef had finally been 'done
brown.' It was then cut up and served on the table, and I must say, for
the credit of Southern cookery, that it made as delicious eating as any
meat I ever tasted.

I had then been away from my charge--the Colonel's horses--as long as
seemed to be prudent. I said as much to Andy, when he proposed to
return with me, and turning good-humoredly to his reconciled friend, he
said:

'Now, Tom, no secession talk while I'm off.'

'Nary a word,' said Tom, and we left.

The horses had been well fed by the negro who had them in charge, but
had not been groomed. Andy, seeing that, stripped off his coat, and,
setting the black at work on one, with a handful of straw and
pine-leaves commenced operations on the other, and the horse's coat was
soon as smooth and glossy as if recently rubbed by an English groom.

The remainder of the day passed without incident till eleven at night,
when the Colonel returned from Wilmington.

Moye had not been seen or heard of, and the Colonel's trip was
fruitless. While at Wilmington, he sent telegrams, directing the
overseer's arrest, to the various large cities of the South, and then
decided to return, make some arrangements preliminary to a protracted
absence from the plantation, and proceed at once to Charleston, where he
would await replies to his dispatches. Andy agreed with him in the
opinion that Moye, in his weak state of health, would not undertake an
overland journey to the free States, but would endeavor to reach some
town on the Mississippi, where he could dispose of the horse, and secure
a passage up the river.

As no time was to be lost, it was decided that we should return to the
plantation on the following morning. Accordingly, with the first streak
of day, we bade 'good-by' to our Union friend, and started homeward.

No incident worthy of mention occurred on the way, till about ten
o'clock, when we arrived at the home of the Yankee schoolmistress, where
we had been so hospitably entertained two days before. The lady received
us with great cordiality, forced upon us a lunch to serve our hunger on
the road, and when we parted, enjoined on me to leave the South at the
earliest possible moment. She was satisfied it would not for a much
longer time be safe quarters for a man professing Union sentiments.
Notwithstanding the strong manifestations of loyalty I had observed
among the people, I was convinced that the advice of my pretty
'countrywoman' was judicious, and I determined to be governed by it.

Our horses, unaccustomed to lengthy journeys, had not entirely recovered
from the fatigues of their previous travel, and we did not reach our
destination till an hour after dark. We were most cordially welcomed by
Madam P----, who soon set before us a hot supper, which, as we were
jaded by the long ride, and had fasted for twelve hours on bacon
sandwiches and cold hoe-cake, was the one thing needful for us.

While seated at the table, the Colonel asked:

'Has every thing gone right, Alice, since we left home?'

'Every thing,' replied the lady, 'except,' and she hesitated as if she
dreaded the effect of the news; 'except--that Juley and her child have
gone.'

'Gone!' exclaimed my host, 'gone where?'

'I don't know. We have searched every where, but have found no clue to
them. The morning you left, Sam set Juley at work among the pines; she
tried hard, but could not do a full task, and at night was taken to the
cabin to be whipped. I heard of it, and forbade Sam's doing it. It did
not seem to me to be right to punish her for not doing what she had not
strength to do. When she was released from the cabin, she came to thank
me for having interfered for her, and talked with me awhile. She cried
and took on fearfully about Sam, and was afraid you would punish her on
your return. I promised you would not, and when she left me, she seemed
more cheerful. I supposed she would go directly home, after getting her
child from the nurse's quarters; but it appears she then went to
Pompey's, where she staid till after ten o'clock. Neither she nor the
child have since been seen.'

'Did you get no trace of her in the morning?'

'Yes, but soon lost it. When she did not appear at work, Sam went to her
cabin to learn the cause, and found the door open, and her bed
undisturbed. She had not slept there. Knowing that Sandy had returned, I
sent for him, and with Jim and his dog, he commenced a search. The hound
tracked her directly from Pompey's cabin to the run near the lower
still. There all trace of her disappeared. We dragged the stream, but
discovered nothing. Jim and Sandy then scoured the woods for miles in
all directions, but the hound could not recover the trail. I hope
otherwise, but I fear some evil has befallen her.'

'Oh! no, there's no fear of that,' said the Colonel; 'she is smart--she
waded up the run far enough to baffle the dog, and then made for the
swamp. That is why you lost her tracks at the stream. Rely upon it, I am
right; but she shall not escape me.'

We shortly afterward adjourned to the library. After being seated there
a while, the Colonel, rising quickly, as if a sudden thought had struck
him, sent for the old preacher.

The old negro soon appeared, hat in hand, and taking a stand near the
door, made a respectful bow to each one of us.

'Take a chair, Pompey,' said Madam P---- kindly.

The black meekly seated himself, when the Colonel asked: 'Well, Pomp,
what do you know about Jule's going off?'

'Nuffin', massa; I 'shures you, nuffin'. De pore chile say nuffin' to
ole Pomp 'bout dat.'

'What did she say?'

'Wal, you see, massa, de night arter you gwo 'way, and arter she'd
worked hard in de brush all de day, and been a strung up in de ole cabin
for to be whipped, she come to me wid her baby in her arms, all a-faint
and a-tired, and her pore heart clean broke, and she say dat she'm jess
ready to drop down and die. Den I tries to comfut her, massa; I takes
her up from de floor, and I say to har dat de good Lord he pity her--dat
he doan't bruise de broken reed, and woan't put no more on har dan she
kin b'ar--dat he'd touch you' heart, massa--and I toled har you's a
good, kine heart at de bottom--and I knows it, 'case I toted you 'fore
you could gwo, and when you's a bery little chile, not no great sight
bigger'n her'n, you'd put your little arms round ole Pomp's neck, and
say dat when you war grow'd up, you'd be bery kine to de pore brack
folks, and not leff 'em be 'bused like dey war in dem days.'

'Never mind what _you_ said,' interrupted the Colonel, a little
impatiently, but showing no displeasure; 'what did _she_ say?'

'Wal, massa, she took on bery hard 'bout Sam, and axed me ef I raily
reckoned de Lord had forgib'n him, and took'n him to heseff, and gib'n
him one of dem hous'n up dar in de sky. I toled har dat I _know'd_ it;
but she say it didn't 'pear so to har, 'case Sam had a been wid har out
dar in de woods, all fru de day; dat she'd a _seed_ him, massa, and
dough he hadn't a said nuffin', he'd looked at har wid sech a sorry,
grebed look, dat it went clean fru har heart, till she'd no strength
leff, and fell down on de ground a'most dead. Den she say big Sam come
'long and fine har dar, and struck har great, heaby blows wid de big
whip!'

'The brute!' exclaimed the Colonel, rising from his chair, and pacing
rapidly up and down the room.

'But p'raps he warn't so much ter blame, massa,' continued the old
negro, in a deprecatory tone; 'may be he s'pose she war shirking de
work. Wal, den she say, she know'd nuffin' more, till byme-by, when she
come to, and fine big Sam dar, and he struck har agin, and make her gwo
to de work; and she did gwo, but she feel like as ef she'd die. I toled
her de good ma'am wudn't leff big Sam 'buse har no more 'fore you cum
hum, and dat you'd hab 'passion on har, and not leff har out in de
woods, but put har 'mong de nusses, like as she war afore.

'Den she say it 'twarn't de work dat trubble har--dat she orter work,
and orter be 'bused, 'case she'd been bad, bery bad. All she axed was
dat Sam would forgib har, and cum to har in de oder worle, and tell har
so. Den she cried, and took on awful; but de good Lord, massa, dat am so
bery kine to de bery wuss sinners, he put de words inter my mouf, and I
tink dey gabe har comfut, fur she say it sort o' 'peared to har den dat
Sam _would_ forgib har, and take har inter his house up dar, and she
warn't afeard ter die no more.

'Den she takes up de chile and gwoes 'way, 'pearin' sort o' happy, and
more cheerful like dan I'd a seed har eber sense pore Sam war shot.'

My host was sensibly affected by the old man's simple tale, but
continued pacing up and down the room, and said nothing.

'It's plain to me, Colonel,' I remarked, as Pompey concluded, 'she has
drowned herself and the child--the dog lost the scent at the creek.'

'Oh! no,' he replied, 'I think not. I never heard of a negro committing
suicide--they've not the courage to do it.'

'I fear she _has_, David,' said the lady. 'The thought of going to Sam
has led her to it; yet we dragged the run, and found nothing. What do
you think about it, Pompey?'

'I dunno, ma'am; but I'se afeard ob dat. And now dat I tinks on it, I'se
afeard dat what I tole har put har up to it,' replied the old preacher,
bursting into tears. 'She 'peared so happy like, when I say she'd be
'long wid Sam in de oder worle, dat I'se afeard she's a gone and done it
wid har own hands. I tole har, too, dat de good Lord oberlooked many
tings dat pore sinners does when dey can't help 'emseffs, and it make
har do it, oh! it make har do it!' and the old black buried his face in
his hands, and wept bitterly.

'Don't feel so, Pomp,' said his master _very_ kindly. 'You did the best
you could; no one blames you.'

'I knows _you_ doan't, massa--I knows you doan't, and you's bery good
notter; but oh!' and his body swayed to and fro with the great grief; 'I
fears de Lord do, massa, for I'se sent har to him wid har own blood and
de blood of dat pore, innercent chile on har hands. Oh! I fears de Lord
neber'll forgib me--neber'll forgib me fur _dat_.'

'He will, my good Pomp, he will!' said the Colonel, laying his hand
tenderly on the old man's shoulder. 'The Lord will forgive you, for the
sake of the Christian example you've set your master, if for nothing
else;' and then the proud, strong man's feelings overpowering him, his
tears fell in great drops on the breast of the old slave, as they had
fallen there when he was a child.

Such scenes are not for the eye of a stranger, and turning away, I left
the room.

The family met at the breakfast-table at the customary hour on the
following morning; but I noticed that Jim was not in his accustomed
place behind the Colonel's chair. That gentleman exhibited his usual
good spirits, but Madam P---- looked sad and anxious, and I had not
forgotten the scene of the previous evening.

While we were seated at the meal, the negro Junius hastily entered the
room, and in an excited manner exclaimed:

'O massa, massa! you muss cum ter de cabin--Jim hab draw'd his knife,
and he swar he'll kill de fuss un dat touch him!'

'He does, does he!' said his master, springing from his seat, and
abruptly leaving the apartment.

Remembering the fierce burst of passion I had seen in the negro, and
fearing there was danger a-foot, I rose to follow, saying as I did so:

'Madam, can not you prevent this?'

'I can not, sir; I have already done all I can. Go and try to pacify the
Colonel. Jim will die before he'll be whipped.'

Jim was standing at the farther end of the old cabin, with his back to
the wall, and the large spring-knife in his hand. Some half-dozen
negroes were in the centre of the room, apparently cowed by his fierce
and desperate looks, and his master stood within a few feet of him.

'I tell you, Cunnel,' cried the negro, as I entered, 'you touch me at
your peril.'

'You d--d nigger, do you dare to speak so to me?' said his master,
taking a step toward him.

The knife rose in the air, and the black, in a cool, sneering tone,
replied: 'Say your prayers 'fore you come ony nigher, for, so help me
God, you're a dead man!'

I laid my hand on the Colonel's arm, to draw him back, saying as I did
so: 'There's danger in him! I _know_ it Let him go, and he shall ask
your pardon.'

'I shan't ax his pardon,' cried the black, 'leff him and me be, sar;
we'll fix dis ourselfs.'

'Don't interfere, Mr. K----,' said my host, with perfect coolness, but
with a face pallid with rage. 'Let me govern my own plantation.'

'As you say, sir,' I replied, stepping back a few paces; 'but I warn
you--there is danger in him!'

Taking no notice of my remark, the Colonel turned to the trembling
negroes, and said: 'One of you go to the house and bring my pistols.'

'You kin shoot me, ef you likes,' said Jim, with a fierce, grim smile;
'but I'll take you to h--l wid me, _shore_. You knows WE won't stand a
blow!'

The Colonel, at the allusion to their relationship, started as if shot,
and turning furiously on the negro, yelled out: 'I'll shoot you for
that, you d--d nigger, by----.'

'It 'pears ter me, Cunnel, ye've hed 'bout nuff shootin' 'round har,
lately; better stop thet sort o' bis'ness; it moight give ye a sore
throat,' said the long, lean, loose-jointed stump-speaker of the
previous Sunday, as he entered the cabin and strode directly up to my
host.

'What brought you here, you d--d insolent hound?' cried the Colonel,
turning fiercely on the new-comer.

'Wal, I cum to du ye a naboorly turn--I've kotched two on yer niggers
down ter my still, an' I want ye ter take 'em 'way,' returned the
corn-cracker, with the utmost coolness.

'Two of my niggers!' exclaimed the Colonel, perceptibly moderating his
tone, 'which ones?'

'A yaller gal, and a child.'

'I thank you, Barnes; excuse my hard words--I was excited.'

'All right, Cunnel; say no more 'bout thet. Will ye send fur 'em? I'd
hev fotched 'em 'long, but my waggin's off jest now.'

'Yes, I'll send at once. Have you got them safe?'

'Safe? I reckon so! Kotched 'em las' night, arter dark, and they've kept
right still ever sense, I 'sure ye--but th' gal holes on ter th' young
'un ter kill--we couldn't get it 'way no how.'

'How did you catch them?'

'The' got 'gainst my turpentime raft--th' current driv 'em down, I
s'pose.'

'What! are they dead?' exclaimed the Colonel.

'Dead? Deader'n drownded rats!' was the native's reply.




WAS HE SUCCESSFUL?

     'Do but grasp into the thick of human life! Every one _lives_
     it--to not many is it _known_; and seize it where you will, it is
     interesting.'--_Goethe_.

     'SUCCESSFUL.--Terminating in accomplishing what is wished or
     intended.'--_Webster's Dictionary._

CHAPTER III.

     The people are anxious for the _detail_ of sentiments, not for
     general results.'--_Lamartine._


Hiram exhibited almost from his boyhood a fondness for female society.
Even when at the district-school, he preferred spending 'noon-time'
among the girls to racing around with the boys, pitching quoits,
wrestling at 'arm's-end,' 'back-hold,' or playing base-ball and goal.
His mother was careful to encourage Hiram's predilections. She remarked
that nothing was so well calculated to keep a young man from going
astray as for him to frequent the society of virtuous females.

Before Hiram had got into his teens, he appeared to be smitten with at
least half a score of little girls of his own age. As he grew older, his
fondness for the sex increased. I do not record this, as any thing
extraordinary, except that in his case a characteristic selfishness
seemed to be at the bottom even of these manifestations. Hiram was not
influenced by those natural emotions and impulses which belong to youth,
and which, unless kept under proper restraint, are apt frequently to
lead to indiscretions. For there ran a vein of calculation through all
he did, whose prudent office it was to minister to his safety.

After Hiram joined the church he was regular in his attendance on the
evening meetings. He always went to these meetings with some young girl,
whom, of course, he accompanied home after the services were over. As I
have said, he was a handsome fellow, and bestowed particular care on his
dress and his appearance generally. He was good-natured and obliging,
and withal sensible, so that the young men who envied him and might be
inclined to call him a fop or a dandy, could not prefix 'brainless' to
these epithets and thus ridicule on him. The fact is, he was shrewder
than any of them, and he knew it. They soon discovered it, and so did
the girls, to the utter discomfiture of his rivals.

At all the village gatherings, including the sewing-societies, and the
lectures, the prayer-meetings, and meetings of Sunday-school teachers,
and so forth, Hiram was not only a favorite, but _the_ favorite with the
other sex. He had a winning, confidential manner, when addressing a
young lady even for the first time, which said very plainly, 'We know
all about and appreciate each other,' and which was very taking. He
assumed various little privileges, such as calling the girls by their
first name, giving notice that a curl was about to fall, and offering to
fix it properly, picking up a bow which had been brushed off, and
pinning it securely on again, holding the hand with a kind and amiable
smile for a brief space after he had shaken it, and sometimes, when he
had occasion to see one of his friends home, keeping her hand in his all
the way after it was placed within his arm.

You may ask why such liberties were permitted. Simply because they were
so very equally distributed they had come to be regarded as a matter of
course. In fact, Hiram was a privileged person. He was so polite, so
attentive, so considerate, what if he did have his peculiarities--how
ridiculous to make a fuss about such trifles! So the 'trifles' were
acquiesced in. Besides, I am inclined to think each fair one supposed
she was the especial object of Hiram's regard, and that his attentions
to others were mere civilities. I do not say Hiram so announced it. I
know he did not; for he was not a person, even when a youth, to commit
himself foolishly. Yet if they _would_ mistake general politeness for
particular attentions, surely it was not his fault--oh! no.

There were those who refused to give their adherence to Hiram's almost
unlimited sway. And as parties generally proceed to extremes, the girls
who formed the opposition generally declared him to be a pusillanimous,
mean-spirited fellow; they detested the very sight of his smooth,
hypocritical face; he had better not come fooling around them--no,
indeed! Let him attempt it once, they would soon teach him manners. It
is to be observed that these remarks did not emanate from the prettiest
or most attractive girls of the village--all of whom were decidedly and
emphatically on Hiram's side. They seemed to enjoy the excitement under
which their adversaries were laboring, and retorted by exclaiming, 'Sour
grapes!' asserting that those who so shamefully vilified Hiram, would be
glad enough to accept his attentions if--they only had the opportunity.

Hiram, meantime, pursued the even tenor of his way, secure in his
position, enjoying to the full extent of his selfish nature all his
'blessings and privileges,' for which he thanked God twice daily,
wondering how men could be so blind and misguided as to turn their backs
on religion when there was such happiness and peace in giving up all to
God!




CHAPTER IV.


Mr. Bennett was correct in his surmise that there were two stores in the
little village of Hampton. Of one of these Thaddeus Smith was
proprietor. He was one of the solid men of the place, and had 'kept
store' there for the last forty years, succeeding his father, who was
one of the early settlers in the town. He had continued on with his
customers in the good old fashion, extending liberal credits and
charging a regular, undeviating profit of thirty-three and a third per
cent. About five years previous to Hiram Meeker's leaving school, Mr.
Smith's peace was greatly disturbed by the advent of a rival, in the
person of Benjamin Jessup, who took possession of an advantageous
locality, and after a week's bustle with teams and workmen transporting,
unpacking, and arranging, displayed his name, one fine morning, in large
gilt letters to the wondering inhabitants of Hampton, and under it the
cabalistic words: 'CHEAP CASH STORE.' A large number of handbills were
posted about the village, informing the good people of the opening of
the aforesaid 'cash store,' and that the proprietor was prepared to sell
every variety of goods and merchandise 'cheap for cash or ready pay,' by
which last expression was meant acceptable barter. Of course, the whole
town flocked to inspect Mr. Jessup's stock and price his goods. The
cunning fellow had valued them only at about cost, while he declared he
was making a living profit at the rates charged, and a living profit was
all he wanted. Furthermore, he allowed the highest prices for the
commodities brought in by the farmers, and gave them great bargains in
return. He was especially accommodating to the ladies, permitting them
to tumble his whole stock of dry goods for the sake of selecting a
pretty pattern for an apron, or finding a remnant which they were
'welcome to.'

Mr. Smith was sadly grieved. Although some very old-fashioned people
stuck sternly to him, refusing to be allured by the bait of great
bargains, and so forth and so forth, yet his store was nearly deserted.
Thaddeus Smith was a perfectly upright man. It is true, he charged a
large profit on his goods--this was because it had always been his
habit, and that of his father before him. But he was accommodating in
his credit and lenient to debtors in default. His word could be relied
on implicitly, and his dealings were marked by scrupulous honesty.

On this trying occasion he called his son, who was supposed to be his
partner, into consultation, and asked him what he thought of the state
of things.

'I think this, father,' was the reply, 'that we can not expect to go on
longer in the old style. We must reduce our profits one half, and to do
this, we must be more particular in our credits, and buy with more care
and of different people. In this way I will engage--by pursuing a
straightforward, energetic course, we shall hold our own against the
cash-man over the way.'

It was some time before Mr. Smith, Senior, could be persuaded. It was
not just the thing, taking advice from a 'boy,' although the boy was
past thirty, and had a family of his own. He yielded, however, and
Thaddeus, Junior, was permitted to carry out his plan. He made a trip to
New-York and purchased goods, instead of sending an order for them as
had been their habit, where he could find the best bargains at least ten
per cent cheaper than his father was in the habit of buying, came home,
got out handbills in his turn, requesting the people to call at the 'old
stand,' look at the fresh stock, selected personally with great care,
and bought cheap _for_ cash, but which would be sold as usual on
approved credit. This gave the tide a turn in the old direction, and Mr.
Jessup had to set to work anew. He was not a bad man in his way, but
neither was he a good one. He was not over-scrupulous nor severely
honest. His prices varied, so the folks discovered, and he, or rather
his clerks, sometimes made mistakes in the quality of articles sold.
After a while the cash system sensibly relaxed, and at last both
establishments settled down into a severe and uncompromising opposition.
There was a pretty large back country which received its supplies from
Hampton, and so both stores managed to do a thriving trade. The Smiths
retaining as customers the large portion of the staid and respectable
population, while Mr. Jessup's business depended more on his dealings
with the people from the surrounding country. There was a very different
atmosphere around the stores of these two village merchants. The Smiths
were religious people, father and son, not merely so in name, but in
reality. A child could have purchased half their stock on as favorable
terms as the shrewdest man in the place. Mr. Jessup, on the contrary,
varied as he could light of chaps, that is, according to circumstances.
He was, however, an off-hand, free-and-easy fellow, with many generous
qualities, which made him popular with most who knew him. He did not
hesitate to declare that his views on religious subjects were liberal--a
bold announcement for a man to make in Hampton. Indeed, his enemies put
him down for a Universalist, or at best a Unitarian, for which they
claimed to have some reason, since he seldom went to church, although
his wife was a communicant, and very regular in her attendance.

I have been thus particular in describing the two rival establishments
because Hiram Meeker is to enter one of them. The reader will naturally
suppose there can be little doubt which, and he has a right to exhibit
surprise on learning that Hiram decided in favor of Mr. Jessup. I say
HIRAM decided. His father preferred that he should go with the Smiths.
His mother was of the same opinion, but she permitted her son, who now
was very capable of acting for himself, to persuade her that Jessup's
was the place for him: 'More going on--greater variety of business--much
more enterprise,' and consequently more to be learned. It would be
difficult to follow closely the train of reasoning which led Hiram to
insist so perseveringly in favor of Mr. Jessup. For the reasons he gave
were on the surface, while those which really decided him were keen and
subtle, based on a shrewd appreciation of the position of the two
merchants, and his probable relation to one or the other. With the
Smiths, Hiram saw no room for any fresh exhibition of talent or
enterprise; in the other place he saw a great deal.

Once decided on, he was speedily settled in his new abode, where he
formed a part of the household of the proprietor, together with the
head-clerk, a 'cute fellow of five and twenty, who was reported to be as
'keen as a razor.' It was evident Mr. Jessup valued him highly, from the
respect he always paid to his advice and from his giving up so much of
the management of the business to him. Besides, it was rumored he was
engaged to Mr. Jessup's oldest daughter, a handsome, black-eyed girl of
eighteen, a little too old for the 'meridian' of Hiram; but who, with
her mother, was on excellent terms with the Meeker family. The name of
the head-clerk was Pease--Jonathan Pease; but he always wrote his name
J. Pease. There was also a boy, fourteen years old, called Charley, who
boarded at home. This, with Mr. Benjamin Jessup, constituted the force
at the 'cash store.'

Hiram had taken the place of a pale, milk-and-water-looking youth, with
weak lungs, who had been obliged to quit on account of poor health. This
youth had been entirely under the control of Pease, so much so that he
dared not venture an opinion about his own soul or body till he was
satisfied Pease thought just so. All this helped add to the importance
of the head-clerk, so that even Mr. Jessup unconsciously felt rather
nervous about differing with him. Indeed, Pease was fast becoming master
of the establishment. This Hiram Meeker knew perfectly well before he
entered it.

When Pease ascertained that Hiram was about to come there as clerk,
without his advice being asked, he regarded it as an invasion of his
rights. He did not hesitate to speak his mind on the subject to Mr.
Jessup. He tried strongly to dissuade him from taking a gentleman-clerk,
and declared it would require an extra boy to wait on him and another to
correct his blunders. It was of no use; Mr. Jessup had not the slightest
idea of the peculiar qualities of Hiram, but he knew if he received him,
it would be the means of making an inroad into the conservative quarter,
and he should secure the trade and influence of the Meekers beside. He
went so far as to explain this to Pease, in the most confidential and
friendly manner; but the latter was not to be persuaded or mollified. As
he could not prevent the advent of Hiram, he resolved to make his
position just as uncomfortable as he possibly could. But he little knew
the stuff he had to deal with.

The first morning after he had taken possession of his new quarters--his
sleeping-room was over the store--Hiram rose early, and was looking
carefully about the place, when Pease came in and asked him why he did
not sweep out.

'I have not yet learned the regulations, Mr. Pease, but am ready to
begin any time,' was Hiram's quiet reply.

Now, Pease had purposely sent Charley away on an early errand, so as to
be able to put this work on the new-comer. He simply replied, in an
arrogant tone, that it was his business every morning to sweep out the
store, and then sand the floors, adding, in order to preserve a
semblance of truth: 'When the boy happens to be here, he will help you.'

Pease was a little astonished to see how readily Hiram set to work. The
store was not only carefully swept, and the floors sanded, but many
articles which were scattered about were put in their place, and
carefully arranged, so that after breakfast, when Mr. Jessup came in, he
remarked on the neat appearance of the store, without knowing to what it
was owing. Thus was the first attempt of J. Pease to annoy Hiram
completely foiled. Furthermore, Hiram kept on sweeping and sanding,
although Charley was present; indeed, he declined his assistance
altogether, and once, when Mr. Jessup remarked (he had observed to whom
the change in the appearance of the store was due) that it was quite
unnecessary for him to do the boy's work, Hiram quietly answered, that
he much preferred to do it to seeing the store look as it did when he
first came there.

It took our hero but a short time to familiarize himself with the
minutiæ of Mr. Jessup's business. It was not long before Pease began to
feel that there was a person every way his superior who was fast
acquiring a more thorough insight into affairs than he had himself. He
began to fear that certain private transactions of his own would not
escape Hiram's observation. He felt magnetically that instead of
bullying and domineering over the new-comer, Hiram's eyes were on _him_
whatever he did. This was insupportable; but how could he help it? The
more work he imposed on Hiram, the better the latter seemed to like it,
and the more he accomplished.

'Damn him!' said Pease between his teeth; but cursing did not help the
matter, so Pease discovered.

By degrees, several young ladies who were not in the habit of calling at
Jessup's began to drop in to look at the dry-goods. It was in vain Pease
stepped briskly forward to wait on them, with his most fascinating
smile; they wanted to see Mr. Meeker. Pease was bursting with rage, but
he was forced to restrain his passion. On one occasion, on seeing two
attractive-looking girls approaching, he sent Hiram to the cellar to
draw a gallon of molasses, and as the weather was cold, he calculated he
would have to wait at least a quarter of an hour for it to run. When the
young ladies entered, they inquired for Hiram; Pease reported Mr. Meeker
as particularly engaged, and offered his services in the most pathetic
manner.

'Oh! we are in no hurry,' was the reply, 'we can wait.'

And they did wait, greatly to Pease's disgust, and to Mr. Jessup's
delight, who happened to come in at that moment, for he knew Hiram would
be sure to make some handsome sales to them. At length came poor Pease's
crowning misfortune. Mary Jessup began to give token that she was not
slow to discover Hiram's agreeable qualities, and his superiority in
every respect over his rival. Now, if there is any one thing which the
sex admire in a man more than another, it is real ability. Mary Jessup
was a quick-witted girl herself, and she could not fail to perceive this
quality in Hiram. She had heretofore regarded him as a boy; but the boy
had grown up almost without her observing it, and now stood, with his
full stature of medium hight, admirably proportioned. It was not long
before she consented to accompany Hiram to the Thursday-evening lecture.
What a pleasant walk they had each way, and how gracefully he placed her
shawl across her shoulders. Pease was furious. 'How absurd you act,'
that was all Mary Jessup said in reply to his violent demonstrations,
and she laughed when she said it. What _could_ Pease do for revenge? He
thought, and cogitated, and dreamed over it; it was of no use. He began
to feel himself under the fascination of Hiram's calm, persevering,
determined manner, a manner distinguished by tokens of latent power. For
no one in praising him ever made the ordinary exclamations, 'Such a
smart, energetic fellow,' 'So active and efficient,' 'A driving business
chap.' No; on the contrary, one would set him down as quite the reverse,
for he was always very quiet, never in a hurry, and by no means rapid in
his motions. Yet he impressed you with an idea of his superiority, which
his peculiar repose of manner served to highten. It can easily be
guessed that Mary Jessup and J. Pease quarreled, at last seriously, and
the engagement, if there had been any, was broken. The next evening, on
her return from the sewing-society with Hiram, he ventured to retain her
hand in his, and from that time she felt that there was an
'understanding' between them. She would have found it difficult to say
why, for Hiram had never spoken sentimentally to her. His conversation
was on ordinary topics, yet always in a low, meaning, confidential tone.

[Has the reader any desire that I should lay bare the innermost thoughts
and feelings of this youth not yet eighteen? Would you like to be told
how curiously he smiled to himself as he continued to sweep out and sand
that little village store? Would you care to know how he gloated over
the discomfiture of his rival? Shall I endeavor to depict his feelings
when he saw he had actually gained the affections of Mary Jessup, for
whom, beyond a sensuous enjoyment of her presence and her society, he
did not care a fig? Shall I explain how, while acting for his employer
quite as a good, honest man would act, his motive was to serve self and
self only? or shall I permit the reader gradually to acquire a knowledge
of Hiram's characteristics as the narrative proceeds?]

This brings us to the end of Hiram's first year with Mr. Jessup. He had
accomplished nothing rapidly, but he had kept on accomplishing something
every day. He had not made a single false step. The consequence was, he
had not a single step to retrace. The end of the year found him already
very high in Mr. Jessup's esteem. Hiram had proved his value by
increasing his employer's business at least ten per cent in the village,
while he was daily becoming more popular with all who traded at the
store. To Pease this was an enigma, for Hiram never volunteered to wait
on a customer, when the former was present, and only stepped forward
when specially sought. Even with the young ladies who came to the place,
with whom he was on intimate terms of acquaintance, Hiram found no time
to laugh and talk, although he always managed to say an agreeable word
in a quiet, low tone. Toward Pease, Hiram's conduct was always the same,
perfectly respectful; as if never losing sight of the situation of the
one as head-clerk and of the other as subordinate. But by continually
making himself so useful in the establishment, he was gradually
undermining his comrade's position, and Pease felt his influence
dissolving, he hardly knew how or why; but he felt it all the more
forcibly for not knowing.

Thus the commencement of the new year found the occupants of the cash
store. Hiram's situation had become very agreeable. He was putting into
practice the theories of his education. He was high in favor with his
employer, and whenever he entered the house, which was but a few steps
from the store, he was greeted by Mary Jessup with that peculiar welcome
so charming between those who love each other, yet which to him was
pleasing only because it gratified his animal nature and his self-love.

Early in the second year, an incident occurred which served to bring out
Hiram's character, and change decidedly the state of affairs. One
morning, while he was engaged with a customer, Mrs. Esterbrook entered
the store. Now, that lady was the wife of Deacon Esterbrook, one of the
most substantial men of the town, and a strong supporter of the Smiths.
In fact, she had never set foot in Mr. Jessup's place before that
morning, but certain goods, lately ordered by the Smiths, were
unaccountably delayed, while Mr. Jessup's were fresh from the city and
just opened. The dress-maker had been engaged, and could not come again
for she did not know how long, and Ellen must have a nice school-dress
ready forthwith. So the lady determined for once to break over rule, and
step into the opposition store. No doubt the fact that so respectable
and pious a young man as Hiram was a clerk there had its influence in
the decision; it made the place itself more reputable, many said. And
now she came slowly in, a little distrustful, as if entering on
forbidden ground, and expecting to see some extraordinary difference
between the place of business of an ungodly person like Jessup and that
of the honest-minded Smith. Thanks, however, to Hiram's persevering
industry, it was a model of neatness and order, and Mrs. Esterbrook, who
was herself a pattern in that way, found her harsh judgment insensibly
relaxing, as she stepped to the counter where Pease stood, and asked
quite amiably to see some of the best calicoes, just in from New-York.
Pease, the narrow-minded idiot, thought this a good time to play off a
smart trick on one of Smith's regular customers. So he paraded a large
variety of goods before her, and took occasion to recommend a very
pretty article, for which he charged a monstrous price, because he said
it was a very scarce pattern, and it was with great difficulty they had
secured a single piece. As the lady herself could perceive, it had not
been opened before; not a soul in the village had even seen the outside
of it. Now, it must not be supposed that Mrs. Esterbrook was different
from the rest of her sex, and insensible to the pleasure of having the
first dress cut from the piece. Indeed, she determined, on this
occasion, to take two dresses instead of one; Emily was coming home, and
would want it. Just as Pease was about to measure off the desired
quantity, Mrs. Esterbrook exclaimed:

'You are sure those colors are fast?'

'Fast, ma'am! fast as the meeting-house round the corner. We will
warrant them not to run nor change. Why, for color, we have nothing like
it in the store.'

All this time, Hiram had been serving his customer; but with both ears
and at least one eye attentive to what was going on near him.

Again Pease commenced to measure, when Hiram stepped deliberately
forward and said:

'Mr. Pease is mistaken, Mrs. Esterbrook, those colors are _not_ fast.'

'What the----' hell do _you_ know about it? Pease was going to say; but
he stopped short at the second word, utterly abashed and confounded at
the extraordinary assumption of the junior clerk. Never before had Hiram
made such a demonstration. Now he stood calm and composed, firmly
fortified by the truth. He looked and acted precisely as if he were the
principal, and the objurgation of Pease died on his lips. He attempted
to cast on Hiram a contemptuous glance, as he managed to say:

'Perhaps you know more about it than I do,' and turned away to attend to
a new-comer.

'I am much obliged to you, Mr. Meeker, I declare,' said Mrs. Esterbrook.

'On the contrary, it is I who should be obliged to you for looking in.
You must excuse the mistake. Mr. Pease is not so familiar with calicoes
as I am. But I will now wait on you myself. We have a box of goods in
the back-store, not yet open, and I am sure I can find in it just what
you want.'

Any one who had seen Hiram's air, and heard him speak, would have taken
him for the proprietor. With what a low, respectful tone he addressed
the lady. How pleasantly it fell on the ear. An immense box of
merchandise to be opened and all the contents overhauled to please her!
Charley was summoned, hammer and hatchet freely used, and the goods
displayed. Hiram, who knew much better what Mrs. Esterbrook wanted than
she knew herself, selected something very acceptable. The price he put
at first cost. Not content with that, he actually sold the lady silk for
a dress, putting it at cost also, and no human being could have been in
better humor than she.

'I am very sorry, Mrs. Esterbrook, for your disappointment about the
first calico you selected,' continued Hiram. 'I do hope you and other
members of your family will look in often, even if you do not purchase;
it sometimes helps one to form a judgment to look at different stocks.
But I must be perfectly frank with you. We profess to sell cheap, very
cheap, but I can never offer you similar articles at the price you have
these; they are given you precisely at cost, as a slight compensation
for your trouble in having to look a second time. Besides, it is a
matter of mere justice to those worthy people, the Smiths, to say we do
not sell our goods at these prices, and I beg you not to so report it.'

'What an excellent young man you are,' said good Mrs. Esterbrook, in the
fullness of her heart.

'My dear madam, really I can not see any special excellence in simply
doing my duty.'

Hiram smiled one of his amiable, winning smiles, and bowed his new
customer politely out of the store.

By this time the dinner-hour had arrived. Not a word had been spoken by
Pease to Hiram since the scene just recounted. Not a syllable did he
utter at table. Hiram, on the contrary, entered into familiar
conversation, placid as usual, and enjoyed his dinner quite as well as
he ever had done. When the meal was over, Pease asked Mr. Jessup if he
would step into the store a few minutes. Mr. Jessup accordingly walked
over.

'I want to know, Mr. Jessup,' he demanded, when all were together,
including Charley, 'whether you are the owner in here or Hiram Meeker?'

'Why do you put such a question, Pease?'

Thereupon Pease told the whole circumstances very much as they occurred.
Mr. Jessup made no reply. He was taken aback himself. Hiram said not a
word.

'It's so, an't it, Charley?' cried Pease.

'I've nothing to say about it,' answered the boy. He liked Hiram, and
detested Pease, and was glad to see him humiliated.

'It is so,' observed Hiram.

Mr. Jessup was astounded.

'I shall think the matter over seriously, young men, and make up my mind
about it this evening. Now let us attend to business.'

Mr. Jessup had decided in his own mind that Hiram's conduct was very
reprehensible--not that he cared about Pease being snubbed, _that_ he
rather enjoyed than otherwise, but he thought what Hiram had done would
serve to cast discredit on the establishment. Before, however, deciding
to censure him in presence of his fellow-clerks, he determined to speak
with him privately. He took occasion without the knowledge of Pease, to
ask Hiram to step to the house, and once there, he requested him to give
his version of the affair. Hiram replied that Pease had stated it very
correctly.

'What could be your object,' asked Mr. Jessup, 'in doing what would
throw disgrace on my store, for you know such an admission would
disgrace us?'

'To serve your interests, as in duty bound,' replied Hiram.

Mr. Jessup could not so understand it, and Hiram undertook calmly to
explain how dishonest it was for Pease to do as he did. It had very
little effect on Mr. Jessup. His nerves were too strong to be unsettled
by a moral appeal. He told Hiram he was to blame, and said he should be
obliged to so express himself, when they all met, and he must add a
caution for the future.

'Fool!' exclaimed Hiram, startled out of his usual calm propriety, 'do
you not comprehend if that woman had gone out of your store with the
calico, that she not only would never enter it again, but she would
publish your name over town as a swindler and a cheat, and you never
would hear the end of it. Pease had charged her double prices, and the
goods would not stand a single washing. And you know whether or not you
are ready to pay off the mortgage Deacon Esterbrook holds on this
house.'

Mr. Jessup colored deeply. When he purchased his house he left a pretty
large mortgage on it, which the owner had sold to Deacon Esterbrook, who
was a moneyed man, and who now held it quite content with his yearly six
per cent.

'You seem to interest yourself in my private affairs,' said Mr. Jessup
in a sarcastic tone.

'Why shouldn't I, sir, so long as I am in your employ,' answered Hiram,
without noticing the irony.

'You're a devilish strange fellow, any how,' said Mr. Jessup, musingly,
'but I confess I never had a person about me half so useful.'

'I could be of much more service to you if you would conduct your
business on strict mercantile principles.'

'Why, what would you have me do different from what I am doing?'

'I would have every thing done straight and HONEST, Mr. Jessup,' said
Hiram firmly.

'Do you mean to say I am not honest?'

'It is not necessary for me to say any thing on the subject. I am only
talking about the management of your business. You censure me for not
standing still and seeing one of your neighbors grossly cheated, by
which you would have lost some of the best customers in town, to say the
least. By taking the course I did, I saved the credit of the concern
instead of injuring it, and I even spoke of it as a mistake of Pease,
instead of a deception.'

Mr. Jessup was already convinced, as indeed, his petulance proved, that
Hiram was right, but he had some pride in not appearing to yield too
soon.

'I understand the matter better now, and really, Hiram, you did just
about the right thing, that's a fact. Honesty is the best policy, after
all. I shall tell Pease he did very wrong to attempt any of his tricks
on such a person as Mrs. Esterbrook, and in future--'

'In future one of us must be an absentee from the premises,' said Hiram
coolly.

'Why, what do you mean?'

'Just this. Pease's year is up next week, and then one of us must
leave.'

Mr. Jessup fell into a brown study. He reflected on the admirable manner
Hiram had performed his duties; he could not shut his eyes to the fact
that several excellent customers had been secured through his influence;
he considered the respectability of the Meeker family, and called to
mind how indifferent Mary had become to Pease, while she seemed
gratified when Hiram was near. Again, Pease, when measured by Hiram's
more comprehensive tact and shrewdness, seemed a booby, a nobody, and
Mr. Jessup wondered how he ever acquired such an influence over him, and
he was the more disgusted with himself the more he thought about it.

'It is working right, after all,' he said to himself. 'I shall be well
rid of Pease, and Hiram shall take his place.' Then rising from his
seat, he observed: 'I will think the matter over carefully, and you
shall have my decision on the day. Now set to work as if nothing had
happened.'

Hiram went back to the store as certain of the fate of Pease as if he
was himself to decide it. 'Check-mated'--something like that passed from
his lips. His countenance, however, gave no sign of triumph, nor,
indeed, of any feeling.

In the evening Mr. Jessup announced that, after due consideration, he
was of opinion the conduct of Pease was so censurable that the
interference of Hiram was very proper, if not, indeed, praiseworthy.

'Perhaps you would like to settle with me?' said Pease ferociously.

'Just as you please,' replied Mr. Jessup.

'Well, I guess I have staid about long enough in this place when I've
lived to see you coming the honest dodge so strong as that--darned if I
han't!'

Next week Pease had quit, and Hiram Meeker was head-clerk.

Great was the astonishment through the town when it was ascertained that
Pease had been 'discharged from Jessup's store for cheating'--so the
story went. Mr. Jessup was too shrewd not to make the most of the
circumstance. He declared, in his off-hand manner, that he never
professed to have the strait-laced habits of some people; he confessed
he did not like a fellow the less for his being 'cute in a trade, and
eyes open, but when it came to lying and cheating, then any of _his_
folks must look out if he caught them at it, that's all.

With most of the people this frank, open avowal was very convincing; but
there were certain obstinate persons such as are every where to be
found, and who are fond of going against the general opinion, who did
not hesitate to declare this was all gammon. They knew Jessup too well
to 'allow' he cared any thing about it, not he. Nothing but the fear of
that honest young Meeker led to the disgrace of Pease, who no doubt
would now be made the scape-grace for all Jessup's shortcomings in the
store-way. So it went. But in the balance of accounts Jessup was a great
gainer. Of course, numerous were the questions put to Hiram. He
preserved great discretion--would say little. It did not become him to
speak of Mr. Jessup's private matters. Good Mrs. Esterbrook was not
silent, however. The story was repeated and repeated. It reached the
parsonage; it found its way among the customers of the Smiths. Mrs.
Esterbrook felt herself a good deal raised in her own importance, that
the head-clerk of a store she was never in before should be summarily
dismissed for misconduct toward her. She began rather to like that Mr.
Jessup, (the calicoes and silk proved such bargains, and just what she
wanted,) a man to do as he did was not so very far out of the way, and
as for his wife, she was a charming woman, she always said so. Mary,
too, what a sweet girl! Well, she should at least divide her custom
between the two stores if the Deacon was willing--and the Deacon was
willing, for he wanted Jessup to do sufficiently well to keep up his
interest money prompt. Not only did Mrs. Esterbrook call frequently, but
so did many others of the Smith faction. I need not say that Hiram was
indefatigable. He secured the services of a nice, active young fellow,
whom he took great pains to teach, and every thing went on like
clock-work. Mr. Jessup was content, for he saw he was constantly gaining
custom, but, in fact, he was a good deal confused, and hardly felt at
home in his own place, so completely did Hiram bring it under his own
control.

The first thing he undertook was an entire overhauling of the stock, and
a close examination of its value. Then he insisted, yes, insisted that
the prices should be marked in plain figures on the goods, so every body
could see for themselves.

Jessup remonstrated: 'Thunder! what will become of us at this rate? I
tell you there are some it won't do to be frank with. Even old Smith
never undertook to expose his marks!'

'The very reason why we should do so,' said Hiram. '_We_ are honest.'

I wish you could have heard the tone in which Hiram said that, and have
seen the expression of his countenance. It made Jessup's flesh creep, he
did not know why. So Hiram, as usual, had his own way, and overhauled
every thing. Lots of old goods piled away out of sight, as unsalable,
were brought forward, carefully examined, and marked down, on an
average, to half cost. Then appeared hand-bills to the effect that Mr.
Jessup had determined, prior to getting in a complete new, fresh,
fashionable lot of dry goods, to dispose of the stock on hand at a
tremendous sacrifice. These were sent all over the country into the
adjoining villages, every where within twenty miles. How the people
rushed to buy, and when they came, and found really that great bargains
were to be had, they resolved to come again when the new goods should
arrive.

Thus Hiram triumphed. In six months after J. Pease left, Benjamin
Jessup's store was _the_ store of Hampton, and Benjamin Jessup himself
on the road to prosperity and wealth.

Hiram Meeker was sitting alone in his room over the store, late one
evening. He had been with Mr. Jessup a year and eleven months. Another
month, and the second year would be completed.

'I believe,' so ran the current of his thoughts, 'I have learned pretty
much all there is to be found out here; have not done badly, either.
Cousin Bennett's advice to mother was right. I am not ready to go to
New-York yet. There is much country knowledge to be gained. Let me see,
I will drive over to Burnsville next week. Joel Burns is carrying every
thing before him, they say. All sorts of business. A first-class man;
neither a Smith nor a Jessup. I met Sarah Burns last week at a party
over at Croft's--lovely girl. I think Burnsville will suit me.'

Thereupon Hiram Meeker took up his Bible, which lay on the table near
him, drew himself a little closer to the fire, moved the lamp into a
convenient position, and read one chapter in course; it was in
Deuteronomy. Then he kneeled in prayer for about five minutes. As soon
as he had finished, he went to bed, equally satisfied with his labors
and his devotions; complacently he laid his head on the pillow, and was
soon asleep,

       *       *       *       *       *

'I _am_ sorry to go, Mr. Jessup, but I have my fortune to make yet, you
know, and I must look a little to my own interests.'

'Yes, but confound it, Meeker, what is it you want? I expected to raise
your salary; in fact, it's no account what you charge me, you mustn't
go, that's settled.'

'Indeed I must.'

'Why, what is the matter? If you say so, I will take you into
partnership, though you are not one and twenty. Really, Hiram, don't
leave us in this way.'

'I repeat, I am sorry to do so, but as I have no intention of living in
Hampton, it is now time I should quit.'

'But what on earth am I to do without you?'

'Persevere in the course you are now pursuing. Stick honestly to good
principles, Mr. Jessup, and you will continue to prosper.'

'Damn it, I know better,' exclaimed Jessup pettishly; 'I mean--I swear I
don't know what I mean, [Hiram's cold blue eye was fixed calmly on him,]
cussed if I do; but I say 'tan't honesty which has done the thing for
me. No; old Smith is honest--so is his son; I respect both of them for
being so, yes I do. You are honest, too, Hiram; straight as a
shingle--have always found you so; but I can't tell why, yours seems
another sort of honesty from Smith's honesty, and that's a fact.'

Benjamin Jessup had a dim perception of the truth, but the more he tried
to explain, the more he floundered, till Hiram came to his relief and to
his own also, for he did not greatly enjoy the comparison Jessup was
attempting to institute.

'I think I understand you. The fact is, in the management of your
business, I have endeavored to combine what tact and shrewdness I am
master of with scrupulous fair dealing and integrity.'

'That's it, Hiram, now you've hit it, but it's the shrewdness that's
done the work. Oh! I shall never get a man who can fill your place.'

       *       *       *       *       *

In due course, Hiram left for Burnsville. The prayers and good wishes of
the village went with him. Mary Jessup was disconsolate; but why? Hiram
had never committed himself. All the girls said: 'What a fool she is to
think he was going to marry any body older than himself!' and they
laughed about Mary Jessup.




NEWBERN AS IT WAS AND IS.


That part of North-Carolina borders on the Sound, has within the past
six months became the theatre of events of the most exciting nature, in
which Newbern, its principal town, has borne a prominent part.

It may be interesting to review its history. The earliest notice of it
dates back to the explorations of Raleigh's colony in 1584, when they
visited an Indian town named Newsiok, 'situated on a goodly river called
the Neus,' but the adventurers did not examine the river, and more than
a century elapsed before any further record of the visit of white men
occurred. The north-eastern counties had, however, been partially
settled by refugees from Virginia, where in the absence of law and
gospel they became as degraded a community as there was on the
continent. Their descendants have, to a considerable extent, overrun the
South to the Mississippi and on to Texas.

But it was the good fortune of the counties on the Neuse to derive their
immigrants from and to have their institutions formed by a better class
than the inferior families of Virginia, further degraded by a residence
in Eastern North-Carolina, at that period known as the harbor for rogues
and pirates.

The earliest settlers on the Neuse were French Huguenots, who first
located on the James River, in Virginia, but were afterwards induced by
the proprietors of Carolina to accept grants of land in what is now
known as Carteret County, to which place they removed in 1707. In 1710
a colony from Switzerland and Germany, under the management of Baron de
Graffenreid and Louis Michell arrived, and were settled between the
Neuse and the Trent, and in the triangle formed by these rivers, laid
out a town with wide streets and convenient lots, which in remembrance
of the capital in the Old World, was called New-Bern.

The settlers who already resided north of New-Bern soon rebelled against
their local government, and by continued depredations on the Indian
tribes in their vicinity at last brought on a fearful war, during which
a large part of both the white and red men were exterminated, so that
many of the poor Swiss and German Protestants found they had only
escaped their vindictive persecutors at home to find a bloody grave in
the forests of Carolina.

After the surrender of their grant to the crown by the lords proprietors
of Carolina, in 1729, a better state of affairs succeeded, and a more
energetic government, with its blessings and prosperity was the result.
The country was then settled and Newbern gradually rose to be a place of
importance, and subsequently the capital of the province.

The first printing-press in the province was established in 1764, and
the first periodical, _The North-Carolina Magazine_, issued the same
year, but it is doubtful if any book excepting the State laws was ever
published there. A public school was incorporated the same year, and
Newbern became the principal seat of education and social intelligence
in the province. As the seat of government and the residence of the
royal Governors, it attracted much wealth, and developed a degree of
culture which it has retained to a later day.

Arthur Dobbs, for a long period the Colonial Governor, was at this time
closely identified with the history of Newbern. He was 'by birth an
Irishman, and by nature an aristocrat.' He died at an advanced age in
1764.

In 1765, William Tryon succeeded Dobbs as Governor of North-Carolina. He
first resided at Brunswick, on the Cape Fear River, then a town of note,
but now a complete ruin, and where among its remains are still seen the
massive walls of St. Philip's Church, built by his request, at the
expense of the British government.

As Newbern was a more central position, and possessed more social
advantages, Tryon took up his abode there, not, however, till he had
made himself odious by irritating the people of the western part of the
province into a rebellion, and had butchered many who were contending
only for justice and their rights.

Tryon was aristocratic, tyrannical, and vindictive. To gratify his pride
he conceived the idea of erecting a magnificent palace, and to obtain an
appropriation from the Provincial Assembly he exhausted all his promises
and intrigues. In this effort on the legislators he was aided by the
blandishments of his lady and her sister, Miss Wake, relatives of Lord
Hillborough, and he was finally successful. The result was, that he
erected in Newbern, in 1770, the most elegant and expensive building on
the continent, the cost of which was far beyond the resources of the
province. The plans of it, which are still preserved, show that the old
descriptions of its splendor are not overwrought. Its foundations can
still be traced, and a part of one of the wings, though in a dilapidated
state, is yet in existence.

A Provincial Congress was held at Newbern, in August, 1774, of which
John Harvey was President. In April, 1779, they elected delegates to the
famous Continental Congress which met at Philadelphia, and Newbern was
for some time the most important place in the province.

During the Revolution, the State was twice invaded by the British, and
many towns suffered severely, but Newbern being remote from the seat of
war, did not particularly feel its effects.

It is somewhat strange that in Newbern secession once found its
strongest opposition, and finally its death-blow. It will be
recollected that North-Carolina once extended to the Mississippi, and
included all of what is now the State of Tennessee, the whole of which
territory was ceded to the United States in 1784. It was then partially
settled, and before the general Government had accepted the grant, the
residents established a temporary government, and formally seceding from
North-Carolina, formed 'the State of Franklin.'

On the 1st of June, 1785, the Legislature assembled at Newbern, when
Governor Martin addressed them on this subject. Declaring that 'by such
rash and irregular conduct a precedent is formed for every district and
even for every county in the State, to claim the right of separation and
independence for any supposed grievance as caprice, pride, and ambition
may dictate, thereby exhibiting to the world a melancholy instance of a
feeble or pusillanimous government, that is either unable or dares not
restrain the lawless designs of its citizens,' he advocated putting down
the movements by force if necessary. But the leaders were not to be
dissuaded from their ambitious purpose, and being joined by a few
adjoining counties in Virginia, they elected General Sevier, a hero of
the Revolution, as Governor, and the insurrection assumed a formidable
shape. But the old State met the trouble energetically, and after
exhausting all proper conciliatory measures, Sevier, with several of the
leaders, was arrested, their councils became divided, and the rebellion
was crushed. The leaders asked and obtained pardon, and an act of
amnesty was passed, so that in the subsequent political changes the
matter was forgotten.

For a long period Newbern has been the residence of wealthy and
influential families. George Pollock, a descendant of one of the
original proprietors, who died some thirty years ago, dwelt there. He
owned immense tracts of the best land in the State, and over a thousand
slaves.

There, too, was the home of Judge Gaston, a learned lawyer and a most
estimable man, who, though a Roman Catholic, was respected by all sects
and conditions, even in those days of fierce sectaries. John Stanly for
a long time gave celebrity to Newbern as a lawyer and legislator, his
oratorical powers being second to those of no man in the State. He was
the father of Edward Stanly, now appointed to act as military Governor
of the State.

The country around Newbern was originally moderately fertile, but much
of it has become exhausted by reason of improper tillage. The forests
which were once a vast extent of stately pines, and from which great
quantities of turpentine and tar were for a century and a half exported,
are now little better than barren fields. Pine lumber and staves have
long been a large article of export, which with corn and cotton make up
nearly all the articles sent abroad. But the pines are now nearly
exhausted, the trade in naval stores and lumber lessened, and in
consequence a better state of agriculture has commenced. It is found
that by the aid of fertilizers good crops of cotton can be raised on the
pine lands and the fields kept in an improving condition. For the last
thirty years it can hardly be said that the town has improved; indeed,
as a whole it has hardly held its own. Still it is a place of wealth and
comfort. There is an air of respectability in its ancient and stately
buildings, its wide streets, and abundant shade-trees, and it is as
healthy as any Southern town can be.

Some twenty years ago Newbern had what no other Southern town possessed,
a commerce of its own, that is, vessels built, owned, and sailed by its
own people. Many of these--then engaged in the West-India trade--were
partly manned by slaves who belonged to the proprietors of the vessel or
its captain, and at times, when other seamen could not be procured,
these slaves were allowed to make a voyage to a Northern port, but as
their value yearly augmented, and the risk of their suddenly
disappearing, not again to visit 'Dixie,' increased in a corresponding
ratio, they gradually retired to other duties where their services were
less precarious.

And here I will relate an anecdote which an old salt once told me when I
was strolling along the wharves of this ancient town in his company.

In consequence of a bar, or 'swash,' which stretches inside Ocracoke
Inlet, (at that time the only passage to the sea,) the vessels take in
but a part of their cargoes at Newbern, while lighters with the
remainder accompany them across the 'swash,' where the lading is
completed. Quite a number of small craft are thus constantly employed,
and they are generally manned and commanded by slaves. In this trade was
once engaged 'Jack Devereaux,' an intelligent black man who formerly
belonged to the Devereaux family--one of the F.F.s of Newbern--but who
had latterly become the property of H---- & C----, a mercantile firm
then doing a flourishing business there. He was captain of a famous
lighter, which for its enormous carrying capacity had received the
cognomen of 'Hunger and Thirst.' In due time the firm of H---- &
C----dissolved, and C---- 'moved West,' leaving an undivided half of
Captain Jack in the hands of his attorney. Jack had sailed the craft 'on
shares,' and compromised his services by monthly wages to his masters,
and so had gradually accumulated some hundreds of dollars. Not fancying
his new share-holder, he concluded to invest his hard-earned dollars in
his own bone and muscle, or in other words, buy half of himself. After
considerable higgling, he made the bargain, paying five hundred dollars
for the share. On the next trip to the bar, as the entrance to the sea
is usually called, there came up one of those sudden hurricanes known as
a Southeaster, whose force nothing can withstand. The small craft was
foundered, and Jack, after floating for a long time on a plank, finally
drifted on to a sand-spit, and was saved.

Finding a passage home, he landed on the 'old County Wharf,' a
melancholy, disheartened, and depressed individual, and without
conferring with a single person, made his way to the attorney, from whom
he had so lately purchased himself, and by dint of persuasion succeeded
in having the trade canceled and his money returned. Jack was then
himself again. He recounted over and over his adventures by flood and
field to his wondering friends, and said no man, white or black, could
imagine the trouble he felt when floating on that plank, the waves
breaking over him every moment, when he considered he had just bought
half of 'dat nigger' that was now going to destruction, and paid all the
money he had for him. But he had 'traded back,' and then if he was
drowned, 'he wouldn't lose a cent by it.' It was long after this event
when he told me he would never again risk a cent in 'nigger' property,
it was too 'onsartin' entirely. Jack was a good deal of a wag, and told
this story with a gusto I can not describe.[A] But if Captain Jack is
still on this 'side of Jordan,' he has doubtless ere this found 'nigger'
property still more 'onsartin.'

Let us, however, turn from the past to the present condition of affairs
in Newbern. Secession would never have originated there. When
South-Carolina passed its act of folly and madness, it met with a firm
opposition from the old Whig party, which still had here a vital
existence. Every exertion was made throughout the State to repel the
insidious influences of the demagogues of South-Carolina and Virginia,
and but for the Jesuitical management of the politicians at Richmond,
the 'Old North' would have remained loyal. But all the efforts of the
true Union men could not avail in warding off the storm that swept over
the South; and the Convention at Raleigh passed, or rather was forced to
assent to, the Act of Secession, on the twentieth of May, 1861. In
August the fortifications below Newbern were commenced, and continued
for some months, and well garrisoned, till they were supposed capable
of defending the town against any force that might be brought against
it. General Burnside, however, attacked them on the fourteenth of March,
1862, and after a sharp battle the rebels fled, and he occupied the old
place as a military conquest. All the wealthy and prominent citizens
fled, and have not returned.

The present condition of things will not long continue; a more permanent
government, either civil or military, will soon be established, and with
it must come a new era which will settle for all time the destiny of
Newbern.

Should the leading men of the town and all Eastern North-Carolina make
an effort and throw off the incubus that slavery has for a century
placed over it, a bright career of prosperity would open before them. A
new emigration, bringing energy and industry, would restore their
worn-out lands, drain their swamps, educate their youth, and make
Newbern echo with the hum of manufactures and commerce. The enterprise
of such a people would soon open a channel from the Neuse to Beaufort
harbor, and so avoid the shoals and dangers of Ocracoke and Hatteras,
and with the present railroads, make it the port of exchange for a wide
extent of country. The times are propitious; already the true men of the
State--and their name is legion--are anxiously awaiting the fall of
Richmond, when they will decide for the old flag and the Union, never
again to repudiate it.


       *       *       *       *       *




OUR BRAVE TIMES.


I wonder if we, as a people, have any conception of the grandeur and
glory of the Times in which we are living; if we at all appreciate the
importance of the history which is being lived all around us; if we feel
the colossal magnitude of the every-day events which so crowd upon us
that we have hardly time to grasp them; if we are fully aware of the
infinite possibilities of what has been so well called this 'fearfully
glorious present'? I think not, and I do not know that it is possible
for us to do so. Only when we look back upon it from the hight of the
far-off future, shall we see the country through which we are journeying
in all its grand, sweeping outlines, its majestic proportions, and its
imperial tints of coloring. The days of peace and tranquillity in a
nation as in a life are robed in colors sweet and grateful to the
eye--softened hues of green and gold--but the days of war and
tribulation are days of scarlet and crimson, and all that can be seen in
heaven and earth is black and flame; but the days when Right achieves
great triumphs, even through bloodshed and desolation, are days of
imperial purple, hues royal in their magnificence. Thank Heaven that,
through the days of blood and black, we have at last reached the purple
days of life as a nation. A little more than a year of war, and now the
skies are brightening. Thank God! for they have been black, black, black
with horror and suffering and crime. And yet such a year as this, I am
almost persuaded, is worth a score of years of peace. It certainly has
achieved more for truth and humanity and God than the score of years
which preceded it. As a nation, we had become almost despicable. Such
supple, yielding slaves of 'Democratic' demagogues; such cringing,
fawning, knee-bending, hand-kissing agents of the diabolical, traitorous
Slave-Power; such apologists and supporters of Wrong; such
pusillanimous, weak-hearted advocates of the unpopular Right; such
slaves to Cotton and its threats, that we had almost lost the God-given
independence of American freemen, and seemed--thank God! events have
proved only _seemed_--to be entirely given up to money and mechanics,
to have become, indeed, a nation of peddlers. So much so, indeed, that
our prophets were stoned in their own lands, our apostles stricken down
in the national councils, and the few voices that were raised for God
and humanity, from out the miry slough of a trafficking age, were almost
unheard in the general din which went up from all the nations, and the
burden of whose song seemed to be: 'There is no God but Cotton, and we
are all his prophets.' But the moment the first gun was fired, how all
this changed! How regally the whole nation rose up! How magnificently
she threw off the garment of rags and filth which had hidden her fair
proportions, and donned the imperial toga of humanity, and wrapping the
rich folds of the gorgeous mantle around her, stood out before the world
in all the dignity of freedom and virtue--a form which made the whole
earth glad and the heavens clap their hands in exultation. What giant
leaps the nation made in manhood and heroism, strides following each
other thick and fast, until the most cynical of the doubters of humanity
began to open their eyes, and acknowledge that they would not have
thought her capable of such unexampled deeds. The national heroism which
the Northern people have displayed is indeed unparalleled. They have
risen up as one man to the support of the Government. They have offered
property and life and the most sacred treasures of the heart upon the
shrine of constitutional liberty. At the sound of the drum, they have
left the farm and the barn, the anvil and the mill, the church and the
forum, and formed into the grand army of invincibles which, at the word
of command, have marched forward, conquering and resistless. They have
borne patiently with delay and defeat, with blunders and crimes, with
humiliation and taxation, and have, in short, proved themselves
_Americans_ worthy of the name. Of course, national heroism has inspired
individual heroism, and to-day the country blazes from frontier to
metropolis with gallant records of daring deeds. Their number is
infinite; they can not be individually remembered, but only massed
together, one sublime mosaic by which the gallantry and heroism of the
free, untrammeled North is proved. We doubt not there is a leaf for each
hero in the heroic record of heaven, and the due share of hero-worship
paid to each by those angels who love to pore over the chronicles of
earth. And we mourn less over the coming of this war at the present time
than we should, did we not perceive that sooner or later it was
inevitable. It was written in the fate-book of God. Never before was war
so emphatically a war of principle. It mitigates the suffering much to
know this. It is something to know that all the brave men who have
fallen have fallen for the right; and when we believe so, we do firmly
believe that their death will give liberty and happiness to millions yet
to be. We can not think but that their lives are well spent. There are
some who are written upon God's muster-scroll as martyrs to liberty. Who
would not esteem it a happiness and a glory to belong to this Old Guard,
who from age to age have rallied and rallied and rallied to the support
of liberty, to the rescue of this holy sepulchre from the hands of
desolators and barbarians, who have ever fought where the fight was
thickest, have ever been the advance-guard of the world in its onward
progress, and been enshrined in the great heart of the world, there to
glow like the stars forever and ever? Is it a hardship to die that one
may live forever? Is it a hardship to die that millions who now live in
wailing and woe, in chains and degradation, may live in happiness and
freedom in all time to come? The voice of the great army of American
freemen rolls back the answer, like the majestic anthem of the sea, No!
a deep, continuous no, which echoes from the broad Atlantic to the
sunset-dyed Pacific, from the summits of Nevada to the great lakes of
the North. Yes, I tell you the whole people feel the depth and
sacredness of this war; they feel it to be, as Carlyle said of the
French Revolution, 'truth, though a truth clad in hell-fire.'

Then forward, noble army of the brave and true! Rally and forward, and
forward again, until every Malakoff of Wrong is reduced, and every
suffering Lucknow of our country hears the slogan of deliverance. You
have glorious successes to cheer you now. You can think of Somerset and
Donelson, and all the glorious battles of the war--of forts taken, of
enemies driven, of towns evacuated, of the great cities of the enemy in
our hands, of all the stirring, glorious successes of our army and our
flag--and even had you none of these to think of, you could think of our
cause, and this would be enough. Then let the bugles sound, the trumpets
clang, the drums beat, the cannons roar, and we will march, and rally,
and forward, and charge and charge and charge, until victory or death
crown our labors; and if death to us, so let it be--it will be victory
to our successors. This is the spirit of our Northern army. Sing
plaudits to it, ye sons of song. Let your eloquence be inspired by it,
ye golden-mouthed men--ye Everetts and Sumners. Write of them, ye gifted
who would live in the coming time. Weave garlands for them, ye
white-handed and lily-browed. Write anthems and oratorios for them, ye
men of music. Pray for them, each and all of you, night and day, with
heart and voice. But we can not, if we would, overlook the desolation
which the war has brought and must bring upon our favored land. We can
not conceal from ourselves the fact that, end when it will, or how it
may, it must bring desolation to thousands of happy households, and
inflict never-healing wounds upon thousands of happy hearts. For every
man who falls in battle some one mourns. For every man who dies in
hospital-wards, and of whom no note is made, some one mourns. For the
humblest soldier shot on picket, and of whose humble exit from the stage
of life little is thought, some one mourns. Nor this alone. For every
soldier disabled; for every one who loses an arm or a leg, or who is
wounded or languishes in protracted suffering; for every one who has
'only camp-fever,' some heart bleeds, some tears are shed. In far-off
humble households, perhaps, sleepless nights and anxious days are
passed, of which the world never knows; and every wounded and crippled
soldier who returns to family and friends, brings a lasting pang with
him. Oh! how the mothers feel this war! If ever God is sad in heaven, it
seems to me it must be when he looks upon the hearts of mothers. We who
are young, think little of it, know nothing of it; neither, I think, do
the fathers or the brothers know much of it; but it is the poor mothers
and wives of the soldiers. God help them! But the theme is too sad--let
us leave it. And amid this wild rush of war, let us not forget our
individual duties and responsibilities. Carlyle truly says: 'Each of us
here, let the world go how it will, and be victorious or not victorious,
has he not a little life of his own to lead? One life--a little gleam of
life between two eternities--no second chance to us for evermore.' Let
us not forget the loves, the amenities and charities of social life. Let
us not forget that the education of the world must go on as ever, that
the great virtues of charity and self-denial must more than ever be
exercised, and that the discipline and perfection of our own characters
is as ever our grand life-work. Then let the angry waves of tumult dash
up and froth at our feet, let the skies blacken and the tempest roar,
God is over all. This one thing we are to remember, and be cheerful.
Browning says:

    'God's in his heaven--
    All's right with the world.'




THE CRISIS AND THE PARTIES.


From two points of view, the great and preëminently _American_ nation
vibrates at present in a crisis of immense historical significance. The
first is, that of the war between the United and so-called Confederate
States, which is virtually a strife between Free Labor seeking to
enlarge its sphere and retain its power against agricultural aristocracy
maintained by slave labor. All the energies and theories of industrial
progress, of science, and of constant intellectual development; in a
word, all that is most characteristic of 'the spirit of the Nineteenth
Century,' is enlisted on the one side; all that is fading out and
wearing away, with all that characterizes the unwisest conservatism has
taken its last stand on the other. It is the old story of 'the
generation which comes and of that which goes,' reduced to the intense
form of a fierce fight. All of this--but little understood within a very
few years--has been of late made generally intelligible on this side of
the border, thanks, perhaps, as much to Mr. Hammond's word 'mudsill' as
to any other cause. In the short sentence which declared that there
should always exist, in every community, one ever-sunken and permanently
degraded class, the great point of difference between the South and
North was set forth in a form intelligible to the humblest capacity, and
it _was_ understood--how well has been shown in many a bloody field.

The other crisis in which we are at present involved is domestic and
purely political. It is the growth of opposing political parties, and
its existence is undoubtedly to be regretted, if we take only a
_superficial_ view of the causes of its birth. We could all wish for
some time to come--perhaps forever--to see only a single Union-party,
with all men, looking neither to the right nor the left, pushing
steadily on to the great goal of unity, commercial development, and
social progress. But we forget that so surely as night follows day, even
so surely, in every community, will there be a conservative section and
a progressive; the 'extreme right' of the former consisting of frozen
conservatives, advocating the preservation of every antiquated evil,
because it has acquired in their eyes a halo of 'respectability,' while
on the 'extreme left' of their opponents will be found the radical
innovators, for whom no extravagance of reform is too great; so that as
each molecule or group of atoms has its positive and negative electrical
point, and as each atom in turn obeys the same law, so we see the
positive and negative poles of North and South again reflected in the
rapidly increasing divisions among us of Conservatives, who, by a
singular fatality, still indicate the plebeian origin which they would
now so gladly disown by the term Democrats; and, on the other hand, of
Republicans, nick-named at present Radicals--somewhat unjustly; since
the term is strictly applicable only to a very limited portion of their
number.

There were men of high intelligence among the founders of the _old_
Democratic party; men who understood in many respects the true interests
of humanity and its inevitable tendency, under the influences of free
labor, free schools, and science. But with the masses, it owed its
growth to the old assumed 'natural antagonism' of labor to capital, or
of 'the poor against the rich.' It was essentially the same party as
that which was played upon by low demagogues like Cleon in the old Greek
day; by men who stirred up the poor and ignorant against the privileged
and rich, for their own selfish advantage. Of late years, more
enlightened and intelligent views have prevailed in all parties, and the
Cleons of the present day have been compelled to adventure more and more
among the lowest and most ignorant for dupes. For the workman is
gradually learning with his employer that there is a harmony of
interests and a gradual adjustment of the prices allotted to the
relative values of time, labor, brains, and capital, and that the most
serious obstacle to this adjustment is, the keeping up of a constant
warfare between laborers and employers. It is the skilled _employé_ who
becomes himself the capitalist in due time, under a peaceable and
well-organized system, as labor and brains rise in value, and the
greatest impediment to his rise is a settled state of war between
himself and the employer. Education and political equality, the
competition of capital, and the ever-increasing appreciation of
intelligence, are constantly promoting this harmony and enabling labor
to secure its rights.

It is easy to see how the ancient Democracy, or rather its leaders,
having for many years held political supremacy and shared the spoils,
actually took the place of their opponents, and, in their decline,
naturally enough, formed a coalition with the intensely aristocratic
South. Meanwhile, what became of the once aristocratic Opposition, with
its 'silk-stocking gentry,' as they were termed? Like the Democracy, it
died a natural death, so far as the active enforcement of its principles
was concerned, after those principles had no longer a foundation in the
social developments of the age. Here and there, an old and incurable
devotee to mere forms or party shibboleth, who could not comprehend the
new order of thought, went over to the 'Democratic' conservatives. Of
such were the old gentlemen who, in Philadelphia, voted for the white
waistcoat and immaculate snowy neck-tie of James Buchanan. They fled to
their ancient foes, that they might die happily in the holy odor of
respectability, quite ignorant that a new gospel of what may be termed
Respect Ability was being preached, and building up a higher and grander
order of nobility than they had ever dreamed of.

Meanwhile, the arrogance of the South and its desperate struggle to
secure political preponderance, by extending slavery to the territories,
developed in the North a free-soil and free-labor party, which received,
most appropriately, the name of Republican. The doctrine of free-labor
being intimately allied to every other form of social freedom, and of
active thought and social science, had a natural affinity for
'intellect.' The old Opposition, which had boasted, or been taunted
with, possessing 'all the dignity,' including that of superior culture,
swelled the ranks of this new party with writers and thinkers of
eminence. So it grew in power, taking in, of course, many varied
elements, both good and bad.

As might have been expected, the proper conduct of the war, and the
disposal of the enemy in case of victory, soon led to decided
differences between the Democracy, who could not--owing to ancient
custom--throw aside their love for the name, or their antipathy to the
new doctrines which threatened their power. The mass of them had grown
up in firm alliance with the South, and duped and cat's-pawed as they
had been--irritated as they were at the treachery of their old allies
and despite the noble service which many of them rendered, in fighting
the common foe--many have never been able to hate _ab imo pectore_ the
men of that false and foul feudal party which, when the rupture fairly
came, expressed for their old allies a scorn and contempt deeper even
than they felt for 'the Abolitionists.' In vain the South protested
fiercely that it meant disunion and nothing but disunion, and made its
words good by offering, both in Europe and in its own press, to
sacrifice, if need be, even slavery, rather than be longer bound to the
North; still, the remaining ultra Democracy could not, would not, even
now _will not_ believe that the South would or could be so unfriendly.
It was this hope of compromise and conciliation which lost us forts, and
ships, and millions of dollars in munitions of war; for it was said:
'The South is only boasting, and must not be driven to extremes.' With
eyes wide open to the thefts, the Democratic leaders smiled a languid,
cowardly assent, and let the enemy prepare for war. And war came. It
might have been prevented; it might, beyond all doubt, have been limited
and crushed; but the hand of the braggart South had been so long on the
throat of the doughfaces, that they dared not move, and the doughfaces
were in power. The country at large has had to pay dearly for that old
doughface love for the South; it is paying every day in lives and money.

Even now, it is amazing to see how the leaders among the Democracy,
while pecking the South with the bill, continue to fondle it with the
wing. Again and again, since the war began, they have humiliated the
North and encouraged the desperate foe by efforts at peace-parties,
conciliations, outcries for amnesty, and entreaties not to 'exasperate'
the enemy. They have urged and advocated the maintenance of slavery, the
great cause of Southern arrogance and secession, with as much zeal as
any Southron of them all, and fiercely deprecated any allusion to a
subject which can no more he kept from consciousness than can a deadly
and madly irritating cancer. Every suggestion, even the mildest and most
equitable, for arranging this difficulty, has been stigmatized by them
as out of place and time, while their press has, without exception, as
we believe, given currency to statements denouncing directly as
swindlers and prostitutes the innocent and well-meaning men and women
who went South with the sole object of clothing, nursing, and teaching
the disorganized masses of blacks set free by our army. In all of this,
we have a melancholy illustration of the difficulty with which
unthinking men of the blind mass which rolls itself away into 'parties,'
and follows its leaders, embrace new truths or shake off old habits of
slavery.

While the modern Democratic party firmly believed--as its majority still
seems to--that all this trouble was caused solely by the Abolitionists,
and simply for the sake of liberating some four millions of blacks, they
had at least some color for their iron conservatism. European humanity
did not agree with us; but we of America are more tropical in our
feelings, and so we made up our minds that it _was_ too bad to cut one
another's throats for the sake of benefiting certain 'fat and lazy
niggers,' who were probably rather better off as chattels than as free
men. But it is not from this point of view that the world is now
beginning to view the subject. Common-sense has ascertained clearly
enough that without the agitation of Abolition, the South would have
become intolerable and tyrannical--it was imperious, sectional, and
arrogant in the days of its weakness, while the Abolitionists scarcely
existed, and given to secession for any and every cause. The insolent,
individual independence which prompted the wearing of weapons, wild law
and wild life, free from mutual social obligations, contained within
itself the germs of withdrawal from a civilized and superior people and
a stable government. For such men, one pretense served as well as
another. They of South-Carolina employed Nullification long before they
dreamed of Anti-Abolition.

Still more absurd is the 'Democratic' opposition, since Abolition for
the sake of the Negro has been changed into the cry of _Emancipation for
the sake of the White Man_. Before this cry, before the inevitable and
mighty demand of the free white labor of the future on the territories
of the South, all protestations against 'meddling' with emancipation
shrivel up into trifles and become contemptible. The prayer of the ant
petitioning against the removal of a mountain, where a nation was to
found its capital, was not more verily frivolous and inconsiderable than
are these timid ones of 'let it alone!' And _why_ let it alone? The
Emancipation-for-the-sake-of-the-white-man party, as represented by
President Lincoln's Message, commending remuneration, asks for no undue
haste, no violent or sudden aggressive measures. It is satisfied to let
the South free itself when it shall be disposed so to do; simply
offering it a kindly aid when this measure shall become popular and
expedient. More than this we have never asked for in these columns; yet
it would be hard to imagine a term of 'newspaper abuse,' which has not
been given us by the 'Democratic' press. Yes, at a time when ninety-nine
men in a hundred in the free States avow that they would like to see
slavery 'out of the way,' if only to avoid the endless war which its
continuance _must_ entail, all mention of it is tabooed by the men who
claim to head the party of the virtual majority! No matter how far off
the friends of Emancipation and of the Administration are willing to
postpone the practical execution of the measure, 'it must not be
mentioned.' For the greater part, these Northern friends of the South at
present still earnestly desire the perpetual establishment of slavery
'on a constitutional basis.'

The contemptible efforts at Washington to build up a separate and
distinct Democratic party, when no party save that of the Union existed,
will condemn to everlasting opprobrium the Vallandighams, Carlisles,
Garret Davises, and other false friends of freedom, who at such a time
crowded together like hungry political cormorants, to hatch out the egg
of faction, and secure a prospective share of the spoils. Have these
'Conservatives' reflected on the disgraceful show which their names will
make _in history_, in after-years, when freedom shall have been
proclaimed throughout the land, and when those who opposed its progress
will appear like nothing else than traitors! Heaven help the men who, at
a time when others were gathering in full measure of glory in a holy
cause, were piling up naught but shame for their posterity. For it is
not more certain that God is just, than that the full measure of
iniquity will be heaped upon their names in the after-chronicles of
freedom.

Even to the present moment, the 'Conservative' alias the
'Democratic'--or the Black, alias the White--party struggles with might
and main to defend and protect its old Southern whippers-in, even at the
risk of dividing and distracting the Union. To effect this, it
has--almost successfully--insolently thrust the Commander-in-chief
forward as _its_ centre, and broadly slandered the Secretary of War and
President in no measured terms, as having toiled to defeat McClellan and
prolong the war. Through all the glossy web of lies, the light of truth
shines or will shine to their disgrace.

Chiefly and most unwisely is the conservative hand shown at present in
opposition to every proposition for confiscation or punishing the
rebels. After having hurried us by their cowardice and Southern
toad-eating into this war; after urging it by their contemptible
procrastination to its present tremendous proportions, they cry out
'humanity!' for the men who have murdered our relatives, and shake the
Constitution for protection over estates which have been directly used
to contribute to Southern war! While every mail from the South gives
fresh instances of desperation, and while we search in vain for a trace
of proof that there is the slightest hope of reconciliation, we are
still entreated to restore every thing in _statu quo ante bellum_, and
bear all the results of the war ourselves, as if forsooth we had been
after all in the wrong. And so the Vallandighams and Davises declare
that we were. 'Abolitionism caused it all,' they say, 'nothing but
Abolition.'

Meanwhile, the question urges itself on us every day with more pressing
power, how we are really to settle the whole difficulty? We see but one
course--the 'Northing' of the South. We are content to waive for the
present all theory or project of confiscation, save so far as promoting
the settlement of those soldiers and emigrants who may wish to settle in
the South is concerned. _This_ question demands consideration, and must
have it. Whether the lands to be appropriated for this purpose come
from rebel estates which have ministered to the war, or whether they are
to be taken from State property, they must be had; for the settlement of
the South and the proper rewarding of the army are matters of paramount
importance. The South can no longer exist in its present social
condition. People who believe, to use the language of their most
respectable journal, the Richmond _Whig_, that:

     'Yankees are the most contemptible and detestable of God's
     creation; vile wretches, whose daily sustenance consists in the
     refuse of all other people; for they eat nothing that any body else
     will buy;... who have long very properly looked upon themselves as
     our social inferiors, as our serfs:'

People, we say, who believe this of us, must be taught to think
differently and truthfully. If they lived in China, it would be
otherwise; but linked to us as they are, we can no longer tolerate such
outrageous superciliousness as they manifest. Those among them who will
learn, may be taught; those who will not, must be supplanted by people
who are not too proud to work, who do not 'abominate the system of free
schools, because the schools are free,'[B] and revile free labor,
because it consists of 'greasy mechanics, filthy operatives, and
small-fisted farmers.' The task is great; but it must be accomplished.
The war is drawing to an end; but a greater and nobler task lies before
the soldiers and the free men of America--the extending of
_civilization_ into the South. Let us lift our minds above the narrow
limits of 'party,' and realize the mighty work which we have in hand.
Let the introduction of free labor to the South be in future the subject
to which every thinking American mind shall be devoted. Let them stream
in by millions!--the free laborers of all the world!--there is room for
them all; and the right of man to work never yet had such fair and just
opportunity to have justice done it. Agricultural aristocracy, supported
by involuntary servitude and unsupported by manufactures, has been
tried, and found worse than wanting. Let its place be filled as promptly
as possible by that truly higher aristocracy of industry and of culture
which is at present common to Europe and our own portion of America. The
turn of the North to rule has at length come. Let its reign be
inaugurated by great, noble, and philanthropic efforts to extend the
blessings of true civilization to all the continent.





                I WAIT.


    I wait--watching and weary, I wait;
      You wander from the way!
    My heart lies open, however late,
      However you delay!

    I wait--watching and weary, I wait;
      But day must dawn at last!
    Together, beyond the reach of fate,
      Love shall redeem my past.

    I wait, ah! forever I can wait;
      Forever? I am brave:
    Time can not fathom a love so great--
      It waits beyond the grave!




TAKING THE CENSUS.


Moses Grant sat in his vine-grown arbor one fine afternoon in August. A
fine afternoon, I call it--a little sultry, to be sure, which made Moses
Grant's eyes heavy; but the hum of the bees that played around the white
clover-blossoms, and the sound of the leaves as they rustled in the warm
wind, and the richly colored clouds that floated around in the deep,
deep blue of the summer sky, and a thousand other things which I will
not pause to note, but which every observing reader has noted on many an
August day, made the afternoon I speak of as glorious as any afternoon
could be in all our glorious summer.

Moses Grant's eyes were heavy--or eye-lids, if the reader should be a
critic. He had brought a book from his daughter's book-case. He
remembered the volume--it was called _A Book of a Thousand Stories_--as
the one his daughter Mary read aloud one evening, when the witty turns
of speech put all the company into the best of humor. But, somehow, the
wit had now lost its point--the joke had lost its zest--and let him try
as he would to collect his scattered thoughts, and let him set his eyes
on his book never so firmly, his fancy would go on long journeys into
the past, and come back again, wearied more and more with each journey,
till at last it had sunk to rest, and Moses Grant's eyes were closed.
The bees buzzed on, the leaves quivered as before, and the great world
moved in its wonted way, yet our hero did not heed it; the world moved
on just the same, O reader! as it will one day move--one long, long
day--when you and I will not heed it.

Suddenly Moses Grant heard his name spoken. When aroused, he saw his
neighbor, Johnson, seated in the rustic chair that mated the one in
which he himself sat.

'Good-day, neighbor Johnson,' said Moses Grant. 'What in the world are
you doing with that great book?'

'I am taking the census.' And he began turning the leaves as if
searching for a lost place, remarking, laconically: 'Sultry.'

'Yes, a very close afternoon. But is it ten years since the census was
taken? It seems but as many months. Oh! well, time flies!'

And he looked at the beautiful sky and at the beautiful landscape, and
lingeringly at his own stately mansion, guarded by venerable trees that
his own hand had transplanted from the forest--and the great truth,
half-realized, yet almost as common as our daily life, that time was
sweeping all things into the dead past, day by day and year by year,
gave him a passing thought of how much he loved them.

The name of Moses Grant was duly inscribed in the book. Then the
question was asked by neighbor Johnson:

'When were you born?'

'In the year 1800--sixty years ago the day before yesterday--though I
declare I forgot all about my birthday.'

'Well, how much real estate shall I set down to you?'

'I _have_ said that I owned about fifty thousand dollars in that kind of
property, perhaps a little more, but not half as much as some persons
estimate.'

'Well, how much personal property?'

'I guess about twenty thousand will not go far out of the way, reckoning
mortgages and all.'

After a few minutes, which neighbor Johnson occupied by telling how Sime
Jones tried to get the appointment of census-taker by wriggling about in
an undignified way, and in talking about the prospects of his political
party, the visitor left the old man, (such we have a right to call him
since he has confessed his age,) and the old man (he would not thank us
for using the term so often, for he tries to think he is still
young--the old man, I must again repeat) fell a thinking. His eyes were
no longer closed, although his book _was_; he leaned forward in his
rustic chair, and commenced to talk aloud--which is said to be a growing
habit with most old men:

'Sixty years of human life!' The words were uttered slowly, as though
their full meaning were felt in the speaker's heart. After a little
while they were repeated: 'Sixty years of human life!' There was a
mournfulness in his voice now; it had sunk to the low, tender tones
that, years before, when his faithful wife vanished from earth, revealed
to all his friends that there was sadness in his heart, while there
seemed cheerfulness in his words. 'Welladay!' he continued; 'I have, at
any rate, been a _successful_ man. My business has prospered beyond my
expectations, and I am what people call a rich man. There was a time
when I feared I should come to want; but now, if I could but think so, I
have enough. And mine has been an industrious life. When I was elected
to the State Senate wasn't my name held up in the newspapers as an
example for young men? Wasn't my reputation admitted to be spotless?
Yes, I _have_ been a successful man--more successful than nearly all who
started with me.'

And he began to look more cheerful and contented. He again looked at his
mansion and broad fields, and again he opened his book. The jokes were
better now than a little while before.

But the bees buzzed on; the trees sang their old soothing song; the air
remained warm; and soon Moses Grant began to nod assent to his book,
though the matters it contained were not of opinion, but of fancy. By
which I mean that he grew sleepy.

       *       *       *       *       *

Sudden darkness fell upon the earth. The sun, after sending its rays to
glitter in the river so brightly that Moses Grant put his hand over his
eyes as he looked from his arbor-door, went out, and the blackness of
night wrapped itself about the world. The elms, that had rattled their
deep green leaves in the wind, and the birch, that had so gracefully
bowed its slender, yellowish head, were all colorless now. There was no
storm-cloud to veil the heavens, and yet the sad-faced moon came not out
to remind the world of their lost loves and deferred hopes--nor the
stars, to twinkle in their silence, as though there were a great Soul in
the skies that longed to speak to men, but had no utterance save a
thousand love-lit eyes. All was darkness--dense, universal.

Yet Moses Grant had sat unmoved in his vine-grown arbor. His soul was
passionless, his face was calm. His book had fallen to the ground, and
his head rested on the back of his chair.

Suddenly there came a visitor to the arbor. Moses raised his head and
saw a being--whether man or woman I can not tell--with a face, oh! so
bright and calm, with eyes that looked from the deepest soul, and a pure
forehead that spoke of unworldly rest--a face that shone in its own
vista of light when all around was dark. The Presence bore an open book
in its hands, and came and stood before Moses Grant and looked earnestly
into his face.

'Who are you?' he cried, half in fear, before the calm look of his
visitor, and half in confidence, because of the look of love.

'I am the census-taker.'

'No, no; it was he who came a little while ago.'

'He was one census-taker--he came to learn how much you _seemed_ to
possess; I come to learn your _real_ possessions. I am the real
census-taker.'

Moses Grant knew not what it meant; he sat speechless, in wonder. He
would have fled, but he knew not where he could flee in the darkness; he
must remain with his strange visitor, as all men must one day stand
alone with an awakened Conscience.

'When were you born?' asked the Presence.

'Sixty years ago,' answered Moses.

'You understand me not. I do not ask for the time when you were born
into your outward show of life, but when you commenced to live.'

'Still I do not know your meaning,' said Moses.

'Then you have not yet been born. You exist--you do not live. Say not
again that you have lived sixty years, for your being has not yet
expanded into life.'

Oh! what great thoughts and dark memories came into the mind of Moses
Grant! Great thoughts of a nobler life of love than he had ever
known--of realities to which he was fast approaching--and a thousand
dark memories that he had often tried to obliterate from his mind. A
little while before, he thought he possessed a spotless reputation--and
so he did possess a spotless reputation when judged by human law. No man
ever knew him to steal; no man ever knew him to transgress any important
law. Nevertheless, he had had his own ends to gain, and he had gained
them. Yes--we might as well confess it--Moses Grant had lived a selfish
life. He knew how to take advantage of the technicalities of law, and he
knew how to be severe and unmerciful toward the poor. He remembered how,
years before, his son had longed for an education, and how the mother
had pleaded that he might go to school and to college, and how sternly
he said, 'No, I want him in my business;' and he remembered how he kept
him slaving at his uncongenial tasks, how he scolded because he still
pored over his books, until at last the mother had laid the poor boy in
the grave before he had attained to manhood. He remembered how the
mother grew paler day by day--she who had been such a help-meet in all
his selfish schemes of hoarding and saving; how she had talked more and
more about her 'dear lost boy,' till he, Moses Grant, commanded her
never to utter that name again in his presence; how the mother still
faded and faded, till at last she too, was laid in a quiet grave beside
her boy. All this came into the mind of Moses Grant. And then he
remembered how he had taken a poor widow's cottage, because his
mortgage-deed gave him the privilege--he never thought the _right_--to
take it; he remembered her sad face, that told of silent suffering, when
she moved with her children from the cottage her husband had built.
'How,' he asked, in the silence of his own mind, 'oh! how could they say
my reputation was unspotted?' Yet he had transgressed no outward law,
had forged no mortgage-deed. He only acted like a man who thought that
this world could only be enjoyed when he possessed a title-deed to it
all; like one who thought that above and beyond this world there was
nothing.

All this time has the Presence stood before Moses Grant, looking into
his troubled face with its piercing eyes, and reading his every thought.

'Answer me now,' it said, 'have you yet begun to live?'

Then there was another and greater struggle in the mind of Moses. Pride
said to him: 'Send this intrusive visitor away, or flee yourself.' But
still the visitor stood there, waiting so calmly, and again Moses
realized that the great world had faded from his vision; so he could
neither send away the intruder, nor fly himself. Still those calm eyes
looked into his inmost soul.

'Oh!' he cried at last, 'you have searched me through and through. No, I
have not lived--I have not been born, I have no life for you to record
in your book. Now, pray leave me--leave me in peace!'

'That were impossible,' said the Presence, 'you know not peace. You
pride yourself on your possessions; but how can you have life or
possessions, if they are not recorded in my book? The earth, that you
love so well, has faded away. It will return to you for a brief moment,
and then it will fade forever. What you now possess is but a shadow,
like a sun-gilt cloud in a summer sky--changing and changing, and fading
and fading, till at last it disappears. You have, if God wills, a few
more years of mortal existence, and then, oh! then, you must exchange
shadows for realities.'

'Leave me, oh! leave me!' cried Moses.

'Not yet; my mission is not fulfilled. Here in this book your name was
written sixty years age, as one _to be_ born. Here your ledger has been
kept, though you knew it not. Read the pages with your soul, and see how
your account stands.'

Oh! how dark the page. A line was drawn through the middle, from top to
bottom, and the good deeds were recorded on one side, in letters of
gold, and the bad deeds on the other side in letters of ink. As the
pages were turned, Moses looked eagerly for the bright letters, but they
were few--too few; while every page was almost filled with the black
records of selfish and sinful deeds. Every page made Moses Grant sicker
at heart, and he would gladly have withdrawn his eyes from the book, but
they were riveted, and he could not.

'O poor man!' exclaimed the Presence, in pity; 'how poor do you find
yourself, you who were a little while ago so rich! But you must read no
more, lest you sink in despair.'

And the book was closed. Moses Grant said not a word; his heart was too
full to speak--too full of grief--too empty of hope.

'Despair not,' continued the strange Presence. 'Your record is not yet
completed. You may yet cancel all those black letters by writing golden
ones over them--which is to pray with your remaining strength and days
for forgiveness. You have been a hard, selfish man, for sixty years.
Men, for their own interests, have called you respectable; but before
God you have merited displeasure and disapprobation. In the little time
you have left, perhaps you may not be able to leave the world as pure as
you began it; but you may hope for wonderful mercy and forbearance from
God our Father. Have courage, and faith, and hope, and you will yet be
rich indeed--rich in love and joy and peace undefiled, that fadeth not
away.'

Then the Presence vanished. Still Moses sat in his chair. But a hand was
laid on his forehead, and he awoke as he heard Mary say: 'Father, supper
is ready.' He drew his hand across his eyes, and arose from his chair.
He looked from his arbor-door. The world was all bathed in the light of
the declining sun. As he came out and looked on the landscape, he
thought that never before had he seen it so dreamy--never before had he
seen it so beautiful and so glorious, for never before had he so felt
the use of this world as a place in which to attain to the good and to
shun the evil, to overcome temptation and to aspire to life.

His daughter wondered what caused his tone to be so tender that night;
the next day his neighbors wondered that he visited a certain poor,
struggling widow, and gave her the house her husband once owned; and in
the months that have since passed, many a poor family has wondered what
has turned their former oppressor into such a provident friend.

_I_ only wonder that so old and selfish a man could have had so bright
and heavenly a dream.

       *       *       *       *       *

            A SENSIBLE EPITAPH.


    'Reader, pass on: ne'er waste your time
    On bad biography or bitter rhyme:
    For what I _am_, this cumbrous clay insures,
    And what I _was_, is no affair of yours.'




THE PELOPONNESUS IN MARCH.

    'Fair clime I where every season smiles.

           *       *       *       *       *

    There, mildly dimpling, Ocean's check
    Reflects the tints of many a peak
    Caught by the laughing tides that lave
    These Edens of the Eastern wave.
    And if, at times, a transient breeze
    Break the blue crystal of the seas,
    Or sweep one blossom from the trees,
    How welcome is each gentle air
    That wakes and wafts the odors there!'


It was with thoughts like these running in our heads, that we found
ourselves, at about half-past four o'clock, on a dark, cloudy, windy
morning, March fifteenth, 18--, rolling slowly along the uneven road
that leads from Athens to the Piraeus. Our guide was Dhemetri, of
course--who ever heard of a guide that was not named Dhemetri? An
excellent guide he was, too, never missing his way, answering correctly
all our questions to which he knew the answers, and fabricating answers
to the rest as near the truth as his moderate knowledge of antiquity
would permit; providing us sedulously with creature comforts, and
besieging our hearts daily with delicious omelettes and endless strings
of figs. Arrived at the Piraeus, we were transferred, with beds, cooking
apparatus, and baggage, to the Lloyd steamer, whose cloud of steam and
smoke was seen dimly in the gray morning. At a reasonable time after the
hour advertised, we sailed into the open bay, passed near enough the
island of Ægina to see the ruined temple on one of its hights--almost to
count its columns--then coasted along the rugged shores of Argolis,
which we eagerly studied with the aid of a map. Here was the peninsula
Methana, and half hiding it, the island Calauria, where Demosthenes put
an end to his life, once the seat of a famous Amphictyony. Then the bold
promontory which shuts in the fertile valley of Troezer, then the
territory of Hermione, stretching between the mountains and the sea. We
touched at Hydhra, famed in the history of the Greek Revolution, a
strange, rambling town, picturesquely situated on a cleft in a bare
island of gray rock, and shortly after at Spetzia, a town of much the
same character; then toward night sailed into the beautiful bay of
Napoli, or Nauplia, once the capital of Greece.

It had been our intention to procure horses that night, and ride as far
as Mycenæ, but we were too late, so contented ourselves with a walk to
Tiryus, and a rapid examination of its ruins. The massive walls of this
venerable town--they were a wonder in the age of Pericles as in
ours--still stand in their whole circuit, and here and there apparently
in their whole hight. It is a small, steep, mound-like hill--you can
walk around it in fifteen minutes--and within the walls the terraced
slope, thickly sprinkled with fragments of ruins, is grown over with the
tall purple flowers of the asphodel--a fit monument to the perished
city. From the citadel of Tiryus the view over the wide plain of the
Inachus, the broad bay beyond, covered with sails, the bold headland of
Napoli crowned with the ruined castle, the noble citadel of Argos, and
the mountain ranges on every side, made a picture beautiful even under
the dull sky of that March evening. Our walk--quickened by the fear that
the city gates would be found closed--gave us a hearty appetite, and a
classic smack was imparted to our modest viands by the fact that Orestes
himself waited on our table. We slept well, notwithstanding the
uncomfortable reputation of the inn, and set off early the next morning
upon our wanderings.

Traveling in Greece is no child's play. Roads there are none, except
between some large towns; indeed, the nature of the country hardly
allows of them, as it is made up chiefly of mountain ridges and ravines.
Neither would the poverty-stricken inhabitants be able at present to
make much use of them. When I expressed to Dhemetri the great benefits I
conceived that roads would confer upon the community, he asked
contemptuously: 'What good would roads be to them, when they have no
carriages?' Inns, too, there are none, or almost none; after leaving
Napoli we found none until we returned to Athens. In their stead, each
village has its _khan_, a house rather larger than ordinary, and
containing one large unfurnished room for guests. Here a fire is made on
the hearth, (the smoke escaping, or intended to escape, through a hole
in the roof, for chimneys do not exist,) and the traveler pitches his
tent metaphorically in this apartment. The beds, which he carries with
him, are spread on the floor, to do double duty as seats during the
evening and beds by night. Thus the accommodations are reduced to their
lowest terms--shelter and fire; to which add a lamb from the flock, eggs
in abundance, or sometimes a chicken, loaf of bread, or string of figs.
Wine, too, flavored with resin in true classic style, and tasting like
weak spirits of turpentine, is to be had every where. But for any
entertainment beyond this, the host is no-way responsible. If you do not
choose to sleep on the bare floor, you must bring beds and bedding with
you. If you wish the luxury of a knife and fork, you must furnish them
yourself. Kettles, plates, saucepans, cups, coffee, sugar, salt,
candles, all came from that mysterious basket which rode on the
pack-horse with the baggage. Were I visiting Greece again, I would
eschew all these vanities--carry nothing but a _Reisesack_, or
travel-bag, as the Germans are wont to call every variety of knapsack--a
shawl, and a copy of _Pausanias_, and live among the Greeks as the
Greeks do; but I was inexperienced then.

So we set out with great pomp and circumstance, each on his
beast--_alogon_, the Unreasonable Thing, is the word for horse--while a
fifth, with two drivers, carried our goods. A ride of about three
hours--passing the silent and deserted Tiryus--brought us to the village
of Charváti, the modern representative of the 'rich Mycenae.' Here,
while Dehmetri prepared our breakfast, we followed a villager, who led
us by rapid strides up the rocky hill toward the angle formed by two
mountains. As we rose over one elevation after another, he plucked his
hands full of dry grass and brush, and then leading us into a hole in
the side of the hill, informed us in good classic Greek that it was the
tomb of Agamemnon. It is a large, round apartment, rising to the hight
of forty-nine feet, and of about the same width, the layers of masonry
gradually approaching one another until a single stone caps the whole;
not conical in shape, however, but like a beehive. A single monstrous
stone, twenty-seven feet long and twenty wide, is placed over the
doorway. The whole is buried with earth, and covered with a growth of
grass and shrubs, and a passage leads from it into a smaller chamber
hewn in the solid rock, in which our guide lighted the fuel he had
gathered. The gloomy walls were lighted up for a moment, then when the
fire died away, we returned to the open air. A little further on is the
famous gateway with two lionesses carved in relief above--the armorial
bearings, we may call it, of the city--and in every direction are seen
massive walls, foundation-stones, ruins of gates and of subterraneous
chambers like the first we visited, conical hillocks, probably
containing others in equally good preservation, and other marks of the
busy hand of man--'_Spuren ordnender Menschenhand unter dem Gesträuch_.'
Sidney Smith says: 'It is impossible to feel affection beyond
seventy-eight degrees or below twenty degrees of Fahrenheit.... Man only
lives to shiver or to perspire.' I think it is so with the sublime and
beautiful, and deeply as I felt in the abstract the privilege I enjoyed
in standing on the citadel of Agamemnon, and seeing the most venerable
ruins that Europe can boast, that keen March wind was too much for me,
and I was not sorry to return to the khan, where, sitting cross-legged
on the floor, we ate with our fingers a roast chicken dissected with the
one knife of the family, and drank a bumper of resinous wine.

After dinner we remounted and rode back through the broad plain to
Argos, traversed its narrow, dirty streets, stared at by the Argive
youth, examined its grass-grown theatre, cast wistful eyes at the lofty
citadel of Larissa, which time forbade us to ascend, then wound along
the foot of the mountain-range, saw at a distance on the seashore a spot
of green, which we were told was Lerna, where Hercules slew the hydra,
and near the road an old ruined pyramid, which we afterward examined
more closely, then followed a mountain-path, catching now and then a
glimpse of the bay, following the crest of the ridge into the valley
beyond. On one of the undulations of the path we passed over the site of
an ancient city, evidenced only by that most sure sign, a soil thickly
covered with potsherds. No classic writer mentions it, no inscription
gives it a name; perhaps the careless traveler would pass without a
suspicion that he was treading on the street, or forum, or temple of a
once thriving town. Striking soon into the carriage-road from Napoli to
Tripolitza, and descending into a charming little valley with the
euphonious name of Achladhókamvo, we were not sorry to find a khan, and
take up our quarters for the night. We found the family sitting on the
floor around a fire blazing on a hearth in the middle of a room, and
here we placed ourselves, watching the women spinning and Dhemetri
making his preparations for supper. Out of the afore-mentioned basket
quickly came all the afore-mentioned articles. A lamb was killed, and
shortly an excellent supper was served up to us. Soon the guest-chamber
was announced to be ready for us, a large open room having a fire at one
end, and containing our beds, spread on the floor, a cricket three
inches high, that served as a table, two windows closed by shutters
instead of glass, and a large quantity of smoke.

The next morning a steep and picturesque path over Mount Parthenion--the
same path, I suppose, on which Phidippides had his well-known interview
with the god Pan--brought us to Arcadia. And at the name of Arcadia let
not the fond mind revert to scenes of pastoral innocence and enjoyment,
such as poets and artists love to paint--a lawn of ever-fresh verdure
shaded by the sturdy oak and wide-spreading beech, watered by
never-failing springs, swains and maidens innocent as the sheep they
tend, dancing on the green sward to the music of the pipe, and snowy
mountains in the distance lending repose and majesty to the scene.
Nothing of this picture is realized by the Arcadia of to-day, but the
snowy mountains, and they, indeed, are all around and near. No, let your
dream of Arcadia he something like this: A bare, open plain, three
thousand feet above the level of the sea, fenced in on every side by
snow-topped mountains, and swept incessantly by cold winds, the sky
heavy with clouds, the ground sown with numberless stones, with here and
there a bunch of hungry-looking grass pushing itself feebly up among
them. Not a tree do you behold, hardly a shrub. You come to a river--it
is a broad, waterless bed of cobble-stones and gravel, only differing
from the dry land in being less mixed with dirt, and wholly, instead of
partly, destitute of vegetation. But your eye falls at last on a sheet
of water--there is surely a placid lake giving beauty and fertility to
its neighborhood. No, it is a _katavothron_, or chasm, in which the
accumulated waters of the plain disappear. For as these Arcadian valleys
are so shut in by mountains as to leave no natural egress to the water,
it gathers in the lowest spot it can reach, and there stagnates, unless
it can wear a passage for itself, or find a subterraneous channel
through the limestone mountain, and come to light again in a lower
valley. Such a reäppearance we saw near Argos, a broad, swift
stream--the Erasmus--rushing from under a mountain with such force as to
turn mills; it is believed to come from a _kalavothron_ in the northern
part of Arcadia. And not far from thence a fountain of fresh water
bubbles up in the sea a few yards from the shore; this is traced to a
similar source. In some parts of Greece the remains may still be seen of
the subterranean channels by which in ancient times the _katavothra_
were kept clear, and thus prevented from overflowing. In this way much
land was artificially redeemed to agriculture.

If, now, you seek for the dwellers in this paradise, behold them in yon
shepherd and his faithful dog--_Arcades ambo_--the shepherd muffled
against the searching wind in hood and cloak, under his arm a veritable
crook, while his sheep and goats are browsing about wherever a blade of
grass or a green leaf can be found. His invariable companion is--I was
about to say a tamed wolf; but in reality, an untamed animal of wolfish
aspect and disposition, always eager to make your acquaintance. These
creatures are the torment of the traveler throughout Greece, and most of
all in Arcadia. If on foot, he can pick up a stone, at sight of which
the enemy will beat a hasty retreat. Greece seems to have been
bountifully supplied with loose stones of the right size for this very
purpose, just as the rattlesnake-plant is said to grow wherever the
rattlesnake itself is found. If on horseback, he can easily escape,
although the animal will not scruple to hang to the horse's tail or bite
his heels. Such was Arcadia in March. No doubt, at another season it is
a delightful retreat from the overpowering heat of the Greek summer. It
may have a beauty of its own at that season; but there can be little of
that quiet rural landscape which we call Arcadian.

After crossing this plain, visiting by the way the ruins of Tegea, which
consisted of a potato-field, sprinkled with bits of brick and marble,
and a medieval church, with some ancient marble built into its walls, we
came to a broad river, the Alpheus, whose water, when it has any,
empties in a _katavothron_ which we left on our right; followed it up in
a southerly direction until we came to a little water in its bed, then
crossing over some rolling land which divides the water-courses of
Arcadia from those of Laconia, we found ourselves in a country of a very
different character. The land was better, and was covered with a low
growth of wood; we could even see extensive forests on the sides of
Parnon. The scenery became highly picturesque, and the weather, although
still rigorous, was more comfortable than in the morning. Night came on
us long before we reached our journey's end, the wayside khan of
Krevatá. There was a little parleying at the door, and Dhemetri seemed
dissatisfied with what he saw, and disposed to carry us on to another
resting-place. But thoroughly benumbed as we were, the blaze of light
that fell upon us from the half-open door quite won our hearts, and we
felt willing to risk whatever discomforts the place might have rather
than go further. As we entered the door, the scene was striking. A large
fire was roaring in the middle of the room, filling it with smoke. On
cushions and scraps of carpet, disposed about the fire, were crouched
six or eight men and women, dressed in their national costume, very
dirty and equally picturesque. Two or three children were among them, or
lay stretched at random on the floor asleep. A large, swarthy man
opposite us held a child of two or three years, now nestling in its
father's arms, now climbing over to its mother, now gazing bashfully and
curiously at the strangers. Basil, ever ready on occasion, seized his
pencil and soon transferred the group to paper, to the admiration of
them all. They moved to right and left as we came in, and made room for
us on the side next the door, where our faces were scorched, Our backs
shivering, and our eyes smarting with the smoke. An old woman who sat
next me eyed us inquisitively, and would gladly have entered into
conversation; but almost our sole Greek phrase, 'It is cold,' (_eeny
krió_), we had exhausted immediately on entering the room. Basil
essayed Italian, having a vague idea that it would pass any where in
Greece, as French does in Italy, but with no success. Neither was our
conversation among ourselves brilliant. We were tired, cold, sleepy, and
hungry, and we thought despairingly on the long miles back that we had
last seen our baggage. At length a shout at the door gladdened our
hearts; our beds and that ever-welcome basket were handed in, and
Dhemetri was soon deeply engaged in preparing supper. Meanwhile, a fire
had been built in the upper room, and we went up by a ladder. But here
we were worse off than below. Roof, floor, walls, and (wooden) windows,
all were amply provided with cracks and knot-holes, through which the
wind roved at its will. A wretched fire was smoldering on the hearth,
and a candle was burning in a tin cup hanging by its handle on a nail in
the wall, which, set it where we would, flickered in the wind. And when
our supper came, fricassee, boiled chicken, roast hare, omelette, bread,
cheese, figs, and wine--for such a bill of fare had Dhemetri made ready
for us--we swallowed it hastily, huddled our beds about the fire,
wrapped ourselves in our blankets, and lay down at once. The inquisitive
old lady below, on seeing the extensive preparations for the supper of
three fellow-mortals, was struck with reverence for us, and expressed
her belief that those, who lived on such marvelous and unheard-of
delicacies would never die. We, indeed, had requested Dhemetri to cater
more simply for us; but his professional pride would not suffer it.

We were right glad when morning came, and after a mug of thick coffee, a
bit of bread, and a handful of figs, we bid farewell to Krevatá with no
regrets. A short ride brought us to the brow of the range on which we
were traveling, and there lay the valley of Sparta at our feet, and
beyond it the Taygetus, if not the highest, the boldest and sharpest
mountain-range in Greece. Its white and jagged crest was still tipped
with clouds, and it appeared to rise from the valley of Sparta in an
almost unbroken ascent to its hight of seven thousand feet. This was the
finest single prospect of our journey; but we gladly left it, after a
short pause, to push on to the warmth and sunshine of the valley below.
The precipitous descent was soon accomplished; we forded the Eurotas, a
broad, clear, shallow stream, the only real river we saw in Greece, and
stood in Sparta, its site marked by a group of low hills and a few
unimportant ruins. The ground is good, and was then green with young
wheat; the valley was sheltered from the winds which had persecuted us
on the highlands, and for a few hours in the middle of the day, the
clouds were scattered, and we basked in the sun's rays. It seemed an
Elysium. A small and thrifty village has recently sprung up south of
this group of hills, still within the limits of the ancient city, and
here we dined in a café (_kapheterion_) kept by one Lycurgus, not on
black broth, but on roast lamb, omelette, figs, oranges, and wine.
Truly, if national character depended wholly on physical geography, we
should be inclined to look in the valley of the Eurotas for the rich and
luxurious Athens, and seek its stern and simple rival among the bleak
hills and sterile plains of Attica. We had a short ride that afternoon
up the valley of the Eurotas, with a keen north wind in our faces, and
were not sorry to reach Kalyvia at an early hour.

Dhemetri had sent the pack-horse with our baggage across by a shorter
path, and now announced that we were to sleep to-night in a house
instead of a khan, that the mayor (_demarchos_) of Kalyvia had consented
to receive us. Great was our exultation at the prospect of spending a
night in this aristocratic mansion, and in truth we found the
accommodations here much the most comfortable--nay, we reckoned them
luxurious--which we had on our journey. We were first shown into a small
room with one glass window, with tight walls, and a chimney. A fire was
burning cheerfully on the hearth--that is to say, a stone platform
slightly elevated above the floor. The floor around the fire was spread
with mats, and in one corner the lady of the house was--what shall I
say?--squatted upon the floor, engaged in domestic work. Her daughter, a
pretty, blue-eyed maiden, of some fourteen years, named Athena,
glaykhôpis Hathhêna, was working by her side, and the demarch himself,
with his stalwart son, were similarly seated on the opposite side of the
hearth. Three rough, unpainted stools, an extra luxury for guests, were
brought in for us, and we at once plunged into conversation.

'_Eeny kriho_!' said we.

'_Mhalista, mhalista, eeny krio_!' was the prompt reply.

Stimulated by our success, we made another attempt, and were overwhelmed
by a flood of Romaic, to which we could only nod our heads gratefully,
with 'Málista, málista, charí, charí,' (certainly, certainly, thank you,
thank you.) When we retired to our room, we found our beds laid on a
sort of shelf along the wall, instead of on the floor, and our supper
was served on a table instead of in our laps, as we were used. The
family shook hands with us cordially when we took leave, in the morning,
placing their hands on their hearts.

This day we rode through a rolling country, quite well watered and
wooded, separating the waters of the Eurotas from those of the Alpheus,
Laconia from Arcadia. As we reached the highest point, and were about to
descend, Dhemetri pointed out a village, distinguished by a single tall,
slender cypress, with the words; 'There is Megalopolis.' This is the
city founded by Epaminondas, almost the only statesman of antiquity who
seems to have had a dim conception of the modern policy of the balance
of power, as a point of union for the jealous and disunited States of
Arcadia, and as a sentinel stationed at a chief entrance to Laconia. The
whole of his great project was not realized, and Megalopolis, instead of
becoming 'the great city' of Arcadia, was only a mate to Tegea and
Mantinea. Even thus, the work was by no means lost; a Spartan army, to
reach Messenia, whose independence was to be secured, must pass through
the territory of Megalopolis, and even a second-rate city would answer
as a guard. But not even Epaminondas could make of Arcadia a first-class
power, and a sufficient counterpoise to Sparta. Megalopolis is now
wholly deserted, and represented only by the little village of Sinanu,
half a mile distant, where we stopped at a khan kept by an old soldier
of Colocotroni, and ran, while dinner was preparing, to examine the
scanty ruins of the great city--interesting only from their association
with a great name.

Reluctantly, we now turned our backs upon Messene, with its renowned
fortress of Ithome, the sacred Olympia, and the beautiful temple of
Phigalia, and began our homeward journey. Passing over a mountain from
which we had a wide and beautiful view, we rode through a barren and
uninteresting plain to the lonely khan of Frankovrysi, and early the
next day arrived at Tripolitza. We had had a clear sky at Megalopolis
and Frankovrysi, but here, in the high table-land of Arcadia, we found
the self-same leaden sky and bleak winds we left three days before. This
valley or table-land stretches from north to south, nearly divided in
two by the approach of the mountains from east and west. Thus the valley
takes the shape rudely of the figure eight; the southern part, through
one corner of which we had passed before, being occupied by Tegea, the
northern by Mantinea. Tripolitza, to the northwest of Tegea, represents
the ancient Pallantium, the birthplace of Evander. Here Dhemetri brought
us bad news. We had intended to go to Mantinea, thence north through
Orchomenus, Stymphalus, and Sicyon, to Corinth; but the passes, we
learned, were impracticable for the snow, and we must recross Mount
Parthenion, and revisit Achladhokamvo and Argos. First, however, we took
a rapid ride to Mantinea, about eight miles through a level, tolerably
well-cultivated country. At the narrow passage between the mountains,
there stood in ancient times a grove of cork-trees, called 'Pelagus,'
the sea. Epaminondas, warned by an oracle to beware of the 'Pelagus,'
had carefully avoided the sea. But it was just in this spot that he drew
up his troops for the great battle which cost him his life. When
mortally wounded, he was carried to a high place called
'Skope'--identified with the sharp spur of Mount Mænalus, which projects
just here into the plain, and from this he watched the battle, and here
he died, like Wolfe, at the moment of victory. The well-built walls of
Mantinea still stand in nearly their entire circuit, built in the fourth
century before Christ, after Agesipolis of Sparta had captured the city,
by washing away its walls of sun-burnt brick, and had dispersed the
inhabitants among the neighboring villages. The restoration of the city
was a part of the great system of humbling Sparta, set on foot by
Epaminondas after the battle of Leuctra.

After spending the night at Achladhokamvo, where we visited the ruins of
Hysiæ close by, we went next day through Argos, passing within sight of
Mycenæ, to Nemea, where, in a beautiful little valley, three Doric
columns, still standing, testify to the former sanctity of the spot.
Then to Kurtissa, the ancient Cleonæ, to pass the night. When Dhemetri
pointed it out to us from the hill above, it looked like a New-England
farm-house, a neat white cottage peeping out from among the trees, and
we rejoiced at the prospect. But lo! the neat white cottage was a
guardhouse, and our khan was the rude, unpainted, windowless barn. It
was, nevertheless, very comfortable. There was a ceiling to the room,
and the board windows were tight. The floor, to be sure, gaped in wide
cracks; but as there was a blazing fire in the room beneath, the cracks
let in no cold air, nothing but smoke, a sort of compensation, as it
seemed, for our having a chimney, lest we should be puffed up with pride
and luxury. For we not only had a chimney, but a table and two stools,
one sitting on an inverted barrel spread with a horse-blanket. Here
Dhemetri concocted for our supper an Hellenic soup, of royal flavor, the
recollection of which is still grateful to my palate. And here a youth,
named Agamemnon, son of George, came and displayed to us his
school-books, a geography, beginning with Greece and ending with
America, where Bostônia as put down as capital of Massachoytia. Longing
to hear a Greek war-song, we requested him to sing, at which he warbled
Dehyte pahides tôn Hellhênôn to a tune which we strongly suspected he
composed for the occasion, following it up with others, with such
delight that we were fain at last to plead sleepiness and let him
depart.

We were up betimes the following morning, for we had a long day's work
before us. We were approaching Corinth, and knew that from the
Acrocorinthus, a very high and steep hill over-hanging it, a prospect
was to be had inferior to none in Greece. The morning, though not
actually unpleasant, was chill and hazy, and Dhemetri tried to dissuade
us from wasting the time. But we were determined to see what there was
to be seen, and after a ride of two or three hours over a rough country,
we entered the fortifications of this chief citadel of Greece. It is now
guarded by a handful of soldiers, two or three neglected cannons thrust
their muzzles idly over the rampart, and shepherds with their flocks
roam at will within. A sharp wind was sweeping over the summit, and the
mountains and islands--Parnassus, Cyllene, Helicon, Pentclicon, Salamis,
Ægina--were veiled with a dull, opaque haze. While Basil, with stiff
fingers, was sketching the view from the top, I wandered about with my
other companion, picking spring flowers, reading the descriptions of
Pausanias, and studying the distant landscape. There is a thriving town
at the bottom of the hill, and hither we descended, asking for the inn
(Xenodhekeon) where Dhemetri had told us to meet him. But alas! modern
Corinth can not sustain an inn; and we were obliged to eat our dinner in
a grocery, stared at by all the youth of Corinth. Half a dozen Doric
columns, belonging to a very old temple, are the only considerable
relics of ancient Corinth. And as we had a long afternoon's work before
us, we set off before twelve. We galloped at good speed across the
Isthmus, about an hour's ride; Dhemetri, who understood the management
of Greek horses, driving us before him like a flock of sheep. We paused
a moment at the Isthmic sanctuary of Poseidon, passed through the
village of Kalamáki, whence steamers run to Athens, then continued along
the shore between Mount Geroneia and the sea, through a low, uneven
country, well grown with pine, heather, arbute, gorse in the full
splendor of its yellow blossoms, and sweet-smelling thyme. The afternoon
was warm and bright. Here and there were flocks of long-haired sheep and
sturdy black goats, cropping the grass and the shrubs, and it was well
in keeping with the scene when we passed a shepherd, with his cloak
thrown carelessly aside, leaning on his crook, and playing a few simple
notes--not a _tune_--on his flageolet to while away the time. We delayed
half an hour at the miserable hamlet of Kineta, to rest one of the
horses, exhausted with our fast riding, then began the ascent of our
last mountain-pass. A spur of Mount Geroneia runs boldly into the sea,
forming a wall between the territories of Corinth and Megara. It is
called 'Kake-Scala,' 'Bad Ladder,' an odd mixture of Greek and Italian.
Here, as the ancients fabled, dwelt the robber Skiron, plundering and
mutilating all wayfarers, and throwing them into the sea; but Theseus
subdued him and subjected him to a like treatment, and thereafter
traveling was secure. No doubt Theseus crowned his labors by building a
road, as we know one existed here in antiquity, but it has long since
disappeared, and King Otho was then imitating him, as we found,
presently, to our cost. The sun had already set, when the road became
impassable, and shouts from two men some distance above, informed us
that the building of the new road had rendered the old bridle-path
impracticable. We had to urge our horses down a steep, narrow path to
the water's edge, then as the beach was blocked up with huge rocks, to
ride a rod or two through the water, then climb up the steep rocks on
the other side, where one horse slipped and came near tumbling with his
rider into the sea below. Ten minutes later, and we must have returned
to Kineta, or waited an hour or two for the moon, for as soon as we were
over this dangerous spot it became quite dark; but the path was now safe
and easy to find. The full moon was up when we reached the top of the
cliff, and the valley of Megara, the mountains, the bay, and the islands
of Ægina and Salamis lay distinctly before us. We made all speed to
Megara, cheered by the fame of its khan as one of the best in Greece,
and by the certainty that there was now a good road all the way to
Athens.

It was suggested that we should take a carriage the rest of the way, but
as our horses were hired to Athens, we decided not to incur the extra
expense. Soon after arriving, however, while Dhemetri was making us a
soup, and Diomedes was taking care of our horses, and Epaminondas was
roasting us a joint of lamb, while we were squatting half-asleep on
bolsters on the floor, hugging our knees, looking dreamily at the fire,
and longing for supper and bed, the driver of the carriage came in, and
addressed us in recommendation of his establishment in his choicest
Frank, "_Carrozza-very good-ye-e-e-s_!' then squatted down on the hearth
beside us, hugged his knees, and looked at the fire with infinite
self-satisfaction. Whether it was his eloquence that prevailed on our
attendants, I know not, but it was determined to provide us with a
carriage the next day, at no extra expense. The day was perfect, and the
luxury of an easy drive of four hours was very grateful to us after our
uncomfortable ride in the Peloponnesus. We dined at Eleusis, and reached
Athens early in the afternoon.




                           ADONIUM.


            Far dimly back in distant days of eld,
              There lived a pretty boy, as parchments tell,
              As formed for love and life in lonely dell,
            With mien as fair as never eyes beheld;
            Because who saw, to love him was compelled
              Straightway, so wizardly he wielded Beauty's spell.

            His name Adonis--sad of memory!
              Whose life, though fair, his death was fairer still,
              In dying for a cause, or good or ill;
            For he heart-crazed the daughter of the sea,
            Who loved him well, though wisely loved not she:
              True hearts are never wise, as worldlings selfish will.

            Him Venus loved--Love's cherished creatures they!
              And Venus wooed with perseverance sore,
              Till weary was the lad, the wooing o'er;
            And while he, hiding in the forest lay,
            O'ershaded from the sun's unfriendly ray,
              Ah me! there came to kill a maddened, foaming boar!

            Oh! see! from limbs too fair for touch of earth,
              As tusk and tusk is savage through them drove,
              While rain their dainty power 'fending strove,
            The pure red liquid life all wasting forth!
            All wasted, lost? Nay! thence, thence took its birth
              ADONIUM, eternal bloom of martyred Love!

            Love's martyr is a-bleeding now again;
              Sweet Liberty, beloved of earth, doth bleed:
              The maddened, foaming boar hath come indeed,
            And tears our life on many a gory plain;
            But we--as bled the boy--bleed not in vain:
              Our blood-drops--our sons--will be Adonium seed!

            Who die for Liberty--they never die!
              Adonis, dead for Love, doth live anew!
              They bloom blood-flowers in the tearful dew,
            Forever falling on their memory!
            In veins that are and veins that are not to be,
              They ever coursing live, the right, the good, the true!

            Where sinks the martyr's blood within the sod,
              A spirit-plant of universal root,
              Divinely radiant, doth upward shoot,
            Appealing from a wicked world to God!
            And seen for once, down drops the tyrant's rod;
              For men at last have tasted of a heavenly fruit.

            All good and beautiful of soul thus sprung
              From blood, e'en as the Adonium I sing;
              And where the blood is purest, thence doth spring
            Such flowers as by heavenly bards are sung;
            For since from Christ the fierce blood-sweat was wrung,
              Have growths of nobler fruit on earth been ripening!




POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTES.


There is positively no class of writers entitled to higher praise, or
actuated by nobler motives, than those who are now distinguishing
themselves by their labors for Education. They have laid their hands on
what is to be the great social motive power of the future--the great
subject of the politics of days to come--and are working bravely in the
sacred cause.

Yet it can hardly be denied that amid the vast mass of every practical
observation and suggestion contained in the educational works with which
we are familiar, or even among the really _scientific_ contributors to
it, there is very little founded on the great social wants and
tendencies of the age. Education is, at present, merely an _art_; it has
a right, in common with every conceivable department of knowledge, to be
raised to the rank of a _science_. This can only be done by putting it
on a progressive basis, and placing it in such a position as to aid in
supplying some great demand of the age.

The great fact of the time is, the advance from mere art upward to
science, from the blossom to the fruit. Practical wants, 'the greatest
good for the greatest number,' the fullest development of free labor,
the increase of capital, the diminution of suffering, the harmony of
interests between capital and labor--all of these are the children of
Science and Facts. During the feudal age, nearly all the resources of
genius--all the capital of the day--was devoted to mere Art, for the
sake of setting off social position and 'idealisms.' As with the
nobility and royalty of England at the present day, society enormously
overpaid what is, or was, really the police--whose mission it was to
keep it in order. But from Friar Bacon to Lord Bacon, a movement was
silently progressing, which the present century has just begun to
realize. This movement was that of the development of all human ability
and natural resources, guided by science. It was a tendency toward the
practical, the positive, which is destined in time to bring forth its
own new art and literature, is breaking away from the trammels of the
old literary or imaginative sway.

At the present day, up to the present hour, Education--especially the
higher education, destined to fit men for leading positions--is still
under the old literary regime. We laugh when we read of the two first
years of medical study at the school of Salerno being devoted to dry
logic, yet the four years' course at nearly all our modern Universities,
or, in fact, the course of almost any 'high-school,' is as little
adapted to the real wants of the practical leading men of this age as a
study of the Schoolmen would be. The 'literature' of the past still
rules the practical wants of the present. It is not that the study of
the thought of the past is not noble, nay, essential, to the highly
cultivated man; but it should be pursued on a large, scientific scale.
The study of Greek and Latin, as languages, is not so disciplining nor
so valuable as that of the science of language, as taught by Max
Müller; and if these languages must be learned, (and we do not deny that
they should,) they can better be studied in their relations to all
languages than simply by themselves. And as if to make bad worse, the
genial and strictly scientific use of literal translations, advocated by
Milton and Locke, and generally employed at the Revival of Letters, and
during the days when Europe boasted its greatest classic scholars, is
prohibited. 'A college education' suggests the employment of the best
years of life in studies of little practical use in themselves, and
seldom revived, save for pleasure, after graduation. And even where such
studies are exceptionally practical; nay, where science and a free
choice of languages and literature are left to the somewhat advanced
student, we still find the shadow of the past--of the old, formal, and
rapidly growing obsolete literature--overawing the more enlightened
effort. Deny it as we may, the University is still a feudal institution.
Within the memory of man, there existed in England positively no school
where the would-be engineer or manufacturer could be fitted for his
career and at the same time be 'well educated.' George Stephenson was
obliged to send his son to an 'University,' where some scraps of
practical science--scanty scraps they were--most insufficiently repaid
the expense of education.

The great want of the age is the Polytechnic School, or more correctly
speaking, of the Technological Institute, in which the labors of the
Society of Arts, aided by the Museum and Library, may serve the two-fold
object of informing the public on all matters of science and industry
and of aiding the School of Industrial Science. Developed on its largest
scale, such an institute should be devoted to the acquisition and
dissemination of all knowledge, but under strictly scientific guidance
and influences. Literature should there be taught historically, in close
connection with mental philosophy, a system which, it may be observed,
results in interesting the pupil more in details than the old plan
devoted to a few mere details ever did. Art should there be taught, not
in rhapsodies over Raphael, Turner, and the favorite fancies of an
individual, but according to its unfoldings in human culture, based on
architecture as an illustrative medium. 'The lines of connection'
between these and the exact sciences should be ever kept in sight, so
that the student may never forget 'the countless connecting threads
woven into one indissoluble texture, forming that ever-enlarging web
which is the blended product of the world's scientific and industrial
activity.'

The great aim of such an institute should be the aiding of industrial
progress, and the application of generous, intelligent culture to
practical pursuits--the whole to be based on exact science. When we look
into this community, and see the vast demand for talent in its
manufactures, and see how many thousands there are who would gladly be
'liberally educated' men, if the education could only be allied to
practically useful knowledge, we at once feel that the time has come for
the establishment of such institutes. The demand exists on every side;
the supply must come, and that speedily. England, France, and Germany
are rapidly improving their manufactures by scientifically educating
their master-workmen--the Conservatoire des Arts, and Ecole Centrale, of
Paris, the art-schools of the British capital and provinces, the many
museums devoted to scientic collection, are all keeping up their
factories--shall we be behind them? Let Capital consult its interests,
and answer.

We have been induced to put the query, from a perusal of two pamphlets,
both directly bearing on this subject. The first is the _Ninth Annual
Announcement of the Polytechnic College of the State of Pennsylvania,
Session_ 1861-1862, _and Catalogue of the Officers and Students_; while
the second sets forth the Objects and Plan of an Institute of
Technology, including a Society of Arts, a Museum of Arts, and a School
of Industrial Science, proposed to be established in Boston.'[C] This
latter, it may be added, was prepared by direction of the Committee of
Associated Institutions of Science and Arts, and is addressed to
'manufacturers, merchants, agriculturists, and other friends of
enlightened industry in the commonwealth.'

The Polytechnic College of Philadelphia, now in its ninth year, is a
truly excellent institution, the practical results of which are shown in
the fact that its students, immediately on graduating, have generally
received appointments as civil and mechanical engineers, or otherwise
stepped at once into active and remunerative employment. Its object, as
we are told, is to afford to the young civil, mining, or mechanical
engineer, chemist, architect, metallurgist, or student of applied
science, every facility whereby he may perfect himself in his destined
calling. It is, in fact, a collection of technical schools, or schools
of instruction in the several departments of learned industry. It
comprises the school of mines, for professional training in
mine-engineering, in the best methods of determining the value of
mineral lands and of analyzing and manufacturing mine products. Also the
schools of civil engineering, of practical chemistry, of mechanical
engineering, architecture, general science, and agriculture. To these is
added a military department, now under superintendence of a former
instructor in West-Point, with the use of the State armory near the
college, generously granted by the State, with a supply of arms. We are
glad to say that in all these schools the instruction is thorough, not
only in theory but in actual _practice_. The course of the school of
chemistry, for instance, comprehends the principles of the science and
their actual application to agriculture, to the arts, and to analysis;
to the examination and smelting of ores; to the alloying, refining, and
working of metals; to the arts of dyeing and pottery; to the starch,
lime, and glass manufacture; to the preparation and durability of
mortars and cements; to means of disinfecting, ventilating, heating, and
lighting. Its students are also practiced in manipulations, testing in
the arts qualitative and quantitative; in analysis of minerals and
soils, and in many other important practical matters.

The students of geology and mining, of machinery and metallurgy, make,
with their professors, frequent visits to the many interesting
localities in Pennsylvania or New-Jersey, to the many large
machine-shops with which Philadelphia abounds, visit mines and furnaces,
and are in every way practically familiarized with their future
callings. Instruction in languages and literature, in drawing and in the
elements of practical law is, we believe, given in common to all. It is
the first, we may say, _unavoidable_, characteristic of a _scientific_
school, that its work is always well done. Other schools may or may not
be specious contrivances, well or ill managed; but the very nature of
science is to _clear itself_ in whatever it touches, and be honest and
practical. Its tendency is to classify and select, to cast away the
obsolete and test and adopt the new and true. Such is by no means an
exaggerated statement of the real condition of the excellent college to
which we refer, which testifies, by its success, to the excellence of
its plan and the competency of its teachers, especially to the
administrative ability of its worthy President, Dr. Alfred L. Kennedy.

It can not be denied, that for many years, radicals have inveighed
against 'Greek and Universities,' but it has been in a narrow, vulgar,
and simply destructive manner, with no provision to substitute any
thing better in their place. The growth of science, of the knowledge of
history, of culture in every branch, has, however, of late, so vastly
increased, that the proposition to reform the old system of study is
really one not to tear it down, but to build it up, to extend it and
develop it on a grand scale. Since, for example, the influence of
science has been felt in philology, how inconsiderable do the Bruncks
and Porsons of the old school, appear before the Bopps, Schlegels,
Burnoufs, and Müllers of the new! For as yet, even where here and there
in colleges a liberal and enlightened method is partially attempted,
still the old monkish spirit appears, driving away with something like a
'mystery' or 'guild' feeling the merely practical man, and interposing a
mass of 'dead vocables,' which must be learned by years of labor,
between him and the realization of an education. The young man who is to
be a miner, a cotton-spinner, an architect, or a merchant, may possibly
find here and there, at this or that college, lectures and instruction
which may aid him directly in his future career, but he soon realizes
that the general tendency and tone of the college is entirely in favor
of abstract studies quite useless out in the world, and apart from
preparation for one of 'the three professions.' He himself is as a
'marine' among the regular sailors, a surgeon among 'regular doctors,'
or as a dentist among surgeons. And this in an age when we may say that
what is not to be studied scientifically is not _worth_ studying. As our
principal object in writing these remarks has been to assert that the
Polytechnic Institute, in its either partial or entire form, should
exist entirely independent of all other influences, we might be held
excused from any mention of such scientific schools as are attached to
our Universities. That of Cambridge, Massachusetts, would, however,
deserve special mention, from the celebrity of its teachers. In this
institute, which has between seventy and eighty students, we have a
single school divided into the following departments: that of Chemistry,
under supervision of Professor Horseford, in which instruction is both
theoretical and practical; that of Zoölogy and Geology, in which the
teaching consists alternately of a course of lectures by Professor
Agassiz, on Zoology, embracing the fundamental principles of the
classification of animals as founded upon structure and embryonic
development, and illustrating their natural affinities, habits,
distribution, and the relations which exist between the living and
extinct races, and a course of geology, both theoretical and practical.
To this are added the departments of Engineering under Professor Eustis,
that of Botany, under Professor Gray, that of Comparative Anatomy and
Physiology, under Professor J. Wyman, that of Mathematics, under
Professor Peirce, and that of Mineralogy, under Professor Cooke. It is
needless to speak in praise of a school boasting men of such world-wide
names as teachers, or to commend it as affording facilities for
bestowing a sound education. We do it no injustice, however, in
asserting that its tendency is to develop students of abstract science
and teachers, while the aim of the _Polytechnic_ school proper is, in
addition to this, to supply the manufactures of the country with
_working men_, and the country at large, including those already engaged
in labor, with technological information of every kind. It should be a
vast reservoir of practical knowledge, where the man of the
'print-works,' in search of a certain dye or of a new form of machinery,
may apply, certain that all the latest discoveries will be found
registered there. It should be a place where capitalists may go as to an
intelligence-office, confident of finding there the assistants which
they may need. It should be, in fact, in every respect, an institute
simply and solely for the people, and for the development of
_manufacturing industry_. If, as we have urged, it should embrace
eventually thorough instruction in _every_ branch of knowledge, this
should be because experience shows that the most commonplace branches
require the stimulus of genius, which can only be fairly developed by
universal facilities. No young man, however practical, could have his
_Thätigkeit_ or 'available energy' other than stimulated by even an
extensive familiarity with every detail of philosophy, literature, and
art, provided that these were properly _scienced_, or taught strictly
according to their historical development.

It is, therefore, needless to say that we welcome with pleasure the plan
of An Institute of Technology, which it is proposed to establish in
Boston, and which, to judge from its excellently well prepared
prospectus, will fully meet, in every particular, all the requirements
which we have laid down as essential to a perfect Polytechnic Institute.
Indeed, the wide scope of this plan, its capacity for embracing every
subject in the range of science, and of communicating it to the public
either by publication, by free lectures, by a museum of reference, or by
collegiate instruction, leaves but little to be desired. That there is
great need of such an institution in this State is apparent from many
causes. In the words of the prospectus, we feel that in New-England, and
especially in our own Commonwealth, the time has arrived when, as we
believe, the interests of Commerce and Arts, as well as General
Education, call for the most earnest cooperation of intelligent culture
with industrial pursuits. It is no exaggeration to state that probably
no project was ever before presented to the wealthy men of Massachusetts
which appealed so earnestly to their aid or gave such fair promise of
doing good. The institute in question is one which will in every
respect, socially and mentally, elevate the business man or practical
man to a level with the college graduate or the practitioner in the
three learned professions. It will stimulate progress by still further
refining industry, and ally the action of capital to the advance of
intellect. It will perform a noble and distinguished part in the great
mission of the age and of future ages--that of vindicating the dignity
of free labor and showing that the humblest work may be rendered
high-toned and raised to a level with the calling of scholar or
diplomatist through the influence of science. If we were called on to
set forth the noble spirit of the _North_ with all its free labor and
all its glorious tendencies, we should, with whole heart and soul,
choose this magnificent conception of an institute whose aim is to
confer dignity on what the wretched and ignorant slaveocracy believe is
cursed into everlasting vulgarity. It is fitting that this practical and
eminently intelligent and progressive community should build up, on a
grand scale, an institution which will be not only eminently useful and
profitable, but serve as a culminating exponent of the great and liberal
ideas for which the North has already made in every form the most
remarkable sacrifices.

     'While the vast and increasing magnitude of the industrial
     interests of New-England furnishes a powerful incentive to the
     establishment--within its borders of an institution devoted to
     technological uses, it can not be doubted that the concentration of
     these interests in so great a degree, in and around Boston, renders
     the capital of the State an eligible site for such an undertaking.
     Indeed, considering the peculiar genius of our busy population for
     the Practical Arts, and marking their avidity in the study of
     scientific facts and principles tending to explain or advance them,
     we see a special and most striking fitness in the establishment of
     such an Institution among them, and we gather a confident assurance
     of its preëminent utility and success. Nor can we advert to the
     intelligence which is so well known as guiding the large
     munificence of our community, without taking encouragement in the
     inception of the enterprise, and feeling the assurance, that
     whatever is adapted to advance the industrial and educational
     interests of the Commonwealth will receive from them the heartiest
     sympathy and support.'

As we have stated, the plan proposed is to establish an Institution to
be devoted to the practical arts and sciences, to be called the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, having the triple organization of
a Society of Arts, a Museum or Conservatory of Arts, and a School of
Industrial Science and Art. Under the first of these three
divisions--that of the Society of Arts--the Institute of Technology
would form itself into a department of investigation and
publication--devoting itself in every manner to collecting and rendering
readily available to the public all such information as can in any way
aid the interests of art and industry. If our manufacturers will reflect
an instant on the vast amount of knowledge relative to their specialties
extant in the world, which they have as individuals great difficulty in
procuring, and which would be useful, but which an Institute devoted to
the purpose could furnish without difficulty, they will at once
appreciate the good which may be done by it. For many years the only
comprehensive summaries of American Manufactures were a German work by
Fleischmann, _On the Branches of American Industry_, to which was
subsequently added Whitworth and Wallis's Report--drawn up for the
British government, and Freedley's Philadelphia Manufactures--to which
we should in justice add the invaluable series of Hunt's _Merchant's
Magazine_, and the Patent Office Reports. The community needs more,
however, than books can furnish. It requires the constant accumulation
and dissemination of technological knowledge of every kind. It is
proposed in the new Institute to effect this partly by publication and
in a great measure by the labor of committees, devoted to the following
subjects:

1. _Mineral Materials_--having charge of all relating to the mineral
substances used in building and sculpture, ores, metals, coal, and in
fact, all mineral substances employed in the useful arts, as well as
what pertains to mining, quarrying, and smelting.

2. _Organic Materials_--embracing whatever is practically interesting in
all vegetable and animal substances used in manufacturing, having in
view their sources, culture, collection, commercial importance and
qualities as connected with manufacturing. This department presents a
vast field of immense importance to every merchant and importer of raw
material.

3. _On Tools and Instruments_--devoted to all the implements and
apparatus needed in all processes of manufacture.

4. _On Machinery and Motive Powers._

5. _On Textile Manufactures._

6. _On Manufactures of Wood, Leather, Paper, India-Rubber, etc._

7. _On Pottery, Glass, and Precious Metals._

8. _On Chemical Products and Processes._

9. _On Household Economy._ This department would embrace attention to
whatever relates to warming, illumination, water-supply, ventilation,
and the preparation and preservation of food, as well as the protection
of the public health.

10. _On Engineering and Architecture._

11. _On Commerce, Navigation, and Inland Transport._ This department
alone, developed in detail, and on the scale proposed, would of itself
amply repay any amount of encouragement and investment. To collect and
classify for the use of the public all available information on the
subject of shipping, the improvement of harbors, the construction of
docks, the location and efficiency of railroads, and other channels of
inland intercourse; 'keeping chiefly in view the economical questions of
trade and exchange, which give these works of mechanical and engineering
skill their high commercial value,' is a project as grand as it is
useful.

12. _On the Graphic and Fine Arts._

Of the importance of the proposed Museum of Industrial Science and Art,
it is needless to speak. It would be for the public the central feature
of the Institute, and of incalculable value not only to it, but to all
engaged in all active industry whatever.

As regards the School of Industrial Science and Art, with its divisions,
we see no occasion for material cause of difference between its
constitution and that of the excellent Polytechnic College in
Philadelphia. New departments of instruction could be added as the means
and power of the Institute increased, until it would ultimately form
what the world needs but has never yet seen--a thoroughly _scientific_
University, in which every branch of human knowledge should be _clearly_
taught on a positive basis--a school where literature and art would be
ennobled and refined by elevation from mysticism, 'rhapsody,' and
obscurity, to their true position as historical developments and indices
of human progress. We are pleased to see that in the plan proposed,
provision would be made for two classes of persons--those who enter the
school with the view of a progressive scientific training in applied
science, and the far more numerous class who may be expected to resort
to its lecture-rooms for such useful knowledge of scientific principles
as they can acquire without continually devoted study, and in hours not
occupied by active labor.

This whole plan, though in the highest degree practical, has, it will be
observed, 'no affinity with that instruction in mere _empirical routine_
which has sometimes been vaunted as the proper education for the
industrial classes'--an absurd and shallow system which has been urged
by quacks and dabblers in world-bettering, and which has been exhausted
without avail in England--the system dear to single-sided Gradgrinds and
illiterate men who grasp a twig here and there without knowing of the
existence of the trunk and roots. It lays down a perfectly scientific
and universal basis, believing that the most insignificant industry, to
be perfectly understood and pursued, must proceed from a knowledge of
the great principles of science and of all truth.

Under the charge of Professor W.B. Rogers, Messrs. Charles H. Dalton,
E.B. Bigelow, James M. Beebee, and other members of a committee
embracing some of the most public-spirited men of Boston, this plan has
been thus far matured, and now awaits the sympathy, aid, and counsel of
the friends of industrial art and general education throughout the
community. We have gladly set forth its objects and claims, trusting
that it may be fully successful here, and serve as an exemplar for the
establishment of similar institutions in every other State.




SLAVERY AND NOBILITY vs. DEMOCRACY.


Few political convulsions have hitherto transpired, which have so much
puzzled the world to get at the entire motives of the revolt, as the
present insurrection in this country. Were public opinion to be made up
from the political literature of Great Britain, or its leading journals,
very little certainty would be arrived at as to the merits or demerits
of the attempted revolution. The articles of De Bow's _Review_ smack
little more of a secession origin than the late dissertations on
American politics appearing in the British periodicals. The statements
of most of the leading English journals are quite in keeping. Any one
accustomed to the 'ear-marks' of secession phraseology and declamation
would be at little loss to identify the Southern emissary in connection
with the periodicals and press of the British islands. Hence the
hypocrisy and studied concealment of those hidden motives necessary to
be made apparent, in order to judge of the merits of secession.

The world has known that for thirty years past there has been a feverish
and jealous discontent expressed in the cotton States. It had its first
ebullition in 1832, when South-Carolina assumed the right to nullify the
revenue laws of Congress. Since that time the North has continually been
accused of an aggressive policy. Various extravagant pretenses have
from time to time been raised up by the South, and urged as causes for
dissolving the Union. They have always, until recently, been met by
forbearance and compromise.

The extension and perpetuation of slavery has been prominent as the open
motive for Southern political activity; and equally prominent as one of
the motives for dismembering the Union. There has been another project,
however, in connection with the attempted dissolution of the Union, of a
most alarming nature: that project was the intended prostration of the
democratic principle in Southern politics. While a privileged order in
government was made the basis of political ambition by the aspirants or
leading spirits, it was also to be made the means of perpetuating the
institution of slavery. Whether these adjuncts, slavery perpetuation,
and government through a privileged class, were twins of the same birth,
is not very material; but whether they existed together as the joint
motive to overthrow the national jurisdiction, involves very deeply the
present and continuing questions in American politics.

To many gentlemen of intelligence and high standing in the South, the
intended establishment of a different order of government, based on
privilege of class, has appeared to be the ruling motive. They have set
down the expressed apprehension as to the insecurity of slavery as a
hypocritical pretext for revolution; believing that the more absorbing
motive was to establish an order of nobility, either with or without
monarchy. There is some plausibility for giving the ambitious motive the
greater prominence; but a more severe analysis of the whole question
will, it is believed, place slavery perpetuation in the foreground as
the origin of all other motives for the conspiracy.

In classifying slaveholders, it is undoubtedly true that a small portion
of them were Democrats in principle, and ardently attached to the
National Government--perhaps would have preferred the abolition of
slavery to the subversion of its jurisdiction. Another class, composing
a majority, though distrusting the National Government, connected as it
was and must be with a voting power representing twenty-six or seven
millions of free labor, yet more distrusted the attempt at revolution.
This class saw more danger in the proposed revolt than from continuing
in the Union. Another class were politically ambitious; had ventured
upon the revilement of the Democratic principle; had become
secessionists _per se_, and were the instruments and plotters of the
treason. This was substantially the condition of public opinion among
slaveholders at the time of the election of Mr. Lincoln to the
Presidency. These three classes, embracing the slaveholders and their
families, composed about one million five hundred thousand of the white
population of the South.

Of the seven millions non-slaveholding population South, a small portion
was engaged in trade and commerce, and naturally inclined to oppose
secession; but timid in its apprehensions as to protection, was ready to
acquiesce in the most extravagant opinions; in other words, like trade
and commerce every where, too much disposed to make merchandise of its
politics. The balance of the non-slaveholding population, if we except a
venal pulpit and press, had not even a specious motive, pecuniary or
political, moral or social, that should have drawn it into rebellion. It
was a part and portion of the great brother-hood of free labor, and could
not by any possibility raise up a plausible pretense of jealousy against
its natural ally--free labor in the North.

In estimating the strength of a cause, we are obliged to take into
account the actually existing reasons in favor of its support. Delusion,
founded on a fictitious cause of complaint, is but a weak basis for
revolution. It may have an apparent strength to precipitate revolt, but
has no power of endurance. There is a reflection that comes through
calamity and suffering that rises superior to sophistry in the most
common minds. If not already, this will soon be the case with the whole
Southern population. The slaveholder and the man of trade and commerce
who feared the tumult, and would have avoided it, will have seen their
apprehensions turned into the fulfillment of prophecy. The
non-slave-holding farmer, mechanic, or laborer, will be made to see
clearly that his interest did not lie on the side of treason. The
political adventurer who planned the conspiracy, is already brought to
see the fallacy of his dream. He may now consider the incongruous
materials of Southern population. He may view that population in
classes. He may contemplate it through the medium of its natural motives
of fidelity to the Government on the one hand, and of its artificial
delusion on the other. He may now go to the bottom of Southern society,
and find in its conflicting elements the antagonistic motives that
render the plans of treason abortive. These will be sure to continue,
and sure to strengthen on the side of fidelity to the National
Government. When the South is made a solid, compact unit in political
motive, it will become so, disarmed of all purposes of treason.

It has been repeatedly asserted that the South was a political unit on
the question of the attempted revolution. This declaration has been
reïterated by the Southern press, by travelers, and by all the
influences connected with the rebellion. It is not now necessary to
delineate the _quasi_ military organization of the Knights of the Golden
Circle, or their operations in cajoling and terrorizing the Southern
population into acquiescence. Much unanimity through this process was
made to appear on the surface; but it is more palpable to the analytic
mind acquainted with Southern society, that the very means employed to
enforce acquiescence afforded also the evidence that there was a strong
under-current of aversion. Willing apostasy from allegiance to the Union
needed no terrorizing from mobs or murders. The ruffianism of the South
had been fully armed in advance of the full disclosure of the plot to
secede. Loyalty had been as carefully disarmed by the same active
influences. It had nothing to oppose to arms but its unprotected
sentiments. As soon as the law of force was invoked by the conspirators,
the day of reasoning was wholly past. Flight or conformity became the
condition precedent of safety, even for life. The bulk of the Southern
population was as much conspired against as the Government at
Washington; and force against the same population was rigorously called
into requisition to consummate what fraud and political crime had
concocted. This was the boasted unity of the South.

The inquiry is often made: 'How was it possible to have inaugurated the
rebellion, without the bulk of the slaveholders, at least, acting in
concert?' This inquiry is not easily answered, unless its solution is
found in the fact that slaveholders, through jealousy, had parted with
their active loyalty to the National Government. This was generally the
case. Whilst the bulk of them hesitated for a little to take the fearful
step of revolt, their hesitation was more connected with apprehension of
its consequences than with any attachment to the Government. The
deceptive idea of peaceable secession first drew them within the lines
of the open traitor. The supposed probability of success made them
allies in rebellion. As a general sentiment, they made their imaginary
adieux to the Government of their fathers without apparent regret.

There has been much misapprehension as to the process of reasoning that
brought slaveholders in the main to repudiate their Government. They
were influenced by no apprehension of present danger to the institution
of slavery. It was something far beyond the power of any party to
stipulate against. Their apprehensions were connected with the laws of
population and subsistence and the certain motive to political
affiliation that underlies the platform of free-labor society. When
indulging in the belief of peaceable secession, they expressed their
sentiments truly in the declaration that 'they would not remain in the
Union, were a blank sheet of paper presented, and they permitted to
write their own terms.' This declaration merely characterized the
foregone conclusion. It was the evidence of a previous determination,
merely withheld for a season, in order to gain time.

But to come to a more definite delineation of the reasons that operated
to raise up the conspiracy. There was a partial feud that had long
existed in the mutual jealousies between the slaveholders and
non-slaveholding population. Nothing very remarkable, however, had
transpired to indicate an outbreak. Southern white labor was continually
annoyed with the appellation of 'white trash,' and other contemptuous
epithets; but still was obliged to toil on under the continuous insult.
The habits and usages of slaveholders and their families, indicated by
manners toward white labor, that white labor did not command their
respect. Too many of the accidental droppings of foolish and stupid
arrogance were let fall within the hearing of white labor to make it
fully reconciled to the pretended monopoly of respectability by
slaveholders. Under this corroded feeling, much of the white labor of
the South had emigrated to the free States. In 1850, seven hundred and
thirty-two thousand of these emigrants were living. Their communications
and intercourse showed to their old friends, relatives, and
acquaintances, that they had found homes and friendly treatment on
Northern soil; and in addition thereto, a much better and more
encouraging condition of society for the industrious white man. The
feeling reflected back from the free to the slave States was analogous
to that thrown back from the United States to Ireland. Its effect was
also the same. Under its influence, nearly two millions are now living
in the free States, who are the offshoot and increase of a Southern
extraction. Slaveholders merely complained of this flow of population,
on the ground that it contributed to overthrow the balance of political
power. It would not, perhaps, be amiss to conclude that they saw with
equal clearness the incentives that induced the emigration--a silent
logic of facts against slavery.

The census statistics, commencing with 1840, have contributed much to
play the mischief with the equanimity of slaveholders. They have always
known that thorough education in the South was mainly confined to their
own families. When, however, the discovery was made public that only one
in seven of the aggregate white population of the South was receiving
instruction during the year, the disclosure became alarming.[D] It stood
little better than the educational progress of the British Islands,
which had crept up, under the fight with Toryism, to the alarming
extent of one in eight. That one in four and a half of the aggregate
population of the free States was receiving school instruction, made the
contrast unpleasant to the mind of the slaveholder. He knew that the
fact was 'world--wide,' that slaveholders had always controlled the
policy of Southern legislation. He was aware that slaveholders had made
themselves responsible for this neglect of the children of the South;
and knew also that public opinion would visit the blame where it
legitimately belonged. Pro-slavery sagacity was quick-sighted in its
apprehensions that it could not dodge the inquiry, 'Whence comes this
disparity?'

The statistics of the two sections presented a still more obnoxious
comparison to the pro-slavery sensibilities, as it respects the physical
condition of the respective populations. The cotton States have mostly
been the advocates of '_free trade_,' some of them tenaciously so. They
deemed it impossible to introduce manufacturing, to much extent, into
sections where the yearly surpluses in production were wholly absorbed
by investment in land and negroes. The consequence has been, want of
diversified industry and want of profitable occupation for the poorer
classes. In the Northern and in some of the Border States, a different
industrial policy has been pursued. Diversified occupation has raised up
skilled labor in nearly every branch of industry. Notwithstanding the
greater rigor of climate, adult labor on the average, under full and
compensated employment, performs nearly three hundred solid days' work
in the year. The eight millions of white population in the South, in
consequence of this want of profitable occupation, perform much less,
perhaps not one hundred and fifty days' work on the average. The
following table, published in 1856-1857, by Mr. Guthrie, then Secretary
of the Treasury, discloses a condition of things very remarkable; but no
wise astonishing to those who have investigated the causes of the
disparity. The ratio of annual _per capita_ production to each man,
woman, and child, white and black, in the respective States, exclusive
of the gains or earnings of commerce, stood as follows:

-------------------------------------------------------
Massachusetts, $166 60  | Indiana,              $69 12
Rhode-Island,   164 61  | Wisconsin,             63 41
Connecticut,    156 05  | Mississippi,           67 50
California,     149 60  | Iowa,                  65 47
New-Jersey,     120 82  | Louisiana,             65 30
New-Hampshire,  117 17  | Tennessee,             63 10
New-York,       112 00  | Georgia,               61 45
Pennsylvania,    99 80  | Virginia,              59 42
Vermont,         96 62  | South-Carolina,        56 91
Illinois,        89 94  | Alabama,               55 72
Missouri,        88 66  | Florida                54 77
Delaware,        85 27  | Arkansas,              52 04
Maryland,        83 85  | District of Columbia,  52 00
Ohio,            75 82  |
Michigan,        72 64  | Texas,                 51 13
Kentucky,        71 82  | North-Carolina,        49 38
Maine,           71 11  |
-------------------------------------------------------

It is seen by this table that the income, or product of the
non-slaveholding population South, mainly disconnected as it is with
mechanical industry, is reduced to the extreme level of bare
subsistence, while the population of the States which have introduced
diversified industry stand on a high scale of production. Contrast
Massachusetts and South-Carolina, the two leading States in the
promulgation of opposite theories. These two States have often been
censured for the contumelious manner in which they have sometimes sought
to repel each other's arguments. The one is in favor of 'free trade.'
The other says: 'No State can flourish to much extent without
diversified industry.' The one says: 'Open every thing to free
competition.' The other replies: 'Are you aware that the interest on
manufacturing capital in Europe is much lower; that skilled labor there
is more abundant; and that it would dash to the ground most of the
manufacturing we have started into growth under protection through our
revenue laws?' 'Let it be so,' says Carolina; 'what right exists to
adopt a national policy that does not equally benefit all sections?'
'The very object of the policy,' replies Massachusetts, 'is, that it
_should_ benefit all sections; and the most desirable object of all, in
the eye of beneficence, would be, that it _should_ benefit the laboring
white population of the cotton States, as well as others.' 'But,' says
Carolina, 'this diversified industry can not be introduced, to much
extent, where slavery exists.' 'That is an argument by implication,'
says Massachusetts, 'that you more prize slavery than you do the
interests and welfare of the bulk of your white population.' 'Who set
you up to be a judge on the question of the welfare of any part of the
population South?' says Carolina. 'I assume to judge for myself,'
replies Massachusetts, 'as to that national policy which is designed to
affect beneficially the twenty-seven millions of people who are obliged
to obtain subsistence through personal industry; theirs is the great
cause of white humanity in its shirt-sleeves; and it behooves the
National Government to take care of that cause, and to foster it; and
not to submit to the narrow selfishness of a few slaveholders.'

It may readily be seen that this controversy, growing out of the
opposite theories of selfish slaveholders on the one hand, and a spirit
of beneficence, blended with the idea of a wide-spread advantage on the
other, not only involves directly the demerits of slavery, in its
prejudicial effect on the non-slaveholding population South, but also
the great question of raising up skilled labor in all the States. It is
thus clearly demonstrated that our national policy should be exempt from
the control of an arrogant and selfish class. Slaveholders have had
little sympathy with the great bulk of the white people in the Union; at
most, they have never manifested it. Few of them can be trusted
politically, where a broad industrial policy is concerned. No one is
better aware than the political slaveholder of the crushing effect of
slavery on the interests of the non-slaveholding population in the slave
States: hence their jealousy of this population as a voting, governing
power. The Southern political mind, connected with slaveholding, is
astute when sharpened by jealousy. There is no phase in political
economy, bearing on the disparity of classes in the South, that has not
been taken into the account and analyzed. The fear with slaveholders has
been, that the great majority, composed of the white laboring population
South, would become able to subject matters to the same scrutinizing
analysis.

It would be difficult to convince the American people that slavery is
not 'the skeleton in their closet.' Any one who has encountered for
years the pro-slavery spirit; who has watched it through its
unscrupulous deviations from rectitude, morally, socially, and
politically, will have been dull of comprehension not to have
appreciated its atrocious disposition. Its great instrumentality in the
management of Southern masses, consists not only of a disregard, but of
a positive interdict of the principles of civil liberty, in all matters
wherein the prejudicial effects of slavery might directly, or by
implication, be disclosed. It is true, people are permitted to adulate
slavery--so they are allowed to adulate kings, where kings reign. No one
in recent years has been allowed the open expression of opinion or
argument as to the bad effect of a pro-slavery policy on the great
majority of Southern white population. This would bring the offender
within the Southern definition of an 'incendiary,' and the offense would
be heinous. The pro-slavery spirit has always demanded sycophancy where
its strength was great enough to enforce it, and has ever been ready to
invoke the law of force where its theories were contradicted. Even the
fundamental law of the South, contained in Southern State Constitutions
in favor of the 'freedom of speech, and freedom of the press,' is mere
rhetorical flourish, where slavery is concerned. It means that you must
adulate slavery if you speak of it; and woe to the man that gives this
fundamental law any broader interpretation. In its amiable moods, the
pro-slavery spirit is often made to appear the gentleman. In its angry,
jealous moods, it is both a ruffian and an assassin. Mr. Sumner, of the
Senate, once sat for its picture--twice in his turn he drew it--each
portrait was a faithful resemblance.

Had we been exempt from slavery and its influences, it is difficult to
conceive what possible pretense could have been raised up for
revolution. What position could have been taken showing the necessity of
disenthrallment from oppressive government? There would have existed no
element of political discontent that could by any possibility have
culminated in rebellion, aside from the active, jealous, and
unscrupulous influence of slaveholders. Rebellion and treason required
the lead and direction of an ambitious and reckless class; a class
actuated by gross and selfish passions, in disconnection with sympathy
for the masses. It required a class stripped and bereft by habits of
thinking of the spirit of political beneficence, devoid of national
honor, national pride, and national fidelity. Nothing less unscrupulous
would have answered to plot, to carry forward, and to manage the
incidents of the attempted dismemberment of the Union. It required
something worse in its nature than Benedict Arnold susceptibility. His
might have been crime, springing from sudden resentment or imaginary
wrong. The other is the result of thirty years' concoction under adroit,
hypocritical, and unscrupulous leaders. The slaveholders' rebellion has
assumed a magnitude commensurate only with long contemplation of the
subject. Making all due allowance for the honorable exceptions, this is
substantially the phase of pro-slavery infidelity to the Union.

Were further argument needed to establish this position, it is found in
the fact that the seeds of rebellion are wanting in proportion to the
absence of slavery. There is no reason to believe that Kentucky or
Maryland, without slavery, would have been less loyal than Ohio. In
Eastern Kentucky, Western Virginia, Eastern Tennessee, Western
North-Carolina, a small portion of Georgia, and Northern Alabama, the
Union cause finds a friend's country. These sections, in the main,
contain a population dependent upon its own labor for subsistence.
Schooled by diligent industry to habits of perseverance, and learning
independence and manhood by relying on itself, it has preserved its
patriotism and attachment to the Government under which it was born. It
saw no cause of complaint, imaginary or real. Six or seven per cent of
slave population has not proved sufficient as a slave interest, to
prostrate or corrupt its national fidelity, nor to undermine its
national pride. It still retains its representation in Congress against
the influences of surrounding treason. There is a cheering satisfaction
in the belief that this plateau of civil liberty and freedom, even
unassisted, could not have been permanently held in subjection by the
myrmidons of rebellion. The secessionists themselves bestow a high
compliment to the patriotism of this people, when they complain of its
'idolatrous attachment to the old Government.'

The time has come when the American people, from necessity, must analyze
to their root the whole aptitudes and incidents of slavery. They are now
obliged to deal with it, unbridled by the check-rein of its apologists.
Under the best behavior of slaveholders, the institution could not rise
above the point of bare toleration. There is so much inherent in the
system that will not bear analysis, so much of collateral mischief, so
much tending to overturn and discourage the principles of justice that
ought to be interwoven into the relationships of society, that it is
impossible for the ingenuous mind to advocate slavery _per se_. It is
not, however, to the bare dominion itself, that the objection is
exclusively raised up. It is the inevitable result of that dominion, in
connection with the worst cultivated passions of human nature, that the
exception is more broadly taken. The dominion of the master over the
slave involves in a great measure the necessary dominion over the
persons and interests of the balance of society where it exists. The
lust of power on the part of slaveholders, and on the part of the
privileged classes in Europe, in nature, is the same. The determination
through the artificial arrangements of power, to subsist on the toil of
others, is the same. The arrogant assumption of the right to maintain as
privilege what originated in atrocious wrong, is the same. The
disposition to crush by force any attempt to vindicate natural rights,
or to modify the status of society under the severity of oppression, is
the same; and no tyranny has yet been found so tenacious or
objectionable as the tyranny of a class held together by the 'bond of
iniquity.' Our forefathers had a just conception of the nature of the
case, on one hand, when they interdicted by fundamental law the
establishment of any order of nobility. Many of them were sorely
distressed at the contemplation of slavery on the other hand, in
connection with its probable results upon the national welfare. Our
calamity is but the fulfillment of their prophecies. They well knew the
nature of the evil we have to deal with.

It is matter of astonishment to most minds that slaveholders should have
contemplated the bold venture of subordinating the Democratic principle
in government. It will be less astonishing, however, when it is duly
considered that it is utterly impossible for Democracy and Slavery to
abide long together. The one or the other must ere long have been
prostrated under the laws of population, and it is not very likely that
the twenty-seven millions and their increase would consent to be
subordinated to the policy of three hundred and fifty thousand
slaveholders. Slavery must exist as the ruling political power, or it
can not long exist at all. This the slaveholders well knew; hence the
necessity of fortifying itself through some political arrangement
against the Democratic power of the masses.

The South-Carolina platform for a new government had close resemblance
to the ancient Roman--a patrician order of nobility, founded on the
interested motive to uphold slavery; but allowing plebeian
representation, to some extent, to the non-slaveholding classes. Others
in the South had preference for constitutional monarchy, with a class of
privileged legislators, and House of Commons, composing a government of
checks and balances, analogous to the English government. Whatever the
plan adopted, the leading idea was to institute a government that should
be impervious, through one branch, to the future influence of the
non-slaveholding majority.

It is difficult to make entirely clear the ambitious motives and mixed
apprehensions that have combined to precipitate the Southern
slaveholders into rebellion. The defectiveness of the educational system
of the South, and the known responsibility of slaveholders for such
defect and its consequences; the defect in the industrial policy, and
the responsibility of slavery itself for the depressing consequences to
the non-slaveholding population, were fearful charges. A knowledge that
the causes of depression must soon be brought to the examination of
Southern masses, in contrast with a better state of things in the North,
filled the minds of slaveholders with jealous and fearful apprehensions
toward the non-slaveholding population. They knew that its interests
were identified with the Northern educational and industrial policy.
They appreciated fully that through these interests, free labor in the
South had every motive to affinity with the North, educationally,
politically, and industrially. They were astute in the discovery that
under the operation of the Democratic principle, free discussion, and
fair play of reason, the pro-slavery prestige must soon go down in the
South before the greater numerical force of Southern masses. It was,
therefore, not only necessary, as supposed, to overturn the power of the
masses in the South, but also to make them the instruments of their own
overthrow as to political power.

The measurable acquiescence of the non-slaveholding population was
indispensable to the revolutionary project. Without it, there was but
little numerical force. It was, therefore, of entire consequence to make
this population hate the North--to hate the National Government, and to
train it for the purposes of rebellion. The press was suborned wherever
it could be. The pulpit manifested equal alacrity, in order to keep pace
with the workings of the virus of treason. Leading men, assuming to be
statesmen and political economists, taxed their ingenuity in the
invention of falsehood. The effort of the press and politicians was
directed to misrepresenting and disparaging the condition of free labor
in the North; whilst the Southern pulpit was religiously engaged in
establishing the divinity of slavery. It would require a volume to
delineate the arts and hypocrisy resorted to, and the false reasoning
employed, to impose upon the masses of white labor South, and to make
them contented with their disparaged condition. It is needless to say,
the work of imposition was too effectually accomplished. It must be
confessed that too much of the non-slaveholding population had been
induced to follow the political Iagos of the South, and thus to assist
the first act in the plan for its own subversion--separation from the
North. The next step in the plan of subversion, the 'abrogation of a
government of majorities,' was carefully kept from the public view.

The inquiry naturally arises, as to how or why this design for the
arrangement of political power in the Southern Confederacy has been
confined within such narrow degrees of disclosure. The answer is plain.
A bold proposition to change the principles of their government would
have alarmed the people of the South into an intensified opposition. The
politicians of South-Carolina, more open and frank in the exposition of
their views than other leaders in the South, have been obliged to submit
the control of their discretion to the more crafty and subtle influences
of other States. Policy required that the contemplated new form of
government should be confined to the knowledge of the leading spirits
only. It would not bear the hazards of submission to the people as a
basis of revolution. Its success depended upon secresy and coupling the
adoption of the plan with a sudden _denouement_ after revolution. Any
one conversant with the pages of De Bow's _Review_ for the last ten
years, and who has watched the drift of argument in reviling the masses,
and contemning their connection with government; and accustomed also to
the 'accidental droppings' from secessionists in their cups, has had
little difficulty in determining the ultimatum in the designs of
treason. He will have become convinced that it is nothing less than a
warfare against the continuation of Democratic government in the
South--that this warfare is stimulated by the fixed belief that a
government of majorities must be superseded, in order to perpetuate the
institution of slavery.

Were argument wanting to force this conclusion on the mind, it would be
supplied in the established affinity between the emissaries of secession
in Europe and the virulent haters of Democratic government there found.
The liberalists of England and elsewhere have been sedulously avoided;
not so those who would connive to bring Democratic government into
disrepute. With these last-mentioned classes, the secessionists have met
with a ready sympathy and encouragement, almost as much so, as if
treason in America involved directly the stability of privileged power
on that continent. The Tories of England, the Legitimists of France, the
nauseous ingredients of the House of Hapsburg, the degenerate nobility
of Spain, and from that down to the 'German Prince of a five-acre
patch,' have been the congenial allies of secession emissaries in
Europe. It mattered not to these haters of enfranchised masses how much
misery might be inflicted on the American people. They cared little for
the anguish of mind that was being every where felt by the supporters of
liberalized opinions. They rejoiced at the supposed calamities of that
government whose beneficent policy had always been to keep the peace, to
avoid the necessity of standing armies, to foster industry and
education, and in addition thereto, to encourage the depressed of Europe
to come and accept homes and hospitable treatment on the soil of the
country. These revilers of Democracy in Europe were long advised with,
were consulted beforehand, and knew the plottings of the pro-slavery
spirit, in its preparation for rebellion. They were indifferent as to
the character or hateful deformity of the agency to be employed,
provided it could be made instrumental in breaking the jurisdiction of a
government, heretofore more esteemed by the enlightened liberalists of
the world than any other that ever existed. Neither the secessionists
nor their co-plotters in Europe required seducing or proselyting. They
stood on the same level of affinity, the moment the secessionists
proposed the overthrow of the Democratic principle. This was the
promise, the condition precedent, and this the basis of alliance between
the plotters of treason in free America and their coädjutors abroad. It
would be both shallow and useless to charge the origin of sympathy with
rebellion projects, expressed by political circles in Europe, to the
mercenary motives of commerce, trade, or manufactures. Those were
standing on a broad foundation of contented reciprocity, and were the
first to dread the tumult that could not fail to prove prejudicial. We
shall hunt in vain to find the motive for European sympathy in
rebellion, elsewhere than in hatred of Democracy. We shall also search
in vain to find the motive for the wide-spread sympathy expressed by the
liberalists of Europe in the Union cause, elsewhere than in their
attachment to liberalized institutions.

Having glanced at the compound motive for establishing the Southern
Confederacy, that is, slavery perpetuation through prostration of the
Democratic principle, it may not be amiss to refer to the contemplated
management of its _politico-economic_ interests. These were to be built
up, of course; but not through a system of diversified industry; for
free trade, as is well known, would have the effect to prostrate what
little manufacturing had been commenced in the South, and afford a
perpetual bar to the success of future undertakings. It was believed
that the foul elements North and South, and the illicit traders of the
world beside, could be brought together in the business of free trade
and smuggling. The immense frontier would render it impossible for the
Northern States to protect themselves to much extent from illicit trade,
through any preventive service possible to be adopted. The Mexican
frontier would be entirely helpless. Thus reasoned _Secesh_. This was to
have been the basis of competition with Northern mechanism. The
reasonings of the conspirators were consistent with the merits and
morals of the conspiracy. They calculated upon the active coöperation of
the mercenary in the North, and actually believed that the temptation to
gain would prove predominant over any efforts the Northern Government
could make to protect its revenue policy. They boldly ventured upon the
assumption that the influences of illicit traffic would soon become too
strong to be resisted, and that in this manner, in conjunction with the
agency of 'King Cotton,' the commerce of the North would be transferred
to the South.

Another item in Southern political economy was the project of reöpening
the African slave-trade. The leaders of the secession programme had made
this a prominent feature in starting the rebellion into growth. The
various phases which this branch of the question afterward underwent,
was owing to the opposition of the Border States. So much were the
people of the Border States averse to being brought into competition
with slave-breeding in Dahomey, that the original conspirators were
obliged to forego, for a time at least, this incident in the motives of
the earlier revolutionists.

A government founded on the supremacy of a class, and that class to be
composed of slaveholders; a political economy founded on slave labor,
free trade, illicit trade, and African kidnapping, were associations
that would require great strength and influence to sustain them. The
strongest military organization was therefore contemplated. In this,
much employment could be given to the non-slaveholding masses, while
military qualities of supposed superiority would enable the Southern
Confederacy to enter into a successful contest with the North for
empire. The potency of 'King Cotton' was to be made the powerful agency
with which the rest of the civilized world was to be dragooned into
acquiescence. On this delusive dream was built the fabric of that mighty
empire, whose history, from its origin to its subversion, is nearly
ready to be written.

It must be acknowledged that the leading influences of the rebellion
were as sharp-sighted as political vice, or political immorality is ever
capable of becoming. Like all other vice, however, it based its
reasonings and supposititious strength exclusively on its powers of
deception, in conjunction with the iniquitous aptitudes of itself and
its coadjutors. It found co-plotters in Mozart Hall, in the stockholders
of the African Slave-trade Association, scattered from Maine to Texas,
and in its suborned press in New-York, Baltimore, Charleston, and
New-Orleans. It had bargained with the politically vitiated portion of
the Northern Democracy for assistance, and had received a wicked though
fallacious assurance from the Northern kidnappers, to the effect, that
the Democracy of the North would neutralize any attempt to oppose
secession by force. They had arranged for their diplomatic influence on
the other side of the Atlantic, and bargained for the subversion of
Democracy in the South. It planned beforehand for arming treason and
disarming the Union, and most adroitly were its plans in this respect
carried into effect. It had gained over to its side most of the Southern
material in the little army and navy of the country, and prepared it for
perfidy, in committing devastation or theft on the public property. Thus
allied and thus equipped, in the confidence of its pernicious strength,
it commenced its warfare on society.

'How much injury can we inflict upon the North? How much of the debts
owing to Northern citizens can we confiscate? How much property in the
South owned by Northern men can we appropriate? How much can we make
Northern commerce suffer by depression of business, privateering, or
otherwise? To what extent can we paralyze Northern mechanical industry,
subvert Northern trade, and lay it under disabilities? How much can we
distress the laboring classes in England, in France, in other countries
in Europe, whereby we may compel them to clamor for the intervention of
their respective governments against the North, and against its attempts
to uphold the Union?' The whole reasoning of the conspirators was based
on the supposed power, coupled with the intent and effort to inflict
wide-spread and common injury. The scheme and all its contemplated and
attempted incidents of management were such as the pro-slavery spirit in
politics only could engender.

It required many years of gradual development, in connection with the
ultimate culmination of treason, to shake the confidence of the North in
the disposition of the people of the South. There was, and could be, no
possible intelligent motive for the masses of the South to change their
form of government, or to enter into rebellion against it. The arguments
of the plotters of treason against a 'government of majorities'--the
doctrine of 'State rights,' with the right to secede at the option of a
State--the _quasi_ repudiation of the 'white trash,' so called, as an
element of political equality, were regarded as the ebullitions of a
politically vitiated class who would be willing to overthrow the
National Government, but who were supposed to be too few in numbers to
taint with poisonous fatality the political mind of the South. It is not
established as yet that the Southern political mind in the main has
become depraved. It is, however, established, that the leading political
influences South have cajoled and terrorized the bulk of the Southern
population into apparent acquiescence in treason. It yet remains to be
seen what disposition will be disclosed by the Southern people, as soon
as protection is guaranteed to them against the tyranny and usurpations
of the rebel influence. It is prophesied that there will be found a
heart in the bulk of the Southern population; that it will still cling
with affection and pride to that government which was their guarantee,
and which no power now on earth is competent to shake. It is not against
the deluded, the timid, or the helpless of the South that we would make
the indictment for political crime. It is the perfidious pro-slavery
spirit in politics that we seek to arraign.

The analysis of developed motives in which the slaveholders' rebellion
had its origin, must naturally excite the inquiry in the American mind,
as to how far the slaveholding element can be trusted. As a political
force, we find it sowing the seeds of political discontent. As an
anti-democratic element, we find it plotting the overthrow of democratic
government. In its efforts to denationalize republican government in
America, it has not scrupled to seek aid from, and alliance with, the
haters of republican institutions every where. Under such calamitous
teachings as it has inflicted, can we longer conclude that it can, from
its aptitudes and nature, be converted into an element of national
strength? There is a South, and a great South, and would continue to be,
were there not a negro or slaveholder sojourning there. The seven
millions non-slaveholding population in the Southern States have rights,
social and political, based on the motive to maintain republican
government. The Constitution of the Union, as the highest principle of
fundamental law, guarantees in express terms, to every State, the form
of a republican government; and not less by implication, the essential
qualities of an actual one. It matters not how much the non-slaveholding
population of the South may have been deluded, nor how much it may have
been incited, under that delusion, to act as the instrument of its own
overthrow. This population is not less the object of just political
solicitude than any equal number of people North. That its general
education has not been advanced to the appreciative point, is its
misfortune. That it has been surrounded by a pro-slavery influence,
selfish, arrogant, and contemptuous of the interest of the masses, is
equally so. That it has been less favored than its brother-hood of free
labor in the North--that it has been placed under disabilities in the
comparison, are only additional reasons for increased solicitude for the
welfare and future advancement of this portion of Southern population.
While it has been imposed upon, and much of it deluded in its motives to
action, its actual condition is in reality coupled with every natural
incentive to alliance and adhesion to the National Government. It has
drunk the bitter cup of calamity in rebellion. It has tasted the dregs
of treason that lie at the bottom of political vice, and been victimized
by destitution, by the diseases of camp-life, by the casualties of the
battle-field, and by the widowhood and orphanage that have followed the
train of rebellion. This population is a natural element of national
strength, having the same incentives as its brotherhood in the North.
Arms will soon remove the blockade to its intercourse with the North,
and civil liberty once established, will most likely secure it to the
side of national patriotism.

There is a question of equal magnitude respecting the colored
population, not only of the South, but of the whole country. It is
involved in the inquiry: Can the colored population be converted into an
element of national strength? Physiologically and mentally, the native
negro race stands as the middle-man in the five races--the Caucasian and
Malay being above, and the American aborigines and the Alforian below.
The mixture of blood with the Caucasian in America, places the negro
element of the United States at least upon a level with the Malay race
in natural powers, and from association, much the superior in practical
intelligence. Notwithstanding the crushing laws designed by slaveholders
to perpetuate the ignorance and helplessness of the negro, he _would_
improve. Notwithstanding the brutal and studied policy of slaveholders
to slander and disparage the negro capacity for improvement, all the
arts of lying hypocrisy have occasionally been set at naught by some
convincing exhibition of truth, springing from a fair experiment on the
colored man's susceptibilities. The white man's dishonoring inclination
to strike the helpless--made helpless by brutal laws--has occasionally
recoiled in an exposure of the atrocious practice. The late attempt to
introduce a bill into the South-Carolina Legislature, providing for the
sale of the free negroes of the State into slavery, led to a disclosure
worthy of contemplation. The Committee to whom the bill was referred
stated that--

     'Apart from the consideration that many of the class were good
     citizens, patterns of industry, sobriety, and irreproachable
     conduct, there were difficulties of a practical character in the
     way of those who advocated the bill. The free colored population of
     Charleston alone pay taxes on $1,561,870 worth of property; and the
     aggregate taxes reach $27,209.18. What will become of the one and a
     half millions of property which belongs to them in Charleston
     alone, to say nothing of their property elsewhere in the State? Can
     it enter into the mind of any Carolina Legislature to confiscate
     this property, and pot it in the Treasury? We forbear to consider
     any thing so full of injustice and wickedness. While we are
     battling for our rights, liberties, and institutions, can we expect
     the smiles and countenance of the Arbiter of all events, when we
     make war on the impotent and unprotected, enslave them against all
     justice, and rob them of the property acquired by their own honest
     toil and industry, under your former protection and sense of
     justice?'[E]

This slight exhibition in the Carolina Legislature presents an epitome
of the whole argument of cultivated brutality on the one hand, and of
humane sense and rationality on the other. What were the protection and
sense of justice here spoken of; and what the sequences flowing from
such protection and justice? The whole question is answered in three
words: Improvement, following encouragement. What was the 'robbery'
proposed by the bill, other than the concomitants of slavery, that have
robbed the colored man from generation to generation, not only of his
toil, but of every practical motive TO BE A MAN? It would be needless,
however, to discuss the question of the colored man's capacity to
improve, were it not for considerations that now make it necessary,
under national calamity, to take it into truthful account. The white
man's cultivation of barbarity under the teachings of slaveholders has
hitherto proved an overmatch for the colored man's claims in the
abstract. Things and conditions are now changed. The slaveholders'
rebellion has softened the obduracy of manufactured prejudice, and
necessity has become allied with humanity. Tho pro-slavery spirit in
politics is now discovered to be little short of a demon--a snake's egg
that hatches treason. The American mind is nearly forced to the
conclusion, that as long as colored women are compelled to breed slaves,
their white mistresses will continue to breed rebels. Slavery, of
course, must yield to the necessity of national security. A remnant may
exist for a while, and linger through modifications of a broken and
hopeless pro-slavery prestige, the duration depending entirely upon the
disposition of slaveholders to become subordinated to law. Perpetuation,
however, has become a word that has no meaning in connection with the
duration of slavery. The word in that sense has become obsolete; and
what shall become of the colored man, and how shall he be treated, is,
and is to be, the sequence of the conspiracy to overthrow the
jurisdiction of the Government. It being established that the
pro-slavery spirit, by nature, is the antagonist of the democratic
principle--the antagonist of the interests of the masses, the hot-bed
for the cultivation of brutality, devoid of fidelity, and a rebel by
practice, it has become an intolerable element of national weakness. We
can not avoid the inquiry, now to be made on the basis of humanity: Can
the colored man, by proper and just encouragement, be converted into an
element of patriotism and national strength?

What is the solution of the riddle as it respects the strength of
democratic government? It has heretofore been said by the revilers of
the masses in America, that 'for two hundred years the scum, the crime,
and poverty of Europe have been cast upon the shores of the Atlantic.'
It is immaterial to the question of humanity, whether such has been the
seed from which a new nation has been raised up in the wilderness. A few
months since, 'Democracy on its trial,' was the favorite theme of
democracy-haters in Europe. The indictment against our free institutions
was freighted with fearful charges. The government of the Union was a
'delusive Utopia.' 'The people of the North had degenerated into a mob.'
'Society was drifting into the maelstrom of anarchy, and law and order
becoming extinct.' A little time, and an apparently unwarlike people had
changed into an astonishing organization, disciplined for warfare. Seven
hundred thousand bayonets, as if by enchantment, bristled in menace to
the slaveholders' rebellion. The navy-yards and arsenals resounded with
the clang of hammers, and soon the suddenly created armaments appeared
on the waters. Power in finance exhibited by the Government, based on
the confidence and patriotism of the people, was no less astonishing.
New inventions of warfare changed the scoffings in Europe into alarm for
their own security. The trans-Atlantic revilers of republicanism in
America have discovered a people who had a heart in them. Patriotism in
America is reassured of success by the exhibition of a deep-seated
attachment on the part of the Northman to his Government. Seven words
suffice to solve the riddle of free democratic strength--THE MASSES
CONVERTED INTO BEINGS OF POWER. This is the theory, the basis, the
strength of free institutions in America. They have no other foundation.
They have nothing else to rely on for enduring support.

Let the Southern rebel attempt to disguise it as he may, the colored man
of the South is already a patriot on the side of the Union. He has heard
of a people in the North who believed that every human being, by nature,
was entitled '_to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness_.' He
knows that his oppressor hates this people of the North, and for the
sole reason that they entertain this generous sentiment. While the
Pharisaic theologian of the Southern pulpit is expounding his
Bible-doctrine in justification of kidnapping, and appealing to Heaven
for assistance, the colored man turns in disgust at the impiety, and
turns into secret places to beseech Omnipotence to favor the success of
the national arms. Perhaps there is an interfering Providence already
manifest in results. If the plagues of Egypt had been visited on the
rebellious States by an overruling Power, they would scarcely have
afforded a parallel to the calamity which rebel slaveholders have
inflicted on their country. They have exhausted and destroyed much of
what the long toil of the colored man South had assisted to raise up.
Devastation has followed the train of rebellion. The blood of the first
and of the second-born has been the sacrifice on the altar of slavery.
The brutal ruffianism of the pro-slavery spirit has far enough disclosed
its natural aptitudes to have become disgustingly odious in comparison
with the positively better characteristics of the colored man. The rebel
himself has taught a lesson to the world, which he can never unteach.
The twenty-seven millions of free labor in the Union have learned a
lesson through the teachings of slaveholders in rebellion, which they
can not forget. This teaching is nothing less than that the colored man
is capable, by protection and encouragement, of being converted into a
better element of national strength and national prosperity than
slaveholders, as _such_, would ever become.

Could any contemplative mind doubt for a moment the ability of the white
population of the Union, if justly disposed, to raise the colored
population of the country, in a short time, to the platform of a decent
respectability? With unjust prejudice laid aside, and the work of
beneficence acquiesced in, no one could reasonably doubt it. Who
deserves best at the hands of the nation's power, the oppressor or the
oppressed? The one that grasps at the throat of the nation and attempts
its overthrow merely to perpetuate his power of oppression, or the other
who is crying to humanity for protection? The voice of nature, if
undefiled, will answer this question on the side of humanity--if not,
NECESSITY WILL.

The democratic theory which seeks to absolve humanity from oppression,
is not confined to the resistance of a single despot. It goes in the
same degree to a privileged class that arrogates to itself the right to
oppress; nor does it stop at the half-way house of mere negative
protection. It allows in its onward course the full fruition of
'EQUALITY BEFORE THE LAW.' In theory, the law is the sovereign, and we
seek to attach such qualities to that sovereign as are compatible with
the general good of society. That theory places no man above the law,
nor any man below its protection. As soon as the individual in society
is raised to the point of negative protection, he is in a measure
converted into a being of power. He can then appeal to his sovereign,
THE LAW, for the vindication of his rights. Experience is continually
demonstrating that men are respected in proportion to their power to
command respect. The very existence of slavery requires and demands the
brutalization of the governing power that upholds it. Were society
absolved from this tyranny, matters would begin to mend. Equalized
protection would be the consequence. Protection, not only to the colored
man, but protection in an almost equal degree to the non-slaveholding
white population, hitherto brought under the ban of disability by a
depressing pro-slavery policy.

Until recently, when the colored race in the United States was spoken of
in connection with the subject of its release from oppression, it was
subjected to the same arguments that kept the white men in slavery in
olden times. The arguments of slaveholders were never truthful, and only
convenient for themselves. They damaged the slave; they damaged every
collateral interest; they damaged the strength of nationality; and more
than all, they damaged every humane principle of civilization. The whole
reasoning in favor of slaveholding has been a vicious fallacy; and
perhaps the time has come, attended by sufficient calamity, to set the
American population to thinking and acting in the right direction.

The colored people South are better fitted for freedom than is commonly
imagined. They are quite well skilled in practical industry, more
especially in agricultural pursuits. There are many of them qualified in
skilled labor in the coarser mechanic arts. The whole of this population
has been trained to diligent labor, under habits of continuous toil. It
has acquired patience in performing labor, by the discipline which
unremitting labor gives. The colored man South has not been brought up
in idleness, or with habits calculated to make him a renegade. Were he
permitted to enjoy the fruits of his industry, there can be no doubt of
his disposition and patience to toil on. In case his rebel master would
not hire him for wages, there would be enough amongst the
non-slaveholding population who would. Production in the South, under
emancipation of the slaves of rebel masters, would not materially fall
off. Give to colored men the fruits of their industry, and many of them
would soon set up for themselves. Perhaps in connection with the soil of
the South, that yields most abundantly in annual value of product, the
rest of the colored population would soon get to emulate the free
colored people of Charleston. The law of subsistence would as much
compel the South to go on without compulsory labor as it does the North,
and there are just as many reasons for it in one section as in the
other; that is, just none at all. Under emancipation, there is little
doubt that actual production could and would soon be put on the
increase, with better distribution of wealth, more widely diffused
comforts, and a broader and better public policy. The only things that
would be curtailed in their proportions would be slave-breeding,
rebel-breeding, and ruffian cultivation.

It may, perhaps, continue to be easier for a time to strike the colored
man than to strike off his shackles. There is a mean and low side of
humanity, a sort of defiled infirmity, that runs into a disposition to
strike the helpless. This is the bravery of ruffianism. There is apt to
be a shrinking away from duty, when the contest involves a conflict with
arrogant power. This is the cowardice of pusillanimity. The American
citizen has been noted for his superior bravery. He has certainly shown
himself brave in the battle-field, and more brave and determined than
any other nation in the vindication and maintenance of the natural
rights of the white man; but he is not done with the business of
disenthrallment. His language is the language of liberty. It must not,
it will not long continue to be spoken by slaves. This was the meaning
of Jefferson, when he penned the _text-words_ of disenthrallment: 'All
men are created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable
rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.'
Where is to be found the evidence that these rights have been forfeited?
Who dare deny the right of the colored man morally, religiously, or
politically, to assert them? It is true, we have hitherto acted in
defiance of these acknowledged rights. We have outraged them. We have
waged a shameful and shameless warfare against them. The sequences of
that warfare are now upon us. The sin is now being atoned for in blood.
It has not yet been ordained that the principles of injustice should
have permanent duration. If not restrained by humane rationality, they
will culminate in convulsion. The light is now breaking upon the
heretofore obscured vision of the American people. We can now begin to
see with clearness that the colored man's disenthrallment is to become
the white man's future security. This would almost seem to be the
harmony of divine justice in the affairs of men.

No substantial amelioration in the depressed condition of race or class
has yet been brought about in disconnection with the powerful agency of
such race or class. Human nature forbids it. The selfish tenacity of
advantage, resting on what is misnamed 'vested rights,' but having its
foundation in vested wrongs, yields only on compulsion. It is only when
the depressed race or class, acting in somewhat intelligent concert,
exhibits the disposition to aid in the purposes of protection, that the
mercenary power succumbs to necessity. History furnishes no examples to
the contrary. It may not be impossible that our own times may make
history to corroborate the truth of these premises.

When it is asserted that the colored man is wanting in bravery, and is
not endowed with the natural courage to assert and maintain his rights,
we are apt to forget that physical bravery is a thing of cultivation.
There is not the least evidence that, with military discipline and
something to fight for, the colored population of the United States
would not prove as brave as the black regiment of the Revolution. With
such bravery as that regiment exhibited, the four millions and their
prospective increase would require a gigantic force to make profitable
slaves of them. Again, there is something beyond the protection from
domestic violence that demands consideration, in connection with the
military discipline of the colored man. We may reasonably expect that a
large colonization in some quarter will soon take place, and be carried
forward. Education and military discipline, in addition to knowledge in
practical industry, are necessary concomitants to successful
colonization. With these qualities, the colored man will cease to feel
helpless, and be fitted for enterprise, he will have the confidence to
go forward, and the aspirations to impel him. It may be the lot of the
colored man to encounter in some foreign land powers and influences
quite as barbarous as those he has hitherto encountered in the white
man's prejudices. If he is armed for the encounter, he will have little
inclination to shrink from it. Every humane consideration clusters to
the policy of disenthralling the colored man, and of making him a being
of power. Nothing can oppose it but the pro-slavery spirit that seeks to
enslave the American mind to barbarism and the colored millions and
their increase to perpetual bondage.




               WATCHING THE STAG.

        [AN UNFINISHED POEM, BY FITZ-JAMES O'BRIEN.]


        Hela and I lie watching here,
        Above us the sky and below the mere.
                                     long
        Through distant gorges the-b-l-u-e-moors loom
        Till the heath looks blue in the endless gloom.

        The eagle screams from the misty cliff,
        With a quivering lamb in his taloned griff.
        And the echoes leap over hill and hollow,
        As the old stag bells to the herd to follow.

        The purpled heather is wet with mist,
        Till it shines like a drownèd amethyst,
        And the old, old rocks with furrowed faces
        Start up like ghosts in the lonely places.

        With forefeet crossed, stanch Hela lies
        Watching my face through her half-closed eyes,
                      -u-s-
        -B-e-t-w-e-e-n--i-s--i-s--s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d-deer
        While ^ I pillow my head on the stiffening-s-t-a-g-




LITERARY NOTICES.


BAYARD TAYLOR'S PROSE WRITING'S. Vol. V. A Journey to Central Africa,
with a Map and Illustrations by the Author. New-York: G.P. Putnam.
Boston: A.K. Loring.

This work deservedly ranks as among the best, if not the best, by Bayard
Taylor. The East, as we feel in his poems, was full of the scenes of his
widely varied travels, that which most aroused his sympathy and stirred
his artistic creative powers, and it is of the East that he speaks most
freely and brilliantly. It was in Central Africa that he encountered his
most thrilling adventures, and forgot, as we can there only do, the
civilization of the Western World. Something we would say of the
beautiful typography and paper of this series. If the term _mise en
scène_ were as applicable to books as to dramas, it might be truely said
of Mr. Putnam's that they appear as well between boards as other works
do upon them.


EL DORADO. PROSE WRITINGS OF BAYARD TAYLOR. Vol. IV. New-York: G.P.
Putnam. Boston: A.K. Loring. 1862.

Possibly some twenty years hence 'El Dorado' will be regarded as by far
the best of Bayard Taylor's works--certain it is that in it he is among
the pioneer describers of a land the early accounts of which will be
carefully investigated and duly honored. In picturing lands, where
others have been noting and sketching before, he is strong indeed who is
not driven into mannerism; but in fresh fields and pastures new there is
less danger of seeing through thrice-used spectacles. It is this
consciousness of being the first that ever burst into their silent seas
that made Herodotus and Tudela and Rubriquis and Mandeville so fresh and
vigorous--and there is much of the same peculiar inspiration due to
first-ness perceptible in this volume, which we cordially commend to all
who would be California-learned or simply entertained. Somewhat we must
say however of the fine paper, exquisite typography, and two neat steel
engravings with which this 'Caxton' edition is made beautiful and most
suitable either for a lady's _étagere_-book-shelf or the most elegant
library.


LES MISERABLES. I. FANTINE. BY VICTOR HUGO. Translated by CHARLES E.
WILBOUR. New-York: Carleton. Boston: Crosby and Nichols. 1862.

A novel written twenty-five years ago by Victor Hugo is a curiosity. The
present was kept in reserve because the sordid publisher, who had a
contract for all of Hugo's works, would not give the sum demanded--the
author kept raising his price--it was like Nero and the Sybil, or the
converse of the conduct of the damsel who annually reduced her terms to
Martial:

    'Millia viginti quondam me Galla poposcit;
    Annus abit: bis quina dabis sestertia? dixit.'

Finally the publisher died, the work was printed, and its first section
now appears in 'Fantine'--a capital picture of life, manners, customs,
in fact of almost every thing in France in 1817. It deals with much
suffering, many sorrows, as its title indicates--for it is easier to
make sensations out of pains than pleasures, and M. Hugo is preëminently
and proverbially 'sensational.' Still it is deeply interesting,
extremely well managed in all art-details, and above all things, is
extremely humane--as a book by Victor Hugo could hardly fail to be. And
as every page bears the impress of a certain characteristic originality
of thought and of observation, we may safely predict that 'Fantine' will
deservedly prove a success. We like the manner in which Mr. Wilbour has
translated it--neither too slavishly nor too freely, but in one word,
'admirably.'


ARTEMUS WARD HIS BOOK. New-York; Carleton. Boston: N. Williams and
Company. 1862.

Once in five or six years we have a new humorist--at one time a Jack
Downing, then a Doesticks, then again a Phoenix-Derby. Last on the list
we have 'Artemus Ward,' as set forth in letters to the Cleveland
_Plaindealer_ and _Vanity Fair_, purporting to come from the proprietor
of a 'side-show,' as cheaper, or less than twenty-five cent exhibitions,
are called in this country. To say that they are excellent, spirited,
and racy--full of strong idioms of language and character, and abounding
in novelties in type which are no novelties to those familiar with
popular life--would be doing them faint justice. They embody a new and
perfectly truthful conception of one of the multitude, and have nothing
that is hackneyed in them.

It is a great test of real stuff in a writer when he dashes off, or
picks up, phrases which are at once taken up by the people. 'Artemus
Ward' has originated many of these, and is perhaps at the present day as
much quoted 'in the broad and long' as any man in the country. It is
needless to say that all who relish broad eccentric humor will find his
Book very well worth reading. We regret that it does not embrace certain
other excellent sketches which we know he has written, but trust that
these will appear in due time in a second part or in a new edition. The
volume before us is very neatly got up, well illustrated, and tastefully
bound.


LYRICS FOR FREEDOM AND OTHER POEMS. UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE
CONTINENTAL CLUB. New-York: Carleton, 413 Broadway, Boston; Crosby and
Nichols.

At a regular meeting of the 'Continental Club,' held at their rooms in
New-York, it was resolved and carried that a volume of poems written by
certain of the younger members be published 'under its auspices.' As a
noted Democratic sheet, the Boston _Courier_, has declined to notice the
volume on the plea that the name of the society from which it sprung
suggested too forcibly the CONTINENTAL MONTHLY, possibly a favorable
mention by us of our young New-York brother-in-literature may seem
partial and too en-famille-iar to be fair. Be this as it may, we can not
resist the expression of the honest conviction, for which we have many a
good indorser, that while it would be a matter of some difficulty to
compile a better collection of lyrics from the vast number which the war
has thus far called forth, its production by a limited number of a
single association is indeed remarkable. There is the right ring and the
true feeling perceptible in all of them; earnest enthusiasm flowing
bravely on the tide of musical words, and a clear conviction of the
justice of our cause springing from liberal and progressive political
views. It is enough indeed to say of most of the lyrics that they are
written from a principle, and with faith in the necessity of
Emancipation, and are not mere war-songs, full of commonplace, as
applicable to one cause as another. They are songs of the American war
of freedom in 1861, and as such will rank high in our literary history.


THE REJECTED STONE; OR, INSURRECTION VERSUS RESURRECTION IN AMERICA. By
a Native of Virginia. Second Edition, Boston: Walker, Wise and Company.
1862.

We are as gratified at the reappearance of this glorious work as we are
astonished to learn that it has only reached a second edition. As it is
beyond comparison the most remarkable literary result thus far of the
war, as it has made a strong sensation in very varied circles, as it is
a book which has given rise to anecdotes, and as its wild eloquence,
bizarre humor and intense earnestness, have caused it to be read with a
relish even by many who dissent from its politics, we had supposed that
ere this its sale had reached at least its tenth edition. Meanwhile assuring them that as a fearless, outspoken work,
grasping boldly at the exciting questions of the day, it has not its
equal. We should mention that in the present edition we find given the
name of its author, the well-known and eloquent Rev. Moncure D. Conway,
formerly of Virginia, now of Cincinnati.


OUR FLAG: A Poem in Four Cantos. By T.H. UNDERWOOD. New-York: Carleton.
Boston: N. Williams. 1862.

During the past year Mr. Underwood has published several poems of
remarkable merit, referring to the war. In the present we have a work of
higher ambition, and one which is truly well done. In it the horrors of
slavery, the iniquitous abuses to which it so often gives rise--the
tortures, vengeances, murders, and fiendish punishments, which in their
turn follow the crime--are portrayed with striking truthfulness and real
power. The author is evidently no Abolitionist on hear-say--the whole
poem gives evidence of practical familiarity with 'the institution,' and
the sense of truth has inspired his pen in many passages with wonderful
power. The terrible sufferings of an _almost_ white man and slave as
here portrayed, his revenge and punishment at the stake, are as moving
as they are manifestly true to life. We commend this little
pamphlet-poem to every friend of freedom, and sincerely trust that it
will attain the large circulation which it deserves.


SKETCHES OF THE RISE, PROGRESS, AND DECLINE OF SECESSION. With a
Narrative of Personal Adventures among the Rebels. By W.G. BROWNLOW,
Editor of the _Knoxville Whig_. Philadelphia: Geo. W. Childs. 1862.

A decided character this 'Parson Brownlow,' and a representative man;
truly and bravely American, very Western in his traits; a man fond of
fierce argument and tough antagonisms, and not fearing the death either
by halter or revolver, which he will probably meet some day, for the
sake of Jehovah and his own stern convictions. Not exactly a man of
_salons_ and elegant _reunions_--yet full of real courtesies and gifted
with the kind heart of a true hater of wickedness, which flashes into
fury at witnessing deeds of cruelty and shame. And he has seen many
such--seen what few have done and lived--he has passed through a life's
warfare with men of his own grim obstinacy without his own honesty and
stern Puritan-like morality. We have followed his course for years--we
have met him 'afore-time,' when quite other subjects of quarrel engaged
him, and could have prophesied then with tolerable accuracy what part he
would play when it came to a question between bayonets and prisons for
the truth.

As we have hinted, he is a splendid hater, and a ferocious antagonist, a
prince of vituperators and a very vitriol-thrower of savage sarcasms at
his enemies and those of humanity. And why should he not be all of this,
when we consider that in the stage whereon his part of life is played a
more delicate student of all the proprieties would have about the same
chances of success as attended the unfortunate cat which ventured
without claws among panthers. Measure such men by their moral worth and
by the good they do, and do not require of the hard-shell Methodist
preacher and tough polemical grappler with Satan in his most bristly and
thick-skinned Western incarnations that he display too much delicacy.
Those who will read his book may gather from it, beyond the interesting
personal and political narrative of which it consists, many useful and
curious hints as to the social development of America and of what men
the country is truly made. It is a _real_ work--one of value--interesting
to all, and very truly one of the monuments of this war and
of the scenes which preceded it in Tennessee.




EDITOR'S TABLE


The proclamation of President Lincoln in reference to General Hunter,
and the bold measures of the latter calling forth Executive
interference, form one of the most interesting episodes of the war of
Freedom. Regarded from the high standpoint whence acts are seen as
controlled by circumstances and formed by events, the conduct of the one
public functionary, as of the other, will appear to the future historian
in a very different light from that in which it has been presented by
either the radical or democratic journals of the day. He will speak of
the one as a military chieftain under the influence of worthy motives,
cutting a Gordian knot which the higher and controlling diplomatic and
executive superior wished should be cautiously untied. The one has acted
with a view to promptly settling a great trouble within his own
sphere--the other wisely comprehending that the action was premature,
has decisively countered it. By attempting to free the slaves, General
Hunter has shown himself a friend of freedom and a man of bold measures;
by annulling his acts Mr. Lincoln has availed himself of an excellent
opportunity of proving to the South and to the world that he is not, as
was said, a sectional or an Abolition President, and that with the
strongest sympathies for freedom, he is determined to respect the rights
even of enemies, and leave behind him a clear record, as one who did
nothing wrongly, and who with keen and wide comprehending glance took in
the times as they were, and acted accordingly.

Meanwhile to the most prejudiced vision it is apparent that the great
cause of Emancipation has gained vastly by this little struggle between
the shepherd and that unruly member of the flock who _would_ dash a
little too impetuously ahead of his fellows. The proclamation of
President Lincoln contains but cold comfort for the pro-slavery
democracy, although they affect to rejoice over it. In vain may they
declare, as they did of the celebrated 'remunerating message,' that it
is very palatable, and vow that it 'creates fresh hope and gives a new
and needed assurance to the conservative men of the nation.' The sour
faces of their pro-slavery, Southern-adoring, English-ruled, traitorous
friends is an effectual answer to their hypocrisy. We have not forgotten
how warmly the Democratic press indorsed the message of January 6th, or
how the Democratic multitude kicked against it in public meetings.

Let the Democratic tories of the day who find this message so
consolatory, duly weigh the following extract from it:

     'I further make known that whether it be competent for me as
     Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy to declare the slaves of
     any State or States free, and whether at any time or in any case it
     shall have become a necessity indispensable to the maintenance of
     the Government to exercise such supposed power, are questions which
     under my responsibility I reserve to myself, and which I can not
     feel justified in leaving to the decisions of commanders in the
     field. These are totally different questions from those of police
     regulations in armies and camps. On the sixth day of March last, by
     a special message, I recommended to Congress the adoption of a
     joint resolution to be substantially as follows:

     "_Resolved_, That the United States ought to co-operate with, any
     State which may adopt a gradual abolishment of slavery, giving to
     such State pecuniary aid, to be used by such State in its
     discretion, to compensate for the inconveniences, public and
     private, produced by such change of system.'

     'The resolution, in the language above quoted, was adopted by large
     majorities in both branches of Congress, and now stands an
     authentic, definite, and solemn proposal of the Nation to the
     States and people moat immediately interested in the
     subject-matter. To the people of those States, I now earnestly
     appeal. I do not argue, I beseech you to make the arguments for
     yourselves. _You can not, if you would, be blind to the signs of
     the times._ I beg of you a calm and enlarged consideration of them,
     ranging, if it may be, far above personal and partisan politics.
     _This proposal makes common cause for a common object, casting no
     reproaches upon any._ It acts not the Pharisee. The change it
     contemplates would come gently as the dews of heaven, not rending
     or wrecking any thing. Will you not embrace it? So much good has
     not been done by one effort in all past time as in the providence
     of God it is your high privilege to do. May the vast future not
     have to lament that you have neglected it.'

If any one can see in this aught save the clearest sympathy with the
gradual advance of Emancipation, he must be indeed gifted with a strange
faculty of perversion. If, however, the Democrats indorse the
President's recommendation and approve the Executive policy of gradual
emancipation for the sake of the white man, why do they continue to
abuse so fiercely presses which agree exactly with the Administration,
and ask for nothing more than a recognition of the great principle and
its realization according to circumstance?

A more contemptible and pitiable political spectacle was never yet
presented than that which may now be witnessed in the actions and words
of the 'Conservative' Democracy. Driven day by day nearer into their
true light of sympathizers at heart with the enemy--upholding the
institution for which it fights--obliged to bear the odium of its
ancient opposition to protection, disgraced by its enmity to American
manufacturing interests--apologizing in a thousand shuffling, petty ways
for English arrogance--this wretched fragment of a faction, after
assuring the South that the North would not fight, and persuading the
North that the South was quite in the right in every thing, now appears
as constant meddler and mischief-maker in the great struggle going on,
giving to it those elements of darkness, disgrace, and treason which,
unfortunately, are always to be found in the greatest struggles for
freedom and right, and which, when history is written, give such grounds
to the carper, the sophist, and skeptic to ridicule the noblest efforts
of humanity. Such are the self-called Conservatives in this great
battle--men hindering and impeding the great cause, eagerly grasping at
every little premature advance--as in the case of General Hunter's
action, to scream out that all will be lost, and exult over its
correction by the leading power as though they had gained a victory!

Meanwhile it is a matter of no small import to observe that there has
been a vast increase in the mass of indorsement of General Hunter's
conduct compared to what there would have been a few months ago. However
it interfered with the general policy of the Executive, no one doubts
that as a military and local measure it was eminently wise. Sooner or
later it will be adopted--meanwhile what has been done has been
productive of results which can not be undone. The great cause is the
cause of God--and every struggle only aids it onward.

       *       *       *       *       *

The London Times of May 10th contained a long editorial leader on
American affairs, beginning in the following manner:

     'It will have been noticed as a singular feature of the American
     quarrel, that no intervention is thought probable or practicable,
     except in favor of the South. Mediation, in whatever form or under
     whatever name it is to be offered, is universally taken to imply
     some movement in behalf of the Confederates. So completely, indeed,
     are the belligerents themselves impressed with this idea, that the
     South casts it in our teeth as a scandal and a blunder that no
     European arbitration has been yet interposed; while the President
     of the Northern States actually proclaims a day of thanksgiving for
     the deliverance of the country from 'foreign intervention,' which
     he identifies with nothing less than 'invasion.' The instincts of
     the combatants have undoubtedly led them to correct decisions on
     this point, but the fact is not a little curious. We need not
     dissemble the truth about certain prepossessions current in
     Europe. It is beyond denial that, in spite of the slavery question,
     the Southerners have been rather the favorites, partly as the
     weaker side, partly as conquerors against odds, and partly because
     their demand for independence was thought too natural to be
     resisted at the sword's point by a Government founded on the right
     of insurrection only. To these merely sentimental and not very
     cogent considerations was added the more potent and weighty
     reflection that what the Southerners had done no Power, whether
     American or European, could succeed in undoing.'

The rest of the article, as the reader may recall, was devoted to
sneering at the North and in commending intervention; the whole being
characterized by an underhand, venomous, and latent treacherous tone,
much more becoming a vindictive and vulgar Oriental than a civilized and
Christian European.

A little while before the _Times_ leader appeared, the London _Morning
Herald_ had informed the world that

     France and England suffer more than neutrals ever suffered from any
     contest, and both begin to regard the war as interminable and
     atrocious.'

It is singular that the great majority of the British press and people
should dare to talk so glibly of intervention in this our civil war,
when we consider what their intermeddling may cost them. Cotton they may
or may not get, but no intervention can compel us to buy their goods,
and, as we have already pointed out in our columns, the entire loss of
the free States market involves a disaster which will be permanent and
terrible. Apart from the danger attendant upon insolently threatening a
nation amply capable of mustering an army of a million on its own
soil--two thirds of them practiced in war--there remains to be
considered the utter loss of all American custom. We buy much more than
any other nation whatever. Worse than this, for Europe, there would
follow Such a development of our home-manufactures as would seriously
threaten to drive England and France from a hundred markets. Let them
think twice ere they intervene. But the people, it is said, are
starving; and it may be, for this is one of the occasional and
unavoidable results of England's endeavoring to become the workshop of
the world. By _over-manufacturing_, she has brought it to such a pitch
that one fourth of her population live on _imported food_--such as do
not starve outright--for be it remembered that in Great Britain one
person in eight is buried at the public expense, while one in every
twelve or fourteen is a constant pauper. They are starving at present
more than usual, simply because the North is buying less; but to turn
away any popular opposition to government, and suppress riots, they and
the world are told that the trouble all comes from the closing of
Southern ports and _the want of cotton_! This, too, when published facts
show that the stock of goods and cotton on hand far exceeds the demand,
and is likely to exceed it for a long time to come. It is not cotton
that England or France want, but _customers_. How are they to obtain
these? By exasperating their best buyers beyond all reconciliation? The
day that witnesses British or French meddling in our war, sees the
inauguration of such hostility to their manufactures as they little
dream of. There will be leagues formed to enforce this to the letter. It
will be treason to wear an inch of English cloth or of French silk, and
what lie will they say to their starving operatives then?

Already within the past year, great advances have been made in
manufacturing, especially in silks. A little closing of us up would be
the worst experiment for England that she ever yet tried. She may
possibly get cotton from the South, but not a customer from the North.
You may lead a horse to water, but it is another affair to make him
drink. And no one who can recall the prompt resolve not to use English
goods, and the beginning of leagues to that effect, of which we lately
heard so much, can doubt that so much, can doubt that in case we hear much more of this
impertinence of intervention, the American market would immediately be
lost to the insolent meddlers. It is only of late that the free States
have shaken off their Democratic, pro-slavery, anti-tariff tyrants, and
learned to be free. England has groaned and howled at our freedom; now
she goes so far as to threaten; but unless she soon stop _that_, we
shall promptly show her where the strength lies. While we were under a
half-Southern, half-British tyranny, we could do nothing. And be it
remembered that from the days of the New-York _Plebeian_, when British
gold was spent literally by the million in this country, to strengthen
the Democratic party and build up free trade, slavery and English
interests always went hand in hand to oppress the interests of American
free labor. But we shall soon change all that. It is in our power to
chastise British impudence most effectually, and we shall probably soon
be called upon to do it, by buying nothing from abroad.

The inhuman, inconsistent, and cynically selfish conduct of England
toward the North in this war, whenever we have been threatened by
reverses, should not be forgotten. It has been literally devilish in its
grossness and meanness. Whatever wickedness the South has been guilty of
was at least barefaced and bold. The South had not for years labored to
build up an Abolition party in the North, as England did. For well nigh
half a century has England howled, wailed, whined, and canted over
slavery; but at the first pinch of the pocket, away goes the previous
philanthropy, and John Bull stands revealed, the brutal, cruel,
treacherous, lying savage that he is at heart, under all his
aristocratic feudal trash and gilding. Well, we know him at last, and
will _remember_ him. His conduct toward us has put hay on his
horns--_foenum habet in cornu_--and we shall avoid him. Let the
manufacturers of America watch this intolerably insolent intervention
closely, and lose no opportunity to turn it to their own advantage, that
is to say, to the advantage of the whole nation. Let them, by means of
journal and pamphlet, profusely scattered, explain to the people the
enormous wrong which England is seeking to do us, and the deliberate, we
may truthfully say, the official falsehood on which it is based. They
have it in their power to make our country literally _free_--will they
hesitate to use that power?

The reliance of England is, by returning to her sweet, stale flatteries,
after the establishment of the Confederacy, to be friends as of old with
the North. It is, she thinks, easily done. Our servants abroad and their
friends are to be a little more favored with levee tickets and access to
noble society; a few dozen more of the rank and file will be marched
along or 'presented' before her Majesty, and thereby sworn in to endless
admiration of all that is Anglican; venerable gentlemen in white
waistcoats will make sweet speeches, after public dinners, of the beauty
of Union, just as they made them here a year ago, in reference to the
South, when the tiger was on the spring. The old see-saw of 'nations
united in language and customs--brothers at heart,' will be set to
vibrating, and all, as they believe, must jog along merrily as of old.
For it is with a very little regularly organized stuff of this kind,
turned on or off as from a hydrant, and always in dribbling drops at
that, that England has, when necessary, pacified and delighted a great
number of Americans, semi-insane to be received on terms of equality by
the 'higher classes,' whom they worshiped at heart, while they affected
all manner of bold Americanisms to hide the truth. It is time to end all
this. We have come to serious and terrible days, and must be free from
all such flunkeyism. In our hour of trouble, the English press boldly
proclaimed that its sympathy was with the South. Let it be remembered!

       *       *       *       *       *

In our June number we gave the Kansas John Brown song, for the benefit
of those who collect the more curious ballads of the war. We are
indebted to Clark's _School-Visitor_ for the following song of the
Contrabands, which originated among the latter, and was first sung by
them in the hearing of white people at Fortress Monroe, where it was
noted down by their chaplain, Rev. L.C. Lockwood. It is to a plaintive
and peculiar air, and we may add has been published with it in
'sheet-music style,' with piano-forte accompaniment, by Horace Waters,
New-York:

                   OH! LET MY PEOPLE GO.

                THE SONG OF THE CONTRABANDS.

    The Lord, by Moses, to Pharaoh said: Oh! let my people go;
    If not, I'll smite your first-born dead--Oh! let my people go.
      Oh! go down, Moses,
      Away down to Egypt's land,
      And tell King Pharaoh
      To let my people go.

    No more shall they in bondage toil--Oh! let my people go;
    Let them come out with Egypt's spoil--Oh! let my people go.

    Haste, Moses, till the sea you've crossed--Oh! let my people go;
    Pharaoh shall in the deep be lost--Oh! let my people go.

    The sea before you shall divide--Oh! let my people go;
    You'll cross dry-shod to the other aide--Oh! let my people go.

    Fear not King Pharaoh or his host--Oh! let my people go;
    For they shall in the sea be lost--Oh! let my people go.

    They'll sink like lead, to rise no more--Oh! let my people go;
    An' you'll hear a shout on the other shore--Oh! let my people go.

    The fiery cloud shall lead the way--Oh! let my people go;
    A light by night and a shade by day--Oh! let my people go.

    Jordan shall stand up like a wall--Oh! let my people go;
    And the wails of Jericho shall fall--Oh! let my people go.

    Your foes shall not before you stand--Oh! let my people go;
    And you'll possess fair Canaan's land--Oh! let my people go.

    Oh! let us all from bondage flee--Oh! let my people go;
    And let us all in Christ be free--Oh! let my people go.

    This world's a wilderness of woe--Oh! let my people go;
    Oh! let us all to glory go--Oh! let my people go.
      Oh! go down, Moses,
      Away down to Egypt's land,
      And tell King Pharaoh
      To let my people go.


       *       *       *       *       *


Speaking of the interview some weeks since between M. le Comte Henri de
Mercier with the extremely 'honorable' J.P. Benjamin, the secession
Secretary of State, the Petersburg (Virginia) _Express_ uses the
following elegantly accurate language:

     'It is said that these two distinguished functionaries spoke the
     French dialect altogether, the gallant Frenchman not having yet
     been enabled to master the good old Anglo-Saxon idiom.'

What, to begin with, is _the_ French dialect? The Provencal, the Gascon,
the Norman, are tolerably prominent French dialects, but which of them
is preëminently _the_ dialect we will not decide--nor why the diplomatic
gentlemen selected a dialect instead of French itself as a medium of
conversation. It is, however, possible that Comte de Mercier having
heard of little Benjamin's antecedents, talked to him in _argôt_ or
thieves' slang. It may be that in the school of Floyd and Benjamin argôt
is _the_ dialect.

Again, we learn that the gallant Frenchman spoke 'the French dialect'
because he has not as yet mastered 'the good old Anglo-Saxon idiom.'
This is even more puzzling than the dialect-question. Why the
Anglo-Saxon idiom? Suppose Count Mercier wished to say that he was sorry
that his tobacco had been captured by the foe, why should he couch it in
such language as, 'Thá mee ongan hréowan thaet mín _tobacco_ on feónda
geweald feran sceolde'--which is the good _old_ Anglo-Saxon idiom.' We
_can_ imagine that thieves' slang would have the place of honor in
Secessia, but why the old Anglo-Saxon idiom should be so esteemed,
puzzled us for a longtime. At last we hit it. The Southrons have long
been told--or told themselves--that they are Normans, while we of the
North are Saxon--and hoping to acquire a little Anglo-Saxon
intelligence, prudently begin by studying the language which they
believe is in common use among our literati.

Seriously, it is not merely to stoop to such small game as the grammar
of a secession newspaper that we notice these amusing mistakes. There
are many persons-we are sorry to say many clergymen among others--here,
even in the free States, who, in attempting to write elegantly, use
words very ridiculously. They say 'dialect' and 'idiom' when they mean
'language;' they use 'donate' for 'give;' 'transpired' for 'happened;'
'paper' for 'newspaper,' and describe various events as taking place in
'our midst'--all because they think that these vulgarisms are really
more correct than the words or terms in common use.

We wish, however, that Anglo-Saxon--joking apart--were more generally
studied. When we remember that the very great majority of good _words_
in English are of Saxon origin, and with them all that is characteristic
either in our grammar or modes of expression, it becomes evident that
the most certain and shortest method of arriving at a thorough and
correct comprehension of English is by the study of its most important
element--one which, as a writer has well said, bears the same relation
to our mother-tongue as oxygen does to water. It is not fair to speak as
some do of the Latin and Saxon wings of the English bird--the bird
itself is Saxon--head and tail included. English has been but little
benefited by its Latin and Greek additions--the old tongue had excellent
synonyms or creative capacity like German--to fully equal every new need
of thought.

The reader who has time for study, would do well to obtain the
Anglo-Saxon Grammar of Louis Klipstein, published by G.P. Putnam,
New-York, which is by far the most practical and easiest work of the
kind with which we are acquainted. A few days' study in it will be time
well invested by any one desirous of really _understanding_ English.
When we reflect that many boys study Latin for years 'because it enables
them to understand the structure and derivation of their own language,'
while the extremely easy Anglo-Saxon is almost entirely neglected, we
smile at the ignorance of the first principles of education which
prevails. But we advise the reader who may have a few shillings and a
few hours to spare to invest them in a 'KLIPSTEIN,' and _know_--what
very few writers do--something of the roots of English. Our word for it,
he will not regret following the advice.

       *       *       *       *       *

We are indebted to a Dawfuskie Island correspondent for the following
details relative to

THE FALL OF PULASKI.

     'Come and dine with me next Sunday in Pulaski?' said the commandant
     of a detachment of the Volunteer Engineer corps located on Tybee
     Island, one bright morning in the early part of April. As the
     invitation was given in all sincerity, and the officer who thus
     spoke was assisting in the erection of the batteries commanding
     that fort, the question which had so long occupied my mind, as to
     when the bombardment would begin, was now, I fondly hoped, near its
     solution. Time and again had rumor fixed the period of that event;
     but as often were we disappointed. Nor was _the_ day now fixed; at
     least, if so, it was not communicated to me; but as the coming
     Friday of that week would be the anniversary of the attack on Fort
     Sumter, the natural inference was, that on the morning of that day,
     we should witness the opening of the long and anxiously-looked for
     engagement.

     Sad rumors had come to our camp, that eighteen soldiers who had
     gone out skirmishing within the rebel lines, on Wilmington Island,
     had been captured, and were prisoners within the walls of Pulaski.
     How far this event may have hastened the attack, we know not; but
     on Thursday, the tenth, instead of Friday, the eleventh, the
     bombardment began, and the thunder of our mortars shook the earth
     and rent the heavens with their roar. Pulaski returned the fire
     with a promptness and energy that seemed to bid defiance to our
     batteries. Throughout the whole day, the storm beat unceasingly
     upon the doomed fort, raining shot and shell like hail against its
     walls and upon its ramparts. Solid steel-pointed shot, from
     columbiads and Parrotts, aimed with a precision that indicated not
     only great skill but a knowledge of the point of danger in the
     fort, perforated the walls and buried themselves in the thick and
     heavy masonry. Once, twice, thrice, four times was the rebel flag
     shot away; but as often was it replaced. At seven o'clock in the
     evening, the firing ceased, and there was a lull in the storm,
     only, however, to be renewed again at midnight, and kept up at
     regular intervals until sunrise, when the engagement increased in
     greater vigor than throughout the preceding day.

     The morning was clear and beautiful, but not calm. A stiff breeze
     came from the East, as if to bear the terrific reports of the
     cannonading to Savannah, whose distant spires and towers gleamed in
     the sun. Our blockading fleet, with accompanying transports, lay at
     anchor in Tybee harbor. Here and there a gunboat, firing occasional
     shots, could be seen moving about in Wilmington sound, while the
     Unadilla, Hale, and Western World occupied their positions in
     Wright and Mud rivers. Tatnall's fleet was no where to be seen, and
     all things in the direction of Savannah seemed as quiet as though
     that city was peacefully and securely reposing, as in other days,
     under the broad folds of the American Union.

     It was a sad and woful day to the cities of the South, when her
     rebel princes renounced their allegiance to the government, and
     raised the traitor arm of rebellion against its authority. Imagined
     evils, in connection with the Union, were then converted into real
     ones, and these have been augmented a thousand-fold in the
     severance from that Union. When the South shall 'come to
     herself'--if she ever does--like the prodigal son, she will find
     her condition quite as pitiable, and in rags and wretchedness, she
     will seek her father's house, willing, no doubt, to occupy a
     servant's place in the national household. Nor until true and
     genuine repentance shall come to her, can she hope for a father's
     forgiveness and a prodigal's reception and restoration.

     Boom! boom!! boom!!! as if the last great day of vengeance had
     come, and you could hear the screeching of a thousand fiends in the
     air hastening to their destiny, come upon the ear, as Tybee utters
     her thunders, and pours out her vials of wrath. See that cloud of
     dust which shoots up like a volcano, and looks as though the whole
     east side of the fort had fallen in! Bolts of iron, like winged
     battering-rams, are ploughing fearfully through her belabored side.
     Before this cloud has passed away, you see, just above it, another,
     not dark and angry, but in appearance white and spherical as the
     moon. A shell has exploded, and rained its iron fragments into the
     fort.

     It is now past meridian of the second day. Pulaski still fires her
     heaviest guns; but at greater intervals. The batteries from Tybee
     have obtained so exact a range that nearly every shot does
     execution. At length a breach is made in the vicinity of the
     magazine. The fate of the fort and all its inmates is now suspended
     upon a single, well-directed shot. There is but a step between the
     besieged and death, and as all hope of raising the siege is
     abandoned, the rebel flag is hauled down, and a white flag of
     submission waves in its stead. Pulaski falls, and the day is ours.
     The hope of Georgia is gone. In vain did the citizens of Savannah
     offer a prize of one hundred thousand dollars for the relief of the
     fort. Had that sum been increased to a million, it would have been
     quite as unavailing. The same inevitable doom awaits all the other
     forts and intrenchments of the rebel confederacy. With some of
     these, the event may be delayed; but the day of doom will come, and
     the broad flag of the Union will float over every inch of territory
     from the hills of the Aroostook to the waters of the Rio Grande.

     Just as the fort struck her flag, an incident occurred which was
     somewhat remarkable. A sloop, which had been at anchor in Tybee
     harbor, was broken from her moorings by the violence of the wind,
     and driven by wind and tide, she floated up the Savannah river.
     With her Union down, she passed immediately in front of Pulaski,
     and turned into Wright river, where she was run ashore. Twenty
     minutes earlier, and she would have been blown to atoms by the guns
     of the fort.

     An almost incredible amount of work has been done by our investing
     army, in accomplishing this glorious result. Rivers and creeks had
     to be sounded, obstructions removed, roads made through swamps on
     marshy islands, where our officers and men had to work day and
     night, often up to their waists in mud and water; heavy Parrotts
     and columbiads had to be carried by hand across these swamps, and
     erected on platforms inundated by rising tides; dykes and ditches
     had to be made, while all the time our men were exposed to the fire
     of the rebel fleet. When all this was accomplished, and
     communication was cut off from Pulaski, then the nearest points on
     Tybee were reached by our forces located on that island, and four
     or five batteries were planted, which, in turn, have done their
     work, and the result shows how wise were the plans and how
     successful was the execution. The stars and stripes now float over
     Pulaski, and may they never again be polluted by the touch of
     traitor hands.

       *       *       *       *       *

Those persons who 'collect' street literature (there be such) may be
pleased with the following:


PORTENTOUS PLACARDS.

_New-York, May, 1862._

Since the publication of the 'Bill-Poster's Dream,' and of the extracts
from Richmond papers containing the prophecies of the handwriting on the
wall relative to the accomplice States of America, few things have so
generally attracted pedestrian attention in our down-town streets as two
enormous placards. The first bore the following legend:

THERE'S
A TEMPEST
BREWING.

Persons given to cryptical studies were inclined to consider this an
esoteric form of advertisement, intended to convey to the initiated the
information that A. STORM had gone into the beer business. But
conjecture was set at naught by its fellow which appeared at its side on
the day after its posting, in this shape:

VIDELICIT

Thê Prôphessor.

     Puncanhed, who was the first to call my attention to the placard,
     did so with the following statement:

     ''Tan't spelt right--and why couldn't the feller just as well use
     the 'good old English' word _viz._, as _'videlicit?'_'

     The query was unanswerable. But having some doubt as to the first
     word in the Greek line, by using which instead of the article 'O,
     the writer has shown not merely unconsciousness of the Greek
     particle, but ignorance of a particle of Greek, I put the first
     Hibernian who passed to the test of reading the sentence, which I
     am forced to say the indignant Milesian scornfully declined. I
     submit the whole question to the researches of your readers.
     HEMIPLEGIUS.

Nay--we know not. 'The Professor' at the Breakfast-Table we do indeed
know, and it is no unwonted thing for us to meet him in Tremont street,
merry and wise as ever. But we have never seen him or any other
Professor 'driven to the wall' in any way whatever; and albeit we
suspect him of a knowledge of whist, we have beheld him pla-carded. We
pass.

       *       *       *       *       *

Do we say too much when we call the following poem truly beautiful?

WITH FLOWERS.

MAY MORNING, 1862.


    Reject them not! they come to plead for me;
      When you are cold, 'tis _winter_ in my heart;
    Till you are kind, 'sweet May' 'twill never be,
      And if you smile, summer will ne'er depart!

    'My heart is weary,--waiting for the May,'
      _So_ sad and weary; will _you_ give it rest?
    Not _love_, but _rest_: it is not _much_ to say:
      'Poor, tired child! once more be thou my guest.'

    Forgive my wild and wayward words, forgive!
      "We are dying of our thirst--'my heart and I!'
    Without love's sunshine, who can care to live?
      And when love shines, oh I who can bear to die?

'Ah! this love!' 'There is not much of it in life,' says Heine; but that
little alone makes life tolerable. Rest, perturbed spirit, rest! In
another land, there is love enough for all.


CHIVALRY

By R. Wolcott; Tenth Regiment

Not long ago I happened to be one of a number of fair ladies and brave
men assembled at what is called a 'surprise-party.' It was my fortune to
be the attendant cavalier, for the time, of a damsel of romantic
disposition, and, I fear, of somewhat impaired digestive powers. And she
was lamenting, not boisterously, but in a subdued, conversational
manner, that the good old days were gone, 'the days of Chivalry,' when
my lady had her nice little _boo-dwah_ (for the life of me, I didn't
know whether that was something nice to eat or to wear; but I have since
learned that it is something French, and spelt, _b-o-u-d-o-i-r_,) and
was waited upon by handsome pages, and took her airing on a dappled-gray
palfrey, attended by trusty and obsequious grooms; when Sir Knight,
followed by his sturdy henchmen, rode forth in gay and gaudy attire,
with glittering helmet and cuirass, and entered the lists, and bravely
fought for his fair lady's fame. She spoke with fervid eloquence, and
with a glibness that betrayed a very recent perusal of the
tournament-scene in _Ivanhoe_. I was about to reply, and say something
in behalf of modern chivalry; but just then a gentleman claimed her hand
for a quadrille that was forming, and my remarks were cut short.

If my readers will bear with me, I will attempt to tell them what I was
going to say to my romantic young friend. The days of chivalry are _not_
gone. Let me remark that this assertion does not apply to the blatant,
nigger-driving article that whilom flourished in Dixie, for that is
about 'played out,' though they still rant and prate about the 'flower
of chivalry.' At Fort Lafayette, there is an herbarium of choice
specimens (rather faded and seedy) of that curious 'yarb;' and at the
old Alton Penitentiary, and at Camp Douglas, Chicago, there are
collections, not so choice and a great deal more seedy. Though
Simon--not he of other notoriety, but another man--Simon Bolivar
Buckner, a sweet-scented pink of Southern chivalry; though he must have
his little fling at us, and call General Grant 'ungenerous and
unchivalrous,' it does not strike me with stunning force that he,
ingrate that he is, and traitor to the government that educated him, is
exactly the one to teach us what chivalry is, or how it ought to treat
vanquished rebels. No, the days of chivalry are _not_ gone. While the
base counterfeit that has so often been thrust upon us by Southern
braggadocios, and indorsed by Northern sneaks and doughfaces, has been
detected, and, thank God! is being thrown out as fast as shot and shell
can knock it out, there never was a greater abundance of the genuine
metal than there is now and here in this land of ours.

Not alone in war and warlike deeds does modern chivalry show itself.
There is a chivalry in religion, that, in spite of the howlings of
creed-worshipers, dares to throw off the shackles of antiquated and
intolerant dogmas, and believe and teach the religion of humanity, of
'peace on earth and good-will to men.' It is the chivalry in religion
that has smitten and is daily smiting with its gleaming lance the host
of old prejudices, letting in upon us the glorious golden sunshine,
allowing us to revel in it and to see this world as it is, joyous and
beautiful. True, some of the old superstitions that burned the witches
linger in the path, like grim dragons, to frighten us. But they are weak
and toothless, and are fast losing their terrors; and the spirit of
chivalry in religion is marching on, and smiting them one by one, and
one by one they fall. But while men are emancipating themselves from the
ancient errors, it is sad to see that the same bugbears that infested
the path of our great grandparents in the pinafore period of their
existence, are brought to bear upon our children. Especially in
Sabbath-school literature is this manifest. Impossible patterns of piety
and propriety are set before a stout, healthy boy, and he, in the flush
of his lusty life, is taught to believe that the only road to paradise
lies through some pulmonary affection. For the sake of all these dear
little ones, and for the sake of the Master who loved them so well, do
let them have some more natural and healthy mental and moral food!

And this leads me to speak of literature in general. And have we not a
chivalry here that is working a revolution? And who is the bravest
knight in the field? Who but our own genial Meister Karl-Mace Sloper?
Isn't it glorious though, the way he rides into the lists, and with his
diamond-pointed lance pricks the tender skins of the lackadaisical
poetasters and lachrymose prosy-scribblers of our day! Again, O gallant
leader! smite them again. And fall in, ye who wield the pen! Let the
bugles sound the charge, and let our literature be cleared of Laura
Matildas and Martin Firecracker Splutters forever!

We approach now a topic that was once nauseating in the extreme, but
which is now robbed of many of its disagreeable features--medicine. Let
it be understood in the beginning, disciple of Hahnemann, I am not
upholding you and your pellets of sugar; by no means. But there have
been some knights of the pill-box who, without rushing into folly, have
leaped the barriers of ignorance and ancient custom that kept them in an
atmosphere odorous of villainous drugs and combinations of drugs, and,
untrammeled by old traditions, have sought and are seeking milder means
of mitigating our bodily ills. All honor to them. They have driven away
the old doctor of our childhood, whose most pleasant smile resembled the
amiable leer that a cannibal might be supposed to bestow upon a plump
missionary. The old curmudgeon, with his huge bottles of mixtures and
his immense boulders--I beg pardon, I should say, _boluses_ of
nastiness--has vanished like a surly ghost at the approach of daylight,
and in his stead we have a gentleman, placid and self-poised, with a
velvet touch and a face beaming with cheerful smiles. And if they have
not made the measles a luxury, they have given us a syrup that children
are said to cry for.

In the industrial arts, too, there is a spirit of chivalry that is
marching bravely on, overthrowing old notions. What knight of the olden
time ever did as much for his ladye fayre as he did for all womanity who
wrought out the problem of the sewing-machine? How many aching hands and
eyes and hearts has that little instrument, with its musical
_click-click, click-click_, relieved! No more songs of the shirt, no
more wearying of hands and curving of spines over the inner vestments of
mankind. We have changed all that. And every stroke of the pioneer's ax,
as he fells the mighty forest-trees, is a blow struck by the honest and
earnest chivalry of labor, battling with wild nature, carving a way for
civilization's triumphal march. And the cheery whistle of the plowboy,
as he drives his team a-field; the ring of the hammer on the anvil; the
clatter of the busy loom; the scream of the locomotive, as it sweeps
over the land, plunging through the mountains and dashing out across the
prairies--all these are the clarion-notes of modern chivalry's bugles,
ringing through the world in joyous and triumphant tones.

And this war--who shall tell; what historic pen can record its grand and
glorious chivalry? Is not every one, from the pale young student, fresh
from the breast of _Alma Mater_, to the large-handed and larger-hearted
rustic, with the hay-seed yet in his hair, and the rugged bod-carrier,
redolent of sweat and brick-dust--are not all these, who have come forth
from the field and the workshop, the office and the lecture-room, to
defend the dear old flag, true and gallant knights? There is a boy out
there in the woods, on picket, slowly pacing his lonely beat, with the
tender-eyed stars for company. And as the silent hours pass by, slowly
he turns the leaves of memory's record, lingering over its cherished
pictures, the home-scenes, the fond father and mother, the dear sister,
and the dearer some-one-else's sister. The snapping of a twig startles
him, and hastily brushing away a tear--fond memory's tribute--he
instantly closes the book, and stands, with every sense on the alert,
unflinching, though he knows that each moment may be his last, only
remembering that it is his duty to be faithful, watch well, and fire
low. And though this boy, fair-haired and beardless, may not have passed
the stern ordeal of the battle's fierce shock, though his heart softens
at the thought of his far-off home in the North, yet his young soul is
that of a hero, brave and chivalrous, and in due time his spurs will be
nobly won. Yes, this war is bringing out the grand, heroic traits of our
American character, traits that years of rapid, busy, money-getting life
have thrown into the background, till it really did seem that we were
altogether sordid and selfish.

In the year that I have been in the service, I have seen and heard of
more individual chivalrous deeds than my romantic and dyspeptic young
friend will find in all the books, from _Amadis de Gaul_ down. Every day
witnesses them. Private letters speak of them as ordinary incidents; a
few get before the public, enjoy a brief newspaper notoriety, and are
forgotten--no, not forgotten entirely; for every brave action lives
somewhere, though it may not be in an official report. A mother's or a
sister's memory cherishes it, and it is handed down to other
generations, an example and an incentive to other brave deeds.

Then let us have no more sentimental lamentation over the decadence of
chivalry. There is a broad field open to us, for deeds of chivalrous
daring, now, upon the battle-field, amid the fierce clashing of arms.

    'And many a darkness into the light shall leap,
    And shine with the sudden making of splendid names.'

Afterward, when holy peace shall smile again, there are the pulpit and
the rostrum, the workshop and the forest; and whether we wield the pen,
or the hammer, or the ax, according as we strive to make ourselves and
the world better, so shall we bear the palm of chivalry.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Democratic press made itself convulsively merry over Governor
Andrew, of Massachusetts, for having called out the militia promptly in
the flurry of May 26th. After fairly exhausting its jeering and sneering
on this subject, that portion of the Northern Fourth Estate which would
be termed Satanic and traitorous were it not too utterly white-livered
and cowardly to be complimented with such forcible indices of even bad
character, had a cruel extinguisher clapped upon it on May 29th, by a
letter to the Boston _Journal_ from Lieutenant-Colonel Harrison Kitchie,
A.D.C., in which Governor Andrew is most effectually vindicated by the
simple publication of four telegrams received from Secretary
Stanton--the first two of which were as follows:

     [TELEGRAM I.-COPY]

     'Washington, May 25th, 1862.

     'To--GOVERNOR ANDREW: Send all the troops forward that you can
     immediately. Banks is completely routed. The enemy are in large
     force advancing upon Harper's Ferry.

     EDWIN M. STANTON, 'Secretary of War.'

       *       *       *       *       *

     [TELEGRAM II.--COPY]

     'Washington, May 25th, 1862.

     'TO THE GOVERNOR OF MASSACHUSETTS: Intelligence from various
     quarters leaves no doubt that the enemy in great force are
     advancing on Washington. You will please organise and forward
     immediately all the volunteer and militia force in your State.

     'EDWIN M. STANTON, 'Secretary of War.'

How Governor Andrew could have been true to his duty and have acted
otherwise than he did after receiving such commands, must be settled by
those 'gossips of the mob' who, incapable of appreciating the nobility
of a prompt fulfillment of duty, measure every thing military by the
amount of melo-dramatic _denouement_ to which it leads. We trust that
after this effectual 'counter' we may hear a little less carping at
Governor Andrew, who has shown from the beginning an energy and
perseverance, a promptness in emergency, and a patriotism which, when
the history of this war comes to be written, will reflect the highest
honor upon his name.

       *       *       *       *       *

He who sends us the following, is worthy to bear a crow-sier as one of
the Faithful:

BOTH BARRELS INTO 'EM:

If old Squire Price had any one bump of phrenology developed more than
another, it was CORVICIDE, or, KILL-CROWATIVENESS. From corn-planting to
husking-time, from dewy morn until evening more than due, he might be
seen dodging behind fences, crawling around barns, stalking along in the
high grass, with a long single-barreled old gun, trying to get a shot at
the black thieves of crows that were forever at work on his old, sandy
farm.

'What cause have you, my aged friend,' Brother Hornblower once said to
him, '_What_ cause have _you_ to molest these birds, as 'toil not,
neither do they spin'?'

'I tell yer what,' answered the Squire, shaking his head with savage
jerks, 'come down to my house ary moruin' airly, you'll hear _caws_!'

Brother Hornblower smiled grimly and walked gently away, after that, to
get the evening paper at the grocery-post-office. He set his face
against jokes--unless they were serious ones.

Whether it was Brother Hornblower's words, or more crows than usual, the
neighbors around Squire Price's farm were regaled for two days after the
above talk, with such constant explosions of gunpowder that it was
surmised the Squire must have bought 'a hull kag o' powder, and got some
feller to help him shoot.' The consequence of this energy was, that the
persecuted devil's-canaries flew away to other farms where powder was
scarce-first and foremost descending in flocks on Brother Hornblower's
lands, and digging up his young corn--it was in the month of May--until
even _he_ found cause to go at these birds as don't spin; for he found
out that they toiled most laboriously. Being a man of peaceful
disposition, and opposed to the use of fire-arms, he thought over a plan
by which fire-logs might be used with great advantage to his own
benefit, by destroying a large number of crows at one fell blow. How he
succeeded in this _fell_-blow, was told a few evenings afterward in the
grocery-post-office, by young Tyler, a promising youth who had not, as
they say of other sad dogs, 'quite got his set yet,' that is, attained
completion in figure and carriage. Seated on the edge of a barrel
half-filled with corn, and cutting a piece of pine-wood to one sharp
point only to be followed by another sharp point, he was talking to
another youth in a desultory manner, about his intentions 'to go by
water,' in old Bizzle's schooner, next trip she took, when Squire Price
came in to get his daily newspaper, _The Beantown Democrat_.

'You bin givin' them crows partikler hail, hain't you, Squire?' asked
Tyler the youthful.

'Wal, about as much as they kin kerry,' answered the Squire. 'They
hain't bin squawkin' round my prem'ses none to speak of lately.'

'They bin roond Brother Horublower's, thick as pison, though,' said
Tyler. 'He counted on killin' 'bout a milyon on 'em yesserday--on-ly he
didn't quite come it.'

'Thought he wouldn't never fire no guns at 'em!'

'Put a couple o' barrils into 'em yesserday.'

'Why, how you talk! You don't mean it?'

'Honor bright! He got a big travers on 'em--leastwise, thought he had.
His brindle kaow, she got pizened night afore last, down there in the
woods; couldn't do nuthin with her, and she died same night. So he goes
and skins her, and throws her out into that gully down there, back o'
Bizzle's wood, and says he to me--for I was over there workin' for
him--says he, 'There'll be a power o'crows onto her t'morrer, and I
calc'late I'll fix a few on 'em--I will!' So next mornin'-that was
yesserdoy-we went out bright and airly, and rigged up a kind o' blind at
the side of the gully, right over the old carcass, Then we got our
amminishun all ready--both barrils all loadid.'

'By jing!' said the Squire, rubbing his hands, 'I wish I'd bin there.'

'Got all ready. Purty soon up comes one crow, sails round and round,
then two or three more, then a few more; they begun to smell meat. Then
they flew lower and lower; bime by one settles onto an old dead cedar
and begins cawin' for dear life. Then down he comes, then more and more
of 'em. Round they come, cawin' and flappin' their wings, clouds of 'em.
Guess there was 'bout two hundred settled onto that old kaow.'

'Wish I'd bin there with my gun!' spoke the Squire, intensely excited.
'A feller could have made the most biggest kind of a shot.'

'Wal, we waited, and waited, till the old kaow was black as pitch with
'em. Then Hornblower he nudges me. We got both barrils all ready--big
loads in 'em. 'Fire!' says he. I braced my leg up agin my barril; he
braced his leg up agin his barril--'

'W-w-what?' said the Squire.

'We give the most all-firedest shove--and over we went, barrels, stones,
dirt, and gravil, head-fo'most, spang into them crows and dead kaow! I
tell you, for about five minutes I calc'late I never seed sitch fuss,
feathers, dirt, and gravil, and kaow-beef flyin' as I did then. Things
was mixed up most promiscussedly, you can bet yer life on it! Bime by I
sort o' come to, and when I raised up I found I was sittin' onto four
dead, crushed crows, Brother Hornblower, and kaow-meat gin'rally. So I
dug out and lifted up the game--Brother Hornblower first off. When he
cum round a little, says he:

"T-T-Tyler, I con-ceive somethin's give way 'bout these parts!'

"You air about right in your suppostishuns,' says I; 'the gravil bank's
busted, and it's a marcy we an't in kingdom kum!'

"Don't talk that way,' says he; 'let's go up and fire a cupple barrels
more into the blastid rebbils, fur vengenz.'

"No yer don't, this mornin', as I knows on,' said I; 'I've got enough
shootin craws your fashun. Next time I go shootin' crows 'long any
boddy, I'm goin' to do it Christian-fashun, with gun-barrils, and not
blastid old flour-barrils filled with gravil. That kind o' shootin'
don't suit my style o' bones--'speehally head-fo'most inter a dead
kaow!"

'On-ly four crows killt!' said the Squire, with a groan. 'To think what
a feller might have done, if he had only have spread his-self
judishuslously as he came tumblin' onto 'em spang! Wal!' (looking
cheeringly to young Tyler,) 'you couldn't do more'n fire both barrils
into 'em, ef they was flour-barrils, could you?'

       *       *       *       *       *

    THE LEGEND OF JESUS AND THE MOSS.


    In the desert of Engedi
      Lies a valley deep and lone;
    Softly there the mild air slumbered,
      Lovely there the sunlight shone.
    In the bosom of this valley,
      By the path that leads across,
    Lay a modest velvet carpet
      Of the finest, softest moss.

    But the careless traveler, passing,
      Heedless of it went his way;
    Thus this miracle of beauty
      Lone in hidden glory lay.
    Bloom and sunshine, sweeter, brighter,
      Him from distant mountains greet;
    On to that the stranger hurries,
      Past the moss-bed at his feet.

    Then the moss-bed sighed, complaining
      To the evening dew that fell;
    And its tufted bosom heaving,
      Thus its 'plains began to tell:
    'Ah! men love you, bloom and sunshine,
      Long its rosy glow to see,
    Feed their eyes on luring flowers
      Whilst their feet tread rude on me!'

    Now, when mellow rays of sunset
      Lingered golden on the trees,
    Came a weary pilgrim slowly
      From the bordering forest leas.
    This was JESUS, just returning
      From his fast of forty days;
    Worn by Satan's fierce temptations,
      He for rest and comfort prays.

    Sore his sacred feet are blistered,
      Wandering o'er the desert-sands;
    Torn and bleeding from the briers,
      Sufferings which the curse demands.
    When he came upon the moss-bed,
      Soon he felt how cool and sweet
    Lay the soft and velvet carpet
      'Neath his wounded, bleeding feet.

    'Then he paused and spake this blessing:
      'Gift of my kind Father's love!
    Fret not, little plant, thy record
      Shineth in the book above.
    By the careless eye unheeded,
      Bear thy lowly, humble lot;
    Thou hast eased my weary walking,
      Thou art ne'er in heaven forgot.'

    Scarcely had he breathed this blessing
      On the moss that soothed his woes,
    When upon its bosom gathered,
      Budded, bloomed, a lovely rose!
    And its petals glowed with crimson
      Like the clouds at close of day;
    And a glory on the mosses
      Like the smile of cherubs lay.

    Then said JESUS to the flower:
      'Moss-rose--this thy name shall be--
    Spread thou o'er all lands, the sweetest
      Emblem of humility.
    Out of lowly mosses budding,
      Which have soothed a pilgrim's pain,
    Thou shalt tell the world what honor
      All the lowly, lovely gain.'

    Hear his words, ye lonely children,
      By the world unseen, unknown;
    Wait ye for the suffering pilgrim,
      Coming weary, faint, and lone.
    Keep your hearts still soft and tender,
      Like the velvet bed of moss;
    God will bless the love you render,
      To some bearer of the cross.

       *       *       *       *       *

In our May number we spoke old Englishly of the Boston demoiselle. In
the present number we have:

YE PHILADELPHIA YOUNGE LADYE.


Ye Philadelphia young ladye 1s not evir of ruddie milke and blonde hew,
like unto hir cosyn of Boston, natheless is shee not browne as a
chinkapinn or persymon like unto ye damosylles of Baltimore. Even and
clere is hir complexioun, seldom paling, and not often bloshing, whyeh
is a good thynge for those who bee fonde of kissing, sith that if ther
mothers come in sodanely ther checkes wyll not be sinful tell-tayles of
swete and secrete deeds. Of whych matter of blushing itt is gretely to
the credyt of the Philadelphienne that shee blosheth not muche, sith
that Aldrovandus, and as methynketh also, Mizaldus in his _Mirabile
Centuries_, doe affirme thatt not to bloshe is a sign of noble bloods
and gentyl lineage--for itt may bee planely seene that every base-borne
churle's daughter blosheth, if thatt yee give hir a poke under ye chinn,
whereas ye countesse of highe degre only smileth sweetlie and sayth
merily, '_Aha! messire--tu voys que mon joly couer est endormy_!' for
shee well knoweth that a gentyllman, like ye kynge, can doe noe wronge.

The Philadelphienne dressyth not in garments like unto Joseph, his cote
of manie colors, nethir dothe shee put on clothes whych look from afar
off like geographie-mapps, where the hues are as well assortyd as iff a
paint-mill had bursten and scattered the piggments all pele-mele into
everlastynge miscellayneous scatteratioun. For shee doth greately go inn
for subdued ratt-color, milde mouse-tints, temperate tea-caddy tones,
moderate mode--dyes, gentyll gray--shades, tranquill drabb--tinges,
temperate tawny, calm graye, sober ashie, pacifyed slate, mitigated dun,
lenientlie dingie, and blandlie cinereous chromattics, since shee hadd a
Quakir grandmother on the one syde, ande is too superblie proude on the
other, 'to make a pecocke of hirselfe,' as shee wyll telle you whann
thatt yee be spattered with the water whych is jetted from hose over ye
pavementes. Hee thatt woulde see manye of these swete beeings, shoulde
walke in Chestnutt strete whyles thatt shee goeth to shopp, or promenade
in Walnutt strete, on Sundaye. And if he can telle mee of a citie on
earthe where one can see more prettye, tiny feete, in neater shoos or
gaytered bootes, thann hee may then beholde, I wolde fayne knowe where
itt is, thatt I maye go there too.

Muche loveth shee little tea-parties where onlie girles bee; and to have
ye gentylmen come, aske: 'Damsylle, wherefore walke ye nott in gayer
garmentes?' Soe thatt itt often comes to passe thatt whenn walkyng in ye
Broade Waye of New-Yorke, yee can tell a Philadelphienne by hir sober
yet rich garbe, so that ye Cosmopolite sayth: '_Per ma fe!_ thatt is a
ladye, I know shee is, by the waye shee lookes.' And trulie, as Dan
Chaucer sayeth, shee is one:

    'Well seemed by her apparaile,
    She is not wont to great travaile,
    And whan she kempt is fetously,
      And well arraied and richely.
    Then hath shee done all her journée,
    Gentyll and faire indede is shee!'

Ye Philadelphia younge ladye loveth to ryde of pleasaunte afternoones
out untoe Pointe Breeze, adown ye Necke, in ye Parke, or along ye
wynding Wissahickon. Peradventure shee goeth whyles with a beau who
speaketh unto hir of love, to whych shee listeneth wyth tendir grace,
and replyeth with art, untill thatt they have builded upp betwene them a
flirtacioun. From tyme to tyme hee makyth a punn, and shee cryeth,
'Shame!' but itt shames him never a whitt or jott--nay, hee goeth on and
maketh yett anothir--ofttimes untill ye horse takyth frighte and runneth
awaie. Yett for all this she liketh hym still, so grete is ye love of
woman and so enduring hir constancye.

Att other tymes shee ridoth farr and wyde in ye hors-carrs, since in her
natyve towne shee can go manye miles for five cents, and two pence whenn
shee takes ye other carr. Specially doth shee do this on Saturday
forenoons, else weare her neat clothes all in ye evenyng. Then they
speke of the newes of ye daye, and praise General! Mac Lellan, and
gossipp of ye laste greate partie, where Dorsey dyd serve so well ye
terrapines and steamed oysters, and howe thatt itt is verament and trewe
thatt Miss Porridge is to live, after hir marriage, in a howse in Locust
strete, or peradventure in Spruce, or in Pyne, for in this towne all the
stretes are of woode, albeit ye houses are all of bricke.

Ye Philadelphienne spekythe more slowlie in hir speeche than dothe ye
New-Yorkere, and ever callyth a calf a cäff, and a laugh a läff, which
soundeth far more sweetlie, even like the _lingua Toscana in bocca
Romana._ Shee loveth ye opera even as shee loveth ye ice-creme, whych
shee buyeth at Mrs. Burns's, or old Auntie Jackson's, where shee often
goeth of warm sumer-nightes. Shee is graceful in hir miene, and gracious
in hir manner--trulie, in all ye worlde I know of none sweeter in this
laste itemm. And thatt shee may ever keepe up hir pleasante fame for
beinge ladyly, gentyll, and fayre, is the herte's prayere of

CLERKE NICHOLAS.

       *       *       *       *       *

GALLI VAN T is again active in setting forth the rural trials and
troubles of artists--which it seems are many. Listen!

DEAR CONTINENTAL: 'Twas in the merry summer-tide, some seven years
since, when I went with a friend catching trout and sketching scenery in
the valley of the Connecticut.

We thought we knew the value of a lovely view.

We didn't.

True, we could appreciate it to a dollar, when transferred to canvas.
Otherwise we had much to learn.

C. Pia, Esq., and myself were hard at it one morning--making such
beautiful sketches, and doing it all with nothing but just a
lead-pencil and some paper--as a young admirer of our works was wont to
assure her friends. Suddenly appeared a man of great muscle, with pie
dish shirt-collar, and a canister-shot-eyed bull-terrier, gifted with
seven-tiger power of biting.

'Stop that are!' was his courteous salutation.

'Stop what?'

'Stop making them are d--d picters. I don't have no such doings reound
here!'

I looked at C. Pia--he was venomous and unterrified, and I felt
encouraged. So I firmly asked the intruder what he meant.

'I mean what I say. There's property there that I'm a goin' to buy. I
know what you're arter. You're makin picters of the place for that are
in-fernal Kernal Smith who owns the land, so's he can show 'em round and
pint out the buildin' lots. And I'll jest lick you like ---- if you dror
another line!'

'See here, young man,' quoth I, 'I've something to say to you. In the
first place you're a scamp who would keep a gentleman from getting a
fair price for his own property. Secondly, you're an ignorant fellow and
don't know what you're talking about. I never heard of your Colonel
Smith--I'm not drawing up real estate lots or plots of any kind.
Thirdly, I solemnly swear by Minos, Alianthus, Rhododendron,
Nebuchadnezzar, and all the infernal gods, that if you touch a hair of
our heads I'll see Colonel Smith--I'll map the whole property and
advertise it in every newspaper in New-York and Boston till it brings
ten thousand dollars an acre. Now sail in--dog or no dog--we'll settle
_you_, any how.'

The glare of fury in our visitor's eyes died away as he listened to this
oration.

'_Thunder!_' he exclaimed; 'what a lot you city fellers with l'arnin'
into you _do_ know! Ten thousand dollars an acre! Ad-ver-ti-sin'! What
an idee! I guess I'll buy the land on a morgidge right away. _Hee, hee,
hee_--it's a first-rate notion--and I _a-dopt_ it. Mister, if you want a
drink o' cider, you can get it at that are red house you see down
yander. Good-mornin'!'

And off he went.

'You've made that fellow's fortune--when you ought to have caved his
head in,' remarked C. Pia as the two brutes disappeared.

'It is the mission of the artist to benefit every body except himself,'
I rejoined. And refilling my pipe I went on with my 'picter.'

Yours truly, GALLI VAN T.

Truly 'Art is--well--a--it's a great thing, and hath its many lights and
shadows,' as Phoenix or some body once ascertained. And we trust that
Galli Van T. will continue to depict the same in his peculiarly
affecting style.

       *       *       *       *       *

Among the curiosities of literature which the war has brought forth, one
of the most piquant is a little pamphlet entitled, _Southern Hatred of
the American Government, the People of the North, and Free
Institutions_, recently published by R.F. Wallcut, of Number 221
Washington street, Boston. It consists entirely of selections from the
columns of Southern newspapers--all of them rabid, and we may very truly
add, ridiculous; especially since the fortunes of war have made so much
of their Bobadil bluster appear like the veriest folly. Many of them are
old acquaintances--who, for instance, can have forgotten the following,
from the Richmond _Whig_?

     'This war will test the physical virtues of mere numbers. Southern
     soldiers ask no better odds than one to three Western and one to
     six of the Eastern Yankees. Some go so far as to say that, with
     equal weapons, and on equal grounds, they would not hesitate to
     encounter twenty times their number of the last.'

As regards those who go so far, it may be remarked that by this time
they have illustrated Father O'Leary's remark of the people who, not
'belaving in Purgathory, wint further and fared worse.' But there is
more of this 'chivalric' spirit in the same article. For instance, it
doubts 'whether any society since that of Sodom and Gomorrah' [Paris is
entirely too mild an example] 'has been _more thoroughly_ steeped in
_every_ species of vice than that of the Yankees.' Infanticide is hinted
at as prevailing as extensively as in China. The Yankees 'pursue with
envy and malignity every excellence that shows itself among them
unconnected with money; and a gentleman there stands no more chance of
existence than a dog does in the Grotto del Cano!'

The elegance and refinement of the same editorial from the _Whig_,
appears from the following. A portion, which we omit, is too foully
indecent for republication:

     ' ... The Yankee women, scraggy, scrawny, and hard as whip-cord,
     breed like Norway rats, and they fill all the brothels of the
     continent.... But they multiply--the only scriptural precept they
     obey--and boast their millions. So do the Chinese; so do the
     Apisdæ, and all other pests of the animal kingdom. Pull the bark
     from a decayed log, and you will see a mass of maggots full of
     vitality, in constant motion and eternal gyration, one crawling
     over one, and another creeping under another, all precisely alike,
     all intently engaged in preying upon one another, and you have an
     apt illustration of Yankee numbers, Yankee equality, and Yankee
     greatness.

     'We must bring these unfranchised slaves--the Yankees--back to
     their true condition. They have long, very probably, looked upon
     themselves as our social inferiors--as our serfs; their mean,
     niggardly lives--their low, vulgar, and sordid occupations, have
     ground this conviction into them. But of a sudden, they have come
     to imagine that their numerical strength gives them power--_and
     they have burst the bonds of servitude_, and are running riot with
     more than the brutal passions of a liberated wild beast. Their
     uprising has all the characteristics of a _ferocious, fertile
     insurrection_.... They have suggested to us the invasion of their
     territory, and the robbery of their banks and jewelry-stores. We
     may profit by the suggestion, so far as the invasion goes--_for
     that will enable us to restore them to their normal condition of
     vassalage, and teach them that cap in hand is the proper attitude
     of a servant before his master_.'

These extracts are from the Richmond _Whig_--a paper beyond all
comparison the most respectable and moderate in the whole South, and by
no means of so little weight or character that its remarks can be passed
by as mere Southern vaunt and idle bluster signifying nothing. It speaks
the deep-seated belief and heartfelt conviction of even the most
intelligent secessionists--for the editor of the _Whig_ is not only one
of these, but one of the most honest and upright men to be found in
Dixie.

'But,' the reader may ask, 'if the man really _believes_ that Yankees
are serfs, slaves, vassals of the South, where are his eyes, ears, and
common-sense?' Gently, dear reader. When we reflect on the toadying to
the South by Northern doughface Democrats in by-gone years--when we
recall the abominable and incredible servility with which every thing
Southern has been hymned, homaged and exalted--when we remember how
vulgar, arrogant, ignorant Southrons have been adored in doughface
society where gentlemen whom they were not worthy of waiting on were of
but secondary account--when we think of the shallow, pitiful meanness
which induces Northern men to rant in favor of that 'institution' which
they, at least, _know_ is a curse to the whole country--when we see even
now, how, with a baseness and vileness beyond belief, 'democratic'
editors continue to lick the hands which smite them, we do _not_ wonder
that the Southerner, taking the doughface for a type of the whole North,
characterizes all Yankees as serf-like, servile cap-in-hand crawlers and
beggars for patronage. For if we were all of the pro-slavery Democracy,
and especially of those who even now continue to yelp for Southern
rights and grinningly assure patriots that 'under the Constitution they
can do nothing to the South,' we should richly deserve all the scorn
heaped on us by the 'chivalry.'

       *       *       *       *       *

We doubt not that, during this bitter war, many incidents have occurred,
or will occur, quite like that described in the following simple but
life-true ballad:

                         FRANK WILSON.

            'Twas night at the farm-house. The fallen sun
              Shot his last red arrow up in the west;
            Shadows came wolfishly stealing forth,
              And chased the flush from the mountain's crest.

            Night at the farm-house. The hickory fire
              Laughed and leaped in the chimney's hold,
            And baffled, with its warm mirth, the frost,
              As he pried at the panes with his fingers cold.

            The chores were finished; and farmer West,
              As he slowly sipped from his foaming mug,
            Toasted his feet in calm content,
              And rejoiced that the barns were warm and snug.

            Washing the tea-things, with bared white arms,
              And softly humming a love refrain;
            With smooth brown braids, and cheeks of rose,
              Washed and warbled his daughter Jane.

            She was the gift that his dear wife left,
              When she died, some nineteen Mays before;
            The light and the warmth of the old farm-home,
              And cherished by him to his great heart's core.

            A sweet, fair girl; yet 'twas not so much
              The fashion of feature that made her so;
            'Twas love's own tenderness in her eyes,
              And on her cheeks love's sunrise glow.

            Done were the tea-things; the rounded arms
              Again were covered, the wide hearth brushed;
            Then from the mantle she took some work,
              'Twas a soldier's sock, and her song was hushed.

            Her song was hushed; for tenderer thoughts
              Than ever were bodied in word or sound,
            Trembled like stars in her downcast eyes,
              As she knit in the dark yarn round and round.

            A neighbor's rap at the outer door
              Was answered at once by a bluff 'Come in!'
            And he came, with stamping of heavy boots,
              Frost-wreathed brow and muffled chin.

            Come up to the fire! Pretty cold to-night.
              What news do you get from the village to-day?
            Did you call for our papers? Ah! yes, much obliged.
              What news do you get from our Company K?'

            'Bad news!--bad news!' He slowly unwinds
              His muffler, and wipes his frost-fringed eyes.
            'Frank Wilson was out on the picket last night,
              And was killed by some cursed rebel spies.'

            O God! give strength to that writhing heart!
              Fling the life back to that whitening cheek!
            Let not the pent breath forever stay
              From the lips, too white and dumb to speak!

            'Frank Wilson killed? ah! too bad--too bad,
              The finest young man, by far, in this town;
            Such are the offerings we give to war,
              Jane, draw a fresh mug for our neighbor Brown.'

            Neither did notice her faltering step;
              Neither gave heed to her quivering hand,
            That awkwardly fumbled the cellar-door,
              And spilled the cider upon the stand.

            But the father dreamed, as he slept that night,
              That his darling had met some fearful woe;
            And he dreamed of hearing her stifled moans,
              And her slow steps pacing to and fro.

                              II.

            'Twas an April day, in the balmy spring,
              The farmhouse fires had gone to sleep,
            The windows were open to sun and breeze,
              The hills were dotted with snowy sheep.

            The great elms rustled their new-lifed leaves
              Softly over the old brown roof,
            And the sunshine, red with savory smoke,
              Fell graciously through their emerald woof.

            Sounds--spring sounds--which the country yields:
              Voices of laborers, lowing of herds,
            The caw of the crow, the swollen brook's roar,
              The sportsman's gun, and the twitter of birds,

            Melted like dim dreams into the air;
              'Twas the azure shadow of summer,
            Which fell so sweetly on plain and wood,
              And brought new gladness to eye and ear.

            But a face looks out to the purple hills,
              A wasted face that is full of woe,
            Wan yet calm, like a summer moon
              That has lost the round of its fullest glow.

            The smooth brown braids still wreathe her head;
              Her simple garments are full of grace,
            As if, with color and taste, she fain
              Would ward off eyes from her paling face.

            'Tis a morning hour, but the work is done;
              The house so peacefully bright within,
            And the wild-wood leaves on the mantel-shelf
              Tell how busy her feet have been.

            She sits by the window and watches a cloud
              Fading away in the hazy sky;
            And 'Like that cloud,' she says in heart,
              'When summer is over, I too shall die.'

            The door-yard gate swings to with a clang,
              She must not sadden her father so;
            She springs to her feet with a merrier air,
              And pinches her face to make it glow.

            But ah! no need; for a ruddier red
              Than pinches can bring floods brow and cheek;
            She stands transfixed by a mighty joy;
              For millions of worlds she can not speak.

            Frank Wilson gathers her close to his heart,
              With brightening glance, he reads that glow,
            And draws from the wells of her joy-lit eyes
              The secret he long has yearned to know.

            'Frank Wilson! living and strong and well;
              Were you not killed by the rebels? say!'
            'Thank God! I was not. 'Twas another man--
              There were two Frank Wilsons in Company K.'

            The one church-bell in the distant town
              Chimes softly forth for twelve o'clock;
            Another clang of the door-yard gate,
              A sudden hush in the tender talk.

            She flies to meet him--the transformed child!--
              Her heart keeps time to her ringing tread;
            'O father! he's come!' and she needs no more
              To pinch her cheeks to make them red.

            MARIE MIGNIONETTE.

       *       *       *       *       *

A friend who doth such things has kindly jotted down for us the
following 'authentics':

     Sometimes I have thought that the reply our Irish girl gave the
     other day, was of the nature of her usual blunders, and again that
     it meant a good deal. On her return from a funeral, where a man,
     who had previously lost his wife, had buried his only child, an
     infant a few weeks old, I asked her how the father appeared?

     'Oh! he was a dale sorry; but I guess _he's glad to get rid of
     it_!'

     _It was only a_ WAY _he had._--Whiggles, on being told that a boy
     down-town, only sixteen years old, weighed six hundred and fifty
     pounds, was further enlightened by the information that he weighed
     that amount of coal on a platform Fairbanks.


The Southern press has proposed that, even in case of defeat, the
wealthy class shall retire to their plantations, 'live comfortably' on
what they can raise, let cotton go for two years, and thereby starve
Europe and the North into a conviction that Cotton is King.

But how will the poor whites of the South like this? What is to become
of _them_? Or what, indeed, is to become of us, if no cotton be
forthcoming? The truth is, and every day makes it more apparent, _the
raising of cotton must pass into other hands_. The _army_ has its
rights--the right to land-grants--and the _only_ effectual means of
putting an end to our dependence on the South will be found in settling
soldiers in the cotton country. Texas would be, perhaps, best suited for
the purpose, and other regions may be selected as opportunity may
suggest. With this course fully determined on, it would hardly be
necessary to further agitate Emancipation, it would come of itself, and
slave-labor would yield to the energy of the free Northern farmer.

Very little has been said as yet on this subject of properly rewarding
our troops. But it is destined to rise into becoming the great question
of the day; and if the Democratic pro-slavery party sets itself in
opposition to it, it will be ground to powder. Events are tending to
this issue with irresistible and tremendous power, and the days of
planterdom are numbered.

           *       *       *       *       *



                           FOOTNOTES

[Footnote A: This anecdote has frequently gone the rounds in an
abbreviated form. It may interest the reader to see it in authentic
detail.]

[Footnote B: Richmond _Examiner._]

[Footnote C: To which we add, 'An Account of the Proceedings preliminary
to the Organization of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, with a
List of the Members thus far associated, and an Appendix, containing
Petitions and Resolutions in aid of the objects of the Committee of
Associated Institutions of Science and Art. Boston, 1861.' Also the
Objects and Courses of Instruction in the Lawrence Scientific School. In
the 'Catalogue of the Officers and Students of Harvard University, for
the Academical Year 1860-1861.' The Editor will hold himself greatly
indebted to any one who will kindly forward him catalogues or
prospectuses relative to any scientific schools or institutes whatever,
either in this country or Europe.]

[Footnote D: EDUCATIONAL CONDITION--CENSUS 1850.

Maine,                    1 in 3-1/3
New-Hampshire,              "  3-1/2
Vermont,                    "  3-1/3
Michigan,                   "  3-1/3
Ohio,                       "  3-3/4
New-York, native-born,      "  3-3/4
          Aggregate,        "  4-1/2
Massachusetts, native-born, "  3-1/2
               Aggregate,   "  4-1/2
Pennsylvania, native-born,  "  4
              Aggregate,    "  4-1/2
Rhode-Island,               "  4-1/2
Connecticut,                "  4-1/2
Indiana,                    "  4-1/2
Illinois,                   "  4-1/2
Iowa,                     1 in 5-1/2
Florida,                    " 10
Louisiana,                  "  8
Texas,                      "  8
Virginia,                   "  8
Alabama,                    "  7
Arkansas,                   "  7
Georgia,                    "  7
Maryland,                   "  7
South-Carolina,             "  7
Mississippi,                "  6-1/2
Kentucky,                   "  6
Missouri,                   "  6
New-Jersey,                 "  5-1/2
North-Carolina              "  5-1/2
Wisconsin,                  "  5-1/2
Tennessee,                  "  5
Delaware,                   "  5

EUROPEAN STATES.

Denmark,                        1 in 4-1/2
Sweden,                           "  5-1/2
Saxony,                           "  6
Prussia,                          "  6-1/4
Norway,                           "  7
Great Britain,                    "  8-1/2
  Actually receiving instruction, "  7
Ireland,                       1 in 14
Belgium,                          "  8-1/2
France,                           " 10-1/2
Austria                           " 13-3/4
Holland,                          " 14-3/4
Greece,                           " 18
Russia,                           " 50
Portugal,                         " 81
Spain,                       Not known.

FREE COLORED POPULATION--UNITED STATES.

Maine,        1 in 5
Rhode-Island,   "  6-1/2
Massachusetts,  "  6-1/4
New-Hampshire,  "  7
Vermont,      1 in 8
Connecticut,    "  6
Pennsylvania,   "  8
New-York,       "  9

It may be seen, by the foregoing table, that a thorough system of
education for the masses requires that one third of the aggregate
population should be kept at school for a goodly portion of the year.
This is essential, under Democratic Government, in order to bring each
generation up to the appreciative point.]

[Footnote E: The free colored population of Charleston in 1860, did not
vary materially from four thousand. The associated value of their
property would give to each $390. Each family or six persons would
possess, according to this estimate, $2840. This would be a full average
of wealth to the free population of the United States--the amount
varying in the different States from $2200 to $2500 to each family of
six persons.]




DESTINED TO BE THE BOOK OF THE SEASON

       *       *       *       *       *

As published in the pages of THE CONTINENTAL MONTHLY, it has been
pronounced by the Press to be

"SUPERIOR TO UNCLE TOM'S CABIN."

"FULL OF ABSORBING INTEREST."

"Whether invented or not, True, because true to Life."--HORACE GREELEY.

       *       *       *       *       *

WILL SHORTLY BE PUBLISHED,

==In a handsome 12mo vol. of 330 pages, cloth, $1,==

==AMONG THE PINES,==

BY EDMUND KIRKE.

(Symbol: Pointing Finger) Read the following Notices from the Press;

"It contains the most vivid and lifelike representation of a specimen
family of poor South-Carolina whites we have ever read."--E.P. WHIPPLE,
in the _Boston Transcript._

"It is full of absorbing interest."--_Whig_, Quincy, III.

"It gives some curious ideas of Southern Social Life."--_Post_, Boston.

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"One of the most attractive series of papers ever published, and
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"A very graphic picture of life among the clay-eaters and
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"The author wields a ready and graphic pen."--_Times_, Armenia, N.Y.

"There are passages in it of the most thrilling dramatic
power."--_Journal_, Roxbury, Mass.

It is the best and most truthful sketch of Southern Life and Character
we have ever read."--R. SURLTON MACKENZIE, in the _Press_, Philadelphia.

"Has a peculiar interest just now, and deserves a wide
reading."--_Dispatch,_ Amsterdam, N.Y.

"An intensely vivid description of things as they occur on a Southern
Plantation."--_Union_, Lancaster, Pa.

"The author is one of the finest descriptive writers in the
country."--_Journal_, Boston, Mass.

"It presents a vivid picture of Plantation Life, with something of the
action of a character that is more than likely to pass from t story into
history before the cause of the Rebellion is rooted out."--_Gazette._
Taunton, Mass.

"A most powerful production, which can not be read without exciting
great and continued interest"--_Palladium_, New Haven.

PUBLISHED BY

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And 110 TREMONT STREET, BOSTON

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THE

CONTINENTAL MONTHLY.

       *       *       *       *       *

PUBLISHER'S NOTICE.

       *       *       *       *       *

THE CONTINENTAL MONTHLY has passed its experimental ordeal, and stands
firmly established in popular regard. It was started at a period when
any new literary enterprise was deemed almost foolhardy, but the
publisher believed that the time had arrived for just such a Magazine.
Fearlessly advocating the doctrine of ultimate and gradual Emancipation,
for the sake of the UNION and the WHITE MAN, it has found favor in
quarters where censure was expected, and patronage where opposition only
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The most eminent of our Statesmen have furnished THE CONTINENTAL many of
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It will be our effort to go on in the path we have entered, and as a
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political articles which have given it so much reputation will be
continued in each issue, and in this number is commenced a new Serial by
Richard R. Kimball, the eminent author of the 'Under-Currents of Wall
Street,' 'St. Leger,' etc., entitled,


WAS HE SUCCESSFUL?

An account of the Life and Conduct of Hiram Meeker, one of the leading
men in the mercantile community, and 'a bright and shining light' in the
Church, recounting what he did, and how he made his money. This work
which will excel the previous brilliant productions of this author.

     The UNION--The Union of ALL THE STATES--that indicates our
     politics. To be content with no ground lower than the highest--that
     is the standard of our literary character.

We hope all who are friendly to the spread of our political views, and
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TERMS TO CLUBS.

Two copies for one year,....................................Five dollars.
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GENERAL AGENT.

Number 8. 25 Cents

The

Continental

Monthly

Devoted to Literature and National Policy.

       *       *       *       *       *

AUGUST, 1862.

       *       *       *       *       *

NEW-YORK AND BOSTON:

J.R. GILMORE, 532 BROADWAY, NEW-YORK,

AND 110 TREMONT STREET, BOSTON.

NEW-YORK: HENRY DEXTER AND SINCLAIR TOUSEY.

PHILADELPHIA: T.B. CALLENDER AND A. WINCH.

CONTENTS.--No. VIII.

       *       *       *       *       *

Among the Pines. (Concluded,) 127

Southern Rights, 143

Maccaroni and Canvas, 144

Glances from the Senate-Gallery, 154

The Last Ditch, 159

Rewarding the Army, 161

John McDonogh, the Millionaire, 165

Helter-Skelter Papers, 175

Sketches of the Orient, 179

Witches, Elves, and Goblins, 184

A True Romance, 190

Huguenots of New-York City, 193

The Bane of our Country, 198

The Molly O'Molly Papers, 200

Wounded, 206

Astor and the Capitalists of New-York, 207

Thunder all Round, 217

Was he Successful? 218

A Merchant's Story, 232

Corn is King, 237

Literary Notices, 238

Editor's Table, 241

       *       *       *       *       *

A MERCHANT'S STORY,

By the author of 'Among the Pines,' which is begun in this number, will
be continued in each issue of THE CONTINENTAL until it is completed. It
will depict Southern White Society, and be a truthful history of some
eminent Northern Merchants, who are largely in 'the cotton trade and
sugar line.'

       *       *       *       *       *

ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868, by JAMES H.
GILMORE, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United
States for the Southern District of New-York.

       *       *       *       *       *

JOHN A. GRAY, PRINTER.