THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS. VOL. 111.JANUARY, 1839.NO. XV. OLYMPUS AND ASGARD. I-low remote from the nineteenth cen- tury of the Christian era lies the old Homeric world! By the magic of the lonian minstrels verse that world is still visible to the inner eye. Through the clouds and lurk of twenty centuries and more, it is still possible to catch clear glimpses of it, as it lies there in the gold- sa sunshine of the sucient days. A thousand objectsThearer in the waste of past time are far more muffled, opaque, and impervious to vision. As you enter it through the gates of the Ilias and Odusscia, you hid a glad adieu to the progress of the age, to railroads and tele- graph-wires, to cotton-spinning, (there might have heen some of that done, how- ever, in some Nilotic Manchester or Lowell,) to the diffusion of knowledge and the rights of man and societies for the improvement of our race, to human- itarianism and philanthropy, to science and mechanics, to the printing-press and gunpowder, to industrialism, clipper-ships, power-looms, metaphysics, geology, obser- vatories, light-houses, and a myriad other t.hings too numerous for specification, and you pass into a sunny region of glorious sensualism, where there are no obstinate questionings of outward things, where there are no blank misgivings of a VOL. III. 1 creature moving about in worlds not re- alized, no morbid self-accusings of a mor- bid methodistic conscience. All there in that old world, lit by the strong vertical light of Homers genius, is healthful, sharply-defined, tangible, definite, and sensualistic. Even the divine powers, the gods themselves, are almost visible to the eyes of their worshippers, as they revel in their mountain-propped halls on the far summits of many-peaked Olym- pus, or lean voluptuously from their ce- lestial balconies and belvederes, soothed by the Apollonian lyre, the Heban nec- tar, and the fragrant incense, which reeks up in purple clouds from the shrines of windy Ilion, hollow Laceda,mon, Argos, Mycen~, Athens, and the cities of the old Greek isles, with their shrine-capped headlands. The outlooks and watch- towers of the chief deities were all visi- ble from the far streets and dwellings of their earthly worshippers, in that clear, shining, Grecian atmosphere. Uranog- raphy was then far better understood than geography, and the personages com- posing the heavenly synod were almost as definitely known to the homeric men as their mortal acquaintances. The ar- chitect of the Olympian palaces was sur- named Amphigu~eis, or the Halt. The 2 Olympus and Asgard. [January, Homeric gods were men divinized with imperishable frames, glorious and immor- tal sensualists, never visited by qualms of conscience, by headache, or remorse, or debility, or wrinkles, or dyspepsia, however deep their potations, however fiercely they indulged their appetites. Zeus, the Grand Sei,,nior or Sultan of Olympus and father of gods and men, surpassed Turk and Mormon Elder in his uxoriousness and indiscriminate con- cubinage. With Olympian goddess and lone terrestrial nymph and deep-bosomed mortal lass of Hellas, the land of lovely women, as Homer calls it, did he pursue his countless intrigues, which he some- times had the unblushing coolness and impudence to rehearse to his wedded wife, Her?~. His list would have thrown Don Giovannis entirely into the shade. Here, the queen of Olympus, called the Golden-Throned, the Venerable, the Ox- Eyed, was a sort of celestial Queen Bess, the undaunted she-Tudor, whose father, bluff Harry, was not a bad human copy of Zeus himself, the Rejoicer in Thunder. In that old Homeric heaven,in those quiet seats of the gods of the heroic world, which were never shaken by storm-wind, nor lashed by the wintry tempest that raved far below round the dwellings of wretched mortals,in those quiet abodes above the thunder, there was for the most part nought but festal joy, music, choral dances, and empty- ing of nectar-cups, interrupted now and then by descents into the low-lying re- gion of human life in quest of adventure, or on errands of divine intervention in the affairs of men, for whom, on the whole, Zeus and his court entertained sentiments of profound contempt. Once in a while Zeus and all his courtiers went on a festal excursion to the land of the blameless Ethiops, which lay somewhere over the ocean, where they banqueted twelve days. Why such a special honor as this was shown to these Ethiops is not explained. Within their borders were evidently the summer resorts, Newport and Baden-Baden, frequented by the Olympians. Only in great crises was the whole mythic host of the Grecian religion summoned to meet in full forum on the heights of the immemorial mountain. At such times, all the fountains, rivers, and groves of Hellas were emptied of their guardian dnmons, male and female, who hastened to pay their homage to and re- ceive their orders from the Cloud-Gather- er, sitting on his throne, in his great skycy Capitolium, and invested with all the pomp of mythic majesty, his ambrosial locks smoothly combed and brushed by some Olympian friseur, his eagle perched with ruffled plumes upon his fist, and cv- erything else so arranged as most forcibly to impress the country visitors and ru- ral incumbents with salutary awe for the occupant of their sky-Vatican. Wheth- er these last were compelled to salute the Jovine great toe with a kiss is not record- ed, there being no account extant of the ceremonial and etiquette of Olympus. Whatever it was, doubtless it was rigidly enforced; for the Thunderer, it would seem, had a Bastile, or lock-up, with iron doors and a brazen threshold specially provided for contumacious and disobe- dient gods. Zeus, although he could claim supreme dominion under the law of primogeniture, was originally only a coequal ruler with his two brothers, Hades, king of the un- derworld, and Ennosignus, monarch of the salt sea-foam. They were alike the sons and coequal heirs of Kronos, or Time, and the Mmrm, or Destinies, had parcelled out the universe in three equal parts between them. But the position of Zeus in his serene air-realm gave him the advantage over his two brothers,as the metropolitan situation of the Roman see in the capital of the world gave its dio- cesan, who was originally nothing more than the peer of the Bishops of Antioch, Alexandria, Carthage, and Constantino- ple, an opportunity finally to assert and maintain a spiritual lordship. This is a case exactly in point. It is certainly prop- er to illustrate a theocratic usurpation by an hierarchic one. Zeus, with his eagle and thunder and that earthquaking nod, was too strong for him of the trident and him 1859.] Olympus and Asyard. 3 of the three-headed hound. The whole mythic host regarded Joves court as a place of final resort, of ultimate appeal. He was recognized as the Supreme Fath- er, Papa, or Pope, of the Greek mythic realm. The nod of his immortal head was decisive. His azure eyebrows and ambrosial hair were full of fate. The wars of mortals in Helms and Dar- danland were matters of more interest to the Olympian celestials than any other mere human transactions. These occa- sioned partisanships, hearthurnings, and factions in the otherwise serene Olympian palaces. Even Father Zeus himself ac- knowledged a bias for sacred Ilium and its king and people over all the cities of terrestrial men heneath the sun and starry heaven. In the ten-years war at Troy, the Olympians were active partisans upon both sides at times, now screening their favorites from danger, and now even pit- ting themselves against comhatants of more vulnerahle flesh and blood. But in the matter of vulnerability they seem not to have enjoyed complete exemption, any more than did Miltons angels. Although they ate not hread nor drank wine, still there was in their veins a kind of am- brosial blood called ichor, which the prick of a javelin or spear would cause to flow freely. Even Ares, the genius of homi- cide and slaughter, was on one occasion at least wounded by a mortal antagonist, and sent out of the melee badly punished, so that he bellowed like a bull-calf, as he mounted on a dusty whirlwind to Olym- pus. Over his misadventures while play- irig his own favorite game certainly there were no tears to be shed but when, prompted by motherly tenderness, Aphro- dite, the soft power of loveshe of the Paphian boudoir, whose recesses were glowing with the breath of Sabnan frank- incense fumed by a hundred altars,she at whose approach the winds became hushed, and the clouds fled, and the dn- dal earth poured forth sweet flowers, when such a presence manifested herself on the field of human strife on an errand of motherly affection, and attempted to screen her bleeding son from the shafts of his foes with a fold of her shining pep- lum, surely the audacious Grecian king should have forborne, and, lowering his lance, should have turned his wrath else- where. But no, he pierced her skin with his spear, so that, shrieking, she abandoned her child, and was driven, bleeding, to her immortal homestead. The rash earth-born warrior knew not that he who put his lance in rest against the immortals had but a short lease of life to live, and that his bairns would never run to lisp their sires return, nor climb his knees the envied kiss to share. Homer, in the first books of his 111- as, permits us to glance into the ban- queting-hall of Olympus. The two reg- ular pourers of nectar, to wit, Hebe and Ganymede, are off duty. Hephnstus the Cripple has taken their place and as he halts about from guest to guest, inextin- guishable laughter arises among the gods at his awkward method of passing the rosy. His lameness was owing to that sunset fall on the isle of Lemnos from the threshold of heaven. So, all day lone, says the poet, they revelled, Apol- lo and the Muses performing the part of a ballet-troop. It is pleasing to learn that the Olympians kept early hours, conforming, in this respect, to the rule of Poor Iliichard. Duly at set of sun they betook themselves to their couch- es. Zeus himself slept, and by his side Herh of the Golden Throne. Who would wish to have lived a pagan under that old Olympian dispensation, even though, like the dark-eyed Greek of the Atreidean age, his fancy could have fetched from the blazing chariot of the Sun a beardless youth who touched a golden lyre and filled the illumined groves with ravishment? even though, like him, he might in myrtle-grove and lone- ly mountain-glen have had favors grant- ed him even by Idalian Aphrodite the Beautiful, and felt her warm breath glow- ing upon his forehead, or been coun- selled by the blue-eyed Athene, or been elevated to ample rule by Heri~ herself, Heavens queen? That Greek heaven was heartless, libidinous, and cold. I~ 4 Olympus and Asgard. [January, had no mild divinities appointed to bind up the broken heart and assuage the grief of the mourner. The weary and the heavy-laden had no celestial nesource amongst its immortal revellers and liber- tines, male and female. There was no sympathy for mortal suffering amongst those divine sensualists. They talked with contempt and unsympathizing ridicule of the woes of the earthborn, of the brevity of mortal life, and of its miseries. A boon, indeed, and a grateful exchange, was the Mother Mild of the Roman Catholic Pantheon, the patroness of the broken- hearted, who juclines her countenance graciously to the petitions of womanly anguish, for the voluptuous Aphrodite, the haughty Juno, the Di-Vernonish Ar- temis, and the lewd and wanton nymphs of forest, mountain, ocean, lake, and river. Ceres alone, of the old female classic dmnmons, seemed to he endowed with a truly womanly tenderness and re- gard for humankind. She, like the Ma- ter Dolorosa, is represented in the myths to have known bereavement and sorrow, and she, therefore, could sympathize with the grief of mothers sprung from Pyrrhas stern. Nay, she had envied them their mortality, which enabled them to join their lost ones, who could not come hack to them, in the grave. Vainly she sought to descend into the dark underworld to see her young Persephone, transcend- ent queen of shades. Not for her weary, wandering feet was a single one of the thousand paths that lead downward to death. Her only consolation was in the vernal flowers, which, springin~ from the dark earthly mould, seemed to her to be heralds from the dreary deep, Soft voices from the solemn streams, by whose shores, veiled in eternal twi- light, wandered her sad child, the queen of e realm of Dis, with its nine-fold river, gates of adamant, and minarets of fire. The heartlessness of all the ethnic deities, of whatever age or nation, is a notiecable feature, especially when con- trasted with the unfathomable pity of their Exterminator, who wept over the chief city of his fatherland, and would have gathered it, as a hen gathereth her chickens, under the wings of his love, though its sons were seeking to compass his destruction. Those old ethnic deities were cruel, inexorable, and relentless. They knew nothing of mercy and for- giveness. They ministered no balm to human sorrow. The dammons who wan- dered in human shape over the classic lands of old were all fickle and malevo- lent. They oftentimes impelled their vic- tims to suicide. The ghouls that haunt the tombs and waste places of the re- gions where they were once worshipped are their lineal descendants and modern representatives. The vampires and pest- hags of the Levant are their successors in malignity. The fair humanities of the old religion were fair only in shape and exterior. The old pagan gods were friendly only to kings, heroes, and gran- dees; they had no beatitude for the poor and lowly. Human despair, under their dispensation, knew no alleviation hut a plunge from light and life into the under- worldrather than be monarch of which, the shade of Achilles avers, in the Odus- seia, that it would prefer to be the hire- ling and drudge of some poor earthly peasant. Elysium was only for a privi- leged few. It has been said that the old ethnic creeds were the true religion growing wild,that the human soil was prepar- ed by such kind of spiritual crops and outgrowths, with their tares and weeds intermingled with wheat, for the seed that was finally to be sown by the Divine Sower,that, erroneous as they were in a thousand respects, they were genuine emanations of the religious nature in man, and as such not to be stigmatized or harshly characterized,that without them the human soil could not have been made ready for the crop of unmixed truth. This may be true of some of them, though surely not of the popular form of the old Greek ethnic faith. Its deities were nothing better than the pas- sions of human nature projected upon ethereal heights, and incarnated and Olympus and Asgard. made personal in undecaying da~monic sbapes,not conditioned and straitened like the bodies of man, but enjoying per- petual youth and immunity from death in most cases, with permission to take lib- erties with Space and Time greater even than are granted to us by steam and tele- graph-wires. The vulgar Grecian polytheism was all material. It had no martyrs and con- fessors. It was not worth dyin~ for, as it was good for nothing to live by. The religion of ilellas was the religion of sensualistic beauty simply. It was just the worship for Pheidias and Praxiteles, for the bard of Teos and the soft Catul- lus, for sensual poet, painter, and sculp- tor. But the blind old man of Scios rocky isle, although we gather most of our knowledge of Olympus and the Olym- pians from his verse, was worthy of a lof- tier and purer heaven than the low one under which he wandered from city to city, singing the tale of Troy divine, and hymns and p~ans to the gods. The good and the true were mere metaphysical ab- stractions to the old Greek. What must he have been when it, would not have been safe for him to leave his wife alone with the best and highest of his gods? The ancient Hellenes were morally most vicious and depraved, even when com- pared with contemporary heathen nations. The old Greek was large in brain, but not in heart. He had created his gods in his own image, and the werewhat they were. There was no goodness in his religion, and we can tolerate it only as it is developed in the Homeric rhap- sodies, in the far-off fable-time of the old world, and amongst men who were but partially self-conscious. In that remote Homeric epoch it is tolerable, when cat- tle-stealing and war were the chief em- ployments of the rulin~ caste,and we may add, woman-stealin~,, into the bar- gain. I did not come to fight against the Trojans, says Achilles, because I had suffered any grievance at their hands. They never drove off my oxen and horses or stole my harvests in rich-soiled Phthia, the nurse of heroes; for vale-darkening mountains and a tumultuous sea separate us. Into that old Homeric world we eti- ter through the portals of the Ilias and Odusseia, and see the peaks of Olympus shining afar off in white splen- dor like silvery clouds, not looking for or expecting either a loftier or a purer heav- en. Somewhere on the bounds of the dim ocean-world we know that there is an exiled court, a faded sort of St. Ger- main celestial dynasty, geologic gods, co- evals of the old Silurian strata,to wit, Kronos, lThea, Nox, et al. Here these old, unsceptred, discrowned, and sky- fallen potentates cogitate in their wa- tery ooze, and in the shady sadness of vales,sometimes visited by their suc- cessors for counsel or concealment, or for the purpose of establishing harmony amongst them. The Sleep and Dcat.h of the Homeric mythology were naturally gentle divinities, sometimes lifting the slain warrior from the field of his fame, and bearing him softly through the air to his home and weeping kindred. This was a gracious office. The saintly legends of the Roman Church have borrowed a hint from this old Homeric fancy. One pleas- ant feature of the Homeric battles is, that, when some blameless, great-souled chain- pion falls, the blind old bard interrupts the performances for a moment and takes his reader with him away from the din and shouting of the battle, fol- lowing, as it were, the spirit of the fallen hero to his distant abode, where sit his old father, his spouse, and children, thus throwing across the cloud of battle a sweet gleam of domestic, pastoral life, to relieve its gloom. Homer, both in the Ilias and Odusseia, gives his read- ers frequent glimpses into the halls of Olympus; for messengers are continually flashing to and fro, like meteors, between the throne of Zeus and the earth. Some- times it is hermes sandalled with down; sometimes it is wind-footed Iris, who is winge(l with the emerald plumes of the rainbow; and sometimes it is Oneiros, or a Dream, that glides down to earth, hood- ed and veiled, through the shadow of 1859.1 5 6 Olympus and Asgard. [January, night, bearing the behests of Jove. But however often we are permitted to re- turn to the ambrosial homestead of the ever-living gods in the wake of returning messengers, we always find it the same calm region, lifted far up above the tur- bulence, the perturbations, the clouds and storms of That low spot which men call earth a glorious aiirial Sans-Souci and house of pleasaunce. It is curious that the atheistic Lucretius has given us a most glowing description of the Olympian mansions; but perhaps the Olympus of the Epicurean poet and philosopher is somewhat higher up and more sublimated and etherealized than the Olympus of Homer and of the popu- lar faith. In a flash of poetic inspiration, he says, The walls of the universe are cloven. I see through the void inane. The splendor (numen) of the gods ap- pears, and the quiet seats which are not shaken by storm-winds nor aspersed by rain-clouds; nor does the whitely falling snow-flake, with its hoar rime, violate their summery warmth, but an ever-cloud- less ether laughs above them with wide- spread radiance. Lucretius had all these lineaments of his Epicurean heaven from old homer. They are scattered up and down the Ilias and Odusseja in the shape of disjecta membra. For instance, the Olympus which he beholds through a chasm in the walls of the universe, tow- ering into the pure empyrean, has some of the features of Homers island Elys- iums, the blissful abodes of mortal he- roes who have been divinized or trans- lated. The Celtic island-valley of Ava- lou, the abode of King Arthur, with its orchard-lawns and bowery hollows, so exquisitely alluded to by Tennyson, is a kindred spot with the Homeric Elysian plain~ Emerson says, The race of gods, or those we erring own, are shadows floating up and down in the still abodes. This is exactly the meaning of Lucretius also. They are all air-cities, these seats of the celestials, whatever be the creed, summery, ethereal climes, fanned with spice-winds and zephyrs. Meru, Kaf; Olympus, Elboorz,they are all alike. The ethnic superior dmmons were well termed the powers of the air. Upward into the far blue gazes the weary and longing saint and devotee of every faith. Beyond the azure curtains of the sky, upward into the pure realm, over the rain-cloud and the thunder and the silver bars of the scirrhus, he places his quiet seats, his mansions of rest. The German poet, Schiller, who was a worshipper of Art and sensualistic beauty, and who regarded the sciences as the mere handmaids of Art, exalting the nesthetic above the moral nature in man, quite naturally regretted that he had not lived in the palmy days of the anthropomorphic creed of Hellas, before the (lirge of Pan was chanted in the Isle of Naxos. His Gods of Greek Land is as fine a piece of heathenish longing as could well be written at so late a day. His heart was evidently far away from the century in which he lived, and pul- sated under that distant Grecian sky of which he somewhere speaks. For artistic purposes the myths of Greece formed a glorious faith. Grace and sym- metry of form were theirs, and the ysa- tiated the eye with outward loveliness; but to the deep fountains of feeling and sentiment, such as a higher faith has un- sealed in the heart, they never penetrat- ed. What a poor, narrow little world w~ that myth-haunted one of the Grecian poet and sculptor, and even philosopher, compared with the actual world which modern science is revealing from year to year! What a puny affair was that Gre- cian sun, with its coachmans apparatus of reins, fire-breathing nags, and golden car, which Schiller looks back to, in the spirit of Mr. Weller, Senior, when com- pared with the vast empyreal sphere and light-fountain of modern science, with its retinue of planets, ships of space, freight- ed with souls! Science the handmaid of Art! Well might the mere artist and worshipper of anthropomorphic beauty shrink appalled, and sigh for a lodge un- der some low Grecian heaven and in the bosom of some old myth-peopled Nature, 1859.1 Olympus and Asgard. 7, as he trembled before the apoealypses of modern sidereal science, which has drop- ped its plummet to unimaginable depths tbrough the nebulous abysses of space, shoaled with systems of worlds as the sea is with its finny droves. The Nature and the Physical Universe of the old ethnic Greek formed only a little niche and re- cess, on the walls of which the puny hu- man image was easily reflected in beauti- ful and picturesque and grotesque shad- ows, which were mistaken for gods. But the Nature and Universe revealed by modern Christian science are too vast and profound to mirror anything short of the image of the Omnipotent himself. Still there is a period in the life of every imaginative youth, when he is a pagan and worships in the old Homeric pantheon,where self-denial and pen- ance were unknown, and where in grove and glen favored mortal lover might hear the tread of Aphrodites glowing sandal. The youthful poet may ex- claim with Schiller, Art thou, fair world, no more? Return, thou virgin-bloom on Natures face! Ah, only on the minstrels magic shore Can we the footstep of sweet Fable trace! The meadows mourn for the old hallowing life; Vainly we search the earth of gods hereft; Where once the warm and living shapes were rife, Shadows alone are left! Cold, from the North, has gone Over the flowers the blast that chilled their May; And, to enrich the worship of the One, A universe of gods must pass away! Mourning, I search on yonder starry steeps, But thee, no more, Selene, there Isee! And through the woods I call, and oer the deeps, AndEcho answers me.~ The Elysian beauty and melancholy grace which Wordsworth throws over the shade of Alcestis were gleanis borrowed from a better world than the mythic Elys- mm. Neither Olympus nor Erebus dis- dained the pleasures of sense. Shakspeare, in his Midsummer-Nights Dream, has mingled the mythologies ~ Buiwers Translation. of Hellas and Scandinavia, of the North and the South, making of them a sort of mythic olla podrida. He represents the tiny elves and fays of the Gothic fairy- land, span-long creatures of dew and moonshine, the lieges of King Oberon, and of Titania, his queen, as making an irruption from their haunted hillocks, woods, meres, meadows, and fountains, in the North, into the olive-groves of Ilissus, and dancing their ringlets in the ray of the Grecian Selene, the chaste, cold huntress, and running by the triple Hecates team, following the shadow of Night round the earth. Strangely must have sounded the horns of the North- ern Elfiand, faintly blowing in the woods of Hellas, as Oberon and his grotesque court glanced along, with bit and bridle ringing, to bless the nuptials of Theseus with the bouncing Amazon. Strangely must have looked the elfin footprints in the Attic green. Across this Shakspearean plank, laid between Olympus and Asgard, or more strictly Alfheimn, we gladly pass from the sunny realm of Zeus into that of his Northern counterpart, Odin, who ought to be dearer and more familiar to his de- scendants than the Grecian Jove, though he is not. The forms which throng As- gard may not be so sculpturesquely beau- tiful, so definite, and fit to be copied in marble and bronze as those of Olympus. There may be more vagueness of outline in the Scandinavian abode of the gods, as of far-off blue skyey shapes, bu~ it is more cheerful and homelike. Pleasantly wave the evergreen boughl of the Life- Tree, Yggdrasil, the mythic ash-tree of the old iNorth, whose leaves are green with an unwithering bloom that shall defy even the fires of the final conflagration. Iduna, or Spring, sits in those boughs with her apples of rejuvenescence, restor- ing the wasted strength of the gods. In the shade of its topmost branches stands Asgard, the abode of the Asen, who are called the Rafters of the World,to wit, Odin, Thor, Freir, and the other hicher powers, male and female, of the old Teu- tonic religion. In Asgard is Valhalla, the 8 Ol~,mpus and Asgard. [January, hail of elect heroes. The roots of this mundane ash reach as far downwards as its branches do upwards. Its roots, trunk, and hranches together thrid the universe, shooting Hem, the kingdom of death, Midgard, the ahode of men, and Asgrd, the dwelling of the gods, like so many concentric rings. This ash was a psychological and onto- logical plant. All the lore of Plato and Kant and Fichte and Cousin was audi- hle in the sigh of its hranches. Three Norns, Urt, Urgand, and Skuld, dwelt beneath it, so that it comprehended time past, present, and future. The gods held their councils beneath it. By one of its stems murmured the Fountain of Mimir, in Niflheim or Mistland, from whose nra welled up the ocean and the rivers of the earth. Odin had his outlook in its top, where kept watch and ward the All-seeing Eye. In its houghs frisked and gamholled a squirrel called Busylody, which carried gossip from hough to root and hack. The warm Urdar Fountain of the South, in which swam the sun and moon in the shape of two swans, flowed hy its celes- tial stem in Asgard. A tree so much ex- tended as this ash of course had its pam- 5ites and rodentia clinging to it and gnaw- inn it~ hutthe hrave old ash defied them all, and is to wave its skywide nmhrage even over the ruins of the universe, after the dies ira shall have passed. So sings the Voluspa. This tree is a worthy type of the Teutonic race, so green, so vigorous, so all-embracing. We should expect to find the chief ohject in the Northern myth-world a tree. The forest was ever dear to the sons of the North, and many ancient Northern trihes used to hold their councils and parliaments under the branches of some wide-spreading oak or ash. Like its type, Yggdrasil, the Teu- tonic race seems to he threading the earth with the roots of universal domin- ion, and, true to hereditary instincts, it is belting the glohe with its colonies, plant- ing it, as it were, with slips from the great Mundane Ash, and throwing Bi- fr6st bridges across oceans, in the shape of telegraph-cables and steamships. Asgard is a more homelike place than Olympus. Home and fireside, in their true sense, are Teutonic institutions. Val- halla, the hall of elect heroes, was ap- propriately shingled with golden shields. Guzzlers of ale and drinkers of leger- bier will he pleased to learn that this Northern Valhalla was a sort of celestial beer-saloon, thus showing that it was a genuine Teutonic paradise; for ale would surely he found in such a region. lathe Prose Edda, Hor replies to Gangler who is asking him about the hoard a.nd lodgings of the heroes who had gone to Odin ia Valhalla, and whether they had anything hut water to drinkin huge disdain, inquiring of Gangler whether he supposed that the Allfather would invite kings and jarls and other great men, and give them nothing to drink but water. How do things divine and supernatural, when conceived of by man and cast in an earthly, finite mould, necessarily assume human attributes and characteristics I Strong drinks, the passion of the North- ern races in all ages, are of course found in their old mythic heaven, in their fabled Hereafter, and even boars flesh also. The ancient Teuton could not have en- dured a heaven with mere airy, unsub- stantial joys. There must he celestial roasts of strong meat for him, and flagons of his ancestral ale. His descendants to this day never celebrate a great occasion without a huge feed and corporation din- ners, thus establishing their legitimate descent from Teutonic stock. The Teu- tonic man ever led a life of vigorous ac- tion; hence his keen appetite, whetted by the cold blasts of his native North. What wonder, then, at the presence of sodden hoars flesh in his ancient Elysium, and of a celestial goat whose teats yielded a strong beveran e? The Teuton liked not fasting and humiliation either in Midgard or Asgard. He was ever carnivorous and eupeptic. We New Englanders are perhaps the leanest of his descendants, because we have forsaken too much the old ways and hahits of the race, and given ourselves too much to abstractions and transcendentalism. The old Teuton l8~9.] Ol~yn~pus and Asgard. 9 abhorred the abstract. He loved the concrete, the substantial. The races of Southern Europe, what are now called the Latin races, were more temperate than the Teutonic, but they were far less brave, honest, and manly. Their sensu- ality might not be so boisterous, but it was more bestial and foul. Strength and manliness, and a blithe, cheery spirit, were ever the badges of the Teuton. But though originally gross and rough, he was capable of a smoother polish, of a glossier enamel, than a more superficial, trivial nature. lie was ever deeply thoughtful, and capa- ble of profounder moods of meditation than the lightly-moved children of the South. Sighs, as from the boughs of Yggdrasil, ever breathed through his po- etry from of old. lie was a smith, an artificer, and a delver in mines from the beginnin6. The old Tetitonic Pan was far more musical and awe-inspiring than his Grecian counterpart. The Noon-spirit of the North was more wild than that of the South. How all the ancient North was alive in its Troll-haunted hillocks, where clanged the anvil of the fa~ry hill- smith, and danced and banqueted the Gnome and Trolland in its streams and springs, musical with the harps of moist- haired Elle-women and mermaids, who, ethnic dmmons though they were, yet cherished a hope of salvation! The myth- spirits of the North were more homely and domestic than those of the South, and had a hroader humor and livelier fancies. The Northern Elf-folk were true natives of the soil, grotesque in costume and shape. The Teuton of to-day is the lineal de- scendant of the old worshipper of Thor. ii6llnir, thc hammer of Thor, still sur- vives in the gigantic mechanisms of Watt, Fulton, and Stephenson. Thor embod- ied more Teutonic attributes than Odin. The feats which Thor performed in that strange city of Utgard, as they are re- lated in the old Prose Edda, were pro- phetic of the future achievements of the race, of which he was a chief god. Thor once went on a journey to Jdtunheim, or Giant-land,-a primitive outlying coun try, full of the enemies of the Asgard dy- nasty, or cosmical deities. In the course of the journey, he lodged one night with his two companions in what he supposed to be a huge hall, but which turned out to be the glove of a giant named Skrymir, who was asleep and snoring as loud as an earthquake, near by. When the giant awoke, he said to Thor, who stood near, My name is Skrymir, but I need not ask thy name, for I know that thou art the god Thor. But what hast thou done with my glove? Sure enough, on look- in~ Thor found that he had put up that night in Skrymirs handshoe, or glove. The giant and Thor breakfasted amica- bly together and went on their way till night, when Skrymir gave up his wallet of provisions to Thor and his two compan- ions, and bade them supply themselves, he meanwhile coi po~iug hhnself to sleep, snoring so loudly that the forest trembled. Thor could not undo the giants wallet, and in his wrath he smote the somnolent lubber with his mallet, a crushing blow. Skrymir simply awoke, and inquired whether a leaf had not fallen upon his head from the oak-tree under which he was lying. Conceive the chagrin and shame of Thor at this question! A second time Thor let fly at the giant with his mallet. This time it sank into his skull up to the handle, but with no more satisfactory result. The giant merely inquired whether an acorn had not dropped on his head, and want- ed to know how Thor found himself, whether he slept well or not; to which queries Thor muttered an answer, and went away, determined to make a third and final effort with his mallet, which had never failed him until then. About daybreak, as Skrymir was taking his last snooze, Thor uplifted his hammer, clutching it so fiercely that his knuckles became white. Down it came, with ter- rific emphasis, crushing through Skry- mirs cheek, up to the handle. Skrymir sat up and inquired if there were not birds perched on the tree under which he had been lodging; he thought he felt something dropping on his head,some 10 Ol~rnpus and Asgard. [January, moss belike. Alas for Thor and his weapon! For once he found himself worsted, and his mightiest efforts regard- e(l as mere flea-bites; for Skrymirs talk about leaves and acorns and moss was merely a sly piece of humor, levelled at poor crestfallen Thor, as he afterwards acknowledged. After this incident, Thor and his two companions, the peasants cbildren, Thjalfi and Rdska, and Skry- mir went their ways, and came to the high-gated city of Utgard, which stood in the middle of a plain, and was so lofty that Thor had to throw back his head to see its pinnacles and domes. Now Thor was by no means small; in- deed, in Asgard, the city of the ~sir, he was regarded as a giant; but here in Utgard Skrymir told him he had better not give himself any airs, for the people of that city would not tolerate any as- sumption on the part of such a manni- kin! Utgard-Loki, the king of the city, re- ceived Thor with the utmost disdain, calling him a stripling, and asked him contemptuously what he could do. Thor professed himself ready for a drinking- match. Whereupon Utgard-Loki bade his cup-bearer bring the large horn which his courtiers had to drain at a sin- gle draught, when they. had broken any of the established rules and regulations of his palace. Thor was thirsty, and thought he could manage the horn with- out difficulty, although it was somewhat of the largest. After a long, deep, and breathless pull which he designed as a finisher, he set the horn down and found that the liquor was not perceptibly low- ered. Again he tried, with no better re- sult; and a third time, full of wrath and chagrin, he guzzled at its contents, but found that the liquor ~Kll foamed near to the brim. He gave back the horn in dis- gust. Then Utgard-Loki proposed to him the childish exercise of lifting his cat. Thor put his hands under Tabbys belly, and, lifting with all his might, could only raise one foot from the floor. He was a very Gulliver in Brobdignag. As a last resort, he proposed to retrieve his tarnished reputation by wrestling with some Utgardian; whereupon the king turned into the ring his old nurse, Elli, a poor toothless crone, who brought Thor to his knees, and would have thrown him, had not the king interfered. Poor Thor! The next morning he took breakfast in a sad state of mind, and owned himself a shamefully used-up in- dividual. The fact was, he had stray- ed unconsciously amongst the old brute powers of primitive Nature, as he ought to have perceived by the size of the kids they wore. He had done better than he was aware of, however. The three blows of his hammer bad fallen on nothing less than a huge mountain, instead of a giant, and left three deep glens dinted into its surface; the drink- ing-horn, which he had undertaken to empty, was the sea itself, or an outlet of the sea, which he had perceptibly lower- ed; while the cat was in reality the Mid- gard Serpent, which enringed the world in its coils, and the toothless she-wrestler was Old Age! What wonder that Thor was brought to his knees? On finding himself thus made game of, Thor grew ~roth, but had to go his ways, as ~he city of Utgard had vanished into thin air, with its cloud-capped towers and enormous citizens. Thor afterwards un- dertook to catch the Midgard Serpent, using a bulls bead for bait. The World- Snake took the delicious morsel greedily, and, finding itself hooked, writhed and struggled so that Thor thrust his feet through the bottom of his boat, in his endeavors to land his prey. There is a certain grotesque humor in Thors adventures, which is missed in his mythologic counterpart of the South, Her- cules. It is the old rich world-humor of the North, genial and broad, which still lives in the creations of the later Teutonic Muse. The dints which Thor made on the mountain-skull of Skrymir were types and forerunners of the later feats of the Teutonic race, performed on the rough, shaggy, wilderness face of this Western hemisphere, channelling it with watery highways, tunnelling and levelling its 1859.1 Olympus and Asgard. 11 mountains, and strewin0 its surface with cities. The old Eddas and Voluspas of the North are full of significant lore for the sons of the Northmen, wherever their lot is cast. There they will find, that, in colonizing and humanizing the face of the world, in zoning it with railroads and telegraph-wires, in bridging its oceans with clipper-ships and steamboats, and in weaving, forging, and fabricating for it amid the clang of iron mechanisms, they are only following out the original bent of the race, and travelling in the wake of Thor the Hammerer. While the Grecian and Roman myths are made familiar by our school-books, it is to be regretted that the wild and glorious mythic lore of our ancient kindred is neglected. To that you must go, if you would learn whence came the Germans inward sight, And slow-sure Britains secular might, and it may be added, the Anglo-Ameri- cans unsurpassed practical energy, skill, and invincible love of freedom. From the fountains of the ash-tree Yggdrasil flowed these things. Some of the great- est of modern Teutonic writers have gone back to these fountains, flowing in these wild mythic wastes of the Past, and have drunk inspiration thence. Per- cy, Scott, and Carlyle, by so doing, have infused new sap from the old life-tree of their race into our modern English litera- ture, which had grown effete and stale from having bad its veins injected with too much cold, thin, watery Gallic fluid. Yes, Walter Scott heard the innumerous leafy sigh of Yggdrasils branches, and modulated his harp thereby. Carlyle, too, has bathed in the three mystic foun- tains which flow fast by its roots. In an especial manner has the German branch of the Teuton kindred turned back to those old musical well-springs bubbling up in the dim North, and they have been strengthened and inspired by the pilgrimage. Under the root, which stretches out towards the Jdtuns, there is Mimirs Well, in which Wisdom and Wit lie hidden. Longfellow, too, bas drunk of Mimirs Well, and hence the rare charm and witchery of his Evangeline, Hiawatha, and Golden Legend. This well in the North is better than Castalian fount for the children of the North. How much more genial and lovable is Balder, the Northern Sun-god, than his Grecian counterpart, the lord of the un- erring bow, the Southern genius of light, and poesy, and music! Balder dwelt in his palace of Breidablick, or Broadview; and in the magical spring-time of the North, when the fair maiden Iduna breathed into the blue air her genial breath, he set imprisoned Nature free, and filled the sky with silvery haze, and called home the stork and crane, sum- monjug forth the tender buds, and cloth- ing the bare branches with delicate green. Balder is the mildest, the wisest, and the most eloquent of all the sir, says the Edda. A voice of wail went through the palaces of Asgard when Balder was slain by the mistletoe dart. Hermod rode down to the kingdom of Hela, or Death, to ransom the lost one. Meantime his body was set adrift on a floating funeral pyre. Hermod would have succeeded in his mission, had not Lok, the Spirit of Evil, interposed to thwart him. For this, Lok was bound in prison, with cords made of the twisted intestines of one of his own sons; and he will remain imprisoned until the Twilight of the Gods, the consumma- tion of all things. On the shoulders of Odin, the su- preme Scandinavian deity, sat two ra- vens, whispering in his ears. These two ravens are called Hugin and Mu- nin, or Thought and Memory. These stately ravens of the saintly days of yore flew, each day, all over the world, gathering facts and figures, doubtless for their august master. It is a beau. tiful fable, and reminds one of Miltons thoughts which wander through eterni- ty. The dove of the Ark, and the bird which perched on the shoulder of the old Plutarchan hero Sertorius, are recalled by this Scandinavian legend 12 Ol& mpus and Asgard. [January, ilugin and Munin Each down take their flight Earths fields over. Nobler birds, these dark ravens of the Northern Jove, than the bolt-hearing eagle of his Greeian brother. So snneh deeper, more signifleant, and musical are the myths of the stern, dark, and tender North than those of the bright and fickle South! Notwithstanding that Valhalla was full of invincible heroes, and that the celestial city of Asgard was the abode of the ehief gods, still it had a wateb- man who dwelt in a tower at the end of the Bridge Bifrbst. Heixudall was his name, and he was endowed with the sharpest ear and eye that ever warder possessed. lie could hear grass and wool grow with the utmost distinctness. The .L~sir, notwithstandine their supreme po- sition, had need of such a warder, with his Gjallar-horn, mightier than the Pala- din Astolfos, that could make the uni- verse re~cho to its blast. The truth was, over even the high gods of As- gard hung a Doom which was mightier than they. It was necessary for them to keep watch and ward, therefore, for evil things were on their trail. There were vast, mysterious, outlying regions beyond their sway: Nifiheim or Mistland, Mus- pellheim or Flameland, and Jiitunheim, the abode of the 01(1 earth-powers, match- ed with whom, even Thor, the strongest of the Asen, was but a puny striphing. Over this old Scandinavian heaven, as over all ethnic celestial abodes, the dark Destinies lorded it with unquestioned sway. From the four corners of the world, at last, were to fly the snow-flakes of the dread Fimbul, Winter, blotting the sun, and moaning a ad drifting night and day. Three times was Winter to come and go, bringing to men and gods a storm- age, a wolf-age. Then cometh Ra~na- riik, the Twili0ht of the Gods! Odin mounts his war-steed. The vast ash Yggdrasil begins to shiver through all its height. The beatified heroes of Val- halla, who have ever been on the watch fbr this dread era, issue forth full of the old dauntless spirit of the North to meet the dread agents of darkness and doom. Garm, the Moonhound, breaks loose, and bays. High bloweth Heimdall his horn aloft. Odin counselleth Mimirs head. The battle joins. In short, the fiery bap- tisin prophesied in the (lark scrolls of Stoic sage and Hebrew and Scandina- via.n scald alike wraps the universe. The dwarfs wail in their mountain-clefts.. All is uproar and hissing conflagration. Dimmeds now the sun; In ocean earth sinks; From the skies are cast The sparkling stars; Fire-reek rageth Around Times nurse, And flickering flames With heaven itself shall play. By Times nurse, in the foregoing lines from the Voluspa, is meant the Mundane Tree Yggdrasil, which shall survive unscathed, and wave mournfully over the universal wreck. But in the Edda Jior tells Gangler that another earth shall appear, most lovely and ver- dant, with pleasant fields, where the grain shall grow unsown. Vidar and Vali shall survive. They shall dwell on the Plain of Ida, where Asgard formerly stood. Thither shall come the sons of Thor, bringing with them their fathers mallet. Baldur and H6dur shall also repair thith- er from the abode of Death. There shall they sit and converse together, and call to miuid their former knowledge and the perils they underwent. Perhaps we might give the Eddaie Twilight of the Gods a more human and strictly European interpretation. May it not also foreshadow the great Arma- geddon struggle which is evidently im- pending between the Teutonic races in Western Europe, with their Protestant- ism, free speech, individual liberty, right of private judgment, and scorn of all thraldom, both material and mental, on the one side, and the dark powers of absolutism, repression, and irresponsible authority in church and state, on the other? How Russia, the type of brute- force, presses with crushing weight on in- 1859.] Olympus and Asgard. 13 tellectual Germany! Soon she will ab- sorb the old kingdoms of Scandinavia, to wit, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. On the shores of Norway the ruler of the Sciavonic race will hang over Scot- land and England, like a bird of prey about to swoop upon his victim. All des- pots and absolutists will array themselves under his banner or be his auxiliaries. The old hierarchies will be banded with him to crush out Protestantism, which is a plant of Teutonic growth. Old Asia, with her rancor and despotic traditions, recognizes in the Russian imperial rule a congenial rallying-point against the progressive and hated Anglo-Saxonism and Protestantism of the West. A de- cisive struggle is surely impendin~ be- tween freedom and absolutism, between the bigoted adherents of the old faiths and the nations that have cut loose from them. Perhaps this struggle may be pre- figured in the old Northern myth of the Twilight of the Gods. All the old mythic cosmogonies are strangely suggestive and full of mystic mmport,that of Northern Odinismn more than any other. In that dim Nifiheim, for instance, with its well-springs of the waters of the upper world confusedly bubbling, and its metallic ore-veins, and dusk, vaporous atmosphere, whence is- sued the old Nibelungen heroes of the great Teutonic epos, there is much that is suggestive. May not one discover in this old cosmogonic myth a dim hint of the nebular hypothesis of creation, as it is called? Certainly, Nifiheim, the Mistland, and Muspellheim, the Flameland, com- mingled together, would produce that hot, seething, nebulous fire-mist, out of which, the physicists say, was evolved, by ag- glomeration and centrifugal and centrip- etal attraction, our fair, harmonious sys- tem of worlds bounded by outermost Nep- tune, thus far the Ultima Thule of the solar system. Perhaps Asgard, translat- ed from mythic into scientific langua~e, means the Zodiacal Light, and the Bridge Bifrbst, the Milky Way. How curious, to trace in the grotesque mythic cosmo~onies of India, Greece, and Scandinavia, modern geology, botany, chemistry, etc., the vast and brutal giants of the Eddas and other old mythic scriptures being recognized as imperso- nations of the forces of Nature! The old mythic cosmogonists and the modern ge- ologists and astronomers do not differ amongst themselves so much, after all. The mythic physicists had personal agents at work, in place of our simple element- al ones the result is the same. Take the mythic cosmogonies of ancient Greece, Scandinavia, and India, and the geolo- gies and astronomies of the present day, and compare their pages, changing things personal into things impersonal. The ex- pulsion and banishment of the old shape- less mundane deities by a new and more beautiful race of gods, the cosmical divin- ities, the powers and rulers of an order- ed world, are intelligible enough when translated into our modern geological nomenclature. The leaves of the Stone Book, as the rocky layers of the earth have been called, and the blue hiero- glyphic page of heaven, also, are more intelligibly read by the aid of the mythic glosses of old religion, of Saga, Rune, and Voluspa. They spell the telluric records aright in their own peculiar language. The assaults of the Typhons and Jbtuns upon the celestial dynasty, and their at- tempts to scale the fiery citadels of the gods by making ladders of mountains, indicate clearly enough the different rev- olutions read by geology in the various strata and rocky layers piled upon the primitive granite of the globe, the burst- ing through of eruptions from the central fire, extruding and uplifting mountains, and the subsidence of the ocean from one ripple-marked sea-beach to another low- er down. In those dim geologic epochs, where annals are written on Mica Slate, Clay Slate, and Silurian Systems, on Old Red Sandstones and New, on Primary and Secondary Rocks and Tertiary Chalk- beds, there were topsy-turvyings amongst the hills and gambollings and skippings of mountains, to which the piling of Pe- lion upon Ossa was a mere cobble- stone feat. Alps and Apennines then 14 Olympus and Asgard. [January, played at leap-fro~. Vast basaltic mass- es were oftentimes extruded into the as- tonished air from the very heart and core of the world. In truth, the old mythic cosmogonies of the ancient East, South, and North are not a whit too grotesque in their descriptions of the embryo earth, when it lay weltering in a sort of uter- ine film, assuming form and regular lin- eaments. There is nothing more drear, snon- strous, wild, dark, and lonely in the de- scriptions of the mythologic than of the scientific page. What more wild and drear is there, even in Indian cosmogo- nic fable, than that strange carbonigenous era of the globe, whose deposits, in the shape of petrified forests, now keep us warm and cook our food, and whose relics and souvenirs are pressed between the stone leaves of the secondary rock for preservation by the Omnipotent Herbal- ist? Land and water were then distin- guishable,but as yet there was no ter- restrial animal, nothing organic but radi- ata and molluscs, belly-footed and head- footed, and other aquatic monstrosities, mailed, plated, and buckler-headed, cast- ing the shovel-nosed shark of the present Cosmos entirely into the shade, in point of horned, toothed, and serrated hor- rors. These amorphous creatures glided about in the seas, and vast sea-worms, or centipedal asps, the parents of modern krakens and sea-serpents, doubtless, ac- companied them. There stood that un- finished world reeking with charcoal fumes, its soft, fungous, cryptogamic veg- etation efflorescing with fierce luxuri- ance in that ghastly carbonic atmos- phere. Rudimental palms and pines of mushroom growth stood there motionless, sending forth no soft and soul-like mur- murs into the lurid reek; for as yet leaves and flowers and blue skies and pure breezes were not, nothing but whifls of mephitic and lethal vapor ascending, as from a vast charcoal brazier. No lark or linnet or redbreast or mocking-bird could live, much less warble, in those carbonic times. The world, like a Mis- sissippi steamer, was coaling, with an eye to the needs of its future biped passen- gers. The embryotic earth was then tru- ly a Nifiheim, or Mistland,a dun, fuming region. Those were the days, perhaps, when Nox reigned, and the great mun- dane egg was hatching in the oven-like heat, from which the winged boy Eros leap- ed forth, his back glittering with golden plumes, and swift as eddying air. We have it on good authority, that the Adi- rondack Mountains of New York, and the Grampian Hills of Scotland, where Nor- val was to feed his flocks, had already npheaved their bare backs from the boil- ing caldrons of the sea, thus stealing a march on the Alps and many other more famous mountains. How opposite and remote from each other are the mythologic ages and the nineteenth century! The critical and scientific spirit of the one is in strange contrast with the credulous, blindly rev- erent spirit of the other. Mythology del- egated the government of the world to inferior deities, the subjects of an omnip- otent Fate or Necessity; while, to show how extremes meet, mere science dele- gates it to chemical and physiological agencies, and ends, like the mythic cos- mogon ies, in some irrepressible sponta- neous impulse of matter to develope it- self in the ever-chan~ ing forms of the visible universe. Myriads of gods were the actors in the rushing metam orpho- sis of the old myth-haunted Nature; while chemic and elemental forces per- form the same parts in the masquerade of the modern Phusis. Both mythology and science, therefore, stick fast in sec- ondary causes. Myths are the religion of youth, and of primitive, unsophisticated nations; while science may be called the religion of the mature man, full of experience and im- mersed in the actual. The Positivism of Comte, like the old myth-worship, sets up for its deity human nature idealized, adorned with genius and virtue. The Pos- itivist worships virtuous human nature, conditioned and limited as it is; while the Mythist worshipped it reflected on the outer world and endowed with supernat Olympus and Asgard. ural attributes, clothed with mist-caps and wishing-caps that gave it dominion over space and time. The restless, glittering, whimsical sprites of fairy mythology, that were believed of old to have so large a share in shaping the course of Na- ture and of human life, have vanished from the precincts of the schoolmaster at least. They could not endure the clear evebeam of Science, which has searched their subterranean abodes, withering them up and metamorphosing them into mere physiological forces. Reason and scien- tific investigation have no patience with the things of faith and imagination. Our poets now have to go back to the Past, to the standpoints of the old pagan bards. Tennyson lives in the land of the Lotophagi, in the Arabian Nights of the BaAad of Caliph ilaroun, and in the orchard lawns of King Arthurs Ava- lon. So, too, Lon~fellow riiust inhale the golden legendary air of the Past. The mere humanitarian bards, who try to make modern life trip to the music of trochees, dactyles, and spondees, fail mis- erably. Industrialism is not poetical. Our modern life expresses itself in ma- chines, in mathematical formulas, in sta- tistics, and with scientific precision gener- ally. Art and poetry are pursued in the spirit of past ages, and concern them- selves with the symbols, faiths, and ideal creations of the Past. It is true, however, that all past ages of the world are contemporaneous in this age. For example, we have in this nineteenth century the patriarchal age of the world still surviving in the des- ert tents of the Arab,while the mythic, anthropomorphic period is still extant in Persia, China, and India, and even among the nations of the West, in the rustic nooks and corners of the Roman Catholic countries of Europe. But the existing nations, which still preserve that old ethnic worship and the medimval superstitions, are mere lingerers and camp-followers in the march of human- kind. Under the ample skirts of the Roman Church still cower and lurk the superstitions of the old ethnic world, baptized to be sure, and called by new nanies. The Roman see has ever had a lingering kindness for the fair hu- manities of old religion, which live no longer in the faith of Protestant reason and free inquiry. She compromised with them of old, and they have clung about her waist ever since. She has put her uniform upon them, and made them do service in her cause, and keep alive with their breath the fast expiring embers of faith and imaginative credulity, which she so much loves and commends. Like an equivocal and ambiguous nature, the old Mother Church, as she is called, is upward fair and Christian, but downward foul and ethnic. She attacks human na- ture on the side of the heart, the senses, and those old instincts which Coleridge says bring back the old names. Reason and intellection, sharpened by science, she abhors; but so large a part of man- kind still linger in the rear of the van- guard nations, that she has yet a long lease of life to run, with myriads of adherents to cling to her with fanati- cal tenacity,nay, with proselytes from amongst the poetical, the artistic, and imaginative, who voluntarily prefer to the broad sunshine of science the twi- li~ht gloom of her sanctuaries, in order there the better to woo the old inspira- tion of art, superstitious faith, and po- esy. The old ethnic instincts of human nature are formidable auxiliaries of the Mother Church. Puseyism would rehal- low the saintly wells even of Protestant, practical England, and send John Bull again on a pilgrimage to the shrines of Canterbury and Walsiugham. Compare a Yankee, common-school-bred, and an Austrian peasant, if you would learn how the twelfth and nineteenth centu- ries live together in the current year. The one is self-reliant, helpful, and ver- satile, not freighted with any old-world rubbish; while the other is abject, and blindly reverent, and full of the old mythic imagination that is in strong contrast with the keen common-sense of the Protestant, who dispels all twi- light fantasies with a laugh of utter in- 1859.1 15 16 Jaan~ta. [January, credulity. The one sees projected on the outer world his own imaginings, now fair, now gloomy; while the other sees in the world, land to be cut up into corner- lots for speculation, and water for saw- mills and cotton-mills, and to float clip- per-ships and steamers. The one is this- worldly; the other is other-worldly. The one is armed and equipped at all points to deal with the Actual, to subdue it and make the most of it; he aims for suc- cess and wealth, for elegance, plenty, and comfort in his home ;while the other is negligent, a frequenter of shrines, in all things too supe stitious, overlooking and slighting mere physical comfort, and con- tent with misery and dirt. The Romish peasant lives begirt by supernatural be- ings, who demand a large share of his time and thoughts for their service; while the thrifty Protestant artisan or a~ricul- turist is a practical naturalist, keeping his eye fixed on the main chance. Brown- son would have us believe that he is morally and spiritually the inferior of the former. For this light of common day, which now shines upon the world, the multiplication-table, and reading and writ- ing, are far better than amulet, rosary, and crucifix. After all, this light of common day, which the bards and saints so much con- demn and disdain, when subjected to the microscopic and telescopic ken of mod- ern science, opens as large a field for wonder and for the imagination to revel in as did the old marvels, fables, and fictions of the Past. The True is begin- ning to be found as strange, nay, stranger than the purely Imaginative and Mythic. The Beautiful and the Good will yet be found to be as consistent with the strictly True and Actual, with the plain Matter- of-Fact as it is called, as they have been, in the heroic ages of human . achieve- ment and endurance, with the glorious cheats and delusions that nerved man to high emprise. The modern scientific dis- coverer and inventor oftentimes finds himself engaged in quests as strange as that of the Holy Grail of Round-Table fiction. To the Past, with its mythic de- lusions, simplicity, and dense ignorance of Nature, we can never return, any more than the mature man can shrink into the fresh boy again. Nor is it to be regretted. The distant in time, like the distant in space, wears a halo, a vague, blue loveliness, which is all un- real. The tired wayfarer, who is weary with the dust, the din, and stony foot- ing of the Actual and the Present, may sometimes fondly imagine, that, if he could return to the far Past, he would find all smooth and golden there; but it is a pleasant delusion of that glorious arch-cheat the imagination. Yet if we cannot go back to the Past, we can march forward to a Future, which opens a deeper and more wondrous and air- ier vista, with its magicians of the Ac- tual casting into shade the puny achieve- ments of old necromancy and mythic agencies. JUANITA. YES! I had, indeed, a glorious revenge! Other people have had home, love, hap- piness; they have had fond caresses, ten- der cares, the bright faces of children shinin~, round the board. I had none of these; my revenge has stood to me in place of them all. And it has stood welL Love may change; loved ones may die; the fair-faced children may grow up hard- hearted and ungrateful. But my revenge will not deceive or disappoint me; it can- not change or pass away; it will last through Time into Eternity. I was left an orphan in early child-

16 Jaan~ta. [January, credulity. The one sees projected on the outer world his own imaginings, now fair, now gloomy; while the other sees in the world, land to be cut up into corner- lots for speculation, and water for saw- mills and cotton-mills, and to float clip- per-ships and steamers. The one is this- worldly; the other is other-worldly. The one is armed and equipped at all points to deal with the Actual, to subdue it and make the most of it; he aims for suc- cess and wealth, for elegance, plenty, and comfort in his home ;while the other is negligent, a frequenter of shrines, in all things too supe stitious, overlooking and slighting mere physical comfort, and con- tent with misery and dirt. The Romish peasant lives begirt by supernatural be- ings, who demand a large share of his time and thoughts for their service; while the thrifty Protestant artisan or a~ricul- turist is a practical naturalist, keeping his eye fixed on the main chance. Brown- son would have us believe that he is morally and spiritually the inferior of the former. For this light of common day, which now shines upon the world, the multiplication-table, and reading and writ- ing, are far better than amulet, rosary, and crucifix. After all, this light of common day, which the bards and saints so much con- demn and disdain, when subjected to the microscopic and telescopic ken of mod- ern science, opens as large a field for wonder and for the imagination to revel in as did the old marvels, fables, and fictions of the Past. The True is begin- ning to be found as strange, nay, stranger than the purely Imaginative and Mythic. The Beautiful and the Good will yet be found to be as consistent with the strictly True and Actual, with the plain Matter- of-Fact as it is called, as they have been, in the heroic ages of human . achieve- ment and endurance, with the glorious cheats and delusions that nerved man to high emprise. The modern scientific dis- coverer and inventor oftentimes finds himself engaged in quests as strange as that of the Holy Grail of Round-Table fiction. To the Past, with its mythic de- lusions, simplicity, and dense ignorance of Nature, we can never return, any more than the mature man can shrink into the fresh boy again. Nor is it to be regretted. The distant in time, like the distant in space, wears a halo, a vague, blue loveliness, which is all un- real. The tired wayfarer, who is weary with the dust, the din, and stony foot- ing of the Actual and the Present, may sometimes fondly imagine, that, if he could return to the far Past, he would find all smooth and golden there; but it is a pleasant delusion of that glorious arch-cheat the imagination. Yet if we cannot go back to the Past, we can march forward to a Future, which opens a deeper and more wondrous and air- ier vista, with its magicians of the Ac- tual casting into shade the puny achieve- ments of old necromancy and mythic agencies. JUANITA. YES! I had, indeed, a glorious revenge! Other people have had home, love, hap- piness; they have had fond caresses, ten- der cares, the bright faces of children shinin~, round the board. I had none of these; my revenge has stood to me in place of them all. And it has stood welL Love may change; loved ones may die; the fair-faced children may grow up hard- hearted and ungrateful. But my revenge will not deceive or disappoint me; it can- not change or pass away; it will last through Time into Eternity. I was left an orphan in early child- 18~9.] Juanita. 17 hood. My father was an officer in the American Navy; my mother a Spaniard. She was very beautiful, I always heard; and her miniature, which my fathers dying hand placed about my neck, pro- claimed her so. A pale, clear, olive tint, eyes of thrilling blackness, long, lustrous hair, and a look of mingled tenderness and melancholy made it, in my thought, the loveliest face that mortal eyes could see. My parents left me no fortune, and I fell to the care of my fathers only brother, a man of wealth and standing. I have no story to tell of the bitterness of de- pendence, of slights, and insult, and privation. My uncle had married, some- what late in life, a young and gentle woman; when I was twelve years old she became the mother of twins,two lovely little girls. No one, unacquainted with the family history, could have sup- posed that I was other than the elder sister of Florence and Leonora. Every indulgence was granted me, every ad- vantage of dress and education bestowed upon me. So far as even I could see, my uncle and aunt regarded me as their own child. Nor was I ungrateful, but repaid them with a filial reverence and affection. I did not inherit the fulness of my mothers beauty, but had yet some traits of her,the pale, clear skin, the large, black eyes, the glossy and abundant hair. here the resemblance ceased. I have heard my uncle say, how often Your niother, Juanita, had the most perfect form I ever saw, except in mar- ble; all Spanish women, indeed, he told me, had a full, elastic roundness of shape and limb, rarely seen among our spare and loose-built nation. I was American in form, at least, slight and stooping, with a certain awkwardness, partly to be imputed to my rapid growth, partly to my shyness and reserve. I was insatiably fond of reading, little attracted toward society. When my uncles house, as often happened, was full of gay company, I withdrew to my own room, and read my favorite authors in its pleasant solitude. VOL. III. 2 I was ill at ease with lively, fashionable people,very much at home with books. Thanks to my uncles care, I was well educated, even scholarly, for my age and sex. My studious habits, far from be- ing discouraged, were praised by all the household, and I was looked upon as a prodigy of cleverness and industry. A widow lady, of the name of ilaugh- ton, came to live in the little cottage near us when I was fifteen years old. She was well-born, but poor, and had known many sorrows. My aunt, Mrs. hleywood, soon became interested in her, and took pleasure in offering her those numerous attenti~ns which a wealthy neighbor can so easily bestow, and which are so grate- ful to the recipient. Mrs. Haughton and her sons were frequent guests at our house; and we, too, spent many pleasant hours in the vine-covered porch of the cottage. I had few companions, and John and William Haughton were very welcome to me. They were soniewbat older than I,Johntwenty-two, and Wil- ham two years younger; and I was thus just able to escape re~arding them with that profound contempt which the girl of fifteen usually feels fo~ boys. After knowing them awhile I felt how baseless such contempt would be; for they pos- sessed a depth and maturity of character rarely seen except in men of much ex- perience. John was grave and thouuht- ful; his livelier brother often said he had come into the world some centuries too late,that he was meant for an Augus- tine or a Pascal, so studious was he, and so saintly. Do not fancy that he was one of those stiff, bespectacled, pedantic youths who cannot open their lips with- out a classic allusion or a Greek quota- tion; nothing could be farther from the truth. He was quiet and retiring; very few guessed how beneath that exterior, so unassuming, lay hid the noblest aspira- tions, the most exalted thought. It was John I should have loved. But it was William who won my heart, even without an effort. I, the pale, seri- ous girl, loved with a wild idolatry the gay and careless youth. Never, from that 18 Juanita. [January, day till now, have I seen a man so per- fect in all manly beauty. Strength and symmetry were united in his tall, athletic figure; his features were large, but hobly formed; his hair, of a sunny hue, fell in rich masses over a broad, white brow. So might Apollo have looked in the flush of his immortal youth. At first I gazed at him only with the enthusiasm which his extreme beauty might well awaken in the heart of a ro- mantic maiden; then I grew to see in the princely type of that beauty a reflection of his mind. Did ever any fond fool so dote upon her Ideal as I on mine? All generous thoughts, all noble deeds, seemed only the fit expression of his na- ture. Then I came to mingle a reverence with my admiration. We were friends he talked to rue much of his plans in life, of the future that lay before him. What an ambitious spirit burned with- in him a godlike ambition I thought it then. And how my weak, womanish heart thrilled with sympathy to his With what pride I listened to his words! with what fervor I joined in his long- in(rs1 There came a time when I trembled hefore him. I could no longer walk cahuly arm-in-arm with him under the lin- den-trees, hearkening joyfully. I dared not lift my eyes to his face; I turned pale with suppressed feeling, if he but spoke my nameJuanitaor took my hand in his for friendly greeting. What a hand it was so white, and soft, and shapely, yet so powerful! It was the ri~ht hand for him,a fair and delicate seeming, a cruel, hidden strength. When he spoke of the future my heart cried out against it; it was intolerable to me. In its bri~ht triumphs I could have no part; thereto I could follow him only with my love and tears. The present alone was mine, and to that I passionately clung. For I nev- er dreamed, you see, that he could love me. My manner toward him changed; I was fitful and capricious. I dreaded, above all things, that he should suspect my feelings. Sometimes I met him cold- ly; sometimes I received his confidences with an indifferent and weary air. This could not last. One nightit was a little time before he left ushe begged me to walk with him once more under the lindens. I made many excuses, but he overruled them all. We left the brilliantly-lighted rooms and stood heneath the solemn shadow of the trees. It was a warm, soft night; the harvest moon shone down upon us; a south wind moaned amon0 the branches. We walked silently on till we reached a rustic seat, formed of gnarled boughs fantastically bound to- gether; here he made me sit down and placed himself beside me. Juanita, he said, in a tone so soft, so thrillingly musical, that I shall never for- get it, what has come between us? Are you no longer my friend? I tried to answer him, and could not; love and grief choked my utterance. Look at me, he said. I looked. The moon shone full on his face; his eyes were bent on mine. What a serpent-charm lurked in their treacher- ous blue depths! 1f looking at me thus, he had bidden me kill myself at his feet, I must have done it. Juanita, he said, with a smile of con- scious power, you love me! But why should that destroy our happiness? lie held out his arms; I threw myself on his hosom in an agony of shame and joy. Oh, Heaven! could it be possible that he loved me at last? Long, long, we sat there in the moon- light, his arms around me, my hand clasped in his. Poor hand! even by that faint radiance how dark and thin it looked beside his, so white and rounded! How gloriously beautiful was he! what a poor, pale shadow I! And yet he loved me! He did not talk much of it; he spoke more of the future,our future. It all lay hefore him, a bright, enchanted land, wherein we two should walk together. We had not quite reached it, hut we surely should, and that ere long. The steps toward it were prosaic enough, save as his imagination bright- 1859.1 ened them. An early friend of his dead father, a distinguished lawyer, wishing to further Williams advancement in life, gave him the opportunity of studying his profession with him, offering him, at the same time, a home in his own family. From these slender materials Williams fancy built air-castles the most magnifi- cent. He would study assiduously; with such a prize in view, he fondly said, his patience would never weary. He felt within himself the consciousness of talent; and talent and industry must succee(l. A bright career was hefore him,fame, fortune; and all were to he laid at my feet; all would he valueless, if not shared with me. Ah, William, I asked, with a mo- ments sorrowful douht, are you sure of that ? Are you certain that it is not fame you look forward so eagerly to pos- sess, instead of me? How dare you say such a thing? he answered, sternly. I did not mind the sternness; there was love hehind it. And what am I to do while you are thus winning gold and glory? I asked, at length. I will tell you, Juanita. In the first place, you are not to waste your time and sl)irits in long, romantic reveries, and vain pining because we cannot he together. Indeed, I will not! was my quick reply, though I colored deeply. I was ashamed that he thought me in danger of loving him too well. I know you think me foolish and sentimental; hut I assure you I will try to he different, since you wish it. That is my own dear girl! You must go out,you must see people,you must enjoy yourself. You must study, too; dont let your mind rust hecause you are engaged. It will he quite time enough for that when we are married. You need not he afraid; I shall al- ways wish to please you, William, and so I shall always endeavor to improve. Good child ! he said, laughing. But you will not always he such an obedient infant, Juanita. You will find Juanita. 19 out your power over me, and then you will want to exercise it, just for the pleas- ure of seeing me submit. You will he despotic about the veriest trifles, only to show me that my will must bow to yours. That will never be! I have no will of my own, where you are concerned, William. I only ask to know your wish- es, that I may perform them. Is that indeed so? he said, with a new tenderness of manner. I am very glad; for, to tell the truth, my love, I fear I should have little patience with woman- ish caprices. I have reasons always for what I do and for what I require, and I could not long love any one who opposed them. Again I assured him that he need feel no such dread. How happy we were yes, I believe he loved me enough then to be happy, even as I was. It was so late before we thought of going in, that a messenger was sent to seek us, and many a fine jest we had to encounter when we reached the draw- ing-room. The next day, William spoke to my uncle, who seemed to regard the mat- ter in a light very different from ours. He said, we were a mere boy and girl, that years must elapse before we could marry, and by that time we should very probably have outgrowa our liking for each other; still, if we chose, we might consider ourselves engaged; he did not know that he had any objection to make. This manner of treatin~the subject was not a flattering one; ho~vever, we had his consent,and that was the main point, after all. So we were troth-plight; and Wil- liam went forth on his career of labor and success, and I remained at home, loving him, living for him, striving to make my every act what he would have it. I went into company as he had bid- den me; I studied and imprOve(l myself; I grew handsomer, too. All who saw me noticed an(l approved the alteration in my appearance. I was no longer awk- ward and stooping; my manner had ac 20 Juanita. [January, quired something of ease and graceful- ness; a faint bloom tinged my cheek and made my dark eyes brighter. I was truly happy in the change; it seemed to render me a little more suited to him, who was so proudly, so splendidly hand- some. I remembered what he had said too well to spend much time in love-dreams; but my happiest moments were when I was alone, and could think of him, read his letters, look at his picture, and fancy the joyfulness of his return. His letters ! there the change first showed itself. At first they were all, and more than all, I could wish. I blushed to read the ardent words, as I did when he had spoken them. But by-and-by there was a different tone: I could not describe it; there was nothing to complain of; and yet I feltso surely that something was wrong. I never thought of blaming him; I dreaded lest I had in some way wound- ed his affection or his pride. I asked no explanation; I thought to do so might annoy or vex him, for his was a peculiar nature. I only wrote to him the more fondiy,strove more and more to show him how my whole heart was his. But the change grew plainer as months pass- ed on; and some weeks before the time appoiiited for his return, the letters ceased altogether. This conduct grieved me, certainly, yet I was more perplexed than unhap- py. It never occurred to me to doubt his love; I thought there must be some mistake, some offence unwittingly given, an(l I looked to his coming to clear away all doubt and trouble. But I longed so for that coming! it seemed as if the weeks would never end. I knew he loved me; but I needed to hear him say it once more, to have every shadow dispelled, and nothing between us but the warmest affection and fullest confi- (lence. In such a mood I met him. The house was full of guests, and I could not bear to see him for the first time before so many eyes. I had watched, as may well be believed, for his arrival, and a little before dark had seen him enter his moth- ers house. He would surely come over soon; I ran down the long walk, and paced up and down beneath the trees, awaiting him. As soon as he came in sight I hastened toward him; he met me kindly, but the change that had been in his letters was plainer yet in his manner. It struck a chill to my heart. I suppose you have a house full of company, as usual, he remarked pres- ently, glancing at the brilliant windows. Yes, we have a number of friends stayin~ with us. Will you go in and see them? There are several whom you know. Thank you,not to-night; I am not in the mood. And I have a good deal to say to you, Juanita, that deeply concerns us both. Very well, I replied; you had bet- ter tell me at once. We walked on to the old garden-chair, and sat down as we had done that mem- orable night. We were both silent,I from disappointment and apprehension. He, I suppose, was collecting himself for what he had to say. Juanita, he spoke at last, taking my hand in his, I do not know how you will receive what 1 am about to tell you. But this I wish you to promise me: that you will believe I speak for our best hap- piness,yours as well as mine. Go on, was all my reply. A year ago, he continued, we sat here as we do now, and, spite of doubts and misgivings and a broken resolution, I was happier than I shall ever be again. I had loved you from the first moment I saw you, with a passion such as I shall never feel for any other woman. But I knew that we were both poor; I knew that marriage in our circumstances could only be disastrous. It would wear out your youth in servile cares; it would cripple my energies; it might even, after a time, change our love to disgust and aversion. And so, though I believed my- self not indifferent to you, I resolved never to speak of my love, but to strug- gle against it, and root it out of my heart. 1859.1 Juanita. You know how differently it happened. Your changed manner, your averted looks, gave me much pain. I feared to have offended you, or in some way for- feited your esteem. I brought you here to ask an explanation. I said, Juanita, are you no longer my friend? You know what followed; the violence of your emotion showed me all. You remem- ber? Did I not ?and was it not generous of him to remind me then? I saw you loved me, and the great joy of that knowledge made me forget prudence, reason, everything. After- wards, when alone, I tried to justify to myself what I had done, and partially succeeded. I argued that we were young and could wait; I dreamed, too, that my ardor could outrun time, and grasp in youth the rewards of mature life. In that hope I left you. Since then my views have greatly changed. I have seen somethingnot much, it is trueof men and of life, and have found that it is an easy thin~ to dream of success, but a long and diffi- cult task to achieve it. That I have talent it would be affectation to deny; but many a poor and stru~gling lawyer is my equal. The best I can hope for, Juanita, is a youth of severe toil and griping penury, with, perhaps, late in life,almost too late to enjoy it,com- petence and an honorable name. And even that is by no means secure; the labor and the poverty may last my life long. You have been reared in the enjoy- ment of every luxury which wealth can command. How could you bear to suffer privations, to perform menial labors, to be stinted in dress, deprived of conge- nial society, obliged to refrain from ev- ery amusement, because you were una- ble to afford the expense? How should you like to have a grinding economy continually pressing upon you, in every arrangement of your household, every detail of your daily life? to have your best days pass in petty cares and sav- ings, all your intellect expended in the 21 effort to make your paltry means do the greatest possible service? It was not a pleasant picture, but, harshly drawn as it was, I felt in the ful- ness of my love that I could do all that, and more, for him. Oh, yes! for him and with him I would have accepted any ser- vitude, any sufferin~,. Yet a secret some- thing withheld me from saying so; and how glad I soon was that I had kept si- lence! You make no reply, Juanita, he said. Well, I might put on a pre- tence of disinterestedness, and say that I was unwilling to bind you to such a fate, and therefore released you from your engagement. It would not he al- together a pretence, for nothing could be more painful to me than to see the brightness of your youth fading away in the life I have described. But I think of myself, too; comforts, luxuries, indulgences, I value highly. Since my fathers death I have tasted enough of poverty to know something of its bitter- ness; and to be doomed to it for life is appalling to me. The sordid cares of narrow means are so distasteful, that I cannot contemplate them with any (le- gree of patience. After a day of ex- hausting mental effort, to return to a dingy, ill-furnished home, to relieve professional labors by calculations about the gas-bill or the butchers account,I shrink from such a miserable prospect! I love the elegant, the high-bred, the tasteful, in women; I am afraid even my love for you would alter, Juanita, to see you day by day in co~rse or shabby clothing, performing such offices as are only suited to servants,whom we could not afford to keep. I have thought of it a great deal, and it seenis to me that it is useless and hopeless that it would be the wildest fol- ly, to continue our engagement. With our tastes and habits, we must seek in marriage the means of comfort, the ap- pliances of luxury. Others may find in it tIme bewildering bliss we might have known, had fortune been favorable to us; but, as it is, I think the best, the 22 Juanita. [January, wisest, the happiest thing we can do is to part! Oh, heaven! this from him! Still, Juanita, if you think other- wise, he went on after a moments pause, if you prefer to hold me to our en- gagement, I am ready to fulfil it when you wish. It was like a man to say this, and then to feel that he had acted upriuhtly and honorably! I said nothing for a time; I could not speak. All hell woke in my heart. I knew then what lost spirits might feel, grief, and wounded pride, and rage, ha- tred, despair! In the midst of all I made a vow; and I kept it well! How I had loved this man !with what a self-forgetting, adoring love! He had been my thought, day and night. I would have done anything,sacrificed, suffered anything,yes, sinned even,to please his lightest fancy. And he cast me cold- ly off hecause I had no fortune !tram- pled my heart into the dust because I was poor! You make no answer, Juanita, he said, at length. I am thinking, I replied, looking up and laughing slightly, how to say that I quite agree with you, and have heen planning all day how I should manage to tell you the very same thing. Miserable falsehood! But I spoke it so coolly, that he was thoroughly deceived. He never suspected the truth,my deep love, my outraged pride. It is just as you have said, William. We have elegant tastes, and no means of gratifying them. What should we do together? Only make each other mis- erable. You need a rich wife, I a rich husband, who can supply us with the indulgences we demand. To secure these we can well make the sacrifice of a few romantic fancies.~~ I am glad you think so, he replied, yet somewhat absently. You must wait awhile for Florence, I continued; she is four years old, and twelve years hence you will yet be quite a personable individual. And Florence will have a fortune worth waiting for, I assure you. Or perhaps you have some- body more eligible already in view. Come, William, be frank,tell me all about it. I did not expect this levity, Juanita, he answered, severely. You must know that I have never thought of such a thing. And believe me, he said, in a tenderer tone, that, among all the beautiful wom- en I have seen,and some have not dis- dained to show me favor,none ever touched my heart for a moment. had we any reasonable prospect of happiness, I could never give you up; I love you better a thousand times than anything in the world. Except yourse~ I said, mockingly and I looked at him with a mischievous smile, while a storm of passion raged in my heart and my brain seemed on fire. Be it so! I do not complain of such a splendid rival. But really, William, I cannot boast of constancy like yours, even; though I suppose most people would consider that rather a poor, flaw- ed specimen. It hurt my dignity very much when Uncle Ileywood called our attachment a boy-and-girl affair; but I soon found that he knew best ahout it. For a time I kept my love very warm and glowing; but it was not long crc the distractions you bade me seek in society proved more potent than I wished. I found there were other things to be en- joyed than dreams of you, and even shall I confess it? I can now, I suppose other people to be admired as well as you! Indeed! he said, with ill-concealed annoyance. You had a great talent for concealment, then; your letters showed no trace of the change. I know they didnt, I answered, laughing. I hated very much to admit even to myself that I had altered; it seemed, you know, so capricious and childishin short, so far from romantic. I kept up the illusion as long as I could; used to go off alone to read your letters, look at your picture, and fancy I felt just as at first. Then when I sat down 1859.] ~Juawtta. 23 to write, and remembered how handsome you were, and all that had happened, the old feelings would come back, and for the time you were all I cared for. But I am very glad we have had this expla- nation, and understand each other. We shall both be happier for it. I had a little taste of vengeance, evea then, when I saw how his vanity was wounded. lie tried to look relieved, I dare say he tried to feel so,but I question very much whether he was pleased with himself that he had been so cool and philosophical. He did not wish to make me wretched; but he had expected I would be so, as a matter of course. To find me so comfortable un- der the infliction perplexed and discon- certed him. This will not make any coldness between us, I hope? he said, at last. We will be friends still, dear Juanita? Yes, I replied, we will be friends, dear William. We are a great deal more in our true relations thus than as lovers. And your uncles family, he in- quired, shall we explain all to them? There is no need of that, I answer- ed, carelessly. Let things pass. After a time they will perhaps notice that there is a change, and I can tell them that we are both tired of the enga~ement. They will ask no further questions. Thank you, he said. It will save me some embarrassment. Yes, I replied, looking at him steadi- ly. I think it would have been a rather awkward topic for you to broach. his eve fell before mine; through all the sophistry he had used, I think some slight scnse of the baseness of his con- duct forced itself upon his mind. Now I must return to the house, I said, rising; will you not coisie with me? My uncle and aunt will expect to see you, an(l Anna Gray is here. You can make your first essay toward the rich match this evening. Nonsense! he said, impatiently, yet he accompanied me. I knew he did not like to lose sight of me. Never had I exerted myself so much to please any one, as I did that night to charm and attract him ;not, indeed, by any marked attention; that would have failed of its object. But I talked and danced I displayed for his benefit all that I had acquired of ease and manner since he left. I saw his astonishment, that the pale, quiet girl who was wont to sit in some corner, almost unnoticed, should now be the life of that gay circle. I made him admire me most at the very moment he had lost me forever,and so fox, all was well. I went to my room that night a differ- ent creature. That plac3 h~d been a kind of sanctuary to me. By its vine- draped window I had lovcd to sit and think of him, to read the books he liked, and fashion my mind to what he could approve. But the spot which I had left, a hopeful and loving girl, I returned to, a forsaken and revengefol woman. My whole nature was wrought up to one purpose,to repay him, to the last iota, all he had made me suffer, all the hu- miliation, the despair. It was strange how this purpose uphore and consoled me; for I needed consolation. I hated him, yet I loved him fiercely, too; I de- spised him, yet I knew no other man would ever touch my heart. lIe had been, he always must be, everything to nie,the one object to which all my thoughts ten(led, to which my every ac- tion was reforred. I took from a drawer his letters and his few love-gifts. The paper I tore to fragments and threw into the empty fire- place. I lighted the heap, and toss- ed the gifts, one after another, into the flame. Last of all, I drew his portrait from my bosom. I gazed at it an instant, pressed it to my lips. No,I would not destroy this,I would keep it to remind me. I remember thinking, as I watched the flickering flame, that this was some- thing like a witchs incantation. I smiled at the idea. The next morning there was only a heap of light ashes left in the grate. 24 Juan fta. [January, I pursued my purpose determinedly and with unflagging zeal. I did not know exactly how it would he realized, but I felt sure I should achieve it. My first care was to cultivate to the utmost every faculty I possessed. My educa- tion had been hitherto of rather a sub- stantial order; I had few accomplish- ments. To these I turned my care. What has a woman, I thought, to do with solid learnin~? It never tells in society. I had observed the rapt atten- tion with which William listened to mu- sic. Hitherto I had been only a passable performer, such as any girl of sixteen might be. But under the influence of this new motive I studied diligently ; the best masters were supplied me; and soon my progress both astonished and deli~ht ed myself and all who heard me. I have before said that a change for the better had taken place in my per- son; this I strove by every means in my power to increase. I rode, I walked, I plied the oars vigorously upon our little lake. My health grew firm, my cheeks more blooming, my form fuller and ma- jestic. I took the greatest pains with my toilet. It was wonderful to see, day by day, as I looked into the mirror, the alteration that care and taste could effect in l)ersonal appearance. Could this erect, stately figure, with its air of grace and distinction, be one with the thin, stoop- ing form, clad in careless, loose-fitting garb, which I so well remembered as myself? Could that brilliant face, with its bands of shining hair, that smile of easy self-confidence, belong to me? Whai had become of the pale, spiritless girl? My uncle sometimes asked the question, and, looking at me with a fond, admiring glance, would say, You were made for an empress, Juanita! I knew then that I was beautiful, and rejoiced in the knowledge; but no tinge of vanity min- gled with the joy. I cultivated my beau- ty, as I did my talents, for a purpose of which I never lost sight. It was now I learned for the first time that John Haughton loved me. When it became generally understood that William and I were no longer engaged, John came forward. I do not know what he, so good, so high-minded, saw in me; but certainly he loved me with a true affection. When he avowed it, a strange joy seized me; I felt that now I held in my hand the key of Williams destiny. Now I should not lose my hold on him; we could not drift apart in the tide of life. As Johns bride, Johns wife, there must always be an intimate connection between us. So I yielded with well-feigned tenderness to my lov- ers suit ,only stipulating, that, as some time must elapse before our marriage, no one should know of our attachmentnot even William, or his mother,nor, on my part, any of my uncles family. lie made no objection; I believe he even took a romantic pleasure in the concealment. He liked to see me moving about in society, and to feel that there was a tie between us that none dreamed of but ourselves. Poor John! he deserved bet- ter of Fate than to be the tool of my re- venue William came home, soon after our engagement, for his annual visit. 1-Je was succeeding rather better than his dismal fancies had once prognosticated. He was very often at our house,very much my friend. I saw through all that clearly enou ~h; I knew he loved me a hundred-fold more passionately than in our earlier days; and the knowledge was to me as a cool draught to one who is perishing of thirst. I did all in my pow- er to enhance his love; I sang bewilder- ing melodies to him; I talked to him of the things he liked, and that roused his fine intellect to the exercise of its pow- ers. I rode with him, danced with him; nor did I omit to let him see the admira- tion with which others of his sex regard- ed me. I was well aware that a man values no jewel so highly as that which in a brilliant setting calls forth the plau- dits of the crowd. I talked to him often of his prospects and hopes; his ambition, all selfish as it was, fascinated me by its pride and daring. Ab, William! I sometimes thought, you made a deadly 1859.] Juanita. 25 mistake when you cast me off! You will never find another who can so enter, heart and soul, into all your brilliant projects! lie came to me, one morning, rather earlier than his wont. I was reading, hut laid aside my hook to greet him. What have you there, Juanita? Some young-ladyish romance, I sup- pose. Not at all, it is a very rational work; though I presume you will laugh at it, hecause it contains a little senti- ment,you are grown so hard and cold, of late. Do you think so? he asked, with a look that belied the charge. He took up the volume, and ,glaneing through it, rea(l now and then a sen- tence. What say you to this, Juanita? If we are still able to love one who has made us suffer, we love him more than ever. is that true to your experience? No, I answered, for I liked at times to approach the topic which was always uppermost iu my mind, and to see his perfect unconsciousness of it. If any one had made me suffer, I should not stop to inquire whether I were able to love him still or not; I should have hut one thought left, revenge! how very fierce! he said, laughin~. And your idea of revenge iswhat? To stab him with your own white hand? No! I said, scornfully. To kill a person you hate is, to my mind, the most pitiful idea of vengeance. What! put him out of the world at once? Not so! He should live, I said, fixing my eyes upon him, and live to sufi~r, and to rememher, in his anguish, why he suffered, and to whose hand he owed it I It was a hateful speech, and would have repelled most men; for ray life I dared not have made it hefore John. But I knew to whom I was talking, and that he had no objection to a slight spice of diablerie. What curious glimpses of character you open to me now and then, he said, thoughtfully. Not very womanly, how- ever. Womanly! I cried. I wonder what a mans notion of woman is! Some soft, pulpy thing that thrives all the bet- ter for abuse? a spaniel that loves you more, the more you beat it? a worm that grows and grows in new rinds as often as you cut it asunder? I wonder history has never taught you hetter. Look at Judith with Holofernes,Jael with Sis- era,or if you want profane examples, Catherine de Medicis, Mademoiselle de Brinvilliers, Charlotte Corday. There are women who have formed a pur- pose, and gone on steadily toward its accomplishment, even though, like that Roman girl,Tnllia was her name they had to drive over a fathers corpse to do it. You have known such, perhaps, said Richard. Yes, I answered, with a gentle smile, I have. They wished no harm, it might he, to any one, but people stood in their way. It is as if you were going to the arbor after grapes, and there were a swarm of ants in the path. You have no malice against the ants, but you want the grapes,so you walk on, and they are crushed. I was thinking of John and of his love, hut William did not know that. You are a strange being! he said, looking at me with a mixture of admira- tion and distrust. Ah! Well, you see my race is some- what anomalous, a blending of the Spaniard and the Yankee. Come, I will he all Spanish for a time; bring me the guitar. Now let me sing you a romance. I struck the tinkling chords, and hegan a sweet love-ditty. Fixing my eyes on his, I made every word speak to his heart from mine. I saw his color change, his eyes melt ;when the song ended, he was at my feet. I know not what he said; I only know it was passion, burning and intense. Oh, but it was balm both to my love and hate 26 Juan fta. [January, to hear him! I let him go on as long as he would,then I said, gently caressing his bright hair, You forget, dear William, all those lessons of prudence you taught me not so very long ago. He poured forth the most ardent prot- estations; he begged me to forget all that cold and selfish reasoning. Long since he had wished to oiler me his hand, but feared lest I should repel him with scorn. Would I not pardon his former ingratitude, and return his love? But you forget, my friend, I said, that circumstances have not altered, but only your way of viewing them; we must still be poor and humble. Dont you remember all your eloquent pi ;tur- ings of the life we should ho obliged to lead? Dont you recollect the dull, din- gy house, the tired, worn-out wife in shab- by clothing Oh, hush, Juanita! Do not recall those wretched follies! Besides, circum- stances kave somewhat changed; I am not so very poor. My income, though small, will he sufficient, if well-managed, to maintain us in comfort and respecta- bility. Comfort and respectability! I ex- claimed, with a shudder. Oh, William, can you imagine that such words apply to me? The indulgences of wealth are necessary to me as the air I breathe. I suppose you would be able to shiAd me from absolute suffering; but that is not enough. Do not speak of this again, for both our sakes. And now, good friend, I added, in a lighter tone, I advise you to get up as soon as may be; we are liable to interruption at any time; and your position, though admirable for a tableau,, would be a trifle embarrassing for ordinary life. He started to his feet, and would have left inc in anger, but I rc~alled him with a word. It was good to feel my power over this man who had slighted and re- jected me. Before we parted that day he had quite forgiven me for refusing him and making him ridiculous; 1 thought a little of the spaniel was transferred to him. I saw, too, he had a hope, which I carefully forbore to contradict, that I preferred him to any other, and would accept him, could he but win a fortune for me. And so I sent him out into the world again, full of vain, feverish desires after the impossible. I gave him all the pains of love without its consolations. It was good, as far as it went. John and I, meanwhile, got on very peacefully together. He was not demon- strative, nor did he exact demonstration from me. I had promised to marry him, and he trusted implicitly to my faith; while his love was so reverent, his ideal of maiden delicacy so exalted, that I should have suffered in his esteem, I verily believe, had my regard been shown other than by a quiet tenderness of man- ner. About this time my uncles family went abroad. They wished me to accoumpany theni, but I steadily declined. When they pressed me for a reason, I told them of my engagement to John, and that I was unwilling to leave him for so long a time. The excuse was natural enough, and they believed me; and it was arranged that during the period of their absence I should remain with a sister of Mrs. ileywood. The time passed on. I saw William frequently. Often he spoke to me of his love, and I scarcely checked him; I liked to feed him with false hopes, as once he had done to me. lie did not speak again of marriage; I knew his pride forbade it. I also knew that he believed I loved him, and would wait for him. I heard often from our travellers, and always in terms of kindness and affec- tion. At last their speedy return was an- nounced; they were to sail in the Arc- tic, and we looked joyftdly forward to the hour of their arrival. Too soon came the news of the terrible disaster; a little while of suspense, and the awful certainty became apparent. My kind, indulgent uncle and all his family, whom I loved as I would my own parents and sisters, were buried in the depths of the Atlantic. 1859.] Jaantta. 27 I will not attempt to describe my grief; it has nothing to do with the story that is written here. When, after a time, I came back to life and its interests, a startling intelligence awaited me. My uncle had died intestate; his wife and children had peiished with him; as next of kin, I was sole heir to his immense estate. When my mind fully took in the meaning of all this I felt that a crisis was at hand. Day by day I looked for William. I had not long to wait. I was sitting by my window on a bright October day, reading a book I loved well, Shirley, one of the three immortal works of a genius fled too soon. As I read, I traced a likeness to my own experience; Caro- line was a curious study to inc. I mar- veiled at her meek, forgiving spirit; if I would not imitate, I did not condemn her. Then I heard the nate-latch click; I looked out through the vine-leaves, all scarlet with the glory of the season, and saw William coming up the walk. I knew why he was there, and, still retain- mg the volume in my hand, went down to meet him. We walked out in the grounds; it was a perfect afternoon; all the splendor of autumn, without a trace of its swift-coin- ing decay. Gold, crimson, and purple shone the forests throngh their softening haze; and the royal hues were repeated on the mountain, reflected in the river. The sky was cloudless and intensely blue; the sunlight fell, with red glow, on the fading grass. A few late flowers of gor- geous lines yet lingered in the beds and borders; and a sweet wind, that might have come direct from paradise, sighed over all. William and I walked on, con- versing. At first we spoke of tbe terrible disas- ter and my loss; he could be gentle when he chose, arid now his tenderness and sympathy were like a womans. I almost forgot, in listening, what be was and had been to me. I was reminded when he began to speak of ourselves; I recalled it frilly, when again, with all the power that passion aiid eloquence could impart, he declared his love, and begged me to be his. I looked at him; to my eye he seemed happy, hopeful, triumphant; handsomer he could not be, and to me there was a strange fascination in his lofty, masculine beauty. I felt then, what I had always known, that I loved hini even while I bated him, and for an instant I wavered. Life with him! It looked above all things dear, desirable! But what! Show such a weak, such a womanish spirit? Give up my revenge at the very moment that it was within my grasp,tlie revenge I had lived for through so many years? Nev- er ! I recalled the night under the ha- dens, and was myself again. Dear William, I said, gently, you amaze and distress me. Such love as a sister may give to an only brother you have long had from me. Why ask for any other? A sisters love ! lie cried, impa- tiently. I thought, Juanita, you were above such paltry subterfuges! Is it as a brother I have loved you all these long and weary years? Perhaps not,I cannot say. At any rate, I continued, gravely, a sisterly affection is all I can give you now. You are trifling with me, Juanita! Cease! It is unworthy of you. He seized my hand, and clasped it to his breast. How wildly his heart heat under my touch! I trembled from head to foot,but I said, in a cold voice, You are a good actor, William! You cannot look in my eyes and say you believe that charge, he answered. I essayed to do it,but my glance fell before his, so ardent, so tender. Spite of myself my cheeks burned with blush- es. Quietly I withdrew my hand and said, I am to be married to John in December. Ah, but there was a change then! The flush and the triumph died out of his face, as when a lamp is suddenly extin- guished. Yet there was as much indir~na- tion as grief in his voice when he said, Heaven forgive you, Juanita! You have wilfully, cruelly deceived me 28 Juanita. [January, Deceived you! I replied, rising with dignity. Make no accusation. If de- ceived you were, you have simply your owa vanity, your own folly, to blame for whatever you may suffer. You have listened to my love, and encouraged me to hope Silence! I did love you once, your cold. heart can never guess how well, how warmly. I would have loved on through trial and suffering forever no one could have made me believe any- thing against you; notbing could have shaken my fidelity, or my faith in yours. It was reserved for yourself to work my cure,for your own lips to pronounce the words that changed my love to cool contempt. Oh, Juanita, he cried, passionately, will you always he so vindictive? Will you forever remind me of that piece of insane folly? Let it ~o,it was a boys whim, too silly to remember. You were no boy then, I answered. You had a mature prudence,a careful thoughtfulness for self. Or if otherwise, in your case the child was indeed father to the luau. Your love is dead, then, I suppose? lie questioned, with a bitter smile. I handed him the book I had been reading. It was marked at these ~ords: Love can excuse anything except mean- ness ; but meanness kills love, cril)l)les even n~ tural affection; without esteem, true love cannot exist. William raised his head with an air of proud defiance. And in what sense, he asked, do such words apply to me? You are strangely ohtuse, I said. You see no trace of yourself in that passage,no trace of meanness in the man who cast off the penniless orphan, with her whole heart full of love for him, yet pleads so warmly with the rich heir- ess, when he knows she is pledged to another? You have said enough, Juanita, he replied, with concentrated passion. This is too much to hear, even from you, from whom I have already endured so much. You know you do not he- lieve it. I do believe it, was my firm reply. It was false, hut what did I care? It serve(l my purpose. I might hid you remember, he said, how I urged you to be mine when my prospects had grown brighter, and you were poor as before. I might appeal to the manner in which my suit has been nrged for years, as a proof of my inno- cence of this charge that you have brought against me. But I disdain to plead my cause with so unwomanly a heart,that measures the baseness of others by what it knows of its own. He went, and for a time I was left in doubt whether my victory had been real- ly achieved. Then I thought it all over, and was reassured. He could not simu- late those looks and tones,no, nor that tumult of feeling which had made his heart throb so wildly beneath my hand. He loved me,that was certain; and no matter how great his anger or his indig- nation, tay refusal mnst have cut him to the soul. And the charge I had made would rankle, too. These thoughts were my comfort when John told me, with grief and surprise, that his brother had joined the Arctic expedition under Dr. Kane. I knew it was for n~ light cause he would forsake the career just opening so brightly before him. John and I were married in I)ecember, as had been our intention. We led a quiet, but to him a happy, life, lie often wondered at my content with home and its seclusion, and owned what fears he had felt, before our marriage, lest I, accus- tomed to gayety and excitement, should weary of him, the thoughtful, hook-loving man. It seemed he had made up his mind to all manner of self-sacrifice in the way of accompanying me to parties, and having guests at our own house. I did not exact much from him; I cared little for the gay world in which William no longer moved. I read with John his favorite books; I interested myself in the sciences which he pursued with such en- thusiasm. It was no part of my plan to 1859.1 Juanita. inflict unnecessary misery on any one, and I strove with all my power to make happy the man whom I had chosen. I succeeded fully; and when we sat on the piazza in the moonlight, my head resting on his shoulder, my hand clasped in his, he would tell me how infinitely dearer the wife had grown to be than even the lovers fancy had portrayed her. And my thoughts were far away from the bland airs and brightening moon amid the frozen solitudes of the North. Where was William? what was he do- ing? did he think of me? and how? What if he should perish there, and we should never meet again? Life grew blank at the thought; I put it resolutely away. I had drunk of the cup of vengeance; it was sweet, but did not satisfy. I longed for a fuller draught; but might it not he denied to my fevered lips? Per- haps, amid the noble and disinterested toils of the expedition, his heart would outgrow all love for me, and when we met again I should see my power was gone. I pondered much on this; I be- lieved at last that the solitude, the isola- tion, would be not unpropitious to me. From the little world of the ice-locked vessel his thoughts would turn to the greater world he had left, and I should he remembered. When he returned we should be much together. His mother was dead; our house was the only place lie could call his home. Not even for me, I felt assured, would he cast off the love of his only brother. I had not done with him yet. So quietly and composed- ly I awaited his return. lIe came at last, and his manner when we met smote me with a strange uneasi- ness. It was not the estrangement of a friend whom I had injured, but the dis- tant politeness of a stranger. Was my influence gone? I determined to know, once for all. When we chanced to be alone a moment I went to his side. William, I asked, laying my hand on his arm, and speaking in a tender, re- proachful tone, why do you treat me so? 29 With a quick, decided motion, he re- moved my hand,then looked down on me with a smile. You are strangely obtuse, lie said, quoting my own words of two years before. What can Mrs. Haughton desire from a base fortune- hunter with whom she is unhappily con- nected by marriage, but a humility that does not presume on the relationship? I saw a bold stroke was needed, and that I must stoop to conquer. Oh, Wil- liam, I said, sorrowfully, you called me vindictive once, but it is you who are really so. I was unhappy, harassed, dis- tracted between Between what? I do not knowI mean I cannot tell you, I stammered, with well-feigned con- fusion. . Can you not forgive me, Wil- ham? Often and often, since you left me that day, I have wished to see you, and to tell you how I repented my hasty and ungenerous words. Will you not pardon me? Shall we not be friends again? I am not vindictive, he said, more kindly, least of all toward you. But I cannot see how you should desire the friendship of one whom you regard as a mercenary hypocrite. When you can truthfully assure me that you disbelieve thatcharge,then, and not till then, willl forgive you and be your friend. Let it be now, then, I said, joyfully, holding out my hand. He did not reject it ;we were reconciled. William had come home ill; the hard- ships of the expedition and the fearful cold of the Arctic Zone had been too much for him. The very night of his re- turn I noticed in his countenance a fre- quent flush succeeded by a deadly pallor; my quick ear had caught, too, the sound of a cough,not frequent or prolonged, but deep and hollow. And now, for the first time in my long and dreary toil, I saw the path clear and the end in view. Every one knows with what enthusi- asm the returned travellers were hailed. Aniid the felicitations, the praises, the banquets, the varied excitemen of the time, William forgot his ill-health. When these were over, he reopened his office, 30 Juanita. [January, and prepared to enter once more on the active duties of his profession. But he was unfit for it; John and I hoth saw this, and urged him to ahandon the at- tempt for the present,to stay with us, to enjoy rest, hooks, society, and not till his health was fully re~stahlished undertake the prosecution of business. You forget, my good sister, he laugh- ingly said to me one day,(he could jest on the subject now,) that I have not the fortune of our John,I did not marry an heiress, and I have my own way to make. I had got up a few rounds of the ladder when an adverse fate drag~ ed me (lown. Being a free man once more, I must struggle up again as quickly as may he. Oh, for that matter, I returned, in the same tone, I had some part, per- haps, in the adverse fate you speak of; so it is hut fair that I should make you what recompense I can. I am an admi- rable nurse; and you will gain time, if you will deliver yourself up to my care, and not go back to Coke and Chitty till I give you leave. Seriously, William, I fear you do not know how ill you are, and how unsafe it is for you to go on with business. He yielded without much persuasion, and came home to us. Those were hap- py days. Willia,n and I were constantly together. I read to him, I sung to him, and played chess with him; on mild days I drove him out in my own little pony- caITiac~e. I he me )id love all this time? I could not tell. Never hy look or tone did he intimate that the old affection yet lived in his heart. I fancied he felt as I with himperfect content in my compan- ionship, without a thought or wish heyond. We were made for each other; our tastes, our habits of mind and feeling, fully har- monized; had we heen horn hrother and sister, we should have preferred each oth- er to all the world, and, remaining single for each others sakes, have passed our lives together. So the time wore on, sweetly and plac- idly, and only I seemed to notice the failure in our invalid; but I watched for it too keenly, too closely, to be blinded. The occasional rallies of strength that gave John such hope, and cheered Wil- liam himself so greatly, did not deceive me; I knew they were hut the fluctua- tions of his malady. Chancres in the weather, or a damp east wind, did not account to me for his relapses; I knew he was in the grasp of a fell, a fatal disease; it might let him go awhile, give him a little respite, as a cat does the mouse she has caught,but he never could escape, his doom was fixed. But you may be sure I gave him no hint of it, and he never seemed to sus- pect it for himself. One could not be- lieve such blindness possible, did we not see it verified in so many instances, year after year. Often, now, I thought of a passage in an old book I used to read with many a heart-quake in my girlish days. It raa thus : Perhaps we may see you flatter- ing yourself, through a long, lingering illness, that you shall still recover, and putting off any serious reflection and conversation for fear it should overset your spirits. And the cruel kindness of friends and physicians, as if they were in league with Satan to make the de- struction of your soul as sure as possible, may, perhaps, abet this fatal deceit. ~Te had all the needed accessories: the kind physician, anxious to amuse and fearful to alarm his patient,telling me always to keep up his Spirits, to make him as cheerful and happy as I could; and the cruel friendsI had not far to seek for them. For a time William came down-stairs every morning, and sat up during the greater part of the day. Then he took to lyin~ on the sofa for hours together. At last, he did not rise till afternoon, and even then was too much fatigued to sit up long. I prepared for his use a large room on the south side of the house, whh a smaller apartment within it; to this we carried his favorite books and pictures, his easy-chair and lounge. My piano stood in a recess; a guitar hung near it. When all was finished, it looked home- 1859.] Juan fta. 31 like, pleasant; and we removed William to it, one mild February day. This is a delightful room, he said, gazing about him. How pleasant the view from these windows will be as spring comes on You will not need it, I said, by that time. I should be glad, if it were so, he re- plied; but I am not quite so sanguine as you are, Juanita. He did not guess my meanin~ how should he, amused, flattered, kept along as he had been? To him, life, with all its activities, its prizes, its pleasures, seemed but a little way removed; a few weeks or months and he should be among them again. But I knew, when he en- tered that room, that he never would go forth again till he was borne where nar- rower walls and a lowlier roof should shut him in. I had an alarm one day. Juanita, said the invalid, when I had arranged his pillows comfortably, and was about to begin the mornings reading, do not take the book we had yesterday. I wish you would read to me in the Bible. What did this mean? Was this proud, worl(lly-minded man going to humble himseh, and repent, and be forgiven? And w~ s I to be defrauded thus of my just revenge? Should he pass away to an etei nal life of holiness and joy,while I, stained through him and for his sake with sins innumerable, sank ever lower and lower in unending misery and de- spair? Oh, I must stop this , if it were not yet too late. What! I said, pretending to repress a smile, are you getting alarmed about yourseW William? Or is Saul really going to be found amon~ the prophets, after all ? He colored, hut made no reply. I opened the Bible and read two or three of the shorter Psalms,then, from the New Testament, a portion of the Sermon on the Mount. It must have been very sweet, I observed, for those who were able to receive Jesus as the true Messiah, and his teachings as infallible, to hear these words from his lips. And do you not so receive them? William asked. We will not speak of that; my opin- ion is of no weight. But you must have thought much of these things, he persisted; tell me what result you have arrived at. Candidly, then, I said, I have read and pondered much on what this hook contains. It seems to me, that, if it teach- es anything, it clearly teaches, that, no matter how we flatter ourselves that we are doing as we choose, and carrying out our own designs and wishes, we are all the time only fulfilling purposes that have been fixed from all eternity. Since, then, we are the subjects of an Inexorable Will, which no entreaties or acts of ours can alter or propitiate, what is there for us to do but simply to bear as best we can what comes upon us? It is a shert creed. And a gloomy one, he said. You are right; a very gloomy one. If you can rationally adopt a cheerfuller, pray, do it. I do not wish for any com- panion in mine. There was silence for a time, and then I said, with affectionate earnestues., Dear William, why trouble yourself with these things in your weak and ex- hausted state? Surely, the care of your health is enough for you now. By-and- by, when you have in some measure re- gained your strength, look seriously into this subject, if you wish. It is an im- portant one for all. I am afraid I rave you an overdose of anodyne last nicht, an(l am to blame for your low spirits of this morning. Own, William, I said, smilingly, that you were terribly hyp- ped, and fancied you never could re- cover. He looked relieved as I spoke thus lightly. I should find it sad to die, he said. Life looks bright to me eveu yet. This man was a coward. He dreaded that struggle, that humiliation of spirit, through which all must pass ere peace ~32 fuanitcz. [January, with Heaven is achieved. Yet more, per- haps, he dreaded that deeper struggle which ensues when we essay to tear Self from its throne in the heart, and place God thereon. As he said, life looked bright to him; and all his plans and pur- poses in life were for himself, his own ad- vancement, his own well-being. It would have been hard to make the change; and lie thought it was not necessary now, at least. No more was said upon the subject. Our days went on as before. There was a little music, some light reading, an occasional call from a friend,and long pauses of rest between all these. And slowly, but surely, life failed, and the soul drew near its doom. I knew now that he loved me still; he talked of it sometimes when he woke suddenly, and did not at once remember where he was; I saw it, too, in his look, his manner; but we never breathed it to each other, and lie did not think I knew. One night there was a great change; physicians were summoned in haste; there were hours of anxious watching. Toward morninu he seemed a little bet- tel, and I was left alone with him. He slumbered quietly, but when he awoke there was a strange and solemn look in his face, such as I had never seen before. I knew what it must mean. When Dr. Hammond comes, let me see him alone, lie whispered. I made no objection; nothing could frustrate niy purpose now. The physician came,a kind old man, who had known us all from infancy. He was closeted awhile with William; then he caine out, looking deeply moved. Go to him,couifort him, if you can, he said. You have told him? I asked. Yes,he insisted upon hearing the truth, and I knew he had got where it could make no difference. Poor fellow! it was a terrible blow. I wanted a few moments for reflection; I sent John in my stead. I locked my- self in my own room, and tried to get the full weight of what I was going to do. I was about to meet him who had rejected my hearts best love, no longer in the flush and insolence of health and strength, but doomed, dying,with a dark, hope- less eternity stretching out before his shuddering gaze. And when he turned to me in those last awful moments for solace and affection, I was to tell him that the girl he loved, the woman he adored, had since that one night kept the purpose of vengeance hot in her heart, that for years her sole study had been to baffle and to wound him,and that now, through all those months that she had been beside him, that he had looked to her as friend, helper, comforter, she had kept her deadly aim in view. She had deceived him with false hopes of recovery; she had turned again to the world the thoughts which he would fain have fixed on heaven; while he was loving her, she had hated him. She had darkened his life; she had ruined his soul. Oh, was not this a revenge worthy of the name? I went to him. lie was sitting in the great easy-chair, propped with pillows; John had left the room, overcome by his feelings. never shall I forget that face, the despair of those eyes. I sat down by him and took his hand. The Doctor has told you? I mur- mured. Yesand what is this world which I so soon niust enter? I believe too much to have one moments peace in view of what is coming. Oh, why did I not believe more before it was too late? I kept silence a few minutes; then I sai(I, Listen, Wiliam,I have something to tell you. He looked eagerly toward me ;per- haps he thought even then, poor dupe, that it was some word of hope, that there was some chance for his recovery. Then I told him ahh,all,-my lifelong hatred, my cherished purpose. Blank amazement was in the gaze that he turn- ed upon me. I feared that impending death had blunted his senses, and that he did not fully comprehend. 1859.1 Left Behind. 33 You will remember now what I once told you, I cried, with savage joy; for so surely as there is another world, in that world shall you live, and live to suf- fer, and to remember in your anguish why you suffer, and to whose hand you owe it He understood well enough now. Fiend! he exclaimed, with a look of horror, and started to his feet. The ef- fort, the emotion, were too much. Blood gushed from his lips; a frightful spasm convulsed his features; he fell hack; he was gone! Yes,he was gone! And my lifes work was complete! I cannot tell what happened after that. I suppose they must have found him, and laid him out, and buried him; but I re- member nothing of it. Since then I have lived in this great, gloomy house, with its barred doors and windows. Never since I came here have I seen a face that I knew. Maniacs are all about me; I meet them in the hails, the gardens; sometimes I hear the fiercer sort raving and dashing about their cells. But I do not feel afraid of them. It is strange how they all fancy that the rest are mad, and they the only sane ones. Some of them even go so far as to think that I have lost my reason. I heard one woman say, not long ago, Why, she has been mad these twenty years! She never was married in her life; but she helieves all these things as if they were really so, and tells them over to anyhody who, will listen to her. Mad these twenty years! So young as I am, too! And I never married, and all my wrongs a maniacs raving! I was angry at first, and would have struck her; then I thought, Poor thing! Why should I care? She does not know what she is saying. And I go about, seeing always before me that pallid, horror-stricken face; and wishing sometimes oh, how vainly that I had listened to him that bright October day,that I had been a happy wife, perchance a happy mother. But no, no! I must not think thus. Once I look at it in that way, my whole life be- comes a terror, a remorse. I will not, must not, have it so. Then let me rejoice again, for I have had my revenge,a great, a glorious re- venge! LEFT BEHIND. IT was the autumn of the year; The strawberry-leaves were red and sere; Octobers airs were fresh and chill, When, pausing on the windy hill, The hill that overlooks the sea, You talked confidingly to me, Me, whom your keen artistic sight Has not yet learned to read aright, Since I have veiled my heart from you, And loved you better than you knew. You told me of your toilsome past, The tardy honors won at last, The trials borne, the conquests gained, The longed-for boon of Fame attained: 3 VOL III.

1859.1 Left Behind. 33 You will remember now what I once told you, I cried, with savage joy; for so surely as there is another world, in that world shall you live, and live to suf- fer, and to remember in your anguish why you suffer, and to whose hand you owe it He understood well enough now. Fiend! he exclaimed, with a look of horror, and started to his feet. The ef- fort, the emotion, were too much. Blood gushed from his lips; a frightful spasm convulsed his features; he fell hack; he was gone! Yes,he was gone! And my lifes work was complete! I cannot tell what happened after that. I suppose they must have found him, and laid him out, and buried him; but I re- member nothing of it. Since then I have lived in this great, gloomy house, with its barred doors and windows. Never since I came here have I seen a face that I knew. Maniacs are all about me; I meet them in the hails, the gardens; sometimes I hear the fiercer sort raving and dashing about their cells. But I do not feel afraid of them. It is strange how they all fancy that the rest are mad, and they the only sane ones. Some of them even go so far as to think that I have lost my reason. I heard one woman say, not long ago, Why, she has been mad these twenty years! She never was married in her life; but she helieves all these things as if they were really so, and tells them over to anyhody who, will listen to her. Mad these twenty years! So young as I am, too! And I never married, and all my wrongs a maniacs raving! I was angry at first, and would have struck her; then I thought, Poor thing! Why should I care? She does not know what she is saying. And I go about, seeing always before me that pallid, horror-stricken face; and wishing sometimes oh, how vainly that I had listened to him that bright October day,that I had been a happy wife, perchance a happy mother. But no, no! I must not think thus. Once I look at it in that way, my whole life be- comes a terror, a remorse. I will not, must not, have it so. Then let me rejoice again, for I have had my revenge,a great, a glorious re- venge! LEFT BEHIND. IT was the autumn of the year; The strawberry-leaves were red and sere; Octobers airs were fresh and chill, When, pausing on the windy hill, The hill that overlooks the sea, You talked confidingly to me, Me, whom your keen artistic sight Has not yet learned to read aright, Since I have veiled my heart from you, And loved you better than you knew. You told me of your toilsome past, The tardy honors won at last, The trials borne, the conquests gained, The longed-for boon of Fame attained: 3 VOL III. 34 Left Bekind. [January, I knew that every victory But lifted you away from me, That every step of high emprise But left me lowlier in your eyes; I watched the distance as it grew, And loved you hetter than you knew. You did not see the hitter trace Of anguish sweep across my face; You did not hear my proud heart heat Heavy and slow beneath your feet; You thought of triumphs still unwon, Of glorious deeds as yet undone ; And I, the while you talked to me, I watched the gulls float lonesomely Till lost amid the hungry blue, And loved you better than you knew. You walk the sunny side of Fate; The wise world smiles, and calls you great; The golden fruitage of success Drops at your feet in plenteousness; And you have blessings manifold, Renown, and power, and friends, and gold; They build a wall between us twain Which may not he thrown down again; Alas! for I, the long years through, Have loved you better than you knew. Your lifes proud aim, your arts high truth Have kept the promise of your youth; And while you won the crown which now Breaks into bloom upon your brow, My soul cried strongly out to you Across the oceans yearning blue, While, unremembered and afar, I watched you, as I watch a star Through darkness struggling into view, And loved you better than you knew. I used to dream, in all these years, Of patient faith and silent tears, That Loves strong hand would put aside The harriers of place and pride, Would reach the pathless darkness through, And draw me softly up to you. But that is past.If you should stray Beside my grave, some future day, Perchance the violets oer my dust Will half hetray their buried trust, And say, their blue eyes full of dew, She loved you better than you knew. 1859.1 Coffee and Tea. 35 COFFEE AND TEA. FACTS, and figures representing facts, are recognized as stubborn adversaries when arrayed singly in an argument; in aggregate, and in generalizations drawn from a~gregates, they are often unan- swerable. To the nervous reader it may seem a startling, and to the reformatory one a melancholy fact, that every soul in these United States has provided for him an- nually, and actually consumes, personal- ly or by proxy, between six and seven pounds of coffee, and a pound of tea; while in Great Britain enough of these two luxuries is imported and drunk to furnish every inhabitant, patrician or pauper, with over a pound of the former, and two of the latter. Coffee was brought to Western Eu- rope, by way of Marseilles, in 1644, and made its first appearance in London about 1652. In 1853, the estimated con- sumption of coffee in Great Britain, ac- cording to official returns, was thirty-five million pounds, and in the United States, one hundred and seventy-five million pounds, a year. Tea, in like manner, from its first im- portation into England by the Dutch East India Company, early in the seven- teenth century, and from a consumption indicated by its price, being sixty shil- lings a pound, has proportionately in- creased in national use, until, in 1854, the United States imported and retained for home consumption twenty-five mil- lion pounds, and England fifty-eight mil- lion pounds. Two centuries have witnessed this al- most incredible advance. The consump- tion of coffee alone has increased, in the past twenty-five years, at the rate of four per cent. per annum, throughout the world. We pay annually for coffee fifteen millions of dollars, and for tea seven mil- lions. Twenty-two millions of dollars for articles which are popularly accounted neither fuel, nor clothing, nor food! What a waste ! cries the reformer; nearly a dollar apiece, from every man, woman, and child throughout the coun- try, spent on two useless luxuries! Is it a waste? Is it possible that we throw all this away, year after year, in idle stimulation or sedation? It is but too true, that the instinct, lead- ing to the use of some form of stimulant, appears to be universal in the human race. We call it an instinct, since all men naturally search for stimulants, sep- arately, independently, and unceasingly, because use renders their demands as imperious as are those for food. Next to alcohol and tobacco, coffee and tea have supplied more of the need- ed excitement to mankind than any oth- er stimulants; and, taking the female sex into the account, they stand far above the two former substances in the ratio of the numbers who use them. In Turkey coffee is regarded as the es- sence of hospitality and the balm of life. In China not only is tea the national bev- erage, but a large part of the agricultu- ral and laboring interest of the country is engaged in its cultivation. Russia fol- lows next in the almost universal use of tea, as would naturally result from its proximity and the common origin of a large part of its population. Western Europe employs both coffee and tea largely, while France almost confines it- self to the former. The cafe~s are more numerous, and have a more important social bearing, than any other establish- ments in the cities of France. Great Britain uses more tea than coffee. The former beverage is there thought indis- pensable by all classes. The poor dine on half a loaf rather than lose their cup of tea; just as the French peasant re- gards his demi-bouteille of Yin Blen as the most important part of his meal.

1859.1 Coffee and Tea. 35 COFFEE AND TEA. FACTS, and figures representing facts, are recognized as stubborn adversaries when arrayed singly in an argument; in aggregate, and in generalizations drawn from a~gregates, they are often unan- swerable. To the nervous reader it may seem a startling, and to the reformatory one a melancholy fact, that every soul in these United States has provided for him an- nually, and actually consumes, personal- ly or by proxy, between six and seven pounds of coffee, and a pound of tea; while in Great Britain enough of these two luxuries is imported and drunk to furnish every inhabitant, patrician or pauper, with over a pound of the former, and two of the latter. Coffee was brought to Western Eu- rope, by way of Marseilles, in 1644, and made its first appearance in London about 1652. In 1853, the estimated con- sumption of coffee in Great Britain, ac- cording to official returns, was thirty-five million pounds, and in the United States, one hundred and seventy-five million pounds, a year. Tea, in like manner, from its first im- portation into England by the Dutch East India Company, early in the seven- teenth century, and from a consumption indicated by its price, being sixty shil- lings a pound, has proportionately in- creased in national use, until, in 1854, the United States imported and retained for home consumption twenty-five mil- lion pounds, and England fifty-eight mil- lion pounds. Two centuries have witnessed this al- most incredible advance. The consump- tion of coffee alone has increased, in the past twenty-five years, at the rate of four per cent. per annum, throughout the world. We pay annually for coffee fifteen millions of dollars, and for tea seven mil- lions. Twenty-two millions of dollars for articles which are popularly accounted neither fuel, nor clothing, nor food! What a waste ! cries the reformer; nearly a dollar apiece, from every man, woman, and child throughout the coun- try, spent on two useless luxuries! Is it a waste? Is it possible that we throw all this away, year after year, in idle stimulation or sedation? It is but too true, that the instinct, lead- ing to the use of some form of stimulant, appears to be universal in the human race. We call it an instinct, since all men naturally search for stimulants, sep- arately, independently, and unceasingly, because use renders their demands as imperious as are those for food. Next to alcohol and tobacco, coffee and tea have supplied more of the need- ed excitement to mankind than any oth- er stimulants; and, taking the female sex into the account, they stand far above the two former substances in the ratio of the numbers who use them. In Turkey coffee is regarded as the es- sence of hospitality and the balm of life. In China not only is tea the national bev- erage, but a large part of the agricultu- ral and laboring interest of the country is engaged in its cultivation. Russia fol- lows next in the almost universal use of tea, as would naturally result from its proximity and the common origin of a large part of its population. Western Europe employs both coffee and tea largely, while France almost confines it- self to the former. The cafe~s are more numerous, and have a more important social bearing, than any other establish- ments in the cities of France. Great Britain uses more tea than coffee. The former beverage is there thought indis- pensable by all classes. The poor dine on half a loaf rather than lose their cup of tea; just as the French peasant re- gards his demi-bouteille of Yin Blen as the most important part of his meal. 36 Gofl~e and Tea. [Junuary, Tea first roused the rebellion of these American Colonies; and tea made many a half Tory among the elderly ladies of the Revolution. It has, indeed, been re- garded, and humorously described by the senior Weller, as the indispensable com- forter and friend of advanced female life. Dr. Johnson was as noted for his fond- ness for tea as for his other excesses at the table. Many sober minds make cof- fee and tea the pis a tergo of their daily intellectual labor; just as a few of great- er imacrination or genius seek in opium the spur of their ephemeral efforts. In the United States, the young imbibe them from their youth up; and it is quite as possible that a part of the nations nervousness may arise from this cause, as it is probable that our wide-spread dyspepsia begins in the use of badly- cooked solid, food, immediately on the completion of the first dentition. All over this country we drink coffee and tea, morning and night; at least, the majority of us do. They are expensive; their palpable results to the senses are fleeting; they are reported innutritious nay, far worse, they are decried as posi- tively unwholesome. Yet we still use them, and no one has succeeded in lead- ing a crusade against them at all com- parable with the onslaughts on other stimulants, made in these temperance days. The fair sex raises its voice against tobacco and other masculine sedatives, but clings pertinaciously to this delusion. It becomes, then, an important ques- tion to decide whether the choice of civ- ilization is justified by experience or sci- ence,and whether some effect on the animal economy, ulterior to a merely soothing or stimulant action, can be found to sanction the use of coffee and tea. And this is a question in so far differing from that of other stimulants, that it is not to be discussed with the moralist, but solely with the economist and the sanitarian. More even than us, economically, does it concern the overcrowded and limited states of Europe, where labor is cheap, and the necessaries of life absorb all the efforts, to decide whether so much of the earnings of the poor is annually thrown away in idle stimulation. It concerns us in a sanitary point of view, more than in any other way, and more than any other people. We are rich, spare in habit, and of untiring in- dustry. We can afford luxurious indul- gences, we are very susceptible to ner- vous stimuli, and we overwork. Our national habit is feeble. Debility is recognized as the prevailing type of our diseases. Nervous exhaustion is met by recourse to all kinds of stimulation. We are apt to think coffee and tea as harmless, or rather as slow in their dele- terious action, as any. Are they nothing more? As tlebility marks the degeneration of our physical constitution, so does a mor- bid sensitiveness at all earthly indul- gence, a tendency to reform things inno- cent, although useless, betray the weak- ness of the moral health of our day. An ascetic spirit is abroad; our amateur physiologists look rather to a mortifica- tion than an honest building-up of the flesh. They prefer naked muscle to rounded outline, and seek rather to test than to enjoy their bodies. Fearing to be Epicureans, they become Spartans, as far as their feebler organizations will allow them, and very successful Stoics, by the aid of Saxon will. By a faulty logic, things which in excess are hurtful are denied a moderate use. Habits in- nocent in themselves are to be cast aside, lest they induce others which are injuri- ous. There is but little danger that Puritan antecedents and a New England climate should tend to idle indulgence or Epi- curean sloth. We think there is a ten- dency to reform too far. We confess our preference for the physique of Apollo to that of Hercules. We acknowledge an amiable weakness for those bounties of Nature which soothe or comfort us or renew our nervous energy, and which, we think, injure us no more than our daily bread, if not immoderately used. Coffee and Tea. Science almost always finds some foun- dation in fact for popular prejudices. For years, men have continued wasting their substance on coffee and tea, insisting that they strengthened as well as comforted them, in spite of the warnings of the sanitarian, who looked on them solely as stimulants or sedatives, and of the econo- mist, who bewailed their extravagant cost. Physiology, relying on organic chemis- try, has at least justified by experiment the choice of the civilized world. Coffee and tea had been regarded by the pbysi- ologist and the physician as stimulants of the nervous system, and to a less extent and secondarily of the circulation, and that was all. To fulfil this object, and to answer the endless craving for habitual excitants of the cerebral functions, they had been admitted reluctantly to the diet of their patients, rather as necessary evils than as positive goods. It was reserved for the all-searching German mind to discover their better qualities; and it is only within the last five years, that the self-sacrificing experiments of Dr. Bdcker of Bonn, and of Dr. Julius Lehmann, have raised them to their proper l)lace in dietetics, as Accessory Foods. This term, which we borrow from the remark- able work on Digestion and its I)e- rangements, by Dr. Thomas K. Cham- bers, of London, is only the slightest of the many obligations which we hasten to acknowledge ourselves under to this author, as will appear from citations in the course of this article. The labors of earlier physiologists and chemists, as Carpenter, Liebig, and Pa- get, had resulted in the classification of nutritive substances under different beads, according to the purposes they served in the physical economy. Perhaps the most convenient, though not an unexception- able division, is into the Saccharine, Oleaginous, Albuminous, and Gelatinous groups. The first includes those sub- stances analogous in composition to sug- ar, being chemically composed of hy- drogen, carbon, and oxygen. Such are starch, gum, cellulose, and so forth, which are almost identical in their ultimate composition, and admit of ready conver- sion into sugar by a simple process of vital chemistry. The oleaginous group comprises all oily matters, which are even purer hydro-carbons than the first- mentioned class. The third, or albumin- ous group, includes all substances close- ly allied to albumen, and hence contain- ing a large proportion of nitrogen in addition to the other three elements. The last group consis also of nitrogen- ized substances, which resemble gelatine in many of thcir characteristics. The first two groups are called non-azotized, as they contain no nitrogen; the last two, azotized, containing nitrogen. All articles of food that are to be employed in the production of heat must contain a larger proportion of hydrogen than is sufficient to form water with the oxy- gen that they contain, and none are ap- propriate for the maintenance of any tissues (except the adipose) unless they contain nitrogen. Hence the obvious restriction of the first two classes to the heat-producing function, and of the last two (or azotized) to the reparation of the tissues. We have, then, the two natural divis- ions of calorifacient and plastic foods: the one adapted to sustain the heat of the body, and enable us to maintain a temperature independent of that of the medium we may be in; the other to build up, repair, and preserve in their natu- ral proportions the various tissues, as the muscular, fibrous, osseous, or nervous, which compose our frames. These two kinds of food we must have in due pro- portion and quantity in order to live. Neither the animal nor the vegetable kingdom furnishes the one to the exclu- sion of the other. We derive our sup- plies of each from both. More than this, we consume and appropriate certain in- cidental elements, which find their place and use in the healthy system. Iron floats in our blood, sulphur lies hidden in the hair and nails, phosphorus scintil- lates unseen in the brain, lime compacts our bones, and fluorine sets the enamel- led edges of our teeth. At least one-third 1859.1 37 38 Coffee and Tea. [January, of all the known chemical elements ex- ist in some part of the human economy, and are taken into the stomach hidden in our various articles of food. This would seem enough for Natures requirements. It is enough for all the brute creation. As men, and as thinkers, we need some- thing more. In all the lower orders of creation the normal state is preserved. Health is the rule, and sickness the rare exception. Demand and supply are exactly balanc- ed. The contraction of the voluntary muscles, and the expenditure of nervous power consequent on locomotion, the temperate use of the five senses, and the quiet, regular performance of the great organic processes, limit the life and the waste of the creature. But when the brain expands in the dome-like cranium of the human being, a new and inces- sant call is made on the reparative forces. The nervous system has its demands in- creased a hundred-fold. We think, and we exhaust; we scheme, imagine, study, worry, and enjoy, and proportionately we waste. In the rude and primitive nations this holds good touch less than among civil- ized people. Yet even among them, the faculties whose possession involves this loss have been ever exercised to repair it by artificial means. In the busy life of to-day how much more is this the case! Overworked brains and stomachs, under- worked muscles and limbs, soon derange the balance of supply and demand. We waste faster than enfeebled digestion can well repair. We feel always a little de- pressed; we restore the equilibrium tem- porarily by stimulation,some with alco- hol and tobacco, others with coffee and tea. Now it is to these last means of sup- p1y that the name has been given of ac- cessory foods. Accessories are those by whose use the moulting and renewing (that is, the metamorphosis) of the organic structures are modified, so as best to accommodato themselves to required circumstances. They may be subdivided into those which arrest and those which increase metamor phosis. It is under the former class that are placed alcohol, sue, ar, coffee, and tea. Again, says Dr. Chambers, Not sat- isfied with the bare necessaries, (the common varieties of plastic and calorifa- cient food,) we find that our species chiefly are inclined by a soi-disant in- stinct to feed on a variety of articles the use of which cannot be explained as above; they cannot be refound in the organism; they cannot, apparently, with- out complete disorganization, be employ- ed to build up the body. These may be considered as extra diet, or called accessory foods These are what man does not want, if the protracting from day to day his residence on earth be the sole object of his feeding. He could live without them, grow without them, think, after a fashion, without them. A baby does. Would lie be wise to try and imitate it? Thus, there is no question but that easily assimilable brown meat is the proper food for those whose muscular system is subjected to the waste arising from hard exercise; and if plenty of it is to be got, and the digestive organs are in sufficiently good order to absorb enough to supply the demand, it completely cov- ers the deficiency. Water, under these circumstances, is the best drink; and a total ahstainer, with plenty of fresh meat, strong exercise, and a vigorous digestion, will probably equal anyhody in muscular development. But should the digestion not be in such a typical condition, should the exercise be over- severe and the victuals deficient, then the waste must be limited by some arrester of metamorphosis; if it is not, the system suffers, and the man is what is called overworked. . . . . Intellectual labor also exercises the demand for food, and at the same time, unfortunately, injures the assimilating organs; so that, unless a ju- dicious diet is employed, waste occurs which cannot be replaced. Waste, we may be told, is life, and the rapidity of change marks the activ- ity of the vital processes. True, if each particle consumed is at once and ado 1859.] Coffee and [Pea. 39 quately replaced. Beyond that point, let the balance once tend to over-con- sumption, and we approach the confines of decay. Birds live more and faster than men, and insects probably most of all yet many of the latter are ephemeraL Every-day experience had long point- ed to the recnrring coincidence, that, of the annual victims of pulmonary con- sumption, few were to be found among the habitual consumers of ardent spirits. Science volunteered the explanation, that alcohol supplied a hydro-carbonaceous nutriment similar to that furnished by the cod-liver oil, which, serving as fuel, spared the wasting of the tissues, just in proportion to its own consumption and assimilation. Other aid it was supposed to lend, by stimulating the function of nutrition to renewed energy. Later in- vestigations have proved that it exercises a yet more important influence as an ar- rester of metamorphosis. It was on arriv- ing at this conclusion, that Dr. Bdcker was led to institute a series of careful experi- ments to determine the influence of water on the physical economy, and the real value of salt, sugar, coffee, tea, and other condiments, as articles of food. The experimenter appears to have used the utmost precision, and details so conscien- tiously the mode adopted of making his estimates, that additional knowledge may perhaps alterthe conclusions drawn, but can never diminish the value of the ex- periments. They are not open to the objections of mistaken sensations, and honest, though ludicrous, misapprehension of fallible symptoms, to which the testing of drugs homceopathically is liable, and of which another instance has just occur- red in London, in the proving of the new medicinal agent, gonoine. They rather resemble in accuracy a quantita- tive, as well as a qualitative, analysis. We will cite first the experiments on tea, and quote from the interesting narrative of Dr. Chambers. After Dr. Thicker had determined by some preliminary trials what quantity of food and drink was just enough to satiate his appetite without causing loss of weight to his body,that is to say, was sufficient to cover exactly the necessary outgoings of the organism,he proceeded to special experiments, in which, during periods of twenty-four hours, he took the amount of victuals ascertained by the former trials. The first set of the first series of ex- periments consists of seven observations, of twenty-four hours duration each, in the months of July and August, with three barely sufficient meals per diem, in quantities as nearly equal each day as could be managed, and only spring-water to drink. The second set comprises the same number of observations in August, September, and October, under similar circumstances, except that infusion of tea, drunk cold, was taken instead of plain water. Each day there are carefully record- ed qualitative and quantitative analys- es of the excretions,estimates of the amount of insensible perspiration, and of expired carbonic acid,the ~uickness of respiration,the beats of the pulse,to- gether with accurate notes of the dura- tion of bodily exercise in the open air, the loss of weight of the whole body, the general feelings, and the circumstances, thermometric, barometric, and meteoric, under which the observations are taken. A second series of seventeen experi- ments of equal duration were made, and at a different time of year, so as to an- swer the question, which might arise, as to whether the season made any differ- ence. Jn these experiments similar observa- tions and records are made as previously, under the three following circumstances, namely: while taking tea as an ordinary drink, on the days immediately following the leaving it off, and on other days when it was not taken. A third series, of four experiments, was also made during four fasts of thirty- six hours each, two with water only, and two with tea to drink. In the following particulars, all the three series so entirely coincide, that the conclusions will be set down as general deductions from the whole. 40 Coffee and Tea. [January. Tea, in ordinary doses, has not any effect on the amount of carbonic acid ex- pired, the frequency of the respirations, or of the pulse. Obviously, then, it is not with reference to the heat-producing function that we can look upon tea as in any sense a nu- triment; and if it causes no saving of carbon, its effects must be sought in checking some other waste, or in the less consumption of nitrogen. The pulse, and hence the respiration, are unaltered; for the two great processes of circulation and a~iration of the blood are interdependent functions, and have, in health, a definite ratio of activity one with the other. As a nervous stimulant, tea in excess will, as we all know, produce an exaltation of the action of the heart, amounting in some persons to a painful and irregular palpitation. No such result seems to fol- low its moderate use. The loss by perspiration is limited by tea. This seems, at first, contrary to com- mon experience, as the sensible perspira- tion produced by several cups of warm tea is a familiar fact to all tea-drinkers. That this effect is wholly owing to the warmth of the mixture, it being drunk usually in hot infusion or decoction, was pointed out long since by Cullen. Tea limits perspiration, perhaps, by the astrin- gent action of the tannin which it con- tains,of which more hereafter. What is saved by limiting perspiration? Wa- ter, largely; carbonic acid, in considerable amount; ammonia (a nitrogenized sub- stance;) salts of soda, potash and lime, and a trace of iron, all in quantities mi- nute, to be sure, but to be counted in the aggregate of arrest of metamorphosis. But the great fact which establishes tea as an arrester of the change of tissue is, that its use diminishes remarkably the amount of nitrogen thrown off by the ex- cretions, specially destined to remove that element, when in excess, from the system. We have before called attention to the fact, that an indispensable component of plastic food, by which alone the tissues are repaired, is nitrogen. By a chemico vital process, nitrogen builds up and is incorporated in the tissues. Nitrogen, again, is one of the resulting components of the change of tissue. This element forms a large part of the effete particles which are rejected on accumulation from such change or waste. Thatalessamount is excreted by the tea-drinker, when sim- ilar quantities are in~ ested, the weight and plumpness of the body remaining undiminished the while, is proof of the slower change of tissue which takes place under the modifying influence of tea. The importance of this effect we shall presently see. In the first series of experiments, the daily allowance of food, though less co- pious on the tea days, was more nitrogen- ized, and nitrogen also was taken in as theme. Yet, in spite of this, the quantity thrown off in twenty-four hours was near- ly a gramme less than on the water days. Still more strikingly is this shown in the days of complete fast, when pure spring- water is seen to cause a greater loss of nitrogen than infusion of tea, in spite of the supply of nitrogen contained in the latter. The difference also is seen to exist in spite of an increased amount of bodily exercise. As final deductions from these experi- ments, there result, first, that, when the diet is sufficient, the body is more likely to gain weight when tea is taken than when not; second, that, when the diet is insufficient, tea limits very much the loss of weight thereby entailed. A set of experiments made by Dr. Lehmann are parallel with these. They exhibit the effects of coffee on the ex- cretion of phosphorus, chloride of sodium, (common salt,) and nitrogen. If less full than Dr. Bbckers, they appear to be equally accurate, and more complete in showing the separate actions of the sev- eral constituents of coffee. It would be tedious to the general reader to follow them in detail, and we shall avail our- selves of the brief resume of Dr. Cham- bers. First,Coffee produces on the or- ganism two chief effects, which it is very 1859.] Coffee and Teat 41 difficult to connect together,namely, the raising the activity of the vascular and nervous systems, and protracting re- markably the decomposition of the tissues. Second,that it is the reciprocal modifi- cations of the specific actions of the em- pyreumatic oil and cafeine contained in the bean which call forth the stimulant effects of coffee, and therefore those pe- culiarities of it which possess importance in our eyes, such as the rousing into new life the soul prostrated by exertion, and especially the giving it greater elas- ticity, and attuning it to meditation, and producing a general feeling of comfort. Third, that the protraction of meta- morphic decomposition which this bever- age produces in the body is chiefly caused by the empyreumatic oil, and that the cafeine only causes it when it is taken in larger quantity than usual. Fourth, that cafeine (in excess) produces in- creased action of the heart, rigors, head- ache, a peculiar inebriation, delirium, and so on. Fifth,that the empyreumatic oil (in excess) causes perspirations, aug- mented activity of the understanding, which may end in irregular trains of thought, restlessness, and incapacity for sleep. It follows that both the active elements of the coffee-berry are necessary to in- sure its grateful effects,that the volatile and odorous principle alone protracts de- composition, and that careful prepara- tion in roasting and decocting are es- sential to secure the full benefits of it as a beverage. It would be difficult to overestimate the practical importance of these results. They raise coffee and tea from the rank of stimulants to that of food,from idle luxuries to real agents of support and lengthening of life. Henceforth the econ- omist can hear of their increasing con- sumption without a regret. The poor may indulge in them, not as extravagant en- joyments, but practical goods. The cup of tea, which is the sole luxury of their scanty meal, lessens the need for more solid food; it satisfies the stomach, while it gladden~ the heart. It saves them, too, the waste of those nitrogenized articles of food which require so much labor and forethought to procure. The flesh meats and the cereals, which contain the largest amounts of this requisite of organic life, are always the dearest articles of con- sumption. Certainly it is not as positive nutriment that we recommend the use of coffee and tea; for although they con- tain a relatively large amount of nitro- gen, that supply can be better taken in solid food. Their benefit is two-fold. While they save more than enough of the waste of tissue to justify their use as economical beverages, they supply a need of the nervous system of no small importance. They cheer, refresh, and console. They thus fill a place in the wants of humanity which common ar- ticles of food cannot, inasmuch as they satisfy the cravings of the spirit as well as of the flesh. We have before attempted to show that the human race is liable to a pecul- iar and constant waite from the develop- ment of the nervous system, and that the body has to answer for the labor of the mind. At first thought, we shall find it difficult to appreciate the endless vigi- lance and activity of the brain. Like the other organisms which possess a prop- er nervous system, man carries on the common organic processes of life with a regularity and unfailing accuracy which seem to verge on the mechanical forces, or to be, at least, automatic. All habitual voluntary acts by repetition become al- most automatic, or require no perceptibly distinct impulse of the will. When we emerge from this necessary field of labor, we come to those functions peculiar to the proper brain. Here all is continual action. Thought, imagination, will, the conflicting passions, language, and even articulation, claim their first impulse from the nervous centre. The idlest reverie, as well as the most Drofound study. taxes the brain. That distinguishing attribute of man can almost never rest. In sleep, to be sure, we find a seeming exception. Then only its inferior por~on remains necessarily at work to supervise the 42 Coffee and Tea. [January, brcathing function. Yet we know that we have often dreamed,while we do not know how often we fail to recall our dreams. The duality of the cerebrum may also furnish a means of rest in all trivial mental acts. Still, the great de- mands of the mind upon the nervous tissues remain. And it is these losses which may be peculiarly supplied by the nervous stimulants. Such are coffee and tea. Common nutrition by common food, and particularly the adipose and phos- phatic varieties, nourishes nerve tissue, no doubt, as gluten and fibrine do mus- cle. But the stimulants satisfy tempo- rarily their pressing needs, and enable them to continue their labors without exhaustion. Reacting again upon the rest of the body, they invigorate the pro- cesses of ordinary nutrition for what- ever rests or stimulates the nerve pro- portionately refreshes and vitalizes the tissues which it supplies. It would be curious and well worth while to follow out the peculiar connec- lion between the use of coffee and the excretion of phosphorus, which has been before hinted at. Other experiments of Dr. Bdcker prove sugar to be a great saver of the phosphates, and hence of bone, which affords, at least, a very plausible reason for the instinctive fond- ness of children for sweets, during the building portion of their lives. In exhausting labors, long-continued exposure, and to insure wakefulness, the uses of coffee and tea have lone, been practically recognized by all classes. The sailor, the trapper, and the explorer value them even above alcohol and in high latitudes we are assured of their im- portance in bracing the system to resist the rigors of the Arctic winter. There is of course, as in all human history, another side of this picture. Abuse follows closely after use. The effects of the excessive employment of nervous stimulants in shaking the nerves themselves, and in impairing digestion, are too familiar to need description. Yet even here avuse is not followed by those terrible penalties which await the drunk- ard or the opium-eater. Idiosyncrasy, too, may forbid their use and this is not very rare. As strengtheners and com- forters of the averag~ human system, however, they have no superiors, and none others are so largely used. It is a little singular that the active principles of coffee and tea are proba- bly identical,no more so, however, than the marvellous similarity of starch, gum, and sugar, or other chemical wonders. They have been called cafeine and the- me, respectively. They are azotized, and contain quite a marked amount of nitrogen. Chemically, they consist of carbon 19, hydrogen 10, nitrogen 4, oxy- gen ~. Some allowance is therefore to be made for them as plastic food. This peculiar principle (theme) is also found in the leaves of the hex Para- guayensis, or Paraguay tea, used in South America, as a beverage. Good black tea contajus of theme from 2.00 to 2.13 per cent. Coffee-leaves 1.15 125 Paraguay tea 1.01 1.23 The coffee-berry a mean of 1.00 Besides the theme and the essential oils, which latter give the aroma of the plants, there is contained in both coffee and tea a certain amount of difficultly soluble vegetable albumen, and in the latter, especially, a large quantity of tan- nin. Roasting renders volatile the essen- tial oil of the coffee-berry. The tea-leaf, infused for a short time, parts with its essential oil, and a small portion of alka- loid, (theme,) a good deal of which is thrown away with the grounds. If it stands too long, or is boiled, more in- deed is got out of it, but an astringent, disagreeable drink is the result. The boiling of coffee extracts all its oil and alkaloid too, and, when it is drunk with the grounds, allows the whole nutriment to be available. Even when strained, it is clearly more economical than tea. Roasted coffee is a powerful deodor- izer, also. This fact is familiarly illus- trated by its use in bar-rooms and it might be made available for other pur- poses. 1859.] coffee and Tea. 43 The cost and vast consumption of cof- fee and tea have made the inducements to adulterate them very great. The most harmless form is the selling of coffee- grounds and old tea-leaves for fresh coffee and tea. There is no security in buying coffee ready-ground; and we always look at the neat little packages of it in the grocers windows with a shud- der. Beans and peas we have certainly tasted in ground coffee. The most fash- ionable adulteration, and one even open- ly vaunted as economical and increasing the richness of the beverage, is with the root of the wild endive, or chicory. Roasted and ground, it closely resembles coffee. It contains, however, none of the virtues of the latter, and has nothing to recommend it hut its cheapness. The leaves of the ash and the sloe are used to adulterate tea. They merely dilute its virtues, without adding any that are worth the exchange. The coffee-tree is a native of Ethiopia or Abyssinia. Bruce tells us that the nomad tribes of that part of Africa carry with them, in crossing deserts on hostile expeditious, only halls of pulverized roasted coffee mixed with butter. One of these as large as a billiard-ball keeps them, they say, in strength and spirits during a whole days fatigue, better than a loaf of bread or a meal of meat. The Arabs gave the first written account of coffee, and first used it in the liquid form. Burton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy, mentions it as early as 1621. The Turks have a drink they call coffee, (for they use no wine,)so named of a berry as black as soot, and as bitter, which they sip up as warm as they can suffer, be- cause they find by experience that that kind of drink, so used, helpeth digestion and p~oeureth alacrity. The coffee-tree reaches a height of from six to twelve feet, and when fully grown much resembles the apple-tree. Its leaves are green all the year; and in almost all seasons, blossoms and green and ripe fruit ay be seen on the same tree at the same time. When the blossom falls, there springs from it a small fruit, green at first, red when ripe, and under its flesh, instead of a stone, is the bean or berry we call cof- fee. It has but recently become known by Europeans that the leaves of the cof- fee-plant contain the same essential prin- ciple for which the berries are so much valued. In Sumatra, the natives scarcely use anything else. The leaves are cured like tea. And the tree will produce leaves over a much larger habitat than it will berries. Should the decoction of the leaves prove as agreeable as that of the berry, we shall have a much cheaper cof- fee; though it remains to be proved that they contain the essential oil as well as the cafeine. The coffees of Java, Ceylon, and Mocha are most esteemed. The quan- tities produced are quite limited. Ma- nila and Arabia together give less than 4,500 tons. Cuba yields 5,000 tons per annum; St. Domingo, 18,000; Ceylon and the British East Indies, 16,000; Java, 60,000; and Brazil, 142,000. Yet, in 1774, a Franciscan friar, named Vi- llaso, cultivated a single coffee-tree in the garden of the convent of San An- tonio, in Brazil. In the estimates for 1853, we find that Great Britain con- sumes 17,500 tons; France, 21,500; Ger- many, (Zollverein), 58,000; and the United States, about 90,000 tons. It is worth remarking how small is the com- parative consumption of tea in France. The importation of tea for 1840 was only 264,000 kilogrammes (less than 600,000 pounds). In Asia, coffee is drunk in a thick far- maceons mixture. With us the cup of coffee is valued by its clearness. We generally drink it with sugar and milk. The French with their meals use it as we dobut after dinner, invariably without milk (cafe noir). And we would sug- gest to the nervous and the dyspeptic, who do not want to resign the luxury of coffee, or to whom its effects as an ar- rester of metamorphosis are beneficial, that when drunk on a full stomach its effects upon the nerves are much less felt than when taken fasting or with the meals. 44 iJkn of the Sea. In the consumption of tea the United States rank next to Great Britain. Tea is the chief import from China into this country. The tea-plant flourishes from the equator to the forty-fifth parallel of latitude; though it grows best hetween the twenty-third and the twenty-fifth par- allels. Probably it can be successfully cultivated in our Southern States. Mr. Fortune considers that all varieties of tea are derived from the same plant. Other authorities say that there are two species, the green and the black,Thea viridis and Thea Boliea. This point is yet un- settled. Tea is grown in small, shrub- like plantations, resembling vineyards. As it is a national beverage, certain lo- calities are as much valued for choice varieties as are the famous vintage-hills and slopes of Southern France. The buds and the leaves are used; and there are three harvestings, in February, April, and June. The young, unfolded buds of February furnish the Youi and Soumlo, or Imperial Teas. These are the delicate Young Hysons which we are supposed to buy sometimes, but most of which are consumed by the Mandarins. Souchong, Congo, and B hea mark the three stages of increasing size and coarseness in the leaves. Black ~January, tea is of the lowest kind, with the largest leaves. In gathering the choicer varie- ties, we are told on credible authority that each leaf is plucked separately the hands are gloved; the gatherer must abstain from gross food, and bathe several times a day. Many differences in the flavor and color of green and black teas are produced by art. Mr. Fortune says of green tea, that it has naturally no bloom on the leaf; and a much more natural color. It is dyed with Prussian blue and gypsum. Probably no bad ef- fects are produced. There is no founda- tion for the suspicion that green tea owes its verdure to an inflorescence acquired from plates of copper on which it is curled or dried. The drying-pans are said to be invariably of sheet-iron. We drink our tea with milk or sugar, or both, and always in warm infusion. In Russia, it is drunk cold,in China, pure; in Ava, it is used as a pickle preserved in oil. It would be improper not to notice, finally, the moral effect of coffee- and tea- drinking. How much resort to stronger stimulants these innocent beverages pre- vent can be judged only by the weak- ness of human nature and the vast con- sumption of both. MEN OF THE SEA. WHEN the little white-headed country- boy of an inland farmstead lights upon a hook which shapes his course in life, five times out of six the volume of his destiny will turn out to be Robinson Crusoe. That wonderful fiction is one of the servants of the sea, a sort of bailiW which enters many a mans house and singles out and seizes the tithe of his flock. Or rather, cunning old De Foe, like Odusseus his helmet, wherewith he detected the disguised Achilles among the maids-of-honor,by his magic book, sum- mons to the service of the sea its pre(les- tined ones. Why is it, but from a differ- ence in blood and soul, that the sea gets its own so surely? The farmers sons grow up about the fireside, do chores to~ether, together range the woods for squirrels, woodchucks, chestnuts, and sassafras, go to the same deestrick-school, and succeed to the same ambitions and hopes. Reu- ben, the first-born, comes in due time to the care of the paternal acres and oxen. Simeon, IDan, Judah, Benjamin, and the rest, grow up and emigrate to Western

44 iJkn of the Sea. In the consumption of tea the United States rank next to Great Britain. Tea is the chief import from China into this country. The tea-plant flourishes from the equator to the forty-fifth parallel of latitude; though it grows best hetween the twenty-third and the twenty-fifth par- allels. Probably it can be successfully cultivated in our Southern States. Mr. Fortune considers that all varieties of tea are derived from the same plant. Other authorities say that there are two species, the green and the black,Thea viridis and Thea Boliea. This point is yet un- settled. Tea is grown in small, shrub- like plantations, resembling vineyards. As it is a national beverage, certain lo- calities are as much valued for choice varieties as are the famous vintage-hills and slopes of Southern France. The buds and the leaves are used; and there are three harvestings, in February, April, and June. The young, unfolded buds of February furnish the Youi and Soumlo, or Imperial Teas. These are the delicate Young Hysons which we are supposed to buy sometimes, but most of which are consumed by the Mandarins. Souchong, Congo, and B hea mark the three stages of increasing size and coarseness in the leaves. Black ~January, tea is of the lowest kind, with the largest leaves. In gathering the choicer varie- ties, we are told on credible authority that each leaf is plucked separately the hands are gloved; the gatherer must abstain from gross food, and bathe several times a day. Many differences in the flavor and color of green and black teas are produced by art. Mr. Fortune says of green tea, that it has naturally no bloom on the leaf; and a much more natural color. It is dyed with Prussian blue and gypsum. Probably no bad ef- fects are produced. There is no founda- tion for the suspicion that green tea owes its verdure to an inflorescence acquired from plates of copper on which it is curled or dried. The drying-pans are said to be invariably of sheet-iron. We drink our tea with milk or sugar, or both, and always in warm infusion. In Russia, it is drunk cold,in China, pure; in Ava, it is used as a pickle preserved in oil. It would be improper not to notice, finally, the moral effect of coffee- and tea- drinking. How much resort to stronger stimulants these innocent beverages pre- vent can be judged only by the weak- ness of human nature and the vast con- sumption of both. MEN OF THE SEA. WHEN the little white-headed country- boy of an inland farmstead lights upon a hook which shapes his course in life, five times out of six the volume of his destiny will turn out to be Robinson Crusoe. That wonderful fiction is one of the servants of the sea, a sort of bailiW which enters many a mans house and singles out and seizes the tithe of his flock. Or rather, cunning old De Foe, like Odusseus his helmet, wherewith he detected the disguised Achilles among the maids-of-honor,by his magic book, sum- mons to the service of the sea its pre(les- tined ones. Why is it, but from a differ- ence in blood and soul, that the sea gets its own so surely? The farmers sons grow up about the fireside, do chores to~ether, together range the woods for squirrels, woodchucks, chestnuts, and sassafras, go to the same deestrick-school, and succeed to the same ambitions and hopes. Reu- ben, the first-born, comes in due time to the care of the paternal acres and oxen. Simeon, IDan, Judah, Benjamin, and the rest, grow up and emigrate to Western i8~i9.] 2rikn of the Sea. 45 clearings. Levi, it may be, pale, thought- ful Levi, sees other fields white to har- vest, and struggles up through a New En,,land academy- and college-education, to find a seat in the lecture-rooms of An- dover, and to hope for a pulpit hereafter. But Joseph, the pet and pride of the house- hold,what becomes of him? Unlucky little duck! why could he not go peep- ing at the heels of the maternal par- ent with his brother and sister biddies? Why must he be born with webbed toes, and run at once to the wash-tub, there to make nautical experiments with wal- nut-shells? I know why the boys of a seaport-town take kindly to the water. All the birds of the shore are something marine, and their table-flavor is apt to be fishy. We youngsters, who were rocked to sleep with the roar of the surf in our ears, one wall of whose play-room was colored in blue edged with white, in striking con- trast with the peaceful green of the three other sides, who have many a night lain warm in bed and listened to the dis- tant roll of a sea-chorus and the swing- ing tramp of a dozen jolly blue-jack- ets,we whose greatest indulgence was a sail with Old Card, the boatman par ex- ccllence,we who knew ships, as the far- mers boy knows his oxen, before we had mastered the multiplication-table,it is not strange that we should take kindly to salt water. So, too, all along the lovely fords of Maine, in the villages which cluster about the headlands of Essex, in the brown and weather-mossed cotta,es which dot the white sands of Cape Cod, by the southern shore of Long Island, wherever the sea and the land meet, the boy grows up drawin~ into his lungs the salt air, which passes in Natures myste- rious alchemy into his blood, so that he can never wholly disown his birthright. But what is it that draws from the re- mote inland the predestinate children of the deep? Poor little Joseph! he tries to slip along with the others; but when the holi- day comes, instinct takes him straight to the mill-pond, there to construct forbid- den rafts and adventure contraband voy- ages. The best-worn page of his Malte- Brun Geography is that which treats the youthful student to a packet-passage to England. He can tell the names of all islands, capes, and bays; but ask him the boundaries of Bohemia or Saxony, the capitals of Western States, and down he goes to the foot of the class. Thus it continues awhile, till, after a fracas at school, or a neglected duty on the farm, or similar severance of the bonds of home, Master Joe may be seen trudging along the dusty seaport-highway, in a passion of tears, but with a resolute heart, and an ever-deepening conviction that he must go on, and not back. Then there is another class,the poet- ical, dreamy adventurer, to whom the sea beckons in every white Undine that rises along the beaches of a moonlight night, to whom it calls in that mournful and magic undertone heard only by those who love and listen. These do not often run away to go to sea; they prefer to voyage genteelly in yachts or packet- ships, and, if the impulse be very strong, will get a commission in the navy. How- ever, if circumstances compel a Tapleyan coming out strong, they will sometimes face their work, and that right nobly for there is nowhere that gentle blood so tells as at sea. The utter absence of all sham or room for sham brings out true and noble qualities as well as mean and selfish ones. For ordinary work, one mans muscle is as good as anothers. It is only when the time of trial comes,when the volunteers are called to man the boat that is to venture through the wild seas to pick off the crew of a foundering wreck, when the jerk- ing, slatting sail overhead must be got in somehow, though topmast and yard and sail may go any minute,when the quailing mate or frightened captain dares not order men to all but certain death, and still less dares to lead,then it is, when the lives of all hang on the hero- ism of one, that the good blood will assert itself. Then there is the class who are sent to 46 Alien of the Sect. [January, sea, scapegraces all. The alternative is not unfrequently the one of which Dr. Johnson chose the other side. The Doctor being sans question a landsman, he never saw, we warrant, any resem- blance to fore and main and mizzen in the three spires of Litchileld. But the Doctor, not being a scamp, was not compelled to choose. Many another is not so well off. Like little boys who are sent to school, they learn what they learn from pretty much the same motive. Sometimes they turn out good and gal- lant men; but not often does it reform a man who is unfit for the shore to dispatch him to sea. If there are any vices he does not carry with him, they are com- monly to be had dog- and dirt-cheap at the first port his ship makes. Then, last of all, there is a large and increasing class who get to sea. They fall into the calling, they cannot tell how they continue in it, they cannot tell why. Some have friends who would rescue them, if they could; others have no friend, no home, no nationality even, the pariahs of the sea, sullen, stupid, and broken- down, burnt-out shells of men, which the belaying-pin of some brutal or passionate mate crushes into sudden collapse, or which the hospital duly consigns to the potters field. There is a popular idea of the sailor, which, beginning at the lowest note of the gamut, with the theatrical and cheap- novelist mariner, runs up its do-re-mi with authors, preachers, public speakers, reformers, and legislators, but always in the wrong key. There is no use in, mak- inn up an ideal of any class; but if you must have one, let it be of an extinct class. It does not much harm to construct hor- rible plesiosaurians from the petrified scales we dig out of a coal-mine or chalk- pit; but when it comes to idealizing the sea-serpent, who winters at the Cape Verds and summers at INahant, it is a serious matter. For the love of Agassiz, give us true dimensions or none. So, too, fancy Greeks and Romans may be ever preferable to the true Aristoph- anic or Juvenalian article, imaginary Cavaliers or Puritans not at all hard to swallow,but ideal sailors, why in the world must we bear them, when we can get the originals so cheaply? When the American Beggars Opera was put upon the stage, Mose stepped for- ward, the very impersonation of the Bow- ery. If it was low, it was at least true, a social fact. But the stage sailor is not as near probability as even the stage ship or the theatrical ocean. He is a relic of the past,a monstrous compound out of the imperfect gleanings of the Wapping dramatists of the last century. Yet all those who deal with this character of the sailor begin upon the same false notion. In their eyes the seaman is a good-na- tured, unsophisticated, frank, easy-going creature, perfectly reckless of money, very fond of his calling, unhappy on shore, manly, noble-hearted, generous to a degree inconceivable to landsmen. He is a child who needs to be put in lead- ing-strings the moment he comes over the side, lest he give way to an uncon- querable propensity of his to fry gold watches and devour bank-notes, ~t la sandwich, with his bread and butter. With this theory in view, all sorts of nice schemes are set forward for the sail- or, and endless are the dull and decorous substitutes for the merriment or sociability of his favorite boarding-house, and won- derful are the schemes which are to at- tract the nautical Hercules to choose the austere virtue and neglect the rollicking and easy-going vice. Beautiful on pa- per, admirable in reports, pathetic in speeches,all pictorial with anchors and cables and polar stars, with the light-house of Duty and the shoals of Sin. But mean- while the character of the merchant-ma- rine is daily deteriorating. More is done for the sailor now by fifty times than was done fifty years ago; yet who will com- pare the crews of 1858 with those of 1808? There are many reasons for this change, and one is Science. That which always makes the rich richer and the poor poor- er, and which can be made to restore the lost equilibrium in a higher civiliza 1859.] Men of the Sea. 47 tion only by the strong pressure of an en- lightened Christianity, has been at work upon the sea. Columbus sailed out of Pa- los in a very different looking craft from the Great Republic. The Vikings had small knowledge of taldng a lunar, and of chronometers set by Greenwich time. Sir Humphrey Gilbert, when he so gal- lantly and piously reminded his crew that heaven was as near by sea as on land, was sitting in the stern of a craft hardly so large as the long-boat of a mod- ern merchantman. Yet the modern time does not give us commanders such as were of old, still less such seamen. Sci- ence has robbed the sea of its secret,is every day bearing away something of the old difficulties and dangers which made the wisest head and the strongest arm so dear to their fellows, which gave that inex- pressible sense of brotherhood. Science has given us the steamship,it has de- stroyed the sailor. The age of discovery is closing with this century. Up to the limits of the ice-fields, every shore is map- ped out, every shoal sounded. Not only does Science give the fixed, but she is even transferring to her charts the va- riable features of the deep,the sliding current, the restless and veering wind. The personal qualities which were once needed for the sea-service are fast pass- ing away. The commander or the mas- ter needs no longer to lean upon his men, or they to trust in him. lie wants drudges, not shipmntes,obedient, active drudges,men who can be drilled to quick execution of duty, even as in a machine the several parts. The navy is manned after this pattern; but there is a touchstone which sharpens the edge dulled with routine,the touchstone of war. When the time comes that the drum-tap calls to quarters, and the decks are strewn with sand,when with silence as of the grave, fore and aft, the frigate moves stately and proud into the line of her adversaries fire, then it is that the officer and the man meet face to face, and the awful truth of battle compels them to own their common brotherhood. The merchant-service has few such exigencies. The greater the size of the ship, the great- er the number of the crew. The system of shipping-offices and outfitters breaks up almost all the personal contact between master and men. They come on board at the hour of sailing. A gang of rig- gers, stevedores, or lightermen work the vessel into the stream. A handful of boosy wretches are bundled into the fore- castle, and as many more rolled, dead- drunk, into their bunks, to sleep off their last spree. The mates are set to the task of dragooning into order the unruly mass. Half the men have spent their advance, and mean to run as. soon as the ship ar- rives. They intend to do as little as they can,to soger, and shirk, and work against the ship all they can. The captain cares only to make a quick passage and get what he can out of the crew. Commu- nity of interest there is none. Brutal au- thority is pitted against sullen discontent. In the old days of the little white-head- ed farmers boys dreams, there were dis- covery- and trading-ships sailing into un- known seas, and finding fairy islands never visited before. There were savages to trade with,to fight with, it might be. There were a thousand perils and adven- tures that called for all the manly and ennobling qualities both of generous com- mand and loyal obedience. It was a point of honor to stick by ship and cap- tain while ship and captain remained to stick by; for the success of a voyage depended on such mutual trust and help. But now where is the seas secret? There is hardly a square league of water which has not been sailed over. Find an island large enough to land a goat upon, and you will find it laid down in the charts,and, if it be only far enough south, a Stonington sealer at anchor un- der its lee, or a New Bedford whalers crew ashore picking up drift-wood. Where are the old dangers of the sea? We are fast learning to calculate for the storms, and to run from them. Steam-fri~ates have ended forever the pirates of the Spanish Main. The long, low, black schooner, which could sail dead to wind- ward through the pages of the cheap 48 Akn of (Ite Sea. [January, yellow-covers, and the likeness of which sported its skull and crossbones on the said covers, is to be met with nowhere else. Neither the Isle of Pines nor the numberless West India keys know her or her romantic commander any more. The relations of trade, too, have changed with the changes of Science. We were once gathered with the group of travel- lers who are wont to smoke the cigar of peace beside the pilot-house of one of our noble Sound steamers. As we rounded the Battery and sped swiftly up the East River, the noblest avenue of New York, lined with the true palaces of her mer- chant-princes,----an avenue which by its solid and truthful architecture half atones for the flimsiness of its land structures,~- as we passed the ocean steamships lying at the Hook, the s~~captains about me began to talk of the American triumphs of speed. They say to the Englishmen now, said one, that were going to take the berths out of the Pacific. (She had just made the then crack passage.) When the English fellows ask, What for? they say, Because Collins intends to run her for a day-boat. This extrav- aganza raised a laugh; but one of the older brethren shook his head solemnly and sadly. Its all very well, said he; but what with a steamer twice a week, and your telegraph to New Orleans, they know whats going on at Liverpool as well as if they were at Princes Dock. It dont pay now to lay a week alongside the levee on the chance of five cents for cotton. It was a text that suggested a long homily. The sbipmaster was degraded from his old position of the merchants friend, confidential agent, and often brother-merchant. He was to become a mere conductor, to take the ship from port to port. No longer identified with the honor and success of a great and princely house, with the old historic kings of the Northwest Coast, or of Canton, or of Calcutta, he sinks into a mere navigator, and a smuggler of Geneva watches or French embroideries. ~Te state facts. Thus much has Sci- ence done to deteriorate the men of the sea. It has robbed them of all the noblest parts of their calling. It has taken away the spirit of adventure, the love of enter- prise, and the manly spirit which braved unknown dangers. It has destroyed their interest by its new-modelling of trade; it has divided labor, and is constantly striving to solve the problem, How to work a ship without requiring from the sailor any courage or head-work, or anything, in short, but mere muscle. It interferes with the healthful relations of officer and man. The docks of Liverpool are a magnificent work, but they necessitate the driving of the seaman from his ship into an atmos- phere reeking with pollution. The steam- tugs of New York are a wonderful con- venience, but they help to further many a foul scheme of the Cherry-Street crimps and land-sharks. For all this Science owes a remedy. It must be in a scientific way. We have indicated some of the leading causes of the decline of the seamans character. The facts are very patent. Step into any shipping-office, or consult any sca-captaiR of your acquaintance, and you will have full evidence of what we say. The remedy must not be outside the difficulty. You may build Bethels into which the sailor wont come, and Homes where he wont stay, distribute ship-loads of tracts, and scatter Bibles broadcast, but you will still have your work to do. The Bethel, the Home, and the Bible are all right, but they are for the shore, and the sailors home is on the sea. It points an address prettily, no doubt, to picture a group of pious sailors reading their Bibles aloud of a Sunday afternoon, and entertaining each other with pro- found theological remarks, couched in ha- zy nautical language. But what is the real truth of the case? It may be a ship close-hauled, with Cape Horn under her lee,all hands on deck for twelve hours,sleet, snow, and storm,the slide over the forecastle hatchway,no light below by which to make out a line even of the excellent type of the American 1859.1 Men of the Sea. 49 Bible Society, and on deck a gale blow- In, that would take the leaves bodily out of any book short of a fifteenth-century folio,this, with the men now reeling and now shaking out topsails and every other thing, as the gale rates or lulls, in the hope of working to windward of certain destruction. The remedy, to be effectual, must touch the seamans calling. It is of no use to appeal to his better nature, if he hasnt any. If you make a drudge a.nd a beast of him, you cant do him much good by preaching at him. The working of the present system is, that there are afloat a set of fellows who are a sort of no- countrymen. Like the beach-combers of the Pacific, they have neither coun- try, home, nor friends, and are as differ- ent from the 01(1 class of American sailors as the condottiere from the loyal soldier. Let the navigation-laws be enforced first of all, and see that the due proportion of the crews of every ship be native- orn. Let the custom-house protections be no longer the farce they are,where a man who talks of awlin haft the main tack is set down as a n.ative of Marthas ~ineyard, and his messmate, who couldnt say peas without betraying County Cork, is permitted to hail from the inte- rior of Pennsylvania. Let the ship-own- ers combine (it is for their interest) to do away with the whole body of ship- ping-agents, middlemen, and land-sharks. Jack will take his pleasure ashore,you cant help that; and perhaps so would you, Sir, after six months of old horse and stony biscuit, with a leaky forecastle and a shorthanded crew. Jack will take his pleasure, and that in ways we may all of us object to; but, for Heavens sake, break up a system of which the whole object is to degrade the man into the mere hack of a set of shore harpies. Do not leave him in the hands of those whom you are now permitting to com- bine with you to clear him out as swiftly as possible, and then dispatch him to sea. Let the captains ship their own crews on board the ship, and do away with the system of advances. But, at any rate, VOL. Hi. 4 do learn to treat the sailor as if he were not altooether a fool. He has sense, plenty of it, shrewd, strong, common sense, and more real gentlemanly feeling than we on shore generally su~)pose, a good deal of faith, and certain standing principles of sea-morality. But at the same time he has prejudices and whims utterly unaccountable to men living on shore. He will forfeit one or two hun- dred dollars of wages to run from a ship and captain with which he can find no fault. He will ship the next day in a worse craft for smaller wages. You cannot understand his impulses and moods and grievances till you see them from a forecastle point of view. It may be that Science will solve the riddle by castin~ aside the works and imi)rovements of a thousand years,the wave line, the spar, the sail, and all, and with them the men of the sea. It may be that Leviathans will march unheedingly through the mountain waves, that steam and the Winanss model will obliterate old inventions and labors and triumphs. Blake and Raleigh and Fro- bisher and Dampier may be known np more. The poetry and the mystery of the sea may perish altogether, as they have in part. Out of the past looks a bronzed and manly face; along the deck of a phantom-ship swings a square ana~ well-knit form. I hear, in memory, the. ring of his cheerful voice. I see his alert and prompt obedience, his self-re- specting carriage, and I know him for the man of the sea, who was with Hull in the Constitution and Porter in the Essex. I look for him now upon the broad decks of the magnificent mer- chantmen that lie along the slips of New York, and in his place is a lame and stunted, bloated and diseased wretch, spiritless, hopeless, reckless. Has he knowledge of a seamans duty? The. dull sodden brain can carry the custom- ary orders of a ships duty, but more than that it cannot. Has he hopes of advance- ment? His horizon is bounded by the bar and the brothel. A dogs life, a dogs berth, and a dogs death are his heritage~. 50 iJien of the Sea. [January, The old illusion still pr vails and has power over little towheaded Joseph on the Berkshire interval. It will not pre- vail much longer. It is fast yielding to the power of facts. The Joes of next year may run from home in obe- dience to the planetary destiny which cas their horoscope in Neptune, but they will not run to the forecastle. We shall have officers and men of a different class,the Spartan on the quarter-deck, the Ilelot in the forecastle. We have it now. A story of brutal wrong on shipboard startles the pub- lic. A mutiny breaks out in the Mersey, and a mate is beaten to death, and we wonder why the service is so demoral- ized. The story could be told by a lance at the names upon the shipping- papers. The officers are American,the men are foreigners, blacks, Irish, Ger- mans, non-descripts, but hopelessly sev- ered from the chances of the quarter- deck. The law may interpose a strong arm, and keep the officer from violence, the men from mutiny. We may enact a Draconian code which shall maintain a sullen and revengeful order upon the seas, but all fellowship and mutual help- fulness are gone. When the day of trial eomes,the wreck, the fire, the leak, subordination is lost, and every man scrambles for his own selfish safety, leav- ing women and children to the flames and the waves. Why is it that ships, dismasted, indeed, but light and staunch, re so often found rolling abandoned on the seas? It is the daily inci(lent of our marine columns. I have been told by a old shipmaster, how, when he was a young mate, his ship was dismasted on th~ Banks of Newfoundland, on a voyage to Europe. The captain had been dis- abled and the vessel was leaking. He came into command. But in those days men never dreamed of leaving their ship till she was ready to leave them. They rigged jury-masts, and, under short can- vas and working at the pumps, brought their craft to the mouth of Plymouth Harbor. The pilot demanded salvage, and was refused leave to come on board. The mate had been into that port before, was a good seaman and a sharp observer, and he took his vessel safely to her an- chorage himself, rather than burden his owners with a heavy claim. Captains and mates will not now-a-days follow that lead, because they cannot trust their men, because with every emergen- cy the morale of the forecastle is utterly gone. For all this there is of course no uni- versal panacea. Nor do I believe that legislation will much help the matter. The common-law of the seas, well car- ried out by competent courts of admi- ralty, is better than many statutes. For emergencies require extraordinary pow- ers and a wide discretion. There can be no divided rule in a ship. But if every man know his place and his duty, and none overstep it, there will come thereof successful and happy voyages. There must be discipline, subordination, and law. The republic& theory stops with the shore. Obey orders, though you break owners, is the Magna Charta of the main. This can be well and wisely carried out only with some homogeneity of the ships company, with a community of feeling and a community of interest. Everybody who has been off soundings knows, or ought to know, the difference between things done with a will and sogerin g. If it be important on land to adjust the relations of employer and em- ployed, it is doubly important on the sea, where the peril and the privation are great. For it is a hard life, a life of un- productive toil, that oftenest shows no results while accomplishing great ends. It cannot be made easy. The gale and the lee-shore are the same as when the sea-kings of old d~ red them and did battle with them in the heroic energy of their old Norse blood. The wet, the cold, the exposure must be, since you cannot put a Chilsons furnace into a ships forecastle, nor wear India-rubbers an(l carry an umbrella when you go aloft. But men will brave all such discomforts and the attendant perils with a hearty delight, if you will tr~ in up the right 1859.] Ililien of the Sea. 51 spirit in them. Better the worst night hat ever darkened off Hatteras, than the consumption-laden atmosphere of the starvin6 journeyman-tailors garret, the slow inhalation of pulverized steel with which the needle-maker draws hL very breath l The seas work makes a man, and leaves him with his duty nobly done, man at the last. Coning ,loyal obe- dience, patient endurance, the abnega- tion of selfishness,these are the 1 ssons the sea teaches. Why must th shore make such diabolical haste and try such fien& sh ingenuity to ui do them? The sea is pure and free, th land is firm and tahl ,hut where they meet,. the tide rises and falls, leaving a little belt of sodd n mud, of slippery, slimy weeds, where the dead refuse of the se~ is cast up to ret in the bet sun. Something such is the welcome the men of th sea get from that ~hore which they s rye. Into this Serbo~ ian g bet veen them and ~s we let them flounder, instead of building out into their domain great ud noble piers and wharves, upon which they c~ iv land securely an come among ~15. Some years ago, a young scholar was led to step forth from his natural sphere ~nto the foreca~tlc of a merchautman. No quarrel with the world, no romantic fancy, drove him thither, but a plain com- ~non-sense p rpose. He saw what he ~aw fairly, and he has told the tale in a ;oiume which, for picturesque clearness, igor, and manly truthfulness, will scarce- ly find its qual this side the a~ of Eliza- beth. He owed it to the sea, for the sea ave him health, self-reliance, and fear- lessness, and that persistent en rgy which caved him from becoming that which ele- ~ant tastes and native refinement make of too many of our young men, a mere 1iterary or social dilettante, and raised him up to he a champion of right, a chival- rous deftuder of the oppressed, whose name has honored his callim g. His book was an effort in th right direction. By that we of the land were brought nearer those to whom this country owes so much, its merchant-seamen. But we want more than the work, however no- ble, of one man. We want the persist- ent and Christian interest in the elevation of the seaman of every man who is con- nected with his calling. We do not want a Miss-Nancyish nor Rosa-Matildan sen- timentalism, but a good, earnest, practical handling of the matter. We call our merchants princes. If wealth and lavish expenditure make the prince, they are, indeed, fit peers of Esterhazy or Lich- tenstein. But the true princely heart looks after the humblest of its subjects. When the poor of Lyons were driven from their homes by the flooded Rhone, Louis Napoleon urged his horse breast- deep into the tide to see with his own eyes that his people were thoroughly res- cued. The merchant whose clippers have coined him gold should spare more than a passing thought upon the men who hung over the yards and stood watchful at the wheel. Englands earls can afford look after the toiling serfs in their col- lieries the patricians of New York and Boston might read as startling a page as ever darkened a Parliamentary Blue- book, with a sin5le glance into Cherry and Ann Streets. For a thousand years time Anglo-Saxon race has been sending its contributions to the nation of the Men of the Sea. Ever since the Welshman paddled his coracle across Cacruarvon Bay, and Saxon Al- fred mused over the Danish galley wreck- ed upon his shore, each century has been adding new names of fame to the Vi- kings bead-roll. Is the list full? has Valhalla no niche more for them? and must tho men of the sea pass away for- ever? If it must be so, it must. Cue sarit sar& . But if there is no overrimi- ing Fate in this, but only the working of casual causes, it is somebodys care that they be remnoved. In almost 11 handicrafts and callings the last thirty years lmave wrought a vast and rapid de- terioration of the men who fill them. Machinery, the ~oasted civilizer, is the true barbarizer. The sea has not escap- ed. Its men are not what tlme men of old were. The question is, Can we let 32 Cldcadee. [January, them go? can they be dispensed with among the elements of national great- ness? Passing fair is Venice, but she sits in lonely widowhood in the deserted Adri- atic. Amalfi crouches under her cliffs in the shame of her poverty. The harbors of Tyre and Carthage are lonesome pools. They tell their own story. When the men of the sea no longer find a home or a welcome on the shore,when they are driven to become the mere hirelings who fl~ht the battles of commerce, like other hirelings they will serve beneath the flag where the pay and the provant are most abundant. The vicissitudes of traffic are passing swift in these latter days; and it does not lie beyond the reach of a possible future that the great commerciul capitals of the Atlantic coast may be called to pause in their giddy race, even before they have rebuilded the Quarantine Hospital, or laid the cap- stone of the pharos of Minots Ledge. CIJICADEE. THE song-sparrow has a joyous note, The brown thrush whistles bold and free; But my little singing-bird at home Sings a sweeter ng to me. The cat-bird, at morn or evening, sings With liquid tones like gurgling water; But sweeter by far, to my fond ear, Is the voice of my little daughter. Four years and a half since she was born, The blackeaps piping cheerily, And so, as she came in winter with them, She is called our Chicadee. She sings to her dolls, she sings alone, And singing round the house she goes, Out-doors or within, her happy heart With a childlike song oerflows. Her mother and I, though busy, hear, With mingled pride and pleasure listening, And thank the inspiring Giver of song, While a tear in our eye is glistening. Oh! many a bird of sweetest song I hear, when in woods or mends I roam; But sweeter by far than all, to me, Is my Chicadee at home.

32 Cldcadee. [January, them go? can they be dispensed with among the elements of national great- ness? Passing fair is Venice, but she sits in lonely widowhood in the deserted Adri- atic. Amalfi crouches under her cliffs in the shame of her poverty. The harbors of Tyre and Carthage are lonesome pools. They tell their own story. When the men of the sea no longer find a home or a welcome on the shore,when they are driven to become the mere hirelings who fl~ht the battles of commerce, like other hirelings they will serve beneath the flag where the pay and the provant are most abundant. The vicissitudes of traffic are passing swift in these latter days; and it does not lie beyond the reach of a possible future that the great commerciul capitals of the Atlantic coast may be called to pause in their giddy race, even before they have rebuilded the Quarantine Hospital, or laid the cap- stone of the pharos of Minots Ledge. CIJICADEE. THE song-sparrow has a joyous note, The brown thrush whistles bold and free; But my little singing-bird at home Sings a sweeter ng to me. The cat-bird, at morn or evening, sings With liquid tones like gurgling water; But sweeter by far, to my fond ear, Is the voice of my little daughter. Four years and a half since she was born, The blackeaps piping cheerily, And so, as she came in winter with them, She is called our Chicadee. She sings to her dolls, she sings alone, And singing round the house she goes, Out-doors or within, her happy heart With a childlike song oerflows. Her mother and I, though busy, hear, With mingled pride and pleasure listening, And thank the inspiring Giver of song, While a tear in our eye is glistening. Oh! many a bird of sweetest song I hear, when in woods or mends I roam; But sweeter by far than all, to me, Is my Chicadee at home. like illustrious Obscure. THE iLLUSTRIOUS OBSCURE. A SECOND LETTER FROM PAUL POT- TER, OF NEW YORK, TO TIlE DON ROBERTO WAGONERO, CO~ MORANT OF WASHINGTON, IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 22728, Five Hundred and Fifty-First St., New York, June 1, 1868. DEAR DON BOBUs,I see that you have been Christian enough to send my ast letter to The Atlantic Monthly, and that the editors of that famous work have confirmed my opinion of their high taste by printing it. Your disposition of my MSS. I do not quarrel with; al- bough it must be regaTded i law as an illegal liberty, inasmuch as the Court of Chan cry has decided that a man does not part with pToperty in his own letters merely by sending them; but Iask per- mission to hint that your conduct will acquire a cc am graceful rotundity, if ~ou will remit to me in current funds he m nificent sum of money which lie whole-souled and gentlemanly pro- rietors pardon the verbal habits of ny humble calling !have without doubt already remitted to you. Pecunics prima qucer nda,virtus post nummos. find on, I do not expect to as well paid as Sannazarius. Who the dense ~ as he? I hear you growling. My dear Iberian friend, I really thought that you knew everything; but I find that you have set up for an Admirable Crich- ton upon an inadequate capital. Know, then, that a great many years ago San- nazariusnever mind who he was,I do not justly know, myselfwrote an hexastich on the city of Venice, and sent it to the potent Senators of that moist settlement It was as follows Viderat Adriacis Venetash Keptunus in undis Stare urbem et toti ponere jura man. une mihi Tarpeias quantumvis, Jupiter, arcs, Objice, et illa tui mcenia Martis, ait; Sic Pelago Tibrim pr~fers; urbem uspice utramque, 111am homines dices, hanc posuisse deos. Which maybe liberally rendered thus When sea-farin~ Neptune saw Venice well- founded And stiffly coercing the Adrian main, The jolly tar cried, in a rapture unbounded: Why, dash my eyes, Jove, but I have you again; You may boast of your city, and Mars of his walling; But while Im afloat, Ill stick to it that mine Beats yours into rope-yarn, in spite of your bawling, Just as snuffy old Tiber is flogged by the brine; And he who the difference cannot discern Is a lob-sided lubber from bowsprit to stern. V~ry free, indeed ! you will say. It minht have been worse, if I had staid at college a year or two longer, or if I had been elevated to a place in the Triennial Catalogue,thus: PAULUS POTTER, LL.D., S. T. D., Ba- rat. V. Gubernator, Lit. Hum. Prof., e Cong., Prmses Rerumpub. Fred., A. B. Yal., M.D. Dart., D.D. Dart., P.D. V. Mon., etc., etc., etc. I have put myself down stelliger, be- cause it is certain, that, after obtaininr, all the above honors, if not an inmate of the cold and silent tomb, I should be false to my duties as a member of society, and a nuisance to my fellow-creatures. Tb little anachronism of translating after be- ing translated you will also pardon; and talking of the tomb, let us return to San- nazarius. I pray that your nicely noble nose may not be offended by the tarry flavor of my version. You will find the Latin in Howells Survey of Venice, 1651,a book so thorou~hly useless, an so scarce withal, that I am sure it must e in your library. By the way, as you 1859.]

like illustrious Obscure. THE iLLUSTRIOUS OBSCURE. A SECOND LETTER FROM PAUL POT- TER, OF NEW YORK, TO TIlE DON ROBERTO WAGONERO, CO~ MORANT OF WASHINGTON, IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 22728, Five Hundred and Fifty-First St., New York, June 1, 1868. DEAR DON BOBUs,I see that you have been Christian enough to send my ast letter to The Atlantic Monthly, and that the editors of that famous work have confirmed my opinion of their high taste by printing it. Your disposition of my MSS. I do not quarrel with; al- bough it must be regaTded i law as an illegal liberty, inasmuch as the Court of Chan cry has decided that a man does not part with pToperty in his own letters merely by sending them; but Iask per- mission to hint that your conduct will acquire a cc am graceful rotundity, if ~ou will remit to me in current funds he m nificent sum of money which lie whole-souled and gentlemanly pro- rietors pardon the verbal habits of ny humble calling !have without doubt already remitted to you. Pecunics prima qucer nda,virtus post nummos. find on, I do not expect to as well paid as Sannazarius. Who the dense ~ as he? I hear you growling. My dear Iberian friend, I really thought that you knew everything; but I find that you have set up for an Admirable Crich- ton upon an inadequate capital. Know, then, that a great many years ago San- nazariusnever mind who he was,I do not justly know, myselfwrote an hexastich on the city of Venice, and sent it to the potent Senators of that moist settlement It was as follows Viderat Adriacis Venetash Keptunus in undis Stare urbem et toti ponere jura man. une mihi Tarpeias quantumvis, Jupiter, arcs, Objice, et illa tui mcenia Martis, ait; Sic Pelago Tibrim pr~fers; urbem uspice utramque, 111am homines dices, hanc posuisse deos. Which maybe liberally rendered thus When sea-farin~ Neptune saw Venice well- founded And stiffly coercing the Adrian main, The jolly tar cried, in a rapture unbounded: Why, dash my eyes, Jove, but I have you again; You may boast of your city, and Mars of his walling; But while Im afloat, Ill stick to it that mine Beats yours into rope-yarn, in spite of your bawling, Just as snuffy old Tiber is flogged by the brine; And he who the difference cannot discern Is a lob-sided lubber from bowsprit to stern. V~ry free, indeed ! you will say. It minht have been worse, if I had staid at college a year or two longer, or if I had been elevated to a place in the Triennial Catalogue,thus: PAULUS POTTER, LL.D., S. T. D., Ba- rat. V. Gubernator, Lit. Hum. Prof., e Cong., Prmses Rerumpub. Fred., A. B. Yal., M.D. Dart., D.D. Dart., P.D. V. Mon., etc., etc., etc. I have put myself down stelliger, be- cause it is certain, that, after obtaininr, all the above honors, if not an inmate of the cold and silent tomb, I should be false to my duties as a member of society, and a nuisance to my fellow-creatures. Tb little anachronism of translating after be- ing translated you will also pardon; and talking of the tomb, let us return to San- nazarius. I pray that your nicely noble nose may not be offended by the tarry flavor of my version. You will find the Latin in Howells Survey of Venice, 1651,a book so thorou~hly useless, an so scarce withal, that I am sure it must e in your library. By the way, as you 1859.] 54 The Illustrious Obscure. [January, have written travels in all parts of this and other worlds, without so much as stirring from your arm-chair, and have calmly and coolly published the same, I must quote to you the rebuke of Howell, who says, He would not have adventur- ed upon the remote, outlandish subject, had he not bin himself upon the place had he not had practicall conversation with the people of whom he writes. This veracious person very properly dedicated his book to the saints in Parliament as- sembled, many of whom had, soon after, ample leisure for perusing the fat folio. Nor is it perfectly certain that you have read the hook, although you may own it; since it is your sublime pleasure to collect books like Guiccardinis History, which somebody went to the galleys rather than read through. But let us re in, my dear Bob s, to the money question. Know, then, that the Sannazarian performance above quot- ed, so different from the language of the malignant and turbaned Turks, filled with rapture the first Senator and the second Senator and all the other Senators men- tioned in Act I., Scene 3, of Othello, so that, in rand committee, and, for all I know to the contrary, with Brabantio in the chair, they voted to the worthy au- thor a reward of three hundred zechins, or, to state it cambistically in our own be- loved Columbian currency, $1,233.20, this being the highest literary remuner- ation upon record, if we except the a- told sums lavished by The New York Blotter upon the fascinating author of Steel and Strychnine; or, the Dagger and the Bowl. But as we have had enough of Sannazarius, let us leave him with the gentle hope that his check was cashed in specie at the Rialto Bank, and that he made a good use of the money. Now, dear Don, in the great case o~ Virtue vs. Money, I appear for the de- fendant. Confound Virtue, say I, and the whole tribe of the Virtuous! I am as weary of both as was that sensible Athenian of hearing Aristides called The Just; and if I had been there, and a legal voter, I know into which box my humble oyster-shell would haxe been plumped. Such was the rile, self-complacent habit of the Athenians, that I suspect the best fellows then were not good fello~ at all. And what did the son of Lysim- achus make by being recalled from ban- ishment? He died so r, that he wa~ buri at the public charge, a~ d left a couple of daughters as out-door pen- sioners upon public charity. The Athe- nians, I aver, ere a duncified race; an it would have pleased me hugely to have been in the neighborh when Alcibi- ades rescinded his dogs charming tail, a fine practical protest, although unpleas- ant to the dog. Vi no may be weE enough by way of variety; but for good, steady, permanent ple~ sure, com- mend me to Avarice! Yes, 0 my Bobus, I, who was once, as to money, still i& motion of raging wast , and, like Timon, senseless of expense, I, who have many a time borrowed cash of you witl amiable recklessness, and have never ask you to take it back again, I who have had many a race with th. constable, and have sometime been overtaken, I, who ha e in my callow days spoken disrespcctfu ly of Mar. mon in several charming copies of verses, am axing sordid. I am for the King of Lydia a~ainst Solon. How do I knox that the insolent Cyrus was not blandish- ed out of his bloodthirsty intention of roasting his deposed brother by a little cash which the son of Gyges had save out of the wide, weltering wreck of his wealth, and had cone aled in his boots. Royal palms were not wholly free fro pruritus even then. Why has this silly world still persisted in putting long ears upon Midas? I do not know whether he sang better or worse than Apollo; and 1 am sure it is much better, and bespeaks more sense, to play the flute ill than to play it well. Depend upon it, his Maj- esty of Phrygia has been very much abused by the mythol Ists. ~ith that particular skill of his, during an epidemic of the hreritos pecuniaria, (Angi. shorts,) he would have been just the person to coax into ones house of accompt, at fly 1859.] The IllusirThus Obscure. minutes before two oclock in the after- noon, to work a little invpluntary trans- mutation,to change the coal-scuttle into angots, and the ruler into a great, gorged, glittering rouleau. So little would his auricular eccentricity have hindered his welcome, that I verily believe he would have been heartily received, if he had come with ensanguined chaps straight from the pillory, and had left th ears nailed the post. Dont talk to me about filthy lucre! Pray, when would Sheikh Tfihfir, that em- inent Koordish saint, have become con- vinced that he was a great sinner, if they had not carried about the contribution- boxes in tI e little New England church- s? Do you think it has cost nothing to demonstrate to the widows of Scindiak the folly of sutlee? Dont you know that at has been an expensive work t~ per- uade the Khonds of Goomsoor give up roastin~ each other in the name of heaven? Very fine is Epic tus, ut will h be your b~ ii? Will Diog- enes bring home legs of mutton? Can you breakfast upon th simple fact that riches hay, wings and use them? Can you lunch upon recites venitatu ~. Are loaves and fishes intrinsically wicked? As for Virtue, we have the opinion of Horace himself, that it is viler than the vilest weed, without fortune to support it. Poets, of all men, are supposed to live most easily upon air; and yet, Don Bob, is not a fat poet, like Jai ie Thomson, quite likely, althou~h plumper than be- seems a bard, to be ten thousand times healthier in his singin than my Lord Byron thinning himself upon cold pota- toes and vinegar? Do -on think that Ovid cuts a very respectable figure, blubbering on the Euxine shore and sending penitential letters to Augustus and afterward to Tib rius? He was a poor puppy, and as well deserved to have three wives as any sinner I ever heard of. I)ont you think, that, if the cities of Smyrna, Chios, Colophon, Sal- amis, Rhodes, Argos, and Athens had given over disputing about the birth- place of the author of the Iliad and other poenis, and had pooled in a handsome sum to send him to a blind asylum, it would have been a sensible proceeding? Do you think Milton would have written less sublimely, if he had been more prosperous? Do you think Otway choking, or Hudibras Butler dying by inches of slow starvation, pleasant to look upon? Are we to keep any terms with the thin-visaged jade, Poverty, after she has broken down a great soul like John Drydens? That is a very foolish notion which has so long and so universally prevailed, that a poet must, by the necessity of the case, be poor. David was reckoned an eminent bard in his day, and he was a king; and Solomon, another sweet singer, was a king also. Depend upon it, no man sings, or thinks, or, if he be a man, works, the worse for being tolerably pro- vided for in basket and pocket-money. Objectively considered, I say that there is not in this world a sadder sight, one so touchingly suggestive of departed joys, departed never to return, as a pocket- book, flat, planed, exenterated, crushed by the elephantine foot of Fate,nor is there one so ridiculous, inutile, imper- tinent, possibly reproachful and disagree- ably didactic. Think of it, Don Bob, for you in your day, as I in mine, have seen it. Tis so much leather stripped from the innocent beast, and cured and colored and polished and stamped to no purpose,with a prodigious show of empty compartments, like banquet-halls deserted. It has a clasp to mount guard over nothing, a clasp made of steel digged from the bowels of the earth, and smelted and hammered and burnished, only to keep watch and war(l after the thief has made his visit leisurely. Tis an egregious chaos. Tis an absurd vacuum. ft make it still more un- pleasant, there are your memoranda. You are reminded that upon Thursday last you purchased butter flavous, or chops rosy; hut where is hint, sign, di- rection, or instruction touching the pur- chase of either upon Thursday next? How much would it have helped poor 56 The Iliastr~ous O1~scure. [January, Belisarius, in his sore estate, if he had kept a record of his household expenses, as my friend Minimus does? By the same token, he sometimes makes odd misentries, pious figurative fictions, in order to save the feelings of irs. Mini- mis, who is auditor-general and comp- troller of the household. And speakin~ of Belisarins, just fancy the hard fhte of that gallant and decayed soldier! Figure him left naked by the master whom he had served so well, crying out for a beggarly obolus! Now this, you must know, was one of the least respectable coins of ancient times, being of about the value of one farthing sterling. If the poor man had got his battered old helmet full of them, the ponderous alms would not have driven the wolf gaunt and grinning many paces from his ualid home,always admitting that he had any home, however squalid, to crawl into at sunset. Arid how often he crouched and whined, vhite-headed and bare-headed all day, and did not get a lepton (which was, in value, thirty-one three hundred thirty-sixths of an English farthinr~) for his pains! Tis uch a pitiful story, that I am trrily glad that the eminent German scholar, Nicotinus of Heidelberg, in his work upon the Greek Particle, has pretty clearly shown (Vol. xxviii. pp. 2850 to 5945) that the story may be regarded as a myth, illustrating the great, eternal, and universal danger of ultimate seedi- ess, in which the most prosperous crea- tures live. And just think of Napoleon squabbling about wine with Sir Hudson Lowe,tbe hero of Arcola, without cour- age enough to hang himself. Now you will notice, my dear friend, that he did not lose his dignity, until, with true Brit- ish instinct, they took away his cash, and even opened his letters to confiscate his remittances. He should have hidden the imperial spoons in a secret pocket. He should, at least, have saved a sixpence wherewithal to buy Mr. Alison. You may think, dear Don, that my views are exceedingly sordid. I readily admit that all the philosophy and poetry, and I suppose I must add the morality, of the world are against me. I know that it is prettier to turn up ones nose at ready cash. I have not found, indeed, that for the poetical pauper, in his proper person, the world, whether sentimental or stolid, has any decp reverence. Will old Jacob Plum, who lives on an unapproach- ably high avenue,bis house-front and his heart of the same material,and who made two mints of money in the patent poudrette, come to my shabby little attic in Nassau Street, and ask me to dinner sim- ply because The Samos (Ill.) Aristar- chean has spoken with condescending blandness of my poems? I know that Miss Plum dotes upon may productions. I know that she pictures me to herself as a Cory- don in sky-blue smalls and broad-brimmed straw hat, playing elegies in five flats, or driving the silly sheep home through th evenin~ shades. Now, whatever else I may be, I am not that. I keep my re- finement for gala-days; I do not shave, because I would save sixpenccs; I do not wear purple and fine linen. I should b a wofiil disappointment to Mistress Plum: for I like beer with my beef, and a heart- easing tug at my ipe afterwards; an as for the album, we should nev r get along at all, for I ha e too much respect for poetry to write it for nothing. But if I have not wholly escaped the shiftless- ness and improvidence of my vocation, if I have never rightly coniprehendem the noble maxim, A penny saved is a penny gained, (which c~ nnot in rio-id mathesis be true, because by saving the penny you miss the enjoyment: that is, half-and-half, chops, or cheese, which the penny aforesaid would purchase; so rhat the penny saved is no better than peb- bles which you may gather by tin, bushel upon any shore,)if I like to haunt Old Toms, and talk of politics and poetry with the dear shabby set who nightly gather there, and are so fraternally blind to the holes in each others coats,~vhy it is all a matter between myself and Mrs. Potter, and perhaps the clock. We have a good, stout, manly supper,no Apician kickshaws, the triumphs of palate-science, no nightingales tongues, no peacocks 1859.] Tke Il1ustr~ous Obscure. 57 brains, no French follies,but just a rash- er or so, in its naked and elegant sim- plicity. Montaignes eook, who treated of his art with a settled countenance and magisterial gravity, would have turned his nose skyward at our humble repast; and he would have cast like scorn upon that to which Milton with such charming grace invited his friend, in one of those match- less sonnets which make us weep to think that the author did not write a hundred of them. But Montaignes cook may follow his first master, the late Cardinal Caraffa, to that place where there will alwa~ys be fire for his saucepans! The epicures of Old Toms would deal very crisply with that spit-bearing Italian, or his shade, should it appear to them. We are not very polished, but most of us could give hints to men richer than we can hope to be of a wiser use of money than the world is in any dange~ of witnessing. There is Old Sanders, the proof-reader, illegitimate S. we call hiin,who knows where there is an exquisite black-letter Chaucer which he pants to possess, and which he would possess, were it not for a fear of Mrs. Sanders and a tender love of the little Sanderses. There is youn~ Smoocb,he who smashed the Fly-Gal- lery in The Mahstick newspaper, and was not for a moment taken in by the new Titian. There is Crosshatch, who has the marvellous etching by Rem- brandt, of wh~ch there are only three copies in the world, and which he will not sell, no, Sir,not to the British Museum. The. e is Mr. Brevicr Lead, who has in my time s ecessively and suc- cessfully smitten and smashed all the pot- entates, big and little, of Europe, and who has in his museum a wooden model of the Alsop bomb. Give them money, and Sanders will rebuild and refurnish the Alexandrian Library,Smooch will bid every young painter in America reset his palette and try again, and Brevier Lead will be fool enough to sL rt a newsp~ per upon his own account, and, while his purse holds out to bleed, will make it a good one. But until all these high and mighty things happen,until we come into our property,we must make the best of matters. I know a clever Broad- way publisher, who, if I were able to meet the expenses, would bring out my minor poems in all the pomp of cream- laid paper, and with all the circumstance of velvet binding, with illustrations by Darley, and with favorable notices in all the newspapers. I should cut a fine fig- ure, metaphorically, if not arithmetically speaking; whereas my farthing rush-light is now sputtering, clinkerin~ and nutter- a ing to waste, and all because I have not a pair of silver snuffers. If you wish me to move the world, produce your lever! Your wealthy bard has at least audience and if he cannot sing, he may thank his own hoarse throat, and not the Destinies. For myselg dear Don Bob, having come into my inheritance of oblivion while living,having in vain called upon Fame to sound the trumpet, which I am sure is so obstinately plugged that it will never syllable my name, having reso- lutely determined to be nobodyI do not waste my sympathy upon myself, but generously bestow it upon a mob of fine fellows in all ages, who deserved, but did not grasp, a better fortune. All that live in human recollection are but a handful to the tribes that have been forgotten. You will be kind enough, my sardonic friend, to repress your sneers. I tell you that a great many worthy gentlemen and ladies have been shouldered out of the Pantheon who deserved at least a corner, and who would not while living have given sixpence to insure immortality, so certain were they of monuments harder than brass. The murrain among the poets is the severest. For, in the first place, a fine butterfly may have a pin stuck through his stomach even while living. There are Bavius and Mtuvius, who have been laughed at since Virgil wrote his Third Eclogue. Now why does the world laugh? What does the world know of either? They were stupid and malevolent, were they? Fray, how do you know that they were? You have Virgils word for it. But how do you know that Virgil was just? It might have been 58 The lllustrfeus Obscure. [January, the east wind; it might have been an in- digestion; it might have been Virgils vanity; it might have been all a mistake. When a man has once been thoroughly laughed down, people take his stupidity for granted; and although he may grow as wise as Solomon, living he is consid- ered a fool, dying he is regarded as a fool, and dead he is remembered as a fool. Do you not suppose that very re- spectable folk were pilloried in the Dun- ciad? My own opinion is, that a person must have had some merit, or he would not have been put there at all. How many of those who laugh at Dennis and Shadwell know anything of either? And let me ask you if the Pope set had such a superabundance of heart, that you would have been willing, with childlike confidence, to submit your own verses to their criticism? For myself, I am free to say that I have no patience with satir- ists. I never knew a just one. I never heard of a fair one. They are a mean, malicious, murdering tribe,they are a supercilious, dogmatical, envious, suspi- cious company,knocking down their fel- low-creatures in the name of Virtue for their own gratification,mere Mohawks, kept by family influence out of the lock- up. But of all Mohawks, Time is the fier- cest. If I were upon the high road to fame, if I had honestly determined to win immortality or perish in the attempt, I should look upon the gentleman with no clothing except a scanty forelock, and with no personal property save his scythe and hour-glass, as my greatest enemy, and I should behold the perpetual efforts made to kill him with perfect complacen- cy. This, I know, is not regarded as a strictly moral act; for this murderer of murderers is very much caressed by those who, in the name of Moses, would send a poor devil to his hempen destiny for striking an unlucky blow. how con- tinually is it beaten upon the juvenile tympanum, Be careful of Time, Time is money, Make much of Time! Certainly, 1 (10 not know what he has done to merit consideration so tender. The best that can he said of old Edax Rerum is that he has an unfailin~ appetite, and is not very fastidious about his provender,and that, if he does take heavy toll of the wheat, he also rids the world of no small amount of chaff. But tis such a prodigious maw! You think, Don Bob, tlsat you know the name of every man who has distin- guished himself since the days of Den- calion and Pyrrha. Let us see how much you know. I believe that in your day you had something to do with the new edition of the Aldine Poets. I therefore ask you, in the name of an outrjged gentleman, who is too dead to say much for himself, why you left out of the series my friend Mr. Robert Baston. You have used Baston very ill. Baston was an Eng- lish poet. Baston lived in the fourteenth century, and wove verses in Nottingham. When proud Edward went to Scotland, he took Baston along with him to sing his victories. Unhappily, Bruce caged the bird, and compelled him to amend his finest poems by striking out Edward, wherever the name of that revered mon- arch occurred, and inserting Robert, which, as I have said, be was obliged to do,and a very ridiculous mess the pro- cess must have made of Jr. Bastons productions. This is all I know of Bas- ton; but is not this enough to melt the toughest heart? No wonder he pro- logued his piping after the following dis- mal fashion In dreary verse my rhymes I make, Bewailing whilst such theme I take. However, Baston was a monk of the Carmelite species, and I hope he bore his agonies with religious bravery. And now let us make a skip down to Charles Aleyn, temp. Charles I. of bless- ed memory. A Sidney collegian of Cam- bridge, he began life as an usher in the celebrated school of Thomas Farnably, another great man of whom you never beard, 0 Don !a famous school, in Gold- smiths Rents, near Red-Cross Street, in the Parish of St. Giles, Cripplegate. Those were stirring times; but Aleyn managed to write, bcfore he died, in 1859.] The Illustrious Obscure. 59 1640, a rousing great poem, intituled, The Battailes of Crescey and Poietiers, under the Fortunes and Valour of King Edward the Third of that Name, and his Sonne, Edward, Prince of Wales, sur- named The Black. 8vo. 1633. Let me give you a taste of his quality, in the fol- lowing elaborate catalogue of the curiosi- ties of a battle-field Here a hand severed, there an ear was cropped; Here a chap fallen, and there an eye put out~ Here was an arm lopped off, there a nose dropped; Here half a man, and there a less piece fought; Like to dismemhered statues they did stand, Which had heen mangled hy Times iron hand. This is prosaic enough, and might have been written by a surgical student; but this is better The artificial wood of spears was wet With yet warm hlood; and tremhling in the wind, Did rattle like the thorns which Nature set On the rough hide of an armed porcu- pine; Or lookdd like the trees which dropp~d gore, Plucked from the tomh of slaughtered Poly- dore. So much for Mr. Charles Aleyn. But it is at the theatre, as you may well believe, that poets live and die most like the blithesome grasshoppers. The poor players, marvellous compounds of tin, feathers, and tiffany, fret but a brief hour; hut the playwright, less consider- ed alive, is sooner defunct. I have not Dodsleys Plays by me, hut, if my mem- ory does not (leceive me, not one of them keeps the stage; nor did (lear Charles Laush make many in love with that huge heap in the British Museum. Alas! all these good people, now grown so rusty, fusty, and forgotten, might have rolled under their tongues, as a sweet morsel, those lines which civil Abraham Cowley sent to Leviathan Ilobbes To things immortal Time can do no wrong; And that which never is to die forever must he young. Alas! they had great first nights and glorious third nights,lords and ladies smiled and the groundlings were affable, they lived in a paradise of compliment and casb,and then were no better off than the garreteer who took his damna- tion comfortably early upon the first night, and ran hack to his den to whim- per with mortification and to tremble with cold. There is worthy Mr. Shak- speare, of whom an amiable writer kind- ly said, in 1723, There is certainly a great deal of entertaimnent in his coin- ical humors, and a pleasing and well- distinguished variety in those characters which he thought fit to meddle with. His images are indeed everywhere so lively, that the thing he would represent stands full hefore you, and you possess every part of it. His sentiments are a and natural, and his expression just, and rais- ed in proportion to the sulBject and occa- sion. You may laugh at this as much as you please, Don Bob; but I think it quite as sensible as many of the criticisms of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.,as that one of his, for instance, upon Measure for Measure, which I never read without a feeling of personal injury. I should like to know if it is writing criticism to write, Of this play, the light or comic part is very natural and pleasing; but the grave scenes, if a few passages be excepted, have more labor than elegance. Now, if old Bolteourt had written instead, as he might have done, if the fit had been on him, Of this play, the heavy or tragic part is very natural and pleasing; but the comic scenes, if a few passages be excepted, have more labor than elegance, his remark would have heen quite as sono- rous, and just a little nearer the truth. For my own part, I think there is nothing finer in all Shakspeare than the interview between Angelo and Isabella, in the Sec- ond Act, or that exquisite outburst of the latter, afterward, INot with fond shekels of the tested gold, which is a line the sug- ar of which you can sensibly taste as you read it. Incledon used to wish that his old music-master could come down from heaven to Norwich, and could take the 60 The Illustrgous Obscure. [January, coach up to London to hear that dd Jew sing, referring thus civilly to the re- spectable John Braham. I have some- times wished that Shakspeare could make a similar descent, and face his critics. Ab! how much he could tell us over a single bottle of Rosa Solis at some new Mermaid extemporized for the oc- casion! What wild work would he make with the commentators long before we had exhausted the ordinate cups! and how, after we had come to the inordi- nate, would he be with difficulty pre- vented from marching at once to break the windows of his latest glossator! If anything could make one sick of the next age, it would be the shabby treat- ment which the Avonian has received. I do not wonder that the illustrious authors of Salmagundi said,Webequeathe our first volume to future generations, and much good may it do them! Heaven grant they may be able to read it! See- in~ that contemporary fame is the most profltable,that you can eat it, and drink it, and wear it upon your hack,I own that it is the kind for which I have the most absolute partiality. It is sure- ly better to be spoken well of by your neighbors, who do know you, than by those who do not know you, and who, if they commend, may do so by sheer acci- dent. You never heard of Mr. Ilorden, of Charles Knipe, of Thomas Lupon, of Edward Revet? Great men all, in their day! So there was Mr. John Smith claruos et renerabile nomen !who in 1677 wrote a comedy called Cytherca; or, the Enamoring Girdle. So there was Mr. Swinney, who wrote one play called The Quacks. So there was Mr. John Tutchin, 1685, who wrote The Unfortunate Shepherd. So there is Mr. William Smith, Mr. H. Smith, au- thor of The Princess of Parma, and Mr. Edmund Smith, 1710, author of Phedra and Hippolytus, who is buried in Wiltshire, under a Latin inscription as long as my arm. There is Thomas Yalden, D.D., 1690, who helped Dryden and Congreve in the translation of Ovid, who wrote a Hymn to Morning, com- mencing vigorously thus Parent of Day! whose beauteous beams of light Sprang from tbe darkeome womb of night! and who was a great friend of Addison, which is the best I know of him. He might have been, like Sir Philip Sidney, scholar, soldier, lover, saint,for Doc- tors of Divinity have been all four,but I declare that I have told you all I have learned about him. It is grievous to me, dear Bobus, a man of notorious gallantry, to find that the ladies, after consenting to smirch their rosy fingers with Erebean ink, are among the first who are discarded. If you will no into the College Library, Mr. Sibley will show you a charming copy of the works of Mrs. Behn, with a roguish, rakish, tempting little portrait of the writer prefixed. Poor Mrs. Beha was a notability as well as a notoriety in her day; and when I have great leisure for the work, I mean to write her life and do her justice. The task would have been worthy of Dc Foe; but, with a little help from you, I hope to do it passably. Poor Aphra! poet, dramatist, intriguant strum- pet! Worthy of no better fate, take my henison of light laughter and of tears! Then there is Mrs. Elizabeth Singer, who was living in 1723, who selected as the subject of her work nothing less than the Creation, and who was a woman of great religion. Her poem commences patron- izingly thus Hail! mighty Maker of the Universe! My song shall still thy glorious deeds re- hearse. Thy praise, whatever subject others choose, Shall be the lofty theme of my aspiring Muse. Elizabeth was a Somersetshire woman, a clothiers daughter; and if she had thrown away her lyre and gone back to the dis- taff; i do not think Parnassus would have broken its heart. Then there is our fair friend, Mrs. Molesworth. Her father was a Right Honorable Irish peer of the same name, who had some acquaintance, if not 1859.] The Illustrious Obscure. 61 a friendlier connection, with John Locke. Her Muse was rather high-skirted, as you may believe, when you read this epitaph Oer this marble drop a tear! Here lies fair Rosalinde; All mankind was pleased with her, And she with all mankind. Let me introduce you to one more lady. This is Mrs. Wiseman, dear Don! She was of poor, but honest parentage; and if she did wash the dishes of Mr. Re-. corder Wright of Oxford, she did better than my Lady Hamilton or my Lady Blessington of later times. Mrs. Wise- man read novels and plays, and, of course, during the intervals of domestic drudg- ery, began to write a drama, which she finished after she went to London. It was of high-sounding title, for it was called, Antiochus the Great; or, the Fatal Relapse. Who relapsed so fatally whether Antiochus with his confidant, or his wife with her confidante, or Ptolemy Pater with his confidant, or Epiphanes with his confidantis more than I can tell. Indeed, I am not sure that I know which Antiochus was honored by Mrs. Wise- mans Muse. Whether it was Antiochus Soter, or Antiochus Theos, or Antiochus the Great, or Antiochus the Epiphanous or Illustrious, or Antiochus Eupator, or Antiochus Eutheus, or Antiochus Sidetes, or Antiochus Grypus, or Antiochus Cy- zenicus, or Antiochus Pius,the greatest rogue of the whole dynasty,or Antiochus Asiaticus, who used up the family en- tirely in Syriais more than I can tell. Indeed, Antiochus was such a favorite name with kings, that, without seeing the play,and I have not seen it,I cannot inform you which Antiochus we are talk- ing about. Possibly it was the Antiochus who went into a fever for the love of Stratonice; and if so, please to notice that this was the wicked Antiochus Soter, the son of Seleucus, and the scapegrace who married his mother-in-law, by the advice of the family-doctor, while his fond father stood tearfully by and gave away the bride. After such a scandalous piece of business, I shall have nothing more to do with the family, but shall gladly return to our talented friend, Mrs. Wiseman. She brought out her work at the Theatre Royal in 1706, with applause; and the play, I am glad to inform you, brought in money, so that an enterprising young vintner, by the name of Holt, besought her hand, and won it. With the profits of Antiochus they established a tavern in Westminster, and the charming Wise- man with her own hand drew pots of half-and-half, or mixed punch for the company. I should very much like to see two-thirds of our many poet-esses doing the same thing. But enough, probably too much, of this skimble-skamble! If you will look into a copy of Dr. Johnsons Dictionary, (Worcesters edition,) you will find the names of nearly a thousand English au- thors cited in alphabetical order as au- thorities. Of these it is safe to say that not more than one hundred are remem- bered by the general reader. Such is Fame! Such is the jade. who leads us up hill and down, through jungles and morasses, into deep waters and into swamps, through thick weather and thin, under blue skies and brown ones, in heat and in cold, hungry and thirsty and rag- ged, and heart-sore and foot-sore, now hopeful and now hopeless, now striding and now stumbling, now exultant and now despairing, now singing, now sigh- ing, and now swearing, up to her dilap- idated old temple. And when we get there, we find Dr. Beattie, in a Scotch wig, washing the face of young Edwin! A man of your pounds would be a fool to undertake the journey; hut if you will he such a fool, you must go without the company of Your terrestrial friend, PAUL POTTER. 62 The New Lrfr of Dante. [January, THE NEW LIFE OF DANTE. I. AT that season, says Boccacejo, in his Life of Dante, when the sweetness of heaven reclothes the earth with its adornments, and makes it all smiling with flowers among the green leaves, it was the custom in our city for the men and for the ladies to delebrate festivals in their own street.s in separate companies. Wherefore it happened, that, among the rest, Folco Portinari, a man held in much honor in those times among the citizens, had collected his neighhors at a feast in his own house on the first of May. Among them was the before-named Alighieri, and, as little boys are wont to follow their fathers, especially to festive places, Dante, whose ninth year was not yet fin- ished, accompanied him. It happened, that here, with others of his age, of whom, both hoys and girls, there were many at the house of the entertainer, he gave him- self to merry-makin~, after a childish fash- ion. Among the crowd of children was a little daughter of Folco, whose name was Bice,though this was derived from her original name, which was Beatrice. She was, perhaps, eight years old, a pretty little thing in a childish way, very gentle and pleasing in her actions, and much more sedate and modest in her man- ners and words than her youthful age required. Beside this, she had very del- icate features, admirably proportioned, and full, in addition to their beauty, of such openness and charm, that she was looked upon by many as a little angel. She then, such as I depict her, or rather, far more beautiful, appeared at this feast before the eyes of our Dante, not, I believe, for the first time, but first with power to enamor him. And although still a child, he received her image into his heart with such affection, that, from that day forward, never, as long as he lived, did it leave him. Vita di Dante. Milan, 1823, pp. 29, 30. It was partly from tradition, partly from the record which Dante himself had left of it, that Boccaccio drew his account of this scene. In the Vita Nuova, The New Life, Dante has written the first part of the history of that love which began at this festival, and which, grow- ing with his growth, became, not many years after, the controllin~ passion of his life. Nothing is better or more coin- monly known about Dante than his love for Beatrice; but the course of that love, its relation to his external and public life, its moulding effect upon his character, have not been clearly traced. The love which lasted from his boyhood to his death, keeping his heart fresh, spite of the scorchings of disappointment, with springs of perpetual solace,the love which, purified and spiritualized by the bitterness of separation and trial, led him through the har4 paths of Philosophy and up the steep ascents of Faith, bringing him out of Hell and through Purgatory to the glories of Paradise and the fulfil- ment of Hope,such a love is not only a spiritual experience, but it is lso a disci- pline of character whose results are ex- hibited in the continually renewed strug- gles of life. The earthly story of this love, of its beginning, its irregular course, its hopes and doubts, its exThations and despairs, its sudden interruption and transforma- tion by death, is the story which the Vita Kuova tells. The narrative is quaint, embroidered with conceits, deficient in artistic completeness, but it has the naivete and simplicity of youth, the charm of sincerity, the freedom of per- sonal confidence; and so long as there are lovers in the world, so long as lov- ers are poets, so long will this first and tenderest love-story of modern literature be read with appreciation and responsive sympathy. But The New Life has an interest of another sort, and a claim, not yet suffi

62 The New Lrfr of Dante. [January, THE NEW LIFE OF DANTE. I. AT that season, says Boccacejo, in his Life of Dante, when the sweetness of heaven reclothes the earth with its adornments, and makes it all smiling with flowers among the green leaves, it was the custom in our city for the men and for the ladies to delebrate festivals in their own street.s in separate companies. Wherefore it happened, that, among the rest, Folco Portinari, a man held in much honor in those times among the citizens, had collected his neighhors at a feast in his own house on the first of May. Among them was the before-named Alighieri, and, as little boys are wont to follow their fathers, especially to festive places, Dante, whose ninth year was not yet fin- ished, accompanied him. It happened, that here, with others of his age, of whom, both hoys and girls, there were many at the house of the entertainer, he gave him- self to merry-makin~, after a childish fash- ion. Among the crowd of children was a little daughter of Folco, whose name was Bice,though this was derived from her original name, which was Beatrice. She was, perhaps, eight years old, a pretty little thing in a childish way, very gentle and pleasing in her actions, and much more sedate and modest in her man- ners and words than her youthful age required. Beside this, she had very del- icate features, admirably proportioned, and full, in addition to their beauty, of such openness and charm, that she was looked upon by many as a little angel. She then, such as I depict her, or rather, far more beautiful, appeared at this feast before the eyes of our Dante, not, I believe, for the first time, but first with power to enamor him. And although still a child, he received her image into his heart with such affection, that, from that day forward, never, as long as he lived, did it leave him. Vita di Dante. Milan, 1823, pp. 29, 30. It was partly from tradition, partly from the record which Dante himself had left of it, that Boccaccio drew his account of this scene. In the Vita Nuova, The New Life, Dante has written the first part of the history of that love which began at this festival, and which, grow- ing with his growth, became, not many years after, the controllin~ passion of his life. Nothing is better or more coin- monly known about Dante than his love for Beatrice; but the course of that love, its relation to his external and public life, its moulding effect upon his character, have not been clearly traced. The love which lasted from his boyhood to his death, keeping his heart fresh, spite of the scorchings of disappointment, with springs of perpetual solace,the love which, purified and spiritualized by the bitterness of separation and trial, led him through the har4 paths of Philosophy and up the steep ascents of Faith, bringing him out of Hell and through Purgatory to the glories of Paradise and the fulfil- ment of Hope,such a love is not only a spiritual experience, but it is lso a disci- pline of character whose results are ex- hibited in the continually renewed strug- gles of life. The earthly story of this love, of its beginning, its irregular course, its hopes and doubts, its exThations and despairs, its sudden interruption and transforma- tion by death, is the story which the Vita Kuova tells. The narrative is quaint, embroidered with conceits, deficient in artistic completeness, but it has the naivete and simplicity of youth, the charm of sincerity, the freedom of per- sonal confidence; and so long as there are lovers in the world, so long as lov- ers are poets, so long will this first and tenderest love-story of modern literature be read with appreciation and responsive sympathy. But The New Life has an interest of another sort, and a claim, not yet suffi 1859.] The New Ltf? of Dante. 63 ciently acknowledged, upon all who would read the Divina Conunedia with fit appreciation, in that it contains the first hint of the great poem itseW and fur- nishes for it a special, interior, imagina- five introduction, without the knowledge of which it is not thoroughly to he under- stood. The character of Beatrice, as she appears in the Divina Commedia, the relation in which the poet stands to her, the motive of the dedication of the poem to her honor and memory, and many minor allusions, are all explained or illustrated by the aid of the Vita Nuova. Dantes works and life are in- terwoven as are those of no other of the poets who have written for all time. No other has so written his autobiography. With Dante, external impressions and internal experiences sights, actions, thoughts, emotions, sufferings were all fused into poetry as they passed into his soul. Practical life and imaginative life were with him one and indissoluble. Not only was the life of imagination as real to him as the life of fact, but the life of fact was clothed upon by that of imagina- tion; so th~ t, on the one hand, daily events ud common circumstances be- came a part of his spiritual experience in a far more intimate sense than is the ease with other men, while, on the other, his fancies and his visions assumed the absoluteness and the literal existence of positive external facts. The remotest flights of his imagination never carry him where his sight becomes dim. His journey tl~rongh the spiritual world was no less real to him than his journeys be- tween Florence and Rome, or his wan- derin~s between Verona and Ravenna. So absolute was his imagination, that it often so far controls his reader as to make it difficult not to believe that the poet beheld with his mortal eyes the in- visible scer~s which he describes. Boc- caccio rob tes, that, after that part of the Commedi which trtats of Hell had become famous it happened one d~ y in Verona, that Dante passed before a door where several women were sitting, and one of them, in a low voice, yet not so but that she was well heard by him and his companion, said to another wom- an: See that man who goes through Hell and comes back when he pleases, and brings news of those who are down there! And then one of them replied simply: Indeed, what you say must be true; for do you not see how his beard is crisped and his face brown with the heat and smoke of it? From this close relation between his life and his works, the Vita Nuova has a peculiar interest, as the earliest of Dantes writings, and the most autobio- graphic of them in its form and intention. In it we are brought into intimate per- sonal relations with the poet. He trusts himself to us with full and free confi- dence; but there is no derogation from becoming manliness in his confessions. He draws the picture of a portion of his youth, and lays hare its tenderest emo- tions; but he does so with no morbid self- consciousness, and no affectation. Part of this simplicity is due, undoubtedly, to the character of the times, p~~rt to his own youthfulness, part to downright faith in his own genius. It was the fashion for poets to tell of their loves; in followin~ the fashion, he not only gave expression to real feeling, but claimed his rank among the poets, and set a new style, from which love-poetry was to take a fresh date. This first essay of his poetic powers exhibits the foundation upon which his later life was built. The figure of Bea- trice, which appears veiled under the allegory, and indistinct in the bright cloud of the mysticism of the Divina Commedia, takes her place in life and on the earth through the Vita Nuova, as definitely as Dante himself. She is no allegorized piece of humanity, no im- personation of attributes, but an actual womanbeautiful, modest,~ entle, with companions only less beautiful than her- seW the most delightful figure in the midst of the picturesque life of Florence. She is seen smiling and weeping, walking with stately maidenly decorum in the street, praying at the church, merry at -~ Vita di Dante, p. 69. 64 The New Lje of Dante. [January, festivals, mourning at funerals; and her smiles and tears, her gentleness, her re- serve, all the sweet qualities of her life, and the peace of her death, are told of with such tenderness and re~nement, such pathetic melancholy, such delicate purity, and such passionate vehemence, that she remains and will always remain the loveliest and most womanly woman of the Middle Ages,at once ahsolutely real and truly ideal. It was in the year 1292, about two years after the death of Beatrice, and when he himself was about twenty-seven years old, that Dante collected into this libretto d arnore the poems that he had written during Beatrices life, adding to them others relating to her written after her dcath, and accompanying all with a narrative and commentary in prose. The meaning of the name which he gave to the book, La Vita Kuova, has heen the cause of elahorate discus- sion among the Italian commentators. Literally The New Life, it has been questioned whether this phrase meant simply early life, or life made new by the first experience and lasting influ- ence of love. The latter interpretation seems the most appropriate to Dantes turn of mind and to his condition of feel- ing at the time when the little hook ap- peared. To him it was the record of that life which the presence of Beatrice had made ncw.* ~s For vita nova in the sense of early life, see Purgatory, xxx. 115, with the comments of Landino and Benvenuto da Imola; and for etie novella in a similar sense, see Cauzone xviii. st. 6. Fraticelli, who supports this in- terpretation, gives these with other examples, hut none more to the point. Mr. Joseph (ar- row, who had a translation into English ~f the Vita Nuova, printed at Florence in 184~, entitles his hook The Early Life of Dants Allighieri. But as giving prohahility to the meaning to which we incline, see Canzone x. st. 5. Lo giorno che costei nel me do venne, Secondo che si trova Kel lihro della mente che vien neno, La mia persona parvola sostenne Idna passion nova. Bat whatever he the true siifnificance of the title, this New Life is full not only of the youthfulness of its author, hut also of the fresh and youthful spirit of the time. Italy, after going through along period of childhood, was now becoming conscious of the powers of maturity. So- ciety, (to borrow a fine figure from La- mennais,) like a river, which, long lost in marshes, had at length regained its chan- nel, after stagnating for centuries, was now again rapidly advancing. Through- out Italy there was a morning freshness, and the thrill and exhilaration of con- scious activity. Her imagination was roused by the revival of a. cient and now new learning, by the stories of trav- ellers, by the gains of commerce, by the excitements of religion and the alarms of superstition. She was boastful, jeal- ous, quarrelsome, lavish, manificent, full of fickleness,exhihiting on all sides the exuberance, the magnanimity, the folly of youth. After the long winter of the Dark Ages, spring had come, and the earth was renewing its beauty. And above all other cities in these days Flor- ence was full of the pride of life. Civil brawls had not yet reduced her to be- come an easy prey for foreign conquer- ors. She was famous for wealth, and her spirit had risen with prosperity. Many years before, one of the Proven~al troubadours, writing to his friend in verse, had said, Friend Gaucelm, if you go That day when she unto the world attained, As is found written true Within the hook of my now sinking soul, Then by my childish nature was sustained A passion new. In referring to Dantes Minor Poems, we shall refer to them as they stand in the first volume of Fraticehlis edition of the Oiere Miaore e~ 0aate Firenze, 1S34. There s great need of a c-~s2~ul, critical edition of the Canvoniere of Dante, Li which poems falsely ascrihed to him should n~ on0er old place among the genuine. But the~ is little hope for this from Italy; for the race of Italian commentators on Dante is, as a wh~ le. more frivolous, more imnoH~ ~,A dulk r, than that of English commentators on Shak ~peare. 1859.1 The New Life of Dante. 65 to Tuscany, seek a shelter in the noble city of the Florentines, which is named Florence. There all true valor is found; there joy and song and love are perfect and adorned. And if this were true in the earlier years of the thirteenth cen- tury, it was still truer of its close; for much of early simplicity and purity of manners had disappeared before the in- creasing luxury (le morbidezze d Egitto, as Boccaccio terms it) and the gathered wealth of the city,so that gayety and song more than ever abounded. It is to be noted, says Giovanni Villani, writ- ing of this time, it is to be noted that Florence and her citizens were never in a happier condition. The chroniclers tell of constant festivals and celebrations. In the year 1283, in the month of June, at the feast of St. John, the city of Flor- ence being in a happy and good state of repose, a tranquil and peaceable state, excellent for merchants and artif- icers,there was formed a company of a thousand men or more, all clothed in white dresses, with a leader called the Lord of Love, who devoted themselves to games and sports and dancing, going through the city with trumpets and other instruments of joy and gladness, and fe sting often together. And this court lasted for two months, and was the most noble and famous that ever was in Flor- ence or in all Tuscany, and many gen- tlemen came to it, and many rhymers,* and all were welcomed and honorably cared for. Every year, the summer was opened with May and June festivals. Florence was rejoicing in abundance and beautyt Nor was it only in passing gayeties that the cheerful and liberal temper of the people was displayed. The many great works of Art which were begun and carried on to completion ~ The word in the original (Villani, Book vii. c. 89) is Giocolari, the Italian form of the French jongleur, the appellation of those ~hose profession was to sing or recite the verses of the troubadours or the romances of chivalry. t See Boccaccio, Decemeroae, Giorn. vi. Nov. 9, for an entertaining picture of Floren- tine festivities. YOL. Hi. 5 at this time show with what large spirit the whole city was inspired, and under what strong influences of public feeling the early life of Dante was led. Civil liberty and strength were producing their legitimate results. Little republic as she was, Florence was great enough for great undertakings. Never was there such a noble activity within the narrow compass of her walls as from about 1265, when Dante was born, to the end of the century. In these thirty-five years, the stout walls and the tall tower of the Bargello were built, the grand foundations of the Pa- lazzo Vecchio and of the unrivalled Duomo were laid, and both in one year; the Baptisteryil mio bel San Gioman- niwas adorned with a new covering of marble; the churches of Sta Maria No~ vella, of Or San Michele, (changed from its original object,) and Sta Croce,the finest churches even now in Florence, were all begun and carried far on to com- pletion. Each new work was at once the fruit and the seed of glorious energy. The small city, of less than one hundred thou- sand inhabitants, the little republic, not so large as Rhode Island or Delaware, was setting an example which later and bigger and richer republics have not fol- lowed.* It might well, in deed, be called a new life for Florence, as well as fbr Dante. When it was determined to sup- ply the place of the old church of Santa Reparata with a new cathedral, a decree was passed in words of memorable spirit: Whereas it is the highest interest of a people of illustrious origin so to proceed in its affairs that men may perceive from its external works that its do- ings are at once wise and magnanimous, it is therefore ordered, that Arnolfo, architect of our commune, prepare the model or design for the rebuilding of Santa iReparata, with such supreme and lavish magnificence that neither the in ~ The feeling which moved Florence thus to huild herself into heauty was one shared by the other Italian repuhlican cities at this time. Venice, Verona, Pisa, Siena, Orvieto, were building or adding to churches and pal- aces such as have never since been surpassed. 66 The New Lsfl3 of Dante. [January, dustry nor the capacity of man shall be able to devise anything more grand or more beautiful; inasmuch as the most judicious in this city have pronounced the opinion, in public and private con- ferences, that no work of the commune should be undertaken, unless the design be to make it correspondent with a heart which is of the greatest nature, because composed of the spirit of many citizens united together in one single will. * The records of few other cities contain a de- cree so magnificent as this. It would be strange, indecd, if the youthful hook of one so sensitive to exter- nal influences as Dante did not give evi- dence of sympathy with such pervading emotion. And so apparent is this, that one may say that only at such a period, when strength of sentiment was finding cut in all manner of free expression, was such a book possible. Confidence, frank- ness, directness in the rendering of per- :onal feeling are rare, except in condi- tions of society when the emotional spirit is stronger than the critical. The secret of the active power of the arts at this time was the conscious or unconscious resort of those who practised them to the springs of Nature, from which the streams of all true Art proceed. Dante was the first of the moderns to seek Poetry at the same & ountain, and to free her from the chains f conventionality which had long bound her. In this he shows his close relation to his tii es. It is his fidelity to Jature which has made him a leader for all suc- cessive generations. The Vita Nuova was the beginning of a new school of poetry and of prose as completely as Giottos 0 was the beginning of a new school of painting. The Italian poets, before Dante, may be broadly divided into two eL sses. The 6 ist was that of the troubadours, writing in the Provcn9al language, hardly to be distinguished from their contemporaries of the South of France, giving expression in their verses to the ideas of love ,gal- lantry, and valor which formed the base of the complex and artificial system of 5~ Cicognara, Storm delta & utture, II. 147. chivalry, repeating constantly the same fancies and thoughts in similar formulas of words, without scope or truth of imag- ination, with rare exhibitions of iu(livid- nal feeling, with little regard P r Nature. Ingenuity is more characteristic of their poetry, than force, subtilty more obvious in it than beauty. The second and later class were poets who wrote in the Italian tongue, but still under the in~~uence of the poetic code which had governed the compositions of their Provengal predeces- sors. Their poetry is, for the most part, a faded copy of an unsubstantial original, an echo of sounds originally faint. Truth and poetry were effectually divided. In the latter half of the thirteenth century, however, a few pdcts appeared whose verses give evidence of some native life. and are enlivened by a freer play of fancy and a greater truthfulness of feel- ing. Guido Guinicelli, who (lied in 1276, when Dante was eleven years old, and, little later, Guido Cavalcanti, and some few others, trusting more than had been (lone before to their own inspir~ tion, show themselves as the forerunners of a better day. But as, in J)ainting, Iar~he ~ ritone and Cimabue, standing between the old and the new styles, exhibit rather a vague striving than a fulfilled attainment, so is it with these poets. There is little that is distinguishingly individual in them. Love is still treated mostly as an abstrac- tion, and one poet might adopt the oth- ers love-verses with few changes of words for any manifest difference in them of personal feeling. Not so with Dante. The Vita Nu- ova, although retaining sunny ideas, forms, and expressions derived from ear- lier poets, is his, and could be the work Gnido Guinicelli will always be less known by his own verses than by Dantes calliug him _______father Of me and all those better others Who sweet chivalric lovelays formed. Purg. xxvi. 9799. And Gaido Cavalcanti, he who took from this other Guide the praise of speech, tPurg. xi. 97,) is mere famous as Dantes friend than as a poet. The BThw LJe of Dante. of no other. Nor was he unaware of this diflhrence between himself and those that had gone before him, or ignorant of its nature. In describing himself to Buo- nagiiinta da Lucca in Purgatory, he says, I am one who, when Love breathes, mark, and according as he dictates with- in, I report ito which the poet of Lucca replies, 0 brother, now I see the knot which kept the Notary and Guittone and me back from that sweet new style which now I hear. I see well how your pens have followed close on the dictator, which truly was not the case with ours. * As Love was the common theme of the verses from which Buonagiunta drew his con- trast, the difference between them lay plainly in sincerity of feeling and truth of expression. The following close upon the dictates of his heart was the distin- guishing merit of Dantes love-poetry over all that had preceded it and most of what has followed it. There are, how- ever, some among his earlier poems in which the sweet new style is scarcely heard,and others, of a later period, in which the accustomed metaphysical and fanciful subtilties of the elder poets are drawn out to an unwonted fineness. These were concessions to a ruling mode, concessions the more readily made, ow- ing to their being in complete harmony with the strong subtilizing and allegoriz- ing tendencies of Dantes own mind. Still, so far as he adopts the modes of his predecessors in this first book of his, Dante surpasses them all in their own way: He leaves them far behind him, and goes forward to open new paths which he is to tread alone. But there is yet another tendency of the times, to which Dante, in his later works, has given the fullest and most characteristic expression, and which ex- hibits itself curiously in the Vita Nu- ova. Corresponding with the new ar- dor for the arts, and in sympathy with it, was a newly awakened and generally diffused ardor for learning, especially for the various branches of philosophy. Sci- ence was leaving the cloister, in which ~5 Purgatory, xxiv. ~36O. she had sat in dumb solitude, and com- ing out into the world. But the limits and divisions of knowledge were not firmly marked. The relations of learn- ing to life were not clearly understood. The science of mathematics was not vet so advanced as to bind philosophy to exactness. The intellects of men were quickened by a new sense of freedom, and stimulated by ardor of imagination. New worlds of undiscovered knowledge loomed vaguely along the horizon. Phi- losophy invaded the sphere of poetry, while, on the other hand, poetry gave its form to much of the prevailing philoso- phy. To be a proper poet was not only to be a writer of verses, but to be a mas- ter of learning. Boccaccio describes Guido Cavalcanti as one of the best logicians in the world, and as a most ex- cellent natural philosopher, * but says nothing of his poetry. Dante, more than any other man of his time, resumed in himself the general zeal for knowledge. His genius had two distinct, and yet often intermingling parts, the poetic and the scientific. No learning came amiss to him. He was born a scholar, as he was born a poet,and had he writ- ten not a single poem, he would still be famous as the most profound student of his times. Far as lie surpassed his con- temporaries in poetry, he was no less their superior in the depth and the ex- tent of his knowledge. And this double nature of his genius is plainly shown in many parts of The New Life. A youthful incapacity to mark clearly the line between the work of the student and the work of the poet is manifest in it. The display of his acquisitions is curiously mingled with the narrative of his emotions. This is not to be charged against him as pedantry. His love of learning partook of the nature of pas- sion his judgment was not yet able, if indeed it ever became able, to establish the division between the abstractions of * Decamcrone, Giorn. vi. Nov. 9. Logician is here to be understood in an extended sense, as the student of letters, or arts, as they were then called, in general. 1859.1 67 68 The New Lsfi~ of Dante. [January, the intellect and the affections of the heart. And above all, his early claim of honor as a poet was to be justified by his possession of the fruits of study. But there was also in Dante a quality of mind which led him to unite the re- sults of knowled~,e with poetry in a man- ner almost peculiar to himself. He was essentially a mystic. The dark and hid- den side of things was not less present to his imagination than the visible and plain. The range of human capacity in the com- prehension of the spiritual world was not then marked by as numerous boun- dary-stones of failure as now limit the way. Impossibilities were sought for with the same confident hope as realities. The alchemists and the astrologers believed in the attainment of results as tangible and real as those which travellers brought back from the marvellous and still un- achieved East. The mystical properties of numbers, the influence of the stars, the powers of cordials and elixirs, the virtues of precious stones, were received as established facts, and opened long vis- tas of discovery before the students eyes. Curiosity and speculative inquiry were stimulated by wonder and fed by all the suggestions of heated fancies. Dante, partaking to the full in the eager spirit of the times, sharing all the ardor of the pursuit of knowledge, and with a spiritual insight which led him into regions of mystery where no others ventured, nat- urally connected the knowledge which opened the way for him with the poetic imagination which cast light upon it. To him science was but another name for poetry. Much learning has been expended in the attempt to show that even the doc- trine of Love, which is displayed in The New Life, is derived, more or less di- rectly, from the philosophy of Plato. It has been supposed that this little autobi- ographic story, full of the most intimate personal revelations, and glowing with a sincere passion, was written on a precon- ceived basis of theory. A certain Pla- tonic form of expression, often covering ideaj very far removed from those of Plato, was common to the earlier, colder, and less truthful poets. Some strains of such Plato~iism, derived from the poems of his predecessors, are perhaps to be found in this first book of Dantes. But there is nothing to show that he had de- liberately adopted the teachings of the ancient philosopher. It may well, indeed, be doubted if at the time of its composi- tion he had read any of Platos works. Such Platonism as exists in The New Life was of that unconscious kind which is shared by every youth of thoughtful nature and sensitive temperament, who makes of his beloved a type and image of divine beauty, and who by the love- liness of the creature is led up to the perfection of the Creator. The essential qualities of the Vita Nuova, those which afford direct illustra- tion of Dantes character, as distinguished from those which may be called youthful, or merely literary, or biographical, corre- spond in striking measure with those of the Divina Commedia. The earthly Beatrice is exalted to the heavenly in the later poem; but the same perfect purity and intensity of feeling with which she is reverently regarded in the Divina Commedia is visible in scarcely less de- gree in the earlier work. The imagina- tion which makes the unseen seen, and the unreal real, belongs alike to the one and to the other. The Vita Nuova is chiefly occupied with a series of visions; the Divina Commedia is one long vis- ion. The sympathy with the spirit and impulses of the time, which in the . first reveals the youthful impressibility of the poet, in the last discloses itself in ma- turer forms, in more personal expressions. In the Vita Nuova it is a sympathy mastering the natural spirit; in the Di- vimma Commedia the sympathy is con- trolled by the force of established char- acter. The change is that from him who follows to him who commands. It is the privilege of men of genius, not only to give more than others to the world, but also to receive more from it. Sympathy, in its full comprehensiveness, is the proof of the strongest individuality. By as 1859.1 At Sea. 69 much as Dante or Shakspeare learnt of genius, the first proofs of that wide sym- and entered into the hearts of men, by pathy, which at len~th resulted in the so much was his own nature strengthened Divine Comedy. It is like the first and made peculiarly his own. The Vita blade of spring grass, rich with the prom- Nuova shows the first stages of that ise of the golden harvest. AT SEA. THE night is made for cooling shade, For silence, and for sleep; And when I was a child, 1 laid My hands upon my breast, and prayed, And sank to slumbers deep: Childlike as then, I lie to-night, And watch my lonely cabin light. Each movement of the swaying lamp Shows how the vessel reels: As oer her deck the billows tramp, And all her timbers strain and cramp With every shock she feels, It starts and shudders, while it burns, And in its hingbd socket turns. Now swinging slow~ and slanting low, It almost level lies; And yet I know, while to and fro I watch the seeming pendule go With restless fall and rise, The steady shaft is still upright, Poising its little globe of light. O hand of God! 0 lamp of peace! 0 promise of my soul Though weak, and tossed, and ill at ease, Amid the roar of smiting seas, The ships convulsive roll, I own, with love and tender awe, Yon perfect type of faith and law! A heavenly trust my spirit calms, My soul is filled with light: The ocean sings his solemn psalms, The wild winds chant: I cross my palms, Happy as if, to-night, Under the cottage-roof, again I heard the soothing summer-rain.

1859.1 At Sea. 69 much as Dante or Shakspeare learnt of genius, the first proofs of that wide sym- and entered into the hearts of men, by pathy, which at len~th resulted in the so much was his own nature strengthened Divine Comedy. It is like the first and made peculiarly his own. The Vita blade of spring grass, rich with the prom- Nuova shows the first stages of that ise of the golden harvest. AT SEA. THE night is made for cooling shade, For silence, and for sleep; And when I was a child, 1 laid My hands upon my breast, and prayed, And sank to slumbers deep: Childlike as then, I lie to-night, And watch my lonely cabin light. Each movement of the swaying lamp Shows how the vessel reels: As oer her deck the billows tramp, And all her timbers strain and cramp With every shock she feels, It starts and shudders, while it burns, And in its hingbd socket turns. Now swinging slow~ and slanting low, It almost level lies; And yet I know, while to and fro I watch the seeming pendule go With restless fall and rise, The steady shaft is still upright, Poising its little globe of light. O hand of God! 0 lamp of peace! 0 promise of my soul Though weak, and tossed, and ill at ease, Amid the roar of smiting seas, The ships convulsive roll, I own, with love and tender awe, Yon perfect type of faith and law! A heavenly trust my spirit calms, My soul is filled with light: The ocean sings his solemn psalms, The wild winds chant: I cross my palms, Happy as if, to-night, Under the cottage-roof, again I heard the soothing summer-rain. 70 Bulls and Bears. [January, BULLS AND BEARS. [Continued.] CHAPTER V. WHICH TREATS OF THE MODESTY OF CANDIDATES FOR OFFICE. MR. SANDFORD sat in his private room. Through the windows ia front were seen the same bald and grizzly heads that had for so many years given respectability to the Vortex Company. The contempla- tion of the cheerful office and the thought of its increasing prosperity seemed to give him great satisfaction; for he rubbed his white and well-kept hands, settled his staid cravat, smoothed his gravely deco- rons coat, and looked the picture of placid content. He meditated, gently twirling his watch-seal the while. Windham will be here presently, for my note admitted only of an answer in person. A very useful person to have a call from is Windham; these old gentle- men will put up their gold spectacles when he comes, and wont think any the less of me for having such a visitor. I noticed that Monroe was much impressed the other day. Then Bullion and Stear- me will drop in, I think,both solid men, useful acquaintances. If Plotman has only done what he promised, the thing will come round right. I shall not seek office, oh, no! I could not compro- mise my position. But if the people thrust it upon me, I cannot refuse. Citi- zenship has its duties as well as its privi- leges, and every man must take his share of public responsibility. By-the-by, thats a well-turned phrase; twill bear repeat- ing. Ill make a note of it. True enough, Mr. Windham called, and, after the trivial business-affair was settled, he introduced the subject he was expected to speak on. We want men of character and busi- ness habits in public station, my young friend, and I was rejoiced to-day to hear that it was proposed to make you a Sena- tor. We have had plenty of politicians, men who trade in honors and offices.~~ I am sensible of the honor you men- tion, modestly replied Sandford, and should value highly the compliment of a nomination, particularly comin~ from men like yourself who have only the public welfare at heart. But if I were to accept, I dont know how I could discharge my duties. And besides, I am utterly with- out experience in political life, and should very poorly fulfil the expectations that would be formed of me. Dont be too modest, Mr. Sandford. If you have not experience in politics, all the better; for the ways to office have been foul enough latterly. And as to business, we must arrange that. Your duties here you could easily discharge, and we will get some other young man to take your place in the charitable boards; though we shall be fortunate, if we find any one to make a worthy successor. After a few words, the stately Mr. Windham bowed himself out, leaving Sandford rubbing his hands with in- creased, but still gentle hilarity. Mr. Bullion soon dropped in. He was a stout man, with a round, bald head, short, sturdy legs, and a deep voice,a weighty voice on Change, though, as its owner well knew,the more, per- haps, because it dealt chiefly in mono- syllables. How are you, Sandford? Fine day. Anything doing? Money more in de- mand, they say. Hope all is right; though it looks like a squall. Mr. Sandford merely bowed, with an occasional Ah! or Indeed! How about politics? Bullion con- tinued. Talk of sending you to the Senate. Couldnt do better, I mean the city couldnt; youd be a dd fool

70 Bulls and Bears. [January, BULLS AND BEARS. [Continued.] CHAPTER V. WHICH TREATS OF THE MODESTY OF CANDIDATES FOR OFFICE. MR. SANDFORD sat in his private room. Through the windows ia front were seen the same bald and grizzly heads that had for so many years given respectability to the Vortex Company. The contempla- tion of the cheerful office and the thought of its increasing prosperity seemed to give him great satisfaction; for he rubbed his white and well-kept hands, settled his staid cravat, smoothed his gravely deco- rons coat, and looked the picture of placid content. He meditated, gently twirling his watch-seal the while. Windham will be here presently, for my note admitted only of an answer in person. A very useful person to have a call from is Windham; these old gentle- men will put up their gold spectacles when he comes, and wont think any the less of me for having such a visitor. I noticed that Monroe was much impressed the other day. Then Bullion and Stear- me will drop in, I think,both solid men, useful acquaintances. If Plotman has only done what he promised, the thing will come round right. I shall not seek office, oh, no! I could not compro- mise my position. But if the people thrust it upon me, I cannot refuse. Citi- zenship has its duties as well as its privi- leges, and every man must take his share of public responsibility. By-the-by, thats a well-turned phrase; twill bear repeat- ing. Ill make a note of it. True enough, Mr. Windham called, and, after the trivial business-affair was settled, he introduced the subject he was expected to speak on. We want men of character and busi- ness habits in public station, my young friend, and I was rejoiced to-day to hear that it was proposed to make you a Sena- tor. We have had plenty of politicians, men who trade in honors and offices.~~ I am sensible of the honor you men- tion, modestly replied Sandford, and should value highly the compliment of a nomination, particularly comin~ from men like yourself who have only the public welfare at heart. But if I were to accept, I dont know how I could discharge my duties. And besides, I am utterly with- out experience in political life, and should very poorly fulfil the expectations that would be formed of me. Dont be too modest, Mr. Sandford. If you have not experience in politics, all the better; for the ways to office have been foul enough latterly. And as to business, we must arrange that. Your duties here you could easily discharge, and we will get some other young man to take your place in the charitable boards; though we shall be fortunate, if we find any one to make a worthy successor. After a few words, the stately Mr. Windham bowed himself out, leaving Sandford rubbing his hands with in- creased, but still gentle hilarity. Mr. Bullion soon dropped in. He was a stout man, with a round, bald head, short, sturdy legs, and a deep voice,a weighty voice on Change, though, as its owner well knew,the more, per- haps, because it dealt chiefly in mono- syllables. How are you, Sandford? Fine day. Anything doing? Money more in de- mand, they say. Hope all is right; though it looks like a squall. Mr. Sandford merely bowed, with an occasional Ah! or Indeed! How about politics? Bullion con- tinued. Talk of sending you to the Senate. Couldnt do better, I mean the city couldnt; youd be a dd fool 1859.] Bulls and Bears. 71 to go. Somebody has to, though. You as well as any. Can I help you? You rather surprise me. I had not thought of the honor. Bullion turned his eye upon him,a cool, gray eye, overhung by an eyebrow that seemed under perfect muscular con- trol; for the gray wisp of hair grew point- ed like a paint-brush, and had a queer motion of intelligence. Oh, shy, I see Just as well. Too forward is bad. Well fix it. Good morning And Bullion, sticking his hands in his pockets, went away with a half-audible whistle, to look after his debtors, and draw in his resources before the antici- pated squall should come. Mr. Sand- ford h~ d lost the opportunity of making his carefully studied speech; but, as Bul- lion had said, it was just as well. Mr. Stearine came n~xt,a tall, thin man, with a large, bony frame, and a bilious temperament. A smile played perpetually around his loose mouth, not a smile of frank good-humor, but of uneasy self-consciousness. He smiled be- cause it was necessary to do somethin~ and he had net the idea of what repose meant. You are going to the Senate, I hear, said the visitor. Indeed! Oh, yesIve beard it from several. Mr. Wiudham approves it, and I just beard Bullion speak of it. A solid man is Bullion; a man of few words, but all his words tell; they drop like shot. Mr. Wiudham was good enough to speak of it to me to-day; hut I havent made up my mind. In fact, it will be time enough when the nomination is of- fered to me. By-the-way, Mr. Stearine, you were speaking the other day of a little discount. If you want a thousand or two, I think I can get it for you. Street rates are rather high, you know; but I will do the best I can. Mr. Stearine smiled again, as he had done every minute before, and expressed his gratification. Let me have good paper on short time; its not my money, and I must consult the lenders views, you know. About one and a half per cent. a month, I think; lie may want one and three quarters, or two per cent.,not more. Mr. Stearine hoped his friend would obtain as favorable terms as he could. Youll have no trouble in meeting the larger note due Bullion, on which I am indorser? said Sandford. None at all, 1 think, was the reply. Two birds with one stone, thought Sandford, after his friends departure. A good investment, and the influence of a good nian to hoot. Now to see Fletcher and learn how affairs are coming on. Well make that ten thousand fifteen be- fore fall is over, if I am not mistaken. CHAPTER VI. WhEREIN THE INVESTMENT IS DIS- cUSSED. IT was the evening of a long day in summer. Mrs. Monroe had rolled up her sewing and was waiting for her son. Tea was ready in the pleasant east room, and the air of the house seemed to invite tranquillity and repose. It was in a quiet street, away from the rattle of carriages, and comparatively free from the multitu- dinous noises of a city. The carts of milkmen and marketmen were the only vehicles that frequented it. The narrow yard in the rear, with its fringe of grass, and the proximity to the pavement in front, were the only things that would have prevented one from thinking him- self a dweller in the country. As the clock struck six, Walter Monroes step was heard at the door ;other men might be delayed; he never. No seductions of billiards or pleasant company ever kept him from the society of his mother. He had varied sources of amusement, and many friends, attracted by his genial temper and tried worth; but he never forgot that his mother denied herself all intercourse with society, and was indif- ferent to every pleasure out of the sphere of home. Nor did he meet her as a mat- ter of course; mindful of his mothers 72 Balls and Bears. [January, absorbing love, and heartily returning it, be seemed always, upon entering the room, to have come home as from a long absence. He kissed her fondly, asked concerning her health and spirits, and how she had passed the day. The day is always long till you come, Walter. Tea is ready now, my son. When you are rested, we will sit down. Ah, mother, you are cheerful to-day. I have brought you, hesides the papers, a new book, which we will commence presently. A thoughtful boy you are; but you havent told me all, Walter. I see some- thing behind those eyes of yours. What telltales they must be! Well, I have a pretty present for you,a sweet picture I hought the other day, and which will come home to-morrow, I fancy. Is that all? I shall be glad to see the picture, because you like it. But you have something else on your mind. I see I never keep anything from you, mother. You seem to know my thoughts. Well, what is it ? I have been thinking, mother, that our little property was hardly so produc- tive as it ought to be,earning barely six per cent., while I know that many of my friends are getting eight, and even ten. I am afraid that the extra interest is only to pay for the risk of losing all. True, that is often the case; but I think we can make all safe. Well, what do you propose doing? I have left it with Mr. Sandford, aa acquaintance of mine, to invest for me. He is secretary of an insurance com- pany, and knows all the ways of the money-lending world. Its a great risk, Walter, to trust our all. Not our all, mother. I have a sal- ary, and, whatever may happen, we can always depend on that. Besides, Mi-. Sandford is a man of integrity and credit. He has the unlimited confi- dence of the company, and I rely upon lhim as I would upon myself. How has he invested it? Have you got the securities? Not yet, mother. I have left the money on his note for the present; and when he has found a good chance to loan it, he will give me the mortgages or stocks, as the case may be. But come, mother, let us sit down to tea. All is safe, I am sure; and to-morrow I will make you satisfied with my prudent man- agement. When the simple meal was over, they sat in the twilight before the gas was lighted. The moments passed rapidly ia their fl-ce and lovin~ converse. Then the table was drawn out and the new hook was opened. Mrs. Monroe sud- denly recollected something. Walter, my dear, a letter was left here to-day by the postman. As it was directed to the street and number, it did not go to your box. Here it is. I have read it ; and rather sad news it brings. Cousin Augustus is failing, so his daugh- ter writes, and it is doubtful whether he ever recovers. Poor child! I am sorry for her. Walter took the letter and hastily read it. A modest, feeling, sensible little girl, I am sure. I have never seen her, you know; but this lettcr is simple, touchin~, and womanly. A dear, good girl, I am sure. How lonely she must be! Mother, I believe Ill go and see them. In time of trouble we should for- get ceremony. Cousin Augustus has nev- er invited me, but Ill go and see him. Wont you go, too? Dear boy, I couldnt! The cars? Oh, never! Walter smiled. You dont get over your prejudices. The cars are per- fectly safe, and more comfortable than coaches. I cant go; its no use to coax me. I have but one thing to trouble me, mother,and that is, that I can never get you away from this spot. Im very happy, Walter, and its a 1859.] Bulls and Bears. 3 very pleasant spot; why should I wish to go? How long since you have been down Washington Street? Ten years, I think. And you have never seen the new theatre, nor the Music Hall? No. Nor any of the new warehouses? I dont want to see them. And you wouldnt go to church, if it were more than a stones throw away? I am afraid not. How long since you were in a car- ria~ e? Her eyes filled with tears, but she made no reply. Forgive me, mother! I remember the time,five years! and it seems like yesterday when father There was a silence which, for a time, neither cared to break. Well, said Walter, at length, I shall have to go alone. To-morrow morn- lug I will arrange my businessnot for- getting our securities,and start in the afternoon train. Your father often spoke of Cousin Augustus and his lovely wife I wonder if the daughter has her mothers beau- ty? I cant tell. I hope so. But dont look so inquiringly. I dont love a woman in the world, except you, mother. I shant fall in love, even if she is an angeL If Cousin Augustus should he worse, should die, what will become of the poor motherless child? There are no nearer relatives than we, mother,and we must give her a home, if she will come. Certainly, Walter, we must not be hard-hearted. Mrs. Monroe was charitable, kind, and motherly towards the distressed; she felt the force of her sons generous senti- ments. If it were her Cousin Augustus himself who was to be sheltered, or his son, if he had one,or if the daughter were unattractive, a hoyden even, she would cheerfully make any sacrifice in favor of hospitality. But she could not repress a secret fear lest the beauty and innocence of the orphan should appe I too strongly to Walters heart. She knew the natural destiny of agreeable young men; she acknowledged to herself that Walter would sometime marry; but she put the time far off as an evil day, and kept the subject under ban. None of her neighbors who had pretty daughters were encouraged to visit her on intimate terms. She almost frowned upon every winsome face that crossed her threshold when Wal- ter was at home. So absorbing was this feeling, that she was not aware of its ex- istence, but watched her son by a sort of instinct. Her conduct was not the result of cool calculation, and, if it could have been properly set before her generous, kindly heart, she would have been shock- ed at her own fond selfishness. So she sat and speculated, balancing between fear and hope. If Walter built air-castles, was he to blame? At twenty- four, with a heart untouched, with fresh susceptibilities, and a little romance with- al, is it to be wondered that his fancy drew such pleasin~ pictures of his cousin? We will leave them to their quiet eve- nings enjoyment and follow Greenleaf to the house of Mr. Sandford. CHAPTER VII. THE MUSICAL SOIREE. A SMALL, but judiciously-selected com- pany had assembled; all were people of musical tastes, and most of them capable of sharing in the performances. There were but few ladies; perhaps it did not suit the mistress of the house to have the attentions of the gentlemen divided among too many. Miss Sandford was undeni- ably queen of the evening; her superb face and figure, and irreproachable toilet, never showed to better advantage. And her easy manners, and ready, silvery words, would have given a dangerous charm to a much plainer woman. She had a smile, a welcome, and a compli- ment for each,not seemingly studied, hut gracefully expressed, and sufficient to put the guests in the best humor. Mrs. 74 Bulls and Bears. [January, Sandford, less demonstrative in manner than her sister-in-law, and less brilliant in conversation and personal attractions ,was yet a most winning, lovahle woman,a companion for a summer ramble, or a quiet tfte-d-tfre, rather than a belle for a drawing-room. Mr. Sandford was calm- ly conscious, full of subdued spirits, cheer- ful and ready with all sorts of pleasant phrases. It is not often that one sees such a manly, robust figure, such a hand- some, ingenuous face, and such an air of agreeable repose. Easelmann was pres- ent, retiring as usual, but with an acute eye that lost nothing while it seemed to he observing nothing. Greenleaf was decidedly the lion. It was not merely his graceful person and regular features that drew admiring glances upon him; the charm lay rather in an atmosphere of in- tellect that surrounded him. His conver- sation, thou~h by no means faultless, was marked by an energy of phrase joined to an almost womanly delicacy and taste. His was the hand of steel, but clothed with the glove of velvet. Easelmaun followed him with a look half stealtby, half comical, as he saw the unusual vi- vacity of the reigning beauty when in his immediate society. Her voice took instine- ti xely a softer and more musical tone; she showered her glances upon him, dazzling and prismatic as the rays from her dia- monds; she seemed determined to capti- vate him without the tedious process of a siege. And, in truth, he must have been an unimpressible man that could steel himself against the influence of a woman who satisfied every critical sense, who piqued all his pride, who stimulated all that was most manly in his nature, and without apparent effort filled his bosom with an exquisite intoxication. The music commence(l under Marcias (brection. There were piano solos that were not tedious, full of melody and feeling, and with few of the pyrotechni- cal displays which are too common in modern virtuoso-playing; vocal duets and quartets from the Italian operas, and from Orfeo and other German master- pieces; and solos, if not equal to the ef forts of professional singers, highly credit. able to amateurs, to say the least. The auditors were enthusiastic in praise. Even Charles, who came in late, de- clared the music Vewy good, upon my soul,surpwizingly good! Greenleaf was listening to Marcia, with a pleased smile on his face, when Mr. Sandford approached and interrupted them. You are proficient in more tban ono art, I see. You paint as well as though you knew nothing of n~usic, and yet you sing like a man who has made it an ex- clusive study. Greenleaf simply bowed. How do you come on with the pic- ture? Mr. Sandford continued. Very well, I believe. My dear Sir, make haste and finish it. I thought you were not in a hurry. Not in the least, my friend; but when you get that finished, you can paint oth- ers, which I can probably dispose of for you. You are very kind. 1 s peak as a business man, said Sandford, in a lower tone, at which Mar- cia withdrew. The arts fare badly in time of a money panic, and all the pic- tures you can sell now will be clear gain. Are there signs of a panic? Decidedly; the rates of interest are advancing daily, and no one knows where it will end. Unless there is some relief in the market by Western remittances, the distress will be wide-spread and se- vere. I am obliged to you for the hint. I have two or three pictures nearly done. I will look at them in a day or two, and try to find you purchasers. Greenleaf expressed his thanks, warm- ly, and then walked towards Mrs. Sand- ford, who was sitting alone at that me- ment. There is no knowing what Marcia may do, thought Sandford; I have never seen her when she appeared se much in earnest,infatuated like a can- 1859.] Bulls and Bears. 75 die-fly. I hope she wont be fool enough to marry a man without money. These artists are poor sheep; they have to he taken care of like so many children. At all events, it wont cost much to keep him at work for the i)resent. Meanwhile she may change her mind. Greenleaf was soon engaged in conver- sation with Mrs. Sandford. She had too much delicacy to flatter him upon his singing, but naturally turned the cur- rent towards his art. Without depre- ciating his efforts or the example of de- servedlv eminent American painters, she spoke with more emphasis of the acknowl- edged masters; and as she dwelt with unaffected enthusiasm upon the delight she had received from their immortal works, his old desire to visit Europe came upon him with redoubled force. There was a calm strength in her thoughts and manner that moved him strangely. Tie saw in a new light his thoughtless devo- tion to pleasure, and especially the fool- ish fascination into which he had been led by a woman whom he could not mar- ry and ought not to love. Mrs. Sandford did not exhort, nor even advise; least of all did she allude to her sister-in-law. Tiers xvas only the influence of truth, of broad ideas of life and i noblest ends, presented with simplicity and a womanly tact above all art. It seemed to Green- leaf the voice of an angel that he heard, so promptly did his conscience respond. He listened with heightening color and tense nerves; the delicious languor of amatory music, and the delirium he had felt while under the spell of Marcias beauty, passed away. it seemed to him that he was lifted into a higher plane, whence he saw hefore him the straight path of duty, leading away from the tempting gardens of pleasure,where he recognized immutable principles, and became conscious that his true affinities were not with those who came in contact only with his sensuous nature. He had never understood himself until now. A long meditation, the reader thinks; but, in reality, it was only an electric current, awakening a series of related thoughts; asa flash of lightning at night illumines at once a crowd of objects in a landscape, which the mind perceives, but cannot follow in detail. When, at length, Greenleaf looked up, he was astonished to find the room silent, and himself with his companion in the fo- cus of all eyes. Marcia looked on with a curiosity in which there was perhaps a shade of apprehension. Easelmaun re- lieved the momentary embarrassment by walking towards his friend, with a mean- ing glance, and taking a seat near Mrs. Sandford. I cant allow this, said Easelmaun. You have had your share of Mrs. Sand- fords time. It is my turn. Besides, you will forget it all when you cross the room. Trust me, I shall never forget, said Greenleaf, with a marked emphasis, and a grateful look towards the lovely widow. Whats this? Whats this? said Easelmaun, rapidly. Insatiate trifler, could not one suffice? Oh, we understand each other, per- fectly, said Mrs. Sandford, in a placid tone. You do, eh? I should have inter- rupted you sooner. It might have saved my peace of mind, and perhaps relieved some other anxieties I have witnessed. But go, now! Greenleaf turned away with a smile. Marcia at once proposed a duet to conclude the entertainment, Rossinis Mira bianca luna,a piece for which she had reserved her force, and in which she could display the best qualities of her voice and style. Greenleaf had a high and pure tenor voice; he exerted himself to support her, and with some success; the duet was a fitting close to a delightful and informal concert. But he was thorough- ly sobered; the effects he produced were from cool deliberation, rather than the outbursts of an enthusiastic temper. Ear- lier in the evening the tones and the glances of his companion would have sent fiery thrills along his nerves and lifted him above all self-control. 76 Bulls and Bears. [January, In the buzz of voices that followed, Marcia commenced a lively colloquy with Greenleaf as though she desired to leave him nuder the impressions with which the evening commenced. The amuse- ments of summer were discussed, the merits of watering-places and other fash- ionable resorts, when Greenleaf acciden- tally mentioned that he and Easelinana were going presently to Nahant. Delightful ! she exclaimed, to en- joy the ocean and coast-scenery after the rush of company has left! While the fashionable season lasts, there is nothing but dress and gossip. You are wise to avoid it. I think so, he replied. Neither my tastes nor my pursuits incline me to mingle in what is termed fashionable so- ciety. It makes too large demands upon ones time, to say nothing of the expense or the unsatisfactory nature of its pleas- ures. I agree with you. So you are going to sketch. Would not you and Mr. Ba- selmann like some company? You will not pore over your canvas all day, sure- ly. We should be delighted; I should, certainly. And if you will look at my friends face just now, as he is talking to your beautiful sister-in-law, you will see that he would not object. Do you think Lydia is beautiful Y The tone was quiet, but the glance ques- tioning. Not classically beautiful,but one of the most lovely, engaging women I ever met. Yes,she is charming, truly. I dont think her strikingly handsome, though; but tastes rarely agree, you know. I only asked to ascertain your predilec- tions. I understand, thought Greenleaf; but he made no further reply. Dont be surprised, if you see us be- fore your stay is over,that is, if Lydia and I can induce Charles to go down with us. henry is too busy, I suppose. Charles passed just then; he was en- deavoring to form a cotillon, declaring that talk was slow, and, now that the music was over, a dance would be the thing. Charles, you will go to Nahant for a week,wont von? What! now? In a day or two. Too cold, Sister Marcia; too late, altogether. But you were unwilling to go early in the season. Too early is as bad as too late; it is chilly there till the company comes. No billiards, no hops, no pwetty girls, no sail- ing, no wides on the beach, no pwome- nades on the moonlight side of the piaz- za. No, my deah, Nahant is stupid till the curwent sets that way. Southern visitors warm the coast like the Gulf Stream, I suppose, said Greenleaf. Pwecisely so,then, after the idea had reached his brain, adding, Vewy good, Mr. Gweenleaf! Ycwy good! The soir~e ended as all seasons of pleasure must, and without the dance on which Charles had set his heart. Th friends walked home together. Green- leaf was rather silent, but Easelmaun at last made him talk. What do you think of the beauty, now? the elder asked. Still brilliant, bewitching, dangerous. You are not afraid of her? Upon my soul, I believe I am. What has frightened you? What faults or defects have you seen Two. One is, she uses perfumes too freely. Stop that laugh of yours! Its a trifling thing, but it is an indication. I dont like it. Fastidious man, what next? Has she more hairs on one eyebrow than the other? Or did you see a freckle of the size of a flys foot? The second is in her manner, which, in spite of its ease and apparent artless- ness, has too much method in it. Her suavity is no more studied than her rap- tures. She is frosted all over,frosted like a cake, I mean, and not with ice. And, to follow the image, I have no idea Bulls and Bears. what sort of a compound the tasteful con- fectionery covers. Well, if that is all, I think she has come out from under your scrutiny pret- ty well. I should like to see the woman in whom you would not find as many faults. If a man does not notice trifles, he will never learn much of character. With women especially, one should he as ob- serving as a Huron on the trail of an enemy. Ferocious hunter, who supposed there were so many wiles in your simple heart? Odd enough, there seemed to he a succession of warnings this evening. I was dazzled at first, I own, almost hopelessly smitten. But Sandford gave me a jolt hy hringing in husiness; he thinks there is to he a smash, and advises inc to make hay while the sun shines. Then I talked with Mrs. Sandford. Now we come to the interesting part to me But I shant gratify you, you mous- er! It is enough to say, that in a few simple words, uttered, I am sure, without forethought, she placed my fri- volity hefore me, and then showed me what I might and ought to he. I was like a grasshopper hefore, drunk with dew, and then sohered by a plunge into a clear, cool spring. Besides, I have thought more ahout your advice in re- gard to the lady, you dissembling old rascal! For you know that in such mat- ters you never mean what you say; and when you counsel me to fall in love with a coquette, you only wish me to he warn- ed in time and make good my escape. If it were light enough, I should see that grizzly moustache of yours curl like a cats, this minute. You can grin, you amiable Mephistopheles, hut I know you! No, my dear Easelmann, I am cured. I shall take hold of my pencils with new energy. I will save money and go ahroad, arid I had nearly forgotten her !I will take a new look at my darlings sweet face in my pocket, and, like Ulys- ses, Ill put wax iuto my ears when I meet the singing Siren again. I hope your rustic ,fiancee is not clairvoyant? I hope not. If she is, she will cry her little eyes out to-night. Dont speak of it, I heg of you. You are getting lugubrious; we shall have to change the subject. Love affects people in as many different ways as wine. Some are exalted,their feet spurn the earth, their heads are in the clouds; some pugnacious, walking ahout with a chip on the shoulder; others are stupidly happy, their faces wearing a sickly smile that hecomes painful to look at; others again, like you, melancholy as a wailing tenor in the last act of Lucia. Like learning, a little draught of love is dangerous; drink largely and he soher. The charm- er will not cast so powerful a spell upon you the next time, and you will come away more tranquil. There was just the least shade of sar- casni in the tone, and Greenleaf, as usual, was a little puzzled. For Easelmann was a study,always agreeable, never untruthful, hut fond of launching an idea like a hoomerang, to sweep away, am parently, hut to return upon some un- expected curve. His real meaning could not always he gathered from any isolated sentence; and to strangers he was a liv- ing riddle. But Greenleaf had passed the excitable period, and had lapsed into a state of moody repentance and grim resolution. You need not tempt me, he said, even if that were your object, which I doubt, you sly fox! And if you mean only to pique my pride in order to cure my inconstancy to my hetrothed, I assure you it is quite unnecessary. I shall have too much self-respect to place myself in the way of temptation again. Now you are growing disagreeable; the virtuous resolutions of a diner-out, on the headachy morning after, are never pleasant to hear. There is so much im- plied! One does not like to follow the idea hackward to its naughty source. The penitent should keep his sermons and soda-water to himself. 1859.1 77 78 Bulls and Bears. [January, Well, here we are at home. We have walked a mile, and yet it seems hut a furlong. If I were not so disagree- able as you say, we would take another turn about the Common. Sleep will do you more good, my friend; and I think Ill go home. I havent smoked since dinner. Good night I Greenleaf went to his room, hut not at once to sleep; his nerves were still too tremulous. With the picture of Alice before him, he sat for hours in a dreamy reverie; and when at last he went to bed, he placed the miniature under his pillow. CHAPTER VHL A YOUNG FINANCIER AT HOME. JOHN FLETCHER lived in a small, but neat house at the South End. Slender and youthful as he lookcd, he was not a bachelor, hut had a pretty, fragile-look- in,, wife, to whom he was married when only nineteen years of age. Such a union Could have been brought about only by what the world calls an indiscretion, or from an unreflecting, hasty hnpulse. Girl as Mrs. Fletcher seemed to he, she was not without prudence as a housekeeper; and as far as she could command her in- constant temper, she made home attrac- tive to her husband. But ucither of them had the weight of character to act as a Counterpoise to the vacillation of the oth- er. It was not a sun and a planet, the one wheclin~ about the otber,nor yet were they double stars, revolving about a centre common to both; their move- ments were like nothing so much as the freaks of a couple of pith-balls electrical- ly excited,at one time drawn furiously together, and then capriciously repelling each other. Their loves, caresses, spats, quarrels, poutings, and reconciliations were as uncertain as the vagaries of the weather,as little guided by sense or reason as the passions of early childhood. On one subject they agreed at all times, and that was to pet and spoil most thor- oughly their infant daughter, a puny, weak-voiced, slender-limbed, curly-haired child, with the least possible chance of living to the age of womanhood. Fletcher was confidential clerk to the great bankin,,-house of Foggarty, Dan- forth, and Dot. The senior partner rare- ly took any active part in business, but left it to the management of Danforth and Dot. Danforth had the active brain to plan,Dot the careful, cool faculty to execute. Fletcher had a good salary,. so large that he could always reserve a small margin for outside operations, by which in one way or another he gen- erally contrived to lose. The god he worshipped was Chance; by which I do not refer at all to any the- ory of the creation of matter, but to the course and order of human affairs. His drawers were full of old lottery-schemes; he did not long buy tickets, because he was too shrewd; but he made endless calculations upon the probability of draw- ing prizes,provided the tickets were really all sold, and the wheel fairly man- aced. A dice-box was always at hand upon themantel. He had portraits of celebrated racers, both quadruped and biped, and he could tell the fastest time ever made by either. His manipulation of cards was, as his friends averred, one of the fine arts; and in all the games he had wrought out problems of chances, and knew the probability of every con- tingency. A stock-list was always tacked above his secretary, and another con- stantly in his pocket. And this evening he had brought home a revolving disk, having figures of various values engraved around its edge, carefully poised, with a hair-spring pointer, like a hand on a dial- plate. What have you got, John? asked his wife. Only a toy, a plaything, deary. See it spin! and he gave the disk a whirl. But what is it for l Oh, nothin~ in particular. I thought we could amuse ourselves in turning it for the largest throws. Is that all? It is a heavy thing, and must have cost a good lot of money. Not much. Now see! You know Bulls and Bears. I have tried to show you how chance rules the world; and if you once get the chances in your favor, all is right. Now suppose we take this wheel, and on the number 2,000 we paste Michigan Cen- tral, Western over 1,000, Vermont and Massachusetts over ~00, Cary Im- provement over 400, and so on. INow, after a certain number of revolutions, by keeping ace6unt, we get the chance of each stock to come up. I dont understand. I dont suppose you do; you dont give your mind to it, as I do. But you know you had the same notion once about cards, and pasted the names of the stocks on the court cards; and then you shuffled and cut and dealt and turncd up, night after night. Little doxy! small piece of prop- erty! youd bcst attend to that baby, and other matters that you know something about. The little doxy felt strongly in- clined to cry, but she kept back the sobs and said, You know, John, how sullen and almost hateful you were befdre, when you were bewitched after those mean stocks. ~ dont think you should med- dle with such things; they are too big for you Lct the rich fools gamble, if they w it to; if they lose, they can afford ~ and nobody cares but to laugh at the~i. Oh, John, you promised me you wouldnt gamble any more. Well, I dont gamble. I havent been to a faro bank for a year. I stay away just to please you, although I know all the chances, and could break the bank as easy as falling off a log. You dont gamble, you say, but you are uneasy till you put all your money at riMk on those paper things. I dont see the difference. You neednt see the difference; no- body asked you to see the difference. Ga~ible, indeed! there isnt a man on the street that doesnt keep an eye on the paper things, as you call them. ~ You see what I told you. You are cro~s. You like anything better (a sob) than your poor (another) neglected wife. The sobs now thickened into a cry, and, with streaming eyes, she picked up the puny child and declared she was go- ing to bed. To this proposal the moody man emphatically assented. But as Mrs. Fletcher passed near her husband, the child reached out its slender arms and caught hold of him by his cravat, scream- ing, Papa! papa! I stay, papa ! Let go! roughly exclaimed the ami- able father. But she held the tighter, and shouted, Papa! my papa! What sudden freak overcame his an- ger probably not even Fletcher himself could telL But, turniu~ towards his wife, who was supporting the child, whose little fingers still held him fast, his face cleared instantly, and, with a sudden movement, he drew the surprised and delighted wom- an down upon his knee, and loaded her with every form of childish endearment. Her tears and sorrows vanished together, like the dew. Little duck, said he, if I were alone, I shouldnt care for any more money. I know I can always take care of myself. But for your sake I want to be independent,rieh, if you please. I want to be free. I want to meet that wily, smooth, plausible, damned, respec- table villain face to face, and with as much money as he. His eyes danced with a furious light and motion, and the fringy moustache trembled over his thin and sensitive mouth. But in a moment he repented the outbreak; for his wifes face blanch- ed then, and the tears leaped from her eyes. Oh, John, she exclaimed, what is this awful secret? I know that some- thing is killing you. You mutter in sleep; you are sullen at times; and then you break out in this dreadful way. Fletcher meditated. I cant tell her; twould kill her, and not do any good either. No, one good streak of luck will set me up where I can defy him. Ill grin and bear it. What is it, John? Tell your poor little wife ! Oh, nothinn, my dear. I do some 1859.1 79 80 Bulls and Bears. [January, business for Sandford, who is apt to be doi~ineering,thats all. To-day he pro- voked me, and when I am mad it does me good to swear; its as natural as light- ning out of a black cloud. It may do you good to swear, John; hut it makes the cold chills run over me. Why do you have anything to do with anyhody that treats you so? You are so changed from what you were! Oh, John, something is wrong, I know. Your face looks sharp and inquiring. You are thin and uneasy. Theres a wrinkle in your cheek, that used to he as smooth as a girls. She patted his face softly, as it rested on her shoulder; but he made no reply save by an absent, half-audible whistle. You dont answer me, John, dear! Ive nothing especial to say, doxy, only that I will wind up with Sandford as soon as we finish the business in hand. The business in hand? Has he any- thing to do with Foggarty, Danforth, and Dot? Fletcher was not skilful under cross- examination. So he simply answered, No, and then stopping her mouth with kisses, promised to explain the matter another day. Well, John, I am tired; I think Ill take baby and go to bed. Dont sit up and get blue over your troubles! As she lcft the room, Fletcher drew a long breath. What an accent of despair was borne on that sigh! His busy hrain was active in laying plans which his vacil- lating will could never execute without help. Often before, he had determined to confront Sandford and defy him; hut as often he had quniled before that self- possessed and imperious man. What hope was there, then, for this timid, crouching man, as long as the hand of his haughty master was outstretched in command? None! CHAPTER IX. STATE STREET. THE stringency of the money-market began to frighten even Mr. Sandford, who had heen predicting a panic. There had been hut few failures, and those were generally of houses that ought to fail, being insolvent from losses or misman- agement. Mr. Sandford studied over his sheet of bills payable and receivable al- most hourly. The amount intrusted to him by Monroe had been loaned out; for which he was now very sorry, as the rate of interest had nearly doubled since he made the last agreement. This, how- ever, was but a small item in his accounts; other transactions of greater magnitude occupied his attention. As he looked over the array of promisors and indorsers, he said to himself; I am safe. If these men fail, it will be because the universal bottom has dropped out and chaos come again. If anybody is shaky, it is Stearine. He believes, though, that Bullion will help him through, and extend that note. Per- haps he will. Perhaps, again, he will have enough to (10 to keep on his own legs. lie fancies himself strong becau~ he owns the most of the Neversink Mills. But he doesnt know what I know, that Kerbstone, the treasurer of the Mills, is in the street every day, looking like a gambler when his last dollar is on the table. A few more turns of the screw and down goes Kerbstone. Who knows that the Mills wont tumble, too, and Bul- lion after them? lie may go hang; but we must look after Stearine, and prop him, if necessary. That twenty thousand is more than we can afford to lose just now. Lucky, there he comes! Mr. Stearine entered, not with his usual smile, but with an expression like that of a man trying to be jolly with the tooth- Ic. A short, but dexterous cross-ex- amination showed to Sandford, that, if the twenty-thousand-dollar note could he extended over to better times, Stearine was safe. But the note was soon due, and Bullion might be unable or unwilling to renew; in which case, the Vortex would have to meet it. That was a contingency to be provided against; for Mr. Sandford did not intend that the public should know that the credit of the Company had been used for private purposes by its 1859.] Bulls and Bears. 81 officers. He therefore called in Mr. Fayerweather, the President, and the afLsir was talked over and settled be- tween them. One thing more, said Sandford. Suppose any one ~iould & et wind of this, and grow suspicious ;Bullion him- self might he foolish enough to let the cat out of the hag ;we might find the shares of the Vortex in the market, and the hears running them down to an un- comfortable figure. True enough. We must stop that. The only way is to keep a sharp look- out, and if any of the stock is offered, to buy it up. half a dozen of us can take all that will he likely to come into mar- ket. How many shares do you own, Sand- ford? asked Mr. Fayerweatber, with a quizzical look. Is this a nice little scheme of yours to run them off at par? Its a shrewd dodge. You do me wrong, said Sandford, with a look of wounded innocence. I merely want to sustain the credit of the Company. Oh, no doubt! said the President. Well, we will agree, then, not to let the shares fall below ninety, say. It would be suspicious, I think, to hobl them higher than that, when money is two and a half per cent. a month. Very well. You will see to this? Be careful what men you speak to. Mr. Sandford, being left alone, be- thought him of Monroe. He did not wish to give him a statement of affairs; he had put him off once, and must find some way to satisfy him. How was it to be done? The financier meditated. I have it, said he; Ill send him a quarters in- terest in advance. Thats as much as I can spare in these times, when interest grows like those miraculous pumpkin- vines out West. He drew a check for two hundred dollars, and dispatched it to Monroe by letter. So Mr. Sandford had all things snug. The Vortex wai going on under close- reefed topsails. If the notes he held were paid as they matured, he would VOL. III. 6 have money for new operations; if not, he had arranged that the debtors should be piloted over the har and anchored in safety till the storm should blow over. Lverything was secured, as far as human foresight could anticipate. Mr. Sandford had now but little use for Fletchers services, except to look after his debtorsto know who was shin- ning in the street, or kite-flying with accon.modation-paper. Still he did not admit the agent into his confidence. But this active and scheming mind was not long without employment. Mr. Bullion bad seen him in frequent communication with Sandford, and thereby formed a high opinion of his shrewdness and tact for he knew that Sandford was very wary in selecting his associates. He sought Fletcher. Youno man, said Bullion, pointing his wisp of an cyebrow at him, do you want a job? Few words and keep mum. Yes or no? Yes, said Fletcher, decidedly. I like your pluck, said Bullion. It doesnt take much pluck to follow Mr. Bullions lead. None of your nonsense. How do you know anything about me, or what I am going to do? I may fail to-morrow, God forbid !but when the wind comes, its the tall trees that are knocked over. Fletcher thought the comparison rather ludicrous for a man standing on such re- markably short pegs, but he said nothing. I mean to sell a few shares of stock, and I want you to do the business. I am not to be known in it. Fletcher bowed, and asked what the stocks were. No matter; any you can sell to ad- vantage. I havent a share, but I neednt tell you that doesnt make any differ- ence. Let me understand you clearly, said Fletcher. Sell under. For instance, take a stock that sells to-day at ninety-four; of- fer to deliver it five days hence at ninety. To-morrow offer it a peg lower, and so on, till the market is easier. When the 82 Bulls and Bears. [January, fIrst contract is up, we shall get the stock at eighty-eight, or less, perhaps,deliver to the buyers, and pocket the difference. But it may not fall. Its bound to fall. People that hold stock must sell to pay their notes. Every day brings a fresh lot of shares to the hammer. But the bulls may corner you; they will try mightily to keep prices up. But they cant corner, I tell you; there are too many of them in distress. Besides, well spread; we wont l)ut all our eggs in to one basket. If I stuck to bearino one stock, the holders might get all the shares and break me by keep- ing them so that I couldnt com~)ly with my contracts. I shant do it. Ill pitch into the fancies mainly; they are held by speculators, who must be short, and theyll come down vith a run. How deep shall I go in? Fifty thousand, to begin with. How- ever, there wout be many transfers actu- ally made; the bulls will merely pay the differences. Or else waddle out of the street lame ducks. Bullion rubbed his hands, while his eyes shone with a colder glitter. Well, you are a bear, truly, said Fletcher, with unfeigned admiration, a ucal Ursa Major. To be sure, Im a bear. Whats the in heing a bull in times like these, to be skinned and sold for your hide and t~l1ow? The market is falling, and no mis- Yes, and will fall lower. Stocks havent been down since 37 50 low as you will see them a month from now. Fletcher bowedand waited. Bul- lion pointed the eyebrow again. You dont want to begin on an un- certainty. I see. Sharp. Proper enough. Ill give you ten per cent. of the profits, you to pay the commissions. Each days work to be set down, and at the end of each week P11 give you a note for your share. That do? I thought it ~would. I offer a liber I figure, for I think you know something, youngster. Use your judgment, now. Consult me, of course; but mums the word. If any stock is pushed in, lay hold, and dont be afraid. The holders must sell, and they must sacrifice. Well skin cm, by G, said Bullion, with an excitement that was rare in a cool, hard head like his. Then thinking lie had been too outspoken, he resunied his former concise manner. All fair, you know. Barcrain is a bargain. They must sell; we wont buy, without we buy cheap; their loss, to be sure, but our gain. All trade on the sanme plan. Seller gets the most lie can; buyer pays only what he must. Thats it, said Fletcher. Every man for himself in this world. Well, good mornin, young man. Sharps the word. Call at my office this afternoon. And, with a queer sweep of the pointed eyebrow, he de- parted. What visions of opulence rose before Fletchers fancy! He would now lay the foundations of his fortune, and, per- haps, accomplish it. He would become a power in State Street; and, best of all, he would escape from his slavery to Sandford, and perhaps even patronize the haughty man he had so long served. How to begin? He could not attend the sales at the Brokers Board in person, as he was not a member. Should he confide in Danforth? No,for, with his relations to the house, his own share in the profits would be whittled down. He determined to employ Tonsor, an old acquaintance, who would be glad to buy and sell for the re~ular commissions. The prelim- inaries were speedily concluded, and a list of stocks made out on which to oper- ate. The excitement was almost too great for Fletcher to bear. As he count- ed the piles of bank-bills on his employ- ers counter, or stacked up heaps of coin, in his ordinary business, he fancied him- self another Ali Baba, in a cave to which he had found the Open Sesame, and he could hardly contain himself till the tinme should come when he should take posses- smon of his unimaginable wealth. lie had 1859.1 Bulls and Bears. 83 built air-castles before, but never one so magnificent, so real. He could bave hugged Bullion, bear as he was.We leave Fletcher and his principal on the high road to success. CIIAPTER X. THE SIREN COMES TO THE SEA-SHORE. GREENLEAF worked assiduously upon his landscapes, and, notwithstanding the pressure in the money-market, was fortu- nate enough to dispose of them to gentle- inca whose incomes were not affected by the vicissitudes of business. For this he was principally indebted to Sandford, who took pains to bring his works to the notice of connoisseurs. But, with all his Success, the object of his ambition was as far off as at first. Imperceptibly he had acquired expensive habits. He was not prodigal, not extravagaist; but, having a keen sense of the beautiful, he gradually became more fastidious in dress, and in all those nameless elegancies which seem of right to belong to the accomplished man, as to the gentleman in easy circum- stances. This desire for ease and luxury did not conflict with simplicity; he seem- ed born for all the enjoyment which the most cultivated society could bestow. He bad the power to spend the income of a fortune worthily; unhappily, he did not have it to spend. He had written con- stantly to his betrothed, and when he told her of the prices he had received for his pictures, he was at a loss how to make her comprehend the new relations into which he had grown, to explain that he was practically as poor as when he first came to the city. How could he assure her of his desire to end the en- gagement in marriage, if he spoke of postponement now that he had an in- come beyond his first expectations? Im- perceptibly to himself, his letters became more like intellectual conversations, or essays, rather,pleasant enough in them- selves, but far different from the simple and fervent epistles he wrote while the memory of Alice Was fresher. She felt this, although she had not reasoned upon it, and her sensitive womanly heart was full of vaoue forebodings. Would he confess to himself, that, as he looked at her cherished picture, anoth- er face, with a more brilliant air and a more dazzling beauty, came between him and the silent image before him? Dared he to think, that, in his frequent visits to Miss Sandford, the ties which bound him to his betrothed were daily weakening? that he found a charm in the very caprices and waywardness of the new love, which the unvarying constancy and placid affection of the old had never created? The one put her heart un- reservedly into his keeping; she knew nothing of concealment, and he read her as he would an unsophisticated child; there was not a nook or cranny in her heart, he thought, that he had not ex- plored. The other was full of surprises; she had as many phases as an April day; and from mere curiosity, if from no other motive, Greenleaf was piqued to follow on to understand her real character. The apprehensions he felt at first wore away; he became accustomed to her measured sentences and her apparently artificial manner. What seemed affectation now became a natural expression. The se- cret influence she exerted increased, and, at length, possessed him wholly while in her company. It drew him as the moon draws the tides, silently, unconsciously, but with a power he could not resist. It was only when he was away from her that he could reason himself into a be- lief in his independence. Greenleaf and Easelmnana were at Na- hant at the close of the season. A few straggling visitors only remained; the fashionable world had returned to the city. The friends wandered over the rocky peninsula, walked the long beach that leads to the main land, sketched the sea from the shore, and the shore from the sea, and watched and transferred the changing phases of Nature in sunshine and in storm. They were fortunate enough to see one magnificent tempest, by which the ocean was lashed into fu- ry, breaking in thunder over the ruggcd 84 Bulls and Bears. [January, coast-line, and dashin6 spray sheer over the huge back of Egg Rock. Miss Sandfords threat was carried into execution; the family came to the hotel, and, for a week, Greenleaf and his friend were most devoted in their attentions. Marcia was charmed with their sketches, and, with a tact as delicate as it is rare, rave them time for their cherished pur- suits, and planned excursions only for their unemployed hours. They collected colored mosses, star-fish, and other ma- tine curiosities; they sailed, fished, scam- pered over the rocks, drove over the beach at twilight, sang, danced, and bowled. And when weary of active amusement they reclined on the grass and listened to the melancholy rote of the sea,the steady pulsations of its mighty heart. Easelmana, with his usual raillery, con- gratulated his friend on his prospects, and declared that the pupil was surpassing the teacher in the beaus arts. Finely, Greenleaf! You are just com- ing to the interesting part of the process. You are a little flushed, however,not quite cool enough. A wily adversary she is; if you allow your feelings to run away with you, its all up. She will hold the reins as coolly as you held your trot- t~n~ pony yesterday. Keep the hits out of your mouth, my boy. Dont trouble yourself. I shall keep cool. I am not going to make a fool of myself by proposin~. Oh, you arent? We sW 11 see. But shell refuse you, and then youll come to your senses. Im deusedly afraid she would accept me. The vanity of mankind! Dont tell me that women are vain. Every man thinks himself irresistible,that he has only to call, to have the women come round him like colts around a farmer with a measure of corn. Shake the ker- nels in your dish, and cry, Kerjock! Perhaps she will come. I suppose you think, with Jlosca Big- slow, that Taut a kuowin kind o cattle That is ketched with mouldy corn. I neednt tell you that Marcia Sand- ford is knowing, too knowing to let an enthusiastic lover relapse into a hum- drum husband. You amuse her now: for she likes to enjoy poetry and senti- ment, dances, rides, and rambles, in com- pany with a man of fresh susceptibilities; a good phrase that, fresh susceptibili- ties.The instant you become serious and ask her to marry von, the dream is ove~ she will hate you. W~eil, what is to become of a lady like this,a creature you think too bright, if not too good, for hunian natures daily food? An easy prophecy. The destiny of a pretty woman is to catch lovers. The cat doth play, and after slay, sai(I Greenleaf lamrhino. Play while you can, my dear boy; if she is a cat, youll get the final coup soon enough. To finish the fortune-telling, she will continue her present delightful pursuits as long as youth and beauty l~ st; and the beauty will 1 st a long time after the youth has gone. She may pick up some young man of fortune and mar- ry him; but it is not likely; the rich al- ways marry the rich. Just this side of the blasf period, while still in the fulness of her charms, she will open her battery of smiles upon some wealthy old widower and compel him to place her at the head of his establishment. Then, with a secure position and increased facilities, she will (Iraw new throngs of admirers, as lone as she has power to fascinate, or until there are no more fools left. A pleasing picture of domestic felici- tv for the husband! Precisely what he deserves. When an 01(1 fool marries a young flirt, he de- serves to wear whatever honors she may bestow upon him. Do you remember how you artfully persuaded me into this intimacy? And now you are making game of me for following your own suggestions. Mo? I never suggest; I never per- suade. You did, you crafty old fox! You advised me to fall in love with her. The Professor at the Breahf~sst- Table. 85 lSJi9.] Did I? Well, I think now you have gone far enough. A sip from the cup of enchantment is quite suffi- cient; you neednt swallow the whole of it. But people cant always control them- selves. Can you trust yourself to stop this side of insensibility, when you take ether? or he sure you wont get drunk, if you commence the evening with a party of dissipated fellows? That will do, my friend. I know there are people who are fond of con- fessing their weakness dont you do it. Where is the supremacy of mind and will, and all that nonsense, if a man cant amuse himself with a clever womans artifices without tumbling into the snare he is watching? Well see how you succeed with the charming widow, whether the wise man, when his own jecar is pierced with the arrow, may not show it, as well as other people. And by-the-by, you will have an excellent opportunity for your experiment. Marcia and I arc go- ing to take a sail this afternoon, and you can entertain Mrs. Sandford while we are gone. Easelmann softly whistled. [To be continued.] THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. WHAT HE SAID, WHAT HE HEARD, AND WHAT HE SAW. I INTENDED to have signalized my first appearance by a certain large state- ment, which I flatter myself is the near- est approach to a universal formula of lifb yet promul~ated at this breakfast- tahle. It would have had a grand ef- fect. For this purpose I fixed my eyes on a certain divinity-student, with the intention of exchanging a few phrases, and then forcing my picture-card, name- ly, The great end of beingI will thank you for the sugar,I said. Man is a dependent creature. It is a small favor to asksaid the divin ity-student,and pass~ the sugar to me. Life is a great bundle of little things,I said. The divinity-student smiled, as if that was the concluding epigram of the sugar question. You snule,I said.Perhaps life seems to you a little bundle of great things? The divinity-student started a laugh, but su(Idenly reined it hack with a pull, as one throws a horse on his haunches. Life is a great bundle of great things, he said. (Now, then!) The great end of being, after all, is Hold on said my neighbor, a young fellow whose name seems to be John, and nothing else ,for that is what they all call him,hold on! the Scul- pin is gon to say somethin. iNow the Sculpin (Cottus Virginian us) is a little water-beast which pretends to consider itself a fish, and, under that pre- text, hangs about the piles upon which West-Boston Bridge is built, swallowing the bait and hook intended for flounders. On being drawn from the water, it ex- poses an immense head, a diminutive bony carcass, and a surface so full of spines, ridges, ruffles, and frills, that the naturalists have not been able to count them without quarrelling about the num- ber, and that the colored youth, whose sport they spoil, do not like to touch them, and especially to tread on them, unless they happen to have shoes on, to cover the thick white soles of their broad black feet. When, therefore, I heard the young fellows exclamation, I looked round the

The Professor at the Breahf~sst- Table. 85 lSJi9.] Did I? Well, I think now you have gone far enough. A sip from the cup of enchantment is quite suffi- cient; you neednt swallow the whole of it. But people cant always control them- selves. Can you trust yourself to stop this side of insensibility, when you take ether? or he sure you wont get drunk, if you commence the evening with a party of dissipated fellows? That will do, my friend. I know there are people who are fond of con- fessing their weakness dont you do it. Where is the supremacy of mind and will, and all that nonsense, if a man cant amuse himself with a clever womans artifices without tumbling into the snare he is watching? Well see how you succeed with the charming widow, whether the wise man, when his own jecar is pierced with the arrow, may not show it, as well as other people. And by-the-by, you will have an excellent opportunity for your experiment. Marcia and I arc go- ing to take a sail this afternoon, and you can entertain Mrs. Sandford while we are gone. Easelmann softly whistled. [To be continued.] THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. WHAT HE SAID, WHAT HE HEARD, AND WHAT HE SAW. I INTENDED to have signalized my first appearance by a certain large state- ment, which I flatter myself is the near- est approach to a universal formula of lifb yet promul~ated at this breakfast- tahle. It would have had a grand ef- fect. For this purpose I fixed my eyes on a certain divinity-student, with the intention of exchanging a few phrases, and then forcing my picture-card, name- ly, The great end of beingI will thank you for the sugar,I said. Man is a dependent creature. It is a small favor to asksaid the divin ity-student,and pass~ the sugar to me. Life is a great bundle of little things,I said. The divinity-student smiled, as if that was the concluding epigram of the sugar question. You snule,I said.Perhaps life seems to you a little bundle of great things? The divinity-student started a laugh, but su(Idenly reined it hack with a pull, as one throws a horse on his haunches. Life is a great bundle of great things, he said. (Now, then!) The great end of being, after all, is Hold on said my neighbor, a young fellow whose name seems to be John, and nothing else ,for that is what they all call him,hold on! the Scul- pin is gon to say somethin. iNow the Sculpin (Cottus Virginian us) is a little water-beast which pretends to consider itself a fish, and, under that pre- text, hangs about the piles upon which West-Boston Bridge is built, swallowing the bait and hook intended for flounders. On being drawn from the water, it ex- poses an immense head, a diminutive bony carcass, and a surface so full of spines, ridges, ruffles, and frills, that the naturalists have not been able to count them without quarrelling about the num- ber, and that the colored youth, whose sport they spoil, do not like to touch them, and especially to tread on them, unless they happen to have shoes on, to cover the thick white soles of their broad black feet. When, therefore, I heard the young fellows exclamation, I looked round the 86 like Professor at the Breakfast-Tal3le. [January, table with curiosity to see what it meant. At the further end of it I saw a head, and a small portion of a little deformed body, mounted on a high chair, which brought the occupant up to a fair level enough for him to ~et at his food. His whole appearance was so grotesque, I felt for a minute as if there was a show- man behind him who would pull him down presently and put up Judy, or the hangman, or the Devil, or some other wooden personage of the famous spec- tacle. I contrived to lose the first part of his sentence, but what I heard be- gan so by the Frog-Pond, when there were frogs in it, and the folks used to come down from the tents on Lection and Independence days with their pails to get water to make egg-pop with. Born in Boston; went to school in Bos- ton as lonn as the boys would let me. The little man groaned, turned, as if to look round, and went on.Ran away from school one day to see Phillips hung for killing Denegri with a loggerhead. That was in flip days, when there were always two or three loggerheads in the fire. Im a Boston boy, I tell you,born at North End, and mean to be buried on Copps Hill, with the good old under- ground people,the Worthylakes, and the rest of em. Yes, Sir,up on the old hill, where they buried Captain Daniel Malcolm in a stone grave, ten feet deep, to keep him safe from the red-coats, in those old times when the world was frozen up tight and there wasnt but one spot open, and that was right over Fancuil Hall,and black enough it look- ed, I tell you! Theres where my bones shall lie, Sir, and rattle away when the big guns go off at the Navy Yard oppo- site! You cant make me ashamed of the old place! Full of crooked little streets ;I was born and used to run round in one of em I should think so,said that young man whom I hear them call John, softly, not meaning to be heard, nor to be cruel, but thinkin in a half-whisper, evidently.I should think so;.and got kinked up, turniA so many corners.The little man did not hear what was said, but went on full of crooked little streets; but I tell you Boston has opened, and kept open, more turnpikes that lead straight to free thought and free speech and free deeds than any other city of live men or dead men,I dont care how broad their streets are, nor how high their steeples! How high is Bosting meetn- house ?said a person with black whis- kers and imperial, a velvet waistcoat, a guard-chain rather too massive, and a diamond pin so very large that the most trusting nature might confess an inward suggestion,of course, nothing amount- in~ to a suspicion. For this is a gen- tleman from a great city, and sits next to the landladys daughter, who evident- ly believes in him, and is the object of his especial attention. How high ?said the little man.As high as the first step of the stairs that lead to the New Jerusalem. Isnt that high enough? It is,I said.The great end of be- ing is to harmonize man with the order of things; and the church has been a good pitch-pipe, and may be so still. But who shall tune the pitch-pipe? Quis cus(On the whole, as this quotation was not entirely new, and, being in a foreign language, might not be familiar to all the boarders, I thought I wonld not finish it.) Go to the Bible !said a sharp voice from a sharp-faced, sharp-eyed, sharp-elbowed, strenuous-looking woman in a black dress, appearing as if it began as a piece of mourning and perpetuated itself as a bit of economy. You speak well, Madam,I said ;yet there is room for a gloss or commentary on what you say. He who would bring back the wealth of tIme Indies must carry out the wealth of the Indies. What you bring away from the Bible depends to some extent on what you carry to it. Benjamin Franklin! Be so good as to step up to my chamber and bring me down the small uncovered pamphlet of 1839.] The Professor at tke Breakfast- Table. 87 twenty pages hich you will find ly- ing under the Crudens Concordance. [The boy took a large bite, which left a very perfect crescent in the slice of bread- and-butter he held, and departed on his errand, with the portable fraction of his breakfast to sustain him on the way.] Here it is. Go to the Bible. A Dis- sertation, etc., etc. By J. J. Flournoy. Athens, Georgia. 1858. Mr. Flournoy, Madam, has obeyed the precept which you have judiciously de- livered. You may be interested, Madam, to know what are the conclusions at which Mr. J. J. Flournoy of Athens, Georgia, has arrived. You shall hear, Madam. He has gone to the Bible, and he has come back from the Bible, bringing a remedy for existing social evils, which, if it is the real specific, as it professes to be, is of great interest to humanity, and to the female part of humanity in particular. It is what he calls trigamy, Madam, or the marrying of three wives, so that good old men may be solaced at once by the companionship of the wisdom of maturity, and of those less p~rfected but hardly~ less enga~ing qualities which are found at an earlier period of life. He has followed your precept, Madam; I hope you accept his conclusions. The female boarder in black attire looked so puzzled, and, in fhct, all abroad, after the delivery of this coun- ter of mine,, that I left her to recover her wits, and went on with the conversa- tion, which I was beginning to get pretty well in hand. But in the mean time I kept my eye on the female boarder to see what ef- fect I had produced. First, she was a little stunned at having her argument knocked over. Secondly, she was a little shocked at the tremendous character of the triple matrimonial su~gestion. Third- ly. I dont like to say what I thought. Something seemed to have pleased her fancy. Whether it was, that, if trigamy should come into fashion, there would be three times as many chances to enjoy the luxury of saying, No ! is more than I can tell you.. I may as well mention that B. F. came to me after breakfast to borrow the pamphlet for a lady,one of the boarders, he said,looking as if he had a secret he wished to be relieved of. I continued.If a human soul is necessarily to be trained up in the faith of those from whom it inherits its body, why, there is the end of all reason. If, sooner or later, every soul is to look for truth with its own eyes, the first thing is to recognize that no presumption in favor of any particular belief arises~ from the fact of our inheriting it. Otherwise you would not hive the Mahometan a fair chance to become a convert to a better relilon. The second thin~ would be to depolar- ize every fixed religious idea in the mind by changing the word which stands for it. I dont know what you mean by depolarizing an idea,said the divin- ity-student. I will tell you,I sai(l.When a given symbol which represents a thought has lain for a certain length of time in the mind, it undergoes a change like that which rest in a certain position gives to iron. It becomes magnetic in its rela- tions,it is traversed by strange forces which did not belong to it. The word, and consequently the idea it represents, is polarized. The religious currency of mankind, in thought, in speech, and in print, con- sists entirely of polarized words. Bor- row one of these from another langua~e and religion, and you will find it leaves all its magnetism behind it. Take that famous word, Om, of the Hindoo mythol- oay. Even a priest cannot pronounce it without sin; and a holy Pundit would shut his ears and run away from you in horror, if you should say it aloud. What do you care for Om? if you wanted to get the Pundit to look at his religion fairly, you must first depolarize this and all sim- ilar words for him. The ar~ ument for and against new translations of the Bible really turns on this. Ske1:ticism is afraid to trust its truths in depolarized words, and so cries out against a new transla- tion. I think, myself, if every idea our 88 17w Professor at die Breakfast- Table. [January, Book contains could be shelled out of its old symbol and put into a new, clean, unmagnetic word, we should have some chance of rending it as philosophers, or wisdom-lovers, ought to read it,which we do not and cannot now, any more than a Hindoo can rend the Gayatri as a fair man and lover of truth should do. When society has once fairly dissolved the New Testament, which it never has done yet, it will perhaps crystallize it over again in new forn~ of language. I didet ks~oxv you was a settled minister ovei this parish,said the young fellow near me A sermon Ov a lay-preacher may be worth listening to,I replied, calmly. It gives the pai a/lax of thought and feel- ing as they appear to the observers from two very different points of view. If you wish to get the distance of a heavenly body, you know that you must take two observations from distant points of the earths orbit,in midsummer and mid- winter, for instance. To get the parallax of heavenly truths, you must take an ob- servation from the position of the laity as well as of the clergy. Teachers and students of theology get a certain look, certain conventional tones of voice, a clerical gait, a professional ne~kcloth, and habits of mind as professional as tbeir ex- ternals. They are scholarly men and rea(l Bacon, and know well enon~h what the idols of the tribe are. Of course they have their false gods, as all men that follow one exclusive calling are prone to doThe clergy have played the part of the fly-wheel in our indern civilization. They have never suffered it to stop. They have often carried on its movement, when other moving powers failed, by the momentum stored in their vast body. Sometimes, too, they have kept it back by their cis inertice, when its wheels were like to grin(l the bones of some old canonized error into fertilizers for the soil that yields the bread of life. But the mainspring of the worlds on- ward religious movement is not in them, nor in any one body of men, let me tell you. It is the people that makes the clergy, and not the clergy that makes the people. Of course, the profession reacts on its source with variable energyBut there never was a guild of dealers or a company of craftsmen that did not need sharp lookin~ after. Our old friend, Dr. Holyoke, whom we gave the dinner to some time since, must have known m~ ny people that saw the great bonfire in harvard College yard. Bonfire ?shrieked the little man. The bonfire when Robert Calefs book was burned ? The same, I said, when Robert Calef the Boston merchants book was burned in the yard of harvard College by order of Increase Mather, President of the College and Minister of the Gospel. You remember the old witchcraft revival of 92, and how stout Master Robert Calef, trader, of Boston, had the pluck to tell the ministers and judges what ~i set of fools and worse than fools they were Remember it ?said the little man.I dont think I shall forget it, as long as I can stretch this forefinger to point with, and see what it wears.There was a ring on it. May I look at it ?I said. Where it is,said the little man will never come oW till it falls off from the bone in the darkness and in the dust. He pushed the high chair on which he sat slightly back from the table, and dropped himself, standing, to the floor,~ his head being only a little above the level of the table, as he stood. With pain and labor, lifting one foot over the other, as a drummer handles his sticks, he took a few steps from his plaee,his motions and the dead beat of tbe mis- shapen boots announcing to my l)ractised eye and ear the malformation which is called in learned language talipes varus, or inverted club-foot. Stop! stop I said,let me come to you. The little man hobbled back, and lifted himself by the left arm, with an ease approaching to grace which sur- prised me, into his high chair. I walked to his side, and he stretched out the fore- 1859.] The Professor at the Breakfisst- Table. 89 finger of his right hand, wi ththering upon it. The ring had been put on long ago, and could not pass the misshapen joint. It was one of those funeral rings which used to be given to relatives and friends after the decease of persons of any note or importance. Beneath a round bit of glass was a deaths head. Engraved on one side of this, L. B. 2Et. 22, on the other, Ob. 1692. My grandmothers grandmother,said the little man.H nged for a witch. It doesnt seem a great while ago. I knew my grandmother, and loved her. 11cr mother was daughter to the witch tht Chief Justice Sewall hanged and Cotton Mather delivered over to the Devil. That was Salem, though, and not Boston. No, not Boston. Robert Calef, the Bos- ton merchant, it was that blew them all to Never mind where he blew them to, I said ;for the little man was getting red in the face, and I didnt know what might come next. This episode broke me up, as the jock- eys say, out of my square conversational trot; but I settled dow~ to it a~ ani. A man that knows men, i. the street, at their work, hiunan nature in its sliirt-sleeves,who makes bargains with deacons, instead of talking over texts with them,a man who has found out that there are plenty of praying rogues and swearin~ saints in the world,above all, who has found out, by living into the pith and core of life, that all of the Deity which can be folded up between the sheets of any human book is to the Deity of the firmament, of tIme strata, of the hot aortic flood of throbbing human life, of this infinite, instantaneous conscious- ness in which the souls being consists, an incandescent point in the~ filament connecting the negative pole of a past eternity with the positive pole of an eternity that is to come,tlx t all of the Deity which any human book can hold is to this larger Deity of tIme working battery of the universe only as the films in a book of gold-leaf are to the broad seams and curdled lumps of ore that lie in unsunned mines and virgin placers, Oh I was saying that a man who lives out~o1L doors, anion g live people, gets some things into his head he might not find in the index of his Body of 1)ivinity. I tell you what,the idea of the pro- fessions digging a moat round their close corporations, like that Japanese omme at Jeddo, which you could put Park-Street Church on the bottom of and look over the vane from its side, and try to stretch another such spire across it without span- ning the chasm,that idea, I say, is pret- ty nearly worn out. Now when a civil- ization or a civilized custom falls into senile dementia, there is commonly a ju(lgmncnt ripe for it, and it comes as plagues come, from a hreath,as fires (:ome. fiom a spark. ~1ere, look at medicine. Big wigs, gold-headed canes, Latin prescriptions, shops full of abominations, recipes a yard long, curing patients by drugging as sailors bring a wind by whistling, selling lies at a guinea apiece,-a routine, in short, of giving unfortunate sick people a mess of things either too odious to swal- low or too acrid to hold, or, if that were possible, both at once. You dont know what I mean, in- di~~nant and not unintelligent country- practitioner? Then you (lont know the history of medicine,and that is not my fault. But dont expose yourself in any outbreak of eloquence; for, by tIme mortar in which Anaxagoras was pound- ed! I did not bring home Schenekius and Forestus and Hildanus, and all the old folios in calf and vellum I will show you, to be bullied by the proprietor of a Wood amid Bache, and a shelf of pep- pered sheepskin reprints by Philadelphia Editors. Besides, many of the profession and I know a little something of each other, and you dont think I am such a simpleton as to lose their good opinion by saying what the better heads among them would condemn as unfair and untrue? Now mark how the great plague caine on the generation of drugging doctors, and in what form it fell. A scheming drug-vendor, (inventive 90 The Professor at the Breakfast-Table. [January, genius,) an utterly untrustworthy and in- competent observer, (profound searcher of Nature,) a shallow dabbler in erudition, (sagacious scholar,) started the monstrous fiction (founded the immortal system) of llomeopathy. I am very fair, you see, you can help yourself to either of these sets of phrases. All the reason in the world would not have had so rapid and general an efli~ct on the public mind to disabuse it of the idea that a drug is a good thing in it- self, instead of hem ~, as it is, a bad thing, as was produced by the trick (system) of this German charlatan (theorist). Not that the wiser part of the profession. need- ed him to teach them but the routinists and their employers, the general prac- titioners. wb9 lived by selling pills and mixtures, and their drug-consuming cus- tomers, had to recognize that people could get well. unpoisoned. These dumb cattle would not learn it of themselves, and so the murrain of Hommopathy fell on them. You dont know what plague has fallen on the practitioners of theology? I will tell you, then. It is SPIRITUAL- rs~i. While some are crying out against it as a delusion of the Devil, and some are laughing at it as an hysteric folly, and some are getting angry with it as a mere trick of interested or mischievous persons, Spiritualism is quietly undermining the traditional ideas of the future state which have been and are still accepted,not merely in those who believe in it, but in the general sentiment of the community, to a larger extent than most good peo- ple seem to be aware of. It neednt be true, to do this, any more than Homeo- pathy need, to do its work. The Spirit- ualists have some pretty strong instincts to pry over, which no doubt have been roughly handled by theologians at differ- ent times. And the Nemesis of the pul- pit comes, in a shape it little thought of, beginning with the snap of a toe-joint, and ending with such a crack of old be- liefs that the roar of it is heard in all the ministers *udies of Christendom! Sir, you cannot have people of cultivation, of pure character, sensible enough in common things, large-hearted women, grave judges, shrewd business-man, men of science, professing to be in conimum- cation with the spiritual world and keep- in~~ up constant intercourse with it, with- out its gradually reacting on the whole conception of that other life. It I the folly of the world, constantly, which con- founds its wisdom. Not only out of the mouths of babes and sucklings, but out of the mouths of fools and cheats, we may often get our truest lessons. For the fools judgment is a dog-vane that turns with t~ breath, and the cheat watch- es the clouds and sets his weathercock by them,so that one shall often see by their pointing which way the winds of heaven are blowing, when the slow-wheel- ing arrows and feathers of what we call the Temples of XVisdom are turning to all points of the compass. Amen! said the young fellow called John.Ten minutes by the watch. Those that are unanimous will please to signify by holding up their left foot! I looked this young man steadily in the face for about thirty seconds. His countenance was as calm as that of a re- posing infant. I think it was simplicity, rather than mischief, with perhaps a youthful playfulness, that led him to this outbreak. I have often noticed that even quiet horses, on a sharp November morn- ing, when their coats are just beginning to get the winter roughness, will give lit- tle sportive demi-kicks, with slight sud- den elevation of the subsequent region of the body, and a sharp short whinny, by no means intending to put their heels through the dasher, or to address the driver rudely, but feeling, to use a familiar word, frisky. This, I think, is the physiological condition of the young person, John. I noticed, however, what I should call a palpebral spasm, affecting the eyelid and muscles of one side, which, if it were intended for the facial gesture called a wink, might lead me to suspect a disposition to be satirical on his part. Resuming the conversation, I re- marked,I am, ex officio, as a Professor, The Professor at the Breahfast- Table. a conservative. For I dont know any fruit that clings to its tree so faithfully, not even a froze-n-thaw winter-ap- ple, as a Professor to the bou~,h of which his chair is made. You cant shake him off, and it is as much as you can do to pull him off. Hence, by a chain of in- duction I need not unwind, he tends to conservatism generally. But then, you know, if you are sailing the Atlantic, and all at once find yourself in a current and the sea covered with weeds, and drop your Fahrenheit over the side and find it eight or ten degrees higher than in the ocean generally, there s no use in flying in the face of facts and swearing there is no such thing as a Gulf- Stream, when you are in it. You cant kecp gas in a bladder, and you cant keep knowledge tight in a pro- fession. Hydrogen will leak out, and air \vill leak in, through India-rubber; and special knowledge will leak out, and gen- eral knowledge will leak in, though a profession were covered with twenty thick- nesses of sheepskin diplomas. By Jove, Sir, till common sense is well mixed up with medicine, and common manhood with theology, and common honesty with law, We the people, Sir, some of us with nut- crackers, and some of us with trip-ham- mers, and some of us with pile-drivcrs, and some of us coming with a whish! like air-stones out of a lunar volcano, will crash down on the lumps of nonsense in all of them till we have made powder of them like Aarons calf! If to be a conservative is to let all the drains of thought choke up and keep all the souls windows down,to shut out the sun from the east and the wind from the west,to let the rats run free in the cellar, and the moths feed their fill in the chambers, and the spiders weave their lace before the mirrors, till the souls typhus is bred out of our neg- lect, and we begin to snore in its coma or rave in its delirium,I, Sir, am a bonnet-rouge, a red-cap of the barri- cades, my friends, rather than a conser- vative. Were you born in Boston, Sir ? said the little man,looking eager and excited. I was not,I replied. Its a pity,its a pity,said the little man ;its the place to be born in. But if -von cant fix it so as to be horn here, you can come and live here. Old Ben Franklin, the father of American science and the American Union, wasnt ashamed to he born here. Jim Otis, the father of A~nerican Independence, bothered about in the Cape Cod marshes awhile, but he came to Boston as soon as lie got big enough. Joe Warren, the first bloody ruffled-shirt of the Revolution, was as good as born here. Parson Channing strolled along this way from Newport, and staid here. Pity old Sam Hopkins hadnt come, too ;wed have made a man of himpoor, dear, good old Christian hea- then! There he lies, s peaceful as a young baby, in the old burying-ground! ive stood on the slab many a time. Meant well,meant well. Juggernaut. Parson Channing put a little oil on one hinchpin, and slipped it out so ~oftly, the first thing they knew about it was the wheel of that side was down. Tother fellows at work now; hut he makes more noise about it. When the linchpin comes out on his side, therell be a jerk, I tell you! Some think it will spoil the old cart, and they pretend to say that there are valuable tImings in it which may get hurt. Hope not,hope not. But this is the great Macadamizing place,always cracking up something. Cracking up Boston folks,said the gentleman with the diernond-pin, whom, for convenience sake, I shall hereafter call the Kolm-i-noor. The little man turned round mechan- ically towards him, as Maelzels Turk used to turn, carrying his head slowly and horizontally, as if it went by cog- wheels.Cracking up all sorts of things, native and foreign vermin included, said the little man.. This remark was thought by some of us to have a hidden personal application, and to afford a fair opening for a lively rejoinder, if the Koh-i-noor had been so 1859.1 91 92 The Professor at the Breakfast~ Table. [January, disposed. The little man uttered it with the distinct wooden calmness with which the ingenious Turk used to exclaim, E-clsec! so that it must have been heard. The party supposed to be interested in the remark was, however, carrying a large knife-blade-full of something to his mouth just then, which, no doubt, interfered with the reply he would have made. My friend who used to board here was accuston~ed sometimes, in a pleasant way, to call himself the A u/o- crat of the table,meaning, I suppose, that he had it all his own way among the boarders. I think our small boarder here is like to prove a refractory subject, if I undertake to use the sceptre my friend meant to bequcathe me, too mag- isterially. I wont deny that sometimes, on rare occasions, when I have been in company with gentliemen who preferred listening, I have been guilty of the same kind of usurpation which my friend open- ly justified. But I maintain, that I, the Professor, am a good listener. If a man can tell me a fact which subtends an ap- preciable angle in the horizon of thought, I am as receptive as the contribution-box in a congregation of colored brethren. If, when I am exposing amy intellectual dry-goods, a man will begin a good story, I will have them all in, and my shutters up, before he has got to the fifth says he, and listen like a three-years child, as the author of the Old Sailor says. I had rather hear one of those grand elei ental laughs from either of our two Georges, (fictitious names, Sir or Mad- am,) or listen to one of those old playbills of our College days, in which Tom and Jerry ( Thomas and Jeremiah, as the old Greek Professor was said to call it) was announced to be brought on the stage with the whole force of the Fac- ulty, read by our Frederick, (no such person, of course,) than say the best things I might by any chance find my- self capable of saying. Of course, if I come across a real thinker, a sugges- tive, acute, illuminating, informin~ talk- er, I enjoy the luxury of sitting still for a while as much as another. Nobody talks much that doesnt say unwise things, things he did not mean to say; as no person plays much without striking a false note sometimes. Talk, to me, is only spading up the ground for crops of thought. I cant answer for what will turn up. If I could, it wouldnt be talking, but speaking my piece. Bet- ter, I think, the hearty abmdonment of one s self to the suggestions of the mo- nient, at the risk of an occasional slip of the tongue, perceived the instant it es- capes, but just one syllable too late, than the royal reputation of never saying a foolish thing. What shall I do with this little man ?There is only one thing to do, and that is, to let him talk when he will. The day of the Autocrats monologues is over. My friend,said .1 to the youn~ fellow whom, as I have said, the boarders call John,My friend,I said, one mormog, after breakfast,can you give me any information respecting the de- formed person who sits at the other end of the table? What! the Seulpin ?said the young fellow. The diminutive person, with angular curvature of the spine,I said,and double talipes vorus,I beg your par- don,with two club-feet. Is that long word what you call it when a fellab walks so ?said the young man, making his fists revolve round an Imaginary axis, as you may have seen youth of tender age and limited pugilistic knowledge, when they show how they would punish an adversary, themselves protected by this rotating guard,the middle knuckle, meantime, thumb-sup- ported, fiercely prominent, death-threat- enmg. It is,said 1.But would you have the kindness to tell me if you know anythin~ about this (leformed person? About the Sculpin ?said the young fellow. My good friend,said 1,I am sure, by your countenance, you would not hurt the feelings of one who has been hardly 1859.] The Professor at the Breakfast- Table. 93 cnough treated by Nature to be spared by his fellows. Even in speaking of him to others, I could wish that you might not employ a term which implies contempt f6r what should inspire only pity. A fellabs no business to be so crooked,said the young man called John. Yes, yes,I said, thoughtfully, the strong hate the weak. Its all right. The arrangement has r 4erence to the race, and not to the individual. Infirmi- ty must be kicked out, or the stock run down. Wholesale moral arrant~emcnts are so different from retail I undcr- stand the instinct, my friend,it is cos mic,it is planetary,it is a conserva- tive principle in (reatioli The youry fellow s face ridually lost its expression as I is spe hag, until it became as blank of vi~id s nificance as the conntenance~ ~ osno bread rabbit with two currants in the place of eyes. lie had not taken m~ mcansng. Presently the inielemuce came k ck with a snap that msd him wink, as he answered,Jest so. All right. A 1. Put her through. Tb ts the way to talk. Did you speak to me, Sir ?.Here the young man struck up that well-known song which I think they used to sing at Masonic festivals, beginning, Aldihoron tiphoscophornio, Where left you Chro- nonhotonthologos? I beg your pardon,I said ;all I meant was, that men, as temporary oc- cupants of a permanent abode called hu- man life, which is improved or injured by occupancy, according to the style of ten- ant, have a natural dislike to those who, if they live the life of the race as well as of the individual, will leave lasting inju- rious effects upon the abode spoken of, which is to be occupied by countless fb- ture generations. This is the final cause of the underlying brute instinct which we have in common with the herds. The gin~erbread-rabhit expres- sion was coining on so fast, that I thout~bt I must try againIts a pity that families are kept up, where there are such hered- itary infirmities. Still, let us treat this poor man fairly, and not call him names. Do you know what his name is? I know what the rest of em call him, -said the young fellowThey call him Little Boston. Theres no harm in that, is there? It is an honorable terin,I replied. But why Little Boston, in a place where most are Bostonians? Because nobody else is quite so Bos- ton all over as he is,said the young fellow. L. B. Oh. 1692.Little Boston let him be, when we talk about him. The ring he wears labels him well enough. There is stuff in the little man, or he wouldnt stick so manfully by this crook- ed, crotchety old town. Give him a chance. You will drop the Sculpin, wont you ?I said to the young fellow. Drop him ?he auswered,I hant took him up yet. No, nothe term,I said,the term. Dont call him so any more, if you please. Call him Little Boston, if you like. All right, said the young fellowI ~ouldnt be hard on the poor little The word he used was objectionable in point of significance and of grammar. It was a frequent termination of certain a(ljectives among the Romansas of those designating a person following the sea, or given to rural pursuits. It is classed by custom among the profane words; why, it is hard to say,but it is largely used in the street by those who speak of their fellows in pity or in wrath. I never heard the young fellow apply the name of the odious pretended fish tQ the little man from that day forward. Here we are, then, at our board- ing-house. First, myself, the Professor, a little way from the head of the table, on the right, looking down, where the Auto- crat used to sit. At the further end sits the Landlady. At the head of the table, just now, the Koh-i-noor, or the gentle- man with the diamond. Opposite me is a Venerable Gentleman with a bland countenance, who as yet has spoken lit- tle. The Divinity-Student is my neigh- bor on the right,and further down, that 94 The Professor at tke Breakfast-Table. [January, Young Fellow of whom I have repeat- edly spoken. The Landlady~s J)mghter sits near the Koh-i-noor, as I said. The Poor Relation near the Landlady. At the right upper coiner is a fresh-looking youth of whose name and history I have as yet learned nothing. Next the fur- ther left-hand corner, looking down the table, sits the deformed person. The chair at his side, occupying that corner, is empty. I need not specially mention the other hoarders, with the exception of Benjamin Franklin, the landladys son, who sits near his mother. We are a tol- erably assorted set,difference enou~li and likeness enough; hut still it seems to me there is something wanting. The Landladys Daughter is the prima donna in the way of feminine attractions. I am not quite satisfied with this young lady. She wears more jewelry, as certain young ladies call their trinkets, than I care to see on a person in her position. Her voice is strident, her laugh too much like a giggle, and she has that foolish way of dancing and bobbing like a quill-float with a sninnum biting the hook below it, which one sees ansi weeps over some- times in persons of more pretensions. I cant help hoping we shall put something into that empty chair yet which will add the missin~ string to our soizdal harp. I hear talk of a rare Miss who is expected. Something in the school-girl way, I be- lieve. We shall see. My friend who calls himself The Autocrat has given me a caution which I am going to repeat, with my comment upon it, for the benefit of all concerned. Professor,said he, one day,dont you think your brain will run dry hefore a years out, if you dont get the pump to help the cow? Let me tell you what happened to me once. I put a little money into a bank, and bought a check- book, so that I might draw it as I wanted, in sums to suit. Things went on nicely for a time; scratching with a pen was as easy as rubbing Aladdins Lamp; and my blank cheek-hook seemed to be a diction- ary of possibilities, in which I could find all the synonymes of happiness, and real- ize any one of them on the spot. A check came back to me at last with these two words on it,No funds. My check- book was a volume of waste-paper. Now, Professor, said he, I have drawn something out of your bank, you know; and just so sure as you keep draw- ing out your souls currency without mak- ing new deposits, the next thing will be, No funds,and then where will you be, my boy? These little bits of paper mean your gold and your silver and your cop- per, Professor; and you will certainly break up and go to pieces, if you dont hold on to your metallic basis. There is something in that ,said I. Only I rather think life can coin thought somewhat faster than I can count it off in words. What if one shall go round and dry up with soft napkins all the dew that falls of a June evening on the leaves of his garden? Shall there be no more dew on those leaves thereafter? Marry, yea,many drops, large and round and full of moonlight as those thou shalt have absterged! Here am I, the Professor,a man who has lived long enough to have plucked the flowers of life and come to the berries, which are not always sad-colored, but sometimes golden-hued as the crocus of April, or rosy-checked as the damask of June; a man who staggered against books as a baby, and will totter against them, if he lives to decrepitude; with a brain as full of tingling thou~hts, such as they are, as a limb which we call asleep, because it is so particularly awake, is of pricking points; presenting a key-board of nerve-pulps, not as yet tanned or ossi- fied, to the finger-touch of all outward agencies; knowing something of the filniy threads of this web of life in which we insects buzz awhile, waiting for the gray old spider to come along; contented enough with daily realities, but twirling on his finger the key of a private Bed- lam of ideals; in knowledge feeding with the fox oftener than with the stork, loving better the breadth of a fertilizing inundation than the depth of a narrow 1859.1 The Professor at the BrealJfast-TLal3le. 95 artesian well; finding nothin~ too small for his contemplation in the markings of the grammar ophora subtilissima, and noth- ing too large in the movement of the solar system towards the star Lambda of the constellation Hercules ;and the qu s- tion is, whether there is anything left for me, the Professor, to suck out of creation, after my lively friend has had his straw in the bunghole of the Universe! A mans mental reactions with the atmosphere of life must go on, whether he will or no, as between his blood and the air he breathes. As to catching the residuum of the process, or what we call thought,the gaseous ashes of burned- out thiak~ing,the excretion of mental respiration,that will depend on many things, as, on having a favorable intel- lectual temperature about one, and a fit- ting receptacleI sow more thouoht- b seeds in twenty-four hours travel over the desert-sand, along which my lonely consciousness paces day aiid night, than I shall throw into soil where it will ger- minate, in a year. All sorts of bodily and mental perturbations come between us and the due projection of our thought. The pulse-like fits of easy and difficult transmission~~ seem to reach even the transparent medium through which our souls are seen. We know our human- ity by its often intercepted rays, as we tell a revolving light from a star or me- teor by its constantly recurring obscura- tion. An illustrious scholar once told me, that, in the first lecture he ever deliv- ered, he spoke but half his allotted time, and felt as if lie had told all he knew. Braham came forward once to siiig one of his most famous and familiar songs, and for his life could not recall the first line of it ;he told his mishap to the audience, and they screnn~cd it at him in a chorus of a thousand voices. Milton could not write to suit himself, except from the autumnal to the vernal equinox. One in the clothin~-business, who, there is reason to suspect, may have inherited, by descent, the great poets impressible temperament, let a customer slip through his fingers one day without fitting him with a new garment. Ah I said he to a friend of mine, who was standing by, if it hadnt been for that confound- ed headache of mine this morning, Id have had a coat on that man, in spite of himself, before he left the store. A passing throb, only,but it deranged the nice mechanism required to persuade the accidental human being, x, into a given piece of broadcloth, a. We must take care. not to confound this frequent difficulty of transmission of our ideas with v~ant of ideas. I sup- pose that a mans mind does in time form a neutral salt with the elements in the universe for which it has special elective affinities. An fact, I look upon a library as a kind of mental chemists shop, filled with the crystals of all forms and hues which have come from the union of in- dividual thought with local circumstances or universal principles. When a man has worked out his spe- cial affinities in this way, there is an end of his genius as a real solvent. No more effervescence and hissing tumult as he pours his sharp thought on the worlds bit- ing alkaline unheliefs! No more corrosion of the old monumental tablets covered with lies! No more taking up of dull earths, and turning them, first into clear solutions, and then into lustrous prisms! I, the Professor, am very much like other men. I shall not find out when I have used up my affinities. What a blessed thing it is, that Nature, when she invented, manufactured, and patented her authors, contrived to niake critics out of the chips that were left! Painful as the task is, thek never fail to warn the author, in the most impressive manner, of the probabilities of failure in what he has undertaken. Sad as the necessity is to their delicate sensibilities, they never hesitate to advertise him of the decline of his powers, and to press upon him the propriety of retiring before he sinks into imbecility. Trusting their kind offices, I shall endeavor to fulfil Bridget enters and begins clearing the table. 0 The followina poem is my (the Profes- sors) only contribution to the great de- parh~ent of Ocean-Cable literature. As all the poets of this country will be en- gaged for the next six weeks in writing for the premium offered by the Crystal- Palace Company for the Borns Cente- nary, (so called, according to our Benja- min Franklin, because there will be nury a cent for any of us,) poetry will be very scarce and dear. Consumers may, con- sequently, be gL d to take the present article, which, by the aid of a Latn tutor and a Professor of Chemistry, ~ ill be found in~elhi5ible to the educated clases. DE SAUTY. AN ELEOTRO-CHEMIOAL EcLOOUE. Pro/easer. Blue-Nose. PROFESSOR. TELL me, 0 Provincial! speak, Ceruleo- Nasal! Lives there one Dc Sauty exL ist now among you, Whispering Boanerges, son of silent thunder Holding talk with n~ tions? Is there a J)e Sauty ambulant on Tellus, Bifid-cleft like mortals, dormient in night- cap, Having sight, smell. hearin0, food-receiving feature Three times daily patent? Breathes there such a hein~, 0 Cerulee- Nasal? Or is he a nsythes,ancient word for hum- bug, Such as Livy told shout the wolf that wet- nursed Romulus and Remus? Was he horn of woman, this alleged De Sauty? Or~ living product of galvanic action, Like the acurus hred in Crosses flint-solu- tion? Speak, thou Cyano-Rhinal! BLUE-NOSE. Many things thou askest, jackknife-bearin0 stranger, Much-conjecturing mortal, pork-and-treacle- waster! [January, Pretermit thy whittling, wheel thine ear-flap toward me, Thou shalt hear them answered. When the charge galvanic tingled throu~h the cable, At the polar focus of the wire electric Suddenly appeared a white-faced man among us. Called himself DE SAUTY. As the small opossum held in pouch maternal Grasps the nutrient or~an whence the term seemmelio, So the unknown strander held the wire elec- tric Sucking in the current. When the current strengthened, bloomed the pale-faced stranger, Took no drink nor victual, yet grew fat and rosy, And from time to time, in sharp articulation, Said, All right! DE SAUTY. From the lonely station passed the utterance, spreading Throu~h the pines and hemlocks to the groves of steeples, Till the lend was filled with loud reverbera- tions Of All right! DE SAurY. When the current slackened, drooped the mys tic stranger, Faded, faded, faded, as the shocks grew weak- er, Wasted to a shadow, with a hartsborn odor Of disintegration. I)rops of deliquescence glistened on his fore- head Whitened round his feet the dust of efflores- cence, Till one Monday morning, when the flow sus- pended, There was no De Sauty. Nothing hut a cloud of elements organic, C. 0. H. N. Ferrum, Chor. Flu. Sil. Potassa, Cab. Sod. Phosph. Meg. Sulphur, Mang. (?) Alumin. (?) Cuprum, (?) Such as man is made of. Rorn of stream galvanic, with it he had per- ished! There is no De Sauty now there is no current! Give us a new cable, then again well hear him C~y, All right! DE SAUTY. The Professor at the Breakfast- Table. 1859.1 The Ministers Wooing. 97 THE MINISTERS WOOING. [Continued.] CHAPTER IV. THEOLOGICAL TEA. Av the call of her mother, Mary hur- ried into the best room, with a strange discomposure of spirit she had never felt before. From childhood, her love for James had been so deep, equable, and intense, that it had never disturbed her with thrills and yearnings; it had grown up in sisterly calmness, and, quietly ex- panding, had taken possession of her whole nature, without her once dreaming of its power. But this last interview seemed to have struck sonie great nerve of her being,and calm as she usually was, from habit, principle, and good health, she shivered and trembled, as she beard his retreating footsteps, and saw the orchard- grass fly back from nuder his feet. It was as if each step trod on a nerve,as if the very sound of the rustling grass was stirring something living and sensitive in her soul. And, strangest of all, a vague impression of guilt hovered over her. Had she done anything wron~? She did not ask him there; she had not spoken love to him; no, she had only talked to him of his soul, and how she would give hers for his,oh, so willingly and that was not love; it was only what Dr. H. said Christians must always feel. Child, what hace you been doing?~ said Aunt Katy, who sat in full flowing chintz petticoat and spotless dimity short- gown, with her company knitting-work in her hands; your cheeks are as red as peonies. Have you been crying? Whats the matter? There is the Deacons wife, mother, said Mary, turning confusedly, and dart- ing to the entry-door. Enter Mrs. Twitchel,a soft, pillowy little elderly lady, whose whole air and dress reminded one of a sack of feath VOL. III. 7 ers tied in the middle with a string. A large, comfortable pocket, hung upon the side, disclosed her knitting-work ready for operation; and she zealously cleansed herself with a checked handkerchief from the dust which had accumulated during her ride in the old one-boss shay, an- swering the hospitable salutation of Katy Scudder in that plaintive, motherly voice which belongs to certaiii nice old ladies, who appear to live in a state of mild chronic compassion for the sins and sor- rows of this mortal life generally. Why, yes, Miss Scudder, Im pretty tolable. I keep goin, and goin. Thats. my way. Is a-tellin the Deacon, this mornin, I didnt see how I was to come here this afternoon; but then I did want to see Miss Scudder and talk a little about that precious sermon, Sunday. How is the Doctor? blessed man! Well, his reward must be great in heaven, if not on earth, as I was a-tellin the Dea- con; and he says to me, says he, Polly, we mustnt be man-worshippers. There, dear, (to Mary,) dont trouble yourself about my bonnet; it ant my Sunday one, but I thought twould do. Says I to Cerinthy Ann, Miss Scudder wont mind, cause her hearts set on better things. I always like to drop a word in season to Cerinthy Ann, cause shes clean took up with vanity and dress. Oh, dear! oh, dear me! so different from your blessed daugh- ter, Miss Scudder! Well, its a great bless- in to be called in ones youth, like Saninel and Timothy; but then we doesnt know the Lords ways. Sometimes I gets clean discouraged with my children,but then agin I dont know; none on us does. Cerinthy Ann is one of the most master hands to turn off work; she takes hold and goes along like a woman, and no- body never knows when that gal finds the time to do all she does do; and I

1859.1 The Ministers Wooing. 97 THE MINISTERS WOOING. [Continued.] CHAPTER IV. THEOLOGICAL TEA. Av the call of her mother, Mary hur- ried into the best room, with a strange discomposure of spirit she had never felt before. From childhood, her love for James had been so deep, equable, and intense, that it had never disturbed her with thrills and yearnings; it had grown up in sisterly calmness, and, quietly ex- panding, had taken possession of her whole nature, without her once dreaming of its power. But this last interview seemed to have struck sonie great nerve of her being,and calm as she usually was, from habit, principle, and good health, she shivered and trembled, as she beard his retreating footsteps, and saw the orchard- grass fly back from nuder his feet. It was as if each step trod on a nerve,as if the very sound of the rustling grass was stirring something living and sensitive in her soul. And, strangest of all, a vague impression of guilt hovered over her. Had she done anything wron~? She did not ask him there; she had not spoken love to him; no, she had only talked to him of his soul, and how she would give hers for his,oh, so willingly and that was not love; it was only what Dr. H. said Christians must always feel. Child, what hace you been doing?~ said Aunt Katy, who sat in full flowing chintz petticoat and spotless dimity short- gown, with her company knitting-work in her hands; your cheeks are as red as peonies. Have you been crying? Whats the matter? There is the Deacons wife, mother, said Mary, turning confusedly, and dart- ing to the entry-door. Enter Mrs. Twitchel,a soft, pillowy little elderly lady, whose whole air and dress reminded one of a sack of feath VOL. III. 7 ers tied in the middle with a string. A large, comfortable pocket, hung upon the side, disclosed her knitting-work ready for operation; and she zealously cleansed herself with a checked handkerchief from the dust which had accumulated during her ride in the old one-boss shay, an- swering the hospitable salutation of Katy Scudder in that plaintive, motherly voice which belongs to certaiii nice old ladies, who appear to live in a state of mild chronic compassion for the sins and sor- rows of this mortal life generally. Why, yes, Miss Scudder, Im pretty tolable. I keep goin, and goin. Thats. my way. Is a-tellin the Deacon, this mornin, I didnt see how I was to come here this afternoon; but then I did want to see Miss Scudder and talk a little about that precious sermon, Sunday. How is the Doctor? blessed man! Well, his reward must be great in heaven, if not on earth, as I was a-tellin the Dea- con; and he says to me, says he, Polly, we mustnt be man-worshippers. There, dear, (to Mary,) dont trouble yourself about my bonnet; it ant my Sunday one, but I thought twould do. Says I to Cerinthy Ann, Miss Scudder wont mind, cause her hearts set on better things. I always like to drop a word in season to Cerinthy Ann, cause shes clean took up with vanity and dress. Oh, dear! oh, dear me! so different from your blessed daugh- ter, Miss Scudder! Well, its a great bless- in to be called in ones youth, like Saninel and Timothy; but then we doesnt know the Lords ways. Sometimes I gets clean discouraged with my children,but then agin I dont know; none on us does. Cerinthy Ann is one of the most master hands to turn off work; she takes hold and goes along like a woman, and no- body never knows when that gal finds the time to do all she does do; and I 98 The Illinisters Wooing. [January, dont know nothin what I should do with- out her. Deacon was saying, if ever she was called, shed be a Martha, and not a Mary; but then shes dreadful opposed to the doctrines. Oh, dear me! oh, dear me! Somehow they seem to rile her all up; and she was a-tellin me yesterday, when she was a-hangin out clothes, that she never should get reconciled to De- crees and Lection, cause she cant see, if things is certain, how folks is to help em- selves. Says I, Cerinthy Ann, folks ant to help emselves; theys to suhmit un- conditional. And she jest slammed down the clothes-hasket and went into the house.~ When Mrs. Twitchel hegan to talk, it flowed a steady stream, as when one turns a faucet, that never ceases running till some hand turns it back again; and the occasion that cut the flood short at pres- ent was the entrance of Mrs. Brown. Mr. Simeon Brown was a thriving ship- owner of Newport, wl~o lived in a large house, owned several negro-servants and a span of horses, and affected some state and style in his worldly appearance. A passion for metaphysical Orthodoxy had drawn Simeon. to the congregation of Dr. H., and his wife of course stood hy right in a high place there. She was a tall, angular, somewhat hard-favored body, dressed in a style rather ahove the simple hahits of her neighhors, and her whole air spoke the great woman, who in right of her thousands expected to have her say in all that was going on in the world, whether she understood it or not. On her entrance, mild little Mrs. Twitchel fled from the cushioned rock- ing-chair, and stood with the quivering air of one who feels she has no husiness to he anywhere in the world, until Mrs. Browns honnet was taken and she was seated, when Mrs. Twitchel subsided into a corner and rattled her knitting-needles to conceal her emotion. New England has been called the land of equality; hut what land upon earth is wholly so? Even the mites in a hit of cheese, naturalis say, have great tum- Thlings nnd strivings about position and rank; he who has ten pounds will al- ways be a nobleman to him who has hut one, let him strive as manfully as he may; and therefore let us forgive meek little Mrs. Twitchel for melting into noth- ing in her own eyes when Mrs. Brown came in, and let us forgive Mrs. Brown that she sat down in the rocking-chair with an easy grandeur, as one who thought it her duty to be affable and meant to be. It was, however, rather difficult for Mrs. Brown, with her money, house, negroes, and all, to patronize Mrs. Katy Scudder, who was one of those women whose na- tures seem to sit on thrones, and who dispense patronage and favor hy an in- horn right and aptitude, whatever he their social advantages. It was one of Mrs. Browns trials of life, this secret, strange quality in her neighhor, who stood apparently so far below her in worldly goods. Even the quiet, positive style of Mrs. Katys knitting made her nervous; it was an implication of inde- pendence of her sway; and though on the present occasion every custoniarv courtesy was hestowed, she still felt, as she always (lid when Mrs. Katys guest, a secret uneasiness. She mentally con- trasted the neat little parlor, with its white sanded floor and muslin curtains, with her own grand front-room, which hoasted the then uncommon luxuries of Turkey carpet and Persian rug, and wondered if Mrs. Katy did really feel as cool and easy in receivinu her as she~ appeared. You must not understand that this was what Mrs. Brown supposed herself to be thinking ahout; oh, no! hy no means! All the little, mean work of our nature is gener ally done in a small dark closet just a little back of the suhject we are talkin~ about, on which suhject we sup- pose ourselves of course to be thinking of course we are thinking of it; how else could we talk about it? The suhject in discussion, and what Mrs. Brown supposed to he in her own thoughts, was the last Sundays sermon on the doctrine of entire Disinterested Benevolence, in which good Doctor II. 1859.] [like ilibnisters JVooing. 99 had proclaimed to the citizens of New- port their duty of being so wholly ab- sorbed in the general good of the universe as even to acquiesce in their own final and eternal destruction, if the greater good of the whole might thereby be ac- complished. Well, now, dear me ! said Mrs. Txvitchel, while her knitting-needles trot- ted contentedly to the mournful tone of her voice, I was tellin the Deacon, if we only could get there! Sometimes I think I get a little way,but then agin I dont know; but the Deacon hes quite down,he dont see no evidences in him- self. Sometimes he says he dont feel as if he ought to keep his place in the church,but then agin he dont know. He keeps a-turnin and turnin ont over in his mind, and a-tryin himself this way and that way; and he says he dont see nothin but whats selfish, no way. Member one night last winter, after the Deacon got warm in bed, there come a rap at the door; and who should it be hut old Beulab Ward, wantin to see the Deacon ?twas her boy she sent, and he said Beulah was sick and hadnt no more wood nor candles. Now I knowd the Deacon had carried that crittur half a cord of wood, if he had one stick, since Thanksgivin, a ad Id sent her two o my best moulds of candles,nice ones that Cerinthy Ann run when we killed a crit- tur; but nothin would do but the Deacon must get right out his warm bed and dress himself; and hitch up his team to carry over some wood to Beulab. Says I, Father, you know youll be down with the rheumatis for this; besides, Beulab is real aggravatin. I know she trades off what we send her to the store for rum, and you never get no thanks. She xpects, cause we has done for her, we always must; and more we do, more we may do. And says he to me, says he, Thats jest the way we sarves the Lord, Polly; and what if He shouldnt hear us when we call on Him in our troubles? So I shet up; and the next day he was down with the rheumatis. And Cerinthy Ann, says she, Well, father, now I hope youll own you have got some disinterested benevo- lence, says she; and the Deacon he thought it over a spell, and then he says, Im fraid its all selfish. Im jest a-mak- in a righteousness of it. And Cerinthy Ann she come out, declarin that the best folks never had no comfort in relig- ion; and for her part she didnt mean to trouble her head about it, but have jest as good a time as she could while shes young, cause if she was lected to be saved she should be, and if she want she couldnt help it, any how. Mr. Brown says he came onto Dr. H. s ground years ago, said Mrs. Brown, giving a nervous twitch to her yarn, and speaking in a sharp, hard, didactic voice, which made little Mrs. Twitchel give a gentle quiver, and look humble and apol- ogetic. Mr. Browns a master think- er; theres nothing pleases that man bet- ter than a har~i doctrine; he says you cant get em too hard for him. He dont find any difficulty in bringiug his mind up; he just reasons it out all plain; and he says, people have no need to be in the dark; and thats my opinion. If folks know they ought to come up to anything, why dont they? he says; and I say so too. Mr. Scudder used to say that it took great afflictions to bring his mind to that place, said Mrs. Katy. He used to say that an old paper-maker told him once, that paper that was shaken only one way in the making would tear across the other, and the best paper had to be shaken every way; and so he said we couldnt tell, till we had been turned and shaken and tried every way, where we should tear. Mrs. Twitchel responded to this senti- ment with a gentle series of groans, such as were her general expression of appr~- bation, swaying herself backward and forward; while Mis. Brown gave a sort of toss and snort, and said that for her part she always thought people knew what they did know,but she guessed she was mistaken. The conversation was here interrupted by the civilities attendant on the recep 100 The Ministers Wooing. [January, tion of Mrs. Jones, a broad, buxom, hearty soul, who had come on horseback from a farm about three miles distant. Smiling with rosy content, she present- ed Mrs. Katy a small pot of golden but- ter,the result of her forenoons churn- ing. There are some people so evidently broadly and heartily of this world, that their coming into a room always material- izes the conversation. We wish to be understood that we mean no disparaging reflection on such persons ;they are as necessary to make up a world as cab- bages to make up a garden; the great healthy principles of cheerfulness and animal life seem to exist in them in the gross; they are wedges and ingots of solid, contented vitality. Certain kinds of virtues and Christian graces thrive in such people as the first crop of corn does in the bottom-lands of the Ohio. Mrs. Jones was a church-member, a regular church-goer, and planted her comely per- son plump in front of Dr. H. every Sun- day, and listened to his searching and dis- criininatin sermons with broad, honest smiles of satisfaction. Those keen distinc- tions as to motives, those awful warnings and urgent eSipostulations, which made poor Deacon Twitchel weep, she listened to with great, round, satisfied eyes, mak- ing to all, and after all, the same remark, that it was good, and she liked it, and the Doctor was a good man ; and on the present occasion, she announced her pot of butter as one fruit of her reflections after the last discourse. You see, she said, as I was a-set- tin in the spring-house, this mornin, a- workin my butter, I says to Dinah, Im goin to carry a pot of this ilown to Miss Scudder for the Doctor,I got so Aiuch good out of his Sundays sermon. And Dinah she says to me, says she, Laws, Miss Jones, I thought you was asleep, for sartin! But I wasnt; only I forgot to take any caraway-seed in the mornin, and so I kinder missed it; you know it livens one up. But I never lost myself so but what I kinder heerd him goin on, on, sort o like,and it sound- ed all sort o good; and so I thought of the Doctor to-day. Well, Im sure, said Aunt Katy, this will be a treat; we all know about your butter, Mrs. Jones. I shant think of putting any of mine on table to-night, Im sure. Law, now dont! said Mrs. Jones. Why, you relly make me ashamed, Miss Scudder. To be sure, folks does like our butter, and it always fetches a pretty good price,hes very proud ont. I tell him he oughtnt to be,we oughtnt to be proud of anything. And now Mrs. Katy, giving a look at the old clock, told Mary it was time to set the tea-table; and forthwith there was a gentle movement of expectancy. The little mahogany tea-table opened its brown wings, and from a drawer came forth the snowy damask covering. It was etiquette, on such occasions, to compli- ment every article of the establishment successively, as it appeared; so the Dea- cons wife began at the table-cloth. Well, I do declare, Miss Scudder beats us all in her table-cloths, she said, taking up a corner of the damask, ad- miringly; and Mrs. Jones forthwith jump- ed up and seized the other corner. Why, this ere must have come from the Old Country. Its most the beauti- flest thing I ever did see. Its my own spinning, replied Mrs. Katy, with conscious dignity. There was an Irish weaver came to Newport the year before I was married, who wove beautifully, just the Old-Country pat- terns,and Id been spinning some un- commonly fine flax then. I remember Mr. Seudder used to read to me while I was spinning,and Aunt Katy looked afar, as one whose thoughts are in the past, and dropped out the last words with a little sigh, unconsciously, as to herself. Well, now, I must say, said Mrs. Jones, this goes quite beyond me. I thought I could spin some; but 1 shant never dare to show mine. Im sure, Mrs. Jones, your towels that you had out bleaching, this sprin,,, were wonderful, said Aunt Katy. But 18~59.] The Ministers Wooing. 101 I dont pretend to do much now, she continued, straightening her trim figure. Im getting old, you know; we must let the young folks take up these things. Mary spins better now than I ever did. Mary, hand out those napkins. And so Marys napkins passed from hand to hand. Well, well, said Mrs. Twitchel to Mary, its easy to see that your linen- chest will be pretty full by the time he comes along; wont it, Miss Jones? and Mrs. Twitchel looked pleasantly fa- cetious, as elderly ladies generally do, when suggesting such possibilities to younger ones. Mary was vexed to feel the blood boil up in her cheeks in a most unexpected and provoking way at the suggestion; whereat Mrs. Twitchel nodded knowing- ly at Mrs. Jones, and whispered some- thing in a mysterious aside, to which plmup Mrs. Jones answered, Why, do tell! now I never! Its strange, said Mrs. Twitchel, tak- ing up her parable again, in such a plain- tive tone that all knew something pathet- ic was coming, what mistakes some folks will make, a-fetchin up girls. Now theres your Mary, Miss Scudder,why, there ant nothin she cant do; but law, I was down to Miss Skinners, last week, a- watchin with her, and relly it most broke my heart to see her. Her mother was a most amazin smart woman; but she brought Suky up, for all the world, as if shed been a wax doll, to be kept in the drawer,and sure enough, she was a pretty cretur,and now shes married, what is she? She hant no more idee how to take hold than nothin. The poor child means well enough, and she works so hard she most kills herself; but then she is in the suds from mornin till night, shes one the sort whose works never done,and poor George Skinners clean discouraged. Theres everything in knowing how, said Mrs. Katy. Nobody ought to be always working; its a bad sign. I tell Mary, Always do up your work in the forenoon.. Girls must learn that. I never work afternoons, after my dinner- dishes are got away; I never did and never would. Nor I, neither, chimed in Mrs. Jones and Mrs. Twitchel, both anxious to show themselves clear on this leading point of New England house-keeping. . Theres another thing I always tell Mary, said Mrs. Katy, impressively. Never say there isnt time for a thing tbat ought to be done. If a thing is ne- cessary, why, life is long enough to find a place for it. Thats my doctrine. When anybody tells me they cant fn.d time for this or that, I dont think much of em. I think they dont know how to work, thats all. here Mrs. Twitchel looked up from her knitting, with an apologetic giggle, at Mrs. Brown. Law, now, theres Miss Brown, she dont know nothin about it, cause shes got her servants to every turn. I spose she thinks it queer to hear us talkin about our work. Miss Brown must have her time all to herself. I was tellin the Deacon the other day that she was a privileged woman. Im sure, those that have servants find work enough following em round,~ said Mrs. Brown,who, like all other hu- man beings, resented the implication of not having as many triaLs in life as her neighbors. As to getting the work done up in the forenoon, thats a thine I never can teach em; theyd rather not. Chloe likes to keep her work round, and do it by snacks, any time, day or night, when the notion takes her. Amid it was just for that reason I never would have one of those creatures round, said Mrs. Katy. Mr. Scudder was principled against buying negroes, but if he had not been, I should not have wanted any of their work. I know whats to be done, and most help is no help to me. I want people to stand out of my way and let me get done. Ive tried keeping a girl once or twice, and I never worked so hard in my life. When Mary and I do all ourselves, we can calculate everything to a minute; and we get our 102 The luihnisters Wooing. [January, time to sew and read and spin and visit, and live just as we want to. Here, again, Mrs. Brown looked un- easy. To what use was it that she was rich and owned servants, when this Mor- decai in her gate utterly despised her prosperity? In her secret heart she thought Mrs. Katy must he envious, and rather comforted herself on this view of the subject,sweetly unconscious of any inconsistency in the feeling with her views of utter seif-ahuegation just an- nounced. Meanwhile the tea-table had been silently gathering on its snowy plateau the delicate china, the gol(~en butter, the loaf of faultless cake, a plate of crullers or wonders, as a sort of sweet fried cake was commonly called, tea-rusks, light as a puff, and shining on top with a var- nish of egg, jellies of appie and quince quivering in amber clearness,whitest and purest honey in the comb,in short, everything that could go to the getting- up of a most faultless tea. I dont see, said Mrs. Jones, resum- ing the gentle preans of the occasion, how Miss Scudders loaf-cake always comes out jest so. It dont rise neither to one side nor tother, but jest even all round; and it ant white one side and burnt the other, but jest a good brown all over; and it dont have no heavy streak in it. Jest what Cerinthy Ann was sayin, the other day, said Mrs. Twitchel. She says she cant never be sure how hers is a-comm out. Do what she can, it will be either too much or too little; hut Miss Scudders is always jest so. Law, says I, Cerinthy Ann, its facuUy,thats it; them that has it has it, and them that hasntwhy, theyve got to work hard, and not do half so well, neither. Mrs. Katy took all these praises as matter of course. Since she was thir- teen years old, she had never put her hand to anything that she had riot been held to do better than other folks, and therefore she accepted her praises with the quiet repose and serenity of assured reputation; though, of course, she used the usual polite disclaimers of Oh, its nothing, nothing at all; Im sure I dont knoW how I do it, and was not aware it was so good ,and so on. All which things are proper for gentlewomen to ob- serve in like cases,, in every walk of life. Do you think the Deacon will be along soon? said Mrs. Katy, when Mary, returning from the kitchen, an- nounced the important fact, that the tea- kettle was boiling. Why, yes, said Mrs. Twitchel. Im a-lookin for him every minute. He told me, that he and the men should be plant- in up to the eight-acre lot, but hed keep the colt up there to come down on; and so I laid him out a clean shirt, and says, Now, Father, you be sure and be there by five, so that Miss Scudder may know when to put her tea a-drawin.There he is, I believe, she added, as a horse s tramp was heard without, and, after a few moments, the desired Deacon entered. He was a gentle, soft-spoken man, low, sinewy, thin, with black hair showing lines and patches of silver. His keen, thoughtful, dark eye marked the nervous and melancholic temperament. A mild and pensive humility of manner seemed to brood over him, like the shadow of a cloud. Everything in his dress, air, and motions indicated punctilious exactness and accuracy, at times rising to the point of nervous anxiety. Immediately after the bustle of his en- trance had subsided, Mr. Simeon Brown followed. He was a tall, lank individual, with high cheek-bones, thin, sharp fea- tures, small, keen, hard eyes, and large hands and feet. Simeon was, as we have before re- marked, a keen theologian, and had the scent of a hound for a metaphysical dis- tinction. True, he was a man of business, being a thriving trader to the coast of Africa, whence he imported negroes for the American market; and no man was held to understand that branch of traffic better,he having, in his earlier days, commanded ships in the business, and thus learned it from the root. In his private life, Simeon was severe and dic The AThdsters Wooing. tatorial. He was one of that class of peo- pie who, of a freezing day, will plant themselves directly between you and the fire, and there stand and argue to prove that selfishness is the root of all moral evil. Simeon said he always had thought so; and his neighbors sometimes supposed that nohody could enjoy hetter experi- mental advantages for understaudiry the subject. He was one of those men who suppose themselves submissive to the Di- vine will, to the uttermost extent de- manded by the extreme theology of that day, simply because they have no nerves to feel, no imagination, to conceive what endless happiness or suffering is, and who deal therefore with the great question of the salvation or damnation of myriads as a prohlem of theological algebra, to be worked out by their inevitable x, y, z. But we must not spend too much time with our analysis of character, for matters at the tea-table are drawing to a crisis. Mrs. Jones has announced that she does not think he can come this afternoon, by which significant mode of expression she conveyed the dutiful idea that there was for her but one male person in the world. And now Mrs. Katy says, Mary, dear, knock at the Doctors door and tell him that tea is ready. The Doctor was sitting in his shady study, in the room on the other side of the little entry. The windows were dark and fragrant with the shade and perfume of blossoming lilacs, whose tremulous shadow, mingled with spots of afternoon sunlight, danced on the scattered papers of a great writing-table covered with pamphlets and heavily-bound volumes of theology, where the Doctor was sit- ting. A man of gigantic proportions over six feet in height, and built every way with an amplitude corresponding to his height, sitting bent over his writing, so absorbed that he did not hear the gentle sound of Marys entrance. Doctor, said the maiden, gently, tea is ready. No motion, no sound, except the quick racing of the pen over the paper. Doctor! Doctor ! a little louder, and with another step into the apartment, tea is ready. The Doctor stretched his head forward to a paper which lay before him, and re- sponded in a low, murmuring voice, as reading something. Firstly,if underived virtue be pe- culiar to the Deity, can it be the duty of a creature to have it? Here a little waxen hand came with a very gentle tap on his huge shoulder, and Doctor, tea is ready, penetrated drow- sily to the nerve of his ear, as a sound heard in sleep. He rose suddenly with a start, opened a pair of great blue eyes, which shone abstractedly under the dome of a capacious and lofty forehead, and fixed them on the maiden, who by this time was looking up rather archly, and yet with an attitude of the most pro- found respect, while her venerated friend was assembling together his earthly facul- ties. Tea is ready, if you please. Mother wished me to call you. Oh !ah !yes indeed! he said, looking confusedly about, and starting for the door, in his study-gown. If you please, Sir, said Mary, stand- ing in his way, would you not like to put on your coat and wig? The Doctor gave a hurried glance at his study-gown, put his hand to his head, which, in place of the ample curls of his full-bottomed wig, was decked only with a very ordinary cap, and seemed to come at once to full comprehension. He smil- ed a kind of conscious, benignant smile, which adorned his high cheek-bones and hard features as sunshine adorns the side of a rock, and said, kindly, Ah, well, child, I understand now; Ill be out in a moment. And Mary, sure that he was now on the right track, went back to the tea- room with the announcement that the Doctor was coming. In a few moments he entered, majestic and proper, in all the dignity of full-bot- tomed, powdered wig, full, flowing coat, with ample cuffs, silver knee- and shoe- 1859.1 103 104 [17/se Ministers Wooing. [January, buckles, as became the gravity and maj- esty of the minister of those days. He saluted all the company with a be- nignity which had a touch of the majes- tic, and also of the rustic in it; for at heart the Doctor was a bashful man, that is, he had somewhere in his mental camp that treacherous fellow whom John Bunyan anathematizes under the name of Shame. The company rose on his entrance; the men bowed and the woin- en curtsied, and all remained standing while he addressed to each with punctil- ious decorum those inquiries in regard to health and well-being which preface a social interview. Then, at a dignified sign from Mrs. Katy, he advanced to the table, and, all following his example, stood, while, with one hand uplifted, he went through a devotional exercise which, for length, more resembled a prayer than a grace,after which the company were seated. Well, Doctor, said Mr. Brown, who, as a householder of substance, felt a con- scious right to be first to open conversa- tion with the minister, people are be- ginning to make a noise about your views. I was talking with Deacon Timmins the other day down on the wharf; and he said Dr. Stiles said that it was entirely new doctrine,entirely so,and for his part he wanted the good old ways. They say so, do they? said the Doc- tor, kindling up from an abstraction into which he seemed to he gradually subsid- ing. Well, let them. I had rather pub- lish new divinity than any other, and the more of it the better,f it be but true. I should think it hardly worth while to write, if I had nothing new to say. Well, said Deacon Twitchel,his meek face flushing with awe of his min- ister, Doctor, theres all sorts of things said about you. Now the other day I was at the mill with a load of corn, and while I was a-waitin, Amariab Wadsworth came along with hisn; and so while we were waitin, he says to me, Why, they say your minister is gettin to be an Armenian ; and he went on a-tellin how old Maam Badger told him that you interpreted some parts of Pauls Epistles clear on the Armenian side. You know Maam Badgers a master- hand at doctrines, and shes most an uncommon Calvinist. That does not frighten me at all, said the sturdy Doctor. Supposing I do interpret some texts like the Armin- ians. Cant Arminians have anything right about them? Who wouldnt rather go with the Arminians when they are right, than with the Calvinists when they are wrong? Thats it,youve hit it, Doctor, said Simeon Brown. Thats what I always say. I say, Dont he prove it? and how are you going to answer him? That gravels em. Well, said Deacon Twitchel, Broth- er Seth,you know Brother Seth,he says you deny depravity. Hes all for im- putation of Adams sin ,you know; and I have long talks with Seth about it, every time he comes to see me; and he says, that, if we did not sin in Adam, its givin up the whole ground altogether; and then he insists youre clean wrong about the unregenerate doings. Not at all,not in the least, said the Doctor, promptly. I wish Seth could talk with you some- time, Doctor. Along in the sprint, he was down helpin me to lay stone fence, it was when we was fencin off the south- pastur lot,and we talked pretty nigh all day; and it relly did seem to me that the longer we talked, the sotter Seth grew. Hes a master-hand at readin; and when he heard that your remarks on Dr. May- hew had come out, Seth tackled up o purpose and come up to Newport to get them, and spent all his time, last winter, studyin on it and makin his remarks and I tell you, Sir, hes a tight fellow to argue with. Why, that day, what with layin stoije wall and what with arguin with Seth, I come home quite beat out, Miss Twitchel will remember. That he was! said his helpmeet. I member, when he came home, says I, Father, you seem clean used up; and I stirred round lively like, to get him his 1859.1 The ltlinisters Wooing. 105 tea. But he jest went into the bedroom and laid down afore supper; and I says to Cerinthy Ann, Thats a thing I hant seen your father do since he was took with the typhus. And Cerinthy Ann, she said she knew twant anything but them old doctrines,that it was always so when Uncle Seth come down. And after tea Father was kinder chirked up a little, and he and Seth set by the fire, and was a-heginnin it agin, and I jest spoke out and said, Now, Seth, these ere thin~s doesnt hurt you; hut the Deacon is weak- ly, and if he gets his mind riled after sup- per, he dont sleep none all night. So, says I, youd hetter jest let matters stop where they he; cause, says 1, twont make no difference, for to-night, which on yes got the right ont ;reckon the Lord 11 go on his own way without you and we shall find out, hyrn-by, what that Is. Mr. Scudder used to think a great deal on these points, said Mrs. Katy, and the last time he was home he wrote out his views. I havent ever shown them to you, Doctor; but I should he pleased to know what you think of them. Mr. Scudder was a good man, with a clear head, said the Doctor; and I should be much pleased to see anything that he wrote. A hush of gratified feeling passed over Mrs. Katys face ;for one flower laid on the shrine which we keep in our hearts for the dead is worth more than any gift to our living selves. We will not now pursue our party further, lest you, Reader, get more the- ological tea than you can drink. We will not recount the numerous nice points raised by Mr. Simeon Brown and ad- justed by the Doctor,and how Simeon invariably declared, that that was the way in which he disposed of them hini- self, and how he had thought ~ out ten years ago. We will not relate, either, too minute- ly, how Mary changed color and grew pale and red in quick succession, when Mr. Simeon Brown incidentally remark- ed, that the Monsoon was going to set sail that very afternoon, for her three- years voyage. Nohody noticed it in the busy amenities,the sudden welling and ebbing of that one poor little heart-foun- tam. So we go,so little knowing what we touch and what touches us as we talk! We drop out a common piece of news, Mr. So-and-so is dead,Miss Such- a-one is married,such a ship has sail- ed,and Jo, on our right hand or our left, some heart has sunk under the news silently,gone down in the great ocean of Fate, without even a bubble risin,~ to tell its drownin,, pang. And thisGod help us !is what we call living! CHAPTER V. THE LETTER. MARY returned to the quietude of her room. The red of twilight had faded, and the silver moon, round and fair, was rising behind the thick boughs of the am ple-trees. She sat down in the window, thoughtful and sad, and listened to the crickets, whose ignorant jollity often sounds as mournfully to us mortals as ours may to superior beings. There the little hoarse, black wretches were scraping an(l creakincr as if life and death were invented solely for their pleasure, and the world were created only to give them a good time in it. Now and then a little wind shivered among the boughs, and brought down a shower of white petals which shimmered in the slant beams of the moonlight; and now a ray touched some tall head of grass, and forthwith it Blossomed into silver, and stirred itself with a quiet joy, like a new-born saint just awaking in paradise. And ever and anon came on the still air the soft eternal pulsations of the distant sea, sound mournfulest, most mysterious, of all the harpings of Nature. It was the sea,the deep, eternal sea,the treacherous, soft, dreadful, inexplicable sca; and he was perhaps at this moment being borne away on it,away, away,to what sorrows, to what temptations, to what dangei~s, she knew not. She looked along the old, 106 Tke Ministers Wooing. [January, familiar, beaten path by which he came, by which he went, and thought, What if he never should come back? There was a little path through the orchard out to a small elevation in the pasture-lot be- hind, whence the sea was distinctly visi- ble, and Mary had often used her low- silled window as a door when she wanted to pass out thither; so now she step- ped out, and, gathering her skirts back from the dewy grass, walked thoughtfully along the path and gained the hill. New- port harbor lay stretched out in the dis- tance, with the rising moon casting a long, wavering track of silver upon it; and ves- sels, like silver-winged moths, were turn- ing and shifting slowly to and frq upon it, and one stately ship in full sail pass- ing fairly out under her white canvas, graceful as some grand, snowy bird. Marys beatin~ heart told her that there was passing away from her one who car- ried a portion of her existence with him. She sat down under a lonely tree that stood there, and, resting her elbow on her knee, followed the ship with silent prayers, as it passed, like a graceful, cloudy dream, out of her sight. Then she thoughtfully retraced her way to her chamber; and as she was ca- tering, observed in the now clearer moon- light what she had not seen before,some- thing white, like a letter, lying on the floor. Immediately she struck a light, and there, sure enough, it was,-a letter in Jamess handsome, dashing hand; and the little puss, before she knew what she was about, actually kissed it, with a fervor which would much have astonished the writer, could he at that moment have been clairvoyant. But Mary felt as one who finds, in the emptiness after a friends death, an unexpected message or me- mento; and all alone in the white, calm stillness of her little room her heart took sudden possession of her. She opened the letter with trembling hands, and read what of course we shall let you read. We got it out of a bundle of old, smoky, yellow letters, years after all the parties concerned were gone on the eternal jour- ney beyond earth. My DEAR MARY, I cannot leave you so. I have about two hundred things to say to you, and its a shame I could not have had longer to see you; but blessed be ink and paper! I am writing and seeing to fifty things besides; so you mustnt won- der if my letter has rather a confused appearance. I have been thinkin~ that perhaps I gave you a wrong in of myseW this afternoon. I am going to speak to you from my hen , as if I were con- fessing on my death-bed. Well, then, I do not confess to being what is commonly called a bad young man. I should be willing that men of the world generally, even strict ones, should look my life through and know all about it. It is only in your presence, Mary, that I feel that I am bad and low and shallow and mean, because you represent to me a sphere higher and holier than any in which I have ever moved, and stir up a sort of sighing and longing in my heart to comae towards it. In all countries, in all temp- tations, Mary, your image has stood be- tween me and low, gross vice. When I have been with fellows roaring drunken, beastly songs,suddenly I have seemed to see you as you used to sit beside me in the singing-school, and your voice has been like an angels in my ear, and I have got up and gone out sick and die- gusted. Your face has risen up calm and white and still, between the faces of poor lost creatures who know no better way of life than to tempt us to sin. And sometimes, Mary, when I have seen girls that, had they been cared for by good pious mothers, might have been like you, I have felt as if I could cry for them. Poor women are abused all the world over; and its no wonder they turn round and reveuge themselves on us. No, I have not been bad, Mary, as the world calls badness. I have been kept by you. But do you remember you told mae once, that, when the snow first fell and lay so dazzling and pure and soft, all about, you always felt as if the spreads The ilI~nisters Wooing. and window-curtains that seemed white before were dirty ? Well, its just like that with me. Your presence makes me feel that I am not pure,th~t I am low and unworthy,not worthy to touch the hem of your garment. Your good Dr. H. spent a whole half-day, the other Sunday, trying to tell us ahout the heauty of holi- ness; and he cut, and pared, and peeled, and sliced, and told us what it wasnt, and what was li/ce it, and wasnt; and then he built up an exact definition, and fortified and bricked it up all round; and I thought to myself that hed better t~ll em to look at Mary Scudder, and theyd understand all about it. That was what I was thinking when you talked to me for looking at you in church instead of looking towards the pulpit. It really made me laugh in myself to see what a good little ignorant, unconscious way you had of looking up at the Doctor, as if he knew more about that than you did. And now as to your Doctor that you think so much og I like him for certain things, in certain ways. lie is a great, grand, large pattern of a man,a man who isnt afraid to think, and to speak anything he does think; but then I (10 believe, if he would take a voyage round the world in the forecastle of a whaler, he would know more about what to say to people than he does now; it would cer- tainly give him several new points to be considered. Much of his preaching about men is as like live inca as Chinese pic- tures of trees and rocks and gardens, no nearer the reality than that. All I can say is, It isnt so; and youd know it, Sir, if you knew men. He has got what they call a system,just so many bricks put together just so; but it is too narrow to take in all I see in my wanderings round this world of ours. Nobody that has a soul, and goes round the world as I do, can help feeling it at times, and~hinking, as he sees all the races of men and their ways, who made them, and what they were made for. To doubt the existence of a God seems to me like a want of common sense. There is a Maker and a Ruler, doubtless; but then, Mary, all this invisible world of religion is unreal to me. I can see we must be good, some- how, that if we are not, we shall not be happy here or hereafter. As to all the metaphysics of your good Doctor, you cant tell how they tire me. Im not the sort of person that they can touch. I must have real things,real people abstractions are nothing to me. Then I think that he systematically contradicts on one Sunday what he preaches on another. One Sunday he tells us that God is the immediate efficient Author of every act of will; the next he tells ns that we are entire free agents. I see no sense in it, and cant take the trouble to put it together. But then he and you have something in you that I call reli- gion,something that makes you good. When I see a man working away on an entirely honest, unworldly, disinterested pattern, as he does, and when I see you, Mary, as I said before, I should like at least to be as you are, whether I could believe as you do or not. How could you so care for me, and waste on one so unworthy of you such love? Oh, Mary, some better man must win you; I never shall and never can but then you must not quite forget me ; you must be my friend, my saint. If, through your prayers, your Bible, your friendship, you can bring me to your state, I am will- ing to be brought there,nay, desirous. God has put the key of my soul into your hands. So, dear Mary, good-bye! Pray still for your naughty, loving CousLN JAMES. Mary read this letter, and re-read it, with more pain than pleasure. To feel the immortality of a beloved soul hang- ing upon us, to feel that its only comnmu- nications with Heaven must be through 1~s, is the most solemn and touching thought that can pervade a mind. It was without one particle of gratified vanity, with even a throb of pain, that she read such exalt- ed praises of herself from one blind to the glories of a far higher loveliness. Yet was she at that moment, unknown 1859.1 107 108 The Ministers Wooing. [January, to herself, one of the great company scat- tered through earth who are priests unto God, ministering hetween the Divine One, who has unveiled himself unto them, and those who as yet stand in the outer courts of the great sanctuary of truth and holiness. Many a heart, wrung, pierced, bleeding with the sins and sorrows of earth, longing to depart, stands in this mournful and beautiful ministry, hut stands unconscious of the glory of the work in which it waits and suffers. Gods kings and priests are crowned with thorns, walking the earth with bleeding feet, and comprehending not the work they are performing. Mary took from a drawer a small pocket-book, from which dropped a lock of black hair,a glossy curl, which seem- ed to have a sort of wicked, wilful life in every shining ring, just as she had often seen it shake naughtily on the own- ers head. She felt a strange tenderness towards the little wilful thing, and, as she leaned over it, made in her heart a thou- sand fond apologies for every fault and error. She was standing thus when Mrs. Scud- der entered the room to see if her daugh- ter had yet retired. What are you doing there, Mary? she said, as her eye fell on the letter. What is it you are Mary felt herself grow pale; it was the first time in her whole life that her moth- er had asked her a question that she was not from the heart ready to answer. Her loyalty to her only parent had gone o~ even-handed with that she gave to her God; she felt, somehow, that the revela- tions of that afternoon had opened a gulf between them, and the consciousness over- powered her. Mrs. Scudder was astonished at her ev- ident embarrassment, her trembling, and paleness. She was a woman of prompt, imperative temperament, and the slight- est hesitation in rendering to her a full, outspoken confidence had never before occurred in their intercourse. 11cr child was the core of her heart, the apple of her eye, and intense love is always near neighbor to anger; there was, therefore, an involuntary flash from her eye and a heightening of her color, as she said, Mary, are you concealing anything from your mother? In that moment, Mary had grown calm again. The wonted serene, balanced na- ture had found its habitual poise, and she looked up innocently, though with tears in her large, blue eyes, and said, No, mother,I have nothing that I do not mean to tell you fully. This let- ter came from James Marvyn; he came here to see me this afternoon. here? when? I did not see him. After dinner. I was sitting here in the window, and suddenly he came up behind me through the orchard-path. Mrs. Katy sat down with a flushed cheek and a discomposed air; but Mary seemed actually to hear her down by the candid clearness of the large, blue eye which she turned on her, as she stood perfectly collected, with her deadly pale face and a brilliant spot burning on each cheek. es came to say good-bye. He complained that he had not had a chance to see me alone since he came home. And what should he want to see you alone for? said Mrs. Scudder, in a dry, disturbed tone. Mother, everybody has things at times which they would like to say to some one person alone, said Mary. Well, tell me what lie said. I will try. In the first place, he said that he always had been free, all his life, to run in and out of our house, and to wait on me like a brother. Hum! said Mrs. Scudder; but he isnt your brother, for all that. Well, then, he wanted to know why you were so cold to him, and why you never let him walk with me from mneet- ings or see me alone, as we often used to. And I told him why,that we were not children now, and that you thought it was not best; and then I talked with him about religion, and tried to persuade him to attend to the concerns of his soul 1859.] and I never felt so much hope for him as I do now. Aunt Katy looked skeptical, and re- marked, If he really felt a disposition for religious instruction, Dr. H. could guide him much better than you could. Yes,so I told him, and I tried to persuade him to talk with Dr. H.; but he was very unwilling. He said, I could have more influence over him than any- body else, that nobody could do him any good but me. Yes, yes, I understand all that, said Aunt Katy, I have heard young men say that before, and I know just what it amounts to. But, mother, I do think James was moved very much, this afternoon. I nev- er heard him spcak so seriously; he seemed really in earnest, and he asked me to give him my Bible. Couldnt he read any Bible but yours? Why, naturally, you know, mother, he would like my Bible better, because it would put him in mind of me. He prom- ised faithfully to read it all through. And then, it seems, he wrote you a letter. Yes, mother. Mary shrank from showing this letter, from the natural sense of honor which makes us feel it indelicate to expose to an unsympathizing eye the confidential outpourings of another heart; and then she felt quite sure that there was no such intercessor for James in her mothers heart as in her own. But over all this reluctance rose the determined force of duty; and she handed the letter in si- lence to her mother. Mrs. Scudder took it, laid it deliberately in her lap, and then began searching in the pocket of her chintz petticoat for her spectacles. These being found, she wiped them, accurately adjusted them, opened the letter and spread it on her lap, brush- ing out its folds and straightenin~ it, that she might read with the greater ease. After this she read it carefully and de- liberately; and all this while there was such a stillness, that the sound of the The .Miinisters Wooing. 109 tall varnished clock in the best room could be heard through the half-opened door. After reading it with the most tiresome, torturing slowness, she rose, and laying it on the table under Marys eye, and pressing down her finger on two lines in the letter, said, Mary, have you told James that you loved him? Yes, mother, always. I always loved him, and he always knew it. But, Mary, this that he speaks of is something different. What has passed between Why, mother, he was saying that we who were Christians drew to ourselves and (lid not care for the salvation of our friends; and then I told him how I had always prayed for him, and how I should be willing even to give up niy hopes in heaven, if he might be saved. Child,what (10 you mean? I mean, if only one of us two could go to heaven, I had rather it should be him than me, said Mary. Oh, child! child! said Mrs. Scud- der, with a sort of groan, has it gone with you so far as this? Poor child after all my care, you are in love with this boy,your heart is set on him. Mother, I am not. I never expect to see him mucli,never expect to marry him or anybody else ;only he seems to mc to have so much more life and soul and spirit than most people,I think him so noble and grand,th~t is, that he could be, if he were all he ought to be,that, somehow, I never think of myself in thinking of him, and his sal- vation seems worth more than mine ; men can do so much more !they can live such splendid lives oh, a real no- ble man is so glorious! And you would like to see him well married, would you not? said Mrs. Scudder, sending, with a true womans aim, this keen arrow into the midst of the cloud of enthusiasm which enveloped her daughter. I think, she added, that Jane Spencer would make him an excellent wife. Mary was astonished at a strange, new 110 The Ailiinisters Wooing. [January, pain that shot through her at these words. She drew in her breath and turned herself uneasily, as one who had liter- ally felt a keen dividing blade piercing between soul and spirit. Till this mo- ment, she had never becn conscious of herself; hut the shaft had torn the veil. She covered her face with her hands; the hot blood flushed scarlet over neck and brow; at last, with a beseeching look, she threw herself into her mothers arms. Oh, mother, mother, I am selfish, after all Mrs. Scudder folded her silently to her heart, and said, My daughter, this is not at all what I wished it to be; I see how it is ;but then you have been a good child; I dont blame you. We cant always help ourselves. We dont always really know how we do feel. I didnt know, for a long while, that I loved your father. I thought I was only curious about him, because he had a strange way of treating me, different from other men; but, one day, I re- member, Julian Simons told me that it was reported that his mother was making a match for him with Susan Emery, and I was astonished to find how I felt. I saw him that evening, and the moment he looked at me I saw it wasnt true; all at once I knew something I never knew he- fore,and that was, that I should be very unhappy, if he loved any one else better than me. But then, my child, your father was a different man from James; he was as much better than I was as you are than James. I was a foolish, thoughtless young thing then. I never should have been anything at all, but for him. Somehow, when I loved him, I grew more serious, and then he always guided and led me. Mary, your father was a wonderful man; he was one of the sort that the world knows not of; sometime I must show you his letters. I always hoped, my daughter, that you would marry such a man. Dont speak of marrying, mother. I never shall marry. You certainly should not, unless you can marry in the Lord. Remember the words, Be ye not unequally yoked to-. gether with unbelievers. For what fel- lowship bath righteousness with unright- eousness? and what communion bath light with darkness? and what concord bath Christ with Belial? or what part bath he that believeth with an infidel? Mother, James is not an infidel. He certainly is an unbeliever, Mary, by his own confession ;but then God is a Sovereign and bath mercy on whom He will. You do right to pray for him; but if he does not come out on the Lords side, you must not let your heart mislead you. He is going to be gone three years, and you must try to think as little of him as possible ;put your mind upon your duties, like a good girl, and God will bless you. Dont believe too much in your power over him ;young men, when they are in love, will promise anything, and really think they mean it; but nothing is a saving change, except what is wrought in them by sovereign grace. But, mother, does not God use the love we have to each other as a means of doing us good? Did you not say that it was by your love to father that you first were led to think seriously? That is true, my child, said Mrs. Scudder, who, like many of the rest of the world, was surprised to meet her own words walking out on a track where she bad not expected them, but was yet too true of soul to cut their acquaintance because they were not going the way of her wishes. Yes, all that is true; but yet, Mary, when one has but one little ewe lamb in the world, one is jealous of it. I would give all the world, if you had never seen James. It is dreadful enough for a woman to love anybody as you can, but it is more to love a man of unsettled character and no religion. But then the Lord appoints all our goings; it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps ;I leave you, my child, in His bands. And, with one solemn and long embrace, the mother and daughter parted for the night. It is impossible to write a story of INew England life and manners for a thought 1859.1 Whites ~S7~akspeare. 111 less, shallow-minded person. If we rep- resent things as they are, their intensity, their depth, their unworldly gravity and earnestness, must inevitably repel lighter spirits, as the reverse pole of the magnet drives off sticks and straws. In no other country were the soul and the spiritual life ever such intense realities, and everything contemplated so much (to use a current New England phrase) in reference to eternity. Mrs. Scudder w ~astrong, clear-headed, practical wom- an. No one had a clearer estimate of the material and outward life, or could more minutely manage its smallest item but then a tremendous, eternal future had so weighed down and compacted the fibres of her very soul, that all earthly things were but as dust in comparison to it. That her child should be one elect- ed to walk in white, to reign with Christ when earth was a forgotten dream, was her one absorhing wish; and she looked on all the events of life only with refer- ence to this. The way of life was nar- row, the chances in favor of any child of Adam infinitely small; the best, the most seemingly pure and fair, was by nature a child of wrath, and could be saved only by a sovereign decree, by which it should be plucked as a brand from the burning. Therefore it was, that, weighing all things in one balance, there was the sincerity of her whole being in the dread which she felt at the thought of her dauahters marriage with an unbeliever. Mrs. Scudder, after retiring to her room, took her Bible, in preparation for her habitual nightly exercise of devotion, before going to rest. She read and re- read a chapter, scarce thinking what she was reading, aroused herselgand then sat with the hook in her hand in deep thought. James Marvyn was her cous- ins son, and she had a strong feeling of respect and family attachment for his father. She had, too, a real kindness for the young man, whom she regarded as a well-meaning, wilful youngster; but that he should touch her saint, her Mary, that he should take from her the daugh- ter who was her all, really embittered her heart towards him. After all, she said to herself, there are three years,three years in which there will be no letters, or perhaps only one or two,and a great deal may be done in three years, if one is wise ; and she felt within herself an arousing of all the shrewd womanly and motherly tact of her nature to meet this new emer- gency. [To be continued.] WHITES ST~IA.KSPEARE.* (FIRST NOTICE.) IT may be doubted whether any lan- guage be rich enough to maintain more than one truly great poet,and whether there be more than one period, and that very short, in the life of a language, when such a phenomenon as a great poet is possible. It may he reckoned one of the ~ The Works of William Skakspeere. Edit- ed, etc., by RIcuARD GRANT WHITE. Vols. II., III., IV., and V. Boston: Little, Brown, & Co. 1858. rarest pieces of good-luck that ever fell to the share of a race, that (as was true of Shakspeare) its most rhythmic genius, its acutest intellect, its profoundest imag- ination, and its healthiest understanding should have been combined in one man, and that he should have arrived at the full development of his powers at the moment when the material in which he was to workthat wonderful composite called English, the best result of the confusion

1859.1 Whites ~S7~akspeare. 111 less, shallow-minded person. If we rep- resent things as they are, their intensity, their depth, their unworldly gravity and earnestness, must inevitably repel lighter spirits, as the reverse pole of the magnet drives off sticks and straws. In no other country were the soul and the spiritual life ever such intense realities, and everything contemplated so much (to use a current New England phrase) in reference to eternity. Mrs. Scudder w ~astrong, clear-headed, practical wom- an. No one had a clearer estimate of the material and outward life, or could more minutely manage its smallest item but then a tremendous, eternal future had so weighed down and compacted the fibres of her very soul, that all earthly things were but as dust in comparison to it. That her child should be one elect- ed to walk in white, to reign with Christ when earth was a forgotten dream, was her one absorhing wish; and she looked on all the events of life only with refer- ence to this. The way of life was nar- row, the chances in favor of any child of Adam infinitely small; the best, the most seemingly pure and fair, was by nature a child of wrath, and could be saved only by a sovereign decree, by which it should be plucked as a brand from the burning. Therefore it was, that, weighing all things in one balance, there was the sincerity of her whole being in the dread which she felt at the thought of her dauahters marriage with an unbeliever. Mrs. Scudder, after retiring to her room, took her Bible, in preparation for her habitual nightly exercise of devotion, before going to rest. She read and re- read a chapter, scarce thinking what she was reading, aroused herselgand then sat with the hook in her hand in deep thought. James Marvyn was her cous- ins son, and she had a strong feeling of respect and family attachment for his father. She had, too, a real kindness for the young man, whom she regarded as a well-meaning, wilful youngster; but that he should touch her saint, her Mary, that he should take from her the daugh- ter who was her all, really embittered her heart towards him. After all, she said to herself, there are three years,three years in which there will be no letters, or perhaps only one or two,and a great deal may be done in three years, if one is wise ; and she felt within herself an arousing of all the shrewd womanly and motherly tact of her nature to meet this new emer- gency. [To be continued.] WHITES ST~IA.KSPEARE.* (FIRST NOTICE.) IT may be doubted whether any lan- guage be rich enough to maintain more than one truly great poet,and whether there be more than one period, and that very short, in the life of a language, when such a phenomenon as a great poet is possible. It may he reckoned one of the ~ The Works of William Skakspeere. Edit- ed, etc., by RIcuARD GRANT WHITE. Vols. II., III., IV., and V. Boston: Little, Brown, & Co. 1858. rarest pieces of good-luck that ever fell to the share of a race, that (as was true of Shakspeare) its most rhythmic genius, its acutest intellect, its profoundest imag- ination, and its healthiest understanding should have been combined in one man, and that he should have arrived at the full development of his powers at the moment when the material in which he was to workthat wonderful composite called English, the best result of the confusion 112 Whites Shalespeare. [January, of tongueswas in its freshest perfection. The English-speaking nations should build a monument to the misguided en- thusiasts of the Plain of Shinar; for, as the mixture of many bloods seems to have made them the most vigorous of modern races, so has the mingling of divers speeches given them a language which is perhaps the noblest vehicle of poetic thought that ever existed. Had Shakspcare been born fifty years earlier, he would have been crampe(l by a book-language, not yet flexible enough for the demands of rhythmic emotion, not yet sufficiently popularized for the natural and familiar expression of su- preme thought, not yet so rich in meta- physical phrase as to render possible that ideal representation of the great passions which is the aim and end of Art, not yet subdued by practice and general consent to a definiteness of accentuation essential to ease and congruity of metrical arrange- ment. Had he been born fifty years later, his ripened manhood would have found itself in an England absorbed and angry with the solution of political and religious problems, from which his whole nature was averse, instead of in that Eliza- bethan social system, ordered and plan- etary in its functions and degrees as the angelic hierarchy of the Areopagite, where his contemplative eye could crowd itself with various and brilliant picture, and whence his impartial brainone lobe of which seems to have been Nor- manly refined and the other Saxonly sa- gaciouscould draw its morals of court- ly and worldly wisdom, its lessons of prudence and magnanimity. In estimat- ing Shakspeare, it should never be for- gotten, that, like Goethe, he was essen- tially observer and artist, and incapable of partisanship. The passions, actions, sentiments, whose character and results he deli~hted to watch and to reproduce, are those of man in society as it existed; and it no more occurred to him to ques- tion the right of that society to exist than to criticize the divine ordination of the seasons. His business was with men as they were, not with man as he ought to be,with the human soul as it is shaped or twisted into character by the complex experience of life, not in its abstract es- sence, as something to be saved or lost. During the first half of the seventeenth century, the centre of intellectual inter- est was rather in the other world than in this, rather in the region of thought and principle and conscience than in actual life. It was a generation in which the poet was, and felt himself, out of place. Sir Thomas Browne, our most imagina- tive mind since Shakspeare, found breath- ing-room, for a time, among the 0 alti- tudines ! of relioious speculation, but soon descended to occupy himself with the exactitudes of science. Jeremy Tay- lor, who half a century earlier would have been Fletchers rival, compels his clipped fancy to the conventual discipline of prose, (Maid Marian turned nun,) and waters his poetic wine with doctrinal elo- quence. Milton is saved from making total shipwreck of his large-utteranced genius on the desolate Nomans Land of a religious epic only by the lucky help of Satan and his colleagues, with wh om,ns foiled rebels and republicans, he cannot conceal his sympathy. As purely poet, Shakspeare would have come too late, had his lot fallen in that generation. In mind and temperament too exoteric for a mystic, his imagination could not have at once illustrated the influence of his epoch and escaped from it, like that of Browne; the equilibrium of his judgment, essential to him as an artist, hut equally removed from propagandism, whether as enthusiast or logician, would have unfitted him for the pulpit; and his intellectual being was too sensitive to the wonder and beauty of outward life and Nature to have found satisfaction, as Miltons could, (and perhaps only by reason of his blindness,) in a world peopled by purely imaginary figures. We might fancy his becoming a great statesman, but he lacked the social posi- tion which could have opened that career to him. What we mean, when we say Shalcspeare, is something inconceivable either during the reign of Henry the 1859.] Tf7dtes Shakspeare. 113 Eighth or the Commonwealth, and which would have been impossible after the Restoration. All favorable stars seem to have been in conjunction at his nativity. The Ref- ormation had passed the period of its vinous fermentation, and its clarified re- suits remained as an element of intellec- tual impulse an(l exhilaration; there were small signs yet of the acetous and putre- fhctivc stages which were to follow in the victory and decline of Puritanism. Old forms of belief and worship still lingered, all the more touching to Fancy, perhaps, that they were homeless and attainted; the light of skeptic day was baffled by depths of forest where superstitious shapes still cowered, creatures of immemorial wonder, the raw material of Imagination. The invention of printing, without yet vulgarizing letters, had m e the thought and history of the entire past contempo- raneous; while a crowd of translators put every man who could read in inspir- ing contact with the select souls of all the centuries. A new world was thus opened to intellectual adventure at the very time when the keel of Columbus had turned the first daring furrdw of discovery in that unmeasured ocean which still girt the known earth with a beckoning hori- zon of hope and conjecture, which was still fed by rivers that flowed down out of primeval silences, and which still washed the shores of Dreamland. Un- der a wise, cultivated, and firm-handed monarch also, the national feeling of England grew rapidly more homogene- ous and intense, the rather as the wom- anhood of the sovereign stimulated a more chivalric loyalty,while the new religion, of which she was the defender, helped to make England morally, as it was geographically, insular to the con- tinent of Europe. If circumstances could ever make a great national poet, here were all the elements mingled at melting-heat in the alembic, and the lucky moment of projection was clearly come. If a great national poet could ever avail himself of circumstances, this was the occasion,and, fortunately, VOL. III. 8 Shakspeare was equal to it. Above all, we esteem it lucky that he found words ready to his use, original and untarnish- ed,types of thought whose sharp edges were unworn by repeated impressions. In reading Hakhnyts Voyages, we are almost startled now and then to find that even common sailors could not tell the story of their wanderings without rising to an almost Odyssean straimi, and habitu- ally used a diction that we should be glad to buy back from desuetude at any cost. Those who look upon language only as ahatomist~ of its structure, or who regard it as only a means of conveying abstract truth from mind to mind, as if it were so many algebraic formul~, are apt to over- look the fact that its being alive is all that gives it poetic value. We do not mean what is technically called a living language, the contrivance, hollow as a speaking-trumpet, by which breathing and moving bipeds, even now, sailing oer lifes solemn main, are enabled to hail each other and make known their mutual shortness of mental stores,but one that is still hot from the hearts and brains of a people, not hardened yet, but moltenly ductile to new shapes of sharp and clear relief in the moulds of new thought. So soon as a language has become literary, so soon as there is a gap between the speech of books and that of life, the lan- guage becomes, so far as poetry is con- cerned, almost as dead as Latin, and (as in writing Latin verses) a mind in itself essentially original becomes in the use of such a medium of utterance uncon- sciously reminiscential and reflective, lu- nar and not solar, in expression an(I even in thought. For words and thoughts have a much more intimate and genetic relation, one with the other, than most men have any notion of; and it is one thing to use our mother-tongue as if it belonged to us, and another to be the puppets of an overmastering vocabulary. Ye know not, says Aseham, what hurt ye do to Learning, that care not for Words, but for Matter, and so make a Divorce betwixt the Tongue and the Heart. Lingua Toscana in bocca Rb- 114 Whites Slialcspeare. [January, mann is the Italian proverb; and that of poets should be, The tongue of the pea- p/e in the mouth of the scholar. We inten(l here no assent to the early the- ory, or, at any rate, practice, of Words- worth, who confounded plebeian modes of thought with rustic forms of phrase, and then atoned for his blunder by ab- sconding into a diction more Latinized than that of any pout of his century. Shakspcare was doubly fortunate. Sax- on by the father and Norman by the mother, he was a representative English-. man. A country-boy, he learned fiPst the rough and ready English of his rus- tic mates, who knew how to make nice verbs and adjectives curtsy to their needs. Going up to London, he acquired the tin- gun aulica precisely at the happiest mo- ment, just as it was becoming, in the strict- est sense of the word, nsodern,just as it had recruited itseW by fresh impressments from the Latin and Latinized languages, with new words to express the new ideas of an enlarging intelligence which print- ing and translation were fast making cos- mopolitan,words which, in proportion to their novelty, and to the fact that the mother-tongue and the foreign had not yet wholly mingled, must have been used with a more exact appreciation of their meaning.* It was in London, and chiefly by means of the stage, that a thorough amalgamation of the Saxon, Norman, and scholarly elements of English was brought about. Already, Puttenham, in his Arte of English Poesy, declares that the practice of the capital and the country within sixty miles of it was the standard of correct diction, the jus et nor- san laquendi. Already Spenser had al- most recreated English poetry,and it is interesting to observe, that, scholar as he was, the archaic words which he was at first over-fond of introducing are often provincialisms of purely English original. Already Marlowe had brought the English nurhymed pentameter (which had hither- to justified but half its name, by being 5~ As where Ben Jensen is able to say, Men may securely sin, hut safely never. always blank and never verse) to a per- fection of melody, harmony, and variety which has never been surpassed. Shak- speare, then, found a language already to a certain extent established, but not yet fetlocked by dictionary- and grammar- mongers, a versification harmonized, but which had not yet exhausted all its modulations, or been set in the stocks by critics who deal judgment on refractory feet, that will (lance to Orphean measures of which their judges are insensible. That the language was established is proved by its comparative unilbrmity as used by the dramatists, who wrote for mixed au- diences, as well as by lien Jensens sat- ire upon Marstons neelogisms; that it at the same time admitted foreign words to the rights of citizenship on easier terms than now is in genii measure equally true. What was of greater import, no arbitrary line had been drawn between high words and low; vulgar then meant simply what was common; poetry had not been alien- ed from the people by the establishment of an Upper House of vocables, alone entitled to move in the stately ceremo- nials of verse, and privileged from arrest while they forever keep the promise of meaning to the ear and break it to the sense. The hot conception of the poet had no time to cool while he was debut- ing time comparative respectability of this phrase or that; but he snatched what word his instinct prompted, and saw no in(iiseretion in making a king speak as his country~nurse might have taught him.* It was Wailer who first learned in France that to talk in rhyme alone comported with the state of royalty. In time time of Shakspeare, the living tongue resem- bled that tree which Father lIne saw mn Tartary, whose leaves were languaged, and every hidden root of thought, ev- ery subtilest fibre of feeling, was mated 55 Vulg~ rem lecutienem appellamus earn qua infantes adinefiuint ab adsistentibus cum primitus distinguere veers incipiunt: vel, qued brevius did petest vuloarem lecutie miem asserimus queue sine einni regeld, netri cern imitantes, accepimus. Dantes, de Veig. Eleqmiio, Lib. I. cap. i. 1859.] Wi~ites Skakspeare. 115 by new shoots and leafage of expression, fed from those unseen sources in the common earth of human nature. The Cabalists had a notion, that who- ever fQund out the mystic word for anythin~ attained to absolute mastery over that thing. The reverse of this is certainly true of poetic expression; for he who is thoroughly possessed of his thought, who imaginatively conceives an idea or image, becomes master of the word that shall most amply and fitly utter it. Heminge and Condell tell us, accordingly, that there was scarce a blot in the manuscripts they received from Shakspeare; and this is the natural corol- lary from the fact that such an imagina- tion as his is as unparalleled as the force, varicty, and heauty of the phrase in which it embodied itself.* We believe that Shakspcare, like all other great poets, instinctively used the dialect which hc found current, and that his words are not more wrested from their ordinary meaninu than followcd necessarily from the unwonted weight of thought or stress of passion they were called on to support. lie nccdcd not to mask familiar thoughts in the weeds of unfamiliar phraseology; for the life that was in his mind could transfuse the language of every day with an intelligent vivacity, that makes ~ Gray, himself a painful corrector, told Nicholls that nothing was done so well as at the first concoction, adding, as a reason, We think in words. Ben Jonson said, it was a pity Shakepeare had not blotted more, for that he sometimes wrote nonsense, and cited in proof of it the verse Cusar did never wrong but with just cause. The last four words do not appear in the pas- sage as it now stands, and Professor Craik snggests that they were stricken out in con- sequence of Jousons criticism. This is very probable; but we suspect that the pen that hlotted them was in the hand of Master Ilem- inge or his colleague. The moral confusion in the idea was surely admirably character- ictic of the general who had just accomplish- ed a successful coup dktnt, the condemnation of which he would fancy that he read in the face of every honest man he met, and which he would therefore be forever indirectly palli- ating. it seem lamhent with fiery purpose, and at each new reading a new creation. He could say with Dante, that no word had ever forced him to say what he would not, though he had forced many a word to say what it would not, hut only in the sense, that the mighty magic of his imagination had conjured out of it its uttermost secret of power or pathos. He himself says, in one of his sonnets, Why is my verse so barren of new pride, So far from alteration and quick change? Why, with the time, do I not glance aside To new-found methods and to compounds strange? Why write I still all one, ever the same, And keep invention in a noted weed That every word doth almost tell my name? When we say that Shakspeare used the current lanuuaue of his day, we mean only that he habitually employed such language as was universally comprehen- siblethat lie was not run away with by the hobby of any theory as to the fitn& s of this or that component of English for expressing certain thoughts or feelings. That the artistic value of a choice and noble diction was quite as well under- stood in his day as in ours is evident from the praises bestowed by his con- temporaries on l)rnyton and by the epi- thet well-langunged applied to Daniel, whose poetic style is as modern as that of Tennyson; but the endless absurdities about the comparative merits of Saxon and Norman-French, vented by persons incapable of distinguishing one tongue from the other, were as yet unheard of. The influence of the Normans in Human- izing our language has been vastly over- rated. We find a principle of caste estab- lished in certain eases by the relation of producer and consumer, in others by the superior social standing of the con- quering race. Thus, ox, sheep, co/f swine, indicate the thing produced; beqf, mutton, real, pork, the thing consumed.* It is the same with the names of the various grains, anti the product of the cheaper kinds when ground,as oat-meal, barley-meal, Scott, in Ivenlioe. 116 Whites Shakspeare. [January, rye-meal; while the generic term for the crop becomes grain, and the meal of the. variety used by the higher classes is turn- ed into flour. To bury remains Saxdn, because both high and low must be hid- den under ground at last; but as only the rich and noble could afford any pomp in that sad office, we get the word funeral from the Norman. So also the serf went into a Saxon grave, the lord into a Nor- man tomb. All the parts of armor are naturally named from the Frcnch; the weapons of the people, as sword, bow, and thc like, continued Saxon. Sofeath- er is Saxon; but as soon as it changes into a plume for the knight, it turns Nor- man,and Latin when it is cut into a pen for the clerk. Book is Saxon; but a number of books collected together, as could be done only by the rich, makes a library. Darling would be murmured over many a cradle in Saxon huts; but minion came into the language down the back stairs of the Norman palace. In the same way, terms of law are Norman, and of the Church, Latin. These are familiar examples. But hasty general- izers are apt to overlook the fact, that the Saxon was never, to any great ex- tent, a literary langua~e. Accordingly, it held its own very well in the names of common thin~s, but failed to answer the demands of complex ideas, derived from them. The author of Piers Plough- man wrote for the peopleChaucer for the court. We open at random and count the Latin * words in ten verses of the Vision and ten of Chaucers Ro- maunt of the Rose, (a translation from the French,) and find the proportion to he seven in the former and five in the latter. The organs of the Saxon have always been unwillin~ and stiff in learning lan- guages. He acquired only about as many British words as we have Indian ones, and we believe that more French and Latin was introduced through the pen and the eye than through the tongue and the ear. ~ We use the word Latin here to express words derived either mediately or immediate- ly from that language. For obvious reasons, the question is one that must be settled by reference to prose- writers, and not poets; and it is, we think, pretty well settled that more words of Latin original were brought into the lan- guage in the century between 1550 and 1650 than in the whole period before or sinceand for the simple reason, that they were absolutely needful to express new modes and combinations of thought. * The language has gained immensely by the infusion, in richness of synonyme and in the power of expressing nice shades of thought and feeling, but more than all in light-footed polysyllables that trip singing to the music of verse. There are certain cases, it is true, where the vulgar Saxon word is refined, and the re- fined Latin vulgar, in poetry,as in sweat and perspiration; but thcre are vastly more in which the Latin bears the bell. Perhaps there might be a question be- tween the old English again-rising and resurrection; but there can be no doubt that conscience is better than inwit, and remorse than again-bite. Should we trans- late the title of Wordsworths famous o(le, Intimations of Immortality, into Hints of Deathlessness, it would hiss like an angry gander. If, instead of Sliakspeares Age cannot wither her, Nor custom stale her infinite variety, we should say, her boundless manifold- ness, the sentiment would suffer in exact proportion with the music. What home- bred English could ape the high Roman fashion of such togated words as The multitudinous sea incarnadine, where the huddling epithet implies the tempest-tossed soul of the speaker, and at the same time pictures the wallowing * The prose of Chaucer (1390) and of Sir Thomas Malory (translating from the French, 1470) is less Latinized than that of Bacon, Jlrowne, Taylor, or Milton. The glossary to Spensers Shepherds Calender (1579) explains words of Teutonic and liomanic root in ahout equal proportions. The parallel hut inde- pendent development of Scotch is not to he forgotten. 1859.] TVidtes S1eaksjpeare. 117 waste of ocean more vividly than the fhmous phrase of ~schylus does its rip- pling sunshine? Again, sailor is less poetical than mariner, as Camphell felt, When he wrote, Ye mariners of England, and Coleridge, when he preferred It was an ancient mariner It was an elderly seaman for it is as much the charm of poetry that it suggest a certain remoteness and strangeness as familiarity; and it is es- sential not only that we feel at once the meaning of the words in themselves, hut also their melodic meaning in relation to each other, and to the sympathetic variety of the verse. A word once vulnarized can never he rehahilitated. We might say now a buxom lass, or that a chamher- maid was buxom, hut we could not use the term, as Milton did, in its original sense of howsome,that is, lithe, grace- fully hending.* ~ We believe that for the last two centuries the Latin radicals of English have been more familiar and homelike to those who use them than the Teutonic. Even so accomplished a person as Professor Craik, in his English of She kspeure derives heed, throunh the German heupt, from the Latin caput! We trust that its genealo~y is nobler, and that it is of kin with eulers teen, rather than with the Greek ac~e2u~, if Suidas be right in tracing the on- gill of that to a word meaning receity. Mr. Craik suggests, also, that quick and wicked may be etymologically i(iuntical, because he fancies a relationship between busy and the German bdse, though wicked is evidently the participial form of A. S. wuceu, (German wei~:hen,) to bend, to yield, meaning one who hes given way to tensptutiou, while quick seems as clearly related to wegen, meaning to more, a different word, even if radically the same. In the Lossdoe Literury Gazette for Nov. 13, 1818, we find an extract from Miss Milling- tons Heraldry iu History, Poetry, aud Romance, in which, speaking of the motto of the Prince of Wales,De per Iloumoat ich diesse,she says, The precise meaning of the former word [Hosonoutj has not, I think, been ascer- tamed. The word is plainly the German Ilochnsuth, and the whole would read, De per (Arts) Hochsnssth ich diene, Out ufma~nanim ity I serve. So entirely lost is the Saxon But the secret of force in writinq lies not in the pedigree of nouns and adjec- tives and verbs, hut in having somethiug that yon believe in to say, and making the parts of speech vividly conscious of it. It is when expression becomes an act of memory, instead of an unconscious necessity, that diction takes the place of warm and hearty speech. It is not sate to attribute special virtues (as Bosworth, for example, does to the Saxon) to words of whatever derivation, at least in poe- try. Because Lears oak-cleaving thun- derbolts, and the all-dreaded thun- der-stone in Cymbeline are so fine, we would not give up Miltons Virgilian fulmined over Greece, where the verb in English conveys at once the idea of flash and reverberation, hut avoids that of riving and shattering. In the experi- ments made for casting the great hell for the Westminster Tower, it was found that the superstition which attributed the re- niarkable sweetness and purity of tone in certain old hells to the larger mixture of silver in their composition had no foun- dation in fact. It was the cunning pro- portion in which the ordinary metals were balanced against each other, the perfec- tion of form, and the nice gradations of thickness, that wrought the miracle. And it is precisely so with the language of poetry. The genius of the poet will tell him what word to use (else what use in his being poet at all?); and even then, unless the proportion and form, wheth- er of parts or whole, be all that Art re- quires and the most sensitive taste finds satisfaction in, he will have failed to make what shall vibrate through all its parts with a silvery unison, in other words, a poem. We think the component parts of Bug- meaning of the word knave, (A. S. cnere, Ger- man knabe,) that the name navrie, assumed by railway-laborers, has been trausmognified into navigator. We believe that more people could tell why the month of July was so called than could explain the origin of the names for our days of the week, and that it is oftener the Saxon than the French words in Chaucer that puzzle the modern reader. 118 Whites Skakspeare. [January, lish were in the latter years of Elizabeth thus exquisitely proportioned one to the other. Yet Bacon had no faith in his mother-tongue, translating the works on which his fame was to rest into what he callcd the universal language, and af- firming that English would bankrupt all our books. He was deemed a mas- ter of it, nevertheless; and it is curious that Ben Jonson applies to him in prose the same commendation which he gave Shakspeare in verse, saying, that he 1)erformed that in our tongue which may be compared or preferred either to insolent Greece or haughty Rome ~; and he adds this pregnant sentence In short, within his view and about his time were all the wits born that could honor a language or help study. Now things dai- lyfall: wits grow downwards, eloquence grows backwards. Ben had good reason fbr what lie said of the wits. Not to s1ieak of science, of Galileo and Kepler, the sixteenth century was a spendthrift of literary genius. An attack of immor- tality in a family mi~ht have been looked for then as scarlet-fever w~uld be now. Montaigne, Tasso, and Cervantes were born within the same fourteen years; and England, while Spenser was still dclv- ing over the propria qucr marilrns, and 1~aleigh launching paper navies, Shak- speare was, stretching his baby hands for the moon, and the little Bacon, chewing on his coral, had discovered that impene- trability was one quality of matter. It almost takes ones breath away to think that Hamlet and the Novum Orga- non were at the risk of teething and measles at the same time. But Ben was right also in thinking that eloquence had grown backwards. He lived long enough to see the language of verse become in a measure traditionary and conventional. It was becoming so, partly from the ne- cessary order of events, partly because the most natural and intense expression of feeling had been in so many ways sat- isfied and exhausted,bnt chiefly because there was no man left to whom, as to Shakspeare, perfect conception gave per- fection of phrase. Dante, among mod- em poets, his only rival in condensed force, says, Optimis conceptionibus op- tima loquela conveniet; sed optimm con- ceptiones non possunt esse nisi ubi scien- tia et ingenium est; et sic non omnibus versificantibus optima loquela convenit, cum plerique sine scientid et ingenio versificantur. * Shakspeare must have been quite as well aware of the provincialism of English as Bacon was; but he knew that great poetry, being universal in its appeal to human nature, can make any language classic, and that the men whose appre- ciation is immortality will mine through any (lialect to get at an original soul. He had as much confidence in his home- bred speech as Bacon had want of it, an4 exclaims, Not marble nor the gilded mounments Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme. He must have been perfectly conscious of his genius, and of the great trust which he imposed upon his native tongue as embodier ajid perpetuator of it. As he has avoided obscurities in his sonnets, he would do ~o a for/ion in his plays, both for the purpose of immediate effect on the stage and of future appreciation. Clear thinking makes clear writing, and he who has shown himself so eminently capable of it in one case is not to be supposed to abdicate intentionally in others. The difficult passages in the plays, then, are to be regarded either as corruptions, or else as phenomena in the natural history of Imagination, whose study will enable us to arrive at a clearer theory and better understand- ing of it. While we believe that our language had. two periods of culmination in poetic beanty,one of nature, simplicity, and * De Vulgani Eloquio, Lib. II. cap. i. aa finem. We quote this treatise as Dantes, because the thoughts seem manifestly his; though we believe that in its present form it is an abridgment by some transcriber, who sometimes copies teutnally, and sometimes substitutes his own language for that of the original. Whites Sital2speare. truth, in the ballads, which deal only with narrative and feeling, another of Art, (or Natnre as it is ideally reproduced through the imagination,) of stately am- plitude, of passionate intensity and eleva- tion, in Spenser and the greater drama- tists,and that Shakspeare made use of the latter as he found it, we by no means intend to say that he did not enrich it, or that any inferior man could have dipped the same words out of the great poets inkstand. But he enriched it only by the natural expansion and exhilaration of which it was conscious, in yielding to the mastery of a genius that could turn and wind it like a fiery Pegasus, making it feel its life in every limb. He enrich~d it through that exquisite sense of music, (never approached but by Marlow~,) to which it seemed to be eagerly obedient, as if every word said to him, Bid me discourse, I will enchant thine ear as if every latent harmony revealed itself to him as the gold to Brabma, when he walked over the earth where it was hid- den, crying, here am 1, Lord! do with me what thou wilt! That he used lan- guage with that intim. te possession of its meaning possible only to the most vivid thought is doubtless true; but that he wantonly strained it from its ordinary sense, that he found it too poor for his necessities, and accordingly coined new phrases, or that, from haste or careless- ness, he violated any of its received pro- prieties, we do not believe. We have said that it was fortunate for him that lie came upon an age when our lan- guage was at its best; but it was fortn- nate also for us, because our costliest poetic phrase is put beyond reach of de- cay in the gleaming precipitate in which it united itself with his thought. We do not, therefore, agree with Mr. Matthew Arnold, that the extravagance of thought and diction which character- izes much of our niodern poetry is trace- able to the influence of Shakspearc. We see in it only the futile effort of misguided persons to torture out of language the secret of that inspiration which should be in themselves. We do not find the extravagances in Shakspeare himself. We never saw a line in any niodera poet that reminded us of him, and will venture to assert that it is only poets of the second class that find successful iini- tators. And the reason seems to us a very plain one. The genius of the great poet seeks repose in the expression of itself; and finds it at last in style, which is the establishment of a perfect mutual understanding between the worker and his inaterial.* The secondary intellect, on the other hand, seeks for excitement in expression, and stimulates itself into mannerism, which is the wilful obtrusion of self, as style is its unconscious ahuega- tion. No poet of the first class has ever left a school, because his imagination is incommunicable; while, just as surely as the thermometer tells of the neighbor- hood of an iceberg, you may detect the presence of a genius of the second class in any generation by the influence of his mannerism, for that, being an artificial thing, is capable of reproduction. Dante, Shakspeare, Goethe, left no heirs either to the form or mode of their expression; while Milton, Sterne, and Wordsworth left behind them whole regiments uni- formed with all their external char~ eter- istics. We do not nican that great poetic geniuses may not have influenced thought, (though we think it would be difficult to show how Shiakspeare had done so, di- rectly and wilfully,) but that they have not infected contemporaries or followers with mannerism. That the propositions we have endeav- ored to establish have a direct bearing in various ways upon the qualifications of whoevdr undertakes to edit the works of Shakspeare will, we think, be apparent to those who consider the matter. The hold which Shakspeare has acquired and maintained upon minds so many and so various, in so many vital respects utterly ~ Pheidias said of one of his pupils that he had an inspired thumh, hecause the model- hug-clay yielded to its careless sweep a grace of curve which it refused to tIm utmost pains of others. 1859.1 119 120 Whites S/iakspeare. [January, unsympathetic and even incapable of sympathy with his own, is one of the most noteworthy phenomena in the his-. tory of literature. That he has had the most inadequate of editors, that, as his own Falstaff was the cause of the wit, so he has been the cause of the foolishness that was in other men, (as where Malone ventured to discourse upon his metres, and Dr. Johnson on his imagination,) must be apparent to every oneand also that his genius and its manifestations are so various, that there is no commentator but has been able to illustrate him from his own peculiar point of view or from the results of his own favorite studies. But to show that he was a good common- lawyer, that he understood the theory of colors, that he was an accurate botanist, a master of the science of medicine, especially in its relation to mental dis- ease, a profound meUmphysician, and of great experience and insight in politics, all these, while they may very well form the staple of separate treatises, and prove, that, whatever the extent of his learning, the range and accuracy of his knowledge were beyond precedent or later parallel, are really outside the province of an editor. That Shakspeare did not edit his own works must be attributed, we suspect, to his premature death. That he should not have intended it is inconceivable. That the Tempest was his latest work we have no doubt; and perhaps it is not considering too nicely to conjecture a profound personal meaning in it. Is it over-fanciful to think that in the master Prospero we have the type of Imagina- tion? in Arid, of the wonder-working and winged Fantasy? in Calihan, of the half-animal but serviceable Understand- ing, tormented by Fancy and the un- willing slave of Imagination? and that there is something of self-consciousness in the breaking of Prosperos wand and burying his book,a sort of sad prophe- cy, based on self-knowledge of the nature of that man who, after such thaumaturgy, could go down to Stratford and live there for years, only collecting his div idends from the Globe Theatre, lend- ing money on mortgage, and leaning over his gate to chat and bandy quips with neighbors? his thought had en- tered into every phase of human life and thought, had embodied all of them in liv- ing creations ;had he found all empty, and come at last to the belief that genius and its works were as phantasmagoric a.s the rest, and that fame was as idle as the rumor of the pit? However this may be, his works have come down to us in a condition of manifest and admitted corruption in some portions, while in others there is an obscurity which may be attributed either to an idiosyncratic use of words and condensation of phrase, to a depth of intuition for a proper co- alescence with which Or(iinary language is inadequate, to a concentration of pas- sion in a focus that consumes the lighter links which bind to~ethcr the clauses of a sentence or of a process of reasoning in common parlance, or to a sense of music which mingles music and meaning without essentially confounding them. We should (leman(l for a pcrfect edi- tor, then, first, a thorough glossologica.l knowledge of the English contemporary with Shakspeare; second, enough logical acuteness of mind and metaphysical train- ing to enable hini to follow rccondite pro- cesses of thought; thi id, such a convic- tion of the supremacy of his author as always to prefer his thought to any the- ory of his own; fourth, a feeling for music, and so much knowledge of the practice of other poets ns to understand that Shakspeares versification differs from theirs as often in kind as in de- gree; fifth, an acquaintance with the world as well as with books; and last, what is, perhaps, of more importance than all, so great a familiarity with the working of the imaginative faculty in general, and of its peculiar operation in the mind of Shakspeare, as ~xill prevent his thinking a passage dark with excess of light, and enable him to understand fully that the Gothic Shakspeare often super- linposed upon the slender column of a single word, that seems to twist under it, 1859.] Tj7igtes Shalcspeare. 121 but does not,like the quaint shafts in cloisters, a weight of meaning which the modern architects of sentences would consider wholly unjustifiable by correct principle. It would be unreasonable to expect a union of all these qualifications in a single man, but we think that Mr. White com- bines them in larger proportion than any editor with whose labors we are acquaint- ed. He has an acuteness in tracing the finer fibres of thought worthy of the keen- est lawyer on the scent of a devious trail of circumstantial evidence; he has a sin- cere desire to illustrate his author rather than himself; he is a man of the world, as well as a scholar; he comprehends the mastery of imagination, and that it is the essential element as well of poetry as of profound thinking; a critic of music, he appreciates the importam~e of rhythm as the higher mystery of versification. The sum of his qualifications is large, and his work is honorable to American letters. Though our own studies have led us to a somewhat intimate acquaintance with Elizabethan literature, it is with some dif- fidence that we bring the criticism of duet- tanti to bear upon the labors of five years of serious investigation. We fortify our- selves, however, with Dr. Johnsons dic- twn on the subject of Criticism : Why, no, Sir; this is not just reasoning. You may abuse a tragedy, though you cannot make one. You may scold a carpenter who has made a bad table, though you cannot make a table; it is not your trade to make tables. Not that we intend to abuse Mr. Whites edition of Shakspeare, but we shall speak of what seem to us its merits and defects with the frankness which alone justifies criticism. We have spoken of Mr. Whites re- markable qualifications. We shall now state shortly what seem to us his faults. We think his very acumen sometimes misleads him into fancying a meaning where none exists, or at least none an- swerable to the clarity and precision of Shakspeares intellect; that he is too has- ty in his conclusions as to the pronuncia- tion of words and the accuracy of rhymes in Shakspeares day, arid that he has been seduced into them by what we cannot help thinking a mistaken theory as to cer- tain words, as moth and nothing, for ex- ample; that he shows, here arid there, a glimpse of Americanism, especially mis- placed in an edition of the poet whose works do more than anything else, per- haps, to maintain the sympathy of the English race; and that his prejudice against the famous corrected folio of 1632 leads him to speak slightingly of Mr. Col- lier, to whom all lovers of our early liter- ature are indebted, and who alone, in the controversy excited in England by the publication of his anonymous correctors emendations, showed, under the most shameful provocation, the temper of a gentleman and the self-respect of a schol- ar. But after all these deductions, we remain of the opinion that Mr. White has given us the best edition hitherto pub- lished, and we do not like him the less for an occasional crotchet. For though Shakspeare himself seemed to think with regret that the dirge of the hobby-horse had been sung, yet, as we ourselves have given evidence, it is impossible for any one to write on this subject without tak- ing an occasional airing on one or niore of those imaginary steeds that stand at livery with no risk of eating off their own heads. We shall take up the subject again in our next number, and by ex- tracts justify both our commendation and our criticisms of Mr. White. 122 Reviews and Literary Notices. [January, REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES. A history of Philip the Second, King of Spain. By WILLIAM 11. PRESCOTT. Vol. III. Boston: Phillips, Sampson, & Co. 1858. A cORDIAL welcome from many quar- ters will greet this third instalment of a work which promises, when completed, to be tile most valuable contribution to Eu- ropean history ever made by no American scholar. Tisis will in part be owing to the importance of the subject, which, though professing to be the history of a single country and a single reign, is in fact the great progranl of the politics of Chris- tendom, and of more than Christendom, during a period when the struggles of rival powers nd of hostile principles and creeds kept tile world in agitation and prolonged suspense,when Romanism and Reform, the Crescent and the Cross, despotic pow- er and constitutional freedom, were con- tending for mastery, and no government or nation could stand wholly aloof from a coistest in which the fate, not of empires alone, but of civilization, was involved. Spain, during that period, was the bul- wark of the Church against the attacks of the Reformers, and the bulwark of Cllristendoin against the attacks of the Moslem. The power of Spain towered high above that of every other monarchy; and tills power was wielded with absolute authority by tile king. The Spanish na- tion was united and animated by an in- tense, unwavering devotion to the ancient faith, which was entwined with all the roots of the national lifewhich was Spanish, in fact, far more than it was Italian; and of this spirit Philip the Sec- ond was the fitting representative, not merely from his position, but from his education, his intellect, and his character. Therefore it is that the historian of this single country and tilis single reign, stand- ing upon a central eminence, must survey and depict the whole vast field of which we ilave spoken. The materials for suds a survey are abundant. But down to a very recent period, tile nlost valuable and authentic portion of them letters of tile actors, records, written not from hearsay, but from personal knowledge, documents of various kinds, private and official, that fill up the iliatuses, correct the conjectures, establish the credibility, and give a fresh meanin~ to tile relations of tIle earlier writers were neglected or concealed, inaccessible, unexplored, all but unknown. Now tilese ilidden sources have been re- vealed. A flood of light streams back upon tilat by~one age, filling every ob- scure nook, making legihie and plain what before could neither be read nor understood. Or rather, tile effect is sucil as wilen distant objects, seen dimly and con