THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. A Mag-czzuzc of Lilcratztrc, Scie~z cc, Art~ a;zcl Po/ilics. VOL. XXIII. JANUARY, 1869. NO. CXXXV. M A LB ONE: AN OLDPORT ROMANCE. PRELUDE. one wanders along this south- LX western promontory of the Isle of Peace, and looks down upon the green translucent water which forever bathes the marble slopes of the Pirates Cave, it is natural to think of the ten wrecks with ~vhich the past winter has strewn this shore. Though almost all trace of their presence is already gone, yet their mere memory lends to these cliffs a human interest. Where a stranded vessel lies, thither all steps converge, so long as one phnk remains upon another. There centres the emotion. All else is but the setting, and the eye sweeps with indifference the line of unpeopled rocks. They are barren, till the imagination has tenanted them with possibilities of danger and dismay. The ocean provides the scenery and properties of a perpetual tragedy, but the interest arrives with the performers. Till then the shores remain vacant, like the great conventional arm-chairs of the French drama, that wait for Rachel to come and die. Yet as I ride along this fashionable avenue in August, and watch the pro- cession of the young and fair, as I look at stately houses, from each of which has gone forth almost within my memory a funeral or a bride, then every thoroughfare of human life becomes in fancy but an ocean shore, with its ripples and its wrecks. One learns, in growing older, that no fiction can be so strange nor appear so im- probable as would the simple truth; and that doubtless even Shakespeare did but timidly transcribe a few of the deeds and passions he had personally known. For no man of middle age can dare trust himself to portray life in its full intensity, as he has studied or shared it; he must resolutely set aside as indescribable the things most worth describing, and must expect to be charged with exaggeration, even when he tells the rest. I. AN ARRIVAL. It was one of the changing days of our Oldport midsummer. In the morn- ing it had rained in rather a dismal way, and Aunt Jane had said she should put it in her diary. It was a Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year sS65, by FIELDS, Osnoon, & Co., in the Clerks Oiiicc - of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. VOL. XXIILNO. 135. I .ZJiFalbo;zc: a;t Oldpor/ Romcwcc. U anuary, 2 very serious thing for the elements when they got into Aunt Janes diary. By noon the sun. came out as clear and sultry as if there had never been a cloud, the northeast wind died away, the bay was motionless, the first locust of the summer shrilled from the elms) and the robins seemed to be serving up butterflies hot for their insatiable second-brood, while nothing seemed desirable for a human luncheon except ice-cream and fans. In the afternoon the southwest wind came up the bay, with its line of dark-blue ripple and its delicious coolness; ~vhile the hue of the water grew more and more intense, till we seemed to be living in the heart of a sapphire. The household sat beneath the large western doorway of the old Maxwell House, the rear door, which looks on the water. The house had just been reoccupied by my aunt Jane, whose great-grandfather had built it, though it had for several generations been out of the family. I know no finer speci- men of those large colonial houses in which the genius of Sir Christopher Wren bequeathed traditions of stateli- ness to our democratic days. Its cen- tral hall has a carved archway; most of the rooms have painted tiles and are wainscoted to the ceiling; the sashes are red-cedar, the great staircase ma- hogany; there are pilasters with deli- cate Corinthian capitals; there are cherubs heads and wings that go astray and lose themselves in closets and behind glass-doors; there are curl- ing acanthus-leaves that cluster over shelves and ledges, and there are those graceful shell-patterns which one often sees on old furniture, but rarely in houses. The l~igh front-door still re- tains its Ionic cornice; and the west- ern entrance, looking on the bay, is surmounted by carved fruit and flowers, and is crowned, as is the roof; ~vith that pineapple in whose symbolic wealth the rich merchants of the last century de- lighted. Like most of the statelier houses in that region of Oldport, this abode had its rumors of a ghost and of secret chambers. The ghost had never been properly lionized nor laid, for Aunt Janet the neatest of housekeepers, had discouraged all silly explorations, had at once required all barred windows to be opened, all superfluous partitions to be taken down, and several highly eligi- ble dark-closets to be nailed up. If there was anything she hated, it ~vas nooks and odd corners. Yet there had been times that year, when the house- hold would have been glad to find a few more such hiding-places; for during the first few weeks the house had been crammed ~vith guests so closely that the very mice had been ill accommo- dated and obliged to sit up all night, which had caused them much dis- comfort and many audible disagree- ments. But this first tumult had passed away; and now there remained only the various nephews and nieces of the house, including a due proportion of small children. Two final guests were to arrive that day, bringing the latest breath of Europe on their wings, Philip Malbone, Hopes betrothed; and little Emilia, Hopes half-sister. None of the family had seen Emilia since her wandering mother had taken her abroad, a fascinating spoiled child of four, and they were all eager to se~ in how many ways the succeeding twelve years had completed or cor- rected the spoiling. As for Philip, he had been spoiled, as Aunt Jane de- dared, from the time of his birth, by the joint effort of all friends and neigh- bors. Everybody had conspired to carry on the process except Aunt Jane herself, who directed toward him one of her honest, steady, immovable dis- likes which may be said to have dated back to the time when his father and mother were married, some years be- fore he personally entered on the scene. The New York steamer, detained by the heavy fog of the night before, now came in unwonted daylight up the bay. At the first glimpse, Harry and the boys pushed off in the row-boat; for, as one of the children said, anybody Malbone: an Oldport Romance. who had been to Venice would nat- urally wish to come to the very house in a gondola. In another half-hour there was a great entanglement of em- braces at the water-side, for the guests had landed. Malbones self-poised easy grace was the same as ever; his chestnut-brown eyes were as ~vinning, his features as handsome; his complexion, too clearly pink for a man, had a sea bronze upon it: he was the same Philip who had left home, though with some added lines of care. But in the brilliant little fairy beside him all looked in vain for the Emilia they remembered as a child. Her eyes were more beautiful than ever, the darkest violet eyes, that grew luminous with thought and al- most black with sorrow. Her gypsy taste, as everybody used to call it, still showed itself in the scarlet and dark blue of her dress; but the clouded gypsy tint had gone from her cheek, and in its place shone a deep carnation, so hard and brilliant that it appeared to be enamelled on the surface, yet so firm and deep-dyed that it seemed as if not even death could ever blanch it. There is a kind of beauty that seems made to be painted on ivory, and such was hers. Only the microscopic pencil of a miniature - painter could portray those slender eyebrows, that arched caressingly over the beautiful eyes, or the silky hai~r of darkest chestnut that crept in a wavy line along the temples, as if longing to meet the brows, or those unequalled lashes! Unneces- sarily long, Aunt Jane afterwards pro- nounced them; while Kate had to admit that they did indeed give Emilia an overdressed look at breakfast, and that she ought to have a less showy set to match her morning costume. But what was most irresistible about Emilia, that which we all noticed in this interview, and which haunted us all thenceforward, was a certain wild, entangled look she wore, as of some untamed out-door thing, and a kind of path ~tic lost sweetness in her voice, which made her at once and forever a her6ine of romance with the children. Yet she scarcely seemed to heed their existence, and only submitted to the kisses of Hope and Kate as if that were a part of the price of coming home, and she must pay it. Had she been alone, there might have been an awkward pause; for if you ex- pect a cousin, and there alights a but- terfly of the tropics, ~vhat hospitality can you offer? But no sense of embar- rassment ever came near Malbone, es- pecially with the children to swarm over him and claim him for their own. Moreover, little Helen got in the first remark in the way of serious conversa- tion. Let me tell him something! said the child. Philip! that doll of mine that you used to know, only think! she was sick and died last summer, and went into the rag-bag. And the other split down the back, so there was an end of her. Polar ice would have been thawed by this reopening of communication. Philip soon had the little maid on his shoulder, the natural throne of all children, and they all went in togeth- er to greet Aunt Jane. Aunt Jane was the head of the house, a lady who had spent more than fifty years in educating her brains and battling with her ailments. She had received from her parents a considera- ble inheritance in the way of whims, and had nursed it up into a handsome fortune. Being one of the most impul- sive of human beings, she was naturally one of the most entertaining; and be- hind all her eccentricities there was a fund of the soundest sense and the ten- derest affection. She had seen mucl~ and varied society, had been much ad- mired in her youth, but had chosen to remain unmarried. Obliged by her physical condition to make herself the first object, she was saved from utter selfishness by sympathies as democratic as her personal habits were exclusive. Unexpected and commonly fantastic in her doings, often dismayed by small difficulties, but never by large ones, she sagaciously administered the affairs of all those around her, planned their 1869.1 3 4 dinners and their marriages, fought out their bargains and their feuds. She hated everything irresolute or vague; people might play at cats-cra- dle or study Spinoza, just as they pleased; but, whatever they did, they must give their minds to it. She kept l~ouse from an easy-chair. and ruled her dependants with severity tempered by wit, and by the very s~veetest voice in which reproof was ever uttered. She never praised them ; but if they did anything particularly well, rebuked them retrospectively, asking why they had never done it well before? But she treated them munificently, made all manner of plans for their comfort, and they all thought her the wisest and wit- tiest of the human race. So did the youths and maidens of her large circle; they all came to see her, and she coun- selled, admired, scolded, and petted them all. She had the gayest spirits, and an unerring eye for the ludicrous, and she spoke her mind with absolute plainness to all comers. Her intuitions were instantaneous as lightning, and, like that; struck very often in the wrong place. She was thus extremely unrea- sonable and altogether charming. Such was the lady whom Emilia and Malbone went up to greet, the one shyly, the other with an easy assurance, such as she always disliked. Emilia submitted to another kiss while Philip pressed Aunt Janes hand, as he pressed all womens, and they sat down. Now begin to tell your adventures, said Kate. People always tell their adventures till tea is ready. Who can have any adventures left, said Philip, after such letters as I wrote you all ? Of which we got precisely one ! said Kate. That made it such an event, after we had wondered in what part of the globe you might be looking for the post-office ! It was like finding a letter in a bottle, or disentangling a person from the Dark Ages. I was at Neuchatel two months; but I had no adventures. I lodged with a good ~astez;; who taught me geology and German. U anuary That is suspicious, said Kate. Had he a daughter passing fair? Indeed he had. And you taught her English? That is what these beguiling youths always do in novels. Yes. What was her name? Liii. What a pretty name! How old was she? She was six. 0 Philip! cried Kate; but I might have known it. Did she love you very much? Hope looked up, her eyes full of mild reproach at the possibility of doubting any childs love for Philip. He had been her betrothed for more than a year, during which time she had habit- ually seen him wooing every child he had met as if it were a woman,which, for Philip, was saying a great deal. Happily they had in common the one trait of perfect amiability, and she knew no more how to be jealous than he to be constant. Liii was easily ~von, he said. Other things being equal, people of six prefer that man ~vho is tallest. Philin is not so very tall, said the eldest of the boys, who was listening eagerly, and growing rapidly. No, said Philip, meekly. But then the g5as/eztr was short, and his brother was a dwarf. When Liii found that she could reach the ceiling from Mr. Malbones shoulder, said Emilia, she asked no more. Then you knew the pastors family also, my child, said Aunt Jane, looking at her kindly and a little keenly. I was allowed to go there some- times, she began, timidly. To meet her American Cousin, interrupted Philip. I got some relax- ation in the rules of the school. But, Aunt Jane, you have told us nothing about your health. There is nothing to tell, she an- swered. I should like, if it were con- venient, to be a little better. But in this life, if one can walk across the Ma/bone: an Oldpori Romance. 1869.] Afa/bone: an Oldpori Romance. 5 floor, and not be an idiot, it is some- thing. That is all I aim at. Is nt it rather tiresome? said Emilia, as the elder lady happened to look at her. Not at all, said Aunt Jane, com- posedly. I naturally fall back into happiness, when left to myself. So you have returned to the house of your fathers, said Philip. I hope you like it. It is commonplace in one respect, said Aunt Jane. General \Vashington once slept here. Oh ! said Philip. It is one of that class of houses ? Yes, said she. There is not a village in America that has not half a dozen of them, not counting those where he only breakfasted. Did ever man sleep like that man? What else could he ever have done? Who gov- erned, I wonder, while he was asleep? How he must have travelled! The swiftest horse could scarcely have car- ried him from one of these houses to another. I never ~vas attached to the mem- ory of Washington, meditated Philip; but I always thought it was the pear- tree. It must have been that he was such a very unsettled person. He certainly was not ~vhat is called a domestic character, said Aunt Jane. I suppose you are, Miss Maxwell, said Philip. Do you often go out? Sometimes, to drive, said Aunt Jane. Yesterday I went shopping with Kate, and sat in the carriage while she bought undersleeves enough for a centipede. It is always so with that child. People talk about the trouble of getting a daughter ready to be married; but it is like being married once a month to live with her. I wonder that you take her to drive with you, suggested Philip, sympa- It is a great deal worse to drive without her, said the impetuous lady. She is the only person who lets me enjoy things, and now I cannot enjoy them in her absence. Yesterday I drove alone over the three beaches, and left her~at home with a dress-maker. Never did I see so many lines of surf; but they only seemed to me like some of Kates ball-dresses, with the prevailing flounces six deep. I was so enraged that she was not there I wished to cover my face with my handkerchief. By the third beach I was ready for the madhouse. Is Oldport a pleasant place to live in? asked Emilia, eagerly. It is amusing in the summer, said Aunt Jane, though the society is noth- ing but a pack of visiting-cards. In winter it is too dull for young people, and only suits quiet old women like me, who merely live here to keep the Ten Commandments and darn their stockings. Meantime the children were aiming at Emilia, whose butterfly looks amazed ahd charmed them, but who evidently did not know what to do with their eager affection. I know about you, said little Helen; 1 know what you said when you vere little. Did I say anything? asked Emilia, carelessly. Yes, replied the child, and began to repeat the oft-told domestic tradition in an accurate way, as if it ~vere a school lesson. Once you had been naughty, and your papa thought it his duty to slap you, and you cried; and he told you in French, because he al~vays spoke French with you, that he did not punish you for his own pleasure. Then you stopped crying, and asked,. Pour le plaisir de qui alors? That means For whose pleasure then? Hope said it was a droll question for a little girl to ask. I do not think it was Emilia who asked that remarkable question, little girl, said Kate. I dare say it was, said Emilia; I have been asking it all my life. Her eyes grew very moist, what with fatigue and excitement. But just then, as is apt to happen in this world, they were all suddenly recalled from tears to tea, and the children smothered their curi- osity in strawberries and cream. 1869.] .ALzlbo;ze: an O!dpori Ros~tcznct~. and lent her their own things in -or-- der to learn how to wear them. This pplied especially to certain rich cous- ins, shy and studious girls, who adored her, and to whom society only ceased to be alarming when the brilliant Kate took them underher wing, an dgraciously accepted a few of their newest feathers. Well might they acquiesce, for she - stood by them superbly, and her most favored partners found no way tQ her hand so sure as to dance systematically through that staid sisterhood. Dear, sunshiny, gracious, generous Kate who has ever done justice to the charm given to this grave old world by the presence of one free-hearted and joyous girl? At the time now to be described, however, Kates purse was well-filled; and if she wore only second-best finery, it was because she had lent her very best to somebody else. All that her doting father asked was to pay for her dresses and to see her wear them; and if her friends wore a part of them, it only made necessary a larger wardrobe,~ and more varied and pleasurable shop- ping. She was as good a manager in wealth as in poverty, wasted nothing, took exquisite care of everything, and saved faithfully for some ose else all that was not neede4 for her own pretty person. Pretty she was throughout, from the parting of her raven hair to the high instep of her slender foot; a glancing, brilliant brunette beauty, with the piquant charm of perpetual spirits and the equipoi~e of a perfectly healthy nature. She -was altogether graceful, yet she had not the fresh, free grace of her cousin Hope, who was lithe and strong as a hawthorn spray~ Kates ~as the narrower grace of culture grown hereditary, an in-door elegance that was born in her, and of which danciIv~scl~ool was but the natural de- velopmciit. You could not picture Hope to your mind in one position more than in another; she had an endless variety of easy motion. When you thought of Kate, you remembered precisely how she sat, how she stood, and how she 7 walked. That was all, and it was ni- ways the same. ~Dut is not that enot~gh? We do not ask of Mary Stu- arts portrait that it should represent her in more than one attitude, and -why should a living beauty need -more than two -or three? Kate was betrothed to her cousin -Harry, Hopes brother; and, though she was barely twenty, they had seemed to -appertain to each other for a time so long that the memory of man or maiden aunt ran not to the -contrary. She always declared, indeed, that they were born married, and that their wed- ding-day would seem like a silver ~ved- - ding. Harry was quiet, unobtrusive, and manly. He might seem common- place at first beside the -brilliant Kate and his more gifted sister; but thorough -manhood is never, commonplace, and he was a person to whom one could anchor. His strong, steadfast physique ~vas the - type of his whole nature; when - he came into the room, you felt as if a good many people had been added to the company. He made steady pro- gress in his profession of the law through sheer worth; he never dazzled, but he led. His type was pure -Saxon, with short curling hair, blue eyes, and thi-n, fair skin, to which the color readi- ly mounted. - Up to a certain point he was imperturbably patient and amiable, but, when over-taxed, was fiery and impetuous for a single instant, and no more. It seemed as if a sudden flash of anger went over him, like the flash that glides along the glutinous -stem of the fraxinella, when you touch it with a candle; the nex-t moment it had ut- terly vanished, -and was forgotten as if it had never been. Kates love for -her lover was one of those healthy and assured ties that often oi.itlast the ardors of more pas- sionate natures. For other tempera- ments it might have been inadequate; but theirs matched perfectly, and it was all-suflicient for them. If there was within Kates range a more heroic and ardent emotion than that inspired by Harry, it was put forth toward Hope. This was liner idolatry; she always said 8 that it was fortunate Hope was Hals sister, or she should have felt it her duty to give them to each other, and not die till the wedding was accom- plished. Harry shared this adoration to quite a reasonable extent, for a brother; but his admiration for Philip Malbone was one that Kate did not quite share. Harrys quieter nature had been dazzled from childhood by Philip, who had al~vays been a privi- leged guest in the household. Kates clear, penetrating, buoyant nature had divined Phils weaknesses, and had sometimes laughed at them, even from her childhood; though she did not dis- like him, for she did not dislike any- body. But Harry was magnetized by him very much as women were; be- lieved him true, because he was tender, and called him only fastidious ~vhere Kate called him lazy. Kate was spending that summer with her aunt Jane, whose especial pet and pride she was. Hope was spending there the summer vacation of a Nor- mal School in which she had just be- come a teacher. Her father had shared In the family ups and downs, but had finally stayed down, while the rest had remained up. Fortunately, his elder chil- dren were indifferent to this, and indeed rather preferred it; it was a tradition that Hope had expressed the wish, when a child, that her father might lose his property, so that she could become a teacher. As for Harry, he infinitely preferred the drudgery of a law office to that of a gentleman of leisure; and as for their step-mother, it turned out, when she was left a widow, that she had secured for herself and Emilia -whatever property remained, so that she suffered only the delightful need of living in Europe for economy. The elder brother and sister had alike that fine physical vigor which New England is now developing, just in time to save it from decay. Hope was of Saxon type, though a shade less blond than her brother; she was a little taller, and of more commanding presence, ~vith a peculiarly noble car- riage of the shoulders. Her brow was Mialbone: a;z Oldport Romance. U anuary, sometimes criticised as being a little too full for a woman; but her nose was straight, her mouth and teeth beautiful, and her profile almost ~perfect.~ Her complexion had lost by out-door life something of its delicacy, but had gained a freshness anJ firmness that no sunlight could impair. She had that wealth of hair which young girls find the most enviable point of beauty in each other. Hers reached below her knees,. when loosened, or else lay coiled, in munificent braids of gold, full of sparkling lights and contrasted shad- ows, upon her queenly head. Her eyes were much darker than her hair, and had a way of opening naively and suddenly, with a perfectly infantine expression, as if she at that moment saw the sunlight for the first time. Her long lashes were somewhat like Emilias, and she had the same deeply curved eyebrows; in no other point was there a shade of resemblance between the half-sisters. As compared with Kate, Hope showed a more abun- dant physical life; there was more blood in her; she had ampler outlines, and health more absolutely unvaried, for she had yet to know the experience of a days illness. Kate seemed born to tread upon a Brussels carpet, and Hope on the softer luxury of the forest floor. Out of doors her vigor became a sort of ecstasy, and she ~valked the earth with a jubilee of the senses, such as Browning attributes to his Saul. This inexhaustible freshness of phys- ical organization seemed to open the windows of her soul, and make for her a new heaven and earth every day. It gave also a peculiar and almost emb rassing directness to her mental proce es, and suggested in them a sort of final and absolute value, as if truth had foi the first time found a perfectly translu cent medium. It was not so much that she said rare things, but her very lence was eloquent, and there was great deal of it. Her girlhood had in it a certain dignity, as of a virgin priest ess or sibyl. Yet her hearty sympa thies and her healthy energy made her MaZbo;zc: an Oldport ROIZZaIICC. at home in daily life, and in a demo- cratic society. To Kate, for instance, she was a necessity of existence, like light or air. Kates nature was limited; part of her graceful equipoise was nar- rowness. Hope was capable of far more self-abandonment to a controlling emotion, and, if she ever erred, would err more widely, for it would be be- cause the ~vhole power of her con- science was misdirected. Once let her take wrong for right, said Aunt = Jane, and stop her if you can; these born saints give a great deal more trouble than children of this world, like my Kate. Yet in daily life Hope yielded to her cousin nine times out of ten; but the tenth time was the key to the situation. Hope loved Kate devotedly; but Kate believed in her as the hunted fuglve believes in the north star. To these maidens, thus united, came Emilia home from Europe. The father of Harry and Hope had been lured into a second marriage with Emilias moth- er, a charming and unscrupulous wo- man, born with an American body and a French soul. She having bnce ~von him to Paris, held him there life-long, and kept her step-children at a safe dis- tance. She arranged that, even after her own death, her daughter should still remain abroad for education; nor was Emilia ordered back until she brought down some scandal by a romantic at- tempt to elope from boarding-school with a Swiss servant. It was by ~vean- ing her heart from this man that Philip Malbone had earned the thanks of the whole household during his hasty flight through Europe. He possessed some skill in withdrawing the female heart from an undesirable attachment, though it was apt to be done by substituting an- other. It ~vas fortunate that, in this case, no fears could be entertained. Since his engagement Philip had not permit- ted himself so much as a flirtation; he and Hope were to be married soon; he loved and admired her heartily, and had an indifference to her want of fortune that was quite amazing, when ~ve con- sider that he had a fortune of his own. III. A DRIVE o~ THE AVENUE. Oldport Avenue is a place where a great many carriages may be seen driv- ing so slowly that they might almost be photographed without halting, and where their occupants already wear the djsmal eXl)rCSSiOn which befits that process. In these fine vehicles, fol- lowing each other in an endless file, one sees such faces as used to be ex- hibited in ball-rooms during the per- formance of quadrilles, before round dances came in, faces marked by the renunciation of all human joy. Some- times a faint suspicion suggests itself on the Avenue, that these torpid faces might be roused to life, in case soroe. horse should run away. But that one chance never occurs; the riders may not yet be toned down into perfect breeding, but the horses are. I do not know what could ever break the gloom of this joyless procession, were it not that youth and beauty are always in fashion, and one sometimes meets an exceptional barouche full of boys and girls, who could absolutely be no hap- pier if they ~vere a thousand miles away from the best society. And such a joyous company were our four youths and maidens when they went to drive that day, Emilia being left at home to rest after the fatigues of the voyage. What beautiful horses! wasHopes first exclamation. What grave peo- was her second. What though in solemn silence all Roll round quoted Philip. Hope is thinking, said Harry, whether in reason s ear they all re- joice. How could you know that? said she, opening her eyes. One thing always strikes me, said Kate. The sentence of stupefaction does not seem to be enforced till after five-and-twenty. That young lady we just met looked quite lively and juve- nile last year, I remember, and now she has graduated into a dowager. Like little Helens kitten, said I869.] .9 I0 Philip. She justly remarks that, since I saw it last, it is all spoiled into a great big cat. Those must be snobs, said Harry, as a carriage with unusually gorgeous liveries rolled by. I suppose so, said Malbone, indif- ferently. In Oldport we call all new- comers snobs, you know, till they have invited us to their grand ball. Then we go to it, and afterwards speak well of them, and only abuse their wine. 1-low do you know them for new- comers? asked Hope, looking after the oarriage. By their improperly intelligent ex- pression, returned Phil. They look around them as you do, my child, with the air of wide-awake curiosity which marks the American traveller. That is out of place here. The Avenue ab- hors everything but a vacuum. I never can find out, continued Hope, how people recognize each other here. They do not look at each other unless they know each other; and how are they to know if they know, un- less they look first? It seems an embarrassment, said Malbone. But it is supposed that fashion perforates the eyelids and looks through. If you attempt it in any other way, you are lost. Newly arrived people look about them, and, the more new wealth they have, the more they gaze. The men are uneasy behind their recently educated mus- taches, and the women hold their par- asols with trembling hands. It takes two years to learn to drive on the Ave- nue. Come again next summer, and you will see in those same carriages faces of remote superciliousness, that suggest generations of gout and ances- tors. \Vhat a pity one feels, said Harry, for these people who still suffer from lingering mode sty, and need a master to teach them to be insolent! They learn it soon enough, said Kate. Philip is right Fashion lies in the eye. People fix their own posi- tion by the way they dont look at you. There is a certain indifference of U anuary, manner, philosophized Malbone, ~ be- fore which ingenuous youth is crushed. I may know that a man can hardly read or write, and that his father was a rag- picker till one day he picked up bank- notes for a million. No matter. If lie does not take the trouble to look at me, I must look reverentially at him. Here is somebody who will look at Hope, cried Kate, suddenly. A carriage passed, bearing a young lady with fair hair and a keen bright look, talking eagerly to a small and quiet youth beside her. Her face brightened still more as she caught the eye of Hope, whose face lighted up in return, and who then sank back with a sort of sigh of relief; as if she had at last seen somebody she cared for. The lady waved an ungloved hand, and drove by. Who is that? asked Philip, eager ly. He was used to knowing every one. Hopes pet, said Kate, and she who pets Hope, Lady Antwerp. Is it possible? said Malbone. That young creature? I fancied her ladyship In spectacles, with little side curls. Men speak of her with such dismay. Of course, said Kate, she asks them sensible questions. That is bad, admitted Philip. Nothincr exasperates fashionable Americans like a really intelligent for- eigner. They feel as Sydney Smith says the English clergy felt about Eliz- abeth Fry; she disturbs their repose, and gives rise to distressing compari- sons, i they long to burn her alive. It is not their notion of a countess. I am sure itwas not mine,said Hope, I can hardly remember that she is one; I only know that I like her, she is so simple andintelligent. She might be a girl from a Normal School. It is because you are just that, said Kate, that she likes you. She came here supposing that we had all been at such schools. Then she com- plained of us, us girls in what we call good society, I mcan, because, as she more than hinted, we did not seem to~ know anything. .i7ZaZbo;zc: an OZdpori Romance. 1269.] Malbone: a,z Oidport Romance. II Some of the mothers were angry, they met each moment were not wholly said Hope. But Aunt Jane told her uninteresting even to her, for her affec- that it was perfectly true, and that her lions went forth to some of the riders ladyship had not yet seen the best-edit- and to all the horses. She was as cated girls in America, who were gen- well contented at that moment, on the erally the daughters of old ministers glittering Avenue, as if they had all and well-to-do shopkeepers in small been riding home through country lanes, New England towns, Aunt Jane said. and in constant peril of being jolted out Yes, said Kate, she said that the among the whortleberry-bushes. best of those girls went to High Schools Her face brightened yet more as they and Normal Schools, and learned things met a carriage containingagraceful lady, thoroughly, you know; but that we dressed with that exquisiteness of taste were only taught at boarding-schools that charms both man and woman, even and by governesses, and came out at if no man can analyze and no woman ri- eighteen, and what could we know? val its effect She had a perfectly high- Then came Hope, who had been at bred look, and an eye that in an instant those schools, and was the child of re- ~vould calculate ones ancestors as far tined people too, and Lady Antwerp back as Nebuchadnezzar, and bow to was perfectly satisfied. them all together. She smiled good- Especially, said Hope, when Aunt naturedly on Hope and kissed her hand Jane told her that, after all, schools did to Kate. not do very much good, for if pec le So, Hope, said Philip, you are were born stupid they only became bent on teaching music to Mrs. Mere- more tiresome by schooling. She said diths children. that she had forgotten all she learned at Indeedi am! said Hope, eagerly. school except the boundaries of Ancient 0 Philip, I shall enjoy it so! I do Cappadocia. not care so very much about her, but Aunt Janes fearless sayings always she has dear little girls. And you know passed current among her nieces, and I am a born drudge. I have not been they drove on; Hope not being lowered working hard enough to enjoy an en- in Philips estimation, nor raised in her tire vacation ; but I shall be so very own, by being the pet of a passing happy here if I can have some real countess. work for an hour or two ev~ry other Who would not be charmed (he day. thought to himself) by this noble girl, Hope I said Philip, gravely, look who walks the earth fresh and strong steadily at these people whom we are as a Greek goddess, pure as Diana, meeting, and reflect. Should you like stately as Juno? She belongs to the to have them say, There goes Mrs. unspoiled womanhood of another age, Merediths music-teacher? and is wasted among these dolls and Why not? said Hope, with sur- butterflies. prise. The children are young, and He looked at her. She sat erect and it is not very presumptuous. I ought graceful, unable to droop into thedebility to know enough for that. of fashionable reclining, her breezy Malbone looked at Kate, who smiled na~r lifted a little by the soft wind, her with delight, and put her hand on that face flushed, her full bro~vn eyes looking of Hope. Indeed, she kept it there so eagerly about, her mouth smiling hap- long that one or two passing ladies pily. To be with those she loved best, stopped their salutations in mid career, and to be driving over the beautiful and actually looked after them in amaze- earth! She was so happy that no mob ment at their attitude, as ~vho should of fashionables could have lessened say, What a very mixed society! her enjoyment, or made her for. a mo- So they drove on, meeting four-in- ment conscious that anybody looked at hands, and tandems, and donkey-carts, her. The brilliant equipages ~which and a goat-cart, and basket-wagons 12 The Sunshine of the Gods. [January, driven by pretty girls, with uncomfort- able youths in or out of livery behind. They met, had they but known it, many who were aiming at notoriety, and some who had it; many who looked content- ed with their lot, and some who actually were so. They met some who put on courtesy and grace with their kid gloves, and laid away those virtues in their glove-boxes afterwards; while to others the mere consciousness of kid gloves brought uneasiness, redness of the face, and a general impression of being all made of hands. They met the four white horses of an ex-harness-maker, and the superb harnesses of an ex- horse-dealer. Behind these came the gayest and most plebeian equipage of all, a party of journeyman carpenters returning from their work in a four- horse-wagon. Their only fit compeers were an Italian opera-troupe, who were chatting and gesticulating on the piazza of the great hotel, and planning, amid jest and laughter, their future campaigns. Their work seemed like play, while the play around them seemed like work. Indeed, most people on the Avenue seemed to be happy in inverse ratio to their income list. As our youths and maidens l)assed the hotel, a group of French naval offi- cers strolled forth, some of whom had a good deal of inexplicable gold lace dan- gling in fest oons from their shoulders, top-sail-halyards the American mid- shipmen called them. Philip looked hard at one of these gentlemen. I have seen that young fellow be- fore, said he, or his twin brother. But who can swear to the personal identity of a Frenchman? THE SUNSHiNE OF THE GODS. I. WHO shall sunder the fetters, Who scale the invisible ramparts Whereon our nimblest forces Hurl their vigor in vain? Where, like the baffling crystal To a wildered bird of the heavens, Something holds and imprisons The eager, the stirring brain? II. Alas, from the fresh emotion, From thought that is born of feeling, From form, self-shaped, and slowly Its own completeness evolvipg, To the rhythmic speech, how long! What hand shall master the tumult Where one on the other tramples, And none escapes a wrong? Where the crowding germs of a thousand Fancies encumber the portal, Till one plucks a voice from the murmurs And lifts himself into Song!

12 The Sunshine of the Gods. [January, driven by pretty girls, with uncomfort- able youths in or out of livery behind. They met, had they but known it, many who were aiming at notoriety, and some who had it; many who looked content- ed with their lot, and some who actually were so. They met some who put on courtesy and grace with their kid gloves, and laid away those virtues in their glove-boxes afterwards; while to others the mere consciousness of kid gloves brought uneasiness, redness of the face, and a general impression of being all made of hands. They met the four white horses of an ex-harness-maker, and the superb harnesses of an ex- horse-dealer. Behind these came the gayest and most plebeian equipage of all, a party of journeyman carpenters returning from their work in a four- horse-wagon. Their only fit compeers were an Italian opera-troupe, who were chatting and gesticulating on the piazza of the great hotel, and planning, amid jest and laughter, their future campaigns. Their work seemed like play, while the play around them seemed like work. Indeed, most people on the Avenue seemed to be happy in inverse ratio to their income list. As our youths and maidens l)assed the hotel, a group of French naval offi- cers strolled forth, some of whom had a good deal of inexplicable gold lace dan- gling in fest oons from their shoulders, top-sail-halyards the American mid- shipmen called them. Philip looked hard at one of these gentlemen. I have seen that young fellow be- fore, said he, or his twin brother. But who can swear to the personal identity of a Frenchman? THE SUNSHiNE OF THE GODS. I. WHO shall sunder the fetters, Who scale the invisible ramparts Whereon our nimblest forces Hurl their vigor in vain? Where, like the baffling crystal To a wildered bird of the heavens, Something holds and imprisons The eager, the stirring brain? II. Alas, from the fresh emotion, From thought that is born of feeling, From form, self-shaped, and slowly Its own completeness evolvipg, To the rhythmic speech, how long! What hand shall master the tumult Where one on the other tramples, And none escapes a wrong? Where the crowding germs of a thousand Fancies encumber the portal, Till one plucks a voice from the murmurs And lifts himself into Song! The Sunshine of the Gods. Ia69.J 3 III. As a man that walks in the mist, As one that gropes for the morning Through lengthening chambers of twilight, The souls of the poems wander Restless, and dumb, and lost, Till the XVord, like a beam of morning, Shivers the pregnant silence, And the light of speech descends Like a tongue of the Pentecost! IV. Ah, moment not to be purchased, Not to be won by prayers, Not by toil to be conquered, But given, lest one despair, By the gods in wayward kindness, Stay thou art all too fair! Hour of the dancing measures, Sylph of the dew and rainbow, Let us clutch thy shining hair! V. For the mist is blown from the mind, For the impotent yearning is over, And the wings of the thoughts have power: In ihe warmth and the glow creative Existence mellows and ripens, And a crowd of swift surprises Sweetens the fortunate hour; Till a shudder of rapture loosens The tears that hang on the eyelids Like a breeze-suspended shower, With a sense of heavenly freshness Blown from beyond the sunshine, And the blood, like the sap of the roses, Breaks into bud and flower. VI. Tis the Sunshine of the Gods, The sudden light that quickens, Unites the nimble forces, And yokes the shy expression To the thoughts that waited long, Waiting and wooing vainly: But now they meet like lovers In the time of willing increase, Each warming each, and giving The kiss that maketh strono~ And the mind feels fairest May-time In the marriage of its passions, For Thought is one with Speech, The Sunshine of Ike 6~oJs. In the Sunshine of the Gods, And Speech is one with Songt VIL Then a rhythmic pulse makes order In the troops of wandering fancies: Held in soft subordination, Lo! they follow, lead, or fly. The fields of their feet are endless, And the heights and the deeps are open To the glance of the equal sky: And the Masters sit no longer In inaccessible distance, But give to the haughtiest question, Smiling, a sweet reply. The Masters, dwelling forever In the Sunshine of the Gods, Unbend their brows and greet us, And we catch the golden secret Of the strains that shall not die. VIII. Dost mourn, because the moment Is a gift beyond thy will, A gift thy dreams had promised, Yet they gave to Chance its keeping And fettered thy free achievement With the hopes they not fulfil? Dost sigh oer the fleeting rapture, The bliss of reconcilement Of powers that work apart, Yet lean on each other still? Ix. Be glad, for this is the token, The sign and the seal of the Poet: XVere it held by will or endeavor, There were naught so precious in SoRg. Wait: for the shadows unlifted To a million that crave the sunshine, Shall be lifted for thee erelong. Light from the loftier regions Here unattainable ever, Bath of brightness and beauty, Let it make thee glad and strong Not to clamor or fury, Not to lament or yearning, But to faith and patience cometh To faith and serene obedience The Sunshine of the Gods, The hour of perfect Song! 4 [January i869.] A Litera?y Gozerma;zd~ A LITERARY GOURMAND. J T has been the gift and ambition of but few men to make us taste through their language what they have enjoyed at the table. The essayist makes us relish his favorite author, the critic makes us delight in his favorite picture, the poet makes us share his pleasure in nature; but upon what writer & n we place our hand and say he makes us taste his table? We believe civilization to be the normal state of man, and we have no literary appreciation of the very bond, sign, result, and utmost refinement of civilization, a good dinner ! a din- i~er that is an obvious work of art, the palpable correspondence of all the fleeting and invisible pleasures of mu- sic! The analogy is indicated in the fact that all great practitioners of music have been gourmands. The whole musical scale can be represented in a dinner. There are dinners that pro- duce a bodily exhilaration and increase the sentiment of life like the sound of martial music. But some of us believe that a poor dinner is the next thing to virtue, and indigestion the painful path of piety ! for which reason we eat pies, and pie- crust is a sweet and coveted thing. We have barbarously ignored the high literary claims of taste, which makes a servant of the organ of our noblest eloquence, and. refines our appetites to delicacies unknown to the voracious ma~v of animals. We have neither the tongues of donkeys to lubricate thistles nor the taste of dogs; but an cxquisite organ, sensitive to all the fine and complex savors scattered over the worl(l, and for which we have made conquests, extended commerce, and be- come savant. Most well-to-do people think that they dine every day. They flatter themselves that they have intelligently provided for the needs of their bests friend, the body. flow many I have seen with brute insensibility and haste open their mouths and throw down food as in a funnel, ignoring the fact that nature has designed everything to be tested in the reception-room of the mouth, has placed over it eyes to see and please, nostrils to warn and grat- ify, a palate to satisfy and delight, and an intelligence to direct and discrimi- nate. Taste has the most powerful and perfect servants; yet how often we sit down to eat without having invoked the aid of any but the rudest of them, the hands! So insensible are we to its claims upon us, that we accept anything from a cook, and enroll in the kitchen, to get dinner, an ignorant and unciv- ilized race of beings. And such a din- ner! We have dined like animals; we have merely appeased our appetite; we have not gratified our taste I Our dinners should be concocted by the most delicate and sensitively organ- ized beings; then we should be able to say, We have dined, now we merely feed. Then we should rise, stimulated and refreshed, to do delicate and spiritual work, think with ease and gayety, and go through life as though it were a festival. But what disdain my dyspeptic friends have for such fond dreams! And how pityingly my pale-faced, dry-skinned, ~vatery-e~-ed censoress contemplates my gross subjection to the pleasures of the table, and declares, They who make gods of their stomachs come to no good end! Meantime she lives a thin, starved, sapless life; sits, chilly, over a low furnace - fire in winter; has great veneration for doctors, and believes druggists the benefactors of our race. And I imagine what a pretty woman she would have made had she early been converted to the doctrines of the gourmands. Her eyes would now be brilliant, her lips full and red, her conversation agreeable, all her 5

i869.] A Litera?y Gozerma;zd~ A LITERARY GOURMAND. J T has been the gift and ambition of but few men to make us taste through their language what they have enjoyed at the table. The essayist makes us relish his favorite author, the critic makes us delight in his favorite picture, the poet makes us share his pleasure in nature; but upon what writer & n we place our hand and say he makes us taste his table? We believe civilization to be the normal state of man, and we have no literary appreciation of the very bond, sign, result, and utmost refinement of civilization, a good dinner ! a din- i~er that is an obvious work of art, the palpable correspondence of all the fleeting and invisible pleasures of mu- sic! The analogy is indicated in the fact that all great practitioners of music have been gourmands. The whole musical scale can be represented in a dinner. There are dinners that pro- duce a bodily exhilaration and increase the sentiment of life like the sound of martial music. But some of us believe that a poor dinner is the next thing to virtue, and indigestion the painful path of piety ! for which reason we eat pies, and pie- crust is a sweet and coveted thing. We have barbarously ignored the high literary claims of taste, which makes a servant of the organ of our noblest eloquence, and. refines our appetites to delicacies unknown to the voracious ma~v of animals. We have neither the tongues of donkeys to lubricate thistles nor the taste of dogs; but an cxquisite organ, sensitive to all the fine and complex savors scattered over the worl(l, and for which we have made conquests, extended commerce, and be- come savant. Most well-to-do people think that they dine every day. They flatter themselves that they have intelligently provided for the needs of their bests friend, the body. flow many I have seen with brute insensibility and haste open their mouths and throw down food as in a funnel, ignoring the fact that nature has designed everything to be tested in the reception-room of the mouth, has placed over it eyes to see and please, nostrils to warn and grat- ify, a palate to satisfy and delight, and an intelligence to direct and discrimi- nate. Taste has the most powerful and perfect servants; yet how often we sit down to eat without having invoked the aid of any but the rudest of them, the hands! So insensible are we to its claims upon us, that we accept anything from a cook, and enroll in the kitchen, to get dinner, an ignorant and unciv- ilized race of beings. And such a din- ner! We have dined like animals; we have merely appeased our appetite; we have not gratified our taste I Our dinners should be concocted by the most delicate and sensitively organ- ized beings; then we should be able to say, We have dined, now we merely feed. Then we should rise, stimulated and refreshed, to do delicate and spiritual work, think with ease and gayety, and go through life as though it were a festival. But what disdain my dyspeptic friends have for such fond dreams! And how pityingly my pale-faced, dry-skinned, ~vatery-e~-ed censoress contemplates my gross subjection to the pleasures of the table, and declares, They who make gods of their stomachs come to no good end! Meantime she lives a thin, starved, sapless life; sits, chilly, over a low furnace - fire in winter; has great veneration for doctors, and believes druggists the benefactors of our race. And I imagine what a pretty woman she would have made had she early been converted to the doctrines of the gourmands. Her eyes would now be brilliant, her lips full and red, her conversation agreeable, all her 5 A Literary Gourmand. U anuary, movements gentle and gracious. Sit- ting opposite to her rounded and lu- minous face, served by her delicate hands, I should look upon a counte- nance that would have silenced and pleased Cato the Censor. It is vulgar and barbarous to be care- less about gratifying the taste; and I believe with Dr. Johnson, who, how- ever, was more of a glutton than a gour- mand, that a man who does not care for his stomach is not to be trusted. Women, who instruct us in all things, who are Muses and Sibyls, can teach us to have a just appreciation of the table. Women are by nature gozer- mandes. They have the natural dain- tiness of taste and delicacy of appe- tite that rejects the rude ~repara- tions satisfying savage and masculine hunger. The English have gluttons; the French have gourmands. A celebrated French gourmand has. remarked with pride, that coquetterie and gourpzandse, the two grand modifications that ex- treme sociability has imposed upon our most imperious needs, are exclusively French in their origin. The gourmand is an inte!ligent and highly cultivated being; the glutton, an offence to gods and men, is a voracious beast with a dirty napkin sitting before an over- loaded table. Of such 1 do not speak. My type is an illustrious one, the cele- brated Brillat-Savarin, author of Pity- sio?ogie die GozU, or Mddilations de Gas- troiwinie transcenda;zte, our/rage liii- erique, izistorique, et ~ Zordre die your, aux Gastronomes Parisi& ns. He was deputy to the tiats GJueraux, later to the AssembQe Cons/iluante, author of an historical and critical essay upon the duel, and of Fraguzents sur ?Ad,ninistration judiciare; distin- guished as a musician; speaking per- fectly all the learned languages; in- structed as doctor, anatomist, physiol- ogist, chemist, astronomer ; a skilful litterateur, a good hunter, and loved as an amiable and good man. He applied all his knowledge to the art of eating in a work which has been compared with LEloge de la Folk, 1/ert Vert, and Le Lu/ritz, for its charming badinage, and in which is condensed a true French spirit, lucid, sharp, of a prodigious vital- ity, gracious, fine, and ironical. Baizac, referring to Brillat-Savarins Pizysiologie die Goz2t, wrote that no prose-writer since the sixteenth century, if I except 2 La Bruy~re and La Rochfoucauld, has given to the French phrase a relief so vigorous. I have now to appeal to all the good livers of our land,those little round men, with round, prominent, sparkhnr eyes, creased ~vith the generous and ten der lines of good-nature, the skin florid and fine, the mouth full, and the general air benign and expectant. Assemble I Heads up, eyes open, nostrils expanoed faces beaminol I announce to you the apostle of your faith, the advocate of your cause, the exemplar of your life, the justifier of your being; rich in all the resources of this mundane world, the inimitable teller of good stories, apt in his knowledge, learned in the lore 2 of dinners, real and reputed. I have to make you acquainted with the v~/ and solicitous Brillat-Savarin ! His aphorisms are current in two conti- nents. We speak them as we speak the aphorisms ~of Shakespeare or of Goethe. As, for example, how often we have heard: I. Tell me what you eat, I will tell you what you are. IL. The table is the only l)lace where one never feels ennui during the first hour. III. The destiny of nations de pends upon their manner of noui ish ment. IV. In obliging man to eat to sus tam life, the Creator invites him to it by appetite, and rewards him with pleas ure. V. Gouruzandise is an act of our judgment by which we grant a prefer ence to things which are agreeable to the taste over those which have not that quality. VI. The pleasure of the table be longs to all ages, to all conditions, to all countries, and to every day. It can be associated with all other plensures, L869] A Literary Gourmand. and it abides the last to console us for their loss. Brillat-Savarins Physiologie die Goz is the art and science of life; it is the explanation of being. It is of a ravish- ing naturalness, full of the most savory pages that you can imagine, replete with the odors and flavors of things. A pinch of it sprinkled through dusty folios ought to work a kind of magic upon their dry, sapless, barren sen- tences. Brillat-Savarin describes a sen- sation, an odor, a flavor, an omelet, a fish, a turkey, with aggravating and in- viting naturalness; and, over his real- ism he scatters sentiment. He analyzes and reflects without pedantry or tedi- ousness. For example, in his analysis of the sensation of taste, he describes the eating of a peach; and the descrip- tion is a marvel of realism with words. Keatss description of the eating of a nectarine is hardly more expressive; it is second only to Lambs savory de- scription of roast pig: When you eat a peach, for instance, you are first agreeably struck by the odor which it emits; you bite it, and you feel a sensation of coolness and of acidity which invites you to go on eat- ing; but it is only at th~ moment when you swallow, and when the morsel passes under the nasal fosse, that the perfume becomes revealed to you, so that the sensation is complete that a peach must give. And it is only when you have swallowed it all, that, judging what you have felt, you say to yourself, How delicious! Ah, the dear old gourmand! and when he speaks of wine he is equally vivid: Alike when you drink: as long as the wine lingers in the mouth, you are agreeably, yet not perfectly, impressed; it is only at the moment when you cease to swallow that you can truly taste, appreciate, and discover the per- fume peculiar to each kind; and a lit- tle interval of time is required for the gozeruzet to say, It is good, tolerable, bad, it is CIza,nber~q,j / Brillat-Savarin describes the grada- tions of pleasure which one derives VOL. XXIILNO. 135. 2 from the flavor and look of things as neatly and lovingly as ~ painter defines. the tints, the delicate and pure gra- dations, that distinctly play and mingle in beautiful harmony upon a womans cheek! He supports the dignity of his science by citing its illustrious servi- tors; he recommends it to us by the good nourishment and civilizing pleas- ure it affords, It is royal and demo- cratic at the same time, directing the banquets of kings, and deciding the number of minutes necessary for the cooking of a plebeian egg. The sci- ence of gastronomy instructs us in the effect of aliments upon the morality of man, their effect upon his imagination, judgment, courage, perceptions, and it explains his theologies. It enables us to know what we should associate in a good dinner, the order of service, the relation of aliments to climate and tem- perament; and teaches us to prepare our food to administer to the highest physical and intellectual life, how to produce a harmonious action of all the foi-ces of our being. The following rules are characteristic and instructive : But the impatient reader may ask, How must a dinner be prepared in the year of grace 1825, that will procure in a supreme degree the pleasure of the table? I will answer the question. Be attentive, readers, and give ear. It is Gastria, it is the prettiest-looking of all the Muses, ~vho inspires me; I shall be clearer than any oracle, and my pre- cepts shall go through the ages. Let not the number of guests ex- ceed twelve, so that the conversation may be general. Let them be selected so well that their occupation may be va- ried, their taste analogous, and with such points of contact that the odious formality of presentation may be avoided. Let the dining-room be lighted with luxury; the dinner-table beautifully set; the atmosphere not above sixty degrees. Let the men bewitty without pre- tension, and the womencharming with- out being flirts. ~: i:~ ~- 7 A Literary Gourmand. [January,. Let the dishes be of an exquisite selection, but not profuse; and the wines of the~ first choice, each one in its degree; for the. first be Let the progression from the most substantial to the lightest. Letthe movement of eating be mod- erate; the dinner being the last busi- ness of the day, the guests should be like travellers wishing to arrive together at the same end. Let the coffee be burning and the liquors perfect. . The drawing - room should be spacious enough to organize a whist-party for those who cannot do without it, so that there remains space enough for a t~lc-ii-h~te. Let the guests be kept by the en- joyment of the company, and reanimated by the hope that the evening shall not be spent without more pleasure. Let the tea be not too strong, the toast artistically buttered, and the punch prepared with care. No one should begin to retire before eleven, but by twelve oclock everybody must be in bed. - Brillat-Savarin tells us that the pre- destined gourmand -is generally of a medium size, the face full, the nose short, the lips fleshy, and the chin round. He is chiefly found among financiers, physicians, men of letters, and the clergy in France. The c/wv- aliers -and abbis of the eighteenth cen- turf were great gourmands; and at the same time several monastic orders made a profession of good living. The cuisiniers of the archbishops were fa- mous as those of kings. The following is a clever bit of character by Brillat- Savarin Those dear friends, what gour- mands they were! It was impossible to mistake their wide-opened eyes, their shining lips, their smacking tongues. They had a particular. way of eating. The chevaliers had something military in their rose; they administered mor- sels to themselves with dignity~ they worked calmly, and looked horizontally and approvingly from the master of the house to the mistress. - The abb~s, on the contrary, made themselves smaller to reach their plates; their right hand became rounded, like the paw of a cat drawing chestnuts from the fire; their faces were all enjoyment, -. and their look had a concentrated ex- pression, easier to see than to describe. The Physiologic die GoAl is composed of thirty meditations, in which, with great ease and naturalness of expres- sion, Brillat-Savarin crowds an immense amount of matter entertaining and in- structive to a civilized reader. It is a book that should be translated into English, and placed in every gentle- ~mans house, the next generation would show an increase of refinement, and have the taste and art to get the whole good of life. Our lawyers and doctors and book-makers, instructed by Brillat-Savarin, would have better com- plexions, better health, and the zest of life. The author of Physiologic du GoAt unfolds the whole science of liv- ing well, of complete and enjoyable - nourishment of the body. He tells us of the gradual perfection of the art of living; that not until the eighteenth century had it reached its proper devel- - opment; that it needed all the other sciences to produce its best results. In spite of the enormous expense of Roman dinners, we are nQt to imagine 2 that they dined so xvell as. the French of the last - century. Roman dinners were like culinary puzzles, meant to surprise the wondering mind and boy- ish imagination of the Roman. A Ro- man dinner with a dish that had a por- tion of seven thousand choice birds in it, and another that had two thousand kinds of fish, was better as an example of extravagance than of good taste. The Roman dinner ~vas necessarily de- ~ prived of many of the choicest concoc- tions which grace the modern table, be- cause those concoctions were unknown to the ancients. We must believe that the immense increase of commerce and - the development of science have enabled - us to get up a better dinner than the Greek or Roman - cook. We haxe more fruits, - more savors, more exci tants, and rare viands do not cost u much. But the ancients made more 4 iS 1869.] A Lilcraiy Gouruztvzd. 19 use of the fine arts to enrich their fes- of a family whose heads, for several tive dinners than we do, and the most centuries, had discharged judicial func- beautiful women came to embellish tions with distinction. He passed He their festivities. Melody and move- youth in the quiet and meditative life of ment, and beautiful forms, were essen- the country, studied the great masters tial to the ~esthetic perfection of a Ro- of style, for which he had a passionate man dinner, as also the most precious admiration, without dreaming that in perfumes. But the barbarian hordes his turn he should become a model and from the North made sad work with the belonb to their school. Reading, hunt- delicacies of the Roman cuisine; their ing, and the functions of civil lieuten- ferocious mouths were insensible to the ant, occupied his time until the revolu-1 sweetness of the delicate morsels loved tion came to draw him out of obscurity. hy the epicureans; and they had more After serving a term as deputy, he was pleasure in immense quarters of beef, unanimously chosen president of the bleeding, and smoking upon the table, civil tribunal of Am; afterwards named than in the masterpiece of the cook. judge in the Gour de Cessation estab- The preface to the Physiologic du lished by the constitution of 1791; later, Goz2t is good as a page of Montaigne, elected inaire of his native city. Tra- and an appropriate prelude to a book duced before the revolutionary tribunal, full of French garrulity, that begets a he was compelled to take refuge in pleasant and easy temper in the reader. Switzerland, and finally he embarked How admirable Brillat-Savarins pen- for the United States. He settled in sketches are you may jud~e from the New York, gave lessons in French, following bit, xvhich I take from one of played in the orchestra of a theatre, and his best stories, relating to his experi- supported himself in exile with dignity ence while in this country, fifty years and serenity. After three years he ago: profited by the first change of events I made the acquaintance of Mr. in France, and embarked for Havre. Wilkinson, a planter of Jamaica, and of The Reign of Terror over, he again xvent a man who was doubtless one of his into public service, and passed the friends, for he never left him. The next twenty-five years of his life as latter, whose name I never knew, was judge and bon-vivant, and gave a char- one of the most extraordinary1men I acteristic and inimitable book to his ever met. He had a square face, bright countrymen, called a divine book by eyes, and appeared to examine every- Hoffman, the delight of every free thing with attention; but he never and amiable reader. This grave judge spoke, and his features were immovable did not disdain to amuse while he in- like a blind mans. Only when he heard structed, and he carried his modera- a comical word, a sally of wit, his face tion and good sense into every-day expanded, his eyes shut, and, opening a life. He aimed to grace a brute neces- mouth as large as a pavilion, he sent sity with all the charms of a fine art; forth a prolonged sound like a laugh to help others in the same way, he gave and a neigh, called in English a horse- his meditations to them in an enduring laugh, after which everything was in literary form. His book should supple- order once more, and he resumed, his ment Rabelais and Montaigne, and is customary taciturnity; it was an effect proof that the mellowness of the old like a flash of lightning tearing open a French spirit was still in its contem- cloud. porary literature at the time when It remains for me to give the bio- Voltaire had made it sparkle and bite. graphical notice of Brillat- Savarin His .~lc~ie Hisloriqze is a delightful which places him before our serious bit of humor. public in all his dignity of judge and First parents of the human race, patriot. Brillat-Savarin was born at whose gourinandise is historical, who Belley, France, the 1st of April, 1775, lost yourseves for an apple, what would 20 Tue Good-natzired Pdlldu/ze;;~. [January, you have done for a turkey with truf- cliantres gabeurs when you had split fles? But in Paradise there were nei- open giants, delivered ladies, extermi.~ ther cooks nor confectioners. nated armies, never, alas! never did a How I pity you! dark-eyed captive present to you spark- Powerful kings, who ruined superb ling champagne, malvoisie from Ma- Troy, your valor will be told from age to deira, liquors, creation of the great age; but your table was poor. Re- century; you were reduced to beer. duced to a quarter of beef or a pigs Hoxv I pity you! back, you forever ignored the charms Abb6s, decorated, mitred; dispens- of a matelotte and the delights of a ers of Heavens favors; and you tern- chicken fricassee. ble Templars, who armed yourselves How I pity you! for the extermination of the Saracen~, Aspasia, Chloe, and all you whose you never knew the sweetness of the forms have been immortalized by the restoring chocolate or the Arabic bean chisel of the Greeks for the despair of that engenders thought. the belles of to-day, never did your How I pity you! charming mouths taste the suavlt~ of a Superb ckc~lelaines, who, during the ineri/igite ci la vanilie or ci la rose; you dearth of the Crusades, raised to the had hardly risen to the height of gin- supreme ranks your almoners and your gerbread. pages, you never partook of the charms How I pity you! of sponge-cake and the delights of mac- Gentle priestesses of Vesta, coy- aroons. ered with so much honor and threat- How I pity you! ened with such horrible torture, if you The purely instructive part of the had but tasted those pleasant sirups book anticipated most of our current that refresh the soul, those candied fruits knowledg~ concerning the nature and that brave the seasons, those perfumed quality of aliments and stimulants, and creams, marvel of our days! is supplemented by several exhaustive How I pity you! pages by Balzac upon modern excitants. Roman statesmen, who possessed In conclusion, I may say, the Pizyslologie the world then known, never did your dii Goi~t is a complete and savory book, renowned salons know either those suc- that makes us know and enjoy the culent jellies, the delight of the lazy, or pleasure of a good dinner; and this is those vari~bated ices whose cold could no more an every-day occurrence than defy the torrid zone. the sight of a beautiful picture, the read- How I pity you! ing of a great poem, or the hearing of a Invincible paladins, celebrated by fine opera. THE GOOD-NATURED PENDULUM. $~17 N old clock, which stood in the and on that day, Singleton and I, who A corn rofParson Whipples school- were the only boys in its counsels, room, suddenly began to tick twice as thought it was very good-natured. fast as usual. It did so for two or four But I do not pretend it was right. hours, according as you counted time Have I said it was right for the pendu- y its beats or by an hour-glass. Then lum to tick so? I have not said it. I it ticked for the remainder of its life at have only said that it was good-natured apparently the same rate as usual. This in the pendulum to tick twice as fast was never a discontented pendulum; as usual, when it simply knew that I

20 Tue Good-natzired Pdlldu/ze;;~. [January, you have done for a turkey with truf- cliantres gabeurs when you had split fles? But in Paradise there were nei- open giants, delivered ladies, extermi.~ ther cooks nor confectioners. nated armies, never, alas! never did a How I pity you! dark-eyed captive present to you spark- Powerful kings, who ruined superb ling champagne, malvoisie from Ma- Troy, your valor will be told from age to deira, liquors, creation of the great age; but your table was poor. Re- century; you were reduced to beer. duced to a quarter of beef or a pigs Hoxv I pity you! back, you forever ignored the charms Abb6s, decorated, mitred; dispens- of a matelotte and the delights of a ers of Heavens favors; and you tern- chicken fricassee. ble Templars, who armed yourselves How I pity you! for the extermination of the Saracen~, Aspasia, Chloe, and all you whose you never knew the sweetness of the forms have been immortalized by the restoring chocolate or the Arabic bean chisel of the Greeks for the despair of that engenders thought. the belles of to-day, never did your How I pity you! charming mouths taste the suavlt~ of a Superb ckc~lelaines, who, during the ineri/igite ci la vanilie or ci la rose; you dearth of the Crusades, raised to the had hardly risen to the height of gin- supreme ranks your almoners and your gerbread. pages, you never partook of the charms How I pity you! of sponge-cake and the delights of mac- Gentle priestesses of Vesta, coy- aroons. ered with so much honor and threat- How I pity you! ened with such horrible torture, if you The purely instructive part of the had but tasted those pleasant sirups book anticipated most of our current that refresh the soul, those candied fruits knowledg~ concerning the nature and that brave the seasons, those perfumed quality of aliments and stimulants, and creams, marvel of our days! is supplemented by several exhaustive How I pity you! pages by Balzac upon modern excitants. Roman statesmen, who possessed In conclusion, I may say, the Pizyslologie the world then known, never did your dii Goi~t is a complete and savory book, renowned salons know either those suc- that makes us know and enjoy the culent jellies, the delight of the lazy, or pleasure of a good dinner; and this is those vari~bated ices whose cold could no more an every-day occurrence than defy the torrid zone. the sight of a beautiful picture, the read- How I pity you! ing of a great poem, or the hearing of a Invincible paladins, celebrated by fine opera. THE GOOD-NATURED PENDULUM. $~17 N old clock, which stood in the and on that day, Singleton and I, who A corn rofParson Whipples school- were the only boys in its counsels, room, suddenly began to tick twice as thought it was very good-natured. fast as usual. It did so for two or four But I do not pretend it was right. hours, according as you counted time Have I said it was right for the pendu- y its beats or by an hour-glass. Then lum to tick so? I have not said it. I it ticked for the remainder of its life at have only said that it was good-natured apparently the same rate as usual. This in the pendulum to tick twice as fast was never a discontented pendulum; as usual, when it simply knew that I Tk Good-nc~1zired Pendulum. 21 1869.] wished it to do so. I am not holding up the pendulum as an example for other pendulums, or for readers of the Atlantic. I wish people would not he so eager in their lookout for morals. I have not even said that the pendulum is the hero of this story. I have only said that it was good-natured, and that, as before, it ticked as I then said. Having simply said that, and hardly said even that, I am attacked with this question, whether my story is moral or not, whether the pendulum did right or not; and you tell me coolly that you do not know whether you will take the magazine another year, if the conduct of such pendulums is approved in it. Once and again, then, although I was then responsible for what the pendulum did, I assert that I am not now respon- sible for it. I was then fourteen, and am now hard on fifty-six, so I must have changed atomically sb~ times since then. I reject responsibility for all my acts at Parson Whipples. I do not justify the pendulum, I do not justify myself, far less do I justify Singleton. I only say it was a good-natured pen- dulum. It happened thus We were all to go after chestnuts, and we had made immense preparation, the old dominie not unwilling. We had sewed up into many bags some old bed-tick, dear, kind Miss Tryphosa had given us; we had coaxed Clapps cousin Perkins,son of Matthew Perkins third, of the old black Perkins blood, we had coaxed him into getting the black mare for us from his father. Clapp was to harness him, and we were to have the school wagon to .bring our spoils home. We had laid in with the Varnum boys to meet us at the cross- roads in the hollow; and, in short, we were to give the trees such a belabor- ing as chestnut-trees had not known in many years. For all this we had the grant of a half-holiday; we had by great luck a capital sharp frost on Tues- day, we had everything buttime. Red Jacket would have told us we had all the time there was, and, if Mr. Emerson had come along, he might have enforced the lesson. But he was elsewhere just then, and the trouble with us was, that, having all the time there was, we wanted more. And no hard bestead conductor on a single-track road, eager to make the time~ which he must have to reach the predestined switch in season, ever questioned and entreated his engineer more volubly than we assailed each other as to how we could make the short afternoon an- swer for the gig~intic purposes of this expedition. You see there is a compen- sation in all things. If you have ever gone after chestnuts, you have found out that the sun sets mighty near five oclock when you come to the 20th of October; and if you dont get through school till one, and then must all have dinner, I tell you it is very hard to start fourteen boys after dinner, and drive the wagon, and walk the boys down to the Hollow, and then meet the Var- nums and drive up that rough road to Clapps grandmothers, and then take down the bars and lead the horse in through the pasture to where we meant to tie him in the edge of the hemlock second-growth, and then to carry the bags across the stream, and so work up on the hill where the best trees are ; I say it is very hard to do all that anal come out on the road again and on the way home before dark. And if you think it is easy to do it in three hours and a half, I wish you would try. All is, I will not give sixteen cents for all the chestnuts you get in that way. So, as I said, we wanted to make the time. Well, dear Miss Tryphosa said that she would put dinner at twelve, if we liked, and if we could coax the dominie to let us out of school then. So we asked Hackmatack to ask him, and Hackmatack did not dare to, but he coaxed Sarah Clavers to ask him. The old man loved Sarah Clavers, as everybody did. She was a sweet little thin~, and she did her best! Old man, I call him! That was the way we talked. Let me see, he graduated in fZxi,I guess he was in Everetts class and Frothinghams. The old man, as we called him, must have been thirty- 22 The Good-;icitzred Peuzdzh/u;d. [January, seven years old then, nineteen years younger than I am to-day. Old man indeed! Well, little Sarah did her prettiest. But the old man there it is again kissed her, and stroked her face, and said he had given the school a half-hol- iday, and he thought his duties to the parents forbade his giving any more. And xvhen little Sarah tried again, all he would say was, thap if we would get up early alid hs dressed when the first bell rang, we might go into school at eight instead of nine. Then school could be done at twelve, Miss Try- phosa might do as she chose ahout dinner, hut, if she chose, we might he off before one. This was something, and we made the most of it. Still we wished we could make a little more time. And as it was ordered, wisely, I have no doubt, though, as I said, I do not pretend to justify the use we made of the order, as it was or- dered, that very Tuesday afternoon, when we were all at work in the school- room, Breretonthat Southern boy, you know was reciting in Scientific Dia- loguesto the Parson. I think it must have been Scientific Dialogues, but I am not sure. Queer, I was going to say it was Pynchon, who has distin~uished himself so ahout all those things since. But that is a trick memory plays you. Pynchon must be ten years younger than Brereton; I dare say he never saw him. It was Brereton Bill Brereton was recitin~, and he was reciting about the pendulum. The old man told him about Galileos chandelier, I remember. Well, then and there I saw the whole thing in my mind as I see it now. Sin- gleton saw it too. He was hearing some little boys in Liber Primus, but he turned round gravely, and looked me full in the face. I looked at him and nodded. Nor from that day to this have I ever had to discuss the details of the matter with him. Only he and I did three things in consequence of that stare and that nod, he did two, and I did one. What he did was to go into the dominies bedroom, when he went up stairs after tea, take his watch-key from the pin it hung on, and put it into his second bureau drawer under his wool- len socks. Then he went across into Miss Tryphosas room, and hung her watch-key on a tack behind her look- ing-glass. He thought she would not look there, and, as it happened, she nev- er did. Those were in the early days. School-boys had no watches then. I do not think they even wrote home for them. If they did, the watches did not come. I do not recollect that George then told me he did this ; but I knew he did, because I knew he could. I had no fear whatever, when I went to bed that night, that the doctor would wind up his watch, or Miss Tryphosa hers. As it happened, neither of them did. Each asked the other for a key, the master tried the old gold key which hung at his fob,which had been worn out by his grandfather when he was before Quebec with Amherst. Both of them said it was very careless in Chloe, and both of them went to bed. We all got up early the next day, as we had promised. But before break- fast I did not go near the clock, you need not charge that on me. I hurried the others, got them to breakfast, and ate my ~wn speedily. Then I did go into the school-room ten minutes before the crowd. I locked both doors and drew down the paper-hangin~ cur- tain. I took a brad-awl out of my pocket, and unscrewed the pendulum from the bottom of the rod. I left it in the bottom of the box. I took a horse- shoe from my pocket and lashed it tight with packthread about a quarter way down the rod, perhaps two inches above the quarter. I put in a nail after it was tied, t~visted the string rpund it twice, and rammed the point into the knot. Then I started the pendulum again, found to my delight that it was very good-natured, and ticked twice as fast as I ever heard it, I shut and locked the clock door, rolled up the paper-hanging curtain, and unbscked the school doors. If you choose to say 1869.] Tue Good-izcdured Pe;zdulitrn. 23 I \vent to the clock after breakfast, be- fore school, that is true, I do not deny it. If you say I went before break- fast, I do deny it, that is n t true. If you ask if it was right for me to do so, as you implied you were bomb to do, I do not claim that it was. I have not said it was right. All I have said yet is that the pendulum was good- natured. And I will always protest, as I have often done before, against these interruptions. I suppose I was engaged three min- utes in these affairs. I cannot tell, because the clock had stopped, and, when we are pleasantly employed, time flies. I was not interrupted. Nobody came into that school-room before it was time. In the Boston schools now they hire the scholars to be unpunc- tual, giving them extra credits if they arrive five minutes too early. If they knew, as well as I do, what nuisances people are who come before the time fixed for their arri,al, they would not bribe the children in that direction. Certainly dear old Parson Whipple did not. We went in when the clock struck, and we went out when it struck. He had no idea of improving on what was exactly right. If he had read Vol- taire, he would have said, Le mieux est l~ennemi du bon. So when the clock struck eight we rushed in. Reverent silence at prayers. I suppose my conscience pricked me, I have very little doubt it did, but I dont remember it at all. Little boys called up in Latin grammar. Luckily they were all well up, and gabbled off their lesson in fine style Amussis, a masons rule. Buns, the beam of a plough, & c., & c. The lesson xvent down one excep- tion to each boy without one halt; the master nodded pleasure, and passed up to the first boy again; down it went again, and down again. These were bright little fellows; not one mistake, perfect credits all. It is a very good lesson, said the dear old soul. It s a pleasure to hear boys when they recite so ~vell. This will give us a little time for me to show you What he was going to show them I do not know. He turned round as he said time, and saw to his amazement that the clock pointed to 8.30. He put his hand to his watch unconsciously, and half smiled when he saw it had run down. No matter, said he, we are later than I thought. Seats, algebra boys. So we took our places, and very much the same thing followed. Singleton and I were sent to the blackboards, for the dear old man was in advance of the age in those matters, and we did our very quickest. But Hackmatack had not our motive, and perhaps did not under- stand the algebra so well, so that he stumbled and made a long business of it, and so did the boy who was next to him. That boy was still on the rack, too much puzzled to see what Singleton meant by holding up three fingers of one hand and one of the other, when the Parson said, I cannot spend all the morning upon you; sit down, sir, sent another boy to the board to explain my work, looked at .the clock, and was thIs time fairly surprised to see that it was already half past nine. He seized the opportunity for a Parthian lesson to Brereton and Hackmatack. Half an hour each on one of the simplest prob- lems in the book. And I must put off the other boys till to-morrow. The other boys were a little amazed at their respite, but took the goods the gods provided without comment. We went to our seats, and in a very few minute,s it was quarter of ten, and xve were sent out to recess. Recess, you know, was quarter of an hour; it generally began at quarter of eleven, but to-day we bad it at quarter of ten, because school was an hour earlier. I say quarter of ten because the clock said so. The sun was overcast with a heavy Indian-sum- mer mist, so we could not compare the clock with the sundial. The little boys carried out their lunch as usual, going through the store-closet on the way. But there was not much enthusiasm on the subject of lunch, and 24 The Good-;2cztured Pe;zdulurn. [January, a good deal of generosity was observed in the offer from one to another of ap- ples and doughnuts, which, however, were not often accepted. I soon stopped this by saying that nobody wanted lunch, because we were to dine so early, and proposing that we should all save our provisions for the afternoon picnic. Meanwhile, I conferred with Clapp about the black mare. He said she was in the upper pasture, which was the next field to our sugar-lot; and he thought he would run across now and drive her down into the lower pasture, in which case she would be standing by the bars as soon as school was over, and he could take her at once, and give her some grain while we were eating our dinner. Clapp, you see, was a day scholar. I asked him if he should have time, and he said of course he should. But, in fact, be was not out of sight of the house before the mas- ter rang the bell out of the window, and recess was over. Even the little boys said it was the shortest recess they had ever known. So far as I felt any anxiety that day, it was in the next exercise. This was the regular writing of copies by the whole school. Now the writing of cop- ies is a pretty mechanical business, and the master was a pretty methodical man, and when he assigned to us ten lines of the copy-book to be written in twenty- five minutes, giving him five for in- spection, he meant very nearly what he said, as he generally did. I ventured to say to Hackmatack and Clapp, as we sat down at our form, L.et s all write like hokey. But I did not dare explain to them, and far less to the others, why the writing should be rapid. Earlier than that, my uncle had taught me one of the great lessons of life, If you want your secret kept, keep it. So we all fell to, on Tb;ze trz25s for Irfers, but flies for the faithzfu4 which was the copy for the big boys for the day. The little boys were still mum-mum-mumming in very large let- ters. Single ton and I put in our fast- est, and Clapp and Hackmatack caught the contagion. The master sat correcting Latin exercises, and the school was very still, as always when we were writincr H ow lucky that you never could hear the old clock tick when the case was shut and fastened! I should not be much worried now by the stint we had then, but in those days these fingers were more fit for bats and balls than for pens, and the up- strokes had to be very fine and the down strokes very heavy. Still, we had always thought it a bore to be kept twenty-five minutes on those ten lines, and so we had some margin to draw upon. And as that rapid, good-natured~ minute-hand neared the V on the clock I finished the u in the last faithful, having unfortunately no room left on the line for the 1. Hackmatack was but a word behind me, and Clapp and Singleton had but a few faithfuls to finish. Why do boys think it easier to write their words in columns than in lines? Is it simply because this is the~ wrong way, 0 shade of Calvin ! or that the primeval civilization still lin- gers in their blood, and the Fathers wrote so, 0 Burlingame and shade of Confucius? We sat up straight, and held our long quill pens erect, as was our duty when we had finished. The little boys from their side of the room looked up sur- prised; and redoubled the vicious speed by which already their uzums had been debasing themselves into itiulul with the dots to the is omitted. Faithful Brereton and Harris and Wells I can see them now plodded on uncon- scious; I could see that none of them had advanced more than a quarter down his page. For a few minutes the dominie did not observe our erected pen-feathers, so engaged was he in altering a sense line of Singletons or somebodys. The sense of this line was, that the virtuous father of Minerva always rewarded green conquerors, such epi- thets and expletives having suggested themselves from Brownes Viridarium. But the last syllable of Palladis had 1869.] The Good-izaiiired Pendulz6rn. 25 got snagged behind a consonant, and the amiable dominie was relieving it from the over-pressure. So we sat like Roman senators, with our quill sceptres poised, not coughing nor moving, nor in any way calling his at- tenti on, that the others might have the more time. And the little boys fairly galloped with their mums. But our sedate fellows on the other form plod- ded painfully on, and had only fin- ished seven lines when Mr. Whipple looked up, saw the senators and the sceptres, and said, reproachfully: You cannot all have hurried through that copy! The chestnuts turn your heads. With the moment, he turned his, to see that the minute-hand had passed a full half-circle. Is it half past? he said, innocently. I beg your pardon; but among the Muses, you know, we are unconscious of time. Well, well, let us see. Rather shabby, George, rather shabby; not near so good as yesterday Some sir ins are short and some are shorter; and you too, Singleton. I do not know when you have been so careless, you both of you are in such haste. See, Wells and Harris have not yet finished their lines. Wells and Harris I think were as much astonished in their way; for it was not their wont to come in sixth and seventh, fairly distanced, indeed, on any such race-cdurse. But there was little time for criticism. That good- natured pendulum was rushing on. The little boys escaped without comment on those vicious rns, and, if there were anything in the system, each one of them ought to write commonwealth now, so that it should pass the proof-reader as counting-house. But there is not much in the system, and I dare say they are all bank presidents, editors, professors of penmanship, or other men of letters. The clock actually pointed at quarter of eleven! Now at 10.30 we should have been out at recitation, translating Camilla well over the plain. We had thrown her across the river on a lance the day before. We shuffled out, and. I, still in a hurry, had to be corrected for speed by the master. I then as- sumed a more decorous tone, his grated nerves were soothed as he heard the smooth cadences of the Latin, and then, of course, just the same thing happened as before. The lesson was ninety lutes, but we had not read half of them when Miss Tryphosa put in her head to look at the clock. Beg pardon, btother, my watch has run down. Bless me, it is half past eleven ! And she receded as sudden- ly as she came. As she went she was heard asking, Where can the morning have gone? and observing to vacant space in the hall, that the potatoes were not yet on the fire. As for the dominie, he ascribed all this to our beginning the Virgil too late; said we might stay on the benches and finish it now, and gave the little boys another take in their arithmetics, while we stayed till the welcome clock struck twelve. Certainly a short morning, boys. So much for being quiet and good. Good day, now, and a pleasant after- noon to you. It is at this point, so far as I know, that my conscience, fo~ the first time, tingled a little. A little, but, alas, not long! We rushed in for dinner. Poor Miss Tryphosa had to apologize for the first and last time in her life! Somehow we had caught her, she said. She was sure she had no idea how, but the morning had seemed very short to her, and so our potatoes were not done. But they would be done before long, and of course we had not expected much from a picked-up dinner, an hour early. We all thanked and praised. I cut the cold corned beef, and we fell to, our appetites, unlunched, beginning to come into condition. My only trou- ble was to keep the rest back till Miss Tryphosas potatoes the largest a little hard at heart appeared. For, in truth, the boys were all wild to be away. And as soon as the pota- toes were well freed from their own 26 The Goad-n lured Peziduhirn. [January, jackets and imprisoned under ours, I cut the final slices of the beef. Hack- matack cut the corresponding bread; the little boys took galore of apples and of doughnuts; we packed all in the lunch-baskets, took the bard eggs beside, and the salt, and were away. As the boys went down the hill, I stopped in the school-room, locked the doors, drew the curtain, opened the clock, cut the packthread, pocketed the horseshoe, screwed on the bob, and started the pendulum again. A very good-natured pendulum indeed! It had done the work of four hours in two. How much better that than sulking, discontented, for a whole hour, in the corner of a farmers kitchen! Miss Tryphosa and her brother had the feeling, I suppose, which sensible people have about half the days of their lives, that it is extraordinary the time should go so fast! So much for being infinite beings, clad for only a few hours in time and clay, nor wholly at home in those surroundings. Did I say I would write the history of that chestnuttino? I did not say so. I did not entitle this story The Good Chestnuts, but The Good- natured Pendulum. I will only say to the little girls that all went well. We waited at the foot of the hill for a few minutes till Clapp and Perkins came t~p with the mare and wagon. They said it was hardly half an hour since school, but even the little boys knew better, because the clock had struck one as we left the school-house. It was a little odd, however, that, as the boys said this, the doctor passed in his gig, and when Clapp asked him what time it was, he looked at his watch, and said, Half past ten. But the doctor always was so queer! WLL, we had a capital time; just that pleasant haze l~ung over the whole. Into the pasture, by the second- growth, over the stream, into the trees, and under them, fingers well pricked, bags all the time growing fuller and fuller. Then the afternoon lunch, which well compensated the abstemiousness of the mornings, then a sharp game at ball with the chestnut burs, and even the smallest boys were made to catch them bravely, and, as the spines ran into their little plump hands, to cry, Pain is no evil ! A first-rate frolic, every minute a success. The sun would steal down, but for once, though we had not too much time, we seemed to have enough to get through xvithout a hurry. We big boys were responsible for the youngsters, and we had them safely up on the Holderness road, by Clapps grandmothers, Tom Lynch driving and the little ones piled in Sarah Ciavers in front with the chestnut-bags, when the sun went down. By the time it was pitch dark we were at home, and were warmly wel- comed by the master and Miss Trypho- sa. Good soul, she even made dip-toast for our suppers, and had hot apples waiting for us between the andirons. The boys rushed in shouting, scattered to wash their hands, and to get her to pick out the thorns, and some of our fellows to put on some of the chestnuts to boil. For me, I stepped into the school-room, and, in the dark, moved the minute-hand of the clock back two hours. Before long we all gathered at tea, the master with us, as was his custom in the evening. After we had told our times, as we big boys sat picking over chestnuts, after the little ones had been excused, Miss Tryphosa said, Well, boys, I am sure I am much indebted to you for one nice long afternoon. My cheeks tingled a little, and when the master said, Yes, the afternoon fairly made up the short-comings of the morning, I did not dare to look him in the face. Singleton slipped off from table, and I think he then went and replaced the watch-keys. The next day, as we sat in algebra, the clock struck twelve instead of ten. The master xvent and stopped the strik- ing part. Did he look at me when he did so? He is now Bishop of New Archangel. Will he perhaps write me a line to tell me? And that afternoon, 1869.] The Flying Dutchman. 27 when Brereton was on his Scientific Dialogues, actually the master said to him, I will go hack to the last lesson, Brereton. What is the length of a seconds pendulum? And Brereton told him. What should you think the beat of our pendulum here ? said the doctor, opening the case. Brereton could not tell; and the master ex- plained; that this pendulum was five feet long. That the time of the oscilla- tions of two pendulums was as the square root of the lengths, Brereton had already said; so he was set to calculate oi~i the board the square root of sixty inches, and the square root of the seconds pendulum, 39.139. I have remembered that to this day. So he found out the beat of our pendulum, and then we verified it by the masters watch, which was going that afternoon. Then with perfect cold blood the mas- ter said, And if you wanted to make the pendulum go twice as fast, Brere- ton, what would you do ? And Brere- ton, innocent as Psyche, but eager as Pallas Athene, said, of course, that he would take the square root of five, di- vide it by two, and square the quotient. The square is 1.225, said he, rapidly. I would cut the rocf at one foot two and a quarter inches from the pivot, and hang on the bob there. Very good, said the master, or, more simply, you move the bob up three quarters of the way. So saying he bave us the next lesson. Did he know, or did he not know? Singleton and I looked calmly on, but showed neither guilt nor curiosity. Dear Master, if there is ink and paper in New Archangel, write me, and say, did you know, or did you not know? Accept this as my con- fession, and grant absolution to me, being penitent. Dear master and dear reader, I am not so penitent but I will own, that, in a thousand public meetings since, I have wished some spirited ~oy had privately run the pendulum bo1~ up to the very pivot, of the rod. Yes, and there have been a thousand nice after- noons at home, or at Georges, or with Haliburton, or with Liston, or with you, when I have wished I could stretch the rod the rest of you unconscious till it was ten times as long. Dear master, I am your affectionate FRED. INGHAM. THE FLYING DUTCHMAN. DONT believe in the Flying Dutchman? Well, I have known him for years; My button I ye wrenched from his clutch, man: I shudder whenever he nears! He s a Rip van Winkle skipper, A Wandering Jew of the sea, Who sails his bedevilled old clipper In the winds eye, straight as a bee. Back topsails! you cant escape him; The man-ropes stretch with his weight, And the queerest old toggeries drape him The Lord knows how far out of date! ii ~ $ I

1869.] The Flying Dutchman. 27 when Brereton was on his Scientific Dialogues, actually the master said to him, I will go hack to the last lesson, Brereton. What is the length of a seconds pendulum? And Brereton told him. What should you think the beat of our pendulum here ? said the doctor, opening the case. Brereton could not tell; and the master ex- plained; that this pendulum was five feet long. That the time of the oscilla- tions of two pendulums was as the square root of the lengths, Brereton had already said; so he was set to calculate oi~i the board the square root of sixty inches, and the square root of the seconds pendulum, 39.139. I have remembered that to this day. So he found out the beat of our pendulum, and then we verified it by the masters watch, which was going that afternoon. Then with perfect cold blood the mas- ter said, And if you wanted to make the pendulum go twice as fast, Brere- ton, what would you do ? And Brere- ton, innocent as Psyche, but eager as Pallas Athene, said, of course, that he would take the square root of five, di- vide it by two, and square the quotient. The square is 1.225, said he, rapidly. I would cut the rocf at one foot two and a quarter inches from the pivot, and hang on the bob there. Very good, said the master, or, more simply, you move the bob up three quarters of the way. So saying he bave us the next lesson. Did he know, or did he not know? Singleton and I looked calmly on, but showed neither guilt nor curiosity. Dear Master, if there is ink and paper in New Archangel, write me, and say, did you know, or did you not know? Accept this as my con- fession, and grant absolution to me, being penitent. Dear master and dear reader, I am not so penitent but I will own, that, in a thousand public meetings since, I have wished some spirited ~oy had privately run the pendulum bo1~ up to the very pivot, of the rod. Yes, and there have been a thousand nice after- noons at home, or at Georges, or with Haliburton, or with Liston, or with you, when I have wished I could stretch the rod the rest of you unconscious till it was ten times as long. Dear master, I am your affectionate FRED. INGHAM. THE FLYING DUTCHMAN. DONT believe in the Flying Dutchman? Well, I have known him for years; My button I ye wrenched from his clutch, man: I shudder whenever he nears! He s a Rip van Winkle skipper, A Wandering Jew of the sea, Who sails his bedevilled old clipper In the winds eye, straight as a bee. Back topsails! you cant escape him; The man-ropes stretch with his weight, And the queerest old toggeries drape him The Lord knows how far out of date! ii ~ $ I 28 Tue Fi3iing Dutckma;z. [January, Like a long-disembodied idea, (A kind of ghost plentiful now,) He stands there; you fancy you see a Coeval of Teniers or Douw. He greets you; would have you take letters: You scan the addresses with dread, While he mutters his donners and wetters, They re all from the dead to the dead! You seem taking time for reflection, But the heart fills your throat with a jam, As you spell in each faded direction An ominous ending in darn. Am I tagging my rhymes to a legend? That were changing green turtle to mdck: No, thank you! I ye found out which wedge-end Is meant for the head of a block. The fellow I have in my minds eye Plays the old Skippers part upon shore, And sticks like a burr, till he finds I Have got just the gauge of his bore. This postman twixt one ghost and t other, With last dates that smell of the mould, I have met him (0 man and brother, Forgive me!) in azure and gold. In the pulpit I ye known of his preaching, Out of hearing behind the times, Some statement of Balaams impeaching, Giving Eve a due sense of her crimes. I have seen him some poor ancient thrashing Into something (God save us!) more dry, With the Water of Life itself washing The life out of earth, sea, and sky. o dread fellow-mortal, get newer Despatches to carry, or none! We re as quick as the Greek and the Jew were At knowing a loaf from a stone. Till the Couriers of God fail in duty, We sha nt ask a mummy for news, Nor sate the souls hunger for, beauty With your drawings from casts of a Muse. CO-openltive Housekeeping. CO-OPERATIVE HOUSEKEEPING. III. THE PROBABLE EFFECT OF CO-OPERA- TIVE HOUSEKEEPING ON THE RE- TAIL TRADE. J N discussing the probable effects of I co-operative housekeeping upon the community, I will begin with the retail dealers, since, whatever the rest of the world may think of it, from these it can expect only unanimous opposition. And no doubt, were it to be suddenly and universally adopted, it would cause this large body of men great embarrass- ment, if not suffering and ruin, though whether their share of these latter could possibly equal what they yearly inflict on the world is a question. But in truth the change, if it ever take place, will proba- bly be avery gradual one. For, in the first place, in whatever town it is started, I do not think it could get properly un- der way in less than several years. Our servants are now too unskilful, and we ourselves too ignorant of business, too limited and superficial in our knowl- edge of dress-making and cooking, to venture to become suddenly responsi- ble for the clothing and meals of several hundred persons. If the criticisms of a single husband upon overdone meat or underdone vegetables are enough to drive a luckless housekeeper to de- spair, how could she endure the anath- emas of fifty hungry husbands hurled at her at once! It is evident that there must be no slips in co-operative house- keepinb. Punctual as the stars, perfect and unassailable as they, must it be in all its courses; and therefore each officer would have to qualify herself faithfully and seriously in some one department as for a life-long vocation, so that whatever she undertook to su- perintend and provide for she would ~nnderstand in an exhaustive and mas- t~rful manner, a study which might require from one to three years.* * Gouff~, the great clzefofthe Paris Jockey Club, has ~ate1y published a magnificent cookery book, of which Secondly. The rich and prosperous everywhere will probably be a long time coming into co-operation, since they have very great comfort now, and will be loath to try experiments which might at first entail some sacrifice of it. Thirdly. In country villabes, where grocers and mercers are always from the first families~ and among the solid men of the place, their wives would not for long dream of supplant- ing them. Fourthly. In our largest cities, where neighbors are strangers to each other, and acquaintances are often widely scattered, where, too, the retail trade is of gigantic dimensions, and in fact the basis of relation between large classes of the population, co-operative housekeeping could perhaps make but very slow headway. A generation, then, is the least time that can be allowed for co-operative housekeeping to become general,* but even this, in our country of easily and constantly shifting business relations, would give ample time to our shop- keepers to find other avenues for their energies, and, in particular, some occu- pation more suited to their sex than the effeminate surroundings of a dry-goods store. Men are very fond of twitting us wo- men with desiring to leave our own sphere in order to lord it over theirs in a high-handed manner. I believe that nothing would induce the majority among us to enter their dusty, noisy, blood-stained precincts; but we should be exceedingly obliged if they would just step out of ours. Back, sirs, back! For shame! this unmanly intrusion into the soups alone number two hundred l How many soups does any ordinary housekeeper who reads these pages understand? Four, or perhaps six. Judging from the little impression that the co-op- erative store movement begun twenty-five years ago has made upon society, it will take indefinitely longer. 1869.1 29

CO-openltive Housekeeping. CO-OPERATIVE HOUSEKEEPING. III. THE PROBABLE EFFECT OF CO-OPERA- TIVE HOUSEKEEPING ON THE RE- TAIL TRADE. J N discussing the probable effects of I co-operative housekeeping upon the community, I will begin with the retail dealers, since, whatever the rest of the world may think of it, from these it can expect only unanimous opposition. And no doubt, were it to be suddenly and universally adopted, it would cause this large body of men great embarrass- ment, if not suffering and ruin, though whether their share of these latter could possibly equal what they yearly inflict on the world is a question. But in truth the change, if it ever take place, will proba- bly be avery gradual one. For, in the first place, in whatever town it is started, I do not think it could get properly un- der way in less than several years. Our servants are now too unskilful, and we ourselves too ignorant of business, too limited and superficial in our knowl- edge of dress-making and cooking, to venture to become suddenly responsi- ble for the clothing and meals of several hundred persons. If the criticisms of a single husband upon overdone meat or underdone vegetables are enough to drive a luckless housekeeper to de- spair, how could she endure the anath- emas of fifty hungry husbands hurled at her at once! It is evident that there must be no slips in co-operative house- keepinb. Punctual as the stars, perfect and unassailable as they, must it be in all its courses; and therefore each officer would have to qualify herself faithfully and seriously in some one department as for a life-long vocation, so that whatever she undertook to su- perintend and provide for she would ~nnderstand in an exhaustive and mas- t~rful manner, a study which might require from one to three years.* * Gouff~, the great clzefofthe Paris Jockey Club, has ~ate1y published a magnificent cookery book, of which Secondly. The rich and prosperous everywhere will probably be a long time coming into co-operation, since they have very great comfort now, and will be loath to try experiments which might at first entail some sacrifice of it. Thirdly. In country villabes, where grocers and mercers are always from the first families~ and among the solid men of the place, their wives would not for long dream of supplant- ing them. Fourthly. In our largest cities, where neighbors are strangers to each other, and acquaintances are often widely scattered, where, too, the retail trade is of gigantic dimensions, and in fact the basis of relation between large classes of the population, co-operative housekeeping could perhaps make but very slow headway. A generation, then, is the least time that can be allowed for co-operative housekeeping to become general,* but even this, in our country of easily and constantly shifting business relations, would give ample time to our shop- keepers to find other avenues for their energies, and, in particular, some occu- pation more suited to their sex than the effeminate surroundings of a dry-goods store. Men are very fond of twitting us wo- men with desiring to leave our own sphere in order to lord it over theirs in a high-handed manner. I believe that nothing would induce the majority among us to enter their dusty, noisy, blood-stained precincts; but we should be exceedingly obliged if they would just step out of ours. Back, sirs, back! For shame! this unmanly intrusion into the soups alone number two hundred l How many soups does any ordinary housekeeper who reads these pages understand? Four, or perhaps six. Judging from the little impression that the co-op- erative store movement begun twenty-five years ago has made upon society, it will take indefinitely longer. 1869.1 29 Co-operative Housekeeping. [January, the women?s apartments. Vast num- bers, in the guise of clerks and small shopkeepers, have so long played at the spinning Achilles and Hercules that they have quite forgotten their natural vocation, and have degenerated, in too many instances, into downright Sardanapali. To make their imitation of the self-degradation of the Oriental monarch complete, nothing is wanting but the chzgnon, crinoline, and train, which by law they should he compelled to wear, as they stand measuring rib- bons and tapes so daintily to their women customers. If the tailor who made clothes for his own sex were cor- rectly valued by the doughty old stand- ard, as only the ninth part of a man, what a mere shred must he be who busies himself about the clothes of wo- men! And, in truth, the excessive smallness, meanness, and cunning of many of the faces ai2nong the men in the dry-goods stores must be admitted by everybody who gives them a moments attention. How can our sturdy farmers allow their young sons to go into such a contemptible business! When mod- ern manhood falls so utterly below its proper level, why should modern wo- manhood be blamed? Mrs. Jameson said well concerning the thirty thousand man-milliners of London, Where are their thirty thousand sisters? Where indeed? Let the women do womens work. Give us the yard-stick, 0 he- roes, and let us relieve you behind the counter, that you may go behind the plough and be off to those fields where truest glory is to be won in wresting from Dame Nature her treasures of golden grain and sweet-smellin ~ hay. Thus, each in a fitting sphere, shall we make a good fight for the world. As for the large dealers, many of them have wholesale departments in their establishments already, and they would keep them; but it is very evident ehat if women combine to purchase their own stuffs, and in every co-operative as- sociation employ two or three of their own number at hibh salaries to choose them, the importers and manufacturers will no longer find it for their interest, if; indeed, they find it possible, to manufacture so much worthless material merely to sell. Women now buythese things and throw away their money, because, in the first place, as soon as a fabric acquires a reputation among us, ad- vantage is taken of that to deterio- rate it; and, in the second place, so many new fabrics are constantly thrown upon the market that we are bewildered and unable to judge between them. But the agents of our co-operative associ- ations will soon become expert in judg- ing of the value of goods. They will know too, of course, just what the wo- men for whom they are choosing need and prefer, and, in consequence, they will not put anything upon their ~shelves that is not desirable in itself and good of its kind. Hence the placing of high- toned women as the medium of ex- change between the great merchants and manufacturers and the consumers would not only be an economy to the community, but would tei~d to make trade more honest. THE PROBABLE EFFEcT OF Co-op- ERATIVE HOUSEKEEPING ON AGRI- cULTURE. I have exalted the harvests of the American continent, but, splendid as they are, they are not, in my opinion, half abundant enough ; and I will now speak of the immense impetus I believe co-operative housekeeping would give to farming, and the revolution it would bring a bout in it. The town and the country are now two separate worlds, each knowing but little about the other, and furthermore estranged by the enemies of both, the middle men, who stand between them, and render their only existing relation namely, that interchange of values known as buying and selling a base system of mutual extortion, which has finally reached a point perfectly unen- durable. The American business prin- ciple, that cheating all round is no cheating at all, must be given up, for none but the rich can stand it. It will be the first aim of the co-oper- ative housekeepers then, I trust, as it 30 Co-operative Hozisekeeping. was with the Rochdale Pioneers (who, like ourselves, were sufferers from the speculations of middle men in the ne- cessaries of life), to secure for each society a landed interest of its own. The first investment of their profits should he in a farm, whence they could procure their own milk, butter, eggs, vegetables, apples, etc. at first prices. Now, with all the town housekeepers interested in farming, and many of the ex-clerks and shopkeepers compelled to go into it, it is evident that an amount of capital, enterprise, and in- vention will be attracted to agriculture, such as has no parallel in modern his- tory. And why should it not he so? Is it not perfectly well understood that all material comfort, happiness, and wealth come first out of the ground? What do all the nations want above every- thino? Food. The voluptuary finds his most unalloyed enjoyment, the beg- gar his greatest solace, society its full- est expression of good fellowship, home its most gladsom e union, the church its highest act of worship, in eating and drinking. In truth, we are so made that not only we cannot live without some food, hut we cannot be well and good-tempered, happy, or comely, with- out pleasant and abundant food. And yet, instead of trying to get it, the whole world seems mad to make clothes, for these grow cheaper and cheaper,* while that grows dearer and dearer. Capi- talists expend the strength of their resources in manufactures, and procure iniquitous tariffs to protect them, while poor suffering humanity faints by the wayside for want of bread to strength- en its heart, wine to make it glad, and oil (or its Northern substitute, butter) to make it a cheerful countenance.~ Two hundred years ago the manufac- turing swarms of Europe did not exist. See what they are now! But we, in- stead of foundin~ a civilization that will eventually seat every man under * Not that dress as a whole is cheaper, for fashion tries to make up the difference to the poor over- crowded artisans hy compelling us all to put much more cloth into our garments, and to have many more of them than formerly. his own vine and under his own fig- tree, seem trying to secure for our country, by the year 2000, a town pop- ulation, the breath of whose miserable life is similarly dependent on the ca- prices of fashion. I think no one can read that splen- did prose - poem, Guyots Earth and Man, wherein he characterizes the po- sition and products of the American continents, without feelinb that they ought to be the food producers of the world. They are the seat, he says, of excessive vegetable, as the continents of the Eastern hemisphere are of the noblest animal, development. Let us, then, rather set ourselves to carry out the grand design of Nature than to go against it. I am tired of the stories abo~t Western farmers burning their corn. Let the dry-goods clerks be set to work on the railroads and canals to bring it to the seaboard, then. With butter at sixty cents and beefsteak at forty cents a pound, and flour at eighteen dollars a barrel, as they are in Boston at this present writing (May, i868), it is absurd to say that we are producing enough for home consump- tion and for exportation too. Many and many a poor family have given up butter and sugar and juicy meat within these last eight years. The fact that a paper dollar is but two thirds of a gold dol- lar cannot account for provisions being two or three times their former price. No, the real trouble is that the Ameri- can hates farming and loves trading, partly because he is physically undevel- oped, and therefore physically lazy; partly because farming is lonely and stupid, and without any of the stimulus of human companionship to which his childhood at the district school accus- toms him; partly because at that school he got no knowledge nor love of na- ture, but only the trading ideas instilled by six years of drill in the dollar-and- cent examples of the arithmetic; and last, though not least, because farming kills his wife, takes all the bloom, flesh, and vitality away from her at forty. Very often, even if she can afford one, she cannot get a servant; so that she 1869.1 3 32 Co-operative Hozisekeepi;~g. [January, is in truth, next to an Indian squaw, the greatest drudge on the American continent. Now it seems very strange that, when manufactures and commerce are so largely carried on by companies, agri- culture should still proceed altogether, or nearly so, on the old plan of each man for himself; and I cannot but think that this is the reason why, as compared with any other way of mak- ing money, it is bard and distasteful to the American. Our public schools accustom children to work and play together toward identical aims and ends, and it is inevitable that they should grow up with the gregarious instinct very strongly developed. This is why I believe women are much better prepared for co-operative house- keeping than may generally be sup- posed. There is already a continual feminine yearning for common action which manifests itself in the sewing- circles, fairs, and festivals so frequent among them; so that, after an unusual period of lull from these excitements, you will hear them say to each other, Do let us get ~ something ~ It is because unconsciously they are bored and wearied with their disconnected interests; and if this be true of them, of course it must be still more largely true of men, since combined action has become with them almost second na- ture. How much easier and pleasanter, then, farming might be, if co-operation were the fundamental principle of the industrial community! Suppose a dozen farmers were to form a stock company, and in the centre of their farm of two or three thpusand acres were to range their dozen cottages crescent - fashion on a wide lawn of pleasant grass and trees (with, as they grew rich, a fountain and a statue or two). Behind them would be a com- mon kitchen, laundry, dairy, smoke- house, etc., in one of which every farmers wife would have her own domestic function, and attend to that only. A quarter of a mile distant would be the barns and out-houses, and also the cottages of the laborers, whose wives would be the servants of the common kitchen and laundry. The laborers and their families would have their meals in common in a dining-room opening out of the kitchen, which might also serve them as a sort of club-room in the evening, if they wished it, while the meals of the farmers and their wives should be sent them from the kitchen, as in the town co-operative so- cieties. No sewing excepting mend- ing need be done on the farm, for all the farmers wives would be members of a co-operative clothing-house in the nearest town, and they would not take their sewing home unless they chose. Opposite the middle of the crescent, and half the length of its diameter, should be the little Gothic school-house and chapel. Thus all would go merry as a marriage-bell, (of course, since it is the scheme of this writer!) The town, women and the country women would be brought into close relation- ship with and knowledge of each other, and there would be a mutual stimulus to the production of whatever either needed most. Eventually a great part of the town population would stream into the country in the summer, and in winter the visit would be returned. Awkwardness and rusticity would dis- appear in one, in the other snobbish- ness and artificiality; and at last we should have introduced into our hard and dry American routine some of the healthful features and sweet influences of the life of the English country gen- try, last relic, as it almost is, of the old patriarchal system, which in many respects was so tranquil, so beneficent, and so beautiful. I should apologize to the farmer or the business man who may happen to read the above for its probable exag- geration of statement and of idea. Agriculture is not my sphere, and I have no time to study it. But as a housekeeper of moderate means, anx- ious for the comfort and happiness of her family, I cannot help wishing good food were cheaper; and as a woman I wish to wake up compassion for the many .1869.] Co-opcra/ivc Ikusekeepiug. 33 farmers wives whom I believe to be now worked beyond their strength. WHERE CAN Co-OPERATIVE HOUSE- KEEPING MOST APPROPRIATELY BE STARTED? In the East, I should say, among those who, according to the ideal of Agur the prophet, have neither pover- ty nor riches ; and perhaps the great- est proportion of this class, so far as New England and the Middle States are concerned, is to be found in towns of from ten to thirty thousand inhabi- tants. In these, people are not all on a level, as in country villages, so there would be fewer small jealousies to contend with; and yet they are not so distinctly divided iFito sets and cir- cles as in the great cities; the various feminine social elements of such towns, therefore, would more easily and spon- taneously play into each others bands than either in very large or very small communities. At the West, I should think all the upspringing towns and villages would go into it, if from nothing else than the scarcity and unskilfulness and insubordination of their servants. Western women, too, are so young, so energetic, so fearless of obstacles, so eager after new ideas, and so friendly and social among themselves, that eo- operative housekeeping would seem to be the only appropriate expression of their good-fellowship and public spirit. And as for the South, with her old labor system broken up, with the house- servants trained under it accustomed to lo only one thing, and unwilling to at- tempt the variety that we exact from the Irish, with a terrible impoverishment that everywhere forces her delicate daughters into the coarsest tasks, and with rich fields going back into forest because there is neither capital nor or- ganization wherewith to cultivate them, surely, if there is a corner of the globe to which co - operation at this VOL. XXILI.NO. 13$. 3 time seems especially appropriate, it is there. It cannot be a greater contrast to the old plan than the one the South- erners are struggling to learn now, and it might prove far better than either. Cease then, young gentlemen, this crowding into the towns, glad to be there as conductors, clerks, policemen, anything. With your diminished means and your single right arm, of course you cannot farm your great estates. But let even half of them lie fallow, if need be, they will not run away, and meantime band yourselves in com- panies of twelve or more together. Throw your capital, implements, horses, cattle, and part of your land, into a common stock, and start co-operative plantations. Try to induce the freed- men, or, if they will not, the freedwo- men, to make common cause with you in tilling the fields. Pay them wages, but also sell or advance them a share of the stock, and make them feel that in working for you they are in fact working for themselves. Build the cottages for your wives and sisters all near together, so that they can help each other, and make the most of what service from the negro women they can get. Similarly, let the ladies in the towns combine their housekeeping, and so save to the com- munity the expense of the retail trade. Connected with their co-operative kitch- ens, they could easily have preserving rooms for the preparation of the sweet- meats and other delicacies peculiar to their climate, and which, if made by the quantity, could be thrown upon the mar- ket as cheaply as the Shaker and Eng- lish and French and India preserves, and so compete for an equal sale with. them. Perhaps no women in the world; are so fitted at this moment to attempt co-operative housekeeping as the im- poverished women of the South ; theit sufferings and hardships have united them to an extraordinary degree. There is a spirit of mutual help and sacrifice and generosity among them that is just the spirit needed for such an enter- prise; and though they may be as yet ignorant of the rules of business, they are rapidly acquiring its habits and its Co-operative Housekeeping. [January, ambition, since all who can are work- ing for their daily bread, teaching, sew- ing, embroidering and preserving, doing anything that will bring them money. I now leave general considerations, which I am in truth too ignorant prop- erly to discuss, and return to the effect of co-operative housekeeping upon the household. THE SERVANTS. In the first place, as all the cooking and washing are to be done out of the house, and as much of the sewinb also as the mistress choose5, no cook or laundress or seamstress will ever come into it. Housework and table-work only will remain to be attended to; and as this can easily be undertaken by one person, many families that have hith- erto kept three servants will now keep only one, while those. that have kept one or two, by employing a woman to come in for a few hours in the morning, to put the house in order, need keep none at all. Co-operative housekeeping, then, will almost entirely blot out from our do- mestic life the SERVANT ELEMENT! Those outrageous little kingdoms of insubordination, ignorance, lying, waste, sloth, carelessness, and dirt, that we unhappy home-queens have to subdue afresh every day, and every day more unsuccessfully, will all be merged as the ood-for-nothing little German States are being swallowed by Prussia into a thoroughly organized, well-balanced central despotism, whose every depart- ment is arranged, down to its minuti~, with the most scrupulous exactness, and where lynx-eyed matrons and officers have nothing else to do but to note that each servant does exactly the right thing at the right moment, an~ knows the place for everythin~ and puts everything in its place. OUR PRESENT SYSTEM A RELIC OF SLAVERY. We mistresses who try to regulate independently these creatures who come to us we know not whence, and flit away we know not where, little realize that we are bearing up the heavy fag-end of the once universal system under which not only domestic labor, but every possible species of agricultural and manufacturing art, was carried on in the houses or on the estates of their owners by slaves who could no more dream of giving their mistresses warn- ing and leaving the following week, if they disapproved her arrangements, than they could hope to reverse the decrees of fate itself; running away when there was nothing but slavery elsewhere to run to, not holding out those rosy inducements that of late the North did to the Southern bondwo- man. Serfdom was at its last gasp in Queen Elizabeths day, but the tradi- tion of bondage remained for a hun- dred years or more. In Cromwells time servants were only paid a few dollars a year; they seldom left their places, and were glad to transmit them to their children after them. But the disorganization begun by emancipation has culminated in our American chaos, where from its very foundation the domestic temple sways and fluctuates uneasily on its ever-chan~ing basis of ill-trained and unprincipled service, creatinb an antagonistic feeling which renders the relation of mistress and servant but a cold-blooded bargain, formed in suspicion and dissolved with pleasure on the slightest provoca- tion. All our trouble comes because we are going against the spirit of the age,. which revolts a~ainst submission to an individual will, but freely subjects itself to the despotism of an organization. American-born girls, as we all know, have long abandoned domestic service for the factory, the shop, and the district school; and the Irish girls are following their example, so that under the pres- ent system it is a grave question where,. when Irish emigration ceases, the ser- vants of the next generation are to come from. Even without this prob- lem to trouble us, however, with the American idea deeply implanted in ser 34 1869.1 vants that the maid is as good as the mistress, it is absurd to hope for obedi- ence and respect, and the only way to control them is by the unalterable laws and regulations of an organized corpo- ration. The community would need fewer of them, their wages would be higher, and as service would then be as respectable and independent as factory ~vork, and (owing to the good meals and lodgings we could easily provide for them) far more com- fortable, a much better class of women would go into it than we ever see in our families, while even those who do so badly in private houses, by the accurate division of labor, and the having only one kind of/king to attend to all day lon~, would reach a higher standard of perfection than with their present diversity of duties they are capable of. FAULTS OF THE MISTRESSES. The new system would also brinb about a reform in the mistresses, for we are scarcely less to blame than the servants. Often we do not understand work ourselves, and expect more of them than is reasonable. Lounging over a magazine or a piece of fancy- work, an4 making less downright ex- ertion in a week than they do in a day, we complain of their indolence and ineffici ~ncy, forgetting that practically they are our slaves from morning until night, while, from some inscrutable and unjust arrangement of things, we, as far as they can discover, have noth- ing to do but to enjoy ourselves, and to spend constantly on the merest trifle of pleasure or adornment the sum which it costs then a whole week of inces- sant toil to earn. Worst of all, we take no care either of their happiness or their morals. We frown on their going out, on their having visitors, and are shocked if they bo to a dance or the theatre; but we do nothing at all for their pleasure. If they are ill, we send them to the hospital; if they get into disgrace, we are but too apt to aban- don them to the horrors of an unspeak- able fate. 35 REFOR JATION OF THE MISTRESSES. Did we employ them co-operatively, however, all this could be improved. Seeing their mistresses actively en- gaged for the good of the community, and accepting labor as the natural and inevitable lot of woman, they would no longer have before their eyes that de- moralizing ideal of indolent and luxuri- ous fine-ladyism which has ruined so many pleasure-loving unfortunates, and must always be discouraging even to the industrious and sober-minded among them, but they would take heart in their work, and have a pride that Ikeir function of the great domestic organism should be perfectly fulfilled also. In turn, we could provide for their pleasure and improvement. We could give them a ball four times a year, celebrate their weddings, instruct them in the evenings, watch over them in sickness, rescue them from tempta- tion, and, if they fell, help them back to respectability and virtue. When they married, by extending to their families the benefits of co-operation (either by making themselves members, or by some other arrangement), we should often be able to continue them in the service of the association; and thus the same kind solicitude, life-long help and trust, and feeling of mutual in- terest which subsisted between mistress and servant under the old slave sys- tem, and veiled many of its deformities, might return, to make both happier and better than in the lawless selfishness of the present arrangement is possible- CO-OPERATION AS AFFECTING HOUSE- KEEPERS IN GENERAL. To be a perfect housekeeper under the present system requires not only forethought, judgment, and incessant mental activity, but also practical knowl- edge and skill in various complicated industries Wholly differing from each other, for certainly there is no more affinity between sewing and cookinb, for example, than there is between fruit- growing and house-building. Thus the mistress of a family must in fact be Co-operative Housckeepbzg. 36 Co-operative liozisekeepiug. [January, many persons in one; but this is more than ought to be expected of anybody, and far more than civilized mex ask of each other. Hence the general result is just what we see to-day, ill-regulated or extravagant households, or harassed and over-worked mistresses, while ho- tels and boarding-houses are full to repletion with victims from both classes, and are constantly enlarging their bor- ders. Here and there some woman of remarkable practical ability succeeds in compassing the whole difficulty with apparent ease to herself; but even then it is generally at the neglect of the a~s- thetic and intellectual elements of mod- ern feminine culture, or by the sacrifice of the geniality, hospitality, and charity of social intercourse. In short, fix it how we may, in some direction the hu- manities and amenities are suffering all the time. With the exit of the servant element from our families, however, and the lifting from the minds of their mistress- es of all the load of care about the family meals, the family clothing, and the thousand indispensable trifles that go to make up domestic comfort and well-being, would come a great calm and freedom of spirit. The house would be, as it were, empty, swept, and garnished, and ready for all pleasant spirits to enter in and dwell there, and for all busy and beneficent enterprises to be conceived and energized there. The wife would no lonoer be obliged to neglect her charities, her accomplish- ments, or her friends. All excuse for the present prevailing feminine super- ficiality vould be taken away, and there would be no reason why every woman should not now select her o~vn specialty and perfect herself in it. In the quiet and peace of the new order of things the house-mistress would have so much time on her hands, that, though at first, with genuine feminine timidity and dis- trust of what is untried, she might have declined taking any active part in Go-operation beyond buying her mem- bership share of stock, ordering her meals and clothing, and paying for them when they were delivered, yet eventually the practical housewifely spirit of the association would commu- nicate itself to her, and she would find it for her happiness to spend two or three hours of every day in company with her friends and acquaintance, like them doing her best in co-opera- tive kitchen or laundry or sewing-room to promote the domestic comfort and social happiness of the community. CLEVER HOUSEKEEPERS WOULD ~x MORE JUSTLY REWARDED IN Co-or- ERATION THAN THEY ARE NOW. And I believe that not the smallest part of her pleasure in her work \~Tould be the sense that she was sure to be paid for it in money whatever it was worth. The labors of married women are now compensated very dif- ferently and very unjustly. Here xvill be seen a woman slaving herself to death, with one servant or none at all, up early and down late, keeping her house neat, her table supplied, her chil- dren tastefully dressed, saving and economizing in every direction, and getting for it all only the simplest food, furniture, and dress, together with an excellent chance for a quiet grave at forty; while there one of her acquaint- ance, perhaps not half so clever or so industrious as she, saunters through life surrounded with every luxury, and even looks down with contempt on her less fortunate sister. I say that now scarcely any woman stands among her own sex on her own merits, but in co-operative housekeeping this would in a measure be done away. One or two excellent housekeepers have said to me, when suggesting it as the true plan for perfect housewifery, Ah yes! but it is th~ ~faithful and energetic few who would do all the work, and the indolent or incompetent majority would reap all the benefit. Even supposing this to be true, still it is the faithful ones who work the hardest now. They would work no harder, to say the least, in a co-operative association than they do at home to-day. The difference would be that the whole community 1869.] would join in paying them a just price for their skill and effort, instead of its being a chance, as at present, whether their husbands can or will do so. Thus co-operative housekeeping, not only by accumulating capital for each member, but also by paying each of- ficer a salary, would necessarily make women partially independent of men in money matters, and in so far would shelter them from the misfortunes and cruel reverses to which they are now so helplessly exposed by the financial mistakes or ruin of their masculine pro- tectors, and which form certainly one of the hardest features of the feminine lot. For they would then have two sources of support, one, the natural mainte- nance accorded to every woman by her husband or father, and which often ex- presses more and often less than her value to him; the other, the estimate put upon her services to the co-oper- ative association by its members, the value of which must depend wholly on her own efforts and qualifications. Then if some selfish or shiftless man or, more pitiful still, some faithful and half- starved minister of Christ is able to give his bright, enterprising wife no more than six hundred or a thousand dollars a year for household expenses, she will not as now have to degrade herself into a maid-of-all-work, and toil from fourteen to sixteen hours a day in order to live on it; but, besides the third saved to the family by co-opera- tion, she might receive, as one of the able and energetic officers of the asso- ciation, from twelve to fifteen hundred dollars a year.* If here is not a stimu- lus to feminine industry and ambition, I know not where one is to be found. Its consequences are incalculable. THE EFFECT OF Co-OPERATION UPON UNSKILFUL HOUSEKEEPERS. And, in truth, the whole moral and industrial influence of the association * I beard, the other day, that the cutter in a large clothing estahli hment in Boston receives a salary of three thousand dollars. I doubt if there is a woman in the country, in any capacity, who re- ceives such a salary. 37 will so quicken and develop the fem- inine powers that no indolent or in- capable majority~ need be feared at all. Women are naturally busy, and that more of them are not now perfect house- keepers is because modern housewifery is too complicated in its details; be- cause so much comfort, luxury, and elaboration is demanded in every de- partment, that few minds are equal to the strain. But when co-operative housekeeping gives us the boon of the division of labor, something will be found suited to every capacity, and many who cannot carry on a whole house satisfactorily will succeed in a special function thoroughly well. CO-OPERATION WOULD UTILIZE ALL THE UNMARRIED WOMEN OF So- CIETY. The housekeepers really incapable of being useful in any department of co- operation are, then, so few that they need not be counted at all. It is rather the invalids and nursing mothers for whom we must find substitutes. Now, since by Article II. of the constitution the housekeepers may select their officers and agents from the whole range of their feminine acquaintance, here will be a chance for the widows and the unmarried women over eighteen near- ly all of whom are dependent to be- come honorable and self-supporting members of society. Those under twenty-five, and who have left school, could fill the minor offices and clerk- ships of the association; while the older ones, as they have fewer home cares and ties than the mistresses of families, could, if they chose, give to business more than the daily three hours before recommended, and thus not only gain larger salaries, but be in fact among the most valuable officers of the associ- ation. How much better, too, would it be for the girls who now waste the most precious years of their lives in mere waitin~, for marriage, to take their places by the side of their mothers or aunts in carrying on the serious busi- ness of the community, and thus learn beforehand how to be in their turn, Co-operative Housekeepiizg. Co-operative Housekeeping. [January, 38 also, co-operative housekeepers. In truth, the employment of this expensive, and now nearly useless, class would not only be a vast economy to society, bpt would go far to solve its most per- plexing problem, and assist in curing its worst evil. For its worst evil is the social evil, and its most perplexing problem is how to make early marriages prudent; since it is the difficulty of the latter which is made the chief excuse for the former. Now, while there is no doubt that the social evil is greatly enhanced by the unnatural lateness of marriage through- out the civilized world, vet the history of all other crime and lawlessness proves clearly enough that it exists in its present dimensions chiefly because Ikere is ;lo public okitziou agJz/Ist it. Who is to create this opinion? Not the men, for obvious reasons. Only the sex which is its real victim can be expected to begin the crusade against it; but this women cannot do success- fully unless they are a power in society, which now I deny them to be. The real powers in society are the youn~ men, and they are its despots; while the young birls (and their mothers too) are their cringing suppliants and flat- terers, and this to such an extent that they dare not be independent in their characters, their pursuits, or even their principles.* They see that those among them who dress the best, dance the best, and are the most sweetly compla- cent to the other sex, also marry the best and the soonest. With what jus- tice, then, do the newspapers keep up this perpetual scolding at them be- cause they ~nd the serious business of their lives in trimming their hats and walking-suits, and dancing the German, when yet their fate turns so much upon ~ese very externals? Not the bright, original, seIf-devoted girl is the popular belle, but the faultlessly appointed floating statue, whose mind is given * If this be disputed, witness the round dauce question glone, which the young men have so suc- cessfully carried against the disapproval of the moth- ers and the scruples of the daughters, simply by ~neglecting the young ladies who refused to join in such dances. over to rust and sloth, but whose per- fect use of the meaning smile and the meaningless laugh throws such deep witchery over the severe commonplaces of her conversation. This product of high conventional art the young men are not afraid of. She does not know too much; she is feminine; she is a success ; and some fine fellow soon leads her to the altar in white satin and vapory veil, while the poor child of na- ture, who tried to live for something higher than clothes, either never mar- ries at all, or, after a long time, drops quietly off with some insignificant per- son that nobody ever heard of. The girls must be dull indeed on whom the frequent recurrence of the above phenomena makes no impression, and it does mischievously impress many of the best of them, so that I have fre- quently remarked girls of noble powers purposely living down to the stultified ideal of their social monarchs. A young lady beJonging to th~ most fashionable and exclusive circle of Boston society once showed me a humorous poem she had written as a school-girl ; and when I praised it, and asked her why she did not cultivate her literary talent, she re- plied, 0, I feel I could do a great deal, I could do anything if I were only encouraged to it. But it is all the other way. Why, it is perfect death to a girl in society to care for such things. The phrase may have been an exagger- ation, and I leave fashionable young ladies to explain it; but if it could be said of intellectual Boston, what must be the requisite mental feebleness of the belles in other cities? Whence, then, the fatal spell that com- pels young girls, even when they natu- rally prefer higher things, to spend the freest, freshest, most beautiful years of their lives in trifles and the chase after butterflies, content if they are favor- ites with gentlemen, if they are con- sidered jolly, and if they have a good time? A writer in the Na- tion has justly remarked that girls seem to be educated with the view of 1869.] pleasing young men at the age when these are the least worthy of being pleased. But why must they please young men? Primarily, because they do not earn their own living. They are burdens at home upon their fathers, and when they marry, they will be burdens upon their husbands. The young man therefore holds in hisgift for the young girl, not only what she too keeps for him, love, but also support, posi- tion, social consideration and dignity, enjoyment, in short, the whole of that ordinary human success which she can- not achieve for herself, but must receive from him alone. She is the trembling, silken courtier before the absolute des- pot, and with so much at stake, she can- not venture to exact anything from him. I repeat it, I believe young men to be so immoral principally because women are in no condition to insist on their virtue ; because, let them run almost what private career of vice they please, they know well enough that they can marry whenever they like, and almost whom they like, and that no ques- tions will be asked or conditions de- manded, no, not even by the girls own mothers! When, however, every young girl, on leavin b school, be~ins at once to sup- port herself in the co-operative associ- ation; when she knows that she could be married to-morrow, and be no addi- tional burden to her husband; when, too, as the member of a great industrial organization, she has a thousand eager and absorbing interests along with the married and unmarried of her own sex, 39 so that life is not a dull craving after a change or an excitement, but a round of healthy mental and physical activity all the time, then she will begin to look on the young man with different eyes, not as the lawless arbiter of her destiny, but as a being to be loved and chosen according to his real value. Her acquaintance with him will not be that of the German merely, astute social device for getting young people alone together in a crowd, but the cool morning hours will also brinb her into practical business relations with him (since ladies will not g~ to the im- porters and manufacturers, but they or their agents will send samples to them). Thus she will learn something of him as a man, instead of meeting him only as a beau ; and, knowing her own worth, she will come to demand ~vorth in him. The dignity and sacredness of wise and gracious womanhood will at length as- sert itself; and as the maiden gradually rises into a true aid and companion for man in his advanced intellectual and material condition, so the youth will have to make, and will rejoice in mak- ing, greater moral sacrifices to win her, will scorn all baser passion, and fling himself a stainless knight at his shining ladys feet. Then no more will girlish hope and freshness fade, or manly ardor and purity perish while waiting until they can afford 0 lamentable word! to marry; but early marriage, the crown of human bliss, the safeguard of society, and the only cure for its direst ill, will return to bless the earth with all its old triumphant fruits of Love and Joy. Co-operc~tive Housekeeping. Zn the Tezitobzirger Forest. [January, 40 No part of Germany is so monoto- nous and unlovely as that plain which the receding waves of the North Sea left behind them. The stranger who lands at Bremen or Hamburg en- ters upon a dead, sandy level, where fields of lean and starveling cereals in- terchange with heathery moorlands and woods of dwarfish pine. Each squat, ugly farm-house looks as lonely as if there were no others in sight; the vil- lages are collections of similar houses, huddled around a church-tower so thick and massive that it seems to be the lookout of a fortress. The patient in- dustry of the people is here manifested in its plainest and sturdiest forms, and one cannot look for the external embel- lishments of life, where life itself is so much of an achievement. As we advance southward the scen- ery slowly improves. The soil deepens and the trees rise ; the purple heather clings only to the occasional sandy ridges, between which greenest mead- ows gladden our eyes. Groves of oak make their appearance; brooks wind and sparkle among alder thickets; the low undulations swell into broad, gen- tly rounded hills, and at last there is a wavy blue line along the horizon. If you are travelling from Hanover to Minden, some one will point out a notch, or gap, in that rising mountain outline, and tell you that it is the Porta Westphalica, the gateway by which the river Weser issues from the Teu- toburger Forest. I had already explored nearly every nook of Middle Germany, from the Hartz to the Odenwald; yet this the storied ground of the race was still an unknown region. Although so ac- cessible, especially from the celebrated waterin~-place of Pyrmont, whence any of its many points of interest may be reached in a days drive, I found little about it in the guide-books, and less in books of travel. Yet here, one may say, is the starting-point of German IN THE TEUTOBURGER FOREST. ~ - 1, 7 history. Herman and Wittekin~ are the two great representatives of the race, in its struggles against Roman and Christian civilization; and the fact that it adopted both the one and the other, and through them developed into its later eminence, does not lessen the val- ue of those names. Indeed, the power of resistance measures the power of acceptance and assimilation. It was harvest-time as I sped by rail towards Minden along the northern base of the mountains. Weeks of drouth and heat had forced the fields into premature ripeness, and the lush green meadows were already waiting for the aftermath. About Biickeburg the rye-fields were full of reapers, in an almost extinct costume, the men in heavy fur caps, loose white over-shirts, and boots reaching to the knee; the women with black head-dress, bodice, and bright scarlet petticoat. These tints of white, scarlet, and black shone splendidly among the sheaves, and the pictures I saw made me keen-- ly regret that progress has rendered mankind so commonplace in costume.. When I first tramped through Ger- many, in 1845, every province had its distinctive dress, and the stamp of the country people was impressed upon the landscapes of their homes; but now a great levelling wave has swept over the country, washinb out all these pictu- resque characteristics, and leaving the universal modern commonplace in their stead. If the latter were graceful, or cheap, or practically convenient, we might accept the change; but it is none of these. Fashion has at last combined ugliness and discomtort in our clothing,. and the human race is satisfied. Soon after leaving Minden the road bends sharply southwards, and enters the Porta Westphalica, a break in the \Veser Mountains which is abrupt and lofty enough to possess a certain grand- eur. The eastern bank rises from the water in a broken, rocky wall to the

Zn the Tezitobzirger Forest. [January, 40 No part of Germany is so monoto- nous and unlovely as that plain which the receding waves of the North Sea left behind them. The stranger who lands at Bremen or Hamburg en- ters upon a dead, sandy level, where fields of lean and starveling cereals in- terchange with heathery moorlands and woods of dwarfish pine. Each squat, ugly farm-house looks as lonely as if there were no others in sight; the vil- lages are collections of similar houses, huddled around a church-tower so thick and massive that it seems to be the lookout of a fortress. The patient in- dustry of the people is here manifested in its plainest and sturdiest forms, and one cannot look for the external embel- lishments of life, where life itself is so much of an achievement. As we advance southward the scen- ery slowly improves. The soil deepens and the trees rise ; the purple heather clings only to the occasional sandy ridges, between which greenest mead- ows gladden our eyes. Groves of oak make their appearance; brooks wind and sparkle among alder thickets; the low undulations swell into broad, gen- tly rounded hills, and at last there is a wavy blue line along the horizon. If you are travelling from Hanover to Minden, some one will point out a notch, or gap, in that rising mountain outline, and tell you that it is the Porta Westphalica, the gateway by which the river Weser issues from the Teu- toburger Forest. I had already explored nearly every nook of Middle Germany, from the Hartz to the Odenwald; yet this the storied ground of the race was still an unknown region. Although so ac- cessible, especially from the celebrated waterin~-place of Pyrmont, whence any of its many points of interest may be reached in a days drive, I found little about it in the guide-books, and less in books of travel. Yet here, one may say, is the starting-point of German IN THE TEUTOBURGER FOREST. ~ - 1, 7 history. Herman and Wittekin~ are the two great representatives of the race, in its struggles against Roman and Christian civilization; and the fact that it adopted both the one and the other, and through them developed into its later eminence, does not lessen the val- ue of those names. Indeed, the power of resistance measures the power of acceptance and assimilation. It was harvest-time as I sped by rail towards Minden along the northern base of the mountains. Weeks of drouth and heat had forced the fields into premature ripeness, and the lush green meadows were already waiting for the aftermath. About Biickeburg the rye-fields were full of reapers, in an almost extinct costume, the men in heavy fur caps, loose white over-shirts, and boots reaching to the knee; the women with black head-dress, bodice, and bright scarlet petticoat. These tints of white, scarlet, and black shone splendidly among the sheaves, and the pictures I saw made me keen-- ly regret that progress has rendered mankind so commonplace in costume.. When I first tramped through Ger- many, in 1845, every province had its distinctive dress, and the stamp of the country people was impressed upon the landscapes of their homes; but now a great levelling wave has swept over the country, washinb out all these pictu- resque characteristics, and leaving the universal modern commonplace in their stead. If the latter were graceful, or cheap, or practically convenient, we might accept the change; but it is none of these. Fashion has at last combined ugliness and discomtort in our clothing,. and the human race is satisfied. Soon after leaving Minden the road bends sharply southwards, and enters the Porta Westphalica, a break in the \Veser Mountains which is abrupt and lofty enough to possess a certain grand- eur. The eastern bank rises from the water in a broken, rocky wall to the 1869.] In the Teutoburger Forest. 4 height of near five hundred feet; the western slants sufficiently to allow foot- hold for trees, and its summit is two hundred feet higher. The latter is called Wittekinds Mount, from a tradition that the famous Saxon king once had a fortress upon it. Some- where in the valley which lies within~ this Westphalian Gate is the scene of the last battle between Hermann and Germanicus. Although the field of action of both those leaders extended over the greater part of Northern Ger- many, the chief events which decided their fortunes took place within the narrow circle of these mountains. I passed through Oeynhausen, a bright, cheerful watering-place, named after the enterprising baron who drove an Artesian shaft to the depth of two thousand feet, and brought a rich saline stream to the surface; and at Herford, the next station, left the line of rail. I looked in vain for the towers of Enger, a league or so to the west, where Wit- tekind died as a Christian prince, and where his bones still rest. Before turn- ing aside for Detmold and the hills of the Teutoburger Forest, let me very briefly recall the career of that spiritual suc- cessor of Hermann. Nothing certain is known of Witte- kinds descent or early history. We first hear of him as one of the leaders of the Saxons in the invasion of West- phalia, which they undertook in the year 774, while Charlemagne was occu- pied in subduing the Lombards. Three years later, when this movement was suppressed and the greater part of the Saxon chiefs took the oath of fidelity to the Emperor at Paderborn, Wittekind fled to the court of his brother-in-law, King Siegfried of Jutland. He returned in 778, while Charlemagne was in Spain, driving back the Saracens, and devas- tated the lands of the Rhine. After carrying on the war with varying suc- cess for four years, he finall)? surprised and almost annihilated the Frank army at the S~ntelberg, notfarfro m Hameln, on the Weser. Enraged at his defeat, Charlemagne took a horrible revenge: ihe executed forty-five hui~dred Saxons, who were in his hands. All the tribes rose in revolt, acknowledged Wittekind as their king, and for three years more continued the desperate struggle, the end of which was a compromise. Wit- tekind received Christian baptism, was made Duke of Saxony, and, according to tradition, governed the people twenty years longer, from his seat at Enger, as a just and humane prince. The Em- peror Karl IV. there built him a monu- ment in the year 1377. At Herford I took my place in the diligence for Detmold, with a horse- dealer for company on the way. It was a journey of three hours, through a very pleasant and beautiful country, lying broad and warm in the shelter of circling mountains, veined with clear, many-branched streams, and wooded with scattered groves of oak and beech. If there was any prominent feature of the scenery, as distinguished from that of other parts of Germany, it was these groves, dividing the bright meadows and the golden slopes of harvest, with their dark, rounded masses of foliage, as in the midland landscapes of Eng- land. The hills to the south, en- tirely clothed with forests, increased in height as we followed their course in a parallel line, and long before we reached Detmold I saw the monument to Hermann, crowning the Grotenburg, a summit more than a thousand feet above the valley. The little capital was holding its an- nual horse-fair, yet I had no trouble in finding lodgings at one of its three inns, and should have thought the streets de- serted if I had not been told that they were unusually lively. The principality of Lippe has a population of a little more than a hundred thousand, yet none of the appurtenances of a court and state are wanting. There is an old ancestral castle, a modern palace, a theatre, barracks and government build- ings, not so large as in Berlin, to be sure, but just as important in the eyes of the people. A stream which comes down from the mountains feeds a broad, still moat, encompassing three sides of the old castle and park, beyond which 42 Liz the Teutoburger Forest. [January, the fairest meadows stretch away to the setting sun. Ducks and geese on the water, children paddling in the shal- lows, cows coming horn e from the pas- tures, and men and women carrying hay or vegetables, suggested a quiet coun- try village rather than a stately resi- dour; but I was very careful not to say so to any Detmolder. The repose and seclusion of the place took hold of my fancy: I walked back and forth, through the same streets and linden-shaded av- enues in the long summer evening, find- ing idyis at every turn; but, alas! they floated formlessly by and faded in the sunset. Detmold is the birthplace of the poet Freiligrath, and I went into the two bookstores to see if they kept his po- ems, which they did not. Fifty years hence, perhaps, they will have a statue of him. As I sat in my lonely room at the inn, waiting for bedtime, my thou0hts went back to that morning by the lake of Zurich, when I first met the banished .poet; to pleasant evenings at his house in Hackney; and to the tri- umphant reception which, at Cologne, a few days before, had welcomed him back to Germany. This was the end of twen- ty-three years of exile, the beginnin~ of which I remembered. Noble, unselfish, and consistent as his political course had been, had he followed it to his det- riment as a poet, or had he bridged the gulf which separates the Muses from party conflicts? That was the question, and it was not so easy to resolve. Poesy will cheer as a friend, but she will not serve. She will not be driven from that broad field of humanity, wherein the noise of parties is swallowed up, and the colors of their banners are scarcely to be distinguished. Freiligrath has written the best political poems in the German Ian b uage, and hi slife has been the brilliant illustration of his princi- ples ; yet I doubt whether The Dead to the Livin~, will outlive the Lion-Ride. I picked up, however, a description of the Teutoburger Forest, written by the Cantor Sauerkinder of Detmold, a little book which no one but a full- blooded Teuton could have written. Fa tiguingly minute, conscientious to the last degree, overflowing with love for the subject, exhaustive on all points, whether important or not, the style or, rather, utter lack of style so placed the unsuspecting author before the readers mind, that it was impossible to mistake him, a mild, industrious, harmless egotist, who talks on and on, and never once heeds whether you are listening to his chatter. I took him with me, but engaged, in addition, a young gardener of the town, and we set out in the bright, hot morn- ing. My plan for the day embraced the monument to Hermann on the Gro- tenburg, the conjectured field of the de- feat of Varus, and the celebrated Extern Rocks. Cool paths through groves of oak led from the town to the foot of the mountain, having reached which I took out the Cantor, and read: From this point to the near forest the footpath mounts by a very palpable grade, wherefore the wanderer will find him- self somewhat fatigued, besides suffer- in:, (frequently) from the burning rays of the sun, against which, however, it is possible to screen ones self by an umbrella, for wkick reason I would ven- ture to suggest a moderate gait, and observant pauses at various points ! Verily, if his book had been special- ly prepared for the reigning prince, Paul Friedrich Emil Leopold, he could not have been more considerate. The fatiguing passage, nevertheless, was surmoUnted in ten minutes, and thenceforth we were in the shade of the forest. At about two thirds of the height the path came upon a Hiinen- ring, or Druid circle, one of the largest in Germany. It is nearly five hundred feet in diameter, with openings on the north and south, and the walls of rough stones are in some places twenty feet high. Large trees are growin~ upon them. There was another and greater ring around the crest of the mountain, but it has been thrown down and al- most obliterated. German antiquarians consider these remains as sufficient ev- idence to prove that this is the genuine Teutoburg, the fortress of Teut, or hi //ic Teutoburger Forest. Tuisco, the chief personage of the orig- inal Teutonic mythology. They also derive the name of Detmold from Theotmalle, the place of Teut. The~e can he no doubt as to the character of the circles,, or their great antiquity; and, moreover, to locate the Teutoburg here explains the desperate resistance of the tribes of this region both to Rome and to Charlemagne. Near the summit I found some traces of the greater circle, many of th~ stones of which were used, very appropriately, for the foundation of the monument to Hermann. This structure stands i~ an open, grassy space, enclosed by a young growth of fir-trees. It is still incom- plete; hut we, who long ago stopped work on the colossal Washington obe- lisk, have no right to reproach the German people. Thirty years ago the Bavarian sculptor Von Bandel exhib- ited the design of a stafue to Her- mann. The idea appealed to that long- ing for German unity the realization of which seemed then so distant; socie- ties were formed, collections made, fairs held for the object, and the temple- shaped pedestal, commenced in 1841, was finished in 1846, at a cost of for- ty thousand thalers. The colossal stat- ue which should crown it demanded an equal sum, two thirds of which, I am told, has been contrihuted. Parts of the figure have been already cast, and the sculptor, now nearly seventy years old, still hopes to see the dream of his life fulfilled. But the impression has gone ahroad that the strength of the winds, sweeping unchecked from the Rhine and from Norway across the Northern Sea, is so great upon this Teutoburger height, that the statue would probably he thrown down, if erected. A committee of architects and engineers has declared that, with proper anchorage, the figure will stand; yet the co~tributions have ceased. The design of the temple-base is very simple and massive. On a circular foundation, sixty feet in diameter by eleven in height, stands a structure composed of ten clustered pillars, con- nected by pointed arches, the outer spans of which are cut to represent stems of oak, while heavy garlands of oak-leaves are set in the triangular in- terspaces. The first rude beginning of Gothic art is here suggested, not as a growth from the Byzantine and Saracen- ic schools, but as an autochthonous pro- duct. Over the cornice, which is fifty feet above the base, rises a solid hemi- sphere of masonry, terminating in a ring twenty-five feet in diameter, which is to receive the metal base of the co- lossus. The latter will be ninety feet in height to the point of the sword, mak- ing the entire height of the monument a hundred and eighty-two feet. I mounted to the summit, and looked over the tops of the forest upon a broad and beautiful panoramic ring of land- scape. The well-wooded mountains of the region divided the rich valleys and harvest lands which they enclosed. On all sides except the xvest they melted away in the summer haze; there they sank into the tawny Westphalian plain, once the land of marshes, traversed by the legions of Varus. While yonder, beyond the ring of the forests sacred to Teut, the fields were withering and the crops wasting in the sun, here they dave their fullest bounty; here the streams were full, the meadows green, and the land laughed with its abun- dance. From this point I overlooked all the great battle-fields of I-Iermann and Wittekind. The mountains do not constitute, as I had supposed, a natural stronghold; but in their heart lies the warmest and most fertile region of Northern Germany. In the neighboring hostelry there is a plaster model of the waiting statue. Hermann, with the winged helmet upon his head, and clad in a close leathern coat reaching nearly to the knee, is represented as addressing his warriors. The action of the uplifted right arm is good, but the left hand rests rather idly upon the shield, instead of unconscious- ly repeating in the grip of the fingers the energy of the rest of the figure. The face ideal, of course is quite as much Roman as Teuton, the nose being aquiline, the eyebrows straight, 1869.] 43 44 In the Teutoburger Forest. [January, and the lips very clearly and regularly cut. To me the physiognomy would indicate dark hair and beard. I found the body somewhat heavy and ungrace- ful; but as it was to be seen from below, and in very different dimensions, the effect may be all that is designed. In the Hall of Busts in the Museum of the Capitol, in Rome, there is a head which has recently attracted the inter- est of German archaeologists. It stands alone among the severe Roman and the exquisitely balanced Grecian heads, like a genial phenomenon of character totally distinct from theirs. When I stood before it, a little puzzled, and wondering at the absurd label of CE- CROPS? affixed to the pedestal, I had not learned the grounds for con- jecturing that it may be a portrait of him whom Tacitus calls Arminius; yet I felt that here was a hero, of whom history must have some knowledge. It is certainly a blond head, with abun- dant locks, a beard sprouting thinly and later than in the South, strong cheek-bones, a nose straight but not Grecian, and lips which somehow ex- press good-fellowship, vanity, and the habit of command. The sculptor Ban- del made a great mistake in not boldly accepting the conjecture as fact, and giving Hermann this head. Dr. Emil Braun considers that it is undoubtedly a bust of one of the young German chiefs who were educated at the court of Aubustus; and he adds, very truly, If this can be proven, it will be of great importance as a testimony of the intellectual development of the German race, even in those early times. Hermann, who was born in the year i6 B. C., must have gone to Rome as a boy, during the campaigns of Drusus and Tiberius in Northern Germany. He became not only a citizen, but a Roman knight, was intrusted with the command of a German legion, and fought in Pannonia. He acquired the Latin tongue, and acquainted himself with the military and civil science of the Romans. Had the wise and cau- tious policy of Tiberius been followed, be might have died as a Consul of the Empire; but the brutal rule of Varus provoked the tribes to resistance, and Hermann became a German again. He turned against Rome the tactics he had learned in her service, enticed Varus away from the fortified line of the Rhine, across the marshes of the Lippe, and on the southern slope of the Teutoburger Forest, in a three days battle fought amid the autumn storms, annihilated the Roman army of fifty thousand men. Well might the Im- perial city tremble, and the old Augus- tus cry out to the shade of the slain commander, Varus, Varus, give me back my legions! For five years the sovereignty of Hermann and the independence of his people were not disturbed. But after the death of Augustus, in the year 14 AD., Germanicus determined to re- store the prestige of the Roman arms. In the mean time Hermann had mar- ried Thusnelda, daughter of Segestus, another chief of the Cheruski, who had reclaimed her by force in consequence of a quarrel, and was then besieged by his son-in-law. Segestus called the Romans to his aid, and delivered Thus- nelda into their hands to grace, two years later, the triumph decreed to Germanicus. Hermann, infuriated by the loss of a wife whom he loved, sum- moned the tribes to war, and the Roman commander collected an army of eighty thousand men. The latter succeeded in burying the bones of Varus and his legions, and was then driven back with great loss. Return- ing in the year x6 with a still larger army, he met the undaunted Hermann on the Weser, near Hamela. The ter- rible battle fought there, and a second near the Porta Westphalica, were claimed as victories by the Romans, yet were followed by a retreat to the fortresses on the Rhine. Germanicus was preparing a third campaign when he was recalled by the jealous Tiberius. The Romans never abain penetrated into this part of Germany. Hermann might have founded a na- tion but for the fierce jealousy of the other chieftains of his race. He was 1869.] In 1/ic Tczdobwrger Forest. victorious in the civil wars which en- sued, but was waylaid and murdered by members of his own family in the year 21. 1-us short life of thirty-seven years is an unbroken story of heroism. Even Tacitus, to whom we are in- debted for these particulars, says of him: He was undoubtedly the lib- erator of Germany, having dared to grapple with the Roman power, not in its beginnings, like other kings and commanders, but in the maturity of its strength. He was not always victo- rious in battle, but in war he was never subdued. He still lives in the songs of the Barbarians, unknown to the annals of the Greeks, who only admire that which belongs to themselves, nor celebrated as he deserves by the Romans, who, in praising the olden times, neglect the events of the later years.~~ Leaving the monument, my path fol- lowed the crest of the mountain for two or three miles, under a continuous roof of beech. Between the smooth, clean boles I looked down upon the hot and shining valley, where the leaves hung motionless on the trees, but up on the shaded ridge of the hills there was a steady, grateful breeze. The gardener was not a very skilful guide, and only brouoht me to the Wi;wefeld (Win- field) after a roundabout ramble. I found myself at the head of a long, bare slope, falling to the southwest, where it terminated in three dells, divided by spurs of the range. The town of Lipp- springe, in the distance, marked the site of the fountains mentioned by Tacitus. The Winnefeld lies on the course which an army would take, marching from those springs to assault the Teu- toburg, and the three dells, wooded then as now, would offer rare chances of am- buscade and attack. There is no difficul- ty in here locating the defe4t of Varus. That the Teuton victory was not solely the result of Hermanns military skill is proven by the desperate bravery with which his warriors confronted the le- gions of Germanicus five years later. Standing upon this famous battle- field, one cannot but recall the subse 45 quent relations of Germany and Rome, which not only determined the history of the Middle Ages, but set in action many of the forces which shape the present life of the world. The seat of power was transplanted, it was exercised by another race, but its elements were not changed. Hermann, a knight of Rome, learned in her service how to resist her, and it was still the Roman mind which governed Italy while she was a defiant dependency of the Ger- man Empire. Charlemagne took up the uncompleted ~vork of Germanicus, and was the true avenger of Varus, after nearly eight hundred years. The ca- reer of Hermann, though so splendidly heroic, does not mark the beginning of Germany; the race only began to de- velop after its complete subjection to the laws and arts and ideas of Rome. Thus the marvellous Empire triumphed at last. I descended the bare and burning slopes of the mountain into a little val- ley, plunged into a steep forest beyond, and, after plodding wearily for an hour or more, found myself as nearly as I could guess, on the banks of a brook that descends to the town of Horn. The gardener seemed at fault, yet insist- ed on leading me contrary to my instinct of the proper course. We had not gone far, however, when a mass of rock, ris- ing like a square tower above the wooded ridge to the eastward, signalled our destination; and my .liscomfited guide turned about silently, and made towards it, I following, through thickets and across swamps, until we reached the highway. The Extern Rocks (Ex1ernsteine~ have a double interest for the traveller. They consist of five detached masses of gray sandstone, one hundred and twenty-five feet in height, irregularly square in form, and with diameters varying from thirty to fifty feet. They are planted on a grassy slope, across the mouth of a glen opening from the mountains. Only a few tough shrubs hang from the crevices in their sides, but the birch-trees on the summits shoot high into the air and print their sprin 46 In the Tezitobnrger Forest. [January, kied leaves on the sky. The hills of the Teutoburger Forest are rounded and cliffless, and the same formation, it is said, does not reappear elsewhere. In the base of the most northern of these rocks a chapel, thirty-six feet long, has been hewn, hut when, or by whom, are matters of conjecture. Some very imaginative antiquaries insist that the Romans captured by Hermana were here sacrificed to the pagan gods; others find evidence that the place was once dedicated to the worship of Mithras (the sun) ; but the work must probably be ascribed to the early Teutonic Christians. The rocks are first mentioned in a document of the year 1093. On the outer wall of the chapel there is a tablet of sculpture, in high relief sixteen feet by twelve, which is undoubtedly the earliest ~vork~of the kind in Germany. Its Byzantine char- acter is not to be mistaken, and, judg- ing by the early Christian sculptures and mosaics in Italy, it may be as old as the ninth or tenth century. The tablet is in three compartments, the lower one representing the Fall of Man, the cen- tre the Descent from the Cross, while at the top the Almighty receives the soul of the Son in his arms, and holds forth the Banner of the Cross. Al- though mutilated, weather-beaten, and partly veiled in obscuring moss, the pathos of the sculpture makes itself felt through all the grotesqueness of its forms. Goethe, who saw it, says: The head of the sinking Saviour leans against the countenance of the mother, and is gently supported by her hand, a beautiful, reverent touch of expression which we find in no other representa- tion of the subject. The drapery also, though stiff, has yet the simplicity and dignity which we so rarely find in mod- ern art. Two of the rocks may be ascended by means of winding stairways cut in their sides. On the summit of the first there is a level platform, with a stone table in the centre, probably the work of the monks, to whom the place be- longed in the Middle Ages. By climb- ing the central rock, and crossing a bridge to the next, one reaches a sec- ond chapel, eighteen feet in length, with a rock-altar at the farther end. It is singular that there is no record of the origin of this remarkable work. We know that the spirit of the Teutonic mythology lived long after the introduc- tion of Christianity, and the monks may have here found and appropriated one of its sacred places. By the time I reached the town of Horn, a mile or so from the base of the mountains, I was too scorched and weary to go farther afoot, and, while wait- ing dinner in the guests-room of the inn, looked about for a means of con- veyance. Three or four stout Pkilister, drinking beer at an adjoining table, were boumad for Steinheim, which was on my way; and the landlord said, An extra post~ will be expensive, but these gentlemen might make room for you in their carriage. They looked at each other and at me. We are already seven, said one, and must be squeezed as it is. By no means, I replied to the landlord ; get me an extra post. Both vehicles were ready at the same time. In the mean time I bad entered into conversation with one of the party, a bright, cheerful young man,and told him that I should be glad to have company on the way. Why did you engage an extra post? they all exclaimed. It is expensive we are onlyfive: you might have gone with us, we could easily make room for you! Yet, while making these exclama- tions, they picked out the oldest and least companionable of their party, and bundled him into my. expensive car- riage! I never saw anything more coolly done. I had meant to have the agreeable, not the stupid member, but was caught, and could not help myself. However, I managed to extract a little amusement from my companion as we went along. He was a Detmolder, after confessing which he remarked, Now I knew where you came from before you had spoken ten words. Indeed! Where, then? 1869.] In i/ic Teutoburger Forest. 47 Why, from Bielefeld! My laughter satisfied the old fellow that he had guessed correctly, and thenceforth he talked so much about Bielefeld that it finally became impos- sible to conceal my ignorance of the place. I set him down in Steinheim, dismissed the extra post, and, as the evening was so bright and balmy, de- termined to go another stage on foot. I had a letter to a young nobleman, whose estate lay near a village some four or five miles farther on the road to H6xter. The small boy ~vhom I took as guide was communicative; the scenery was of the sweetest pastoral character; the mellow light of sunset struck athwart the golden hills of har- vest, the lines of alder hedge, and the meadows of winding streams ,andl loitered along the road, full of delight in the renewal of my old pedestrian freedom. It was dusk when I reached the vil~ lage. The one cottage inn did not promise much comfort; but the bar- ons castle was beyond, and I was too tired to go farther. The landlord was a petty magistrate, evidently one of the pillars of the simple village society and he talked well and intelligently, while his daughter cooked my supper. The bare rooms were clean and orderly, and the night was so warm that no harm was done when the huge globe of feathers under which I was expected to sleep rolled off the bed, and lay upon the floor until morning. Sending my letter to the castle, I presently received word that the young baron was absent from home, but that his mother would receive me. As I emerged from the shadows of the nar- ro i village street into the breezeless, burning air of the morning, the whole estate lay full and fair in view, a thousand acres of the finest harvest land, lying in the lap of a bowl-shaped valley, beyond which rose a wooded mountain range. In the centre of the landscape a group of immemorial oaks and lindens hid the castle from view, hut a broad and stately linden avenue connected it with the highway. There were scores of reapers in the fields, and their dwellings, with the barns and stables, almost formed a second village. The castle a square mass of building, with a paved court-yard in the centre was about three hundred years old; but it had risen upon the foundations of a much older edifice. The baroness met me at the door, with her two daughters, and ushered me into a spacious room, the ceiling of which, low and traversed by huge beams of oak, was supported by a massive pillar in the centre. The bare oaken floor was brightly polished; a gallery of ancestral portraits decked the walls, but the furniture was modern and luxurious. After a friendly scold- ing for not claiming the castles hospi- tality the night before, one of the daughters brought refreshments, just as a Burgfrdzdeiu of the Middle Ages might have done, except that she did not taste the goblet of wine before of- fering it. The ladies then conducted me through a range of apartments, every one of which contained some pic- turesque record of the past. The old building was pervaded with a mellow atmosphere of age and use; although it was not the original seat of the fam- ily, their own ancestral heirlooms had adapted themselves to its physiognomy, and seemed to continue its traditions. Just enough of modern taste was visible to suggest home comforts and conven- iences; all else seemed as old as the Thirty Years War. After inspecting the house, we issued upon the ~leasaunce, a high bosky space resting on the outer wall of the castle, and looking down upon the old moat, still partially full of water. It was a labyrinth of shady paths, of ar- bors with leaf-enframed windows open- ing towards the mountains, and of open, sunny spaces rich with flowers. The baroness called my attention to two splendid magnolia-trees, and a clump of the large Japanesejolygonurn. This, she said, pointing to the latter, was given to my husband by Dr. von Sie- bold, who brought it from Japan; the magnolias came from seeds planted In the Teutoburger Forest. forty years ago. They were the most northern specimens of the trees I had found upon the continent of Europe. But the oaks and lindens around the castle were more wonderful than these exotic growths. Each one was a for- est waving on a single stem. The young baron was not expected to return before the evening, and I was obliged to continue my journey, though every feature of the place wooed me to stay. But at least, urged the host- ess, you must visit my husbands twin brother, who is still living at the old burg. We were going to send for him to-day, and we will send you along. This was a lift on my way; and, more- over, it was a pleasure to meet a gen- tleman of whom I had heard so much, a thinker, a man of scientific culture, and a poet, yet unknown to the world in either of these characters. The youngest daughter of the house made ready to accompany me, and presently a light open wagon, drawn by a span of ponies, came to the door. After my yesterdays tramp in the for- est it was a delightful change. The young lady possessed as much intelli- gence as refinement, and with her as a guide the rich scenery through which we passed assumed a softer life, a more gracious sentiment. From the ridge before us rose the lofty towers of a church attached to an extinct monas- tery, the massive buildings of which are now but half tenanted by some farmers; on the right a warm land of grain stretched away to the Teuto- burger Forest; on the left, mountains clothed with beech and oak basked in the sun. We passed the monastery, crossed a wood, and dropped into a wild, lonely valley among the hills. Here the Oldenburg, as it is called, al- ready towered above us, perched upon the bluff edge of a mountain cape. It was a single square mass of the brown- est masonry, seventy or eighty feet high, with a huge, steep, and barn-like roof. It dominated alone over the beech woods; no other human habita- tion was in sight. When we reached the summit, bow- ever, I found that the old building was no longer tenanted. Behind it lay a pond, around which were some build- ings connected with the estate, and my fair guide led the way to the farther door of a house in which the laboring people lived. She went to seek her uncle, while I waited in a room so plainly furnished that an American farm- er would have apologized for it. Pres- ently I was summoned up stairs, where the old baron caught me by both hands, and pressed me down into his own arm-chair before it was possible to say a word. His room was as simple as the first; but books and water-color drawings showed the tastes of its occu- pant. It was truly the head of a poet upon which I looked. Deep-set, spiritual eyes shone under an expansive brow, over which fell some thin locks of silky gray hair; the nose was straight and fine, with delicate, sensitive nostrils, and there was a rare expression of sweet- ness and purity in the lines of the mouth. It needed no second glance to see that the old man was good and wise and noble and perfectly lovable. My impulse was to sit on a stool at his feet, as I have seen a young English poet sitting at the feet of good Barry Cornwall, and talk to him with my arms resting upon his knees. But he drew his chair close beside me, and took my hand from time to time, as he talked; so that it was not long before our thoughts ran together, and each anticipated the words of the other. Now tell me, about my friend, said he. We were inseparable as students, and as long as our paths lay near each other. They say that three are too many for friendship, but we twin- brothers only counted as one in the bond. We had but one heart and one mind, except in matters of science, and there it was curious to see how far apart we sometimes were. Ah, what rambles we had together, in Germany and on the Alps! I remember once we were merry in the Thiiringian Forest, for there was wine enough and to spare; so we buried a bottle deep among the 48 [January, lit the Tezitobtirger Forest. rocks. We had forgotten all about it when, a year or two afterwards, we happened all three to come back to the spot, and there we dug up the bottle, and drank what seemed to be the best ~vine in the world. I wonder if he re- members that I wrote a poem about it. Then we walked out through the beech woods to a point of the mountain whence there was a view of the monas- tery across the wild valley. It was hut yesterday, said the old baron, since I stood here with my brother, both little boys, and listened to the chimes of vesper. There were monks in the old building then. What is life, after all? I dont understand it. My brother was a part of myself. We had but one life; he married and his home was mine; his children are mine still. We were born together; three years ago he died, and I should h~tve died at the same time. How is it that I live? He turned to me with tears in his eyes, and a sad, mysterious wonder in his voice. I could only shake my head, for he who could have answered the question would be able to solve all the enigmas of life. The man seemed to me like a semi-ghost, attached to the earth by only half the relation of other men. I live here as you see, he continued; but I am not lonely. All my life of seventy-three years I have been laying aside interest for this sea- son. I have still my thoughts and questions, as well as my memories. I am part of the great design which I have always found in the world and in man, and I have learned enough to ac- cept what I cannot fathom. These were brave and wise words, and they led on to others, as we walked in the shadows of the beech woods, until summoned to dinner. The barons niece superintended the meal, and a farmers daughter waited at the table. I was forced to decline a kind invita- tion to return to the castle with the old man, and spend the night there, for I could take but a brief holiday in the Teutoburger Forest. Then they pro- posed taking me to the town of Hiixter, on the Weser, whither I was bound; but while I was trying to dissuade the young lady from a further drive of ten miles the sound of a horn suddenly broke the solitude of the woods. A post-carriage came in sight, drove to the door, and from it descended the Kreisrickfer (District Judge), on a visit to the old baron. As I noticed that he intended remaining for the night, I proposed taking the carriage by which he had arrived, though I should have preferred making the journey on foot. It was so arranged, and half an hour afterwards I took leave of the noble old man, with the promise which all the battle-fields of Hermann and Wittekind would not have suggested to me of some day returning to the Teutoburger Forest. Leaving the mountains behind me, I followed a road which slowly de- scended to the Weser through the fair- est winding valleys, and before sunset reached H6xter. A mile farther, at the bend of the river, is the ancient Abbey of Corvey, where, in the year 1515, the first six books of the Annals of Tacitus, up to that time lost, ~vere discovered. The region which that great historian has alone described thus preserved and gave back to the world a portion of his works. VOL. XXIII.NO. 135. 4 1869.1 49 After Election. [January~ AFTER ELECTION. THE days sharp strife is ended now, Our work is done, God knoweth how! As on the thronged, unrestful town The patience of the moon looks down, I wait to hear, beside the wire, The voices of its tongues of fire. Slow, doubtful, faint, they seem at first: Be strong, my heart, to know the worst! Hark.! there the Alleghanies spoke; That sound from lake and prairie broke! That sunset-gun of triumph rent The silence of a continent! That signal from Nebraska sprung, This, from Nevadas mountain tongue! Is that thy answer, strong and free, O loyal heart of Tennessee? What strange, glad voice is that which calls From Wagners grave and Sumters walls? From Mississippis fountain-head A sound as of the bisons tread! There rustled freedoms Charter Oak! In that wild burst the Ozarks spoke! Cheer answers cheer from rise to set Of sun. We have a country yet! The praise, 0 God, be thine alone! Thou givest not for bread a stone; Thou hast not led us through the night To blind us with returning light; Not through the furnace have we passed, To perish at its mouth at last. O night of peace, thy flight restrain! Novembers moon, be slow to wane Shine on the freedmans cabin floor, On brows of prayer a blessing pour; And give, with full assurance blest, Tl~e weary heart of Freedom rest!

After Election. [January~ AFTER ELECTION. THE days sharp strife is ended now, Our work is done, God knoweth how! As on the thronged, unrestful town The patience of the moon looks down, I wait to hear, beside the wire, The voices of its tongues of fire. Slow, doubtful, faint, they seem at first: Be strong, my heart, to know the worst! Hark.! there the Alleghanies spoke; That sound from lake and prairie broke! That sunset-gun of triumph rent The silence of a continent! That signal from Nebraska sprung, This, from Nevadas mountain tongue! Is that thy answer, strong and free, O loyal heart of Tennessee? What strange, glad voice is that which calls From Wagners grave and Sumters walls? From Mississippis fountain-head A sound as of the bisons tread! There rustled freedoms Charter Oak! In that wild burst the Ozarks spoke! Cheer answers cheer from rise to set Of sun. We have a country yet! The praise, 0 God, be thine alone! Thou givest not for bread a stone; Thou hast not led us through the night To blind us with returning light; Not through the furnace have we passed, To perish at its mouth at last. O night of peace, thy flight restrain! Novembers moon, be slow to wane Shine on the freedmans cabin floor, On brows of prayer a blessing pour; And give, with full assurance blest, Tl~e weary heart of Freedom rest! 1869.] Consumption in America. 5t CONSUMPTION IN AMERICA. I. ~ CONSUMPTION in America,its causes, its eradication such are the questions we propose for in- vestigation. Who will deny their im- portance? What family in the land that has not suffered from the ravages of this terrible disease? As far back as our records go we find evidences of its existence. It was never more rife than it is now in New England, where, according to Keith Johnston, is its most favored seat: How shall we cope with and perchance strangle it? We believe that eventually the world will successfully meet these questions. We cannot hope in this article to do more than glance at our reasons for this belief; but, while giving them, we shall allude to some of the chief causes connected with the origin, and suggest some means for the probable mitigation, and, possibly, for the future extermina- tion of the disease. The various data afforded by modern investigations lead us more and more to the hope that consumption is at last on the point of unravelling to us its mysteries, as, of late, other diseases have revealed to us theirs. Some of these causes will hereafter be avoided by our descendants, although it may be too late to prevent the present generation from suffering for the many sins of commission and of omission perpetrated by itself and its ancestry. If our fa- thers and we had only known and acted upon some of the principles and rules we shall try to lay down in these pages, we should at the present day be saving at least one third, and perhaps more than one half, of all the young and the keautiful who now annually die in New En bland from this scourge of our race.t * Geographical Distribution of Health and Disease. By Alexander Keith Johnston. Edinburgh. ~554. Though anticipating somewhat, we would refer the reader who doubts this broad assertion to the section on the influence of Location; and after As we proceed, we may at times seem dogmatical. If so, it will be because of the narrow limits of this paper. But we shall always try to keep within the lines of strict truth, and shall make no assertion which we do not believe fully sustained by facts. Its Nature. As a cause of death, it corrupts and destroys portions of the lungs and at times other organs of the body, by a development of bodies called tubercles, and by the inflammatory processes con- nected therewith. It is preceded by various influences tending to the fatal end. By some persons it is considered n real disease by itself, but simply the culmination, it may be, of all other coin- plaints, an agency in nature prepared from the beginning of the world to sweep out of existence the thousands who, from their long and tedious ail- ments, or for their vicious hereditary tendencies, are no longer fit to live. We are no believers in this doctrine, and only allude to it now in order to draw attention to the point, and to express the hope that the perusal of the follow- ing arguments will lead all to believe that consumption is not necessarily fatal, even if it attacks a person, and that, like many other diseases, it is capable of being prevented if we act wisely. Its Relative Prevalence formerly and at Ike Present Tune. To whom must we aj5pealfor Relief? From the records of deaths in towns in former days and at the present time, and from the estimates of the ablest physicians * of the last century and our candidly reading that, be will admit, we think, that we have abundant reason. * Observations on Phthisis Pulmonalis, by Isaac Rand, M. D. Vol. I., Essay No. I., Mass. Med. Societys Communications, 1804; and also John War- ren, M. D., on Mercurials in Phthisis, of same Com- munications, Vol. II. p. 507, s8x~.

1869.] Consumption in America. 5t CONSUMPTION IN AMERICA. I. ~ CONSUMPTION in America,its causes, its eradication such are the questions we propose for in- vestigation. Who will deny their im- portance? What family in the land that has not suffered from the ravages of this terrible disease? As far back as our records go we find evidences of its existence. It was never more rife than it is now in New England, where, according to Keith Johnston, is its most favored seat: How shall we cope with and perchance strangle it? We believe that eventually the world will successfully meet these questions. We cannot hope in this article to do more than glance at our reasons for this belief; but, while giving them, we shall allude to some of the chief causes connected with the origin, and suggest some means for the probable mitigation, and, possibly, for the future extermina- tion of the disease. The various data afforded by modern investigations lead us more and more to the hope that consumption is at last on the point of unravelling to us its mysteries, as, of late, other diseases have revealed to us theirs. Some of these causes will hereafter be avoided by our descendants, although it may be too late to prevent the present generation from suffering for the many sins of commission and of omission perpetrated by itself and its ancestry. If our fa- thers and we had only known and acted upon some of the principles and rules we shall try to lay down in these pages, we should at the present day be saving at least one third, and perhaps more than one half, of all the young and the keautiful who now annually die in New En bland from this scourge of our race.t * Geographical Distribution of Health and Disease. By Alexander Keith Johnston. Edinburgh. ~554. Though anticipating somewhat, we would refer the reader who doubts this broad assertion to the section on the influence of Location; and after As we proceed, we may at times seem dogmatical. If so, it will be because of the narrow limits of this paper. But we shall always try to keep within the lines of strict truth, and shall make no assertion which we do not believe fully sustained by facts. Its Nature. As a cause of death, it corrupts and destroys portions of the lungs and at times other organs of the body, by a development of bodies called tubercles, and by the inflammatory processes con- nected therewith. It is preceded by various influences tending to the fatal end. By some persons it is considered n real disease by itself, but simply the culmination, it may be, of all other coin- plaints, an agency in nature prepared from the beginning of the world to sweep out of existence the thousands who, from their long and tedious ail- ments, or for their vicious hereditary tendencies, are no longer fit to live. We are no believers in this doctrine, and only allude to it now in order to draw attention to the point, and to express the hope that the perusal of the follow- ing arguments will lead all to believe that consumption is not necessarily fatal, even if it attacks a person, and that, like many other diseases, it is capable of being prevented if we act wisely. Its Relative Prevalence formerly and at Ike Present Tune. To whom must we aj5pealfor Relief? From the records of deaths in towns in former days and at the present time, and from the estimates of the ablest physicians * of the last century and our candidly reading that, be will admit, we think, that we have abundant reason. * Observations on Phthisis Pulmonalis, by Isaac Rand, M. D. Vol. I., Essay No. I., Mass. Med. Societys Communications, 1804; and also John War- ren, M. D., on Mercurials in Phthisis, of same Com- munications, Vol. II. p. 507, s8x~. 52 (onsumpziou iii America. [January, own, it is apparent that consumption is more prevalent now in New England than it was less than a century ago. It will, we fear, daily increase the number of its victims, unless the community learn wisdom. It is unequally distributed in New England, being very rife in some parts, and rare, or scarcely known, in others. From an examination of the United States census, Dr. Gould * thinks and we are inclined to agree with himthat, generally speaking, under similar hygienic influences, the disease lessens from North to South in the United States. It at present kills about one quarter of all who die annu- ally in Massachusetts, and one sixteenth part of those dying in Louisiana. But if we can show that causes have been at work since the settlement of the country, over the whole extent of our land, in- sidiously tending to the development of consumption, which causes can be vol- untarily overcome by individual exer- tion, or checked by philanthropic ef- fort, or summarily abated, if need be, by legislative enactment, then what we advocate deserves the undivided atten- tion of every human being in his ca- pacity of parent, philanthropist, legis- lator, and capitalist. Before each and all of these we claim an impartial judg- ment and corresponding subsequent action; for no half-way measures are fitted for the occasion. Residence on a Damp Soil as a Cause q/ Consumption. We presume that the community at large are unaware of the vast influence of the location of a house or of a vil- lage on the existence of consumption. Many of the medical profession, if cog- nizant of the fact, still practically ignore it, and twenty years ago it was totally unknown. At that time all physicians believed that, as a whole, the world was everywhere decimated by the dis- ease; that it made but little difference whether a man were born and had lived under the sunny skies of the An- Registration of Births, Deaths, and Maniages in Massachusetts. Twenty-first Report, 1862, p. 48. tilles, or had shivered amid the snows of Iceland, everywhere this destroy- er of his progeny would be present. And certainly no one dreamed, even ten years ago, that, in our bleak and misnamed temperate(!) climate of New England, places could be found almost free from consumption; while in other spots particular homesteads even it was fri~htfully rife. All this is now changed. European observers, lookinb at the subject of cli- matic influences in their broadest sense, and, convinced by data drawn from the entire globe, have decided that certain placessuch as Iceland in the North of Europe, the cool, clear, dry, and rarefied atmosphere of the Swiss mountains, the high plains of Mexico, some of the lofty valleys on the western slopes of the Andes in South America, raised high above the waters of the Pacific, and similar places elsewhere enjoy a blessed immunity from consumption; while other places, quite differently sit- uated, are very subject to it. Dr. R. H. Coolidge had foreshadowed this same fact in regard to this country, and hint- ed at its cause.* In 1854 a committee was appointed by the Massachusetts Medical Society to investigate the origin of c6nsumption in Massachusetts. Amoom questions sent out to physicians in every town in the Commonwealth, and upon which either positive statistics or medical opinion was obtained from all the towns, were two upon the influence of locality. Contrary to all preconceived notions, the committee was compelled to draw the followin5, inferences j from the facts presented by correspond- ents ist. Phthisis (consumption) is very unequally distributed in New Eng- land. * Statistical Report on the Sickness and Mortality in the Army of the United States. First and Second Reports. By Richard H. Coolidge, M. D. Wash- ington. t Annual Discourse before the Massachusetts Medical Society. By Henry I. Bowditch, M. D. Also, Prefatory and Historical Remarks to Con- sumption in New England and Elsewhere, or Soil Moisture one of its Chief Causes, by same writer. Boston: David Clapp & Son. aSfil. 1869.] (~onsumption in America. ~d. There are some places which en- joy a very great exemption from its rav- ages, if not quite as much exemption, as any portion of the globe can claim. 3d. There are some spots, nay, even particular houses, which are frightfully subject to it. 4th. There is a cause governing this unequal distribution of the disease, a law not recognized before these investi- gations, and still practically ignored by the majority of human beings, which, however, is one of the main causes, if not the sole cause, of this unequal dis- tribution in New England, and possibly elsewhere. 5th. This cause is intimately connect- ed with, and apparently dependent on, moisture of the soil on or near which stand the villages or houses in which consumption prevails. These results are based upon too large an array of facts to admit now of any doubt of their substantial correct- ness. They have been supported by similarly observed facts in Rhode Isl- and, Vermont, Maine, and New York, and by the registration returns of Mas- sachusetts. They have very recently been confirmed by English investiga- tions, carried on under the direction of the Privy Council,* which investigations have such an important bearing upon our subject that we feel that we ought point- edly to allude to them. The Council, being desirous of learning whether any effect had been produced upon the health of the inhabitants of towns where san- itary improvements had been fully car- ried out for a number of years, caused investigations to be made upon the rel- ative prevalence of various diseases before and subsequent to the period at which said improvements were made. Various important results were ob- tained , tendin ~ to show that the public health had been very much benefited thereby. But that which was deemed worthy df the name of discovery by Dr. Buchanan, was the striking one, that in towns that had been thoroughly sub- drained; and thus had been made com * Ninth Report of the Medical Officers of the 1~2itry Council, x866. paratively dry, instead of having a soil permeated with moisture as previous- ly, there was a marked diminution i;z the number of deaths by consumttion, sometimes even to the extent of more than one half. This discovery in Old England was simply a practical illustration of the truth of a law previously proved to exist in New England, where actual statistics in not a few instances had proved, 1st. That there are from twice to three times as many deaths from con- sumption in the wet places of New England as in those that are dry; and 2d. That generally in proportion to the amount of dampness of the soil is the tendency to death by consump- tion. This fact, that a law of soil-moisture, as a chief cause of consumption in Massachusetts, really existed, and the correlative fact that dryness of the soil is characteristic of those places in other parts of the globe where consumptives resort with advantage, had naturally suggested the inference that probably the same law is widespread over the globe, and is one of the real laws of the increase of consumption every- where. The results obtained by Dr. Buchan- an were deemed so important, that the Privy Council directed him to continue his investigations during the past year, and he has arrived at results entirely analogous to, and fully sustaining, the views previously advanced by him, and by the committee of the Massachusetts Medical Society, years ago. We have just received, from Dr. Simon, the chief medical officer of the Privy Council, their Tenth Report. It contains the results of these further investigations in England and Scot- land. The summary of the whQle is in these words, and, in order tQ make them more emphatic, they are printed in the original partly in capitals, as given be- low: The whole of the foregoii~g concke sions combine into one, which may now be affirmed generally, and not only 53 C~o;isumption i;z America. [January, of particular districts, THAT WETNESS OF THE SOIL IS A CAUSE OF PHTHISIS TO THE POPULATION LIVING UPON IT. The reporter terminates with these re- marks: Until the end of my own in- quiry I was in complete ignorance of Dr. l3owditchs researches. I should not insist on this point, except for the pur- pose of giving to the conclusions which Dr. Bowditch and myself have obtained the additional weight that they deserve from having been arrived at by a second inquirer wholly ignoratit ~f and there- fore unhiassed by the work of the first. * It seems to us that no unprejudiced mind, when remembering that this law has been thus proved to exist in this country and in Great Britain, and re- calling this second fact that most of the places where consumptives resort are dry, and those they avoid are rather moist than dry, can hePeafter doubt that sufficient proof is thereby given of the existence of a general law acting over lar~e extents of country, and probably over the entire world. This law certainly acts over wide ex- tents of country, or within the narrow- cst districts of New England. There are even single homesteads in Massa- chusetts which for more than half a century, as actual statistics prove, have felt its influence, and others within a radius of a fraction of a mile upon which, owing to location merely, it scarcely ever has appeared to have any effect. Two or three generations have been cut down in the former houses, and more will continue to be cut down, unless the inmates become convinced IA / notarent ought to attempt to bring uh children in defiance of this natural law ny more titan lie would attenztt to do so in defiance of the laws of grav- ity or of combustion. Children will leave such homesteads hereafter, as they quitted them hereto- fore, and recover health only to fall back abain if they return under the blighting influences of the consumption- breeding soil on which is placed the home of their childhood. We have Tenth Privy Council Report, 1867, p. 109. known nearly one whole family thus cut down one after the other, and all igno- rant of the essential cause of their dis- ease. Finally, the youngest, as he grew up towards manhood, began to fail as his brothers and sisters had failed before. He wisely inferred that death to him was in the house; that something, he knew not what, prejudicial to his race existed there, and that he was doomed unless he forsook the spot. Acting on this just assumption, he left, and wholly recovered, and lived in other parts to a green old age. We know of two families in Massa- chusetts of whom the following story may he told. Two healthy brothers married two healthy sisters. Both had large families of children. One lived on the old homestead, on the southern slope of one of the numerous beau- tiful and well-drained hills in that vicin- ity. The whole house was bathed all day long in sunlight, and consumption did not touch any of the young lives un- der its roof. The other brother placed his house at a very short distance off, but upon a grassy plain, covered all summer with the rankest verdure. In its front ~vas a large open common. In the centre of this, water oozed up from between the split hoofs of the cows, as they came lowing homeward at evening, and the barefooted boy who was driving them used to shrink from the place, and preferred to make the circuit of its edge rather than to follow the lead of his more quiet com- rades. Back of the house was a large level meadow, reaching to the very foundations of the building. Through this meadow sluggishly crept the mill- stream of the adjacent village. Still further, all these surroundings were enclosed by lofty hills. The life-giving sun rose later and set earlier upon this than upon the other fair homestead. Till late in the forenoon, and long be- fore sunset left the hillside home, damp and chilling emanations arose from the meadow, and day after day enveloped the tender forms of the children that were trying in vain to grow up health- ily within them. But all effort was 54. 1869.] (~onsumptio;z iii America. 55 useless. Large families were born un- der both roofs. Not one of the children born in the latter homestead escaped, -whereas the other family remained healthy; and when, at the suggestion of a medical friend who knew all the facts we have told, we visited the place for the purpose of thoroughly investi- ati ng them, we thOubht that these two houses were a terribly significant illus- tration of the existence of this all- powerful law. Yet these two homes had nothing peculiarly noticeable by the passin~ stranger. They were sit- uated in the same township and within a very short distance one from the oth -er, and scarcely any one in the village with whom we spoke on the subject agreed with us in our opinion that it was location alone, or chiefly that, which gave life or death to the inmates of the two. We might speak of other- homesteads which seem to us now to be the very nests of consumption in consequence of this law, and yet not one parent in a hun- dred acknowledges even theoretically his belief in the truth of our assertion. Parents themselves, during a long resi- dence, may escape from the dire influ- ences of location; and therefore they imagine, if their children are falling, that some other evil a~ency is at xvork, rather than this law. - Illustvttive of this error on the part of parents, we cannot forbear relating the following fact. We know of a house situ-~ted about a foot above and just on the edge of a small lake. The cellar, if there be one, must be below the level of the water. The house, built with taste, nestles amid over- hangin~ thickly leaved trees, through which the suns rays can scarcely pen- etrate even at midday. The homestead is overrun with the springing woodhine, cl~matis, and honeysuckle. Coolness, dampness, and little sunlight are the characteristics of the spot. In the midst of summer it is the beau ideal of a quiet, reflned country house, which any one, even the most fastidious, would desire to occupy. Yet as we -have looked at it, and have remembered how one by one the children born in it have been cut off by consumption either at puberty or at early manhood or womanhood, we have turned with loath- ing from all its external beauties, and have regarded them all as so many false and fatal allurements, bringin~ in- evitable ruin to those who should fall within the sphere of their influence. These tales are no creations of our imagination, but positive and undenia- ble facts. We have thus very briefly spoken of one of the primal causes of consump- tion in New England and Great Britain, and probably throughout the world. Let us now turn to several other ap- parent or real causes of the same. At the termination of the statements of all, we will give with equal conciseness our views as to what is required on the part of individuals and of the community in order to meet, and if possible subdue, those causes. Is Cousum~z5tion Hereditary? In one of the rural cemeteries of this Commonwealth there is the following inscription in Latin on the tombstone markinb the joint graves of a man and his wife, both of whom had died of con- sumption. It seems like the dying ~vail and prayer of the parents for the future welfare of their children: Insatiable disease! thou hist destroyed both par- ents : spare, 0 spare our children ! That prayer was unanswered, possibly from a total neglect of the very means whereby alone such a prayer could be answered. Undoubtedly it is true that public opinion considers consumption as he- reditary, and medical experience seems to support this view. We presume that there is scarcely a physician any- where who would not admit the truth of this belief. Yet no physician would dare to say that, in any given case, con- sumption would necessarily be trans- mitted from parent to child. Granted that, as a general rule, the child of a tuberculous or consumptive parent either dies early, or at the age of puberty or young manhood or womanhood, it 56 Consurnptio;z iii America. [January, by no means follows that such is al- ways the fact, or that we have no means wherewith we can contend against and fully subdue that downward tendency. If we give to such children proper food, and fitly clothe them; if we exer- cise them freely in the open air from earliest babyhood; if at a later pe- riod we prevent too much study, and will not allow them to be closed up in abominable, furnace - heated school- rooms, now so commd~i throughout the land, hut, on the contrary, urge them to engage in all athletic sports; if, when arriving at-adult age, we caution those of tender frames against choosing seden- tary employni~nts, such as clerkships, the ministry, and the thousand other semi-literary kinds of employment, which of themselves tend to deteriorate the bodily powers, but rather lead them to the more active mechanic trades, or farm or sea or business life, if with a steady, untiriug turtose we do all these things, then we may hope to crush out the evil tendencies, all the rash humors that the parents give the child; we may smother the seeds of consumption planted before birth in the Constitution, and instead of weakness give strength; and thus out of a weak, puny childhood we may form stalwart men and graceful and healthy women, fit to be the future parents of the race. Both opinions are to a certain degree true. We cannot doubt that weakness of physical organization and actual ten- dencies to consumption are transmitted by some consumptive parents to their children; nevertheless, in many cases, ~/ tkesepro5erj5recautions befollowedfronz the cradle u~ to at least thirty or forty years of age, weakness and that tendency may be wholly overcome, and the indi- viduals may be not only really healthy during that period, but for the usual age of man. The great difficulty is, that, where one family thinks of these pre- cautions and is convinced of their ne- cessity, there are a thousand who wholly neglect them from an igno- rance of the common laws of hygiene. Some wilfully neglect them, owing to a want of real faith in their immense powers. Others again, though fully persuaded of their general value, lack that enduring, almost divine grace given very rarely to women and still more rare- ly to men, which, when possessed, leads one to recognize the fact that years of untiring watchfulness and of painful self- sacrifice perhaps will be needed, on the part of the parents, in order to prevent the seeds of disease, sown at the very moment of conception, from becoming so rapid and luxuriant of growth as to obstruct all the springs of healthful life in the dear young body committed to their charge. But we must confess the sad and un- welcome truth, that, in many instances, with all our present knowledge, no amount of human and hence neces- sarily imperfect care can save some children. At their birth they are doomed to an early death. By the dis- eased condition of the parents, some- times, alas due to their own or to their ancestors previous excesses, the ten- der bodies of the children are so tainted that life becomes a burden. We have of- ten seen in such cases the terrible vindi- cation of the power of the old Mosaic law, For the sins of the fathers are visited~ upon the cl~ildren unto the third and fourth generation. Such children die early; and this is exactly right. The race would constantly deteriorate were it oth- erwise. For there is no greater proof of Divine foresight than the law which certainly prevails, that only to strength- and perfect health belongs the hi6hest life, which alone has as its birthright the will and the power to contribute to the continuance of the human race. Is consunzptio ever contagious? In looking back upon the history of this question as held by previous cen- turies, one is struck with the curious degree of uncertainty that has prevailed in the medical profession in reference to it5 Previously to 1775 or therea- bouts, most authors and some entire cpmmunities believed in contagion. In Italy it was the common custom to dis 1869.] infect the houses where consumptive patients died, and to burn the clothing that was believed to be contaminated by their touch. Morgani, undoubtedly one of the ablest and wisest of his day, and one whose works prove that he was constantly examining bodies of persons dead from all diseases, was said to have been actually afraid to dissect the body of a consumptive pa- tient. During the last quarter of the last century there was great indecision on the part of the faculty, and many pro- tested against this strong position. From the writings of that period it is evident that the idea of contagion had met a strong opposition, and finally, early in this century, an opinion the exact reverse of contagion was arrived at. Forty years ago scarcely any one believed in it, and even Italy relaxed its strict rules. But within a few past years the belief in the contagiousness of tubercle, which is usually synony- mous with consumption, has suddenly again sprung up in Germany, under the influence of experiments made by modern physiologists. Inoculations of tuberculous matter from men to ani- mals have been made, and the disease has been reproduced in the animal. It is true that doubt has been thrown upon the real value of these experi- ments; and we think that doubt is a just one, because it has been found that any long-continued local irritation of an animalas, for instance, the keep- ing up of a violently irritating sore on the bodymay eventually excite tuber- cular disease. Moreover, the fact that tubercle when juocula/ed, that is, put under the skin by means of an opera- tion, produces consumption in an ani- mal, is no valid reason for thinking that the emanations from the breath or skin of a tuberculous patient would certainly convey the disease from man to man. Still further, if the disease were really so contagious as some believe, why have not physicians and nurses and attend- ants at special hospitals for the lungs, as at Brompton, for example, been taken down by the disease? 57 Nevertheless, we think we are cor- rect in saying that some of the ablest physiologists of Germany and of France believe in the iuoculal3iZity, and con- sequently, as they contend they have a right to do, they adhere to the doctrine of the contagiousness of the disease. In England, too, the same thought is beginning to germinate. Dr. Budd, of Bristol, last summer addressed a letter to the eminent surgeon, Mr. Paget, avowing that belief, deduced from his own experience during a medical practice of over thirty years duration. Dr. Budd, however, gives us no facts, but simply the statement of his belief, drawn from what he deems sufficient data. Considering the distinguished merit and high character of Dr. Budd, his simple statement deserves great consideration, although we may not be able fully to adopt his views. Briefly, we may say that medical opinion is, at present, much divided upon the topic of the contagiousness or otherwise of consumption. Few, if any, believe it to be equally conta- gious with small-pox and other kin- dred contagious diseases. Still, med- ical opinion rather verges now towards the belief that the disease is at times capable of producing a like disease in others, unless precautions are taken by those who have the care of ministering to the consumptive. With these pre- cautions we believe there is no danger; without them there is peril. And to this let us now address ourselves. In doing so, we must be allowed to refer to some investigations made some years since. At that time we prepared a brief article on the question, Is consumption ever contagious ? ~ We were able to remember hut six cases, occurrlng in an experience of many years, of which we had full record, and in which when we commenced the investigation we supposed there was undoubted evidence of the trans- mission of consumption from one per- son to another. All of these cases were of individuals wholly disconnected by blood with the originally consump- Boston Medical and Surgical Journal. Consumption in Ainericcr. (~onszunptio;z iii America. [January, tive patients who were thought to have given the disease to them. They were of the persons who had had consump- tive husband, wife, or female friend, and had been in very close and devoted attendance upon the consumptives. We have no doubt now upon the relation of cause and effect in all the cases. But it happened, unfortunately for rigid proof, that in all the cases some one ancestor, though frequently distant and collateral, had had con~umption. Hence, although apparently this fact must have had a very trivial effect in any of the cases, it becomes impossible wholly to separate the element of hereditary in- fluence from that produced by the sup- posed contagiousness of the disease. It may be remarked, however, that there is scarcely an individual in the coin- munity upon whom the same argument might not be used; for, in the wide prevalence of consumption, there is scarcely a man or woman who cannot find that some relative, near or remote, has died of it. The one case of our six cases in which this element was wholly absent, and in which all the relatives feel sure that the patient ac- tually got the disease from attendance on the consumptive, is as follows: A young girl, a farmers daughter, the very picture of robust health of body and mind, and of a quiet and calm disposition, had become devotedly at- tached to another young woman rather older than herself, of commanding in- tellect and of most charming character. The consequence was a real enthusiasm of friendship between the two. The elder was not in strong health when the union began, and erelong con- sumption became manifest in her. The young friend gave herself up wholly as special nurse, and stayed with the inva- lid daily and at nibht slept near her for some time. Her own strength finally broke down with a series of ill-defined symptoms, and great prostration of all the powers of life. The parents, who had long perceived an apparent decline of her health, and had vainly tried to persuade her of the dangers of the situ- ation, immediately took her home. We then saw her as we had previously seen her companion, but irretrievable injury had already been done to the lungs. She was unwilling to part with her friend, except on the express condition of being informed when th~ symptoms should become so much more serious as to threaten an early death. The two friends determined to be together dur- ing the last few days of life. This ~as granted, and some months afterwards the younger girl again spent a week with the dying invalid, and, so far as her own health would allow, ministered to her. After the death of her friend our patient never rallied, but slowly sunk, and died of consumption; the whole process, from the moment of first attendance till her own death, being about two years. We have no doubt that, if she had not thus sacrificed her- self to close devotion on the sick girl, she would not herself have been subse- quently diseased. A priori, we might infer that such cases would be more likely to occur among women than n-len. The earnest ways of women, their willingness to stay in constant attendance, and their unwillingness or inability to go out except very rarely, would make then-i more susceptible to any emanations front the sick than men would be. The active duties of life call men from home. The sympathies of men are less keen than those of women, so that their very na- tures are less fitted for personal at- tendance on the sick. On the contrary, the keener instincts of woman lead her at times to a truer self-devotion and even to death in such a cause. In illustration of this, and to show by what means we believe that consump- tion is sometimes given by a husband to his wife, we will relate the following. It was our fortune to attend a man slowly dying of consumption, who, while hopelessly and helplessly ill, was devotedly cared for by his wife, who at the time felt herself, and seemed to be, in perfect health. Years after her husbands death, and when she was bravely battling against the disease, which commenced its insid 1869.] Conszmptio;i i;z A mcria. 59 ious attacks immediately subsequent to his death, she related to me the follow- ing fact, but only on my definite in- quiries as to how intimate her relations had been with him durinb his illness. It seems that often, in wintry nights, that faithful woman would arise from the side of her husband, who was lying with his dress drenched with the chill- ing sweat of increasing disease, and would persuade him to take her warm clothing and to lie down in the dry warm place she had just left, while, simply throwing a blanket over it, she would take the spot that had been pre- viously occupied by him! Upon our expressing a horror at the thought of the danger she had run, and which ap- parently had told with so much power upon her, she quietly remarked that she knew at the time the danger that she was incurring. She had no thought of danger to hers elf, and only of her husbands comfort! But, added she,I then got what I have never recovered from. A certain vitality seemed to go out of her; and though her nature con- teoded for many years against the en- croachments of the disease, she finally died, always believing that she had taken consumption from her husband, but with a certain martyr-like joy that such had really been the fact. XVe have now in our mind other and analogous cases, as, for example, of husbands having their first cough when inhaling the breath of their sick wives, while ministering to their ne- cessities. We have known daughters and sisters who, full of apparent health and strenbth, when consumption has seized a mother or sister, have con- tinued to sleep with the invalid, and to breathe the same closed-up atmosphere at night, and to watch all day without perhaps a moment of healthful out-of- door exercise. And we have been dis- tressed to find not a few of such healthy young persons gradually be- ginning to suffer with indigestion, de- bility, and finally cough, and all the symptoms of consumption. In some instances, in fact, the attendant has died before the life of the original pa- tient has ended. These facts are very significant; and although we are well aware that, in some of them, other ele- ments of disease may have had their fatal influences, still the cases have been full of suggestions as to the ne- cessities of greater precautions than we, in this country, have usually taken in this matter. These precautions we shall speak of hereafter. h~/7uence of the dzfferent Trades and Professio;zs as causes of conszun~5tion. This question is of vital importance to every young person about to choose a profession or trade as the business of life. It is worthy of the maturest thought of every parent and every philanthropic employer; for upon the proper choice of a trade or profession will depend much of the future weal or woe of the youth just commencing life. At present there seems often to be, while making the choice, a woful amount of ignorance of the common rules of health. We may consider the question in two lights; namely, first, as it regards a per- fectly healthy youth; and, second, as it has reference to one that is either ac- tually in ill health or who from physical organization or hereditary tendencies is liable to suffer from consumption. And, first, it is undoubtedly true that a man may take any of the various trades or professions, and if he only do not neglect the rules of health, he may practise without injury any of these arts even to advanced life. Neverthe- less, there are some which, from their very nature, or their necessarily accom- panying circumstances, are less healthful than others. Among these may be named all those practised in places in which fine dust is floating in the air, whatever that dust may be. Especially deleterious is the trade of machinist, in working at which quantities of fine steel- dust are set flying; or the knife and scis- sors grinders trade, in which, in addi- tion to the steel, a cloud of emery-dust is drawn in with almost every breath. It is true that some of these various dusts do not produce real tuberculous Conswnp/icm in America. U anuary, disease, but they all tend to clog up the finer air-cells of the lungs, and are liable to cause cough, emaciation, and death, at times with tubercular complications. Next, perhaps, in order come all those trades that cramp the chest, and prevent free expansion of the lungs, and in- cline the patient to bend forward, thus permanently diminishing the calibre of the chest, compressing the delicate structure of the lungs, causing obstruc- tion therein, with subsequent disease and death. Prominent among these trades stand such as that of shoemaker for men and that of seamstress for women. These are essentially sedentary in their nature, and have most strongly marked tendencies of the nature alluded to. But they likewise lead to the various forms of dyspepsia, to irregularities of the digestive and of other of the more delicate functions of the body. These lat- ter complaints are too often found, when we unravel the history of cases of con- sumption, to be the precursors for months previously of the dreaded affec- tion of the lungs. The whole internal arrangements of many large establish- ments for slop work, where perhaps from fifty to a hundred young women or men are collected in large unventi- lated rooms, are simply an outrage upon common decency, and infamous with regard to arrangement for the health of the employees. How general it is we know not, but not infrequently we have been informed by patients that at times, for example, no water-closets can be found on the premises, or, if found, they are in a deplorable state. Hence constipation and indigestion come to add their weight to the delete- rious influences of the trade itself. Less constantly confining to the chest, but as employments analogous to the last-mentioned trades in effect, we may name those of clerk and stu- dent. Both tend to induce inaction of the entire body and a curving forward of the chest; and although neither of these professions i~ecesstzriiy pro- duces disease, and although it is pos- sible for the student and clerk to avoid the evils that are impending, they very frequently do not avoid them, either from their own gross ignorance of hygienic laws, or from the cupidity of the employer, which prevents them from properly attending to the same. Tho~e employed are at times compelled to work in houses totally unfit for human beings to inhabit, while at other times love of gain deprives them of the requisite time for exercise and for the taking of food. Such cruelty on the part of em- ployers, we admit, is rare. Moreover, we are inclined to think that there are but few who wilfully sin in this manner. They have ample means; and money with them is resolvable into human labor. In modern scientific language, of the correlation of forces, they vir- tually say, With the force of so much money we ought to get a corresponding degree of human force applied to the purposes required. Under this idea, the health of those employed is consid- ered of but secondary importance. We confess that we think there are few even of our worthiest employers who have the perfect health of those employed seri- ously at heart; and this is not derogatory to them, for it is simply human nature, and will continue as long as our present mode of conducting business is contin- ued. When a true Christian co-opera- tion is introduced into all the channels of business, then, and not till then, will those employed see to it that everything is done to prevent detriment to their lives during their hours of toil. Another evil tendency of certain trades is to require sudden transitions from heat to cold and wet to dry, the long continuance in cold, damp cellars or warerooms half underground, which, even in the l~eat of midsummer, though deliciously cool to the transient cus- tomer, are most deadly in their in- fluences upon those permanently em- ployed therein. Of such employiuents is that of the moulder, with his constant wet about him, and the beer-bottlers, who lives most of the time in damp, dark cellars; -and analogous to these cellars in their influence on human health are the cool, damp underground rooms of dry-goods dealers, in all our 6o 1869.] The Mean Yankees at Home. streets of business. These each and all tend to produce consumption, and are therefore nuisances as at present man- aged; for anything is a nuisance that tends to destroy human life. We have had to warn not a few clerks of the risk they were running in staying in such places. If they fly from them early, they may be saved. If they continue after health is once seriously impaired, they are doomed. Such places ought to be forbidden by law, and, when a proper public sentiment arises, this will be done. We have thus far considered the influence of these various kinds of business upon persons in perfect health; and we may merely add, that, if there be danger to those in health, it will be mad- ness on the part of those having hered- itary tendencies to tubercular disease, or who are actually diseased, to enter into them, or into any of an analogous kind. Strange as it may seem, we find often an utter neglect of these rules, and pursuits in life are commenced without a thought of the effect on future health. If a boy is puny, he is made more puny by being allowed to study, instead of being urged into the open air and to athletic sports, or into the farmers field; and when he is of age to choose a profession, he becomes a dyspeptic clergyman, prepared to preach his own unwholesome vagaries, instead of healthful strong Christian doctrines, or we find him a nervous, irritable, one-sid- ed professor, who, in his frantic efforts to govern the healthful impulses of stu- dents, forgets, if he ever had them, the dreams of his own youth; or perchance such a one will delve behind the ac- countants desk in comparative misery through life. There seems to be little judgment, no forewarning of the young. By accident the choice is made, and, according to the doctrine of chances, life becomes either healthful or a tissue of weak and morbid hours, too often cut short by consumption. THE MEAN YANKEES AT HOME. BY A SUMMER VISITOR. I ~JH OSE horrible Yanks! I have seen them in their native haunts. The most dreadful creatures become interesting when, regarding them only as objects of natural history, we creep up near their den, and watch them as they devour their prey, caress their cubs, and gambol in the sun. Perhaps a busy universe, which hits heard al- ready a good deal about the mean, low, cheating, infidel, and entirely odious Yankee, may yet be willing to lean back in its arm-chair for a short time, and learn how he looks to a strangers eyes, and how he comports himself amid his own hills and rocks, in that unique organization of his, a New England town. There was published in this maga zine, a year or two since, an article upon Chicago, which chanced to attract the notice of a young gentleman then residing among us, a citizen of the Argentine Republic, which is the Unit- ed States of South America. He was so much struck with the exploits of the people of Chicago, that he trans- lated the article into Spanish, and caused it to be published as a pamphlet in his native land, with a Preface call- ing upon his countrymen to imitate the spirit, energy, forethought, and patriot- isin displayed by the men of the prairie metropolis. It was well done of him; for, indeed, the creators of Chicago have performed, and are performing, the task assigned them in a manner unexampled in the history of the world; 4

1869.] The Mean Yankees at Home. streets of business. These each and all tend to produce consumption, and are therefore nuisances as at present man- aged; for anything is a nuisance that tends to destroy human life. We have had to warn not a few clerks of the risk they were running in staying in such places. If they fly from them early, they may be saved. If they continue after health is once seriously impaired, they are doomed. Such places ought to be forbidden by law, and, when a proper public sentiment arises, this will be done. We have thus far considered the influence of these various kinds of business upon persons in perfect health; and we may merely add, that, if there be danger to those in health, it will be mad- ness on the part of those having hered- itary tendencies to tubercular disease, or who are actually diseased, to enter into them, or into any of an analogous kind. Strange as it may seem, we find often an utter neglect of these rules, and pursuits in life are commenced without a thought of the effect on future health. If a boy is puny, he is made more puny by being allowed to study, instead of being urged into the open air and to athletic sports, or into the farmers field; and when he is of age to choose a profession, he becomes a dyspeptic clergyman, prepared to preach his own unwholesome vagaries, instead of healthful strong Christian doctrines, or we find him a nervous, irritable, one-sid- ed professor, who, in his frantic efforts to govern the healthful impulses of stu- dents, forgets, if he ever had them, the dreams of his own youth; or perchance such a one will delve behind the ac- countants desk in comparative misery through life. There seems to be little judgment, no forewarning of the young. By accident the choice is made, and, according to the doctrine of chances, life becomes either healthful or a tissue of weak and morbid hours, too often cut short by consumption. THE MEAN YANKEES AT HOME. BY A SUMMER VISITOR. I ~JH OSE horrible Yanks! I have seen them in their native haunts. The most dreadful creatures become interesting when, regarding them only as objects of natural history, we creep up near their den, and watch them as they devour their prey, caress their cubs, and gambol in the sun. Perhaps a busy universe, which hits heard al- ready a good deal about the mean, low, cheating, infidel, and entirely odious Yankee, may yet be willing to lean back in its arm-chair for a short time, and learn how he looks to a strangers eyes, and how he comports himself amid his own hills and rocks, in that unique organization of his, a New England town. There was published in this maga zine, a year or two since, an article upon Chicago, which chanced to attract the notice of a young gentleman then residing among us, a citizen of the Argentine Republic, which is the Unit- ed States of South America. He was so much struck with the exploits of the people of Chicago, that he trans- lated the article into Spanish, and caused it to be published as a pamphlet in his native land, with a Preface call- ing upon his countrymen to imitate the spirit, energy, forethought, and patriot- isin displayed by the men of the prairie metropolis. It was well done of him; for, indeed, the creators of Chicago have performed, and are performing, the task assigned them in a manner unexampled in the history of the world; 4 62 Tue Mean Yankees at Home. [January, and the record of what they have done and are doing will for ages be a chapter in our history honorable to this nation and instructive to others. But per- haps one of those quiet towns sleeping among the umbrageous hills of New England is a triumph of man over circumstances and over himself not less remarkable than the more striking and splendid achievements of the Chi- cagonese. And what is Chicago but a New En~land town in extremely novel circumstances, that was forced to undertake enormous enterprises, and compelled to expand, in thirty years, into a high -pressure Boston? If I could only succeed in revealing to mankind the town of New England, its defects as well as its merits, I should have produced something worth translating into every tongue. It is evident that the Yankee system, with modifications, is destined to pre- vail over the fairest parts of this con- tinent, if not finally over the best por- tions of the other. It prevails already in the West as far as San Francisco, the famous Vigilance Committee of which was a veritable town meeting. Wherever the Yankee soldier has tramped the Yankee schoolmarm will teach. Noble and chivalric gentlemen may throw stones at her windows, burn her school-house, drive her from their nei~rhborh but ~ ood ; she reappears, she or her cousin, and the work of Yankeefication proceeds. First Julius C~sar, then Roman civilization, then Christianity. The soldier must always go first, and open the country. In this fortunate instance, the gentle and know- ing schoolmarm quickly follows the man of war, and she is preparing the way for the gradual reorbanization of the South upon the general plan of New En ~ land towns. It is ~hard for the noble and chivalric gentlemen to hear, but it seems inevitable. The Carolinas may object, and Georgia ex- pel; Texas may slay, and Louisiana massacre, it will not avail; ihis is the fate in reserve for them. The Yankee schoolmarm is extremely addicted to writing long letters home, which go the round of the village, are carried into the next county, and are sent at last to circulate by mail over all the land. Most graphic and powerful some of her letters are, and New England knows her new conquest in this way. The schoolmarms lover has thoughts of settling there, when the land itself is settled. Her uncle the capital- ist has long had an eye on those rich lands, those unused watercourses, those mines and quarries. She is merely one of the first to tread the path worn by the army shoe stamped U.S. A. A New England town, the distant reader will please take note, is not a town, though it may have a town in it, and two or three villa6es besides. It is a subdivision of a county, or, to use the language of the law-books, it is an organized portion of the inhabitants of a State, within defined limits of terri- tory, within the same county. It may consist of only three or four hundred people, or of several thousands. Per- haps two thousand may be an average number, which gives about threQ hun- dred voters ; and the average circum- ference of the territory may he about ten miles. Every five years the select- men are required to perambulate the boundaries, to see that the boun- dary-stones and guide-boards are right ; and this work, I believe, is generally done in one day. The inhabitants~ of this area are an association for the per- formance of certain duties imposed upon them by the State. They are, says the law, a corporate body, which is intrusted with powers defined and limited. It can fine you a dollar for driving over a bridge faster than a walk, or twenty dollars for declining a town office. It can itself be fined fifty dollars for not having a cattle-pound, five hun- dred dollars for not electing town offi- cers, a thousand dollars if a person falls through a rotten bridge and loses his life, and three thousand dollars for sending to the legislature more mem- hers than it is entitled to. It is re- sponsible as much so as a railroad company for any accidents happen- The Mean Yankees at Home. ing through its fault, and can claim damages for an injury done to itself. It can sue and be sued as thou~ h it were one man. It can hold, hire, huy, sell, let, lease, or give away real estate. It can tax and be taxed, both, how- ever, for purposes named in the la~v, and for no others. For example, it can raise money by taxation to pay for schools, public libraries, the support of the poor, guide-hoards, burial-grounds, bridges, roads, markets, pounds, hay- scales, standard weights and measures, public clocks, houses destroyed to stop a conflagration, the prosecution and defence of suits. Such of these things as concern other towns, or the coun- ty, the State, the United States, or the universe, each town is compelled to provide, bridges, pounds, roads, and schools, for example. But the towns may or may not vote money for hay-scales or a public library. The schools are a necessity; the library is merely desirable in a high degree. The cattle-pound protects neighboring towns from devastation; but it is a question for each town to decide, whether or not it will have a public clock or a soldiers monument. The governing power of a New Eng- land town is the whole body of voters in town meeting assembled. Speaking generally (for all the States of New England have not yet quite come up to the standard of the most advanced), we may say, that every man, white or black, is a voter, who can read the constitution of his State in the English language understandingly, and who is not an alien, a lunatic, a pauper, or a convict. The exclusion of paupers is of small consequence, because in most of the towns there are no paupers able to go to the polls, and in many there are no paupers at all. At the time of the first cable celebration, Mr. Cyrus Field, de- sirous that all the world should rejoice, sent orders to his native village in New England that a banquet should be pro- vided at his e. pense for the paupers of the whole town. The selectmen sent back word that there were no pau pers; and there are none there now. Your mean Yankee is a stickler for justice ; and it would offend his sense of justice, that a man who had contrib- uted nothing to the fund raised by tax- ation should have a voice in directing its expenditure. He is beginning to think, too, that it is hardly fair to tax a widow or an independent spinster, and refuse her a vote in town meeting. Here and there there is a hold Yankee who goes further than this, and pro- nounces it unwise to exclude such wo- men as Miss Sedgwick, Mrs. Stowe, Miss Catherine Beecher, and Mrs. Horace Mann, while admitting to the franchise every male citizen who can be trusted alone out of doors, and who can boggle through a paragraph of the Constitution. In some towns, where a few crusty old farmers can always be depended on to defeat a liberal scheme, the votes of the ladies, it is thought, would give a lift to the library and a blow to the grog-shop, and help all the civilizing measures. T.he ne- cessity of womens assistance becomes more apparent as the towns advance in wealth and refinement; and the Yankee would long ago have seen this, and sought the aid of the decorative sex, but for a few words in an ancient epistle. The exclusion from the polls of men who cannot read works nothing but good.* It is a measure absolutely ne- cessary in the peculiar circumstances of the United States; and I will ven- ture to predict that every State will in time adopt it, or, like the city of New York, become a prey to the spoiler. This law, however, excludes very few natives of the soil. If, in a New Eng- land town, there chances to be a native who cannot read and write, he is re- No person shall have the right to vote, or be eligible to office under the Constitution of this Coin- monwesith, wisoshall not be able to read the Constitu- tion in the Englisls language, and write his name vided, however, that the provisions ofehis amendment shall not apply to any person prevented by a physical disability from complying with its requisitions, nor to any person who now has the right to vote, nor to any persons who shall be sixty years of age or up- wards at the time this amendment shall take effect. Con,sli/ui ion of llZassecieasetts. 1869.1 63 The Mea;~ Yankees at Home. 64 garded as a curiosity, and is pointed out to strangers as one of the objects of interest in the place. There is one such man near Stockbridge, in Massa- chusetts, who was pointed out to me last summer as the only native of New En~ land in all that region who could neither read nor write. The people appeared to be rather proud of him than otherwise, as though he had given no slight proof of an ingenious mind in having escaped so many boy-traps and man-traps, baited with spelling-books, as they have in New England. The reading law merely keeps away from the polls the grossly ignorant among the foreign population, who, being un- able to read, are dependent upon other men s eves and minds for their political information, and who can be driven in herds to the polls by the party having the least scruples. Major De Forest, in one of his val- uable and entertaining articles on the Man and Brother, has intimated an opinion that the black man will never associate in this country on equal terms with the white man. Never is a long time, and we cannot even see into the next century; but I should say that the condition of the colored people in New England supports the gallant Majors conjecture. There are not more than twelve or fifteen thousand negroes in Massachusetts; but they are so unequally distributed that you may occasionally find a considerable num- ber of them in one town. They stand before the law equal to the white man; their children sit in the public schools side by side with his; they are treated with consideration and respect; they have the same opportunities to acquire property as the xvhite man ; they go with him to the ballot-box, and vote on the same terms and conditions, nev- ertheless, their social position is pre- cisely the same in New England as it is in North Carolina. They usually live in a cluster of cottages in the out- skirts of the village ; the men are la- borers or waiters, and the women take in washing or go out to service. They live in peace and abundance, but [January, they are no nearer social equality with the whites now than they were thirty years ago. They seldom get on so far as to own a farm, seldom learn a trade, and never run a factory or keep a store. In the free high schools one of which nearly every town in New England supports, or helps support a colored youth is rarely found. In and near Stockbridge, for example, there is a colored population of two hundred, and they have been settled there for many years; but no colored boy or girl has ever applied for admission to the high school, though it is free to all. But the negro is an indispensable and delicious ingredient in the too serious and austere population of New Eng- land. They appear to be the only peo- ple there who ever abc0zdon themselves to innocent merriment. What a joyous scene is one of the negro balls so frequently given in some of the New England villages! In the morning, the stranger notices upon the lordly, wide- spreading elm that shades the post- office a neatly written paper, notifying the public that an entertainment is to be given that evening for the benefit of some afflicted person, perhaps a woman whose husband a ruthless con- stable has taken off to jail. All who wish to enjoy a good time are respect- fully invited to attend, admission, twenty-five cents, for which a sub- stantial supper of pork and beans and new cider is furnished. Soon after eight in the evening the village re- sounds with the voice of a colored Sten- tor, who calls out the figures of the qua- drille, and all the world is thus notified that the entertainment has begun. The scene within the ball-room might make some persons hesitate to decide which destiny were the more desirable in New England, to be born white or black. The participants seem so un- consciously and entirely happy! An an- cient uncle, white-haired and very lame, stands near the entrance, seizes the new- comers with both hands, and gives them a roaring and joyous welcome; and there is a one-legged man with a crutch, anct 65 1869.] The IlLea;z Yankees at Home. four mothers with infants in their arms, who go through a quadrille with the best of them. The mothers, however, when they grow warm with the dance, hand the blessed bahy to a passing friend to hold. The hand, which consists of two male fiddlers and a woman who plays the accordion, is seated upon a plat- form at one end of the long room, and ~playswith eyes upcast, ecstatic, andkeeps a heel apiece going heavily upon the boards. The room itself seems to he quivering. There is no walking through a quadrille here; hut each performer, besides doing his prescribed steps, cuts as many supplementary capers as he can execute in the intervals. A dance begins, it is true, with some slight show of moderation; hut as it proceeds the dancers throw themselves into it with a vigor and animation that increase every moment, until the quadrille ends in a glorious riot and delirium of dance and fun. No Mussulman would ask these people why they did not require their servants to do their dancing for (hem. On the contrary, that famous pacha, catching their most contagious merriment, would have sprung upon the fioor, and dashed his three tails wildly about among those shining countenances. Nevertheless, there was not the smallest violation of decorum; all was as innocent as it was enjoy- able. As the room was lined with white spectators, perhaps we shall some day learn the trick of cheap, in- nocent, and hearty enjoyment. One thing was very noticeable, and would certainly be noticed by any one familiar with the South, the purity of blood exhibited in the faces of the company. Among the one hundred and fifty dancers, there were perhaps ten who were not quite black; and this was an ancient settlement of colored people, dating back beyond the recollection of the present inhabitants. The only fault with which their xvhite neighbors charge them is, that one or two in a hundred has not yet got the old plantation steal out of their blood. A person interested in the health question would observe the roundness and all but universal vig VOL. xxiii. NO. 135. 5 orous health of these children of the tropics, which is another proof that hu- man nature in America does not dwin- dle necessarily. In town meeting assembled. Once a year, and oftener if necessary, the voters of this small and convenient re- public meet to elect town officers, con- sider proposed improvements, and vote taxes. The town meeting is a parlia- ment, of which every voter is an equal member, and the authority of which is final so long as its acts are legal. It is a public meeting clothed with power. I will here respectfully invite the at- tention of the Argentine Republic, France, Italy, Austria, Russia, and all countries supposed to be groaning un- der the yoke of the oppressor, and hop- ing one day t~ throw off that yoke, to the following truth, now for the first time given to the ~vorld: THAT PEOPLE IS FIT FOR FREEDOM WHICH CAN HOLD A PROPER PUBLIC MEETING. To us how easy! to a great part of the rest of mankind how impossible! Before a community reaches the stage of development which admits of the public meeting, there must exist in it considerable ability and knowledge, and there must be a certain prevalence .f what may he styled the virtues of ma- turity, self-conquest and self-control. Men must respect themselves, but re- spect one another also, and, along with a proper confidence in their own opin- ions, have a genuine tolerance for those of their neighbors. With an ability to convince others, there must be in the people the possibility of being con- vinced, as well as of frankly submitting to a decision the most adverse to that for which they had striven. A strong, keen, and constant sense of justice must be tempered, by a spirit of accommoda- tion, an aversion to standing upon tri- fles, and a disposition to welcome a reasonable compromise. There must be in many of the people a true public spirit, and in some a very great and deep love of the public welfare, and a capacity for taking a prodigious amount 66 of trouble for a public object. The de- sire to shine, so natural to immature persons and races, must have been by many outgrown, or, at least, exalted into a noble ambition to be of service, and thus to win the approval of the community. An insatiate vanity in only two or three individuals might render profitable debate impossible; nor less harmful is that other manifestation of morbid self-love which we call bashful- ness. The horrible Yanks, with all their faults, do actually possess the qualities requisite for holding a public meeting in a higher degree than any other peo- ple. They have governed themselves by public meeting for two hundred years or more. It seems now instinc- tive in them, when a thing is to be done or considered by a body of men, to put it to the vote and be governed by the decision of the majority. The most cu- rious illustration of this fact that has been recorded is the one related by Mrs. John Adams in one of her let- ters of 1774 to her husband. The men of Braintree and neighboring towns, alarmed lest the British general should seize their store of powder, assembled on a certain Sunday evening to the number of two hundred, marched to the powder-house, took out the powder, conveyed it to a place of safety, and se- creted it. On their way they captured an odious Tory, and found upon him some still more odious documents aimed at the liberty of the Common- wealth. This man they took with them, and, when the powder was disposed of, they turned their attention to him and his documents. Readers familiar with the period do not need to be reminded that these men, marching so silently and seriously on that Sunday evening, were profoundly moved and excited. All New England, indeed, was thrilling and palpitating with mingled resolve and apprehension. Nevertheless, in- stinct, or ancient habit, was stronger than passion, even at such a crisis, in these two hundred Yankee men, and therefore they resolved themselves in- to a public meeting. Upon the hostile [January,. warrants being produced and exhib- ited, it was put to the vote whether they should be burnt or preserved. The majority voting for burning them ,the two hundred gathered in a circle round the lantern, and looked on in silence while the offensive papers were con- sumed. That done, and no doubt there were blazing eyes in that grim circle of Puritans as well as blazing papers, they called a vote whether they shouldhuzza; but, it being Sunday evening, it~assed in the negative. The reader who comprehends the entire significance of that evenings performance knows New England. If I were a painter, I would try and paint the scene at the moment the blazing papers flashed light into the blazing eyes. If I were a king, I should think several times before going to war with people of that kind. After a practice of two centuries, the Yankees would be able to hold a very good town meeting without assistance, and yet everything relating to it is pre- scribed and regulated by statute. The people must be notified in just such a way; the business to be done must be expressed in the summons; and noth- ing can be voted upon or discussed un- less it has been thus expressed. In case the selectmen of a town should un- reasonably refuse to call a town meet- ing, any ten voters can apply to a jus- tice of the peace, and require him to issue a call. Every possible, and al- most. every conceivable, abuse or unfair- ness has been anticipated and guarded a~ainst by the legislature, and yet the town meeting is absolutely unfettered in doing right. It may also do wrong if it chooses, provided it does wrong in the right way, and tle wrong is of such a nature as to harm nobody but itself. And I will here observe, that, if any one~ would know how deeply rooted in the heart of man is the love of justice, and would inspect the most complete system of fair play mankind possesses, let him buy, keep, and habitually read the vol- ume containing the Constitution and Revised Statutes of Massachusetts. Most of the standard law books are Tue Meaze Yazikees at Home. 1869.] The Mean YaMkees at Home. 67 interesting and edifying, but this one is the most instructive and affecting of them all. It shows, in a striking man- ner, how much better the heart of man is than his head; for the community which wrought out this beautiful sys- tem of justice and humanity believed, while il was doing if, in the doctrine of~ total depravity Delightful inconsist- ency! Would that all the heads mis- takes could be so gloriously refuted by the other, organ! The principal town meeting of the year generally occurs in the spring, when the town officers are elected by ballot. The town officers are: Three, five, seven, or nine selectmen, who are the chief officers, and take care of things in general; a town clerk; three or more truant officers; three or more assessors; three or more overseers of the poor; a town treasurer; one or more surveyors of highways; a consta- ble; one or more collectors of taxes; a pound-keeper; two or more fence- viewers; one or more surveyors of lum- ber; one or more measurers of wood and bark; a sealer of weights and measures; a gauger of liquid measures; a superintendent of hay-scales. Here is a chance for office-seekers! But, unfortunately, the emoluments attached to these offices are as small as the du- ties are light; and it has been found necessary to compel men to serve in them, if elected, under penalty of a fine of twenty dollars, a sum much larger than the usual amount of the fees. But then no man can be made to serve two years in succession. These officers being elected, the town parliament pro- ceeds to consider proposed improve- ments and appropriations; and you may frequently hear in the town hall excellent debating, very much in the quiet and rather homely manner of the British House of Commons, when coun- try members get on their legs to dis- cuss country matters. There is usually a total abstinence from all flights of oratory, for every man who speaks or votes has a personal and pecuniary in- terest in the question under debate. He who advocates a stone bridge in place of the rickety old wooden one knows that he will have to pay his share of the expense; and he who opposes it knows that h~ will have to cross the rickety structure, and will have to pay his part of a thousand-dollar fine when it lets a pedler through to destruction. In the list of town magnates just giv- en the reader may have noticed tru- ant officers. They must be explained. There is one thing upon which these mean Yankees are entirely and unan- imously resolved, and it is this: That no child, of whatever race, color, or capacity, shall grow up among them in ignorance. In the oldest of their rec- ords we find the existence of the school- house taken for granted. When there was no church in a town, no court- house, no town-hall, there was always a school-house, which served for all pub- lic purposes; and ever since that early day the school system has been ex- tending and improving. Very pleasant it is of a summer day to ride past the little lone school-houses, and peep in at the open door, and see the schoolmarm surrounded with her little flock of little children, whose elder brothers are in the fields; nor less pleasant is it to mark in every village the free high school, where the pupils who have out- grown the common school continue their studies, if they desire it, to the point of being prepared for college, and snatch a daily hour for base-ball besides. Indeed, it is an excellent thing to be a child in this land of the Yankees. If you are a good boy or girl you have these common and high schools for your instruction; if you are a bad boy, they send you off to a reformatory school to be made better, or to a ship school to be changed into a good sailor; and if you are a bad girl, there is a girls industrial school for you, where you will be taught good morals and the sewing- machine. And they do not leave the bad boys and girls to go on in their evil ways until they are developed into crim- inals. The towns in Massachusetts are now authorized to appoint the tru- ant officers before mentioned, whose duty it is to take care that every child 68 between the ages of six and sixteen shall avail itself either of public or pri- vate means of education. No miserly parent, no hard master, no careless guardian, can now defraud a child of his right to so much instruction as will make it easy for him to go on instruct- ing himself all his life. By way of showing how much in ear- nest the Yankees are in this matter, I will insert upon this page certain by- laws concerning truants and absentees, which I had the pleasure of reading last summer on a handbill displayed in the post-office of a small village in New England. It seems to me that these by-laws may convey a valuable hint to the Argentine and other republics. The following selection may be sufficient for our purpose 2. Any child between the ages of six and sixteen, who while a member of any school, shall absent himself or herself from school without the consent of his or her teacher, parent, or guar- dian, shall be deemed a truant. (Pen- alty, a fine of twenty dollars, or a term not exceeding two years in a reform school.) 3. Any child between the ages of six and fifteen, who shall not attend some public school or suitable institu- tion of instruction at least twelve weeks in a year, six of which shall be consec- utive in the summer term, and six of which shall be consecutive in the ~vin- ter term, shall be deemed an absentee. ~4. ABSENTEES OF THE SECOND CLASS. Children between the ages of seven and sixteen years of age, wander- ing in the streets or loitering in stores, shops, or public places, having no law- ful occupation or business, and growing up in ignorance, are hereby placed un- der supervision of the truant officers, so far as the law provides. The first offence shall be reported to parent, guardian, or master of said child by a truant officer, and, in case of the fail- ure to secure said child the requisite amount of schooling or instruction else- vhere, he shall be fined twenty dollars; for the second offence of the same per- son, the child shall be sent to the alms- [January, house or to the State Reform School, or the nautical branch of the same, or State Industrial School for girls, for a period agreeable to the statutes, as the justice of the court having jurisdiction of the same shall decide. 6. It shall be the duty of every tru- ant officer to inquire diligently concern- ing all persons, between the ages afore- said, who seem to be idle or vagrant, or who, whether employed or unem- ployed, appear to he growing up in ignorance, and to enter a complaint against any one found unlawfully ab- sent from school, or violating any of these by-laws. 7. It shall be the duty of every tru- ant officer, prior to making any coim- plaint before a justice, to notify the tru- ant or absentee child and its parents or guardian of the penalty for the offence. If he can obtain satisfactory pledges of reformation, which pledges shall subse- quently be kept, he shall forbear to prosecute. In one of those country towns of New England, a person likely to be elected a truant officer would have some knowledge of all the inhabitants. Hence it is now almost impossible for the most perverse or neglected child to avoid getting a little schooling. Each town, I should add, pays for the main- tenance of children sent from it to a re- formatory school, provided the parents or guardians cannot. The female teach- ers employed in the common schools receive now from five to eight dollars a week, and the master of a country high school from ei ht hund red to two thou- sand dollars a year. Twelve hundred dollars is very frequently the salary. Now, in a New England village, an active man who has a saving wife and an ordinary-sized garden, can live de- cently upon the salary last named, send a son to college, and give his daughters lessons on the piano. I suppose that in New England there is a less unequal division of property than in any other region of a civilized country. I chanced to be in a country bank there last July, about the time when the coupons due on the first of Tue .Llica;I Yankees at. Houze. Tue Mean Yankees at Home. 69 1869.] that month had been mostly paid, and the money for each individual had been done up in a neatly folded small pack- age. The village was small, and remote from any important centre; and these packages of greenbacks belonged to the farmers, mechanics, and manufac- turers of the neighborhood. I think there must have been half a peck of them, perhaps a hundred packages. There are country towns in New Eng- land where nearlya every respectable house has some United States bonds in it, and the Savings Bank will wield a capital of half a million dollars besides. Reason: diversified industry. These Yankees, finding themselves planted upon a soil not too productive, were compelled at a very early period to become good political economists; and while the fathers scratched the hard surface of the soil for a few bushels of corn, the sons rigged small schooners, and fished off the coast for cod. By and by they got on so far as to build ships, in which they sailed to the coast of Guinea, brought thence a load of slaves and a few quills of gold-dust, sold the slaves to the West-Indians for molas- ses, brought the molasses home, dis-~ tilled it into rum, took the rum to Guinea for more slaves, sent most of the gold-dust to England for manufac- tured goods, and made the rest into watch-chains and gold beads. Thus Newport was enriched; thus was found- ed in Rhode Island the manufacture of jewelry and silver-ware which has attained such marvellous proportions. This infernal commerce is now regard- ed by the people of New England as wise and honest Catholics regard the Inquisition and the Massacre of St. Bartholomew; that is, they wonder how their forefathers could have been guilty of it, and attribute it chiefly to the gen- eral barharism of the age. But the diversified industry remains, and it has enriched New England. Those streams which wind about the wooded hills and mountains of this region, useless as they are for naviga- tion, shallow, winding, rocky, and rapid, frequently have such a descent that there can be a factory village every mile or two of their course for many successive miles. Travellers by such railroads as the Housatonic know this to their sorrow; for these villages are so frequent along the banks of the Housatonic. River, that there is a stop- ping-place, at some parts of the line, every mile and a half. Among the glorious, wood-crowned bills of Berk- shire I have passed in an afternoon ride the following manufactories: an iron-smelting furnace; two very exten- sive manufactories of the finest writing- paper, the linen rags for which are brought from the shores of the Mediter- ranean; a large woollen mill; a small factory of folding-chairs and camp- stools; a manufactory of something in cotton; a mill for grinding poplar wood into material for paper; and some oth- ers, at a little distance from the road, the nature of which could not be dis- cerned. All these may be seen in a ride of ten miles along the Housatonic, and all are kept in motion by that little bustling stream. So much of this diversified industry as is legitimate (i.e. unforced by a stimu- lating tariff) is beneficial; the rest is excessive and hurtful. It is excellent for the farmer to have a market near his barn, but it is bad for him to have to pay such a price for labor as neu- tralizes that advantage. These num- berless factories absorb female labor to such a degree that I have known a family try for four months to get a ser- vant-girl in vain; and the few girls in a village that will go out to service are of- ten the refuse of creation, and rule their unhappy mistresses with a rod of iron. The factories, too, are attracting to some parts of New England Irish and German emigrants much faster than they can be assimilated. I read in a religious Report: The mountain re- gions [of Massachusetts] are continu- ally drained of a large part of their most enterprising population; the fur- naces buy up the farms for the sake of their wood, and, having skinned them, in the expressive language of the region, sell them out at low prices to The Mean Yankees at Home. 70 foreigners, who- are thus, in a number of places, coming into possession of hundreds of these mountain acres. This transfer of population, while ap- parently beneficial both to those who go and those who come, throws new burdens on the churches, and adds new embarrassments to the already difficult problem of a general popular Christian- ization. Considerable numbers of the Canadian French are now coming into Berkshire, turning its forests into fuel for the mills and founderies.~ This is partly owing to the tariff stim- ulation of the factories, and tends to show that stimulation is no better for the body politic than for the corporeal system of man. The truth remains, however, that diversified industry is one of the chief secrets of a countrys prosperity and progress. The most desperate and deplorable poverty now to be seen on earth - so I am assured by an intelligent and universal traveller is in some of the sugar and coffee districts of Cuba, where Nature has lav- ished upon the land her richest gifts. There is room there for the planter, the slave, and the importer of manufactures; all others cringe to the plantation lord, as toadies, beggars, or white trash. It is curious to see how the emi- grants, who arrive in the country at the rate of a thousand a ~lay, distribute themselves over the laNd, and settle just where they are wanted. These obscure factory villages of New Eng- land swarm with Irish people and Ger- mans; but no Yankee sends for them. They come. If they do well, they in- duce their relations and friends to join them ; if work is scarce, if the factory closes, they either scatter among the farmers to subsist, and wait for the reopening, or a band of them moves off to Iowa, Wisconsin, or Minnesota. In the back country, employers will make considerable sacrifices to avoid closing their works during the long, snow-bound winter, partly from benevolent feeling, partly from their unwillingness to create a destitution which it will fall to them to relieve. Here, as elsewhere, it is only about one third of the workmen who save their money and improve their position in the world; another third about hold their own, or can get credit in dull seasons sufficient to carry them over to the next period of super- abundance; another third live in such a way that, if work ceases this week, they must go hungry the next, unless more provident people help them. Some of the factories in odd, out-of- the-way nooks of New England are of such afitiquity thab men who went into them as boys are now gray-headed foremen or partners. Upon the whole, I must confess that some of the factory villages, with their rews of shabby cottages close together, their tall fac- tory buildings hui~ming with machinery, and all the refuse of manufacture lying about, do not leave an agreeable im- pression upon the mind of the visitor. But whatever in them is merely un- pleasing to the eye admits of easy and inexpensive remedy. The time was when very few men would be farmers in New England who could help it, and farming there is still far from being an attractive or popular occupation. The dearness of labor compels most of the proprietors of the soil to work with their hands from the rising of the sun to the going down of the same; and, so long as this is the case, the more capable of our idle species will extol the noble occupation of the farmer, and avoid it. But the business is rising in dignity. It is beginning to detain the superior sons of farmers from the city, and now and then lures from the city a volunteer who brings to the soil a highly trained and sure intelligence. The railroads go everywhere, and enable the farmers of the most northern town of Vermont to send to New York (three hundred and fifty miles distant) commodities as bulky as hay and as perishable as blackberries. Along the lines of those quiet country railroads to points two hundred miles distant from New York or Boston a milk-train nightly passes, gathering up from every station its quota of cans of milk for the next mornings supply of those cities. They [January, 1869.] The Mean Yankees at Home. have a way now of curing milk, which, without injuring it, causes it to keep longer, and prevnts the cream from rising. A farmer among the hills of Berkshire, who cures his milk by this process, has sent to New York (one hundred and fifty miles off), every night for the last eighteen months, two hundred cans of milk, and has only lost one can by the milk spoiling. For the information of milk consumers, I will here communicate the fact, that the milk which costs us in New York the xvar price of ten cents a quart yields the Yankee farmer only four cents. The strangest thing of all is, that it cannot he brought to our doors for much less than ten cents. Another thing incredible (but true) is, that the Yankee farmer does not water the ilk, nor even put into each can the lump of ice to keep it, of which we hear in convivial hours. Special farming appears to be more remunerative than general agriculture, and is one of the causes of the growing attractiveness of the business. The factories, wherein the milk of a hun- dred farms is made into cheese or butter, are an unspeakable relief to farmers wives. Labor-saving machin- ery is doing wonders for the farming interest, and will do more. The high prices of produce during the last seven years have cleared many thousand farms in New England from encum- brance, and put away in their owners money - boxes a fe~v United States bonds. In a word, although few hon- est men will ever find it an easy thing to live, and every one of the legitirhate occupations makes large demands of those ~vho exercise them successfully, it may now be said of farming in New England, that it invites, and will suffi- ciently reward, intelligent labor. The difficulty is the first five years. After that, if you manage well, you may have as much money as is necessary, and work no harder than is becoming. Probably there is now no business in which a little sound sense and e~tra judicious expenditure yield results so certain, so lasting, so desirable as this of farming. It seems strange that the mean Yankees should have taken so much trouble as they have to make their homes and villages pleasant to the eye. If the New-Yorker wishes to find a delightful village in which to spend the summer, he has only to go up in a balloon some fine afternoon in June, when the wind is blowing toward the east, and, when the balloon is over New England, let himself gently descend into a field, and make for the nearest collection of houses. He will be almost certain to have reached a pleasant place; but if not, there will be sure to be one a very few miles distant. I have been in New England towns of four or five thousand inhabitants, in which I could not discover by diligent search one squalid house, one untidy fence, one decidedly disagreeable ob- ject. They make their very wood- sheds ornamental, and pile the wood in them so evenly that the sawed ends of the sticks make a wall smooth, clean, and compact, pleasing to behold. A frequenter of New England could tell when he had reached that strange land by the wood-piles. Almost every- thing you see or handle there is a mechanical curiosity, for the Yankees take infinite trouble to invent tiouble- saving implements and apparatus. They have most curious and novel hinges, locks, latches, padlocks, keys, curry-combs, pig-troughs, and horse- shoes ; and nothing pleases them bet- ter than to be the first to have a new and startling invention, such as a front- door key that weighs half an ounce (a pretty little thing of polished steel, fit for the vest pocket, and yet capable of turning a huge lock), or a stove that puts on its own coal, or a gate that opens as the horseman approaches and closes when he has passed through, or a flat-iron that keeps itself hot, or a gas-burner so contrived that the gas lights by being merely turned on. A genuine Yankee delights to expound such things to the stray New-Yorker, and, in his eagerness, does not mark the impenetrable blank of his guests countenance as he strives to look as 7 72 The Mean Yankees at Home. [January, though he understood them. A Yankee establishment, including house, fences, gates,~barn, stable, wood-shed, chicken- yard, pig-sty, and tool-box, is a museum of ingenuities, all of which will ~vork, and all of which were made with a pur- posed symmetry and elegance. Some of the older villages have grown exceedingly lovely. A long, wide street, not straight, 0 no, not straight, nor violently crooked either, but gently curving as a country road usually does, which sets off to the best advantage the grand old elms lining the street on ~both sides, and affords many a glimpse of the pretty houses nestling under them, such is the usual village of New England. Few white fences, few white houses, but almost all that man has made is of a hue to harmonize with the prevailing colors of nature. The pillared edifices of fifty years ago, and the elaborate picket fences, have nearly disappeared, and all is becoming villa-like, neat, subdued, elegant. The width of the street gives room for two wide strips of grass, which beautifully relieve the heavy, dark masses of foli- age on each side; and these masses are further relieved by the lawns, the flowers, and the flowering shrubs that surround every house. Sometimes of a morning, when the sun slants across the street, and lights up the grass so that it looks like sheets of emerald, and touches with glory every object, and brings into clear view the distant, pleasing bend of the road, transmuting its very dust into gold, sometimes, I say, about 7 A. M., in one of these older villages of New England, when the jaded citizen steps out upon the path, and looks up and down the street, the view is such as to melt his heart and haunt him in his softer moments ever after. The scene is at once so peace- ful and so brilliant, and its beauty has not been too dearly purchased. It is not one mans ostentation or one classs privilege which has created this enchanting scene; it i~ not a gor- geous castle, and an exclusive park, with a squalid village near by. This loveliness is the result of a sense of the becoming which pervades the community, and which the whole com- munity has indulged. The cost in money is trifling indeed. Looking over the records of a town in Vermont~ I happened to fall upon an entry which showed that the town had paid for planting those mighty elms in its pub- lic square twenty - five cents each~ There are many men in the United States who would count it a rare piece of good luck to be able to buy one of them for twenty thousand dollars, cash on delivery in good condition. Of late years there has been a re vival of interest in the matter of vil~. lage decoration in New England. This movement originated in the mind cif a public-spirited lady of Stockbridge, Mrs. J. Z. Goodrich, who, in 1853, was chiefly instrumental in forming the famous Laurel Hill Association of that place, since imitated in other towns. The objects of these associations, as expressed in their constitutions, are to improve and ornament the streets and public grounds by planting and. cultivating trees, cleaning, trimming, and repairing the sidewalks, and doing such other acts as shall tend to beautify and improve such streets and grounds. Every person over fourteen who agrees. to pay one dollar a year for three years, or who plants and protects one tree under the direction of the executive committee, is a member of the associa- tion. Any one may become a life-mem- ber by paying ten dollars a year for three years, or twenty-five dollars at one time. To interest the children in the matter, ~vio might otherwise injure the young trees, or tread carelessly on the edges of the paths, all persons under fourteen are admitted members by paying twenty-five cents a year for three years, Qr by doing an equivalent amount of work annually for three years, under the direction of the execu- tive committee. This executive com- mittee, who, of course, do all the work of the association, consists of the presi- dent, the four vice-presidents, the treas- urer, the secretary, and fifteen others, part of whom shall be ladies. The The Mean Yankees at Home. committee meets once a month, deter- mines what shall he done, at what ex- pense, and under whose supervision. The result is, that the village is prop- erly shaded, the grass on each side of the road is cut at proper times, the paths are trimmed and kept free from weeds, the public ground is improved and beautified, the cemetery is duly cared for, the happiness of every civ- ilized being in the place is increased, and the value of all the village property is enhanced. Once a year the associ- ation meets to elect officers, to hear what has been done, how much spent, and what else is needed and desired. Sometimes this annual meeting is held in midsummer out of doors in the public park, and the ladies seize the opportunity to make it a kind of village festival. Speaking of these associations re- minds me of another of the many ways in which the Yankees in their native towns display their meanness. Ever since New England was settled, the inhabitants have had dinned in their ears, two or three times a week, such sentiments as that it is more blessed to give than to receive, that strength is bestowed upon the strong that they may help the weak, and wisdom upon the ~vise that they may guide the fool- ish. In fact, the very Constitution of Massachusetts contains an Article up- on the encouragement of literature, which, it says, ought to be encouraged. for the following reasons: To coun- tenance and inculcate the principles of humanity and general benevolence, public and private charity, industry and frugality, honesty and punctuality in dealings, sincerity, good-humor, and social affections and generous senti- ments among the people. Hence we can hardly find a town in New England, of any considerable age or wealth, which has not been the recip- ient of a gift or gifts from one or more of its inhabitants. There is lit- tle Stockbridge, among the hills of Berkshire, where the lynx and the otter are still caught, and from which the bear has not been long gone. The village contains but fifty or sixty houses, and the whole town has only a population of about nineteen hundred and fifty; but the following is an im- perfe9t catalogue of the gifts which it has received. First, its remarkably beautiful public ground, containing ten or twelve acres, was a gift to the town from the family known to the whole country by the talents of one of its members, the late Miss Catherine Sedgwick. Upon this fine park the public high school has been built, behind which the ground rises into a rocky and almost precipitous hill, densely covered with wood affording a capital playground to the boys, and a most agreeable retreat to all the people. Near by is a solid stone structure, the public library building, given to the town by Mr. J. Z. Good- rich. Another native of Stockbridge, Mr. Jackson, had previously had the meanness to start a public library by the gift of two thousand dollars worth of books, to which other residents had added many valuable volumes; where- upon Mr. Goodrich builds this solid and spacious edifice to contain the books, and to afford a pleasant read- ing-room for the people in the after- noons, when many of them can spend an hour or two over the papers and magazines. That done, the town took fire, in town meeting assembled, and voted four hundred dollars a year for the increase of the library, and the compensation of the young lady who serves as librarian (from 2 to 5 P. M., five days a week). Then President Hopkins, of Williams College, hearing what was going on in his native place, ~~ive to the library an unusually inter- esting collection of minerals. Other contributions of pictures and books have followed fast; until really the library of little Stockbridge is only in- ferior to such ancient establishments as that of Newport, which also has grown to its present importance chiefly by gifts and bequests. In Stockbridge, too, there is a very elegant fountain, the marble figures of which, executed in Milan, were presented by a well- 1869.] 73 The Mean Yankees at Home. [January, known New-Yorker, John H. Gourlie, who has a cottage near it. The town, however, excavated and built the foun- tain, the water of which comes from mountain springs some miles away. Incredible as it may seem, this ridicu- lous little village has had the insolence to tap a mountain, and bring excellent spring water into every house that chooses to have it! Another gift is a carved marble drinking-fountain, tem- porarily placed at the side of the library building. Finally, there is a handsome monument of brown stone, erected, at a cost of two thousand dollars, to the immortal and dear memory of the men of Stockbridge who fell in the ~var. This was built by general subscription. The propensity to make presents to the public is so general and so strong in New England, that it requires check- ing and warning rather than stimu- lating. In the course of time, when the progress of civilization shall have still further loosened the general clutch upon money, and the man who has the mania for needless accumulation will be generally recognized as a madman, it will probably become necessary to further regulate this matter of public gifts and bequests by law. No man has a right to saddle posterity with a hurtful burden. There is not a man in a million wise and far-seeino enough to b give away a million dollars without doinb more harm than good. By and by we shall seemen competin~, for the honor and privilege of giving some- thing to the public, and town meetings will be called to consider whether a proffered sum of money will be, upon the whole, and in the long run, a bene- lit or an injury. There are colle~& ,~ New England the efficiency of wbcn would be doubled if the trustees could disregard those conditions of gifts and bequ-ests which frustrate the givers benevolent intentions. To a New-Yorker who finds himself for the first time in New England, it is a great disappointment that he can find no Yankees about. In the ridiculous comedy of The American Cousin, the audience is given to understand that Asa Trenchard, the Yankee hero of the play, is a native of Brattleboro, Ver- mont. A visitor to that delightful town is as likely to find an Asa Trenchard there as he would be to meet a Tony Lumpkin at a dinner-party in Wind- sor Castle. Brattleboro, forsooth ! it would be difficult to discover on earth a village less capable of producing such a preposterous ass. They have a club there for taking the periodicals of con- tinental Europe, such as the Revue des Dewy Mo;zdes, the numbers of which circulate from house to house. They have a Shakespeare Club, which as- sembles on winter evenings to read and converse upon the plays of that poet, each member of the club taking a part. They form other winter clubs to study a language in common under the same teacher. They have an en- dowed library, for which, no doubt, some liberal soul or souls will provide a building erelong. They have also some vigorous ball clubs and an engine company; but I defy Tom Taylor to discover among them any creature ever so remotely resembling Mr. Trenc hard, Salem Scudder, or any of the other stage Yankees. The stage Yankee is gone from the earth. There are no Yankees in New England outside of the theatre. Indeed, we may say of the whole of the Northern States, that rusticity in all its forms is disappear- ing, and everything, as well as every- body, is getting covered with a metro- politan varnish. Go where you will, you cannot get far beyond the meer- schaum pipe, white kids, lessons on the piano, and the Atlantic Monthly. A melancholy feature of village life w England is the great number of intelligent, refined, and gifted ladies who have no career nor rational ex- pectation of one. A large proportion of the young men leave their native towns at an age when marriage cannot be thought of; they repair to a city, or plunge into the all-absorbing West, and are seen no more, until, perhaps, at fifty-five, their fortunes made, their families grown up, they come back to spend the evening of their days near 74 The Mean Yankees at Home. their childhoods home. Consider, for example, the case of the well-known Field family, and you will see why there are so many old maids in New England. There were six vigorous, ambitious boys of them, sons of a Puritan clergyman, whose doctrine and whose salary were both of the old school. When this fine old bulwark of the faith had given his hoys a col- lege education, and assisted them into a profession, what more could he or Berkshire do for them? They must needs adopt Napoleons tactics, and scatter to subsist. One, indeed, stayed at home, where he was long a leading lawyer of Western Massa- chusetts, and represented it in the State senate. Another became a New York merchant, and forced a reluctant world to re-lay the Atlantic cable. An- other tried for fame and fortune at the New York bar, and won a superfluity of both. Another distinguished himself as a naval officer. Another emerged to the public view as editor of a leading religious newspaper. Another made his way to a seat on the bench of the Supreme Court of the United States. These able men have had a career in the world, as thousands of other New England lads have had, and are having. But what of the girls they leave be- hind them ? Some, it is true, go forth, and make a career; but many seem compelled to remain at home, where they amuse themselves as best they can with German lessons, garden- ing, fairs, ecclesiastical needle-work, and going out to tea; willing to do any suitable work, but unwilling to de- prive of it work-women who must have it. It is easy enough to find villages in New England where there are twenty admirable girls under thirty years of age, and not one marriageable young man. A precious relief it is to these when the long June days bring at length, after the slow winter and tardy, tedious spring, the first summer visitors, with their huge trunks piled high on the village coach. Not for the new fash- ions sake, 0 dear, no! There is not a device nor passing whim of fashion which these Yankee girls do not know as soon as it is known in the Fifth Avenue. No city damsel need expect to astonish them with her novelties from Paris. Such of the Yankee girls as have been so unfortunate as to catch the clothes mania, now raging in most Christian countries, are walking Har- pers Bazars of fashionable knowledge. Very many of them make their own dresses, and trim their own bonnets, but they do it in the most recent and killing manner. The gay summer birds that come to these sweet nooks of New England are welcome for many rea- sons: they fill the churches, patronize the fairs, enliven the street, and join the tea-parties ; but they cannot tell the Yankee girls anything they do not know already, unless it is what Tost~e really does, my dear, in La Grande Duchesse. A curious thing about New England is the variety of eccentric characters to be found there. In almost every town there is a farmer or mechanic who has addicted himself to some kind of knowl- edge very remote from his occupation. Here you will find a shoemaker, in a little shop (which he locks when he goes to dinner or to the post-office, much to the inconvenience of custom- ers), who has attained celebrity as a botanist. In another village there may he a wheelwright who would sell his best coat for a rare shell; and, not far off, a farmer,, who is a pretty good geol- ogist, and is forever pecking away at his innocent rocks. Again, you will find a machinist who is enamored of large-paper? copies of standard works, and rejoic4s in the possession of rari- ties irAliterature which he cannot read. I kn~v an excellent steel-plate engraver, who, besides being a universal critic, is particularly convinced that the entire railroad system of the world is wrong, ties, rails, driving-wheels, axles, oil- boxes, everything, and employs his leisure in inventing better devices. Then there are people who have odd schemes of benevolence, such as that of the Massachusetts farmer who xvent to Palestine to teach the Orientals the 1869.] 75 76 Tue Mean Yankees at Home. [January, true system of agriculture, and was two years in finding out that they would nt learn it. There are morose men and families who neither visit nor are visited; and there is, occasionally, a downright miser, of the ancient type, such as we read of in old magazines and anecdote books. There are men, too, of an extreme eccentricity of opin- ion. I think there are in Boston about a dozen as complete, immovable, if not malignant, Tories, as can he found this side of Constantinople, men who plume themselves upon hating every- thing that makes the glory of their age and country. And, speaking ofBoston, solid, sensible Boston, what other city ever accomplished a feat so eccen- tric as the production of those twin incongruities, George Francis Train and the Count Johannes? In matters more serious there is an occasional eccentricity still more marked. So, at least, it is said by those who look deeper than the smil- ing summer surface of New England. In the religious Report * quoted above I read a startling passage to this effect: Our purely American communities, that have had a ~natural growth, are (with an exception soon to be named) religious and church-going communi- ties. That exception, says the Report further on, is where some form of re- ligious error i. e. a creed different from ours has prevailed. In some such places there is an obstinate in- difference to worship and to reli~ious truth, and even to religious questions in general. In others, a mental indis- position of peculiarly mischievous char- acter substitutes for this indifference an acrid izostility. This epidemic which in some localities has become endemic is characterized by a gener- al habit of opposition, a habit, not of eclecticism or of criticism, but of attack and denunciation; not of broad survey and genial correction, but of perverse misconception and invective. In sev * First Report of the [Massachusettsl State Com- mittee on Home vangelization. Presented to the General Conference [of Congregational Clergymeni September 53, s566. eral communities, continues the Report, the results begin to appear in a retro- gression towards the g5aganism of the later enq5ire, a virulent hatred of Christianity, an assertion of the suffi- ciency of philosophy and the useless- ness of religion, a contempt for worship and the Lords Day, and a doubt of immortality. This is eccentric indeed. It is such eccentricity as the summer visitor sel- dom has an opportunity of observing; for in the villages which he frequents the entire population on Sunday morn- ing seems to come forth in its excellent Sunday clothes, and gently wind its way to the churches, much to the discomfort of a city pagan, whom this apparent unanimity leaves to a silent, reproachful solitude. I think the most acrid of the pagans of the later empire, who should witness, from a convenient point, the long lines of well-dressed people strolling church- ward on Sunday in a green New Eng- land village, all gardens and loveliness, would be compelled to confess (to himself) that this weekly grooming of the whole people, this peaceful assem- bling, this silent, decorous sitting to- gether for an hour or two, these friendly greetings at the church doors, and the chatty stroll home with neighbors, is rather a good thing than other- ~vise, and certainly very much better that staying at home in the same old clothes, doing the same old work, and being acrid. If the pagans of the later empire are numerous enough, they should hasten to establish a Sun- day gathering, and so get rid of their acridity; for there are but two evils in the world, and one of them is ill- humor. But ho~v changed is New England religion from the time when Jonathan Edwards made mad the guilty and ap- palled the free in Northampton and Stockbridge a hundred and twenty years ago! Strange being! Wonder- ful creed ! There was a certain Sun- day morning in Northampton, in 1737, when the gallery of the church gave way in consequence of the heaving of The ILlca;z Ya;zkecs at Home~ the ground in spring. The account which Edwards gives of this event is a most curious study of character, of history, and of mania. He gives, first of all, a careful, exact explanation of what he would have called the natural causes of the catastrophe, showing how the ends of the supporting timbers were drawn out of their sockets by the bulging of the wall. Then he describes the event: The gallery, in falling, seemed to break and sink first in the middle, so that those who were upon it were thrown together in heaps before the front door. But the whole was so sudden, that many of those who fell knew nothing what it was, at the time, that had befallen them. Others in the congregation thought it had been an amazing clap of thunder. The falling gallery seemed to be broken all to pieces before it got down; so that some who fell with it, as well as those who were under, were buried in the ruins, and were found pressed under heavy loads of timber, and could do nothing to help themselves. But no one was killed, and only one seriously hurt. Why was this? Mr. Edwards answers: It seems unreasonable to ascribe it to anything else but the care of Providence in disposing the motions of every piece of timber, and the pre- cise place of safety where every one should sit and fall, when none were in any capacity to. care for their own pres- ervation. Hence he continues: We thought ourselves called on to set apart a day to be spent in the solemn worship of God, to humble ourselves under such a rebuke of God upon us, in time of public service in his house, by so dangerous and surprising an accident; and to praise his name for so wonderful, and as it were miraculous, a preservation. The stranger who now visits the church belonging to the society of which Jonathan Edwards was the minister finds himself introduced into a spacious and elegant edifice, with all the modern improvements in upholstery and cabinet work. The scene is bright and cheer- ful. A fine organ, xvell played, soothes and exalts the mind, and a highly trained quartette discourses beautiful music. If the gallery should break down some Sunday morning, the occu- pants would not have far to fall, and the church would bring an action against the builder. The sermon, of course, is not such as the acrid pagans of the later empire approve; but it is better than a man can be reasonably expected to produce who has to preach twice a week, and the first necessity of whose position is, not to offend the people that pay him. In these transition times it is hard to be a clergyman in New England; for whether the clergyman advances faster than the people, or the people get ahead of the clergyman, the result is equally distressing to the weaker party. Perhaps there is not a more agonizing situation on earth than that of the clergyman of a modern fastidious church, who, having a sickly wife, six children, and no head for business, has incurred the hideous calamity of know- ing too much. . If ever we have in America a great fictitious literature., much of the agony of the same will be of that internal and spiritual nature here referred to. The time was when there was an in- timate connection between these town governments and the church, the es- tablished church of New England, ai~id when all other beliefs and rites were forbidden. Once a man could be lawfully taxed against his will for the support of the Congregational min- ister, and it was death to say mass. But New England, from its first settle- ment to the present hour, has always given that sole certain evidence of spir- itual life which is afforded by growth in grace. The essential difference between a xvise and a foolish person, between a superior and an inferior community, is, that one learns and the other does not. The Mathers and Ed- wardses of a former generation are suc- ceeded by the Channings, Beechers, Parkers, Motleys, and Emersons of this; and these, in their turn, will be followed by men equal to the task of The .ZJJean Yankees at Home. [January, 78 carrying n and organizi~zg the regen- eration which has been so worthily be- gun. The old restraints and privileges have long ago been abolished, and per- fect religious and irreligious freedom prevails. A family can now take a ride on Sunday afternoon, or receive vis- itors on Sunday evening, without excit- ing consternation or calling out the constable. In almost every village all the principal sects are represented, and there is usually the utmost possible friendliness between them. At the Congregational church you will gener- ally find the solid aristocracy of the place, the president of the railroad, the president of the bank, the master of the high school, the employing man- ufacturers, the old doctor, the rich farm- ers, the large store-keeper, and the colored man who thinks he waited on General Washington in the Revolution- ary War. But, in some towns, the Uni- tarians have a share of these great men, as well as a good number of the polite people who are sometimes described in New England as liteyary.~ In most villages there may now be~ found a pretty little box of an Episcopal church, half hidden in foliage, which in sum- mer, during the reign of the summer visitors, is filled to overflowing with the gayest costumes; though in winter, they say, the attendance dwindles to a com- pany which is as small in number as it is fervent in zeal. There is, also, usu- ally a Methodist church, and frequently a Baptist, which have their proportion of adherents. Each of these denomi- nations maintains a vigorous Sun day school, and the friendly rivalry be- tween the schools gives the poorer children many a picture - book, doll, cake, and picnic which they would not otherwise have. Perfect freedom, I have just said, prevails in religious matters in New England; but this has not lon,, been the case. Some of the elderly people in the elderly towns found it hard to tol- erate the building of Catholic churches in their midst, and consequently Cath- olics occasionally found it difficult to buy ground for the purpose. No one had any lots to sell, or a preposterous price was asked; the true reason being, that the wink had been passed among the land-owners, and an understanding come to that the priest was not to have any land. I am acquainted with a large town in Vermont where these tactics were successful for some years, in spite of the disorderly Sundays in the Irish quarter, which were a weekly argument in favor of the priests coming. At length, by stratagem, the requisite lots were obtained; and then the Catholics, being put upon their mettle by this inconsiderate oppos~tion, took their re- venge by building a twenty-thousand- dollar church of brick instead of a three-thousand-dollar one of wood, as first proposed. Not content with this fell vengeance, they carried their ani- mosity so far as to behave ever after with the strictest propriety on Sun- days. The stranger is surprised to find in small sequestered villages, renowned perhaps in the annals of Puritanism, Catholic churches of good size, with thick walls of handsome and well-cut stone, nearly as white as marble, and surrounded by lawns and shrubbery, not very ill kept. The explanation of the mystery sometimes is, that in these remote villages among the mountains there are human minds all alive to the stir and impulse of the time, to whom the men, the books, the ideas, the aspi- rations, the dismay, and the despair of the age are more real and familiar than to us who live in distracting cit- ies; and some of these yearning, im- aginative souls have listened in their seclusion to the rending cry of Lacor- daire in Notre Dame, to Hyacinthe, to Newman, and have been seduced to abandon the hereditary fold, and fly, shivering, to the ancient ark. Hence the Catholic churches are sometimes more costly than they naturally would be, and we find in them a crowded con- gregation of Irish laborers and their families, and one solitary native of an- cient name and wealth, who contributed a large part of the building fund. Along the northern border, where many of the 1869.] Tue Mean Yankees at Home. 79 laboring class are French, there are a few rather ancient Catholic churches; in some of which the sermon is in French one Sunday and in English. the next, and French coRfessions al- ternate with English on Saturdays. It were much to be desired that some religion had power enough on the fron- tier to put an end to the petty smug- gling that goes on there continually, corrupting the poor man who perpe- trates the offence, and the summer vis- itor who instigates or rewards it. I think the Catholic bishops must re- serve a few wild priests for the remoter country congregations, where there is little chance for proselyting. I wit- nessed a Catholic service, a summer or two since, in the very heart of New Eng- land, which was a chapter of Charles OMalley come to life, a 1~it of old Ireland transferred bodily to the New World. Toward nine oclock on Sun- day morning, the hour appointed for the semi-monthly mass, the people gathered about the gate under the trees, while the ruddy and robust priest stood at the church door, accosting those who entered with a loud heartiness that made every word he uttered audible to the people standing without and to the people kneeling within. He was a jo- vial and sympathetic soul, who could (and did) laugh with the merry and grieve with the sad; but it was evident that laughter came far more natural to him than crying. When he had con- cluded, at 9.15, a boisterous and most jovial conversation with Mrs. OFlynn at the door, every word of which was heard by every member of the waiting congregation, he entered the church, and proceeded to the altar, before which he knelt, holding his straw hat in his hand. His prayer ended, he went into a small curtained alcove at the side, where his priestly robes were hanging. Without taking the trouble to let the curtains fall, he took off his coat, in view of the whole assembly, and put on part of his ecclesiastical garments, unassisted by his only aco- lyte, a little boy in the usual costume, who stood by. He then went again to the altar, and arranged the various ob- jects for the coming ceremonial; after which he stepped aside and completed the robing, not even going into the alcove, but standing outside, and reach- ing in for the different articles. He might have spared the congregation the pain of seeing his struggles to tie his strings behind him; but no; he chose to perform the whole without help and without disguise. When all was ready, he said the mass with perfect propriety, and with unusual manifestations of feel- ing. But the sermon, if sermon it could be called, was absolutely comic, and much of it was intended to be so. There had been a fair recently for the re-decoration of the altar; and in the first part of his discourse the gratified pastor read a list of the contributors, with comments, in something like the style following Mrs. McDowd, $ 13.50; and very well done, too, consideriffg they had nothing but cake upon their table, no, not so much as an apple. John Hag- gerty, $ 2.70; and indade he s only a boy, a mere lad, and a good boy he is. Mrs. OSullivan, $37.98; yes, and $27.42 before. Ab! but that was doing well, that was wonderful, considering what she had to contend with. Mrs. ODon- ahue, $ 7.90; and every cent of it got by selling a ten-cent picture. Very well done of you, Mrs. ODonahue! Peter OBrien, $ 12.00; good for you, Peter, and I thank you in my own name and in the name of the congre- gation Total, $ 489.57. Nearly five hundred dollars! Its really as- tonishing! and how much of it, my children (this he said with a wink and a grin that excited general laughter), and how much of it do you think your priest will kape for himself? Not much, Im thinking. No indeed. Why should I kape it? What do I want with it? I have enough to eat, drink, and wear, and what more does a priest want? I have no ambition for money, not I; and you know it well. You know that the whole of this money will be spent upon the altar of God; and we shall spend it with the greatest economy. The Mean Yankees at Home. [January, Not Brussels carpet, of course. That would cost four or five dollars a yard. Good ingrain will do well enoubh for us at present, and last long enough too; for cant it be turned? You know it can. Twenty years from now, when we are all dead and gone, they 11 be turning and turning and turning it, and holding it up to the light, and saying, I wonder who laid down this ould car- pet! In all my life, I never saw such an altar as this in a church of this size (turning to the altar, and surveying it with an indescribably funny attempt to look contemptuous), so mane, so very inane! I tell you, if I had been here when this altar was made, I d have wheeled the man out of church pretty quick. (These last words were accompanied with the appropriate gest- ure, expressive of taking the delin- quent carpenter by the back of the neck, and propelling hi~~ thereby down the aisle.) But what shall I say of those who have given nothing to this fair? Ah! I tell you, when the deco- rations are all done, and you come here to mass on Sunday mornings, and see Gods house and the sanctuary where he dwells all adorned as it should be with the gifts of the faithful, and when you think that you gave not one cent towards it, I tell you you 11 blush if there s a blush in you. After proceeding in this tone for twen- ty minutes, during which he laughed heartily himself, and made the people lau~h outright,, he changed to another topic, which he handled in a style well adapted to accomplish the object in- tended. He said he had heard that some of the hotel girls had been swearing and quarrelling a good deal that summer. Ah, he continued, I was sorry to hear it! The idea of ladies swearing! How wrong, how me an, how~contemptible, how nasty, how un- christian! Dont you suppose that the ladies and gentlemen at the hotel have heard how many Protestants are com- ing into the bosom of the Catholic Church? Dont you suppose they ~watch you? They know you re Catho- lics, and dont you suppose they 11 be judging of Catholics by you 2 And, be- sides, who would marry a swearing lady? Tell me that! The most aban- doned blackguard that walks the streets would nt marry a girl that he had heard swear, for he knows very well that she d be a bad mother. If I were a young man, and heard my true love swear, do you think I d marry her? Hey? do you think I would? By no manes! And I wish to God I had spoken about this before; for now the season is almost over, and many of the Protestant people have gone home, and very likely are talking about it now in New York and Boston. You know what they 11 say. They 11 say, If that s the way Catholic ladies be- have, you dont catch me turning Cath- olic. At the conclusion of his discourse he took up the collection himself:, say- ing, as he left each pew, Thank you~ in a strong, hearty tone of voice; and if any one took a little extra trouble to reach over, or put into the box some- thing more than the usual copper coin, he bowed, and said, I thank you very much, madam, very much indeed. He was a strange mixture of the father and the ecclesiastic, of the good fellow and the gentleman. In Tipperary, in the Colleen Bawn, in Charles Lever, we are not surprised to find him; but who would have expected to make his ac- quaintance in a secluded valley of New England, and to discover that he has the largest congregation in the neigh- borhood? And 0 how much better is such a priest than one of the howling- dervish description! So much for life in a New England town; for I have left myself no room to speak of the unequalled efficiency of the Yankee town system in time of war. No despot has ever invented a mode of bringing out the last man and the last dollar half so simple, cheap, prompt, and certain as this. As soon as a call for troops is flashed over the wires, the officers of each town can as- certain exactly how many men they have to produce; and they know where the men are, and what the men are, 8o 1869.] Dank. who are most open to an offer. They know what the families of the soldiers require, and those soldiers have an as- surance that their families will not suf- fer in their absence. It was this town system that saved the country in the late war. Universal liberty may be a dream. Henry Clays pleasing fancy of a con- tinent of closely allied Republics set- tling all differences and difficulties by an occasional Congress on the Isthmus of Darien, wherein the honorable giant from Patagonia would join in harmoni- ous debate with the honorable dwarf from Greenland, may never be realized. But if universal liberty is not a dream, if the whole habitable earth is ever to be occupied by educated, dignified, and virtuous beings, it is probable that those beings will arrange themselves in self-governing communities, similar in magnitude, similar in institutions and laws, to a New England town. It is strange that such people as Yankees are said to be, struggling for life in the wil- derness against savage man and sav- age nature, should have hit upon methods which seem scarcely capable of essential improvement. DANTE. The following lines were stritten about the time of the six hundredth anniversary of the birth of Dante, which was celebrated in vsrious parts of the civilized world in May, 1865. If they have any interest for the resder, they will owe it in a good degree to the recent admirable translations of Dantes great poem, which hsve familiarized the American public with the character of his mind and what he did for his own age and the ages which succeeded him, the translation of the entire poem hy Longfellow, in which the naked grand- eur of the original is reproduced with a severe fidelity, and that of the Inferno by Parsons, remarkable for the ease aud spirit of its rendering. The allusion in the last stanra of the lines here given will be readily understood to refer to the history of ~ur own country for the year s86~. \~fHO, midst the grasses of the field V~That spring beneath our careless feet, First found the shining stems that yield The grains of life-sustaining wiseat; Who first upon the furrowed land Strowed the bright grains to sprout and grow, And ripen for the reapers hand, We know not, and we cannot know. But well we know the hand that brought And scattered, far as sight can reach, The seeds of free and living thought On the broad field of nodern speech. Midst the white hills that round us lie We cherish that Great Sowers fame; And, as we pile the sheaves on high, With awe we utter Dantes name. Six centuries, since the poets birth, Have come and flitted oer our sphere; The richest harvest reaped on earth Crowns the last centurys closing year. VOL. XXIII. NO. 134. 6

1869.] Dank. who are most open to an offer. They know what the families of the soldiers require, and those soldiers have an as- surance that their families will not suf- fer in their absence. It was this town system that saved the country in the late war. Universal liberty may be a dream. Henry Clays pleasing fancy of a con- tinent of closely allied Republics set- tling all differences and difficulties by an occasional Congress on the Isthmus of Darien, wherein the honorable giant from Patagonia would join in harmoni- ous debate with the honorable dwarf from Greenland, may never be realized. But if universal liberty is not a dream, if the whole habitable earth is ever to be occupied by educated, dignified, and virtuous beings, it is probable that those beings will arrange themselves in self-governing communities, similar in magnitude, similar in institutions and laws, to a New England town. It is strange that such people as Yankees are said to be, struggling for life in the wil- derness against savage man and sav- age nature, should have hit upon methods which seem scarcely capable of essential improvement. DANTE. The following lines were stritten about the time of the six hundredth anniversary of the birth of Dante, which was celebrated in vsrious parts of the civilized world in May, 1865. If they have any interest for the resder, they will owe it in a good degree to the recent admirable translations of Dantes great poem, which hsve familiarized the American public with the character of his mind and what he did for his own age and the ages which succeeded him, the translation of the entire poem hy Longfellow, in which the naked grand- eur of the original is reproduced with a severe fidelity, and that of the Inferno by Parsons, remarkable for the ease aud spirit of its rendering. The allusion in the last stanra of the lines here given will be readily understood to refer to the history of ~ur own country for the year s86~. \~fHO, midst the grasses of the field V~That spring beneath our careless feet, First found the shining stems that yield The grains of life-sustaining wiseat; Who first upon the furrowed land Strowed the bright grains to sprout and grow, And ripen for the reapers hand, We know not, and we cannot know. But well we know the hand that brought And scattered, far as sight can reach, The seeds of free and living thought On the broad field of nodern speech. Midst the white hills that round us lie We cherish that Great Sowers fame; And, as we pile the sheaves on high, With awe we utter Dantes name. Six centuries, since the poets birth, Have come and flitted oer our sphere; The richest harvest reaped on earth Crowns the last centurys closing year. VOL. XXIII. NO. 134. 6 82 O;z a cer/ain Condesccnsio;z in Forez~-ners. [January~ Xyr ALKING one day toward the Village, as we used to call it in the good old days when almost every dweller in the town had been born in it, I wa~ enjoying that delicious sense of disenthralment from the actual which the deepening twilight brings with it, giving as it does a sort of obscure novelty to things familiar. The cool- ness, the hush, brokei~ only by the distant bleat of some belated goat, querulous to be disburdened of her milky load, the few faint stars, more guessed as yet than seen, the sense that the eoming dark would so soon fold me in the secure privacy of its dis- guise, all things combined in a result as near absolute peace as can be hoped for by a man who knows that there is a writ out against him in the hands of the printers devil. For the moment, I was enjoying the blessed privilege of think- ing without being called on to stand and deliver what I thought to the small public who are good enough to take any interest therein. I love old ways, and the path I was walking felt kindly to the feet it had known for al- most fifty years. I-low many fleeting impressions it had shared with me! How many times I had lingered to study the shadows of the leaves mezzo- tinted upon the turf that edged it by the moon, of the bare hon bhs etched with a touch beyond Rembrandt by the same unconscious artist on the smooth pane of~ snow! If I turned round, through dusky tree-gaps came the first twinkle of evening lamps in the dear old homestead. On Coreys hill I could see these tiny pharoses of love and home and sweet domestic thoughts flash out one by one across the black- ening salt-meadow between. How much has not kerosene added to the cheerfulness of our evening landscape! A pair of night-herons flapped heavily over me toward the hidden river. The war was ended. I mi ht walk town- ward without that aching dread of bul ON A CERTAIN CONDESCENSION IN FOREIGN~RS. letins that had darkened the July sun- shine and twice made the scarlet leaves of October seem stained with blood. I remembered with a pang, half-proud, half-painful, how, so many years ago, I had walked over the same path and felt round my finger the soft pressure of a little hand that was one day to harden with faithful grip of sabre. On how many paths, leading to how many homes where proud Memory does all she can to fill up the fireside gaps with shining shapes, must not men be walking in just such pei~sive mood as I? Ah, young heroes, safe in immortal youth as those of Homer, you at least carried your ideal hence untarnished! It is locked for you be- yosd moth or rust in the treasure- chamber of Death. Is not a country, I thought, that has had such as they in it, that could give such as they a brave joy in dying for it, worth something, then? And as I felt more and more the soothing mag- ic of evenings cool palm upon my tem- ples, as my fancy came home from its revery, and my senses, with reawak- ened curiosity, ran to the front windows again from the viewless closet of ab- straction, and felt a strange charm in finding the old tree and shabby fence still there under the travesty of falling night, nay, were conscious of an unsus- pected newness in familiar stars and the fading outlines of hills my earliest horizon, I was conscious of an immor- tal soul, and could not but rejoice in the unwaning goodliness of the world into which I had been born without any merit of my own. I thought of dear Henry Vaughans rainbow, Still young and fine ! I remembered peo- ple who had to go over to the Alps to learn what the divine silence of snow was, who must run to Italy before they were conscious of the miracle wrought every day under their very noses by the sunset, who must call upon the Berkshire hills to teach them what a

82 O;z a cer/ain Condesccnsio;z in Forez~-ners. [January~ Xyr ALKING one day toward the Village, as we used to call it in the good old days when almost every dweller in the town had been born in it, I wa~ enjoying that delicious sense of disenthralment from the actual which the deepening twilight brings with it, giving as it does a sort of obscure novelty to things familiar. The cool- ness, the hush, brokei~ only by the distant bleat of some belated goat, querulous to be disburdened of her milky load, the few faint stars, more guessed as yet than seen, the sense that the eoming dark would so soon fold me in the secure privacy of its dis- guise, all things combined in a result as near absolute peace as can be hoped for by a man who knows that there is a writ out against him in the hands of the printers devil. For the moment, I was enjoying the blessed privilege of think- ing without being called on to stand and deliver what I thought to the small public who are good enough to take any interest therein. I love old ways, and the path I was walking felt kindly to the feet it had known for al- most fifty years. I-low many fleeting impressions it had shared with me! How many times I had lingered to study the shadows of the leaves mezzo- tinted upon the turf that edged it by the moon, of the bare hon bhs etched with a touch beyond Rembrandt by the same unconscious artist on the smooth pane of~ snow! If I turned round, through dusky tree-gaps came the first twinkle of evening lamps in the dear old homestead. On Coreys hill I could see these tiny pharoses of love and home and sweet domestic thoughts flash out one by one across the black- ening salt-meadow between. How much has not kerosene added to the cheerfulness of our evening landscape! A pair of night-herons flapped heavily over me toward the hidden river. The war was ended. I mi ht walk town- ward without that aching dread of bul ON A CERTAIN CONDESCENSION IN FOREIGN~RS. letins that had darkened the July sun- shine and twice made the scarlet leaves of October seem stained with blood. I remembered with a pang, half-proud, half-painful, how, so many years ago, I had walked over the same path and felt round my finger the soft pressure of a little hand that was one day to harden with faithful grip of sabre. On how many paths, leading to how many homes where proud Memory does all she can to fill up the fireside gaps with shining shapes, must not men be walking in just such pei~sive mood as I? Ah, young heroes, safe in immortal youth as those of Homer, you at least carried your ideal hence untarnished! It is locked for you be- yosd moth or rust in the treasure- chamber of Death. Is not a country, I thought, that has had such as they in it, that could give such as they a brave joy in dying for it, worth something, then? And as I felt more and more the soothing mag- ic of evenings cool palm upon my tem- ples, as my fancy came home from its revery, and my senses, with reawak- ened curiosity, ran to the front windows again from the viewless closet of ab- straction, and felt a strange charm in finding the old tree and shabby fence still there under the travesty of falling night, nay, were conscious of an unsus- pected newness in familiar stars and the fading outlines of hills my earliest horizon, I was conscious of an immor- tal soul, and could not but rejoice in the unwaning goodliness of the world into which I had been born without any merit of my own. I thought of dear Henry Vaughans rainbow, Still young and fine ! I remembered peo- ple who had to go over to the Alps to learn what the divine silence of snow was, who must run to Italy before they were conscious of the miracle wrought every day under their very noses by the sunset, who must call upon the Berkshire hills to teach them what a a cer4zin Condescension in Forez~rners. painter autumn was, while close at hand the Fresh Pond meadows made all oriels cheap with hues that showed as if a sunset-cloud had been wrecked among their maples. One might be worse off than even in America, I thought. There are some things so elastic that even the heavy roller of de- mocracy cannot flatten them altogether down. The mind can weave itself warmly in the cocoon of its own thoughts and dwell a hermit anywhero. A country without traditions, without ennobling associations, a scramble of Z5arvenus, with a horrible conscious- ness of shoddy runnihg through politics, manners, art, literature, nay, religion itself? I confess, it did not seem so to me there in that illimitable quiet, that serene self-possession of nature, where Collins might have brooded his Ode to Evenino or where those verses on Solitude in Dodsleys Col- lection, that Hawthorne liked so much, might have been composed. Tradi- tions? Granting that we had none, all that is worth having in them is the com- mon property of the soul, an estate in gavelkind for all the sons of Adam, and, moreover, if a man cannot stand on his two feet (the prime quality of whoever has left any tradition behind him), were it not better for him to be honest about it at once, and go down on all fours ? And for associations, if one have not the wit to make them for himself out of his native earth, no ready- made ones of other men will avail him much. Lexington is none the worse to me for not being in Greece, nor Gettys- burb that its name is not Marathon. Blessed old fields, I was just ex- claiming to myself, like one of Mrs. Radcliffes heroes, dear acres, in- nocently secure from history, which these eyes first heheld, may you be also those to which they ~hall at last slowly darken! when I was inter- rupted by a voice which asked me in German whether I was the Herr Pro- fessor, Doctor, So-and-so? The Doc- ~r was by brevet or vaticination, to m~ike tho grade easier to my pocket. One feels so intimately assured that he is made up, in part, of shreds and leavings of the past, in part of the interpolations of other people, that an honest man would be slow in saying yes to such a question. But my name is So-and-so is a safe answer, and I gave it. While I had been ro- mancing with myself, the street-lamps had been lighted, and it was under one of these detectives that have robbed the Old Road of its privilege of sanctuary after nightfall that I was ambushed by my foe. The inexorable villain had taken my description, it appears, that I might have the less chance to escape him. Dr. Holmes tells us that we change our substance, not every seven years, as was once believed, but with every breath we draw. Why had I not the wit to avail myself of the subter- fuge, and, like I~eter, to renounce my identity, especially, as in certain moods of mind, I have often more than doubted of it myself? When a man is, as it were, his own front-door, and is thus knocked at, why may he not assume the right of that sacred wood to make every house a castle, by denying him- self to all visitations? I was truly not at home when the question was put to me, but had to recall myself from all out-of-doors, and to piece my self-con- sciousness hastily together as well as I could before I answered it. I knew perfectly well what was corn- in It is seldom that debtors or good Samaritans waylay people under gas- lamps in order to force money upon them, so far as I have seen or heard. I was also aware, from considerable experience, that every forei~ner is per- suaded that, by doing this country the favor of coming to it, he has laid every native thereof under an obligation, pe- cuniary or other, as the case may be, whose discharge he is entitled to on demand duly made in person or by letter. Too much learning (of this kind) had made me mad in the provin- cial sense of the word. I had begun life with the theory of giving something to every beggar Vhat came along, though sure of never finding a native- born countryman among them. In a 1869.] 83 On a certain Condescension in Forczgners. small way, I was resolved to emulate Hatem Tais tent, with its three hun- dred and sixty-five entrances, one for every day in the year,I know not whether he was astronomer enough to add another for leap-years. The beg- gars were a kind of German-silver ar- istocracy; not real plate, to be sure, but better than nothing. Where every- body was overworked, they supplied the comfortable equipoise of absolute leisure, so ~sthetically needful. Be- sides, I was but too conscioi,is of a vagrant fibre in myself, which too often thrilled me in my solitary walks with the temptation to wander on into infi- nite space, and by a single spasm of resolution to emancipate myself from the drudgery of prosaic serfdom to re- spectability and the regular course of things. This prompting has been at times my familiar demon, and I could not but feel a kind of respectful sympa- thy for men who had dared what I had only sketched out to myself as a splen- did possibility. For seven years I helped maintain one heroic man on an imaginary journey to Portland, as fine an example as I have ever known of hopeless loyalty to an ideal. I assisted another so long in a fruitless attempt to reach Mecklenburg-Schwerin, that at last we grinned in each others faces when we met, like a couple of augurs. He was possessed by this harmless mania as some are by the North Pole, and I shall never forget his look of re- gretful compassion (as for one who was sacrificing his higher life to the flesh- pots of Egypt) when I at last advised him somewhat strenuously to go to the D, whither the road was so much travelled that he could not miss it. Gen- eral Banks, in his noble zeal for the honor of his country, would confer on the Secretary of State the power of imprisoning, in case of war, all these seekers of the unattainable, thus by a stroke of the pen annihilating the single poetic element in our humdrum life. Alas not everybody has the genius to be a Bobbin-Boy, or doubtless all these also would have chosen that more prosper- ous line of life! But moralists, social- ogists, political economists, and taxes have slowly convinced me that my be o~oarly sympathies were a sin against society. Especially was the Buckle doctrine of averages (so flattering to our free-will) persuasive with me; for as there must be in every year a certain number who would bestow an alms on these abridged editions of the Wander- ing Jew, the withdrawal of my quota could make no possible difference, since some destined proxy must always step forward to fill my gap. Just so many misdirected letters every year and no more! Would it were as easy to reck- on up the number of men on whose backs fate has written the wrong ad- dress, so that they arrive by mistake in Congress and other places where they do not belong! May not these wan- derers of whom I speak have been sent into the world without any proper ad- dress at all? Where is our Dead-Let- ter Office for such? And if wiser social arrangements should furnish us with something of the sort, fancy (hor- rible thought!) how many a working- mans friend (a kind of industry in which the labor is light and the wages heavy) would be sent thither because not called for in the office where he at present lies! But I am leaving my new acquaint- ance too long under the, lamp-post. The same Gano which had betrayed me to him revealed to me a well-set young man of about half my own age, as well dressed, so far as I could see, as I was, and with every natural quali- fication for getting his own livelihood as good, if not better, than my own. He had been reduced to the painful necessity of calling u ponmebyase- ries of crosses beginning with the Ba- den Revolution (for which, I own, he seemed rather young, but perhaps he referred to a kind of revolution prac- tised every season at Baden-Baden), continued by repeated failures in busi- ness, for amounts which must convince me of his entire respectability, and end- ing with our Civil War. During the latter, he had served with distinction as a soldier, taking a main part in ev 84 [January, 1869.] On a certain Condescension in Forez~-;zers. 85 ery important battle, with a rapid list of which he favored me, and no doubt would have admitted that, impartial as Jonathan Wilds great ancestor, he had been on both sides, had I baited him with a few hints of conservative opin- ions on a subject so distressing to a gentleman wishing to profit by ones sympathy and unhappily doubtful as to which way it might lean. For all these reasons, and, as he seemed to im- ply, for his merit in consenting to be born in Germany, he considered him- self my natural creditor to the extent of five dollars, which he would hand- somely consent to accept in green- backs, though he preferred specie. The offer was certainly a generous one, and the claim presented with an assurance that carried conviction. But, unhappily, I had been led to remark a curious natural phenomenon. If I was ever weak enough to give anything to a petitioner of whatever nationality, it al- ways rained decayed compatriots of his for a month after. Post hoc ergo pr~?5- ler hoc may not be always safe logic, but here I seemed to perceive a natural connection of cause and effect. Now, a few days before I had been so tickled with a paper (professedly written by a benevolent American clergyman) certi- fying thatthe bearer, a hard-working Ger- man, had long sofered with rheumatic paints in his limps, that, after copy- ing the passage into my note-book, I thought it but fair to pay a trifling hon- orarium to the author. I had pulled the string of the shower-bath! It had been running shipwrecked sailors for some time, but forthwith it began to pour Teutons, redolent of lager-bier. I could not help associating the appari- tion of my new friend with this series of otherwise unaccountable phenomena. I accordingly made up my mind to de- ny the debt, and modestly did so, plead- ing a native bias towards impecuniosity to the full as strong as his own. He took a high tone with me at once, such as an honest man would naturally take with a confessed repudiator. He even brought down his proud stomach so far as to join himself to me for the rest of my townward walk, that he might give me his views of the Ameri- can people, and thus inclusively of my- self. I know not whether it is because I am pigeon-livered and lack gall, or wheth- er it is from an overmastering sense of drollery, but I am apt to submit to such bastings with a patience ~vhich af- terwards surprises me, being not with- out my share of warmth in the blood. Perhaps it is because I so often meet ~vith young persons who know vastly more than I do, and especially with so many foreigners whose knowledge of this country is superior to my own. However it may be, I listened for some time with tolerable composure as my self-appointed lecturer gave me in de- tail his opinions of my country and its people. America, he informed me, was without arts, science, literature, culture, or any native hope of supplying them. We were a people wholly given to mon- ey-getting, and who, having got it, knew no other use for it than to hold it fast. I am fain to confess that I felt a sensi- ble itching of the biceps, and that my fingers closed ~vith such a grip as he had just informed me was one of the effects of our unhappy climate- But happening just then to be where I could avoid temptation by dodging down a by-street, I hastily left him to finish his diatribe to the lamp-post, which could stand it better than I. That young man will never know how near he came to being assaulted by a respectable gen- tleman of middle age, at the corner of Church Street. I have never felt quite satisfied that I did all my duty by him in not knocking him down. But per- haps he might have knocked me down, and then? The capacity of indignation makes an essential part of the outfit of every honest man, but I am inclined to doubt whether he is a wise one who allows himself to act upon its first hints. It should be rather, I suspect, a latent heat in the blood, which makes itself felt in character, a steady reserve foi~ the brain, warming the ovum of thought to life, rather than cooking it by a toQ On a certain Condescension in Forez~-ners. hasty enthusiasm in reaching the boil- ing-point. As my pulse gradually fell back to its normal beat, I reflected that I had been uncomfortably near making a fool of myself, a handy salve of eu~ phuism for our vanity, though it does not always make a just allowance to Nature for her share in the business. What possible claim had my Teutonic friend to rob me of my cemposure? I am not, I think, specially thin-skinned as to other peoples opinions of myself, having, as I conceive, later and fuller intelligence on that point than anybody else can give me. Life is. continually weighing us in very sensitive scales, and telling every one of us precisely what his real weight is to the last grain of dust. Whoever at fifty does not rate himself quite as low as most of his ac- quaintance would be likely to put him, must be either a fool or a great man, and I hblmbly disclaim being either. But if I was not smarting in person from any scattering shot of my late companions commination, why should I grow hot at any implication of my country therein? Surely her shoulders are broad enough, if yours or mine are not, to bear up under a considerable avalanche of this kind. It is the bit of truth in every slander, the hint of like- ness in every caricature, that makes us smart. Art thou there, old Truepen- ny? How did your blade know its way so weefl to that one loose rivet in our armor? I wondered whether Ameri- cans were over-sensitive in this respect, whether they were more t@uchy than other folks. On the whole, I thought we were not. Plutarch, who at least had studied philosophy, if he had not mastered it, could not stomach some- thing Herodotus had said of B~otia, and devoted an essay to showing up the delightful old travellers malice and ill-breeding. French editors leave out of Montaignes Travels some re- marks of his about France, for reasons best known to themselves. Pachyder- matous Deutschland, covered with tro- phies from every field of letters, still winces ui~der that question which P~re Bouhours put two centuries ago, Si un A liemand ~eut e~tre l3el-e~y5rit? John Bull grew apoplectic with angry amaze- ment at the audacious persiflage of Piickler-Muskau. To be sure, he was a prince, but that was not all of it, for a chance phrase of gentle Haw- thorne sent a spasm through all the journals of England. Then this ten- derness is not peculiar to us 2 Con- sole yourself, dear man and brother, whatever you may be sure of, be sure at least of this, that you are dreadfully like other people. Human nature has a much greater genius for sameness than for originality, or the world would be at a sad pass shortly. The surpris- ing thing is that men have such a taste for this somewhat musty flavor, that an Englishman, for example, should feel himself defrauded, nay, even outraged, when he comes over here and finds a people speaking what he admits to be something like English, and yet so very different from (or, as he would say, to) those he left at home. Nothing, I am sure, equals v~y thankfulness when I meet an Englishman who is not like every other, or, I may add, an American of the same odd turn. Certainly it is no shame to a man that he should he as nice about his country as about his sweetheart, and who ever heard even the friendliest appreciation of that unexpressive she that did not seem to fall infinitely short? Yet it would hardly be wise to hold every one an enemy who could not see her with our own enchanted eyes. It seems to be the eommon opinion of foreigners that Americans are too ten- der upon this point. Perhaps we are; and if so, there must be a reason for it. Have we had fair play? Could the eyes of what is called Good Society (though it is so seldom true either to the adjective or noun) look upon a na- tion of democrats with any chance of receiving an undistorted image? Were not those, moreover, who found in the old order of things an earthly paradise, paying them quarterly dividends for the wisdom of their ancestors, with the punctuality of the seasons, uncon- sciously bribed to misunderstand if not 86 [January, On a certain condescension in forez~ners. 87 1869.1 to misrepresent us? Whether at war or at peace, there we were, a standing menace to all earthly paradises of that kind, fatal underminers of the very credit on which the dividends were based, all the more hateful and terrihle That our destructive agency was so in- sidious, working invisible in the ele- ments, as it seemed, active while they slept, and coming upon them in the darkness like an armed man. Could Laius have the proper feelings of a fa- ther towards ~ZEdipus, announced as his destined destroyer by infallible ora- cles, and felt to be such by every con- scious fibre of his soul? For more than a century the Dutch were the laughing-stock of polite Europe. They were butter-firkins, swillers of beer and schnaps, and their vreuws from whom Holbein painted the all-but loveliest of Madonnas, Rembrandt the graceful girl who sits immortal on his knee in Dres- den, and Rubens his aboundin~ god- desses, were the synonymes of clumsy vulgarity. Even so late as Irving the ships of the greatest navigators in the world were represented as sailinb equal- ly well stern-foremost. That the aris- tocratic Venetians should have Riveted with gigantic piles Thoronbh ~he centre their new-catchtd miles, was heroic. But the far more marvellous achievement of the Dutch in the same kind was hidicrous even to republican Marvell. Meanwhile, during that very entury of scorn, they were the best ar- tists, sailors, merchants, bankers, print- ers, scholars, jurisconsults, and states- men in Europe, and the genius of Motley has revealed them to us, earning a right to themselves by the most heroic strug- gle in human annals. But, alas! they were not merely simple burghers who had fairly made themselves High Might- messes, and could treat on equal terms with anointed kings, but their common- wealth carried in its bosom the germs of democracy. They even unmuzzled, at least after dark, that dreadful mastiff, the Press, whose scent is, or ought to be, so keen for wolves in sheeps cloth- ing and for certain other animals in lions skins. They made fun of Sacred Majesty, and, what was worse, managed uncommonly well without it. In an age when periwigs made so large a part of the natural dignity of man, people with suck a turn of mind were dangerous. How could they seem other than vulgar and hateful? In the natural course of things we succeeded to this unenviable position of general butt. The Dutch had thriv- en under it pretty well, and there was hope that we could at least contrive to worry along. And we certainly did in a very redoubtable fashion. Perhaps we deserved some of the sarcasm more than our Dutch predecessors in office. We had nothing to boast of in arts or letters, and were given to bragging overmuch of our merely material pros- perity, due quite as much to the virtue of our continent as to our own. There was some truth in Carlyles sneer, after all. Till we had succeeded in some higher way than this, we had only the success of physical growth. Our great- ness, like that of enormous Russia, was greatness on the map, barbarian mass only; but had we gone down, like that other Atlantis, in some vast cata- clysm, we should have covered but a pins point on the chart of memory, compared with those ideal spaces occu- pied by tiny Attica and cramped Eng- land. At the same time, our critics somewhat too easily forgot that mate- rial must make ready the foundation for ideal triumphs, that the arts have no chance in poor countries. And it mus.t be allowed that democracy stood for a great deal in our shortcoming. The Edinburgh Review never would have thought of asking, Who reads a Rus- sian book? and England was satisfied with iron from Sweden without being impertinently inquisitive after her paint- ers and statuaries. Was it that they expected too much from the mere mir- acle of Freedom? Is it not the highest art of a Republic to make men of flesh and blood, and not the marble ideals of such? It may be fairly doubted wheth- er we have produced this higher type of man yet. Perhaps it is the collec On a certain Condescension in Foreigners. [Januaryr tive, not the individual, humanity that is to have a chance of nobler develop- ment among us. We shall seQ. We have a vast amount of imported igno- rance, and, still worse, of native ready- made knowledge, to digest before even the preliminaries of such a consumma- tion can be arranged. We have got to learn that statesmanship is the most complicated of all arts, and to come back to the apprenticeship-system too hastily abandoned. At present, we trust a man with making constitutions on less proof of competence than we should demand before we gave him our shoe to patch. We have nearly reached the limit of the reaction from the old notion, which paid too much regard to birth and station as qualifications for office, and have touched the extreme point in the opposite direction, putting the highest of human functions up at auction to be bid for by any creature capable of going upright on two legs. In some places, we have arrived at a point at which civil society is no longer possible, and already another reaction has begun, not backwards to the old system, but towards fitness either from natural aptitude or special training. But will it always be safe to let evils work their own cure by becoming un- endurable? Every one of them leaves its taint in the constitution of the body- politic, each in itself, perhaps, trifling, but all together powerful for evil. But whatever we might do or leave undone, we were not genteel, and it was uncomfortable to be continually remind- ed that, though we should boast that we were the Great West till we were black in the face, it did not bring us an inch nearer to the worlds West-End. That sacred enclosure of respectability was tabooed to us. The Holy Alliance did not inscribe us on its visiting-list. The Old World of wigs and orders and liv- eries would shop with us, but we must ring at the area-bell, and not venture to awaken the more august clamors of the knocker. Our manners, it must be granted, had none of those graces that stamp the caste of Vere de Vere, in whatever museum of British antiquities they may be hidden. In short, we were vulgar. This was one of those horribly vague accusations, the victim of which has no defence. An umbrella is of no avail against a Scotch mist. It envelops you, it penetrates at every pore, it wets you through without seeming to wet you at all. Vulgarity is an eighth dead- ly sin, added to the list in these latter days, and worse than all the others put together, since it perils your salvation in this world, far the more important of the two in the minds of most men. It profits nothing to draw nice distinc- tions between essential and conven- tional, for the convention in this case is the essence, and you may break every command of the decalogue with perfect good-breeding, nay, if you are adroit, without losing caste. We, in- deed, had it not to lose, for we had never gained it. How am I vulgar? asks the culprit, shudderingly. Be- cause thou art not like unto Us, an- swers Lucifer, Son of the Morning, and there is no more to be said. The god of this world may be a fallen angel, but he has us there! We were as clean, so far as my observation goes, I think. we were cleaner, morally and physi- cally, than the English, and therefore, of course, than everybody else. But we did not pronounce the diphthong ou as. they did, and we said ce/her and not cyther, following therein the fashion of our ancestors, who unhappily could. bring over no English better than Shakespeares; and we did not stam- mer as they had learned to do from the. courtiers, who in this way flattered the Hanoverian king, a foreigner among the people he had come to reign over. Worse than all, we might have the no- blest ideas and the finest sentiments in the world, but we vented them through that organ by which men are led rather than leaders, though some physiologists wQuld persuade us that Nature furnish- es her captains with a fine handle to their faces that Opportunity may get a good purchase on them for dragging them to the front. This state of things was so painful 88 1869.] Qn a certain condescension in Fore(g~wrs. 89 that excellent people were not wanting who gave their whole genius to repro- ducing here the original Bull, whether by gaiters, the cut of their whiskers, by a factitious brutality in their tone, or by an accent that was forever tripping and falling flat over the tangled roots of our common tongue. Martyrs to a false ideal, it never occurred to them that nothing is more hateful to gods and men than a second-rate Englishman, and for the very reason that this planet never produced a more splendid crea- ture than the first-rate one, witness Shakespeare and the Indian Mutiny. If we could contrive to be not too un- obtrusively our simple selves, we should be the most delightful of human beings, and the most original; whereas, when the plating of Anglicism rubs off, as it always will in points that come to much wear, we are liable to very unpleasing conjectures about the quality of the metal underneath. Perhaps one reason why the average Briton spreads him- self here with such an easy air of supe- riority may be owing to the fact that he meets with so many bad imitations as to conclude himself the only real thing in a wilderness of shams. He fancies himself moving through an endless Bloomsbury, where his mere apparition confers honor as an avatar of the court- end of the universe. Not a Bull of them all but is persuaded he bears Eu- ropa upon his back. This is the sort of fellow whose patronage is so divert- ingly insufferable. Thank Heaven he is not the only specimen of cater-cous- inship from the dear old Mother Island that is shown to us! Among genuine things, I know nothing more genuine than the better men ~vhose limbs were made in England. So manly-tender, so brave, so true, so warranted to wear, they make us proud to feel that blood is thicker than water. But it is not merely the Englishman; every European candidly admits in him- self some right of primogeniture in re- spe~t to us, and pats this shaggy con- tinent on the back with a lively sense of generous unbending. The German who plays the bass-viol has a well- founded contempt; which he is not al- ways nice in concealing, for a country so few of whose children ever take that noble instrument between their knees. His cousin, the Ph. D. from G6ttingen, cannot help despising a people who dG not grow loud and red over Aryans and Turanians, and are indifferent about their descent from either. The French- man feels an easy mastery in speaking his mother tongue, and attributes it t~ some native superiority of parts that lifts him high above us barbarians of the West. The Italian ~rirna donna sweeps a courtesy of careless pity to the over-facile pit which unsexes her with the bravo! innocently meant to show a familiarity with foreign usage. But all without exception make no se5ret of regarding us as the goose bound to de-. liver them a golden egg in return for their cackle. Such men as Agassiz, Guyot, and Goldwin Smith come with gifts in their hands ; but since it is commonly European failures who bring hither their remarkable gifts and acquirements, this view of the case is sometimes just the least bit in the world provoking. To think what a delicious seclusion of contempt we enjoyed till California and our own ostentatious ~arvcnus, flinging gold away in Europe thaf might have en- dowed libraries at home, gave us the ill repute of riches! What a shabby down- fall from the Arcadia which the French officers of our Revolutionary War fan- cied they saw here through Rousseau- tinted spectacles! Something of Arca- dia there really was, something of the Old Age; and that divine provincialism were cheaply repurchased could we have it back again in exchange for the tawdry upholstery that has taken its place. For some reason or other, the Eu- ropean has rarely been able to see America except in caricature. XVould the first Review of the world have printed the nialseries of Mr. Maurice Sand as a picture of society in any civil- ized country? Mr. Sand, to be sure, has inherited nothing of his famous mothers literary outfit, except the pseu- donyme. But since the conductors of On a certain condescension in Forez~-ners. [January, 90 the Revue could not have published his story because it was clever, they must have thought it valuable for its truth. As true as the last-century English- mans picture of Jean Crapaud! We do not ask to be sprinkled with rose- water, but may perhaps fairly pro- test against being drenched with the rinsings of an unclean imagination. The next time the Revue allows such ill-bred persons to throw their slops out of its first-floor windows, let it hon- estly preface the discharge with a gar- de~-leau / that we may run from under in season. And Mr. Duvergier dHau- ranne, who knows how to be entertain- ing! I know le Fran ~ais est~lutL$t in- discret qite confi ant, and the pen slides too easily when indiscretions will fetch so much a page; but should we not have been tant-soit-j5eu more cautious had we been writing about people on the other side of the Channel? But then it is a fact in the natural history of the American long familiar to Europeans, that he abhors privacy, knows not the meaning of reserve, lives in hotels be- cause of their greater publicity, and is never so pleased as when his domestic affairs (if he maybe said to have any) are paraded in the newspapers. Barnum, it is well known, represents perfectly the average national sentiment in this re- spect. However it be, we are not treat- ed like other people, or perhaps I should say like people who are ever likely to be met with in society. Is it in the climate? Either I have a false notion of European manners, or else the atmosphere affects them strange- ly when exported hither. Perhaps they suffer from the sea-voyage like some of the more delicate wines. During our Civil War an English gentleman of the highest description was kind enough to call upon me mainly, as it seemed, to i~form me how entirely he sympathized with the Confederates, and how sure he felt that we could never subdue them, they were the gentlemen of the coun- try, you know. Another, the first greetings hardly over, asked me how I accounted for the universal meagreness of my countrymen. To a thinner man than I, or from a stouter man than he, the question might have been offensive. The Marquis of Hartington * wore a secession badge at a public ball in New York. In a civilized country he might have been roughly handled; but here, where the 1 ns?ances are not so well understood, of course nobody minded it. A French traveller told me he had been a good deal in the British colonies, and had been astonished to see how soon the people became Americanized. He added, with delightful bonhomie, and as if he were sure it would charm me, that they even began to talk through their noses, just like you ! I was naturally ravished with this testimony to the as- similating power of democracy, and could only reply that I hoped they would never adopt our democratic patent- method of seeming to settle ones hon- est debts, for they would find it paying through the nose in the long-run. I am a man of the New World, and do not know precisely the present fashion of May-Fair, but I have a kind of feeling that if an American (mutato nouzine, de te is always frightfully possible) ~vere to do this kind of thing under a European roof, it would induce some disagreeable reflections as to the ethical results of democracy. I read the other day in print the remark of a British tourist who had eaten large quantities of our salt, such as it is (I grant it has not the European savor), that the Americans were hospitable, no doubt, but that it was partly because they longed for for- eign visitors to relieve the tedium of their dead-level existence, and partly from ostentation. What shall we do? Shall we close our doors? Not I, for one, if I should so have forfeited the friendship of L. S., most lovable of men. He somehow seems to find us human, at least, and so did Clough, * One of Mr. Lincolns neatest strokes of humor was his treatment of this gentlensan when a laudable curiosity inducedhim to be presented to the President of the Broken Bubble. Mr. Lincoln persisted in call- ing him Mr. Partington. Surely the refinement ef good-breeding could go no further. Giving the young man his real name (already notorious in the newspapers) would have made his visit an insult. Had Henri IV. done this, it would have been fa- mous. 1869.] On a certain (~ondescension in Forez~ners. 9 whose poetry will one of these days, perhaps, be found to have been the best utterance in verse of this genera- tion. The fine old Tory aversion of former times was not hard to bear. There was something even refreshing in it, as in a northeaster to a hardy temperament. When a British parson, travelling in Newfoundland while the slash of our separation was still raw, after prophesy- ing a glorious future for an island that continued to dry its fish under the ~gis of Saint George, glances disdainfully over his spectacles in parting at the U. S. A., and forebodes for them a speedy re- lapse into barbarism, now that they have madly cut themselves off from the humanizing influences of Britain, I smile with barbarian self-conceit. But this kind of thing became by degrees an unpleasant anachronism. For mean- while the young giant was growing, was beginning indeed to feel tight in his clothes, was obliged to let in a gore here and there in Texas, in California, in New Mexico, in Alaska, and had the scissors and needle and thread ready for Canada when the time came. His shadow loomed like a Brocken-spec- tre over against Europe, the shad- ow of what they were coining to, that was the unpleasant part of it. Even in such misty image as they had of him, it was painfully evident that his clothes were not of any cut hitherto fashion- able, nor conceivable by a Bond Street tailor, and this in an age, too, when everything depends upon clothes, when, if we do not keep up appearances, the seeming solid frame of this universe, nay, your very God, ~ ~ould slump into himself, like a mockery king of snow, being nothing, after all, but a prevailing mode. From this moment the young giant assumed the respectable aspect of a phenomenon, to be got rid of if possible, but at any rate as legitimate a subject of human study as the glacial period or the silurian what-dye-call- ems. If the man of the primeval drift- heaps is so absorbingly interesting, why not the man of the drift that is just beginning, of the drift into whose irre sistible current we are just being sucked whether we will or no? If I were in their place, I confess I should not be frightened. Man has survived so much, and contrived to be comfortable on this planet after surviving so much! I am something of a protestant in matters of government also, and am willing to get rid of vestments and ceremonies and to come down to bare benches, if only faith in God take the place of a general agreement to profess confidence in rit- ual and sham. Every mortal man of us holds stock in the only public debt that is absolutely sure of payment, and that is the debt of the Maker of this Universe to the Universe he has made. I have no notion of selling out my stock in a panic. It was something to have advanced even to the dignity of a phenomenofi, and yet I do not know that the relation of the individual American to the indi- vidual European was bettered by ~t; and that, after all, must adjust itself comfortably before there can be a right understanding between the two. We had been a desert, we became a mu- seum. People came hither for scien- tific and not social ends. The very cockney could not complete his educa- tion without taking a vacant stare at us in passing. But the sociologists (I think they call themselves so) were the hard- est to bear. There was no escape. I have even known a professor of this fearful science to come disguised in petticoats. We were cross-examined as a chemist cross-examines a new sub- stance. Human? yes, all the elements are present, though abnormally com- bined. Civilized? Hm! that needs a stricter assay. No entomologist could take a more friendly interest in a strange bug. After a few such expe- riences, I, for one, have felt as if I were merely one of those horrid things preserved in spirits (and very bad spir- its, too) in a cabinet. I was not the fellow-being of these explorers: I was a curiosity; I was a specimen. Hath not an American organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions even as a European bath? If you prick us, do 92 On a certain Condescension in Forei~-ners. [January, we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? I will not keep on with Shylock to his next question but one. Till after our Civil War it never seemed to enter the head of any for- eigner, especially of any Englishman, that an American had what could be called a country, exce2t as a place to eat, sleep, and trade in. Then it seemed to strike them suddenly. By Jove, you know, fellahs dont fight like that for a shop-till ! No, I rather think not. To Americans America is something more than a promise and an expectation. It has a past and tradi- tions of its own. A descent from men who sacrificed everything and came hither, not to better their fortunes, but to plant their idea in virgin soil, should be a good pedigree. There was never colony save this that went forth, not to seek gold, but God. Is it not as well to have sprung from such as these as from some burly beggar who came over with Wilhelmus Conquestor, unless, indeed, a line grow better as it runs farther away from stalwart ancestors? And for history, it is dry enough, no doubt, in the books, but, for all that, is of a kind that tells in the blood. I have admitted that Carlyles sneer had a show of truth in it. But ~vhat does he himself, like a true Scot, admire in the Hohenzollerns? First of all, that they were canny, a thrifty, forehanded race. Next, that they made a good fight from generation to generation with the chaos around them. That is pre- cisely the battle which the English race on this continent has been carrying doughtily on for two centuries and a half. Doughtily and silently, for you cannot hear in Europe that crash, the death-song of the perfect tree, that has been going on here from sturdy father to sturdy son, and making this conti- nent habitable for the weaker Old World breed that has swarmed to it during the last half-century. If ever men did a good stroke of work on this planet, it was the forefathers of those whom you are wondering whether it would not be prudent to acknowledge as far-off cous- ins. Alas, man of genius, to whom we owe so much, could you see nothing more than the burning of a foul chim- ney in that clash of Michael and Satan which flamed up under your very eyes? Before our war we were to Europe but a huge mob of adventurers and shop-keepers. Leigh Hunt expressed it well enough when he said that he could never think of America without seeing a gigantic counter stretched all along the seaboard. Feudalism had by degrees made commerce, the great civ- ilizer, contemptible. But a tradesman with sword on thigh and very prompt of stroke was not only redoubtable, he had become respectable also. Few people, I suspect, alluded twice to a needle in Sir John Hawkwoods pres- ence, after that doughty fighter had exchanged it for a more dangerous tool of the same metal. Democracy had been hitherto only a ludicrous effort to reverse the laws of nature by thrusting Cleon into the place of Pericles. But a democracy that could fight for an abstraction, whose members held life and goods cheap compared with that larger life which we call country, was not merely unheard of, but portentous. It was the nightmare of the Old World taking upon itself flesh and blood, turn- ing out to be substance and not dream. Since the Norman crusader clanged down upon the throne of the porphyro- genili, carefully-draped appearances had never received such a shock, had never been so rudely called on to produce their titles to the empire of the world. Authority has had its periods not un- like those of geology, and at last comes Man claiming kingship in right of his mere manhood. The world of the Saurians might be in some respects more picturesque, but the march of events is inexorable, and it is bygone. The young giant had certainly got out of long-clothes. He had become the e;~/2zn/ terrible of the human house- hold. It was not and will not be easy for the world (especially for our British cousins) to look upon us as grown up. Th~ youngest of nations, its people must also be young and to be treated accordingly, was the syllogism. Youth On a certain Condescension in Ferez~ners. has its good qualities, as people feel who are losing it, but boyishness is another thing. We had been some- what boyish as a nation, a little loud, a little pushing, a little braggart. But might it not partly have been because we felt that we had certain claims to respect that were not admitted? The war which established our position as a vigorous nationality has also sobered us. A nation, like a man, cannot look death in the eye for four years, without some strange reflections, without arriv- ing at some clearer consciousness of the stuff it is made of, without some great moral change. Such a change, or the beginning of it, no observant per- son can fail to see here. Our thought and our politics, our bearing as a peo- ple, are assuming a manlier tone. We have been compelled to see what was weak in democracy as well as what was strong. We have begun obscurely to recognize that things do not go of themselves, and that popular govern- ment is not in itself a panacea, is no better than any other form except as the virtue and wisdom of the people make it so, and that when men under- take to do their own kingship, they enter upon the dangers and responsi- bilities as well as the privileges of the function. Above all, it looks as if we were on the way to be persuaded that no government can be carried on by declamation. It is noticeable also that facility of communication has made the best English and French thought far more directly operative here than ever before. Without being Europeanized, our discussion of important questions in statesmanship, political economy, in testhetics, is taking a broader scope and a higher tone. It had certainly been provincial, one might almost say local, to a very unpleasant extent. Perhaps our experience in soldiership has taught us to value training more than we have been popularly wont. We may possibly come to the conclu- sion, one of these days, that self-made men may not be always equally skilful in the manufacture of wisdom, may not be divinely commissioned to fabri cate the higher qualities of opinion on all possible topics of human interest. So long as we continue to be the most common-schooled and the least cultivated people in the world, I sup- pose we must consent to endure this condescending manner of foreigners toward us. The more friendly they mean to be the more ludicrously prom- inent it becomes. They can never ap- preciate the immense amount of silent work that has been done here, making this continent slowly fit for the abode of man, and which will demonstrate it- self, let us hope, in the character of the people. Outsiders can only be ex pected to judge a nation by the amount it has contributed to the civilization of the world; the amount, that is, that can be seen and handled. A great place in history can only be achieved by competitive examinations, nay, by a long course of them. How much new thought have we contributed to the common stock? Till that question can be triumphantly answered, or needs no answer, we must continue to be simply interesting as an experiment, to be studied as a problem, and not respected as an attained result or an accomplished solution. Perhaps, as I have hinted, their patronizing manner toward us is the fair result of their failing to see here anything more than a poor imitation, a plaster-cast of Europe. And are they not partly right? If the tone of the un- cultivated American has too often the arrogance of the barbarian, is not that of the cultivated as often vulgarly apol- ogetic? In the America they meet with is there the simplicity, the manli- ness, the absence of sham, the sin- cere human nature, the sensitiveness to duty and implied obligation, that in any way distinguishes us from ~vhat our orators call the effete civilization of the Old World? Is there a politi- cian among us daring enough (except a Dana here and there) to risk his future on the chance of our keeping our word with the exactness of superstitious com- munities like England? Is it certain that we shall be ashamed of a bankrupt- cy of honor, if we can only keep the 94 On a certain condescension in Foreigners. [January, letter of our bond? I hope we shall be able to answer all these questions with a frank yes. At any rate, we would ad- vise our visitors that we are not merely curious creatures, but belong to the family of man, and that, as individuals, we are not to be always subjected to the competitive examination above men- tioned, even if we acknowledged their competence as an examining hoard. Above all, we beg them to remember that America is not to us, as to them, a mere object of external interest to be discussed and analyzed, but In us, part of our very marrow. Let them not sup- pose that we conceive of ourselves as exiles from the graces and amenities of an older date than we, though very much at home in a state of things not yet all it might be or should be, but which we mean to make so, and which we find both wholesome and pleasant for men (though perhaps not for di/c1~a;z/i) to live in. The full tide of human exist- ence may be felt here as keenly as Johnson felt it at Charing Cross, and in a larder sense. I know one person who is singular enough to think Cambridge the very best spot on the habitable globe. Doubtless God cou/dhave made a bet- ter, but doubtless .he never did. It will take England a great while to get over li er airs of patronage toward us, or even passably to conceal them. She cannot help confounding the peo- ple with the country, and regarding us as lusty juveniles. She has a convic- tion that whatever good there is in us is wholly English, when the truth is that we are worth nothing except so far as we have disinfected ourselves of Ano~licism She is especially conde- scending just now, and lavishes sugar- plums on us as if we had not out- grown them. I am no believer in sud- den conversions, especially in sudden conversions to a favorable opinion of people who have just proved you to be mistaken in judgment and therefore unwise in policy. I never blamed her for not wishing well to democracy, how should she ? but Alabamas are not wishes. Let her not be too hasty in believing Mr. Reverdy Johnsons pleasant words. Though there is no thoughtful man in America who would not consider a war with England the greatest of calamities, yet the feeling towards her here is very far from cor- dial, wh. tever our Minister may say in the effusion that comes after ample dining. Mr. Adams, with his famous My Lord, this means war, perfectly represented his country. Justly or not, we have a feelin~ that we have been wronged, not merely insulted. The only sure way of bringing a bout a healthy relation between the two coun- tries is for Englishmen to clear their minds of the notion that we are always to be treated as a kind of inferior and deported Englishman whose nature they perfectly understand, and whose back they accordingly stroke the wrong way of the fur with amazing perseverance. Let them learn to treat us naturally on our merits as human beings, as they would a German or a Frenchman, and not as if we were a kind of counterfeit Briton whose crime appeared in every shade of difference, and before long there would come that right feeling which we naturally call a good under- standing. The common blood, and still more the common language, are fatal instruments of misapprehension. Let them give up hying to understand us, still more thinking that they do, and acting in various absurd ways as the necessary consequence, for they will never arrive at that devoutly - to - be- wished consummation, till they learn to look at us as we are and not as they suppose us to be. Dear old long-es- tranged mother-in-law, it is a great many years since we parted. Since t66o, when you married again, you have been a step-mother to us. Put on your spectacles, dear madam. Yes, we have grown, and changed likewise. You would not let us darken your doors, if you could help it. We know that perfect- ly well. But pray, when we look to be treated as men, dont shake that rattle in our faces, nor talk baby to us any longer. Do, child, go to it grandam, child; Give grandam kingdom, and it grandam will Give it a plum, a cherry, and a fig I Gnadenlziitte;z. GNAt~ENHUTTEN. v,, I HOPE that it is something better than an idle love of picturesque and ancient days that prompts me to cast a glimmer of their light on this page, and trace the origin of a poor little Indian village that flourished and fell, beyond the Ohio, ninety years ago, to that re- mote century, when the Paulician fa- thers, Chyrillus and Methodius, went out of Constantinople and established Chris- tianity among the heathen of Moravia. The fate of Gnadenhdtten is so dolorous in itself that I have no need to borrow pathos of the past; yet I own that its obscure troubles have a peculiar inter- est to me in their relation to those of a people whose seat was in the worlds most famous places, and whose heroes and martyrs names are quick in all mens minds. The annals of the Moravian Church link in the same chain of sorrows and calamities the burning of Huss at Con- stance and the murder of the hapless Christian Indians on the Muskingum; and if they cannot make them equal sharers with him in the glory of mar- tyrdom, they declare their death equally magnanimous and saintly, their faith as great, and their spirit the same. It was this spirit, at once zealous and pa- tient, which made the Moravian Church first among the missionary churches, and which early in its history awak- ened persecution against it. Indeed, the Moravians were scarcely con- verted to Christianity in 86o, when Rome assailed them with all the rea- sons of popes and kings, and the fagot and sword were constantly employed against people whose bodies at least would have remained much more com- fortable if they had continued heathen instead of becoming heretics. Their chances of heaven may have been im- paired, in the opinion of their persecu- tors, if that were possible, when, after two hundred years of suffering, they united with the Waldenses, in Bohe- mia; but the chances of being burned alive were unquestionably diminished by this union, and there was no more per- secution of either sect till Rome began to feel the first movements of the Ref- ormation within herself. The Mora- vian Church then became especially obnoxious to her, and she determined to uproot that heresy. So it came to the martyrdom of Huss and of Jerome, and of many more unremem- bered, and at last to the armed resist- ance of the Moravians under Zisca. When Zisca died, the persecuted people quarrelled among themselves, and di- vided into the Taborites, who held for a pure Scriptural church, and the Ca- lixtines, who were received into the Roman Church with the promise of certain privileges afterward only par- tially or never fulfilled; but a part of the Taborites and a body of the Calixtines came together again, and called their new band Unitas Fratrum, and so ea- gerly devoted themselves to the work of conversion, that the Romish Calix- tines stirred up a new persecution. The temporal power refused the United Brethren its protection; their civil rights were forfeited, the prisons were filled xvith them; they were driven from their homes in bidwinter, and reduced to scattered remnants that dwelt in the forests and the uninhabited places, kindling fires only by night, lest the element that saved them from one death should betray them to another yet more cruel. These fugitives final- ly met together in the wilderness, to the number of seventy, and reaf rmed their fealty to their ancient cburch, and their preference for the episcopal over the presbyterian constitution. Through the Paulician fathers, first sent to them, and a~ain through their union with the Waldenses, they traced an episcopal succession, hitherto unbroken, up to the apostles themselves; and now, casting lots for such of their number as should receive the succession, they sent these secretly to the Waldensen bishop, 1869.] 95

Gnadenlziitte;z. GNAt~ENHUTTEN. v,, I HOPE that it is something better than an idle love of picturesque and ancient days that prompts me to cast a glimmer of their light on this page, and trace the origin of a poor little Indian village that flourished and fell, beyond the Ohio, ninety years ago, to that re- mote century, when the Paulician fa- thers, Chyrillus and Methodius, went out of Constantinople and established Chris- tianity among the heathen of Moravia. The fate of Gnadenhdtten is so dolorous in itself that I have no need to borrow pathos of the past; yet I own that its obscure troubles have a peculiar inter- est to me in their relation to those of a people whose seat was in the worlds most famous places, and whose heroes and martyrs names are quick in all mens minds. The annals of the Moravian Church link in the same chain of sorrows and calamities the burning of Huss at Con- stance and the murder of the hapless Christian Indians on the Muskingum; and if they cannot make them equal sharers with him in the glory of mar- tyrdom, they declare their death equally magnanimous and saintly, their faith as great, and their spirit the same. It was this spirit, at once zealous and pa- tient, which made the Moravian Church first among the missionary churches, and which early in its history awak- ened persecution against it. Indeed, the Moravians were scarcely con- verted to Christianity in 86o, when Rome assailed them with all the rea- sons of popes and kings, and the fagot and sword were constantly employed against people whose bodies at least would have remained much more com- fortable if they had continued heathen instead of becoming heretics. Their chances of heaven may have been im- paired, in the opinion of their persecu- tors, if that were possible, when, after two hundred years of suffering, they united with the Waldenses, in Bohe- mia; but the chances of being burned alive were unquestionably diminished by this union, and there was no more per- secution of either sect till Rome began to feel the first movements of the Ref- ormation within herself. The Mora- vian Church then became especially obnoxious to her, and she determined to uproot that heresy. So it came to the martyrdom of Huss and of Jerome, and of many more unremem- bered, and at last to the armed resist- ance of the Moravians under Zisca. When Zisca died, the persecuted people quarrelled among themselves, and di- vided into the Taborites, who held for a pure Scriptural church, and the Ca- lixtines, who were received into the Roman Church with the promise of certain privileges afterward only par- tially or never fulfilled; but a part of the Taborites and a body of the Calixtines came together again, and called their new band Unitas Fratrum, and so ea- gerly devoted themselves to the work of conversion, that the Romish Calix- tines stirred up a new persecution. The temporal power refused the United Brethren its protection; their civil rights were forfeited, the prisons were filled xvith them; they were driven from their homes in bidwinter, and reduced to scattered remnants that dwelt in the forests and the uninhabited places, kindling fires only by night, lest the element that saved them from one death should betray them to another yet more cruel. These fugitives final- ly met together in the wilderness, to the number of seventy, and reaf rmed their fealty to their ancient cburch, and their preference for the episcopal over the presbyterian constitution. Through the Paulician fathers, first sent to them, and a~ain through their union with the Waldenses, they traced an episcopal succession, hitherto unbroken, up to the apostles themselves; and now, casting lots for such of their number as should receive the succession, they sent these secretly to the Waldensen bishop, 1869.] 95 96 GnadenkiUten. U anuary, Stephen in Austria, who consecrated them. After Stephen was burnt, many Wal- denses imited with the Moravians, and, in the midst of persecutions, they re- entered upon their career as a mis- sionary church. They published the Bohemian Bible in 1470, and they mul- tiplied copies of the Scriptures at two printing-offices in Bohemia and one in Moravia. Luther, after a preliminary quarrel with them about discipline, received a copy of their confession of faith, and acknowledged them worthy of all Chris- tian love, a little before Charles V., declaring them worthy of all Christian hate, because he believed they influ- enced the Bohemians in their refusal to fight against the Protestant Elector of Saxony, confiscated their property, outlawed their nobles, and racked their bishops. Their sufferings continued throughout the Thirty Years War, an~ at its close the Protestant pow- ers abandoned them to the fury of Austria, who disposed so effectively of their pestilent Bibles and other books, of their churches and their schools, that she might well believe herself to have extirpated them. Their Bishop Comenius, however, escaped to Eng- land, where he was received with all affection and respect by the Anglican clergy, and whence he went later to Holland, where he wrote the history of his church. Before he died he caused the ordination of two bishops, and thus transmitted the apostolic suc- cession to the church in our times, throubh the few Brethren whom that devout man, Count Zinzendorf, found at Fulneck in Bohemia, and invited to a safer and quieter abode on his vast estates at Bertholsdorf. There, in 1722, they founded their famous hamlet of Herrnhut, and established their church once more in all the ardor of its zeal and hope. They were for the most part simple peasant folk and artisans, but they were afterwards joined by scholars and peo- ple of condition from all parts of Ger- many. It appears they did not in all cases bear tneir peace and security with so great dignity as they had borne their sorrows and wrongs. They sometimes fell into silly ecstasies of devotion, and permitted themselves a latitude of metaphor and expression that scan- dalized the whole Protestant world, the excellent Protestant world, that had given them up to their mortal ene- mies, and had endured their calami- ties with such exemplary fortitude. Zinzendorf was himself an enthusiast, and unwittingly provoked the weaker Brethren to this verbal and sentir~en- tal excess, though he was afterwards first and severest in rebuking it, when the clamor rose against it. The offend- ing zealots owned their indecorous- ness, and sent their apology to all the Protestant churches. Their folly had never passed beyond words; and in the mean time the works of the Mora- vian community were of a character to win it our profoundest respect, if they did not attract so much contemporary attention. During the first ten years after their colonization on Count Zinzendorfs es- tates, and while they yet numbered but six hundred, the Moravians sent mis- sionaries to all parts of the heathen world, to Greenland, to the West In- dies, to Tartary, to Lapland, to Guinea, to the Cape of Good Hope, to Ceylon, and to North America. Their mission- aries first landed upon our continent at Savannah in ~ and attempted the conversion of the neighboring Creeks~ but withdrew to Pennsylvania a few years later, and founded their town of Bethlehem, and entered upon their mission to the Delawares. They had afterwards their greatest success with this tribe; but the first Indian com- munity seems to have been formed among the Mohicans at Shekomeko in New York and Pachgatgoch in Connecticut. There the efforts of the Brethren for the conversion and civiliza- tion of the Indians affected the whiskey traffic with the savages in a short time to such a degree that nothing but their interruption saved the border from ruin. It was certainly a cruel burlesque of Gnadenii lit/cit. their real character, and of their past, that these poor Moravians should have been accused as Papists; but in this quality they were dragged to and fro for several days about Connecticut, un- til at last they were brought into the presence of the governor, who promptly liberated them. Yet they could never hope to be free from molestation there: the traders instigated the savages to attempt their lives, and the local re- ligiou s feeling was averse to their mis- sionary enterprise; while in the Prov- ince of New York the intelligent conception that they were French spies gave them as great trouble as their re- puted Papistry in Connecticut. The Mo- ravians were non-resistants, and they had conscientious scruples about taking oaths; and the Provincial Assembly passed an act banishing from New York all who refused the oath of alle- giance, and forbidding the missionaries to instruct the Indians. They were thus forced to abandon their missions in New York and Connecticut, and retire to Bethlehem, which had already begun to assume that character of spiritual capital still belonging to it among the Moravians. The whites near Sheko- meko at once seized upon the lands of th~ Indian converts; and it is consoling to know that a pious struggle for their souls ensued between the local Chris- tians and the local savages, the for- mer striving to attach the converts to their churches, and the latter to drag them back into heathenism.* The savages, however, got nothing at all and the Christians, nothing but the land; for, after a great deal of suffering and molestation, the converts thought best to follow their teachers to Bethle- hem. The Moravians were now confined in their enterprise to the Province of Pennsylvania, where the precedent of the Friends had already so far depraved public sentiment, that it was possible for them not only to refuse oaths and * History of the Mission of the United Brethren among the Indians in North America. In Three Parts. By George Henry Loskiel. Translated from the German hy Christian Ignatius La Trobe. Lon- don, 1794. VOL. XXILI.NO. 135. 7 military service, but to pursue their benevolent efforts among the indians without incurring so much resentment as in Connecticut and New York. This, however, was but for a time. Many Scriptural - minded colonists of that day held that the Indians were Ca- naanites; and many others, who knew enough of God to swear by, interpreted the Divine will to the extinction, not the conversion, of the heathen. The French War broke out, and it appear- ed certain to all these that people who treated the Indians with love and kindness, whereas God had imposed no duty toward them but the simple and elementary obligation of destruc- tion, must in reason be French spies; while the heathen, on the other hand, took it into their wrong, thick heads that the Moravians must be the foes of their race, and secretly leagued with the English, being of such an inimical color as they were. The savages, therefore, fell upon a Moravian station on the river Mahony, and killed all the Breth- ren, with their wives and children, ~vhom they found there. This unsettled the colonial mind somewhat concerning their complicity with the French, but did nothing to disabuse it of other prejudices. Some murders committed on the border exasperated the feeling against the converts to such degree that it was judged best by their teachers to abandon their exposed and isolated villages, and place themselves under the protection of the troops at Philadel- phia. But when they repaired to the batracks, with the governors order for their admission, the soldiers would not let them enter, and they remained a whole night before the gate, exposed to the insults and outrages of the mob that gathered about them, and that threat- ened to revenge on these helpless folk the crimes and injuries of the savages. They were then sent to Province Island, where they were lodged for some months in comparative safety and comfort; but about the beginning of the year 1764 orders came from the government for their removal to New York, and, very scantily clad, and burdened with their 1869.] 97 Giladdnhi /i/c;!. [January,. 98 old and sick, they set out on a journey which was attended with exposure not only to the severity of the winter, but to the contumely of the mobs that fol- lowed them in all the stupid and wicked little towns, and assembled to revile them as they passed along their route. They had not reached the Ne~v York frontier, ho~vever, when they were met by a messenger from the governor of that Province, forbidding them to cross it; and so they returned upon their weary steps to Philadelphia, where the authorities now succeeded in lodging them in the barracks. For no other rea- son than that they ~vere Indians, and with scarcely the pretence of any other reason, a mob assembled to destroy them, and nothing but the most prompt and energetic measures on the part of the military and the b tter citizens saved them. The danger was so great, and the intended outrage so abominable, that even some of the younger Quakers took up arms in defence of a people wbose use and creed would not permit them to defend themselves; and indeed the Quakers, throughout the unmerited sufferings of these harmless Indians, were their true and steadfast friends, insomuch that one of them said, Even the sight of a Quaker made him hap- py. In this, as in oth yr things, the Friends bore ~vitness to tl~e superior civ- ilization of their sect, an to the faithful and generous spirit of fheir relations with the Indians, at which it has in these days grown easy and cheap to sneer. Next to the drab-coats it was the red-coats that treated the Christian Indians with the greatest tenderness and respect, and in effect protected them against the popular fury, until the end of the war, which came in December, 1764, after they had been under ar- rest a whole year. They were then set at liberty, the danger from partisans of either side being past; and with greatly enfeebled numbers (fifty - six had died of small-pox during the sum- mer) they repaired to a point on the Susquehanna, in what is now Bradford County, and there founded their first considerable town. The Indian name of the place was Wyalusing; but the Moravians, out of their thankful and hopeful hearts, called it Friedenshiitten, or Tents of Peace. It is needless to relate at length how their hopes ~vere turned to despair, as the whites en- croached upon them, and the traders attempted to make their village a ren- dezvous whence they might debauch and plunder all the neighboring sav- ages. The great blow to their tran- quillity and confidence was the sale of the ~vhole region round about them, which was ceded to the English by the Iroquois, in violation of the solemn promises of that truculent and faithless tribe confirming the Christians in the possession of the lands on which they had settled. The Moravians had al- ready extended their operations west- ward as far as the Ohio, and had a prosperous station on Beaver Creek,. and there now came to them, for the third time, messages from the chiefs of the Delawares, inviting them to estab- lish a mission in their country. The Lennilenape, as they called themselves, ~vere then a numerous and powerful people, in alliance with many important tribes, who, havh~g abandoned Penn- sylvania, where they were subject to- the Iroquois, now inhabited a vast and fertile country about midway between. the Ohio River and Lake Erie, and had their principal towns on the Walbond- mb and Tuscarawas, whose confluence forms the Muskinbum. It was from these capitals that the invitation came to the Christians at Friedenshiitten, offering them lands and the protection of the Delaware nation, ~vith full and free opportunity to the missionaries of preaching the Gospel and introducing the arts of peace. The messages added that the land should never be alienated from them, as it had been at Frie- denshiitten by the Iroquois; and both teachers and people saw that in this invitation, from one of the mildest and most intelligent of the Indian na- tions, a great and smiling field of use- fulness opened to them, remote alike from the evil influences of the border and the bad faith and secret enmity of 1869.] G;zadc;:liii//ciz. 99 the Iroquois. It was true, the governor of Pennsylvania had ssured them that they should never be molested in the tenure of their lands, and had forbidden the survey of any territory within five miles of their villa5,es on the Susque- hanna; but their experience of the colo- nists had taught them to distrust, not the good-will, but the strength of their au- thorities. Still less were the Moravians disposed to listen to the remonstrances and repentant prayers of the Iroquois, who now besought them not to abandon their country. They heard the Dia- ware embassy with favor, and sent out to Ohio David Zeisber~ er, their lead- ing missionary, and five Indian families to look at the land offered them; and these arriving on the Tuscarawas made choice of a tract ~vhich, when they de- scribed it to the Delaware chiefs, proved to be the very land destined to them by the nation. - The pioneers found the soil of their allotted domain excellent,* and the game abundant in the forest, and with well- contented hearts th~y built themselves cabins, and laid out their peaceful city on the site of an old Indian town, long since deserted and falling to decay. RaThparts and other traces of ancient fortification were still visible beside the small lake where the gentle Moravian and his followers planned their home, and from the heart of the ruin burst forth that beautiful spring for which he named their city, Sch~nbrunn. All round them stood the primeval, many- centuried woods; the river, n~ver vexed by keel, flowed beside them from soli- tude to solitude; even the lodges of their savage hosts and benefactors were a days journey out of si6ht. It was in April, 1772, and in the summer of the same year the whole community of Friedenshiitten aban- doned their houses and farms, and * The gallant Colonel Bouquat, who penatrated to the Muskingom country, at the head of a small army, some eightyears before Zeisbergers arrival, and forced the Delawares to make peace and deliver their prisoners to him, found the whole region sur- passingly fertile and attractive, watered by fine treams and springs and dotted with savannaha or cleared spots, which era by stare exire.. ely bean- tifol. dep rted on their long pilgrimage through the wilderness, to seek the country given them beside the Mus- kingum; and though their historians set down The short and simple annaha of the poor in terms something of the driest, yet an irrepressible pathos communicates itself to the reader as these ~vriters tell how they all left their beloved vil- lage on the Wyalusing to the malice of men and elements, and trusted them- selves to the promise of the desert. At Friedenshfltten they had dwelt seven happy, prosperous years, which they had employed so well that their town ~vore a substantial and smiling aspect, with its great street eighty feet wide, and its lin~s of pretty cottages, built of squared pine logs, and flanked by gardens, radiating from the spacious chapel in the midst; while around it on every hand rippled their yellow wheat, and the broad acres of bladed corn spread their serried ranks. The green fruit mantled to ripeness in their ~enerous orchards, and all the flattery of harvest was in the landscape from which this poor little people turned their heavy eyes. They must, of course, leave the greater part o~ their substance, but such things as were most necessary or most portable they carried with them, and departed a heavily laden train, bear- ing each one his burden, and all driv- ing their well-freighted horses and their flocks and herds before them. Hun- dreds of miles of unbroken wilderness stretched between Friedenshiitten and the land of promise; and their path was beset, not only by the sylvan beasts, but by the wild brethren of the new Christians. The converts had all the toils and fatigues of the pilgrimage to bear, and they must have often found a potent fascination in the desert, where the wildness without allured the ~vild- ness within them, and pleaded eloquent- ly for their return to the allegiance of the woods. But they none of them faltered in obedience to the pious and humble teachers who led them, neither 100 Gizadeukijt/en. [January, for love of the desert if it beguiled, nor for fear of the drunken savages, who sometimes molested their march. The pilgrims were far from suffering from hunger, for they killed a hundred deer upon their journey; but their course was through tangled depths of woodland and morass, across floods, and over mountains, and their steps were always in peril of rattlesnakes, which infested the wilderness in great numbers. Those who journeyed by land fared not more painfully and slow- ly than others of the brethren who de- scended the rivers towards the Ohio in heavily laden canoes, and over the long portages or beside the shrinking streams carried craft and freight alike upon their shoulders. Heckewelder,* who tells us this much, tells little of all that it would now be so interesting to know of this strange pil- grimage, nor do other Moravian writ- ers, except in a dry and general way, touch upon its events, at best vaguely sketching a picture which the readers fancy must fill up. Their thoughts are doubtless upon the things of which these wanderin s were but the shadow and symbol; yet here and there a touch illumines the whole with a vivid and purely human interest. Such a one shows us a certain poor mother, who took her crippled son upon her shoulder, and so set out from Friedens- hiitten with the rest, and bore him n~any and many days journey through the desert. Sickness appeared among the pilgrims, and some of the little ones drooped and died; and that which shall one day ease us all of our burdens, whether they console or whether they oppress us, drew softly near the crippled boy. Day after day the poor mother found the load upon her shoulder grow lighter, and that within her breast A Narrative of the Mission of the United Breth- ren among the Delaware and Mohican Indians, from its Commencement in the Year 1740 to the Close ofthe Year sInS, comprising all the remarkahle Incidents which took place at their Missionary Stations during that Period. Interspersedwith Anecdotes, Historical Facts, Speeches of Indians, and other interestin~ Matter, hy John Heckewelder, who was many Years in the Service of that Mission. Philadelphia: Mc- Carty and Davis. 1820. heavier and heavier, as if the burden were shifted, till at last those walking at her side saw by his white lips and shrinking visage that the hand of death had touched the child. The cripple, between signs and sounds, made them understand that he desired baptism be- fore he died, and, tenderly lifting him from his mothers shoulder, they con- secrated him by the ancient rites of that church of the poor and martyrs. So he died; and the mother mixed again with the rest, and we know her thenceforth only as part of the sorrow of her peo- ple. In fact, the history of Gnadenhiitten follows with certainty few individual fortunes; but its chroniclers, who touch upon no others in that march, tell us how every night, when the footsore and failing train halted after their long days journey, they built a great fire in the midst of their camp, and, as around an altar, raised their voices in hymns of praise and thanksgiving. It maybe that, at these times, when the echoes of the songs died away in distant soli- tudes, the teacher who led them sought to give his wild flock such idea as they might grasp of their churchs past, and recounted her history to those who were keeping unbroken here, in an- other race and remote deserts, the long succession of her martyrs. Fancy may have her will as to what strange im- ages of imperial Levantine and lordly German cities, of Byzantium, of Vienna, of Prague, and of the embattled life of those far-off lands, arose before the wondering eyes of these children of the forest, as the story ran; for not one of their kindred survives in any genera- tion to refute her, but all have entered upon their inheritance. On the 23d of August, 1772, the pil- grimage came to an end, and beside the Muskingum the wanderers kindled their great camp-fire, and for the last time gathered about it to utter the com- mon gratitude in songs and prayers. On the morrow they arose and began their guiltless warfare with the wilder- ness. The good Moravians who had led 1869.] Gnaderihii/ten. 101 them hither had no grand or novel ideas of a state, and perhaps their suc- cess in civilizing the Indians was largely due to the fact that they formed for them no high civic ideal, but seem to have made them as like German peas- ant-folk as they could where neither Kaisers devoured them in wars nor lords in peace, and where the intermit- tent persecutions of their white and red brethren could have but poorly rep- resented the continual oppressions of Fatherland. They taught their com- munities to sow and reap, they in- structed them in humble and useful trades; they inculcated the simple pol- icy of thrift, the humble virtues of meekness and obedience. But if the political ideal of the Moravians was lowly, their religious idea and their discipline was lofty and severe, so severe, indeed, that it had in time of great peril and necessity barred their union even with the early Lutherans. They had sought these lately savage men, not with the awful prophets of doom, and the sword of the Lord sharp- ened against them, nor had they come among them as the equally zealous and devoted Jesuits did, to take their imag- inations with the picturesque splen- dors of ritual. The ardent faith of the Hussites and the meek goodness of Herrnhut were the arms with which they surprised these wild, wily hearts, and conquered them for heaven, making their converts lay down the savage, not in creed only, but in life also, and put on the Christian with all the hard con- ditions of forgiveness to enemies, of peace, and of continual labor. Never since Eliot preached to the Indians in New England had efforts so sincere and so fortunate been made for their conversion, and never had civilization been so strictly united with conversion. For once the unhappy race, whom ro- mance has caressed, and sentiment has ~veakly compassionated, but from whom our prudent justice has always averted its face, was here taken by the strong hand of love and lifted to the white mans level, and saved for earth as well as for heaven. It appears that the converts yielded an implicit submission to the advice and laws of the Moravians, who assumed no supe- riority over them, who married among them, and who shared equally with. them in their toils and privations. Chief among these teachers was the brave, steadfast, and pious David Zeis- berger, a learned and diligent man, and an apostle of zeal and love not less than Eliots. He was born in Moravia, but his early life was passed at Herruhut, whither his parents repaired at Zinzen- dorfs invitation; and he was eighty- seven years old ~vhen he died, in x8oS. Of these years he had spent sixty-two in unceasing labors among the Indians, without reward save such as came to him through the sense of good work well done; for he always refused to be- come a hireling, arid never took pay for his missionary services. He was the author of a German and of an English grammar of the Onondaba language, and a dictionary in that tongue con- taining near two thousand pages, as well as a Delaware grammar and spell- ing-book; he was translator of innu- merable hymns and sermons for the use of the Indian congregations; and he was well versed in different native dialects. He was a man of simple and abstemious life, of a most be- nevolent heart, and a courageous and undaunted temper. We need not re- fuse to know that he was of small stature, with a cheerful countenance, that his words were few, and never known to be wasted at random or in an unprofltable manner. The Rev. John Heckewelder, who * The life and labors of so good and useful a man as this should not be suffered to fall into forgetful- ness, and we are glad to know that the Rev. Edmund de Schweinitz, a distinguished minister of the Unit- ed Brethren at Bethlehem, formerly editor of The Moravian newspaper, and now President of the Mo- ravian Theological Seminary, has in preparation a very complete biography of Zeisberger. This work, which is the fruit of many years diligence and thor- ough research among the records of the missionaries and the other archives of the church, cannot fail to be a most important contribution to American his- tory, in a department hitherto neglected by students, and almost an unknown land to the mere general reader. Mr. De Schweinitzs volumes will contain a full history of the events sketched in the present .rhciu. 102 hoparts thcse facts, was himself oniy second to Zeisberger in the len~th and ardor of his labors amon~ the Indians. I-Ic was born of Moravian parents in England, but came to this country when a young xrx~ n, and spent nearly his whole life in the companionship of Zeisberger, and in the xvork which en- 7a~ec1 him. He left a daughter, born in one of the Indian villa~es on the Tuscarawas, who survived until Ia. t September at Bethlehem; and he be- queathed to our literature a work on the history, character, and customs of sonIc tibes of the North t~merican Indians, ~vhich was received ~vith great favor and great di. gust by differing North American Reviewers of other days. I h~ ye here availed myself free- ly of his Narrative, the statements of which there is no reason to doubt, what- ever may be thought of his philosophy of Indian life. He ~nd Zeisberger ar- rived among the first in the Muskingum country in 1772, and continued there throughout the ten years of its occu- pation by the Christians, being later joined by Brothers Edwards, Sense- mann, and Jungmann, and others. The Christian Indians who appeared on the banks of the Tuscarawas in 1772, nd who built Ucl1~inbrunn, were ia ~o hundred and forty-one in number; a little later came congregation of Mohicans, and on the same riVer some nI~iCS to the so ~thward founded the vil- lage which gives my history its great tragic interest, and which they named Tents of Grace, or Gnadenhtitten. In 1776 Zeisberger and Heckewelder, at the pr~ yer of the Delaware chiefs, laid out a third village, which they called Lichtenau, near th heathen town of Goschocking, and stationed a ~/lission- ary there, that the wives and children of these chiefs might hear the preach- ing of the Christian faith. All the~e communities now prospered and grew in the likenes. of civilization exceeding that of any of the border s ttlements. It was yet te~1 years before the first white man had fixed his place west of the Ohio; a few hunters h~ld Kentucky acrainst the In ~ians north of the river, G;Iczdcn/Iiittc;?. [January, and sustained with that region the primitive relations of horse - stealing and scalping; in Virginia the frail and lonely settlements creeping westward made friends with the desert and pro- duced a population nearly as wild hs its elder children and quite as fierce and truculent. In the mean time the old-world peasant-thrift and industry, moving the quick and willing hands of the new Christians, made those shores of the Muskingum glad with fields and oarden s. were b The villages all re~ular- ly laid out and solidly built upon nearly the same plan. The chapel stood in the midst, and the streets, branching away from it to the four quarters, were wide and kept scrupulously clean, and cattle w~re forbidden to run at large in the public ways. The houses of the people were the log-cabins common to all pio- iieers in the West; but they were built upon foundations of stone, and neatly constructed within and without, and their grounds were prettily fenced with palings. The chapels, for their greater honor and distinction, were built, not of the ordinary trunks of trees, but of logs squared and smooth-hewn, and they had shingle roofs, and were sur- mounted with belfries, from which the voice of evening and of Sabbath bells floated out over the happy homes, and took the heathenish heart of the wil- derness beyond. The people were for the most part farmers, but some exercised mechanical trades. There was neither poverty nor wealth in the state, but all lived in abundance upon the crops that the gen- erous acres yielded them, and the in- creas~ of their flocks and herds ; and at a time when none but the rudest fare was known to their Virginian neighbors, any of them could set before the guest who asked their hospitality a meals victuals (as Heckeweider quaintly phrases it) of good bread, meat, butter, cheese, milk, tea, and coffee, and choc- olate, with such fruits and vegetables as the season afforded. They dressed decorously, and not after that heathen fashion which took the fancy of the younger of the white settlers; the men -i 86~j Gaadc;:It il//cu. 103 -~ore their hair like Christians, not shaving it as the savages did, nor dec- orating their heads and f~ ces with feathers and paint in their vain man- ner; and the women doubtless wore the demure caps and linen fillets which it is said the good Count Zinzendorf once passed a sleepless night in contriving for -the Moravian sisterhood. The overnment of the villages was akin in form and spirit to that of all other Moravian communities. By an ancient usage of the church in Bo- hemia and Moravia, each minister re -ceived under his roof nd into his fain- ily two or three acolytes or assistants, whom he educated in certain offices of piety and religion, such as visiting the sick, catechizing the young, and caring gene rally for the moral welfare of the people. When the church wa: revived at Herrnhut, the minister ce~ sed to re -ceive the acolytes into his family; but they still continued a part of the social and religious government, and in all the missions of the Brethren, being chosen from among the converts, they were particularly useful and active. They were of either se~, the men be- ing charged to oversee the Brethren, and the women, who must always, ac- cording to the Discipline, be respect- able, prudent, and grave matrons, hay- in~ particular care for the helplessness of widows, and the innocence of young maidens. They were never ordained, but they bave their right hands to the Elders as a pledge that they would be faithful in duty. In the Muskingum towns, the authority rested in a council composed of these acolytes and of the missionaries, subject to the mission- board at Bethlehem,5 and this council -enacted the laws under which the peo- ple lived. Heckewelder gives the sub- stance of their laws, which were emi- nently practical in most things, and were remarkable, as will be seen, for embodying some principles of legisla- tion supposed to be entirely the fruit -of modern reform. These enactments, which were accepted by the whole con- ~regation at Schdnbrunn, and applied -- Letter of the Rev. lmnnd do Schweinitz. fterwards to all the other towns, de- clared that God only should be wor- shipped among them, that the Sabbath should be hallowed, and that parents should be honored, and supported in helplessness and age. It was made unlawful for any convert to be received without the consent of the teachers; and neither ~dulterers, drunkards, thieves, nor those that took part in the feasts, dances, or sacrifices of the hea- then, were suffered to remain in the Christian towns. The people renounced all juggles, lies, and deceits of Satan, affirmed their will to obey the teachers and acolytes, ai~d to live peaceably to- gether, and not to he idle or untruthful in anything. None should strike an- other; but if any were injured in per- son or property, the wrongdoer should make just atonement. A man, the statutes continue, shall have but one wife, love her, and provide for her and the children, and she shall be obedient to him, take care of the chil- dren, and be cleanly in all things. The young were forbidden to marry without their parents permission ; and no ofie might go on a long hunt or jour- ney without first informing the teachers or assistants. All persons were en- - joined not to contract debts with trad- ers, and none could receive goods to sell for them without leave of the coun- cil; all should contribute cheerfully of labor and substance to the public work of building school-houses and churches, and other enterprises of the community. There was a law, also, forbidding the converts to use witchcraft or sorcery in hunting, as the heathen did, the Mora- vians esteeming it perhaps wicked, or perhap only a foolish and unbecomin~ thin,~ for Christians; and among these Indians the first l)rohibitory liquor law was rigorously enforced. They allowed no intoxicating drink to be brought within their bortlers; and if strangers or traders chanced to have such drink vith them, the acolytes took it in charge, and delivered it to them only on their departure. So-me time after the adop- tion of these rules, when the Re -olu- tionary War broke out, and a war-party 104 Guaden k/i//en. [January, sprang up among the Delawares, the native assistants, of their own motion, enacted that no one inclining to go to ~var, which is the shedding of blood, or that gave encouragement to theft and murder by purchasing stolen goods of warriors, could remain among them. Offenders against any of the laws were first admonished, and, upon re- peated offence, sent out of the towns. The reader must have noted how lit- tIe these stern and simple enactments flattered any savage instinct. Under them, a people fiercely free became meek and obedient, changed their wild unchastity and loose fnarital relations for Christian purity and wedlock; left their indolence for continual toil ; learned to forego revenge, and to withhold the angry word and hand; eschewed the delights and deliriums of drunkenness; and, above all, in a time and country where all men, red -and white alike, seemed born to massacre and rapine, set their faces steadfastly against war, and did no murder. The success of the good men who effected this change seems like a poets dream, in view of what we know of Indian life; and it must indeed have been a potent bond of love which so united their eon- verts to them that the order of the villages was only once disturbed from within, and was then restored by the penitent return to the church of those who had been seduced by the heathen. Doubtless the hold of the Moravians upon the Indians was strengthened by those ties of marriage and adoption which they formed with them; but, af- ter all, their marvellous triumph was due to the fact that their efforts were addressed to the reason of the savages, and to humanitys inherent sense of goodness and justice. I confess that this alone interests me in the history of Gnadenhutten, and lifts its event out of the order of calamities into a tragedy of the saddest significance. Not as In- dians, but as men responding faithfully and sincerely to the appeals of civiliza- tion and Christianity, and reflecting in their lives a far truer image of either than their destroyers, its people have a claim to sympathy and compassionate remembrance which none can deny. In spite of many vexatious disturb- ances from the incessant border frays, the prosperity and happiness of the Christian towns were so greaf that their fame spread throughout the whole Indian country, and the heathen came from far and neai to look with their own eyes upon the marvel. They lost their savage calm when they beheld these flourishing villages peopled by men of their kincVed and color, each dwelling in his own house with his wife and little ones in peace and security, and in such abundance as the wilder- ness never gave her children. They saw with amazement the spreading fields, and all the evidences of thrift and comfort afforded by flocks and herds, and the free hospitality which welcomed them as guests, and feasted them as long as they cared to linger; and though they doubtless regarded with grave misgiving those points of the Moravian system which required men who would naturally have been naked and idle braves to clothe them- selves like white men, and go unpainted and industriously about womens work of tilling the earth, and which, teaching them how to use the axe and saw and hammer, left them unskilled in the no- bler arts of tomahawking and scalping, yet they could not deny that the whole result was exceedingly comfortable and pleasant. They shook their heads, and murmured gloomily over the contrast their o~vn state presented to that of the Christians; and they loudly blamed their chiefs for not listening to the preachers. It was not strange that the Moravians should conceive hopes of converting the whole Delaware na- tion, both from the effect of their peo- ples visible prosperity upon the imagi- nation of the savages and from more substantial facts. Converts were made in such numbers that it became neces- sary to build new and larger chapels at Schdnbrunn and Gnadenhiitten; while, in a council of the vvhole Delaware na- tion, it ~vas determined that the Chris- tian Indians and their teachers should 1869.] enjoy throughout their country equal rights and liberties with other Indians, and that, while all should be free to lis- ten to the doctrine of the missionaries, no heathen Indians should .be permit- ted to settle in the neighborhood of the Christian towns or in any ~vise disturb them. The Moravians had exacted a pledge of neutrality from the Delawares in the wars between the whites and In- dians; in 1776, when the war of our Revolution began, they stood firm upon the maintenance of this pledge; and in the national council it was determined to keep faith with them. Schools for the children ~vere maintained in the vil- lages, and instruction was given from elementary books prepared by Zeisber- ger; and the religious activity of the ministers never ceased. In the midst, however, of these hap- py and successful labors, the storm which was gathering to the eastward burst upon the whole country, and at last involved the Christian communities in ruin. There had never been peace between the white settlers and the other Indi- an tribes, and now, at the outbreak of hostilities between the Colonies and England, the Delaware borders burned with warfare, the rumor of which beset the timid Moravian flocks with terror. In spite of the protection of the Dela- wares, they trembled at the threats of the tribes that accused them of se- cret alliance with the Americans; and they were especially afraid of the Mon- seys, once atruculent and bloodthirsty people, but now extinct as the Spar- tans, and, alarmed at the advance of a Monsey war party upon Sch6nbrunn, they abandoned that village and fled to Gnadenhiitten, first taking care to de- stroy their beloved chapel, lest it should be desecrated by heathen powwows and dances. But the Monseys passed harm- less by Sch~inbrunn, and in three days the Christians came back; though they finally abandoned the place, and drew nearer the Delaware capital of Gos- chocking, in Lichtenau. Here, with the fugitives from Gnadenhiitten, which had been in like manner abandoned, Guade;i/zii/tevz. 105 they enlarged the chapel, and pushed forward their work of conversion and civilization. In time they returned to the deserted villages, and rebuilt Sch~inbrunn, which had been destroyed; but as new dangers threatened, and the Delawares seemed about to swerve from their neutrality, even Lichtenau was vacated, and the united congrega- tions founded a new town, which they called Salem. Schdnbrunn and Gnad- enhiitten ~vere still inhabited; and the converts continued obedient to their teachers; laboring as their ~vont ~vas, and enjoying seasons of prosperity and happiness with longer and longer intervals of disturbance. The war par- ties of the Wyandots had free passage to and from Virginia through the Del- aware country, and the pioneers made their avenging forays over the same ground; the Christian villages ~vere thus overrun by warlike guests, to whom they dared not deny their hospitality, and they came to be regarded with an evil eye by either side. The pioneers especially complained that they fed and comforted the murderous bands that preyed upon the borders, and desolated them with warfare as pitiless and indis- criminate as that waged by themselves, and forgot that the Christians, claiming from the Indians a right earned by their hospitality, saved from blows and death the unhappy captives who were carried through their country, and when it was possible ransomed them, and sent them back to their friends. In- deed, according to the American and Moravian annalists alike, the Mission- aries frequently forewarned the settle- ments of Indian forays, not as spies in our interest, but as good men abhor- ring the cruelties of savage warfare, and anxious to avert its atrocities from helpless women and children. The authorities on either side recognized the vast advantage gained to the Ameri- can cause by the neutrality in which they held the Delawares and the allies of that nation. At the most disastrous period of our Revolution this neutrality was observed by a body of ten thou-, sand warriors, whom the British vainly Gnadenkii//c;i. endeavored to incite against us, and it was not broken till the great contest had been virtually decided in our fa- vor. President Reed of Philadelphia, in a letter to Zeisberger, thanked him in the name of the whole country for his services among the Indians, partic- ularly for his Christian humanity in turning back so many war parties on their way to rapine and massacres; and there is no doubt of the merciful and beneficent attitude held toward us hy a people afterwards requited with such murderous wrong.* It L d been the custom of some of the settlers to steal the horses of the Brethren, and the entire popula- tion of the border seems to have inher- ited that stupid hatred which every- where attended the enterprises of the Moravians. Sometimes large bodies of pioneers, bent upon errands of theft and murder among the hostile Indians, would pass through the Christian coun- try. Such a body once halted at Salem ~nd asked provision; and then, while the greater part remained with their commandant, who was conversing with Heckewelder and assuring him of his respect for the Brethren, and his con- dence in their neutrality, certain of the men stole away to destroy the other villages, and could scarcely be re- strained from that purpose by their leader, to whom knowledbe of it was happily brought in time. On the other hand, the war parties of the Wyandots grew more and more in- olent and exacting. Tb ey appeared in larger numbers and with ~reater appe- tites, and the hospitality offered them came to be a very oppressive tribute, which they occasionally acknowledged by threatening the lives of the teachers, whom they had often plotted to carry off to the English commandant at De- troit. During the long summer months the Christian territory was infested by these unwelcome guests. It was a grateful relief, therefore, that the winter brought the teachers and elders, when the last Letter to the author fl-em Rev. Edmund de & hweinitz. party of warriors, in their paint and savage panoply, marched down the peaceful streets, chanting their melan- choly farewell song, and doubtless tak- ing some hearts among their civilized kindred; for here and there a young girl must have melted to look on their splendor, here and there a boys heart leaped with delight in those free wild men; and even in some of the Brethren tempting memories of other days, when they, too, had trodden the xvar-path, may have been stirred by these sylvan notes. But the wives and mothers all rejoiced with the Moravians, when the distance hid the nodding plumes, and the last echo let the farewell song die. A profound peace fell upon the soli- tudes with the falling snow ; for even if the woods had not. now become im- passable to the warriors, the drifts would have betrayed their steps be- yond hope of concealment, and pursuit and vengeance would have too surely attended any raid upon the white set- tlements. And now, life in the Mus- kingum villa~,es lapsed into a tranquil- lity broken only by the advent from the forest of some poor heathen, on whom the words of the ministers had wrought, and who came at last, with prayers and tears, entreating to be received into the brotherhood of the Christians. It was the season of social enjoyment, and the people, released from the labor of their farms, paid friendly visits between vil- la~ e and villao-e and from house to house, or all met in their chapels to celebrate those Love-Feasts, by which their church remembered the earliest Christians, eating and drinking to- gether, a~~d joining in worship. It was also the time of in-doors industry; the loom clattered at the window, and the wheel murmured beside the hearth much the same music that the children made over Father Zeisbergers spelling- - books in the well-ordered schools. No sound but that of the chapel bell broke upon these homely harmonies, save when some peaceful soul departed to its inheritance, and the people, accord- ing to the Moravian fashion, hailed its release from earthly tribulations with ro6 [January, 1869.] the jubilant sound of horns and clario- nets, continuing their solemn exultation while the bearers of the dead carried their burden through the street to the house where it was prepared for burial. The winter was the great harvest of the missionaries, and they wrought zeal- ously in their pious work, animating those who had grown cold, and calling the unconverted to repentance. The churches grew in numbers and activity; and it must have been with something like a pang that the Moravians and their assistants saw the buds beginning to swell upon the naked bouts, and found the first violet in the woods. All was changed with the return of spring, and with the renewal of every year the dangers of their people in- creased. Most of the allies of the Delawares had at last joined in the war again. t the Americans, a A there had grown up among the Delawares themselves a hos- tile faction, which constantly increased. The leaders of this party perceived that nothing but the presence of the Chris- tian Indians hindered them from drab- ging the whole nation into the ~var, and all their efforts were bent to their re- moval. The commandant of the Amer- icans at Pittsburg was also perfectly sensible of this fact. He seems to have been one of those humane, en- lightened, and faithful oldiers who have been only too rarely intrusted with the control of our Indian relations, and the Delawares held him in the crreatest love an honor. When they applied to him for advice, he counselled them to tre~~t the wards of their nation with favor anrl kiadness ; and we may well believe, from the report of the mis- s~onarie~, and finn concurrent facts, that something better than mere policy prompted this advice. But his friend- ship in the end furnished tha war I)ela wares with an accusation ~gainst the Moravians, and determined the English commandant before whom it was made to remove the Christian~ from the Mus- kingum. The letters from Pittsburg to the nation were craftily carried to the imssionaries to he read and an~xvered. Giweden kil It cii. 107 They could not refuse this service, but they rendered it sorely against their will, for they fearedthat it ~vou1d bring upon them the charge of alliance with the Americans and unfaithfulness to their neutrality, as indeed finally hap- pened. When the missionaries con- fronted their chief accuser before the English commandant, the savage with deep grief and shame owned his fraud and declared them wholly innocent; but in the mean time the ruin of the vil- lages had been compassed. All the events leading to the final disaster are pathetic enough in them- selves, and fantastic enough in their travesty of the fatalities by which greater states have fallen. A little wicked diplomacy, a great deal of inef- fectual persuasion, appeals to the com- mon sense of danger answered by a few weak souls, and a cozi~ de uzain at last accomplished the purposes of the In- dians against the Brethren. The war faction amongst the Delawares had already fruitlessly urged the Moravians to remove to the Miami country, when, on the ioth of August, 1781, a chieftain of the Hurons called the Half-King ap- peared in Salem at the head of a hun- dred and forty armed men, flying the Cross of St. George, and accompanied by Captain Elliott and a trader named McCormick. It does not appear cer- tain that these E~glishme n were regu- larly in the ~kings service, but on this occasion they gave his authority to the whole transaction, and the Half-King and his warriors acted under the direc- tion of Elliott, who was deputed to this service by the governor of Detroit. They marched down the startled village street, and, after a halt on the borders of the place, passed on to Gnadenhiitten, where their number was increased to three hundred by the arrival of Monseys and war Delawares. A week of riot and debauchery in the heathen camp celebrated these preliminary steps, but no acts of violence were committed against the Brethren; and, as soon as his followers had recovered from their drunken stupor, the Half-King, in full council, urged the converts to abandon G~zadenkiitten. a place where they were in continual peril from the Virginians, and to place themselves under the protection of the British at Sandusky. Being answered by the assistants that they were at peace with all men, and had no fear of the Virginians, and that, moreover, they were too heavy with substance to think of leaving their present homes, and must in any case delay giving a final answer till spring, the Half-King and his men declared themselves satisfied, and, as a clear expression of their minds, fired upon the British colors. Loskiel and Heckewelder dwell with sad unction upon the events which we need only allude to, telling us with much circum- stance how Elliott now turned to evil account the departure of two of the Brethren to Pittsburg, whither they ~vent to inform the commandant of their affairs, and to beg that he would not interfere, lest he should thereby confirm the Indians in their suspicions; how the warriors, incensed by Elliotts report that the Virginians were march- ing to the rescue of the Brethren, shot down their cattle and threatened their teachers ; how the savage politicians tampered with the weaker converts, al- luring them with pleasant pictures of the Sandusky country, and terrifying them with the fate that awaited them f they remained on the Muskingum; and how about one ter~h of the Chris- tians were brought to favor removal, and some were unhappy enough to give the hint upon which the savages after- wards acted, sayin~, We look to our teachers ; what //iey do, we likewise will do! By this time all the villages were in the utmost confusion; and at Gnaden- hiitten thewomen and children were in terror of their lives; many of the houses were sacked, and the cattle which had been shot down in the streets and fields sent up an intolerable stench. Well might Zeisberger write to Heckewelder: It has the appearance as if Satan is again about to m~ke himself merry by troubling and persecutin~ us. No won- der he grows angry when he sees how many of his subjects he loses by our preaching the Gospel. 1-us roaring, however, must not frighten us; we have a heavenly Father, without whose will he dare not touch us. Let us rely on Him who so often has delivered us from his machinations. In the midst of these sorrows and troubles fhis good man meekly gathered his flock about him at Gnadenh,itten, and preached to them for the last time in the beloved chapel, while enemies com- passed them about; giving a mqst emphatic discourse, says Heckewel- der, on the great love of God to man, and ch~rging them in no event to place themselves on a level with the heathen by making use of weapons for their defence. Soon after, the heathen, having re- ceived a repetition of the answer origi- nally made them by the Christians, when they urged the removal of the latter, resolved to seize upon the mis- sionaries, and compel their followers to abandon the Muskingum country. Their capture was easily effected, for they made no effort to escape, and the fears of the savages that the Brethren would attempt their rescue were idle. They patiently submitted to the out- rage and insult offered them by the Monseys into whose hands they fell, and who, having stripped them of nearly all their clothing, carried them prisoners before Captain Elliott. The English- man, who seems to have undertaken the expedition chiefly through a desire to profit by the distress and necessities of the Brethren, and who was particu- larly bent upon buying their cattle for a trifling sum to sell again at a great price in Detroit, had the grace to ex- press some shame xThen these harm- less men were brough maltreated and almost naked into his presence; but he did nothing to relieve them; indeed, he speculated in the clothing of which the savages had plundered their houses, and they were l~ept fron~ bodily suffer- ing only by the compassion of some of the heathen, who gave back part of their stolen gear, and the Brethren who brought them blankets. Their calam- ity was not the less real because it took io8 [January, 1869.] Gnadc;zkiitten. 109 at this and other times the face of com- edy. Heckewelders coat, restored to him without the skirts, and worn in that amusing state of mutilation, covered an aching heart, and the fortune that similarly made a jest of his associates, not the less afflicted them with anguish for the wreck of their just and good hopes, for the unhappiness of their people, and for the cruel state of their families: for their wives and children had likewise been seized by the heath- en, and Sister Sensemann was driven from one village to another, with her babe four days old in her arms. As to their treatment by the warriors, in whose camp they were confined, V/hat incommoded us most, says Heckewel- der, with a quaint pathos, was their custom of repeating the scalp yell so often for each of their prisoners during the night, as well as in the daytime; but this is a general custom with them, and is continued until the prisoner is liberated or killed. Another very in- commoding custom they have is that of performing their war dances and songs during the night near their pris- oners,all which we had to endure, exclusive of being thereby ~prevented from enjoying sleep. Otherwise the addresses paid us by a jovial and prob- ably harmless Ottawa Indian, who, having obtained of the Wyandot war- riors sufficient of our clothes to dress himself as a white man, and placing a ~vhite nightcap on his head, being mounted on a horse, would ride throubh the camps, nodding to us each time he passed, caused much amusement through the camp, and in some meas- ure to us also. The men to whom this moderate diversion was offered had already been entertained by threats against their lives, and were at the moment of the Ottawas pleasantries perhaps sufficiently amused in guessing what fate was reserved for them. They were very glad to be released at last on their promise (exacted by Elliotts com- mand) that they would no longer resist the will of their captors, but would pre- pare at once to go with them to San- dusky~ It was hard to persuade the Brethren that they were indeed to aban- don their homes; and the missionaries had to call them, not only from the la- bors of the field, but from their efforts to repair the damages done by the warriors to their gardens and houses; and of one it is related that he was summoned to the general meeting at Salem, away from the new cottage on which he had just put the last touches of loving industry. But they all obeyed the appeals of their teachers, and on the 9th of September assembled from Gnadenhtitten and Sch~3nbrunn at Sa- lem, where for the last time the three congregations met together in wor- ship. A most extraordinary sen- sation of the presence of the Lord comforted their hearts, says Hecke- welder; the Gospel was preached, the holy sacrament was administered to the communicants, and, even in this hour of earthly extremity, a convert was bap- tized. The Christians were in the mean time guarded by a body of the !~ostile Delawares. Many of these attended the service, which was in their tongue, and all treated the congregations with perfect decorum and respect; but on the next day the Half-King and his fol- lowers arrived, and renewed at Salem the scenes of rapine and devastation already enacted at Sch~inbrunn and Gnadenhtitten. Then the teachers be- sought their captors to delay no longer, and on the third day, which was the ith of September, the Brethren turned their faces from the valley of the Mus- kingum. Never, says Heckewelder, did the Christian Indians leave a country with more regret; and he and his brother annalists, Holmes and Loskiel, briefly relate the losses the Brethren under- went, most of all lamenting the de- struction of the writings and records of the little state, of the books of instruc- tion and worship prepared with so much pains and labor for the converts and children, and now heaped into the streets and burned by the Wyandots, as a century before the Bibles of the Moravians were burnt by the Austrians. 1 10 [January, The total loss of the Christians is com- puted at twelve thousand dollars, a great sum for that rude time and coun- try and that humble people. The Wy- andots had destroyed six hundred head of swine and cattle, and hundreds of young cattle had wandered into the woods. The crops of the last year were left in the garners; and three hundred acres of corn, ripe for harvest, nodded in the September sunshine, as the captives looked their last upon their beloved villages. At Sandusky the Brethren halted and prepared to pass the winter; while their teachers were carried on to De- troit, where they confronted their ac- cusers before the English governor, an ci were honorably acquitted. The season was very cold, and the miserable peo- ple, assembled on the bleak Sandusky shores without proper food and shelter, suffered greatly, and many little chil- dren died of cold and famine; but our story follows the fate only of those who from time to time stole back to the Muskingum, and gathered the corn yet standing in the fields for the rescue of the starvin6 Brethren. In March, 1782, a larger party than usual arrived at the d~serted villages and began their belated harvest. Great number of these were women and chil- dren, and the men bore only such arms as served them in hunting. Even if their bloodless creed had permitted them to guard a6ainst the attacks of enemies, they would not have prepared to defend themselves in a region now abandoned by hostile Indians, and lying near the settlements of the whites whom they had so often be- friended; for it was the firm belief of these ill-starred people that they had only to fear savages of their own race, and that they were all the safer for their proximity to the Americans. They worked eagerly and diligently, gather- irig the corn, and securing it in sacks for removal to Sandusky, and it would scarcely have alarmed them to know that Virginian spies had noted their pres- ence and reported it in the settlements. But on the border deadly influences were operating against them. In Feb- ruary, a party of Indians from Sandus- ky had fallen upon a lonely cabin, and had murdered all its inmates, with facts of peculiar atrocity. Earlier in the win- ter, a number of the Christians had been taken, while gathering corn on the Muskingum, and sent to Fort Pitt, where they were promptly liberated by the commandant. It was the public sen- timent of the border, that these captives ought to have been killed, religiously as Canaanites and politicaily as Indi- ans; and there was a v~ry bitter feeling against their liberator, extending to Colonel Williamson, who had taken the prisoners and might have butch- ered them on the spot, instead of send- ing them to Fort Pitt. Williamson had been the most popular man in the backwoods, and he was deeply hurt by the reproach his clemency had brought upon him. He was, according to the testimony of the annalist ~ who most severely condemns the Gnadenhiittei massacre, a brave man, but not cruel. He would meet an enemy in battle, and fight like a soldier, but not murder a prisoner. Out of these evil elements bigotry, list of vengeance, and a gener- ous but weak mans shame was shaped the calamity of the Christian Indians. As soon as it was noised through the settlements of Western Virginia and Pennsylvania that a larbe body of the converts had returned to the Muskin- gum, a band of a hundred and sixty pio- n~ers hastily assembled, and, under the lead of Colonel Williamson, who burned to wipe out the stain of his former pity, advanced upon the deserted villages with the avowed purpose of puttinb the Indians to death. We must re- cord, upon the unquestionable authority given below, that these murderers were not vagabonds or miscreants, but in many cases people of the first social rank in the settlements; and perhaps * Notes on the Settleiaa.t and Indian Wars of the Western Parts of Virghda and Pennsylvania, from the Year 1763 to 1783 inclusive, together with a Vies of the State of Society and Manners of the First Set- tters of the Western Country. By the Rev. Dr. Jos. J)oddridge. Wellshurg, Va. Printed at the office of the Gazette, for the Author. 5324. 1869] Gnade;zkii 1/en. 1117 we ought to respect them as vigorous and original thinkers, whose ideas of an Indian policy still largely inspire us. They hastily organized, and then pushed forward with an eagerness in their purpose which defied all attempts at order and discipline, if any Were made. Their advance was not that of a military expedition, but consciously and evidently that of a band of robbers and cutthroats, descending upon victims from whom they expected no resistance. And throughout the whole transaction, as if their deed were to have the lustre of no virtue, they behaved with infa- mous cowardice as well as treachery. It is pitiful to think of the blind trust and security in which their victims awaited them. The commandant at Fort Pitt, hearin~, of the expedition and its object, sent a messenger to warn the Christians of their peril, but he un- happily arrived too late. Yet they were not wholly taken unawares. Informa- tion of the approach of Williamsons men had reached them through another channel; but they quietly continued their labors, unable to believe that any harm was meant them; and the mur- derers found them in the fields at work. In fact, they had almost completed their harvest, and they were preparin~ for an early departure when the whites appeared in their midst at Gnaden- hiitten. The first innocent life had been taken, and the hands extended in friendship to the Brethren were already stained with the blood of one of their number. About a mile from the village the whites found a half- breed boy, the son of the missionary Schebosch and his Indian wife, and, giving him a peaceful greeting, they approached and killed him with their tomahawks, he crying out between tneir blows that his father was a white man, and imploring them to spare him. To the main body of the Christians whom they found in the cornfields they now declared that they had come to remove them to Fort Pitt, where they would be safe from dangers that menaced them as the friends of the Americans~ at the same time taking care to secure their rifles, lest in their extremity these helpless people should be tempted to make some effort at self-defence. The Brethren thanked them for their kind- ness, and mingled freely with their captors, who walked about among them,engaging them in friendly con- versa~ion, asking them concerning their civil and religious customs, and praising them for their practical Chris- tianity. They persuaded them to send messengers with a detachment ordered to Salem, and urge the Brethren in th~ fields there to repair to Gnadenhutten. In the mean time, the whites remain- ing suddenly fell upon their bewildered prisoners and bound them; and the expedition, acting upon preconcerted measures, re - entered Gnadenhiitten with the Salem converts disarmed and manacled. Although the purpose of the cam- paign had been perfectly understood from the beginning, the officers were now loath to execute it upon their own responsibility: and it is Doddridbes belief, from his personal knowledge of XVilliamsons character, that if he had been an officer with due authority, and not merely the leader of a band of ma- rauders, he would not have suffered any of his prisoners to be slain. But he was powerless, and could ~nly refer their fate to a vote of his men. When, therefore, it was demanded, Should the Christian Indians be put to death, or should they be sent to Fort Pitt? only eighteen voted to spare their lives. It still remained a question whether they should be burned alive, or tomahawked and scalped; and the majority having voted for the latter form of murder, one of the assassins was deputed to inform the Indians, that, in- asmuch as they were Christians, they would be given one night to prepare for death in a Christian manner. It is related that the merciful eibhteen reiterated their protests to the last against the atrocity, but neither their protests nor the appeals of the Indians availed. One of the women who had p 112 l)een educated at Bethlehem, and who spoke good English, fell upon her knees at Williamsons feet, and be- sought his protection; but the greater number of the victims seem to have submitted silently,. with something of the old stoical fortitude of the savage, and something of the martyrs serene resignation. They embraced with tears and kisses, and asked forgiveness one of another, and thus meekly prepared themselves for their doom. They were Christians whose lives had witnessed to the sincerity of their conversion; and, now brought face to face with death, their faith remained unshaken. Among them were five of the national assistants, one of ~vhom was well edu- cated in Enblish, and all of whom were men of exemplary thought and deed. These led the rest in the fervent prayers and hymns with which they wore away the night. At dawn the assassins grew impa- tient of the delay they had granted, and sent to the Brethren, demanding whether they were not yet ready to die; and, being answered that they had com- mended their souls to God and received the assurance of His peace, the whites parted them, the men from the women and children, and placed them in two houses, to which, from some impulse of grotesque and ferocious drollery, they gave the name of the Slaughter- Houses. Few even among those who had voted for the murder of the T3rethren took part in the actual butchery. The great body of the whites turned aside from the ineffable atrocity, while those who with their own hands did the murder now entered the cabins. The house in which the men were confined had been that of a cooper, and his mallet, abandoned in the re- moval of the preceding autumn, lay upon the floor. One of the whites picked it up, and saying How exactly this will answer for the business! made his way among the kneeling fig- ures toward Brother Abraham, a con- vert, who, from being somewhat luke- warm in the faith, had in this extremity [January, become the most fervent in exhortation. Then, while the clear and awful music of the victims prayers and songs arose, this nameless murderer lifted his weap- on and struck Abraham down with a sin- gle blow. Thirteen others fell by his hand before he passed the mallet to a fellow-assassin, with the words My arm fails me. Go on in the same way. I think I have done pretty well. In the house where the women and chil- dren awaited their doom the massacre began with Judith, a very old and pious widow; and in a little space, the voices of singing and of supplication failing one by one, the silence that fell upon the place attested the accomplishment of a crime which, for all its circumstan-. ces and conditions, must be deemed one of the blackest in history. The miMierers scalped their victims as they fell, ~nd, when the work was done, they gathered their trophies together and rejoined their comrades. But before nightfall they came again to the Slaugh- ter-Houses for some reason; and as they entered that of the men, one of the Brethren who had been stunned and scalped, but not killed, lifted himself upon his hands, and turned his blood- stained visage towards them with a ghastly stare. They fell upon the hor- rible apparition, and it sank beneath their tomahawks to rise no more; and then, with that wild craving for excite- ment which seems the first effect of crime in the guilty, they set fire to the cabins, and, withdrawing to a little distance, spent the night in drunken revelry by the light of the burning shambles. The sole witnesses of their riot were two Indian boys, who had almost mirac- ulously escal)ed the general butchery, and who afterwards met in the woods outside of the village. One of them had been knocked down and scalped with the rest, and, reviving like the Brother who was killed on the return of the murderers to the Slaughter-Houses, had taken warning by his fate, and, feigning death, had fled as soon as they were gone. The other, having concealed~ himself beneath the house Gnadeniiiilte;i. 1869.] Gnadenliiitten. 3 of the women and children, remained there, the blood dripping down upon him through the floor, until nightfall. A companion who had taken refuge with him, and attempted to escape with him through the cabin window, stuck fast and was burned to death. Thus, says Bishop Loskiel, thus ninety-six persons magnified the name of the Lord hy patiently meeting a cruel death; and he adds in another place, with a meek self-denial of one who had fain claimed the greater glory for his people, that inasmuch as, from the ad- missions of the murderers, the Mora- vians were destroyed, not as Christians, but as Indians, I will not therefore compare them with the martyrs of the ancient Church, who were sometimes sacrificed in great numbers to the rage of their persecutors, on account of their faith in Christ. But thus much I can confidently assert, that these Christian Indians approved themselves to the end as steadfast confessors of the truth, .. . and delivered themselves without resistance to the cruel hands of their bloodthirsty murderers, and thus bore witness to the truth and efficacy of the GospelofJesus. Brother John Holmes, writing like Bishop Loskiel at a distance, accepts this. strict construction of the position of the Indians in the Church; but Heckewelder, whose life for many years had been passed in the closest and tenderest association with these hapless victims, who had doubtless been the means of conversion to many, who had joined them in marriage, and had baptized their little ones, who had shared their lowly joys and sorrows, sat at their boards and by the beds of their dying,has no heart for these ecclesiastical niceties, but breaks into lamentation none the less touching be- cause the words awkwardly express the anguish of his spirit: Here they were now murdered, to~ether with the little children! the loving children who so l~armoniously raised their voices in the chapel, at their singing-schools, and in their parents houses, in singing praises to the Lord ! ~those whose tender years, innocent countenances, and tears made VOL. XXIILXO. 735. 8 no impression on these pretended white Christians, were all butchered with the rest! What recoil of their crime, if any, there was upon the Gnadenhutten mur- derers themselves is not certainly known. A dim tradition, one of the few in the West which have not yet hardened into print, relates that their leader in after years lost the popular favor that he consented to buy at so dear a cost. Old friends looked on him coldly, and the humanity of a younger generation regarded him with horror. He could never be brought to speak of the atrocious deed, and his men shunned all talk of it. But since, in the year following the massacre, the same leader and men organized a force to complete their work of murder by taking off the remaining converts in this refuge at Sandusky, it may be doubted whether the defeat that attend- ed this effort, and the burning of such of their number as were captured by the Indians, in avowed revenge for the murder of the Christians, were not the only regretable circumstances con- nected in their minds with the Gnaden- hutten massacre, until a better and more civilized public sentiment illumined them. Their act at the time did not lack defenders in Eastern gazettes, and many years afterwards Hecke~velder tells that he met and rebuked a ruffian who justified them, and regretted that they had not killed all the Christian Indians. It is true that the Gnadenhutten niurderers but fulfilled a long-cherished purpose of the backwoodsmen, which had been formed and attempted twenty years earlier in Pennsylvania; and it can be said, in their defence, that they had provocation as well to cruelty as to mercy. The race and color of their victims represented to them the pitiless savages who had so often desolated their homes, sparing neither age nor sex, and holding them in continual wrath and terror; and though many white prisoners owed their welfare or their ransom to the humane offices ~f 4 Gnadenkiit/cn. [January,~. the Moravians, the compulsory hospi- tality of the Muskingum villages to the war parties of marauding Indians was, as has been said, a constant of- fence to the pioneers. Yet this offence, at the time of the massacre, had entire- ly ceased, through the removal of the Christians to Sandusky, and the mur- der was utterly wanton. Doubtless the slaughter of a few Indians, more or less, was not quite a crime to their tough consciences; in the ethics of the bor- der, according to Heckewelder, it was no more harm to kill an Indian than a buffalo, a sentiment which with con- temporary moralists of our Western plains finds expression in the maxim, Good Indians dead Indians. We can perhaps hardly arraign these mur- derers before any tribunal of civilized thought; but their deed was neverthe- less hideous, and it was most lament- able in its consequences, for it weak- ened, if it did not break, the hope of a whole race. It was so horrible, that in the face of it the Moravians never regained full courage, nor the Indians full trust; and though the Moravian mission to the Delawares continued for some forty years thereafter, the early vigor of the enterprise was never restored. The crime, indeed, had the far- reaching consequences of every evil ac- tion; it embittered the warfare between the whites and Indians in tenfold de- gree, and filled their infrequent truces with hazard and doubt. Nay, it seems to have broken up all foundation of faith as well as mercy between the two races; many of the converts them- selves relapsed into heathenism, and were lost among the multitude of war- riors; and when the Moravians sent to seek these out and reclaim them, they sometimes found their bewildered minds filled with a dreadful and unim- agined suspicion. I cannot, said such a one to the Indian Brother who discovered him among the warlike sav- ages, painted and armed like the rest, ~ I cannot but have bad thoughts of our teachers. I think it was their fault that so many of our countrymen were murdered at Guadenhutten. They be- trayed us and informed the white people of our being there, by which they were enabled to surprise us with ease. Tell me now, is this the truth or not? This poor soul had lost all his children and most of his kindred in the mas- sacre, and even when brought to see the injustice of his suspicions, he was impotent to repair ~he wrong or to return to his old life. I have now a wicked and malicious heart, he said, mournfully, and therefore my thoughts are evil. As I look outwardly, he continued, pointing to his crimson paint and warriors plumes, so is my heart within. What would it avail if I were outwardly to appear as a believer~ and my heart were full of evil ? * There yet stands beside the Musk- ingum, near the site of the hapless Indian village, a little hamlet bearing the pious name of Gnadenhiitten, and its chapel bells still call the Moravian Brethren to the worship of their ancient church. But no Christian of Indian blood shares in the celebration of its rites; the stone foundations of the cab- ins, some aged apple-trees planted by their hands, and a few pathetic traces of the fire that consumed the victims of the massacre, alone remain to at- test the success and the disastrous close of the Moravians loving and devoted labors at Gnadenhutten. The survivors of the great murder and of the cold and famine of that winter at Sandusky attempted a settlement in Canada under British protection, and later built a village in Northern Ohio; but they always longed to return to the Muskingui~,to their old fields, and to the scenes endeared to them by so many years of happiness and conse- crated by the sufferings of so many of their kindred. Before the close of the century this wish was gratified through the Congressional grant to the Chris- tian Indians of all the lands assigned them by the Delawares; and they came back and founded near the ruins of Sch6nbrunn a new town called Goshen~ ~ Loskiel. 1869.] Cinders from the Ashes. I 15 Their teachers came with them, and Heckewelder, assisted by a Moravian Brother, gathered together the charred bones of the Indian martyrs, and gave them Christian burial.* But the life of the experiment was gone, as if their hopes had been buried in that grave. Defeat met the renewed efforts at con- version; the influences of the border infected the broken and disheartened * Rev. Edmund de Schweinitzs letter from Gna- denhiitten, in The Moravian. people; Zeisberger died; the rigid laws of the community were trampled upon by the borderers, among whom the war of 1812 revived all the old bitterness against the Indians; drink was brought into the village; and, before the remov- al of the community to Canada in 1823, the spectacle of drunken converts in the streets bore witness, if not to the inhe- rent viciousness of the Indian, at least to the white mans success in tempting and depraving him. THE personal revelations contained in my report of certain breakfast- table conversations were so- charitably listened to and so good-naturedly in- terpreted, that I may be in danber of becoming over-communicative. Still, I should never have ventured to tell the trivial experiences here thrown to- gether, were it not that my brief story is illuminated here and there by a glimpse of some shining ~e, ure that trod the same path with me for a time, or crossed it, leaving a momentary or last- ing hrightness in its track. I remem- ber that, in furnishing a chamber some years ago, I was struck with its dull aspect as I looked round on the black- walnut chairs and bedstead and bureau. Make me a large and handsomely wrought gilded handle to the key of that dark chest of drawers, I said to the furnisher. It was done, and that one luminous point redeemed the som- bre apartment as the evening star blo- rifles the dusky firmament. So, my loving reader, and to none other can such table-talk as this be addressed, I hope there will be lustre enough in one or other of the names with which I shall gild my page to redeem the dul- ness of all that is merely personal in my recollections. After leaving the school of Dame IPrentiss, best remembered by infantine CINDERS FROM THE ASHES. /j)~ ~ -~ loves, those pretty preludes of more serious passions ; by the great forfeit- basket, filled with its miscellaneous waifs and deodands, and by the long willow stick by the a~d of which the good old body, now stricken in years and unwieldy in person, could stimulate the sluggish faculties or check the mis- chievous sallies of the child most dis- tant from her ample chair, a school where I think my most noted school- mate was the present Bishop of Dela- ware, I became the pupil of Master William Biglow. This generation is not familiar with his title to renown, although he fills three columns and a half in Mr. Duyckincks Cyclop~edia of American Literature. He was a humorist hardly robust enough for more than a brief local immortality. I am afraid we were an undistinguished set, for I do not remember anybody near a bishop in dignity graduating from our benches. At about ten years of age I began going to what we always called the Port School, because it was kept at Cambridgeport, a mile from the Col- lege. This suburb was at that time thinly inhabited, and, being much of it marshy and imperfectly reclaimed, had a dreary look as compared ~vith the thriving College settlement. The ten- ants of the many beautiful mansions

1869.] Cinders from the Ashes. I 15 Their teachers came with them, and Heckewelder, assisted by a Moravian Brother, gathered together the charred bones of the Indian martyrs, and gave them Christian burial.* But the life of the experiment was gone, as if their hopes had been buried in that grave. Defeat met the renewed efforts at con- version; the influences of the border infected the broken and disheartened * Rev. Edmund de Schweinitzs letter from Gna- denhiitten, in The Moravian. people; Zeisberger died; the rigid laws of the community were trampled upon by the borderers, among whom the war of 1812 revived all the old bitterness against the Indians; drink was brought into the village; and, before the remov- al of the community to Canada in 1823, the spectacle of drunken converts in the streets bore witness, if not to the inhe- rent viciousness of the Indian, at least to the white mans success in tempting and depraving him. THE personal revelations contained in my report of certain breakfast- table conversations were so- charitably listened to and so good-naturedly in- terpreted, that I may be in danber of becoming over-communicative. Still, I should never have ventured to tell the trivial experiences here thrown to- gether, were it not that my brief story is illuminated here and there by a glimpse of some shining ~e, ure that trod the same path with me for a time, or crossed it, leaving a momentary or last- ing hrightness in its track. I remem- ber that, in furnishing a chamber some years ago, I was struck with its dull aspect as I looked round on the black- walnut chairs and bedstead and bureau. Make me a large and handsomely wrought gilded handle to the key of that dark chest of drawers, I said to the furnisher. It was done, and that one luminous point redeemed the som- bre apartment as the evening star blo- rifles the dusky firmament. So, my loving reader, and to none other can such table-talk as this be addressed, I hope there will be lustre enough in one or other of the names with which I shall gild my page to redeem the dul- ness of all that is merely personal in my recollections. After leaving the school of Dame IPrentiss, best remembered by infantine CINDERS FROM THE ASHES. /j)~ ~ -~ loves, those pretty preludes of more serious passions ; by the great forfeit- basket, filled with its miscellaneous waifs and deodands, and by the long willow stick by the a~d of which the good old body, now stricken in years and unwieldy in person, could stimulate the sluggish faculties or check the mis- chievous sallies of the child most dis- tant from her ample chair, a school where I think my most noted school- mate was the present Bishop of Dela- ware, I became the pupil of Master William Biglow. This generation is not familiar with his title to renown, although he fills three columns and a half in Mr. Duyckincks Cyclop~edia of American Literature. He was a humorist hardly robust enough for more than a brief local immortality. I am afraid we were an undistinguished set, for I do not remember anybody near a bishop in dignity graduating from our benches. At about ten years of age I began going to what we always called the Port School, because it was kept at Cambridgeport, a mile from the Col- lege. This suburb was at that time thinly inhabited, and, being much of it marshy and imperfectly reclaimed, had a dreary look as compared ~vith the thriving College settlement. The ten- ants of the many beautiful mansions Cinders from the Ashes. [January, that have sprung up along Main Street, Harvard Street, and Broadway can hardly recall the time when, except the Dana House and the Opposition H,ouse and the Clark House, these roads were almost all the way bor- dered by pastures until we reached the stores of Main Street, or were abreast of that forlorn First Row of Harvard Street. We called the boys of that locality Port-chucks. They called us Cambridge-chucks, but we got along very well together in the main. Among my schoolmates at the Port School was a young girl of singular loveliness. I once before referred to her as the golden blonde, but did not trust myself to describe her charms. The day of her appearance in the school was almost as much a revelation to us boys as the appearance of Miranda was to Caliban. Her abounding nat- ural curls were so full of sunshine, her skin was so delicately white, her smile and her voice were so all-subduing, that half our heads were turned. Her fasci- nations were everywhere confessed a few years afterwards; and when I last met her, though she said she was a grandmother, I questioned her state- ment, for her winning looks and ways would still have made her admired in any company. Not far from the golden blonde were two small boys, one of them very small, perhaps the youngest boy in school, both ruddy, sturdy, quiet, reserved, sticking loyally by each other, the oldest, however, beginning to enter into social relations with us of some- what maturer years. One of these two boys was destined to be widely known, first in literature, as author of one of the most popular books of its time and which is freighted for a long voyage; then as an eminent lawyer; a man who, if his countrymen are wise, will yet be prominent in the national councils. Richard Henry Dana, Junior, is the name he bore and bears; he found it famous, and will bequeathe it a fresh renown. Sitting on the girls benches, con- spicuous among the school-girls of Un- lettered origin by that look which rarely fails to betray hereditary and congenital culture, was a young person very nearly of my own age. She came with the reputation of being smart, aswe should have called it, clever as we say nowadays. This was Margaret Ful- ler, the only one among us who, like Jean Paul, like the Duke, like Bettina, has slipped the cable of the more dis- tinctive name to which she was an- chored, and floats on the waves of speech as Margaret. Her air to her schoolmates was marked by a certain stateliness and distance, as if she had other thoughts than theirs and was not of them. She was a great student and a great reader of what she used to call nfiw-v6ls. I remember her so well as she appeared at school and later, that I regret that she had not been faithfully given to canvas or marble in the day of her best looks. None know her aspect who have not seen her liv- ing. Margaret, as I remember her at school and afterwards, was tall, fair complexioned, with a watery, aqua-ma- rine lustre in her light eyes, which she used to make small, as one does who looks at the sunshine. A remarkable point about ~her was that long, flexile neck, arching and undulating in strange sinuous movements, which one who loved her would compare to those of a swan, and one who loved her not to those of the ophidian who tempted our common mother. Her talk was affluent, magisterial, de haut en bas, some would say euphuistic, but surpassing the talk of women in breadth and audacity. Her face kindled and reddened and dilated in every feature as she spoke, and, as I once saw her in a fine storm of indignation at the supposed ill-treat- ment of a relative, showed itself capable of something resembling what Milton calls the viraginian aspect. Little incidents bear telling when they recall anything of such a celebrity as Margaret. I remember being greatly awed once, in our school-days, with the maturity of one of her expressions. Some themes were brought home from the school for examination by my fa 1869.] ther, among them one of hers. I took it up with a certain emulous in- terest (for I fancied at that day that I too had drawn a prize, say a five-dol- lar one, at least, in the great intellec- tual life-lottery) and read the first words. It is a trite remark, she began. I stopped. Alas! I did not know what (rile meant. How could I ever judge Margaret fairly after such a crush- ing discovery of her superiority? I doubt if I ever did; yet 0, how pleas- ant it would have been, at about the age, say, of threescore and ten, to rake over these ashes for cinders with her, she in a snowy cap, and I in a de- cent peruke! After being five years at the Port School, the time drew near when I was to enter college. It seemed advisable to give me a year of higher training, and for that end some public school was thought to offer advantages. Phil- lips Academy at Andover was well known to us. We had been up there, my father and myself, at anniversaries. Some Boston boys of well-known and distinguished parentage had been schol- ars there very lately, Master Edmund Q uincy, Master Samuel Hurd Walley, Master Nathaniel Parker Willis,all promising youth, who fulfilled their promise. I do not believe there was any thought of getting a little respite of quiet by my temporary absence, but I have wondered that there was not. Exceptional boys of fourteen or fifteen make home a heaven, it is true; but I have suspected, late in life, that I was not one of the exceptional kind. I had tendencies in the direction of flageolets and octave flutes. I had a pistol and a gun, and popped at everything that stirred, pretty nearly, except the house- cat. Worse than this, I would buy a cigar and smoke it by instalments, put- ting it meantime in the barrel of my pistol, by a stroke of ingenuity which it gives me a grim pleasure to recall; for no maternal or other female eyes would explore the cavity of that dread implement in search of contraband commodities. 7 It was settled, then, that I should go to Phillips Academy, and prepara- tions were made that I might join the school at the beginning of the autumn. In due time I took my departure in the old carriage, a little modernized from the pattern of my Lady Bounti- fuls, and we jogged soberly along kind parents and slightly nostalgic boy towards the seat of learning, some twenty miles away. Up the old West Cambridge road, now North Avenue; past Davenports tavern, with its shel- tering tree and swinging sign; past the old powder-house, looking like a colos- sal conical ball set on end; past the old Tidd House, one of the finest of the an- te-Revolutionary mansions; past Miss Swans great square boarding-school, where the music of girlish laughter was ringing through th~ windy corridors; so on to Stoneham, town of the bright lake, then darkened with the recent memory of the barbarous murder done by its lonely sh& re; through pleasa:a Reading, with its oddly named village centres, Trapelo, Readinwood- eend, as rustic speech had it, and the rest; through Wilmington, then re- nowned for its hops; so at last into the hallowed borders of the academic town. It was a shallow, two-story white house before which we stopped, just at the entrance of the central village, the residence of a very worthy professor in the theological seminary, learned, amiable, exetnplary, but thought by certain experts to be a little questiona- ble in the matter of homoousianism, or some such doctrine. There was a great rock that showed its round back in the narrow front yard. It looked cold and hard; but it hinted firmness and in- difference to the sentiments fast strug- gling to oet uppermost in my youthful bosom; for I was not too old for home-sickness, who is? The car~ riage and my fond companions had to leave me at last. I saw it go down the declivity that sloped southward, then climb the next ascent, then sink grad- ually until the window in the back of it disappeared like an eye that shuts, and Cinders from the Ashes. Cinders from the Ashes. leaves the world dark to some widowed heart. Sea-sickness and home-sickness are hard to deal with by any remedy but time. Mine was not a bad case, but it excited sympathy. There was an an- cient, faded old lady in the house, very kindly, but very deaf, rustling about in dark autumnal foliage of silk or other murmurous fabric, somewhat given to snufi; but a very worthy gentlewoman of the poor-relation variety. She com- forted me, I well remember, but not with apples, and stayed me, but not with flagons. She went in her benevo- lence, and, taking a blue and white soda-powder, mingled the same in ter, and encouraged me to drink the result. It might be a specific for sea- sickness, but it was not for home-sick- ness. The fiz was a mockery, and the saline refrigerant struck a colder chill to my despondent heart. I did not disgrace myself; however, and a few days cured me, as a week on the water often cures sea-sickness. There was a sober-faced boy of mi- nute dimensions in the house, who be- gan to make some advances to me, and who, in spite of all the conditions sur- rounding him, turned out, on better acquaintance, to be one of the most amusing, free-spoken, mocking little imps I ever met in my life. My room- mate came later. He was the son of a clergyman in a neighboring town, in fact I may remar - that I knew a good many clergymens sons at Andover. He and I went in harness together as well as most boys do, I suspect; and I have no grudge against him, except that once, when I was slightly indisposed, he ad- ministered to me with the best inten- tions, no doubt a dose of Indian pills, which effectually knocked me out of time, as Mr. Morrissey would say, not quite into eternity, but so near it that I perfectly remember one of the good ladies told me (after I had come to my senses a little, and was just ready for a sip of cordial and a word of en- couragement), with that delightful plain- ness of speech which so brings realities home to the imabination, that I never should look any whiter when I was laid out as a corpse. After my room- mate and I had been separated twenty- five years, fate made us fellow-towns- men and acquaintances once more in Berkshire, and now again we are close literary neighbors; for I have just read a very pleasant article, signed by him, in the last number of the Galaxy. Does it not sometimes seem as if we were all m~ rching round and round in a circle, like the supernumeraries who constitute the army~ of a theatre, and that each of us meets and is met by the same and only the same people, or their doubles, twice, thrice, or a little oftener, before the curtain drops and the army puts off its borrowed clothes? The old Academy building had a dreary look, with its flat face, bare and uninteresting as our own University Building at Cambridge, since the pi- azza which relieved its monotony was taken away, and, to balance the ugliness thus produced, the hideous projection was added to Harvard Hall. Two masters sat at the end of the great room, the principal and his assistant. Two others presided in separate rooms, one of them the late Rev. Samuel Horatio Stearns, an excellent and lov- able man, who looked kindly on me, and for whom I always cherished a sincere reb ard, a clergymans son, too, which privilege I did not always find the war- rant of signal virtues; but no matter about that here, and I have promised myself to be amiable. On the side of the long room was a larbe clock-dial, bearing these words Youm IS THE SEED-TIME OF LIFE. I had indulged in a prejudice, up to that hour, that youth was the budding time of life, and this clock-dial, perpet- ually twitting me with its seedy moral, always had a forbidding look to my ver- nal apprehension. I was put into a seat with an older and much bigger boy, or youth, with a fuliginous complexion, a dilating and whitening nostril, and a sin~ularly ma- lignant scowl. Many years afterwards r [January, 119 1869.] Cinders from f/ic Ashes. he committed an act of murderous vio- lence, and ended by going to finish his days in a madhouse. His delight was to kick my shins with all his might, un- der the desk, not at all as an act of hos- tility, but as a gratifying and harmless pastime. Finding this, so far as I was concerned, equally devoid of pleasure and profit, I managed to get a seat by another boy, the son of a very distin- guished divine. He was bright enough, and more select in his choice of recre- ations, at least during school hours, than my late homicidal neighbor. But the principal called me up presently, and cautioned me against him as a danber- ous companion. Could it be so? If the son of that boys father could not be trusted, what boy in Christendom could? It seemed like the story of the youth doomed to be slain by a lion be- fore reaching a certain age, and whose fate found him out in the heart of the tower where his father had shut him up for safety. Here was I, in the very doves nest of Puritan faith, and out of one of its eggs a serpent had been hatched and was trying to nestle in my bosom! I parted from him, however, none the worse for his companionship so far as I can remember. Of the boys who were at school with me at Andover one has acquired great distinction among the scholars of the land. One day I observed a new boy in a seat not very far from ,my own. He was a little fellow, as I recollect him, with black hair and very bright black eyes, when at length I got a chance to look at them. Of all the new- comers during my whole y~nr he was the only one whom the first glance fixed in my memory, but there he is now, at this moment, just as he caubht my eye on the morning of his entr nce. His bead was between his hands (I wonder if he does not sometimes study in that same posture nowadays!) and his eyes were fastened to his book as if he had been reading a will that made him heir to a million. I feel sure that Professor Horatio Baleb Hackett will not find fault with me for writin ~, his name un- ~der this inoffensive portrait. Thousands of faces and forms that I have known more or less familiarly have faded from my remembrance, but this presentment of the youthful student, sitting there entranced over the page of his text- book, the child-father of the distin- guished scholar that was to be, is not a picture framed and hung up in my minds gallery, but a fresco on its walls, there to remain so long as they hold together. My especial intimate was a fine, rosy- faced boy, not quite so free of speech as myself perhaps, but with qualities that promised a noble manhood, and ripened into it in due season. His name was Phinehas Barnes, and, if he is inquired after in Portland or anywhere in the State of Maine, something will be heard to his advantage from any honest and intelligent citizen of that Commonwealth who answers the question. This was one of two or three friendships that lasted. There were other friends and classmates, one of them a natural hu- morist of the liveliest sort, who would have been quarantined in any Puritan port, his laugh was so potently conta- gious. Of the noted men of Andover the one whom I remember best was Pro- fessor Moses Stuart. His house was nearly opposite the one in which I re- sided, and I often met him and listened to him in the chapel of the Seminary. I have seen few more striking figures in my life than his, as I remember it. Tall, lean, with strong, bold features, a keen, scholarly, accipitrine nose, thin expressive lips, great solemnity and impressiveness of voice and manner,~ he was my early model of a classic orator. His air was Roman, his neck long and bare like Ciceros, and his loga that is, his broadcloth cloak was carried on his arm, whatever might have been the weather, with such a statue-like rigid grace that he might have been turned into marble as he stood, and looked noble by the side of the antiques of the Vatican. Dr. Porter was an invalid, with the prophetic handkerchief bundling his throat, and his face festooned as 120 Cinders from Ike Ashes. [January, I heard Hillard say once, speaking of one of our College professorsin folds and wrinkles. Ill health gives a certain common character to all faces, as Na- ture has a fixed course which she fol- lows in dismantling a human counte- nance: the noblest and the fairest is but a deaths-head decently covered over for the transient ceremony of life, and the drapery often falls half off be- fore the procession has passed. Dr. Woods looked his creed more decidedly, perhaps, than any of the Professors. He had the firm fibre of a theological athlete, and lived to he old without ever mellowing, I think, into a kind of half-heterodoxy, as old minis- ters of stern creed are said to do now and then,just as old doctors grow to be sparing of the more exasperating drugs in their later days. He had manipulated the mysteries of the Infi- nite so long and so exhaustively, that he would have seemed mbre at home among the medi~val schoolmen than amidst the working clergy of our own time. All schools have their great men, for whose advent into life the world is waiting in dumb expectancy. In due time the world seizes upon these won- drous youth, opens the shell of their possibilities like the valves of an oys- ter, swallows them at a gulp, and they are for the most part heard of no more. We had two great men, grown up both of them. Which was the more awful intellectual power to be launched upon society, we debated. Time cut the knot in his rude fashion by taking one away early, and padding the other with pros- perity so that his course was, compar- atively noiseless and ineffective. We had our societies, too; one in particular, The Social Fraternity, the dtead secrets of which I am wunder a lifelong obligation never to reveal. The fate of William Morgan, which the community learned not long after this time, reminds me of the danger of the ground upon which I am treading. There were various distractions to make the time not passed in study a season of relief. One good lady, I was told, was in the habit of asking stu- dents to her house on Saturday after- noons and praying with and for them. Bodily exercise was not, however, en- tirely superseded by spiritual exercises; and a rudimentary form of base-ball ~and the heroic sport of foot-ball were followed with some spirit. A slight immature boy finds his ma- teAals of thought and enjoyment in very shallow and simple sources. Yet a kind of romance gilds for me the sober table- land of that cold New England hill where I came in contact with a world so strange to me, and destined to leave such mingled and lasting impressions. I looked across the valley to the hillside where Methuen hung suspended, and dreamed of its wooded seclusion as a village paradise. I tripped lightly down the long northern slope with faczYis de- scensus on my lips, and toiled up again, repeating sed revocare gradztrn. I wan- dered in the autumnal woods that crown the Indian Ridge, much wondering at that vast embankment, which we young philosophers believed with the vulgar to be of aboriginal workman- ship, not less curious, perhaps, since we call it an escar, and refer it to allu- vial agencies. The little Shawshine was our swimming - school, and th