SCRJBNERS MONTHLY. MAY, 1874. No s. THE DISTRICT SCHOOL. DoNT you hear the children coming, Coming into school? Dont you hear the master dromming On the window with his rule Master dromming, children coming Into school Tip-toed figures reach the catch, Tiny fingers click the latch Curlx- headed girls throng in Lily-free from toil and sin. Breezy hoys holt in together, Bringing hreaths of winter weather, Bringing haskets Indian-checked, Dinners in them sadly wrecked. Ruddy-handed, mittens off, Soldiers rush from the Malakoff VOL. VIII.x Built of snow and marhle whue, Bastions shining in the light, Marked with many a clint and (lot Of the ice-cold cannon shot Hear the last assaultino- shout See the gunners rally out Charge upon the hattered door School is called, and hattle oer (0211001, TIME. DONT you hear the selsolars thrumming? Bumhle-hces in June All the leaves together thumhing, Singers hunting for a tune Master mendiug pens, and humming Bonny Doon? As he thinks, a perished maiden Fords the hrook of song, NOL. VIII. THEY LAUGH AND THEY LEAP TO THE CEO(JND, IN WOOLEN, ALL MITTENEn AND COWNEn. SCHOOL CALLED. fillY J9ISIRICT SCHOOL. Comes to him so heavy laden, Stepping on the notes along, Stands lDe~ide him, blessed maiden lie has waited long Cherry-ripe is the glowing stove, rammar class is inflecting love, I lovevon love, and love we all. Bounding states are the Humbolfits -snail, Chanting slow in common tinse Broken Chinas rugged rhyme: Yang-tse-kiangHo-ang-bo Heavenly rivers how they flow \Vriting class with heads one way And tongnes all not for a holiday hark to the goose-quills spattering grate, Rasping like an axvkward skate, Swinging ron nd in mighty 13s, Lazy Lb and craz Zs There a scholar, looking solemn, Blunders up a crooked column, i~isas own Italic tower, Done in iate in half an hour, Figtsres piled in a mighty sum lie wets a finger, and down they come! Aproned urchin, aged five, Youngest in the humming hive, Standing by the Masters knee, Calls the roll of A, B, C. Frightened hair all blown anout, Buttered lips in half a pout, Knuckle boring out an eye, Saying B and thinking pie, Feeling for a speckled bean, To ixt each hreath a dumb ravine, Like clock unwound, but going yet, lie slowly ticks the alphabet A-ahB-ahC-ahD, Finds the bean and calls for G. See that crevice in the floor Slender line from desk to door, First mcri(lian of the school Which all the scholars toe by rule, Ranged along in rigid row, inky, golden, brown and tow, Are heads of spellers high and low, Like notes in music so eet as June, Dotting off a dancing tune. Boy of Bashan takes the lead, Roughly thatched his bullet head At the foot an eight-year-old, Stands with head of trembling gold; Watch her when the word is missed 11cr eyes are like an amethyst, 11cr fingers dove-tailed, lips apart She knows that very word by heart! And swings like any pendulum, Trembling lest it fail to come. Runs the word along the line, Like the running of a vine, Blossoms out from lip to lip~ Till the girl in azure slip, Catches breath and spells the worn, lits up the class like any bird, Cheeks in bloom with honest blood, And proudly stands where Bashan stood Evening reddens on the wall Attention ! Now Obeisance all I The girls short dresses touch the floor, They (Imp their courtesies at the door; the boys jerk bows with jack-knife springs And out of doors they all take wings Vanished allall change is death; Life is not the counted breath. The slanting sun low in the West, Brings to the Master blessed rest. See where it bridges afternoon, And slopes the golden day-time down, As if to him at last was given, An easy grade to restful Heaven I Ills hair is silvernot with light, Ili hcart is heavynot xvitls night. 2 TIF-TORO FIGURES REACH THE CATCH, TINY FINGERS CLICK THE LATCH. 151115 1)ISTPICf SCHOOL. i)ying day the wonul has kissed, Good-night sweethearts ! The schools dismissed GOING TO SPELLING SCHOOL. LIE hroad of a silvery noon! And the world lies under the moon, Under the moon and the snow The moon comes not from under a cloud And shines on the world helow. The snow, cold, white as a linen shrond, Pot on hot an hoor ago, Is a pearly web with a silver thread, Robe for a bridal and not for the dead. The river is silent as light. The road is a ribbon of white, Rihhon of silk from Japan-- its borders rich with satin and shine, Betray where the sleigh-shoes ran, That iron the snow to a fabric fine, Edged like a ladys fan. Ah, the night is fair as a marhle girl. Dust) with stars and the mother of pearl. The ~chool-bouse is red and aloof, And rolls rom its mossy old roof Columns of glorified gloom, As if there grew from the chimney rude A smoke-tree clad in its bloom, A phinvnix fair of tile burning wood, Just sprung from the summer room, With that only trace of an earthly taint, Picture as white as the soul of a saint A twanging and trilling of wires Are angels attuning their lyres, Inning witil negligent hand Hark ! chimes of hells from over the IliliS I)ance merrily through tile land The tinkling troll of a hundred rills, Cymbals of bras, from a l)alld Tis the ringing strings of the bells in bronze Sprinkling the night with their showerv Inne~ A spell is abroad an(l a sons The sl)ellers and singers along, Wizarrls and witches I pairs. In cutters snug are the Adanss and Eves, Edens own children andI heirs Bells in the woods, ill lieu of the leaves And bells that tIle echo wears 3 HER EYES ARE LIKE AN AMETHYST HER FINGERS OOVR-TSILEO, LIPS APART. riir DISTRiCT 3671100L. It is ring, rind; ring, to the swinging gait, Then the teams break trot, for the hour is late, At a ting-a-ling, tinga-ling, galloping rate Now over the ridges they ride, And down through the valley they glide, And bring up at the school-house door, With bundled girls in the quilted hood, And its edging of down, as of yore. Their hearts are as sweet as the cedar wood, Their gowns without gusset or gore, And Vandykes with a peak before, And their hair is glossed clown like a blackbirds wings, And their shoes are laced up, and with leather strings They laugh and they leap to the ground, In woolen, all mittened and gowned, Lit up with a ribbon blue, With a breath of cloves or of sassafras, Faces like Ruths and as true As ever smiled in a looking-glass, And cheeks with the roses through All look like flowers that are newly blown, In the zoneless grace of their London brown, Not a charm in bonds, nor a beauty laced, Cestus of Venus would girdle the waist. A chorusing crew comes last In the Family Ark of the past, Packing it full, and in pairs The rude old sleigh, so roomy and red, All strewn with straxv, like Povertys bed, Millenial lambs in their lairs Like an emigrant ship is the lumbering craft, Crowded and laden both forward and aft, With a wooden heart surmounting the stern, Where the teamsters of old gave the reins a turn. Ah, the hearts that throbbed with tlseir youthful blood Were as free from care as the sculptured wood Oh, Covenant Ark of the snow, Freighted for church at the door Two, side by side, on the sheepskin seat, Are hound for Canaans shore The square foot-stove is under their feet, A buffalo robe before. In the two flag chairs that are side by side, Are the the gray old man and his silver bride. Still she carries one for the added ten, May follow the rule and carry agaib Then the boys and girls in their Sunday clothes, And tlse rank slopes down as it farther goes, To three in a row, for the last are least, Like the sparks of stars in the early East! Ah, the old red sleigh, be it ever blest It has borne the dead to their silent rest, The bearers, by twos, as they rode abreast, Has carried the brides, their bedding and things, When the girls were queens and the bridegrooms kings, lo the splay-foot jog of the olden time, And the clang, clang, clang, of the sleigh-hells chime. Ah, necklace of melody old, With apples and walnuts of gold That danced to the horses feet The mother bell in the middle hung, As big as a Golden Sweet, Then small each way till the string was strung, And two filbert bells did meet, And two rhyming hearts did beat. Ab, the string is dumb, and as green with rust, As the dimpled graves of the maidens dust! 4 SOUTHERN MOUNTAIN RAMBLES. 5 SOUTHERN MOUNTAIN RAMBLES: IN TENNESSEE, GEORGIA AND SOUTH CAROLINA. AT a little distance from the locality known as Birds Mill, in Northern Georgia, and not far from the Tennessee line, there stands, among tangled underbrush, a mas- sive yet simple monument. Around it the envious brier has crept, and the humbler headstones which here and there dot the thicket are also hedged ahout with weeds and creepers. Neglect and oblivion seem, to the hasty observer, to have so effectual- lv covered the spot with their wings, that even the dwellers in the neighborhood hardly know whom or what the marble and the stone represent. Yet these obscure memorials call to mind some of the most touching and re- markable episodes in our bistory as a na- tion. They point backxvard, through the niiraculous years of the last half century, to the time when the Cherokee held all the country about them; to the time of the mission-schools, and tbe heroic efforts of the American Board to es- tablish them. A weather-beaten in~cril)- tion on the marble monument discloses the fact that beneath it is the resting I)lace of the good Dr. Worcester, first secretary of the board, and a most enthusiastic laborer among the Cherokees. A hundred rods away stands one of the old mission- houses, now a decaying rtiin, inhabited b: a horde of negroes. (Therokee and mis- sionary have gone their wa) s together there is not onc to be encountered in any nook of the forest; the current of Fate has swept the Indian to the West, and the priests who labored for him into almost forgotten graves. At the l)eginning of the present century the Indian still held the territory of North- western Georgia secure against the intru- sion of the white mans laws, and also roam- ed over extensive tracts in Alabama, Tennessee and North Carolina. In the deep coves between the parallel ranges of the Cumberland, along the vast pali- sades by the winding Tennessee, and through the furrowed and ridgy lands ex- tending towards Virginia and K entucky, he wandered unrestrained. But the pale face was on his track, anxious first to gain his good-will, and then tQ reason him inta a cession of his beautiful lands. It was with the bitterness of (lespair in his heart LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN.

SOUTHERN MOUNTAIN RAMBLES. 5 SOUTHERN MOUNTAIN RAMBLES: IN TENNESSEE, GEORGIA AND SOUTH CAROLINA. AT a little distance from the locality known as Birds Mill, in Northern Georgia, and not far from the Tennessee line, there stands, among tangled underbrush, a mas- sive yet simple monument. Around it the envious brier has crept, and the humbler headstones which here and there dot the thicket are also hedged ahout with weeds and creepers. Neglect and oblivion seem, to the hasty observer, to have so effectual- lv covered the spot with their wings, that even the dwellers in the neighborhood hardly know whom or what the marble and the stone represent. Yet these obscure memorials call to mind some of the most touching and re- markable episodes in our bistory as a na- tion. They point backxvard, through the niiraculous years of the last half century, to the time when the Cherokee held all the country about them; to the time of the mission-schools, and tbe heroic efforts of the American Board to es- tablish them. A weather-beaten in~cril)- tion on the marble monument discloses the fact that beneath it is the resting I)lace of the good Dr. Worcester, first secretary of the board, and a most enthusiastic laborer among the Cherokees. A hundred rods away stands one of the old mission- houses, now a decaying rtiin, inhabited b: a horde of negroes. (Therokee and mis- sionary have gone their wa) s together there is not onc to be encountered in any nook of the forest; the current of Fate has swept the Indian to the West, and the priests who labored for him into almost forgotten graves. At the l)eginning of the present century the Indian still held the territory of North- western Georgia secure against the intru- sion of the white mans laws, and also roam- ed over extensive tracts in Alabama, Tennessee and North Carolina. In the deep coves between the parallel ranges of the Cumberland, along the vast pali- sades by the winding Tennessee, and through the furrowed and ridgy lands ex- tending towards Virginia and K entucky, he wandered unrestrained. But the pale face was on his track, anxious first to gain his good-will, and then tQ reason him inta a cession of his beautiful lands. It was with the bitterness of (lespair in his heart LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN. 6 SO UTHEkN MOUNTAIN IYAAIBL ES. that one of the chieftains said he had learned to fear the white mans friend- ship more than his anger. But the Cherokees did not seem to dread or dJest the missionaries of the American Board. They knew them for men without guile or desire for l)ersonal gain, and they learned to love them. When good Cyrus Kingsbury founded the mission of Brainard, in 1817. on the banks of that Chickamauga, whose waters, a few years since, ran. red with the blood of civil war, it was with the cordial cousent of all the principal chiefs. Schools and churches were founded log mission-houses erected even the Presi- dent of the United States allowed the use of the public funds for the building of a schoolhouse for girls. Kingsbury, (Corne- lius, Evarts and Worcester, became elo- quent champions of the Indians when their rights were assailed, and each mioslon successively risked his liberty and life for the much wronged aborigines. At last a crisis arrived. The state of Georgia began to extend ber criminal jurisdiction over the lands claimed by the Cherokees, and with scorn disregarded all efforts of the Indians to protect themselves by an appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States. Angered because the missionaries sided with the Cherokees in the excitine (luestioi~, the officers of the Georgia govern- ment imprisoned the noble Worcester and one of his fellowlaborers in the peniten-~ tiary, for illegal residence among the Indians, and because they gave advic~ on i)olitical matters. This last charg~ the missionaries solemnly denied, but re fused of their own will to quit their posts and the p~irdon which had been offered them was withdrawn. While they spent xve iry months in prison, the Cherokees FLAP Oi PORTIONS OF TRNNES~RR, GEORGIA AND ALABAMA. SO (ITIJERN Aif 0 UNTAIAT J& IJIIBLES. were occupied w ith internal dissension, and with ineffectual resistance to the encroach- ing Georgians. At last the treaties which virtually banished the Indians from their homes were signed, and in 1838 the troops ithered up into one long and sorrowful Procession thousands of men, women and rhildren, and hurried them from the State. Depleted and worn down by every imaginable privation, more than four thou- sand of the unfortunates died on their long march of six hundred miles to their new homes ~vest of the Mississippi,forming a ghastly sacrifice to commemorate the white mans greed. Leaving the brier-invaded grave-yard and the tumbling missionhouses, and climbing to the summit of Mission Ridge, a vision of perfect beauty is befoce one. To the east is Chickamauga Valley, follow- ing the course of the historic creek, and dotted with pleasant farms and noble groves: westward one looks down upon a rich and hroad interval, bounded by high bluffs with rocky faces, along whose bases the noble stream of the Tennessee flows with many an eccentric turn, until, as if amazed and startled at the grandeur of Lookotit i\Iountain, which rises just within the vale to twenty-four hundred feet above the sea- level, it turns inland once more in a xvest- em course, becoming rapid and turbulent as it descends through gorges and forests, to northern Alabama. I ookout is an outlier of the Cumberland table-land, and extends across the Tennessee line into 7 Georgia. One may travel for more than forty miles along its breezy height without finding anywhere a really advantageous point at which to descend. Between Mission Ridge and Lookout Mountain lies Chattanooga Valley, the Croxvs Nest, as the Indians called it, and as its name signi- fies. It is, indeed, not unlike a nest or cup securely set down among huge moun- tain barriers, through which one can dis- cern no pass, and which only the birds can afford to despise. Everywhei~e ridges, sharply-projecting spurs from the Cumber land, caves, forests, rocks, bluffs! How can traffic find its way through such a country? Far below, as you stand on Mission Ridge, with Lookouts shadow thrown across the brilliant sunlight, falling on the slopes up which Grant sent his men on that day of blood in 1863, you may see the city of Chattanooga, the gate-way of the South. On the l)resent site of the town, the south bank of the Tennessee river there stood, in 1835, a Cherokee trading post. In 1837, a good many white families from Virginia and the Carolinas had moved there, and a post-office called Rosss Land- ing was established. The original lots into which the town was partitioned were disposed of by lottery, after the expulsion of the Indians, and the vast commerce that to-day uses the Tennessees current as the chief transporting medium, soon crea- ted quite. a trading post. From tipper Eastern Tennessee came iron and iron- \IL~SION I lICE. 3 SO U7YJJ& It~N i/f) (bYJLJIN IsLiiIBL/iS. ware, corn, wheat and whiskey, and Virgin- ia sent down great quantities of salt. In r338 a new town was started and christen- ed Chattanooga. Ten years later, railroad rommunication vihr Atlanta, with Charles- ton and Savannah, gave the little town forty thousand bales of cotton as its animal ~hipmeat; and when Robert Cravens be- jan to manufaetnre charcoal iron there, at a cost of $Io to ~14 pe~~ ton, shipping it to New Orleans, St. Lonis and Cincinnati for from $30 to $ao per ton, the settlers multiplied very rapidly. The cotton trade was lost to Chattanooga by the building of the Memphis and Charleston railroad, which did away with the painful navigation of the Tennessee up from Alabama, and the ~ortage around Muscle Shoals ; but the grain and stock trade steadily increased, and in i86i the town boasted thirty-five hundred population. Then the war came to it. Planted at the very month of the narrow passes, through which trade and travel pick their difficult way, Chattanooga has sprung, since the wars close, from a village into a l)rosperotls city of 12,000 inhabitants. Its aspect to-day is that of a North-western ~:ettlement, Northern and Western men having flocked to it in large numbers. The men who campaigned among the mountains arotind it, and who fought so desperately to fet to it won year after year, noted its * This was done at the suggestion of Mr. John P. Long, one of the prominent citizens of Chattanooga, who is very familiar with the Indian language and legends. derful advantages as a railway center in one of the richest mineral regions in the world, and, when they were mtistered out, settled there. The march of progress be- gan. It was a revelation to the l)eople of the surrounding countrythat steady an(1 rapid iiuprox cineut at Chattanooga. Tlicx had always known that there were coal, 1iOii and oil in the vicinity in such quantities that, in thie words of a public speLtker who once upbraided them for their lack of enterprise, within sight of the city might he found Pittsbtirg lilows that had been worn otit upon the iron ore lying loosely on the hillsides ; yet they had not dreamed that with cheap iron and cheap coal at their doors they had the elements of em- pire in their hands. To-day Chattanooga is connected with the outer world by five trunk lines of rail, and the surveys for the sixth, and in some respects the most re- markable, have been completed. The Western and Atlantic connects the city with Atlanta and the South the Nashville and Chattanooga line pierces the Ctimber- land, and gives a rotite to Lotiisville and the Ohio ; the East Tennessee, Virginia, and Georgia road reaches to Bristol ,giving direct connection with Lynchburg, Wash- ington and New York; the Alabama and Chattanooga ru~ss through marvelous coal and iron fields to Meridian, in Mississippi, whence there is a direct line to the Father of Waters, and the Memphis and Char- leston opens up a vast fertile section in Northern Alabama and a corner of Mis- aissippi, a section unhappily strewn at ores VIEW FROM LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN. SO UTHIRIC MO UNfAJAf RAJIfJ~LFS. 9 .nt w dli wrecks of once prosperous phtii tations. The track of the war is visihic through all the beautiful Tennessee \7ailcv, and for miles one scc~ nothing but ruins and ncjected land~. The Cincinnati Southern railroad i~ intended to run from he Ohio metropolis to (ihattanooga, and will operate as an outlet from the Ohio Val 1ev to the mutheastern seaboard, while it will also furnish a dcsirable connection with the Gulf system of roads. It will l)elietratc some of the richest regions of Kentuck}. will cross the Cumbcrland River at Point Burnsidc. and run through the Sequatchic Valley, along an almost unbroken coal liald. With so many important and really finely-built lhies of land travel stretching from it in all directions, one would naturally suspect Chattanooga of an inclination to disregard her river traffic vet she is b yno means unmindful of it. Operating as the distributing point for the whole riverval- ley, and, indeed, for the far South, the city crowds her storehouses yearly with corn, wheat and bacon, brought hundreds of miles in flat-boats and small steamers along the win ding river from Kentucky, Virginia and North Carolina. At high water season the stream is crowded with rustic crafts of all kinds; and the jolly raftsmen who have been for months in the forests, and have drifted down stream on broad platforms of i~ne logs, make merry in highways and by-ways. Transportation of coal and iron by river x~ ould not cost more than one-fourth the sum demanded l)v the railways. The surroundings of Chattanooga are of the wildest and most romantic beauty, and in gazing down from Lookout, or from the humfiler Mission Ridge, upon the lovely vail ev, with its ma- jestic river and lordly ledges, one cannot rel)ress a fear that, some day, all these natural beauties will be hidden by the smoke from the five hundred chimneys which will be erected in honor of the god Iron. For it is to be a toxvn of rolling mills and furnaces, giant in its traffic, like Pitts burg and St. Louis, and in- habited by thousands of hard- handed, brawny-armed arti- sans. There is hardly a county in Eastern Tennessee where the resurces destined to make UMBRELLA EU(E. Chattanooga one of the commercial center.; of the county do not abound. Along the Great Unaka chain, in those counties bor- dering upon the Smoky, over which we pass- ed on our way to the North Carolina moun- tains, lie some of the richest sections of the eastern iron belt which extends northward into Virginia, and southward into Georgia. In the Valley, that rich and populous quarter of Tennessee, on whose ridges and in whose nooks are raised the noblest physical specimens of LOOELNL. OLT ~EOM LUUKVLP CAVE. SO U TffJfPiV i/O U9 TA IX I& 1JfBLkS~ the American man, the mineral develop- ment seems incredible. In what is known a~ the Uvestone Belt the immense layers of red hematite run without a break for one hundred and fifty miles, swelling, ~r~met1mes, to eight or ten feet in thickness, it never sinking below five. Gnu hun dred pounds of this stratified red-iron rock, soft and easily crushed, will yield seventy potinds of pure iron. It is the same ore which, outcropping in Virginia, has for years supplied the splendid fur nacos of Eastern Pennsylvania, and, ex- tending through Northeastern Georgia into Alabama, is known as the Reel Mountain ore of the latter State. And this grand belt lies at the very base of the coal measures The East Tennessee Valley extends northeast and southwest abotit two hundred and eighty miles from Chat- tanooga to the Virginia line. Northwest of it is the Cumberland table-land, which Andrew Jackson was wont to declare would one day be the garden of the United States ; and one of the outlines of this plateau, extending from the vichity of Chattanooga to Cumberland Gal), is known as Waldens Ridge. This is the south- eastern limit of the great Appalachian coal-field, which covers six t/iousa;idsqziarc ii~ii~& considerably more than the entire coal area of Great Britain. All the ridges in the Valley contain mhmrals; they at ribbed with iron ore of every variety. in some cases the veins of red fossil- iferotis ore extend tinder the coal-fields. The numerous rivers heading in the North Carolha and Western Virginia mountains drain nurthwest towards the Tennessee, and form natural higlBvavs upon which to bear the ore to the beds of coal. The stores of red and brown hematites in the Alleghany chain and the Ctiniherland range are absolutely inexhaustible. This ursud mineral field is blessed with a deli- cious climate, which the high mountain walls render temp xate in winter and cool and entirely free from malaria in summer. Before iSfin, nunlers of furnaces were worked in the Dvestone Belt, and ex- cellent ore was produced ; btit an C51)ecial imuetus has been uiv en to the production 0 of thir ~ection since the war. Gen. John T Wilder, of Ohio, while campaigning under Rosecrans, against Chattanooga, in 1863, at the head of a brigade of motinted infantry, became interested in the hills, from which might be blasted th.~su~ds of tons of ore in a day, in the greaL veins of hematites, sometimes coveriri g hundreds of acrcs, and in that mighty stretch of two hundred miles along the now famous ridge, where coal and iron lie only half mile apart, with massive limestone crus between them. When he laid by hV sxvord, he contintied the sttidy of these mineral deposits, and after ptirchasin~ the site on which the village and fur- naces of Roekwood now stand, associat- ed with himself a company of capitalists, and in 1867 organized the Roane Iron Company, with a capital of $i,ooo,ooo. ~Ihis company purchased the rail mill at Chattanooga, which had been btiilt by the Federal Government; tunneled the Gum- berland Mountain for coal; and in m868 began to manufacture pig-iron cheaper than it has been made elsewhere in the country, and to supply it to the rolling- mills, sending it down the Tennessee river in steamers and barges.W Rock- wood is now a brisk village of two theti- sand inhabitants, of whom about one half are workmen in the furnaces and the coal mines. It is situated seventy miles north- east of Chattanooga, in the heart of a rugged mountain region.~ The energetic Western men who have it in charge are confident that in a few years their city will rival Pittsburg in growth, for they claim that they can manufacttire iron at least $ro or $12 per ton cheaper than it can be made anywhere else in the United States. It would certainly be remarkable if a mineral region so vast and well stocked as that of Northern Georgia, Northern Ala- bama and Eastern Tennessee,in the midst of which Chattanooga stands, shotild not produce at least one city of a htindred thousand inhabitants within a few * According to the censos of 1870, ihere were then in len nesee foorteen estahlishmnents manofacitiring pigiron, xx itt twenty ii roe hint fornaces and $e 103,750 capttai, prorinciti 28,688 tons, worth $1,147,707. Shore were eighteen roiling- mills, ss ith a rapital of 6253,7 ~, prodocing roiled iron worth $369,222, ann ihirtyth roe mnanofactories of cast iron, v, ith 2 capitai (If ~ the proniocts of which annually amolliltell to ahont h df a mile 0 dollars. The nnmher of estahlish Inenis h[r, inoch increas ol since that time. 5 Twentyfix e thotsand tons (If ore are n men at Rent. senOr1 yearly, an I hsnt 12,002 ((1115 (If pigirolt are sent th 0(1 (11 chlIt111O0~1. StIllIlta, St. I onis and Looisville. The rI)lliIlgnIill at chanta 11011(71. prolin es 111)0th 15,010 toIls I rails annuaiiy. 111 lollirtos gix en to the gross th (If dIlat tanya ily the est:dlish n-n I of this mdl and the volcmn 111111 \vIlrks h m heen trcmendrms. The price 1xdrl the (ins erllmellt for the rIIlliOgIoill alld 145 ~scres (If laild at cia tallooga, hy tile i8oaite Iron comp~mny, was $225,000. I Ii patellt pitmidling apparains of an Englishman namer1 flanks, an apparatus sehich is expecced to revoihltionl7e iron manttfar- tttre, 1251 .111 hntnense saving in cost, has heen introdttce( into tile works. The cost of ore at the iimhsvood furnaces ohotit $2 per ton; that of coal, $1.40 pr toll limestone etghty cents. It t5 (lot astonishing, in vinese (If these pricco, titat the company hope eventllaliy to manmifacttire rails ann deliver them in Pittshnrg cheaper than they c in he it mtie there :o UT/JifJLV i/O U9/TJJN If AJ/IJLIK~. IT tars. The new aspirant for the honors of apid growth has made sterling progress. Cotton mills and car works are springing up beside the rolling mills and foundries many fine mansions already grace the prin- (Ipal residence streets and hundreds of mechanics are building neat cottages along the slopes on both sides of the Tennessee. Swiss capital is engaged in the manufac- tire of cotton, and English hivestors ar carefully studying the iron and coal field with a view to finally erecting large rolling mills in the city; banks, good hotels, well planned streets, and excellent schools and churches, have arisen like magic within seven years ; and the constant stream of Irstitice transferred from the river to the railroads gives an activity and feverish ne to the aspect of the streets, at certain seasons, which is quite inspiring. Even within the Crows Nest there is iron in the northwest slopes of Cameron i-{ill. a high bluff from which one can verlook the Tennessee ann the busy town stretched along its banks, even to the base of Lookout. In the Eastern, Dyestoue, ~nd Western iron belts of Tennessee there were more small furnaces hefore the war than at present ; but it is doubtful if so much iron was manufactured then as now. Capital is fast finding out the best locations for furnaces and rolling mills in each (if the three States, whose commercial ceuL r Chattanooga properly is. and hundreds of thousands of acres have recently been 1)0 chased by co inpanies, who will, probably, develop them within the next five years. Most persons in this country or in Europe who have heard of Lookout Mount- ain since the war have ai5o been told of the battle above the clouds. It ~ as m~r forttine to scale the remarkable pal sade at a time when the broad plateau which runs along its summit was literall v enshrouded in formidable mists. The rain was falling in torrents as, with two com l)anion, I galloped through the little town at the foot of the mountain ; but, crc we had scaled the winding road, the shou en was over, an(l a brisk wind began to so: the mists. We could see little buA th ledges along whose sides the route ran, ho as we arrived nearly at the summit, ti a mist curtain was lifteri for an instant, an 1 revealed to us a delicious expanse of yaK ley, with sunlight smiles here and thera chasing away the rains tears. Then we were shrouded in again, and our horses, ai - parently inspired by the gloomy grandeur of the occasion, rattled furiotisly along the IRON FINN ICES, ROd SWOON TFNNFN~FI 12 0 UfIJIXILY A/f) ~ Iii iN AAILIJLTS. l~rd road, over which the boughs hung uncomfortably near our heads. The red sandy clay nourishes enormous pines, chose roots have here and there been dis rhed by the sandstone bowiders, and : ched out their fibers in a desperate .~rasl) along the pathways grcat blocks of Lone, carved by the storms and polished l)v the winds, are scattered. We galloped nearly to the massive perpendicular wall which arises directly out of the valley, and di~dainfu1lv frowns down upon the Tennessee. spurned from its base four- teen hundred feet below ; and tethering our horses, apl)roachedl to the very edge. There we seemed shut off from all the world. Now and then a htim from the vallevth e faint growl of a locomotive or the rolling of wheelscame faintly tip we heard the cowbells and the bleating of the sheep on the hillsides behind tis and just as we were trying to imagine how the bat- tle must have been, the wind came sweep- ing away the mist curtain, andwe beheld the whole From Umbrella Rock we saw the Moccasin, that curiotis point of land made by the Tennessees 1)owerful turn; the streets and houses of Chattanooga seemed like toys, or little blocks of wood. Mission Ridge was an insignificant bltie line. The Tennessee seems to turn in de- VIEW IN ROCK CiTY. ference to Chattanooga, for it might readily intindate it, and has once compelled the citizens to navi~ite their streets in boats. Beyond it, northward and westward, the eve encotinters forests and ridges where the mountains seem to have been split as-- sunder by some conytilsion of naturetintil, at last, on the east, the Cumberland range springs up, and forbids yoti to choase am other horizon. Soutlnvard, beyond l)road and (luiet vales, richly cultured, are the mountains of Georgia, and westward the tree-crested ridges in Alabama. We clambered down a flight of wooden steps to a sectire point of the crags, and looked over the valley otit of which Hooker htirried his troops on to the stimmit, when he broke the left of Braggs formidable army. It was a wild strtiggle, a running and leaping fight among rocks and behind trees, when men carried their lives in their hands, and their swords in their teeth, as they wormed their way through the fast- nesses, and then made their charge upon the foe so strongly intrenched above the very clotids, til)Ofl Point Lookout. The old government hospital still stands on its l)ictures(Itie bluff, deserted now save by curious visitors ; here and there along the broad plateau are scattered comfortable houses, and log cabins; good roads lead into the northern counties of Georgia ; near Rock City,a gigantic series of galleries in disrupted stone pin- nacles which rise amid the ragged brush and saplings,is another enorinotis uplift of limestone, from which one may see the whole of Chattanooga Valley, the Rac- coon, and Lookout ranges, and the battle-field of Chickamatiga. I)escending, five or six miles from the point where the turnpike from the city reaches the stimmit into the valley of Walker County, in Northern Georgia, one comes to a region of precipices and water- falls, of tarns and caves, of land- slides and bluffs. Near Lake Seclusion, an apparently bottom- less well, stink a htindred feet be- low the sturrounding rocks, the scenery is exquisite. In auttimn the foliage on the cliffs bordering the stream which flows throtigh this lake, and plunges farther on (lown a ravine in a blinding spray cloud, which the Indians named lailab Falls~ is so rich in color SOUTHERN MOUNTAIN RAMBLES. 3 that the whole country seems aflame. From one or two of the highest points the ragged ends of the Lookout plateau, and the pleasant expanse of valley beyond, may be seen. Riding day by day along the broad tables ot the Cumberland, in the nooks on the banks of the Tennessee, and up and over the ridges near the scene of Chick- amauga, it was pleasant to hear anew the story of the great fight around Chattanooga from the lips of those who had been par- ticipants. But it was all unreal, dream- like. When we stood with our feet in half- filled rifle pits, or among the shattered and cannon-scotched tree trunks on the field of combat, it was still remote, indefinite. I fancy even the natives of the country round about only remember the whole struggle vaguely now and then; although a Chattanooga man once said to a new comer from the West that when he wanted some paper which the invading army had burned up for him, or remembered the losses of property he had suffered, he hated the whole Yankee nation foi a minute or two ; but, he added, its only for a minute or two, and those minutes dont come as often as they did. Chattanoogas possession by the Union army cost many thousands of lives; but it opened the way to Atlanta and the sea. The line which stretched from Lookouts northern crag to Mission Ridge, on the night of November 24th, 1863, might have been quadrupled in strength if the dead warriors from Murfreesboro and Chicka- mauga could have been marshalled into it. There was an especial bitterness in the contention of this rocky gate-way. After the staggering blows which both armies had received in that terrible fight by Stone River, Bragg and Rosecrans were both ____ willing enough to rest for a little ; but when Bragg had with- drawn, and it was evident that his for- midable campaign, which had carried terror even to the gates of Louisville and Cincinnati, was at an end, then the Union standards led the way to Chatta- nooga. There, strongly intrenched, Bragg deficd his old antagonist. On the morning of August 21st, 1863, General Wilder, com- manding the advance of Rosecranss army, began shelling the city which he now makes his home, from the hills at the north side of the river. Meantime day by day the Federal forces were investing Chat- tanooga, having crossed the Tennessee at Bridgeport, at Battle Greek, and at Shell Mound. On the 4th of September Burn- side occupied Knoxville. Bragg moved the Confederate forces away toward Dal- ton, and Rosecrans entered the town, and followed the enemy, who turned fiercely, and stood at bay on Chickamauga. Long- streets Virginians and Braggs hardy army fought with the energy of desperation, and if on that memorable ~9th of September, when the combatants waded in blood, Long- street had had another than Thomas to encounter, he might have carried the Fed- eral left which he so furiously attacked. Thomas drove Longstrcet back a mile or two, but, as the center failed to keep pace with his advance, be xvas compelled to halt. Then Bragg fell upon the forces under command of MeCook and Crittenden, and the waves of battles flowed to and fro until night, when the Federal army still held its own ground. Early in the morning Thomas had the enemy once more hurled at him, but repulsed him as before. The Union right and center were driven back: Mc- Cook was confused and demoralized: Thomas alone stood like a rock, and kept the enemy at arms length until night, when he fell back to Rossville, to be attacked again, and to once more repulse his foes the next day. Fifteen thousand men had been lost to the Union army, in killed, wounded and missing, in these two days; and the Confederates had lost eighteen thousand. The field of Chickamauga was WOOD S REDOUBTCHATTANOOGA. 4 SO UTHEILY MO UNTAIN RAMBLES. piled with the dead, and the rivulets literally ran blood. The flushed and defiant enemy now stood ready to again fall upon Chattanooga. They had struck some terrible blows. Rose- crans, McCook, and Crittenden, were re- moved from command. The Confederate forces occupied Lookout Mountain and controlled the valley, cutting off rail and river communication. Provisions were hauled over the rough hill-roads and through the narrow passes on the north side of the river, for seventy miles, by an- imals worn to skeletons, and by men who wcrc half starved ; and ~o, on mountain and in forest, along the valleys and the rivers, the vigilant combatants stood, pa- tientlv awaiting the next move, when there came upon the scene a man named Grant. As soon as General Grant had taken (ominand of the military division of the Mississippi, communication, both by river and rail, was gradually re-established, and Chattanooga was unlocked. Sherman re- inforced the army there in mid-November. Grants next move was to allow Longstreet to do what he bad several times unsuccess- fully tried, pass the Federal army to the east of Chattanooga and march against Burn- side and the army of the Ohio. Longstreet had twenty thotisand splendid soldiers, and Burnside far less; it might fare hardly with him, but it was one of the moves on Grants chessboard, and there was nothing to be said. It resulted in checkmating Bragg at Mission Ridge. Twenty thousand men having been tak- en from the ]ine which the Confederates had stretched along the Lookout plateau, eastwardly across Chattanooga Valley to Mission Ridge, at or near Rossville Gap, and thence northxvardly on the Ridge to- wards Chickamauga Creek,by the de- parture of Longstreet that line was attack- ed. The plan was to assault the wings, to cause Bragg to throw large forces to their protection, and then to break th~ center. Hooker and Sherman began working in earnest. The twenty-fourth of November saw the left of the enemy driven from Lookout, and the right forced otit of its po- sition. Next day the wave of war swept tip Mission Ridge, up over the charming slopes where now the great National cemetery is situated, tip to the summit, and at sunset Gen. Grant moved his headquarters from Woods Redoubt to the Ridge, which in the morning had been ON THE TENNESSEENEAR CHATTANOOGA. SO UTHIfEN I/O UXTAIN RAMBLES. 5 guarded by sentinels in gray. The enemy was next day driven from his base of sup- plies. The siege was over. The pathway to toe sea lay before Sherman. Woods Redoubt is still one of the most striking objects in the valley of Chattanoo- ga. Standing on the grass-grown ramparts one has an exquisite v~ew of Lookout, the Tennessees abrupt recoil at its base, and the sharp peak of Eagle Point, and can note the two turns ot the river, with the Moccasin Point between. around whose southern bend, on the midnight of Novem- ber 234, Sherman moved his three thous- and men in pontoons Northward, and opposite the redoubts, over-hanging the Tennessee, is Cameron Hill, from whose wind-swept height one can look down upon Chattanoogas busy streets as from a bal- loon. On the slopes adjacent to Camerons Hill there are many handsome residences, and Woods Redoubt, itselg will in a few years be lost sight of under the foundations of some charming villa. On many of the hills a faint outline of the old fortifications may be traced; but they will soon have vanished forever. It would be difficult to imagine more romantic approaches than those through which the Nashville and Chattanooga Rail- road finds its way to the latter city. For seventy-five or eighty miles it runs through a bold, mountainous country; out about twenty-five miles before reaching Chatta- nooga it bends downward into the mighty passes among the Cumberlands in North- ern Alabama, and, crawling under rocks and on the brinks of chasms, now running on the edges of valleys clothed in perfect forests, and now shooting into long tun- nels, works its way out to the valley. As one approaches Lookout by this route, the effect is extremely imposing; a new and striking view is presented at each in- stant; the cliffs seem to present no outlet; the train is apparently about to be cast down some yawning ravine, when one sees the continuation of the route. Sixty-two miles from Chattanooga, on a spur of the Cumberland, at Sewanee, in Tennessee, is situated the University of the South. This remarkable institution owes its origin to the late Bishop Leonidas Polk of Louisiana. He desired to concen- trate the interests of the several southern dioceses of the Episcopal church upon one school where religious education might be given in a thorough manner; and in 53fi he issued an address to the bishops of the various other states of the South, ~rOpo5iOg to establish a Christian Univer- sity. The result was a large assembly of bishops and lay delegates at a meeting on Lookotit Mountain s summit, in i837. ar which thc general principles of union weru discussed; and the city of Sewanee wa~ chosen some time thereafter. The Ten- nessee Legislature granted a liberal charter, and a domain of ten thousand acres of land had been secured, five hundred thousand dollars obtained toward an en- dowment, and the corner stone of the central building laid, when the war began. In i8fifi, very little remained save the domain; but in iSfiS, after some aid from England, the University was definitely established, and the more important of the schools are now well organized, with able professors at their head. It is under the perpetual control of a board of trustees composed of the bishops of the various Sotithern States, the senior bishop being ex-offczo Chancellor of the University. The location is charming. The Univer- sity was started in the midst of an almost unbroken forest, but has now grouped around it a pleasant and refined com- munity. It is about nine miles from the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad, and the great tunnel on that road passes under its lands. From Cowan, on the line to Sewanee, the local coal mining company has built a good railroad. The Sewanee l)lateau is two thousand feet above the sea level, in a richly varied country, abound- ing in cascades, ravines, groves, and up- lands. There is an abundance of building material in the quarries of gray, blue, dove- colored and brown limestone, which lie be- side the Sewanee Companys railroad, and as soon as the present insufficient endow- ment is enlarged, the erection of permanent buildings will be begun. There are chaly- beate springs in the vicinity, and the slopes of the Cumberland here are admirably adapted for grape culture. Nearly three hundred students are gathered into the various schools. Bishop Quintard, of Ten- nessee, has done the University great ser- vice in collecting money in England for its establishment, and he and others are now anxiously trying to secure five hundred thousand dollars as an enlargement find. Riding through the wooded country on the Tennessees banks, not far from Chatta- nooga, one autumn day, we dismounted, a large and hungry party, before the door SO UTIIEIYN 110 C JVTAIN k4MBL 115. of a logcabin, built on a hillside, and hail- ed the inmates. A fat negro w oman ap- peared at the corner of the rude veranda, and four plump negro babies regarded us through the crevices between the logs with round-eyed fear. Reckoned she couldnt give us no dinnerno way ; finally was very l)ositive, and said she had nothing in the house. But persistence was reward- ed by permission to return in an hour, and she would see what could be impro- vised. At the hours end we found in the cabin a rough table spread with bacon, and corn bread just baked in the ashes a fe~v sweet potatoes were presently proffered, and some tea was made. By the fireside, rocking a black cherub, was another woman, younger and more comely than our host. These two cultivated a little field ; theiF husbands, or the men of the house,for marriage is not always considered neces- sary among the negroes,were away at work in another county, and the children rolled in the dirt, and had no thoughts of school. It was the very rudest and most incult life imaginable; the cabin was cleanly, but prii~~~itive in all its furnishings ; the round of these peoples lives seemed to be sleeping and waking, with a struggle be- tween morning and evening to get enough to put into their mouths ; they had no thought of thrift or progress. Now and then they went to a religious gathering, and, perhaps, had experiences, and were con- verted; then they gradually relapsed hack into their dull condition. The mountain roads in all the section bordering on the Tennessee are beautiful. Ihere are many bold bluffs, one and two hundred feet high, which overlook the stream; and one comes upon stretches of fertile fields. The inhabitants, white or black, are invariably civil and cour- teous. The farmers, clad in homespun, mounted on raw-boned horses, are will- ing and eager to compare notes with strangers. They have caught a touch of the inspiration Chattanooga diffuses around itself, and carefully explore their lands in the hope of finding minerals. The Tennessee is receiving some im- provement here and there. At the point called the Suck, where the waters rush through a gorge in the mountains, over a rocky bed and in a shallow channel, we saw dredge-boats at work. The river has ordinarily more water than the Ohio, and a permanent bed, with little or no sand or NEURO HOUSE IN TENNESSEE. SOUTHERN MOUNTAIN RAMBLES. 7 gravel, so that there is no dan- ger of the for- mation of those l)ars which ob- struct the navi- gation of so many western rivers. If it could be thor- oiighly opened from its mouth at Paclucab to Knoxville, for the largest river steamers, the results in in crease in com- merce between the South-east- ern States and the immense region watered hv the trihtitar- les of the Mis- sissippi wotild l)e of vast im- l)ortai~ce to the countrys de- v e 1 o p in e ii t The attention of the government has been directed towards the needed im- provements ever since 1828, and thc rtiins of the Muscle Shoals Canal, which originally cost $700,000, testify to thc thoroughness of the plans then made. If that canal were put in condition again, and the ohstructions between Muscle Shoars and Knoxville were removed, America would he the richer by one grand water high way. Knoxville, once the capital of Tennessee. and one of the most illustrious and vener- ahle of its communities is sittiated on the i-Iolston river (which the present legisla- ture saw fit to re-christen as the Tennessee). about one hundred miles above Chat- tanooga. It is to-day as actively engaged in developing the mighty resotirces of Eastern Tennessee as is its sister of the valley, and a generous rivalry exists be- tween the two towns, represented in the newspapers by good-humored raillery, in which the editors of both cities seem ad- mirable proficients. Five miles east of Knoxville the lovely French Eroad river empties its dancing and frothing current. released from the passes of the North Carolina mountains, into the Tennessee. VOT.. VIII.2 Knoxville was named for that worthy Knox who was Secretary of War under the presidency of Washington. The town dates from 1794, when Col. White, pro- prietor of the lands, laid it out into lots. Three years before, on the 5th of December, 1791, in the midst of Indian massacres and battles, the first Tennessee newspaper was issued by George Roulstone. Altbough it was printed at Rogersville, it was called The K;ioxvzWe Gaze//c, and was identified with the interests of the then territorial seat of government. The section of which Knoxville thtis be- came the chief town has a most romantic history. In 1760, there was not a single civilized inhabitant in Tennessee. A few daring woodsmen pushed into the wilder- ness a few years later, and fotinded settle- ments on the Watauga and the Holston to which flocked settlers from North Carolina and Virginia. North Carolina, in those days a province, was disquieted by taxa- tion which she considered illegal ; and thousands who had been compelled to fly I from their homes, because they had ac- tively resisted the oppression of Gov. Tryon, took reftige with the adventurers at Watauga. In a few years the surround- fEEIING THROUGfI. SO UTHEIdN MO UNIAIN J& JJfb~LE8. ing country re-echoed to the blows of the woodmens axes, and the Indians began to regard their encroachments with alarm and resentment. But shortly before the out- break of the Revolution, and the down- fall of royal government in North Carolina, the members of the \Vatauga Association had a peaceable meeting with the Chero- kees and their chiefs, and purchased from them, for two thousand pounds, all the lands on which they had settled. The Elizabeth- ton of to-day, a little mountain hamlet, occupies the site of the old Watauga. Shortly after the purchase, the Cherokees hegan open hostilities, and the Tennesseean had then, as for many a long year thereafter, to risk his life daily. Battles ensued ; the Indians organized expeditions to cut off and annihilate the infant colonies war raged through all the North Carolina mountains and along the Unaka range. The result was an invasion of the Cherokee towns by the militia of orth Carolina and the settlements. Eighteen hundred men, armed with rifles, tomahawks and butcher knives,thus saith the ancient chronicle, marched across the Holston and the French Broad, and drov@ the Indians everywhere before them. A pious chap- lain accompanied this little army of in- vasion, and was the first Christian minister that ever preached in Tennessee. Immi- gration flowed after the army, and the Indians were dismayed. The Watauga settlement, triumphant, petitioned for an- nexation to North Carolina, an(l its prayer was granted. The legislature of that State in i777 founded Washington county. which occupied the whole district now included within the present boundaries of Tennessee. Two years later explorers had planted a field with corn on the spot where the pres- ent city of Nashville stands. The recital of the border wars, and of dashing expeditions down the Tennessee river, would require vol- nines. Men sprang up, rude, hardy, bravethe otit-growth of their time their brains were filled with visions of empire ; they fought by day and planned by night. After the in- dependence of the United States had been acknowledged by Great Britain, each State endeavored to relieve the indebtedness of the country, by cessions to Congress of their unap- propriated lands; and, accordingly, North Carolina ceded her new acqui- sition, now known as Tennessee. This made political orphans of our brave Watauga set- tlers and their followers, so they forthwith created an independent State called Frank- lin, which was ruled over by an energetic and daring man named Sevier, and main- tained a stormy existence from 1784 to 1788, during much of which time it was considered by the government of North Carolina as practically in revolt. Sevier was engaged in many a daring battle and mountain skirmish ; was once carried off by his friends at the moment a court in North Carolina was trying him for his offences; and was, after Franklin became United States territory, sent to Congress. His associates in the government of Franklin,- Cocke, White, the founder of Knoxville, Ramsey, Doak, Center, Reese, Houston, Newell, Weir and Conway,were, subse- c~uently, leading spirits in the affairs of Tennessee. Greenville, the present home of ex-President Andrew Johnson, and a pretty village set down graciously among exquisite mountains, was founded in the days of Franklin, and was the original seat of government. In 1785, the third Franklin convention was held there in a coirthouse built of unhewn lors and there the State constitution was finall adopted. Whites Fort, the location of Knoxville, was, at the time of the fall of Franklin, a stockaded settlement, to which settlers were rapidly flocking. On the high l)lateau which, eN tending southward, ter- minated in a bold bluff on the Holston AT ETNA COAL MINES. SO UTHERN MO UNTAJN RAMBLES. river, they saw excellent chances for de- fence ; and thus the site of the city was determined. In 1794, Governor Blount, controlling the territory for the United States, had his cabin at Knoxville, and was kept busy day and night devising meas- ures for the defence of the young settle- ment against the thoroughly maddened Cherokees. At one time, when the fight- ing force of Knoxville was forty men, more than fifteen hundred Indians marched aUainst the town, but were turned aside by some trivial circumstance, and the colony was saved. As Knoxville had been the seat of the territorial government, so in 1796 it became the State capital, and there the conven- tion met, and the first constitution was adopted. There, too, the Washington College, in honor of the illustrious presi- dent of the United States, was incorpo- rated; and there General Jackson in the convention, suggested that the new State adopt the beautiful Indian name of Ten- nessee, Knoxville shared the honors of the government seat with Kingston, Murfrees- boro and Nashville alternately, but in 1817 it became the capital for the last time. The center of population moved beyond the Cumberland Mountains, and the state officials went with it. To Knoxville were left the souvenirs of the bloody times in which it sprang into being, of councils with Cherokee chieftains, and struggles against their warriors, before the current of immigration came. Knoxville is today a flourishing town with nearly fifteen thousand population. It has more capital than Chattanooga, but not the same wonderful transportation facilities. More actual business is, how- ever, probably done there; the town has a large wholesale trade, and is a kind of supply depot for the mountains. On the line of the road from New York to New Orleans, it has hopes of other communica- tions shortly. The subject of narrow- gauge railroads has very much interested the people of Eastern Tennessee, and they will, in a few years, traverse the valleys in all directions. A direct line from Knox- ville to Macon in Georgia has been pro- jected; and the completion of the Knox- ville and Kentucky roads would be of great importance to the town. The gene- ral government is erecting a fine ctistom house and post-office in the city. Thirty miles to the northward are large coal fields, close to veins of iron; in Carter and Greene county there are iron mines, which stipply the rolling mills and carwheel es- tablishments at Knoxville. There is an extensive manufacture of glass in that sec- tion; the lumber interests are large, and considerable shipments are made to New England. Five miles east of Knoxville is a fine iTiart)le quarry, operated by capital- ists from St. Lotus. At Coal Creek and Caryville, some thirty-five miles north of the town, there are extensive coal mining interests. The whole of Eastern Ten- nessee offers the best of inducements for the practical farmer, the wool grower, and the investor in mines and minerals. The social condition of the peol)le varies with the location. In a previous paper I have described the dwellers in the mount- ains bordering on North Carolina; those living in other remote counties are much similar in habit and intelligence. The po- litical sentiment is yet, as it was during the xvar difficult to classify. There were then hosts of uncompronmisiug Union men in Eastern Tennessee ; so there were, also, many committed to the interests of the Confederacy, and both classes were much broken in fortune, and possibly dis- couraged by the marching and cotinter THE SUCK, TENNESSEE ELVER. SO UTIJFRA7 MO UNTAIN RAMBLES. marching of the two armies. Their farms were plundered by both factions; and they often came near starvation themselves. In Knoxville tbe majorities are usually Re- publican, although the struggle is some- times very close. In Chattanooga Repub- lican municipal rule is also purchased at the expense of a careful fight. in the mountain counties people are not very much engrossed with general politics ; their local affairs alone occupy their attention. At the period of myvisit the school-law allowed each county to decide for itself as to taxation for the support of free schools, and this far no very marked progress has been made in the State. Tennessee ad- mits the disagreeable fact that she ranks third in illiteracy in the Union, but her p01)ulation does not seem as yet to feel the situation very keenly. Knoxville has good schools, with abotit fourteen hun- dred scholars as an average attendance; it also supports four colored schools. Chat- tanoogas regular attendance is about one thousand, and it also has two large colored schools. On the whole, Eastern Tennessee seems to make as much progress in educa- tion as other sections of the State, in pro- portion to its population. Some of its cotinties have totally refused to have any ptiblic schools ; while others have levied small taxes for supporting winter sessions. The Peabody fund has been very active in East Tennessee, and it is largely due to its influential distribution that a feeling in favor of schools is gradually taking root among the masses. The fotinding of two or three Normal schools in the State P a prime necessity. In a commonwealth which has thtis far succeeded in getting only one-fifth of its four hundred thousand pupil children into schools, the education of capable teachers is certainly of first im- portance. Knoxville is the seat of the East Ten- nessee University, and the State Asvluni for deaf and dumb persons. The Univer- sity has latterly received a large share of the $200,000 appropriated as the Agricul- tural Fund of the State, and will serve as the Agricultural College. It now has some three hundred sttidents. Ihe Methodist Episcopal Church contemplates founding a college at Knoxville; and there, or at Chattanooga, the people of one of the grandest mineral regions on this continent should not fail to establish a school of mines. The peaks of the Cumberland, the Clinch, and the Smoky, furnish NECR P F SO UTIIEILV MO UNJJAJeV K4AJBLIS. 21 K. noxville with many beautiful mount am views and the eye dwells with de- light on the route from Chattanooga even to Greenville, upon the fields so l)eautifullv cultivated, on the noble or- chards, and the forests of mammoth corn-stalks. The soil in this elevated val- Ic is generally rich, second only to that of the western prairies, the surofriers are long, l)ut never excessively hot ; there is only a light snowfall in winter in the valleys the water is limestone; on the hills freestone and chalybeate. On the table lands grow rye, oats, and all vegetables; in the valleys wheat and corn attain extraordinary size. Apples, peas, peaches and wild grapes are cultivated in profusion, and the grazing lands are no whit poorer than those of the North Carolina mountain region, which are so perfect and inexpensive. Land ranges in value from $5 to $35 per acre. Through this fruitful country, and al- most on the line of the railroad of to-day, ran the great Indian war-path eighty years ago. When one reflects upon the vast territory cleared, settled and dominat- ed within three generations, by the Ten- nesseean, he cannot refrain from admira- tion, nor will he refuse to believe in the greatest possibilities in the future. The Ducktown copper region, in East- ern Tennessee, near the North Carolina line, is worthy a visit from all interested in the States development. It is the only locality in the commonwealth yield- ing copper ore in any considerable quan- tity. Although traces of the metal are to be met with in the Unaka Mountains, they do not indicate veins of any import- ance. Ducktown is a mountain basin that belongs physically to Georgia and North Carolina. In the vicinity of the mines, two thousand feet above sea level, deep ravines alternate with sharp ridges, at whose base the Ocoee river worms its way towards the main Unaka rangewhen it becomes a torrent, roaring over huge rocks in its ~)assage through the narrows. As early as 1836, the attention of geologists was drawn to the mineral deposits near the junction of the Ocoee and the Hiwassee rivers, and indications of copper were finally discovered by men who were search- ing for gold. One of these men, while washing in the Hiwassee for gold, found great numbers of crystals of red copper ore. Soon after, the black oxide, which has, thtis far, been the most important ore of the mines, was found ; but it was not until 1850 that miningwas begun in earnest. The gentlemen who opened the mines found themselves surrounded by a rough population, who took no interest whatever in any improve- ments ; and on one occasion, when they bad called a meeting of the township, and explaine(l to the assembled citizens that civilization and wealth would follow tipon B)HN ROSS 1100SF. ~OUTHERW iJIOUWYAIN RAMBLES. the opening of the mines, one of the as- ~eml)ly arose and said that most of those present had come to the mountains to get away from civilization, and if it fol- lowed them too closely, they would migrate a~xin! This was discouraging; but the owners of the mines opened day and Sabbath schools, and built roads over the hitherto almost impassable mountains; meantime sinking shafts and employing the few whom they could prevail upon to under- take regular labor. Between 1851 and the close of ~ a number of mines were opened and worked successfully in this region, and during that time eight of them l)roduced and shipped 14,291 tons, worth more than a million of dollars. A few years later a consolidated company, called The Union, was formed from a number of the most prosperous organizations, and its works now extend over twenty-five hun- dred acres. Refineries were constructed, and although the company was prevented from working much of the time during the war, it has been very prosperous. The re- fining works have yielded nearly a million and a half pounds of refined copper since the war. In most of the Ducktown mines the operations have been confined to the zones of black and red copper ore, below which lie zones of iron and copper pyrites. The smelting works of the Union Consoli. dated Company are very extensive. Lead and zihc are pretty liberally scat~ tered through Eastern Tennessee, and in Bradley and Monroe counties lead mines have been opened. At Mossy Creek, in Jefferson County, and in the mountains beyond, there are numerous irregular veins of zinc ore. The gold found in the eastern l)ortion of the State has been insignificant in quantity, although, in 1831, there was a genuine gold fever concerning the dis- coveries along the Hiwassee. The must i1111)urtant coal mining estab- lishments in the State are the Atna mines, in Marion County, and the Sewanee Com- panys mines, which extend several miles under ground, not far from the location of the University of the South. Some of the veins at these latter mines are seven feet thick. The coal in these mountains can be mined for three cents per bushel, and the freights for (~oal on all the roads south of Nashville are low. All the Tennessee coals are bituminous ; but as such they present numerous varieties. One of the sources of future wealth for SO UfHEkN 110 UN TAIN RAMBLES. 23 Eastern Tennessee consists in its immense stores of variecated marble, the veins of which run through ten or twelve counties in that section. Besides the finer marbles there are, in the extreme eastern counties, black or dark-blue limestones, which, when polished, would make elegant marble slabs. There is marble enough in this section to build all the public buildings of the United States for the next five centuries. The siege of Knoxville, in 1863, is called to memory, but faintly, by the earthworks scattered about the town, and nnw nearly obliterated ; but it was one of the most desperate struggles of the whole war. Longstreet and his men, fresh from their trlum1)hs at Chickamauga, fell upon Burn sides little fo1ce in the mountain city with savage eagerness, but were hurled back into the jaws of death. They charged towards the ditches only to be pitched headlong over the wires strung to tn1) them, and to be massacred. But the liv- ing charged over the dead who filled the ditches, and twice had 1)lanted their flag or leaped upon the firtifications before they were finally swept away. Pools of blood six inches deep were found in the bottom of the trenches when the assault was made on the morning after the repulse of November 2pth, and hundreds of corpses were hastily buried in heaps. On the 5th of December following, the little army of the Ohio, which was literally at the point of starvation, was at liberty once more. The siege was raised. The magnitude of the mineral resources in this section perhaps affords the strongest argument in favor of the immediate re- moval of the obstructions in the Tennessee River; but the arguments are really legion. This noble stream, sixth in magnitude in the United States, intersecting ten rich commonwealthsin connection with the Ohio, draining the gigantic coal areas of Tennessee and Alabamanever bearing upon its current, from its sources to its month, winter or summer, a particle of ice, and having half a dozen tributaries which could be rendered navigable by slack water iml)rovement, should be made one of the main commercial arteries of the South. With the necessary improvements, naviga- tion could be rendered practicable for thir- teen hundred miles above Muscle Shoals in Alabama. Only steamers of the lightest draught now succeed in running to Knox- ville and beyond during six or nine months of each year. The soil of the great Tennessee plateau, the Cumberland table-land, is no less re- markable than the climate of that favored region. For the production of fruit, and for the raising of sheep and cattle, the im- migrant will find it most admirably suited. Extending across the State from north to south, the plateau is, at least, forty miles wide from east to west, and can furnish homes for thousands of farmers, who need but little capital~ We made an extensive journey into Northern Georgia; one of the richest min- eral and agricultural sections of the state, and abounding with grand and delightful mountain scenery. Scattered at rare inter- vals through the enormous counties of the north and northeast, is a l)ol)ulation of half a million inhabitants, about one-fourth of whom are negroes. Agriculture is of course as yet the main dependence of the I)eol)le ; manufactures would be es- tablished at various points were there cap- ital with which to establish them ; and the few mining operations might be conducted on a much grander scale were it not for the universal dearth of money. The fer- tile uplands, too, which have been in hundreds of cases deserted by their old owners, because they refused to adapt themselves to the new order of things, and cultivate small farms thoroughly with rota- tion of crops, are now mu some cases under thorough culture ; deep ploughing and the much needed rotation has, in some cases, produced the most astonishing results upon lands which had been deserted so long that they were considered waste. The emigration from this section has been very numerous, and one finds the negroes scatter- ed about over vast areas of country, occupy- ing little tracts of from one to twenty acres in size, on which they have erected small and extremely primuitive cabins. In the more mountainous and border counties of North Georgia the visitor is constantly astonished at the appareat absence of hum man life along the vast stretches of good land. He may ride twenty, thirty, and sometimes forty miles without seeing a habitation or encountering a human being, and then may suddenly come 111)011 a log meetinghouse or a little village, in which five hundred negroes will be assembled for a meeting or festival. These people live in the nooks among the mountains, and along the edges of the streams, off the line of the main roads, and it is only on Sundays or on some especial occasion that one sees 24 SO UTIJEEJV 11/0 UNTA LW RAMBLES. them flocking together along the roads and through the forests which cover so many thousands of acres. Now and then one encounters a party of white men, hunting, fishing, or riding to court ; but the lone- liness and silence in many of the counties is almost oppressive, despite the beauty of the scenery. But all the country needs is an indus- trious and energetic population to develop it. The forty counties of the northern, and the fifteen of the north-eastern sec- tion are rich in minerals and in agricultural possibilities. They are, also, handy to markets, by comparison with many of the remote districts of the West. The Western and Atlantic, or State, road gives an outlet at Chattanooga or Atlanta, for the north-western counties, and connects at (REENVI L1~F N NC ES Atlanta with the routes branching out south, east and west in the State. The Atlanta and Richmond Air Line rail- road also opens up a large portion of north- eastern Georgia; forms the connecting link in an unbroken air line between New York and New Orleans; traverses a rich mineral region for six hundred miles, and terminates in Charlotte, in North Carolina. There is no reason why all this part of the State should not be nlJened up to immigra- tion in a few years, as the conformation of the country makes the building of the routes extremely easy, and the average cost of railroad construction, per mile, is not more than $20,000. The new link in the New York and New Orleans Air-Line, connecting Atlanta and Charlotte, had been finished but a few days when we passed over it. On either side, in the n o r t h e r n G e o r g i a n counties, toxvns, built of rough planks, had sprung up in the forest c 1 ear i n g s The railway station and a long l)lat- form, a store, a few plain houses, with fat hogs root- ing among the stumps lB their imme- diate neigh- borhood, carp enters shop, an(l, l~ 055 i b 1 y, some small and l)rimi tive manti- factory, made up each Of these to xv us. The hotels were two- storywooden buildings, t lx r 0 ii g lx SO UTIJERN MO UNTAIN RAMBLES. 25 whose thin walls came the keen au tumn winds, and whose slender par- titions allowed one to hear every move- ment and tone of voice of all his adjacent fellow-sleepers. The fifteen (ounties of North-eastern Georgia over a territory of seven thousand (luare miles, traversed here and there lv the Appalachian chain, which. eavin~ North Carolina on its west ern boundary pushes into hundreds ~ ~ and outliers which shape the romantic sceuery of Rahun, Haber- sham, Towne, Union, White, Fannin. Gilmer and Lumpkin counties. There, in valleys elevated nearly two thousand feet ahove the sealevel, are rivers and rivtilets upon whose cotirses some ot the most majestic cascades upon the continent are found. Attracted by the fame of those nohle waterfalls, Foccoa and Tallulah, we left the inc of rail, and wandered in and oti~ among the l)eaks and ravines for scveral days. Rabun Gal) 15 the passage from Western North Carolina, through the flue Ridge, into the Georgia gold and iron field. Rahun county itself us one succession of dark blue giant ridges, until, descending gradually, one reaches the little town of Clay- ton. The populations in the motint ains along the border devote some attention to illicit distilling, and are, conseqtiently, a little suspicious of strangers who penetrate to their fast nesses. A worthy clergyman from the lower counties was journcying peace- fully on a religious errand, to the neighboring State, throtugh the passes of Rahtin, shortly before otir visit, when he suddenly, one day, saw thirteen guns pointed at him by as many men, and had to dismount and proNe, at the rifles iTitizzles, that he was not a revenue officer. From Whiteside, in North Caro- lina, to Rabun Gap, it is only forty-five or fifty miles on an airline, btit the de- tours throtigh the ravines make it n~uch more to the traveler. When one arrives at Clayton, he feels very much as if he had left the world behind him. The 4uaint hamlet lies in a valley encircled with mountains. As von enter, voti have that feeling of being imprisoned and of desire to escapeso common to the wan- derer among the Alleghanies and the 191 u e Ridge. There seems n~ possible outlet; the town appears to have been conveyed there by enchantment ; yet a little careful observation will show you the roads piercing the passes in the val- leys. Not far from Clayton are the falls of the Eastatoja, or, as the mountaineers call them, Rabun Falls, where a succession of brilliant cascades plunge down the (RANT) C HASMT(JGALOO RIVER. iS 80 UTIIEAUY ill 0 UN fAIN EAJIBLES. chasm in a mountain side. Clambering to ate warmth of some barbaric ceremony. the top of this natural stairway in the rocks, But our momentary fears of barbarism onc ma~ obtain an outlook over the Valley were checked when we heard the cracked of the Tennessee, miles beyond Clayton, voice of the venerable pastor, and saw the and may note the mountain billows rolling assembly kneel, and bow their heads at away, apparently innumerable, until the the words evc tires of the immensity Let u~ address de Almighty wid pra I have had occasion to describe the While the minister was praying, the mountain hack to you a red wagon, young negroes who, during the singing, mounted on superfragile springs, and had been disporting beside a neighboring (traced with seats, which, at every start brook, left off their pranks, and hastened b made by the horses, bid fair to leave the to join the kneeling throng about the vehicle. In such a conveyance, behind cabin. As we drove away, we could hear two splendid horses, did we depart from the solenm 1)le ading of the el)ony Jacob as one of the forests towns on the AirLine he wrestled with the angel of prayer, and Railway one morning in mid October, and the nervous responses of the brethren and climb the red bills which are so abundant sisters, when their souls took fire from the in Northern Georgia. Mile after mile we insl)iration of the moment. journeyed through lands which might be From Clarksville, pleasant summer resort made very valuable by a year or two of of the citizens of Savannah audi other low careful culture, by plantations or farms country towns, we caught a new ulim ~ p of whose owners had desertedi them, or tracts Mount Yonah, that lonely monarch of the which the old settlers, having adopted the Northern coumties. The village is small new labor sv stem, were putting into most and uluiet there are few farm-houses in wonderful order; now dashing over the the immediate vicinity ; there is no bustle firm roads, through stretches of dreary of trade, no railroad, and no prospect of forest, where battalions of black jacks one. Seven miles away the new Air-Line guarded the solemn way ; and now along gives communication with the outer world. mountain sides, where paths were narrow Habersham county, of which Clarksville and ravines were on either hand. is the county seat, was laid out by the A few miles from the little hilltown of famous lottery act of i8r8, and has in Clarksville, whither we were journeying, it many valuable landis, adapted to the we came upon a large assembly of negroes, raising of wheat audi corn. in a high open field, backed by a noble up- A ride from Clarksville to the valley lift of mountains in the distance. It was of Nacoochee, which comprises within Sunday afternoon, and the dusky citizens its limits a series of the most exdluisite were returning to their devotions, the scene landscapes in the world, is one of the of which was a log-cab in, inhabited by a charming specimens of this mountain negro, whom we judged to be the neigh- journey. There a gentleman, who has for- horhood blacksmith, as a shop near by was saken the low-lands, has built a grand encumbered with wheels and old iron. mansion, with conservatories, lawns and As we approached the bars leading into parterres ; there he audi his visitors strike the meadow, the mass of the negroes had terror into the hearts of the mountain gathered inside and outside the cabin, and trout, and wander over the peaks and down were singing a wild hymn, marked with the valleys at their will. Mount Yonahs that peculiar monotonous refrain which summit affords beautiful glimpses of a wide distinguishes all their music. Nothing expanse, covered with rich farmsfor the could have been more picturesdiue than Nacoochee valley is fertile, audi its vicinity this grouping of swart and gaily costumed is thickly settled. peasantry, disposed around the dowdy The visitors at Clarksville considered cabin, with the afternoon sun glinting on us aristocrats be(ause we maintained the their upturned faces ; the noble peaks in dignity of a redi wagon on our journey to the far background, nm vsterious in their Tallulab Falls. They had usually ac garments of subtile blue, and inspiring in complished the route in the somewhat their majesty, added deliciously to the ef- fatiguing but cautious oxcart. The famous feet of the whole. As the singers became Falls, unquestionably among the grandest excited. their bodies moved rhythmically, objects of natural scenery in America, are and clinging to each others hands, they thirteen miles from Clarksville, and a por- seemed about breaking into the passion- tion of the journey lies over a new road SO UTHERN AJO UNTAIN RAMBLES. 27 the dashing waters ; and the stream, at no point very wide, breaks into four cataracts, which vary from fifty to eighty feet in height, and into many others - reaching twenty or thirty. From the highest points on the cliffs to the hot- through the forest, which I can commend tom of river bed, at one or two localities, as execrable. the depth is nearly one thousand feet; and On the border of a vast rent in the hills the spectator, dizzy and awe-struck, can stands a little hotel built of pine boards. but do as we did, look once, and turn his From its verandas you look up at ravine frightened and bewildered ey.es away! sides of solid brown stone, down into leap- The Lodore, the T empestia, the inc and foaming rapids, which seem sing- Oceana, and the Serpentine, are the in g war songs ; over the tops of swaying names given to the four principal falls. pines, which, in the rich moonlight of a de- The third fall, sometimes called the ilur- licious autumn evening, stand out, black ricane, is the most remarkable and in- and frightful, like specters; and along paths teresting. Climbing to a rock directly cut in the steel) descents, leading to rocky overhanging it, and beneath which the projections and treacherous knolls. waters are breaking across irregular shelv- These falls were named by the Chero- ing masses of stone, and foaming and danc- kees, who called them Tarrurah or Tal- ing in 1)assion in a whirlpool eighty feet lulab the terrible. The stream in which below, one may gaze down stream to the they are formed is the western branch of sortie from the cafion. There the whole the Tugaloo River, and the rapids are, per- valley seems to pitch violently forward, as haps, ten miles from its junction with the if it were the gate to Avernus; its rocky Chatooga. For more than mile the im- sides are mottled with lichens, and the petuous stream ~ through a ridge of beautiful colts foot; and on the crests of mountains, with awful parapets of stone the cliffs flourish pines, hemlocks, chest- 1)iled upon either side, and finally rattles nuts, masses of ferns, and a profusion of away through the Grand Chasm. The greys and browns which no painters brush rocky banks are in some places five hun- can reproduce. Many trees lean as if look- dred, in others not more than two hundred ing shudderingly, and drawn involuntarily, feet high; their bases are worn into fantas- towards the abyss. Beyond is a sheer tic and grotesque forms by the action of precipice draped in hemlocks only, and 28 SO CITHEEN Al 0 UNTAIN RAMBLES. still beyond a projection ablaze with the strong autumn colors of the leaves, red, and scarlet, and yellow, above which runs up a hundred and fifty feet of naked, glittering rock, towering tremendously above the tal- lest trees, and standing in giant relief against the sky. Coming back to the l)anks near the Hurricane fall, we noticed that the ledges bent downward in three or four immense layers of dark flint, and that grasses grew over them, like strange beards upon monsters faces. Here and there an old white tree trunk hung tottering on the rLivine s edges. The descent to this fall is down a gully almost perpendicular in steep- ness one is also compelled to pass through the Needles Eye, a low passage beneath rocks, and the Postoffice, where it was once the custom for the hundreds of visitors to write their names upon the smooth walls of a cave. The cascades themselves are not so re- markable as the scenery around them. The rocks and the precipices are so gigan- tic that the stream seems btit a silvery thread among them. Seen from the dizzy height known as The Devils Pulpit, or The Lovers Leap, the cascades are like tiny lace veils, spread in the valley, or like frostheds, such as one sees on meadows in the morning. The affect of a sojourn among the rocks at Lovers Leap at night, when the moonlight is brilliant, is magical. Far TABL MOUNTAIN. below yoti the valley seems sheathed in molten silver; the song of the cascades is borne, now fiercely, now gently, to your ears by the varying breezes, while yoti grovel among the slippery pine and hemlock sprays and twigs, clinging to a rock, which is your only protection against a fall of a thosand feet down to the jagged peaks below. At the Grand Chasm, which is properly the end of the ravine, where the stream, Free from its barriers, becomes tranquil, after it has fought its way around the base of a mountain of dark granite,the forma- tion of rock changes. There are no more of the slanting shelves, of the Avernus gates; htit instead, there are rounded battlements, which, sloping and yielding, end in a ragged hill-side, strewn with bowlders, with blackened hemlocks, and with tree trtinks prone, as if waiting for some land- slide to hurl them into the stream. On the right looms up another cliff, with a slope like that of the walls rising from a castle moat; this is thatched with foliage ; hem- locks straggle along its stimmit ; and in the recesses of the thickets which stretch in all directions from it, the holly spreads its thorny leaves, and the laurel its pend ants. Finally the stream is lost to view and Bows under rocks, through a symmetrical gap half a mile away,beyond which one can see a succession of peaks, whose heads are wrapped in clotid. After Tallulah, the falls of Toccoa, a single spray jet, falling one htindred and eighty-five feet, over a shelving rock, is a relief. Seated in a quiet and forest-en- shrouded valley, throtigh which Toccoa Creek runs, one can look tip to the pour- ing waters with a sense of admiration, but without the awe inspired by the chasms and cascades of the Terrible. Toccoa is sittiated near Toccoa City, an ambi- tious fledgling town on the Air-Line rail- road, and thousands of visitors yearly watch its tremendous leap from the crag, around which a steep road winds along the ascents that conduct to Tallulab. The Ducktown copper region of Eastern Tennessee is no more remarkable than its continuation in Northern Georgia, where a vein seventeen feet thick has been fotind. In Fannin County there are large bodies of marble, and also an iron field on the southern slopes of the Iron Mountain range. A great deal has been said about the gold mines in the northern counties, and there are, no doubt, extensive deposits there. 29 SO UTHERN MO UNTAIN RAMBLES. [he mines in the Nacoochee Valley, when first worked, on a very small scale, and with rude machinery, yielded from $2,000 to S3,000 to each workman yearly; and several millions of dollars have been ob- tained from the deposits since 1828. The Loud. Sprague, and Lewis mines, in the vicinity of Nacoochee, are believed to be exceptionally rich. In Rabun, Habersham. Carroll, and White counties there are known to be extensive deposits. In the Nacoo- chee Valley immense works for carrying out the California hydraulic process were erected before the war; but have since that time been only feebly carried on. In the section between the Tray and Vonab mountains some few diamonds have from time to time been found. Not far from this point are the headwaters of the Ten- nessee, which, passing through Rabun Gap, plus~ge headlong through the Appalachian, the Smoky, the Chilhowee, and Cumberland ranges, until merged in a broad and noble stream, tuey enter the fertile fields of Ten- nessee and Alabama. There, too, the Sa- vannah rises ; there the waters of the rain- storm divide, and flow in separate directions in the channels of the two mighty rivers. It is said that several good gold mines in Hall County have been opened, and work- ed as low as the water-level, and that they pay a small but steady profit. In Hall County is also situated the Harris Lode, a notable silver mine; and in the neigh- boring divisions of Lumpkin, Forsyth and Clarke, topaz, amethysts, bervl, gold, plum- bago, iron, granite, and gneiss have been found.n In Clarke County, where the * At Dahionega, in Lnnspkin County, a pretty town commanding fine moantain views, the United States has a branch mint, and gold mines are qnitc extensively worked in the vicinity. __ Georgia University __ is located, there is - remarkable water- ___ power, and some cot- __ ton and woolen fac tories have been erected. This mountain re- gion, so rich in re- source, has been as yet but little devel- oped. With the com- liletion of the railroad system, which is very comprehensive, and puts almost every county within easy reach of markets, the more enterprising of the present residents think that new popula- tion and new methods of agriculture will come in. The valley lands now readily yield twenty to thirty bushels of corn and fifteen of wheat to the acre, without manures, and with no culture of consequence ; deep ploxving and rotation of crops would treble these amounts. The local farmers need the examl)le of northern agriculture before their eyes. With lands which will produce infinitely finer and larger crops of clover. timothy, and red-lap, than those of Mas- sachusetts, they still send to the Bay State for their hay. But living is cheaper than in the Western States, game is plentiful. I and good land, improved in the Georgia sense, is to be had at reasonable prices. The mineral developments of North- western Georgia are attracting much notice, because of their proximity to Chattanooga and their intrinsic importance. The coal seams of the Lookout and Cumberland range which lie near I)ade, Walker and Chatooga countles, vary from five to twenty feet in thickness. Along the borders of Tennessee, within the Georgia line,. there are various profitable mines. The amount of iron deposits is remarkable they lie in immediate contact with the coal, and extend forty or fifty miles into the State. At Little River, and in the vicin- ity, and on the Chatooga River, cotton factories are in successful operation, an(l pay large dividends. In Barton County there are extensive iron works, built by a man named Cooper. They were success- fully worked by the Confederate govern- ment during the war. These works used charcoal until, on account of the enormous number of coal mines opened in Georgia. Alabama, and Tennessee~ they found that MOUNT YONAHFROM CLARK5VIILE. 30 SOUTHERAT MOUNTAIN RAMBLES. coal could be brought to their furnaces cheaper than charcoal. The coal field of Northern Georgia covers more than one hundred and fifty thousand acres, and lands can be purchased upon it for from $2 to $3 per acre. They are said to be no whit inferior to those lands in Pennsyl- vania which now command two thousand dollars per acre. For very many years both blooms from the forges and pig-iron from the furnaces have been shipped to Pittsburg, Philadelphia and New York, from the furnace on the Cumberland River in Tennessee, and from those of North-western Georgia, at from $~ to $7 per ton profit over the northern iron. The northern l)ortion of Georgia certainly offers sl)lendid inducements to manufacturers. There are also scattered throughout the mountains many mineral springs, some of which are already visited by large numbers of health and pleasure-seekers annually. The iron region of Northern Alabama, perhaps the most remarkable of all in the vicinity of Chattanooga, will contribute di- rectly to the growth of that city. The Alabama and Chattanooga Railroad runs l)arallel with the Great Warrior coal field, which extends over an immense tract in Northern Alabama and the North and South road runs through both the Ca- haba and Warrior fields, giving outlets for the l)rodticts of those sections at Mont- gomerv and at Decatur. The Blue Ridge sinks down into wavy and low knolls, and finally, in this section of the State, into roll ini~ ground. The mineral lands extend about one hundred and sixty miles in a south-western direction, with an average width of eighty miles. The coal fields cover four thousand square miles, and all about them are extensive beds of limestone, sandstone and iron ore. Interspersed lie fertile valleys, where wheat, corn and cotton can be grown. It is said that in laying down the rails, brought all the way from England or from Pennsylvania to Alabama, the railroad workmen dug up and removed ore which actually contained twenty l)C~ (en t. more iron than did that from whh h the Eng liah rail was made. The Alabamians claim that they can produce iron at sixteen (101 lars v~ ton, while in Oh and in Pittsburt~ it costs neariv thirty. The growth of Bir- mingham. Ala., and the development of the mineral re~ion in its vicinity, are al- most phenomenal. We will consider them in a future paper in their relations to the State to which they belong.* The Alabama ores are said to compare favorably with the finest from Cumberland or the north of Spain. The mountain region of South Carolina contains some of the most exquisite scenery in the South. The new Air-Line railway route, leaving the forests of Northern Georgia, and crossing the Tugaloo river, traverses a lovely, although as vet un- tamed country, and touches at Greenville and Spartanburg, two well-built and pros- perous towns. As in most of the Southern States where there are widely separated sections possessed of different climates, the character of the inhabitant of the uplands is quite dissimilar to that of the lowlander. There was more activity and less embarrass- ment on account of the political situation, through out the mountain counties, than we found anywhere south of Columbia, the State capital. The negroes were far less ignorant than their fellows of the coast and the central counties, and were disposed to be more reasonable in their political views. It is true, that, after the war the Ku-Klux organization committed abominable out- rages throughout York, Union, Spartan- burg, Laurens and Chester counties. It was shown, at the time of the exposure con- sequent on the military arrests, that two thousand male citizens of a single county belonged to the Ku-Klux, and actively l)articipated in the coercive measures which it had foolishly adopted. But the moun- taineers have learned the folly of such at- tempts, and there are no longer any reports of whippings and miclni ght massacres. The railroad and the advent of Northern men here and there, as well as the impetus which the universal use of the new fer- tilizers has given to the production of cot- ton upon lands where, before the war, it would not have been deemed wise to plant itall have aided in building up new feel- ing, and in banishing most of the old bit- terness. Had it not 1)een for the supreme rascality of the hybrid State government, the citiLens of this upland region might have l)ossessed even more railroad facili- ties than they at l)resent enjoy. 11w Blue Ridge route was intended as a rail- road into Kentucky and Tennessee, running across the southern end of the Blue Ridge, in South Carolina, x~ hich latter State and the city of Charleston own ccl nearly all the In the paper on Alab ama a full description of the superb mineral rnonrces of die State ill be ~lVCH. SO UTHEA~N 910 UN TAJN I?AAIJJLES. 3 stock in the road, up to 87i. After about some insisted that they made handsome three millions of dollars had been expended profits, others, that after they had paid for in the construction of a portion of the their fertilizers, and their own support road, and the State had guaranteed $~,- during the year, they usually bad nothing 000,000 of bonds, in support of further left. The lien which the seller of phos- construction, upon certain conditions in- phates takes, when he delivers a ton of tended to protect its own interests, a gigan- the coveted stimulating substance to the tic fraud was consummated. The sinking farmer, is a formidable document. It en- fund commission composed of the State gages not only the growing crop, but in officers, self-appointed, passed the railroad many cases the household goods, if the into the bands of a corporation, robbing crop fails, and sometimes the unlucky the State of its interest in the work, and wight who has a poor crop on his few acres, then secured a legislative enactment an finds himself in danger of a practical evic- nulling the conditions on which depended tion. But a good C~0l) 1)tits money and l)ros- the issue of the four millions in bonds. In perity into the section where the PeOPle are addition to this, the Legislature authorized altogether better off than in the lowlands. a further issue of Blue Ridge scrip to They have every facility for enriching them- the amount of ~i,Soo,ooo, and made it selves, as soon as they can and will diversify available by declarinu it receivable for the culture of their farms ; and I notice taxes. This afforded operators all the with l)leastire the introduction of the chance they desired for plundering the Agricultural Fair as a means of creating State treasury and meantime the Blue ambition in the direction of thorough farm Ridge Railroad remains unfinished, culture. Greenville held its first fair of It was late in autumn when we reached the kind during our stay there. All along Greenville, but the weather was warm and the highways leading into Greenville cotton delightful. The small l)lai~ters from all whitened the fields although it was late the country round, were crowding the in November, there were immense fields roads with their mule carts, laden with one, yet to pick and 1 was told that the whole two, or three bales of cotton. The agents crop is not often all picked before the for the sale of fertilizers were busy in the advent of the spring months. The bare- town, looking after their interests, for many headed negroes were lazily pulling at the a planter had given them a lien upon his white fleeces, wherever we passed, bnit crop, and they wished to claim their seemed animated by no desire for results; money when the crop was brought to it was easy to see why the crop was not market. There was a variety of testimony all gathered before spring. Emigrants ~s to the profit made by the cotton raisers from other states would find every chance who only planted two or three acres each; for enriching themselves in these charming uplands, where the climate is so delicious; ~where the streams and the hills are so beautiful, and where the soil is so fertile. Greenville lies at the base of the Saluda, near the Paris mount am, and is delightfully situated on a range of breezy hills. Summer visitors from the low- lands crowd its hotels and private mansions ; it has, like its neigh 1)or, Spartanburg, a number of excellent schools antI colleges, and a university. lt is near the source of the Reedy River, and the approaches to it from Gol- umbia are along the banks of that lovely stream, the Saluda. To the eastward, daintily enshrined in a nook in the Blue Ridge, near the North Carolina frontier, lies \Valhalla, a German settlement, DOWN iN A COAL MINE. 32 SO UTHERA~ MO UNTAIN RAMBLES. where the vine is cultivated with rare suc- cess; the county of Pickens is rich in mountain outlooks, aud noble waterfalls; and not more than twenty miles from Greenville, that superb monarch of the glens, Table Mountain, with its attendant ledges, each a thousand feet high, rises in rocky grandeur to the height of 4,300 feet above sea-level. North-westward the Air- Line railroad conducts one through wild and, as yet, un- cultivated lands, to Spar- tanburg, and, passing near Kings Mountain, to Charlotte, in North Caro- lina. From ihe Greenvillc post-office the stage-coach will speedily convey one into the heart of the Swan- nanoa and French Broad valleys. The road to Ashe- ville, the chief town of the western North Carolina mountain region, leads through Saluda Gap, and past the beautiful summer resort, once the refuge of so many wealthy lowland- ers, Flat Rock. This was a species of Saratoga for the South Carolinians, and in the sweet valley, surrounded by noble mountains, there are still some noble mansions, like those of the Draytons and Memmingers, surrounded by gardens filled with the rarest and costliest of shrubbery and flowers. Another route from Green- ville leads to C~sars Head, a lofty mountain, like the Whiteside, and a trysting place for hun- dreds of merry pilgrims during summer months. Along the road between Greenville and Asheville, and the rugged yet de- lightful routes which lead from Asheville to Char- lotte, lies one of the great pleasure regions of the future. The falls of Slick- ing, at the base of the Table Mountain, the banks of that prince among mountain streams, the wonderful Keowee, the sweet vale of Jocasse, and the adjacent Whitewater cataracts, vie with Mount Yonah, Tallulah, Toccoa, and Nacoochee, their Georgian neighbors, in variety and surprising beauty. From Charlotte to Centreville the scenery is sublimely beautiful. By this route one passes through the Hickory Nut Gap, a TUCCOA FALLS. ADINA. 33 grand gorge in the Blue Ridge, through which a creek flows until its waters are merged in those of the rocky Broad River. Where the latter stream forces its passage through a spur of the Blue Ridge, its bed is encumbered with myriads of rocks, rooted deeply in the almost unyielding soil; moun- tain bluffs hem it in; and the scene is one of fearful solitude and grandeur. The Gap is hardly anywhere more than half a mile wide, and, seen from a little distance, it seems but a narrow path cut between gigantic buttresses of stone, which rise twenty-five hundred feet. Midway up the front of the highest bluff, on the south side of the Gap, stands an isolated rock re- sembling some antique and weather-beaten castle turret. The rains of thousands of years have washed the granite cliffs smooth, and one may fancy them the walls of some huge fortification. Shooting out over the cliff, and falling into some, as yet, undiscovered pool, a spray-stream comes pouring; and near the base of the awful precipice are three violent and capricious cascades, which, by centuries of persist- ence, have worn wells from forty to fifty feet deep in the hard stone beneath them. When one approaches the Gap, he sees be- fore him nothing but the limitless ocean of peaks, pointed sharply, like the apexes of waves, against the crystal vault of the sky. Everywhere Nature seems to have thrown out barriers, and to have determined to prevent one from entering her favorite retreat. Then suddenly you come upon the nar- row defile of the Hickory Nut Gap. Beyond it, penetrating to Rutherford- ton, one sees the sublime sentinels of the Blue. Ridge range jealously guarding the approaches, and at last reaches a point whence the panorama of the Pinnacle, and Sugar Loaf, and Chimney Rock, and Tryon Mountains all burst at once upon the vision. The road thither winds along a ravine side; steep rocks overhang it, and beneath a rushing torrent screams its warning; by and bye an opening in the forest shows anew the vast expanse of peaks, and in their midst the Monarch, the Cloud-piercer, the somber controller of the whole magic realm, Mitchells High Peak! Miles away, to the westward, one can dimly discern a silver line on a faintly-defined mountain: a torrent leaping down the almost perpen dicular sides of its parent height. Now let us seek the lowhnds. ADINA. IN Two PARTS: PART I. WE had been talking of Sam Scrope round the firemindful, such of us, of the rule de morfuis. Our host, however, had said nothing; rather to my surprise, as I knew he had been particularly intimate with our friend. But when our group had dispersed, and I remained alone with him, he brightened the fire, offered me another cigar, puffed his own awhile with a retro- spective air, and told me the following tale: Eighteen years ago Scrope and I were together in Rome. It was the beginning of my acquaintance with him, and I had grown fond of him, as a mild, meditative youth often does of an active, irreverent, caustic one. He had in those days the germs of the eccentricities,not to call them by a hard name,which made him afterwards the most intolerable of the friends we did not absolutely break with; VOL. VIII.3 he was already, as they say, a crooked stick4 He was cynical, perverse, conceited, obstinate, brilliantly clever. But he was young, and youth, happily, makes many of our vices innocent. Scrope had his merits, or our friendship would not have ripened. He was not an amiable man, but he was an honest onein spite of the odd caprice I have to relate ; and half my kindness for him was based in a feeling that at bottom, in spite of his vanity, he enjoyed his own irritability as little as other people. It was his fancy to pretend that he enjoyed no- thing, and that what sentimental travelers call picturesqueness was a weariness to his spirit; but the world was new to him and the charm of fine things often took him by surprise and stole a march on his prema- ture cynicism. He was an observer in spite of himself, and in his happy moods, thanks to his capital memory and ample

ADINA. 33 grand gorge in the Blue Ridge, through which a creek flows until its waters are merged in those of the rocky Broad River. Where the latter stream forces its passage through a spur of the Blue Ridge, its bed is encumbered with myriads of rocks, rooted deeply in the almost unyielding soil; moun- tain bluffs hem it in; and the scene is one of fearful solitude and grandeur. The Gap is hardly anywhere more than half a mile wide, and, seen from a little distance, it seems but a narrow path cut between gigantic buttresses of stone, which rise twenty-five hundred feet. Midway up the front of the highest bluff, on the south side of the Gap, stands an isolated rock re- sembling some antique and weather-beaten castle turret. The rains of thousands of years have washed the granite cliffs smooth, and one may fancy them the walls of some huge fortification. Shooting out over the cliff, and falling into some, as yet, undiscovered pool, a spray-stream comes pouring; and near the base of the awful precipice are three violent and capricious cascades, which, by centuries of persist- ence, have worn wells from forty to fifty feet deep in the hard stone beneath them. When one approaches the Gap, he sees be- fore him nothing but the limitless ocean of peaks, pointed sharply, like the apexes of waves, against the crystal vault of the sky. Everywhere Nature seems to have thrown out barriers, and to have determined to prevent one from entering her favorite retreat. Then suddenly you come upon the nar- row defile of the Hickory Nut Gap. Beyond it, penetrating to Rutherford- ton, one sees the sublime sentinels of the Blue. Ridge range jealously guarding the approaches, and at last reaches a point whence the panorama of the Pinnacle, and Sugar Loaf, and Chimney Rock, and Tryon Mountains all burst at once upon the vision. The road thither winds along a ravine side; steep rocks overhang it, and beneath a rushing torrent screams its warning; by and bye an opening in the forest shows anew the vast expanse of peaks, and in their midst the Monarch, the Cloud-piercer, the somber controller of the whole magic realm, Mitchells High Peak! Miles away, to the westward, one can dimly discern a silver line on a faintly-defined mountain: a torrent leaping down the almost perpen dicular sides of its parent height. Now let us seek the lowhnds. ADINA. IN Two PARTS: PART I. WE had been talking of Sam Scrope round the firemindful, such of us, of the rule de morfuis. Our host, however, had said nothing; rather to my surprise, as I knew he had been particularly intimate with our friend. But when our group had dispersed, and I remained alone with him, he brightened the fire, offered me another cigar, puffed his own awhile with a retro- spective air, and told me the following tale: Eighteen years ago Scrope and I were together in Rome. It was the beginning of my acquaintance with him, and I had grown fond of him, as a mild, meditative youth often does of an active, irreverent, caustic one. He had in those days the germs of the eccentricities,not to call them by a hard name,which made him afterwards the most intolerable of the friends we did not absolutely break with; VOL. VIII.3 he was already, as they say, a crooked stick4 He was cynical, perverse, conceited, obstinate, brilliantly clever. But he was young, and youth, happily, makes many of our vices innocent. Scrope had his merits, or our friendship would not have ripened. He was not an amiable man, but he was an honest onein spite of the odd caprice I have to relate ; and half my kindness for him was based in a feeling that at bottom, in spite of his vanity, he enjoyed his own irritability as little as other people. It was his fancy to pretend that he enjoyed no- thing, and that what sentimental travelers call picturesqueness was a weariness to his spirit; but the world was new to him and the charm of fine things often took him by surprise and stole a march on his prema- ture cynicism. He was an observer in spite of himself, and in his happy moods, thanks to his capital memory and ample 34 AJ9INA. information, an excellent critic and most profitable companion. He was a punc- tilious classical scholar. My boyish jour- nal, kept in those days, is stuffed with learned allusions; they are all Scropes. I brought to the service of my Roman expe- rience much more loose sentiment than rigid science. It was indeed a jocular bargain between us that in our wanderings, picturesque and arch~eological, I should un- dertake the sentimental businessthe rap- tures, the reflections, the sketching, the quoting from Byron. He considered me absurdly Byronic, and when, in the manner of tourists at that period, I breathed poetic sighs over the subjection of Italy to the foreign foe, he used to swear that Italy had got no more than she deserved, that she was a land of vagabonds and declaim- ers, and that he had yet to see an Italian whom he would call a man. I quoted to him from Alfferi that the human plant grew stronger in Italy than anywhere else, and he retorted, that nothing grew strong there but lying and cheating, laziness, beggary and vermin. Of course we each said more than we believed. If we met a shepherd on the Campagna, leaning on his crook and gazing at us darkly from under the shadow of his matted locks, I would proclaim that he was the handsom- est fellow in the world, and demand of Scrope to stop and let me sketch him. Scrope would confound him for a filthy scare-crow and me for a drivelling album- poet. When I stopped in the street to stare up at some moulderingpaiazzo with a patch- ed petticoat hanging to dry from the draw- ing-room window, and assured him that its haunted disrepair was dearer to my soul than the neat barred front of my Aunt Esthers model mansion in Mount Vernon street, he would seize me by the arm and march me off, pinching me till I shook myself free, and whelming me, my soul and my palazzo in a ludicrous torrent of abuse. The truth was that the pictur- esque of Italy, both in man and in nature, fretted him, depressed him, strangely. He was consciously a harsh note in the midst of so many mellow harmonies; every thing seemed to say to him Dont you wish you were as easy, as loveable, as care- lessly beautiful as we ? In the bottom of his heart he did wish it. To appreci- ate the bitterness of this dumb disrelish of the Italian atmosphere, you must remem- ber how very ugly the poor fellow was. He was uglier at twenty than at forty, for as he grew older it became the fashion to say that his crooked features were dis- tinguished. But twenty years ago, in the infancy of modern ~esthetics, he could ,not have passed for even a bizarre form of or- nament. In a single word, poor Scrope looked Common: that was where the shoe pinched. Now you know that in Italy almost everything, has, to the outer sense, what artists call style. In spite of our clashing theories, our friendship did ripen, and we spent together many hours, deeply seasoned with the sense of youth and freedom The best of these, perhaps, were those we passed on horseback, on the Campagna; you remem- ber such hours; you remember those days of early winter, when the sun is as strong as that of a New England June, and the bare, purple-drawn slopes and hollows lie bathed in the yellow light of Italy. On such a day, Scrope and I mounted our horses in the grassy terrace before St. John Lateran, and rode away across the broad meadows over which the Claudian Aque- duct drags its slow lengthstumbling and lapsing here and there, as it goes, beneath the burden of the centuries. We rode a long distancewell towards Albano, and at last stopped near a low fragment of ruin, which seemed to be all that was left of an ancient tower. Was it indeed ancient, or was it a relic of one of the nu- merous medi~eval fortresses, with which the grassy desert of the Campagna is studded? This was one of the questions which Scrope, as a competent classicist, liked to ponder; though when I called his attention to the picturesque effect of the fringe of wild plants which crowned the ruin, and detached their clear filaments in the deep blue air, he shrugged his shoulders, and said they only helped the brick-work to crumble. We tethered our horses to a wild fig tree hard by, and strolled around the tower. Suddenly, on the sunny side of it, we came upon a figure asleep on the grass. A young man lay there, all unconscious, with his head upon a pile of weed-smoth- ered stones. A rusty gun was on the ground beside him, and an empty game- bag, lying near it, told of his being an un- lucky sportsman. His heavy sleep seemed to point to a long mornings fruitless tramp. And yet he must have been either very un- skilled, or very little in earnest, for the Cam- pagna is alive with small game every month in the yearor was, at least, twenty years ago. It was no more than I owed to my repu I ADINA. 35 tation for Byronism, to discover a careless, youthful grace in the young fellows atti- tude. One of his legs was flung over the other; one of his arms was thrust back un- der his head, and the other resting loosely ~n the grass; his head drooped back- ward, and exposed a strong, young throat; his hat was pulled over his eyes, so that we could see nothing but his mouth and chin. An American rustic asleep is an ugly fel- low, said I; but this young Roman clod- hopper, as he lies snoring there, is really statuesque ; clodhopper, was for argu- ment, for our rustic Endymion, judging by his garments, was something better than a mere peasant. He turned uneasily, as we stood above him, and muttered something. Its not fair to wake him, I said, and passed my arm into Scropes, to lead him away; but he resisted, and I saw that something had struck him. In his change of position, our picturesque friend had opened the hand which was resting on the grass. The palm, turned upward, contained a dull-colored oval ob- ject, of the size of a small snuff-box. ~ What has he got there ? I said to Scrope; but Scrope only answered by bending over and looking at it. Really, we are taking great liberties with the poor fellow, I said. Let him finish his nap in peace. And I was on the point of walking away. But my voice had aroused him; he lifted his hand, and, with the movement, the ob- ject I have compared to a snuff-box caught the light, and emitted a dull flash. Its a gem, said Scrope, recently dis- interred and encrusted with dirt. The young man awoke in earnest, push- ed back his hat, stared at us, and slowly sat up. He rubbed his eyes, to see if he ~were not still dreaming, then glanced at the gem, if gem it was, thrust his hand me- chanically into his pocket, and gave us a broad smile. Gentle, serene Italian nature ! I exclaimed. A young New England farmer, whom we should have dis- turbed in this fashion, would wake up with an oath and a kick. I mean to test his gentleness, said Scrope. Im determined to see what he has got there. Scrope was very fond of small bric-a-brac, and had ransacked every curiosity shop in Rome. It was an oddity among his many oddities, but it agreed well enough with the rest of them. What he looked for and relished in old prints and old china was not, generally, beauty of form nor romantic association; it was elaborate and patient workmanship, fine engraving, skillful method. Good day, I said to our young man; we didnt mean ~o interrupt you. He shook himself, got up, and stood be- fore us, looking out from under his thick curls, and still frankly smiling. eThere was something very simple,a trifle silly,in his smile, and I wondered whether he was not under-witted. He was young, but he was not a mere lad. His eyes were dark and heavy, but they gleamed with a friendly light, and his parted lips showed the glitter of his strong, white teeth. His complexion was of a fine, deep brown, just removed from coarseness by that vague suffused pallor common among Italians. He had the frame of a young Her~ules; he was altogether as handsome a vagabond as you could wish for the foreground of a pastoral landscape. Youve not earned your rest, said Scrope, pointing to his empty game-bag; youve got no birds. He looked at the bag and at Scrope, and then scratched his head and laughed. I dont want to kill them, he said. I bring out my gun because its stupid to walk about pulling a straw! And then my uncle is always grumbling at me for not doing something. When he sees me leave the house with my gun, he thinks I may, at least, get my dinner. He didnt know the locks broke; even if I had powder and shot, the old blunderbuss wouldnt go off. When Im hungry I go to sleep. And he glanced, with his handsome grin, at his recent couch. The birds might come and perch on my nose, and not wake me up. My uncle never thinks of asking me what I have brought home for supper. He is a holy man, and lives on black bread and beans. Who is your uncle ? I inquired. The Padre Girolamo at Lariceia. He looked at our hats and whips, asked us a dozen questions about our ride, our horses, and what we paid for them, our nationality, and our way of life in Rome, and at last walked away to caress our browsing animals and scratch their noses. He has got something precious there, Scrope said, as we strolled after him. He has evidently found it in the ground. The Campagna is full of treasures yet. As we overtook our new acquaintance he thrust his indistinguishable prize behind him, and gave a foolish laugh, which tried my com- panions patience. The fellows an idiot ! 36 ADINA. he cried. Does he think I want to snatch the thing? What is it youve got there ? I asked kindly. Which hand ~vill you have ? he said, still laughing. The right. The left, said Scrope, as he hesitated. He fumbled behind him a moment more, and then produced his treasure with a flour- ish. Scrope took it, wiped it off carefully with his handkerchief, and bent his near- sighted eyes over it. I left him to exam- ine it. I was more interested in watching the Padre Girolamos nephew. The latter stood looking at my friend gravely, while Scrope rubbed and scratched the little black stone, breathed upon it and held it up to the light. He frowned and scratch- ed his head; he was evidently trying to concentrate his wits on the fine account he expected Scrope to give of it. When I glanced towards Scrope, I found he had flushed excitedly, and I immediately bent my nose over it too. It was of about the size of a small hens-egg, of a dull brown color, stained and encrusted by long burial, and deeply corrugated on one surface. Scrope paid no heed to my questions, but continued to scrape and polish. At last How did you come by this thing ? he asked dryly. I found it in the earth, a couple of miles from here, this morning. And the young fellow put out his hand nervously, to take it back. Scrope resisted a moment, but thought better, and surrendered it. As an old mouser, he began instinctively to play at indifference. Our companion looked hard at the little stone, turned it over and over, then thrust it behind him again, with his simple-souled laugh. Heres a precious chance, murmured Scrope. But in Heavens name, what is it, I de- manded, impatiently. Dont ask me. I dont care to phrase the conjecture audibly its immenseif its what I think it is; and here stands this giggling lout with a prior claim to it. What shall I do with him? I should like to knock him in the head with the butt end of his blunderbuss. I suppose hell sell you the thing, if you offer him enough. Enough? What does he know about enough? He dont know a topaz from a turnip. Is it a topaz, then ? Hold your tongue, and dont mention names. He must sell it as a turnip. Make him tell you just where he found it. He told us very frankly, still smiling from ear to ear. He had observed in a solitary ilex-tree, of great age, the traces of a recent lightning-stroke. (A week of un- seasonably sultry weather had, in fact some days before, culminated in a terrific thun- der-storm.) The tree had been shivered and killed, and the earth turned up at its foot. The bolt, burying itself, had dug a deep, straight hole, in which one might have plant- ed a stake. I dont know why, said our friend, but as I stood looking at it, I thrust the muzzle of my old gun into the aperture. It descended for some dis- tance and stopped with a strange noise, as if it were striking a metallic surface. I rammed it up and down, and heard the same noise. Then. I said to myself Something is hidden therequattri;ii, perhaps; let us see. I made a spade of one of the shivered ilex-boughs, dug, and scrap- ed and scratched; and, in twenty minutes, fished up a little, rotten, iron box. It was so rotten that the lid and sides were as thin as letter-paper. When I gave them a knock, they crumbled. It was filled with other bits of iron of the same sort, which seemed to have formed the com- partments of a case; and with the damp earth, which had oozed in through the holes and crevices. In the middle lay this stor~e, embedded in earth and mold. There was nothing else. I broke the box to pieces and kept the stone. Ecco I Scrope, with a shrug, repossessed himself of the moldy treasure, and our friend, as he gave it up, declared it was a thous- and years old. Julius Ciesar had worn it in his crown! Julius Ciesar wore no crown, my dear friend, said Scrope urbanely. It may be a thousand years old, and it may be ten. It may be anagate, and it may be a flint! I dont know. But if you will sell it on the chance?____ And he tossed it three times high into the air, and caught it as it fell. I have my idea its precious, said the young man. Precious things are found here every daywhy shouldnt I stumble on something as well as another? Why should the lightning strike just that spot, and no other? It was sent there by my patron, the blessed Saint Angelo ! He was not such a simpleton, after all; or rather he was a puzzling mixture of sim ADINA. plicity and sense. If you really want the thing, I said to Scrope, make him an offer, and have done with it. Have done with it, is easily said. How little do you suppose he will take ? I havent the smallest idea of its value. Its value has nothing to do with the matter. Estimate it at its value and we may as well put it back into its holeof its probable value, he knows nothing; he need never know, and Scrope, musing an instant, counted, and flung them down on the grass, ten silver scudithe same num- ber of dollars. Angelo,he virtually told us his name,watched them fall, one by one, but made no movement to pick them up. But his eyes brightened; his simplicity and his shrewdness were debating the question. The little heap of silver was most agree- able; to make a poor bargain, on the other hand, was not. He looked at Scrope with a dumb appeal to his fairness which quite touched me. It touched Scrope, too, a tri- fle; for, after a moments hesitation, he flung down another scudi. Angelo gave a puzzled sigh, and Scrope turned short about and began to mount. In an- other moment we were both in the saddle. Angelo stood looking at his money. Are you satisfied ? said my companion, curtly. The young fellow gave a strange smile. Have you a good conscience ? he de- manded. Hang your impudence ! cried Scrope, very red. XVhats my conscience to you ? And he thrust in his spurs and galloped away. I waved my hand to our friend and followed more slowly. Before long I turned in the saddle and looked back. Angelo was standing as we had left him, staring after us, with his money evidently yet untouched. But, of course, he would pick it up! I rode along with my friend in silence; I was wondering over his off-hand justice. I was youthful enough to shrink from being thought a Puritan or a casuist, but it seemed to me that I scented sophistry in Scropes double valuation of Angelos treasure. If it was a prize for him, it was a prize for Angelo, and ten scud4and one over,was meager payment for a prize. It cost me some discomfort to find rigid Sam Scrope, of all men, capable of a piece of bargaining which needed to be ingeniously explained. Such as it was, he offered his explanation at lasthalf angrily, as if he knew his logic was rather grotesque. Say it out; say it, for Heavens sake I he cried. 37 I know what youre thinking~Ive played that pretty-faced simpleton a trick, eh ? and Im no better than a swindler, evi- dently! Let me tell you, once for all, that Im not astiamed of having got my prize cheap. It was ten scudi or nothing! If I had offered a farthing more I should have opened those sleepy eyes of his. It was a case to pocket ones scruples and act. That silly boy was not to be trusted with the keeping of such a prize for another half hour; the deuce knows what might have become of it. I rescued it in the interest of art, of science, of taste. The proper price of the thing I couldnt have dreamed of offering; where was I to raise ten thou- sand dollars to buy a bauble? Say I had offered a hundredforthwith our pic- turesque friend, thick-witted though he is, would have pricked up his ears and held fast! He would have asked time to reflect and take advice, and he would have hurried back to his village and to his uncle, the shrewd old priest, Padre Giro- lamo. The wise-heads of the place would have held a conclave, and decidedI dont know what; that they must go up to Rome and see Signor Castillani, or the director of the Papal excavations. Some knowing person would have got wind of the affair, and whispered to the Padre Girolamo that his handsome nephew had been guided by a miracle to a fortune, and might marry a cornessina. And when all was done, where should I be for my pains? As it is, I discriminate; I look at the mat- ter all round, and I decide. I get my prize; the ingenious Angelo gets a months carouse,hell enjoy it,and goes to sleep again. Pleasant dreams to him! What does he want of money? Money would have corrupted him! Ive saved the con- tessina, too; Im sure he would have beaten her. So, if were all satisfied, is it for you to look black? My minds at ease; Im neither richer nor poorer. Im not poorer, because against my eleven scudi may stand the sense of having given a harmless treat to an innocent lad; Im not richer, because, Ihope you understand,I mean never to turn my stone into money. There it is that delicacy comes in. Its a stone and nothing more; and all the income I shall derive from it will be enjoying the way people open their eyes and hold their breath when I make it sparkle under the lamp, and tell them just what stone it is. What stone is it, then, in the name of all thats demoralizing ? I asked, with ardor. 38 ADINA. Scrope broke into a gleeful chuckle, and patted me on the arm. Pctzrinza! Wait till we get under the lamp, some evening, and then Ill make it sparkle and tell you. I must be sure first, he added, with sud- den gravity. But it was the feverish elation of his tone, and not its gravity, that struck me. I began to hate the stone; it seemed to have corrupted him. His ingenious account of his motives left something vaguely unex- plainedalmost inexplicable. There are dusky corners in the simplest natures; strange, moral involutions in the healthiest. Scrope was not simple, and, in virtue of his defiant self-consciousness, he might have been called morbid; so that I came to consider his injustice in this particular case as the fruit of a vicious seed which I find it hard to name. Everything in Italy seemed mutely to reproach him with his meager faculty of pleasing; the inde- finable gracefulness of nature and man murmured forever in his ears that he was an angular cynic. This was the real motive of his intolerance of my sympathetic rhap- sodies, and it prompted him now to regale himself, once for all, with the sense of an advantage wrested, if not by fair means, then by foul, from some sentient form of irritating Italian felicity. This is a rather metaphysical account of the matter; at the time I guessed the secret, without phrasing it. Scrope carried his stone to no appraiser, and asked no archieological advice about it. He quietly informed himself, as if from general curiosity, as to the best methods of cleansing, polishing, and restoring an- tique gems, laid in a provision of delicate tools and acids, turned the key in his door, and took the measure of his prize. I asked him no questions, but I saw that he was intensely preoccupied, and was becoming daily better convinced that it was a rare one. He went about whistling and hum- ming odd scraps of song, like a lover freshly accepted. Whenever I heard him I had a sudden vision of our friend Angelo star- ing blankly after us, as we rode away like a pair of ravishers in a German ballad. Scrope and I lodged in the same house, and one evening, at the end of a week, after I had gone to bed, he made his way into my room, and shook me out of my slumbers as if the house were on fire. I guessed his errand before he had told it, shuffled on my dressing-gown, and hurried to his own apartment. I couldnt wait till morning, he said, Ive just given it the last touch ; there it lies in its imperial beauty ! There it lay, indeed, under the lamp, flashing back the light from its glowing hearta splendid golden topaz on a cushion of white velvet. He thrust a magnifying glass into my hand, and pushed me into a chair by the ~ble. I saw the surface of the stone was worked in elaborate intaglio, but I was not prepared for the portentous character of image and legend. In the center was a full-length naked figure, which I supposed at first to be a pagan deity. Then I saw the orb of sovereignty in one outstretched hand, the chiselled imperial scepter in the other, and the laurel-crown on the low-browed head. All round the face of the stone, near the edges, ran a chain of carven figureswarriors, and horses, and chariots, and young men and women interlaced in elaborate confusion. Over the head of the image, within this concave frieze, stood the inscription: DIvUS TIBERIUS C~5AR TOTIUS ORBIS IMPERATOR. The workmanship was extraordinarily delicate; beneath the powerful glass I held in my hand, the figures revealed the per- fection and finish of the most renowned of antique marbles. The color of the stone was superb, and, noxv that its purity had been restored, its size seemed prodigious. It was in every way a gem among gems, a priceless treasure. Dont you think it was worth while getting up to shake hands with the Em- peror Tiberius ? cried Scrope, after ob- serving my surprise. Shabby Nineteenth Century Yankees, as we are, we are having our audience. Down on your knees, bar- barian, were in a tremendous presence! Havent I worked all these days and nights, with my little rags and files, to some pur- pose? Ive annulled the centuriesIve resuscitated a tofius orbis imperator. Do you conceive, do you apprehend, does your heart thump against your ribs? Not as it should, evidently. This is where Ciesar wore it, dull modernhere, on his breast, near the shoulder, framed in chiselled gold, circled about with pearls as big as plums, clasping together the two sides of his gold- stiffened mantle. It was the agraffe of the imperial purple. Tremble, sir! and he took up the splendid jewel, and held it against my breast. No doubtsno ob- ectionsno reflectionsor were mortal enemies. How do I know itwheres my ADINA. 39~ warrant ? It simply must be! Its too precious to have been anything else. Its the finest intaglio in the world. It has told me its secret; it has lain whispering classic Latin to me by the hour all this week past.~~ And has it told you how it came to be buried in its iron box ? It has told me everythingmore than I can tell you now. Content yourself for the present with admiring it. Admire it I did for a long time. Cer- tainly, if Scropes hypothesis was not sound, it ought to have been, and if the Emperor Tiberius had never worn the topaz in his mantle, he was by so much the less irn- penal. But the design, the legend, the shape of the stone, were all very cogent evidence that the gem had played a great part. Yes, surely, I said, its the finest of known intaglios. Scrope was silent a while. Say of un- known, he answered at last. No one shall ever know it. You I hereby hold pledged to secresy. I shall show it to no one elseexcept to my mistress, if I ever have one. I paid for the chance of its turning out something great. I couldnt pay for the renown of possessing it. That only a princely fortune could have pur- chased. To be known as the owner of the finest intaglio in the world would make a great man of me, and that would hardly be fair to our friend Angelo. I shall sink the glory, and cherish my treasure for its simple artistic worth. And how would you express that sim- ple artistic worth in Roman scz~di Its impossible. Fix upon any sum you please. I looked again at the golden topaz, gleaming in its velvet nest; and I felt that there could be no successful effort to conceal such a magnificent negation of obscurity. I recommend you, I said at last, to think twice before showing it to your mistress. I had no idea, when I spoke, that my words were timely; for I had vaguely taken for granted that my friend was fore- doomed to dispense with this graceful appendage, very much as Peter Schlemihl, in the tale, was condemned to have no shadow. Nevertheless, before a month had passed, he was in a fair way to become en. gaged to a charming girl. Juxtaposition is much, says Clough; especially juxta- position, he implies, in foreign countries; and in Scropes case it had been particu larly close. His cousin, Mrs. XVaddington~ arrived in Rome, and with her a young girl who, though really no relative, offered him all the opportunities of cousinship, added to the remoter charm of a young lady to whom he had to be introduced. Adina Waddington was her companions stepdaughter, the elder lady having, some eight years before, married a widower with a little girl. Mr. Waddington had recent- ly died, and the two ladies were just emerging fromtheir deep mourning. These dusky emblems of a common grief helped them to seem united, as indeed they really were, although Mrs. Waddington was but ten years older than her stepdaughter. She was an excellent woman, without a fault that I know of, but that of thinking all the world as good as herself and keep- ing dinner waiting sometimes while she sketched the sunset. She was stout and fresh-colored, she laughed and talked rather loud, and generally, in galleries and temples, caused a good many stiff British necks to turn round. She had a mania for excursions, and at Frascati and Tivoli she inflicted her good- humored ponderosity on diminutive don- keys with a relish which seemed to prove that a passion for scenery, like all our pas- sions, is capable of making the best of us pitiless. I had often heard Scrope say that he detested boisterous women, ~ut he forgave his cousin her fine spirits, and step- ped into his place as her natural escort and adviser. In the vulgar sense he was not selfish; he had a very definite theory as to the sacrifices a gentleman should make to formal courtesy; but I was nevertheless surprised at the easy terms on which the two ladies secured his services. The key to the mystery was the one which fits so many locks; he was in love with Miss Waddington. There was a sweet stillness about her which balanced the widows exuberance. Her pretty name of Adina seemed to me to have somehow a mystic fitness to her personality. She was short and slight and blonde, and her black dress gave a sort of infantine bloom to her fairness. She wore her auburn hair twist- ed into a thousand fantastic braids, like a coiffure in a Renaissance drawing, and she looked out at you from grave blue eyes, in which, behind a cold shyness, there seemed to lurk a tremulous promise to be franker when she knew you better. She never consented to know me well enough to be very frank; she talked very little, and we 40 ADINA. hardly exchanged a dozen words a day; but I confess that I found a perturbing charm in those eyes. As it was all in silence, though, there was no harm. Scrope, however, ventured to tell his loveor, at least, to hint at it eloquently enough. I was not so deeply smitten as to be jealous, and I drew a breath of relief when I guessed his secret. It made me think better of him again. The stand he had taken about poor Angelos gem, in spite of my efforts to account for it phil- osophically, had given an uncomfortable twist to our friendship. I asked myself if he really had no heart; I even wondered whether there was not a screw lose in his intellect. But here was a hearty, healthy, natural passion, such as only an honest man could feelsuch as no man could feel without being the better for it. I began to hope that the sunshine of his fine senti- ment would melt away his aversion to giving Angelo his dues. He was charmed, soul and sense, and for a couple of months he really forgot himself, and ceased to send forth his unsweetened wit to do battle for his ugly face. His happiness rarely made him gush, as they say; but I could see that he was vastly contented with his pros- pects. More than once, when we were together, he broke into a kind of nervous, fantastic laugh, over his own thoughts; and o~ his refusal to part with them for the penny which one offers under those cir- cumstances, I said to myself that this was humorous surprise at his good luck. How had he come to please that exquisite crea- ture? Of course, I learned even less from the young girl about her own view of the case; but Mrs. Waddington and I, not being in love with each other, had nothing to do but to gossip about our companions whenever (which was very often) they con- signed us to a She tells me nothing, the good-humor- ed widow said;. and if Im to know the answer to a riddle, I must have it in black and white. My cousin is not what is called attractive, but I think Adina, neverthe- less, is interested in him. How do you and I know how passion may transfigure and exalt him? And who shall say beforehand what a fanciful young girl shall do with that terrible little piece of machinery she calls her heart? Adina is a strange child; she is fanciful without being capricious. For all I know, she may admire my cousin for his very ugliness and queerness. She has decided, very likely, that she wants an in tellectual husband, and if Mr. Scrope is not handsome, nor frivolous, nor over- polite, theres a greater chance of his being wise. Why Adina should have listened to my friend, however, was her own busi- ness. Listen to him she did, and with a sweet attentiveness which may well have flattered and charmed him. We rarely spoke of the imperial topaz; it seemed not a subject for light allusions. It might properly make a man feel solemn to possess it; the mere memory of its luster lay like a weight on my own con- science. I had felt, as we lost sight of our friend Angelo that, in one way or another, we should hear of him again; but the weeks passed by without his re-appearing, and my conjectures as to the sequel, on his side, of his remarkable bargain remained quite unanswered. Christmas arrived, and with it the usual ceremonies. Scrope and I took the requisite vigorous measures,it was a matter, you know, of fists and elbows and knees,and obtained places for the two ladies at the Midnight Mass at the Sistine Chapel. Mrs. Waddington was my es- pecial charge, and on coming out we found we had lost sight of our companions in the crowd. We waited awhile in the Colonnade, but they were not among the passers, and we supposed that they had gone home in- dependently, and expected us to do like- wise. But on reaching Mrs. Waddingtons lodging we found they had not come in. As their prolonged absence demanded an explanation, it occurred to me that they had wandered into Saint Peters, with many others of the attendants at the Mass, and were watching the tapers twinkle in its dusky immensity. It was not perfectly regular that a young lady should be wandering about at three oclock in the morning with a very unattractive young man; but after all, said Mrs. Wadding- ton, shes almost his cousin. By the time they returned she was much more. I went home, went to bed, and slept as as the Christmas bells would allow me. On rising, I knocked at Scropes door to wish him the compliments of the season, but on his coming to open it for me, perceived that such common-place greetings were quite below the mark. He was but half undressed, and had flung himseW on his return, on the outside of his bed. He had gone with Adina, as I supposed, into Saint Peters, and they had found the twinkling tapers as picturesque as need be. He walked about the room for some time rest- / ADINA. 4 lessly, and I saw that he had something to say. At last he brought it out. I say, Im accepted. Im engaged. Im whats called a happy man. Of course I wished him joy on the news; and could assure him, with ardent convic- tion, that he had chosen well. Miss Wad- dington was the loveliest, the purest, the most interesting of young girls. I could see that he was grateful for my sympathy, but he disliked expansion, and he contented himself, as he shook hands with me, with simply saying Oh yes; shes the right thing. He took two or three more turns about the room, and then suddenly stopped before his toilet-table, and pulled out a tray in his dressing-case. There lay the great intaglio; larger even than I should have dared to boast. That would be a pretty thing to offer ones fczncee, he said, after gazing at it for some time. How could she wear ithow could one have it set? There could be but one way, I said; as a massive medallion, depending from a necklace. It certainly would light up the world more, on the bosom of a beautiful woman, than thrust away here, among your brushes and razors. But, to my sense, only a beauty of a certain type could properly wear ita splendid, dusky beauty, with the brow of a Roman Empress, and the shoul- ders of an antique statue. A fair, slender girl, with blue eyes, and sweet smile, would seem, somehow, to be overweighted by it, and if I were to see it hung, for instance, round Miss Waddingtons white neck, I should feel as if it were pulling her down to the ground, and giving her a mysterious pain. He was a trifle annoyed, I think, by this rather fine-spun objection; but he smiled as he closed the tray. Adina may not have the shoulders of the Ve- nus of Milo, he said, but I hope it will take more than a bauble like this to make her stoop. I dont always go to church on Christ- ni~as Day; but I have a life-long habit of taking a solitary walk, in all weathers, and harboring Christian thoughts if they come. This was a Southern Christmas, without snow on the ground, or sleigh-bells in the air, or the smoke of crowded fii~sides rising into a cold, blue sky. The day was mild, and almost warm, the sky gray and sunless. If I was disposed toward Christ- mas thoughts, I confess, I sought them among Pagan memor~s. I strolled about the forums, and then walked along to the Coliseum. It was empty, save for a single figure, sitting on the steps at the foot of the cross in the centera young man, ap- parently, leaning forward, motionless, with his elbows on his knees, and his head buried in his hands. As Jie neither stirred nor observed me when I passed near him, I said to myself that, brooding there so intensely in the shadow of the sign of re- demption, he might pass for an image of youthful remorse. Then, as he never moved, I wondered whether it was not a deeper passion even than repentance. Sud- denly he looked up, and I recognized our friend Angelonot immediately, but in re- sponse to a gradual movement of recog- nition in his own face. But seven weeks had passed since our meeting, and yet he looked three years older. It seemed to me that lie had lost flesh, and gained ex- pression. His simple-souled smile was gone; there was no trace of it in the shy mistrust of his greeting. He looked graver, manlier, and very much less rustic. He was equipped in new garments of a pre- tentious pattern, though they were care- lessly worn, and bespattered with mud. I remember he had a flaming orange necktie, which harmonized admirably with his pic- turesque coloring. Evidently he was greatly altered; as much altered as if he had made a voyage round the world. I offered him my hand, and asked if he remembered me. Per Dio I he cried. With good reason. Even his voice seemed changed; it was fuller and harsher. H~ bore us a grudge. I wondered how his eyes had been opened. He fixed them on me with a dumb reproachfulness, which was half appealing and half ominous. He had been brooding and brooding on his meager bar- gain till the sense of wrong had become a kind of smothered fear. I observed all this with poignant compassion, for it seemed to me that he had parted with something more precious even than his imperial in- taglio. He had lost his boyish ignorance that pastoral piece of mind which had suffered him to doze there so gracefully with his head among the flowers. But even in his resentment he was simple still. Where is the other oneyour friend ? he asked. Hes at homehes still in Rome. And the stonewhat has he done with it? Nothing. He has it still. 42 ADINA. He shook his head dolefully. Will he give it back to me for twenty-five scudi I Im afraid not. He values it. I believe so. Will he let me see it ? That you must ask him. He shows it to no one. Hes afraid Qf being robbed, eh? That proves its value! He hasnt shown it to a jewelerto a, what do they call them? a lapidary? To no one. You must believe me. But he has cleaned it, and polished it, and discovered what it is ? Its very old. Its hard to say. Very old! Of course its old. There are more years in it than it brought me scudi. What does it look like? Is it red, blue, green, yellow ? Well, my friend, I said, after a mo- ments hesitation, its yellow. He gave me a searching stare; then quickly Its whats called a topaz, he cried. Yes, its whats called a topaz. And its sculpturedthat I could see! Its an intaglio. Oh, I know the names, and Ive paid enough for my learning. Whats the figure? A kings heador a Popes, perhaps, eh? Or the portrait of some beautiful woman that you read about? It is the figure of an Emperor. What is his name? Tiberius. Corps di Cristo ! his face flushed, and his eyes filled with angry tears. Come, I said, I see youre sorry to have parted with the stone. Some one has been talking to you, and making you discontented. Every one,per Dial Like the finished fool I was, I couldnt keep my folly to my- self. I went home with my eleven scudi, thinking I should never see the end of them. The first thing I did was to buy a gilt hair-pin from a peddler, and give it to the Ninettaa young girl of my village, with whom I had a friendship. She stuck it into her braids, and looked at herself in the glass, and then asked how I had sud- denly got so rich! Oh, Im richer than you suppose, said I, and showed her my money, and told her the story of the stone. She is a very clever girl, and it would take a knowing fellow to have the last word with her. She laughed in my face, and told me I was an idiot, that the stone was surely worth five hundred scudi; that my forestiere was a pitiless rascal; that I ought to have brought it away, and shown it to my elders and betteis; in fine, that I might take her word for it, I had held a fortune in my hand, and thrown it to the dogs. And, to wind up this sweet speech, she took out her hairpin, and tossed it into my face. She never wished to see me again; she had as lief marry a blind beggar at a cross-road. What was I to say? She had a sister who was waiting-maid to a fine lady in Rome,a marc/zcsa,who had a priceless necklace made of fine old stones picked up on the Campagna. I went away hanging my head, and cursing my folly: f flung my money down in the dirt, and spat upon it! At last, to ease my spirit, I went to drink afogiietta at the wine-shop. There I found three or four young fellows I knew; I treated them all round; I hated my money, and wanted to get rid of it. Of course they too wanted to know how I came by my full pockets. I told them the truth. I hoped they would give me a better account of things than that vixen of a Ninetta. But they knocked their glasses on the table, and jeered at me in chorus. Any donkey, out a-grazing, if he had turned up such a treasure with his nose, would have taken it in his teeth and brought it home to his master. This was cold com- fort; I drowned my rage in wine. I emptied one flask after another; for the first time in my life I got drunk. But I cant speak of that night! The next day I took what was left of my money to my uncle, and told him to give it to the poor, to buy new candlesticks for his church, or to say masses for the redemption of my blaspheming soul. He looked at it very hard, and hoped I had come by it honestly. I was in for it; I told him too! He listen- ed to me in silence, looking at me over his spectacles. When I had done, he turned over the money in his hands, and then sat for three minutes with his eyes closed. Suddenly he thrust it back into my own hands. Keep itkeep it, my son, he said, your wits will never help you to a supper, make the most of whit youve got? Since then, do you see, Ive been in a fever. I can think of nothing else but the fortune Ive lost. Oh, a fortune ! I said, deprecatingly. Youexaggerate. It would have been a fortune to me. A voice keeps ringing in my ear night and day, and telling me I could have got a thousand scudi for it. Im afraid I blushed; I turned away a / THE SILVER DESE!? T. 43 moment; when I looked at the young man again, his face had kindled. Tiberius,. eh? A Roman emperor sculptured on a big topazthats fortune enough for me! Your friends a rascaldo you know that? I dont say it for you; I like your face, and I believe that, if you can, youll help me. But your friend is an ugly little monster. I dont know why the devil I trusted him; I saw he wished me no good. Yet, if ever there was a harmless fellow, I was. Ecco! its my fate. Thats very well to say; I say it and say it, but it helps me no more than an empty glass helps your thirst. Im not harmless now. If I meet your friend, and he refuses me jus- tice, I wont answer for these two hands. You seetheyre strong; I could easily strangle him! Oh, at first, I shall speak him fair, but if he turns me off; and answers me with English oaths, I shall think only of my revenge I And with a passionate gesture he pulled off his hat, and flung it on the ground, and stood wiping the per- spiration from his forehead. I answered him briefly but kindly enough. I told him to leave his case in my hands, go back to Lariceia and try and find some occupation which would divert him from his grievance. I confess that even as I gave this respectable advice, I but half believed in it. It was none of poor Angelos mis- sion to arrive at virtue through tribulation. His indolent nature, active only in imme- diate feeling, would have found my pre- scription of wholesome labor more intoler-- able even than his wrong. lie stared gloomily and made no answer, but he saw that I had his interests at heart, and he promised me, at least, to leave Rome, and believe that I would fairly plead his cause. If I had good news for him I was to ad- dress him at Lariceia. It was thus I learned his full name,a name, certainly, that ought to have been to its wearer a sort of talisman against trouble,Angelo Beati. END OF PART I. THE SILVER DESERT. THE desert of Atacama, South America, slopes down with an undulating surface, from the high Cordillera, to the coast of the Pacific; and a more dreary, lonely ahd inhospitable region could scarcely be found on earth. The bleak whirlwii~ds howl through its desolate valleys, and lift the dust,wherever the configuration of the ground allows its formation,into high moving pillars, unit- ing at the top, and forming a gigantic framework, which in some instances resem- bles the specter of an immense gothic dome, supported by many pillars, through the interstices of which, the towering masses of the Cordillera de los Andes, loom in their snowy grandeur and magnificence. The glaring sun, seldom hidden by clouds, darts his fiery rays upon its wide expanse, producing a suffocating heat, and surprising the traveler, almost daily, with the fantastical delusions of the mirage. Usually towards evening comes sudden- ly a period of absolute stillness. It seems, as if nature were exhausted, and were stretching its immense limbs to re-- pose, after the turbulent games of its boisterous play-fellowthe wind. The sun sinks gradually behind the coast-range, displaying in rapid succession- all his glorious tints on the mountains; and after fading away, the colors fly hesi- tatingly up to the western sky, where their brilliancy lingers for a time. After this display of natural fireworks,. the pyramid of the Zodiacal light shoots up in the west, and reaches almost the zenith, with a brightness which I have seen nowhere else. The heavens are covered with myriads of stars, sparkling in unsup- passed glory; and if it should happen so, the full moon, rising above the distant mountains, sheds, not as in other latitudes,, a dreamy, but a strong and powerful light upon the quiet solitude, which shows- clearly the bold and rugged outlines of the high Cordillera, and the undulating. forms of the nearer hills, rising one above the other, like so many petrified waves. For untold ages the above described phenomena followed each other in regular

THE SILVER DESE!? T. 43 moment; when I looked at the young man again, his face had kindled. Tiberius,. eh? A Roman emperor sculptured on a big topazthats fortune enough for me! Your friends a rascaldo you know that? I dont say it for you; I like your face, and I believe that, if you can, youll help me. But your friend is an ugly little monster. I dont know why the devil I trusted him; I saw he wished me no good. Yet, if ever there was a harmless fellow, I was. Ecco! its my fate. Thats very well to say; I say it and say it, but it helps me no more than an empty glass helps your thirst. Im not harmless now. If I meet your friend, and he refuses me jus- tice, I wont answer for these two hands. You seetheyre strong; I could easily strangle him! Oh, at first, I shall speak him fair, but if he turns me off; and answers me with English oaths, I shall think only of my revenge I And with a passionate gesture he pulled off his hat, and flung it on the ground, and stood wiping the per- spiration from his forehead. I answered him briefly but kindly enough. I told him to leave his case in my hands, go back to Lariceia and try and find some occupation which would divert him from his grievance. I confess that even as I gave this respectable advice, I but half believed in it. It was none of poor Angelos mis- sion to arrive at virtue through tribulation. His indolent nature, active only in imme- diate feeling, would have found my pre- scription of wholesome labor more intoler-- able even than his wrong. lie stared gloomily and made no answer, but he saw that I had his interests at heart, and he promised me, at least, to leave Rome, and believe that I would fairly plead his cause. If I had good news for him I was to ad- dress him at Lariceia. It was thus I learned his full name,a name, certainly, that ought to have been to its wearer a sort of talisman against trouble,Angelo Beati. END OF PART I. THE SILVER DESERT. THE desert of Atacama, South America, slopes down with an undulating surface, from the high Cordillera, to the coast of the Pacific; and a more dreary, lonely ahd inhospitable region could scarcely be found on earth. The bleak whirlwii~ds howl through its desolate valleys, and lift the dust,wherever the configuration of the ground allows its formation,into high moving pillars, unit- ing at the top, and forming a gigantic framework, which in some instances resem- bles the specter of an immense gothic dome, supported by many pillars, through the interstices of which, the towering masses of the Cordillera de los Andes, loom in their snowy grandeur and magnificence. The glaring sun, seldom hidden by clouds, darts his fiery rays upon its wide expanse, producing a suffocating heat, and surprising the traveler, almost daily, with the fantastical delusions of the mirage. Usually towards evening comes sudden- ly a period of absolute stillness. It seems, as if nature were exhausted, and were stretching its immense limbs to re-- pose, after the turbulent games of its boisterous play-fellowthe wind. The sun sinks gradually behind the coast-range, displaying in rapid succession- all his glorious tints on the mountains; and after fading away, the colors fly hesi- tatingly up to the western sky, where their brilliancy lingers for a time. After this display of natural fireworks,. the pyramid of the Zodiacal light shoots up in the west, and reaches almost the zenith, with a brightness which I have seen nowhere else. The heavens are covered with myriads of stars, sparkling in unsup- passed glory; and if it should happen so, the full moon, rising above the distant mountains, sheds, not as in other latitudes,, a dreamy, but a strong and powerful light upon the quiet solitude, which shows- clearly the bold and rugged outlines of the high Cordillera, and the undulating. forms of the nearer hills, rising one above the other, like so many petrified waves. For untold ages the above described phenomena followed each other in regular 44 THE SIL PER DESERT. succession, unobserved by the eye of the traveler; but the most powerful motive which prompts the human race to brave all dangers, and to suffer all kinds of priva- tion,the auri sacra fames of the poet, opened also a road into the heart of this wilderness. The enterprising merchant followed up the track, and smoothed the way for scientific exploration. The desert of Atacama rose gradually from the depth of the sea, to its present height, and the powers which formed it are probably still in activity. Though the West Coast of South Ameri- ca is an almost uninterrupted desert, from Coquimbo to Payta, the desert of Atacama proper, is that portion of it, which in a length of about two degrees ~of latitude, and with a breadth of from fifty to two hundred English miles, fol- lows the outline of the Pacific, and is divided into two unequal parts, by the tropic of Capricorn. Some years ago great deposits of salt- peter were discovered, about ten miles from the coast, and the returning party of explorers painted a colossal anchor, with white paint, on the rocky side of the coast- range, as a landmark, being afraid other- wise not to be able to find the exact spot again. An English company took the working of these rich strata of niter into their hands, and formed an admirably arranged establishment, the profits of which have been very considerable, and are still so. In consequence of this settlement, some fishermen built their huts near the coast, with the view of supplying the companys functionaries, amounting to several hundred persons, with the product of their labor. This cluster of huts was called La Chim- ba, by the Bolivian authorities, a name still used in their official documents, though everybody else calls the town, which has sprung up since then, Autopa- gasta. The ~vest-coast of South America has ~tlways been famed for its mineral wealth. In earlier times the mountains of Peru and Bolivia yielded enormous quantities of precious metals, and they are to this day ~productive. At a more recent period followed the silver-mines of Chailarcillo, near Copiap6, the richest in South Amen- ~a. The produce of these latter is the source, of the wealth of the richest families in Chili. There had long been a rumor of still richer silver mines hidden somewhere in the desert of Atacama, but many expedi- tions in search of them returned without success, in some cases scarcely saving the lives of their members, after great suffer- ings, and almost superhuman exertions. The solving of the mystery was reserved for Don Diaz Gana, a gentleman who had spent unsuccessfully many years in mine- hunting. I shall freely translate the discovery of the great mining district of Caracoles, from a newspaperThe Caracoiinowhich is published in Autofagasta. Don Diaz Gana succeeded in interesting the Baron de la Rivi~re in an exploring expedition into the desert of Atacama. The former engaged the Cateadores, mine-hunters; the latter advanced the necessary means. According to a contract between Diaz Gana and the Baron on the one side, and the exploring party on the other, the latter were to receive fifty per cent. of the re- sult of the discoveries, and the two former twenty-five per cent. each. The company, knowing that water exist- ed about fifty leagues from the coast, near a mountain called Limon Verde,green lemon,agreed to take this direction. After arriving near the said mountain, one of the party, Senor Mendez, descried a chain of undulating mountains in the distance, and his practical knowledge * in mining matters led him to believe that he beheld the place where the fortune was hid- den for which they were searching. The caravan moved consequently in that direc- tion. From the middle of a plain rises a chain of rounded mountains, striking from north to south. It is cut in the middle by a deep ravine, which gives it the appearance of two islands, each a league long. After preparing their provisional camp at the foot of these mountains, the party agreed to the direction which each of them should follow. Keyes, another of the explorers, impatient to begin work, had absented himself in the meantime, and, leisurely walking about, found some lumps of a blackish stone on a wonderfully broad vein of the same composition. He mistook it for coal, and even after breaking the crust, blackened by the action * Rich deposits of metals are recognized by the formation of the ground, and silver is indicated by peculiar pale colors, technically called panigo. ( THE SIL VER DESERT. of the sun, he was still unaware that it was silver, and that his feet were treading up- on treasures worth many millions. How- ever, he piled up a heap of these stones, to enable him to find the place again, in case it should be desirable. Porras, another member of the party, dis- covered the great vein of the mine, San Jose ; and Savedra found the Descubri- dora, Niza and Esperanza. After the discoverers met again at the camp, exchanging the specimens each had collected, Keyes was half ashamed to produce his piece of coal; but Caugalla, ~ the fifth of the party, who had consider- able more intelligence and practical knowl- edge in mining matters than the others, recognized at once the richness of these stones, and all went directly to the place at which these specimens had been found. After a short investigation, during which Caugalla discovered the mines Flor del Desierto and Merceditas, which belong to the same group, he was convinced of the importance of the discovery, and de- clared he wanted to keep these veins for himself; but his companions resisted his exclusive pretensions, and forced him, by their number, to yield. The almost absolute possession of these riches, which had no other claimants but his few companions, tempted him, after his monopolizing schemes had failed, to try to persuade his companions to divide the treasures among themselves, without delivering to Gana and the Baron their respective shares. He succeeded in per- suading one of them, with whom he went to Calama, the nearest town, to denounce~ the mines for themselves. The others decided to follow the more honorable path of communicating the great discovery to Gana. The two former arrived in Calama, and offered the barra,one twenty-fourth part,of each of these mines for two hun- dred dollars, without finding purchasers. The news of the fabulous riches spread quickly, and brought people from all parts of the west-coast to the place of discovery. But though many exploring associations were formed, no transaction was legally made, on account of the wavering disposi- tions of the capitalists, who did not believe in the importance of the business, partly be- cause only in exceptional cases silver is found in abundance on the surface, and was thought consequently to be exhausted in a short time, and partly on account of the distance (150 miles) of the mineral dis.. trict from the coast, and the hardships to be undergone by the rudeness and rigor of the climate, and the difficulties and expenses of transporting, either provision up, or the produce of the mines down to the coast. This state of things however lasted only a short time. The quick succession of new and startling discoveries, induced a gentleman by the name of I)on Nicolas Naranjo, to buy from Caugalla seven bar- ras for $15,000, which he sold again for $6o,ooo. The journey from Autofagasta to Carac- oles is made either on horseback, or in a coach; and is at present comparatively easy, provided one does not leave the common track. Formerly it was otherwise; not alone on account of the difficulty of carrying along xvater and food, for man and beast, but also on account of the high prices paid for the necessary outfit, purchased in Autofa- gasta. When I undertook my first journey to Caracoles, everything was already more moderate. For instance, I paid for a couple of boiled eggs only $r.8o, in one of the station houses on the road, and for a boiled hen, cazuela, $30. Even these moderate prices, I found, six months later, considerably lowered, and a travel- er may reach Caracoles at present, for from $6o to $80, according to the wants of his stomach. The quenching of thirst, partic- ularly, has different prices in the desert, according to the difference of the liquids employed. After the opening of the first and second railroad the prices will be still more lowered. Another difficulty to overcome, consists in the great changes of temperature, which during the short space of twenty-four hours, may vary from 50 to 6o degrees Farenheit. The changes, combined with bad food and worse water, produce malignant dysenter- ies and inflammations, especially of the lungs, which prove often fatal in a few days. The effect of these changes is, in summer and winter, the same, viz.: suffocating heat in the daytime and shiver- ing cold at night, though the absolute de- gree of temperature may be more extreme one side in summer, and on the other in winter. The road to Caracoles lies in an old * The technical expression for the first step of taking possession of a mine, by announcing its existence and position to the competent authority. 46 THE SIL VER DESERT. river bed, ascending from the coast, with an average grade of from two and a half to three per cent. By ocular evidence one is often unable to distinguish whether the road ascends or lies on a level plain. It is only by reading the barometer that one is aware of it. This river bed is perfectly dry. Though no record of running water exists, neverthe- less the action of it seems so recent, that, even the small ripple in the, at present hard alluvial sand, is perfectly visible, and one is induced to think that water must have been running only a few weeks ago. When the stream was in its glorious state of power, it was, on an average, from two to three hundred feet wide, its boisterous waves breaking through all obstacles, even through rocks, and forming at the convex sides of its bends, perpendicular banks in one place, near Mantos Blancos, more than a hundred feet high. The place where it broke through the coast range must have been a grand sight. There the waters rolled from a height of about two thousand feet, through a chasm,. with a grade of from six to seven per cent., filling the narrow sea beach with the debris of their devastations. The banks of this gorge are from two hundred to five hundred feet high, and overhanging rocks, many hundred tons in weight, undermined by the restless, pre-historic waters, threaten the traveler with instantaneous destruction, and have hung thus, who knows, for how many thousand years. The profile of the country between Auto- fagasta and Caracoles shows us that there must have existed two large lakes. The first filled the trough-like plain around the above-mentioned saltpeter establishment, named the Salar ; the second extended from Salinas to Montenegro. The greater part of their waters broke through the coast range, and through the gorge near Salinas. The rest disappeared by evapora- tion and filtration, depositing the saltpeter, held until then in a lixivial state. At Salinas is a small pool of water, sur- rounded by some dozens of houses and several distilling machines. This water, impregnated with different mineral sub- stances, in it probably a solution of cop- per, is so poisonous, that mules drink- ing it die in a short time, and as, on ac- count of the mummifying qualities of the air and the ground, nothing rots, but dries up, one can easily recognize the vicinity of the place by the number of dead mules lying scattered about. The prevalence of light over shade is a striking peculiarity of the desert. A strong eye is required to look freely around, when traveling on a mules back. Every- thing glitters and sparkles in the sunshine, from the heavens to the grounds,even every stone, which throws a small, but almost black shadow. I have traveled for miles over chalcedonies ; and in some places amethysts are found, and beautiful small, detached rock crystals. Near the above-mentioned water-pool is to be found the only representative of the vegetable kingdom of which the desert can boast. It is a coarse specimen of the class Graminecz, but so unlike a living plant that only close investigation enables us to recognize it as such. It grows in bunches, which, thickly covered with dust, are easily mistaken for lumps of dry mud; and even after verifying the fact that we have to deal with a living plant, it looks to us like a clumsy imitation of such, or, rather, like a mud-covered vegetable petri- faction. The limited space of this paper forces me to abandon the idea of explaining the gradual disappearance of the once power- ful waters, by which these regions were doomed to desolation and barrenness. I must, therefore, postpone these explana- tions, based upon personal investigation and analogies, for another opportunity. The formation of Caracoles is jurassic. The silver veins, of which over eight thou- sand have been found in less than three years, cover an area of four hundred and fifty square miles, and were, probably, formed when porphyry broke through. Silver is found in combination with chlorine, sulphur, bromine and iodine. Native silver appears, up to this date,* in small needles, but not solid, as in Chafiarcillo, on account of the lesser depth of the Caracoles mines. lhe ore is in both places very similar. It is, therefore, not improbable that in time both mineral districts will be found to be only one, of dimensions without parallel in history. The mineral district, called First, Second, Third and Fourth Caracoles, begins some minutes north from the tropic of Capricorn, and goes towards the south for about forty- * All numerical statements refer to the be- ginning of the year 1873. ( THE SIL VER DESERT 47 live miles, with an average breadth of ten miles. This vast area is furrowed by a perfect network of silver veins, which fre- quently intersect each other, though the general direction coincides, more or less, with the magnetic meridian. These veins are from one foot to fifteen meters broad, and when they intersect each other, rich deposits are formed, which amount, in most cases, to a fortune. The First Caracoles and the so-called Isla are, up to the present day, the most important portions of the mineral district. The mines in the former are the deepest, and produce the greatest quantity of silver, but in the latter the quality of the silver is superior. It is a generally accepted opin- ion among competent miners that not a single mine of the Isla will be found to be worthless after having been properly ~worked. The most important groups of mines in the First Caracoles are those of the Deseada, surrounded by the Flor del Desierto, Estrella, Cautiva, Mer ceditas, and many others; and the ex- tensive and broad veins of the mines San J os6, Niza, and those in the Quebrada Honda,deep ravine& c. The average amount of silver, techni- cally called ley comun, is the amount of marks on the cajou one mark being equal to ij lb. of silver and the cajou being equal to three tons of ore. For instance, in saying A mine has a hundred marks on the cajou means that three tons of its ore contain fifty pounds of silver. It would lead too far to give detailed des- criptions of all the mines; I shall therefore confine myself to some statements only. The Deseada, Niza, Esperanza, Flor del Desierto, had in December, 1872, from i6o to 200 marks ley, but the abundance of ore compensated for the lesser richness. The Deseada, alone, exported in the above-mentioned month, 21,000 pounds of silver. The San Juan, in the Second Caracoles sold in the same month ore to the amount of $6o,ooo. The San Jose, had 150 pounds, the San Juan, 250 pounds, and the Moni- tora, 682 pounds of silver, in three tons of ore. These statements refer all to the same month. By way of comparison I may add, that silver ores of three pounds in three tons, in Cerro de Pasco, in Peru, are worked with profit; whereas, only those of 35 pounds of silver, in the same amount of ore, can be worked in Caracoles. The opening of the first railway will bring this amount so far down that a ley of 15 pounds will be profitable; and many thousand tons of ore of that description lie as refuse, in large piles around the entrance to the mines, and represent the sum of many millions of dollars. Since tne time I left Caracoles niany new and rich discoveries have been tnade, but I prefer to state only what I know by reliable information, corroborated by ocu- lar inspection. I shall add only that the registered products of the mines which are regularly worked, amounted to 1.500,000. marks, equal to 750,000 pounds of silver during the year I873. Considering this year has been unfavor- able for all mining transactions, on account of the great stringency of the money-mar- ket, it is evident that the produce would have been considerably higher under favor- able circumstances. My private opinion is, that for many years to come, the supply of silver from the desert of Atacama, will be proved to be immense; and that enor- mous fortunes will be made by rich specu- lators. I say rich speculators, because every man knowing the business of mining, must know, that only in exceptional cases, transactions of this kind will be prof- itable to small capitalists, as they are un- able to push the work for want of nieans; but, nevertheless, many of these exceptions have occurred in Caracoles. Though more than twenty millions of dol- lars are invested already in these mines, Caracoles wants, first of all, more capital; and secondly,and this is a still more im- portant point than the first,it wants the in- dustry and energy of foreigners, to become the great mining center of the whole world. Since the first transaction was conclud- ed, innumerable others have been made. Two towns have sprung into existence, viz.: Autofagasta with 12,000, and Caracoles with 8,ooo inhabitantsbesides some small- er places, but no chart in existence shows their position. Two railways from the coast to the mineral district are in con- struction, of which, the one beginning at Autofagasta must be finished seon. A large establishment for amalgamation has been built; but the ore is so abundant that another establishment will be built near the river Loa, only i6 miles distant from the mines; and nevertheless, 40,000 cwt. of rich ore, are shipped monthly to England, 48 A SONG OEAfAY. in the steamers which pass the Straits of Magellan. Considering that all this has been done in the short space of not quite three years, the question arises, What Caracoles will be in three years hence ? As the circles of disturbed water widen gradually, so the nexvs of the treasures of the silver desert must spread far and wide, and must bring new means, and fresh energy, for the development of its. mineral wealth. I have made these statements carefully~ and always according to the actual state of affairs. All exceptionally rich discoveries have been omitted, and only those numeri- cal statements have been noted down which give an exact idea of the average state of Caracoles at the end of the year 1872. / A SONG OF MAY. I. MAY is like my bonny love; Heavens own blue is in her skies So tis in my deanes eyes. May, I love; my love, I love; May is fair, May is rare, Who with May can eer compare? II. May hath balmy breath of flowers; May hath roses fresh and sweet; Blithely on her dancing feet, Come and go the sunny hours. May so fleet May so sweet Who with May can eer compete? III. 0, my love hath roses too, And her breath is balmy sweet, And her lissome, dancing feet Scarce disturb the flowrets dew. My love is rare, My love is fair, My love with May can aye compare. Iv. 0, my love hath brow of snow; Golden sunshine, bright and fair, Nestles in her coiling hair, And her voice is soft and low. Come, May, and greet My love so sweet My love with May can aye compete. f

48 A SONG OEAfAY. in the steamers which pass the Straits of Magellan. Considering that all this has been done in the short space of not quite three years, the question arises, What Caracoles will be in three years hence ? As the circles of disturbed water widen gradually, so the nexvs of the treasures of the silver desert must spread far and wide, and must bring new means, and fresh energy, for the development of its. mineral wealth. I have made these statements carefully~ and always according to the actual state of affairs. All exceptionally rich discoveries have been omitted, and only those numeri- cal statements have been noted down which give an exact idea of the average state of Caracoles at the end of the year 1872. / A SONG OF MAY. I. MAY is like my bonny love; Heavens own blue is in her skies So tis in my deanes eyes. May, I love; my love, I love; May is fair, May is rare, Who with May can eer compare? II. May hath balmy breath of flowers; May hath roses fresh and sweet; Blithely on her dancing feet, Come and go the sunny hours. May so fleet May so sweet Who with May can eer compete? III. 0, my love hath roses too, And her breath is balmy sweet, And her lissome, dancing feet Scarce disturb the flowrets dew. My love is rare, My love is fair, My love with May can aye compare. Iv. 0, my love hath brow of snow; Golden sunshine, bright and fair, Nestles in her coiling hair, And her voice is soft and low. Come, May, and greet My love so sweet My love with May can aye compete. f THE AL YSTERZO US ISLAND. 49 TUE MYSTERIOUS ISLAND. BY JULES VERNE. FIRST the reporter told the sailor to wait for him in the same place, where he would rejoin him; and, without losing a moment, he followed the coast in the same direction which the negro, Neb, had taken some hours before. Then he quickly disappeared behind an angle of the shore, so impatient was he for tidings of the engineer. Harbert had desired to accompany him. Stay here, my boy, the sailor had re- plied. We must prepare an encampment, VOL. VIII.4 A FORTUNATE DISCOVERY. CHAPTER IV. and see if we can get hold of something more substantial than shell-fish. Our friends will need refreshment on their re- turn; so every man to his own task. lam ready, ansxvered Harbert. All right ! rejoined the sailor. ~Vell make it work. Let us be methodical. We are tired, cold and hungry. The first thing is to find shelter, fire and food. The forest furnishes wood ; the nests give us eggs; and now what we want is a house. Very well, answered Harbert; I will look for a grotto in these rocks, and I cant

THE AL YSTERZO US ISLAND. 49 TUE MYSTERIOUS ISLAND. BY JULES VERNE. FIRST the reporter told the sailor to wait for him in the same place, where he would rejoin him; and, without losing a moment, he followed the coast in the same direction which the negro, Neb, had taken some hours before. Then he quickly disappeared behind an angle of the shore, so impatient was he for tidings of the engineer. Harbert had desired to accompany him. Stay here, my boy, the sailor had re- plied. We must prepare an encampment, VOL. VIII.4 A FORTUNATE DISCOVERY. CHAPTER IV. and see if we can get hold of something more substantial than shell-fish. Our friends will need refreshment on their re- turn; so every man to his own task. lam ready, ansxvered Harbert. All right ! rejoined the sailor. ~Vell make it work. Let us be methodical. We are tired, cold and hungry. The first thing is to find shelter, fire and food. The forest furnishes wood ; the nests give us eggs; and now what we want is a house. Very well, answered Harbert; I will look for a grotto in these rocks, and I cant 50 TILE AL YSTEIUO (IS ISLA AU). help finding some hole into which we can stow ourselves. Thats it ! cried Pencroff. Let us be off. So away they went along the foot of the gigantic wall, and over the beach, which the falling waters had widely un- covered. But instead of going north, they took a southerly course. Some hundred feet below the place where they had landed Pencroff had observed a fissure in the coast line. According to his reckoning, this ought to be the outlet of some stream or river. Now, it was most important that they should establish themselves near a stream of drinkable water; and also it was possible that the current had driven Cyrus Smith in that direction. As before men- tioned, the lofty wall was three hundred feet in height, but it was in a solid block, and even at its base, scarcely wave-washed; as it was, there was not the slightest fissure which might serve as a temporary abode. It was a precipitous cliff of an ex- ceedingly hard granite, which the floods had never worn away. Near the top whole colonies of sea-birds flew and fluttered, es- pecially the several species of web-feet, with their long, compressed and pointed 1)ills; a screaming mass of fowl, hardly frightened at all by the presence of man, who, probably, for the first time, disturbed their solitudes. Among these web-feet Pencroff recognized several labbes, a spe- cies of gull, to which the name of ster- coraire is sometimes given; and also the little greedy sea-mews, which made their nests in the seams of the granite. One gun-shot in the midst of this assemblage would have brought any number to the ground; but to fire a shot one must have a gun, and neither Pencroff nor Harbert possessed one. For the matter of that, hoxvever, these sea-birds are scarce- ly eatable, and even their eggs have an odious flavor. Meanwhile, Harbert, who had turned to the left on his walk, soon observed some sea-weed-covered rocks, which the flood tide would hide in the course of a few hours. Upon these rocks, in the midst of the slippery sea-plants, grew bivalves, which no hungry man would disdain to eat. Harbert called to PencroW who hastened towards him. Ah, these are mussels ! cried the sailor. Here is something instead of the eggs we were wishing for. These are not mussels ! said Harbert, attentively examining the shellfish ; they are lithodomes. Are they eatable ? asked Pencroff. Perfectly so. Then let us eat lithodomes. The sailor could rely upon Harberts opinion, for the youth had always had a passion for natural history, and was strong in the science. His father had encouraged this taste by making him follow the lectures of the best Boston professors, and they were all deeply attached to their intelligent and industrious pupil. Moreover, the in- stinct proper to the naturalist, which he possessed, was destined to be of use here- after on more than one occasion. And in this first instance it did not deceive him. The lithodomes were oblong shells, at- tached tightly in bunches to the rocks. They belonged to that species of boring mollusks which perforate the very hardest rocks, and their shell is rounded at the ends, unlike that of the common mussel. Pencroff and Harbert made a good meal of the lithodomes. They ate them as if they were oysters, and found them to taste strong- ly of pepper. This consoled them for the absence of that and all other condiments. Thus their hunger was, for the moment, appeased. Not so their thirst, which re- doubled after their consumption of mol- lusks, furnished with spice by nature. It was necessary, therefore, to find fresh water, and it was hardly probable that it should not exist in such a strange formation of cliff and sand. After taking the precaution to fill their pockets and handkerchiefs with an ample provision of lithodomes, Harbert and Pen- croff regained the foot of the high land. Two hundred feet beyond, they reached the indentation in the land which Pencroff had fancied must be the bed of a small, flowing river. Here the wall of rocks seemed to have been separated by some violent volcanic convulsion. At the base of the cliffs a little bay was hollowed out, the bottom forming an acute angle. The water-course there measured a hundred feet in width, and its two banks scarcely twenty feet each. The river-course pene- trated directly inwards betxveen the two walls of granite, which seemed to become lower above the outlet; then the stream turned abruptly, and was lost to sight amid some underbrush at a distance of half a mile. Here is water! Yonder is wood ! cried Pencroff. Now, Harbert, nothing is wanting but a shelter. The river water was clear. The sailor THE AL YSTERIO US ISLAND. 5 knew that at this moment, namely, at the ebb of the tide, it was free from the salt of the sea. Having settled this important point, Harbert sought for some cave which might do for a shelter, but he looked about in vain. Everywhere the rock wall seemed flat and smooth. Nevertheless, at the out- let of the river, and above the line of refuse cast up by high water, the falling cliffs had formed, not a grotto, it is true, but a mass of enormous crags, such as are often met with in granite countries, and are there known as ~ Pencroff and Harbert wandered through sandy corridors deep into the masses of rock, where light was not wanting, since it pene- trated the spaces between the blocks of granite. Many of these kept their places only by a miracle of equilibrium. But with the light came the winda perfect blast; and with the wind came the pierc- ing outer cold. Still the sailor thought that by stopping up some parts of the entries, and by securing some of the open- ings with a mixture of stones and sand, they might be able to make the Chimneys habitable. Their ground plan was in the shape of this typographical sign: kel ((etc/-a abbreviated. Now, by cutting off the upper opening of the sign, by which the southerly and westerly winds were driven in, it would, doubtless, be possible to make the lower part of the dwelling fit to live in. Just what we want ! cried Pencroff, and if we ever see Mr. Smith again, he will know how to take advantage of this labyrinth. We shall see him again, Pencroff, cried Harbert, and when he returns he must find here a dwelling place worth talking about. It will be habitable enough if we can only build a fireplace in the left entry, and keep a hole open to let out the smoke. We can do it my boy, said the sailor, and these Chimneys (that was the name Pencroff had settled on for their temporary home) will do our work finely. But in the first place, let us go and get in a stock of firing. It seems to me the wood wont be amiss in stopping up those holes, through which the very devil seems to be blowing his trumpet. Harbert and Pencroff left the Chimneys and turning a corner, began to ascend the left bank of the river. The current was pretty swift, and was carrying several fallen trees along with it. The rising tide, which was already beginning to make itself felt, was sure to throw back the logs to a con- siderable distance. It occured to the sail- or that this ebb and flow might be utilized for the transporting of heavy objects. After walking a quarter of an hour the sailor and the young man reached the abrupt angle which the river made in turn- ing to the left. From this point the stream passed through a forest of superb trees. They had kept their verdure in spite of the advanced season, for they belonged to the family of conifers, which is spread over the whole surface of the globe, from the arctic and antarctic regions to the tropics. The young naturalist recognized especially the deodars, common to the Himalayan zone, and~peculiar for the delicious odor they emit. Between these fine trees grew clumps of pines, whose dense parasols of limbs were opened wide. In the midst of the high grass Pencroff felt the snapping of dry twigs under his feet like so many fire-crackers. All right, my boy, said he to Harbert, if I am ignorant of the names of these trees, at any rate I know how to classify them in the category of fire-wood, and just now thats the only kind we want. Let us lay in our store, then, answer- ed Harbert, who set himself at once to the task. Gathering was easy work. It was not even necessary to break the branches off the trees, for vast quantities of dry wood lay on the ground. But, if the needful material was not wanting, the means of transportation was not the best in the world. The wood, being very dry, would be sure to burn up fast; hence, the neces- sity of transporting a great quantity to the Chimneys, and the load of two men would not be sufficient. This remark was made by Harbert. XVell, now, wait a moment, my boy, said the sailor, there must be some way of moving this wood. There is always a way to do everything. If we had a cart or a boat, it would be altogether too easy. But we have the river ! said Harbert. Hit it ! answered Pencroff, the riv- er shall be a highway which walks of itselfand rafts were not invented for nothing. Except, remarked Harbert, that our highway advances at present in a contrary directionbecause the tide rises. Well, we will get the better of that by waiting until it falls, replied the sailor, and then it xvill undertake to transport 52 THE Al YSTERIO US ISLAND. THE CHIMNEYS,THE HOME OF THE CASTAWAYS. our fire-wood to the Chimneys. Meantime twenty loads. In an hour the work was let us prepare our raft. finished, and the raft, anchored to the The sailor, followed by Harbert, turned bank, xvaited for the turn of the tide. towards the angle which the edge of the They had, therefore, several hours free, forest made with the river. They each and, following the same impulse, Harbert carried, according to his strength, a load of and Pencroff resolved to reach the upper wood tied together in fagots. On the shore, table-land in order to get a more extended also, were quantities of dead branches, lying view of the country. in the grass upon which the foot of man Precisely two hundred feet behind the had probably never pressed. Pencroff angle formed by the river, the wall, closing began at once to construct his raft, with a mass of fallen rocks, sloped away In a sort of eddy, produced by a point gently to the border of the forest. It was of the shore, which broke the force of the like a natural staircase, consequently Har- current, the sailor and the young boy bert and the sailor began their ascent. placed large pieces of wood, which they Thanks to the strength of their legs, they lashed together with dried vines. They reached the crest of the hill in a few mo- thus made a sort of raft upon which they ments, and stationed themselves at the piled up all their gathered wood, at least angle above the rivers mouth. - I 7 I TIlE MYSTERIOUS ISLAND. 53 Their first impulse was to gaze upon that ocean which they had lately crossed under such terrible circumstances. Jt was not without emotion that they looked north- ward upon that part of the coast where the catastrophe had taken place. There Cyrus Smith had disappeared. They strained their eves in vain to see if some portion of their balloon, to which a man could have clung, might not yet he afloat. Nothing! the sea was one vast watery desert. As for the coast, it too was utterly forsaken Neither the reporter nor Neb was to he seen. It was possible that they were there, but at too great a distance to he perceived. Something tells me, said Harhert, that a man as energetic as Mr. Cyrus can never have allowed himself to be drowned A CLOUD OF PIGEONS. like an ordinary mortal. He must have succeeded in reaching some point on the shore. J)ont you think so, Pencroff? The sailor shook his head sadly. He himself had no hope of ever seeing Cyrus Smith again ; but wishing to leave a little hope to Harhert Surely, surely, said he, our engineer is a man who would steer out of a scrape that would wreck any other man. Nevertheless he scrutinized the coast with extreme attention. Under his eyes lay the sandy beach, hounded on the right of the rivers mouth hy lines of breakers. The rocks that still shewed above the water looked like great amphi- bious creatures lying in the heds of surf. Beyond the line of rocks the sea glittered under the rays of the sun. Southward a ~~KJ--~---~ ____________ -5.- ~J7~ 54 TIlE if YSTERIO US ISLAND. sharp point closed the horizon, and one could not discern whether the land ex- tended further in the same direction, or whether it turned southeast and south- west, in which case the coast would form a kind of long peninsula. At the northern extremity of the bay the outline of the coast extended a great distance, with a more rounded line. There the coast was low and flat, without cliffs, with long banks of sand which the low tide left exposed to view. Pencroff and Harbert now faced towards the west. The view was stopped in that direction by the snow-topped mountain which rose at a distance of six or seven miles. From its lower hills to within txvo miles of the coast were vast forests, spotted with great green patches, produced by groups of evergreen trees. Then from the edge of the forest to the very shore lay a table-land, diversified by groups of trees distributed about in capricious irregularity. To the left one had occasional glimpses of the sparkling water-course, and its sinu- ous course seemed to be traceable to the rocky mountains, which appeared to give it birth. At the point where the sailor had left his wood-raft it began to flow between two lofty walls of granite. But if on its left bank the sides remained sharp and abrupt, on the right bank, on the contrary, it sank little by little, the solid crag chang- ing into isolated rocks, the rocks into stones, the stones into gravel, down to the extremity of the point. Are we on an island? said the sailor. Whatever it is, it appears large enough. An island, be it never so large, is still an island, observed Pencroff. But this important question could not yet be answered. The solution of the mystery must be deferred. As for the land itself, whether island or continent, it appeared to be fertile, agreeable to the eye, and varied in its products. This is fortunate, remarked PencroW and in our misery we should not fail to give thanks to Providence. God be praised! answered Harbert, heartily. For a long while Harbert and Pencroff examined the country upon which fate had cast their lot. But it ~vas difficult to imag- ine after such an inspection what the future had in store for them. Then they returned, following the south crest of the granite plateau which was out- lined by rocks, that had fashioned them- selves into all manner of fantastic forms. Here some hundreds of birds dwelt and nestled in the holes, and Harbert, in springing upon the rocks, scared UI) a per- fect cloud of these feathered creatures. Holloa, cried he, these are neither gulls nor sea-mews. What are they then ? asked Pencroff. Bless me, I believe they are pigeons! Yes, they are, said Harbert. But they are wild pigeons, or rock pigeons. I know them by the double black band on their wings, their white breasts and their ashy-blue plumage. And since the rock pigeon is very good eating, their eggs must be delicious, if they have only left some in their nests We will not give them time to hatch, except in the shape of an omelette, cried Pencroff gaily. But what will you make your omelette in, asked Harbert ; in your hat ? Ah, ha replied the sailor. I am not enough of a sorcerer to do that. We must fall back upon eggs boiled in the shell, my boy, and I will promise to dispatch the hardest of them. Pencroff and the boy sought attentively in the seams of the granite, and really found some eggs in some of the cavities. They gathered several dozens in their handker- chiefs, and, as the time was near for the tide to reach the full, Harbert and Pen- croff began to re-descend to the water. When they arrived at the bend of the river it was one oclock. The current had already turned, it was necessary to use the ebb at once to float their raft to the rivers mouth. Pencroff did not intend to allow this raft to go down with the current without any guiding, nor did he yet in- tend to embark upon it himself. But a sailor is never at a loss for ropes and cables, and Pencroff soon braided a long rope of dried vines. The vegetable cable was at- tached to the back of the raft, and the sailor held it in his hand, while Harbert, pushing off the raft with a long pole, kept it out in the current. The plan was a perfect success. The enormous cargo of wood, which the sailor kept secure i~y walking along the edge of the water, followed the rivers course. Jibe bank was so steel) that there was no danger of the raft stranding. Before two oclock it arrived safely at the mouth of the river, only a few feet from the Chimneys. (To be continued.) KA THERINE EARLE. 55 KATHERINE EARLE. BY MISS ADELINE TRAFTON. AND ONE WAS WATER, AND ONE STAR WAS FIRE. THE girls had returned from the long vacation; the classes were re-formed and went on as usual and Katey had fallen natu- rally into the place assigned her. What- ever fears she had been conscious of at first in regard to being allowed to remain were allayed, if they had not entirely van- ished. The kindly relations established between the other teachers and herself convinced her that Prof. Dyce had not im- parted his prejudices to them. With him she still felt that The was under the strict- est surveillance. Often the door of her class-room opened noiselessly in the midst of a recitation, and he stood beside her, cold, calm and critical, yet saying nothing, and departing as he came. At his first visit, she was startled and discomposed. The book in her hand fell to the floor~ he restored it gravely. She offered a chair; he refused it politely, but coldly. The younger girls tittered. Attend to the lesson, Mi~s Earle said calmly, though her face blazed; and the recitation went on. From that day his visits were apparently unnoticed. Katey offered him no more civilities, except some- times a dignified bow if he chanced to enter in her face. IT CAME. DOWN THE AISLE, IT PAUSED BESIDE HER. CHAPTER xvi.

KA THERINE EARLE. 55 KATHERINE EARLE. BY MISS ADELINE TRAFTON. AND ONE WAS WATER, AND ONE STAR WAS FIRE. THE girls had returned from the long vacation; the classes were re-formed and went on as usual and Katey had fallen natu- rally into the place assigned her. What- ever fears she had been conscious of at first in regard to being allowed to remain were allayed, if they had not entirely van- ished. The kindly relations established between the other teachers and herself convinced her that Prof. Dyce had not im- parted his prejudices to them. With him she still felt that The was under the strict- est surveillance. Often the door of her class-room opened noiselessly in the midst of a recitation, and he stood beside her, cold, calm and critical, yet saying nothing, and departing as he came. At his first visit, she was startled and discomposed. The book in her hand fell to the floor~ he restored it gravely. She offered a chair; he refused it politely, but coldly. The younger girls tittered. Attend to the lesson, Mi~s Earle said calmly, though her face blazed; and the recitation went on. From that day his visits were apparently unnoticed. Katey offered him no more civilities, except some- times a dignified bow if he chanced to enter in her face. IT CAME. DOWN THE AISLE, IT PAUSED BESIDE HER. CHAPTER xvi. 56 KATHERINE EARLE. Often when a group of girls gathered around her upon the wide veranda,the favorite lounging place after school hours in these pleasant September days, so like a bit of forgotten summer,the Profes- sors form would appear in their midst. Then, if she were the speaker at the mo- ment, the words died upon Kateys lips. Sometimes in the evening when she had taken her work for an hour down into the study hall where the other teachers were gathered and Prof. Dyce sat enthroned, looking up from her needle she would find the sharp gray eyes fixed upon her with a puzzled, strange expression, which sent the stitches all awry. His class-room adjoined her own. She had caught a glimpse of its arrangement more than once through the half open door. He had fitted it for a study as well as class- room, with a comfort and even luxury which made the others seem bare by compari- son. The teachers were accustomed to seek him here, to offer complaints or ask advice or assistance. Katey met them often as she came from or went to her classes. Indeed, hardly a day passed in which Miss Wormleys teetering step and high-pitched voice were not heard outside the door. She alone had never entered his room. She had no complaints to make, no aid to ask; her duties were simple and plain. She had drawn Clary Luckiwinner away from the other girls one afternoon. Clary was a dull scholar at best, but in French verbs she was well-nigh hopeless; Katey, seeing her pore over them day after day, endeavored to drill her out of school-hours, by a method of her own. It was half an hour before tea, and the long file of girls detailed for afternoon exercise had just re- turned. They filled the veranda, they chattered in the study hall and upon the stairs, they had even invaded her own room upon some flimsy pretext. I know of but one quiet place, Katey said, Come, Clary. She would not seek her class-room. Its neighborhood to the Professors sanc- turn made her avoid it at all times when it was possible to do so. But under the music-room was a great, dimly-lighted hall, where no one could disturb them for a time. It was a kind of lumber-room with boxes ranged against the walls. One of these, tall and narrow, held a skeleton with which the older girls delighted to frighten the more timid, by touching the spring attached to its jaws and causing it suddenly to gnash its hideous teeth. Oppo- site this was a door barred by a station- ary table hanging flat against the posts ordinarily, but raised on Friday after- noons when the clothes were given out from the store-room here, connected with the laundry in the rear. This was the province of Mrs. Jonesthe jimber- jawed woman who had come from New Hampshire unattended. At other times the hall was only used as a passage be- tween the new buildingas the one con- taining the school-room Was calledand the dining-room, and mostly in the ex- tremely cold or stormy weather when it would be uncomfortable to cross the shel- tered veranda. It was here that Katey led Clary to remain until the horrible gong, always beaten in this place, should an- nounce tea, and drive them away. Curled upon one of the great boxes, her back resting fearlessly against the high, red case containing the skeleton,Katey opened the grammar. Now, Clary, which is it ? The third? Or shall we look over the exercise first ? The two heads were very close together as they turned the leaves to find the place, when suddenly, without voice or warning, a well-kept but by no means small hand reached over and between them, and the book disappeared. Clary uttered a sharp little scream. Even Katey caught her breath. Had the skele- ton become reanimated? Certainly no skeleton ever displayed such muscular fingers as those which had closed over the book in her lap. She remembered now that this ball was the direct passage from the class-rooms to the library, to the Presi- dents office, and indeed, the whole of the story above, as well as to the dining-room upon this floor; and with the indignation in her face there was blended no surprise to see Prof. Dyce standing before her coolly turning the leaves of the French grammar as she descended from her un- dignified position and walked away with- out a word, leaving Clary to remain or follow as she chose. Clary, whose intui- tions were not especially keen, chose to stay. She was not at all afraid of Prof. Dyce, who, although reserved yet watch- ful in his intercourse with the girls, was too thoroughly just in his dealings to fail to win their respect, and a kind word or two bestowed upon Clary in the days of her desolation, had made her his faithful serv- ant. She began now with an elaborate ( KA lHERINE EARLE. explanation of the circumstances which had brought them here, ending with a eulogy upon Kateys patient endeavors in her behalf. ~ It makes no difference how tired she is; she hears me say them every day, she added in conclusion. But Miss Earle does not have the French classes. 0 no; Miss Wormley has us beginners. But it is very kind in Miss Earle, Clary ventured. It had dawned upon her at last that there was something like disapproval in the Professors manner. Yes, he said thoughtfully, giving her the book, and passing on. Kateys steps were quickened when once out of the Professors sight. Passing the school-room she saw that it was em.pty now. Her eyes were full of angry tears, and there was a choking sob in her throat. The awful shriek and wail of the gong sound- ed in her ears. She could not go on to her room, meeting half the school upon her way. She turned in here and passed down the length of the room to one of the desks in the last row. The shutters xvere closed to keep out the dust whirling through the narrow streets in the September wind; the light was dim here; no one would notice ber. She was shaded too by the heavy, winding stairway behind her, beginning in a broad step or txvo, then branching off on either side and leading to the dor- mitory halls above. No one would descend here; these stairs were never used except upon grand occasions. The last shriek of the gong,like a voice from Pandemonium, had died away. She would not heed the summons, Clary alone would miss her Clary, who followed her like a spaniel, and with whom she could not be trusted, it seemed; and for the moment the anger that rose within her dried away her tears. The place was very still. The bustle and din of the town was shut, out from her retreat. The very quiet soothed and calmed her after awhile. She crossed her arms upon the desk, and laid her head upo~i them. A gentle drowsiness stole over herthe rest which comes after a sharp pain. She was roused by a step upon the veranda,a sharp resounding step belong- ing to no one of the girls. It would pass on. But to her terror it drew nearer and nearer. She would not raise her head. The shadows would hide her. It came down the aisle, it paused beside her. She lay quite still, but stifled by the frightened beating of her heart. It was Prof. Dyce, 57 she knew. One moment, then he moved softly away as though he thought she slept. She raised her head when the door had closed after him. There was a rustle of garments behind, and, yet, above her. She turned quickly. Did she dream it? Or had she seen at that moment Miss Worm-. leys blinking eyes peering down from the winding-stairs behind her? There was the rush of slippered feet upon the veranda, the sound of sharp, shrilt voices, the door was flung open, tea was over, and the girls streamed by and in at the farther end of. the roorn. Some one approached with anxious haste, bearing a little tray carefully. It was Clary Luckiwinner, her face aglow. I have brought you some tea and toast; and I begged Mrs. Jones to give me a bit of marmalade ; and she set her tray down upon the desk. But I have a headache. I did not care fdr anything. How did you know I was here ? Katey added quickly. 0, Prof. Dyce told me that he found you asleep in the school-room. And he said perhaps Mrs. Jones would let me carry some tea to you. It is quite like a picnic, isnt it ? Clary went on, spreading a fresh napkin over the desk. So she was indebted to Prof. Dyce? He ha~d repented then of his rudeness. Per- haps he had come to tell her so. She was still sore and hurt, and by no means in- clined to forgive him; but she was faint also, and feverish with thirst, so she drank the tea thankfully, and ate the thin slices of toast which Clarys delighted hands spread for her. She would not stay in her own room that evening, as she was at first inclined to do. She was too proud to hide, as though she were sorry or ashamed. And, yet, she shrank from meeting the Professor again. She waited until past the hour of assem- bling in the study-hall, and then stole down the stairs, and slipped into a seat near the door. It was Friday evening. There.were no lessons for the next day to be learned. The girls had gathered in knots, sewing in hand, waiting for some one of the teachers to read aloud, as was the custom. Miss Hersey, turning her perplexed, annoyed face toxvards the clock continually, rose at last with some hesitation; but at that mo-. ment the door opened, and Prof. Dyce walked into the room, and ascended to the desk. The half suppressed Voices ceased as he searched among the books before him. 58 KATHERINE EARLE. There was a perceptible frown upon the broad forehead. Some one ventured an irrelevant question. He answered sharply. The girls stared, and whispered to each other. He found the book he sought, raised his head, and glanced over the group of teachers by the door. His face cleared somewhat at sight of K.ateys gray-clad figure seated composedly with the others, her head bent over her work. He turned the pages, found the place, and began to read: Notwithstanding the general rules, es- tablished for the conviction and punish- ment of the Christians, the fate of those sectaries, in an extensive and arbitrary government, must still, in a great measure, have depended on their oxvn behavior, the circumstances of the times and the temper of their supreme as well as subordinate rulers. The girls yawned, and exchanged com- munications furtively. Kateys fingers went on mechanically with her work. Her thoughts wandered miles away in an idle reverie. All at once they were interrupted. The voice of the reader ceased. Recalled unexpectedly to the present time and place, she raised her eyes involuntarily. The Professor had asked some question in re- gard to what he had read, which was met by the blankest silence. He turned from his inattentive hearers, and misinterpreting the startled expression upon Kateys counte- nance, his face resumed its usual tran- quility. You may reply, please. The work fell from her hands. She stammered and blushed, feeling every eye upon her. I beg your pardon; II was not listening ; she was obliged to say. The book closed with a snap. There will be no more reading to-night ; and the Professor descended from his desk, and quitted the room. The assembly broke up in confusion, but not before Katey had caught Miss Worm- leys whispered exclamation, Stupid ! Yes, it was thoroughly stupid. How could she have done so ? She was humbled and penitent. Dont mind it at all ; said gentle Miss Severance in her ear as they were leaving the room. It would have been the same with any of us we were not paying the least attention. It was so unlike Prof. Dyce, added Miss Hersey. I never knew him to read Roman History before on Friday even- lug. Saturday morning was a time of unre- strained liberty to the girls. They came and went as they chose, making purchases, or paying visits, if they were so fortunate as to have friends in the town. Katey, bound by no restrictions upon other days, was glad to stay within doors to enjoy the unusual quiet of the deserted school-room and empty halls. She had finished a letter to Delphine, and was on her way now to leave it upon the desk in the school-room, from which the letters were gathered at certain hours. Some one ran against her at the foot of the stairs. It was little Maria Chillson, one of the youngest girls in the school, all in a flutter of haste and flying ribbons. 0, Miss Earle, I was coming to your room. I have got something for you. She pulled and tugged at her pocket, bringing out neither cake nor candy,with which that receptacle was usually filled, but a note. From whom could it be? There was no postmark or stamp upon it, and the hand- writing was strange to her. She turned it over and over: there was no mistake. Miss Katherine Earle, the superscription read. Where did you get this ? A gefttleman gave it to me on the street. He went away to write it, and came back again. And he asked me ever so many questions, too,if you had to sit in the school-room evenings, and all that, the child added carelessly. It was nothing to her. She was impatient to be gone again. The precious moments were slipping away. Katey sat down upon the stairs, seized with a sudden trembling. It had come at last, then. He had not forgotten her. She had not trusted him in vain. And he was so near! She rose up hurriedly, and was hastening up the stairs, holding the pr~ cious letter tight in her hand, when some instinct of caution made her remember the child. Maria ! she called. The blue rib- bons were half way across the veranda. They came back drooping, and slowly. She took the child in her arms. I want to tell you something, she said. You must never do this again. You must never listen to any stranger upon the street. Will you remember ? Yes, maarn ; 1)ut the child made an impatient movement to free herself from Kateys arm. And, now, you had l~etter come with me. But I want to go out again. I KA THERINE EARLE. 59 You are too young to go out alone. It must not happen again. Never mind ; as the heavy little countenance fell into a still more forlorn expression of disappoint- ment; I will go with you some afternoon next week, and now you may come and sit with me, if you choose, until the others re- turn; and she bore her off. The note fairly burned in her pocket; but she xvould not open it before the child. She taxed herself to amuse her little pris- oner so that she should not feel her bonds, and the child passed a happy hour un- til the gong sounded for dinner, calling them both below. It seemed as though the dinner hour would never pass. It was, indeed, the most unrestrained and social meal of the week; where the girls brought to eager telling their exploits and advent- ures of the morning, and at which more than half of them appeared in their hats and shawlsas they came in from the street. Dinner over at last, she was waylaid as she passed Miss Herseys hall and led away to her room for a long consultation about various school matters, which seemed to Katey strangely trivial and unimportant, longing, as she did, to be set free. Even when she had gained her own roor~i Clary followed close in her footsteps to ask her advice upon her toilet for the evening. It was to be one of the reception nights which occurred three or four times in a term, when the friends of the teachers and pupils were invited to pass the evening at the school. There would be music and re- strained conversation, with some simple refreshments served in the music-room. Clary, upon these rather mild occasions, decked herself out like a Chinese idol. And what will you wear? she asked. Please, something light and thin; and braid your hair like a crown. Katey threw open the shutters to let the faint breeze steal in. A flood of torrid sunlight came with it. How long the summer was a-dy- ing! I dont know; it doesnt matter, Katey answered. There was a breathless- ness in her voice which had nothing to do with her words. She stood in the open window in the blazing sunlight and gazed far up the dusty street. Somewhere in the dull old town Dacre was at this moment. 0, 50 near! One after another the girls in the hall stole in. A rap at the door, a faint excuse until the place was full. She might run away and leave them in possession; but where should she go? The halls, the stairs, the school-room, each held its knots of chattering girls. The skeleton-room was~not to be thought of again, and she would not venture upon her class-room lest in the nar- row passage she should encounter Prof. Dyce. Not until the summons caine to tea was the room cleared; and then she followed the others. She lingered to fasten the door behind her, and so stepped out into the hall alone. As she passed little Maria Chillsons door she saw that three figures stood just inside. They were Miss Wormley, Maria, and a dull- faced girl, who would have passed through the school unnoticed, but that she was a niece of the President of the United States, and subject to fits. Either of these circum- stances would have been sufficient to make her remarkable. The conjunction render- ed her famous. I dont know; Maria was saying im- patiently; only he gave me the note, and They all turned at Kateys step. Maria flushed crimson and hung down her head. Miss Wormley came forward with unneces- sary haste. I have had a note from Marias mother; I took it up to read to her; she said. Katey turned her dark eyes full upon her. It was not the truth, she knew. It was of Dacres note to her they had been speaking. They had made the child tell the story. But they could not take it away from her, she thought with a great rush of gladness, pressing her hand instinctively upon the pocket where the precious missive still lay hid- den. She had hastened her steps, she murmured something, she hardly knew what, as she left them and ran down the stairs and across the veranda. She feared nothing at this moment, she desired noth- ing but one little half hour of undisturbed solitude. She left the table before the others, slip- ping out quietly from her seat, which was near the door. Not once did she pause or glance to the right or left until she had gained her own room, and fastened the door behind her. Not even Clary should enter now. She drew the note from her pocket. How she had longed for it! He might have written to her openly. She had scanned the letters day after day in eager hope; but in vain. She had tried not to be impatient. She had striven to banish her fears. She held the letter in her 6o KA THERINE EARLE. hand, stroking it gently. How would he write to her? She had never received a letter in her life except from Deiphine and Jack and Josie Durant. This would be quite different, and so, at last,, full of hope and happiness, and a wondering as to what it contained, which enhanced both, she opened the letter and spread it out be- fore her. DEAR KATEY, it beganas Jack or Delphine might have written; but the words held a new significance I must see you. Something has happened, and I am going away. Send me a line by the bearer (if the stupid little fool ever gives this to you). If I do not hear from you, telling me when and where I can see you to-day, I shall be in the school-garden to- night at nine oclock. Do not fall to meet me. If you do I shall appear in the school- room at prayers, by way of the garden and veranda. The long window opening upon the veranda was left unfastened last night. Did you know it? I am inclined to at- tend prayers in order to confound Dyce. What unlucky star ever sent you to his school? I did not recognize him that day upon the street, though he knew me. It came to me afterwards. He lived in Boston for yearsalways, indeed, until he went abroad. My youthful career is per- fectly familiar to him, and probably my later exploits. But if he makes you un- comfortable in anyway Illwell, anything you choose. I know your window, Katey- did. You stood a long while before it last night. You should have sleeping, young woman, to keep the dusky eyes bright. Ah, Katey, Katey, it would be better if I had gone without seeing you. It would be better for you if I had never seen you at all. But do come to me this once. I must see you. The letter fell out of her hands. What did it mean? What had happened! and where was he going? 0, she must see him indeed; she would write to him at once. Then she remembered that the time for that had passed. He would come to the garden, expecting to meet her there, and she must steal out to him like a thief in the night! There was no help for it now. There was a sweep of trailing gowns out- side; high-pitched voices echoed through the hall; doors opened and shut; already the girls were preparing for a descent to the dull festivities. She thrust the letter into her pocket as a low rap sounded upon the door. 0 please, begged Clary Luckiwinner, entering timidly, will you tie my sash? But you are not dressed! Are you not going down ?~ Dont wait for me, Katey replied; I fear I shall be late. But you will wear some of my flowers ? And Clary, prodigal of sweets, dropped a handful of blossoms upon Kateys dressing- table as she hastened away. CHAPTER Xvii. THE RED ROSE CRIES, SHE IS NEAR, SHE IS NEAR. AND THE WHITE ROSE WEEPS, SHE IS LATE. THE company had gathered in the music room, and the library adjoining; the girls were grouped about one of the pianos, with Prof. Gr6te darting here and there, arrang- ing the music, whispering a suggestion, and finally taking his place behind the player, and signifying by an upward motion of his head and bdton that the madrigal, rehearsed so often for a month past, itiight now begin. Katey, drawing back behind Prof. Paine, glanced at the clock just over Prof. Gr6tes head. The minute and the hour hand had almost met at nine. The time had come. She must slip away now while they were singing. Refreshments would follow, and she would not be missed for a little time. But still she did not go. She only stood quite still, staring as though fascinated at the hands of the clock, while the song the girls were chanting rang through her head: I love my love in the morning, For she like the morn is fairis fair. At the last moment her cGurage had failed her, and, yet, she must go. Prof. Dyce, standing just within the library door, watched her curiously. What had suddenly checked the very breath, as it seemed, upon her lips? At what was the girl staring with such intent and almost frightened gaze? When he looked again she was gone. She had opened the door behind her, and crossed the veranda to the school-room. Son4e shawls were lying upon one of the desks here; she caught one up as she passed, wrapped it about her, and then ran down th~ stairs leading to the class-rooms, at the foot of which was a door opening under the high veranda upon the garden. The hall was dark; but the door once found it was easy to turn the key in the lock. The cool evening air touched her face. There was a faint rust- / I KA THERINE EARLE. 6i ling outside. But it was only the dead leaves of the woodbine swirled by a sudden gust of wind. The garden was not an in- viting place at its best, and was gloomy enough at this hour. It was raised above the street, from which it was separated by a wall. This wall, with a row of half dead poplars, extended also across one side, shutting it in from its neighbors. The two school-buildings completed the square. The ground was irregular and grass-grown; showing by daylight faint traces of paths and flower-beds. It was denuded of every- thing now save these old poplars and a clump of willows overhanging the street close by the school-buildings. She gathered the white drapery of her gown about her, and listened a moment before stepping out. There was no sound from the veranda, and the windows of the practicing-rooms overlooking the garden were silent and dark. A form moved out from the clump of willows, and came to meet her. What if it should not be Dacre after all? He caught her as she shrank back. Kiatev? Why how white you areeven to your face. Did I frighten you? 0, how dared you come? she ex- claimed. Dared ! He laughed scornfully. I tell you, Katey, if you had not met me I would have Hush ! hush for his voice had risen dangerously. Come away then ; and he led her down to the foot of the garden. Overhead the stars shone bright and clear; but a soft dusky cloud seemed to have dropped upon the earth. Was it this which had suddenly come betxveen them? The slender branches of the willows stirred with a faint, sighing sound; a fitful wind rustled the dead leaWes upon the grass; a passing step below lagged, and paused, then went on, groxving faint at last in the distance. What are they doing in there ? Dacre motioned towards the house. They were singing when I came out. I can only stay a moment; they would miss me, she added quickly. And if they did ?if they found you here ? I should be disgraced before them all. For me ; and there was something like triumph in his voice. It would do nothing for you ; she said sadly. She had been filled with appre hension, and yet with a strange joy at the thought of seeing him again. Does any- thing ever come to ~is as we dream it will? Was it because of this other, lesser fear of being found hereof being shamed before the school that even the wonder and anxiety which his note awakened had fled now, and she was conscious onlyof what? Was it disappointment? A plague on respectability; it is too delicate a garment for me ; he said, with a laugh which jarred upon Katey even more than the words. I threw mine away some time ago. Hush, she said again. It pain~ me to hear you speak so, even in a jest. Tell me about all these weeks since I saw you last. I have only a moment to stay. Iell you ? he said, turning .upon her fiercely. You dont know what you ask. You have not heard, then? They have not written you ~ he went on eagerly. I have heard nothing; but what you yourself wrote me. All her anxiety re- turned now. 0, what has happened? Where are you going ? But he did not seem to hear her ques- tion. They will say hard things of me, I know; but, Katey, and he clutched her arm so that with difficulty she refrained from crying out, you will not believe them ? Was it the pain brought the sob with her words? I will believe you. fell me the truth. Tell me, now, Dacre. Suddenly the sound of voices broke out into the night. There was the sxveeping of garments over the veranda. I must~ go ; whispered Katey. 1 have staid too long. But dont leave me so. Come to the house, and ask for me to-morrow. Come to the house? Not I. Do you go to church ever in the evening ? Yes. And alone ? Sometimes. 11 meet you then to-morrow night. No matter when and where; I shall not miss you. He swung himself over the wall, and disappeared. T he voices had ceased. It was only a party of girls crossing the veranda. Ihey had passed on, and the place was still again. Katey stood for a moment leaning against the wall where he had left her. And this was the meeting she had looked forward to for weeks past! This was the new life which was to come to him through her! What had happened to him she could not 62 KA FLHERZNE EARLE. think, but no good she was sure. And for the first time she realized the burden she had taken upon herself,realized that, though her presence might influence him, when away from her he would fall into the old channels which led, she knew not where, but away from everything good and honest and true. But she had known something of this from the first; if she had only paused to think,if she had only acknowledged it t~ herself ;should she turn away from him, now that he was in trouble? 0 no; never! She would be true to him in the face of the whole world, though her heart was heavy and sad, and full of forebodings as she made the vow. She crossed the garden, locked the door behind her, and ran up the stairs without meeting any one. It was only when her hand was upon the door of the music-room that she remembered the shawl still wrapped about, her shoulders. She carried it back to the desk where she had found it. Then she saw that the pretty white gown, whose folds she held, was wet with dew. She shook it out while she wait- ed a moment to still her hurried breath- ing before joining the others. The music-room was quite deserted now; the company had returned to the parlors. As she stood a moment in the library, where some of the girls lingered, a voice spoke in her ear: What a fine color! Pray where did you find it? She turned, and met Miss Wormleys face drawn into a smile that was more than half a sneer. Ah, what a pity! You have stained your gown. It was true; the slimy moss from the wall had left its mark. It is still quite fresh; let me remove it and she took out her handkerchief Dont trouble yourself, it is nothing, Katey replied coldly; but growing red and white by turns as she drew her dress away, while the girls, grouped about eating their ices, looked up to wonder, not understand- ing this by-play. There had been another silent witness of the scene, who came for- ward now. Allow me; you have not been served, I see, Prof. Dyce said, putting a plate into Kateys hand. He seemed to have forgotten his annoyance at her stu- pidity the other evening, as well as the part of spy he had played the day before, as, turning his back upon, and quite ignor- ing Miss Wormley, he chatted gravely but graciously for the few moments before the breaking up of the companyabout what she could not have told. She only felt gratefully that his words called for rare and brief response, and served to banish her tormentor. She was passing through the music- room on her way to breakfast the next morning, when President Humphrey call- ed to her from the library. Pray, calm your fears, he said, as she answered the summons with a sinking heart, which showed itself in a startled face, xve have no fault to find with you, have we, Dyce? Then she saw that Prof. Dyce was writ- ing before the table by the window. I beg your pardon ? he said interrogatively, raising his eyes for an instant, and then re- turning to his writing again. The President laughed as he shuffled the letters in his hand. He was greatly amused at the awe he fancied his presence had inspired in the mind of his junior teacher. Miss Katherine Earle, he read, selecting one. It was for this I call- ed you back, not to scold you. Dyce, here, gives me a very good account of your stewardship. So he had praised her! That was strange. The pen had ceased to scratch over the paper at the other end of the room. Prof. Dyce raised his head. You have managed your classes exceed- ingly well, he said. That was all! There was a reservation, she felt, in his tone and his commendation. She made a little comprehensive courtesy as she received her letter. It might imply thanks if he choose to consider it so, at least it hid the tears which sprang to her eyes. Then she quitted the room. The letter was from Delphine. She had recognized her handwriting even before the President gave it to her. She remem- bered Dacres words, Delphine or Jack will write you. Then came the appeal, but you will not believe them ! What was she not to believe? She had hardly courage to open the letter when she was once locked into her room. Here she might stay through all the morning, alone. It was not her turn to take the girls to church, and her absence would not be re- marked upon. My dear Katey, the letter said, how dreadful it is that Dacre Home should be involved in that bank affair! I really can think of nothing else. The cashier told Robert that he doubted if it could be prov- ed that he was one of the gang; but there was no doubt about it in his own mind. They have caught some of them, as you may have heard. I cannot but hope I THE NEW HOMES OF NE TV YORK. 63 he may escape, however. It would be so painful for the familyeven if he were not convicted. And to think we have known him so well! Of course, now, we shall never meet him again. I am sorry we saw him so often at the sea-sideindeed, I re- gret that he ever came there at all. I used to fancy sometimes that he was fond of you; I fairly shudder at the thought; and yet, how foolish to refer to it; I was mis- taken, of course. But how shocking it is! XVhere he is now no one knows. It is sup- posed that he has escaped to Canada. But enough of this ; and she proceeded to speak of other matters, which were as sticks and straws to poor Katey, who stared at the words, taking in nothing of their mean- ing. As to the first part of the letter, it was impressed as by fire upon her brain. They all condemned him; they all believed him guilty; but there rose within her a convic- tion, a blessed conviction, without which she felt she must have fallen where she stood, that he had spoken the truth to her the night before, and that he was innocent. Nothing should shake her in this belief. And Delphine had fancied he was fond of her, but acknowledged now that she had been mistaken! Delphine who had en- couraged him; who had talked to her of how cruel society had been to this hand- some boy; who had sat through all the long summer days with her hands folded in her lap, giving countenance to the pretty play which seemed to end like a tragedy; who had even pleaded with her for him Had she forgotten it all? In truth, poor Delphine had written from her perplexity and self-reproach, hoping by ignoring the past to warn her of the future, if, indeed, warning were necessary. But she mis- judged Katey. To one who has enlisted heart and soul in a warfare the time to waver is not when the foe appears; to one who has really taken upon himself vows the time to doubt is not when the rack is brought out. She would never desert him now. She folded up the letter and laid it away. She was dizzy and ill,and yet she must not be ill. She must see him to-night, at any cost. She would rest now; and she crept intO bed, forcing herself to compose her body, and close her eyes, and so she lay through all the long morning. Sleep was impossible; but she would rest, she said over and over again. Clary came at noon and brought a cup of tea, and at night she rose and dressed herself and went down ~vith the others. (To be coniinued.) THE NEW HOMES OF NEW YORK. A STUDY OF FLATS. VERY few New York houses wear out. Fewer still are built to wear out. The manifest destiny of most is to be torn down after a limited service, if they are so fortu- nate as not to tumble down, or burn up in the meantime,to give place to something else, generally something better. Commerce crowds, and fashion shifts her seat from year to year. The mansion house of yesterday is a shop to-day, or has been demolished to make room for one; and the business edifice which was the marvel and boast of the generation just past, has been overtopped or displaced by a structure such as our fathers never dreamed of. The disposition to tear down and re- build, or the necessity for it, so character- istic of New York, is in one respect an ad- vantage. It facilitates groxvth, and allows the readiest adaptation of our houses to the rapidly changing needs of the community. Especially is it favorable to the reform in domestic architecture, which has made so much progress during the last decade, and which, in spite of the misdirected zeal of traditional builders, promises to work great changes in our household economy and social habits before the current century shall have run out. There is probably no great city in the world which needs a reform in domestic architecture more urgently than New York, as there is none which contains such a pre- ponderance of dwellings unsuited to the wants of the people who inbabit them. As a rule New York houses are not made for any one in particular; or in case they happen to have been so constructed, they

THE NEW HOMES OF NE TV YORK. 63 he may escape, however. It would be so painful for the familyeven if he were not convicted. And to think we have known him so well! Of course, now, we shall never meet him again. I am sorry we saw him so often at the sea-sideindeed, I re- gret that he ever came there at all. I used to fancy sometimes that he was fond of you; I fairly shudder at the thought; and yet, how foolish to refer to it; I was mis- taken, of course. But how shocking it is! XVhere he is now no one knows. It is sup- posed that he has escaped to Canada. But enough of this ; and she proceeded to speak of other matters, which were as sticks and straws to poor Katey, who stared at the words, taking in nothing of their mean- ing. As to the first part of the letter, it was impressed as by fire upon her brain. They all condemned him; they all believed him guilty; but there rose within her a convic- tion, a blessed conviction, without which she felt she must have fallen where she stood, that he had spoken the truth to her the night before, and that he was innocent. Nothing should shake her in this belief. And Delphine had fancied he was fond of her, but acknowledged now that she had been mistaken! Delphine who had en- couraged him; who had talked to her of how cruel society had been to this hand- some boy; who had sat through all the long summer days with her hands folded in her lap, giving countenance to the pretty play which seemed to end like a tragedy; who had even pleaded with her for him Had she forgotten it all? In truth, poor Delphine had written from her perplexity and self-reproach, hoping by ignoring the past to warn her of the future, if, indeed, warning were necessary. But she mis- judged Katey. To one who has enlisted heart and soul in a warfare the time to waver is not when the foe appears; to one who has really taken upon himself vows the time to doubt is not when the rack is brought out. She would never desert him now. She folded up the letter and laid it away. She was dizzy and ill,and yet she must not be ill. She must see him to-night, at any cost. She would rest now; and she crept intO bed, forcing herself to compose her body, and close her eyes, and so she lay through all the long morning. Sleep was impossible; but she would rest, she said over and over again. Clary came at noon and brought a cup of tea, and at night she rose and dressed herself and went down ~vith the others. (To be coniinued.) THE NEW HOMES OF NEW YORK. A STUDY OF FLATS. VERY few New York houses wear out. Fewer still are built to wear out. The manifest destiny of most is to be torn down after a limited service, if they are so fortu- nate as not to tumble down, or burn up in the meantime,to give place to something else, generally something better. Commerce crowds, and fashion shifts her seat from year to year. The mansion house of yesterday is a shop to-day, or has been demolished to make room for one; and the business edifice which was the marvel and boast of the generation just past, has been overtopped or displaced by a structure such as our fathers never dreamed of. The disposition to tear down and re- build, or the necessity for it, so character- istic of New York, is in one respect an ad- vantage. It facilitates groxvth, and allows the readiest adaptation of our houses to the rapidly changing needs of the community. Especially is it favorable to the reform in domestic architecture, which has made so much progress during the last decade, and which, in spite of the misdirected zeal of traditional builders, promises to work great changes in our household economy and social habits before the current century shall have run out. There is probably no great city in the world which needs a reform in domestic architecture more urgently than New York, as there is none which contains such a pre- ponderance of dwellings unsuited to the wants of the people who inbabit them. As a rule New York houses are not made for any one in particular; or in case they happen to have been so constructed, they /YJE NE TV HOMES OF NE TV YORK. are rarely occupied by the people, or From a domestic point of view, indeed, even the same class of people they were New York is a city of paradoxes. It is full originally intended for. As a consequence, of palatial dwellings and homeless people the majority of New York households are the most hopelessly homeless living not living like hermit crabs in other creatures unfrequently in the bravest houses and shells, suiting their lives to dwellings that do paying for unsocial subsistence a price that, not fit them, and themselves to a style of under a wiser system, might give them every living agreeable neither to their taste nor domestic comfort the heart could wish. their pockets. Seeing the prevailing four and five-story dimen- sions of our common hous- us, and knowing that each is intended for but a single family, a stranger might reasonably infer that households of patriarchal strength and fertility were the rule among us, and mar- vel at the cry that the race is dying out. Still more might he marvel to discov- er that hundreds of these handsome residences are standing empty, while the crying need in New York. is respectable shelter at reasonable cost. HOLLYS PROPOSED FAMILY HOTEL. GILMAN S PROPOSED APARTMENT HOUSE. 65 TILE NEW hOMES OF NE W YORK. Thousands who would live in the city could they find suitable homes here, and who would be worth millions to the city, are driven to the. surrounding country to build up Jersey and all the regions round about; while no small proportion of those who must remain are forced into a manner of living which violates the very first re- quirements of the life we most affect, name- ly, individual privacy and family seclu- sion. As a people we set a high value on domestic life; we venerate the hearth- stone: yet here we are herded in hotels and boarding-houses where privacy is all but unknown and home-making impos- sible, submitting perforce to have our lives ordered by others who house us and feed us as may seem most profitable to them, and grudgingly conforming ourselves to an existence which we instinctively abhor, which sinks the domestic circle, destroys the atmosphere of home, forces the young into untimely and spurious development, delays marriage,in a thousand ways, in short, corrupts or prevents the sole sure foundation of a good commonwealth, wholesome and happy homes. Our own fault? Largely, no doubt, but not wholly, as every one knows who has ever tried to cut loose from the hotel- keeper or Madam of the boarding-house, to set up a modest establishment of his own. Unless one can afford to buy or rent a whole house for the privilege of occupy- ing a quarter of it, his chances are few in New York for finding the dwelling-space he desires. Our houses are not made for the accommodation of small families. By some mysterious dispensation,in punish- ment for our sins, it might, be suspected, were it possible for Providence to make use of a discipline so clearly adverse to virtue,house-building in New York has been chiefly given over to speculative car- penters and bricklayers, who cover the ground with structures that look very im- posing from without and are very imposing within and throughout, if mistaken for dwellingsrows of houses as uniform in style and finish as if made by machinery, and as uniformly unsuited to the needs of their expected occupants. It is safe to say, that there are in the city ten times as many houses, three, four and five stories high, planned,so far as they are planned at all, for the accommodation of but one family each, as there are families large enough to fill them or rich enough to support them. VOL. VIIL~ On the othex hand, not one- tenth of the families who live, or would live in the city, can find suit- able shelter for the main- tenance of homes; that is, a p a r t me n t S containing the required num- ber of rooms and no more, grouped for easy and eco- .n o mi c a I housekeeping, and shielded from undue publicity. The condi- tions which have done most to bring about this un- desirable state of things are not hard to discover. The narrow area of our island and the ceaseless crowdings of c o m m e r c e have made the land extreme- ly valuable; small houses, such as shelter the popula- tions of other A m e r i c a n cities, are out of the ques- tion here. We must build deep and high to pay the ground-rent. But our need of house- room does not increase with the size of the houses, nor does our ability to pay for superfluous space; a fact, which the average New York house-builder seems incapable of comprehending. Nor has he yet learned that multiple tenancy alone can makelarge houses economical, and home life possible to the multitude in a city like this: this, too, without converting our GROUND FLOOR OF CHEAP FLAT. 66 THE NEW HOMES OF NEW YORK. dwellings into barracks, or anything like them. Other people build large and lofty dwell- ings without saddling themselves with the household evils which we labor under; but they are not people of English descent, or those whose architectural habits and social prejudices have been determined by En- glish influences. The genuine Briton puts his social trust only in vertical walls. He feels his privacy invaded the moment there is any one above or below him in space, any one not amenable to his household rules and regulations; a prejudice harmless enough where there is no lateral compression, where one is not obliged to climb for room; but mischievous in a crowded community like ours, since it gives our houses the pro- portions of a brick on end, and makes them inconvenient, wasteful of space, and altogether unsuited to our needs. Continental communities find equal pri- vacy, equal security, and vastly greater comfort between horizontal walls. The Frenchman, the German, the Italian,even the Scotchman,prefers a level apartment, and concerns himself as little about who lives over or under him, as the Englishman does about his neighbor next door. It is a striking illustration of the force of inheritance, that we who pride ourselves on our independence, our common sense, and our ability to get a dollars worth for a dollar, should, in so important a matter, allow the cockneys prejudice to outweigh the experience and economy of all other civilized nations. In all the capitals of Europe,Paris, Vienna, Berlin, Florence, and the rest, the problem of the maximum of household accommodation with the minimum of cost, has been an architectural commonplace for centuries; and it has been uniformly solved in a style of building the reverse of that which we have copied from the Englisha style which provides ample and convenient house-room for twelve families on the same area that we require for three, and proportionately diminishes the ground-rent, and average cost of shelter to each. The loss which our inconvenient and wasteful mode of building involves, is not to be wholly measured, either, by the ex- orbitant rents we have to pay. It is felt in every element of our personal, family, social and political life. Who, for example, can estimate the citys loss in the banishment of the thousands ofprofessional and business men, who spend their working hours in the city and betake them- selves to the suburbs and the outlying country at night for the home - life which the city denies them? Unable to find on the island the shelter they require for the money theycan afford to pay, they plant their families else- where, depriv- ing them and themselves of the privileges of recreation, social life, and culture which concentration makes possi- ble, and the city of their social and po- litical pres- ence, which it sorely needs. As soon as common sense comes to rule in our domes- tic architect- ure, instead of tradition and routine, this most desir- able middle class will have an oppor- tunity to return to metropolitan life to wield the balance of power now divided between the very rich and politically in- different, and the very poor and politically unscrupulous. In the meantime there may be spasmodic attempts at political reform and the purifying of the social atmosphere, but their effects will be transient for lack of substantial backing. $ If UPPER FLOOR OF CHEAP FLAT. THE NEW HOMES OF NEW YORK. 67 Another evil connected with and result- ing from the traditional style of house building is sub-letting. There are relative- ly few families whose incomes are sufficient to pay the rent of a four or five story house. A house they must have, in a good street; and as small houses are not to be had, there is no choice but to take a big one and sub-let as much of it as may be pos- sible, to make up the lacking rent. If the houses were designed for multiple tenancy, this resort would work no mischief; but they are not. The extra tenants must be strangers, single gentlemen, or married couples without encumbrances. The lodgers must be fed; and as it is rarely convenient for them to go out for their meals, they are very apt in the end to find a seat at the family table. The domestic circle is thus broken, the privacy of home is invaded, and the house degenerates into a boarding-house. From taking in lodgers as a makeshift, to keeping boarders as a business, the transition is easy, and once on the downward course, the blotting out of independent home-life is rapid and in- evitable. The children are spoiled, the ~vife becomes a drudge, or worse, a schemer; ande very one has seen the result. The city is full of families whose social tone has been lowered, whose normal develop- inent has been thwarted, by the vain at- tempts to sustain a home by a process which breaks down the domestic walls, makes privacy impossible and home an empty name: and the gregarious existence of boarding is, as every one has seen, equally damaging to those who resort to it. The evil is characteristic of New York. The remedy lies primarily with the archi- tects. When housekeeping can be attempt- ed within the city limits, without a fortune to pay the rent and an army of servants to do the endless drudgery of ill-planned houses, home making may again be fashion- able among us. Another evil is that of servants. If our house-builders were in league with Bridget to develop and maintain this form of domestic slavery,the slavery of employers,they could not devise a more successful plan than the one they now pursue. The average house is little else than a string of stairs, with more or less extended landings. The kitchen is under- ground. A practically uninhabited parlor floor is sandwiched between the dining- room and the family living-room, and the chambers are piled atop. To go from one room to another, costs a climb of from twenty to a hundred steps. Up and down, up and down, the women folk are perpetu- al]y toiling as in a treadmill, wasting daily in the fruitless and health-destroying labor of carrying themselves from floor to floor an amount of strength sufficient to do the whole work of a sensibly constructed house. Very few American women can endure it, let alone doing their household work besides: hence the power of Bridget. She knows that she is indispensable, and dominates accordingly. Her dominion would be sapped were housekeeping once brought, as it might be, fairly within the strength of less muscular women. As soon as it becomes possible to live without her, or so many of her, so soon it will be possible to subsist in comfort with her. The progress making toward this desir- able consummation,that is, economical and home-creating houses,is, to say the least, promising. Nearly twenty years ago a beginning was made in a small but hand- some apartment house erected in Wooster street, on a plan furnished by Mr. R. M. Hunt. About the same time, perhaps a little earlier, a similar house in Hudson street offered com,plete facilities for modest housekeeping on separate floors. These houses though less needed then than now, were eagerly taken by families moderately DOUBLZ FLArALThRKD HOUSES. 1 63 THE NEW HOMES OF NEW YORK. well-to-do, who wanted good and con- venient homes at relatively small cost, and whose prejudices did not prevent their living under the same roof with two or three other families of the same social grade. From time to time other houses, more or less deservedly styled French Flats, were erected on the avenues, especially on the west side, but without meeting or meriting much success. Sham elegance and general inconvenience were their most prominent characteristics; mar- ble mantels and much paint vainly striving to atone for the absence of ventilation, and the too abundant presence of dark rooms, narrow passages, and back-break- ing stairs. Now and then a genuine at- tempt to further the reform was made, but received little popular encouragement un- til the successful establishment of a few elegant apartment houses for the rich demonstrated to those of moderate means the possibility of multiple tenancy without risk of social debasement. The earliest American venture in this direction was, we believe, the Hotel Pel- ham in Bostoii, designed by Mr. Arthur Gilman. Successful from the first, this house initiated a nexv order of building, which has proved immensely popular in Boston. Many of the finest dwellings in the newer and better part of the city are on the apartment plan, each offering from ten to -twenty suites of rooms adapted to the needs of thoroughly complete first-class housekeeping, at reasonable prices. The pioneer apartment houses in New York are the well-known Stuyvesant Build- GILMAN S PLAN OF APARTMENT HOUSE. ings; the first, in Eighteenth street, having been opened in the fall of 1870, and the second, in Thirteenth street, the following spring. Both are large, massive, and handsome buildings, finished throughout in a style at once rich and modest. The apartments, some of six, others often rooms, including kitchen and servants rooms, are designed for strictly independent house- keeping, in good but not extravagant style. The lack of elevators detracts somewhat from the valne of the apartments; still they have never failed of steadl occupation by first-class tenants, at extra good prices proof enough that houses of the sort are needed in New York, and that the style of living they are designed for is not in itself distasteful to American families of high grade. The next experiment in this direction, the Haight House, corner of Fifteenth street and Fifth avenue, introduced a public kitchen and dining-room, with other feat- ures, which give it a position midway be- tween an apartment house proper and a family hotel. It has five floors, divided into twenty family suites provided with everything requisite for independent house - keeping, and fifteen suites for single gentle- men. Each of the family apartments in- cludes a small antechamber or private en- trance from the public hall, a parlor, a din- ing-room (with butlers pantry), a kitchen, three bed-rooms, and a bath-room. The bachelor suites are of two and three rooms each. Meals are served in the dining-hall or restaurant to such as choose to dispense with cooking in their own apartments. Those who prefer greater privacy, can order their own marketing through the stew- ard, have the food cooked in the common kitchen, and served in their own rooms. A steam laundry does the washing for the house, and an elevator re- lieves the tenants of the upper floors from the fatigues of stair-climbing. The internal history of this house neatly illus THE NE W HOMES OF NEW YORK. 69 trates what promises to be a cha- racteristic feature of New York life under the coming re~irne, that is, the clustering of particu- lar social sets about particular centers. From the first, the Haight House has been the chosen refuge of artistic and literary people, who are able to find home, society, recreation, everything almost which goes to distinguish civilized life,with out passing from under their own roof. An establishment of similar character, though immensely more ambitious and expensive is the Stevens House, on Twenty- seventh street, between Broad- way ahd Fifth avenue. It was opened in 1872, and. has since been partially remodeled. As an investment it has not been fortunate, its great height, or- nate front, and extravag~int in- ternal decoration, making it far more impressive to the beholder than profitable to the owner. While it splendidly illustrates one phase of the new order of domestic architecture, its influ- ence on the reform has been hardly favor- able. The Grosvenor, corner of Tenth street and Fifth avenue, is a type unique. Start- ing with a singularly clear conception of the wants of a particular class of New York families,a class possessing wealth, cult- ure, refinement, and love of ease, and de- siring the security and comfort of home life, with none of its cares,the designer of the Grosvenor brought to the task of sup- plying the demand a rare experience as a successful hotel manager, a genius for or- ganization, ample means, and untiring vigi- lance in the carrying out of his plans. The result is an establishment which may well be considered a model, since it secures the economy of multip~ tenancy and co-opera- tive living, with the atmosphere of home, and combines all the advantages of English exclusiveness and solid elegance, with the utmost independence in all that pertains to individual life. It is, in fact, a nest of elegant homes, each distinct and thorough- ly secluded, yet all provided for with the elaborate machinery and systematic service of a first-rate hotel. The Grosvenor was a success from the first. It opened with all its rooms leased for terms of years, while scores of desirable tenants eagerly enrolled themselves as can- didates for the first vacancies that might occur. While these first-rate adventures were demonstrating the need of apartment houses for the very rich, and the willingness of good families to adopt the style of life which they call for, not a little progress was made toward supplying with similar homes the classes less bountifully favored by fortunenot progress enough to make housekeeping and home-life available to the multitude, but quite enough to give a clear indication of what the future New York dwelling is likely to be. In the newer districts around the lower end of Central Park, and along the avenues up town, a great number of new houses have been laid out in independent floors, each designed for individual housekeeping. Lower down, in neighborhoods lately abandoned by the tide of fashion, it has come to be quite a common practice to convert into flats a style of deep and double houses, no longer acceptable to those who can afford to occupy them alone, and to throw togethei~ PLAN OF APARTMENT MOUSESIX SUPER TO A FLOOR. THE NEW HOMES QJ? NEW YORK. 70 for a like purpose groups of old style, narrow houses, immensely increasing their capacity and desirability, besides doubling their rental. Indeed, this method of adapting old houses to new uses by changing their plan has become a marked feature in the architectural development of the city. Those who have given but little thought to the question of apartment houses and apartment living are very apt to underrate the importance of the domestic reforms which the system involves. They are apt, too, to think of this style of buildings as suited to a small part of the community only, regarding them either as a more re- spectable sort of tenement house for the poor, or as a cross between a club-house and a family hotel, well enough for aristo- cratic imitators of French manners, but scarcely the thing for people of modest republican habits. The truth is, there is no class of the com- munity for whom apartment houses are not suited: while it is easy to show that, what- ever their style, however cheap or costly, the money expended on them will fur- nish ampler home space, superior facili- ties for economical living, greater privacy and security, a nobler style of architecture, and better appointments every way for a larger number of persons, than is possible with the common fashion of building. The city abounds in people with in- comes sufficient to enable them to live as they choose, who would not choose to en- dure the care and annoyance of an estab- lishment if they could help it. In most cases they are well on in years. Their children have grown up and scattered, and advancing age has taught them to prefer ease and retirement to wearisome grandeur. A suite of rooms fitted up to their taste in a house like the Grosvenor, with the attendance of a few neat and trusty servants, would answer all their needs, giving them the comforts of home, while relieving them of the burden of a great house. Not less desirable are such establish- ments for those to whom economy is more an object, and who can as little afford the cost as the care of a separate home to their taste. The refuge of this class is, speaking generally, the hotel or the fashionable boarding-house. Were suitable apart- ments obtainable,in family hotels for those without young children; in flats for those blest with such encumbrances,the most of this class would establish them- selves in homes, greatly to their material and social well-being, instead of wasting their years in the costly and unsatisfactory life they are now driven to. A broader and more numerous class succeeds, embracing the well-to-do, from those who may live handsomely with econ- omy, down to those whose income does not exceed twenty-five hundred or three thou- sand a year. Many of these have culture, refinement, taste, and can appreciate the finer advantages of civilization as fully as the richest. In any other American city they would be able to own or rent a whole house in a more or less fashionable street, and enjoy life with the best. In New York, where small houses are not to be had in decent neighborhoods, and apartment houses are as yet the privi- lege of the fortunate few, the choice of this class lies principally between banish- ment from the city, the occupation of a part of a house not made for multiple housekeeping, b9arding, or keeping board- ers; a choice of evils all so bad that which- ever be chosen the chooser is pretty sure to repent of his decision before he is done with it. For those whose taste dictates a genuine, individual home-life, and whose means forbid an expensive style of living, New York is certainly not a paradise, whatever its attractions and advantages may be in other respects. For the very poor the case is still worse. Their dwellings are, in the main, either the decayed and abandoned mansions of de- parted fashion, planned for an entirely dif- ferent set of conditions, or else huge bar- racks, wretched human hives, all but des- titute of every provision for quiet and cleanly living, full of dark, unventilated rooms, and overrun with vermin. The life they compel is enough to blunt every sen- sibility and cn~sh out every aspiration from the souls of the unfortunates who endure it; more than enough to make the onlooker sigh for the cheap and cheerful cottages which shelter the laboring classes of other cities. Quick transit may do something towards making similar cottage-homes accessible to the better sorts of New York laboring men, but not much; still less for the poorer, who can afford neither the time nor the expense of travel. The doubtful advan- tages of the suburbs are rather for those whose shorter hours of business allow them time to go and come without tres- passing too much on the hours of rest and

THE NEW HOMES QJ? NEW YORK. 70 for a like purpose groups of old style, narrow houses, immensely increasing their capacity and desirability, besides doubling their rental. Indeed, this method of adapting old houses to new uses by changing their plan has become a marked feature in the architectural development of the city. Those who have given but little thought to the question of apartment houses and apartment living are very apt to underrate the importance of the domestic reforms which the system involves. They are apt, too, to think of this style of buildings as suited to a small part of the community only, regarding them either as a more re- spectable sort of tenement house for the poor, or as a cross between a club-house and a family hotel, well enough for aristo- cratic imitators of French manners, but scarcely the thing for people of modest republican habits. The truth is, there is no class of the com- munity for whom apartment houses are not suited: while it is easy to show that, what- ever their style, however cheap or costly, the money expended on them will fur- nish ampler home space, superior facili- ties for economical living, greater privacy and security, a nobler style of architecture, and better appointments every way for a larger number of persons, than is possible with the common fashion of building. The city abounds in people with in- comes sufficient to enable them to live as they choose, who would not choose to en- dure the care and annoyance of an estab- lishment if they could help it. In most cases they are well on in years. Their children have grown up and scattered, and advancing age has taught them to prefer ease and retirement to wearisome grandeur. A suite of rooms fitted up to their taste in a house like the Grosvenor, with the attendance of a few neat and trusty servants, would answer all their needs, giving them the comforts of home, while relieving them of the burden of a great house. Not less desirable are such establish- ments for those to whom economy is more an object, and who can as little afford the cost as the care of a separate home to their taste. The refuge of this class is, speaking generally, the hotel or the fashionable boarding-house. Were suitable apart- ments obtainable,in family hotels for those without young children; in flats for those blest with such encumbrances,the most of this class would establish them- selves in homes, greatly to their material and social well-being, instead of wasting their years in the costly and unsatisfactory life they are now driven to. A broader and more numerous class succeeds, embracing the well-to-do, from those who may live handsomely with econ- omy, down to those whose income does not exceed twenty-five hundred or three thou- sand a year. Many of these have culture, refinement, taste, and can appreciate the finer advantages of civilization as fully as the richest. In any other American city they would be able to own or rent a whole house in a more or less fashionable street, and enjoy life with the best. In New York, where small houses are not to be had in decent neighborhoods, and apartment houses are as yet the privi- lege of the fortunate few, the choice of this class lies principally between banish- ment from the city, the occupation of a part of a house not made for multiple housekeeping, b9arding, or keeping board- ers; a choice of evils all so bad that which- ever be chosen the chooser is pretty sure to repent of his decision before he is done with it. For those whose taste dictates a genuine, individual home-life, and whose means forbid an expensive style of living, New York is certainly not a paradise, whatever its attractions and advantages may be in other respects. For the very poor the case is still worse. Their dwellings are, in the main, either the decayed and abandoned mansions of de- parted fashion, planned for an entirely dif- ferent set of conditions, or else huge bar- racks, wretched human hives, all but des- titute of every provision for quiet and cleanly living, full of dark, unventilated rooms, and overrun with vermin. The life they compel is enough to blunt every sen- sibility and cn~sh out every aspiration from the souls of the unfortunates who endure it; more than enough to make the onlooker sigh for the cheap and cheerful cottages which shelter the laboring classes of other cities. Quick transit may do something towards making similar cottage-homes accessible to the better sorts of New York laboring men, but not much; still less for the poorer, who can afford neither the time nor the expense of travel. The doubtful advan- tages of the suburbs are rather for those whose shorter hours of business allow them time to go and come without tres- passing too much on the hours of rest and THE NEW HOMES OF NEW YORK. 7 recreation, and whose ampler means enable them to pay the fares. The vast army of workingmen employed in the heart of the city must find house-room for their families near their place of business. The healthful and economical housing of such multitudes, however, is not possi- ble with the current fashion of house- building. Instead of the hap-hazard struct- ures, large and small, which crowd our down-town wards, there is needed a class of dwellings specially constructed for the people who are to occupy them; houses broad and high, to diminish the cost of land and material to each tenant; plainly yet substantially built for cheapness, safety and durability; suitably divided into self- contained and thoroughly private apart- ments for households of different sizes; properly lighted and ventilated; with bath- rooms, closets, dumps for garbage and ashes, and lifts for coal and provisions: in short, provided with whatever may be requisite for wholesome though humble housekeeping. That such houses can be erected, so as to offer all these advantages, at cheaper rates than the poor now pay for their miserable lodgings, and yet leave a liberal margin for profit to the owner, is easy to prove. Property of the kind will pay as a speculation, let alone its social and sanitary advantages to the city at large. But these latter considerations must not be left out of the account. The con- centration of numbers made necessary by the peculiar conditions of our metropolitan life, cannot go on regardless of sanitary and social laws without incurring greater risks than any community can afford to assume; with due regard to such laws, population may be packed many times more densely, acre by acre, than has ever yet been done, and that with little danger to health or morals. Contrary to the common notion, the un- wholesome condition of our overcrowded wards is due far less to the excessive number of the inhabitants than to their improper distribution and the unfitness of their dwellings for the housing of many people. The most thickly populated wards in the city,in the world, for that matter, average from two hundred to three hun- dred and twenty-five persons to the acre, the highest average to a house being a frac- tion short of twenty-five: a large number, truly, in comparison with the population of ordinary districts, but certainly not large compared with the number comfortably housed,so far as space goes,on a cor- responding area covered by our great ho- tels, like the Fifth Avenue or the Grand Central Hotel. The new Windsor covers about two-thirds of an acre, and has five hundred rooms. If each room con- tained one occupant,not a crowded state of things, surely !there would be on those two-thirds of an acre a population twice as dense as the average of our densest wards. Plainly, many times the number now huddled in pestilential filth and wretchedness in the Fourth Ward might have ample space and breathing room if the dwellings were only constructed with reference to their moral and physical needs. The same is true of the Eleventh, Fourteenth, and other dangerously crowded wards. There is room on our island for millions. A fair arrangement of apartments for a cheap tenement for twelve or fifteen faini- lies, on an ordinary city lot, is shown in the accompanying plans. Each floor has three distinct apartments, fully provided with the, primary requisites for decent and healthful living, and every room is lighted from without. Laundry privileges, bath- PROPOSED ELEVATION OF FIRST-CLASS APARTMENT HOUSE. 72 THE NEW BOA/ES OF NEW YORK. rooms, and the like, could be furnished in the basement. Substantially built in a fairly good neighborhood and honestly finished throughout, a house on this plan, five sto- ries high, let at the usual tenement house rates, would return from twelve to fifteen per cent. interest on its cost. The demand for such shelter is so great, however, that apartments of the kind now command very much higher rates, and, of course, the property-holders profit accord- ingly. Where two adjoining lots are at com- mand, a much superior arrangement may be effected by erecting a double house, with common stairways and an open court for light and air in the middle,thus se- curing broader and more cheerful passages, besides letting sunshine into the heart of the house, a sanitary condition too little regarded in tenement houses. Indeed, in the planning of the majority of our cheap flats, and not a small proportion of the more ekpensive ones as well, any thought of lighting and ventilating seems never to have entered. This, it is true, makes them relatively no worse than the common run of deep houses; still, where some indica- tion of intelligent planning is shown, it is provoking to find such important matters overlooked. Knowing the stupidity of the common mechanical builder, it does not surprise one to see a corner house made exactly after the pattern of a house in the middle of a block, with its inner rooms all dark, and fifty feet of blank wall facing the side street it does surprise one to see the same sort of blunder made by one who is bright enough to recognize the advantages of a fiat house. But the thing is done with a monotony of iteration. Though dark rooms are always an abomination, and always avoidable, houses which do not have them are quite the exception; and not unfrequently considerable ingenuity seems to have been exercised in devising plans for the multiplication of these unwhole- some cells. We have in mind a very showy block near Central Park, which specially illus- trates this crowning vice of bad domestic architecture. Each house in the block con- tains nine rooms to a floor, besides closets. Of these, three rooms are absolutely light- less, and their only means of ventilation is through the doors opening into the private passage, also dark. Two other rooms are lighted by means of glazed doors, one open- ing into the parlor, the other into the din- ing-room. For these unwholesome flats the modest price of from eighty to one hun- dred dollars a month is asked. The build- er should be condemned to live in one of them and sleep in the midmost cell. I~ASEMENT HOLLY S PROPOSED FAMILY HOTEL I I. THE NEW HOMES OF NEW YORK. 73 Even in the most expensively finished flats there is far too little attention paid to the respiratory needs of the occupants. Where several families are gathered un- der one roof the need of care in this particular is so great that any manifest lack of it is simply intolerable. The smell of cooking spoils ones enjoyment of the finest apartments, and the most elegant surroundings will not sweeten the odor of stale tobacco-smoke from the janitors pipe, sul)plied with the warm air of ones parlor register. Another objection to very many flats is the tenement house aspect given them by their great height and the unadorned flat- ness of their fronts: a fault that any archi- tect could correct with a slight addition to the cost of the building. Unsubstantial construction,thin walls and floors too pervious to sound,are other faults not more common, perhaps, but much less tolerable in flats than in the common style of dwellings, and altogether unpardonable when the rent required (and readily obtained, so great is the demand for such dwellings) is high enough to pay a handsome profit on work of the most solid and conscientious description. From twenty to thirty per cent annual return on cost is, indeed, a common thing with flats; and that, too, in neighborhoods where the owner of an ordinary house is fortunate if he gets ten per cent. It is consequently as natural as it is gratifying that property- owners should be hastening to reconstruct old houses, and erect new ones, to meet the new demand. As an illustration of the advantages of these changes to all con- cerned, it will suffice to mention a single instance where, under the direction of a competent architect, a group of five old- style houses was recently converted into one apartment house, with apartments rang- ing from twenty-two rooms to three rooms. The change was made at an expense of $15,000. The immediate increase of rental was $io,ooo a year. Previously it was with great difficulty that tenants of any kind could be retained; after the altera- tion first-rate tenants were plentiful and eager; and where originally five families were inconveniently housed on the five lots, the same area now gives superior accommo- dation to twenty families. Still greater economy of space and ma- terial is possible with a larger order of structures, since the higher the building the more numerous the divisions of the ground RflLLRS PANTR~ SVTLERSPANTAY .~OIN/N~ DI*~F4G S7~ ~~LE ~ RED RXMJIFRROO& I ~iINOROOUi PAJRLDP HALF FIRST FLOORHOLLY S PROPOSED HOTEL. rent, the lower the average cost of rooms, and the ~lighter each familys share of the cost of common service. Besides, in a large house the upper floor can be made nearly, if not quite, as desirable~as the lower by the introduction of elevators, which can- not well be afforded when the tenants are fewer. In ~proof of this position the architect of the Pelham House kindly submits the following specifications for the building whose elevation is figured at the head of this article. It is a structure of splen- did architectural proportions, and, as will be seen in the plan, the apartments offer nearly double the accommodation given in existing flats and apartment houses. It will be shown directly that, if rented at current rates, these apartments would re- turn from twelve to fifteen per cent. in- terest on the cost of the building. The plan assumes for the building a frontage of 200 feet on an avenue (an entire block), and a depth of 125 feet on each side street,25 feet more being taken for a rear roadway, to be defended at each end by high ornamental gates of cast iron. This will give ten city lots to the building, and two for the roadway, and secure a plentiful supply of light and air on the four exterior faces of the structure. The height to be eight stories, including the first, or rez-de- c/iaussie, appropriated to shops of the first class, and the upper, oi mansard story, suit- 74 THE NEW HOMES OF NEW YORK. ably divided into rooms for servants, and baggage or store rooms. There will re- main six floors to be appropriated to forty- eight apartments, eight on a floor; each suite entirely independent of all the others. By reserving five interior courts of various sizes, direct light and perfect ventilation may be secured to every room throughout. The door of each suite opening directly from a broad marble landing connected with the main staircase and the adjacent elevators, will be to that suite, in all re- spects, a front door. Within is a vestibule, or ante-chamber, and beyond a private hall or corridor, upon which all the rooms and smaller passages open. The ceilings will be effectually deadened by one course of deafening between the floor-beams, and another three-fourths inch course of cement laid solid on the top of the under-board- ing; this latter will be again covered with the thick English felting now imported for the purpose. There are six stairways of brick and iron, completely fire-proof, two of them being grand staircases for the oc- cupants, and the other four back-stairs for servants, supplies, etc.; all to b~ readily accessible from each apartment. Two ele- vators, constantly running, will convey the occupants 6r their visitors readily to the upper floors. The front entrance is de- signed to be grand and imposing, as befits a structure of such magnitude. All the halls and public passage-ways will be heated by steam in the manner usual in first-class hotels; and a concierge, with as- sistants, to be constantly in attendance in the office to direct visitors, will take charge of parcels and messages, and attend to other general service of the sort. Each suite of rooms, or separate apart- ment, consists of drawing-room, ~6x22 feet; dining-room, 14x 16; three chambers, each 14x16; dressing-room or smaller chamber, 8xio; kitchen, opening on one of the inner courts, IoxI4, with three large store closets attached; butlers pan- try, 6x12, with hot and cold water laid on; haIl, or ante-chamber, 8x8; bath-room, and eight closets of various sizes, some of them exceedingly large,and, in addition, three mansard rooms, i4xio, for servants use, storage, and so on. All the ceilings will be high, and the finish handsome, though not extravagant throughout. With an exterior as attractive as that of the Gilsey House, or the Grand Hotel, a building of the proposed size and char- acter would cost at a fair calculation about I R00o~ROO~ ROD ROOM L,I.. DINING NORM PARLOR 4 OOO~It_ROOM 1LL7uI~ ~A~1 DININS ROOM L1 PARLOJ~ 101000. BOOLOR!SPAOTOYIJI OININ6 0011 LiOFOARY HALF UPPER FLOORHOLLY S PROPOSRO HOTEL. ODROOM 00000 HALL SECTION ALONO LINE A, BABOVE DIAGRAM. $850,000, and the land on which it should be placed about $175,000 more. At a moderate rental the shops, twelve in num- ber, might be relied upon to pay about $30,000 annually. The forty-eight suites of rooms would rent from $x,ooo to $2,500 a year each, according to their location and aspect,the least desirable being much better than those offered in any first-class building now erected at a rate fifty or sixty per cent higher. The aggregate rental would pay fifteen per cent on the cost of the building, and ten per cent on the in- vestment required for the land; and the eagerness with which a delighted public competes for the comforts of the houses offering similar privileges, at higher rates, is a sufficient guaranty that the building proposed would find little difficulty in se- curing tenants for its rooms. If erected on cheaper ground, and in an equally substantial though less costly style, it is clear that houses of this sort could be made to give accommodations much supe- rior to those furnished by our second-rate flats at prices considerably lower; while with smaller rooms, and fewer to a suite, yet ample in number and capacity for families of moderate size and means, twelve or sixteen families could be provided for in the space allotted to eight in the pro- 000 PARLOR ci ,0 / THE NEW HOMES OF NEW YORK. 75 posed plan, so that shelter for from eighty to a hundred households would be af- forded by the entire building. Thus, in- stead of housing miserably two hundred and forty people on ten lots, according to the highest average in the Fourth Ward, two or three times that number,per- haps five times,might be handsomely and healthfully provided for on the same area. How far space could be economized, and the general wholesomeness of the entire building increased by the abandonment of private kitchens, and the cooking of all the food in one place, is a matter yet untested among people of moderate means. Seeing, how well the plan works among the wealthy howeveras illustrated by the success of the Grosvenor, and hotels of similar char- acter,it would be a marvel if it failed among those whose need of good and eco- nomical cooking is so much greater. As a part of the common furniture of the house, the general kitchen would have to be under the control of the owner of the building, whose interest it would be to furnish his tenants with cooked food at cost; or he might cook the provisions supplied by them at rates much less than the cost of indi- vidual cooking, yet with profit enough to make the kitchen self-supporting. So like- wise with the laundry. A well developed plan for a block of first-class co-operative residences, made by Mr. H. Hudson Holly, of this city, for Trinity College, Hartford, Conn., is shown in the engravings presented herewith. The sale of the college property to the State for the use of its capitol prevented the carrying out of the plan, without injury, however, to its value as an illustration of a class of buildings called for in New York. The basement, as will be seen by refer- ence to the plan,which needs no extended description here,is devoted to the various needs of the complex household. Here the cooking, washing and so on, of all the tenants, can be done at the lowest rates by the general manager of the house. Elevators, tram-ways and steam-tight cars could be used for the quick and cleanly distribution of food to the private dining- rooms; and, if desired, trained attendants, employed by the proprietor, might accom- pany the food to serve it, thus enabling the tenants to reduce their private service to the minimum. For those who might choose to avail themselves of a public dining- room, an ample restaurant is provided wherein meals might be served to order, at moderate rates. The ground floor contains the grand staircase and entrance hall for the tenants of the upper floors, passenger elevator, etc.; and on each side three distinct and independent residences, having their own front doors, the three pairs of private entrances giving the block the external appearance of a row of ordinary first- class dwellings. The upper floors are similarly laid out, save that a common hall extends from one end of the building to the other, and the private passage-ways of the several apartments lead off from it. Each floor, with the exception of the topmost, which is divided into half suites, contains six independent residences, com- prising a parlor, a dining room,with but- lers pantry, having a small fire-place for the simpler sorts of cooking, hot and cold water, and other conveniences,closets, bath-room, hall-ways, two or three rooms on the common floor for nursery, bedrooms, etc., and four entre so! chambers, as shown in the accompanying section. The latter have no connection with the Dublic hall, since the stairways which lead to them rise from the inner private halls. This plan,like all the rest having any architectural pretensions,was manifestly devised for families of more than ordinary wealth and style. The substitution of cheaper materials in the construction of the building, and its erection on lower- priced land would adapt it, without other change, to the needs of people of more limit- ed means, largely reducing the average rent of the apartments, without lessening the profitableness of the building as an in- vestment. Or the same end could be at- tained by giving fewer rooms and smaller ones to a suite, so that a dozen small families could be comfortably lodged on each floor, or upwards of fifty in the entire house,each family having an abundance of room at relatively little cost, with the advantage of superior surroundings. A characteristic oversight in the plan- ning of most of the respectable flats in New York, is the failure to make provision for just this class of small, first-rate households. The rooms are too large, there are too many of them,everything, in short, is on too grand a scale for comfort and economy, save for families of six or eight members. The popularity of the system, and the ag- gregate rental of the houses as well, would be immensely increased by dividing the floors 76 RELENTING. or a part of them, into snug little suites of three or four rooms, well lighted and ven- tilated, thoroughly secluded, and fitted for modest housekeeping by newly-married couples; or those having but one or two children. The care of such apartments would involve but little labor; while by using gas as fuel, and the adoption of cer- tain simple yet scientific devices for les- sening culinary labor, the greatest degree of privacy, independence, comfort and economy would easily be attained. In contrast with boarding even under the most favorable conditions, such a life is,or may be,something like paradise regained. Aliay be. Of course happiness in this, as in any other style of life, pre-supposes capacity for happiness, and a disposition to make the most of what one has. rhat the general introduction of apartment houses would straightway inaugurate a domestic and social millennium no one would be so foolish as to imagine. Homes will be infelicitous, neighbors will have their dif- ferences, servants will wrangle and set their mistresses by the ears, chimneys will smoke, and waterpipes will burst, whether houses are built flat-wise or on edge. It stands to reason, none the less, that when the fundamental needs of families are re- garded in building, and the demonstrated laws of economy are heeded in the con- struction of our dwellings, we shall get more for our money, be able to live with less labor, to have homes where homes are im- possible now, and be allowed to increase our numbers without the destruction of health and moralsgains enough, in all con- science, to give us joy in the progress of the reform. Unfortunately the records of the City Superintendent of Buildings fail to specify the character of the houses for which per- mits are issued ; it is therefore impossible, without a special census, to tell how many flats and apartment houses there are in the city, or what is the ratio of their increase from year to year. About fifteen permits a month was the Superintendents estimate of the average number of permits issued last season for the reconstruction of old buildings and the erection of new ones for multiple tenancy. A large proportion of these were for buildings of high grade. RELENTING. THE earth is in a melting mood, This morning of the year; And clasped around by mists that brood, She smiles to find herself so wooed, With, now and then, a tear. The topmost fastness of the hill Has let the winter go; The happy-hearted little nil No longer shivers past the mill To meadows hushed with snow. The birds let fall their new-born dreams Upon me from above; And many a shadow wed with beams, And many a wind-kissed blossom seems To say a word for love. What is there in this tender air To thrill me like a dart? It quickens places poor and bare, And every covert sweet and fair, Except one maidens heart. 0, are such changeful gleams of light Made only to beguile? Then, I am but a foolish wight, To be so glad because, last night, She blessed me with a smile. But 0, when ice and snow relent, And every coldest thing; Might not, perchance, one more repent And melting into warm consent, Flood all my heart with Spring? -~ ~ I OVER I& EA. 77 OVER SEA. 0, where are you going, Lord Lovel ? she cried, 0, where are you going ? cried she. Im going, quoth he, fair Nancy Bell, Strange countrees for to see, see, see, Strange countrees for to see. WE ~vere all on the Pereire, and the Pe- reire was on the Grand Bank, her helm set for Brest, and reeling off her white wake twelve miles to the hour. The breeze was abeam but easy, and our sofas in the la- dies little saloon kept up a gentle, lop- sided rocking with the ship, like a tee- ter with the big boys all at one end. There were just four of themmere tate- ~-t~tesurrounding the saloon, with a vagrant camp-stool or two upon the floor. Im going to my state-room, the fat lady soliloquized. Alphonse ! she shouted, as the waiter shot across the open door, along the pass- age. Alphonse re-appears. Voulez-vous apportez-moi un autre glace of lemonade? and apportez-moi dans ma chambre. Tout de suite, madame, with unflinch- ing gravity. And, Alphonse! le lemonade cette temps ploo stronger ! Bien, madame ! Whereupon, madame fastens an eye upon the door-knob, makes a lucky lunge for it, hauls herself up and out, and goes staggering and bumping her way to her room. Well, thats the jolliest French Ive heard since the fellow who was told to hurry up for the ride, and snapped his whip with, Je suis d6jk! Bah! what do such people go to Europe for? She told a person in the cabin that she had done up half the towns in France already, and was going to finish em this trip, so as to say shed seen every one of em. I seeIve met her style. Fred and Miss Nelly had opened this little battery of gossip. Our Fred is just twenty, tall and slen- der from rapid growth, with handsome dark hair, expressive eyes, swift speech and gesturea New Yorker, of strqng Huguenot blood, the only son of a wealthy land-owner. His ~dmiration for the beau- tiful of every kind was as frank as his con- tempt for the opposite; and though both were, of course, excessive, this enthusiasm excused him for always knowing more about everything than everybody else in the company, including myself. For my own part, I forgave him, as he was, doubt. less, not yet aware that I am the Author ol the Work on the Subject-object as Differs entiated from the Object-object, and that I have turned out such articles as Fred, that is, in my Professorial function,by the dozen. No; that is hardly fair. Fred is one in a hundred. I have a sensible sort of friend, I said quietly, who made three journeys through France just to see every town in it. But he had a conceit on doing up one thing well. He was slightly architectural, too. And slightly cracked, I should think, said Fred. When I was sixteen I began my fledgeling trip up at Portland, and meant to go through the Union by college vacations. But you cant hold a boy of that age responsible. My plan is to strike right for the biggest things and let the rest slide. Well, smiled up a smooth, silvery voice from under the pile of gray furs upon the farther sofa; I know that I wouldnt forget one or two little by-way mountain towns in ItalyPerugia, for in- stance, and Lampedusafor many a sen- sation in Florence or Paris. Who is that, my dear ? I whispered to my wife. The handsome authoress I told you of. The lady was slowly rallying from sea- sickness, and spent a few hours every day dozing in the same warm nest of furs and clouds, her face always covered with a blue veil. I had never chanced to see her features. The pleasant play of tone, and her pale but handsome hand resting on the fur, would have kindled the romance of twenty, like an Oriental masque. She remained for some days, as she said after- wards, in equal ignorance about myself; for, through all our conversations, the rock- ing of a foolish mirror opposite kept my forehead dropped upon the little stand be- fore the sofa, with only a ball of grizzled hair presented to the company. For my part, I said, I think you are both right,as usual when sensible persons get to differing,both right; but neither is quite right enough. I not right ? said Fred. Why, you wouldnt have a fellow go scouring a coun

OVER I& EA. 77 OVER SEA. 0, where are you going, Lord Lovel ? she cried, 0, where are you going ? cried she. Im going, quoth he, fair Nancy Bell, Strange countrees for to see, see, see, Strange countrees for to see. WE ~vere all on the Pereire, and the Pe- reire was on the Grand Bank, her helm set for Brest, and reeling off her white wake twelve miles to the hour. The breeze was abeam but easy, and our sofas in the la- dies little saloon kept up a gentle, lop- sided rocking with the ship, like a tee- ter with the big boys all at one end. There were just four of themmere tate- ~-t~tesurrounding the saloon, with a vagrant camp-stool or two upon the floor. Im going to my state-room, the fat lady soliloquized. Alphonse ! she shouted, as the waiter shot across the open door, along the pass- age. Alphonse re-appears. Voulez-vous apportez-moi un autre glace of lemonade? and apportez-moi dans ma chambre. Tout de suite, madame, with unflinch- ing gravity. And, Alphonse! le lemonade cette temps ploo stronger ! Bien, madame ! Whereupon, madame fastens an eye upon the door-knob, makes a lucky lunge for it, hauls herself up and out, and goes staggering and bumping her way to her room. Well, thats the jolliest French Ive heard since the fellow who was told to hurry up for the ride, and snapped his whip with, Je suis d6jk! Bah! what do such people go to Europe for? She told a person in the cabin that she had done up half the towns in France already, and was going to finish em this trip, so as to say shed seen every one of em. I seeIve met her style. Fred and Miss Nelly had opened this little battery of gossip. Our Fred is just twenty, tall and slen- der from rapid growth, with handsome dark hair, expressive eyes, swift speech and gesturea New Yorker, of strqng Huguenot blood, the only son of a wealthy land-owner. His ~dmiration for the beau- tiful of every kind was as frank as his con- tempt for the opposite; and though both were, of course, excessive, this enthusiasm excused him for always knowing more about everything than everybody else in the company, including myself. For my own part, I forgave him, as he was, doubt. less, not yet aware that I am the Author ol the Work on the Subject-object as Differs entiated from the Object-object, and that I have turned out such articles as Fred, that is, in my Professorial function,by the dozen. No; that is hardly fair. Fred is one in a hundred. I have a sensible sort of friend, I said quietly, who made three journeys through France just to see every town in it. But he had a conceit on doing up one thing well. He was slightly architectural, too. And slightly cracked, I should think, said Fred. When I was sixteen I began my fledgeling trip up at Portland, and meant to go through the Union by college vacations. But you cant hold a boy of that age responsible. My plan is to strike right for the biggest things and let the rest slide. Well, smiled up a smooth, silvery voice from under the pile of gray furs upon the farther sofa; I know that I wouldnt forget one or two little by-way mountain towns in ItalyPerugia, for in- stance, and Lampedusafor many a sen- sation in Florence or Paris. Who is that, my dear ? I whispered to my wife. The handsome authoress I told you of. The lady was slowly rallying from sea- sickness, and spent a few hours every day dozing in the same warm nest of furs and clouds, her face always covered with a blue veil. I had never chanced to see her features. The pleasant play of tone, and her pale but handsome hand resting on the fur, would have kindled the romance of twenty, like an Oriental masque. She remained for some days, as she said after- wards, in equal ignorance about myself; for, through all our conversations, the rock- ing of a foolish mirror opposite kept my forehead dropped upon the little stand be- fore the sofa, with only a ball of grizzled hair presented to the company. For my part, I said, I think you are both right,as usual when sensible persons get to differing,both right; but neither is quite right enough. I not right ? said Fred. Why, you wouldnt have a fellow go scouring a coun 78 OVER SEA. try or a town, like a merchants drummer or the directory-man, would you ? Whew! young man, isnt there some- thing or somebody in the world between your drummers and the Alpine Club? I suppose the Club furnishes your ideal of a traveler. All I mean to say is, that a per- son traveling in Europe, and especially a young man or woman going for improve- ment, should seek something else as well as what you call the biggest things. These have their value. Mont Blancs, Coliseums, Alpine tunnels, as ideals of vastness or power in their kind, raise a mans stand- ards forever, put into him a little of their own dignity and power. But most of these big things give less nourishment than stimulus. They are what you may call the legitimate sensational. What we need to make sound mind and sound character are the averages of things, the general fact, the law; not the exceptional. Then again, many of Mr. Freds biggest things are, doubtless, often among the smallest. Theres the Big Tun, for in- stance. Palaces, cathedrals, picture-gal- leries take a false position with most trav- elers. So do But, Professor, pleaded the voice, what do you leave us then at all to travel for ? What, indeed ? cried Nell. All I care for is to see the galleries and palaces and and that handsome prince you were going to capture in one of them ! said my ~vife, laughing; which rally made Nell laugh a little and blush a little more. Lets have a game of Character, cried Fred, looking teasingly at Miss Nelly, and find out what were all going for. Ill begin. I want to see the Alps first; after that, Rome and Paris. I dont care for Germany or England. There! who next? Mrs. Johns, tell us your choice. Italy, German home-life and dear old England, for me And Miss Nelly, said our authoress, at what shrine will your pilgrim staff be laid down ? We must here present Miss Nelly as a blonde of eighteen, lively, se-nsible, exceed- ingly well-read in the best literature, brimful of Ruskin, adoring Tennyson. She is under the matronage of Mrs. J ohns for the voyage. Oh ! said Nelly, I want to see all the great pictures, and I want to see where Madame de Stael lived, and I want to go to England to see Wordsworths home and Tennyson and Ruskin, and ever so many other things. But, Madam, she modestly urged, you havent told us what ~QU are going for to see, see, see. Well, I am going first to Paris, only to see my little girl, whom I left, I fear un- wisely, in a school there. Then I hope to improve my health by travel, and to gain what ideas and pleasure I can, along the way. Now, what is your quest, Professor? Well, I expect to look into the Univer- sities and Academies, and especially the Jesuit education at its high-water mark in the Collegio Romano. At the same time, like yourself, Madam. I hope to get profit and pleasure in general. Profit and pleasure in general ! echoed Fred; thats it ! And suppose the Professor tells us now how best to get it ? Splendid ! cried Nell and Fred to~ gether; and Fred drew out his note-book for its first entry. Oh, Im not going to give you a lect- ure. I dont believe in lectures even in the class-room. Let us all chat it out to- gether. I wonder really if a person should have any definite purpose in visiting Europe, murmured the authoress, in half-soliloquy. Why not seek the places that happen to tempt you beforehand, and leave them to produce any impression upon you that they may ? Well, I would hardly leave the matter so loose as that, I answered. True, we go abroad to get broadnot to sharpen the point of some specialty. But,this is for these young people, now,this expecta- tion of profit and pleasure in general from the grand tour ends only in a grand gadding, and sends one home a traveled gossip, to show How much a dunce thats been abroad Excels a dunce thats stayed at home. It is, indeed, only what most people travel for. In our little game of Character, just now, most of us seem to go wandering,I wa~ going to say, maundering,about, like organ-grinders. Why, my dear I remonstrated my wife,, pulling my ear. Ladies, hes a little sea- sick yet. Dont mind my Mr. Grumble- chook. We travel just like anybody else to see the best and enjoy it. Very well! Take my advice and / OVER SEA. youll enjoy the best alt the better. I sug- gest what is pleasanter in the long run than either one definite object or none at all that is, several definite objects. With most of us the chance for enjoying Europe is short and not certain to occur again; and while we should keep wide-open eyes to see all that offers itself anywhere and every- where, there are certain things in every country which we must not only see but observe; and the best of these are just the ones that most travelers never even see. What in the world can they be ? said Nell, impatiently. Well, as for one of them, what is the most important object of study anywhere, abroad or at home, but men and women, their character and condition ? Ah, but then you have to know the languages so well for that. Only for getting some few of the de- tails of character, and those often the less important. In this direction, often the eyes are more learned than the ears. Why, a Dutchmans back will tell you more of his character than an hours talk with him. My dear, wont you bring from the state- room those sketches? And bring along Brown, Jones and Robinson. Let me get it, Professor. No indeed, Mr. Fred! Not since your bright exploit yesterday, of bringing me the seidlitz powder instead of the soda. But you didnt take it ? cried Fred, in dismay. Wellno matternow. Here my little lady trips in with the book. Fred, just please show this sketch to the ladies. And heres another, of an Italian peasant. Pass this around. Who couldnt tell just what those two men like best, and what they can do best? And that is nearly all one needs to know of a man or woman. And there are forty other ways to this sort of knowledge, without the help of the native language. Motions, intonations and quality of voice, sometimes the dress, give many points of national and private character to a person who is looking out for them. Then, the interior of one dwelling, to which you may get access, sometimes the noblemans seat or palace, always the home of the laborer, tells a long story of the character or the taste and comfort of entire classes. See what an analysis of national character Tame draws from the furniture of an English bedroom. And then every young person from America brings a little of French or Ger- man with him from the school; and three~ months or less of lively intercourse with the people makes it a ready key to their ways. If his French is thoroughly well grounded at school, and he gets to think- ing in its idioms, the Italian, in Italy~ will tumble in upon him of itself. Then the road grows as certain as it is easy. It seems to me, objected the author- ess again, that peoples ways are very much the same, all the world over. And if thats so, added Nelly eagerly, why not leave them for study at home and just enjoy the pictures and cathedrals and landscapes ? Well, to that double-barreled shot, I send a double-barreled returnyes and no. Doubtless, the people of the several enlightened nations have more points of resemblance than of difference. But isnt it much for a person to discover even that~ with his own eyes ?Nobody starts with such a view of the character of foreigners. To find them but like ourselves, and especial- ly ourselves but like them, cures us of one more contempt or one more foolish admi- ration and thereby teaches us two more truths. But I think the differences that do exist between foreigners and ourselves, are pretty lively and are deeper than the mere form. Emulation and Love of Ad- miration, for instance, cannot be studied anywhere completely in the world, except in France. Only England presents the strong- est specimen of Self-esteem; only Germany~ the most complete type of the scientific Curiosity; and both of them illustrate the Domestic Affections. Surely, we cannot lose the chance, while we are on the spot, for enlarging our knowledge of these human elements and raising our standard of con- science and of the inner taste. But I dont see, said Fred, how y@u are to get enough of this, with all the neces- sary sight-seeing, to make the pursuit worth while. Then you think that sights are bigger things than souls, do you? Well, sir, the knowledge and still more the kindly inter- est, the widened sympathies, the new ap- preciations, gained by one hours talk with your donkey-driver, about the priva-. tions, toils, poor little pleasures, fears and hopes for earth and heaven, of himself and his class, outweigh all that fifty poets fused into one ever felt before the Coliseum or the Cathedral of Cologne. But all I ask 30 OVER SEA. is, give the thing its due proportion of your time; not only incidentally, in the chat with your guide or driver, on the way to the ruin or the mountain-top; surely, not accidentally, as nine in ten do, if ever; but give it a day or morning or afternoon exclusively, as you would the Aquarium or the Jardin des Plantes. Catch what you can of it. It has the good and the bad chances of any other hunt. Often, the game stands as quiet and as sure as a pict- ure or a castle. And what a shallow thing it is, to go trudging up and down, and through and around fifty palaces, cathedrals and towns, and comparing them together, but never asking the real meaning of one of them that is, what sort of men or women pro- duced them? Without this, what are they all but so many piles of stone, dis- placing so many cubic feet of air, in so many different shapes! Besides, you dont lose the pleasures of art in studying human nature, for art is one of the chapters in its book. Besides, the study is not only the highest but by far the most useful of all to ones future, in profession, business or society; and a young traveler is bound to keep it going and at the front, whether he or she prefers it or not. Anybody should be ashamed to go home without a dozen solid observations of his own upon the character of each nation he has visited. The proper study of mankind is man. Travel, for a young person, is only educa- tion continuednot vacation, not holi- day; except to men and women over- worked or else too old to learn. Thats you, Mr. Fred, said Nelly. In fact, the true object in visiting Europe does not lie in Europe at all. It is, to get impulse and knowledge toward higher character and more and higher hap- piness at home. The simple question is, What things in Europe contribute most to this end? The most profitable one among them certainly should not be neglected. Well, doubtless, this one is precisely what I am pointing outtraits of character and means of happiness in the families, coin- munities and individuals that we can meet. But how is a traveler going to find these fine people for his models ? objected Fred. Im not suggesting a search for heroes and heroines ; only for those personal or household or social virtues and graces which everybody is bound to seek, and which turn up in the street, the depot, the parlor, the park, in the laborer, merchant, husband, child. Besides, their weaknesses and failures may teach you as much as the opposite. Thats all very true, no doubt, said Fred. The proper study of mankind is man. But it must be that I dont know how to handle the subject, for I make little advance at it. I never counted it among the objects of a tour to Europenever in just that way. Im sure I havent the faintest idea, added Nell. Oh, yes. You are both doing much more of this observation than you think you are. But your professors never made it a conscious act with you, never dis- ciplined you in it; they gave you, instead, their Greek paradigms and algebraic prob- lems; and so you enter life weakest on the very point where you are neediest. Well, wont you tell us a little about it? How shall we go to work at ites- pecially we poor girls ? Well, in the first place, you need to fix in mind the few motives that produce what- ever action men present. There is Love of Esteem, theres Benevolence, theres Self- esteem, theres Love of Sympathy, Love of Knowledge, Love of Goodness, Love of Beauty (and Music), Godwardness, Bodily Comfort in its several kinds. You will witness a hundred acts or expressions of a man within an hour, but every one of them, as it turns up, you must hang upon one or another of those hooks. As for a mans mind, you must find if his power lies most in getting the What or the Where and When of his object, or its Which,that is, its Class,or its Why or its How. Then find the comparative activity of the Will. There you have the whole man, so to say; or, rather, that will do for a beginning. Yes, but how are you to catch the man ? inquired Miss Nelly, eagerly. Ha! Ha ! laughed out Fred. Thats good ! He! He ! laughed the ladies, at Nells little discomfiture. Shes saying man for woman, as the greater includes the less, Fred added, with sophomoric gravity. Well, the fact is, the year spent in Europe should not be passed in traveling, but rather in successive residences in the countries,in France, Italy, Germany and England,Switzerland taking a shorter OVER SEA. season than the rest. These little resi- dences enable you to take dailyconversa- tions with a native teacher and, through your banker or friends, to make acquaint- ance of some native families. In a given country, take your favorite city for this abiding, and give the less time to the other towns. The little evening sociable, the lunch party, will be field enough. But be- sides this, there are various ways to catch the man ways equally becoming, if be- comingly conducted, in a lady traveler as in a gentleman. See what relishing bits of native life I-I. H. throws in for us with her other Bits of Travel! As I was saying, give a day or so of a week to this object exclusivelythe fete- day particularly. Go with friends to the afternoon promenade in the public garden, the piazza, park. After your first stroll for mere enjoyment and to get the aspect of the place, hunt up some family group around their lager bier or yin dupays, or the little crowd enjoying Punch or the jugglerany group which strikes you as genuine, double-blooded native. Keep near and see what trait seems fixed in the greater number of faces, as well as that which speaks, or laughs, or frowns itself out oftenest in conversation; and fasten these traits,only one or two,well in memory. Then look for other like groups. Compare each group with those observed before, and jot down results. A young man, of course, should manage to open conversation with those who promise any profit and who look accessiblethe old man sunning himself on the bench in the park, the laborer out of work, the student, the soldier off duty. A little tact, like music, opens all hearts. They are as glad to talk as you are to listen. Another good plan is, to take turns in the omnibuses at different hours and on different avenues, and observe the faces and ways of the persons opposite you. In a given class of passengers, the prQportions of the kindly, the shrewd, the vain, the self-complacent, of the typical character, keep a remarkable steadiness. This fact makes the study easy, and its results speedy. Touches in dress, air on entering and leav- ing, supplement the lines of physiognomy. Table dh6te is another field of dis- covery. Take as much trouble to secure a seat near some interesting native group, or person, as you would to find the best picture in a gallery. A word to the waiter and a little tact will set you right. Besides, VOL. VITL6 silent observation here brings good fruit. I think the intellectual habits of a class, the concentration, order, thoroughness with which they would do business, keep house, write or fight,could be found in a few evenings by occasional glances at their way of taking food. The picture-galleries are a good re- source in this line. There is much to bring out expressions of feeling other and deeper than the merely artistic. I have quietly followed a French group through several apartments of the Louvre, and found them, to the last, tossing off every picture that was not French, and flaring with gestures of delight at everything, good or stupid, that was the work of a compatriot. To make sure of their taste, they looked for the artists name before looking at the paint- ing. Was there a landscape in the gallery worth more than that tableau-vivant and little drama in one; at once individual in its intensity and national in its breadth? Could any other nation than the French have furnished it? A moral and mental attitude of the whole mass of the people was given there, as in an allegoric group. A years residence could do little beyond discovering other forms of this one spec- tacle. It was like those portraits whose original you have never seen, but which you irresistibly know to be correct. In the picture-gallery, however, your chief study is, of course, the condition of the artistic sentiment ; not, just now, as mani- fested in the pictures, but as manifested at the pictures by the visitors. The question is rather, what subject in art gathers the largest number about it? The answer to this involves moral as well as artistic traits. Of course, the manner of the most at- tractive pictures must be noticed; as lights and contrasts often make the subject, even with the half-cultivated, a matter of indif- ference. In the car or boat, when, as is oftenest the case, the scenery is indifferent, you had better talk with your fellow-passenger than take your book or paper. With modest people, it costs a little nerve, sometimes, to break the silence. But, for one, I never met a foreigner, of any rank, who did not receive the advance with pleasure; and the silent, surly Englishman has proved as communicative as any other. And you never know but your companion will turn out the clear-cut type of a million. I re- member a ride in the diligence, one morn- ing, in the south of France with a young 9-, OVER SEA. fellow from Avignon. In the few hours we passed together he furnished, indirectly or directly, a sample of the entire class of educated young provincials of the South, as individual and son; and everything I have since seen or read of his kind, in fact or story, was anticipated then at the first source. You see it needs only few cases, hut well chosen, to open up the thousands of any class. But you must not merely go to see, hut to look; and not merely to look, but to observe, and to observe with some method. With the humble classes, your best way of drawing out little points of character is the one which also yields most knowledge on their resources for happiness and com- fortthe other important topic. In cross- ing the mountains, relieve your friends oc- casionally of yourself, and take a little chat with the driver on the box, or as he trudges beside his team. So, ladies might show that interest in the maids who serve their rooms, in the poor washerwoman, the mis- tress of the petty shop. Ask these people about their families, about work, and wages, and rent, and food, in their neighborhood and class. Often their poor little story has deeper lessons for heart and life than the sight of the Arc de 1Etoile or Notre Dame. They are grateful for your interest in them. You brighten for the moment their poor little life, and widen for ever the circle of their thoughts. Places of public amusement and those of worship dont need mention; except that travelers visit them to see the spectacle, or the edifice, and seldom or never the people. So stupid! You remember Jones and Robinson at Cologne, in the Cathedral ? Theres you, Mr. Fred, said Nelly, pointing to the tall fellow in the sketch. Thats you, striking for the biggest things. Ha! grinned Fred. Compliment- ary! He looks like a sick rooster trying to crow! Here Alphonse careered in upon us, with his delicious lemonades. Everybody beckoned him at once, caught the big tumblers with both hands, plunged deep the hydraulic straw, and then settled down gravely, sucking and spluttering and gurg- ling away for ten minutes, with eyes wander- ing around upon the others in benign and solemn vacancy. Lemonades and roast apples in turn, through the voyage, kept Alphouse on the trot for the saloon. Sid- ney Smiths conception of the depth of human misery, as being twelve miles from a lemon, was never better dramatized than when the reckless Fred announced, They say the lemons have given out! Ladies, youre twelve hundred miles from a lemon ! The Ohs! and Mys! and Graciouses! that pelted him! He might as well have hol laed Fire! But the confidential and self- important assurances of Alphonse, when he came to gather up the tumblers, put us again at rest. I think theres one thing, said the- authoress, that we Americans might better look at than palaces and galleries and Grand Expositions; and that is, family life in some parts of Europe. I know some families in Germany whose every- day life is an idyl. I believe that half the sweet novels of domestic life there, are only true narratives. I wouldnt wonder, I answered. My own recollections of some Swiss homes are all that you suggest. My dear, said my wife, heres a good chance to tell your story of the Genets. You havent aired it for a month. I like your lively style of encourage- ment. Lets have it, said Fred. Well, I was out there when about your age, spending a few years, and had set- tled for awhile near Geneva; and one morning I thought Id drop in upon a pleasant family of young ladies, whose company I had enjoyed several times al- ready of an evening. The garden gate was opened invisibly at my ring, and the pretty walks and flowers and noble old trees tempted me to a little stroll before going to the porch. A gentle turn brought me unaware upon a bower and,what I was always quoting in those days of la belle louveuice, The two divinest things in earthly lot: A lovely woman in a rural spot; in fact, two lovely women in a rural spot. Mademoiselle, with the best bow to the blonde, petite C~cile. Mademoiselle, with ditto to Hortense, a brunette. Monsieur, in duet, and a duet of courtesies, with down-drooping lids, espe- cially those of the blond, which were long and soft, and purple-dark as the petal of a violet. Et madame votre mare, se porte-t-elle bien, ce matin, mademoiselle? Merci, monsieur, tr~is-bien. I OVER SEA. 83 Et mesdemoiselles vos sceurs, de n~me ? Elles se portent bien, monsieur, merci. If monsieur would like to see them, we ~vill go seek them, nest-ce pas? said Ma- demoiselle Hortense, laying her book upon the antique urn, while her sister, as I saw after leaving, began again the reading of her own. Warm welcome, that! That must be the Continental for snubbing, I should think, said Mrs. J ohns. Of course, nothing was left for me but to follow, and we found the elder sister in the back parlor, busy with materials for sewing for the poor. You will let me keep on, she said smilingly, after the salutation. We can chat, all the same. Meanwhile I had walked to the man- tle to look closely at a strong pencil sketch upon it, and turning to ask Made- moiselle Hortense whose it was, I found she had flown. Hortense has run back to her studies. Were the young ladies studying there in the garden? I asked. Gui, monsieur. Mamma keeps us all occupied during all the morning, at one thing or another. C~cile and Hortense are reviewing their history. Mademoiselle Julie has not yet start- ed for Genoa? Non, monsieur; she is in the garden somewhere. No offer to pass me along, this time; but the little ruse in the bower was explained, and my ruffled vanity smoothed. While a domestic matter called away the young lady, I enjoyed a survey of the room; its colors and forms, all so quiet; the carpet of one moss-like green; a little dash of bright drapery here and there, loose upon a chair or a work-stand; books left as the reader dropped themsome half open on the window-sill or the arm of the sofa; a few pictures on the walls, not large, whose ideas were more impressive than their frames; chairs and t~te-k-t& e as the occupants had left them; music scattered on the piano; the parlor a genu- ine portion of the home,of their own in- dividual home,utterly free from vanity, completely expressive of comfort, self- respect and the true savoir vizire. I omit- ted the gilding,I should say gold,about the room; not the American parlor article, but the rich south sunshine, spread in broad sheets upon the floor, the gauzy curtains parting of their own accord to let it in. The entertainments in this home were charmingly simple. They never included many persons at once. Every friend of the family was welcome to drop in upon the tea, at his or her own sweet will. They went when they pleased, or they stayed; and they did what they pleased, or did and said nothing at all if they pleased ; like the Professor in Literature I remember, who used to appear once a week, nodded to all around, and then buried his specta- cles for the evening in the best book upon the table. However, he used to take a philosophic pipe with the father, of an afternoon, which excused this little eccen- tricity. Every one of these young ladies could entertain the visitors of the family in three languages, and knew something of the cur- rent books in each of them, and made better music than most young ladies in New York can do, and drew with talentone of them with a degree of genius. Two of them gave several hours a week to classes of poor children; one was trying to impart some of her musical skill to a young friend in straitened fortune. Towards their parents, every action and sentence of the daughters and the sons expressed tenderness or reverence. Ch~re maman a un peu mal de tate. 0 ii donc est cher papa? The breeze had been stiffening, and a rather lively lurch disconcerted my rem- iniscences, and threw Mr Fred and Miss Nelly a little closer together than before, as his camp-stool had been tilting for some time against the arm of her sofa. How- ever, these young people did not seem se- riously incommoded; and Mrs. Johns whispers to me that Nelly has found her prince before seeing a palace, Suddenly Fred gave a hearty Ha! Ha! I looked up again, and found Miss Nelly leaning firmly up against the motion of another lurch, trying with all her might to trim the ship ; and my wifeling, with face as grave as a captain off shore in a fog, taking on the same responsibility, all alone to herself. Fred voted to both, the thanks of owners, officers, passengers, and crew, and salvage on arrival. Now theyve set the ship all right again, said Fred, lets go on, Professor. Oh, I think weve gone on enough, for this time at least. I only wanted to show what rich material lies in that unvisited 84 OVER SEA. field of travel, and how easily you can work it up. If youd like a note to just such a family in Switzerland as Ive been telling you of, Ill give you one with pleasure; and, in fact, another to a family in the Hague. Thank you. I would, indeed. Youre very kind. Youll have something better than Ge- nevan jewelry, Roman scarfs, bronzes, and cuckoo-clocks to bring home to your friends. Youll bring home something worth showing in your own heart andlife~ Yes, and maybe hell bring home some- thing worth showing, on his arm, insin- uated the silvery voice from the furs. Freds sensitive face, always telling stories of what was going on within, brightend for a second with the mere tint of a blush, and gave a quick glance at Nellys. Nelly caught Freds look, and that set her off a-blushing. Didnt I tell you so, my dear? whis- pered Mrs. Johns, without turning toward me, out of the left corner of her mouth. Tell me what ? I asked aloud. You stupid ! (out of both corners of her mouth). Then pianissimo, Theyre in love, I tell you. Ah ! Fred thought it must be about time to go on deck, to exercise for lunch. Nelly wondered what time it could be, and be- lieved she would go and get ready ; though what precisely for, none of us could see, as nobody was ever known to get ready for anything. She disappeared; and Fred, after taking her sofa with an air of indifference for a few moments, disap- peared also in the same direction. Our little group seldom gathered again in the saloon. The south wind blew mild and milder from day to day. Through the afternoons, not a cloudlet fretted all the broad blue of the sky, nor hardly a white- cap the blue of the sea. The ship moved on, as steady as a steamer upon the Hud- son; so, every one was soon tempted up to enjoy the life of the deck. The three Italian merchants, in their slippers, kept shuffling lazily through an everlasting game of shuffles; a French priest and nun spent hours, side by side, on one of the settees, in brotherly and sisterly comfort together. Our authoress used to pass the afternoons, resting in her soft furry wraps and exten- sion-chair, which Alphonse always arranged for her under the lee of the sky-light. She would be reading sometimes; sometimes penciling her fancies, and then, for many minutes, looking out and up into the far blue glory, with eyes just closed enough to see the things invisible. Mrs. Johns had been as nearly right as most women know how to be, in praising anothers beauty; the authoress was more than handsome. Her face was rather dark than fair. The square brow, the clear-cut, slightly aquiline profile, the elegant oval, gave it all wom- anly strength; the fine brown hair was parted simply away to the temples; the shadow of its broad curl upon the slightly fallen cheek, the dark hazel eyes, the sen- sitive mouth, gave that sweetness which is the tender after-glow of a hope that has forever set. The fat lady sometimes made her ap- parition, as the Frenchmen say; always with a little jerky, snappy, yellow pup, that yelped like a toy-dog, and Fred named Ginger Pop. We never heard Madame call him to her by any word but Easy; which Fred said was her French for Ici! She thinks thats the popular pet name for dogs in France.~~ Fred and Nelly kept much together in the afternoons. With Fred, the mornings, he said, seemed. to drag. Drag! and this your first voyage! Why dont you study up the ship, from her coal- bunkers and furnaces up to the main-cross- trees? Find out how the second-cabin people and the sailors lodge and fare. See the ways, and get the stories of some of them for us. Good! Good morning, ladies! Bring your opera-glasses, and see me pose on the top-mast. Oh, Fred ! exclaimed Mrs. Johns. Dont go up there ! Well, theyll order you down. Well, after Ive been up, wont I rcanf to come down ? He brought us back such accounts of wonderful discoveries, such descriptions of the tremendous engines, three stories deep, and of the two long rows of red, blazing furnace-mouths right down below us, that he scared the ladies out of their senses, and Mrs. Johns smelt fire three times in the night and shook me up every time to investigate. He opened acquaintance with the surgeon, whom he settled as a heavy fellow, and with the purser, a jolly good chap. He borrowed two of the captains books on Navigation, and I overheard him, one day, making suggestions to that gentle- man on the ships headway and the weather. OVER SEA. 85 One afternoon he took N~lly and Mrs. Johns away forward, hastening them a little by the hot, baked air of the smoke- stacks; then lingering awhile and leaning over the rail, to see life upon the deck be- lowa group of the uniformed officers con- versing with the gentle voice and easy gesture of men of the drawing-room; the cooks boy with bare flying hair and flap- ping sabots, skating out of one door and into another, with a pan of smoking beans; a poor stoker, just up from the furnaces, rub- bing the thick, black sweat from his brow with the back of his arm, his look fixed and brooding, as if his life had been wronged of something, he knew not what; then under the airy bridge where an officer is always walking to and fro, and never a passenger,not even Fred,ventures. At last, they reached the forecastle deck. I knew it had slight protection for them on any side, and feeling a little anxious, soon added myself to the party. The two ladies stood in the middle of the deck, pressing close to each other, arm hugging arm, looking out shrinkingly upon the bound- less, mighty expanse. I drew them to a seat on the big anchor, at one side. Ex- cept the look-out, who stood opposite, motionless as a stanchion, we were quite alone. Fred went to the point of the prow, leaning over to see the rush of waters below, or, standing erect and sweeping the horizon, his young graceful figure was marked clearly upon the blue sky. 1-us every movement was watched by Nellysometimes, I thought, with just a little tender fear, sometimes with a look which, even to my dull eyes, seemed to say, Hes a handsome fellow and he loves me. He called to us to come and see the prow open its swift way through the waves. I had seen that sight fifty times already. Mrs. Johns was afraid of dizziness, but told Nelly to go. Fred took her hand in his, and led her to the front, where, still hand in hand, they gazed together away down at the swirls of silver-green that slide aside to left and right; at the crests of foam that wreathe themselves away be- neath the surface like the white limbs of a descending wraith; at the graceful sheaves that now and then leap up before the prow and fling off their million glittering grains; at the steady, headloiig rush of waters under all this, which works its own will upon the brain, like the fascination of a great rapid. In a little while Fred brought her back to her seat on the anchor beside us, and took a semi-horizontal position for himself, with elbow under him, at her feet. We were all silent. Not a sound broke upon our reveries,none from the grating screw, no throb from the engine, no voices of men,not a sound but the falling swash of waves against the prow. Not a sail nor a wreath of steamers smoke was visible around the whole horizon. The prim~val ocean lay before us,joyous now, but with a something stern, almost awful, in its joy, as a god of }Eschylus might smile,and into his presence we felt ourselves hasten- ing as with the still, resistless pressure of a Fate. The feeling made one look back instinctively upon the ship, as if to scan the face of the dark, mighty power that bore us on. Mrs. Johns broke our silence with the Voice in the Ancient Mariner What makes that ship drive on so fast, Without or wave or wind? Fred caught the versehe knew the poem by heartand answered: The air is cut away hefore, And closes from hehind. That must mean the steam cylinder, I said. Poetry is prophecy, you know. Oh, Professor ! cried Nell. Well, its just so. said Fred. I never thought of it before. Then we journeyed back to our friends upon the after-deck, and betook ourselves to reading or lounging, or chat with stranger passengers or to whatever took the whim. Our two young people, as they seemed to grow more and more happy in each others society, seemed to grow more and more content with that alone. Nellys little matron almost lost sight of her dur- ing the hours of afternoon, but as the stern of the ship was a favorite haunt of my own in the quiet weather, I learned unwittingly a little of the progress of affairs with the two, who selected the same unfrequented spot. Sometimes they sat reading in silence their pleasant books, and sharing some bright passage with each other; sometimes, watching the wonderful motion of the sea-gulls and observing the soft, exquisite tone and symmetry of their colors; some- times their eyes traced back the long, softly shining path which the vessel left behind it, stretching far as they could gaze, and along which memories glided homeward. ~6 TILE CO-ED U~A 77/ON OF 77/fE WHITE AND COLORED RA CE& One day, after they had left their place for a brisk walk along the deck, and I was gathering up the shawl and chess-board and camp-stool to take below for them, I found, among half a dozen novels from the ships locker, the half of an old A/ian/ic Magazinethe half that held a charming little love-dream of a poem. It was what Fred had just been reading to Nelly,he read with an exceeding taste,and he had marked the last verse, doubtless for her own eyes and heart to read after him; and I am sure her heart had read it after him, as a holy response; for there grew, in a day, so much of the woman upon the girl, in her face and ways; and besides, after she had deposited her confidences with Mrs. Johns, that judicious woman transferred the de- posits promptly to myself for safe-keeping. The betrothal ring awaited only parental consent and an order to the artiste in the Rue de la Paix. At Havre, our little group of the saloon parted, but with promises to meet again. The sweethearts started at once for Paris in company with Nellys friends, who had met her on the wharf, and with the authoress also, who was to stop at Rouen,to visit the cathedral. Mrs. Johns and myself re- mained a day or two in Havre, to rest our- selves at the fresh, well-kept Frascati, and to visit the fine aquariuman arrange- ment which we benevolently commend to everybody else. THE CO-EDUCATION OF THE WHITE AND COLORED RACES. AN Act of Congress requiring the South poles of all magnets to attract each other, would not be a whit more absurd than one requiring education to be conducted on a race-mixture in the late slave states. Will politicians never learn that social laws are laws of nature, and hence invariable and inflexible, as well as physical laws? Civil Rights, in any proper sense of the phrase, being conventional, may be made or unmade by arbitrary power; but natural laws being inherent and divine, can be controlled only by being obeyed. Power may destroy slavery, but it cannot destroy the social inequality which attended slav- ery, and which was founded not only upon an inequality of condition but upon sub- jective differences equally great. These subjective differences are not simply the class differences in moral, intellectual, and social culture, which are commonly seen where slavery exists, and which are very serious, as will presently be shown. Masters and slaves might be equal in those respects; indeed the slaves might pbssibly be su- perior, and yet a great psychological difference would still exist, which would place the two classes widely apart. The respective peculiarities of the two classes form a curious subject of study. But whether one studies the philosophy of the I facts, or the facts without their philosophy, he is forced to see that the widest social abyss known among men is that created by slavery, that this abyss yawns for genera- tions after the repelling force has ceased to act, and that it can~ be filled only by the disintegrating work of time. A difference of race widens the chasm, but it is by no means essential to it. Ishmael and Isaac were of the same race, yet their posterity have been mutually estranged for 4,000 years. The son of the bond woman shall not be heir with the son of the free woman, is a natural law divinely announced, and it covers every form of inheritance. Could any possible circumstance enable society to forget the chains or disregard the collar-marks of servitude, the circumstances of various l)eriods and particularly of the post-Augus- tan age of Rome would have sufficed. For while the masters gave themselves to sensuality, they turned over education, business, and even the fine arts to their slaves. With an eye to profit, the special talents of slaves were cultivated to the highest degree, and often brought their masters very large hire. Cassagnac tells us that Lucius Appulius, an eminent gram- marian, brought his owner 40,000 sesterces per annumabout sixteen hundred dollars! Many of the most eminent poets, philolo- gists, authors, orators, rhetoricians, musi- cians, artists and teachers, were slaves. Plutarch and Xenophon testify that throughout Greece and Italy education was entirely in the hands of slaves. And ( I

~6 TILE CO-ED U~A 77/ON OF 77/fE WHITE AND COLORED RA CE& One day, after they had left their place for a brisk walk along the deck, and I was gathering up the shawl and chess-board and camp-stool to take below for them, I found, among half a dozen novels from the ships locker, the half of an old A/ian/ic Magazinethe half that held a charming little love-dream of a poem. It was what Fred had just been reading to Nelly,he read with an exceeding taste,and he had marked the last verse, doubtless for her own eyes and heart to read after him; and I am sure her heart had read it after him, as a holy response; for there grew, in a day, so much of the woman upon the girl, in her face and ways; and besides, after she had deposited her confidences with Mrs. Johns, that judicious woman transferred the de- posits promptly to myself for safe-keeping. The betrothal ring awaited only parental consent and an order to the artiste in the Rue de la Paix. At Havre, our little group of the saloon parted, but with promises to meet again. The sweethearts started at once for Paris in company with Nellys friends, who had met her on the wharf, and with the authoress also, who was to stop at Rouen,to visit the cathedral. Mrs. Johns and myself re- mained a day or two in Havre, to rest our- selves at the fresh, well-kept Frascati, and to visit the fine aquariuman arrange- ment which we benevolently commend to everybody else. THE CO-EDUCATION OF THE WHITE AND COLORED RACES. AN Act of Congress requiring the South poles of all magnets to attract each other, would not be a whit more absurd than one requiring education to be conducted on a race-mixture in the late slave states. Will politicians never learn that social laws are laws of nature, and hence invariable and inflexible, as well as physical laws? Civil Rights, in any proper sense of the phrase, being conventional, may be made or unmade by arbitrary power; but natural laws being inherent and divine, can be controlled only by being obeyed. Power may destroy slavery, but it cannot destroy the social inequality which attended slav- ery, and which was founded not only upon an inequality of condition but upon sub- jective differences equally great. These subjective differences are not simply the class differences in moral, intellectual, and social culture, which are commonly seen where slavery exists, and which are very serious, as will presently be shown. Masters and slaves might be equal in those respects; indeed the slaves might pbssibly be su- perior, and yet a great psychological difference would still exist, which would place the two classes widely apart. The respective peculiarities of the two classes form a curious subject of study. But whether one studies the philosophy of the I facts, or the facts without their philosophy, he is forced to see that the widest social abyss known among men is that created by slavery, that this abyss yawns for genera- tions after the repelling force has ceased to act, and that it can~ be filled only by the disintegrating work of time. A difference of race widens the chasm, but it is by no means essential to it. Ishmael and Isaac were of the same race, yet their posterity have been mutually estranged for 4,000 years. The son of the bond woman shall not be heir with the son of the free woman, is a natural law divinely announced, and it covers every form of inheritance. Could any possible circumstance enable society to forget the chains or disregard the collar-marks of servitude, the circumstances of various l)eriods and particularly of the post-Augus- tan age of Rome would have sufficed. For while the masters gave themselves to sensuality, they turned over education, business, and even the fine arts to their slaves. With an eye to profit, the special talents of slaves were cultivated to the highest degree, and often brought their masters very large hire. Cassagnac tells us that Lucius Appulius, an eminent gram- marian, brought his owner 40,000 sesterces per annumabout sixteen hundred dollars! Many of the most eminent poets, philolo- gists, authors, orators, rhetoricians, musi- cians, artists and teachers, were slaves. Plutarch and Xenophon testify that throughout Greece and Italy education was entirely in the hands of slaves. And ( I THE CO-ED (ICA TION OF THE WHITE AND COLORED RACES. 87 Mommsen tells us that the leading branch- es of business, even custom-houses, banks and counting houses, were largely carried on by slaves. With this moral and intellectual superi- ority of the slaves over their masters, exist- ed in most cases identity of race, and pre- vailed the leveling doctrines of Christiani- ty. Philemon the master, and Onesimus the slave, became brothers in Christ. The rights of man were boldly asserted, and so generally accepted as to occasion an amount of voluntary manumission such as has never been known in any other age, and as really to destroy the prevalence of slavery. Never, never in all history were circumstances so favorable as then for the extinguishment of the odium of slavery, and for the social recognition of freed- men! But was it so? Far from it. While in slavery, and as long as the fact of an en- slaved ancestry was remembered, the slaves and their posterity were denied social equality, whatever eminence individuals might have reached. Although AIlsop was called the preceptor of Greece; Terence, the most elegant writer of Italy; Plato, the profoundest of philosophers; Plautus, IP h~edras and Horace, immortal. poets: yet all being slaves, or the sons of slaves, they felt the brand deeply. Plato himself flung at his own, brethren those verses of Homer which declare that a slave has but half a human soul: and Horace cast into the face of his fellow-sufferers the sneer Money cannot change the race ! Long af- ter the slaves had slipped their collars, their necks remained with the hair rubbed off, like the dog in the fable. Diode- tian became emperor, but his contempora- ries hurled in his teeth You were a .dave! and so to emperor Pertinax they said Your father was a freedman! While a few freedmen, by their superior- ity and success, enforced a limited social recognition in the higher circles, the great mass of them xvere denied any standing whatsoever, and if Cassagnac is to be be- lieved, they were at all periods forced, like lepers, to live apart from the rest of man- kind, and became the great feeders, as they had been the founders, of the detested proletariat, whose filthy stream has defiled and burdened European society ever since. Undoubtedly this treatment of ancient freedmen was a blunder and a wrong, from the effects of which European nations have been suffering ever since, and are suffering to-day, in the forms of pauperism, crime, and communistic rebellions. And a simi- lar course toward the freedman of America would produce similar results. But these facts are mentioned not to be adjudged, but to be considered as illustrations of the deep, inherent and universal social repug- nance existing between the free-born and free-made classes of society: and similar illustrations might be drawn from every nation where these two classes have ex- isted. And the fact should be noted that in our day there are circumstances calculated to aggravate this repugnance. Prominent among these is the difference in race. With some small exceptions, the Africans are lowest in the scale of races, while the white Americans rank with the highest; and these Africans are everywhere thought of as the great slave-race of the earth. Wheresoever they are found away from Africa, they are either slaves or the child- ren of slaves, and in their own land they enslave and sell one another as a promi- nent occupation. So that in this country the freedman carries in his face the history of his family, and the fact of his connection with a race whose history for 2,000 years is unrelieved by a single heroic passage, or even by an average degree of virtue, ability, or attainment of any sort. Then add to this the fact of recent emancipa- tion, and that under the violence of a long and bitter war, which was occasioned by the negro; and then to all, add the facts of reconstruction and the political scourg- ing under which many sections of the South are now suffering; and altogether we have almost every conceivable reason to expect a most aggravated case of social aversion on the part of the whites toward the colored races in our Southern States. Much need not be said as to the social relations of the two races in the Northern States. Several generations having passed since the abolition of slavery in those States, there would naturally be an abate- ment of the .feelinigs described above; anid the recent contest between the sections, while widening this social gulf at the South, tended to lessen it at the North. lii order to stimulate opposition to slavery, it was thought proper to exaggerate the doc- trines of human liberty, equality and fra- ternity, to such an extent, that the negro be- came the pet of a large class of the people, and the leveling influence of these senti- ments was felt extensively. This tendency 88 THE CO-ED UCA TION OF THE WHITE AND COLORED RACES. progressed the more readily, because the negro was not recognized as a power in Northern society. He was in nobodys way. He competed for nothing, formed no combinations, and controlled no state or city. But in spite of all this, the social repugnance between the races has not been obliterated anywhere, and is so strong even in the city of New York, that the negro children on their way to school are (or until very lately were) stoned in the streets by the white boys; and they could no more be mixed in its public schools than they could in the schools of Richmond. In Boston the mixture is barely tolerated, and the schools wherein it practically exists are avoided by large classes of the people. And as for promiscuous social intercourse, it is to be found nowhere on the conti- nent. It was no part of the plan of this paper to discuss the propriety of the aversion which the whites feel to intimate associa- tion with the blacks. But as was intimated in the beginning, it is not simply a mat- ter of prejudice, of pride, or of taste. If all these could be overcome, there is a rnoraZ reason which of itself prevents co- education everywhere that negroes are numerous. They move on a far lower moral plane than the whites, as a class. Without going into particulars, it is enough to say that the average character and habits of these people render it highly proper in the whites to refuse to associate their children with them in the intimate relations of a school. It is only in kindness to an amia- ble, people, that I refrain from giving revolt- ing details. It is well known that the promiscuous association of moral as well as social grades of children, constitutes the most objectionable feature in the public school idea, and school boards are compelled to shape their districts, particularly in cities, so as to separate the fouler classes as far as practicable from the more decent: but even under the best arrangements, it has been found impossible to make the public school system anywhere acceptable to all the people in any community. In the late slave states difficulties of this sort are pe- culiarly troublesome because of the in- fluence of slavery in creating wide social differences, which at best disincline an in- fluential part of the Southern people to support any general school system. If to this be added well founded moral objections, to say nothing of physical peculiarities, the attempt to mix the races, which might otherwise be considered vain and foolish, should be regarded as base and malicious. While it is true that public schools may possibly be made propagating houses for advanced social and political ideas, it is also true that just so far as they are so used, they are perverted and weakened, and may readily, and, in some cases, properly be destroyed by the operation. The object of schools is to instruct the children in certain branches of knowledge, and all school arrangements should be designed s@ as to contribute to this special result, and should be flexible so that they may be ad- justed according to local circumstances. It is well known to school authorities that there are many established doctrines in education which cannot be carried out in all places. Theoretically, for example, all schools should be graded, but even where the numbers are sufficient for a graded or- ganization, the previous habits of the people may render the scheme inoperative. In most communities school economy is great-. ly promoted by the teaching of boys and. girls together: but if the local sentiment is so set against co-education of the sexes that they will not allow their children to attend a school where it is practised, it must not be attempted, except in a very cautious and gradual way. And yet there are always zealots clamoPng for the en- forcement of sound theories irrespective of circumstances. No doubt we shall soon have a war against the separation of the sexes in edu- cation. We already hear that such separa- tion is an insult to the understanding and feelings of the female sex, just as we hear that it is an insult to the negroes to sepa- rate them from the whites: the hobbyists not seeing that the champions of the male sex might reverse the statement, just as the champions of the white race might do. The mere fact of separation in either case means nothing but common sense school economy, which employs the most effect- ive methods of educating the people of both sexes and of both races; just as rail- road contractors put Corkonians and Far- downers on different parts of the work, be- cause if put together they bruise each other, instead of building the railroad. And just here we see in a moment the absurdity of the doctrine that the separa- tion of races in education is an infringe- ment of the civil rights of either race for if it infringes upon the rights of either, f THE CO-ED UCA TION OF THE WHITE AND COLORED RACES. 89 it does so on the rights of both equally. To admit such an idea is to break down all the distinctive arrangements of school economy. It would pronounce unlawful, not only the refusal to admit boys into a girls school, and vice versa, but also the gradation of pupils according to advance- ment, and the refusal to admit or retain pupils who do not comply with the regula- tions. For the matter of separate schools for the races does not differ essentially from other school regulations intended to facilitate the educational object aimed at. With far less reason during the late war there were colored regiments, and even German, Irish and Scotch regiments. In truth, when any great object is earnestly sought, there is none of this prating about liberty and equality. Men are classified to facilitate the result. Prejudice is a power which wise men utilize, and never unnecessarily offend. The English managed the Sepoy regiments until they ordered the men to bite the greasy cartridges, but then the Sepoys rebelled, and enormous mischief followed a wholly unnecessary disregard of superstitious prejudices. This much the negroes may justly claim, and that is enough,that the public schools provided for them shall be equal in all respects to those provided for the whites. In order that these separate schools may be maintained there must be incurred a heavy extra expense, which will be borne chiefly by the whites; and as long as the whites are willing to do this, it is sufficient evidence that the co-education of the races is impracticable. What then would be the practical result, as respects education, of the so-called Civil Rights Bill, as originally introduced into Congress by Gen. Butler? Would it secure the co-education of the races? Impossi- ble! Would education be facilitated in any way? It would inevitably be destroy- ed, as a public affair. Every State in the Union now has a school system for both races supported at public expense. How long would such a school system be main- tained in the fifteen ex-Slave States? Just as long as would be required to go through the forms of law needed to destroy it! and no longer, except in those wretched states where the negroes and their allies dominate over the property therein. In those States some sort of system would be maintained for the benefit of the negroes, or at least money would ostensibly be raised for the purpose. As to this being the practical result, there is no difference of opinion among men acquainted with the state of the case in these states. Every- body knows it, black and white; and, there- fore, the blacks do not desire mixed schools, and the real friends of universal education do not desire it whatever may be their political theories. There are now more than a million and a half of children, white and black, in the public schools of the flf.~ teen ex-Slave States. What would be the subsequent reputation of any statesman who would aid in passing a law, the only practi- cal effect of which would be to turn these school, children out of doors? But what of~ the great future? Are we forever to go on thus? There is no need for us to solve social and economical prob- lems for unborn generations. We have our hands full with the present. Do not let us spoil our work from the fear of set- ting bad precedents. Our children will be sufficiently progressive. The prejudices which disturb us now will run their natural course, and, so far as they are merely preju- dices, will end. The tidal wave which may be omnipotent in its pride, sinks exhausted at last on the bosom of the deep. Unques- tionably the tendency of mankind is toward the obliteration of race-distinctions, and it is seen in the brightest centers of civiliza- tion, as well as among the lately secluded peoples of the East. Some of the most cultivated Caucasians have declared their preference for a mottled societyor as an eloquent orator expressed it, for a rain- bow of colors on the social sky. And in the most polished courts of Europe, not only has tl~e Turk, the Japanese, the China- nian and the Persian received the highest social recognition, but the same has been accorded to the despised African. Hence, in arguing for the policy advo- cated in this paper, it is not done in igno- rance of the tendencies of the race at large,. or with any vain expectation that we can anchor here. Still less is there a disposi- tion to deny to the negro equality before the law, or equal means of improvement with the whites. Nor is there a disposition to disparage the intellect of the negro, or t& discourage him in his aspirations. Those who have chosen to trace back the Ethio- pian race into the remote past, know that it too has had its heroic age; in which it led the civilization of the world. And those who have studied .the remote causes out of which have grown the diversities in the human race, and the influences which AZ! LAST. -90 gradually depress or elevate any particular race or class of men, know that there is nothing in either the history or the present condition of the African race to preclude the idea, that in the great future it may possibly (though not probably) attain an equal rank in all respects with the fore- most of the other races. But the fullest admission of such facts and possibilities as these does not affect the truth of the declaration, that at least during the present generation the attempt to mix the white and colored races in the schools of fifteen States of this Union, is not only as impossible as to equalize socially the Brahmins and Pariahs of Hindoostan, but, if forcibly pressed, would defeat the general education of both races. The true policy in this matter is to cul tivate with the negroes the pride of race; to teach them that no promotion is real, which does not come from merit and achievements, and that while the conten- tion for equality of rights is ennobling, every form of social presumption is con- temptible and debasing. The history of the Jewish people from the beginning until now illustrates the peculiar power of race-segregation, and also its harmless- ness. And the peculiarities of the negro mind and character fit the race for a special development of rare interest. Is it too much to hope that profound think- ers may yet rebuke the vulgar spirit of miscegenation in all its forms, and evolve a scheme for preserving and improving the separate races of man in their purity? AT LAST. THE sun was setting behind the little port, and all the softened splendor of his rays was diffusing in a rosy gush across the sea whose great waves weltered lazily in that August night, their ruby masses break- ing in lines of silver on the beach. Just vanishing in the purple bank of the hori- zon some sails had caught the warm flush and were glowing in it a moment ere they turned to the shadow; and a full moon was slowly swinging up the rim of her shield of silver in the east, to complete the calm brilliance of the scene. But the group that clustered at a win- dow looking out upon this view, was not much in accordance with its sweet and tranquil spell,a group full of the small rancors and acrimonies of earth, except for young Tom, into whose nature had been strained something sweeter than was to be found in the ordinary Waite blood. A silly simpleton! said Sister Waite, snapping her knitting-needles till they might have struck sparks, while she talked over young Toms strange news. And thats what she is! A consumed old fool, said Mr. Waite, as if his language were a corrective to his wifes weaker English. And theres no. fool like an old fool, as Ive often heard you say, simpered Miss Amelia, while she looked down the shore and twisted her long false curl into which that morning she had, by a singular inver- sion of the fashion, artistically sewed some gray hairs plucked from her own head. I declare, she cried, I declare it makes me sick! And there was so much of the green and yellow in Miss Amelias face that nobody would have doubted her. Poor thing! Poor thing! cried old Abby Morse. Her wits have been wool- gathering ever since Earl Warwick went away, I guess. Ill never forget that day she fainted in the choir when he came home from the wrecksuch a slit as I made in my challis, and you know how that tears, criss-cross and quatery cornered like a blind mans walk! Theres no such pretty goods to be had now. But there, just fancy it,at her time of life! Its a sleeveless errand, a sleeveless errand, poor thing! And she shook her head, as though she looked down a woful perspec- tive. Well, said Mrs. Waite, emphatically, I wash my hands of her, and shell sup sorrow, if ever any one did. Its nothing but her money, and you neednt say a word, Tom! Land sakes !there they come! I shall give up! Just look at her face! Oh its all John Anderson, my Jo, John. Married last nightwell, I hope she wont repent it! concluded Mrs. Waite / /

AZ! LAST. -90 gradually depress or elevate any particular race or class of men, know that there is nothing in either the history or the present condition of the African race to preclude the idea, that in the great future it may possibly (though not probably) attain an equal rank in all respects with the fore- most of the other races. But the fullest admission of such facts and possibilities as these does not affect the truth of the declaration, that at least during the present generation the attempt to mix the white and colored races in the schools of fifteen States of this Union, is not only as impossible as to equalize socially the Brahmins and Pariahs of Hindoostan, but, if forcibly pressed, would defeat the general education of both races. The true policy in this matter is to cul tivate with the negroes the pride of race; to teach them that no promotion is real, which does not come from merit and achievements, and that while the conten- tion for equality of rights is ennobling, every form of social presumption is con- temptible and debasing. The history of the Jewish people from the beginning until now illustrates the peculiar power of race-segregation, and also its harmless- ness. And the peculiarities of the negro mind and character fit the race for a special development of rare interest. Is it too much to hope that profound think- ers may yet rebuke the vulgar spirit of miscegenation in all its forms, and evolve a scheme for preserving and improving the separate races of man in their purity? AT LAST. THE sun was setting behind the little port, and all the softened splendor of his rays was diffusing in a rosy gush across the sea whose great waves weltered lazily in that August night, their ruby masses break- ing in lines of silver on the beach. Just vanishing in the purple bank of the hori- zon some sails had caught the warm flush and were glowing in it a moment ere they turned to the shadow; and a full moon was slowly swinging up the rim of her shield of silver in the east, to complete the calm brilliance of the scene. But the group that clustered at a win- dow looking out upon this view, was not much in accordance with its sweet and tranquil spell,a group full of the small rancors and acrimonies of earth, except for young Tom, into whose nature had been strained something sweeter than was to be found in the ordinary Waite blood. A silly simpleton! said Sister Waite, snapping her knitting-needles till they might have struck sparks, while she talked over young Toms strange news. And thats what she is! A consumed old fool, said Mr. Waite, as if his language were a corrective to his wifes weaker English. And theres no. fool like an old fool, as Ive often heard you say, simpered Miss Amelia, while she looked down the shore and twisted her long false curl into which that morning she had, by a singular inver- sion of the fashion, artistically sewed some gray hairs plucked from her own head. I declare, she cried, I declare it makes me sick! And there was so much of the green and yellow in Miss Amelias face that nobody would have doubted her. Poor thing! Poor thing! cried old Abby Morse. Her wits have been wool- gathering ever since Earl Warwick went away, I guess. Ill never forget that day she fainted in the choir when he came home from the wrecksuch a slit as I made in my challis, and you know how that tears, criss-cross and quatery cornered like a blind mans walk! Theres no such pretty goods to be had now. But there, just fancy it,at her time of life! Its a sleeveless errand, a sleeveless errand, poor thing! And she shook her head, as though she looked down a woful perspec- tive. Well, said Mrs. Waite, emphatically, I wash my hands of her, and shell sup sorrow, if ever any one did. Its nothing but her money, and you neednt say a word, Tom! Land sakes !there they come! I shall give up! Just look at her face! Oh its all John Anderson, my Jo, John. Married last nightwell, I hope she wont repent it! concluded Mrs. Waite / / AT LAST. 9 in a tone that plainly meant she hoped she would. But for my part, cried Tom, winding up his narration, for my part, I think its beautiful! And what did Achsa care? The idle wind that blew about her soft thin hair was more to her now than any breath of theirsunless it might be young Tom s. Forty years ago, perhapsah, forty years ago! Things had been very different with her then; she had been young and strong and gay; pretty, maybe, with the round rosiness of youth, dark braids just shading into black, and great gray eyes, and vel- vety lips that parted over little pearls of teethshe had them yet, those pearly teeth; but as she looked in the glass it was not with a smile, and so she seldom saw them. Seldom, indeed, she looked in the glass at all, since she saw there now no vestige that was pleasant to her of the sweet young face whose wistful eyes gazed after Earl Warwick as he hastened down the lane that night, with all the apple-blos- soms shaking off about himthat night he went to sea. A time when Achsa had not loved Earl Warwick was a time she could not remem- ber. They had kissed across the picket- fence the first day each had seen the little laughing face of the other peering above it; they had played together in the garden- beds, gone berrying in the fields and wa- ding in the surf; she had divided her lunch.~ eon with him at school, and prompted him in his classes, and he had brought her May-flowers in the spring, and bulrushes in the summer, and nuts in the fall, and had dragged her up-hill on his sled in winter. And then they had gone to sing- ing-school; and of course Earl came home with Achsa,for they lived almost next- door to each other; and at length they sung side by side in the choir together, and their voices blended, her sweet treble and his golden tenor, like two sunbeams into one; and the people of the port who saw them fishing down in Melvyns Chan- nel, their boat rocking at anchor, used to look after them xvith good natured smiles and pleasant prophesies of what had not yet begun to trouble them. Thus in all that early time when the impressions are the strongest and take deepest hold on vi- tality, Earl Warwick was a part of Achsas life. But in all their childish plays a wild element had mingled,they were on rafts, in cyclones, on desert islands, exploring the poles, fighting pirates; and what it meant appeared to Achsa as they came home from choir-meeting, one Saturday night, and Earl told her he was going to sea. To sea ? she cried. For she under- stood on all sides that his father had laid out a different path in life for Earl. To sea, said Earl. Havent I always told you I wanted to ? Oh, yes, indeed; but I thought you couldnt. I thought Why, what am I staying here for? ex- claimed Earl. Father may hate it, if he will He says he had enough of it. Well, perhaps I may hate it, too, when I have had enough of it. Enough of it! I can never have enough of it ! he cried, breathlessly. I see the great, rdsy thing rolling in in the morning; I see it all gray and silver at night. Its voice is always in my ears. I long to rise and fall on those swells far out from land, as all my race have done before me; to see nothing but its stretchto hear nothing but its wash. Yes, you ought to go to sea, Earl, said Achsa, sadly, looking down. Well, then, Ivegot to run away. Run away Yes, run away. For father 11 never listen to a word I say about it. Hes set upon my going into trade and marrying Mr. Jersons daughter, and being a rich man And you ? Im set upon the sea! Im set upoh the sea ! he cried. Im going to see the worldthe round world; to have other stars over me at midnight ! Yes, it would be beautiful to do. But Im coming back to you ! he said, turning and looking at her. Im coming back to you, for theres no one like you! You are so sweet, so good! And, Achsa when Im ashore And then he left a kiss upon those velvet lips, a different kiss from any ever laid on them beforean- nother and another. And Achsa, all blush- ing in a warm, sweet wave of bliss, willing he should take the sea for his profession, as she would have been to give him the moon, had he cried for it and she been able to pluck it from the skies,was watch- ing him out of sight. When Earl ran up the little garden-path two nights afterwards, and cried, not exactly as Ulysses did There lies the port; the vessel puffs her saiL There gloom the dark broad seas 92 AT LAST. but words of similar effect: Good-bye, my little girl! Im off; the Bonnibel is slipping her cable now, wind and tide in her favor, and Ill be outward bound for Singapore to-night ! Then Achsa shook from head to foot, and everything swam before her, and she was conscious only of his arms about her, and that he was calling her dear, tender names, and that he had gone at last, and left his ring on her finger. All night she knelt at the window of her room in the roof, watching the ghostly shimmer of the sail that softly swept across the purple darkness of the waters, and down the far horizons rim, praying Heaven to fill it with prospering gales, to keep her darling well, to bring him safely back her darling, so handsome, so daring, so noble, so kind! And she was as white as the sail that she had watched, when she came down in the morning. But when Mr. Warwick, who, as it chanced at that time, kept the village post-office, found that Achsa had known of Earls going, he came out of his way, one day, to accost her as she walked along the grassy sidewalk; for, though he had always known of Earls fondness for her, he had thought it prudent, having other plans for him, to take no notice of it, but to wait till it should blow over. Now he toxvered above her, swinging his cane, till it seemed to her that he was lifting his heavy hand threateningly, as he declared that none of her airs and graces should entrap one who was meant for her betters, with such an oath that the little, quivering creature took to her heels without a word of reply, and scampered home, where she threw her arms about her mothers neck, and sobbed out the whole story of how Mr. Warwick had insulted her, and how she believed she was engaged to Earl, and how she didnt know! And her mother comforted her, and told her father; and her father, who was one of the hapless sort that needs to rely on others, went and told his Daughter Waite; and Daughter Waite, who had felt it incumbent on her, for some half dozen years, to say what Achsa should have to wear, and how she should behave in it, and had kept as good watch over her as she had been able through her rather distant windows, and had rather approved than otherwise of her intimacy with Earl Warwick,said to him that certainly he was right, and, of course, it was no lookout at all for Achsa if Earl was going to follow the sea, and they had been badly used in having the expectation kept concealed from them; and, for her part, she had always. been led to suppose that he was going into trade, and that Achsa would have her own horse and chaise to ride in; and now she supposed theyd see the advantage of con- sulting her a little earlier next time! And the poor man found. himself at his wits ends presently, between his desire to make his pretty little Achsa happy, and his fear of his Daughter Waites sharp tonguea tongue that was the more effective because he had sometimes been obliged to have re- course to her open hand. And all that he knew how to do now was to use his best exertions to divert Achsas thoughts from herself, and thus from Earl. But the mother was less world-wise than the other two; and she and Achsa puzzled over the ship-news together, and when they happened to come across the name of a vessel that had spoken the Bonnibel, they cut out the item, and pinned it on Achsas wall beside her looking-glass; and Achsa used to read it there morning and night, it kept Earl alive for her,and she chose the spot beneath it to kneel and say her prayers on, as if it were before a shrine, with a heart as white and innocent as any devotees. And Achsa and her mother used to talk about Earl, alone by them- selves, and fix him on imaginary meridians; now he had touched at St. Helena; now he was weathering the Cape; now he was among the Lascars and in Hindoo temples; now he was on his homeward track; now the pleasant winds and fair weather might bring him when they least expected it. Certainly it was cruel that just at this time, just when the Bonnibel was nearly due, Aunt Goodenough, an uncles widow, who had lately been at Mrs. Waites, and who had taken a great fancy to poor Achsa, should have sent for the child to make her a visit. Achsa more than sus- pected that it must be at her elder sisters instance, and though at any other time the journey would have been delightful, now she feared there was mischief in itthe more, indeed, when she found that her father had talked of selling his big silver watch to raise the ready money requisite~ and Sister Waite had supplied it from her own pursea purse that always had the devils penny in it. Achsas too pretty, mother, to throw away, said the father, as he discussed the matter with his wife in the watches of the night, winning, perhaps, the mothers / AT LAST. 93 reason, but, by no means, her heart. She can do better with herself. And, as Daughter XVaite says, she neednt go into any family that wants to bar her out. Daughter Waite says anything but her prayers ! rejoined the mother, who was rather tired, she sometimes said, of singing second to Daughter Waite. But the mother wholly pleased with the arrangement or not, the lumbering old stage coach, one day, took up Achsa and her father and a kit of mackerel, and left them at Aunt Goodenoughs farm. And for a day and a night Achsa was in an ecstasyan ecstasy over the dairy, over the great barn, over the comical fowls, over the large-eyed oxen; the fields were full of the new-mown hay; the roses were red under every old stone wall; the honey- suckles made simple breathing rapture; in the night she heard a golden robin open his throat with a sigh of such song as his first parents sang in Eden; and while it was still night she heard all the dark break up in music, and usher in the blushing day. She thought that life here with Earl would be Eden over again. Achsa, of course, had not supposed it was intended she should stay after her father left, and suddenly all her pleasure in the place turned, as flowers turn in a black frost, and she was faint with an unknown fear, when, without any other warning, some one called out that the coach had come, and her father kissed her good-bye, and climbed to his seat and was off, all in less than two minutes. But she stifled her feeling; and perhaps an angry recognition of Sister XVaites hand in the business, and as angry a determination to get the better of her yet, assisted Achsa. She thought that, after all, she could safely linger a week or two, and brighten the solitude of which her Aunt Goodenough complained so much and, on the whole, it would be all the pleasanter if there should be but little time to wait at home before the Bon,iibcl came in. But how long the days were at the farm there now! Her eyes were blind to the beauty, she could hardly say that the birds sang still, she could only count the hours as the penitent counts her beads, with prayers. And when a week had somehow gotten by, she asked her aunt if her father had left no money for her homeward jour- ney. But her aunt said he would send it shortly; and then she begged Achsa not to be impatient, and talked of her lonelinesg with no young face to cheer it, and said that Achsa always put her in mind of her own Achsa who died not long ago, at just her age, and that ~in only looking at her she seemed to have her child again; and so she urged her in such sorrowful wise to stay, that Achsas little heart, though burst- ing with impatience, was not hard enough to refuse her. Nor was Aunt Goodenough playing a treacherous part, at least to her own con- ception of it; she did love the child, and wanted to take her for her own; and she thought if she could safely tide her over this affair, as her father had ex- pressed it, it would be better for her in the end,far better for her to be the heir of that rich farm than the wife of any roving sailor, with other wives in other ports, as her inland fancy painted it. Nevertheless, though lingering yet, when one week had ended, and another had be- gun, and by and by a month had gone, Achsa felt sure the Bonnibel might any day arrive, and she burned with eagerness to be gone, though her kindness and her shame- facedness held her fast. These green meadows about Aunt Goodenoughs farm had lost their novelty and had grown hate- ful to her too; she was thirsty with desire for the bright reaches of the sea with their morning and evening enamels of blue and rose and beryl, with their vast cool twi. lights and lofty stars, with their foamy fringes, their fresh winds, their music, their tumult,she dreamed constantly of seeing one sail grow into being on the horizon, as a breath might become a cloud, and a cloud a living shape; she longed to be at home with her fathers spy-glass, sweeping all the shining field below it, and giving her view, heart-leaping view, when he was yet a mile away, of Earl Warwick, standing in the shrouds and looking as eagerly to shore. One day, when in the absence of the usual messenger, she had gone to the store for her aunt, she happened to hear mention made of somebody who was to sail for India soon in the good ship Bonnibel. Then of course the Bonnibel had gotten in! And she had not heard from Earl! Well, in a seconds thought that did not trouble her much; she had not written herself, had not written because, glad as she would have been to have had a little labored letter there in waiting for him, she knew, that not he but another, had had the reading of it; since when letters came to others concern- ed in that long voyage no letter came to 94 AT LAST. her, and she and her mother had put their heads together then and decided what it implied, but had thought best to say noth- ing, for Daughter Waite made such a pother, the mother said, that least said was soon- est mended, when she had afish in the net! Doubtless Earl had written then, doubtless he had written now, and doubtless the postmaster of the little port had made a prize of all such writing. Still the matter could not rest here,the Bonnibel was in, it seemed; when would she put out to sea again? Achsa was a timid little soul, and had never spoken the first word to another in all her days; but here were life and death in the balance, or as good as life and death to her. She plucked up courage, and with the signal of her fright flying on her cheeks, she asked the person speaking if he knew how long it was before the Bonnibel sailed. To-morrow or the next day, my pretty maid, said he; and she thanked him mechanically and went out in a corn- plete daze. To-morrow, or next day, she kept re- peating, as she walked along. To-mor- row, or next day. And she went loiter- ingly, thinking the matter over, trying to ravel it by the right threads, and arriving by slow degrees at comprehension of the fact that she had been sequestered here that she might not meet with Earl while he was on shore, and might have time to outgrow her fancyas if she could outgrow her own identity ! As she thought of it, though her sense of wrong centered on her Sister Waite, the edges of the cloud for a little while overshadowed all those at home whom Sister Waite had found it so easy to persuade; but she could not bring herself to believe that her simple and honest Aunt Goodenough had understood the thing. And now it rushed over her, making her heart stand still, that unless she could get home before the ship sailed, she should not see Earl at all! And what would he think of her! It would almost break his heart! He could not know that she was the poor little victim of a well-meaning conspiracy,that she had been ignorant of the Bonnibels return. He would only know that she was off taking her pleasure elsewhere at the only time when she could have seen him, answering none of his letters, writing none. If he had not been made to suppose that, he would have found her out; he would have come all the way to see her; nothing but anger with her could have kept him away, and she remembered what his old bursts; of anger were at school, when, standing. white and with blazing eyes, he did not even see her, and shook off her hand on his arm as if it were a raindrop. Oh, yes, she must see him now; she must be there to explain it to him! She would! Why,. what if he should sail away again, still. angry with her? It was of no consequence that they had lost all the happiness of the little while he was on shore, if only her absence could be explained, and they did not lose all other happiness. She would not wait a day; he was her own, the dar- ling of her soul, her other self; he never should think she had been false, he should not be sent away to suffer doubts and tor- tures,and how could she endure another year without the sight of his dear face! She went to her Aunt Goodenough with- out delay, and confessed to her the whole matter in broken sentences, starting up and turning away, and wringing her hands. as she came back. You must give me the money to go home, aunt ! she cried. I cant, I cant do without seeing him! And when he is gone I will come again, and work it out, if you want me to. Oh, my dear, I dont dare ! was the response. Id like to! Yes, Id like to. But I never should hear the last of it from your Sister Waite. And your father said, Achsa, your Sister Waite said, they were keeping you out of harms way. They never told me all this,how was I to know it had gone on ever since you were babies? And I thought they knew best How can it be harms way, you see,, when Earl and I have loved each other all our lives ?~ she gasped. Oh, dont let Sister Waite have her way; dont let her stand between me and the only happiness. there is ! Aunt Goodenough began to cry. I shall tell your father it was a great mis- take, she said, as if so far as that would help Achsa, she was quite welcome. And I shall tell your Sister Waite what I think of hera meddlesome, domineering but there! I passed my word, Achsa, I passed my word. Achsas sobs were the only sound in the little room. Ill tell you what, said the relenting Aunt Good- enough, I cant give you the money, on~ account of my promise, you see; but Ill tell you where I keep my money,and if you choose to go and take a gold piece,. why, I shant sue you for a thief! Only AT LAST. 95. I expect you to return afterwards, and stay with me till the ship comes in again. You may as well always stay here when hes off on his voyages, said Aunt Goodenough, coaxingly. You are so like my Achsa ! Achsa kissed the kind hand that had fallen down listlessly as the dew gathered freshly in Aunt Goodenoughs eyes that now were looking far away. But she was going to steal no money. She went to bed that night with the birds, and at three oclock in the morning she was up and on her feet,on her feet, and on her home- ward way to the little port, feeling it quite safe so near as that to morning and the early farm-house stir. The night passed; star after star of all the wide mist of stars vanished in the gray; the gray melted into the flames of dawn; the sun rose ; the gladly impudent chorus of the happy birds ceased; the business of the day had begun, and she still went trudging on. Now and then, as the morning advanced, she rested, but, tired as she was, sprang to her impatient feet again with the stinging thought of Earl; now and then she had a lift of a mile or two; but she walked the greater part of the day. Her feet were blistered, but still she limped on; the last part of the way, though, she had a longer lift than the others had been, in a wagon belonging to a party who were camping out upon the beach,the drivers thought they had pick- ed tip a queer little body, with her silence, her eager haste, and, once in a while, her gush of tears as she saw the sun westering, and felt the evening wind rising and hlow- ing in her face; and, at last, they set her down, as she directed, at her fathers gate. She did not go in; she ran along the shore to the wharves, which were on the other side of the point of land a half mile away; ran, as well as she could, to the one where the Bonnibel was moored when in her place. The spot was empty,just dipping down the distant sea a sail was glimmering. Is it the Bonnibel you are looking at? a sailor, lounging against the capstan, asked. There she goes, now. Shes had a fine starttheres always a wind for her sails shes a lucky one, the Bonnibd I They wrote to Aunt Goodenough to know if Achsa was with her; they were not absolutely sure that they had seen her at home, only an angry apparition, a fierce and angry little apparition that had glared upon them one instant in silence, and then had vanisheda little foot-sore, heart-sore phantom of Achsa! But Aunt Goode- nough wrote back that Achsa was with her, and neither of them ever said a word about the escapade; aiid there Ascha stayed till she grew so pale, and thin, and tired, that her reluctant aunt sent for them to take her home if they wanted her alive. So, when the Bonnibel came in next year,. Achsa was at home. She knew the ship was signalled; she knew it was making fast; she had watched for it with a fever in her face; and now she waited, sitting at the little woodhined window, under which the great white day-lilies blossomed and blew out their sweetness. She waited a long while; Earl Warwick did not come. Was he wrathful with her silent absence the year before? Could he really have doubted her, her love, her faith, her sin- cerity? Had he tired of her? Had he changed? Had he brooded over his ap- parent wrong during all the long voyages out and back, till he came to hate her? She waited, and watched, and wondered,. and weariedheart-broken at last. She dared not send or write, for fear lest with larger experience, he had ceased to care for her; and her pride was as much as her modesty. And one day she was ill, and the doctor came, and a wasting fever shut her away from Earl as effectually as Aunt Goodenoughs farm had done. The Bonnibel sailed again? and another year dragged along; and Achsa dragged herself through all its endless days and nights; just a spark of hope was left alive in her breast, to keep her alive with it. She felt that Earl, ignorant of facts, had a right to his indignation; she trusted that when he came she should have the chance to set it right. Pride should not stand be- tween them any longer. She hadnt any pride, the poor little spiritless thing; she longed to see him, to look in his eyes, to be held in his arms again, as he held her once, that single instant under the apple trees, longed till the longing was an agony with which she waked and walked at night. She spoke of him to no one at home, for they had played her false, and could have no sympathy with anything she wished. And that year the lucky Bonnibel lost her luck, and was cast away; and it was. three winters before Earl, taken off the wreck by a whaler bound for the South Pacific, came home again. But home he came at last. One Sunday morning, when they were all in church, one sweet Sunday morning, full of sunshine and the hreath of the sweet-brier, and when the. 96 AZ! LAST. air was so still that you heard the hum of bees like a remembrance of the long bell- notes swimming on the ear, the barque to which he had been transferred dropped anchor in the harbor, and he, with others, came ashore. They were full of sailors frolic over home and liberty; and just as they were, they sauntered into the porch of the little church, and looked at the con- gregation and listened to the music, and, perhaps, Earl Warwick looked at Achsa, they could see the singers from that porch, and he may have wondered hoxv he ever could have felt that mad whirl of love and rage which he suffered when he came home from his first voyage, and found her gone, for such a worn and faded thing as she; for Achsas bloom was lost, her face was thin, she wore a look of pain that attracted no lovers. If the anger had not still burned within him, that worn and faded look would have touched his heart to a yearn- ing tenderness; but it did burn. Yet her voice was clear as ever. He shut his eyes and listened; as she sang, to the delicious notes of the old-fashioned hymn, with all its rises and falls and tuneful changes Come, my beloved, haste away! Make short the hours of thy delay! Fly, like a youthful hart or roe, Over the hills where spices grow He heard the tremor that shook the voice, as suddenly the singer saw him as one risen from the dead; and then the music seemed to flutter, the voice ceased, and the chorister and old Nicho- las came bringing her doxvn in their arms; Abby Morse, who sang counter in those days, following, with palm-leaf and salts, behind. Achsa had fainted, and as they bore her past him standing in the porch, Abby Morse giving him a swift, indig- nant look, he saw her white and pinched, the beauty vanished, the bright smile fled; and he felt as though they were just carry- ing out to the grave some one who had died for him long, long ago. He married Mr. Jersons daughter a couple of months afterwards; and when he sailed again,for they could not hinder that, and had to favor it,he was the mate of one of the vessels in which Mr. Jerson was interested, and presently he was master, and, for all that could be seen, the world was going well with him. And Achsa went into the country,she had not thought she should come to that, but now it seemed a refuge,went there to spend the rest of her days with her Aunt Goodenoughdull days and dismal, with nothing to expect or hope ; her father dead; her mother at Sister Waites ;Sister Waite sharing the fate of many better things, of things that, at any rate, have once been sweet, and growing sourer as she grew older ;with the friends of her youth forgetting her; with the impossi- bility of abandoning herself to anything sufficiently to attract new friends, or to think much of them, if by chance they were attracted ; with but few poorer than herself in the wide-spread country parish to enlist her sympathies ; with nothing but Aunt Goodenough and her ailments to care for, the minister and the sewing circle to divert her, the hatching of the chickens, the shearing of the lambs, the xvarping of the loom, to be interested in. She did her best. She waited on Aunt Goodenough by inches. She read to her the Sunday papers, and volume after vol- ume of church history, and polemics, and biographies of preternatural little saints, that the sweet old soul thought it right to have read, though she always went to sleep with the reading; she chatted with her about such flavorless gossip as there was; sang her off into dreams at evening in her chair, picked up her stitches, threaded herneedles, kept the house in order; made pickles, preserves, ketchups, the currant and elderberry wines, distilled extracts, tied up herbs, and nursed Aunt Good- enough when her long winter illness came. Sometimes, in summer, she went into the fields and picked the sweet wood-straw- berries; sometimes she joined the cow-boy when he drove the cattle home; sometimes she took so wild an excursion as to go and sit in the woods, and let the silence steal about her like a new sense; scmetimes, in winter, she slipped out in a soft snowstorm on the early edge of the evening, and walked a mile, thinking of storms upon the sea, and ships whose sails were sheathed, whose ropes were stiff with ice. Thus one year followed another, too much alike to be remembered serarately. And she was happyin a dreary sort of way; that is, she was not altogether unhappy. Marvels came into her life toothe mills did away with her spinning-wheel, and her loom, and when she went down to see them, as she did with the doctor ~ho was going that way, her Aunt Goodenough would not believe a word she told her, and advised a dose of thoroughwort to clear I, AT LAST. 97 her head; and, though Achsa took by stealth her little ride on the railroad that had stretched its wicked web over a goodly piece of Aunt Goodenoughs farm, yet Aunt Goodenough never could be tempted to follow her example, and always maintained, when she saw the engine come snorting, and puffing, and shrieking along, that it was the old serpent in person. The old serpent had, somehow, a great deal to do with the innocent creature. The power did not exist that could persuade her to use a friction-match, she felt its brimstone-tipped end to be a part of the machinery of the infernal fires; and when she heard of gas, this turning a stopcock, and flame leap- ing out of the wall,and when she heard of the telegraph wire, she declared the thousand years of Satan had expired, and he was loose upon the earth. Of course they could work wonders,who couldnt? with hell-fire, said the good lady; and as Achsa read the papers with the burden of weekly increasing achievement, and weekly increasing crime, she half believed what her aunt said. As the years went on, and when her mother had died, she attached herself closer to her aunt; she dared not think of losing her, it would leave her so utterly aloneit was all she had to love. Yet of- ten, when Aunt Goodenough was asleep, and the wind was rising or the rain falling, she would remember it as she used to hear it in her little room at home where the rain fell on the roof, would remember the, rising wind down where it met the waves and lashed them on the shore; and then life seemed a desert that she could not cross: she wondered why she had been born, the world was so full of misery she wondered why any one was born, and then she cried a little, aimlessly, and without positively conscious cause, but in a low-spirited way to keep company with the rain and the leaden sky that was like her gray and lead- en life. At such times, if it were morning, there appeared no reason why she should rise, and all day she longed for forgetful- ness, and she said to herself she had bet- ter be dead than alive. But the mood would pass, and the colorless content ~vould come again: and sometimes there was a new missionary field open, for which she could sew, or knit endless stock- ings, in her old aunts name; and there were the evening prayer-meetings, and there were visits, in his school vacations, from her young grand-nephew, young VOL. VTII.7 Tom Waite, of whom she was getting fond. Thus week followed week; week follow- ed week and year followed year. Ten years passed, twenty years, thirty years. Forty years passed, and Achsa was sixty years old and over; she was sixty-twO when her Aunt Goodenough died at ninety. Sitting in her straight chair in the chimney- corner, her aunt had called Achsa to her one night, and, as she kneeled at her side, had turned her face to the fire and peered into it curiously. Are you really my Achsa ? she said. I thought she was a rosy-faced young girl. No indeed; you are not my Achsa at allwhat could have made me think so? You are only an old woman ! And Achsa felt in her shaking, aching heart that she was no longer any- thing to anybody! She was no longer any- thing to Aunt Goodenoughfor the kind soul passed away that night in her sleep, and left poor Achsa doubly desolate. Yet, on the whole, Achsas life, after the shock of its youth, had been a gentle one, without work, or exposure, or want; only the one want, written in her face. That face was but slightly wrinkleda sweet face still; the shadowy hair, though so thin it needed its bit of sheltering muslin, had scarcely changed color yet, and the eyes, though sunken, were soft and clear; yet no one would have supposed her a day younger than she was, only all would have thought her age was something very love ly. 1-ler Aunt Goodenough had left her her property, and perhaps it was in view of that fact that, when everything was settled and the sting of death a little soothed, her Sister Waite had invited her to her native place, where, since her mothers burial, she had not set her foot. But Achsa had kindly declined the invitation; she was full of longing to see the place, but not through Sister Waites glasses; and with her heart beating up as wildly as a girls, she went to a house where she found she could be sheltered for a month, while she noted the changes everywhere but on the ever changeless sea. Her heart was sore every moment of her stay; she thought she had outlived all her youthful enthusiasms and follies; but the color of the sunrise tide, the rainbows in the foam, the sails far out against the sky, all filled her with the old pain of her youth, and she wished she had not come, and resolved to go away. Yet the fascination of the place was fateful; 98 AT LAST. and while she staid she could not keep her footsteps from the beach. She was sitting there one evening before sunset, at the close of her first week, writ- ing with her sunshades point in the sand, when a hand stretched before her and took the sunshade away and began to write, and then threw it down impatiently. Its a long long time, Achsa, since you and I were on this beach together, said a voice that sent a shiver thrilling through her; and she knew, before she turned and looked, that it was Earl,knew it after that long, aching look, though the face was weatherbeaten, and the hair was gray. A long time, Earl, she said in trem- bling tones. And you have never married, I hear, he said. Oh, no ! she answered, drawing in her breath with an unconscious sigh. And I am all alone again, he said. Then she rose, and they walked quietly home together saying little, saying little, as if there were a possibility yet of saying too much, talking only of the commonplaces of their lives, as though there were no past between them. I never supposed that I could speak with Earl XVarwick again and be so calm, she thought that night. The tides are all gone out ! And she fell on her knees beside her bed, and cried as we think only the young can cry. But the next evening she was on the beach again, when Earl Warwick came to meet her. I am an old fool, she said to herself; but for all that, she went forward. He gave her his arm, for he was the strong- er still, and they strolled along, once in a while speaking of their far remote child- hood, but not of the years between, as they watched the red August sun go down. Our sun is sinking almost as swiftly, he said. But it has shone brightly for you, I hope, she answered. Not so ! he said with a sudden bitter- ness, very different from the idle tone in which he had been speaking, Luck for- sook me when you did, Achsa. I lost ship after ship; my home was a misery; I am old, as you see me, before my time; and though now that I have done with it the sea fills me with a horror, I cannot keep away from its shores ! You are not old, Earl, she said. To her he wore an ever-enduring youth, and she seemed to see the lover of her girl- hood under this sad mask. An old hulk thrown on the sand! Luck forsook me when you did, Achsa, he re- peated. I never forsook you, Earl, she said sorrowfully. And speaking, she drew from her breast the little cord she always wore, and he saw suspended on it the plain gold ring that once he gave her, and that had rubbed itself thin against her heart. He took it and looked at it questioningly, and as he looked Achsa told him in a dozen words the truth she had never had the chance to speak before. We have been cheated out of forty years of happiness, he said. Out of home and children and blessed memories. Achsais it too late to take what we may have before us yet ? She hesitated,not with the remotest idea that folks might laugh at her, or call her foolish names; but because, even now in his gray hair, he looked so young and strong to her, it seemed too selfish to let him waste himself on one so old as she. And yet,to pick up the dropped thread and weave some bright new lines into the fabric of her life before the senses dulled; to be together for a score of years perhaps still; to have him and happiness once more; to have him to love, to comfort, to wor- ship, to warm her empty heart; to have the blessing of caring for, and solacing his old age! And who in the world was there she loved so well, so well as Earl after all these pitiful years! Is there ever a time when the cherished dream loses its charm? Are we ever so old that we cannot enjoy possession of the long-deferred boon? Before she dared look up, he had slipped the ring upon her finger, and they were sitting side by side and hand in hand upon the beach, and the future seemed to stretch beyond them like the lane of moonlight upon the water, a path of glory into heaven. We are so old, we have lost so much, we need not wait another day, said Earl. Will you marry me at once, Achsa? I bought your fathers house long ago, and there we can go back together for the rest of our lives,the day-lilies are blooming under the woodbined window yet. Young Tom Waite, just home in the long vacation of his second college year, met them coming from the ministers that night; they stopped and told him what had happened, and he bent and kissed his aunts face where a white clear light was beaming, as if shed from a halo, and the /, THE BRICKLA YERS. 99 tears were in his eyes as he thought of all those long years, and thought of a little girl he had left a moment since. Sym- pathy and love and peace, he said to him- self sentimentally, as he walked along, Tom was a sophomore at Bowdoin, they are just as good at sixty as at twenty! And the next day, in telling the news at home, having waited till afternoon, that Achsa might have the secret of her happi ness to enjoy by herself a single day: I never, said young Tom, I never saw anything so beautiful as the thankfulness with which they Were taking their right after Fate had kept them out of it so long! You may laugh, if you want to, Aunt Ame- lia, at their age, and all that, but to me it was a sight as lovely and as pathetic as when you see the old moon in the young moons arms! THE BRICKLAYERS. Ho, to the top of the towering wall! Tis the master-masons rallying call ; To the scaffolding, boys, now merrily climb; Tis seven o ~clock by the town-bells chime! Bring to your work good muscle and brawn; And a keen, quick eye where the line is drawn: Out with your saw-tempered blades of steel! Smoother than glass from point to heel ; Now, steady and clear, from turret and port, Ring out your challenge; Afort 0 mort! Clink! clink! trowel and brick! Music with labor and art combine ; Brick upon brick, lay them up quick; But lay to the line, boys; lay to the line! Cheery as crickets all the day long, Lightening labor with laugh and song ; Busy as bees upon angle and pier, Piling the red blocks tier upon tier ; Climbing and climbing still nearer the sun ; Prouder than kings of the work they have done! Upward and upward the bricklayers go, Till men are but children and pigmies below; While the masters order falls ringing and short, To the staggering carrier, Afort 0 hOn! Clink! clink! trowel and brick! Music with labor and art combine ; Brick upon brick, lay them up quick; But lay to the line, boys~ lay to the line! Who are the peers of the best in the land Worthy neath arches of honor to stand? They of the brick-reddened, mortar-stained palms, With shoulders of giants and sinewy arms, Builders of cities and builders of homes Propping the sky up with spires and domes ; Writing thereon with their trowel and lime Legends of toil for the eyes of Time! So that the ages may read, as they run, All that their magical might has done! So clink! clink! trowel and brick! Work by the masters word and sign ; Brick upon brick, lay them up quick! But lay to the line, boys; lay to the line!

THE BRICKLA YERS. 99 tears were in his eyes as he thought of all those long years, and thought of a little girl he had left a moment since. Sym- pathy and love and peace, he said to him- self sentimentally, as he walked along, Tom was a sophomore at Bowdoin, they are just as good at sixty as at twenty! And the next day, in telling the news at home, having waited till afternoon, that Achsa might have the secret of her happi ness to enjoy by herself a single day: I never, said young Tom, I never saw anything so beautiful as the thankfulness with which they Were taking their right after Fate had kept them out of it so long! You may laugh, if you want to, Aunt Ame- lia, at their age, and all that, but to me it was a sight as lovely and as pathetic as when you see the old moon in the young moons arms! THE BRICKLAYERS. Ho, to the top of the towering wall! Tis the master-masons rallying call ; To the scaffolding, boys, now merrily climb; Tis seven o ~clock by the town-bells chime! Bring to your work good muscle and brawn; And a keen, quick eye where the line is drawn: Out with your saw-tempered blades of steel! Smoother than glass from point to heel ; Now, steady and clear, from turret and port, Ring out your challenge; Afort 0 mort! Clink! clink! trowel and brick! Music with labor and art combine ; Brick upon brick, lay them up quick; But lay to the line, boys; lay to the line! Cheery as crickets all the day long, Lightening labor with laugh and song ; Busy as bees upon angle and pier, Piling the red blocks tier upon tier ; Climbing and climbing still nearer the sun ; Prouder than kings of the work they have done! Upward and upward the bricklayers go, Till men are but children and pigmies below; While the masters order falls ringing and short, To the staggering carrier, Afort 0 hOn! Clink! clink! trowel and brick! Music with labor and art combine ; Brick upon brick, lay them up quick; But lay to the line, boys~ lay to the line! Who are the peers of the best in the land Worthy neath arches of honor to stand? They of the brick-reddened, mortar-stained palms, With shoulders of giants and sinewy arms, Builders of cities and builders of homes Propping the sky up with spires and domes ; Writing thereon with their trowel and lime Legends of toil for the eyes of Time! So that the ages may read, as they run, All that their magical might has done! So clink! clink! trowel and brick! Work by the masters word and sign ; Brick upon brick, lay them up quick! But lay to the line, boys; lay to the line! ALFRED TENN YSON. ALFRED TENNYSON. IN TWO PARTS: PART I. THAT a new king should arise over Egypt, which knew not Joseph, was but the natural order of events. The wonder is that nothing less than the death of one Phaiaoh, and the succession of another, could oust a favorite from his position. Statesman or author, that public man is fortunate, who does not find himself sub- jected to the neglectful caprices of his own generation, after some time be past and the duration of his influence unusually pro- longed. There is a law founded in our dread of monotony, in that weariness, of soul which we call ennuithe spiritual counterpart of a loathing which even the manna that fell from heaven at last bred in the Israelites : a law that affects, as surely as death, statesmen, moralists, heroes,and equally the renowned artist or poet. The law is Natures own, and mans perception of it is the true apology for each fashion as it flies. But Nature, with all her change~, is secure in certain noble, recurrent types, and so there are elevated modes of art, to which we sometimes not unwillingly bid farewell, knowing that after a time they will return, and be welcome again and for- ever. At present we have only to observe the working of this law with respect to the acknowledged leader, by influence and laurelled rank, of the Victorian poetic hierarchy. lie, too, has verified in his re- cent experience the statement that, as ad- mired poets advance in years, the people and the critics begin to mistrust the quality of their genius, are disposed to revise the laudatory judgments formerly pronounced upon them~ and, finally, to claim that they have been overrated, and are not men of high reach. Such is the result of that long familiarity whereby a singers audience be- comes somewhat weary of his notes, and it is exaggerated in direct ratio with the po- tency of the influence against which a re- volt is made. In fact, the grander the suc- cess the more trying the reaction. It is what the ancients meant by the envy of the gods, unto which too fortunate men were greatly subjected. Alternate periods of favor and rejection not only follow one another in cycles, by generations, or by centuries even; but the individual artist, during a long career, will find himself tested by minor perturbations of the same kind, varying with his successive achieve- ments, and the varying conditions of atmos- phere and time. The influence of Alfred Tennyson has been almost unprecedentedly dominant, fascinating, extended, yet of late has some- what vexed the public mind. Its reposeful charm has given it a more secure hold upon our affections than is usual in this era, whose changes are the more incessant be- cause so much more is crowded into a few years than of old. Even of this serene beauty we are wearied; a murmur arises; rebellion has broken out; the laureate is irreverently criticised, suspected, no longer worshiped as a demi-god. Either because he is not a demi-god, or that through long security he has lost the power to take the buffets and rewards of fortune with equal thanks, he does not move entirely con- tented within the shadow that for the hour has crossed his triumphal path. The little poem, A Weed, is the expression of a genuine grievance: his plant, at first novel and despised, grew into a superb flower of art, was everywhere glorious and accepted, yet now is again pronounced a weed be- cause the seed is common, and men weary of a beauty too familiar. The petulance of these stanzas reveals a less edifying matter, to witthe failure of their author in submission to the inevitable, the lack of a philosophy which he is not slow to re- commend to his fellows. If he verily hears the roll of the ages, as he has declared in his answer to A Spiteful Letter, why then so restive? Why not recognize, even in his own case, the benignity of a law which, as Socrates said of death, must be a blessing because it is universal? He himself has taught us, in the wisest lan- guage of our time, that God fulfills himself in many ways Lest one good custom should corrupt the world. No change, no progress. Better to decline, if need be, upon some inferior grade, that all methods may be tested. Ultimately, disgust of the false will bringa reaction to something good as the best which has been known before. Last of all, the worlds true and endur- ing verdict. In calmer moments the lau- reate must needs reflect that a future age will look back, measure him as he is, and 100

ALFRED TENN YSON. ALFRED TENNYSON. IN TWO PARTS: PART I. THAT a new king should arise over Egypt, which knew not Joseph, was but the natural order of events. The wonder is that nothing less than the death of one Phaiaoh, and the succession of another, could oust a favorite from his position. Statesman or author, that public man is fortunate, who does not find himself sub- jected to the neglectful caprices of his own generation, after some time be past and the duration of his influence unusually pro- longed. There is a law founded in our dread of monotony, in that weariness, of soul which we call ennuithe spiritual counterpart of a loathing which even the manna that fell from heaven at last bred in the Israelites : a law that affects, as surely as death, statesmen, moralists, heroes,and equally the renowned artist or poet. The law is Natures own, and mans perception of it is the true apology for each fashion as it flies. But Nature, with all her change~, is secure in certain noble, recurrent types, and so there are elevated modes of art, to which we sometimes not unwillingly bid farewell, knowing that after a time they will return, and be welcome again and for- ever. At present we have only to observe the working of this law with respect to the acknowledged leader, by influence and laurelled rank, of the Victorian poetic hierarchy. lie, too, has verified in his re- cent experience the statement that, as ad- mired poets advance in years, the people and the critics begin to mistrust the quality of their genius, are disposed to revise the laudatory judgments formerly pronounced upon them~ and, finally, to claim that they have been overrated, and are not men of high reach. Such is the result of that long familiarity whereby a singers audience be- comes somewhat weary of his notes, and it is exaggerated in direct ratio with the po- tency of the influence against which a re- volt is made. In fact, the grander the suc- cess the more trying the reaction. It is what the ancients meant by the envy of the gods, unto which too fortunate men were greatly subjected. Alternate periods of favor and rejection not only follow one another in cycles, by generations, or by centuries even; but the individual artist, during a long career, will find himself tested by minor perturbations of the same kind, varying with his successive achieve- ments, and the varying conditions of atmos- phere and time. The influence of Alfred Tennyson has been almost unprecedentedly dominant, fascinating, extended, yet of late has some- what vexed the public mind. Its reposeful charm has given it a more secure hold upon our affections than is usual in this era, whose changes are the more incessant be- cause so much more is crowded into a few years than of old. Even of this serene beauty we are wearied; a murmur arises; rebellion has broken out; the laureate is irreverently criticised, suspected, no longer worshiped as a demi-god. Either because he is not a demi-god, or that through long security he has lost the power to take the buffets and rewards of fortune with equal thanks, he does not move entirely con- tented within the shadow that for the hour has crossed his triumphal path. The little poem, A Weed, is the expression of a genuine grievance: his plant, at first novel and despised, grew into a superb flower of art, was everywhere glorious and accepted, yet now is again pronounced a weed be- cause the seed is common, and men weary of a beauty too familiar. The petulance of these stanzas reveals a less edifying matter, to witthe failure of their author in submission to the inevitable, the lack of a philosophy which he is not slow to re- commend to his fellows. If he verily hears the roll of the ages, as he has declared in his answer to A Spiteful Letter, why then so restive? Why not recognize, even in his own case, the benignity of a law which, as Socrates said of death, must be a blessing because it is universal? He himself has taught us, in the wisest lan- guage of our time, that God fulfills himself in many ways Lest one good custom should corrupt the world. No change, no progress. Better to decline, if need be, upon some inferior grade, that all methods may be tested. Ultimately, disgust of the false will bringa reaction to something good as the best which has been known before. Last of all, the worlds true and endur- ing verdict. In calmer moments the lau- reate must needs reflect that a future age will look back, measure him as he is, and 100 ALFRED TENN YSON. I0I compare his works with those of his con- temporaries. To forestall, so far as may be this steadfast judgment of posterity, is the aim and service of the critic. Let us separate ourselves from the adulation and envy of the moment, and search for the true relation of Tennyson to his era estimating his poetry, not by our appetite for it, but by its inherent quality, and its lasting value in the progress of British song. There have been few comprehensive re- views of Tennysons poetical career. The artistic excellence of his work has been, from the first, so distinguished that lay critics are often at a loss how to estimate this poet. We have had admirable homi- lies upon the spirit of his teachings, the scope and nature of his imagination, his idyllic qualityhis landscape, characters, language, Anglicanism; but nothing ade- quately setting forth his technical supe- riority. I am aware that professional criti- cism is apt to be unduly technical; to neglect the soul, in its concern for the body, of art. My present effort is to consider both; nevertheless, with relation to Tenny- son, above all other modern poets, how little can be embraced within the limits of an essay! The specialist-reviewer has the advantage of being thorough as far as he goes. All I can hope is to leave no im- portant point untouched, though my re- ference to it may be restricted to a single phrase. This article, therefore, is rather the manual for a study of Tennyson than a study in itself. Quotations are not to be thought of; but every line of his poetry is in every household; besides, xvhere so much is faultless, who shall decide at what length and when to quote? ii. IT seems to me that the only just esti- mate of Tennysons position is that which declares him to be, by eminence, the re- presentative poet of the recent era. Not, like one or another of his compeers, repre- sentative of the melody, wisdom, passion, or other partial phase of the era, but of the time itself, with its diverse elements in harmonious conjunction. Years have strengthened my belief that a future age will regard him, independently of his merits, as bearing this relation to his period. In his verse, he is as truly the glass of fashion and the mould of form, of the Victorian generation in the Nineteenth Century, as Spenser was of the Elizabethan court, Milton of the Protectorate, Pope of the reign of Queen Anne. During his su- premacy there have been few great leaders, at the head of different schools, such as belonged to the time of Byron, Words- worth, and Keats. His poetry has gather- ed all the elements which find vital expres- sion in the complex modern art. Has the influence c~ Tennyson made the recent British school, or has his genius itself been modified and guided by the period? It is the old question of the river and the valley. The two have taken shape together; yet the beauty of Thnnysons verse was so potent from the first, and has so increased in potency, that we must pro- nounce him an independent geniu3cer- tainly more than the mere creature of his surroundings. Years ago, when he was yet compara- tively unknown, an American poet, him- self finely gifted with the lyrical ear, was so impressed by Tennysons method, that, in perfect sincerity, he pronounced hun the noblest poet that ever lived. If he had said the noblest artist, and confined this judgment to lyrists of the English tongue, he possibly would have made no exaggeration. Yet there have been artists with a less conscious manner and a broader style. The laureate is alxvays aware of what he is doing; he is his own dairno;z the inspirer, and controller, of his own ut- terances. He sings by note, no less than by ear, and follows a score of his own in- diting. But, acknowledging his culture, we have no right to assume that his ear is not as fine as that of any poet who gives voice with more careless rapture. His average is higher than that of other Eng- lish masters, though there may be scarcely one who in special flights has not excelled him. By Spencers law of progress, founded on the distribution of values, his poetry is more eminent than most which has pre- ceded it. I have inferred that the very success of Tennysons art has made it common in our eyes, and rendered us incapable of fairly judging it. When a poet has length of days, and sees his language a familiar por- tion of mens thoughts, he no longer can attract that romantic interest with which the world regards a genius freshly brought to hearing. Men forget that he, too, was once new, unhackneyed, appetizing. But recall the youth of Tennyson, and see how complete the revolution with which he has, I02 ALFRED TENN YSON. at least, been coeval, and how distinct his music then seemed from everything which had gone before. He began as a metrical artist, pure and simple, and with a feeling perfectly unique at a long remove, even, from that of so absolute an artist as was John Keats. He had very little notion beyond the produc- tion of rhythm, melody, color, and other I)oetic effects. Instinct led him to con- struct his machinery before essaying to build. Many have discerned, in his youth- ful pieces, the influence of Wordsworth and Keats, but no less that of the Italian poets, and of the early English balladists. I shall hereafter revert to Oriana, Ma riana, and The Lady of Shalott, as work that in its kind is fully up to the best of those modern Pre-Raphaelites who, by some arrest of development, stop precisely where Tennyson made his second step for- ward and now censure him for having gone beyond them. Meaningless as are the opexiing melodies of his collected verse, how delicious they once seemed, as a change from even the greatest productions which then held the public ear. Here was something of a new kind! The charm was legitimate. Tenny- sons immediate predecessors were so fully occupied with the mass of a composition that they slighted details: what beauty they displayed was not of the parts, but of the whole. Now, in all arts, the natural advance is from detail to general effect. How seldom those who begin with a broad treatment, which apes maturity, acquire subsequently the minor graces that alone can finish the perfect work! By compari- son of the late and early writings of gteat English poets,Shakespeare and Milton, one observes the process of healthful growth. Tennyson proved his kindred genius by this instinctive study of details in his immature verses. In marked con- trast to his fellows, and to every prede- cessor but Keats, that strong, excepted soul,he seemed to perceive from the out- set that Poetry is an art, and chief of the fine arts: the easiest to dabble in, the hardest in zo/iich to reach true excellence; that it has its technical secrets, its mysterious lowly paths that reach to aerial outlooksand this no less than sculpture, painting, music, or architecture, but even more. He de- voted himself, with the eager spirit of youth, to mastering this exquisite art, and wreak- ed his thoughts upon expression, for the expressions sake. And what else should one attempt, with small experiences, little concern for the real world, and less ob- servation of it? He had dreams rather than thoughts; but was at the most sen- sitive period of life with regard to rhythm, color, and form. In youth feeling is in- deed deeper than all thought, and re- sponds divinely to every sensuous con- frontment with the presence of beauty. It is difficult now to realize how chaotic was the notion of art among English verse- makers, at the beginning of Tennysons career. Not even the example of Keats had taught the needful lesson, and I look upon his successors early efforts as of no small importance. These were dreamy experiments in meter and word-painting, and spontaneous after their kind. Readers sought not to analyze their meaning and grace. The significance of art has since become so well understood, and such re- sults have been attained, that Claribel, Lilian, The Merman, The Dying Swan, The Owl, etc., seem slight enough to us now; and even then the affectation pervading them, which was merely the error of a poetic soul groping for its true form of expression, repelled men of severe and established tastes; but to the neophyte they had the charm of sighing winds and babbling waters, a wonder of luxury and weirdness, inexpressible, not to be effaced. How we lay on the grass, in June, and softly read them from the white page! To this day, what lyrics better hold their own than Mariana and the Recollections of the Arabian Nights. In these pieces, however, as in the crude yet picturesque Ode to Memory, the poet exhibited some distinctness of theme and motive, and, in a word, seemed to feel that he had something to express, if it were but the arabesque shadows of his fancy-laden dreams. Of a mass of lyrics, sonnets, and other metrical essays, published thereto- fore,some contained in the Poems by 7roo Brothers (1827), and others in the original volume of 1830,I say nothing, for they show little of the purpose that characterizes the few early pieces which our poet himself retains in his collected works. One of them, Hero and Leander, is too good in its way to be discarded; the greater number are juvenile, often imita- tive, and the excellent judgment of Tenny- son is shown by his rejection of all that have no true position in his lyrical ri~e and progress. The xolume of 1832, which began with I ALJ?RED TENN YSON. 103 The Lady of Shalott, and contained Eleanore, Margaret, The Millers Daughter, The Palace of Art, The May Queen, Fatima, The Lotos- Eaters, and the Dream of Fair Women, was published in his twenty-second year. All in all, a more original and beautiful volume of minor poetry never was added to our literature. The Tennysonian man- ner here was clearly developed, largely pruned of mannerisms. The command of delicious meters; the rhythmic susurrus of stanzas whose every word is as needful and~studied as the flower or scroll of orna- mental architectureyet so much an in- terlaced portion of the whole, that the special device is forgotten in the general excellence; the effect of color, of that music which is a passion in itself, of the scenic pictures which are the counter- parts of changeful emotions ;all are here, and the poets work is the epitome of every mode in art. Even if these lyrics and idyls had expressed nothing, they were of priceless value as guides to the renaissance of beauty. Thenceforward slovenly work was impossible, subject to instant rebuke by contrast. The force of metrical ele- gance made its way and carried everything before it. From this day Tennyson con- fessedly took his place at the head of what some attempt to classify as the art-school: that is, of poets who largely produce their effect by harmonizing scenery and detail with the emotions or impassioned action of their verse. The tendency of his genius was revealed in this volume. The author plainly was a college-man, a student of many litera- tures, and, though an Englishman to the core, alive to suggestions from Italian and Grecian sources. His Gothic feeling was manifest in The Lady of Shalott and The Sisters ; his classicism in Oenone ; his idyllic method, especially, now defined itself, making the scenery of a poem enhance the central ideathought and landscape being so blended that it was difficult to determine which suggested the other. I have elsewhere examined with some care the relations between Tennyson and Theocritus, and the general likeness of the Victorian to the Alexandrian period, and do not propose to review this special ground. Enough to say that the Greek influence is visible in many portions of the volume of i832, sometimes through almost literal translations of classical passages. Oenone modeled upon the new-Doric verse, ranks with Lycidas as an Hellenic study. While this most chaste and beautiful poem fascinated every re~ider, the wisest criticism found more of genuine worth in the purely English quality of those limpid pieces in which the melody of the lyric is wedded to the sentiment and picture of the idyl: The Millers Daughter, The May Queen and Lady Clara Vere de Vere. More dewy, fresh, pathetic, native verse had not been written since the era of As You Like It and A Winters Tale. During ten years, this book accomplished its auspicious work, until the authors fame and influence had so extended that he was encouraged to print the volume of 1842, wherein he first gave the name of idyls to poems of the class that has brought him a distinctive reputation. At the present day, were this volume to be lost, we possibly should be deprived of a larger specific variety of Tennysons most admired poems than is contained in any other of his successive ventures. It is an assortment of representative poems. To an art more restrained and natural we here find wedded a living soul. The poet has convictions: he is not a pupil but a master, and reaches intellectual greatness. His verses still bewitch youths and artists by their sentiments and beauty, but their thought takes hold of thinkers and men of the world. He has learned not only that art, when followed for its own sake, is alluring, but that, when used as a means of expressing what cannot otherwise be quite revealed, it becomes seraphic. We could spare, rather than this collection, much which he has since done: possibly Maudwithout doubt, idyls like Sea- Dreams and Ayhners Field. Look at the material structure of the poetry. Here, at last, we observe the ripening of that blank-verse which had been suggested in the Oenone. Consider Tennysons handling of this measurethe domino of a poetaster, the state garment of a lofty poet. It must be owned that he now en- riched it by a style entirely his own, and as well-defined as those already established. Foremost of the latter was the Elizabethan, marked by freedom and power, and never excelled for dramatic composition. Next, the Miltonic or Anglo-Epic, with its son- orous grandeur and stately Roman syntax, of which Paradise Lost is the master- piece, and Hyperion the finest specimen in modern times. That it really has no 104 ALFRED TENN YSON. place in our usage is proved by the fact that Keats, with true insight, refused, after some experience, to complete Hyperion on the ground that it had too many Mil- tonic inversions meanwhile blank-verse had been used for less imaginative or less heroical work; notably, for didactic and moralizing essays, by Cowper, Wordsworth, and other leaders of the contemplative school. Tennysons is of two kinds, one of which is suited to the heroic episodes in his idyllic poetrythe first important example being the Morte dArthur, which opened the volume of 1842, and is now made a portion of the fly/s of the Killg. I hold the verse of that poem to be his own invention, de- rived from the study of Homer and his natural mastery of the Saxon element in our language. Miltons Latinism is so pro- nounced as to be un-English; on the other hand, there is such affinity between the simple strength of the Homeric Greek and that of the English in which Saxon words prevail that the former can be rendered into the latter with great effect. Tennyson recognizes this in his prelude to Morte dArthur, deprecating his heroics as faint, Homeric echoes, nothing worth. But almost with the perusal of the first txvo lines, So all day long the noise of battle rolled Among the mountains by the winter sea. we see that this style surpasses other blank-verse in strength and condensation. It soon became the model for a score of younger aspirants; in short, impressed it- self upon the artistic mind as a new and vigorous form of our grandest English measure. The other style of Tennysons blank- verse is found in his purely idyllic pieces The Gardeners Daughter, Dora, Godiva, and, upon a lower plane, such eclogues as Audley Court and Edwin Morris. St. Simeon Stylites and Ulys- ses has each a special manner. In the first-named group, the poet brought to completeness the Victorian idyllic verse. The three are models from which he could not advance: in surpassing beauty and naturalness unequalled, I say, by many of his later efforts. What Crabbe essayed in a homely fashion, now, at the touch of a finer artist, became the perfection of rural, idyllic tenderness. Dora is like a Hebrew pastoral, the paragon of its kind, with not a quotable detail, a line too much or too little, but faultless as a whole. Who can read it without tears? Godiva and The Gardeners Daughter demand no less praise for descriptive felicity of another kind. But, for virile grandeur and aston- ishingly compact expression, there is no blank-verse poem, equally restricted as to length, that approaches the Ulysses : conception, imagery, and thought, are royally imaginative, and the assured hand is Tennysons throughout. I reserve for later discussion the poets general characteristics, fairly displayed in this volume. The great feature is its com- prehensive range; it includes a finished specimen of every kind of poetry within the authors power to essay. The variety is surprising, and the novelty was no less so at the date of its appearance. Here is The Talking Oak, that marvel of grace and fancy, the nonpareil of sustained lyrics in quatrain verse; as exquisite in filagree- work as The Rape of the Lock, with an airy beauty and rippling flow, compared with which the motion of Popes couplets is that of partners in an eighteenth century minuet. Here is the modern lover reciting Locksley Hall, which, despite its senti- mental egoism and consolation of the heart by the head, has fine metrical quality, is fixed in literature, and furnishes genuine illustrations of the poets time. In The Two Voices and The Vision of Sin the excess of his speculative intellect makes itself felt; but the second of these seems to me a strained and fantastic production; for which very reason, perchance, it drew the attention of semi-metaphysical persons who have no perception of the true mission of poetry, and, by a certain affectation, mis- taken for subtilty, has excited more com- ment and analysis than it deserves. The Day Dream, like The Talking Oak, gives the poet an opportunity for dying falls, mellifluous cadences, and delicately fanciful pictures. The story is made to his hand; he rarely invents a story, though often, as in the last-named poem, chancing upon the conceit of a dainty and original theme. Here, too, are Lady Clare, The Lord of Burleigh, and Edward Gray, each a simple, crystalline and flaw- less ballad. Nor has Tennyson ever com- posed, in his minor key, more enduring and suggestive little songs than Break, break, break ! and Flow down, cold rivulet, to the sea ! both, also, in this volume. His humor, which seldom be- comes him, is at its best in that half pen- / ALFRED TENN YSON. 105 sive, half rollicking, wholly poetic com- position, dear to wits and dreamers, Will Waterproofs Lyrical Monologue. In this collection, too, we find his early experi- ments in the now famous measure of In Memoriam. Purest and highest of all the lyrical pieces are St. Agnes and Sir Galahad, full of white light, and each a stainless idealization of its theme. Sir Galahad must be recited by a clarion voice, ere one can fully appreciate the sounding melody, the knightly, heroic ring. The poet has never chanted a more ennobling strain. Such is the excellence, and such the unusual range of a volume in which every department of poetry, except the dramatic, is exhibited in great perfection, if not at the most imaginative height. To the authors students it is a favorite among his books, as the one that fairly represents his composite genius. It powerfully affected the rising group of poets, giving their work a tendency which established its general character for the ensuing thirty years. There comes~ a time in the life of every as- piring artist, when if he be a painter, he tires of painting cabinet-pictureshowever much they satisfy his admirers ;if a poet, he says to himself: Enough of lyrics and idyls; let me essay a masterpiece, a sus- tained production, that shall bear to my former work the relation which an opera or oratorio bears to a composers sonatas and canzonets. It may be that some feel- ing of this kind impelled Tennyson to write The Princess, the theme and story of which are both his own invention. At that time he had not learned that it is as well for a poet to borrow from history or romance a tale made ready to his hands, and which his genius must transfigure. The poem is, as he entitled it, A Medley, constructed of ancient and modern materialsa show of medi~val pomp and movement, ob- served through an atmosphere of latter- day thought and emotion; so varying, withal, in the scenes and language of its successive parts, that one may well con- ceive it to be told by the group of thorough- bred men and maidens who, one after another, rehearse its cantos to beguile a festive summers day. I do not sympathize with the criticisms to which it has been subjected upon, this score, and which is but the old outcry of the French classicists against Victor Hugo and the romance school. The poet, in his prelude, antici- pates every stricture, and to me the ana chronisms and impossibilities of the story seem not only lawful, but attractive. Like those of Shakespeares comedies, they in- vite the reader off-hand to a purely idea]i world; he seats himself upon an English lawn, as upon a Persian enchanted carpet hears the mystic word pronounced, and, presto! finds himself in fairy-land. More- over, Tennysons special gift of reducing incongruous details to a common structure and tone is fully illustrated in a poem. made to suit with Time and place, A Gothic ruin and a Grecian house, A talk of college and of ladies rights, A feudal knight in silken masquerade. * * * * * * *. This were a medley! we should have him back Who told the Winters Tale to do it for us. But not often has a lovelier story been re- cited. After the idyllic introduction, the body of the poem is composed in a semi- heroic verse. Other works of our poet are greater, but none is so fascinating as this romantic tale: English throughout, yet combining the England of C~ur de Leon with that of Victoria in one bewitching, picture. Some of the authors most deli- cately musical lines, jewels five words long,are herein contained, and the end-- ing of each canto is an effective piece of art. The tournament scene, at the close of the fifth book, is the most vehement and rapid passage to be found in the whole range of Tennysons poetry. By an ap- proach to the Homeric swiftness, it pre-. sents a contrast to the laborious and faulty movement of much of his narrative verse. The songs, added in the second edition of his poem, reach the high-water mark of lyrical composition. Few will deny that, taken together, the five melodies: As through the land, Sweet and low, The splendor falls on castle walls, Home they brought her warrior dead, and Ask me no more ! that these constitute the finest group of songs produced in our cen- tury; and the third, known as the Bugle Song, seems to many the most perfect English lyric since the time of Shake- speare. In The Princess we also find Tennysons most successful studies upon the model of the Theocritan isometric. verse. He was the first to enrich our poetry with this class of melodies, for the burlesque pastorals of the eighteenth cen- tury need not be considered. Not one of io6 ALFRED IENNYSON. the blank-verse songs in his Arthurian Epic equals in structure or feeling the Tears, idle tears, and 0 swallow, swallow, flying, flying south ! Again, what witchery of landscape and action; what fair women and brave men, who, if they be somewhat stagy and traditional, at least are more sharply defined than the actors in our poets other romances. Be- sides, The Princess has a distinct pur- posethe illustration of womans struggles, aspirations and proper sphere; and the conclusion is one wherewith the instincts of cultured people are so thoroughly in ac- cord, that some are used to answer, when asked to present their view of the woman question : You will find it at the close of The Princess. Those who disagree with Tennysons presentation acknowledge that if it be not true it is well told. His Ida is, in truth, a beautiful and heroic figure: She bowed as if to veil a noble tear. * * * * * * Not peace she looked, the Head but rising up Robed in the long night of her deep hair, so To the open window moved. * * * ~ * * She stretched her arms, and called Across the tumult, and the tumult fell. Of the authors shortcomings in this and other poems, we have to speak in a future article. I leave The Princess, deeming it the most varied and interesting of his works with respect to freshness and in- vention. All mankind love a story-teller such as Tennyson, by this creation, proved himself to be. In the youth of poets it is the material value of their work that makes it precious, and for certain gifts of language and color we esteem one more highly than another. When a sweet singer dies prematurely, we lament his loss; but in a poets later years character and intellect begin to tell. His other gifts being equal, he who has the more vigorous mind will draw ahead of his fellows, and take the front position. Tennyson, like Browning, Procter, Arnold, has that which Keats was bereft of and which Wordsworth possessed in full mea- surethe gift of years, and must be judged according to his fortune. In mental ability he comes near to the greatest of the five, and in synthetic grasp, surpasses them all. Arnold s thought is wholly included in Tennyson; if you miss Brownings psycho- logy, you find a more varied analysis, ~qualified by wise restraint. His intellectual growth has steadily progressed, and is re- flected in the nature of his successive poems. At the age of forty a man, blessed with a sound mind in a sound body, should reach the maturity of his intellectual pow- er. At such a period, in the year 1850, Tennyson produced In Memoriam, his most characteristic and significant work: not so ambitious as his epic of King Ar- thur, but more distinctively a poem of this century, and displaying the authors genius in a subjective form. In it are concentra- ted his wisest reflections upon life, death, and immortality, the worlds within and without, while the whole song is so largely uttered, and so pervaded wit-h the singers manner, that any isolated line is recognized at once. This work stands by itself: none can essay another upon its model, without yielding every claim to personality and at the risk of an inferiority that would be appall- ing. The strength of Tennysons intellect has full sweep in this elegiac poemthe great threnody of our language, by virtue of unique conception and power. Lycidas, with its primrose beauty and varied lofty flights, is but the extension of a theme set by Moschus and Bion. Shelley, in Adon- ais, despite his spiritual ecstacy and splen- dor of lament, followed the same masters yes, and took his landscape and image- ry from distant climes. Swinburnes dirge for Baudelaire is a wonder of melody; nor do we forget the Thyrsis of Arnold, and other modern ventures in a direction where the sweet and absolute solemnity of the Saxon tongue is most apparent. Still, as an original and intellectual production, In Memoriam is beyond them all: and a more important, though possibly no more enduring, creation of rhythmic art. The metrical form of this work deserves attention. The authors choice of the transposed-quatrain verse was a piece of good fortune. Its hymnal quality, finely exemplified in the opening prayer, is always impressive, and, although a mono- tone, no more monotonous than the sounds of naturethe murmur of ocean, the soughing of the mountain pines. Were In Memoriam written in direct quatrains I think the effect would grow to be unindur- able. The work as a whole is built up of successive lyrics, each expressing a single phase of the poets . sorrow-brooding thought; and here again is followed the method of nature, which evolves cell after cell, and, joining each to each, constiucts ALFRED TENNYSON. Io~ the sentient organization. But Tennysons art-instincts are always perfect; he does the fitting thing, and rarely seeks through eccentric and curious movements to at- tract the popular regard. As to scenery, imagery, and general treat- ment, In Memoriam is eminently a Brit- ish poem. The grave, majestic, hymnal measure swells like the peal of an organ, yet acts as a brake on undue, spasmodic outbursts of discordant grief. A steady, yet varying marche fun?bre; a sense of passion held in check, of reserved elegiac power. For the strain is everywhere calm even in rehearsing a by-gone violence of e- motion, along its passage from woe to deso- lation and anon, by tranquil stages, to reverence, thought, aspiration, endurance, hope. On sea and shore the elements are calm; even the wild winds and snows of winter are brought in hand, and made sub- servient, as the bells ring out the dying year, to the new birth of Nature and the sure purpose of eternal God. Critical objections are urged against In Memoriam ; mostly, in my opinion, such as more fitly apply to poems upon a lower trade. It is said to present a confusion of religion and skepticism, an attempt to reconcile faith and knowledge, to blend the feeling of Dante with that of Lucretius; but, if this be so, the author only follows the example of his generation, and the more faithfully gives voice to its spirit- ual questionings. Even here he is accused (of idealizing the thoughts of his contem- poraries ; to which we rejoin, in the words of another, that great writers do not an- ticipate the thought of their age; they but anticipate its expression. His scientific language and imagery are also censured, but do not his efforts in this direction, ten- ~tative as they are, constitute a special merit? Tailing, as others have, to reconcile poetry and metaphysics, he succeeds better in speculations inspired by the revelations of the lens and laboratory. Why should not such facts be taken into account? The phe- riomenal stage of art is passing away, and all things, even poetic diction and metaphor, must endure a change. It is absurd to think that a man like Tennyson will rest content with ignoring or misstating what has become every-dayknowledge. The spiritual domain is still the poets own; but let his illustrations ~be derived from living truths, rather than from the worn and ancient fables of the pas- toral age. A certain writer declares that Tennyson shows sound sense instead of imaginative power. Not only sense, methinks, but the sanity of true genius; and the Strephon-and-Chlo~ singers must change their tune, or be left without a hear- ing. A charge requiring more serious con- sideration is that the sorrow of In Me- memoriam is but food for thought, a pas- sion of the head, not of the heart. The poet, however, has reached a philosophical zenith of his life, far above ignoble weak- ness, and performs the office which an en- franchised spirit might well require of him: building a mausoleum of immortal verse, conceiving his friend as no longer dead, but as having solved the mysteries they so often have discussed together. If there is didacticism in the poem, it is a teaching which leads ad ash-a, by a path strictly with- in the province of an elegiac minstrels song. For the rest, In Memoriam is a serene and truthful panorama of refined experi- ences; filled with pictures of gentle, schol- astic life, and of English scenery through all the changes of a rolling year; express- ing, moreover, the thoughts engendered by these changes. When too somber, it is lightened by sweet reminiscences; when too light, recalled to grief by stanzas that have the deep solemnity of a passing bell. Among its authors productions it is the one most valued by educated and professional readers. Recently, a number of authors having been asked to name three leading poems of this century which they would most prefer to have written, each gave In Memoriam either the first or second place upon his list. Obviously it is not a work to read at a sitting, nor to take up in every mood, but one in which we are sure to find something of worth in every stanza. It contains more notable sayings than any other of Tennysons poems. The wisdom, yearnings, and aspirations of a noble mind, are here; curious reasoning for once is not out of place; the poets imagination, shut in upon itself, strives to irradiate with in- ward light the mystic problems of life. At the close, Natures eternal miracle is made symbolic of the souls palingenesis, and the tender and beautiful epithalamium tranquil- izes the reader with the thought of the dear common joys which are the heritage of every living kind. END OF PART I. THE DOCTORS WIFE. THE DOCTORS WIFE. DR. Noyes married, I think, somewhere about 68 or ~. There is very little to be said about his wife. Mrs. Sarah Fanning, indeed, gave a decisive verdict upon her at first sight. She is one of the rank and file of Humanity, said she; one of the weightless molecules that go to make up the mass. (Mrs. Fanning was that bril- liant little woman from Andover, Mass., who essayed to take the well known Mrs. Rushs place in Philadelphia that winter. She used to give weekly reunionswithout supper; she cannot understand, even now, why she could not form a literary nu- cleus there.) Nobody contradicted her verdict; she always claimed Humanity as her own preempted property; and besides, there really was so little to say about the Doctors wife! Mrs. Fanning remarked that an American woman, if no other, ought to have some salient points, good or bad, to justify her right to live, and this woman was an American of the Americans, descended on one side from a colonial Maryland family, and on the other, of Pennsylvania Quaker stock, a race of re- formers, who lived only for great ideas. But there was absolutely nothing in the creaturenothing! It was inexplicable, by all the rules of race! The little ladys speciality, by the bye, was race and strains of blood. She could lay her finger on the very great-grandfather from whom you inherited your long upper-lip or gluttonous propensities, and reason for you, out of these inheritances, such se- quences of fatalism that you.r Christianity tottered quite to its foundations. Now there had been no salient points about the Doctors wife when she was a fat baby, or a girl at school. Dode Mear was daily set down as a dunce in every class, from spelling up to International Law, and daily took up her book with a cheerful It really is too bad in me, and went out with fresh zeal to skate and run races with the boys. If she had been one of the delicate Lilys and Violets whom the other girls set apart to adore, her lack of brains could have been overlooked; but she was a short, thickset little body, with a shock of red hair tied back from a freckled face which was lighted by laughing blue eyes, eyes in which there was an undeniable cast. She never, however, gave a hint of her opinion of herself, and always seemed to be in high good humor with her lot in lifer stupidity and squint included. A certain indefinable something about the girl,. would prevent any one from hinting a dis- agreeable truth to her. The same impal- pable reserve or old fashioned courtesy in her too, made the boys who skated and. raced with her treat her with a respect which they did not show to the Lilys and. Violets. Her condition on graduation-day would have been pitiable if her placid. good humor had not made it exasperating. One of the class was going to sail as mis- sionary to Africa: we all made a heroic martyr of her; we all looked forward with hysteric enthusiasm to speedily becoming famous authors, leaders in society, or at least, wives and mothers. Trustees and faculty spoke and prayed at us, the very air kindled with hope and fervor; and there sat that plump little dunce at the foot: of the bench, smelling a bunch of the red Burgundy roses, of which she was so fond, quite contented to be a cipher now and in the future! Here she was again, Dr. Noyess wife,. shapeless and freckled and bright-eyed as~ ever: but the ugly hair was always deli- cately coiffured, and her simple dress a marvel of exquisite art. She did not care in the least that everybody believed that. she had sold herself for an establishment. Why else should a girl of her age marry a cynical, soured widower of fifty, with a half dozen hobble-de-hoys of sons? Dr.. Noyes, Mrs. Fanning said, was an am- bitious man, thwarted in his aims, by the drudgery of supporting a family. Hu should have chosen an intellectual woman as his second wife, who could have helped. him to regain his lost ground. The Doctors mistake was soon apparent. in his wifes course. The faded carpets and hair-cloth sofas were swept out of the~ dreary old house. The money spent in making it bright and pretty, as Mrs. Fan- ning said, would have kept open a soup house all winter: Noyess old friends, in- stead of smoking their meerschaums in his dusty office, came in now to cozy dinners, where each man found his favorite dish: his wife had a fine taste in cookery, it ap- pears: in that, as in every thing else she~ took life with zest and joyously: the Noyes boys, who had begun to hang around Va- riety theatres and engine-houses, gave a~

THE DOCTORS WIFE. THE DOCTORS WIFE. DR. Noyes married, I think, somewhere about 68 or ~. There is very little to be said about his wife. Mrs. Sarah Fanning, indeed, gave a decisive verdict upon her at first sight. She is one of the rank and file of Humanity, said she; one of the weightless molecules that go to make up the mass. (Mrs. Fanning was that bril- liant little woman from Andover, Mass., who essayed to take the well known Mrs. Rushs place in Philadelphia that winter. She used to give weekly reunionswithout supper; she cannot understand, even now, why she could not form a literary nu- cleus there.) Nobody contradicted her verdict; she always claimed Humanity as her own preempted property; and besides, there really was so little to say about the Doctors wife! Mrs. Fanning remarked that an American woman, if no other, ought to have some salient points, good or bad, to justify her right to live, and this woman was an American of the Americans, descended on one side from a colonial Maryland family, and on the other, of Pennsylvania Quaker stock, a race of re- formers, who lived only for great ideas. But there was absolutely nothing in the creaturenothing! It was inexplicable, by all the rules of race! The little ladys speciality, by the bye, was race and strains of blood. She could lay her finger on the very great-grandfather from whom you inherited your long upper-lip or gluttonous propensities, and reason for you, out of these inheritances, such se- quences of fatalism that you.r Christianity tottered quite to its foundations. Now there had been no salient points about the Doctors wife when she was a fat baby, or a girl at school. Dode Mear was daily set down as a dunce in every class, from spelling up to International Law, and daily took up her book with a cheerful It really is too bad in me, and went out with fresh zeal to skate and run races with the boys. If she had been one of the delicate Lilys and Violets whom the other girls set apart to adore, her lack of brains could have been overlooked; but she was a short, thickset little body, with a shock of red hair tied back from a freckled face which was lighted by laughing blue eyes, eyes in which there was an undeniable cast. She never, however, gave a hint of her opinion of herself, and always seemed to be in high good humor with her lot in lifer stupidity and squint included. A certain indefinable something about the girl,. would prevent any one from hinting a dis- agreeable truth to her. The same impal- pable reserve or old fashioned courtesy in her too, made the boys who skated and. raced with her treat her with a respect which they did not show to the Lilys and. Violets. Her condition on graduation-day would have been pitiable if her placid. good humor had not made it exasperating. One of the class was going to sail as mis- sionary to Africa: we all made a heroic martyr of her; we all looked forward with hysteric enthusiasm to speedily becoming famous authors, leaders in society, or at least, wives and mothers. Trustees and faculty spoke and prayed at us, the very air kindled with hope and fervor; and there sat that plump little dunce at the foot: of the bench, smelling a bunch of the red Burgundy roses, of which she was so fond, quite contented to be a cipher now and in the future! Here she was again, Dr. Noyess wife,. shapeless and freckled and bright-eyed as~ ever: but the ugly hair was always deli- cately coiffured, and her simple dress a marvel of exquisite art. She did not care in the least that everybody believed that. she had sold herself for an establishment. Why else should a girl of her age marry a cynical, soured widower of fifty, with a half dozen hobble-de-hoys of sons? Dr.. Noyes, Mrs. Fanning said, was an am- bitious man, thwarted in his aims, by the drudgery of supporting a family. Hu should have chosen an intellectual woman as his second wife, who could have helped. him to regain his lost ground. The Doctors mistake was soon apparent. in his wifes course. The faded carpets and hair-cloth sofas were swept out of the~ dreary old house. The money spent in making it bright and pretty, as Mrs. Fan- ning said, would have kept open a soup house all winter: Noyess old friends, in- stead of smoking their meerschaums in his dusty office, came in now to cozy dinners, where each man found his favorite dish: his wife had a fine taste in cookery, it ap- pears: in that, as in every thing else she~ took life with zest and joyously: the Noyes boys, who had begun to hang around Va- riety theatres and engine-houses, gave a~ THE DOCTORS WIFE. 109 series of dancing parties and private the- atricals at home, to which girls of their own class came. Now all these things bring in bills: the Doctors long hoarded money was spent like water. It was an inscrutable mystery to our society leaders why he and his boys, and in fact, all other men, clustered around Mrs. Dode, as they called her, affectionately, like bees about honey. She never said anything worth re- membering for five minutes: she made no professions of love or friendship. Some of us, who remembered how the whole school used to pause to hear her read her Bible verse, thought the charm lay in her pleasant voice, or could there be any magic in the clean, spicy scent of Burgundy roses with which the house was always filled? The men, when questioned, really seemed to have no definite idea of the woman: one liked her because she was quiet, another because her hand-shake was as firm and genuine as a mans, another for her merry laugh. In the meantime they all carried their secrets to her: the very classmates of the Noyes boys wrote to her about their college scrapes that she might see father and mother about it, and beg them off. She had a queer following of women too, shabby widows and fashionable belles and poor sempstressesyou were just as likely to find one at her table as the other. She had not the least perception of class distinctions, owing perhaps to those Quaker grandfathers who measured the world and all in it by ideas. She had, too, different rates of value from ours with regard to other things. Mrs. Fanning unconsciously ranked herself high in the scale of being because of her priceless bric-a-brac, and portfolio of proofs before letters. Mrs. Dode also surrounded herself with old china and pictures, but was indif- ferent about it: she did not carry her little luxuries with the uneasy vanity of a workman in his Sunday shirt. Art and wealth had been ordinary appliances of her mothers family for generations. She took no more notice as to whether a man was rich or poor in such things than whether be came to her gloved or un- gloved. Somebody was sure to bring every foreign traveler to the Doctors house; whether it was prince, novelist, or poet, Mrs. Dode welcomed them to her ordinary table and habits, not concerning herself to enquire if they were used to a palace or hovel: and they in turn forgot to notice whether the napkins were folded in English fashion, or how she dealt with her es. I wish you to judge of us by our repre- sentative women, Mrs. Fanning said to one of these touristswhile theywere dining at the Doctors, and not by negative characters. But he could look at nobody but the homely little woman at the head of the table. Ah, madam, he cried, there are so many representative women! But the old story tells us of how Prince Charm- ing married the good fairy, and by her had a family of but few children, all of whom were born in the light of the moon; and I meet one now and then in this country or in that. When I find one of them, then I look no farther. It was quite natural that Mrs. Dode, having lived in so negative a way, without making any mark or bruit in the world, should die in the same fashion. It ap- pears that while she seemed in health some secret symptoms led her, to consult a physician. She went to New York to do this, saying nothing to her husband, and there learned that she had but a short time to live. Whatever grief she may have felt, she showed none and told nobody her secret. When she came back the home life went on in its usual merry fashion. Dick and Joe both brought their brides home that winter. Dr. Noyes, who had grown younger and more energetic every year since his marriage, was busied with some experiments in electricity, which added greatly to his reputation. Mrs. T)ode did not change her habits in the least. She never had been a constant church- goer, or a member of any charitable so- ciety, and she did not become one now. It was remembered afterwards that she re- mained out longer in the mornings on her rounds among the poor, and that she had a print which was in her chamber, re-hung so that she could see it when she woke in the morning. (It was the Head crowned with thorns.) In June her husband was invited to Baltimore to an anniversary celebration, in which he always took a keen delight. She clung to him and cried when he was going. If you need me, Dode, I will stay with you, he said, tenderly. She hesitated a little, and then raised herself, smiling. No, it will be pleasanter for you there, said she, only good-bye once more, dear. She went to bed as usual that night. In the morning they found her dead, her cheek resting on her hand, a half smile on the freckled face; 110 TOPICS OF THE TIME. her other hand, tight closed, was lying on rested on her bosom. The morning sun her heart, and they found in it a bit of the shone brightly over her, and the room hair of the little dead-born baby that came was filled with the perfume of fresW to her years ago, whose head had never roses. TOPICS OF THE TIME. Star-Lecturing. MR. PROCTOR does not need to look upward to find the star depths. The phrase may fitly charac- terize American Society, which consists of stars and blank spaces. We run our politics on the starring system. A man becomes a star, and we make him president. The red light of Mars is the favorite color. Not statesmanship, not personal character, not intellectual culture, not eminent knowledge, not anything and not any combination of things that constitute superlative fitness, fixes the American choice for the chief magistracy. The star which, for the moment, can attract the greatest number of eyes, becomes the lord of the heavens and the earth. Votes must be had at any sacrifice and votes can only be counted on for stars. Availability is the polit- ical watch word, and such statesmanship as we get is that with which we manage to surround the star that so quickly cools and flickers in its new and alien atmosphere. Political rewards do not go where they belong; public trust is not reposed in the best men ; and so politics degenerate, and second and third rate men are everywhere uppermost. The starring system in politics is a failure. It is bad for the country, it is bad for politics; it is a discourage- ment to personal and political worth, it is a nui- sance. 1he starring system in theatricals is even more obviously destructive to all that is worthy in the popular drama. We go to a theater, not to wit- ness a play, but to see Booth, or Joe Jefferson, or some other star. The opera is nothing without Kellogg, or Patti, or Nilsson, or some miraculous tenor who to-day is, and to-morrow is not. The orchestras,trained, laborious, patient, admirable, pass for nothing. The choruses are not thought so much of as an orchestrion would be. The great mass of singers and players who sustain the minor parts, isave no more consideration than puppets. What is the consequence? The money is mainly absorbed by the stars, who shine the brighter in a sky of mediocrity or absolute inferiority. So long as the starring system prevails, mediocrity will be the rule. Stars must have space, to be seen; and we have had for years, in the theatrical world, nothing but stars and spacesthe latter, wide. A first class drama, well presented in every part, has not been witnessed in New York for a long time; and for this fact the starring system is alone responsible. An actor now- adays can get no consideration except as a star, and,, to succeed, he is often obliged to confine himself to a. single play. How has the starring system worked upon the platform? It has been tried pretty thoroughly for the last five years, and the results ought to be, and are, apparent. Ten and fifteen years ago, a course of lectures consisted of eight or ten discourses on topics of popular interest, or social and political questions of public moment. They were prosperous,. well attended, and profitable in many ways. Then came the star-fever. Men were summoned to the platform simply because they would draw, and not because the people expected instruction or inspira- tion from them. A notoriety had only to rise, to be summoned at once to the platform. If he could lift a great many kegs of nails ; if he was successful as. a showman; if he was a literary buffoon, and suffi- ciently expert in cheap orthography; in short, if he had been anything, or done anything, to make him- self an object of curiosity to the crowd, he was re- garded as a star, and called at once into the lecture field, for the single purpose of swelling the receipts at the door. Of course the stars called for high prices, and under high prices the number of lectures given in a course was cut down. The people who came to bask in the blaze, finding too often only a twinkle, and sometimes only a fizzle, that left an un- pleasant odor, became disgusted, and the best of them,the very men and women upon whom the whole lecture system relied for steady prosperity, left the lecture-room altogether. Still the starring system went on, with a new agency to push it, established by the lecture bureaus. Men were invited to come from England, and promised great results. Some of these have been genuine acces- sions to the corps of good lecturers, while many have proved to be sorry failures. Many a famous name, far-fetched and dear-bought, has shone upon the list for a season, never to be recalled and always to be remembered with disappointment. The bureaus have pushed and puffed their pets,both imported and domestic,until lecture committees have ceased to believe in them altogether. And now, what is the condition of the platform? In the l~rge towns, where they have been able to get the stars, it is difficult to get a first-rate audience together on any night, and still more difficult to maintain a steady, prosperous course of lectures. In the smaller towns, where want of funds has com

110 TOPICS OF THE TIME. her other hand, tight closed, was lying on rested on her bosom. The morning sun her heart, and they found in it a bit of the shone brightly over her, and the room hair of the little dead-born baby that came was filled with the perfume of fresW to her years ago, whose head had never roses. TOPICS OF THE TIME. Star-Lecturing. MR. PROCTOR does not need to look upward to find the star depths. The phrase may fitly charac- terize American Society, which consists of stars and blank spaces. We run our politics on the starring system. A man becomes a star, and we make him president. The red light of Mars is the favorite color. Not statesmanship, not personal character, not intellectual culture, not eminent knowledge, not anything and not any combination of things that constitute superlative fitness, fixes the American choice for the chief magistracy. The star which, for the moment, can attract the greatest number of eyes, becomes the lord of the heavens and the earth. Votes must be had at any sacrifice and votes can only be counted on for stars. Availability is the polit- ical watch word, and such statesmanship as we get is that with which we manage to surround the star that so quickly cools and flickers in its new and alien atmosphere. Political rewards do not go where they belong; public trust is not reposed in the best men ; and so politics degenerate, and second and third rate men are everywhere uppermost. The starring system in politics is a failure. It is bad for the country, it is bad for politics; it is a discourage- ment to personal and political worth, it is a nui- sance. 1he starring system in theatricals is even more obviously destructive to all that is worthy in the popular drama. We go to a theater, not to wit- ness a play, but to see Booth, or Joe Jefferson, or some other star. The opera is nothing without Kellogg, or Patti, or Nilsson, or some miraculous tenor who to-day is, and to-morrow is not. The orchestras,trained, laborious, patient, admirable, pass for nothing. The choruses are not thought so much of as an orchestrion would be. The great mass of singers and players who sustain the minor parts, isave no more consideration than puppets. What is the consequence? The money is mainly absorbed by the stars, who shine the brighter in a sky of mediocrity or absolute inferiority. So long as the starring system prevails, mediocrity will be the rule. Stars must have space, to be seen; and we have had for years, in the theatrical world, nothing but stars and spacesthe latter, wide. A first class drama, well presented in every part, has not been witnessed in New York for a long time; and for this fact the starring system is alone responsible. An actor now- adays can get no consideration except as a star, and,, to succeed, he is often obliged to confine himself to a. single play. How has the starring system worked upon the platform? It has been tried pretty thoroughly for the last five years, and the results ought to be, and are, apparent. Ten and fifteen years ago, a course of lectures consisted of eight or ten discourses on topics of popular interest, or social and political questions of public moment. They were prosperous,. well attended, and profitable in many ways. Then came the star-fever. Men were summoned to the platform simply because they would draw, and not because the people expected instruction or inspira- tion from them. A notoriety had only to rise, to be summoned at once to the platform. If he could lift a great many kegs of nails ; if he was successful as. a showman; if he was a literary buffoon, and suffi- ciently expert in cheap orthography; in short, if he had been anything, or done anything, to make him- self an object of curiosity to the crowd, he was re- garded as a star, and called at once into the lecture field, for the single purpose of swelling the receipts at the door. Of course the stars called for high prices, and under high prices the number of lectures given in a course was cut down. The people who came to bask in the blaze, finding too often only a twinkle, and sometimes only a fizzle, that left an un- pleasant odor, became disgusted, and the best of them,the very men and women upon whom the whole lecture system relied for steady prosperity, left the lecture-room altogether. Still the starring system went on, with a new agency to push it, established by the lecture bureaus. Men were invited to come from England, and promised great results. Some of these have been genuine acces- sions to the corps of good lecturers, while many have proved to be sorry failures. Many a famous name, far-fetched and dear-bought, has shone upon the list for a season, never to be recalled and always to be remembered with disappointment. The bureaus have pushed and puffed their pets,both imported and domestic,until lecture committees have ceased to believe in them altogether. And now, what is the condition of the platform? In the l~rge towns, where they have been able to get the stars, it is difficult to get a first-rate audience together on any night, and still more difficult to maintain a steady, prosperous course of lectures. In the smaller towns, where want of funds has com TOPICS OF THE TIME. I I~ I pelled them to dispense with the stars, the system was never more prosperous than it is to-day. In New England and New York, generally, the towns with 20,000 inhabitants and upwards, have difficulty in sustaining a course of lectures, while there are many towns of less than five thousand people that maintain a good course every winter, and make money by it. If there is anything in the lecture system worth saving, let us save it. Those who know what it used to be, will be glad to see it restored to its old posi- tion, and if they have studied its history, they will conclude, with us, that the starring system must be stopped. The lecture-room must cease to be the show-room of fresh notorieties, at high prices. Men must be called to lecture for the simple reason that they have something to say. The courses must be lengthened, and made in themselves valuable. The pushing by interested bureaus of untried men must be ignored or resisted. Men must be called to teach because they can teach, and not because they can do something else. The lecture must cease to be regarded simply as an entertainment. Wher- ever it has been so regarded and so managed, the system has gone down, and wherever the stock lecturer has been sacrificed to the star, the audiences have gradually dwindled until it has become almost impossible to sustain a course of lectures at all. Stars have been so muck in fashion that we have establishments now for the manufacture of fictitious reputations, and these establishments must go under. They always were an impertinence, and they have become a nuisance. The lecture is a necessity. Let us restore the institution to its old footing of direct friendly relations between the lecturers and the lyceum, and give no man access to the plat- form who does not come there in a legitimate way, and who is not held there because he has something valuable to say. No system can stand when its best and most reliable workers are pinched in their prices, that those may be overpaid, who not only bring no strength to it, but weaken it ha its finances and in its hold upon the respect and affection of the people. The Great Temperance Movement. FoR years, and years, and weary, suffering years, multiplied into decades, have the women of Amer- ica waited to see that traffic destroyed, which annually sends sixty thousand of their sons, brothers, fathers and husbands into the drunk- ards grave. They have been impoverished, dis- graced, tortured in mind and body, beaten, mur- dered. Under the impulse of maddening liquors the hands that were pledged before Heaven to pro- vide for, and protect them, have withdrawn from them the means of life, or smitten them in the dust. Sons whom they have nursed upon their bosoms with tenderest love and countless prayers, have grown into beasts, of whom they were afraid, or have sunk into helpless and pitiful slavery. They have been compelled to cover their eyes with shame in the presence of fathers whom it would have been bliss for them to hold in honor. They have been compelled to bear children to men whose habits had unfitted them for parentagechildren not only tainted by disease, but endowed with debased appe- tites. They have seen themselves and their precious families thrust into social degradation, and cut off forever from all desirable life by the vice of the men they loved. What the women of this coun- try have suffered from drunkenness, no mind, how- ever sympathetic, can measure, and no pen, how- ever graphic, can describe. It has been the un- fathomable black gulf into which infatuated multi- tudes of men have thrown their fortunes, their health, and their industry, and out of which have come only,in fire and stench,dishonor, disease, crime, misery, despair and death. It is the abom- ination of abominations, the curse of curses, the hell of hells! For weary, despairing years, they have waited to see the reform that should protect them from further harm. They have listened to lectures, they have signed pledges, they have encouraged temperance societies, they have asked for, and secured legisla- tion, and all to no practical good end. The poli- ticians have played them false; the officers of the law are unfaithful; the government revenue thrives on the thriftiness of their curse; multitudes of the clergy are not only apathetic in their pulpits, but self- indulgent in their social habits; newspapers do not help, but rather hinder them ; the liquor interest, armed with the money that should have bought them prosperity, organizes against them; fashion opposes them; a million fierce appetites are arrayed against them, and, losing all faith in men, what can they do? There is but one thing for them to do. There is but one direction in which they can look, and that is upward! The womens temperance movement, begun and carried on by prayer, is as natural in its birth and growth as the oak that springs from the acorn. If God and the God-like element in woman cannot help, there is no help. If the pulpit, the press, the politicians, the re- formers, the law, cannot bring reform, who is left to do it but God and the women? We bow to this movement with reverence. We do not stop to question methods; we do not pause to query about permanent results. We simply say to the glorious women engaged in this marvelous crusade: MAY GOD HELP AND PROSPER YOU, AND GIVE YOU TIlE DESIRE OF YOUR HEARTS IN THE FRUIT OF TOUR LABORS It becomes men to be either humbly helpful or dumb. We who have dallied with this question; we who have dispassionately drawn the line between temperance and total abstinence; we who have de- plored drunkenness with wine-glasses in our hands; we who have consented to involve a great moral re- form with politics; we who have been politically 112 TOPICS QJ? THE TIME. afraid of the power of the brutal element associated with the liquor traffic; we who have split hairs in our discussions of public policy; we who have given social sanction to habits that in the great cities have made drunkards of even the women themselves, and led their sons and ours into a dissolute life; we who have shown either our unwillingness or our impo- tence to save the country from the gulf that yawns before it, can only step aside with shame-faced humility while the great crusade goes on, or heart- ily give to it our approval and our aid. This is not a crusade of professional agitators, clamoring for an abstract right, but an enterprise of suffering, pure and devoted women, laboring for the overthrow of a concrete wrong. It is no pleas- ant, holiday business in which these women are en- gaged, but one of self-denying hardship, pregnant in every part with a sense of duty. It is the off- spring of a grand religious impulse which gives to our time its one suyerb touch of heroism, and re- deems it from its political debasement and the deg- radation of its materialism. It is a shame to man- hood that it is necessary; it is a glory to woman- hood that it is possible. If the experience of the last century has demon- strated anything, it is that total abstinence is the only ground on which any well-wisher of society can stand. The liquor traffic has been bolstered up for years, and is strong to-day, simply through in- fluence which is deemed respectable. It must be made infamous by the combination of all the re- spectable elements of society against it. It must cease to be respectable to drink at all. It must cease to be respectable to rent a building in which liquors are sold. There is no practicable middle ground. So long as men drink temperately, men will drink intemperately, whether it ought to be otherwise or not; and it is with reference to the development of a healthy public opinion on this subject, that we particularly rejoice in the womens crusade. Our own vision is so blinded and perverted that we can only see the deformity of the monster which oppresses us through womans eyes, uplifted in prayer, tearful in shame and suffer- ing, or bright in triumph as the strongholds of her life-long enemy fall before her. Political Morality. WE hear a great deal now-a-days about the rule of second-rate men ; and there are many good people who fancy that the country is suffering from the lack of great statesmanship among our law- makers and the executive officers of the govern- ment. There is a measure of.justice in this judg- ment, without doubt, but it does not cover the ground. There is, at least, ability enough among these men to carry their policy, whatever it may be. There is no lack of ingenious subterfuge, far reach- ing intrigue, bold and powerful leading, and per- sonal influence and public eloquence, to compass any end desired. There is no lack of instrument- alities to push any approved party scheme ; to for- ward any special interest; to advance any sectional policy; to secure the personal aggrandizement of any pet of a cabal. From the low standpoint of the prevalent political morality, there seems to be abundant intellectual ability to carry any desirable measure. It is not the brains that are at fault; it is the heart, lit is not ability that is wanting ; it is morality. Have we at the head of the government a man of high-toned morality?a man whose supreme desire is to do right ?who, above all personal inter- est, above all party policy, above all the influence of corrupt men, is exercised by the dominant purpose to keep his conscience clear and his hands clean, and to serve his people with unswerving integrity? Are the leaders of our national councils and the men of influence there, trustworthy men? Are they men who take the straight path of duty and follow it, irrespective of all the bribes which power and wealth hold in their hands, and regardless of all the threats of unprincipled bullies and intri- guers? We are not called upon to answer these questions; but all those who feel compelled to give them a negative reply hold in their hands a suffi- cient explanation of the evils from which the coun- try suffers to-day. It is not necessary to point to the Cr/dit Mobilier, or the Salary Grab, or any of the corrupt schemes by which these men betray themselves. A low morality among our legislators and rulers gives, all through, by a fatal necessity, immoral legislation and immoral administration. If this low morality exists, every interest of this great country is at its mercy. All the national questions that arise must be settled by it. It vi- tiates the national policy; it poisons every political measure ; it narrows everything down to the limit of its own party and personal interests. The people of America richly deserve the inflic- tion of all the evils from which they suffer. From the time of General Jackson to this day there has been practically but one rule in the selection of a chief magistrate, and that rule has been mainly followed in the election of our national legislatures. This rule is known as availability. Each party has put forward for its leaders, little and large, those who for any reason seemed likely to get the greatest number of votes. In no instance during this period have we had in the presidential chair a first-class man. Some of our presidents have been good, but weak; some have been old political trim- mers; some have been boors who were the laugh- ing stock of the nations; some have been mulish and ignorant. Certainly no one has stood upon an equality with Washington, Jefferson and the Adamses. The question of morality is not one with which our people have concerned themselves at all. Men have been chosen because they were not statesmen; because they were unknown; be- THE OLD CABINET. 3 cause they were popular with the rabble; because they were good soldiers; because they could get votes. We do not know of one man during the whole period who has been chosen because he was a Christian gentleman and statesman, and so above all unworthy motives in the administration of the duties of his office. Of the rules that prevail in the election of our national legislators our readers are good judges, and they know that almost every- thing else is considered before morality. There are men of influence in both Houses of Congress whose personal characters and histories will not bear inspection for a momentmen with whom no one can come into association without a stain. Far be it from us to deny the presence of good men in Congress. There are as noble men there to-day as there ever were, but their influence is nullified by their bad and unscrupulous asso ciates. Some of the very men who are trusted least by the country, and whose moral reputation is a stench in the nostrils of the world, are most promi- nent in the national councils and most powerful in the direction of government patronage. We long ago ceased to expect perfection in the world of politics, but the duty of every honest man to try for it never ceases. When we get honest men in the places of trustmen with whom honor is more than money, and duty more than prefer- ment, and country more than party, and God more than all, we shall have wisdom in law and purity in administration. Personal immorality and wise statesmanship cannot exist together, and until the American people insist that their public servants shall be gentlemen, at the least, they must expect to suffer at large from the conflicting policies of selfish and corrupt men. THE OLD CABINET. You may remember when you were much both- ered in your mind by the questionWhat is it that makes a writer? Here is a man with a certain de- gree of culture; with a certain experience; and he is a writer. Here is another man with much the same, or a higher degree of culture, and with much the same, or a more interesting experience, and he could not be a writer, even if he wanted to be; as perhaps he does, the mores the pity. Please ob~. serve that I am not talking about mere writers not even mere writers of books; but writers of lit- erature: Shakespeare, Charles Lamb, Emerson, Thackeray, Chaucer, Dante, Robert Browning, Car- lyle, George Eliot, Tennyson, Landor, Spenser, Hawthorne, and the rest. What makes these men builders with words, in sr~ch fashion as to identify them forever with word buildingso indeed, that their building lasts; and this is looked upon as a proper and becoming occupa- tion and fame for them? It is easy to tell what makes a man a journalist. Some creatures are born with a passion for printers ink. They tend naturally to a newspaper office, set type, gather locals, or write leaders, according to their capacity. They may go as far as magazine writing, and so finally glide into the making of books. It does not follow that they be- come makers of literature. Somewhere is drawn a line between mere writing and genuine literature a line none the less real, because it runs very crook- edly, or because sometimes c$ur eyes are dazzled that we cannot see it. You may remember also, the time when you dis- covered what it was that made a man a writer in the higher sense. It was at that epoch in your Vos. VIII.8 life when the blind faiths of youth gave way,not without distress ; not without, perhaps, a time of dark, perplexed wandering,to be succeeded by the open-eyed faiths of maturity. Then, when the scales fell from your own eyes, and you apprehend- ed some things, at least, freshlythen you knew that the true sayer was the true seer. It is trueall that the poets have said about it. The knack makes a man a stringer of words, with more or less of thought. The insight, added to the knack, makes him something more. The seer and the sayer are one. Not that the book of truth is opened only to him who has the gift of tongues. Bird-song, smell of salt sea, glint of dew-drop and star, wracked nerve, sin these spell plain words to myriads who r~d well, but not aloud. There was a time when we found all this out for ourselves. But when we got on a little farther, we made another discovery, that among those who use words there are genuine seers who are not genuine writers. Let us, in order to narrow the outlook and make the objects more sharp and distinct, limit our thoughts to poetry. Thenamong the poets, there are genuine seers whose lack of art withdraws their work from the realm of genuine literature. And, on the other hand, there are genuine poets who have little of the seer. They hold their place, strangely enough, just by the charm of their words: the liltthe dreamy, winning, delicious music, color, honey-sweetness of their thoughtless lan- guage. Din you not suppose that if anything was well understood it was that in moments of intense emotion

THE OLD CABINET. 3 cause they were popular with the rabble; because they were good soldiers; because they could get votes. We do not know of one man during the whole period who has been chosen because he was a Christian gentleman and statesman, and so above all unworthy motives in the administration of the duties of his office. Of the rules that prevail in the election of our national legislators our readers are good judges, and they know that almost every- thing else is considered before morality. There are men of influence in both Houses of Congress whose personal characters and histories will not bear inspection for a momentmen with whom no one can come into association without a stain. Far be it from us to deny the presence of good men in Congress. There are as noble men there to-day as there ever were, but their influence is nullified by their bad and unscrupulous asso ciates. Some of the very men who are trusted least by the country, and whose moral reputation is a stench in the nostrils of the world, are most promi- nent in the national councils and most powerful in the direction of government patronage. We long ago ceased to expect perfection in the world of politics, but the duty of every honest man to try for it never ceases. When we get honest men in the places of trustmen with whom honor is more than money, and duty more than prefer- ment, and country more than party, and God more than all, we shall have wisdom in law and purity in administration. Personal immorality and wise statesmanship cannot exist together, and until the American people insist that their public servants shall be gentlemen, at the least, they must expect to suffer at large from the conflicting policies of selfish and corrupt men. THE OLD CABINET. You may remember when you were much both- ered in your mind by the questionWhat is it that makes a writer? Here is a man with a certain de- gree of culture; with a certain experience; and he is a writer. Here is another man with much the same, or a higher degree of culture, and with much the same, or a more interesting experience, and he could not be a writer, even if he wanted to be; as perhaps he does, the mores the pity. Please ob~. serve that I am not talking about mere writers not even mere writers of books; but writers of lit- erature: Shakespeare, Charles Lamb, Emerson, Thackeray, Chaucer, Dante, Robert Browning, Car- lyle, George Eliot, Tennyson, Landor, Spenser, Hawthorne, and the rest. What makes these men builders with words, in sr~ch fashion as to identify them forever with word buildingso indeed, that their building lasts; and this is looked upon as a proper and becoming occupa- tion and fame for them? It is easy to tell what makes a man a journalist. Some creatures are born with a passion for printers ink. They tend naturally to a newspaper office, set type, gather locals, or write leaders, according to their capacity. They may go as far as magazine writing, and so finally glide into the making of books. It does not follow that they be- come makers of literature. Somewhere is drawn a line between mere writing and genuine literature a line none the less real, because it runs very crook- edly, or because sometimes c$ur eyes are dazzled that we cannot see it. You may remember also, the time when you dis- covered what it was that made a man a writer in the higher sense. It was at that epoch in your Vos. VIII.8 life when the blind faiths of youth gave way,not without distress ; not without, perhaps, a time of dark, perplexed wandering,to be succeeded by the open-eyed faiths of maturity. Then, when the scales fell from your own eyes, and you apprehend- ed some things, at least, freshlythen you knew that the true sayer was the true seer. It is trueall that the poets have said about it. The knack makes a man a stringer of words, with more or less of thought. The insight, added to the knack, makes him something more. The seer and the sayer are one. Not that the book of truth is opened only to him who has the gift of tongues. Bird-song, smell of salt sea, glint of dew-drop and star, wracked nerve, sin these spell plain words to myriads who r~d well, but not aloud. There was a time when we found all this out for ourselves. But when we got on a little farther, we made another discovery, that among those who use words there are genuine seers who are not genuine writers. Let us, in order to narrow the outlook and make the objects more sharp and distinct, limit our thoughts to poetry. Thenamong the poets, there are genuine seers whose lack of art withdraws their work from the realm of genuine literature. And, on the other hand, there are genuine poets who have little of the seer. They hold their place, strangely enough, just by the charm of their words: the liltthe dreamy, winning, delicious music, color, honey-sweetness of their thoughtless lan- guage. Din you not suppose that if anything was well understood it was that in moments of intense emotion HOME AND SOCIETY. there is a vivid consciousness of the shows of things of ones own appearance, of surroundings and cir- cumstances, that at other times are but shadows on a wimpling brook. This phenomenon was, perhaps, never better told than in Rossettis Woodspurge. Do you remember it? The wind was dead, the wind was still, Shaken out loose