{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_9472/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_9472","id":"gutenberg_9472","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9472","summary":null,"tags":["American periodicals","Category: Journals","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Psychiatry/Psychology","The Atlantic Monthly"],"text":"Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Tonya Allen, and Project\nGutenberg Distributed Proofreaders\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE ATLANTIC MONTHLY\n\nA MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS\n\nVOL. V, MAY, 1860, NO. XXXI\n\n\n\n\n\n\nINSTINCT.\n\n\n\"Instinct is a great matter,\" quoth Falstaff, when called upon to find\nout a device, a \"starting-hole,\" to hide himself from the open and\napparent shame of having run away from the fight and hacked his sword\nlike a handsaw with his own dagger. Like a valiant lion, he would not\nturn upon the true prince, but ran away upon instinct. Although the\npeculiar circumstances of the occasion upon which the subject was\npresented to Falstaff's mind were not very favorable to a calm\nconsideration of it, he was undoubtedly correct in saying that instinct\nis a great matter. \"If, then, the tree may be known by the fruit,\" says\nFalstaff, \"as the fruit by the tree, then, peremptorily I speak it,\nthere is virtue in that Falstaff\"; and it is proper that his authority\nshould be quoted, even upon a question of metaphysical science.\n\nThat psychological endowment of animals which we denominate instinct\nhas in every age been a matter full of wonder; and men of thought have\nfound few more interesting subjects of inquiry. But it is confessed\nthat little has been satisfactorily made out concerning the nature and\nlimitations of instinct. In former times the habits and mental\ncharacteristics of those orders of animated being which are inferior to\nman were observed with but a careless eye; and it was late before the\nphenomena of animal life received a careful and reverent examination.\nIt is vain to inquire what instinct is, before there has been an\naccurate observation of its manifestations. It is only from its outward\nmanifestations that we can know anything of that marvellous inward\nnature which is given to animals. We cannot know anything of the\nessential constitution of mind, but can know only its properties. This\nis all we know even of matter. \"If material existence,\" says Sir\nWilliam Hamilton, \"could exhibit ten thousand phenomena, and if we\npossessed ten thousand senses to apprehend these ten thousand phenomena\nof material existence, of existence absolutely and in itself we should\nbe then as ignorant as we are at present.\" But this limitation of human\nknowledge has not always been kept in view. Men have been solicitous to\npenetrate into the higher mysteries of absolute and essential\nexistence. But in thus reaching out after the unattainable, we have\noften passed by the only knowledge which it was possible for us to\ngain. Much vague speculation concerning instinct has arisen from the\nattempt to resolve the problem of its ultimate nature; and perhaps much\nmore might have been made out with certainty about it, if no greater\ntask had been attempted than to classify the phenomena which it\nexhibits and determine the nature of its manifestations. In regard to\ninstinct, as well as everything else, we must be content with finding\nout what it seems to us to be, rather than what it is. Even with this\nlimitation, the inquiry will prove sufficiently difficult. The\nproperties of instinct are a little more inscrutable than those of the\nhuman mind, inasmuch as we have our own consciousness to assist us in\nthis case, while we are left to infer the peculiarities of instinct\nfrom its outward manifestations only. And moreover, the inquiry\ninvolves an understanding of the workings of the human mind; for it is\nonly when viewed in contrast with the rational endowments of man that\nthe character of instinct is best known. All other questions connected\nwith the subject are subordinate to this one of the apparent difference\nbetween instinct and reason.\n\nMany definitions have been given of instinctive actions. These differ\nwidely in their extent, and are for the most part quite inadequate.\nSome writers have ranged under this term all those customary habits and\nactions which are common to all the individuals of a species. According\nto this definition, almost every action of animated life is\ninstinctive. But the general idea of an instinctive action is much more\nrestricted; it is one that is performed without instruction and prior\nto experience,--and not for the immediate gratification of the agent,\nbut only as the means for the attainment of some ulterior end. To apply\nthe term instinct to the regular and involuntary movements of the\nbodily organs, such as the beating of the heart and the action of the\norgans of respiration, is manifestly an extension of the ordinary\nacceptation of the term. Organic actions of a similar character are\nalso performed by plants, and are purely mechanical. \"In the lowest and\nsimplest class of excited movements,\" says M\u00fcller, \"the nervous system\nwould not appear to be concerned. They result from stimuli directly\napplied to the muscles, which immediately excite their contractility;\nand they are evidently of the same character with the motions of\nplants.\" Thus, the heart is excited to pulsation by the direct contact\nof the blood with the muscle. The hand of a sleeping child closes upon\nany object which gently touches the palm. And it is in this way,\ndoubtless, that the Sea Anemone entraps its prey, or anything else that\nmay come in contact with its tentacles. But so far are these movements\nfrom indicating of themselves the action of any instinctive principle,\nthat they are no proof of animality; for a precisely analogous power is\npossessed by the sensitive plant known as the Fly-Trap of Venus\n(_Dionoea muscipula_): \"any insect touching the sensitive hairs on the\nsurface of its leaf instantly causes the leaf to shut up and enclose\nthe insect, as in a trap; nor is this all; a mucilaginous secretion\nacts like a gastric juice on the captive, digests it, and renders it\nassimilable by the plant, which thus feeds on the victim, as the\nActinea feeds on the Annelid or Crustacean it may entrap.\" In the\nanimal organization a large class of reflex actions are excited, not by\na direct influence, but indirectly by the agency of the nerves and\nspinal cord. Such actions are essentially independent of the brain; for\nthey occur in animals which have no brain, and in those whose brain has\nbeen removed. However marvellous these functions of organic life may\nbe, there is nothing in them at all resembling that agency properly\ncalled instinct, which may be said to take the place in the inferior\ntribes of reason in man. To refer these operations to the same source\nas the wonderful instinct that guides the bird in its long migratory\nflight, or in the construction of its nest, would be to make the bird a\ncuriously constructed machine which is operated by impressions from\nwithout upon its sentient nerves.\n\nThose actions have sometimes been called instinctive which arise from\nthe appetites and passions; and they have been referred to instinct,\ndoubtless, because they have one characteristic of instinct,--that they\nare not acquired by experience or instruction. \"But they differ,\" says\nProfessor Bowen, \"at least in one important respect from those\ninstincts of the lower animals which are usually contrasted with human\nreason. The objects towards which they are directed are prized for\ntheir own sake; they are sought as _ends_; while instinct teaches\nbrutes to do many things which are needed only as means for the\nattainment of some ulterior purpose.\" When the butterfly extracts the\nnectar from the flowers which she loves most, she meets a want of her\nphysical nature which demands satisfaction at the moment; but when, in\nopposition to her appetite, she proceeds to the flowerless shrub to\ndeposit her eggs upon the leaves best suited to support her\nunthought-of progeny, she is not influenced by any desire for the\nimmediate gratification of her senses, but is led to the act by some\ndim impulse, in order that an ultimate object may be provided for to\nwhich she has no reference at the time. We are surprised to find it\ndeclared, in the very interesting \"Psychological Inquiries\" of Sir B.C.\nBrodie, that the desire for food is the simplest form of an instinct,\nand that such an instinct goes far towards explaining others which are\nmore complicated. It is true that the appetites and passions of animals\nhave an ultimate object, but they are impelled to action by a desire\nfor immediate gratification only; but when we speak of an instinct, we\nmean something more than a mere want or desire,--we have chiefly in\nview the end beyond the blind instrumentality by which it is reached.\n\nWhen we watch the movements of a young bee, as it first goes forth from\nits waxen cradle, we are forced to recognize an influence at work which\nis unlike reason, and which is neither appetite nor any mechanical\nprinciple of organic life. Rising upon the comb, and holding steadily\nwith its tiny feet, with admirable adroitness the young bee smooths its\nwings for its first flight, and rubs its body with its fore legs and\nantennae; then walking along the comb to the mouth of the hive, it\nmounts into the air, flies forth into the fields, alights upon the\nproper flowers, extracts their juices, collects their pollen, and,\nkneading it into little balls, deposits them in the sacks upon its\nfeet; and then returning to its hive, it delivers up the honey and the\nwax and the bread which it has gathered and elaborated. In the hive it\nworks the wax with its paws and feelers into an hexagonal cell with a\nrhomboidal bottom, the three plates of which form such angles with each\nother as require the least wax and space in the construction of the\ncell. All these complex operations the bee performs as adroitly, on the\nfirst morning of its life, as the most experienced workman in the hive.\nThe tyro gatherer sought the flowery fields upon untried wings, and\nreturned to its home from this first expedition with unerring flight by\nthe most direct course through the trackless air.\n\nThis is one instance of that great class of actions which are allowed\non all hands to be strictly instinctive. In the fact, that the occult\nfaculties which urge the bee to make honey and construct geometrical\ncells are in complete development when it first emerges from its cell,\nwe recognize one of the most striking characteristics of instinct,--its\nexistence prior to all experience or instruction. The insect tribes\nfurnish us with many instances in which the young being never sees its\nparents, and therefore all possibility of its profiting from their\ninstructions or of its imitating their actions is cut off. The solitary\nwasp, for example, is accustomed to construct a tunnelled nest in which\nshe deposits her eggs and then brings a number of living caterpillars\nand places them in a hole which she has made above each egg; being very\ncareful to furnish just caterpillars enough to maintain the young worm\nfrom the time of its exclusion from the egg till it can provide for\nitself, and to place them so as to be readily accessible the moment\nfood is required. But what is most curious of all is the fact that the\nwasp does not deposit the caterpillars unhurt, for thus they would\ndisturb or perhaps destroy the young; nor does she sting them to death,\nfor thus they would soon be in no state of proper preservation; but, as\nif understanding these contingencies, she inflicts a disabling wound.\nYet the wasp does not feed upon caterpillars herself, nor has she ever\nseen a wasp provide them for her future offspring. She has never seen a\nworm such as will spring from her egg, nor can she know that her egg\nwill produce a worm; and besides, she herself will be dead long before\nthe unknown worm can be in existence. Therefore she works blindly;\nwithout knowing that her work is to subserve any useful purpose, she\nworks to a purpose both definite and important; and her acts are\nuniform with those of all solitary wasps that have lived before her or\nthat will live after her; so that we are compelled to refer these\nuntaught actions to some constant impulse connected with the special\norganization of the wasp,--an innate tact, uniform throughout the\nspecies, of which we, not possessing anything of the kind, can form\nonly a poor conception, but which we call instinct.\n\nThere have been some philosophers, however, who have exercised their\ningenuity in tracing so-called instinctive actions to the operation of\nexperience. The celebrated Doctor Erasmus Darwin gave, as an\nillustration of this view, his opinion that the young of animals know\nhow to swallow from their experience of swallowing _in utero_. Without\ngoing into any refutation of this position, we would only remark, in\npassing, that the act of swallowing is not an instinctive action at\nall, but a purely mechanical one. Would not Doctor Darwin have rejoiced\ngreatly, if he could have brought to the support of his theory the\nobservation of our own great naturalist, Agassiz, who, knowing the\nsavage snap of one of the large, full-grown Testudinata, is said to\nhave asserted, that, under the microscope, he has seen the juvenile\nturtle snapping precociously _in embryo_?\n\nBut not only is instinct prior to all experience, it is even superior\nto it, and often leads animals to disregard it,--the spontaneous\nimpulse which Nature has given them being their best guide. The\ncarrier-pigeon or the bird of passage, taken a long distance from home\nby a circuitous route, trusting to this \"pilot-sense,\" flies back in a\nstraight course; and the hound takes the shortest way home through\nfields where he has never previously set foot.\n\nThe existence of instinct prior to all experience or instruction, and\nits perfection in the beginning, render cultivation and improvement not\nonly unnecessary, but impossible. As it is with the individual, so it\nis with the race. One generation of the irrational tribes does not\nimprove upon the preceding or educate its successor. The web which you\nwatched the spider weaving in your open window last summer, carefully\nmeasuring off each radius of her wheel and each circular mesh by one of\nher legs, was just such a web as the spider wove of old when she was\npronounced to be \"little upon the earth, yet exceeding wise.\"\n\nThis incapacity for education is what so widely separates instinct from\nthe rational powers of man. Man gathers knowledge and transmits it from\ngeneration to generation. He is not born with a ready skill, but with a\ncapacity for it. His mind is formed destitute of all connate knowledge,\nthat it may acquire the knowledge of all things. \"Man's imperfection at\nhis nativity is his perfection; while the perfection of brutes at their\nnativity is their imperfection.\" No rational being has ever arrived at\nsuch perfection that he cannot still improve; he can travel on from one\nattainment to another in a perpetual progress of improvement. He is,\nmoreover, free to choose his own path of action; while the being of\ninstinct is governed by a power which is not subject to his will, and\nwhich confines him to a narrow path which he cannot leave. But\ninstinct, within its narrow limits, in many cases quite transcends\nreason in its achievements.\n\n  \"Man's attainments in his own concerns,\n  Matched with the expertness of the brutes in theirs,\n  Are ofttimes vanquished and thrown far behind.\"\n\nPerhaps man has never made a structure as perfect in all its\nadaptations as the honeycomb. Yet when Virgil spoke of the belief that\nbees have a portion of the mind divine, nothing was known of the\nwonderful mathematical properties of this beautiful fabric; and the\ndemonstration of them which has been made within the present century is\nbeyond the comprehension of far the larger part of mankind. If the bee\ncomprehended the problem which it has been working out for these many\nages before man was able to solve it, would its intellectual powers be\ninferior to his in degree, if they were the same in kind? The\nwater-spider weaves for herself a cocoon, makes it impervious to water,\nand fastens it by loose threads to the leaves of plants growing at the\nbottom of a still pool. She carries down air in a bag made for this\npurpose, till the water is expelled from the cell through the opening\nbelow. The spider lived quite dry in her little air-chamber beneath the\nwater ages before the diving-bell was invented; but that she understood\nanything of the doctrines of space and gravity, no one would venture to\nassert.\n\nIt has been the belief of some philosophers, and poets as well, that\nman has taken the hint for some of the arts he now practises from the\nbrute creation. Democritus represents him as having derived the arts of\nweaving and sewing from the spider, and the art of building of tempered\nclay from the swallow; and we also read in Pliny's \"Natural History,\"\nthat the nest of the swallow suggested to Toxius, the son of Coelus,\nthe invention of mortar. According to Lucretius, men learned music from\nthe song of birds, and Pope describes them as learning from the mole to\nplough, from the nautilus to sail, and from bees and ants to form a\npolitical community. Perhaps we were behind the beaver in felling\ntimber, in leading dams across rivers, and in building cabin\nvillages,--behind the wasp in making paper, and behind the squirrel and\nspider in crossing streams upon rafts. So, if man had needed any\nexample of war and violence and wrong, he had only to go to the\nant-hill and see the red ants invade the camps of the black and bear\noff their little negro prisoners into slavery.\n\nWhatever truth there may be in these ideas, it is at least conceivable\nthat man may have profited from the example of these animals. He has\ncopied from patterns set by Nature in tree and leaf and flower and\nplant; he has formed the Gothic arch and column from the trunks and\ninterlacing boughs of the lofty avenue, the Corinthian capital from the\nacanthus foliage embracing a basket, and classic urns and vases from\nflowers. But no one could describe one species of the brute world as\nhaving derived a similar lesson from another, and much less from trees\nand plants. No species of animals has learnt anything new even from\nman, except within the narrow sphere of domestication.\n\nIt is only in particulars that instinct appears superior to reason in\nthe works it achieves. When an animal is taken, ever so little, out of\nthe ordinary circumstances in which its instincts act, it is apt to\nbehave very foolishly. If a woodpecker's egg is hatched by a bird which\nbuilds an open nest upon the branches of a tree, when the young bird is\ngrown large enough to shuffle about in the nest, induced by its\ninstinct to suppose that its nest is in a hole walled round on all\nsides by the tree, with a long, narrow entrance down from above, it\ndoes not see that it has been inducted into the open nest of another\nbird, and is sure to tumble out. The bee and the ant, in a few\nparticulars, show wonderful sagacity; but remove them from the narrow\ncompass of their instincts, and all their wisdom is at an end. That\nanimals are so wise in a few things and so wanting in wisdom in all\nothers shows that they are endowed with a mental principle essentially\nof a different nature from that of the human race. \"They do many things\neven better than ourselves,\" says Descartes; \"but this does not prove\nthem to be endowed with reason, for this would prove them to have more\nreason than we have, and that they should excel us in all other things\nalso\"; for reason can act not only in one direction, but in all.\n\nBut it will be said that instinct is not invariable,--that it often\ndisplays a capacity of accommodating itself, like reason, to\ncircumstances, and is therefore a principle the same in kind with\nit,--or else that the animal has something of the rational faculty\nsuperadded to the instinctive. But does the animal make these\nvariations in its conduct from a true perception of their meaning and\npurpose?\n\nIt is very natural for us to ascribe to reason those actions of other\nanimals which would be ascribable to reason, if performed by man. \"If,\"\nsays Keller, (an old German writer,) \"the fly be enabled to choose the\nplace which suits her best for the deposition of her eggs, (as, for\ninstance, in my sugar-basin, in which I placed a quantity of decaying\nwheat,) she takes a correct survey of every part and selects that in\nwhich she believes her ova will be the best preserved and her young\nones well cared for.\" The fly, in this instance, apparently exercises\nan intelligent choice; but does any one doubt that the selection she\nmakes is determined wholly by a blind, uncalculating instinct? The\nbeaver selects a site for his dam at a place where the depth, width,\nand rapidity of the stream are most fit. There is a tree upon the bank,\nand food and materials for his work in the vicinity. If a man should\nattempt to build a beaver's dam, he would abstractly consider all these\nelements of fitness. The outward manifestations of the quality of\nabstraction are equally observable in either case. But we must not\nhastily conclude, because the beaver in one instance acts in a manner\napparently reasonable, that he has any reason of his own; for, when we\ncome to study the habits of this animal, we find that he displays all\nthe characteristics of the instinctive principle. If animals are\nendowed with instincts which apparently act so much like reason in the\nordinary course of their operations, we should not at once conclude\nthat there is any need of endowing them with a modicum of reason to\naccount for their deviations from this course, which do not outwardly\nresemble the acts of reason any more strongly. And besides, it is said,\nthat, if we refer the variations to an intelligent principle, we must\nrefer the ordinary conduct to the same principle. To use an old\nillustration,--if a bird is reasonable and intelligent, when, on\nperceiving the swollen waters of the stream approach her half-finished\nnest, she builds higher up the bank, she was intelligent while making\nher first nest, and was always intelligent; for how otherwise, it is\nasked, could she know when to lay down instinct and take up reason?\n\nInstinct aims at certain definite ends; but these ends cannot always be\nreached by the same means, especially when places and circumstances are\nnot the same. Accommodation is necessary, or it could not always\nproduce the effects for which it is intended. Would the instinct of the\nspider be complete, if, after it has guided her to spin a web so neat\nand trim and regular, it did not also lead her to repair her broken\nsnare, when the cords have been sundered by the struggles of some\npowerful captive? But this pliancy of the spider's instinct is no more\nremarkable than the contingent operation of the instincts of many\nspecies of animals. \"It is remarkable,\" says Kirby, \"that many of the\ninsects which are occasionally observed to emigrate are not usually\nsocial animals, but seem to congregate, like swallows, merely for the\npurpose of emigration.\" When certain rare emergencies occur, which\nrender it necessary for the insects to migrate, a contingent instinct\ndevelops itself, and renders an unsocial species gregarious.\n\nIt is probable that most of our domesticated species, exhibiting as\nthey do in that condition attainments foreign to their natural habits\nand faculties in a wild state, were endowed with provisional instincts\nwith a view to their association with man. But generally the docility\nof animals does not extend to attainments which are radically different\nfrom their habits and faculties in a wild state. Casual acquirements,\nwhich have no relation to their exigencies in their natural condition,\nnever become hereditary, and are not, therefore, instinctive. A young\npointer-dog, which has never been in the fields before, will not only\npoint at a covey of partridges, but will remain motionless, like a\nwell-trained dog. The fact that the sagacity of the pointer is\nhereditary shows that it is the development of an instinctive\npropensity; for simple knowledge is not transmitted by blood from one\ngeneration to another. We have heard of a pig that pointed game, and of\nanother that was learned in letters; but we ascertain in every such\ninstance that their foreign acquirements do not reappear in their\nprogeny, but end with the pupils of the time being. The pig's\npeculiarity of pointing did not arise from the development of a\nprovisional instinct, because it does not become hereditary; but the\nsame act in the pointer-dog is instinctive,--for, when once brought out\nby associating with man, it has remained with the breed, being a part\nof the animal's nature, which existed in embryo till it was developed\nby a companionship with man, for whose use this faculty was alone\nintended.\n\nAlthough the animals which especially display these exceptional or\ncontingent instincts are those which are fitted for the use and comfort\nof man and may be domesticated, it is doubtless true that many other\nspecies are in some degree provided with them, and that they thus have\na plasticity in their nature which enables them to exercise, under\nparticular circumstances, unlooked-for attention, foresight, and\ncaution. And besides, it is only in analogy with the laws of the\nphysical world that instinct should admit of a slightly diversified\napplication.\n\nIt is to be noticed in this connection that many animals are gifted\nwith a wonderful sensibility of the senses,--the action of which is\nsometimes mistaken not only for the action of instinct, but for that of\nreason also. The acuteness of the sense of smell in the dog, which\nenables him to trace the steps of his master for miles through crowded\nstreets by the infinitesimal odor which his footsteps left upon the\npavement, is quite beyond our conception. Equally incomprehensible to\nus are the keenness of sight and wide range of vision of the eagle,\nwhich enable him to discover the rabbit nipping the clover amid the\nthick grass at a distance at which a like object would be to us\naltogether imperceptible. The chameleon is enabled to seize the little\ninsects upon which it feeds by darting forth its wonderfully\nconstructed tongue with such rapidity and with such delicacy of\nperception that \"wonder-loving sages\" have told us that it feeds upon\nthe air.\n\nIt has been the belief of some observers that some animals have senses\nby which they are enabled to take cognizance of things which are not\nrevealed directly to our senses. It is easy enough to conceive of\nbeings endowed with a more perfect perception of the external world,\nboth in its condition and the number of objects it presents, than we\nhave, by means of other organs of outward perception. Voltaire, in one\nof his philosophical romances, represents an inhabitant of one of the\nplanets of the Dog-Star as inquiring of the Secretary of the Academy of\nSciences in the planet of Saturn, at which he had recently arrived in a\njourney through the heavens, how many senses the men of his globe had;\nand when the Academician answered, that they had seventy-two, and were\nevery day complaining of the smallness of the number, he of the\nDog-Star replied, that in his globe they had very near one thousand\nsenses, and yet with all these they felt continually a sort of listless\ninquietude and vague desire which told them how very imperfect they\nwere. But we shall not travel so far as this for our illustrations. We\nhave all seen in the fields and about our houses birds and insects\nwhich seem to take cognizance of the electric state of the atmosphere;\nand we have learnt to feel quite sure, when, early in the morning of a\nsummer's day, we see fresh piles of sand around the holes of the ants,\nthat a storm is approaching, although the sky may as yet be cloudless\nand the air perfectly serene. In like manner birds perceive the\napproach of rain, and are all busy oiling and smoothing their feathers\nin preparation for it; and then, before the clouds break away, they\ncome out from their retreats and joyfully hail the return of fair\nweather. So, by some analogous sense, the birds of passage are informed\nof the approach of winter and the return of spring.\n\nIt is doubtless true that in some animals the senses are immediately\nconnected with instincts which assist and extend their operation.\nMetaphysicians and physiologists are agreed that the perception of\ndistance is an acquired knowledge. The sense of sight by itself\nprincipally makes us conversant with extension only. The painting upon\nthe retina of the eye presents all external things with flat surfaces\nand at the same distance. Before we can have any correct ideas of\ndistance, we must be able to compare the result of the sense of sight\nwith the result of the sense of feeling. By experience we in time come\nto judge something of distance by the size of the image which an object\nmakes upon the retina, but more by our acquired knowledge of the form\nand color of external things. It is true that the eyes of many animals\nare constructed like those of man; but they do not learn to judge of\ndistance by the same slow process. It is known from experiment that\nsome animals have a perfect conception of distance at the moment of\ntheir birth; and the young of the greater part of animals possess some\ninstinctive perception of this kind. \"A flycatcher, for example, just\ncome out of its shell, has been seen to peck at an insect with an aim\nas perfect as if it had been all its life engaged in learning the art.\"\nAnd so when the hen takes her chickens out into the field for the first\ntime to feed, they seem to perceive very distinctly the relative\ndistance of all objects about them, and will run by the straightest\ncourse when she calls them to pick up the little grains which she\npoints out to them. Without this instinctive power of determining the\nrelative distance and figure of objects, the young of most animals\nwould perish before their sense of sight could be perfected, as ours\nis, by experience.\n\nWe have now noticed the chief characteristics of instinct: its\nexistence prior to all experience or instruction; its incapacity of\nimprovement, except within the narrow sphere of domestication; its\nlimitation to a few objects, and the certainty of its action within\nthese limits; the distinctness and permanence of its character for each\nspecies; and its constant hereditary nature. In regard to the\nuniformity of instinct throughout each species, it may be further\nremarked, that this seems to be very constantly preserved in the lowest\ndivisions of the animal kingdom. Among the Articulates, also, instinct\nappears almost unvarying; and it is in this department among the insect\ntribes that the most striking manifestations of instinct are to be met\nwith. When we arrive among the higher orders of the Vertebrates, we\nfind in some species that each individual is capable of some\nmodification of its actions, according to the particular circumstances\nin which it finds itself placed. But throughout the long series of\nanimals, from the polype to man, there is instinctive action more or\nless in amount in every species, with, perhaps, the exception of man\nalone. The variety of that endowment, which is adapted to definite\nobjects, means, and results, in each particular one of the five hundred\nthousand species estimated to be now living, may well call forth our\nadmiration and astonishment at the magnitude and extent of the\nprospective contrivance of the Creator. How various the relations of\nall these animals to each other and to the inanimate world about them!\nand yet how admirable the adjustments of that immaterial principle\nwhich regulates their lives, so as to secure the well-being of each and\nthe symmetry of the general plan!\n\nThere has been much diversity of opinion as to the existence of\ninstincts in the human species,--some making the whole mind of man\nnothing but a bundle of instincts, and others wholly denying him any\nendowment of this nature, while others still have given him a complex\nmental nature, and have, moreover, declared that intellect and instinct\nin him are so interwoven that it is impossible to tell where the one\nbegins and the other ends. But we believe, with the author of \"Ancient\nMetaphysics,\" that in Nature, however intimately things are blended\ntogether and run into each other like different shades of the same\ncolor, the species of things are absolutely distinct, and that there\nare certain fixed boundaries which separate them, however difficult it\nmay be for us to find them out. In regard to intelligence and instinct,\nthe two principles seem to us to be not more distinctly and widely\nseparated in their nature than in the provinces of their operation.\n\nSir Henry Holland, who believes that intelligence and instinct are\nblended in man, admits that instincts, properly so called, form the\n_minimum_ in relation to reason, and are difficult of definition from\ntheir connection with his higher mental functions, but that, wherever\nwe can truly distinguish them, they are the same in principle and\nmanner of operation as those of other animals. He makes one\ndistinction, however, between the instincts of man and those of lower\nanimals,--that in the former they have more of individual character,\nare far less numerous and definite in relation to the physical\nconditions of life, and more various and extensive in regard to his\nmoral nature. But, on the other hand, Sir B.C. Brodie seems to be of\nopinion that the majority of instincts belonging to man resemble those\nof the inferior animals, inasmuch as they relate to the preservation of\nthe individual and the continuation of the species; and that when man\nfirst began to exist, and for some generations afterwards, the range of\nhis instincts was much more extensive than it is at the present time.\nWhen authorities so eminent as these differ so widely upon the\nquestion, to what human instincts relate, we see at least that it is\nvery difficult to define and distinguish these instincts, and we may be\nled to doubt their existence at all. Of that marvellous endowment which\nguides the bee to fabricate its cells according to laws of the most\nrigid mathematical exactness, and guides the swallow in its long flight\nto its winter home, we agree with Professor Bowen, that there is no\ntrace whatever in human nature. The actions of man which have been\nloosely described as instinctive belong for the most part to those\nclasses of actions which we have already shown to be in no proper sense\nof the word instinctive, that is, those concerned in the appetites and\nin the functions of organic life. There are also numerous automatic and\nhabitual actions which are liable to be mistaken for instincts. Some\nhave included in the category of instincts those intuitive perceptions\nand primary beliefs which are a part of our constitution, and are the\nfoundation of all our knowledge. But these propensities of thought and\nfeeling are of a higher nature than mere instincts; they are immutable\nlaws of the human mind, which time and physical changes cannot reach:\nthey do not seem to depend upon the physical organization, but to be\ninherent in the soul itself. If these are instincts, then, why are not\nall the ways in which the mind exerts itself instincts also, and reason\nitself an instinct?\n\nThere is hardly any human action, feeling, or belief, which has not\nbeen ranged under the term instinct. Hunger and thirst have been called\ninstincts; so have the faculty of speech, the use of the right hand in\npreference to the left, the love of society, the desire to possess\nproperty, the desire to avoid danger and prolong life, and the belief\nin supernatural agencies, upon which is engrafted the religious\nsentiment. We cannot, in this paper, attempt to analyze these and many\nother similar examples which have been given as illustrations of\ninstinct in treatises of high repute, and show that they do not at all\ncome within that class of actions which we contrast with reason. In\nregard to those actions of early infancy which have often been adduced\nas illustrations of instinct, the physiologists of the present day are\nagreed that they are as mechanical as the act of breathing. To place\nthese upon the same level with the complex and wonderful operations of\nthe bee, the ant, and the beaver, is to admit that the instincts of the\nlatter are merely reflex actions following impressions on the nerves of\nsense.\n\nOn the other hand, whether the animals inferior to man ever exercise\nany conscious process of reasoning is a question which has often been\ndiscussed, and upon which there is no general agreement. Instances of\nthe remarkable sagacity of some domesticated animals are often adduced\nas proofs of reasoning on their part. Some of these wonderful feats may\nbe traced to the unconscious faculty of imitation, which even in man\noften appears as a blind propensity, although he exercises an active\nand rational imitation as well. Sometimes the mere association of\nideas, or the perception by animals that one thing is accompanied by\nanother or that one event follows another, is mistaken for that higher\nprinciple which in man judges, reflects, and understands causes and\neffects. When the dog sees his master take down his gun, his\nblandishments show that he anticipates a renewal of the pleasures of\nthe chase. He does not reflect upon past pleasures; but, seeing the gun\nin his master's hand, a confused idea of the feelings that were\nassociated with the gun in times past is called up. So the ox and the\nhorse learn to associate certain movements with the voice and gesture\nof man. And so a fish, about the most stupid of all animals, comes to a\ncertain spot at a certain signal to be fed. These combinations are\nquite elementary. This is quite another thing from that reciprocal\naction of ideas on each other by which man perceives the relations of\nthings, understands the laws of cause and effect, and not only forms\njudgments of the past, but draws conclusions which are laws for the\nfuture. We find in the brute no power of attending to and arranging its\nthoughts,--no power of calling up the past at will and reflecting upon\nit. The animal has the faculty of memory, and, when this is awakened,\nthe object remembered may be accompanied by a train or attendance of\naccessory notions which have been connected with the object in the\nanimal's past experience. But it never seems to be able to exercise the\npurely voluntary act of recollection. It is not capable of comparing\none thing with another, so far as we can judge. If the animal could\nexercise any true act of comparison, there would be no limit to the\nexercise of it, and the animal would be an intelligent being; for the\nresult of a simple act of comparison is judgment, and reasoning is only\na double act of comparison. We have the authority of Sir William\nHamilton for saying that the highest function of mind is nothing higher\nthan comparison. Hence comes thought,--hence, the power of discovering\ntruth,--and hence, the mind's highest dignity, in being able to ascend\nunassisted to the knowledge of a God. Those who hold that the minds of\nthe inferior animals are essentially of the same nature with that of\nthe human race, and differ only in degree, should reflect that the\ndistinguishing attribute of the human mind does not admit of degrees.\nThe faculty of comparison, in all its various applications, must be\neither wholly denied or else wholly attributed. Hence, Pope is not\nphilosophical, when he applies the epithet \"half-reasoning\" to the\nelephant. \"As reasoning,\" says Coleridge, \"consists wholly in a man's\npower of seeing whether any two ideas which happen to be in his mind\nare or are not in contradiction with each other, it follows of\nnecessity, not only that all men have reason, but that every individual\nhas it in the same degree.\" We gather also from the same acute writer\nthat in the simple determination, \"black is not white,\" all the powers\nare implied that distinguish man from other animals. If, then, the\nbrute reasoned at all, he would be a rational being, and would improve\nand gain knowledge by experience; and, moreover, he would be a moral\nagent, accountable for his conduct. \"Would not the brute,\" asks an able\nwriter in the \"Zo\u00f6logical Journal,\" \"take a survey of his lower powers,\nand would he not, as man does, either rightly use or pervert them, at\nhis pleasure?\"\n\nIt has been suggested by some one, that, by the law of merciful\nadaptation, which extends throughout the universe, thought would not be\nimprisoned and pent up forever in an intelligence wanting the power of\nexpression. But it is also to be noticed that the want of an articulate\nlanguage or a system of general signs puts it out of the power of\nanimals to perform a single act of reasoning. The use of language to\ncommunicate wants and feelings is not peculiar to \"word-dividing men,\"\nthough enjoyed by them in a much higher degree than by other animals.\nDoubtless every species of social animals has some kind of language,\nhowever imperfect it may be. \"We never watch the busy workers of the\nant-hill,\" says Acheta Domestics, (the author of \"Episodes of\nInsect-Life,\") \"stopping as they encounter and laying their heads\ntogether, without being pretty certain that they are saying to each\nother something quite as significant as 'Fine day.'\" And when the\nmorning wakes the choral song of the birds, they seem to be telling\neach other of their happiness. But though animals have a language\nappropriate to the expression of their sensations and emotions, they\nhave no words, \"those shadows of the soul, those living sounds.\" Words\nare symbols of thoughts, and may be considered as a revelation of the\nhuman mind. It is this use of language as an instrument of thought, as\na system of general signs, which, according to Bishop Whately,\ndistinguishes the language of man from that of the brute; and the same\neminent authority declares that without such a system of general signs\nthe reasoning process could not be conducted.\n\nIt is true, that we often see in the inferior animals manifestations of\ndeductions of intellect similar to those of the human mind,--only that\nthey are not made by the animals themselves, but for them and above\ntheir conscious perception. \"When a bee,\" says Dr. Reid, \"makes its\ncombs so geometrically, the geometry is not in the bee, but in that\ngreat Geometrician who made the bee, and made all things in number,\nweight, and measure.\" Since the animal is not conscious of the\nintelligence and design which are manifested in its instincts, which it\nobeys and works out, the conscious life of the individual must be\nwholly a life within the senses. The senses alone can give the animal\nonly an empirical knowledge of the world of its observation. The senses\nmay register and report facts, but they can never arrive at an\nunderstanding of necessary truths; the source of this kind of knowledge\nis the rational mind, which has an active disposition to draw out these\ninfallible laws and eternal truths from its own bosom. The main\ntendency of the rational mind is not towards mere phenomena, but their\nscientific explanation. It seeks to trace effects, as presented to us\nby the senses, back to the causes which produced them; or contemplating\nthings wholly metaphysical, it seeks to follow out the laws which it\nhas itself discovered, till they have gone through a thousand probable\ncontingencies and lost themselves in numberless results. It is on\naccount of this capacity and tendency of the human mind to look through\nfact to law, through individuals to classes, through effects to causes,\nthrough phenomena to general principles, that the late Dr. Burnap was\nled to declare, in a very interesting course of lectures which he\ndelivered before the Lowell Institute a few years since, that he\nconsidered the first characteristic difference between the highest\nspecies of animals and the lowest race of man to be a capacity of\nscience. But is not the whole edifice of human science built upon the\nsimple faculty of comparison?\n\nThis is the ultimate analysis of all the highest manifestations of the\nhuman mind, whether of judgment, or reason, or intellect, or common\nsense, or the power of generalization, or the capacity of science. We\nhave already quoted Hamilton to this effect, and we, moreover, have his\nauthority for saying that the faculty of discovering truth, by a\ncomparison of the notions we have obtained by observation and\nexperience, is the attribute by which man is distinguished as a\ncreature higher than the animals. We might also cite Leibnitz to the\neffect that men differ from animals in being capable of the formation\nof necessary judgments, and hence capable of demonstrative sciences.\n\nBut notwithstanding it seems so apparent that what is customarily\ncalled reason is the distinguishing endowment which makes man the\n\"paragon of animals,\" we very often meet with attempts to set up some\nother distinction. We cannot here go into an examination of these\nvarious theories, or even allude to them specially. We will, however,\nbriefly refer to a view which was recently advanced in one of our\nleading periodicals, inasmuch as it makes prominent a distinction which\nwe wish to notice, although it seems to us to be only subordinate to\nthe distinguishing attribute of the human mind which we have already\npointed out. It is said that self-consciousness is what makes the great\ndifference between man and other animals; that the latter do not\nseparate themselves consciously from the world in which they exist; and\nthat, though they have emotions, impulses, pains, and pleasures, every\nchange of feeling in them takes at once the form of an outward change\neither in place or position. It is not intended, however, to be said\nthat they have no conscious perception of external things. We cannot\npossibly conceive of an animal without this condition of consciousness.\nA consciousness of an outward world is an essential quality of the\nanimal soul; this distinguishes the very lowest form of animal life\nfrom the vegetable world; and hence it cannot possibly be, as has been\nsuggested by some, that there are any animate beings which have no\nendowments superior to those which belong to plants. The plant is not\nconscious of an outward world, when it sends out its roots to obtain\nthe nourishment which is fitting for itself; but the polype, which is\nfixed with hundreds of its kind on the same coral-stock, and is able\nonly to move its mouth and tentacles, is aware of the presence of the\nlittle craw-fish upon which it feeds, and throws out its lasso-cells\nand catches it. The world of which the polype has any perception is not\na very large one. The outer world of a bird is vastly greater; and man\nknows a world without, which is immeasurably large beyond that of which\nany other animal is conscious, because both his physical organs and his\nmental faculties bring him into far the most diversified and intimate\nrelations with all created things. He sees in every flower of the\ngarden and every beast of the field, in the air and in the sea, in the\nearth beneath his feet and in the starry heavens above him, countless\nmeanings which are hidden to all the living world besides. To him there\nis a world which has existed and a world that will exist. \"Man,\" says\nProtagoras, \"is the measure of the universe.\" But he has a greater\ndignity in being able to apprehend the world of thought within. \"Whilst\nI study to find how I am a microcosm or little world,\" says Sir Thomas\nBrowne, \"I find myself something more than the great.\" Man can make\nhimself an object to himself and gain the deepest insight into the\nworkings of his own mind. This internal perception seems never to be\ndeveloped in other animals. We have already observed that they have no\nthought of their own. The intelligence and design which they often\nmanifest in their actions are not the workings of their own minds. The\nintelligence and design belong to Him who impressed the thought upon\nthe animal's mind and unceasingly sustains it in action. They\nthemselves are not conscious of any thought, but only of \"certain dim\nimperious influences\" which urge them on. They are conscious of\nfeelings and desires and impulses. We could not conceive of the\nexistence of these affections in animals without their having an\nimmediate knowledge of them. Even \"the function of voluntary motion,\"\nsays Hamilton, \"which is a function of the animal soul in the\nPeripatetic doctrine, ought not, as is generally done, to be excluded\nfrom the phenomena of consciousness and mind.\" The conscious life of\nthe irrational tribes seems, then, to be a life almost wholly within\nthe senses. They have nothing of that higher conscious personality\nwhich belongs to man and is an attribute of a free intellect.\n\nA general statement of the points made out in the foregoing inquiry\nwill more clearly show our conception of the nature and limitations of\ninstinct. First, we limited the word instinct so as to exclude all\nthose automatic and mechanical actions concerned in the simple\nfunctions of organic life,--as also to exclude the operations of the\npassions and appetites, since these seek no other end than their own\ngratification. Then it was shown that instinct exists prior to all\nexperience or memory; that it comes to an instant or speedy perfection,\nand is not capable of any improvement or cultivation; that its objects\nare precise and limited; that within its proper sphere it often appears\nas the highest wisdom, but beyond this is only foolishness; that it\nuses complex and laborious means to provide for the future, without any\nprescience of it; that it performs important and rational operations\nwhich the animal neither intends nor knows anything about; that it is\npermanent for each species, and is transmitted as an hereditary gift of\nNature; and that the few variations in its action result from the\ndevelopment of provisional faculties, or from blind imitation. We were\nled to conclude that instinct is not a free and conscious possession of\nthe animal itself. We found some points of resemblance between\nintelligence in man and instinct in other animals,--but at the same\ntime points of dissimilarity, such as to make the two principles appear\nradically unlike.\n\nThis brief summary presents nearly all that we can satisfactorily make\nout respecting instinct; and at the same time it shows how much is\nstill wanting to a complete solution of all the questions which it\ninvolves. And then there are higher mysteries connected with the\nsubject, which we do not attempt to penetrate,--mysteries in regard to\nthe creation and the maintenance of instinctive action: whether it be\nthe result of particular external conditions acting on the organization\nof animals, or whether, as Sir Isaac Newton thought, the Deity himself\nis virtually the active and present moving principle in them;--and\nmysteries, too, about the future of the brute world: whether, as\nSouthey wrote,\n\n        \"There is another world\nFor all that live and move,--a better world.\"\n\nIf we ever find a path which seems about to lead us up to these\nmysteries, it speedily closes against us, and leaves us without any\nrational hope of attaining their solution.\n\n\n\n\nMY OWN STORY.\n\n\n\"Oh, tell her, brief is life, but love is long.\"\n\n\"What have I got that you would like to have? Your letters are tied up\nand directed to you. Mother will give them to you, when she finds them\nin my desk. I could execute my last will myself, if it were not for\ngiving her additional pain. I will leave everything for her to do\nexcept this: take these letters, and when I am dead, give them to\nFrank. There is not a reproach in them, and they are full of wit; but\nhe won't laugh, when he reads them again. Choose now, what will you\nhave of mine?\"\n\n\"Well,\" I said, \"give me the gold pen-holder that Redmond sent you\nafter he went away.\"\n\nLaura rose up in her bed, and seized me by my shoulder, and shook me,\ncrying between her teeth, \"You love him! you love him!\" Then she fell\nback on her pillow. \"Oh, if he were here now! He went, I say, to marry\nthe woman he was engaged to before he saw you. He was nearly mad,\nthough, when he went. The night mother gave them their last party, when\nyou wore your black lace dress, and had pink roses in your hair,\nsomehow I hardly knew you that night. I was in the little parlor,\nlooking at the flowers on the mantelpiece, when Redmond came into the\nroom, and, rushing up to me, bent down and whispered, 'Did you see her\ngo? I shall see her no more; she is walking on the beach with Maurice.'\nHe sighed so loud that I felt embarrassed; for I was afraid that Harry\nLothrop, who was laughing and talking in a corner with two or three\nmen, would hear him; but he was not aware that they were there. I did\nnot know what to do, unless I ridiculed him. 'Follow them,' I said.\n'Step on her flounces, and Maurice will have a chance to humiliate you\nwith some of his cutting, exquisite politeness.' He never answered a\nword, and I would not look at him, but presently I understood that\nthere were tears falling. Oh, you need not look towards me with such\nlonging; he does not cry for you now. They seemed to bring him to his\nsenses. He stamped his foot; but the carpet was thick; it only made a\nthud. Then he buttoned his coat, giving himself a violent twist as he\ndid it, and looked at me with such a haughty composure, that, if I had\nbeen you, I should have trembled in my shoes. He walked across the room\ntoward the group of men.--'Ah, Harry,' he said, 'where is Maurice?'\n'Don't you know?' they all cried out; 'he has gone as Miss Denham's\nescort?' 'By Jove!' said Harry Lothrop,--'Miss Denham was as handsome\nas Cleopatra, to-night. Little Maurice is now singing to her. Did he\ntake his guitar under his arm? It was here; for I saw a green bag near\nhis hat, when we came in to-night.' Just then we heard the twang of a\nguitar under the window, and Redmond, in spite of himself, could not\nhelp a grimace.--Is it not a droll world?\" said Laura, after a pause;\n\"things come about so contrariwise.\"\n\nShe laughed such a shrill laugh, that I shuddered to hear it, and I\nfell a-crying.  \"But,\" she continued, \"I am going, I trust, where a key\nwill be given me for this cipher.\"\n\nTears came into her eyes, and an expression of gentleness filled her\nface.\n\n\"It is strange,\" she said, \"when I know that I must die, that I should\nbe so moved by earthly passions and so interested in earthly\nspeculations. My heart supplicates God for peace and patience, and at\nthe same moment my thoughts float away in dreams of the past. I shall\nsoon be wiser; I am convinced of that. The doctrine of compensation\nextends beyond this world; if it be not so, why should I die at twenty,\nwith all this mysterious suffering of soul? You must not wonder over\nme, when I am gone, and ask yourself, 'Why did she live?' Believe that\nI shall know why I lived, and let it suffice you and encourage you to\ngo on bravely. Live and make your powers felt. Your nature is affluent,\nand you may yet learn how to be happy.\"\n\nShe sighed softly, and turned her face to the wall, and moved her\nfingers as sick people do. She waited for me to cease weeping: my tears\nrained over my face so that I could neither see nor speak.\n\nAfter I had become calmer, she moved toward me again and took my hand:\nher own trembled.\n\n\"It is for the last time, Margaret. My good, skilful father gives me no\nmedicine now. My sisters have come home; they sit about the house like\nmourners, with idle hands, and do not speak with each other. It is\nterrible, but it will soon be over.\"\n\nShe pulled at my hand for me to rise. I staggered up, and met her eyes.\nMine were dry now.\n\n\"Do not come here again. It will be enough for my family to look at my\ncoffin. I feel better to think you will be spared the pain.\"\n\nI nodded.\n\n\"Good-bye!\"\n\nA sob broke in her throat.\n\n\"Margaret,\"--she spoke like a little child,--\"I am going to heaven.\"\n\nI kissed her, but I was blind and dumb. I lifted her half out of the\nbed. She clasped her frail arms round me, and hid her face in my bosom.\n\n\"Oh, I love you!\" she said.\n\nHer heart gave such a violent plunge, that I felt it, and laid her back\nquickly. She waved her hand to me with a determined smile. I reached\nthe door, still looking at her, crossed the dark threshold, and passed\nout of the house. The bold sunshine smote my face, and the insolent\nwind played about me. The whole earth was as brilliant and joyous as if\nit had never been furrowed by graves.\n\nLaura lived some days after my interview with her. She sent me no\nmessage, and I did not go to see her. From the garret-windows of our\nhouse, which was half a mile distant from Laura's, I could see the\nwindows of the room where she was lying. Three tall poplar-trees\nintervened in the landscape. I thought they stood motionless so that\nthey might not intercept my view while I watched the house of death.\nOne morning I saw that the blinds had been thrown back and the windows\nopened. I knew then that Laura was dead.\n\nThe day after the funeral I gave Frank his letters, his miniature, and\nthe locket which held a ring of his hair.\n\n\"Is there a fire?\" he asked, when I gave them to him; \"I want to burn\nthese things.\"\n\nI went to another room with him.\n\n\"I'll leave everything here to-day; and may I never see this cursed\nplace again! Did she die, do you know, because I held her promise that\nshe would be my wife?\"\n\nHe threw the papers into the grate, and crowded them down with his\nboot, and watched them till the last blackened flake disappeared. He\nthen took from his neck a hair chain, and threw that into the fire\nalso.\n\n\"It is all done now,\" he said.\n\nHe shook my hand with a firm grasp and left me.\n\nA month later Laura's mother sent me a package containing two bundles\nof letters. It startled me to see that the direction was dated before\nshe was taken ill:--\"To be given to Margaret in case of my death.\nJune 5th, 1848.\" They were my letters, and those which she had\nreceived from Harry Lothrop. On this envelop was written, \"Put these\ninto the black box he gave you.\" The gold pen-holder came into my hands\nalso. _Departure_ was engraved on the handle, and Laura's initials were\ncut in an emerald in its top. The black box was an ebony, gold-plated\ntoy, which Harry Lothrop had given me at the same time Redmond gave\nLaura the pen-holder. It was when they went away, after a whole\nsummer's visit in our little town, the year before. I locked the\nletters in the black box, and,\n\n  \"Whether from reason or from impulse only,\"\n\nI know not, but I was prompted to write a line to Harry Lothrop.  \"Do\nnot,\" I said, \"write Laura any more letters. Those you have already\nwritten to her are in my keeping, for she is dead. Was it not a\npleasant summer we passed together? The second autumn is already at\nhand: time flies the same, whether we are dull or gay. For all this\nperiod what remains except the poor harvest of a few letters?\"\n\nI received in answer an incoherent and agitated letter. What was the\nmatter with Laura? he asked. He had not heard from her for months. Had\nany rupture occurred between her and her friend Frank? Did I suppose\nshe was ever unhappy? He was shocked at the news, and said he must come\nand learn the particulars of the event. He thanked me for my note, and\nbegged me to believe how sincere was his friendship for my poor friend.\n\n\"Redmond,\" he continued, \"is, for the present, attached to the engineer\ncorps to which I belong, and he has offered to take charge of my\nbusiness while I am a day or two absent. He is in my room at this\nmoment, holding your note in his hand, and appears painfully\ndisturbed.\"\n\nIt was now a little past the time of year when Redmond and Harry\nLothrop had left us,--early autumn. After their departure, Laura and I\nhad been sentimental enough to talk over the events of their visit.\nRecalling these associations, we created an illusion of pleasure which\nof course could not last. Harry Lothrop wrote to Laura, but the\ncorrespondence declined and died. As time passed on, we talked less and\nless of our visitors, and finally ceased to speak of them. Neither of\nus knew or suspected the other of any deep or lasting feeling toward\nthe two friends. Laura knew Redmond better than I did; at least, she\nsaw him oftener; in fact, she knew both in a different way. They had\nvisited her alone; while I had met them almost entirely in society. I\nnever found so much time to spare as she seemed to have; for everybody\nliked her, and everybody sought her. As often as we had talked over our\nacquaintance, she was wary of speaking of Redmond. Her last\nconversation with me revealed her thoughts, and awakened feelings which\nI thought I had buffeted down. The tone of Harry Lothrop's note\nperplexed me, and I found myself drifting back into an old state of\nmind I had reason to dread.\n\nAs I said, the autumn had come round. Its quiet days, its sombre\nnights, filled my soul with melancholy. The lonesome moan of the sea\nand the waiting stillness of the woods were just the same a year ago;\nbut Laura was dead, and Nature grieved me. Yet none of us are in one\nmood long, and at this very time there were intervals when I found\nsomething delicious in life, either in myself or the atmosphere.\n\n  \"Moreover, something is or seems\n  That touches me with mystic gleams.\"\n\nA golden morning, a starry night, the azure round of the sky, the\nundulating horizon of sea, the blue haze which rose and fell over the\ndistant hills, the freshness of youth, the power of beauty,--all gave\nme deep voluptuous dreams.\n\nI can afford to confess that I possessed beauty; for half my faults and\nmiseries arose from the fact of my being beautiful. I was not vain, but\nas conscious of my beauty as I was of that of a flower, and sometimes\nit intoxicated me. For, in spite of the comforting novels of the Jane\nEyre school, it is hardly possible to set an undue value upon beauty;\nit defies ennui.\n\nAs I expected, Harry Lothrop came to see me. The sad remembrance of\nLaura's death prevented any ceremony between us; we met as old\nacquaintances, of course, although we had never conversed together half\nan hour without interruption. I began with the theme of Laura's illness\nand death, and the relation which she had held toward me. All at once I\ndiscovered, without evidence, that he was indifferent to what I was\nsaying; but I talked on mechanically, and like a phantasm the truth\ncame to my mind. The real man was there,--not the one I had carelessly\nlooked at and known through Laura.\n\nI became silent.\n\nHe twisted his fingers in the fringe of my scarf, which had fallen off,\nand I watched them.\n\n\"Why,\" I abruptly asked, \"have I not known you before?\"\n\nHe let go the fringe, and folded his hands, and in a dreamy voice\nreplied,--\n\n\"Redmond admires you.\"\n\n\"What a pity!\" I said. \"And you,--you admire me, or yourself, just now;\nwhich?\"\n\nHe flushed slightly, but continued with a bland voice, which irritated\nand interested me.\n\n\"All that time I was so near you, and you scarcely saw me; what a\nchance I had to study you! Your friend was intelligent and sympathetic,\nso we struck a league of friendship: I could dare so much with her,\nbecause I knew that she was engaged to marry Mr. Ballard. I own that I\nhave been troubled about her since I went away. How odd it is that I am\nhere alone with you in this room! how many times I have wished it! I\nliked you best here; and while absent, the remembrance of it has been\ninseparable from the remembrance of you,--a picture within a picture. I\nknow all that the room contains,--the white vases, and the wire\nbaskets, with pots of Egyptian lilies and damask roses, the books bound\nin green and gold, the engravings of nymphs and fauns, the crimson bars\nin the carpet, the flowers on the cushions, and, best of all, the\narched window and its low seat. But I had promised myself never to see\nyou: it was all I could do for Laura. She is dead, and I am here.\"\n\nI rose and walked to the window, and looked out on the misty sea, and\nfelt strangely.\n\n\"Another lover,\" I thought,--\"and Redmond's friend, and Laura's. But it\nall belongs to the comedy we play.\"\n\nHe came to where I stood.\n\n\"I know you so well,\" he said,--\"your pride, your self-control, even\nyour foibles: but they attract one, too. You did not escape heart-whole\nfrom Redmond's influence. He is not married yet, but he will be; he is\na chivalrous fellow. It was a desperate matter between you two,--a\nhand-to-hand struggle. It is over with you both, I believe: you are\nsomething alike. Now may I offer you my friendship? If I love you, let\nme say so. Do not resist me. I appeal to the spirit of coquetry which\ntempted you before you saw me to-night. You are dressed to please me.\"\n\nI was thinking what I should say, when he skilfully turned the\nconversation into an ordinary channel. He shook off his dreamy manner,\nand talked with his old vivacity. I was charmed a little; an\nassociation added to the charm, I fancy. It was late at night when he\ntook his leave. He had arranged it all; for a man brought his carriage\nto the door and drove him to the next town, where he had procured it to\ncome over from the railway.\n\nWhen I was shut in my room for the night, rage took possession of me. I\ntore off my dress, twisted my hair with vehemence, and hurried to bed\nand tried to go to sleep, but could not, of course. As when we press\nour eyelids together for meditation or sleep, violet rings and changing\nrays of light flash and fade before the darkened eyeballs, so in the\ndark unrest of my mind the past flashed up, and this is what I saw:--\n\nThe county ball, where Laura and I first met Redmond, Harry Lothrop,\nand Maurice. We were struggling through the crowd of girls at the\ndressing-room door, to rejoin Frank, who was waiting for us. As we\npassed out, satisfied with the mutual inspection of our dresses of\nwhite silk, which were trimmed with bunches of rose-geranium, we saw a\ngroup of strangers close by us, buttoning their gloves, looking at\ntheir boots, and comparing looks. Laura pushed her fan against my arm;\nwe looked at each other, and made signs behind Frank, and were caught\nin the act, not only by him, but by a tall gentleman in the group which\nshe had signalled me to notice.\n\nThe shadow of a smile was travelling over his face as I caught his eye,\nbut he turned away so suddenly that I had no opportunity for\nembarrassment. An usher gave us a place near the band, at the head of\nthe hall.\n\n\"Do not be reckless, Laura,\" I said,--\"at least till the music gives\nyou an excuse.\"\n\n\"You are obliged to me, you know,\" she answered, \"for directing your\nattention to such attractive prey. Being in bonds myself, I can only\nuse my eyes for you: don't be ungrateful.\"\n\nThe band struck up a crashing polka, and she and Frank whirled away,\nwith a hundred others. I found a seat and amused myself by contrasting\nthe imperturbable countenances of the musicians with those of the\ndancers. The perfumes the women wore floated by me. These odors, the\nrhythmic motion of the dancers, and the hard, energetic music\nexhilarated me. The music ended, and the crowd began to buzz. The loud,\ninarticulate speech of a brilliant crowd is like good wine. As my\nacquaintances gathered about me, I began to feel its electricity, and\ngrew blithe and vivacious. Presently I saw one of the ushers speaking\nto Frank, who went down the hall with him.\n\n\"Oh, my prophetic soul!\" said Laura, \"they are coming.\"\n\nFrank came back with the three, and introduced them. Redmond asked me\nfor the first quadrille, and Harry Lothrop engaged Laura. Frank said to\nme behind his handkerchief,--\"It's _en r\u00e8gle_; I know where they came\nfrom; their fathers are brave, and their mothers are virtuous.\"\n\nThe quadrille had not commenced, so I talked with several persons near;\nbut I felt a constraint, for I knew I was closely observed by the\nstranger, who was entirely quiet. Curiosity made me impatient for the\ndance to begin; and when we took our places, I was cool enough to\nexamine him. Tall, slender, and swarthy, with a delicate moustache over\na pair of thin scarlet lips, penetrating eyes, and a tranquil air. My\nantipodes in looks, for I was short and fair; my hair was straight and\nblack like his, but my eyes were blue, and my mouth wide and full.\n\n\"What an unnaturally pleasant thing a ball-room is!\" he said,--\"before\nthe dust rises and the lights flare, I mean. But nobody ever leaves\nearly; as the freshness vanishes, the extravagance deepens. Did you\never notice how much faster the musicians play as it grows late? When\nwe open the windows, the fresh breath of the night increases the\ndelirium within. I have seen the quietest women toss their faded\nbouquets out of the windows without a thought of making a comparison\nbetween the flowers and themselves.\"\n\n\"My poor geraniums!\" I said,--\"what eloquence!\"\n\nHe laughed, and answered,--\n\n\"My friend Maurice yonder would have said it twice as well.\"\n\nWe were in the promenade then, and stopped where the said Maurice was\nfanning himself against the wall.\n\n\"May I venture to ask you for a waltz, Miss Denham? it is the next\ndance on the card,\" said Maurice;--\"but of course you are engaged.\"\n\nI gave him my card, and he began to mark it, when Redmond took it, and\nplaced his own initials against the dance after supper, and the last\none on the list. He left me then, and I saw him a moment after talking\nwith Laura.\n\nWe passed a gay night. When Laura and I equipped for our ten miles'\nride, it was four in the morning. Redmond helped Frank to pack us in\nthe carriage, and we rewarded him with a knot of faded leaves.\n\n\"This late event,\" said Laura, with a ministerial air, after we had\nstarted, \"was a providential one. You, my dear Frank, were at liberty\nto pursue your favorite pastime of whist, in some remote apartment,\nwithout being conscience-torn respecting me. I have danced very well\nwithout you, thanks to the strangers. And you, Margaret, have had an\nunusual opportunity of displaying your latent forces. Three such\ndifferent men! But let us drive fast. I am in want of the cup of tea\nwhich mother will have waiting for me.\"\n\nWe arrived first at my door. As I was going up the steps, Laura broke\nthe silence; for neither of us had spoken since her remarks.\n\n\"By the way, they are coming here to stay awhile. They are anxious for\nsome deep-sea fishing. They'll have it, I think.\"\n\nI heard Frank's laugh of delight at Laura's wit, as the carriage drove\noff.\n\nIt was our last ball that season.\n\nIt was late in the spring; and when Redmond came with his two friends\nand settled at the hotel in our town, it was early summer. When I saw\nthem again, they came with Laura and Frank to pay me a visit. Laura was\nalready acquainted with them, and asked me if I did not perceive her\nsuperiority in the fact.\n\n\"Let us arrange,\" said Harry Lothrop, \"some systematic plan of\namusement by sea and land. I have a pair of horses, Maurice owns a\nguitar, and Redmond's boat will be here in a few days. Jones, our\nlandlord, has two horses that are tolerable under the saddle. Let us\nride, sail, and be serenaded. The Lake House, Jones again, is eight\nmiles distant. This is Monday; shall we go there on horse-back\nWednesday?\"\n\nLaura looked mournfully at Frank, who replied to her look,--\n\n\"You must go; I cannot; I shall go back to business to-morrow.\"\n\nI glanced at Redmond; he was contemplating a portrait of myself at the\nage of fourteen.\n\n\"Shall we go?\" Laura asked him.\n\n\"Nothing, thank you,\" he answered.\n\nWe all laughed, and Harry Lothrop said,--\n\n\"Redmond, my boy, how fond you are of pictures!\"\n\nRedmond, with an unmoved face, said,--\n\n\"Don't be absurd about my absent-mindedness. What were you saying?\"\n\nAnd he turned to me.\n\n\"Do you like our plan,\" I asked, \"of going to the Lake House? There is\na deep pond, a fine wood, a bridge,--perch, pickerel,--a one-story inn\nwith a veranda,--ham and eggs, stewed quince, elderberry wine,--and a\nromantic road to ride over.\"\n\n\"I like it.\"\n\nFrank opened a discussion on fishing; Laura and I withdrew, and went to\nthe window-seat.\n\n\"I am light-hearted,\" I said.\n\n\"It is my duty to be melancholy,\" she replied; \"but I shall not mope\nafter Frank has gone.\"\n\n\"'After them the deluge,'\" said I. \"How long will they stay?\"\n\n\"Till they are bored, I fancy.\"\n\n\"Oh, they are going; we must leave our recess.\"\n\nFrank and she remained; the others bid us good-night.\n\n\"I shall not come again till Christmas,\" he said. \"These college-chaps\nwill amuse you and make the time pass; they are young,--quite suitable\ncompanions for you girls. _Vive la bagatelle!_\"\n\nHe sighed, and, drawing Laura's arm in his, rose to go. She groaned\nloudly, and he nipped her ears.\n\n\"Good-bye, Margaret; let Laura take care of you. There is a deal of\nwisdom in her.\"\n\nWe shook hands, Laura moaning all the while, and they went home.\n\nFrank and Laura had been engaged three years. He was about thirty, and\nwas still too poor to marry.\n\nWednesday proved pleasant. We had an early dinner, and our cavalcade\nstarted from Laura's. I rode my small bay horse Folly, a gift from my\nabsentee brother. His coat was sleeker than satin; his ears moved\nperpetually, and his wide nostrils were always in a quiver. He was not\nentirely safe, for now and then he jumped unexpectedly; but I had\nridden him a year without accident, and felt enough acquainted with him\nnot to be afraid.\n\nRedmond eyed him.\n\n\"You are a bold rider,\" he said.\n\n\"No,\" I answered,--\"a careful one. Look at the bit, and my whip, too. I\ncut his hind legs when he jumps. Observe that I do not wear a long\nskirt. I can slip off the saddle, if need be, without danger.\"\n\n\"That's all very well; but his eyes are vicious; he will serve you a\ntrick some day.\"\n\n\"When he does, I'll sell him for a cart-horse.\"\n\nLaura and Redmond rode Jones's horses. Harry Lothrop was mounted on his\nhorse Black, a superb, thick-maned creature, with a cluster of white\nstars on one of his shoulders. Maurice rode a wall-eyed pony. Our\nfriends Dickenson and Jack Parker drove two young ladies in a\ncarriage,--all the saddle-horses our town could boast of being in use.\nWe were in high spirits, and rode fast. I was occupied in watching\nFolly, who had not been out for several days. At last, tired of tugging\nat his mouth, I gave him rein, and he flew along. I tucked the edge of\nmy skirt under the saddle-flap, slanted forward, and held the bridle\nwith both hands close to his head. A long sandy reach of road lay\nbefore me. I enjoyed Folly's fierce trotting; but, as I expected, the\ngood horse Black was on my track, while the rest of the party were far\nbehind. He soon overtook me. Folly snorted when he heard Black's step.\nWe pulled up, and the two horses began to sidle and prance, and throw\nup their heads so that we could not indulge in a bit of conversation.\n\n\"Brute!\" said Harry Lothrop,--\"if I were sure of getting on again, I\nwould dismount and thrash you awfully.\"\n\n\"Remember Pickwick,\" I said; \"don't do it.\"\n\nI had hardly spoken, when the strap of his cap broke, and it fell from\nhis head to the ground. I laughed, and so did he.\n\n\"I can hold your horse while you dismount for it.\"\n\nI stopped Folly, and he forced Black near enough for me to seize the\nrein and twist it round my hand; when I had done so, Folly turned his\nhead, and was tempted to take Black's mane in his teeth; Black felt it,\nreared, and came down with his nose in my lap. I could not loose my\nhands, which confused me, but I saw Harry Lothrop making a great leap.\nBoth horses were running now, and he was lying across the saddle,\ntrying to free my hand. It was over in an instant. He got his seat, and\nthe horses were checked.\n\n\"Good God!\" he said, \"your fingers are crushed.\"\n\nHe pulled off my glove, and turned pale when he saw my purple hand.\n\n\"It is nothing,\" I said.\n\nBut I was miserably fatigued, and prayed that the Lake House might come\nin sight. We were near the wood, which extended to it, and I was\nwondering if we should ever reach it, when he said,--\n\n\"You must dismount, and rest under the first tree. We will wait there\nfor the rest of the party to come up.\"\n\nI did so. Numerous were the inquiries, when they reached us. Laura,\nwhen she heard the story, declared she now believed in Ellen Pickering.\nRedmond gave me a searching look, and asked me if the one-story inn had\ngood beds.\n\n\"I can take a nap, if necessary,\" I answered, \"in one of Mrs. Sampson's\nrush-bottomed chairs on the veranda. The croak of the frogs in the pond\nand the buzz of the bluebottles shall be my lullaby.\"\n\n\"No matter how, if you will rest,\" he said, and assisted me to remount.\n\nWe rode quietly together the rest of the way. After arriving, we girls\nwent by ourselves into one of Mrs. Sampson's sloping chambers, where\nthere was a low bedstead, and a thick feather-bed covered with a\npatchwork-quilt of the \"Job's Trouble\" pattern, a small, dim\nlooking-glass surmounted by a bunch of \"sparrow-grass,\" and an\nunpainted floor ornamented with home-made rugs which were embroidered\nwith pink flower-pots containing worsted rose-bushes, the stalks,\nleaves, and flowers all in bright yellow. We hung up our riding-skirts\non ancient wooden pegs, for we had worn others underneath them suitable\nfor walking, and then tilted the wooden chairs at a comfortable angle\nagainst the wall, put our feet on the rounds, and felt at peace with\nall mankind.\n\n\"Alas!\" I said, \"it is too early for currant-pies.\"\n\n\"I saw,\" said one of the girls, \"Mrs. Sampson poking the oven, and a\nsmell of pies was in the air.\"\n\n\"Let us go into the kitchen,\" exclaimed Laura.\n\nThe proposal was agreeable; so we went, and found Mrs. Sampson making\nplum-cake.\n\n\"The pies are green-gooseberry-pies,\" whispered Laura,--\"very good,\ntoo.\"\n\n\"Miss Denham,\" shrieked Mrs. Sampson, \"you haven't done growing\nyet.--How's your mother and your grandmother?--Have you had a revival\nin your church?--I heard of the young men down to Jones's,--our\nminister's wife knows their fathers,--first-rate men, she says.--I\nthought you would be here with them.--'Sampson,' I said this morning, as\nsoon as I dressed, 'do pick some gooseberries. I'll have before sundown\ntwenty pies in this house.' There they are,--six gooseberry, six\ncustard, and, though it's late for them, six mince, and two awful great\npigeon pies. It's poor trash, I expect; I'm afraid you can't eat it;\nbut it is as good as anybody's, I suppose.\"\n\nWe told her we should devour it all, but must first catch some fish;\nand we joined the gentlemen on the veranda. A boat was ready for us.\nLaura, however, refused to go in it. It was too small; it was wet; she\nwanted to walk on the bridge; she could watch us from that; she wanted\nsome flowers, too. Like many who are not afraid of the ocean, she held\nponds and lakes in abhorrence, and fear kept her from going with us.\nHarry Lothrop offered to stay with her, and take lines to fish from the\nbridge. She assented, and, after we pushed off, they strolled away.\n\nThe lake was as smooth and white as silver beneath the afternoon sun\nand a windless sky; it was bordered with a mound of green bushes,\nbeyond which stretched deep pine woods. There was no shade, and we soon\ngrew weary. Jack Parker caught all the fish, which flopped about our\nfeet. A little way down, where the lake narrowed, we saw Laura and\nHarry Lothrop hanging over the bridge.\n\n\"They must be interested in conversation,\" I thought; \"he has not\nlifted his line out of the water once.\"\n\nRedmond, too, looked over that way often, and at last said,--\n\n\"We will row up to the bridge, and walk back to the house, if you,\nMaurice, will take the boat to the little pier again.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes,\" said Maurice.\n\nWe came to the bridge, and Laura reached out her hand to me.\n\n\"Why, dear!\" she exclaimed, \"you have burnt your face. Why did you,\"\nturning to Redmond, \"paddle about so long in the hot sun?\"\n\nHer words were light enough, but the tone of her voice was savage.\nRedmond looked surprised; he waved his hand deprecatingly, but said\nnothing. We went up toward the house, but Laura lingered behind, and\ndid not come in till we were ready to go to supper.\n\nIt was past sundown when we rose from the ruins of Mrs. Sampson's pies.\nWe voted not to start for home till the evening was advanced, so that\nwe might enjoy the gloom of the pine wood. We sat on the veranda and\nheard the sounds of approaching night. The atmosphere was like powdered\ngold. Swallows fluttered in the air, delaying to drop into their nests,\nand chirped their evening song. We heard the plunge of the little\nturtles in the lake, and the noisy crows as they flew home over the\ndistant tree-tops. They grew dark, and the sky deepened slowly into a\nsoft gray. A gentle wind arose, and wafted us the sighs of the pines\nand their resinous odors. I was happy, but Laura was unaccountably\nsilent.\n\n\"What is it, Laura?\" I asked, in a whisper.\n\n\"Nothing, Margaret,--only it seems to me that we mortals are always\nriding or fishing, eating or drinking, and that we never get to living.\nTo tell you the truth, the pies were too sour. Come, we must go,\" she\nsaid aloud.\n\nRedmond himself brought Folly from the stable.\n\n\"We will ride home together,\" he said. \"My calm nag will suit yours\nbetter than Black. Why does your hand tremble?\"\n\nHe saw my shaking hands, as I took the rein; the fact was, my wrists\nwere nearly broken.\n\n\"Nothing shall happen to-night, I assure you,\" he continued, while he\ntightened Folly's girth.\n\nHe contrived to be busy till all the party had disappeared down a turn\nof the road. As he was mounting his horse, Mrs. Sampson, who was on the\nsteps, whispered to me,--\n\n\"He's a beautiful young man, now!\"\n\nHe heard her; he had the ear of a wild animal; he took off his hat to\nMrs. Sampson, and we rode slowly away.\n\nAs soon as we were in the wood, Redmond tied the bridles of the horses\ntogether with his handkerchief. It was so dark that my sight could not\nseparate him from his horse. They moved beside me, a vague, black\nshape. The horses' feet fell without noise in the cool, moist sand. If\nour companions were near us, we could not see them, and we did not hear\nthem. Horses generally keep an even pace, when travelling at\nnight,--subdued by the darkness, perhaps,--and Folly went along without\nswaying an inch. I dropped the rein on his neck, and took hold of the\npommel. My hand fell on Redmond's. Before I could take it away, he had\nclasped it, and touched it with his lips. The movement was so sudden\nthat I half lost my balance, but the horses stepped evenly together. He\nthrew his arm round me, and recoiled from me as if he had received a\nblow.\n\n\"Take up your rein,\" he said, with a strange voice,--\"quick!--we must\nride fast out of this.\"\n\nI made no reply, for I was trying to untie the handkerchief. The knot\nwas too firm.\n\n\"No, no,\" he said, when he perceived what I was doing, \"let it be so.\"\n\n\"Untie it, Sir!\"\n\n\"I will not.\"\n\nI put my face down between the horses' necks and bit it apart, and\nthrust it into my bosom.\n\n\"Now,\" I said, \"shall we ride fast?\"\n\nHe shook his rein, and we rode fiercely,--past our party, who shouted\nat us,--through the wood,--over the brow of the great hill, from whose\ntop we saw the dark, motionless sea,--through the long street,--and\nthrough my father's gateway into the stable-yard, where I leaped from\nmy horse, and, bridle in hand, said, \"Good night!\" in a loud voice.\n\nRedmond swung his hat and galloped off.\n\nEarly next morning, Laura sent me a note:--\n\n\"DEAR MARGARET,--I have an ague, and mean to have it till Sunday night.\nThe pines did it. Did you bring home any needles? On Monday, mother\nwill give one of her whist-parties. I shall add a dozen or two of our\nset; you will come.\n\n\"P.S. What do you think of Mr. Harry Lothrop? Good young man, eh?\"\n\nI was glad that Laura had shut herself up for a few days; I dreaded to\nsee her just now. I suffered from an inexplicable feeling of pride and\ndisappointment, and did not care to have her discover it. Laura, like\nmyself, sometimes chose to protect herself against neighborly\ninvasions. We never kept our doors locked in the country; the sending\nin of a card was an unknown process there. Our acquaintances walked in\nupon us whenever the whim took them, and it now and then happened to be\nan inconvenience to us who loved an occasional fit of solitude. I\ndetermined to keep in-doors for a few days also. Whenever I was in an\nunquiet mood, I took to industry; so that day I set about arranging my\ndrawers, making over my ribbons, and turning my room upside down. I\nrehung all my pictures, and moved my bottles and boxes. Then I mended\nmy stockings, and marked my clothes, which was not a necessary piece of\nwork, as I never left home. I next attacked the parlor,--washed all the\nvases, changed the places of the furniture, and distressed my mother\nvery much. When evening came, I brushed my hair a good deal, and looked\nat my hands, and went to bed early. I could not read then, though I\noften took books from the shelves, and I would not think.\n\nSunday came round. The church-bells made me lonesome. I looked out of\nthe window many times that day, and, fixing on the sash one of my\nfather's ship-glasses, swept the sea, and peered at the islands on the\nother side of the bay, gazing through their openings, beyond which I\ncould see the great dim ocean. Mother came home from church, and said\nyoung Maurice was there, and inquired about me. He hoped I did not take\ncold; his friend Redmond had been hoarse ever since our ride, and had\npassed most of the time in his own room, drumming on the window-pane\nand whistling dirges. Mother dropped her acute eyes on me, while she\nwas telling me this; but I yawned all expression from my face.\n\nAs Monday night drew near, my numbness of feeling began to pass off;\nthought came into my brain by plunges. Now I desired; now I hoped. I\ndressed myself in black silk, and wore a cape of black Chantilly lace.\nI made my hair as glossy as possible, drew it down on my face, and put\nround my head a band composed of minute sticks of coral. When all was\ndone, I took the candle and held it above my head and surveyed myself\nin the glass. I was very pale. The pupils of my eyes were dilated, as\nif I had received some impression that would not pass away. My lips had\nthe redness of youth; their color was deepened by my paleness.\n\n\"How handsome I am!\" I thought, as I set down the candle.\n\nWhen I entered Laura's parlor, she came toward me and said,--\n\n\"Artful creature! you knew well, this warm night, that every girl of us\nwould wear a light dress; so you wore a black one. How well you\nunderstand such matters! You are very clever; your real sensibility\nadds effect to your cleverness. I see how it is. Come into this corner.\nHave you got a fan? Good gracious! black, with gold spangles;--where\n_do_ you buy your things? I can tell you now,\" she continued, \"my\nconversation on the bridge the other day.\"\n\nShe hesitated, and asked me if I liked her new muslin. She did look\nwell in it; it was a white fabric, with red rose-buds scattered over\nit. Her delicate face was shadowed by light brown curls. She was\nattractive, and I told her so, and she began again:--\n\n\"Harry Lothrop said, as he was impaling the half of a worm,--\n\n\"'Redmond is a handsome fellow, is he not?'\n\n\"'He is too awfully thin,' I answered, 'but his eyes are good.'\n\n\"He gave me a crafty side-look, like that of a parrot, when he means to\nbite your finger.\n\n\"'Your friend, too,' he added, 'is really one of the most beautiful\ngirls I ever saw,--a coquette with a heart.'\n\n\"'Let down your line into the water,' I said.\n\n\"He laughed a little laugh. By-the-by, there is an insidious tenacity\nabout Mr. Harry Lothrop which irritates me; but I like him, for I think\nhe understands women. I feel at ease with him, when he is not throwing\nout his tenacious feelers. Then he said,--\n\n\"'Redmond is engaged to his cousin. The girl's mother had the charge of\nhim through his boyhood. He is ardently attached to her,--the mother, I\nmean. She is most anxious to call Redmond her son.'\n\n\"'Didn't you have a bite?' I said.\n\n\"'Well, I think the bait is off the hook,' he answered; and then we\nwere silent and pondered the water.\n\n\"There are some people I must speak to,\"--and Laura moved away without\nlooking at me.\n\nI opened my fan, but felt chilly. A bustle near me caused me to raise\nmy eyes; Redmond was speaking to a lady. He was in black, too, and very\npale. He turned toward me and our eyes met. His expression agitated me\nso that I unconsciously rose to my feet and warned him off with my fan;\nbut he seemed rooted to the spot. Laura took care of us both; she came\nand stood between us. I saw her look at him so sweetly and so\nmournfully, that he understood her in a moment. He shook his head and\nwalked abruptly into another room. Laura went again from me without\ngiving me a look. Maurice came up and I made room for him beside me. We\ntalked of the riding-party, and then of our first meeting at the ball.\nHe told me that Redmond's boat had arrived, and what a famous boat it\nwas, and \"what jolly sprees we fellows had, cruising about with her.\" I\nasked him about his guitar, and when we might hear him play. He grew\nmore chatty and began to tell me about his sister, when Redmond and\nHarry Lothrop came over to us, which ended his chat.\n\nThe party was like all parties,--dull at first, and brighter as it grew\nlate. The old ladies played whist in one room, and the younger part of\nthe company were in another. Champagne was not a prevalent drink in our\nvillage, but it happened that we had some that night.\n\n\"It may be a sinful beverage,\" said an old lady near me, \"but it is\ngood.\"\n\nRedmond opened a bottle for me, we clinked glasses, and drank to an\nindefinite, silent wish.\n\n\"One more,\" he asked, \"and let us change glasses.\"\n\nPresently a cloud of delicate warmth spread over my brain, and gave me\ncourage to seek and meet his glance. There must have been an expression\nof irresolution in my face, for he looked at me inquiringly, and then\nhis own face grew very sad. I felt awkward from my intuition of his\nopinion of my mood, when he relieved me by saying something about\nShelley,--a copy of whose poems lay on a table near. From Shelley he\nwent to his boat, and said he hoped to have some pleasant excursions\nwith Laura and myself. He \"would go at once and talk with Laura's\nmother about them.\" I watched him through the door, while he spoke to\nher. She was in a low chair, and he leaned his face on one hand close\nto hers. I saw that his natural expression was one of tranquillity and\ncourage. He was not more than twenty-two, but the firmness of the lines\nabout his mouth belied his youth.\n\n\"He has a wonderful face,\" I thought, \"and just as wonderful a will.\"\n\nI felt my own will rise as I looked at him,--a will that should make me\nmistress of myself, powerful enough to contend with, and resist, or\nturn to advantage any controlling fate which might come near me.\n\n\"Do you feel like singing?\" Harry Lothrop inquired. \"Do you know\nByron's song, 'One struggle more and I am free'?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes!\" I replied,--\"it is set to music which suits my voice. I will\nsing it.\"\n\nLaura had been playing polkas with great spirit. Since the Champagne,\nthe old ladies had closed their games of whist for talking, and, as it\nwas nearly time to go, the company was gay. There was laughing and\ntalking when I began, but silence soon after, for the wine made my\nvoice husky and effective. I sang as if deeply moved.\n\n\"Lord!\" I heard Maurice say to Laura, as I rose from the piano, \"what a\ngirl! she's really tragic.\"\n\nI caught Harry Lothrop's eye, as I passed through the door to go\nup-stairs; it was burning; I felt as if a hot coal had dropped on me.\nMaurice ran into the hall and sprang upon the stair-railing to ask me\nif he might be my escort home. That night he serenaded me. He was a\ngood-hearted, cheerful creature; conceited, as small men are apt to\nbe,--conceit answering for size with them,--but pleasantly so, and I\nlearned to like him as much as Redmond did.\n\nThe summer days were passing. We had all sorts of parties,--parties in\nhouses and out-of-doors; we rode and sailed and walked. Laura walked\nand talked much with Harry Lothrop. We did not often see each other\nalone, but, when we met, were more serious and affectionate with each\nother. We did not speak, except in a general way, of Redmond and Harry\nLothrop. I did not avoid Redmond, nor did I seek him. We had many a\nserious conversation in public, as well as many a gay one; but I had\nnever met him alone since the night we rode through the pines.\n\nHe went away for a fortnight. On the day of his return he came to see\nme. He looked so glad, when I entered the room, that I could not help\nfeeling a wild thrill. I went up to him, but said nothing. He held out\nboth his hands. I retreated. An angry feeling rushed into my heart.\n\n\"No,\" I said, \"Whose hand did you hold last?\"\n\nHe turned deadly pale.\n\n\"That of the woman I am going to marry.\"\n\nI smiled to hide the trembling of my lips, and offered my hand to him;\n_but he waved it away_, and fell back on his chair, hurriedly drawing\nhis handkerchief across his face. I saw that he was very faint, and\nstood against the door, waiting for him to recover.\n\n\"More than I have played the woman and the fool before you.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"I thought so. You seem experienced.\"\n\n\"I am.\"\n\n\"Forgive me,\" he said, gently; \"being only a man, I think you can. Good\nGod!\" he exclaimed, \"what an infernal self-possession you show!\"\n\n\"Redmond, is it not time to end this? The summer has been a long\none,--has it not?--long enough for me to have learned what it is to\nlive. Our positions are reversed since we have become acquainted. I am\nfor the first time forgetting self, and you for the first time remember\nself. Redmond, you are a noble man. You have a steadfast soul. Do not\nbe shaken. I am not like you; I am not simple or single-hearted. But I\nimitate you. Now come, I beg you will go.\"\n\n\"Certainly, I will. I have little to say.\"\n\nAugust had nearly gone when Maurice told me they were about to leave.\nLaura said we must prepare for retrospection and the fall sewing.\n\n\"Well,\" I said, \"the future looks gloomy, and I must have some new\ndresses.\"\n\nMaurice came to see me one morning in a state of excitement to say we\nwere all going to Bird Island to spend the day, dine at the\nlight-house, and sail home by moonlight. Fifteen of the party were\ngoing down by the sloop Sapphire, and Redmond had begged him to ask if\nLaura and I would go in his boat.\n\n\"Do go,\" said Maurice; \"it will be our last excursion together; next\nweek we are off. I am broken-hearted about it. I shall never be so\nhappy again. I have actually whimpered once or twice. You should hear\nRedmond whistle nowadays. Harry pulls his moustache and laughs his oily\nlaughs, but he is sorry to go, and kicks his clothes about awfully. By\nthe way, he is going down in the sloop because Miss Fairfax is\ngoing,--he says,--that tall young lady with crinkled hair;--he hates\nher, and hopes to see her sick. May I come for you in the morning, by\nten o'clock? Redmond will be waiting on the wharf.\"\n\n\"Tell Redmond,\" I answered, \"that I will go; and will you ask Harry\nLothrop not to engage himself for all the reels to Miss Fairfax?\"\n\nHe promised to fulfil my message, and went off in high spirits. I\nwondered, as I saw him going down the walk, why it was that I felt so\nmuch more natural and friendly with him than with either of his\nfriends. I often talked confidentially to him; he knew how I loved my\nmother, and how I admired my father, and I told him all about my\nbrother's business. He also knew what I liked best to eat and to wear.\nIn return, he confided his family secrets to me. I knew his tastes and\nwishes. There was no common ground where I met Redmond and Harry\nLothrop. There were too many topics between Redmond and myself to be\navoided, for us to venture upon private or familiar conversation. Harry\nLothrop was an accomplished, fastidious man of the world, I dreaded\nboring him, and so I said little. He was several years older than\nRedmond, and possessed more knowledge of men, women, and books. Redmond\nhad no acquirements, he knew enough by nature, and I never saw a person\nwith more fascination of manner and voice.\n\nThe evening before the sailing-party, I had a melancholy fit. I was\nrestless, and after dark I put a shawl over my head and went out to\nwalk. I went up a lonesome road, beyond our house. On one side I heard\nthe water washing against the shore with regularity, as if it were\nbreathing. On the other side were meadows, where there were cows\ncrunching the grass. A mile farther was a low wood of oaks, through\nwhich ran a path. I determined to walk through that. The darkness and a\nsharp breeze which blew against me from limitless space made me feel as\nif I were the only human creature the elements could find to contend\nwith, I turned down the little path into the deeper darkness of the\nwood, sat down on a heap of dead leaves, and began to cry.\n\n\"Mine is a miserable pride,\" was my thought,--\"that of arming myself\nwith beauty and talent and going through the world conquering! Girls\nare ignorant, till they are disappointed. The only knowledge men\nproffer us is the knowledge of the heart; it becomes us to profit by\nit. Redmond will marry that girl. He must, and shall. I will empty the\ndust and ashes of my heart as soon as the fire goes down: that is, I\nthink so; but I know that I do not know myself. I have two\nnatures,--one that acts, and one that is acted upon,--and I cannot\nalways separate the one from the other.\"\n\nSomething darkened the opening into the path. Two persons passed in\nslowly. I perceived the odor of violets, and felt that one of them must\nbe Laura. Waiting till they passed beyond me, I rose and went home.\n\nThe next morning was cloudy, and the sea was rough with a high wind;\nbut we were old sailors, and decided to go on our excursion. The sloop\nand Redmond's boat left the wharf at the same time. We expected to be\nseveral hours beating down to Bird Island, for the wind was ahead.\nLaura and I, muffled in cloaks, were placed on the thwarts and\nneglected; for Redmond and Maurice were busy with the boat. Laura was\nsilent, and looked ill. Redmond sat at the helm, and kept the boat up\nto the wind, which drove the hissing spray over us. The sloop hugged\nthe shore, and did not feel the blast as we did. I slid along my seat\nto be near Redmond. He saw me coming, and put out his hand and drew me\ntowards him, looking so kindly at me that I was melted. Trying to get\nat my handkerchief, which was in my dress-pocket, my cloak flew open,\nthe wind caught it, and, as I rose to draw it closer, I nearly fell\noverboard. Redmond gave a spring to catch me, and the boat lost her\nheadway. The sail flapped with a loud bang. Maurice swore, and we\nchopped about in the short sea.\n\n\"It is your destiny to have a scene, wherever you are,\" said Laura. \"If\nI did not feel desperate, I should be frightened. But these green,\ncrawling waves are so opaque, if we fall in, we shall not see ourselves\ndrown.\"\n\n\"Courage! the boat is under way,\" Maurice cried out; \"we are nearly\nthere.\"\n\nAnd rounding a little point, we saw the light-house at last. The sloop\nanchored a quarter of a mile from the shore, the water being shoal, and\nRedmond took off her party by instalments.\n\n\"What the deuse was the matter with you at one time?\" asked Jack\nParker. \"We saw you were having a sort of convulsion. Our cap'n said\nyou were bold chaps to be trifling with such a top-heavy boat.\"\n\n\"Miss Denham,\" said Redmond, \"thought she could steer the boat as well\nas I could, and so the boat lost headway.\"\n\nHarry Lothrop gave Redmond one of his soft smiles, and a vexed look\npassed over Redmond's face when he saw it.\n\nWe had to scramble over a low range of rocks to get to the shore.\nRedmond anchored his boat by one of them. Bird Island was a famous\nplace for parties. It was a mile in extent. Not a creature was on it\nexcept the light-house keeper, his wife, and daughter. The gulls made\ntheir nests in its rocky borders; their shrill cries, the incessant\ndashing of the waves on the ledges, and the creaking of the lantern in\nthe stone tower were all the sounds the family heard, except when they\nwere invaded by some noisy party like ours. They were glad to see us.\nThe light-house keeper went into the world only when it was necessary\nto buy stores, or when his wife and daughter wanted to pay a visit to\nthe mainland.\n\nThe house was of stone, one story high, with thick walls. The small,\ndeep-set windows and the low ceilings gave the rooms the air of a\nprison; but there was also an air of security about them: for, in\nlooking from the narrow windows, one felt that the house was a\nsteadfast ship in the circle of the turbulent sea, whose waves from\nevery point seemed advancing towards it. A pale, coarse grass grew in\nthe sand of the island. It was too feeble to resist the acrid breath of\nthe ocean, so it shuddered perpetually, and bent landward, as if\ninvoking the protection of its stepmother, the solid earth.\n\n\"It is perfect,\" said Redmond to me; \"I have been looking for this spot\nall my life; I am ready to swear that I will never leave it.\"\n\nWe were sitting in a window, facing each other. He looked out toward\nthe west, and presently was lost in thought. He folded his arms tightly\nacross his breast, and his eyes were a hundred miles away. The sound of\na fiddle in the long alley which led from the house to the tower broke\nhis reverie.\n\n\"We shall be uproarious before we leave,\" I said; \"we always are, when\nwe come here.\"\n\nThe fun had already set in. Some of the girls had pinned up their\ndresses, and borrowed aprons from the light-house keeper's wife, and\nwith scorched faces were helping her to make chowder and fry\nfish. Others were arranging the table, assisted by the young men, who\nput the dishes in the wrong places. Others were singing in the best\nroom. One or two had brought novels along, and were reading them in\ncorners. It was all merry and pleasant, but I felt quiet. Redmond\nentered into the spirit of the scene. I had never seen him so gay. He\nchatted with all the girls, interfering or helping, as the case might\nbe. Maurice brought his guitar, and had a group about him at the foot\nof the tower-stairs. He sung loud, but his voice seemed to\nfluctuate;--now it rang through the tower, now it was half overpowered\nby the roar of the sea. His poetical temperament led him to choose\nsongs in harmony with the place, not to suit the company,--melancholy\nwords set to wild, fitful chords, which rose and died away according to\nthe skill of the player. I had gone near him, for his singing had\nattracted me.\n\n\"You are inspired,\" I said.\n\nHe nodded.\n\n\"You never sung so before.\"\n\n\"I feel old to-day,\" he answered, and he swept his hands across all the\nstrings; \"my ditties are done.\"\n\nAfter dinner Laura asked me to go out with her. We slipped away unseen,\nand went to the beach, and seated ourselves on a great rock whose outer\nside was lapped by the water. The sun had broken through the clouds,\nbut shone luridly, giving the sea a leaden tint. The wind was going\ndown. We had not been there long, when Redmond joined us. He asked us\nto go round the island in his boat. Laura declined, and said she would\nsit on the rock while we went, if I chose to go. I did choose to go,\nand he brought the boat to the rock. He hoisted the sail half up the\nmast, and we sailed close to the shore. It rose gradually along the\neast side of the island, and terminated in a bold ledge which curved\ninto the sea. We ran inside the curve, where the water was nearly\nsmooth. Redmond lowered the sail and the boat drifted toward the ledge\nslowly. A tongue of land, covered with pale sedge, was on the left\nside. Above the ledge, at the right, we could see the tower of the\nlight-house. Redmond tied down the helm, and, throwing himself beside\nme, leaned his head on his hand, and looked at me a long time without\nspeaking. I listened to the water, which plashed faintly against the\nbows. He covered his face with his hands. I looked out seaward over the\ntongue of land; my heart quaked, like the grass which grew upon it. At\nlast he rose, and I saw that he was crying,--the tears rained fast.\n\n\"My soul is dying,\" he said, in a stifled voice; \"I am not more than\nmortal,--I cannot endure it.\"\n\nI pointed toward the open sea, which loomed so vague in the distance.\n\n\"The future is like that,--is it not? Courage! we must drift through\nit; we shall find something.\"\n\nHe stamped his foot on the deck.\n\n\"Women always talk so; but men are different. If there is a veil before\nus, we must tear it away,--not sit muffled in its folds, and speculate\non what is behind it. Rise.\"\n\nI obeyed him. He held me firmly. We were face to face.\n\n\"Look at me.\"\n\nI did. His eyes were blazing.\n\n\"Do you love me?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\nHe placed me on the bench, hoisted the sail, untied the helm, and we\nwere soon ploughing round to the spot where we had left Laura; but she\nwas gone. On the rock where she was, perched a solitary gull, which\nflew away with a scream as we approached.\n\nThat day was the last that I saw Redmond alone. He was at the party at\nLaura's house which took place the night before they left. We did not\nbid each other adieu.\n\nAfter the three friends had gone, they sent us gifts of remembrance.\nRedmond's keepsake was a white fan with forget-me-nots painted on it.\nTo Laura he sent the pen-holder, which was now mine.\n\nWe missed them, and should have felt their loss, had no deep feeling\nbeen involved; for they gave an impetus to our dull country life, and\nthe whole summer had been one of excitement and pleasure. We settled by\ndegrees into our old habits. At Christmas, Frank came. He looked\nworried and older. He had heard something of Laura's intimacy with\nHarry Lothrop, and was troubled about it, I know: but I believe Laura\nwas silent on the matter. She was quiet and affectionate toward him\nduring his visit, and he went back consoled.\n\nThe winter passed. Spring came and went, and we were deep into the\nsummer when Laura was taken ill. She had had a little cough, which no\none except her mother noticed. Her spirits fell, and she failed fast.\nWhen I saw her last, she had been ill some weeks, and had never felt\nstrong enough to talk as much as she did in that interview. She nerved\nherself to make the effort, and as she bade me farewell, bade farewell\nto life also. And now it was all over with her!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI fell asleep at length, and woke late. It seemed as if a year had\ndropped out of the procession of Time. My heart was still beating with\nthe emotion which stirred it when Redmond and I were together last.\nRecollection had stung me to the quick. A terrible longing urged me to\ngo and find him. The feeling I had when we were in the boat, face to\nface, thrilled my fibres again. I saw his gleaming eyes; I could have\nrushed through the air to meet him. But, alas! exaltation of feeling\nlasts only a moment; it drops us where it finds us. If it were not so,\nhow easy to be a hero! The dull reaction of the present, like a slow\navalanche, crushed and ground me into nothingness.\n\n\"Something must happen at last,\" I thought, \"to amuse me, and make time\nendurable.\"\n\nWhat can a woman do, when she knows that an epoch of feeling is rounded\noff, finished, dead? Go back to her story-books, her dress-making, her\nworsted-work? Shall she attempt to rise to mediocrity on the piano or\nin drawing, distribute tracts, become secretary of a Dorcas society? or\nshall she turn her mind to the matter of cultivating another lover at\nonce? Few of us women have courage enough to shoulder out the corpses\nof what men leave in our hearts. We keep them there, and conceal the\nruins in which they lie. We grow cunning and artful in our tricks, the\nlonger we practise them. But how we palpitate and shrink and shudder,\nwhen we are alone in the dark!\n\nAfter Redmond departed, I had locked up my feelings and thrown the key\naway. The death of Laura, and the awakening of my recollections, caused\nby the appearance of Harry Lothrop, wrenched the door open. Hitherto I\nhad acted with the bravery of a girl; I must now behave with the\nresolution of a woman. I looked into my heart closely. No skeleton was\nthere, but the image of a living man,--_Redmond_.\n\n\"I love him,\" I confessed. \"To be his wife and the mother of his\nchildren is the only lot I ever care to choose. He is noble, handsome,\nand loyal. But I cannot belong to him, nor can he ever be mine.\n\n  \"'Of love that never found his earthly close\n  What sequel?'\n\n\"What did he do with the remembrance of me? He scattered it, perhaps,\nwith the ashes of the first cigar he smoked after he went from\nme,--made a mound of it, maybe, in honor of Duty. I am as ignorant of\nhim as if he no longer existed; so this image must be torn away. I will\nnot burn the lamp of life before it, but will build up the niche where\nit stands into a solid wall.\"\n\nThe ideal happiness of love is so sweet and powerful, that, for a\nwhile, adverse influences only exalt the imagination. When Laura told\nme of Redmond's engagement, it did but change my dream of what might be\ninto what might have been. It was a mirage which continued while he was\npresent and faded with his departure. Then my heart was locked in the\ndepths of will, till circumstance brought it a power of revenge. I\nthink now, if we had spoken freely and truly to each other, I should\nhave suffered less when I saw his friend. We feel better when the\nfuneral of our dearest friend is over and we have returned to the\nhouse. There is to be no more preparation, no waiting; the windows may\nbe opened, and the doors set wide; the very dreariness and desolation\nforce our attention towards the living.\n\n\"Something will come,\" I thought; and I determined not to have any more\nreveries. \"Mr. Harry Lothrop is a pleasant riddle; I shall see him\nsoon, or he will write.\"\n\nIt occurred to me then that I had some letters of his already in my\npossession,--those he had written to Laura. I found the ebony box, and,\ntaking from it the sealed package, unfolded the letters one by one,\nreading them according to their dates. There was a note among them for\nme, from Laura.\n\n\"When you read these letters, Margaret,\" it said, \"you will see that I\nmust have studied the writer of them in vain. You know now that he made\nme unhappy; not that I was in love with him much, but he stirred depths\nof feeling which I had no knowledge of, and which between Frank, my\nbetrothed husband, and myself had no existence. But '_le roi s'amuse._'\nPerhaps a strong passion will master this man; but I shall never know.\nWill you?\"\n\nI laid the letters back in their place, and felt no very strong desire\nto learn anything more of the writer. I did not know then how little\ntrouble it would be,--my share of making the acquaintance.\n\nIt was not many weeks before Mr. Lothrop came again, and rather\nostentatiously, so that everybody knew of his visit to me. But he saw\nnone of the friends he had made during his stay the year before. I\nhappened to see him coming, and went to the door to meet him. Almost\nhis first words were,--\n\n\"Maurice is dead. He went to Florida,--took the fever,--which killed\nhim, of course. He died only a week after--after Laura. Poor fellow!\ndid he interest you much? I believe he was in love with you, too; but\nmusical people are never desperate, except when they play a false\nnote.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I answered; \"I was fond of him. His conceit did not trouble me,\nand he never fatigued me; he had nothing to conceal. He was a\ncommonplace man; one liked him, when with him,--and when away, one had\nno thought about him.\"\n\n\"I alone am left you,\" said my visitor, putting his hat on a chair, and\nslowly pulling off his gloves, finger by finger.\n\nHe had slender, white hands, like a woman's, and they were always in\nmotion. After he had thrown his gloves into his hat, he put his finger\nagainst his cheek, leaned his elbow on the arm of his chair, crossed\nhis legs, and looked at me with a cunning self-possession. I glanced at\nhis feet; they were small and well-booted. I looked into his face; it\nwas not a handsome one; but he had magnetic eyes, of a lightish blue,\nand a clever, loose mouth. It is impossible to describe him,--just as\nimpossible as it is for a man who was born a boor to attain the bearing\nof a gentleman; any attempt at it would prove a bungling matter, when\ncompared with the original. He felt my scrutiny, and knew, too, that I\nhad never looked at him till then.\n\n\"Do you sing nowadays?\" he asked, tapping with his fingers the keys of\nthe piano behind him.\n\n\"Psalms.\"\n\n\"They suit you admirably; but I perceive you attend to your dress\nstill. How effective those velvet bands are! You look older than you\ndid two years ago.\"\n\n\"Two years are enough to age a woman.\"\n\n\"Yes, if she is miserable. Can you be unhappy?\" he asked, rising, and\ntaking a seat beside me.\n\nThere was a tone of sympathy in his voice which made me shudder, I knew\nnot why. It was neither aversion nor liking; but I dreaded to be thrown\ninto any tumult of feeling. I realized afterward more fully that it is\nnext to impossible for a passionate woman to receive the sincere\naddresses of a manly man without feeling some fluctuation of soul.\nIgnorant spectators call her a coquette for this. Happily, there are\nteachers among our own sex, women of cold temperaments, able to\nvindicate themselves from the imputation. They spare themselves great\nwaste of heart and some generous emotion,--also remorse and\nself-accusations regarding the want of propriety, and the other\ningredients which go to make up a white-muslin heroine.\n\nHarry Lothrop saw that my cheek was burning, and made a movement toward\nme. I tossed my head back, and moved down the sofa; he did not follow\nme, but smiled and mused in his old way.\n\nAnd so it went on,--not once, but many times. He wrote me quiet,\npersuasive, eloquent letters. By degrees I learned his own history and\nthat of his family, his prospects and his intentions. He was rich. I\nknew well what position I should have, if I were his wife. My beauty\nwould be splendidly set. I was well enough off, but not rich enough to\nharmonize all things according to my taste. I was proud, and he was\nrefined; if we were married, what better promise of delicacy could be\ngiven than that of pride in a woman, refinement in a man? He brought me\nflowers or books, when he came. The flowers were not delicate and\ninodorous, but magnificent and deep-scented; and the material of the\nbooks was stalwart and vigorous. I read his favorite authors with him.\nHe was the first person who ever made any appeal to my intellect. In\nshort, he was educating me for a purpose.\n\nOnce he offered me a diamond cross. I refused it, and he never asked me\nto accept any gift again. His visits were not frequent, and they were\nshort. However great the distance he accomplished to reach me, he staid\nonly an evening, and then returned. He came and went at night. In time\nI grew to look upon our connection as an established thing. He made me\nunderstand that he loved me, and that he only waited for me to return\nit; but he did not say so.\n\nI lived an idle life, inhaling the perfume of the flowers he gave me,\ndevouring old literature, the taste for which he had created, and\nreading and answering his letters. To be sure, other duties were\nfulfilled, I was an affectionate child to my parents, and a proper\nacquaintance for my friends. I never lost any sleep now, nor was I\ntroubled with dreams. I lived in the outward; all my restless activity,\nthat constant questioning of the heavens and the earth, had ceased\nentirely. Five years had passed since I first saw Redmond. I was now\ntwenty-four. The Fates grew tired of the monotony of my life, I\nsuppose, for about this time it changed.\n\nMy oldest brother, a bachelor, lived in New York. He asked me to spend\nthe winter with him; he lived in a quiet hotel, had a suite of rooms,\nand could make me comfortable, he said. He had just asked somebody to\nmarry him, and that somebody wished to make my acquaintance. I was glad\nto go. My heart gave a bound at the prospect of change; I was still\nyoung enough to dream of the impossible, when any chance offered itself\nto my imagination; so I accepted my brother's invitation with some\nelation.\n\nI had been in New York a month. One day I was out with my future\nsister, on a shopping raid; with our hands full of little paper\nparcels, we stopped to look into Goupil's window. There was always a\nrim of crowd there, so I paid no attention to the jostles we received.\nWe were looking at an engraving of Ary Scheffer's Fran\u00e7oise de Rimini.\n\"Not the worst hell,\" muttered a voice behind me, which I knew. I\nstarted, and pulled Leonora's arm; she turned round, and the fringe of\nher cloak-sleeve caught a button on the overcoat of one of the\ngentlemen standing together. It was Redmond; the other was his\n\"ancient,\" Harry Lothrop. Leonora was arrested; I stood still, of\ncourse. Redmond had not seen my face, for I turned it from him; and his\nhead was bent down to the task of disengaging his button.\n\n  \"'Each only as God wills\n  Can work; God's puppets, best and worst,\n  Are we; there is no last nor first,'\"\n\nI thought, and turned my head. He instinctively took off his hat, and\nthen planted it back on his head firmly, and looked over to Harry\nLothrop, to whom I gave my hand. He knew me before I saw him, I am\nconvinced; but his dramatic sense kept him silent,--perhaps a deeper\nfeeling. There was an expression of pain in his face, which impelled me\nto take his arm.\n\n\"Let us move on, Leonora,\" I said; \"these are some summer friends of\nmine,\" and I introduced them to her.\n\nMy chief feeling was embarrassment, which was shared by all the party;\nfor Leonora felt that there was something unusual in the meeting. The\ndoor of the hotel seemed to come round at last, and as we were going\nin, Harry Lothrop asked me if he might see me the next morning.\n\n\"Do come,\" I answered aloud.\n\nWe all bowed, and they disappeared.\n\n\"What an elegant Indian your tall friend is!\" said Leonora.\n\n\"Yes,--of the Camanche tribe.\"\n\n\"But he would look better hanging from his horse's mane than he does in\na long coat.\"\n\n\"He is spoiled by civilization and white parents. But, Leonora, stay\nand dine with me, in my own room. John will not come home till it is\ntime for the opera. You know we are going. You must make me splendid;\nyou can torture me into style, I know.\"\n\nShe consented, provided I would send a note to her mother, explaining\nthat it was my invitation, and not her old John's, as she irreverently\ncalled him. I did so, and she was delighted to stay.\n\n\"This is fast,\" she said; \"can't we have Champagne and black coffee?\"\n\nShe fell to rummaging John's closets, and brought out a dusty,\nChinese-looking affair, which she put on for a dressing-gown. She found\nsome Chinese straw shoes, and tucked her little feet into them, and\nthen braided her hair in a long tail, and declared she was ready for\ndinner. Her gayety was refreshing, and I did not wonder at John's\nadmiration. My spirits rose, too, and I astonished Leonora at the table\nwith my chat; she had never seen me except when quiet. I fell into one\nof those unselfish, unasking moods which are the glory of youth: I felt\nthat the pure heaven of love was in the depths of my being; my soul\nshone like a star in its atmosphere; my heart throbbed, and I cried\nsoftly to it,--\"Live! live! he is here!\" I still chatted with Leonora\nand made her laugh, and the child for the first time thoroughly liked\nme. We were finishing our dessert, when we heard John's knock. We\nallowed him to come in for a moment, and gave him some almonds, which,\nhe leisurely cracked and ate.\n\n\"Somehow, Margaret,\" he said, \"you remind me of those women who enjoy\nthe Indian festival of the funeral pile. I have seen the thing done;\nyou have something of the sort in your mind; be sure to immolate\nyourself handsomely. Women are the deuse.\"\n\n\"Finish your almonds, John,\" I said, \"and go away; we must dress.\"\n\nHe put his hand on my arm, and whispered,--\n\n\"Smother that light in your eyes, my girl; it is dangerous. And you\nhave lived under your mother's eye all your life! You see what I have\ndone,\"--indicating Leonora with his eyebrows,--\"taken a baby on my\nhands.\"\n\n\"John, John!\" I inwardly ejaculated, \"you are an idiot.\"\n\n\"She shall never suffer what you suffer; she shall have the benefit of\nthe experience which other women have given me.\"\n\n\"Very likely,\" I answered; \"I know we often serve you as pioneers\nmerely.\"\n\nHe gave a sad nod, and I closed the door upon him.\n\n\"Put these pins into my hair, Leonora, and tell me, how do you like my\nnew dress?\"\n\n\"Paris!\" she cried.\n\nIt was a dove-colored silk with a black velvet stripe through it. I\nshowed her a shawl which John had given me,--a pale-yellow gauzy fabric\nwith a gold-thread border,--and told her to make me up. She produced\nquite a marvellous effect; for this baby understood the art of dress to\nperfection. She made my hair into a loose mass, rolling it away from my\nface; yet it was firmly fastened. Then she shook out the shawl, and\nwrapped me in it, so that my head seemed to be emerging from a\npale-tinted cloud. John said I looked outlandish, but Leonora thought\notherwise. She begged him for some Indian perfume, and he found an\naromatic powder, which she sprinkled inside my gloves and over my shawl.\n\nWe found the opera-house crowded. Our seats were near the stage. John\nsat behind us, so that he might slip out into the lobby occasionally;\nfor the opera was a bore to him. The second act was over; John had left\nhis seat; I was opening and shutting my fan mechanically, half lost in\nthought, when Leonora, who had been looking at the house with her\nlorgnette, turned and said,--\n\n\"Is not that your friend of this morning, on the other side, in the\nsecond row, leaning against the third pillar? There is a\nqueenish-looking old lady with him. He hasn't spoken to her for a long\ntime, and she continually looks up at him.\"\n\nI took her glass, and discovered Redmond. He looked back at me through\nanother; I made a slight motion with my handkerchief; he dropped his\nglass into the lap of the lady next him and darted out, and in a moment\nhe was behind me in John's seat.\n\n\"Who is with you?\" he asked.\n\n\"Brother,\" I answered.\n\n\"You intoxicate me with some strange perfume; don't fan it this way.\"\n\nI quietly passed the fan to Leonora, who now looked back and spoke to\nhim. He talked with her a moment, and then she discreetly resumed her\nlorgnette.\n\n\"What happened for two years after I left B.? The last year I know\nsomething of.\"\n\n\"Breakfast, dinner, and tea; the ebb and flow of the tide; and the days\nof the week.\"\n\n\"Nothing more?\" And his voice came nearer.\n\n\"A few trifles.\"\n\n\"They are under lock and key, I suppose?\"\n\n\"We do not carry relics about with us.\"\n\n\"There is the conductor; I must go. Turn your face toward me more.\"\n\nI obeyed him, and our eyes met. His searching gaze made me shiver.\n\n\"I have been married,\" he said, and his eyes were unflinching, \"and my\nwife is dead.\"\n\nAll the lights went down, I thought; I struck out my arm to find\nLeonora, who caught it and pressed it down.\n\n\"I must get out,\" I said; and I walked up the alley to the door without\nstumbling.\n\nI knew that I was fainting or dying; as I had never fainted, I did not\nknow which. Redmond carried me through the cloak-room and put me on a\nsofa.\n\n\"I never can speak to him again,\" I thought, and then I lost sight of\nthem all.\n\nA terribly sharp pain through my heart roused me, and I was in a\nviolent chill. They had thrown water over my face; my hair was matted,\nand the water was dripping from it on my naked shoulders. The gloves\nhad been ripped from my hands, and Leonora was wringing my\nhandkerchief.\n\n\"The heat made you faint, dear,\" she said.\n\nJohn was walking up and down the room with a phlegmatic countenance,\nbut he was fuming.\n\n\"My new dress is ruined, John,\" I said.\n\n\"Hang the dress! How do you feel now?\"\n\n\"It is drowned; and I feel better; shall we go home?\"\n\nHe went out to order the carriage, and Leonora whispered to me that she\nhad forgotten Redmond's name.\n\n\"No matter,\" I answered. I could not have spoken it then.\n\nWhen John came, Leonora beckoned to Redmond to introduce himself. John\nshook hands with him, gave him an intent look, and told us the carriage\nwas ready. Redmond followed us, and took leave of us at the\ncarriage-door.\n\nLeonora begged me to stay at her house; I refused, for I wished to be\nalone. John deposited her with her mother, and we drove home. He gave\nme one of his infallible medicines, and told me not to get up in the\nmorning. But when morning came, I remembered Harry Lothrop was coming,\nand made myself ready for him. As human nature is not quite perfect, I\nfelt unhappy about him, and rather fond of him, and thought he\npossessed some admirable qualities. I never could read the old poets\nany more without a pang, unless he were with me, directing my eye along\ntheir pages with his long white finger! I never should smell tuberoses\nagain without feeling faint, unless they were his gift!\n\nBy the time he came I was in a state of romantic regret, and in that\nstate many a woman has answered, \"Yes!\" He asked me abruptly if I\nthought it would be folly in him to ask me to marry him. The question\nturned the tide.\n\n\"No,\" I answered,--\"not folly; for I have thought many times in the\nlast two years, that I should marry you, if you said I must. But now I\nbelieve that it is not best. You have pursued me patiently; your\nself-love made the conquest of me a necessary pleasure. That was well\nenough for me; for you made me feel all the while, that, if I loved\nyou, you were worth possessing. And you are. I like you. But my feeling\nfor you did not prevent my fainting away at the opera-house last night,\nwhen Redmond told me that his wife was dead.\"\n\n\"So,\" he said, \"the long-smothered fire has broken out again! Chance\ndoes not befriend me. He saw you last night, and yielded. He said\nyesterday he should not tell you. He asked me about you after we left\nyou, and wished to know if I had seen you much for the last year. I\noffered him your last letter to read,--am I not generous?--but he\nrefused it.\n\n\"'When I see her,' he asked, 'am I at liberty to say what I choose?'\n\n\"On that I could have said, 'No.' Redmond and I have not seen each\nother since the period of my first visit to you. He has been nursing\nhis wife in the mean time, taking journeys with her, and trying all\nsorts of cures; and now he seems tied to his aunt and mother-in-law. He\nwas merely passing through the city with her, and this morning they\nhave gone again.--Well,\" after a pause, \"there is no need of words\nbetween us. I have in my possession a part of you. Beautiful women are\nlike flowers which open their leaves wide enough for their perfume to\nattract wandering bees; the perfume is wasted, though the honey may be\nhid.\"\n\n\"Alas, what a lesson this man is giving me!\" I thought.\n\n\"Farewell, then,\" he said. He bit his lips, and his clenched hands\ntrembled; but he mastered his emotion. \"You must think of me.\"\n\n\"And see you, too,\" I answered. \"Everything comes round again, if we\nlive long enough. Dramatic unities are never preserved in life; if they\nwere, how poetical would all these things be! But Time whirls us round,\nshowing us our many-sided feelings as carelessly as a child rattles the\nbits of glass in his kaleidoscope.\"\n\n\"So be it!\" he replied. \"Adieu!\"\n\nThat afternoon I staid at home, and put John's room in order, and\ncleaned the dust from his Indian idols, and was extremely busy till he\ncame in. Then I kissed his whiskers, and told him all my sins, and\ncried once or twice during my confession. He petted me a good deal, and\nmade me eat twice as much dinner as I wanted; he said it was good for\nme, and I obeyed him, for I felt uncommonly meek that day.\n\nSoon after, Redmond sent me a long letter. He said he had been, from a\nboy, under an obligation to his aunt, the mother of his wife. It was a\ncommon story, and he would not trouble me with it. He was married soon\nafter Harry Lothrop's first visit to me, at the time they had received\nthe news of Laura's death. How much he had thought of Laura afterward,\nwhile he was watching the fading away of his pale blossom! His aunt had\nbeen ill since the death of her daughter, restless, and discontented\nwith every change. He hoped she was now settled among some old friends\nwith whom she might find consolation. In conclusion, he wrote,--\"My\naunt noticed our hasty exit from the opera-house that night, when I was\nbrute enough to nearly kill you. I told her that I loved you. She now\nfeels, after a struggle, that she must let me go. 'Old women have no\nrights,' she said to me yesterday. Margaret, may I come, and never leave\nyou again?\"\n\nMy answer may be guessed, for one day he arrived. It was the dusk of a\ncheery winter day, the time when home wears so bright a look to those\nwho seek it. It was an hour before dinner, and I was waiting for John\nto come in. The amber evening sky gleamed before the windows, and the\nfire made a red core of light in the room. John's sandal-wood boxes\ngave out strange odors in the heat, and the pattern of the Persian rug\nwas just visible. A servant came to the door with a card. I held it to\nthe grate, and the fire lit up his name.\n\n\"Show him up-stairs,\" I said.\n\nI stood in the doorway, and heard his step on every stair. When he\ncame, I took him by the hand, and drew him into the room. He was\nspeechless.\n\n\"Oh, Redmond, I love you! How long you were away!\"\n\nHe kneeled by me, and put my arms round his neck, and we kissed each\nother with the first, best kiss of passion.\n\nJohn came in, and I reached out my hand to him and said, \"This is my\nhusband.\"\n\n\"That's comfortable,\" he answered. \"Won't you stay to dinner?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes,\" replied Redmond; \"this is my hotel.\"\n\n\"I see,\" said John.\n\nBut after dinner they had a long talk together. John sent me to my\nroom, and I was glad to go. I walked up and down, crying, I must say,\nmost of the time, asking forgiveness of myself for my faults, and\nremembering Laura and Maurice,--and then thinking Redmond was mine,\nwith a contraction of the heart which threatened to stifle me.\n\nJohn took us up to Leonora's that evening; he said he wanted to see if\nPuss would be tantalized with the sight of such a beautiful romantic\ncouple just from fairy-land, who were now prepared \"to live in peace.\"\n\nWe were married the next day in a church in a by-street. John was the\nonly witness, and flourished a large silk handkerchief, so that it had\nthe effect of a triumphal banner. Redmond put the ring on the wrong\nfinger,--a mistake which the minister kindly rectified. All I had new\nfor the occasion was a pair of gloves.\n\nOne morning after my marriage, when Redmond and John were smoking\ntogether, I was turning over some boxes, for I was packing to go home\non a visit to our mother. I called Redmond to leave his pipe and come\nto me.\n\n\"You have not seen any of my property. Look, here it is:--\n\n\"One bitten handkerchief.\n\n\"A fan never used.\n\n\"A gold pen-holder.\n\n\"A draggled shawl.\"\n\n\"Margaret,\" he said, taking my chin in his hand and bringing his eyes\nclose to mine, \"I am wild with happiness.\"\n\n\"Your pipe has gone out,\" we heard John say.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTHE PLAYMATE.\n\n\n  The pines were dark on Ramoth hill,\n    Their song was soft and low;\n  The blossoms in the sweet May wind\n    Were falling like the snow.\n\n  The blossoms drifted at our feet,\n    The orchard birds sang clear;\n  The sweetest and the saddest day\n    It seemed of all the year.\n\n  For, more to me than birds or flowers,\n    My playmate left her home,\n  And took with her the laughing spring,\n    The music and the bloom.\n\n  She kissed the lips of kith and kin,\n    She laid her hand in mine:\n  What more could ask the bashful boy\n    Who fed her father's kine?\n\n  She left us in the bloom of May:\n    The constant years told o'er\n  Their seasons with as sweet May morns.\n    But she came back no more.\n\n  I walk, with noiseless feet, the round\n    Of uneventful years;\n  Still o'er and o'er I sow the spring\n    And reap the autumn ears.\n\n  She lives where all the golden year\n    Her summer roses blow;\n  The dusky children of the sun\n    Before her come and go.\n\n  There haply with her jewelled hands\n    She smooths her silken gown,--\n  No more the homespun lap wherein\n    I shook the walnuts down.\n\n  The wild grapes wait us by the brook,\n    The brown nuts on the hill,\n  And still the May-day flowers make sweet\n    The woods of Follymill.\n\n  The lilies blossom in the pond,\n    The bird builds in the tree,\n  The dark pines sing on Ramoth hill\n    The slow song of the sea.\n\n  I wonder if she thinks of them,\n    And how the old time seems,--\n  If ever the pines of Ramoth wood\n    Are sounding in her dreams.\n\n  I see her face, I hear her voice:\n    Does she remember mine?\n  And what to her is now the boy\n    Who fed her father's kine?\n\n  What cares she that the orioles build\n    For other eyes than ours,--\n  That other hands with nuts are filled,\n    And other laps with flowers?\n\n  O playmate in the golden time!\n    Our mossy seat is green,\n  Its fringing violets blossom yet,\n    The old trees o'er it lean.\n\n  The winds so sweet with birch and fern\n    A sweeter memory blow;\n  And there in spring the veeries sing\n    The song of long ago.\n\n  And still the pines of Ramoth wood\n    Are moaning like the sea,--\n  The moaning of the sea of change\n    Between myself and thee!\n\n\n\n\nTHE MAROONS OF SURINAM.\n\n\nWhen that eccentric individual, Captain John Gabriel Stedman, resigned\nhis commission in the English navy, took the oath of abjuration, and\nwas appointed ensign in the Scots brigade employed for two centuries by\nHolland, he little knew that \"their High Mightinesses the States of the\nUnited Provinces\" would send him out, within a year, to the forests of\nGuiana, to subdue rebel negroes. He never imagined that the year 1773\nwould behold him beneath the rainy season in a tropical country, wading\nthrough marshes and splashing through lakes, exploring with his feet\nfor submerged paths, commanding impracticable troops and commanded by\nan insufferable colonel, feeding on gree-gree worms and fed upon by\nmosquitoes, howled at by jaguars, hissed at by serpents, and shot at by\nthose exceedingly unattainable gentlemen, \"still longed for, never seen,\"\nthe Maroons of Surinam.\n\nYet, as our young ensign sailed up the Surinam river, the world of\ntropic beauty came upon him with enchantment. Dark, moist verdure was\nclose around him, rippling waters below; the tall trees of the jungle\nand the low mangroves beneath were all hung with long vines and lianas,\na maze of cordage, like a fleet at anchor; odd monkeys travelled\nceaselessly up and down these airy paths, in armies, bearing their\nyoung, like knapsacks, on their backs; macaws and humming-birds, winged\njewels, flew from tree to tree. As they neared Paramaribo, the river\nbecame a smooth canal among luxuriant plantations, the air was perfumed\nmusic, redolent of orange-blossoms and echoing with the songs of birds\nand the sweet plash of oars; gay barges came forth to meet them; \"while\ngroups of naked boys and girls were promiscuously playing and\nflouncing, like so many tritons and mermaids, in the water.\" And when\nthe troops disembarked,--five hundred fine young men, the oldest not\nthirty, all arrayed in new uniforms and bearing orange-flowers in their\ncaps, a bridal wreath for beautiful Guiana,--it is no wonder that the\nCreole ladies were in ecstasy, and the boyish recruits little foresaw\nthe day, when, reduced to a few dozens, barefooted and ragged as\nfilibusters, their last survivors would gladly re\u00ebmbark from a country\nbeside which even Holland looked dry and even Scotland comfortable.\n\nFor over all that earthly paradise there brooded not alone its terrible\nmalaria, its days of fever and its nights of deadly chill, but the\nworse shadows of oppression and of sin, which neither day nor night\ncould banish. The first object which met Stedman's eye, as he stepped\non shore, was the figure of a young girl stripped to receive two\nhundred lashes, and chained to a hundred-pound-weight. And the few\nfirst days gave a glimpse into a state of society worthy of this\nexhibition,--men without mercy, women without modesty, the black man a\nslave to the white man's passions, and the white man a slave to his\nown. The present West Indian society in its worst forms is probably a\nmere dilution of the utter profligacy of those days. Greek or Roman\ndecline produced nothing more debilitating or destructive than the\nordinary life of a Surinam planter, and his one virtue of hospitality\nonly led to more unbridled excesses and completed the work of vice. No\nwonder that Stedman himself, who, with all his peculiarities, was\nessentially simple and manly, soon became disgusted, and made haste to\nget into the woods and cultivate the society of the Maroons.\n\nThe rebels against whom this expedition was sent were not the original\nMaroons of Surinam, but a later generation. The originals had long\nsince established their independence, and their leaders were\nflourishing their honorary silver-mounted canes in the streets of\nParamaribo. Fugitive negroes had begun to establish themselves in the\nwoods from the time when the colony was finally ceded by the English to\nthe Dutch, in 1674. The first open outbreak occurred in 1726, when the\nplantations on the Seramica river revolted; it was found impossible to\nsubdue them, and the government very imprudently resolved to make an\nexample of eleven captives, and thus terrify the rest of the rebels.\nThey were tortured to death, eight of the eleven being women; this\ndrove the others to madness, and plantation after plantation was\nvisited with fire and sword. After a long conflict, their chief, Adoe,\nwas induced to make a treaty, in 1749. The rebels promised to keep the\npeace, and in turn were promised freedom, money, tools, clothes, and,\nfinally, arms and ammunition.\n\nBut no permanent peace was ever made upon a barrel of gunpowder as a\nbasis, and of course an explosion followed this one. The colonists\nnaturally evaded the last item of the bargain, and the rebels,\nreceiving the gifts and remarking the omission of the part of Hamlet,\nasked contemptuously if the Europeans expected negroes to subsist on\ncombs and looking-glasses? New hostilities at once began; a new body of\nslaves on the Ouca river revolted; the colonial government was changed\nin consequence, and fresh troops shipped from Holland; and after four\ndifferent embassies had been sent into the woods, the rebels began to\nlisten to reason. The black generals, Captain Araby and Captain Boston,\nagreed upon a truce for a year, during which the colonial government\nmight decide for peace or war, the Maroons declaring themselves\nindifferent. Finally the government chose peace, delivered ammunition,\nand made a treaty, in 1761; the white and black plenipotentiaries\nexchanged English oaths and then negro oaths, each tasting a drop of\nthe other's blood during the latter ceremony, amid a volley of\nremarkable incantations from the black _gadoman_ or priest. After some\nfinal skirmishes, in which the rebels almost always triumphed, the\ntreaty was at length accepted by all the various villages of Maroons.\nHad they known that at this very time five thousand slaves in Berbice\nwere just rising against their masters and were looking to them for\nassistance, the result might have been different; but this fact had not\nreached them, nor had the rumors of insurrection in Brazil, among negro\nand Indian slaves. They consented, therefore, to the peace. \"They write\nfrom Surinam,\" says the \"Annual Register\" for January 23, 1761, \"that\nthe Dutch governor, finding himself unable to subdue the rebel negroes\nof that country by force, hath wisely followed the example of Governor\nTrelawney at Jamaica, and concluded an amicable treaty with them; in\nconsequence of which, all the negroes of the woods are acknowledged to\nbe free, and all that is past is buried in oblivion.\" So ended a war of\nthirty-six years, and in Stedman's day the original three thousand Ouca\nand Seramica Maroons had multiplied (almost incredibly) to fifteen\nthousand.\n\nBut for the slaves not sharing in this revolt it was not so\neasy to \"bury the whole past in oblivion.\" The Maroons had told\nsome very plain truths to the white ambassadors, and had frankly\nadvised them, if they wished for peace, to mend their own\nmanners and treat their slaves humanely. But the planters learned\nnothing by experience,--and indeed, the terrible narrations of Stedman\nwere confirmed by those of Alexander, so lately as 1831. Of course,\ntherefore, in a colony comprising eighty thousand blacks to four\nthousand whites, other revolts were stimulated by the success of this\none. They reached their highest point in 1772, when an insurrection on\nthe Cottica river, led by a negro named Baron, almost gave the\nfinishing blow to the colony; the only adequate protection being found\nin a body of slaves liberated expressly for that purpose,--a dangerous\nand humiliating precedent. \"We have been obliged to set three or four\nhundred of our stoutest negroes free to defend us,\" says an honest\nletter from Surinam in the \"Annual Register\" for September 5, 1772.\nFortunately for the safety of the planters, Baron presumed too much\nupon his numbers, and injudiciously built a camp too near the\nsea-coast, in a marshy fastness, from which he was finally ejected by\ntwelve hundred Dutch troops, though the chief work was done, Stedman\nthinks, by the \"black rangers\" or liberated slaves. Checked by this\ndefeat, he again drew back into the forests, resuming his guerrilla\nwarfare against the plantations. Nothing could dislodge him;\nbloodhounds were proposed, but the moisture of the country made them\nuseless; and thus matters stood when Stedman came sailing, amid\norange-blossoms and music, up the winding Surinam.\n\nOur young officer went into the woods in the condition of Falstaff,\n\"heinously unprovided.\" Coming from the unbounded luxury of the\nplantations, he found himself entering \"the most horrid and\nimpenetrable forests, where no kind of refreshment was to be had,\"--he\nbeing provisioned only with salt pork and peas. After a wail of sorrow\nfor this inhuman neglect, he bursts into a gush of gratitude for the\nprivate generosity which relieved his wants at the last moment by the\nfollowing list of supplies:--\"24 bottles best claret, 12 ditto Madeira,\n12 ditto porter, 12 ditto cider, 12 ditto rum, 2 large loaves white\nsugar, 2 gallons brandy, 6 bottles muscadel, 2 gallons lemon-juice, 2\ngallons ground coffee, 2 large Westphalia hams, 2 salted bullocks'\ntongues, 1 bottle Durham mustard, 6 dozen spermaceti candles.\" The hams\nand tongues seem, indeed, rather a poor halfpennyworth to this\nintolerable deal of sack; but this instance of Surinam privation in\nthose days may open some glimpse at the colonial standards of comfort.\n\"From this specimen,\" moralizes our hero, \"the reader will easily\nperceive, that, if some of the inhabitants of Surinam show themselves\nthe disgrace of the creation by their cruelties and brutality, others,\nby their social feelings, approve themselves an ornament to the human\nspecies. With this instance of virtue and generosity I therefore\nconclude this chapter.\"\n\nBut the troops soon had to undergo worse troubles than those of the\n_commisariat_. The rainy season had just set in. \"As for the negroes,\"\nsaid Mr. Klynhaus, the last planter with whom they parted, \"you may\ndepend on never seeing a soul of them, unless they attack you off\nguard; but the climate, the climate, will murder you all.\" Bringing\nwith them constitutions already impaired by the fevers and dissipation\nof Paramaribo, the poor boys began to perish long before they began to\nfight. Wading in water all day, hanging their hammocks over water at\nnight, it seemed a moist existence, even compared with the climate of\nEngland and the soil of Holland. It was \"Invent a shovel and be a\nmagistrate,\" even more than Andrew Marvell found it in the United\nProvinces. In fact, Raynal evidently thinks that nothing but Dutch\nexperience in hydraulics could ever have cultivated Surinam.\n\nThe two gun-boats which held one division of the expedition were merely\nold sugar-barges, roofed over with boards, and looking like coffins.\nThey were pleasantly named the \"Charon\" and the \"Cerberus,\" but Stedman\nthought that the \"Sudden Death\" and the \"Wilful Murder\" would have been\ntitles more appropriate. The chief duty of the troops consisted in\nlying at anchor at the intersections of wooded streams, waiting for\nrebels who never came. It was dismal work, and the raw recruits were\nfull of the same imaginary terrors which have haunted other heroes less\nseverely tested: the monkeys never rattled the cocoa-nuts against the\ntrees, but they all heard the axes of Maroon wood-choppers; and when a\nsentinel declared, one night, that he had seen a negro go down the\nriver in a canoe, with his pipe lighted, the whole force was called to\narms--against a firefly. In fact, the insect race brought by far the\nmost substantial dangers. The rebels eluded the military, but the\nchigres, locusts, scorpions, and bush-spiders were ever ready to come\nhalf-way to meet them; likewise serpents and alligators proffered them\nthe freedom of the forests and exhibited a hospitality almost\nexcessive. Snakes twenty feet long hung their seductive length from the\ntrees; jaguars volunteered their society through almost impenetrable\nmarshes; vampire bats perched by night with lulling endearments upon\ntheir toes. When Stedman describes himself as killing thirty-eight\nmosquitoes at one stroke, we must perhaps pardon something to the\nspirit of martyrdom. But when we add to these the other woes of his\ncatalogue,--prickly-heat, ring-worm, putrid-fever, \"the growling of\nColonel Fougeaud, dry, sandy savannas, unfordable marshes, burning hot\ndays, cold and damp nights, heavy rains, and short allowance,\"--we can\nhardly wonder that three captains died in a month, and that in two\nmonths his detachment of forty-two was reduced to a miserable seven.\n\nYet, through all this, Stedman himself kept his health. His theory of\nthe matter almost recalls the time-honored prescription of \"A light\nheart and a thin pair of breeches,\" for he attributes his good\ncondition to his keeping up his spirits and kicking off his shoes.\nDaily bathing in the river had also something to do with it,--and,\nindeed, hydropathy (this may not be generally known) was first learned\nof the West India Maroons, who did their \"packing\" in wet clay,--and it\nwas carried by Dr. Wright to England. But his extraordinary personal\nqualities must have contributed most to his preservation. Never did a\n\"meagre, starved, black, burnt, and ragged tatterdemalion,\" as he calls\nhimself, carry about him such a fund of sentiment, philosophy, poetry,\nand art. He had a great faculty for sketching, as the engravings in his\nvolumes, with all their odd peculiarities, show; his deepest woes he\ncoined always into couplets, and fortified himself against hopeless\ndespair with Ovid and Valerius Flaccus, Pope's \"Homer\" and Thomson's\n\"Seasons.\" Above all reigned his passion for natural history, a ready\nbalm for every ill. Here he was never wanting to the occasion, and, to\ndo justice to Dutch Guiana, the occasion never was wanting to him. Were\nhis men sickening, the peccaries were always healthy without, and the\ncockroaches within the camp; just escaping from a she-jaguar, he\nsatisfies himself, ere he flees, that the print of her claws on the\nsand is precisely the size of a pewter dinner-plate; bitten by a\nscorpion, he makes sure of his scientific description in case he should\nexpire of the bite; is the water undrinkable, there is at least some\nrational interest in the number of legs possessed by the centipedes\nwhich preoccupy it. This is the highest triumph of man over his\naccidents, when he thus turns his pains to gains, and becomes an\nentomologist in the tropics.\n\nMeanwhile the rebels kept their own course in the forests, and\noccasionally descended upon plantations beside the very river on whose\nupper waters the useless troops were sickening and dying. Stedman\nhimself made several campaigns, with long intervals of illness, before\nhe came any nearer to the enemy than to burn a deserted village or\ndestroy a rice-field. Sometimes they left the Charon and the Cerberus\nmoored by grape-vines to the pine-trees, and made expeditions into the\nwoods single file. Our ensign, true to himself, gives the minutest\nschedule of the order of march, and the oddest little diagram of\nmanikins with cocked hats, and blacker manikins bearing burdens. First,\nnegroes with bill-hooks to clear the way; then the van-guard; then the\nmain body, interspersed with negroes bearing boxes of ball-cartridges;\nthen the rear-guard, with many more negroes, bearing camp-equipage,\nprovisions, and new rum, surnamed \"kill-devil,\" and appropriately\nfollowed by a sort of palanquin for the disabled. Thus arrayed, they\nmarched valorously forth into the woods, to some given point; then they\nturned, marched back to the boats, then rowed back to camp, and\nstraightaway went into the hospital. Immediately upon this, the coast\nbeing clear. Baron and his rebels marched out again and proceeded to\nbusiness.\n\nIn the course of years, these Maroons had acquired their own peculiar\ntactics. They built stockaded fortresses on marshy islands, accessible\nby fords which they alone could traverse. These they defended further\nby sharp wooden pins, or crows'-feet, concealed beneath the surface of\nthe miry ground,--and, latterly, by the more substantial protection of\ncannon, which they dragged into the woods, and learned to use. Their\nbush-fighting was unique. Having always more men than weapons, they\narranged their warriors in threes,--one to use the musket, another to\ntake his place, if wounded or slain, and a third to drag away the body.\nThey had Indian stealthiness and swiftness, with more than Indian\ndiscipline; discharged their fire with some approach to regularity, in\nthree successive lines, the signals being given by the captain's horn.\nThey were full of ingenuity: marked their movements for each other by\nscattered leaves and blazed trees; ran zigzag, to dodge bullets; gave\nwooden guns to their unarmed men, to frighten the plantation negroes on\ntheir guerrilla expeditions; and borrowed the red caps of the black\nrangers whom they slew, to bewilder the aim of the others. One of\nthem, finding himself close to the muzzle of a ranger's gun, threw up\nhis hand hastily. \"What!\" he exclaimed, \"will you fire on one of your\nown party?\" \"God forbid!\" cried the ranger, dropping his piece, and was\ninstantly shot through the body by the Maroon, who the next instant had\ndisappeared in the woods.\n\nThese rebels were no saints: their worship was obi-worship; the women\nhad not far outgrown the plantation standard of chastity, and the men\ndrank \"kill-devil\" like their betters. Stedman was struck with the\ndifference between the meaning of the word \"good\" in rebellious circles\nand in reputable. \"It must, however, be observed that what we Europeans\ncall a good character was by the Africans looked upon as detestable,\nespecially by those born in the woods, whose only crime consisted in\navenging the wrongs done to their forefathers.\" But if martial virtues\nbe virtues, such were theirs. Not a rebel ever turned traitor or\ninformer, ever flinched in battle or under torture, ever violated a\ntreaty or even a private promise. But it was their power of endurance\nwhich was especially astounding; Stedman is never weary of paying\ntribute to this, or of illustrating it in sickening detail; indeed, the\nrecords of the world show nothing to surpass it; \"the lifted axe, the\nagonizing wheel\" proved powerless to subdue it; with every limb lopped,\nevery bone broken, the victims yet defied their tormentors, laughed,\nsang, and died triumphant.\n\nOf course, they repaid these atrocities in kind. If they had not, it\nwould have demonstrated the absurd paradox, that slavery educates\nhigher virtues than freedom. It bewilders all the relations of human\nresponsibility, if we expect the insurrectionary slave to commit no\noutrages; if slavery have not depraved him, it has done him little\nharm. If it be the normal tendency of bondage to produce saints like\nUncle Tom, let us all offer ourselves at auction immediately. It is\nCassy and Dred who are the normal protest of human nature against\nsystems which degrade it. Accordingly, these poor, ignorant Maroons,\nwho had seen their brothers and sisters flogged, burned, mutilated,\nhanged on iron hooks, broken on the wheel, and had been all the while\nsolemnly assured that this was paternal government, could only repay\nthe paternalism in the same fashion, when they had the power. Stedman\nsaw a negro chained to a red-hot distillery-furnace; he saw disobedient\nslaves, in repeated instances, punished by the amputation of a leg, and\nsent to boat-service for the rest of their lives; and of course the\nrebels borrowed these suggestions. They could bear to watch their\ncaptives expire under the lash, for they had previously watched their\nparents. If the government rangers received twenty-five florins for\nevery rebel right-hand which they brought in, of course they risked\ntheir own right-hands in the pursuit. The difference was, that the one\nbrutality was that of a mighty state, and the other was only the\nretaliation of the victims. And after all, Stedman never ventures to\nassert that the imitation equalled the original, or that the Maroons\nhad inflicted nearly so much as they had suffered.\n\nThe leaders of the rebels, especially, were men who had each his own\nstory of wrongs to tell. Baron, the most formidable, had been the slave\nof a Swedish gentleman, who had taught him to read and write, taken him\nto Europe, promised to manumit him on his return,--and then, breaking\nhis word, sold him to a Jew. Baron refused to work for his new master,\nwas publicly flogged under the gallows, fled to the woods next day, and\nbecame the terror of the colony. Joli Coeur, his first captain, was\navenging the cruel wrongs of his mother. Bonny, another leader, was\nborn in the woods, his mother having taken refuge there just\npreviously, to escape from his father, who was also his master. Cojo,\nanother, had defended his master against the insurgents until he was\nobliged by ill usage to take refuge among them; and he still bore upon\nhis wrist, when Stedman saw him, a silver band, with the inscription,--\n\"True to the Europeans.\" In dealing with wrongs like these, Mr. Carlyle\nwould have found the despised negroes quite as ready as himself to take\nthe total-abstinence pledge against rose-water.\n\nIn his first two months' campaign, Stedman never saw the trace of a\nMaroon; in the second, he once came upon their trail; in the third, one\ncaptive was brought in, two surrendered themselves voluntarily, and a\nlarge party was found to have crossed a river within a mile of the\ncamp, ferrying themselves on palm-trunks, according to their fashion.\nDeep swamps and scorching sands,--toiling through briers all day, and\nsleeping at night in hammocks suspended over stagnant water, with\nweapons supported on sticks crossed beneath,--all this was endured for\ntwo years and a half, before Stedman personally came in sight of the\nenemy.\n\nOn August 20th, 1775, the troops found themselves at last in the midst\nof the rebel settlements. These villages and forts bore a variety of\nexpressive names, such as \"Hide me, O thou surrounding verdure,\" \"I\nshall be taken,\" \"The woods lament for me,\" \"Disturb me, if you dare,\"\n\"Take a tasting, if you like it,\" \"Come, try me, if you be men,\" \"God\nknows me and none else,\" \"I shall moulder before I shall be taken.\"\nSome were only plantation-grounds with a few huts, and were easily laid\nwaste; but all were protected more or less by their mere situations.\nQuagmires surrounded them, covered by a thin crust of verdure,\nsometimes broken through by one man's weight, when the victim sank\nhopelessly into the black and bottomless depths below. In other\ndirections there was a solid bottom, but inconveniently covered by\nthree or four feet of water, through which the troops waded\nbreast-deep, holding their muskets high in the air, unable to reload\nthem when once discharged, and liable to be picked off by rebel scouts,\nwho ingeniously posted themselves in the tops of palm-trees.\n\nThrough this delectable region Colonel Fougeaud and his followers\nslowly advanced, drawing near the fatal shore where Captain Meyland's\ndetachment had just been defeated, and where their mangled remains\nstill polluted the beach. Passing this point of danger without attack,\nthey suddenly met a small party of rebels, each bearing on his back a\nbeautifully-woven hamper of snow-white rice: these loads they threw\ndown, and disappeared. Next appeared an armed body from the same\ndirection, who fired upon them once and swiftly retreated; and in a few\nmoments the soldiers came upon a large field of standing rice, beyond\nwhich lay, like an amphitheatre, the rebel village. But between the\nvillage and the field had been piled successive defences of logs and\nbranches, behind which simple redoubts the Maroons lay concealed. A\nfight ensued, lasting forty minutes, during which nearly every soldier\nand ranger was wounded, but, to their great amazement, not one was\nkilled. This was an enigma to them until after the skirmish, when the\nsurgeon found that most of them had been struck, not by bullets, but by\nvarious substitutes, such as pebbles, coat-buttons, and bits of silver\ncoin, which had penetrated only skin-deep. \"We also observed that\nseveral of the poor rebel negroes, who had been shot, had only the\nshards of Spa-water cans, instead of flints, which could seldom do\nexecution; and it was certainly owing to these circumstances that we\ncame off so well.\"\n\nThe rebels at length retreated, first setting fire to their village; a\nhundred or more lightly built houses, some of them two stories high,\nwere soon in flames; and as this conflagration occupied the only neck\nof land between two impassable morasses, the troops were unable to\nfollow, and the Maroons had left nothing but rice-fields to be\npillaged. That night the military force was encamped in the woods;\ntheir ammunition was almost gone; so they were ordered to lie flat on\nthe ground, even in case of attack; they could not so much as build a\nfire. Before midnight an attack was made on them, partly with bullets\nand partly with words; the Maroons were all around them in the forest,\nbut their object was a puzzle: they spent most of the night in bandying\ncompliments with the black rangers, whom they alternately denounced,\nridiculed, and challenged to single combat. At last Fougeaud and\nStedman joined in the conversation, and endeavored to make this\nmidnight volley of talk the occasion for a treaty. This was received\nwith inextinguishable laughter, which echoed through the woods like a\nconcert of screech-owls, ending in a _charivari_ of horns and\nhallooing. The Colonel, persisting, offered them \"life, liberty,\nvictuals, drink, and all they wanted\"; in return, they ridiculed him\nunmercifully: he was a half-starved Frenchman, who had run away from\nhis own country, and would soon run away from theirs; they profoundly\npitied him and his soldiers; they would scorn to spend powder on such\nscarecrows; they would rather feed and clothe them, as being poor white\nslaves, hired to be shot at and starved for four-pence a day. But as\nfor the planters, overseers, and rangers, they should die, every one of\nthem, and Bonny should be governor of the colony. \"After this, they\ntinkled their bill-hooks, fired a volley, and gave three cheers; which\nbeing answered by the rangers, the clamor ended, and the rebels\ndispersed with the rising sun.\"\n\nVery aimless nonsense it certainly appeared. But the next day put a new\naspect on it; for it was found, that, under cover of all this noise,\nthe Maroons had been busily occupied all night, men, women, and\nchildren, in preparing and filling great hampers of the finest rice,\nyams, and cassava, from the adjacent provision-grounds, to be used for\nsubsistence during their escape, leaving only chaff and refuse for the\nhungry soldiers. \"This was certainly such a masterly trait of\ngeneralship in a savage people, whom we affected to despise, as would\nhave done honor to any European commander.\"\n\nFrom this time the Maroons fulfilled their threats. Shooting down\nwithout mercy every black ranger who came within their reach,--one of\nthese rangers being, in Stedman's estimate, worth six white\nsoldiers,--they left Colonel Fougeaud and his regulars to die of\nstarvation and fatigue. The enraged Colonel, \"finding himself thus\nfoiled by a naked negro, swore he would pursue Bonny to the world's\nend.\" But he never got any nearer than to Bonny's kitchen-gardens. He\nput the troops on half-allowance, sent back for provisions and\nammunition,--and within ten days changed his mind, and retreated to the\nsettlements in despair. Soon after, this very body of rebels, under\nBonny's leadership, plundered two plantations in the vicinity, and\nnearly captured a powder-magazine, which was, however, successfully\ndefended by some armed slaves.\n\nFor a year longer these expeditions continued. The troops never gained\na victory, and they lost twenty men for every rebel killed; but they\ngradually checked the plunder of plantations, destroyed villages and\nplanting-grounds, and drove the rebels, for the time at least, into the\ndeeper recesses of the woods or into the adjacent province of Cayenne.\nThey had the slight satisfaction of burning Bonny's own house, a\ntwo-story wooden hut, built in the fashion of our frontier\nguard-houses. They often took single prisoners,--some child, born and\nbred in the woods, and frightened equally by the first sight of a white\nman and of a cow,--or some warrior, who, on being threatened with\ntorture, stretched forth both hands in disdain, and said, with Indian\neloquence,--\"These hands have made tigers tremble.\" As for Stedman, he\nstill went bare-footed, still quarrelled with his colonel, still\nsketched the scenery and described the reptiles, still reared gree-gree\nworms for his private kitchen, still quoted good poetry and wrote\nexecrable, still pitied all the sufferers around him, black, white, and\nred, until finally he and his comrades were ordered back to Holland in\n1776.\n\nAmong all that wasted regiment of weary and broken-down men, there was\nprobably no one but Stedman who looked backward with longing as they\nsailed down the lovely Surinam. True, he bore all his precious\ncollections with him,--parrots and butterflies, drawings on the backs\nof old letters, and journals kept on bones and cartridges. But he had\nleft behind him a dearer treasure; for there runs through all his\neccentric narrative a single thread of pure romance, in his love for\nhis beautiful quadroon wife and his only son.\n\nWithin a month after his arrival in the colony, our susceptible ensign\nfirst saw Joanna, a slave-girl of fifteen, at the house of an intimate\nfriend. Her extreme beauty and modesty first fascinated him, and then\nher piteous narrative,--for she was the daughter of a planter, who had\njust gone mad and died in despair from the discovery that he could not\nlegally emancipate his own children from slavery. Soon after, Stedman\nwas dangerously ill, was neglected and alone; fruits and cordials were\nanonymously sent to him, which proved at last to have come from Joanna,\nand she came herself, ere long, and nursed him, grateful for the\nvisible sympathy he had shown to her. This completed the conquest; the\npassionate young Englishman, once recovered, loaded her with presents,\nwhich she refused,--talked of purchasing her and educating her in\nEurope, which she also declined, as burdening him too greatly,--and\nfinally, amid the ridicule of all good society in Paramaribo,\nsurmounted all legal obstacles and was united to the beautiful girl in\nhonorable marriage. He provided a cottage for her, where he spent his\nfurloughs, in perfect happiness, for four years.\n\nThe simple idyl of their loves was unbroken by any stain or\ndisappointment, and yet always shadowed with the deepest anxiety for\nthe future. Though treated with the utmost indulgence, she was legally\na slave, and so was the boy of whom she became the mother. Cojo, her\nuncle, was a captain among the rebels against whom her husband fought.\nAnd up to the time when Stedman was ordered back to Holland, he was\nunable to purchase her freedom, nor could he, until the very last\nmoment, procure the emancipation of his boy. His perfect delight at\nthis last triumph, when obtained, elicited some satire from his white\nfriends. \"While the well-thinking few highly applauded my sensibility,\nmany not only blamed, but publicly derided me for my paternal\naffection, which was called a weakness, a whim.\" \"Nearly forty\nbeautiful boys and girls were left to perpetual slavery by their\nparents of my acquaintance, and many of them without being so much as\nonce inquired after at all.\"\n\nBut Stedman was a true-hearted fellow, if his sentiment did sometimes\nrun to rodomontade; he left his Joanna only in the hope that a year or\ntwo in Europe would repair his ruined fortunes, and he could return to\ntreat himself to the purchase of his own wedded wife. He describes,\nwith unaffected pathos, their parting scene,--though, indeed, there\nwere several successive partings,--and closes the description in a\nmanner worthy of that remarkable combination of enthusiasms which\ncharacterized him. \"My melancholy having surpassed all description, I\nat last determined to weather one or two painful years in her absence;\nand in the afternoon went to dissipate my mind at a Mr. Roux' cabinet\nof Indian curiosities; where as my eye chanced to fall on a\nrattlesnake, I will, before I leave the colony, describe this dangerous\nreptile.\"\n\nIt was impossible to write the history of the Maroons of Surinam except\nthrough the biography of our Ensign, (at last promoted Captain,)\nbecause nearly all we know of them is through his quaint and\npicturesque narrative, with its profuse illustrations by his own hand.\nIt is not fair, therefore, to end without chronicling his safe arrival\nin Holland, on June 3d, 1777. It is a remarkable fact, that, after his\nlife in the woods, even the Dutch looked slovenly to his eyes. \"The\ninhabitants, who crowded about us, appeared but a disgusting assemblage\nof ill-formed and ill-dressed rabble,--so much had my prejudices been\nchanged by living among Indians and blacks: their eyes seemed to\nresemble those of a pig; their complexions were like the color of foul\nlinen; they seemed to have no teeth, and to be covered over with rags\nand dirt. This prejudice, however, was not against these people only,\nbut against all Europeans in general, when compared to the sparkling\neyes, ivory teeth, shining skin, and remarkable cleanliness of those I\nhad left behind me.\" Yet, in spite of these superior attractions, he\nnever recrossed the Atlantic; for his Joanna died soon after, and his\npromising son, being sent to the father, was educated in England,\nbecame a midshipman in the navy, and was lost at sea. With his elegy,\nin which the last depths of bathos are sadly sounded by a mourning\nparent,--who is induced to print them only by \"the effect they had on\nthe sympathetic and ingenious Mrs. Cowley,\"--the \"Narrative of a Five\nYears' Expedition\" closes.\n\nThe war, which had cost the government forty thousand pounds a year,\nwas ended, and left both parties essentially as when it began. The\nMaroons gradually returned to their old abodes, and, being unmolested\nthemselves, left others unmolested thenceforward. Originally three\nthousand,--in Stedman's time, fifteen thousand,--they were estimated at\nseventy thousand by Captain Alexander, who saw Guiana in 1831,--and a\nrecent American scientific expedition, having visited them in their\nhomes, reported them as still enjoying their wild freedom, and\nmultiplying, while the Indians on the same soil decay. The beautiful\nforests of Surinam still make the morning gorgeous with their beauty,\nand the night deadly with their chill; the stately palm still rears, a\nhundred feet in air, its straight gray shaft and its head of verdure;\nthe mora builds its solid, buttressed trunk, a pedestal for the eagle;\nthe pine of the tropics holds out its myriad hands with water-cups for\nthe rain and dews, where all the birds and the monkeys may drink their\nfill; the trees are garlanded with epiphytes and convolvuli, and\nanchored to the earth by a thousand vines. High among their branches,\nthe red and yellow mockingbirds still build their hanging nests,\nuncouth storks and tree-porcupines cling above, and the spotted deer\nand the tapir drink from the sluggish stream below. The night is still\nmade noisy with a thousand cries of bird and beast; and the stillness\nof the sultry noon is broken by the slow tolling of the _campa\u00f1ero_, or\nbell-bird, far in the deep, dark woods, like the chime of some lost\nconvent. And as Nature is unchanged there, so apparently is man; the\nMaroons still retain their savage freedom, still shoot their wild game\nand trap their fish, still raise their rice and cassava, yams and\nplantains,--still make cups from the gourd-tree and hammocks from the\nsilk-grass plant, wine from the palm-tree's sap, brooms from its\nleaves, fishing-lines from its fibres, and salt from its ashes. Their\nlife does not yield, indeed, the very highest results of spiritual\nculture; its mental and moral results may not come up to the level of\ncivilization, but they rise far above the level of slavery. In the\nchanges of time, the Maroons may yet elevate themselves into the one,\nbut they will never relapse into the other.\n\n\n\n\nCIRCUMSTANCE.\n\n\nShe had remained, during all that day, with a sick neighbor,--those\neastern wilds of Maine in that epoch frequently making neighbors and\nmiles synonymous,--and so busy had she been with care and sympathy that\nshe did not at first observe the approaching night. But finally the\nlevel rays, reddening the snow, threw their gleam upon the wall, and,\nhastily donning cloak and hood, she bade her friends farewell and\nsallied forth on her return. Home lay some three miles distant, across\na copse, a meadow, and a piece of woods,--the woods being a fringe on\nthe skirts of the great forests that stretch far away into the North.\nThat home was one of a dozen log-houses lying a few furlongs apart from\neach other, with their half-cleared demesnes separating them at the\nrear from a wilderness untrodden save by stealthy native or deadly\npanther tribes.\n\nShe was in a nowise exalted frame of spirit,--on the contrary, rather\ndepressed by the pain she had witnessed and the fatigue she had\nendured; but in certain temperaments such a condition throws open the\nmental pores, so to speak, and renders one receptive of every\ninfluence. Through the little copse she walked slowly, with her cloak\nfolded about her, lingering to imbibe the sense of shelter, the sunset\nfiltered in purple through the mist of woven spray and twig, the\ncompanionship of growth not sufficiently dense to band against her the\nsweet home-feeling of a young and tender wintry wood. It was therefore\njust on the edge of the evening that she emerged from the place and\nbegan to cross the meadow-land. At one hand lay the forest to which her\npath wound; at the other the evening star hung over a tide of failing\norange that slowly slipped down the earth's broad side to sadden other\nhemispheres with sweet regret. Walking rapidly now, and with her eyes\nwide-open, she distinctly saw in the air before her what was not there\na moment ago, a winding-sheet,--cold, white, and ghastly, waved by the\nlikeness of four wan hands,--that rose with a long inflation and fell\nin rigid folds, while a voice, shaping itself from the hollowness\nabove, spectral and melancholy, sighed,--\"The Lord have mercy on the\npeople! The Lord have mercy on the people!\" Three times the sheet with\nits corpse-covering outline waved beneath the pale hands, and the\nvoice, awful in its solemn and mysterious depth, sighed, \"The Lord have\nmercy on the people!\" Then all was gone, the place was clear again, the\ngray sky was obstructed by no deathly blot; she looked about her, shook\nher shoulders decidedly, and, pulling on her hood, went forward once\nmore.\n\nShe might have been a little frightened by such an apparition, if she\nhad led a life of less reality than frontier settlers are apt to lead;\nbut dealing with hard fact does not engender a flimsy habit of mind,\nand this woman was too sincere and earnest in her character, and too\nhappy in her situation, to be thrown by antagonism merely upon\nsuperstitious fancies and chimeras of the second-sight. She did not\neven believe herself subject to an hallucination, but smiled simply, a\nlittle vexed that her thought could have framed such a glamour from the\nday's occurrences, and not sorry to lift the bough of the warder of the\nwoods and enter and disappear in their sombre path. If she had been\nimaginative, she would have hesitated at her first step into a region\nwhose dangers were not visionary; but I suppose that the thought of a\nlittle child at home would conquer that propensity in the most\nhabituated. So, biting a bit of spicy birch, she went along. Now and\nthen she came to a gap where the trees had been partially felled, and\nhere she found that the lingering twilight was explained by that\npeculiar and perhaps electric film which sometimes sheathes the sky in\ndiffused light for very many hours before a brilliant aurora. Suddenly,\na swift shadow, like the fabulous flying-dragon, writhed through the\nair before her, and she felt herself instantly seized and borne aloft.\nIt was that wild beast--the most savage and serpentine and subtle and\nfearless of our latitudes--known by hunters as the Indian Devil, and he\nheld her in his clutches on the broad floor of a swinging fir-bough.\nHis long sharp claws were caught in her clothing, he worried them\nsagaciously a little, then, finding that ineffectual to free them, he\ncommenced licking her bare white arm with his rasping tongue and\npouring over her the wide streams of his hot, fetid breath. So quick\nhad this flashing action been that the woman had had no time for alarm;\nmoreover, she was not of the screaming kind; but now, as she felt him\nendeavoring to disentangle his claws, and the horrid sense of her fate\nsmote her, and she saw instinctively the fierce plunge of those\nweapons, the long strips of living flesh torn from her bones, the\nagony, the quivering disgust, itself a worse agony,--while by her side,\nand holding her in his great lithe embrace, the monster crouched, his\nwhite tusks whetting and gnashing, his eyes glaring through all the\ndarkness like balls of red fire,--a shriek, that rang in every forest\nhollow, that startled every winter-housed thing, that stirred and woke\nthe least needle of the tasselled pines, tore through her lips. A\nmoment afterward, the beast left the arm, once white, now crimson, and\nlooked up alertly.\n\nShe did not think at this instant to call upon God. She called upon her\nhusband. It seemed to her that she had but one friend in the world;\nthat was he; and again the cry, loud, clear, prolonged, echoed through\nthe woods. It was not the shriek that disturbed the creature at his\nrelish; he was not born in the woods to be scared of an owl, you know;\nwhat then? It mast have been the echo, most musical, most resonant,\nrepeated and yet repeated, dying with long sighs of sweet sound,\nvibrated from rock to river and back again from depth to depth of cave\nand cliff. Her thought flew after it; she knew, that, even if her\nhusband heard it, he yet could not reach her in time; she saw that\nwhile the beast listened he would not gnaw,--and this she _felt_\ndirectly, when the rough, sharp, and multiplied stings of his tongue\nretouched her arm. Again her lips opened by instinct, but the sound\nthat issued thence came by reason. She had heard that music charmed\nwild beasts,--just this point between life and death intensified every\nfaculty,--and when she opened her lips the third time, it was not for\nshrieking, but for singing.\n\nA little thread of melody stole out, a rill of tremulous motion; it was\nthe cradle-song with which she rocked her baby;--how could she sing\nthat? And then she remembered the baby sleeping rosily on the long\nsettee before the fire,--the father cleaning his gun, with one foot on\nthe green wooden rundle,--the merry light from the chimney dancing out\nand through the room, on the rafters of the ceiling with their tassels\nof onions and herbs, on the log walls painted with lichens and\nfestooned with apples, on the king's-arm slung across the shelf with\nthe old pirate's-cutlass, on the snow-pile of the bed, and on the great\nbrass clock,--dancing, too, and lingering on the baby, with his fringed\ngentian eyes, his chubby fists clenched on the pillow, and his fine\nbreezy hair fanning with the motion of his father's foot. All this\nstruck her in one, and made a sob of her breath, and she ceased.\n\nImmediately the long red tongue was thrust forth again. Before it\ntouched, a song sprang to her lips, a wild sea-song, such as some\nsailor might be singing far out on trackless blue water that night, the\nshrouds whistling with frost and the sheets glued in ice,--a song with\nthe wind in its burden and the spray in its chorus. The monster raised\nhis head and flared the fiery eyeballs upon her, then fretted the\nimprisoned claws a moment and was quiet; only the breath like the vapor\nfrom some hell-pit still swathed her. Her voice, at first faint and\nfearful, gradually lost its quaver, grew under her control and subject\nto her modulation; it rose on long swells, it fell in subtile cadences,\nnow and then its tones pealed out like bells from distant belfries on\nfresh sonorous mornings. She sung the song through, and, wondering lest\nhis name of Indian Devil were not his true name, and if he would not\ndetect her, she repeated it. Once or twice now, indeed, the beast\nstirred uneasily, turned, and made the bough sway at his movement. As\nshe ended, he snapped his jaws together, and tore away the fettered\nmember, curling it under him with a snarl,--when she burst into the\ngayest reel that ever answered a fiddle-bow. How many a time she had\nheard her husband play it on the homely fiddle made by himself from\nbirch and cherry-wood! how many a time she had seen it danced on the\nfloor of their one room, to the patter of wooden clogs and the rustle\nof homespun petticoat! how many a time she had danced it herself!--and\ndid she not remember once, as they joined clasps for right-hands-round,\nhow it had lent its gay, bright measure to her life? And here she was\nsinging it alone, in the forest, at midnight, to a wild beast! As she\nsent her voice trilling up and down its quick oscillations between joy\nand pain, the creature who grasped her uncurled his paw and scratched\nthe bark from the bough; she must vary the spell; and her voice spun\nleaping along the projecting points of tune of a hornpipe. Still\nsinging, she felt herself twisted about with a low growl and a lifting\nof the red lip from the glittering teeth; she broke the hornpipe's\nthread, and commenced unravelling a lighter, livelier thing, an Irish\njig. Up and down and round about her voice flew, the beast threw back\nhis head so that the diabolical face fronted hers, and the torrent of\nhis breath prepared her for his feast as the anaconda slimes his prey.\nFranticly she darted from tune to tune; his restless movements followed\nher. She tired herself with dancing and vivid national airs, growing\nfeverish and singing spasmodically as she felt her horrid tomb yawning\nwider. Touching in this manner all the slogan and keen clan cries, the\nbeast moved again, but only to lay the disengaged paw across her with\nheavy satisfaction. She did not dare to pause; through the clear cold\nair, the frosty starlight, she sang. If there were yet any tremor in\nthe tone, it was not fear,--she had learned the secret of sound at\nlast; nor could it be chill,--far too high a fervor throbbed her\npulses; it was nothing but the thought of the log-house and of what\nmight be passing within it. She fancied the baby stirring in his sleep\nand moving his pretty lips,--her husband rising and opening the door,\nlooking out after her, and wondering at her absence. She fancied the\nlight pouring through the chink and then shut in again with all the\nsafety and comfort and joy, her husband taking down the fiddle and\nplaying lightly with his head inclined, playing while she sang, while\nshe sang for her life to an Indian Devil. Then she knew he was fumbling\nfor and finding some shining fragment and scoring it down the yellowing\nhair, and unconsciously her voice forsook the wild war-tunes and\ndrifted into the half-gay, half-melancholy Rosin the Bow.\n\nSuddenly she woke pierced with a pang, and the daggered tooth\npenetrating her flesh;--dreaming of safety, she had ceased singing and\nlost it. The beast had regained the use of all his limbs, and now,\nstanding and raising his back, bristling and foaming, with sounds that\nwould have been like hisses but for their deep and fearful sonority, he\nwithdrew step by step toward the trunk of the tree, still with his\nflaming balls upon her. She was all at once free, on one end of the\nbough, twenty feet from the ground. She did not measure the distance,\nbut rose to drop herself down, careless of any death, so that it were\nnot this. Instantly, as if he scanned her thoughts, the creature\nbounded forward with a yell and caught her again in his dreadful hold.\nIt might be that he was not greatly famished; for, as she suddenly\nflung up her voice again, he settled himself composedly on the bough,\nstill clasping her with invincible pressure to his rough, ravenous\nbreast, and listening in a fascination to the sad, strange U-la-lu that\nnow moaned forth in loud, hollow tones above him. He half closed his\neyes, and sleepily reopened and shut them again.\n\nWhat rending pains were close at hand! Death! and what a death! worse\nthan any other that is to be named! Water, be it cold or warm, that\nwhich buoys up blue ice-fields, or which bathes tropical coasts with\ncurrents of balmy bliss, is yet a gentle conqueror, kisses as it kills,\nand draws you down gently through darkening fathoms to its heart. Death\nat the sword is the festival of trumpet and bugle and banner, with\nglory ringing out around you and distant hearts thrilling through\nyours. No gnawing disease can bring such hideous end as this; for that\nis a fiend bred of your own flesh, and this--is it a fiend, this living\nlump of appetites? What dread comes with the thought of perishing in\nflames! but fire, let it leap and hiss never so hotly, is something too\nremote, too alien, to inspire us with such loathly horror as a wild\nbeast; if it have a life, that life is too utterly beyond our\ncomprehension. Fire is not half ourselves; as it devours, arouses\nneither hatred nor disgust; is not to be known by the strength of our\nlower natures let loose; does not drip our blood into our faces from\nfoaming chaps, nor mouth nor snarl above us with vitality. Let us be\nended by fire, and we are ashes, for the winds to bear, the leaves to\ncover; let us be ended by wild beasts, and the base, cursed thing howls\nwith us forever through the forest. All this she felt as she charmed\nhim, and what force it lent to her song God knows. If her voice should\nfail! If the damp and cold should give her any fatal hoarseness! If all\nthe silent powers of the forest did not conspire to help her! The dark,\nhollow night rose indifferently over her; the wide, cold air breathed\nrudely past her, lifted her wet hair and blew it down again; the great\nboughs swung with a ponderous strength, now and then clashed their iron\nlengths together and shook off a sparkle of icy spears or some\nlong-lain weight of snow from their heavy shadows. The green depths\nwere utterly cold and silent and stern. These beautiful haunts that all\nthe summer were hers and rejoiced to share with her their bounty, these\nheavens that had yielded their largess, these stems that had thrust\ntheir blossoms into her hands, all these friends of three moons ago\nforgot her now and knew her no longer.\n\nFeeling her desolation, wild, melancholy, forsaken songs rose thereon\nfrom that frightful aerie,--weeping, wailing tunes, that sob among the\npeople from age to age, and overflow with otherwise unexpressed\nsadness,--all rude, mournful ballads,--old tearful strains, that\nShakspeare heard the vagrants sing, and that rise and fall like the\nwind and tide,--sailor-songs, to be heard only in lone mid-watches\nbeneath the moon and stars,--ghastly rhyming romances, such as that\nfamous one of the \"Lady Margaret,\" when\n\n\"She slipped on her gown of green\n   A piece below the knee,--\nAnd 'twas all a long, cold winter's night\n   A dead corse followed she.\"\n\nStill the beast lay with closed eyes, yet never relaxing his grasp.\nOnce a half-whine of enjoyment escaped him,--he fawned his fearful head\nupon her; once he scored her cheek with his tongue: savage caresses\nthat hurt like wounds. How weary she was! and yet how terribly awake!\nHow fuller and fuller of dismay grew the knowledge that she was only\nprolonging her anguish and playing with death! How appalling the\nthought that with her voice ceased her existence! Yet she could not\nsing forever; her throat was dry and hard; her very breath was a pain;\nher mouth was hotter than any desert-worn pilgrim's;--if she could but\ndrop upon her burning tongue one atom of the ice that glittered about\nher!--but both of her arms were pinioned in the giant's vice. She\nremembered the winding-sheet, and for the first time in her life\nshivered with spiritual fear. Was it hers? She asked herself, as she\nsang, what sins she had committed, what life she had led, to find her\npunishment so soon and in these pangs,--and then she sought eagerly for\nsome reason why her husband was not up and abroad to find her. He\nfailed her,--her one sole hope in life; and without being aware of it,\nher voice forsook the songs of suffering and sorrow for old Covenanting\nhymns,--hymns with which her mother had lulled her, which the\nclass-leader pitched in the chimney-corners,--grand and sweet Methodist\nhymns, brimming with melody and with all fantastic involutions of tune\nto suit that ecstatic worship,--hymns full of the beauty of holiness,\nsteadfast, relying, sanctified by the salvation they had lent to those\nin worse extremity than hers,--for they had found themselves in the\ngrasp of hell, while she was but in the jaws of death. Out of this\nstrange music, peculiar to one character of faith, and than which there\nis none more beautiful in its degree nor owning a more potent sway of\nsound, her voice soared into the glorified chants of churches. What to\nher was death by cold or famine or wild beasts? \"Though He slay me, yet\nwill I trust in Him,\" she sang. High and clear through the frore fair\nnight, the level moonbeams splintering in the wood, the scarce glints\nof stars in the shadowy roof of branches, these sacred anthems\nrose,--rose as a hope from despair, as some snowy spray of flower-bells\nfrom blackest mould. Was she not in God's hands? Did not the world\nswing at His will? If this were in His great plan of providence, was it\nnot best, and should she not accept it?\n\n\"He is the Lord our God; His judgments are in all the earth.\"\n\nOh, sublime faith of our fathers, where utter self-sacrifice alone was\ntrue love, the fragrance of whose unrequired subjection was pleasant as\nthat of golden censers swung in purple-vapored chancels!\n\nNever ceasing in the rhythm of her thoughts, articulated in music as\nthey thronged, the memory of her first communion flashed over her.\nAgain she was in that distant place on that sweet spring morning. Again\nthe congregation rustled out, and the few remained, and she trembled to\nfind herself among them.\n\nHow well she remembered the devout, quiet faces; too accustomed to the\nsacred feast to glow with their inner joy! how well the snowy linen at\nthe altar, the silver vessels slowly and silently shifting! and as the\ncup approached and passed, how the sense of delicious perfume stole in\nand heightened the transport of her prayer, and she had seemed, looking\nup through the windows where the sky soared blue in constant freshness,\nto feel all heaven's balms dripping from the portals, and to scent the\nlilies of eternal peace! Perhaps another would not have felt so much\necstasy as satisfaction on that occasion; but it is a true, if a later\ndisciple, who has said, \"The Lord bestoweth his blessings there, where\nhe findeth the vessels empty.\"--\"And does it need the walls of a church\nto renew my communion?\" she asked. \"Does not every moment stand a\ntemple four-square to God? And in that morning, with its buoyant\nsunlight, was I any dearer to the Heart of the World than now?\" \"My\nbeloved is mine, and I am his,\" she sang over and over again, with all\nvaried inflection and profuse tune. How gently all the winter-wrapt\nthings bent toward her then! into what relation with her had they\ngrown! how this common dependence was the spell of their intimacy! how\nat one with Nature had she become! how all the night and the silence\nand the forest seemed to hold its breath, and to send its soul up to\nGod in her singing! It was no longer despondency, that singing. It was\nneither prayer nor petition. She had left imploring, \"How long wilt\nthou forget me, O Lord?\" \"Lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of\ndeath!\" \"For in death there is no remembrance of thee\";--with countless\nother such fragments of supplication. She cried rather, \"Yea, though I\nwalk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil:\nfor thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me\";--and\nlingered, and repeated, and sang again, \"I shall be satisfied, when I\nawake, with thy likeness.\"\n\nThen she thought of the Great Deliverance, when he drew her up out of\nmany waters, and the flashing old psalm pealed forth triumphantly:--\n\n\"The Lord descended from above,\n  and bow'd the heavens hie;\nAnd underneath his feet he cast\n  the darknesse of the skie.\nOn cherubs and on cherubins\n  full royally he road:\nAnd on the wings of all the winds\n  came flying all abroad.\"\n\nShe forgot how recently, and with what a strange pity for her own\nshapeless form that was to be, she had quaintly sung,--\n\n\"Oh, lovely appearance of death!\n  What sight upon earth is so fair?\nNot all the gay pageants that breathe\n  Can with a dead body compare!\"\n\nShe remembered instead,--\"In thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy\nright hand there are pleasures forevermore\"; and, \"God will redeem my\nsoul from the power of the grave: for he shall receive me\"; \"He will\nswallow up death in victory.\" Not once now did she say, \"Lord, how long\nwilt thou look on? rescue my soul from their destructions, my darling\nfrom the lions\"--for she knew that \"the young lions roar after their\nprey and seek their meat from God.\" \"O Lord, thou preservest man and\nbeast!\" she said.\n\nShe had no comfort or consolation in this season, such as sustained the\nChristian martyrs in the amphitheatre. She was not dying for her faith;\nthere were no palms in heaven for her to wave; but how many a time had\nshe declared,--\"I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God,\nthan to dwell in the tents of wickedness!\" And as the broad rays here\nand there broke through the dense covert of shade and lay in rivers of\nlustre on crystal sheathing and frozen fretting of trunk and limb and\non the great spaces of refraction, they builded up visibly that house,\nthe shining city on the hill, and singing, \"Beautiful for situation,\nthe joy of the whole earth, is Mount Zion, on the sides of the North,\nthe city of the Great King,\" her vision climbed to that higher picture\nwhere the angel shows the dazzling thing, the holy Jerusalem descending\nout of heaven from God, with its splendid battlements and gates of\npearls, and its foundations, the eleventh a jacinth, the twelfth an\namethyst,--with its great white throne, and the rainbow round about it,\nin sight like unto an emerald:--\"And there shall be no night\nthere,--for the Lord God giveth them light,\" she sang.\n\nWhat whisper of dawn now rustled through the wilderness? How the night\nwas passing! And still the beast crouched upon the bough, changing only\nthe posture of his head, that again he might command her with those\ncharmed eyes;--half their fire was gone; she could almost have released\nherself from his custody; yet, had she stirred, no one knows what\nmalevolent instinct might have dominated anew. But of that she did not\ndream; long ago stripped of any expectation, she was experiencing in\nher divine rapture how mystically true it is that \"he that dwelleth in\nthe secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the\nAlmighty.\"\n\nSlow clarion cries now wound from the distance as the cocks caught the\nintelligence of day and reechoed it faintly from farm to farm,--sleepy\nsentinels of night, sounding the foe's invasion, and translating that\ndim intuition to ringing notes of warning. Still she chanted on. A\nremote crash of brushwood told of some other beast on his depredations,\nor some night-belated traveller groping his way through the narrow\npath. Still she chanted on. The far, faint echoes of the chanticleers\ndied into distance,--the crashing of the branches grew nearer. No wild\nbeast that, but a man's step,--a man's form in the moonlight, stalwart\nand strong,--on one arm slept a little child, in the other hand he held\nhis gun. Still she chanted on.\n\nPerhaps, when her husband last looked forth, he was half ashamed to\nfind what a fear he felt for her. He knew she would never leave the\nchild so long but for some direst need,--and yet he may have laughed at\nhimself, as he lifted and wrapped it with awkward care, and, loading\nhis gun and strapping on his horn, opened the door again and closed it\nbehind him, going out and plunging into the darkness and dangers of the\nforest. He was more singularly alarmed than he would have been willing\nto acknowledge; as he had sat with his bow hovering over the strings,\nhe had half believed to hear her voice mingling gayly with the\ninstrument, till he paused and listened if she were not about to lift\nthe latch and enter. As he drew nearer the heart of the forest, that\nintimation of melody seemed to grow more actual, to take body and\nbreath, to come and go on long swells and ebbs of the night-breeze, to\nincrease with tune and words, till a strange, shrill singing grew ever\nclearer, and, as he stepped into an open space of moonbeams, far up in\nthe branches, rocked by the wind, and singing, \"How beautiful upon the\nmountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that\npublisheth peace,\" he saw his wife,--his wife,--but, great God in\nheaven! how? Some mad exclamation escaped him, but without diverting\nher. The child knew the singing voice, though never heard before in\nthat unearthly key, and turned toward it through the veiling dreams.\nWith a celerity almost instantaneous, it lay, in the twinkling of an\neye, on the ground at the father's feet, while his gun was raised to\nhis shoulder and levelled at the monster covering his wife with shaggy\nform and flaming gaze,--his wife so ghastly white, so rigid, so stained\nwith blood, her eyes so fixedly bent above, and her lips, that had\nindurated into the chiselled pallor of marble, parted only with that\nflood of solemn song.\n\nI do not know if it were the mother-instinct that for a moment lowered\nher eyes,--those eyes, so lately riveted on heaven, now suddenly seeing\nall life-long bliss possible. A thrill of joy pierced and shivered\nthrough her like a weapon, her voice trembled in its course, her glance\nlost its steady strength, fever-flushes chased each other over her\nface, yet she never once ceased chanting. She was quite aware, that, if\nher husband shot now, the ball must pierce her body before reaching any\nvital part of the beast,--and yet better that death, by his hand, than\nthe other. But this her husband also knew, and he remained motionless,\njust covering the creature with the sight. He dared not fire, lest some\nwound not mortal should break the spell exercised by her voice, and the\nbeast, enraged with pain, should rend her in atoms; moreover, the light\nwas too uncertain for his aim. So he waited. Now and then he examined\nhis gun to see if the damp were injuring its charge, now and then he\nwiped the great drops from his forehead. Again the cocks crowed with\nthe passing hour,--the last time they were heard on that night.\nCheerful home sound then, how full of safety and all comfort and rest\nit seemed! what sweet morning incidents of sparkling fire and sunshine,\nof gay household bustle, shining dresser, and cooing baby, of steaming\ncattle in the yard, and brimming milk-pails at the door! what pleasant\nvoices! what laughter! what security! and here----\n\nNow, as she sang on in the slow, endless, infinite moments, the fervent\nvision of God's peace was gone. Just as the grave had lost its sting,\nshe was snatched back again into the arms of earthly hope. In vain she\ntried to sing, \"There remaineth a rest for the people of God,\"--her\neyes trembled on her husband's, and she could think only of him, and of\nthe child, and of happiness that yet might be, but with what a dreadful\ngulf of doubt between! She shuddered now in the suspense; all calm\nforsook her; she was tortured with dissolving heats or frozen with icy\nblasts; her face contracted, growing small and pinched; her voice was\nhoarse and sharp,--every tone cut like a knife,--the notes became heavy\nto lift,--withheld by some hostile pressure,--impossible. One gasp, a\nconvulsive effort, and there was silence,--she had lost her voice.\n\nThe beast made a sluggish movement,--stretched and fawned like one\nawaking,--then, as if he would have yet more of the enchantment,\nstirred her slightly with his muzzle. As he did so, a sidelong hint of\nthe man standing below with the raised gun smote him; he sprung round\nfuriously, and, seizing his prey, was about to leap into some unknown\nairy den of the topmost branches now waving to the slow dawn. The late\nmoon had rounded through the sky so that her gleam at last fell full\nupon the bough with fairy frosting; the wintry morning light did not\nyet penetrate the gloom. The woman, suspended in mid-air an instant,\ncast only one agonized glance beneath,--but across and through it, ere\nthe lids could fall, shot a withering sheet of flame,--a rifle-crack,\nhalf heard, was lost in the terrible yell of desperation that bounded\nafter it and filled her ears with savage echoes, and in the wide arc of\nsome eternal descent she was falling;--but the beast fell under her. I\nthink that the moment following must have been too sacred for us, and\nperhaps the three have no special interest again till they issue from\nthe shadows of the wilderness upon the white hills that skirt their\nhome. The father carries the child hushed again into slumber; the\nmother follows with no such feeble step as might be anticipated,--and\nas they slowly climb the steep under the clear gray sky and the paling\nmorning star, she stops to gather a spray of the red-rose berries or a\nfeathery tuft of dead grasses for the chimney-piece of the log-house,\nor a handful of brown ones for the child's play,--and of these quiet,\nhappy folk you would scarcely dream how lately they had stolen from\nunder the banner and encampment of the great King Death. The husband\nproceeds a step or two in advance; the wife lingers over a singular\nfoot-print in the snow, stoops and examines it, then looks up with a\nhurried word. Her husband stands alone on the hill, his arms folded\nacross the babe, his gun fallen,--stands defined against the pallid sky\nlike a bronze. What is there in their home, lying below and yellowing\nin the light, to fix him with such a stare? She springs to his side.\nThere is no home there. The log-house, the barns, the neighboring\nfarms, the fences, are all blotted out and mingled in one smoking ruin.\nDesolation and death were indeed there, and beneficence and life in the\nforest. Tomahawk and scalping-knife, descending during that night, had\nleft behind them only this work of their accomplished hatred and one\nsubtle foot-print in the snow.\n\nFor the rest,--the world was all before them, where to choose.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nURANIA.\n\n\nHast thou forgotten whose thou art?\n  To what high service consecrate?\nI gave thee not a noble heart\n  To wed with such ignoble fate.\n\nI found thee where the laurels grow\n  Around the lonely Delphian shrine;\nThere, where the sacred fountains flow,\n  I found thee, and I made thee mine.\n\nI gave thy soul to agony,\n  And strange unsatisfied desire,\nThat thou mightst dearer be to me,\n  And worthier of thy burning lyre.\n\nO child, thy fate had made thee God,\n  To thee such powers divine were given;\nThe paths of fire thou mightst have trod\n  Had led thee to the stars of heaven.\n\nAnd those who in the early dawn\n  Of beauty sat and sang of day,\nDeep in their twilight shades withdrawn,\n  Had heard thy coming far away,--\n\nWith haunting music sweet and strange,\n  And airs ambrosial blown before,\nVague breathings of the floral change\n  That glorifies the hills of yore:\n\nHad felt the joy those only find\n  Who in their secret souls have known\nThe mystery of the poet mind\n  That through all beauty feels its own:\n\nHad felt the God within them rise\n  To meet thy radiant soul divine;\nHad searched with their prophetic eyes\n  The midnight luminous of thine.\n\nSo fondly did Urania deem!\n  So proudly did she prophesy!\nOh, ruin of a noble dream\n  She thought too glorious to die!\n\nNor knew thy passionate songs of yore\n  Were as a promise unfulfilled,--\nA stately portal set before\n  The palace thou shall never build!\n\nFor is it come to this, at last?\n  And thou forever must remain\nA godlike statue, formed and cast\n  In marble attitude of pain,--\n\nProud lips that in their scorn are mute,\n  And haunting eyes of anguished love,\nOne hand that grasps a silent lute,\n  And one convuls\u00e8d hand above\n\nThat will not strike? Ah, scorn and shame!\n  Shame for the apostate unforgiven,\nBeholding an unconquered fame\n  In undiscovered fields of heaven!\n\nFor Beauty not by one alone\n  In her completeness is revealed:\nThe smiles and tears her face hath shown\n  To thee from others are concealed.\n\nMen see not in the midnight sky\n  All miracles she worketh there:\nIt is the blindness of the eye\n  That paints its darkness on the air.\n\nTwo friends who wander by the shore\n  Look not upon the selfsame seas,\nHearing two voices in the roar,\n  Because of different memories.\n\nFor him whose love the sea hath drowned,\n  It moans the music of his wrong;\nFor him whose life with love is crowned,\n  It breaks upon the beach in song.\n\nSo dreaming not another's dream,\n  But still interpreting thine own,\nBy woodland wild and quiet stream\n  Thou wanderest in the world alone.\n\nThen what thou slayest none can save:\n  Silent and dark oblivion rolls\nOver the glory in the grave\n  Of fierce and suicidal souls.\n\nFrom that dark wave no pleading ghost\n  With pointing hand shall ever rise,\nTo say,--The world hath treasure lost,\n  And here the buried treasure lies!\n\nBeware, and yet beware! my fear\n  Unfolds a vision in the gloom\nOf Beauty borne upon her bier,\n  And Darkness crouching in the tomb.\n\nBeware, and yet beware! her end\n  Is thine; or else, her shadowy hearse\nBeside, thy spirit shall descend\n  The vast sepulchral universe,\n\nAnd, with the passion that remains\n  In desolated hearts, implore\nThe spectre sitting bound in chains\n  To yield what he shall not restore:--\n\nThe mystery whose soul divine\n  Breathed love, and only love, on thee;\nWhich better far had not been thine,\n  Than, having been, to cease to be.\n\n\n\n\nMARY SOMERVILLE.\n\n\nThere have been in every age a few women of genius who have become the\nsuccessful rivals of man in the paths which they have severally chosen.\nThree instances are of our time. Mrs. Browning is called a poet even by\npoets; the artists admit that Rosa Bonheur is a painter; and the\nmathematicians accord to Mary Somerville a high rank among themselves.\n\n\"In pure mathematics,\" said Humboldt, \"Mrs. Somerville is strong.\" Of\nno other woman of the age could the remark have been made; and this\nwould probably be true, were the walks of science as marked by the\nfeminine footprint as are those of literature. To read mathematical\nworks is an easy task; the formula can be learned and their meaning\napprehended: to read the most profound of them, with such appreciation\nthat one stands side by side with the great minds who originated them,\nrequires a higher order of intellect; and far-reaching indeed is that\nwhich, pondering in the study on a few phenomena known by observation,\ndevelops the theory of worlds, traces back for ages their history, and\nsketches the outline of their future destiny.\n\nCaroline Herschel, the sister of Sir William, was doubtless gifted with\nmuch of the Herschel talent, and, under other circumstances, her mind\nmight have turned to original research; but she belonged rather to the\nlast century, and Hanover was not a region favorable to intellectual\nefforts in her sex. She lived the life of a simple-hearted,\ntruth-loving woman; most worthy of the name she bore, she made notes\nfor her brother, she swept the heavens and found comets for him, she\ncomputed and tabulated his observations; it seems never to have\noccurred to her to be other than the patient, helping sister of a truly\ngreat man.\n\nMrs. Somerville's life has been more individual. She is the daughter of\nAdmiral Fairfax, and was born in Fifeshire, Scotland, December 26,\n1780, in the house of her uncle, the father of her present husband.\n\nThe home training and the school education of the daughters of Great\nBritain are very unlike those of their American sisters. The manners\nand customs of the Old World change so slowly, that one can scarcely\nassent to a remark made by Sir John Herschel:--\"The Englishman sticks\nto his old ways, but is not cemented to them.\" The Englishwoman submits\nto authority from her infancy; belonging to the middle class, she does\nnot expect the higher education of the nobility; a woman, she is not\nsupposed to desire to enter into the studies of her brothers. A\ngoverness, generally the daughter of a curate, who prefers this\nposition to that of \"companion\" to a fine lady, is provided for her in\nher early years. If the choice be fortunate and the parents watchful,\nthe young girl is thoroughly taught in a few branches of what are\ncommonly considered feminine studies. She learns to read and to speak\nFrench; tutors are employed for music and drawing: every young lady\nabove the rank of the tradesman's daughter plays well upon the piano;\nevery one has her portfolio of drawings, in which sketches from Nature\ncan always be found, and frequently the family portraits. The history\nof the country is considered a study suitable for girls; the Englishman\nexpects that his daughter shall know something of the past, of which he\nis so justly proud.\n\nBut the more solid book-learning given to the girls of New England,\neven in the public schools, is known only to the daughters of the\nhigher classes, and among them an instance like that of Lady Jane Grey\ncould scarcely now be found. As the girls and boys are never taught in\nthe same schools, no taste is aroused by the example of manly studies.\nAn English girl is astonished to hear that an American girl passes a\npublic examination, like her brothers, and with them competes for\nprizes; she doubts the truthfulness of some of the representations of\nlife found in American novels; and so little is the freedom of manners\nunderstood, that the American traveller is frequently asked,--\"Can it\nreally be as Mrs. Stowe represents in America? Does a young lady really\ngive a party herself?\"\n\nThe difference that one would expect is found between the women of\nEngland or Scotland and the women of New England. The young\nEnglishwoman is tasteful and elegant, mindful of all the proprieties\nand graces of social life; she speaks slowly and cautiously, and gives\nher opinions with great modesty. These are not at present the\ncharacteristics of the American girl.\n\nMary Fairfax passed through the usual routine. At fourteen she had read\nthe books to be found in her father's house, including the few works\non Navigation which were necessary to him in his profession. She had\nthus obtained an idea of the world of science, and it was dull to\nreturn to worsted-work for amusement. The needle, which has been the\nfetter of so many women, became, however, in her hand, magnetic, and\npointed her to her destiny. She was in the habit of taking her work\ninto her brother's study, and listening to his recitations; the\nrevelations of Geometry were thus opened to her; she listened and\nworked for a time, until the desire to know more of this region of form\nand law, of harmony and of relations, became too strong to be resisted;\nthe worsted was thrown aside, and she ventured to ask the tutor to\ninstruct her. The honest man told her that he was no mathematician: he\ncould lend her Euclid, but he could do no more.\n\nThe first great step was now taken; Euclid was quickly read; other\nbooks were borrowed from other friends; Bonnycastle's and Euler's\nAlgebra were obtained, and she exulted in the use of those mystic\nsymbols, _x, y_, and _z_. Her parents looked on with indifference; so\nthat the music were not neglected and the governess reported well of\nher studies, they felt there was no harm in her amusing herself as she\nchose. When the days of the governess were over, the young lady \"came\nout\" in Edinburgh, and mingled much with the best society. This most\npicturesque city had long been the resort of the most gifted minds; men\nof literature and men of science made the charm of its winter life.\nNever was it more the gathering-place of intellect than in the early\npart of this century; but there was no room for a woman of genius, and\nthe young girl's friends advised her to conceal her pursuits. Move as\nquietly, however, and as unobtrusively as she might in the brilliant\ncircle, her genius was not without recognition. There was a word of\nencouragement from Professor Playfair. \"Persevere in your study,\" said\nhe; \"it will be a source of happiness to you when all else fails; for\nit is the study of truth.\" She had a champion, too, in the dreaded\ncritic, Jeffrey. \"I am told,\" said a friend, writing to him, \"that the\nladies of Edinburgh are literary, and that one of them sets up as a\nblue-stocking and an astronomer.\" \"The lady of whom you speak,\" replied\nJeffrey, \"may wear blue stockings, but her petticoats are so long that\nI have never seen them.\"\n\nMrs. Somerville has been twice married. Her first husband, a gentleman\nof the name of Greig, regarded her pursuits as her parents had, simply\nwith indifference. Dr. Somerville, her present husband, has taken the\nutmost pains to secure her time for her studies, and has himself\nrelieved her from many household cares.\n\nThe simplicity of character which belonged to her in early life was not\nlost when her reputation became established. The Royal Society, whose\ndoors do not open at every knock, admitted her to membership, and, by\ntheir order, her bust was sculptured by Chantrey, and now adorns the\nhall of the Society in Somerset House. During the sittings for this\npurpose, a lady, a friend of the sculptor, him to introduce her to Mrs.\nSomerville. Chantrey consented, and made a dinner-party for the\npurpose. The two ladies were placed side by side at table, and the\nbenevolent artist rejoiced to perceive, from the flow of talk, that\nthey were mutually pleased. The next day, to his astonishment, his\nfriend called on him in a state of great indignation, believing herself\nthe victim of a practical joke. \"How could you do so?\" said she. \"You\nknew that I did not want to know _that_ Mrs. Somerville; I wanted to\nknow the astronomer: that lady talked of the theatre, the opera, and\ncommon things.\"\n\nThe anecdote so often told of Laplace's compliment is literally true.\nMrs. Somerville dined with this great geometer in Paris. \"I write\nbooks,\" said Laplace, \"that no one can read. Only two women have ever\nread the 'M\u00e9canique C\u00e9leste'; both are Scotch women: Mrs. Greig and\nyourself.\"\n\nUpon the \"M\u00e9canique C\u00e9leste\" Mrs. Somerville's greatest work is\nfounded. \"I simply translated Laplace's work,\" said she, \"from algebra\ninto common language.\" That is, she did what very few men and no other\nwoman could do. It is of this work of Laplace that Bonaparte said, \"I\nwill give to it my first _six months_ of leisure.\" The student who\nreads it by the aid of Dr. Bowditch's notes has little idea of the\ndifficulties to be met in the original work. Even Dr. Bowditch himself\nsaid, \"I never come across one of Laplace's 'Thus it plainly appears,'\nwithout feeling sure that I have got hours of hard study before me, to\nfill up the chasm and show _how_ it plainly appears.\"\n\nThis \"translation into common language\" was undertaken at the request\nof Lord Brougham, who desired a mathematical work suited to the\n\"Library of Useful Knowledge.\" The manuscript was submitted to Sir John\nHerschel, who expressed himself \"delighted with it,--that it was a book\nfor posterity, but quite above the class for which Lord Brougham's\ncourse was intended.\" It was published at once, and became the\ntext-book for the students of Cambridge.\n\n\"The Connection of the Physical Sciences\" and the \"Physical Geography\"\nare the later works of Mrs. Somerville. These volumes have probably\nbeen more read in our country than in Europe; for it is a common remark\nof the scientific writers of Great Britain, that their \"readers are\nfound in the United States.\" They contain vast collections of facts in\nall branches of Physical Science, connected together by the delicate\nweb of Mrs. Somerville's own thought, showing an amount and variety of\nlearning to be compared only to that of Humboldt.\n\nProvided with an \"open sesame\" to her heart, in the shape of a letter\nfrom her old friend, Lady Herschel, we sought the acquaintance of Mrs.\nSomerville in the spring of 1858. She was at that time residing in\nFlorence, and, sending the letter and a card to her by the servant, we\nawaited the reply in the large Florentine parlor, in the fireplace of\nwhich a wood-fire blazed, suggestive of English comfort,--a suggestion\nwhich in Italy rarely becomes a reality.\n\nThere was the usual delay; then a footstep came slowly through the\nouter room, and a very old man, exceedingly tall, with a red silk\nhandkerchief around his head, entered, and introduced himself as Doctor\nSomerville. He is proud of his wife; a pardonable weakness in any man,\nespecially so in the husband of Mary Somerville. He began at once to\ntalk of her. \"Mrs. Somerville,\" he said, \"was much interested in the\nAmericans, for she claimed a connection with the family of Washington.\nWashington's half-brother, Lawrence, married Anne Fairfax, who was of\nthe Scotch family of that name. When Mrs. Somerville's father, as\nLieutenant Fairfax, was ordered to America, General Washington wrote to\nhim as a family relative, and invited him to his house. Lieutenant\nFairfax applied to his commanding officer for leave to accept the\ninvitation, and it was refused; they never met. Much to the regret of\nthe Somervilles, the letter of Washington has been lost. The Fairfaxes\nof Virginia are of the same family, and occasionally some member of the\nAmerican branch visits his Scotch cousins.\"\n\nWhile Doctor Somerville was talking of these things, Mrs. Somerville\ncame tripping into the room, speaking with the vivacity of a young\nperson. She was seventy-seven years old, but appeared twenty years\nyounger. Her face is pleasing, the forehead low and broad, the eyes\nblue,--the features so regular, that, as sculptured by Chantrey, in the\nbust at Somerset House, they convey the idea of a very handsome woman.\nNeither this bust nor the picture of her, however, gives a correct\nimpression, except in the outline of the head and shoulders. She spoke\nwith a strong Scotch accent, and was slightly affected by deafness.\n\nAt this time, Mrs. Somerville was re-writing her \"Physical Geography.\"\nShe said that she worked as well as when she was younger, but was more\nquickly fatigued; yet, in order to gain time, she had given up her\nafternoon nap, without apparent injury to her health. Her working hours\nwere in the morning, and she never refused a visitor after noon. For\nher first work she said she computed a good deal; and here she stepped\nquickly into an adjoining room, and brought out a mass of manuscript\ncomputations made for that work, the mere sight of which would give a\nheadache to most women. The conversation was rather of the familiar and\nchatty order, and marked by great simplicity. She touched upon the\nrecent discoveries in chemical science,--upon California, its gold and\nits consequences, some good from which she thought would be found in\nthe improvement of seamanship,--on the nebulae, more and more of which\nshe thought would be resolved, while yet there might exist irresolvable\nnebulous matter, such as composed the tails of comets, or the\nsatellites of the planets, which she thought had other uses than as\ntheir subordinates. Of Doctor Whewell's attempt to prove that our\nplanet is the only one inhabited she spoke with disapprobation; she\nsaid she believed that the other planets might be inhabited by beings\nof a higher order than ourselves.\n\nOn subsequent visits, Mrs. Somerville had much to say of the Americans.\nShe regretted that she so rarely received scientific articles from\nAmerica; the papers of Lieutenant Maury alone reached her. She spoke of\nthe late Doctor Bowditch with great interest, and said she had had some\ncorrespondence with one of his sons; of Professor Peirce as a great\nmathematician; and she was much interested in the successful\nphotography of the stars by Mr. Whipple. To a traveller, thousands of\nmiles from home, the mere mention of familiar names is cheering.\n\nMrs. Somerville resides in Florence on account of the health of her\nhusband. A little garden, well-stocked with rose-bushes, which she\nshows with great pride to her visitors, furnishes her with a means of\nhealthy recreation after her severe studies. Her children are a son by\nMr. Greig and two daughters by Doctor Somerville. In early life, Mrs.\nSomerville was a fine musician: the daughters have inherited this\ntalent; and having lived long in Florence, they speak Italian with a\nperfect accent. \"I speak Italian,\" said Mrs. Somerville; \"but no one\ncould ever take me for other than a Scotchwoman.\"\n\nNo one can make the acquaintance of this remarkable woman without\nincreased admiration for her. The ascent of the steep and rugged path\nof science has not unfitted her for the drawing-room circle; the hours\nof devotion to close study have not been incompatible with the duties\nof the wife and the mother; the mind that has turned to rigid\ndemonstration has not thereby lost its faith in the truths which\nfigures will not prove. \"I have no doubt,\" said she, in speaking of the\nheavenly bodies, \"that in another state of existence we shall know more\nabout these things.\"\n\n\n\n\nROBA DI ROMA.\n\nMAY IN ROME.\n\n\nMay has come again,--\"the delicate-footed May,\" her feet hidden in\nflowers as she wanders over the Campagna, and the cool breeze of the\nCampagna blowing back her loosened hair. She calls to us from the open\nfields to leave the wells of damp churches and shadowy streets, and to\ncome abroad and meet her where the mountains look down from roseate\nheights of vanishing snow upon plains of waving grain. The hedges have\nput on their best draperies of leaves and flowers, and, girdled in at\ntheir waist by double osier bands, stagger luxuriantly along the road\nlike a drunken Bacchanal procession, crowned with festive ivy, and\nholding aloft their snowy clusters of elder-blossoms like _thyrsi_.\nAmong their green robes may be seen thousands of beautiful\nwild-flowers,--the sweet-scented laurustinus, all sorts of running\nvetches and wild sweet-pea, the delicate vases of dewy morning-glories,\nclusters of eglantine or sweetbrier roses, fragrant acacia-blossoms\ncovered with bees and buzzing flies, the gold of glowing gorses, and\nscores of purple and yellow flowers, of which I know not the names. On\nthe gray walls, vines, grass, and the humble class of flowers which go\nby the ignoble name of weeds straggle and cluster; and over them, held\ndown by the green cord of the stalk, balance the bursted balloons of\nhundreds of flaming scarlet poppies that seem to have fed on fire. The\nundulating swell of the Campagna is here ablaze with them for acres,\nand there deepening with growing grain, or snowed over with myriads of\ndaisies. Music and song, too, are not wanting; hundreds of birds are in\nthe hedges. The lark, \"from his moist cabinet rising,\" rains down his\ntrills of incessant song from invisible heights of blue sky; and\nwhenever one passes the wayside groves, a nightingale is sure to bubble\ninto song. The oranges, too, are in blossom, perfuming the air;\nlocust-trees are tasselled with odorous flowers; and over the walls of\nthe Campagna villa bursts a cascade of vines covered with foamy Banksia\nroses.\n\nThe Carnival of the kitchen-gardens is now commencing. Peas are already\nan old story, strawberries are abundant, and cherries are beginning to\nmake their appearance, in these first days of May; old women sell them\nat every corner, tied together in tempting bunches, as in \"the\ncherry-orchard\" which Miss Edgeworth has made fairy-land in our\nchildish memories. Asparagus also has long since come; and artichokes\nmake their daily appearance on the table, sliced up and fried, or\nboiled whole, or coming up roasted and gleaming with butter, with more\noutside capes and coats than an ideal English coachman of the olden\ntimes. _Finocchi_, too, are here, tasting like anisette, and good to\nmix in the salads. And great beans lie about in piles, the _contadini_\ntwisting them out of their thick pods with their thumbs, to eat them\nraw. Nay, even the _signoria_ of the noble families do the same, as\nthey walk through the gardens, and think them such a luxury that they\neat them raw for breakfast. But over and above all other vegetables are\nthe lettuces, which are one of the great staples of food for the Roman\npeople, and so crisp, fresh, delicate, and high-flavored, that be who\neats them once will hold Nebuchadnezzar no longer a subject for\ncompassion, but rather of envy. Drowned in fresh olive-oil and strong\nwith vinegar, they are a feast for the gods; and even in their natural\nstate, without condiments, they are by no means to be despised. At the\ncorners of the streets they lie piled in green heaps, and are sold at a\n_baiocco_ for five heads. At noontide, the _contadini_ and laborers\nfeed upon them without even the condiment of salt, crunching their\nwhite teeth through the crisp, wet leaves, and alternating a bite at a\ngreat wedge of bread; and toward nightfall, one may see carts laden\nhigh up with closely packed masses of them, coming in from the Campagna\nfor the market. In a word, the _festa_ of the vegetables, at which they\ndo not eat, but are eaten, and the Carnival of the kitchen-garden have\ncome.\n\nBut--a thousand, thousand pardons, O mighty Cavolo!--how have I dared\nomit thy august name? On my knees, O potentest of vegetables, I crave\nforgiveness! I will burn at thy shrine ten waxen candles, in penance,\nif thou wilt pardon the sin and shame of my forgetfulness! The smoke of\nthy altar-fires, the steam of thy incense, and the odors of thy\nsanctity rise from every hypaethral shrine in Rome. Out-doors and\nin-doors, wherever the foot wanders, on palatial stairs or in the hut\nof poverty, in the convent pottage and the _Lepre_ soup, in the wooden\nplatter of the beggar and the silver tureen of the prince, thou fillest\nour nostrils, thou satisfiest our stomach. Thou hast no false pride;\ngreat as thou art, thou condescendest to be exchanged for a _baiocco_.\nDear enchantress! to thee, and to thy glorious cousin Broccoli, that\ntender-hearted, efflorescent nymph, the Egeria of the _osteria con\ncucina_, the peerless maid that goes with the steak and accepts\nmartyrdom without moan, to drive away the demon of Hunger from her\ndevoted followers,--all honor! Far away, whenever I inhale thy odor, I\nshall think of \"Roman Joys\"; a whiff from thine altar in a foreign land\nwill bear me back to the Eternal City, \"the City of the Soul,\" the City\nof the Cabbage, the home of the Dioscuri, _Cavolo_ and _Broccoli!_ Yes,\nas Paris is recalled by the odor of chocolate, and London by the damp\nsteam of malt, so shall Rome come back when my nostrils are filled with\nthy penetrative fragrance!\n\nSaunter out at any of the city-gates, or lean over the wall at San\nGiovanni, (and where will you find a more charming spot?) or look down\nfrom the windows of the Villa Negroni, and your eye will surely fall on\none of the Roman kitchen-gardens, patterned out in even rows and\nsquares of green. Nothing can be prettier or more tasteful in their\narrangement than these variegated carpets of vegetables. A great\ncistern of running water crowns the height of the ground, which is used\nfor the purposes of irrigation, and towards nightfall the vent is\nopened, and you may see the gardeners imbanking the channelled rows to\nlet the inundation flow through hundreds of little lanes of\nintersection and canals between the beds, and then banking them up at\nthe entrance when a sufficient quantity of water has entered. In this\nway they fertilize and refresh the soil, which else would parch under\nthe continuous sun. And this, indeed, is all the fertilization they\nneed,--so strong is the soil all over the Campagna. The accretions and\ndecay of thousands of years have covered it with a loam whose richness\nand depth are astonishing. Dig where you will, for ten feet down, and\nyou do not pass through its wonderfully fertile loam into gravel, and\nthe slightest labor is repaid a hundred-fold.\n\nAs one looks from the Villa Negroni windows, he cannot fail to be\nimpressed by the strange changes through which this wonderful city has\npassed. The very spot on which Nero, the insane emperor-artist, fiddled\nwhile Rome was burning has now become a vast kitchen-garden, belonging\nto Prince Massimo, (himself a descendant, as he claims, of Fabius\nCunctator,) where men no longer, but only lettuces, asparagus, and\nartichokes, are ruthlessly cut down. The inundations are not for mock\nsea-fights among slaves, but for the peaceful purposes of irrigation.\nAnd though the fiddle of Nero is only traditional, the trumpets of the\nFrench, murdering many an unhappy strain near by, are a most melancholy\nfact. In the bottom of the valley, a noble old villa, covered with\nfrescoes, has been turned into a manufactory of bricks, and the very\nVilla Negroni itself is now doomed to be the site of a railway station.\nYet here the princely family of Negroni lived, and the very lady at\nwhose house Lucrezia Borgia took her famous revenge may once have\nsauntered under the walls, which still glow with ripening oranges, to\nfeed the gold-fish in the fountain, or walked with stately friends\nthrough the long alleys of clipped cypresses, and pic-nicked _alia\nGiorgione_ on lawns which are now but kitchen-gardens, dedicated to San\nCavolo. It pleases me, also, descending in memories to a later time, to\nlook up at the summer-house built above the gateway, and recall the\ndays when Shelley and Keats came there to visit their friend Severn,\nthe artist, (for that was his studio,) and look over the same alleys\nand gardens, and speak words one would have been so glad to hear,--and,\ncoming still later down, to recall the hearty words and brave heart of\nAmerica's best sculptor and my dear friend, Crawford.\n\nBut to return to the kitchen-gardens. Pretty as they are to the eye,\nthey are not considered to be wholesome; and no Roman will live in a\nhouse near one of them, especially if it lie on the southern and\nwestern side, so that the Sirocco and the prevalent summer winds blow\nover it. The daily irrigation, in itself, would be sufficient to\nfrighten all Italians away; for they have a deadly fear of all effluvia\narising from decomposing vegetable substances, and suppose, with a good\ndeal of truth, that, wherever there is water on the earth, there is\ndecomposition. But this is not the only reason; for the same prejudice\nexists in regard to all kinds of gardens, whether irrigated or\nnot,--and even to groves of trees and clusters of bushes, or vegetation\nof any kind, around a house. This is the real reason why, even in their\ncountry villas, their trees are almost always planted at a distance\nfrom the house, so as to expose it to the sun and to give it a free\nventilation; these they do not care for; damp is their determined foe,\nand therefore they will not purchase the luxury of shade from trees at\nthe risk of the damp it is supposed to engender. On the north, however,\ngardens are not thought to be so prejudicial as on the south and\nwest,--as the cold, dry winds come from the former direction. The\nmalaria, as we call it, though the term is unknown to Romans, is never\nso dangerous as after a slight rain, just sufficient to wet the surface\nof the earth without deeply penetrating it; for decomposition is then\nstimulated, and the miasma arising from the Campagna is blown abroad.\nSo long as the earth is dry, there is no danger of fever, except at\nmorning and nightfall, and then simply because of the heavy dews which\nthe porous and baked earth then inhales and expires. After the autumn\nhas given a thorough, drenching rain, Rome is healthy and free from\nfever.\n\nRome has with strangers the reputation of being unhealthy; but this\nopinion I cannot think well founded,--to the extent, at least, of the\ncommon belief. The diseases of children there are ordinarily very\nlight, while in America and England they are terrible. Scarlet and\ntyphus fevers, those fearful scourges in the North, are known at Rome\nonly under most mitigated forms. Cholera has shown no virulence there;\nand for diseases of the throat and lungs the air alone is almost\ncurative. The great curse of the place is the intermittent fever, in\nwhich any other illness is apt to end. But this, except in its peculiar\nphase of _Perniciosa_, though a very annoying, is by no means a\ndangerous disease, and has the additional advantage of a specific\nremedy. The Romans themselves of the better class seldom suffer from\nit, and I cannot but think that with a little prudence it may be easily\navoided. Those who are most attacked by it are the laborers and\n_contadini_ on the Campagna; and how can it be otherwise with them?\nThey sleep often on the bare ground, or on a little straw under a\n_capanna_ just large enough to admit them on all-fours. Their labor is\nexhausting, and performed in the sun, and while in a violent\nperspiration they are often exposed to sudden draughts and checks.\nTheir food is poor, their habits careless, and it would require an iron\nconstitution to resist what they endure. But, despite the life they\nlead and their various exposures, they are for the most part a very\nstrong and sturdy class. This intermittent fever is undoubtedly a far\nfrom pleasant thing; but Americans who are terrified at it in Rome give\nit no thought in Philadelphia, where it is more prevalent,--and while\nthey call Rome unhealthy, live with undisturbed confidence in cities\nwhere scarlet and typhus fevers annually rage.\n\nIt is a curious fact, that the French soldiers, who in 1848 made the\nsiege of Rome, suffered no inconvenience or injury to their health from\nsleeping on the Campagna, and that, despite the prophecies to the\ncontrary, very few cases of fever appeared, though the siege lasted\nduring all the summer months. The reason of this is doubtless to be\nfound in the fact that they were better clothed, better fed, and in\nevery way more careful of themselves, than the _contadini_. Foreigners,\ntoo, who visit Rome, are very seldom attacked by intermittent fever;\nand it may truly be said, that, when they are, it is, for the most\npart, their own fault. There is generally the grossest inconsistency\nbetween their theories and their practice. Believing as they do that\nthe least exposure will induce fever, they expose themselves with\nsingular recklessness to the very causes of fever. After hurrying\nthrough the streets and getting into a violent perspiration, they\nplunge at once into some damp pit-like church or chill gallery, where\nthe temperature is at least ten degrees lower than the outer air. The\nbald-headed, rosy John Bull, steaming with heat, doffs at once the hat\nwhich he wore in the street, and, of course, is astounded, if the\nresult prove just what it would be anywhere else,--and if he take cold\nand get a fever, charges it to the climate, and not to his own\nstupidity and recklessness. Beside this, foreigners will always insist\non carrying their home-habits with them wherever they go, and it is\nexceedingly difficult to persuade any one that he does not understand\nthe climate better than the Italians themselves, whom he puts down as a\npoor set of timid ignoramuses. However, the longer one lives in Rome,\nthe more he learns to value the Italian rules of health. There is\nprobably no people so careful in these matters as the Italians, and\nespecially the Romans. They understand their own climate, and they have\na special dislike of death. In France and England suicides are very\ncommon; in Italy they are almost unknown. The American recklessness of\nlife completely astounds the Italian. He enjoys life, studies every\nmethod to preserve it, and considers any one who risks it unnecessarily\nas simply a fool.\n\nWhat, then, are their rules of life? In the first place, in all their\nhabits they are very regular. They eat at stated times, and cannot be\npersuaded to partake of anything in the intervals. If it be not their\nhour for eating, they will refuse the choicest viands, and will sit at\nyour table fasting, despite every temptation you can offer them. They\nare also very abstemious in their diet, and gluttony is the very rarest\nof vices. I do not believe there is another nation in Europe that eats\nso sparingly. In the morning they take a cup of coffee, generally\nwithout milk, sopping in it some light _brioche_. Later in the day they\ntake a slight lunch of soup and macaroni, with a glass of wine. This\nlasts them until dinner, which begins with a watery soup; after which\nthe _lesso_ or boiled meat comes on and is eaten with one vegetable,\nwhich is less a dish than a garnish to the meat; then comes a dish of\nsome vegetable eaten with bread; then, perhaps, a chop, or another dish\nof meat, garnished with a vegetable; some light _dolce_ or fruit, and a\ncup of black coffee,--the latter for digestion's sake,--finish the\nrepast. The quantity is very small, however, compared to what is eaten\nin England, France, America, or, though last, not least, Germany. Late\nin the evening they have a supper. When dinner is taken in the middle\nof the day, lunch is omitted. This is the rule of the better classes.\nThe workmen and middle classes, after their cup of coffee and bit of\nbread or _brioche_ in the morning, take nothing until night, except\nanother cup of coffee and bread,--and their dinner finishes their meals\nafter their work is done. From my own observation, I should say that an\nItalian does not certainly eat more than half as much as a German, or\ntwo-thirds as much as an American. The climate will not allow of\ngormandizing, and much less food is required to sustain the vital\npowers than in America, where the atmosphere is so stimulating to the\nbrain and the digestion, or in England, where the depressing effects of\nthe climate must be counteracted by stimulants. Go to any _table\nd'h\u00f4te_ in the season, and you will at once know all the English who\nare new comers by their bottle of ale or claret or sherry or brandy;\nfor the Englishman assimilates with difficulty, and unwillingly puts\noff his home-habits. The fresh American will always be recognized by\nthe morning-dinner, which he calls a breakfast.\n\nIf you wish to keep your health in Italy, follow the example of the\nItalians. Eat a third less than you are accustomed to at home. Do not\ndrink habitually of brandy, porter, ale, or even Marsala, but confine\nyourselves to the lighter wines of the country or of France. Do not\nwalk much in the sun; \"only Englishmen and dogs\" do that, as the\nproverb goes; and especially take heed not to expose yourself, when\nwarm, to any sudden changes of temperature. If you have heated yourself\nwith walking in the sun, be careful not to go at once, and especially\ntowards nightfall, into the lower and shaded streets, which have begun\nto gather the damps, and which are kept cool by the high, thick walls\nof the houses. Remember that the difference of temperature is very\ngreat between the narrow, shaded streets and the high, sunny Pincio. If\nyou have the misfortune to be of the male sex, and especially if you\nsuffer under the sorrow of the first great Caesar in being bald, buy\nyourself a little skullcap, (it is as good as his laurels for the\npurpose,) and put it on your head whenever you enter the churches and\ncold galleries. Almost every fever here is the result of suddenly\nchecked transpiration of the skin; and if you will take the precaution\nto cool yourself before entering churches and galleries, and not to\nexpose yourself while warm to sudden changes of temperature, you may\nlive twenty years in Rome without a fever. Do not stand in draughts of\ncold air, and shut your windows when you go to bed. There is nothing an\nItalian fears like a current of air, and with reason. He will never sit\nbetween two doors or two windows. If he has walked to see you and is in\nthe least warm, pray him to keep his hat on until he is cool, if you\nwould be courteous to him. You will find that he will always use the\nsame _gentilezza_ to you. The reason why you should shut your windows\nat night is very simple. The night-air is invariably damp and cold,\ncontrasting greatly with the warmth of the day, and it is then that the\nmiasma from the Campagna drifts into the city. And oh, my American\nfriends! repress your national love for hot rooms and great fires, and\ndo not make an oven of your _salon_. Bake yourselves, kiln-dry\nyourselves, if you choose, in your furnaced houses at home, but, if you\nvalue your health, \"reform that altogether\" in Italy. Increase your\nclothing and suppress your fires, and you will find yourselves better\nin head and in pocket. With your great fires you will always be cold\nand always have colds; for the houses are not tight, and you only\ncreate great draughts thereby. You will not persuade an Italian to sit\nnear them;--\"_Scusa, Signore_\" he will say, \"_mi fa male; se non gli\ndispiace, mi metto in questo cantone_,\"--and with your permission he\ntakes the farthest corner away from the fire. Seven winters in Rome\nhave convinced me of the correctness of their rule. Of course, you do\nnot believe me or them; but it would be better for you, if you\ndid,--and for me, too, when I come to visit you.\n\nBut I must beg pardon for all this advice; and as my business is not to\nwrite a medical thesis here, let me return to pleasanter things.\n\nScarcely does the sun drop behind St. Peter's on the first day of May,\nbefore bonfires begin to blaze from all the country towns on the\nmountain-sides, showing like great beacons. This is a custom founded in\ngreat antiquity, and common to the North and South. The first of May is\nthe Festival of the Holy Apostles in Italy; but in Germany, and still\nfarther north, in Sweden and Norway, it is _Walpurgisnacht_,--when\ngoblins, witches, hags, and devils hold high holiday, mounting on their\nbrooms for the Brocken. And it was on this night that Mephistopheles\ncarried Faust on his wondrous ride, and showed him the spectre of\nMargaret with the red line round her throat. Miss Bremer, in her \"Life\nin Dalecarlia,\" gives the following account of the origin of this\ncustom:--\"It is so old,\" she says, \"that there is no perfect certainty\neither of its origin or signification. It is, however, believed that it\nderives its origin from a heathen sacrificatory festival; and there is\nground for the acceptation that children were sacrificed alive at this\nvery feast,--and this, in fact, in order to expel or reconcile the evil\nspirits, of whom the people believed, that, partly flying, partly\nriding, they commenced their passages over fields and woods at the\nbeginning of spring, and which are to this day called enchanters,\nwitches, nymphs, and so forth. It is also believed that about this time\nthe spirits of the earth came forth from out of the bosom of the earth\nand the heart of the mountains in order to seek intercourse with the\nchildren of men. Fires were frequently kindled upon the sepulchral\nhills, and at these, sacrifices were offered, chiefly to the good\npowers, namely, to those who provide for a fruitful year. At present I\nshould scarcely think there is an individual who believes in such\nsuperstitious stuff. But they still, as in days of yore, kindle fires\nupon the mountains on this night, and still look upon it as a bad omen,\nif any common or ugly-formed creature, whether beast or man, makes its\nappearance at the fire.\"\n\nIn the Neapolitan towns great fires are built on this festival, around\nwhich the people dance, jumping through the flames, and flinging\nthemselves about in every wild and fantastic attitude. It is probably a\nrelic of some old sacrificatory festival to Maia, who has given her\nname to this month,--the custom still remaining after its significance\nis gone.\n\nThe month of May is the culmination of the spring and the season of\nseasons at Rome. No wonder that foreigners who have come when winter\nsets in and take wing before April shows her sky sometimes growl at the\nweather, and ask if this is the beautiful Italian clime. They have\nsimply selected the rainy season for their visit; and one cannot expect\nto have sun the whole year through, without intermission. Where will\nthey find more sun in the same season? where will they find milder and\nsofter air? Days even in the middle of winter, and sometimes weeks,\ndescend as it were from heaven to fill the soul with delight; and a\nlovely day in Rome is lovelier than under any other sky on earth. But\njust when foreigners go away in crowds, the weather is settling into\nthe perfection of spring, and then it is that Rome is most charming.\nThe rains are over, the sun is a daily blessing, all Nature is bursting\ninto leaf and flower, and one may spend days on the Campagna without\nfear of colds and fever. Stay in Rome during May, if you wish to feel\nits beauty.\n\nThe best rule for a traveller who desires to enjoy the charms of every\nclime would be to go to the North in the winter and to the South in the\nspring and summer. Cold is the speciality of the North, and all its\nsports and gayeties take thence their tone. The houses are built to\nshut out the demon of Frost, and protect one from his assaults of ice\nand snow. Let him howl about your windows and scrawl his wonderful\nlandscapes on your panes and pile his fantastic wreaths outside, while\nyou draw round the blazing hearth and enjoy the artificial heat and\nwarm in the social converse that he provokes. Your punch is all the\nbetter for his threats; by contrast you enjoy the more. Or brave him\noutside in a flying sledge, careering with jangling bells over white\nwastes of snow, while the stars, as you go, fly through the naked trees\nthat are glittering with ice-jewels, and your blood tingles with\nexcitement, and your breath is blown like a white incense to the skies.\nThat is the real North. How tame he will look to you, when you go back\nin August and find a few hard apples, a few tough plums, and some sour\nlittle things which are apologies for grapes! He looks sneaky enough\nthen, with his make-believe summer, and all his furs off. No, then is\nthe time for the South. All is simmering outside, and the locust saws\nand shrills till he seems to heat the air. You stay in the house at\nnoon, and know what a virtue there is in thick walls which keep out the\nfierce heats, in gaping windows and doors that will not shut because\nyou need the ventilation. You will not now complain of the stone and\nbrick floors that you cursed all winter long, and on which you now\nsprinkle water to keep the air cool in your rooms. The blunders and\nstupidities of winter are all over. The breezy _loggia_ is no longer a\njoke. You are glad enough to sit there and drink your wine and look\nover the landscape. Manuccia brings in a great basket of grapes that\nare grapes, which the wasp envies you as you eat, and comes to share.\nAnd here are luscious figs bursting with seedy sweetness, and apricots\nrusted in the sun, and velvety peaches that break into juice in your\nmouth, and great black-seeded _cocomeri_. Nature empties her cornucopia\nof fruits and flowers and vegetables all over your table. Luxuriously\nyou enjoy them and fan yourself and take your _siesta_, with full\nappreciation of your _dolce far niente_. When the sun begins to slope\nwestward, if you are in the country, you wander through the green lanes\nfestooned with vines and pluck the grapes as you go; or, if you are in\nthe city, you saunter the evening long through the streets, where all\nthe world are strolling, and take your _granito_ of ice or sherbet, and\ntalk over the things of the day and the time, and pass as you go home\ngroups of singers and serenaders with guitars, flutes, and\nviolins,--serenade, perhaps, sometimes, yourself; and all the time the\ngreat planets and stars palpitate in the near heavens, and the soft air\nfull of fragrance blows against your cheek. And you can really say,\nThis is Italy! For it is not what you do, so much as what you feel,\nthat makes Italy.\n\nBut pray remember, when you go there, that in the South every\narrangement is made for the nine hot months, and not for the three cold\nand rainy ones you choose to spend there, and perhaps your views may be\nsomewhat modified in respect of this \"miserable people,\" who, you say,\n\"have no idea of comfort,\"--meaning, of course, English comfort.\nPerhaps, I say; for it is in the nature of travellers to come to sudden\nconclusions upon slight premises, to maintain with obstinacy\npreconceived notions, and to quarrel with all national traits except\ntheir own. And being English, unless you have a friend in India who has\nmade you aware that cane-bottom chairs are India-English, you will be\npretty sure to believe that there is no comfort without carpets and\ncoal; or being an American, you will be apt to undervalue a gallery of\npictures with only a three-ply carpet on the floor, and to \"calculate,\"\nthat, if they could see your house in Washington Street, they would\nfeel rather ashamed. However, there is a great deal of human nature in\nmankind, wherever you go,--except in Paris, perhaps, where Nature is\nrather inhuman and artificial. And when I instance the Englishman and\nAmerican as making false judgments, let me not be misunderstood as\nsupposing them the only nations in that category. No, no! did not my\nParisian acquaintance the other day assure me very gravely, after\nlamenting the absurdity of the Italians' not speaking French instead of\ntheir own language,--\"But, Sir, what is this Italian? nothing but bad\nFrench!\"--and did not another of that same polished nation, in\ndescribing his travels to Naples, say, in answer to the question,\nwhether he had seen the grand old temples of Paestum,--\"Ah, yes, I have\nseen Paestum; 'tis a detestable country!--like the Campagna of Rome\"? I\nam perfectly aware that there are differences of opinion.\n\nLet me, then, beg you to remain in Rome during the mouth of May, if\nyou can possibly make your arrangements to do so.\n\nMay is the month of the Madonna, and on every _festa_-day you will see\nat the corners of the streets a little improvised shrine, or it may be\nonly a festooned print of the Madonna hung against the walls of some\nhouse or against the back of a chair, and tended by two or three\nchildren, who hold out to you a plate, as you pass, and beg for\ncharity, sometimes, I confess, in the most pertinacious way,--the money\nthus raised to be expended in oil for the lamps before the Madonna\nshrines in the streets. The monasteries of nuns are also busy with\nprocessions and celebrations in honor of \"the Mother of God,\" which are\ncarried on pleasantly within their precincts and seen only of female\nfriends. Sometimes you will meet a procession of ladies outside the\ngates following a cross on foot, while their carriages come after in a\nlong file. These are societies which are making the pilgrimage of the\nSeven Basilicas outside the Walls. They set out early in the morning,\nstopping in each basilica for a half-hour to say their prayers, and\nreturn to Rome at Ave Maria.\n\nLife, too, is altogether changed now. All the windows are wide open,\nand there is at least one head and shoulders leaning out at every\nhouse. And the poorer families are all out on their door-steps, working\nand chatting together, while their children run about them in the\nstreets, sprawling, playing, and fighting. Many a beautiful theme for\nthe artist is now to be found in these careless and characteristic\ngroups; and curly-headed Saint Johns may be seen in every street, half\nnaked, with great black eyes and rounded arms and legs. It is this\nwhich makes Rome so admirable a residence for an artist. All things are\neasy and careless in the out-of-doors life of the common people,--all\nposes unsought, all groupings accidental, all action unaffected and\nunconscious. One meets Nature at every turn,--not braced up in prim\nforms, not conscious in manners, not made up into the fashionable or\nthe proper, but impulsive, free, and simple. With the whole street\nlooking on, they are as unconscious and natural as if they were where\nno eye could see them,--ay, and more natural, too, than it is possible\nfor some people to be, even in the privacy of their solitary rooms.\nThey sing at the top of their lungs as they sit on their door-steps at\ntheir work, and often shout from house to house across the street a\nlong conversation, and sometimes even read letters from upper windows\nto their friends below in the street. The men and women who cry their\nfruits, vegetables, and wares up and down the city, laden with baskets\nor panniers, and often accompanied by a donkey, stop to chat with group\nafter group, or get into animated debates about prices, or exercise\ntheir wits and lungs at once in repartee in a very amusing way.\nEverybody is in dishabille in the morning, but towards twilight the\ngirls put on their better dresses, and comb their glossy raven hair,\nheaping it up in great solid braids, and, hanging two long golden\near-rings in their ears and _collane_ round their full necks, come\nforth conquering and to conquer, and saunter bare-headed up and down\nthe streets, or lounge about the doorways or piazzas in groups, ready\nto give back to any jeerer as good as he sends. You see them marching\nalong sometimes in a broad platoon of five or six, all their brows as\nstraight as if they had been ruled, and their great dark eyes flashing\nout under them, ready in a moment for a laugh or a frown. What stalwart\ncreatures they are! What shoulders, bosoms, and backs they have! what a\nchance for the lungs under those stout _busti_! and what finished and\nelegant heads! They are certainly cast in a large mould, with nothing\nbelittled or meagre about them, either in feature or figure.\n\nEarly in the morning you will see streaming through the streets or\ngathered together in picturesque groups, some standing, some couching\non the pavement, herds of long-haired goats, brown and white and black,\nwhich have been driven, or rather which have followed their shepherd,\ninto the city to be milked. The majestical, long-bearded, patriarchal\nrams shake their bells and parade solemnly round,--while the silken\nfemales clatter their little hoofs as they run from the hand of the\nmilker when he has filled his can. The shepherd is kept pretty busy,\ntoo, milking at everybody's door; and before the fashionable world is\nup at nine, the milk is gone and the goats are off.\n\nYou may know that it is May by the orange and lemon stands, which are\nerected in almost every piazza. These are little booths covered with\ncanvas, and fantastically adorned with lemons and oranges intermixed,\nwhich, piled into pyramids and disposed about everywhere, have a very\ngay effect. They are generally placed near a fountain, the water of\nwhich is conducted through a _canna_ into the centre of the booth, and\nthere, finding its own level again, makes a little spilling fountain\nfrom which the _bibite_ are diluted. Here for a _baiocco_ one buys\nlemonade or orangeade and all sorts of curious little drinks or\n_bibite_, with a feeble taste of anisette or some other herb to take\noff the mawkishness of the water,--or for a half-_baiocco_ one may have\nthe lemonade without sugar, and in this way it is usually drunk. On all\n_festa_-days, little portable tables are carried round the streets,\nhung to the neck of the _limonaro_, and set down at convenient spots,\nor whenever a customer presents himself, and the cries of \"_Acqua\nfresca,--limonaro, limonaro,--chi vuol bere?_\" are heard on all sides;\nand I can assure you, that, after standing on tiptoe for an hour in the\nheat and straining your neck and head to get sight of some Church\nprocession, you are glad enough to go to the extravagance of even a\nlemonade with sugar; and smacking your lips, you bless the institution\nof the _limonaro_ as one which must have been early instituted by the\nGood Samaritan. Listen to his own description of himself in one of the\npopular _canzonetti_ sung about the streets by wandering musicians to\nthe accompaniment of a violin and guitar:--\n\n  \"Ma per altro son uomo ingegnoso,\n    Non possiedo, ma sono padrone;\n    Vendo l' acqua con spirto e limone\n  Finche dura d' estate il calor.\n\n  \"Ho an capello di paglia,--ma bello!\n    Un zinale di sopra fino;\n    Chi mi osserva nel mio tavolino,\n  Gli vien sete, se sete non ha.\n\n  \"Spaccio spirti, siroppi, acquavite\n    Fo 'ranciate di nuova invenzione;\n    Voi vedete quante persone\n  Chiedon acqua,--e rispondo,--Son qu\u00e0!\"\n\nThe _limonaro_ is the exponent, the algebraic power, of the Church\nprocessions which abound this month; and he is as faithful to them as\nBoswell to Johnson;--wherever they appear, he is there to console and\nrefresh. Nor is his office a sinecure now; and let us hope that he has\nhis small profits, as well as the Church,--though they spell theirs\ndifferently.\n\nThe great procession of the year takes place this month on Corpus\nDomini, and is well worth seeing, as being the very finest and most\ncharacteristic of all the Church festivals. It was instituted in honor\nof the famous miracle at Bolsena, when the wafer dripped blood, and is,\ntherefore, in commemoration of one of the cardinal doctrines of the\nRoman Church, Transubstantiation, and one of its most theological\nmiracles. The Papal procession takes place in the morning, in the\npiazza of Saint Peter's; and if you would be sure of it, you must be on\nthe spot as soon as eight o'clock at the latest. The whole circle of\nthe piazza itself is covered with an awning, festooned gayly with\ngarlands of box, under which the procession passes; and the ground is\ncovered with yellow sand, over which box and bay are strewn. The\ncelebration commences with morning mass in the basilica, and that over,\nthe procession issues from one door, and, making the whole circuit of\nthe piazza, returns into the church. First come the _Seminaristi_, or\nscholars and attendants of the various hospitals and charity-schools,\nsuch as San Michele and Santo Spirito,--all in white. Then follow the\nbrown-cowled, long-bearded Franciscans, the white Carmelites, and the\nblack Benedictines, bearing lighted candles and chanting hoarsely as\nthey go. You may see pass before you now all the members of these\ndifferent conventual orders that there are in Rome, and have an\nadmirable opportunity to study their physiognomies in mass. If you are\na convert to Romanism, you will perhaps find in their bald beads and\nshaven crowns and bearded faces a noble expression of reverence and\nhumility; but, suffering as I do under the misfortune of being a\nheretic, I could but remark on their heads an enormous development of\nthe two organs of reverence and firmness, and a singular deficiency in\nthe upper forehead, while there was an almost universal enlargement of\nthe lower jaw and of the base of the brain. Being, unfortunately, a\nfriend of Phrenology, as well as a heretic, I drew no very auspicious\naugury from these developments; and looking into their faces, the\nphysiognomical traits were narrow-mindedness, bigotry, or cunning. The\nBenedictine heads showed more intellect and will; the Franciscans more\ndulness and good-nature.\n\nBut while I am criticizing them, they are passing by, and a picturesque\nset of fellows they are. Much as I dislike the conventual creed, I\nshould be sorry to see the costume disappear. Directly on the heels of\ntheir poverty come the three splendid triple crowns of the Pope,\nglittering with gorgeous jewels, and borne in triumph on silken\nembroidered cushions, and preceded by the court jeweller. After them\nfollow the chapters, canons, and choirs of the seven basilicas,\nchanting in lofty altos and solid basses and clear ringing tenors from\ntheir old Church books, each basilica bearing a typical tent of colored\nstripes and a wooden campanile and a bell which is constantly rung.\nNext come the canons of the churches and the _monsignori_, in splendid\ndresses and rich capes of beautiful lace falling below their waists;\nthe bishops clad in cloth of silver with mitres on their heads; the\ncardinals brilliant in gold embroidery and gleaming in the sun; and at\nlast the Pope himself, borne on a platform splendid with silver and\ngold, with a rich canopy over his head. Beneath this he kneels, or\nrather, seems to kneel; for, though his splendid draperies and train\nare skilfully arranged so as to present this semblance, being drawn\nbehind him over two blocks which are so placed as to represent his\nheels, yet in fact he is seated on a sunken bench or chair, as any\ncareful eye can plainly see. However, kneeling or sitting, just as you\nwill, there he is, before an altar, holding up the _ostia_, which is\nthe _corpus Domini_, \"the body of God,\" and surrounded by officers of\nthe Swiss guards in glittering armor, chamberlains in their beautiful\nblack and Spanish dresses with ruffs and swords, attendants in scarlet\nand purple costumes, and the _guardia nobile_ in their red dress\nuniforms. Nothing could be more striking than this group. It is the\nvery type of the Church,--pompous, rich, splendid, imposing. After them\nfollow the dragoons mounted,--first a company on black horses, then\nanother on bays, and then a third on grays; foot-soldiers with flashing\nbayonets bring up the rear, and the procession is over. As the last\nsoldiers enter the church, there is a stir among the gilt equipages of\nthe cardinals which line one side of the piazza,--the horses toss their\nscarlet plumes, the liveried servants sway as the carriages lumber on,\nand you may spend a half-hour hunting out your own humble vehicle, if\nyou have one, or throng homeward on foot with the crowd through the\nBorgo and over the bridge of Sant' Angelo.\n\nThis grand procession strikes the note of all the others, and in the\nafternoon each parish brings out its banners, arrays itself in its\nchoicest dresses, and with pomp and music bears the _ostia_ through the\nstreets, the crowd kneeling before it, and the priests chanting. During\nthe next _ottava_ or eight days, all the processions take place in\nhonor of this festival; and when the week has passed, everything ends\nwith the Papal procession in Saint Peter's piazza, when, without music,\nand with uncovered heads, the Pope, cardinals, _monsignori_, canons,\nand the rest of the priests and officials, make the round of the\npiazza, bearing great Church banners.\n\nOne of the most striking of their celebrations took place this year at\nthe church of San Rocco in the Ripetta, when the church was made\nsplendid with lighted candles and gold bands, and a preacher held forth\nto a crowded audience in the afternoon. At Ave Maria there was a great\nprocession, with banners, music, and torches, and all the evening the\npeople sauntered to and fro in crowds before the church, where a\nplatform was erected and draped with old tapestries, from which a band\nplayed constantly. Do not believe, my dear Presbyterian friend, that\nthese spectacles fail deeply to affect the common mind. So long as\nhuman nature remains the same, this splendor and pomp of processions,\nthese lighted torches and ornamented churches, this triumphant music\nand glad holiday of religion will attract more than your plain\nconventicles, your ugly meeting-houses, and your compromise with the\nbass-viol. For my own part, I do not believe that music and painting\nand all the other arts really belong to the Devil, or that God gave him\njoy and beauty to deceive with, and kept only the ugly, sour, and sad\nfor himself. We are always better when we are happy; and we are about\nas sure of being good when we are happy, as of being happy when we are\ngood. Cheerfulness and happiness are, in my humble opinion, duties and\nhabits to be cultivated; but, if you don't think so, I certainly would\nnot deny you the privilege of being wretched: don't let us quarrel\nabout it.\n\nRather let us turn to the Artists' Festival, which takes place in this\nmonth, and is one of the great attractions of the season. Formerly,\nthis festival took place at Cerbara, an ancient Etruscan town on the\nCampagna, of which only certain subterranean caves remain. But during\nthe revolutionary days which followed the disasters of 1848, it was\nsuspended for two or three years by the interdict of the Papal\ngovernment, and when it was again instituted, the place of meeting was\nchanged to Fidenae, the site of another Etruscan town, with similar\nsubterranean excavations, which were made the head-quarters of the\nfestival. But the new railway to Bologna having been laid out directly\nover this ground, the artists have been again driven away, and this\nyear the _festa_ was held, for the first time, in the grove of Egeria,\none of the most beautiful spots on the whole Campagna,--and here it is\nto be hoped it will have an abiding rest.\n\nThis festival was instituted by the German artists, and, though the\nartists of all nations now join in it, the Germans still remain its\nspecial patrons and directors. Early in the morning, the artists\nrendezvous at an appointed _osteria_ outside the walls, dressed in\nevery sort of grotesque and ludicrous costume which can be imagined.\nAll the old dresses which can be rummaged out of the studios or\ntheatres, or pieced together from masking wardrobes, are now in\nrequisition. Indians and Chinese, ancient warriors and mediaeval\nheroes, militia-men and Punches, generals in top-boots and pigtails,\ndoctors in gigantic wigs and small-clothes, Falstaffs and justices\n\"with fair round belly with good capon lined,\" magnificent foolscaps,\nwooden swords with terrible inscriptions, gigantic chapeaus with plumes\nmade of vegetables, in a word, every imaginable absurdity is to be\nseen. Arrived at the place of rendezvous, they all breakfast, and then\nthe line of march is arranged. A great wooden cart, adorned with quaint\ndevices, garlanded with laurel and bay, bears the president and\ncommittee. This is drawn by great white oxen, who are decorated with\nwreaths and flowers and gay trappings, and from it floats the noble\nbanner of Cerbara or Fidenae. After this follows a strange and motley\ntrain,--some mounted on donkeys, some on horses, and some afoot,--and\nthe line of march is taken up for the grove of Egeria. What mad jests\nand wild fun now take place it is impossible to describe; suffice it to\nsay, that all are right glad of a little rest when they reach their\ndestination.\n\nNow begin to stream out from the city hundreds of carriages,--for all\nthe world will be abroad to-day to see,--and soon the green slopes are\nswarming with gay crowds. Some bring with them a hamper of provisions\nand wine, and, spreading them on the grass, lunch and dine when and\nwhere they will; but those who would dine with the artists must have\nthe order of the _mezzo baiocco_ hanging to their buttonhole, which is\ndistributed previously in Rome to all the artists who purchase tickets.\nSome few there are who also bear upon their breasts the nobler medal of\n_troppo merito_, gained on previous days, and those are looked upon\nwith due reverence.\n\nBut before dinner or lunch there is a high ceremony to take place,--the\ngreat feature of the day. It is the mock-heroic play. This year it was\nthe meeting of Numa with the nymph Egeria at the grotto; and thither\nwent the festive procession; and the priest, befilletted and draped in\nwhite, burned upon the altar as a sacrifice a great toy sheep, whose\noffence \"smelt to heaven\"; and then from the niches suddenly appeared\nNuma, a gallant youth in spectacles, and Egeria, a Spanish artist with\nwhite dress and fillet, who made vows over the smoking sheep, and then\nwere escorted back to the sacred grove with festal music by a joyous,\nturbulent crowd.\n\nLast year, however, at Fidenae, it was better. We had a travesty of the\ntaking of Troy, which was eminently ludicrous, and which deserves a\nbetter description than I can give. Troy was a space inclosed within\npaper barriers, about breast-high, painted \"to present a wall,\" and\nwithin these were the Trojans, clad in red, and all wearing gigantic\npaper helmets. There was old Priam, in spectacles, with his crown and\nrobes,--Laoco\u00f6n, in white, with a white wool beard and wig,--Ulysses,\nin a long, yellow beard and mantle,--and Aeneas, with a bald head, in a\nblue, long-tailed coat, and tall dickey, looking like the traditional\nEnglishman in the circus who comes to hire the horse. The Grecians were\nencamped at a short distance. All had round, basket-work shields,--some\nwith their names painted on them in great letters, and some with an odd\ndevice, such as a cat or pig. There were Ulysses, Agamemnon, Ajax,\nNestor, Patroclus, Diomedes, Achilles, \"all honorable men.\" The drama\ncommenced with the issuing of Paris and Helen from the walls of\nTroy,--he in a tall, black French hat, girdled with a gilt crown, and\nshe in a white dress, with a great wig hanging round her face in a\nprofusion of carrotty curls. Queer figures enough they were, as they\nstepped along together, caricaturing love in a pantomime, he making\nterrible demonstrations of his ardent passion, and she finally falling\non his neck in rapture. This over, they seated themselves near by two\nlarge pasteboard rocks, he sitting on his shield and taking out his\nflute to play to her, while she brought forth her knitting and ogled\nhim as he played. While they were thus engaged, came creeping up with\nthe stage stride of a double step, and dragging one foot behind him,\nMenelaus, whom Thersites had, meantime, been taunting, by pointing at\nhim two great ox-horns. He walked all round the lovers, pantomiming\nrage and jealousy in the accredited ballet style, and then, suddenly\napproaching, crushed poor Paris's great black hat down over his eyes.\nBoth, very much frightened, then took to their heels and rushed into\nthe city, while Menelaus, after shaking Paris's shield, in defiance, at\nthe walls, retired to the Grecian camp. Then came the preparations for\nbattle. The Trojans leaned over their paper battlements, with their\nfingers to their noses, twiddling them in scorn, while the Greeks shook\ntheir fists back at them. The battle now commenced on the\n\"ringing-plains of Troy,\" and was eminently absurd. Paris, in hat and\npantaloons, (_\u00e0 la mode de Paris_,) soon showed the white feather, and\nincontinently fled. Everybody hit nowhere, fiercely striking the ground\nor the shields, and always carefully avoiding, as on the stage, to hit\nin the right place. At last, however, Patroclus was killed, whereupon\nthe battle was suspended, and a grand _tableau_ of surprise and horror\ntook place, from which at last they recovered, and the Greeks prepared\nto carry him off on their shoulders. Then terrible to behold was the\ngrief of Achilles. Homer himself would have wept to see him. He flung\nhimself on the body, and shrieked, and tore his hair, and violently\nshook the corpse, which, under such demonstrations, now and then kicked\nup. Finally, he rises and challenges Hector to single combat, and out\ncomes the valiant Trojan, and a duel ensues with wooden axes. Such\nblows and counter blows were never seen, only they never hit, but often\nwhirled the warrior who dealt them completely round; they tumbled over\ntheir own blows, panted with feigned rage, lost their robes and great\npasteboard helmets, and were even more absurd than Richmond and Richard\never were on the country boards at a fifth-rate theatre. But Hector is\nat last slain and borne away, and a ludicrous lay figure is laid out to\nrepresent him, with bunged-up eyes and a general flabbiness of body and\nwant of features, charming to behold. On their necks the Trojans bear\nhim to their walls, and with a sudden jerk pitch him over them head\nfirst, and he tumbles, in a heap, into the city. Then Ulysses harangues\nthe Greeks. He has brought out a _quarteruola_ barrel of wine, which,\nwith most expressive pantomime, he shows to be the wooden horse that\nmust be carried into Troy. His proposition is joyfully accepted, and,\naccompanied by all, he rolls the cask up to the walls, and, flourishing\na tin cup in one hand, invites the Trojans to partake. At first there\nis confusion in the city, and fingers are twiddled over the walls, but\nafter a time all go out and drink, and become ludicrously drunk, and\nstagger about, embracing each other in the most maudlin style. Even\nHelen herself comes out, gets tipsy with the rest, and dances about\nlike the most disreputable of Maenades. A great scena, however, takes\nplace as they are about to drink. Laoco\u00f6n, got up in white wool,\nappears, and violently endeavors to dissuade them, but in vain. In the\nmidst of his harangue, a long string of blown up sausage-skins is\ndragged in for the serpent, and suddenly cast about his neck. His sons\nand he then form a group, the sausage-snake is twined about them,--only\nthe old story is reversed, and he bites the serpent instead of the\nserpent biting him,--and all die in agony, travestying the ancient\ngroup.\n\nAll, being now drunk, go in, and Ulysses with them. A quantity of straw\nis kindled, the smoke rises, the Greeks approach and dash in the paper\nwalls with clubs, and all is confusion. Then Aeneas, in his blue\nlong-tailed circus-coat, broad white hat, and tall shirt-collar,\ncarries off old Anchises on his shoulders with a cigar in his mouth,\nand bears him to a painted section of a vessel, which is rocked to and\nfro by hand, as if violently agitated by the waves. Aeneas and Anchises\nenter the boat, or rather stand behind it so as to conceal their legs,\nand off it sets, rocked to and fro constantly,--Aeolus and Tramontana\nfollowing behind, with bellows to blow up a wind, and Fair Weather,\nwith his name written on big back, accompanying them. The violent\nmotion, however, soon makes Aeneas sick, and as he leans over the side\nin a helpless and melancholy manner, and almost gives up the ghost, as\nwell as more material things, the crowd burst into laughter. However,\nat last they reach two painted rocks, and found Latium, and a general\nrejoicing takes place.--The donkey who was to have ended all by\ndragging the body of Hector round the walls came too late, and this\npart of the programme did not take place.\n\nSo much of the entertainment over, preparations are made for dinner. In\nthe grove of Egeria the plates are spread in circles, while all the\ncompany sing part-songs and dance. At last all is ready, the signal is\ngiven, and the feast takes place after the most rustic manner. Great\nbarrels of wine covered with green branches stand at one side, from\nwhich flagons are filled and passed round, and the good appetites soon\nmake direful gaps in the beef and mighty plates of lettuce. After this,\nand a little sauntering about for digestion's sake, come the afternoon\nsports. And there are donkey races, and tilting at a ring, and\nfoot-races, and running in sacks. Nothing can be more picturesque than\nthe scene, with its motley masqueraders, its crowds of spectators\nseated along the slopes, its little tents here and there, its races in\nthe valley, and, above all, the glorious mountains looking down from\nthe distance. Not till the golden light slopes over the Campagna,\ngilding the skeletons of aqueducts, and drawing a delicate veil of\nbeauty over the mountains, can we tear ourselves away, and rattle back\nin our carriage to Rome.\n\nThe wealthy Roman families, who have villas in the immediate vicinity\nof Rome, now leave the city to spend a month in them and breathe the\nfresh air of spring. Many and many a tradesman who is well to do in the\nworld has a little _vigna_ outside the gates, where he raises\nvegetables and grapes and other fruits; and every _festa_-day you will\nbe sure to find him and his family out in his little _villetta_,\nwandering about the grounds or sitting beneath his arbors, smoking and\nchatting with his children around him. His friends who have no villas\nof their own here visit him, and often there is a considerable company\nthus collected, who, if one may judge from their cheerful countenances\nand much laughter, enjoy themselves mightily. Knock at any of these\nvilla-gates, and, if you happen to have the acquaintance of the owner,\nor are evidently a stranger of respectability, you will be received\nwith much hospitality, invited to partake of the fruit and wine, and\noverwhelmed with thanks for your _gentilezza_ when you take your leave;\nfor the Italians are a most good-natured and social people, and nothing\npleases them better than a stranger who breaks the common round of\ntopics by accounts of his own land. Everything new is to them\nwonderful, just as it is to a child. They are credulous of everything\nyou tell them about America, which is to them in some measure what it\nwas to the English in the days of Raleigh, Drake, and Hawkins, and say\n\"_Per Bacco!_\" to every new statement. And they are so magnificently\nignorant, that you have _carte blanche_ for your stories. Never did I\nknow any one staggered by anything I chose to say, but once. I was\nwalking with my respectable old _padrone_, Nisi, about his little\ngarden one day, when an ambition to know something about America\ninflamed his breast.\n\n\"Are there any mountains?\" he asked.\n\nI told him \"Yes,\" and, with a chuckle of delight, he cried,--\n\n\"_Per Bacco!_ And have you any cities?\"\n\n\"Yes, a few little ones,\"--for I thought I would sing small, contrary\nto the general \"'Ercles vein\" of my countrymen. He was evidently\npleased that they were small, and, swelling with natural pride, said,--\n\n\"Large as Rome, of course, they could not be\"; then, after a moment, he\nadded, interrogatively, \"And rivers, too,--have you any rivers?\"\n\n\"A few,\" I answered.\n\n\"But not as large as our Tiber,\" he replied,--feeling assured, that, if\nthe cities were smaller than Rome, as a necessary consequence, the\nrivers that flowed by them must be in the same category.\n\nThe bait now offered was too tempting. I measured my respectable and\nsomewhat obese friend carefully with my eye, for a moment, and then\nhurled this terrible fact at him:--\n\n\"We have some rivers three thousand miles long.\"\n\nThe effect was awful. He stood and stared at me, as if petrified, for a\nmoment. Then the blood rushed into his face, and, turning on his heel,\nhe took off his hat, said suddenly, \"_Buona sera_,\" and carried my fact\nand his opinions together up into his private room. I am afraid that\nDon Pietro decided, on consideration, that I had been taking\nunwarrantable liberties with him, and exceeding all proper bounds, in\nmy attempt to impose on his good-nature. From that time forward he\nasked me no more questions about America.\n\nAnd here, by the way, I am reminded of an incident, which, though not\nexactly pertinent, may find here a parenthetical place, merely as\nillustrating some points of Italian character. One fact and two names\nrelating to America they know universally,--Columbus and his discovery\nof America, and Washington.\n\n\"_S\u00ec, Signore_,\" said a respectable person some time since, as he was\ndriving me to see a carriage which he wished to sell me, and therefore\ndesired to be particularly polite to me and my nation,--\"a great man,\nyour Vashintoni! but I was sorry to hear, the other day, that his\nfather had died in London.\"\n\n\"His father dead, and in London?\" I stammered, completely confounded at\nthis extraordinary news, and fearing lest I had been too stupid in\nmisunderstanding him.\n\n\"Yes,\" he said, \"it is too true that his father Vellintoni is dead. I\nread it in the _Diario di Roma_.\"\n\nBut better than this was the ingenious argument of a _Frate_, whom I\nmet on board a steamer in going from Leghorn to Genoa, and who, having\npumped out the fact that I was an American, immediately began to\n\"improve\" it in a discourse on Columbus. So he informed me that\nColumbus was an Italian, and that he had discovered America, and was a\nremarkable man; to all of which I readily assented, as being true, if\nnot new. But now a severe abstract question began to tax my friend's\npowers. He said, \"But how could he ever have imagined that the\ncontinent of America was there? That's the question. It is\nextraordinary indeed!\" And so he sat cogitating, and saying, at\nintervals, \"_Curioso! Straordinario!_\" At last \"a light broke in upon\nhis brain.\" Some little bird whispered the secret. His face lightened,\nand, looking at me, he said, \"Perhaps he may have read that it was\nthere in some old book, and so went to see if it were or no.\" Vainly I\nendeavored to show him that this view would deprive Columbus of his\ngreatest distinction. He answered invariably, \"But without having read\nit, how could he ever have known it?\"--thus putting the earth upon the\ntortoise and leaving the tortoise to account for his own support.\n\nImagine that I have told you these stories sitting under the vine and\nfig-tree of some _villetta_, while Angiolina has gone to call the\n_padrone_, who will only be too glad to see you. But, _ecco!_ at last\nour _padrone_ comes. No, it is not the _padrone_, it is the\n_vignarualo_, who takes care of his grapes and garden, and who\nrecognizes us as friends of the _padrone_, and tells us that we are\nourselves _padroni_ of the whole place, and offers us all sorts of\nfruits.\n\nOne old custom, which existed in Rome some fifteen years ago, has now\npassed away with other good old things. It was the celebration of the\n_Fravolata_ or Strawberry-Feast, when men in gala-dress at the height\nof the strawberry-season went in procession through the streets,\ncarrying on their heads enormous wooden platters heaped with this\ndelicious fruit, accompanied by girls in costume, who, beating their\n_tamburelli_, danced along at their sides and sung the praises of the\nstrawberry. After threading the streets of the city, they passed\nsinging out of the gates, and at different places on the Campagna spent\nthe day in festive sports and had an out-door dinner and dance.\n\nOne of these festivals still exists, however, in the picturesque town\nof Genzano, which lies above the old crater now filled with the still\nwaters of Lake Nemi, and is called the _Infiorata di Genzano_, \"The\nFlower-Festival of Genzano.\" It takes place on the eighth day of the\nCorpus Domini, and receives its name from the popular custom of\nspreading flowers upon the pavements of the streets so as to represent\nheraldic devices, figures, arabesques, and all sorts of ornamental\ndesigns. The people are all dressed in their effective costumes,--the\ngirls in _busti_ and silken skirts, with all their corals and jewels\non, and the men with white stockings on their legs, their velvet\njackets dropping over one shoulder, and flowers and rosettes in their\nconical hats. The town is then very gay, the bells clang, the incense\nsteams from the censer in the church, where the organ peals and mass is\nsaid, and a brilliant procession marches over the strewn flower-mosaic,\nwith music and crucifixes and Church-banners. Hundreds of strangers,\ntoo, are there to look on; and on the Cesarini Piazza and under the\nshadow of the long avenues of ilexes that lead to the tower are\nhundreds of handsome girls, with their snowy _tovaglie_ peaked over\ntheir heads. The rub and thrum of _tamburelli_ and the clicking of\ncastanets are heard, too, as twilight comes on, and the _salterello_ is\ndanced by many a group. This is the national Roman dance, and is named\nfrom the little jumping step which characterizes it. Any number of\ncouples dance it, though the dance is perfect with two. Some of the\nmovements are very graceful and piquant, and particularly that where\none of the dancers kneels and whirls her arms on high, clicking her\ncastanets, while the other circles her round and round, striking his\nhands together, and approaching nearer and nearer, till he is ready to\ngive her a kiss, which she refuses: of course it is the old story of\nevery national dance,--love and repulse, love and repulse, until the\nmaiden yields. As one couple panting and rosy retires, another fresh\none takes its place, while the bystanders play on the accordion the\nwhirling, circling, never-ending tune of the Tarantella, which would\n\"put a spirit of youth in everything.\"\n\nIf you are tired of the festival, roam up a few paces out of the crowd,\nand you stand upon the brink of Lake Nemi. Over opposite, and crowning\nthe height where the little town of Nemi perches, frowns the old feudal\ncastle of the Colonna, with its tall, round tower, where many a\nprincely family has dwelt and many an unprincely act has been done.\nThere, in turn, have dwelt the Colonna, Borgia, Piccolomini, Cenci,\nFrangipani, and Braschi, and there the descendants of the last-named\nfamily still pass a few weeks in the summer.[1] Below you, silent and\nsilvery, lies the lake itself,--and rising around it, like a green\nbowl, tower its richly wooded banks, covered with gigantic oaks,\nilexes, and chestnuts. This was the ancient grove dedicated to Diana,\nwhich extended to L'Ariccia; and here are still to be seen the vestiges\nof an ancient villa built by Julius Caesar. Here, too, if you trust\nsome of the antiquaries, once stood the temple of Diana Nemorensis,[2]\nwhere human sacrifices were offered, and whose chief-priest, called\n_Rex Nemorensis_, obtained his office by slaying his predecessor, and\nreigned over these groves by force of his personal arm. Times have,\nindeed, changed since the priesthood was thus won and baptized by\nblood; and as you stand there, and look, on the one side, at the site\nof this ancient temple, which some of the gigantic chestnut-trees may\nalmost have seen in their youth, and, on the other side, at the\ncampanile of the Catholic church at Genzano, with its flower-strewn\npavements, you may have as sharp a contrast between the past and the\npresent as can easily be found.\n\n[Footnote 1: On the Genzano side stands the castellated villa of the\nCesarini Sforza, looking peacefully across the lake at the rival tower,\nwhich in the old baronial days it used to challenge,--and in its\ngarden-pond you may see stately white swans oaring their way with rosy\nfeet along.]\n\n[Footnote 2: The better opinion of late seems to be that it was on the\nslopes of the Val d'Ariccia. But \"who shall decide, when doctors\ndisagree?\"]\n\n\n\n\nTHRENODIA.\n\n\nADDRESSED TO ALFRED TENNYSON, P.L., IN RESPONSE TO VERSES OF HIS \"ON A\nLATE EVENT IN ENGLAND.\"\n\n  I heard you In your English home,--\nI read you by my little brook,\n  Thousands of miles from British foam,\nHid in my dear New England nook:\nBut heard you with a sullen look;\n  But read you with a gloomy brow;\nAnd thus unto my Muse I spoke:--\n  Who is there to write history now?\n\n  Hallam is dead! and Prescott gone!\nAnd Irving sleeps at Sunnyside!\n  And now that Lord has wandered on,\nWhose laurels must with theirs abide:\nI greatly mourned the man who died\n  First on this dismal roll of death,--\nAnd him, of all observers eyed,\n  My townsman here, who spent his breath\n\n  In telling of the things of Spain,\nAnd doing friendly things to friends,\n  Prescott, well known beyond the main\nAnd past the Pillars, to earth's ends:\nBoth had my tears: but England sends\n  Another word across the seas,\nMight rouse the dying from his bed:\n  Oh, bear it gently, ocean-breeze!\nThat bitter word,--Thy friend is dead!\n\n  Macaulay dead, who made to live\nPast kingdoms, with his vivid brain!\n  Who could such warmth to shadows give,\nBy the mere magic of his pen,\nThat Charles and England rose again!\n  Well sleeps he 'mid the Abbey's dust:\nAnd, Laureate! thy funereal verse\n  Shall have such echo as it must\nFrom hearts just wrung at Irving's hearse.\n\n  These are two names to mark the year\nAs one of memorable woe,\n  Two men to the two nations dear\nLaid in one fatal winter low!\nAbout the streets the mourners go;\n  But I within my chamber rest,\nOr walk the room with measured tread,\n  Murmuring, with head upon my breast,\nMy God! and is Macaulay dead?\n\n\n\n\nGENERAL MIRANDA'S EXPEDITION.\n\n\nIn November, 1805, a good-looking foreigner, gentlemanlike in dress\nand in manner, and apparently fifty years of age, arrived in New York\nfrom England, and took lodgings at Mrs. Avery's, State Street. He\ncalled himself George Martin; but this incognito was intended only for\nthe vulgar. Some of the principal citizens of New York, who recollected\nhis first visit to this country twenty years before, knew him as Don\nFrancisco de Miranda of Caracas, one of the most distinguished\nadventurers of that revolutionary era,--a favorite of the Empress of\nRussia, a friend of Mr. Pitt, and second in command under Dumouriez in\nthe Belgian campaign of 1793. To these gentlemen he avowed that for\nmany years he had meditated the independence of the Spanish-American\nColonies, and meant to make an attempt to carry out his plans. On\nEvacuation Day, a New York festival, which is now nearly worn out, they\ninvited him to a Corporation dinner, as a foreign officer of rank, and\ntoasted him, wishing him the same success in South America that we had\nhad here. He then went to Washington, under the name of Molini. There,\nas everywhere, he was received by the best society as General Miranda.\nThe President and the Secretary of State, Mr. Madison, granted him\nseveral private interviews. In January he returned to New York,--and on\nthe 2d of February departed thence mysteriously in the Leander, a ship\nbelonging to Mr. Samuel G. Ogden, merchant.\n\nWhile the Leander lay at anchor off Staten Island, a gentleman notified\nthe Naval Officer of the Port, that large quantities of arms and\nammunition had been taken on board of her in boats, at night. He was\ninformed in return, that the Leander was cleared for Jacquemel, and\nthat no law existed to prevent her from sailing. No other attempt was\nmade to detain her; but a few weeks later, rumors affecting the\ncharacter of the ship broke out in a more decided form. It was\ngenerally believed at the Tontine Coffee-House that the Leander had\nbeen fitted out by Miranda to attack the Spanish possessions in the\nWest India Islands or on the Main. And yet the New York journals took\nno notice of her until the 21st of February, nineteen days after she\nsailed. In the mean time the Marquis Yrujo, backed by the French\nAmbassador, had made a formal complaint to Government, and had caused\nthe insertion in the \"Philadelphia Gazette\" of a series of\ninterrogatories to Mr. Madison, which indirectly accused the\nAdministration of encouraging Miranda's preparations, or at least of\nconniving at the expedition. This perverse Marquis, who gave Mr.\nJefferson a taste of the annoyance which Genet, Adet, and Fauchet had\ninflicted upon the previous administrations, was clamorous and\npersisting. The authorities in Washington thought it proper to order\nthe arrest of Mr. Ogden, and of Colonel William Smith, son-in-law of\nJohn Adams and Surveyor of the Port of New York, under the Act of 1794.\nThe prisoners were taken before Judge Tallmadge of the United States\nDistrict Court. They were refused counsel, and were forced by threats\nof imprisonment to submit to a searching examination. They were then\nheld to bail, both as principals and witnesses, in the sum of twenty\nthousand dollars. Soon after, the President removed Colonel Smith from\nhis office.\n\nSuch a waste of editorial raw-material appears very singular to\nnewspaper-readers of the present day, accustomed as they are to see in\nprint everything that has happened or that might have happened; but we\nmust recollect that our grandfathers found the excitement necessary to\ncivilized man in party politics, national and local. This game they\nplayed with a fierce eagerness which is now limited to a small class of\ninferior men.\n\nTo the violence and personal spitefulness of their newspaper articles\nwe have fortunately nothing comparable, even in the speeches of\nHonorable Members on Helper and John Brown. The \"_Tu quoque_\" and the\n\"_Vos damnamini_\" were their favorite logical processes, and \"Fool\" and\n\"Liar\" the simple and conclusive arguments with which they established\na principle. Not that these ancients suffered at all from a lack of\nstirring news. Bonaparte's wonderful campaigns, (Austerlitz had just\nbeen heard of in New York,) the outrages on our sailors by English\ncruisers, our merchantmen plundered by French and Spanish privateers,\nthe irritating behavior of the Dons in Louisiana, kept them abundantly\nsupplied with this staff of mental life. But they did not care much for\nnews in the abstract as news, unless they could work it up into\npolitical ammunition and discharge it at each other's heads. We must\nnot forget, too, that newspaper-editing, the \"California of the\nspiritually vagabond,\" as Carlyle calls it, was a recent discovery, and\nthat the rich mine was but surface-worked. \"Our own Reporter\" was, like\nMilton's original lion, only half unearthed; and deep hidden from\nmortal eyes as yet lay the sensation-items-man, who has made the\nlast-dying-speech-and-confession style of literature the principal\nelement of our daily press.\n\nAt last the Federal editors gave tongue. It was high time; the town was\nin an uproar. They perceived that Miranda might become a useful ally\nagainst Mr. T. Jefferson. His expedition came opportunely, as the\nMammoth Cheese and Black Sally were beginning to grow stale. Mr. Lang\nopened the cry in the \"New York Gazette\" by asserting the complicity of\nGovernment, on the authority of a \"gentleman of the first\nrespectability,\"--meaning Mr. Rufus King.--Cheetham, of the \"Citizen,\"\nbarked back at Lang, a would-be \"Solomon,\" \"a foul and abominable\nslanderer.\" Mr. King, he could prove, had been examined, and had\nnothing to reveal.--Tom Paine wrote to the \"Citizen\" to mention that he\nhad known Miranda in New York in 1783 and in Paris in 1793. Mr.\nLittlepage of Virginia, Chamberlain to the King of Poland, had then\ninformed him that the Empress Catharine had given Miranda four thousand\npounds \"as a retaining fee,\" and that Mr. Pitt had also paid him twelve\nhundred pounds for his services in the Nootka Sound business.--All the\nFederal papers charged the Government with connivance. You knew the\ndestination of the Leander; you did not prevent her from sailing; you\nnourished the offence until it attained maturity, and then, after\npermitting the principals to go upon this expedition, you seize upon\nthe accessories who remain at home. And in how shameful and illegal a\nway! You examine them before a single judge, with no counsel to advise\nthem. You force them to criminate themselves, and to sign their\nconfessions, by the threat of imprisonment; and you punish Colonel\nSmith before you have tried him, by depriving him of his office. Why,\nsuch a proceeding is worse than any \"Inquisitorial Tribunal\" or\n\"Star-Chamber Court.\"--Nonsense! answered the Democrats. Ogden's and\nSmith's testimony does not implicate the Government in the least. It\nonly proves that Smith has been the dupe of Miranda. The President knew\nnothing about the matter. If the object of the Leander's outfit was so\ngenerally spoken of, why did it escape the notice of the Marquis Yrujo?\nWhy did he not demand her seizure before she sailed? This charge\nagainst the Government is a mere Federal trick. Your friends, the\nBritish, are at the bottom of the expedition, and they have artfully\nemployed Rufus King, a Federal chief, to throw the blame upon the\nExecutive of the United States. By ascribing to those who administer\nthe government the atrocities committed by Transatlantic rulers, you\naim a deadly blow at the character of our system; and your conduct,\nbase in any view we can take of it, is particularly reprehensible in\nthe delicate state of our relations with Spain.\n\nMr. Cadwallader Golden, of counsel for the defendants, made a motion\nbefore Judge Tallmadge for an order to prevent the District Attorney\nfrom using the preliminary evidence taken at the private examinations.\n\"It was a proceeding,\" he said, \"arbitrary and subversive of the first\nprinciples of law and liberty,\"--\"which would have disgraced the reign\nof Charles and stained the character of Jeffries.\" The District\nAttorney was heard in opposition, and was successful.\n\nOn the 7th of April, the Grand Jury found a bill against Smith, Ogden,\nMiranda, and Thomas Lewis, captain of the Leander, for \"setting on foot\nand beginning with force and arms a certain military enterprise or\nexpedition, to be carried on from the United States against the\ndominions of a foreign prince: to wit, the dominions of the King of\nSpain; the said King of Spain then and there being at peace with the\nUnited States.\" The Grand Jury, as an evidence of their impartiality,\nor of the public feeling, also handed the Judge a presentment of\nhimself, which he put into his pocket, censuring his conduct in the\nprivate examinations, because \"unusual, oppressive, and contrary to\nlaw.\"\n\nThe trial was set down for the 14th of July. Messrs. Ogden and Smith\ndid not wait so long for a hearing. They laid their case at once before\nthe public, in two memorials addressed to Congress, complaining\nbitterly of the prosecution, not to say persecution, instituted against\nthem by the authorities in Washington, and of the cruel and oppressive\nmeasures taken by Judge Tallmadge to carry out the mandates of his\nsuperiors. If they had done wrong, they urged, it was innocently. A war\nwith Spain was imminent. The critical position of the Louisiana\nBoundary question, the President's Message of the 6th of December, and\nthe documents accompanying it, left no doubts on that point. Were they\nnot right, then, in supposing, that, under these circumstances, the\nPresident would encourage an expedition against the colonies of a\nhostile power? As evidence of Mr. Jefferson's knowledge of Miranda's\nschemes, they stated that the General had brought with him from England\na letter to \"a gentleman of the first consequence in New York,\" (Mr.\nKing,) which contained a sketch of his project: this letter was\nforwarded to the Secretary of State and laid before the President by\nhim. Miranda then went to Washington, saw the President and the\nSecretary, and wrote to the memorialists that he had fully unfolded his\nplans to both. In the course of a long conversation with Mr. Madison,\nhe asked for pecuniary assistance and for open encouragement, on the\nground that individuals might not be willing to join in the enterprise,\nif Government did not approve it,--particularly as a bill was then\nbefore Congress to prohibit the exportation of arms. He also requested\nleave of absence for Colonel Smith, who wished to accompany him. Mr.\nMadison answered, that the sentiments of the President could not be\ndoubted, but that the Government of the United States could afford no\nassistance of any kind. Private individuals were at liberty to act as\nthey pleased, provided they did not violate the laws; and New York\nmerchants would always advance money, if they saw their advantage in\nit. As to the bill Miranda had spoken of, it was unlikely that it would\npass,--and, in fact, it did not. It was impossible, Mr. Madison added,\nto grant leave of absence to Colonel Smith, although he thought him\nbetter fitted for military employment than for the custom-house. He\nclosed the interview by recommending the greatest discretion.\n\nMiranda, continued the memorialists, remained fourteen days in\nWashington after this conversation, and returned to New York confident\nof the silent approval of Government. Eleven days before the Leander\nsailed, he sent a letter to Mr. Madison, inclosing another to Mr.\nJefferson, both of which he read to Ogden and to Smith. He assured Mr.\nMadison that he had conformed in every way to the intentions of\nGovernment, and requested him to keep the secret. To Mr. Jefferson he\nwrote in a strain more fashionable ten years before than then, but well\nadapted to the sentimentality, both scientific and political, of the\n\"Philosophic President.\" Here it is:--\n\n\"I have the honor to send you, inclosed, the 'Natural and Civil History\nof Chili,' of which we conversed at Washington,--and in which you will,\nperhaps, find more than in those which have been before published on\nthe same subject, concerning this beautiful country.\n\n\"If ever the happy prediction, which you have pronounced on the future\ndestiny of our dear Columbia, is to be accomplished in our day, may\nProvidence grant that it may be under your auspices, and by the\ngenerous efforts of her own children! We shall then, in some sort,\nbehold the revival of that age, the return of which the Roman bard\ninvoked in favor of the human race:--\n\n\"'The last great age foretold by sacred rhymes\n  Renews its finished course; Saturnian times\n  Roll round again; and mighty years, begun\n  From this first orb, in radiant circles run.'\"\n\nOn Miranda's reports, these letters, and the fact that the Leander had\nnot been seized, they rested their case, and prayed for the\ninterference of Congress in their behalf.\n\nCongress unanimously granted the petitioners leave to withdraw. Such\nevidence as this, not only hearsay, but heard from the party most\ninterested in misrepresenting the Administration, was not entitled to\nmuch consideration. It had, moreover, the additional disadvantage of\nproving nothing against the President and Secretary, even if every word\nof it were admitted as true.\n\nPublic attention was diverted from the Leander, Captain Lewis, to the\nLeander, Captain Whitby. This English frigate was cruising off Sandy\nHook, bringing to inward and outward bound vessels, searching them for\narticles contraband of war, and helping herself to able-bodied seamen\nwho looked like British subjects. All of which was meekly submitted to\nin 1806. Mr. Jefferson could not overcome his doubts as to the\nconstitutionality of a fleet, and the Opposition had the twofold\npleasure of chuckling over the insults offered by John Bull to a\ngovernment with French proclivities, and of reproaching the party in\npower with its supineness and want of spirit.\n\nBut the accident of the 25th of April brought the American people to a\nproper sense of their situation, for the moment. On that day, His\nBritish Majesty's ship Leander fired a round-shot into the sloop\nRichard, bound to New York, and killed the man at the helm, John\nPierce. The body was brought to the city and borne through the\nprincipal streets, in the midst of universal excitement, anger, and\ncries for vengeance. Black streamers were displayed from the houses;\nshops were closed; the newspapers appeared in mourning. A public\nfuneral was attended by the whole population. Captain Whitby was\nindicted for murder, and took care to keep out of the reach of United\nStates law-officers. This homicide happened just in time for the May\nelection in New York. Both parties attempted to make use of it. The\nFederalists proclaimed that the blood of Pierce was on the head of\nJefferson and his followers. These retorted, that the English pirates\nwere the friends and comrades of the Federalists. Cheetham had seen the\nfirst lieutenant of the Leander, disguised, in company with eight or\nten of them, some days after the murder!!! And the Democratic\nRepublicans, as was and is still usual, had a majority at the polls.\n\nFrom time to time short paragraphs appeared in the papers, advertising\nMiranda's success. \"His flag was flying on every fort from Cumana to\nLaguayra.\" \"The whole of this fine country may be considered as lost to\nSpain.\" Then came tidings of sadder complexion. He had been beaten off\nwith the loss of forty men, taken prisoners. The Spaniards had\nthreatened to hang them as pirates, but they would not dare to do it.\nThe British had furnished Miranda with forty Spanish prisoners, as\nhostages, \"to avenge the threatened insult to the feelings of every\nfriend to the rights of self-government in every part of the world.\" At\nlast, news arrived from the Gulf which left Miranda's failure in his\nfirst attempt to land no longer doubtful. This, of course, made the\nposition of Ogden and Smith more dangerous, and their case more difficult\nto manage.\n\nWhen the trial of Colonel Smith came on, public interest revived, and\nbecame stronger than before. The court-room was crowded by intelligent\nspectators during the whole course of the proceedings, The case was\npeculiar, and had almost a dramatic interest. Here was a Government\nprosecution against a man well known in the community, for an offence\nnew to our courts; and the heads of that Government, Jefferson and\nMadison, were indirectly on trial at the same time:--\"For, if Smith and\nOgden are acquitted,\" said the Federal papers, \"then must the whole\nguilt rest on the Administration.\" Apart from the political interest of\nthe trial, the eminence of the counsel employed would have commanded an\naudience anywhere. Never, since New York has had courts of justice,\nhave so many distinguished lawyers adorned and dignified her bar as in\nthe first twenty years of this century. In this case, nearly all of the\nleaders were retained: Nathan Sandford, District Attorney, and\nPierrepoint Edwards, for the prosecution; for the defence, Cadwallader\nColden, Josiah Ogden Hoffman, Thomas Addis Emmet, Richard Harrison, and\nWashington Morton.[*]\n\n[Footnote *: Judge Patterson, of the United States Court, occupied the\nbench with Judge Tallmadge, until ill-health obliged him to withdraw.\nHe died soon after.]\n\nMr. Colden handed the Clerk a list of his witnesses, and requested him\nto call their names. Among them were those of Madison, Dearborn,\nGallatin, Granger, and Robert Smith, all members of the Government. He\nthen read the affidavit of service of subpoenas upon them on the 25th\nof May, and, inasmuch as these gentlemen had not obeyed the subpoena,\nand as Colonel Smith could not safely proceed to trial without their\ntestimony, he moved that an attachment issue against them.\n\nThe District Attorney opposed the motion, on the ground that the\ntestimony of these witnesses could not possibly be of any use to the\ndefendant. None of them were present in New York when the Leander was\nfitted out. And even if it could be shown by these witnesses that the\nAdministration had approved of this illegal expedition, it would not\nhelp the defendant. This is a country governed by laws, and not by\narbitrary edicts. If Colonel Smith had violated these laws, he had\nrendered himself liable to punishment. He could not escape by making\nthe President a _particeps criminis_. An amusing letter was read from\nMadison, Dearborn, and Smith, which stated, \"that the President, taking\ninto view the state of our public affairs, has specially signified to\nus that our official duties cannot consistently therewith be at this\njuncture dispensed with.\" They suggested that a commission should issue\nfor the purpose of taking their respective testimonies.\n\nColden insisted that this was an attempt of the Executive to interfere\nwith the Judiciary, which ought not to be tolerated. Counsel in\ncriminal cases had always the right to stand face to face with\nwitnesses. It was outrageous that the President should first approve of\nthe conduct of Colonel Smith, then order a prosecution against him and\nforbid his witnesses to attend the trial.\n\nThe Court refused to grant an attachment. And later in the trial, when\nthe defence offered Rufus King to prove the President's knowledge and\napprobation of the enterprise, the Court decided against the admission\nof the evidence.\n\nThe history of the expedition in New York, as shown by the testimony,\nwas briefly this:--Colonel Smith introduced Miranda to Ogden; and Ogden\nagreed to furnish his armed ship Leander, and to load her with the\nnecessary provisions, stores, arms, and ammunition. He estimated his\nexpenditure at seventy thousand dollars. Miranda had brought with him\nfrom London a bill of exchange on New York for eight hundred pounds,\nwhich had been paid, and had drawn bills on England and on Trinidad for\nseven thousand pounds, which had not been paid. This was all that Ogden\nhad received. But if the enterprise were successful, he was to be paid\ntwo hundred per cent, advance on the ship and cargo. Smith had engaged\nfifteen or twenty officers, without informing them of the object of the\nexpedition, but expressly stipulating in writing that they would not be\nemployed against England or France, and giving them a general verbal\nassurance that they would speedily make their fortunes. In this he was\nsincere, for he took his son from college and sent him with Miranda.\nSmith had employed John Fink, a Bowery butcher, to engage men who could\nserve on horseback. Fink enlisted twenty-three at fifteen dollars a\nmonth, and fifteen more as a bounty. They were not to be taken out of\nthe territory of the United States. Some of them were told that the\nPresident was raising a mounted guard; others, that they were to guard\nthe mail from Washington to New Orleans. One of Fink's papers was shown\non the trial, indorsed, \"Muster-Roll for the President's Guard.\" Smith\nhad furnished the bounty-money, but it did not appear that he had\nauthorized these misrepresentations of Fink, who developed a talent in\nthis business which forty years later would have made his fortune as an\nemigrant-runner. Abundant proofs of the purchase of military clothing,\narms, powder, shot, and cannon were produced.\n\nThe Counsel for Colonel Smith, unable to get the connivance of the\nAdministration before the Jury in the shape of evidence, coolly assumed\nit as established, and urged it in defence of their client. They used\nhis memorial to Congress as their brief, enlarged upon the arbitrary\nconduct of the Judge in the examinations and upon the tyrannical\ninterference of the President with their witnesses. As Mr. Emmet\ncleverly and classically remarked, quoting from Tacitus's description\nof the funeral of Junia, \"Perhaps their very absence rendered them more\ndecided witnesses in our favor.\" They also maintained that the Act of\n1794, under which the prisoner was indicted, did not prohibit an\nenterprise of this character. Even if it did, no proof existed that\nthis expedition was organized in New York. On the contrary, it was\nknown that Miranda had gone hence to Jacquemel, and had made his\npreparations there, in a port out of our jurisdiction.\n\nThis point made, they boldly went a step farther, and declared that the\nUnited States were actually at war with Spain. The affair of the\nKempers, and of Flanagan in Louisiana, the obstruction of the Mobile\nKiver, the depredations upon our commerce by Spanish privateers, were\nsufficient proof of a state of war. We had a right to meet force by\nforce. The President must have been of this opinion, else he could not\nhave violated his trust by authorizing this expedition.\n\nThe case for the defence, considered in a logical point of view, was\ndesperate; but no case is desperate before a Jury; and when Mr. Colden,\nMr. Hoffman, and Mr. Emmet had each in his own peculiar mode of\neloquence appealed to the Jury to protect their client, already\npunished by removal from his place, without a trial or even a hearing,\nfor an offence committed with, the sanction of his superior\nofficers,--when they compared this State prosecution to the attempts\nmade by despotic European governments to crush innocent men by the\nmachinery of law, and asserted that it was instituted solely to gratify\nthe malice of the King of Spain, a bitter enemy to the United\nStates,--and when they enlarged upon the grandeur of an undertaking to\ngive liberty to the down-trodden victims of Colonial tyranny, comparing\nMiranda and his friends to our own Revolutionary heroes, there could be\nbut little doubt of the verdict. But there was an uneasy feeling after\nthe District Attorney had closed. He demolished with ease the arguments\nof the other side, for not one of them had sufficient strength to stand\nalone. Smith's perpetual excuse, that he had been led astray by the\nbelief of connivance in Washington, was preposterous. If he had been\nanxious to know the sentiments of Government on the subject, he might\nat any time within six days have ascertained whether Miranda told him\ntruth or not. He spoke of the cruelty and reckless folly of all such\nattempts upon a neighboring people; asked the Jury how they would like\nto see an armed force landed upon our shores to take part with one or\nthe other of the great political parties; and closed with a few strong\nwords, as true at this day as then:--\"If you acquit the defendant, you\nsay to the world that the United States have renounced the law of\nnations,--that they permit their citizens not only to violate their own\nlaws with impunity, but to invade the people of other countries with\nhostile force in a time of peace, as avarice, ambition, or the thought\nof plunder may dictate. Such a decision would justify the acts of the\npirate on the ocean, and would sink our national character to the\nbarbarism of savage tribes.\"\n\nThe Jury were out two hours, and brought in a verdict of not guilty,\nwhich gave great satisfaction to Federal editors. A few days afterward,\nMr. Ogden was acquitted.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Mr. Jefferson, after the expiration of his second term,\nwrote to Don Valentino de Fornonda as follows:--\n\n\"Your predecessor [Yrujo] wished it to be believed that we were in\nunjustifiable co\u00f6peration in Miranda's expedition.\n\n\"I solemnly and on my personal truth and honor declare to you that this\nwas entirely without foundation, and that there was neither co\u00f6peration\nnor connivance on our part. He informed us he was about to attempt the\nliberation of his native country from bondage, and intimated a hope of\nour aid, or connivance at least. He was at once informed, that, though\nwe had great cause of complaint against Spain, and even of war, yet,\nwhenever we should think proper to act as her enemy, it should be\nopenly and aboveboard, and that our hostility should never be exercised\nby such petty means. We had no suspicion that he expected to engage men\nhere, but merely to purchase military stores. Against this there was no\nlaw, nor, consequently, any authority for us to interpose. On the other\nhand, we deemed it improper to betray his voluntary communication to\nthe agents of Spain. Although his measures were many days in\npreparation at New York, we never had the least intimation or suspicion\nof his engaging men in his enterprise until he was gone; and I presume\nthat the secrecy of his proceedings kept them equally unknown to the\nMarquis Yrujo and to the Spanish Consul at New York, since neither of\nthem gave us any information of the enlistment of men until it was too\nlate for any measures taken at Washington to prevent their departure.\"]\n\nThis is a brief account of the first filibuster-trial in the United\nStates. Other heroes of this profession, compared with whom Smith and\nOgden were spotless, have since come before our courts only to be\nturned loose upon the world again. No other result is to be\nanticipated. It is an established principle with our fellow-citizens,\nthat no man is happy, or ought to be, who lives under any other system\nof government than our own. Let a lawyer pronounce the magic formula,\n\"Liberty to the oppressed,\" or \"Free institutions to the victims of\ndespotism,\" and, _presto!_--rascality is metamorphosed into merit.\nAfter all, it makes such a difference, when it is only our neighbor's\nox that is gored!\n\nHere closed the first act of the expedition. Colonel Smith lost his\noffice, and Mr. Ogden stopped payment. The passengers by the Leander\nfared worse. There were two hundred men on board: one hundred and\ntwenty belonged to the ship; the others had been engaged by Smith and\nhis agent Fink as officers, dragoons, printers, and armorers. With the\nexception of two or three, none of them had seen their commander or\nknew their destination. The officers, all gentlemen \"of crooked\nfortunes,\" supposed that they were sailing to enlarge the area of\nfreedom somewhere in America; but what particular region of the Spanish\ndominions was to be subjected to this wholesome treatment they neither\nknew nor cared, provided they could improve their own financial\ncondition. Both officers and privates were for the most part\nserviceable, steady men, worthy of a more efficient leader.\n\nOn the 12th of February, they were overhauled and searched by H.B.M.\nship Cleopatra. Nineteen men with American protections were carried off\nin the frigate's boat, and twelve native Americans taken out of prizes\nsent back to replace them. The Leander's papers were examined and\npronounced unsatisfactory. Miranda was obliged to go on board the\nCleopatra, where he had a long private conversation with the captain.\nHe returned with full liberty to proceed, and with a written pass to\nprevent detention or search by British cruisers. This adventure was\nmade to give an air of respectability to the enterprise; and Miranda\nhinted to his suite that the English captain had promised to join him\nwith his frigate. A day or two later, the Leander took other airs upon\nherself. Meeting a small Spanish schooner, laden with logwood, off the\nHaytian coast, Lewis fired into her, and ordered the captain on board\nwith his papers, for the mere pleasure of exercising power. The\nSpaniard, as soon as he got back to his own craft, made the best of his\nway home and gave the first alarm.\n\nOn the 18th of February, they cast anchor at Jacquemel. Lewis went\nimmediately to Port au-Prince, to engage the Emperor, a ship commanded\nby his brother, to join the expedition. Miranda remained behind to\norganize his followers. He at last announced to them that he intended\nto land near Caracas; the whole country would rise at his name; his\nbrave Americans would form the nucleus and the heart of a great army;\nthere was no Spanish force in the province to resist him. In a general\norder, \"Parole, America; Countersign, Liberty,\" he assigned to his\nofficers their rank in the Columbian army, distributing them into the\nEngineers, Artillery, Dragoons, Riflemen, and Foot. Another general\norder, \"Parole, Warren; Countersign, Bunker's Hill,\" fixed the uniforms\nof the different corps,--to be distinguished by blue, yellow, or green\nfacings. All hands were set to work upon the crowded deck. Printers\nstruck off proclamations and blank commissions in the name of \"Don\nFrancisco de Miranda, Commander-in-Chief of the Columbian Army\";\ncarpenters made pike-handles; armorers repaired the arms bought in New\nYork; (they had cost little, and were worth less;) the regimental\ntailor and his disciples stitched the gay facings upon the new\nuniforms; files of awkward fellows were put through the manual exercise\nby an old drill-sergeant; and the young gentlemen officers read\ndiligently in treatises on war, or listened to the discourses of their\ngeneral upon the noble art. In the midst of this stir of preparation,\nLewis returned unsuccessful, without the ship Emperor; but Miranda\nseemed in no hurry to depart. He continued his lectures and his\ndrilling until the 28th of March. At last he hoisted the new Columbian\nflag,--a tricolor, blue, yellow, and red,--fired a grand salute, and\nstood gallantly out of the harbor, where he had wasted six precious\nweeks.\n\nCaptain Lewis had chartered at Port-au-Prince the Bee, a small, unarmed\nschooner, and had bought the Bacchus, a vessel of the same class, last\nfrom Laguayra, whose captain and men disappeared mysteriously after\ntheir arrival at Jacquemel. Some of the Leander's hands volunteered for\nthe schooners, to get out of the crowded ship; others were forced on\nboard, to make up a crew. The little fleet steered for Bonair, but,\nthrough the ignorance of their pilot, or of their captain, found\nthemselves, after a ten-days' cruise, seventy miles to leeward, off the\nGulf of Venezuela. The Leander was a dull sailer; and, with the wind\nand current against her, it took them four days to beat up to the\nIsland of Aruba, and seven more to reach Bonair. On the evening of the\n27th of April, they were lying to off Puerto Cabello, preparing to\nland, and sure of success, when they made out two Spanish\n_guardacostas_ close in shore, beating up to windward. Miranda thought\nthem unworthy of attention, and gave the order to stand in. But the\npilot mistook the landmarks, owing to the darkness, and missed the\npoint agreed upon for landing. The Bacchus was sent in to reconnoitre\nand did not return, although signals of recall were repeated throughout\nthe night. About midnight signals were noticed passing between the fort\nat Puerto Cabello and the _guardacostas_; Captain Lewis beat to\nquarters, and kept his men at their guns until morning. At daybreak the\nBacchus was seen close in shore, carrying a press of sail and closely\npursued by the Spanish vessels. The Leander bore down with a flowing\nsheet upon the enemy, fired a few ineffective shot, and then, for some\nreason best known to her captain, or to Miranda, hauled on to the wind,\nand sailed away, leaving the schooners to take care of themselves. The\n_guardacostas_ soon took possession of both, and carried their prizes,\nwith sixty prisoners, into Puerto Cabello,[1] before the eyes of their\nastonished and indignant comrades, who could not understand such a want\nof courage or conduct on the part of their chief.\n\n[Footnote 1: The unfortunate men taken in the schooners were tried at\nPuerto Cabello for piracy. Ten officers were hanged, their heads cut\noff and stuck upon poles, and six of them sent to Caracas, two to\nLaguayra, and two set up at Puerto Cabello. The other prisoners were\nsentenced to the chain-gang. The execution took place on the 21st of\nJuly, the day before Smith was acquitted in New York.]\n\nAfter this disaster, the Leander sailed for Bonair for water. Miranda\nstill assumed a confident tone, and called a council of war to\ndeliberate whether they should attempt a landing at Coro. The council\ndecided, that, in view of the loss they had sustained, it would be\nadvisable to make for Trinidad in search of reinforcements. With wind\nand tide against them, and a slow ship, the voyage was long. They were\nreduced to their last barrel of bread, when they fell in with the\nEnglish sloop-of-war Lily, Captain Campbell, who was looking for\nMiranda, and who sent supplies of all kinds on board. On the 6th of\nJune, they ran into Bridgetown, Barbadoes. Admiral Cochrane, who\ncommanded on that station, gave Miranda every assistance in his power,\nand offered to put some of his smaller vessels under his orders, upon\ncondition that all goods imported into the new state of Columbia in\nBritish bottoms should be assessed ten per cent, lower than the\nproducts of any other nation, except the United States. Miranda signed\na formal agreement to this effect, and sailed for Trinidad, accompanied\nby H.B.M. ships Lily and Express, and the Trimmer, a transport\nschooner. Captain Lewis, whose repeated quarrels with Miranda had\naffected the discipline of the force, resigned at Barbadoes. He was\nsucceeded by Captain Johnson, a daring fellow, who risked and lost life\nand property in this expedition.\n\nThe Governor of Trinidad, like all the English of the Gulf, was well\ndisposed to aid in an attack on the Spanish Provinces. Eighty\nvolunteers of all nations, most of them worthless fellows and\ncandidates for a commission, joined the fleet at this place. Miranda\nwas once more in high spirits. His army amounted to four hundred men,\nand he had secured the cooperation of the English. Success seemed\ncertain. He issued a new proclamation to his followers, headed \"To\nVictory and Wealth,\" and set sail, accompanied by seven small British\nwar-vessels and three transports.\n\nOn the 2d of August, the fleet anchored within nine miles of La Vela de\nCoro. The next day two hundred and ninety men were landed in the boats\nof the squadron. They were all \"Mirandanians,\" the English furnishing\nonly the means of transportation and the necessary supplies. As the\nboats approached the shore, they were fired upon from the bushes which\nlined the beach. The Columbians jumped into the water and charged; the\nSpaniards retreated to a fort near the shore. This was carried, sword\nin hand,--the Spaniards leaping from the walls and flying in all\ndirections. Miranda then formed his party, and marched to the town, a\nquarter of a mile distant, which was evacuated by the Spaniards with\nsuch precipitation that they left their cannon loaded. The inhabitants\nhad fled, as well as the military, carrying off all their movable\nproperty. The Columbian colors were hoisted, flags of truce sent in all\ndirections, the printed proclamations distributed about the neighboring\ncountry; but in vain; nobody appeared.\n\nThe same evening the Liberators marched twelve miles in a northwesterly\ndirection to Coro. They arrived an hour before dawn, and found the town\nsilent and deserted. Dividing themselves into two parties, they entered\ncautiously on opposite sides, for fear of an ambuscade,--but,\nunfortunately, when the detachments met in the Grand Plaza, they\nmistook each other, in the dusk of the morning, for the enemy, and\nfired. Miranda's most efficient officer fell, shot through both thighs.\nOne man was killed, and seven others badly wounded. Not a soul was\nfound in the place, except those who were too old or too ill to move,\nand the occupants of the prison. The jailer presented himself,\nsurrendered his keys, and informed the General that the Governor had\nforced the citizens to leave their homes. Miranda remained in the\ndeserted town for five days, endeavoring, by the most alluring\nproclamations, to bring the inhabitants back. But it was useless. Not a\nman presented himself. He then lost heart, and, instead of advancing\ninto the country, ordered a retreat to La Vela, and reembarked on the\n19th.\n\nThose he left behind in the Leander had been still more unfortunate.\nCaptain Johnson had gone in the boats to a river three or four miles to\nthe eastward, for water, and, while filling his casks, was set upon by\na party of Spanish soldiers. He was killed, fighting bravely, with\nfifteen of his men. The remainder escaped with difficulty.\n\nThe discomfited invaders sailed for the Island of Aruba, where their\nEnglish allies, pretty well satisfied that nothing could be done with\nthis expedition, left them. Miranda landed his men and took formal\npossession of the island. He sent an ambassador to the Governor of the\nneighboring island of Cura\u00e7oa, requesting him to surrender. This\nrequest was declined. He was equally unsuccessful in a mission to\nJamaica, begging for assistance from Admiral Dacres. Dacres refused, on\nthe ground that he had no orders from his Government.\n\nMiranda remained at Aruba, drilling, issuing proclamations, and holding\ncourts martial, until the want of provisions brought the enterprise to\nan end. An English ship-of-war, which touched at the island, offered\nhim a safe means of escape. On the 29th of October, after a passage of\ntwenty-five days, the Liberators arrived at Trinidad, and disbanded in\ndisgrace. The blue and yellow uniforms they had worn with pride, as\n\"Columbians,\" on their last visit, were hastily laid aside to escape\nthe scoff of the rabble, who jeered them as adventurers and\nmerry-andrews. Miranda kept out of sight until he could get the\nopportunity of a passage to England. All his followers who could find\nmeans to quit the island made their way home as best they could. To\nconclude the business, the Leander was sold by order of the courts, and\nthe few poor fellows who had remained by her received a small share of\nthe proceeds. Nobody else was paid the smallest fraction of the sums\nthe General had so liberally promised.\n\nThat a commander, safely landed with three hundred fighting men, in\npossession of Coro, whose peninsular situation might have afforded him\nan inexpugnable position, master of the sea, and backed by an English\nfleet, should have retreated, without effecting anything, from a\ncountry ripe for rebellion since the conspiracy of 1797, can be\nexplained only in one way: he must have been ignorant of the real\nfeelings of the people, and totally unfit to lead such an expedition.\nMiranda had what we may call a pretty talent for war. He had studied\nthe principles of the art, and had seen some service. Excited by the\nsplendid career of Washington, he, like a certain distinguished\nFrenchman, determined to imitate him and become the liberator of his\ncountry. When the Giant at a show bends the iron bar, it seems so easy\nthat every strong man in the crowd thinks he can do as much, until he\ntries. It needs a Giant of the first class to handle a people in\nrevolution. Miranda was not made of that kind of stuff. He was weak and\ninefficient, fond of mystery and pomp, easily affected by flattery,\nloving dearly to hear himself talk, and unable to control his temper.\nHis incessant quarrels with Captain Lewis were one cause of the loss of\nthe schooners off Puerto Cabello. A want of quickness and energy was\nfelt in all his operations. Delays are proverbially dangerous, but in a\n_coup de main_ fatal. The time wasted by him at Jacquemel and at Aruba\nwas employed by the Spaniards in making preparations for defence. They\nhad few troops, and did not dare to trust the natives with arms, but\nthey succeeded in persuading them that Miranda and his men were pagans\nand pirates, whose triumph would be ten times more insufferable than\nthe rule of the mother country.\n\nIf Miranda was incompetent to carry out a liberating expedition, he had\nwonderful success in talking it up. For twenty years he had carried\nthis project about with him in America and in Europe. It was elaborated\nto perfection in every part, and there were answers prepared to every\nobjection. The new government was to be modelled upon the English\nConstitution,--an hereditary chief, to be called Inca,--a senate,\nnominated by the chief, composed of nobles, but not hereditary,--and a\nchamber elected by suffrage, limited by a property qualification. He\nhad collected all the statistics of population and of trade, to show\nwhat commercial advantages the world might expect from a free South\nAmerican government. And, \"rising upon a wind of prophecy,\" he already\nsaw in the future a ship-canal across the Isthmus of Panama, and the\nNicaragua route opened. He had laid these plans before Catharine of\nRussia, who gave him money to help them on. Mr. Pitt listened, promised\nhim assistance in return for commercial privileges, and kept him in pay\nfor years. The French Revolutionists were eager to furnish him with an\narmy and a fleet. Rufus King, American Ambassador at London, sent word\nof the scheme to Hamilton and Knox, who both approved of it. Miranda\nseems to have made the same impression upon everybody. His extensive\ntravels and acquaintance with distinguished men, his knowledge of\nfacts, dates, and figures, his retentive and ready memory, his\nwonderful cleverness in persuading his hearers, are spoken of in the\nsame terms by all. Dr. Rush wrote to a friend, that Miranda had dined\nwith him, and had talked about European politics as if he had been \"in\nthe inside of all the kings and princes.\" He might have been a second\nCount de St. Germain, if he had lived in the reign of Louis XIV.,\ninstead of in an era when men had abandoned the philosopher's stone,\nand were seeking in politics for a new _magnum opus_, Constitutions, as\nthe certain means of perfecting the human species.\n\nEverybody was mistaken in him. Although he talked \"like an angel,\" in\naction he was worthless. If he had never undertaken to carry out his\nplans, he might have left an excellent reputation, and have remained in\nSouth American memory as the possible Father of his Country: _Capax\nimperii, nisi imperasset_. A short sketch of his career may be\ninteresting, before we dismiss him again to the oblivion from which we\nhave evoked him for this month.\n\nMiranda entered the Spanish army in America at the age of seventeen,\nand was advanced to be Colonel, a grade seldom or never before reached\nby a Creole. He left the service before the close of the Revolutionary\nWar, travelled in the United States, and was admitted to the society of\nWashington and of the leading men of the day. Here, his attainments,\nquickness, and insatiable curiosity attracted attention. He knew the\ntopography and strategy of every battle fought during the war better\nthan our officers who had been on the field, and soon made himself\nfamiliar with parties, and even with family connections in this\ncountry. His constant topic was the independence of South America.\nAfter the peace of 1783, Miranda went to England: Colonel Smith was\nthen Secretary of John Adams, the American Minister, and the\nacquaintance between them began in London, which ended so disastrously\ntwenty years later in New York. Leaving England, he travelled over\nEurope. At Cherson, he attracted the notice of Prince Potemkin, who\npresented him to the Empress at Kiew. In 1790, when the dispute about\nNootka Sound[*] threatened to produce a war between Great Britain and\nSpain, he reappeared in London, and proposed to Mr. Pitt his scheme for\nrevolutionizing the American Colonies. Pitt at once engaged his\nservices, but Spain yielded, and the project could not be carried out.\nMiranda crossed to France, accepted a command in the Republican army,\nand served, with credit, in the Netherlands, under Dumouriez, until the\nBattle of Neerwinden. In November, 1792, the French rulers conceived\nthe idea of revolutionizing Spain, both in Europe and in America.\nBrissot suggested Miranda as the fittest person for this purpose. He\nwas to take twelve thousand troops of the line from St. Domingo,\nenlist, in addition, ten or fifteen thousand \"_braves mul\u00e2tres_,\" and\nmake a descent, with this force, upon the Main. \"_Le nom de Miranda_,\"\nwrote Brissot to Dumouriez, \"_lui vaudra une arm\u00e9e; et ses talens, son\ncourage, son g\u00e9nie, tout nous r\u00e9pond du succ\u00e8s_.\" Monge, Gensonn\u00e9,\nClavi\u00e8re, P\u00e9tion, were pleased with the plan, but Miranda started\ndifficulties. The French system was too democratic for his taste, and\nthe pressure of affairs in Europe soon turned the attention of Brissot\nand his friends in another direction.\n\n[Footnote *: In May, 1789, the Spanish sloop-of-war Princesa seized\nfour English vessels engaged in a trade with the natives of Vancouver's\nIsland, and took them into a Mexican port as prizes, on the ground that\nthey had violated the Spanish Colonial laws. The English government\ndenied the claim of Spain to those distant regions, and insisted upon\nample satisfaction. The King of Spain was obliged to submit to avoid\nwar, but the question of territory was left open.]\n\nAfter the disastrous affair of Neerwinden, Miranda was accused of\nmisconduct, arrested, and sent to Paris for trial, but was acquitted by\nthe _Tribunal R\u00e9volutionnaire_, and conducted home in triumph. He was\nagain imprisoned for _incivisme_, during the Reign of Terror, and did\nnot recover his liberty until the general jail-delivery which followed\nthe death of Robespierre. He was seized for the third time in 1797, by\nthe Directory, as an adherent of the Pichegru faction, and banished\nfrom France.\n\nIn January, 1798, Mr. Pitt again sent for Miranda, and a new plan was\narranged for the emancipation of South America. On this occasion, the\nco\u00f6peration of the United States was confidently relied upon. Both Pitt\nand our own rulers foresaw that Spain must inevitably fall a prey to\nFrance, and that the whole of her American possessions would probably\nshare her fate. Our relations with France were in so critical a\ncondition, that we were making preparations for defence; and it was, of\ncourse, of the highest importance to our safety, that the Floridas and\nLouisiana should not fall into the hands of a powerful enemy. It was\nproposed, consequently, to form a commercial and defensive alliance\nbetween England, the United States, and South America. We were to get\nthe Floridas and Louisiana to the Mississippi, and in return to furnish\na land-force of ten thousand men. Great Britain would provide the\nfleet, in consideration of certain important advantages in trade.\nMiranda kept his friends in the United States fully advised of the\nprogress of affairs. Hamilton and Knox were in favor of the project,\nprovided war were declared. Our provisional army might then have played\na brilliant part. But there was no war. President Adams refused to\nlisten to Miranda's communications, and patched up our difficulties\nwith France. Nothing was done by the English.\n\nIn 1801 Lord Sidmouth revived Miranda's hopes, but the Peace of Amiens\nput a stop to the preparations. In 1804 Mr. Pitt was again at the head\nof affairs, and renewed his intercourse with Miranda. Orders were given\nto prepare ships and to enrol men, when the hopes of the third\ncoalition again suspended the execution of the project.\n\nIt was after this last blow from Fortune that Miranda came to New York\nand fitted out the expedition we have undertaken to describe. His\ndisastrous failure seemed neither to destroy his hopes, nor to shake\nthe confidence of his English friends in his pretensions. When he\nreturned to England from Trinidad, he found ministers prepared to\nembark with energy in the South American scheme. This time a fleet and\nan army were really assembled at Cork, and Sir Arthur Wellesley was to\ncommand them,--when the Spanish Revolution broke out, altered at once\nthe face of affairs in Europe, and turned Sir Arthur and his army\ntoward Portugal, to begin that brilliant series of campaigns which\ndrove the French out of the Peninsula.\n\nFew men fix their minds pertinaciously upon an object, and adhere to\nthe pursuit through life, without at least a partial attainment of it.\nMiranda, the victim of so many bitter disappointments, at last found\nhimself for a few months in the position he had so often dreamed of.\nWhen the news of the fall of Seville, and of the dispersion of the\nJunta who governed in the name of Ferdinand VII., reached South\nAmerica, open rebellion broke out at Caracas. King Joseph Bonaparte had\nsent over a proclamation, imploring his trusty and well-beloved South\nAmericans to come to his paternal arms,--or, if they would not do that,\nat least to set up a government for themselves, and not take part with\nFerdinand and England. His emissaries were hunted down and hanged,\nwherever caught. Revolutionary Juntas were established all over the\ncountry. On the 19th of April, 1810, the American Confederation of\nVenezuela, in Congress assembled, undertook to rule in the name of\nFerdinand VII., but in reality as an independent government. Miranda\nwas called to the command of the native army. On the 5th of July, 1811,\nthe Congress published their Declaration of Independence, and a\nConstitution, both of them remarkable state-papers. In point of\nliberality of sentiment and elegance of style they will bear comparison\nwith our own celebrated documents of '76 and '87. Indeed, in all these\nSpanish political plays, the plot has been good, the text admirable,\nbut the actors so poor as to spoil the piece. So it fell out in\nVenezuela. At first the Patriots were successful; Miranda defeated the\nRoyalists and took Valencia. The principal towns fell into the hands of\nthe insurgents. Then, came the terrible earthquake of 1812, which not\nonly shattered the resources of the Patriots, but was skilfully used by\nthe Church as a proof that Providence had taken sides against the\nrebels. Monteverde, the Spanish general, recaptured Valencia. Congress\nplaced the dictatorship with unlimited power in Miranda's hands, but he\nwas not the man for desperate situations. On the 6th of July, the\nRoyalists took Puerto Cabello; Caracas fell on the 28th; and Miranda,\nbetrayed by his own party into the hands of the Spaniards, was sent a\nprisoner to Cadiz in October. Simon Bolivar and others, men of\ndifferent mettle, regained all that had been lost, and cut loose the\nColonies from Spain. From California to Cape Horn the inestimable\nsystem of self-government was established. According to the theory, the\nSouth Americans should have been prosperous and happy; but,\nunfortunately, the result has been murder, robbery, and general ruin.\nThe burden of taking care of one's self, which the North American had\nthe strength to bear, has crushed the poor half-caste Spaniard. There\nare persons who assert that a political regimen which agrees so well\nwith us must therefore be good for all others. It may be instructive to\nsuch believers in system to compare Humboldt's narrative of the\ncultivation shown by the great Colonial Universities of Mexico, Quito,\nand Lima, of the pleasing Creole society that entertained him, and the\npeaceful quiet and security he noticed throughout country, with the\nrelations of modern travellers or newspaper-correspondents who visit\nthose semi-barbarous regions.\n\nDon Francisco de Miranda did not live to hear of the freedom of his\n\"Columbia.\" Before the close of the year 1812 he died in prison, at\nCadiz.  Thus perished the most gentlemanlike of filibusters, since the\ndays when Jason sailed in the Argo to extend the blessing of Greek\ninstitutions over Colchis and to appropriate the Golden Fleece.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTHE PROFESSOR'S STORY.\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\nTHE MORNING AFTER.\n\n\nColonel Sprowle's family arose late the next morning. The fatigues and\nexcitements of the evening and the preparation for it were followed by\na natural collapse, of which somnolence was a leading symptom. The sun\nshone into the window at a pretty well opened angle when the Colonel\nfirst found himself sufficiently awake to address his yet slumbering\nspouse.\n\n\"Sally!\" said the Colonel, in a voice that was a little husky,--for he\nhad finished off the evening with an extra glass or two of \"Madary,\"\nand had a somewhat rusty and headachy sense of renewed existence, on\ngreeting the rather advanced dawn,--\"Sally!\"\n\n\"Take care o' them custard-cups! There they go!\"\n\nPoor Mrs. Sprowle was fighting the party over in her dream; and as the\nvisionary custard-cups crashed down through one lobe of her brain into\nanother, she gave a start as if an inch of lightning from a quart\nLeyden jar had jumped into one of her knuckles with its sudden and\nlively _poonk_!\n\n\"Sally!\" said the Colonel,--\"wake up, wake up! What 'r' y' dreamin'\nabaout?\"\n\nMrs. Sprowle raised herself, by a sort of spasm, _sur son s\u00e9ant_, as\nthey say in France,--up on end, as we have it in New England. She\nlooked first to the left, then to the right, then straight before her,\napparently without seeing anything, and at last slowly settled down,\nwith her two eyes, blank of any particular meaning, directed upon the\nColonel.\n\n\"What time is't?\" she said.\n\n\"Ten o'clock. What 'y' been dreamin' abaout? Y' giv a jump like a\nhoppergrass. Wake up, wake up! Th' party's over, and y' been asleep all\nthe mornin'. The party's over, I tell ye! Wake up!\"\n\n\"Over!\" said Mrs. Sprowle, who began to define her position at\nlast,--\"over! I should think 'twas time 'twas over! It's lasted a\nhundud year. I've been workin' for that party longer 'n Methuselah's\nlifetime, sence I been asleep. The pies wouldn' bake, and the blo'monge\nwouldn' set, and the ice-cream wouldn' freeze, and all the folks kep'\ncomin' 'n' comin' 'n' comin',--everybody I ever knew in all my\nlife,--some of 'em's been dead this twenty year 'n' more,--'n' nothin'\nfor 'em to eat nor drink. The fire wouldn' burn to cook anything, all\nwe could do. We blowed with the belluses, 'n' we stuffed in paper 'n'\npitch-pine kindlin's, but nothin' could make that fire burn; 'n' all\nthe time the folks kep' comin', as if they'd never stop,--'n' nothin'\nfor 'em but empty dishes, 'n' all the borrowed chaney slippin' round on\nthe waiters 'n' chippin' 'n' crackin'. I wouldn' go through what I been\nthrough t'-night for all th' money in th' Bank,--I do believe it's\nharder t' have a party than t'\"----\n\nMrs. Sprowle stated the case strongly.\n\nThe Colonel said he didn't know how that might be. She was a better\njudge than he was. It was bother enough, anyhow, and he was glad that\nit was over. After this, the worthy pair commenced preparations for\nrejoining the waking world, and in due time proceeded down-stairs.\n\nEverybody was late that morning, and nothing had got put to rights. The\nhouse looked as if a small army had been quartered in it over night.\nThe tables were of course in huge disorder, after the protracted\nassault they had undergone. There had been a great battle evidently,\nand it had gone against the provisions. Some points had been stormed,\nand all their defences annihilated, but here and there were centres of\nresistance which had held out against all attacks,--large rounds of\nbeef, and solid loaves of cake, against which the inexperienced had\nwasted their energies in the enthusiasm of youth or uninformed\nmaturity, while the longer-headed guests were making discoveries of\n\"shell-oysters\" and \"patridges\" and similar delicacies.\n\nThe breakfast was naturally of a somewhat fragmentary character. A\nchicken that had lost his legs in the service of the preceding campaign\nwas once more put on duty. A great ham stuck with cloves, as Saint\nSebastian was with arrows, was again offered for martyrdom. It would\nhave been a pleasant sight for a medical man of a speculative turn to\nhave seen the prospect before the Colonel's family of the next week's\nbreakfasts, dinners, and suppers. The trail that one of these great\nrural parties leaves after it is one of its most formidable\nconsiderations. Every door-handle in the house is suggestive of\nsweetmeats for the next week, at least. The most unnatural articles of\ndiet displace the frugal but nutritious food of unconvulsed periods of\nexistence. If there is a walking infant about the house, it will\ncertainly have a more or less fatal fit from overmuch of some\nindigestible delicacy. Before the week is out, everybody will be tired\nto death of sugary forms of nourishment and long to see the last of the\nremnants of the festival.\n\nThe family had not yet arrived at this condition. On the contrary, the\nfirst inspection of the tables suggested the prospect of days of\nunstinted luxury; and the younger portion of the household, especially,\nwere in a state of great excitement as the account of stock was taken\nwith reference to future internal investments, Some curious facts came\nto light during these researches.\n\n\"Where's all the oranges gone to?\" said Mrs. Sprowle. \"I expected\nthere'd be ever so many of 'em left. I didn't see many of the folks\neatin' oranges. Where's the skins of 'em? There ought to be six dozen\norange-skins round on the plates, and there a'n't one dozen. And all\nthe small cakes, too, and all the sugar things that was stuck on the\nbig cakes.--Has anybody counted the spoons? Some of 'em got swallered,\nperhaps. I hope they was plated ones, if they did!\"\n\nThe failure of the morning's orange-crop and the deficit in other\nexpected residual delicacies were not very difficult to account for. In\nmany of the two-story Rockland families, and in those favored\nhouseholds of the neighboring villages whose members had been invited\nto the great party, there was a very general excitement among the\nyounger people on the morning after the great event. \"Did y' bring home\nsomethin' from the party? What is it? What is it? Is it fr\u00fbt-cake? Is\nit nuts and oranges and apples? Give me some! Give _me_ some!\" Such a\nconcert of treble voices uttering accents like these had not been heard\nsince the great Temperance Festival with the celebrated \"colation\" in\nthe open air under the trees of the Parnassian Grove,--as the place was\nchristened by the young ladies of the Institute. The cry of the\nchildren was not in vain. From the pockets of demure fathers, from the\nbags of sharp-eyed spinsters, from the folded handkerchiefs of\nlight-fingered sisters, from the tall hats of sly-winking brothers,\nthere was a resurrection of the missing oranges and cakes and\nsugar-things in many a rejoicing family-circle, enough to astonish the\nmost hardened \"caterer\" that ever contracted to feed a thousand people\nunder canvas.\n\nThe tender recollection of those dear little ones whom extreme youth or\nother pressing considerations detain from scenes of festivity--a trait\nof affection by no means uncommon among our thoughtful people\n--dignifies those social meetings where it is manifested, and\nsheds a ray of sunshine on our common nature. It is \"an oasis in the\ndesert,\"--to use the striking expression of the last year's\n\"Valedictorian\" of the Apollinean Institute. In the midst of so much\nthat is purely selfish, it is delightful to meet such disinterested\ncare for others. When a large family of children are expecting a\nparent's return from an entertainment, it will often require great\nexertions on his part to provide himself so as to meet their reasonable\nexpectations. A few rules are worth remembering by all who attend\nanniversary dinners in Faneuil Hall or elsewhere. Thus: Lobsters' claws\nare always acceptable to children of all ages. Oranges and apples are\nto be taken _one at a time_, until the coat-pockets begin to become\ninconveniently heavy. Cakes are injured by sitting upon them; it is,\ntherefore, well to carry a stout tin box of a size to hold as many\npieces as there are children in the domestic circle. A very pleasant\namusement, at the close of one of these banquets, is grabbing for the\nflowers with which the table is embellished. These will please the\nladies at home very greatly, and, if the children are at the same time\nabundantly supplied with fruits, nuts, cakes, and any little ornamental\narticles of confectionery which are of a nature to be unostentatiously\nremoved, the kind-hearted parent will make a whole household happy,\nwithout any additional expense beyond the outlay for his ticket.\n\nThere were fragmentary delicacies enough left, of one kind and another,\nat any rate, to make all the Colonel's family uncomfortable for the\nnext week. It bid fair to take as long to get rid of the remains of the\ngreat party as it had taken to make ready for it.\n\nIn the mean time Mr. Bernard had been dreaming, as young men dream, of\ngliding shapes with bright eyes and burning cheeks, strangely blended\nwith red planets and hissing meteors, and, shining over all, the white,\nunwandering star of the North, girt with its tethered constellations.\n\nAfter breakfast he walked into the parlor, where he found Miss Darley.\nShe was alone, and, holding a school-book in her hand, was at work with\none of the morning's lessons. She hardly noticed him as he entered,\nbeing very busy with her book,--and he paused a moment before speaking,\nand looked at her with a kind of reverence. It would not have been\nstrictly true to call her beautiful. For years,--since her earliest\nwomanhood,--those slender hands had taken the bread which repaid the\ntoil of heart and brain from the coarse palms that offered it in the\nworld's rude market. It was not for herself alone that she had bartered\naway the life of her youth, that she had breathed the hot air of\nschool-rooms, that she had forced her intelligence to posture before\nher will, as the exigencies of her place required,--waking to mental\nlabor,--sleeping to dream of problems,--rolling up the stone of\neducation for an endless twelvemonth's term, to find it at the bottom\nof the hill again when another year called her to its renewed\nduties,--schooling her temper in unending inward and outward conflicts,\nuntil neither dulness nor obstinacy nor ingratitude nor insolence could\nreach her serene self-possession. Not for herself alone. Poorly as her\nprodigal labors were repaid in proportion to the waste of life they\ncost, her value was too well established to leave her without what,\nunder other circumstances, would have been a more than sufficient\ncompensation. But there were others who looked to her in their need,\nand so the modest fountain which might have been filled to its brim was\ncontinually drained through silent-flowing, hidden sluices.\n\nOut of such a life, inherited from a race which had lived in conditions\nnot unlike her own, _beauty_, in the common sense of the term, could\nhardly find leisure to develop and shape itself. For it must be\nremembered, that symmetry and elegance of features and figure, like\nperfectly formed crystals in the mineral world, are reached only by\ninsuring a certain necessary repose to individuals and to generations.\nHuman beauty is an agricultural product in the country, growing up in\nmen and women as in corn and cattle, where the soil is good. It is a\nluxury almost monopolized by the rich in cities, bred under glass like\ntheir forced pine-apples and peaches. Both in city and country, the\nevolution of the physical harmonics which make music to our eyes\nrequires a combination of favorable circumstances, of which\nalternations of unburdened tranquillity with intervals of varied\nexcitement of mind and body are among the most important. Where\nsufficient excitement is wanting, as often happens in the country, the\nfeatures, however rich in red and white, get heavy, and the movements\nsluggish; where excitement is furnished in excess, as is frequently\nthe case in cities, the contours and colors are impoverished, and the\nnerves begin to make their existence known to the consciousness, as the\nface very soon informs us.\n\nHelen Darley could not, in the nature of things, have possessed the\nkind of beauty which pleases the common taste. Her eye was calm,\nsad-looking, her features very still, except when her pleasant smile\nchanged them for a moment, all her outlines were delicate, her voice\nwas very gentle, but somewhat subdued by years of thoughtful labor, and\non her smooth forehead one little hinted line whispered already that\nCare was beginning to mark the trace which Time sooner or later would\nmake a furrow. She could not be a beauty; if she had been, it would\nhave been much harder for many persons to be interested in her. For,\nalthough in the abstract we all love beauty, and although, if we were\nsent naked souls into some ultramundane warehouse of soul-less bodies\nand told to select one to our liking, we should each choose a handsome\none, and never think of the consequences,--it is quite certain that\nbeauty carries an atmosphere of repulsion as well as of attraction with\nit, alike in both sexes. We may be well assured that there are many\npersons who no more think of specializing their love of the other sex\nupon one endowed with signal beauty, than they think of wanting great\ndiamonds or thousand-dollar horses. No man or woman can appropriate\nbeauty without paying for it,--in endowments, in fortune, in position,\nin self-surrender, or other valuable stock; and there are a great many\nwho are too poor, too ordinary, too humble, too busy, too proud, to pay\nany of these prices for it. So the unbeautiful get many more lovers\nthan the beauties; only, as there are more of them, their lovers are\nspread thinner and do not make so much show.\n\nThe young master stood looking at Helen Darley with a kind of tender\nadmiration. She was such a picture of the martyr by the slow social\ncombustive process, that it almost seemed to him he could see a pale\nlambent aureole round her head.\n\n\"I did not see you at the great party last evening,\" he said,\npresently.\n\nShe looked up and answered, \"No. I have not much taste for such large\ncompanies. Besides, I do not feel as if my time belonged to me after it\nhas been paid for. There is always something to do, some lesson or\nexercise,--and it so happened, I was very busy last night with the new\nproblems in geometry. I hope you had a good time.\"\n\n\"Very. Two or three of our girls were there. Rosa Milburn. What a\nbeauty she is! I wonder what she feeds on! Wine and musk and chloroform\nand coals of fire, I believe; I didn't think there was such color and\nflavor in a woman outside the tropics.\"\n\nMiss Darley smiled rather faintly; the imagery was not just to her\ntaste: _femineity_ often finds it very hard to accept the fact of\n_muliebrity_.\n\n\"Was\"----?\n\nShe stopped short; but her question had asked itself.\n\n\"Elsie there? She was, for an hour or so. She looked frightfully\nhandsome. I meant to have spoken to her, but she slipped away before I\nknew it.\"\n\n\"I thought she meant to go to the party,\" said Miss Darley. \"Did she\nlook at you?\"\n\n\"She did. Why?\"\n\n\"And you did not speak to her?\"\n\n\"No. I should have spoken to her, but she was gone when I looked for\nher. A strange creature! Isn't there an odd sort of fascination about\nher? You have not explained all the mystery about the girl. What does\nshe come to this school for? She seems to do pretty much as she likes\nabout studying.\"\n\nMiss Darley answered in very low tones. \"It was a fancy of hers to\ncome, and they let her have her way. I don't know what there is about\nher, except that she seems to take my life out of me when she looks at\nme. I don't like to ask other people about our girls. She says very\nlittle to anybody, and studies, or makes believe study, almost what she\nlikes. I don't know what she is,\" (Miss Darley laid her hand,\ntrembling, on the young master's sleeve,) \"but I can tell when she is\nin the room without seeing or hearing her. Oh, Mr. Langdon, I am weak\nand nervous, and no doubt foolish,--but--if there were women now, as\nin the days of our Saviour, possessed of devils, I should think there\nwas something not human looking out of Elsie Venner's eyes!\"\n\nThe poor girl's breast rose and fell tumultuously as she spoke, and her\nvoice labored, as if some obstruction were rising in her throat.\n\nA scene might possibly have come of it, but the door opened. Mr. Silas\nPeckham. Miss Darley got away as soon as she well could.\n\n\"Why did not Miss Darley go to the party last evening?\" said Mr.\nBernard.\n\n\"Well, the fact is,\" answered Mr. Silas Peckham, \"Miss Darley, she's\npootty much took up with the school. She's an industris young\nwoman,--yis, she _is_ industris,--but perhaps she a'n't quite so spry a\nworker as some. Maybe, considerin' she's paid for her time, she isn't\nfur out o' the way in occoopyin' herself evenin's,--that is, if so be\nshe a'n't smart enough to finish up all her work in the daytime.\nEdoocation is the great business of the Institoot. Amoosements are\nobjec's of a secondary natur', accordin' to my v'oo.\" [The unspellable\npronunciation of this word is the touchstone of New England\nBrahminism.]\n\nMr. Bernard drew a deep breath, his thin nostrils dilating, as if the\nair did not rush in fast enough to cool his blood, while Silas Peckham\nwas speaking. The Head of the Apollinean Institute delivered himself of\nthese judicious sentiments in that peculiar acid, penetrating tone,\nwadded with a nasal twang, which not rarely becomes hereditary after\nthree or four generations raised upon east winds, salt fish, and large,\nwhite-bellied, pickled cucumbers. He spoke deliberately, as if weighing\nhis words well, so that, during his few remarks, Mr. Bernard had time\nfor a mental accompaniment with variations, accented by certain bodily\nchanges, which escaped Mr. Peckham's observation. First there was a\nfeeling of disgust and shame at hearing Helen Darley spoken of like a\ndumb working animal. That sent the blood up into his cheeks. Then the\nslur upon her probable want of force--_her_ incapacity, who made the\ncharacter of the school and left this man to pocket its profits--sent a\nthrill of the old Wentworth fire through him, so that his muscles\nhardened, his hands closed, and he took the measure of Mr. Silas\nPeckham, to see if his head would strike the wall in case he went over\nbackwards all of a sudden. This would not do, of course, and so the\nthrill passed off and the muscles softened again. Then came that state\nof tenderness in the heart, overlying wrath in the stomach, in which\nthe eyes grow moist like a woman's, and there is also a great\nboiling-up of objectionable terms out of the deep-water vocabulary, so\nthat Prudence and Propriety and all the other pious Ps have to jump\nupon the lid of speech to keep them from boiling _over_ into fierce\narticulation. All this was internal, chiefly, and of course not\nrecognized by Mr. Silas Peckham. The idea, that any full-grown,\nsensible man should have any other notion than that of getting the most\nwork for the least money out of his assistants, had never suggested\nitself to him.\n\nMr. Bernard had gone through this paroxysm, and cooled down, in the\nperiod while Mr. Peckham was uttering these words in his thin, shallow\nwhine, twanging up into the frontal sinuses. What was the use of losing\nhis temper and throwing away his place, and so, among the consequences\nwhich would necessarily follow, leaving the poor lady-teacher without a\nfriend to stand by her ready to lay his hand on the grand-inquisitor\nbefore the windlass of his rack had taken one turn too many?\n\n\"No doubt, Mr. Peckham,\" he said, in a grave, calm voice, \"there is a\ngreat deal of work to be done in the school; but perhaps we can\ndistribute the duties a little more evenly after a time. I shall look\nover the girls' themes myself, after this week. Perhaps there will be\nsome other parts of her labor that I can take on myself. We can arrange\na new programme of studies and recitations.\"\n\n\"We can do that,\" said Mr. Silas Peckham. \"But I don't propose\nmater'lly alterin' Miss Darley's dooties. I don't think she works to\nhurt herself. Some of the Trustees have proposed interdoosin' new\nbranches of study, and I expect you will be pootty much occoopied with\nthe dooties that belong to your place. On the Sabbath you will be able\nto attend divine service three times, which is expected of our\nteachers. I shall continoo myself to give Sabbath Scriptur'-readin's to\nthe young ladies. That is a solemn dooty I can't make up my mind to\ncommit to other people. My teachers enjoy the Lord's day as a day of\nrest. In it they do no manner of work,--except in cases of necessity or\nmercy, such as fillin' out diplomas, or when we git crowded jest at the\nend of a term, or when there is an extry number of poopils, or other\nProvidential call to dispense with the ordinance.\"\n\nMr. Bernard had a fine glow in his cheeks by this time,--doubtless\nkindled by the thought of the kind consideration Mr. Peckham showed for\nhis subordinates in allowing them the between-meeting-time on Sundays\nexcept for some special reason. But the morning was wearing away; so he\nwent to the school-room, taking leave very properly of his respected\nprincipal, who soon took his hat and departed.\n\nMr. Peckham visited certain \"stores\" or shops, where he made inquiries\nafter various articles in the provision-line, and effected a purchase\nor two. Two or three barrels of potatoes, which had sprouted in a\npromising way, he secured at a bargain. A side of feminine beef was\nalso obtained at a low figure. He was entirely satisfied with a couple\nof barrels of flour, which, being invoiced \"slightly damaged\", were to\nbe had at a reasonable price.\n\nAfter this, Silas Peckham felt in good spirits. He had done a pretty\nstroke of business. It came into his head whether he might not follow\nit up with a still more brilliant speculation. So he turned his steps\nin the direction of Colonel Sprowle's.\n\nIt was now eleven o'clock, and the battlefield of last evening was as\nwe left it. Mr. Peckham's visit was unexpected, perhaps not very well\ntimed, but the Colonel received him civilly.\n\n\"Beautifully lighted,--these rooms last night!\" said Mr. Peckham.\n\"Winter-strained?\"\n\nThe Colonel nodded.\n\n\"How much do you pay for your winter-strained?\"\n\nThe Colonel told him the price.\n\n\"Very hahnsome supper,--very hahnsome! Nothin' ever seen like it in\nRockland. Must have been a great heap of things left over.\"\n\nThe compliment was not ungrateful, and the Colonel acknowledged it by\nsmiling and saying, \"I should think the' was a trifle! Come and look.\"\n\nWhen Silas Peckham saw how many delicacies had survived the evening's\nconflict, his commercial spirit rose at once to the point of a\nproposal.\n\n\"Colonel Sprowle,\" said he, \"there's meat and cakes and pies and\npickles enough on that table to spread a hahnsome colation. If you'd\nlike to trade reasonable, I think perhaps I should be willin' to take\n'em off your hands. There's been a talk about our havin' a celebration\nin the Parnassian Grove, and I think I could work in what your folks\ndon't want and make myself whole by chargin' a small sum for tickets.\nBroken meats, of course, a'n't of the same valoo as fresh provisions;\nso I think you might be willin' to trade reasonable.\"\n\nMr. Peckham paused and rested on his proposal. It would not, perhaps,\nhave been very extraordinary, if Colonel Sprowle had entertained the\nproposition. There is no telling beforehand how such things will strike\npeople. It didn't happen to strike the Colonel favorably. He had a\nlittle red-blooded manhood in him.\n\n\"Sell you them things to make a colation out of?\" the Colonel replied.\n\"Walk up to that table, Mr. Peckham, and help yourself! Fill your\npockets, Mr. Peckham! Fetch a basket, and our hired folks shall fill it\nfull for ye! Send a cart, if y' like, 'n' carry off them leavin's to\nmake a celebration for your pupils with! Only let me tell ye this:--as\nsure's my name's Hezekiah Spraowle, you'll be known through the taown\n'n' through the caounty, from that day forrard, as the Principal of the\nBroken-Victuals Institoot!\"\n\nEven provincial human-nature sometimes has a touch of sublimity about\nit. Mr. Silas Peckham had gone a little deeper than he meant, and come\nupon the \"hard pan,\" as the well-diggers call it, of the Colonel's\ncharacter, before he thought of it. A militia-colonel standing on his\nsentiments is not to be despised. That was shown pretty well in New\nEngland two or three generations ago. There were a good many plain\nofficers that talked about their \"rigiment\" and their \"caounty\" who\nknew very well how to say \"Make ready!\" \"Take aim!\" \"Fire!\"--in the\nface of a line of grenadiers with bullets in their guns and bayonets on\nthem. And though a rustic uniform is not always unexceptionable in its\ncut and trimmings, yet there was many an ill-made coat in those old\ntimes that was good enough to be shown to the enemy's front rank, too\noften to be left on the field with a round hole in its left lapel that\nmatched another going right through the brave heart of the plain\ncountry captain or major or colonel who was buried in it under the\ncrimson turf.\n\nMr. Silas Peckham said little or nothing. His sensibilities were not\nacute, but he perceived that he had made a miscalculation. He hoped\nthat there was no offence,--thought it might have been mutooally\nagreeable, conclooded he would give up the idee of a colation, and\nbacked himself out as if unwilling to expose the less guarded aspect of\nhis person to the risk of accelerating impulses.\n\nThe Colonel shut the door,--cast his eye on the toe of his right boot,\nas if it had had a strong temptation,--looked at his watch, then round\nthe room, and, going to a cupboard, swallowed a glass of deep-red\nbrandy and water to compose his feelings.\n\n\nCHAPTER IX.\n\nTHE DOCTOR ORDERS THE BEST SULKY.\n\n\n(_With a Digression on \"Hired Help\"_)\n\n\"Abel! Slip Cassia into the new sulky, and fetch her round.\"\n\nAbel was Dr. Kittredge's hired man. He was born in New Hampshire, a\nqueer sort of a State, with fat streaks of soil and population where\nthey breed giants in mind and body, and lean streaks which export\nimperfectly nourished young men with promising but neglected appetites,\nwho may be found in great numbers in all the large towns, or could be\nuntil of late years, when they have been half driven out of their\nfavorite basement-stories by foreigners, and half coaxed away from them\nby California. New Hampshire is in more than one sense the Switzerland\nof New England. The \"Granite State\" being naturally enough deficient in\npudding-stone, its children are apt to wander southward in search of\nthat deposit,--in the unpetrified condition.\n\nAbel Stebbins was a good specimen of that extraordinary hybrid or mule\nbetween democracy and chrysocracy, a native-born New-England\nserving-man. The Old World has nothing at all like him. He is at once\nan emperor and a subordinate. In one hand he holds one five-millionth\npart (be the same more or less) of the power that sways the destinies\nof the Great Republic. His other hand is in your boot, which he is\nabout to polish. It is impossible to turn a fellow-citizen whose vote\nmay make his master--say, rather, employer--Governor or President, or\nwho may be one or both himself, into a flunky. That article must be\nimported ready-made from other centres of civilization. When a\nNew-Englander has lost his self-respect as a citizen and as a man, he\nis demoralized, and cannot be trusted with the money to pay for a\ndinner.\n\nIt may be supposed, therefore, that this fractional emperor, this\ncontinent-shaper, finds his position awkward when he goes into service,\nand that his employer is apt to find it still more embarrassing. It is\nalways under protest that the hired man does his duty. Every act of\nservice is subject to the drawback, \"I am as good as you are.\" This is\nso common, at least, as almost to be the rule, and partly accounts for\nthe rapid disappearance of the indigenous \"domestic\" from the basements\nabove mentioned. Paleontologists will by-and-by be examining the floors\nof our kitchens for tracks of the extinct native species of\nserving-man. The female of the same race is fast dying out; indeed, the\ntime is not far distant when all the varieties of young _woman_ will\nhave vanished from New England, as the dodo has perished in the\nMauritius. The young _lady_ is all that we shall have left, and the mop\nand duster of the last Almira or Lo\u00efzy will be stared at by generations\nof Bridgets and Noras as that famous head and foot of the lost bird are\nstared at in the Ashmolean Museum.\n\nAbel Stebbins, the Doctor's man, took the true American view of his\ndifficult position. He sold his time to the Doctor, and, having sold\nit, he took care to fulfil his half of the bargain. The Doctor, on his\npart, treated him, not like a gentleman, because one does not order a\ngentleman to bring up his horse or run his errands, but he treated him\nlike a man. Every order was given in courteous terms. His reasonable\nprivileges were respected as much as if they had been guarantied under\nhand and seal. The Doctor lent him books from his own library, and gave\nhim all friendly counsel, as if he were a son or a younger brother.\n\nAbel had Revolutionary blood in his veins, and though he saw fit to\n\"hire out,\" he could never stand the word \"servant,\" or consider\nhimself the inferior one of the two high contracting parties. When he\ncame to live with the Doctor, he made up his mind he would dismiss the\nold gentleman, if he did not behave according to his notions of\npropriety. But he soon found that the Doctor was one of the right sort,\nand so determined to keep him. The Doctor soon found, on his side, that\nhe had a trustworthy, intelligent fellow, who would be invaluable to\nhim, if he only let him have his own way of doing what was to be done.\n\nThe Doctor's hired man had not the manners of a French valet. He was\ngrave and taciturn for the most part, he never bowed and rarely smiled,\nbut was always at work in the daytime and always reading in the\nevening. He was hostler, and did all the housework that a man could\nproperly do, would go to the door or \"tend table,\" bought the\nprovisions for the family,--in short, did almost everything for them\nbut get their clothing. There was no office in a perfectly appointed\nhousehold, from that of steward down to that of stable-boy, which he\ndid not cheerfully assume. His round of work not consuming all his\nenergies, he must needs cultivate the Doctor's garden, which he kept in\none perpetual bloom, from the blowing of the first crocus to the fading\nof the last dahlia.\n\nThis garden was Abel's poem. Its half-dozen beds were so many cantos.\nNature crowded them for him with imagery such as no Laureate could copy\nin the cold mosaic of language. The rhythm of alternating dawn and\nsunset, the strophe and antistrophe still perceptible through all the\nsudden shifts of our dithyrambic seasons and echoed in corresponding\nfloral harmonies, made melody in the soul of Abel, the plain serving-\nman. It softened his whole otherwise rigid aspect. He worshipped God\naccording to the strict way of his fathers; but a florist's Puritanism\nis always colored by the petals of his flowers,--and Nature never shows\nhim a black corolla.\n\nPerhaps he may have little or nothing to do in this narrative; but as\nthere must be some who confound the New-England _hired man_,\nnative-born, with the _servant_ of foreign birth, and as there is the\ndifference of two continents and two civilizations between them, it did\nnot seem fair to let Abel bring round the Doctor's mare and sulky\nwithout touching his features in half-shadow into our background.\n\nThe Doctor's mare, Cassia, was so called by her master from her\ncinnamon color, cassia being one of the professional names for that\nspice or drug. She was of the shade we call sorrel, or, as an\nEnglishman would perhaps say, chestnut,--a genuine \"Morgan\" mare, with\na low forehand, as is common in this breed, but with strong quarters\nand flat hocks, well ribbed up, with a good eye and a pair of lively\nears,--a first-rate doctor's beast,--would stand until her harness\ndropped off her back at the door of a tedious case, and trot over hill\nand dale thirty miles in three hours, if there was a child in the next\ncounty with a bean in its windpipe and the Doctor gave her a hint of\nthe fact. Cassia was not large, but she had a good deal of action, and\nwas the Doctor's show-horse. There were two other animals in his\nstable: Quassia or Quashy, the black horse, and Caustic, the old bay,\nwith whom he jogged round the village.\n\n\"A long ride to-day?\" said Abel, as he brought up the equipage.\n\n\"Just out of the village,--that's all.--There's a kink in her\nmane,--pull it out, will you?\"\n\n\"Goin' to visit some of the great folks,\" Abel said to himself. \"Wonder\nwho it is.\"--Then to the Doctor,--\"Anybody get sick at Sprowles's? They\nsay Deacon Soper had a fit, after eatin' some o' their frozen\nvictuals.\"\n\nThe Doctor smiled. He guessed the Deacon would do well enough. He was\nonly going to ride over to the Dudley mansion-house.\n\n\nCHAPTER X.\n\nTHE DOCTOR CALLS ON ELSIE VENNER.\n\n\nIf that primitive physician, CHIRON, M.D., appears as a Centaur, as we\nlook at him through the lapse of thirty centuries, the modern\ncountry-doctor, if he could be seen about thirty miles off, could not\nbe distinguished from a wheel-animalcule. He _inhabits_ a\nwheel-carriage. He thinks of stationary dwellings as Long Tom Coffin\ndid of land in general; a house may be well enough for incidental\npurposes, but for a \"stiddy\" residence give him a \"kerridge.\" If he is\nclassified in the Linnaean scale, he must be set down thus: Genus\n_Homo_; Species _Rotifer infusorius_,--the wheel-animal of infusions.\n\nThe Dudley mansion was not a mile from the Doctor's; but it never\noccurred to him to think of walking to see any of his patients'\nfamilies, if he had any professional object in his visit. Whenever the\nnarrow sulky turned in at a gate, the rustic who was digging potatoes,\nor hoeing corn, or swishing through the grass with his scythe in\nwave-like crescents, or stepping short behind a loaded wheel-barrow,\nor trudging lazily by the side of the swinging, loose-throated,\nshort-legged oxen, rocking along the road as if they had just been\nlanded after a three-months' voyage,--the toiling native, whatever he\nwas doing, stopped and looked up at the house the doctor was visiting.\n\n\"Somebody sick over there t' Haynes's. Guess th' old man's ailin'\nag'in. Winder's ha\u00e4f-way open in the chamber,--shouldn't wonder 'f he\nwas dead and laid aout. Docterin' a'n't no use, when y' see the winders\nopen like that. Wahl, money a'n't much to speak of to th' old man naow!\nHe don't want but _tew cents_,--and old Widah Peake, she knows what he\nwants them for!\"\n\nOr again,--\n\n\"Measles raound pootty thick. Briggs's folks's' buried two children\nwith 'em la\u00e4st week. Th' old Doctor, he'd h' ker'd 'em threugh. Struck\nin 'n' p'dooeed mot'f cation,--so they say.\"\n\nThis is only meant as a sample of the kind of way they used to think or\ntalk, when the narrow sulky turned in at the gate of some house where\nthere was a visit to be made.\n\nOh, that narrow sulky! What hopes, what fears, what comfort, what\nanguish, what despair, in the roll of its coming or its parting wheels!\nIn the spring, when the old people get the coughs which give them a few\nshakes and their lives drop in pieces like the ashes of a burned thread\nwhich have kept the threadlike shape until they were stirred,--in the\nhot summer noons, when the strong man comes in from the fields, like\nthe son of the Shunamite, crying, \"My head, my head,\"--in the dying\nautumn days, when youth and maiden lie fever-stricken in many a\nhousehold, still-faced, dull-eyed, dark-flushed, dry-lipped,\nlow-muttering in their daylight dreams, their fingers moving singly\nlike those of slumbering harpers,--in the dead winter, when the white\nplague of the North has caged its wasted victims, shuddering as they\nthink of the frozen soil which must be quarried like rock to receive\nthem, if their perpetual convalescence should happen to be interfered\nwith by any untoward accident,--at every season, the narrow sulky\nrolled round freighted with unmeasured burdens of joy and woe.\n\nThe Doctor drove along the southern foot of The Mountain. The \"Dudley\nmansion\" was near the eastern edge of this declivity, where it rose\nsteepest, with baldest cliffs and densest patches of over-hanging wood.\nIt seemed almost too steep to climb, but a practised eye could see from\na distance the zigzag lines of the sheep-paths which scaled it like\nminiature Alpine roads. A few hundred feet up The Mountain's side was a\ndark, deep dell, unwooded, save for a few spindling, crazy--looking\nhackmatacks or native larches, with pallid green tufts sticking out\nfantastically all over them. It shelved so deeply, that, while the\nhemlock-tassels were swinging on the trees around its border, all would\nbe still at its springy bottom, save that perhaps a single fern would\nwave slowly backward and forward like a sabre, with a twist as of a\nfeathered oar,--and this, when not a breath could be felt, and every\nother stem and blade were motionless. There was an old story of one\nhaving perished here in the winter of '86, and his body having been\nfound in the spring,--whence its common name of \"Dead-Man's Hollow.\"\nHigher up there were huge cliffs with chasms, and, it was thought,\nconcealed caves, where in old times they said that Tories lay\nhid,--some hinted not without occasional aid and comfort from the\nDudleys then living in the mansion-house. Still higher and farther west\nlay the accursed ledge,--shunned by all, unless it were now and then a\ndaring youth, or a wandering naturalist who ventured to its edge in the\nhope of securing some infantile _Crotalus durissus_, who had not yet\ncut his poison-teeth.\n\nLong, long ago, in old Colonial times, the Honorable Thomas Dudley,\nEsquire, a man of note and name and great resources, allied by descent\nto the family of \"Tom Dudley,\" as the early Governor is sometimes\nirreverently called by our most venerable, but still youthful\nantiquary,--and to the other public Dudleys, of course,--of all of whom\nhe made small account, as being himself an English gentleman, with\nlittle taste for the splendors of provincial office,--early in the last\ncentury, Thomas Dudley had built this mansion. For several generations\nit had been dwelt in by descendants of the same name, but soon after\nthe Revolution it passed by marriage into the hands of the Venners, by\nwhom it had ever since been held and tenanted.\n\nAs the Doctor turned an angle in the road, all at once the stately old\nhouse rose before him. It was a skilfully managed effect, as it well\nmight be, for it was no vulgar English architect who had planned the\nmansion and arranged its position and approach. The old house rose\nbefore the Doctor crowning a terraced garden, flanked at the left by a\ndouble avenue of tall elms. The flower-beds were edged with box, which\ndiffused around it that dreamy balsamic odor, full of ante-natal\nreminiscences of a lost Paradise, dimly fragrant as might be the\nbdellium of ancient Havilah, the land compassed by the river Pison that\nwent out of Eden. The garden was somewhat neglected, but not in\ndisgrace,--and in the time of tulips and hyacinths, of roses, of\n\"snowballs,\" of honeysuckles, of lilacs, of syringas, it was rich with\nblossoms.\n\nFrom the front-windows of the mansion the eye reached a far blue\nmountain-summit,--no rounded heap, such as often shuts in a\nvillage-landscape, but a sharp peak, clean-angled as Ascutney from the\nDartmouth green. A wide gap through miles of woods had opened this\ndistant view, and showed more, perhaps, than all the labors of the\narchitect and the landscape-gardener the large style of the early\nDudleys.\n\nThe great stone chimney of the mansion-house was the centre from which\nall the artificial features of the scene appeared to flow. The roofs,\nthe gables, the dormer-windows, the porches, the clustered offices in\nthe rear, all seemed to crowd about the great chimney. To this central\npillar the paths all converged. The single poplar behind the\nhouse,--Nature is jealous of proud chimneys, and always loves to put a\npoplar near one, so that it may fling a leaf or two down its black\nthroat every autumn,--the one tall poplar behind the house seemed to\nnod and whisper to the grave square column, the elms to sway their\nbranches towards it. And when the blue smoke rose from its summit, it\nseemed to be wafted away to join the azure haze which hung around the\npeak in the far distance, so that both should bathe in a common\natmosphere.\n\nBehind the house were clumps of lilacs with a century's growth upon\nthem, and looking more like trees than like shrubs. Shaded by a group\nof these was the ancient well, of huge circuit, and with a low arch\nopening out of its wall about ten feet below the surface,--whether the\ndoor of a crypt for the concealment of treasure, or of a subterranean\npassage, or merely of a vault for keeping provisions cool in hot\nweather, opinions differed.\n\nOn looking at the house, it was plain that it was built with Old-World\nnotions of strength and durability, and, so far as might be, with\nOld-World materials. The hinges of the doors stretched out like arms,\ninstead of like hands, as we make them. The bolts were massive enough\nfor a donjon-keep. The small window-panes were actually inclosed in the\nwood of the sashes, instead of being stuck to them with putty, as in\nour modern windows. The broad staircase was of easy ascent, and was\nguarded by quaintly turned and twisted balusters. The ceilings of the\ntwo rooms of state were moulded with medallion-portraits and rustic\nfigures, such as may have been seen by many readers in the famous old\nPhilipse house,--Washington's headquarters,--in the town of Yonkers.\nThe fireplaces, worthy of the wide-throated central chimney, were\nbordered by pictured tiles, some of them with Scripture stories, some\nwith Watteau-like figures,--tall damsels in slim waists and with spread\nenough of skirt for a modern ballroom, with bowing, reclining, or\nmusical swains of what everybody calls the \"conventional\" sort,--that\nis, the swain adapted to genteel society rather than to a literal\nsheep-compelling existence.\n\nThe house was furnished, soon after it was completed, with many heavy\narticles made in London from a rare wood just then come into fashion,\nnot so rare now, and commonly known as mahogany. Time had turned it\nvery dark, and the stately bedsteads and tall cabinets and claw-footed\nchairs and tables were in keeping with the sober dignity of the ancient\nmansion. The old \"hangings\" were yet preserved in the chambers, faded,\nbut still showing their rich patterns,--properly entitled to their\nname, for they were literally hung upon flat wooden frames like\ntrellis-work, which again were secured to the naked partitions.\nThere were portraits of different date on the walls of the various\napartments, old painted coats-of-arms, bevel-edged mirrors, and in one\nsleeping-room a glass case of wax-work flowers and spangly symbols,\nwith a legend signifying that E.M. (supposed to be Elizabeth Mascarene)\nwished not to be \"forgot\"\n\n  \"When I am dead and lay'd in dust\n  And all my bones are\"----\n\nPoor E.M.! Poor everybody that sighs for earthly remembrance in a\nplanet with a core of fire and a crust of fossils!\n\nSuch was the Dudley mansion-house,--for it kept its ancient name in\nspite of the change in the line of descent. Its spacious apartments\nlooked dreary and desolate; for here Dudley Venner and his daughter\ndwelt by themselves, with such servants only as their quiet mode of\nlife required. He almost lived in his library, the western room on the\nground-floor. Its window looked upon a small plat of green, in the\nmidst of which was a single grave marked by a plain marble slab. Except\nthis room, and the chamber where he slept, and the servants' wing, the\nrest of the house was all Elsie's. She was always a restless, wandering\nchild from her early years, and would have her little bed moved from\none chamber to another,--flitting round as the fancy took her.\nSometimes she would drag a mat and a pillow into one of the great empty\nrooms, and, wrapping herself in a shawl, coil up and go to sleep in a\ncorner. Nothing frightened her; the \"haunted\" chamber, with the torn\nhangings that flapped like wings when there was air stirring, was one\nof her favorite retreats.\n\nShe had been a very hard creature to manage. Her father could\ninfluence, but not govern her. Old Sophy, born of a slave mother in the\nhouse, could do more with her than anybody, knowing her by long\ninstinctive study. The other servants were afraid of her. Her father\nhad sent for governesses, but none of them ever stayed long. She made\nthem nervous; one of them had a strange fit of sickness; not one of\nthem ever came back to the house to see her. A young Spanish woman who\ntaught her dancing succeeded best with her, for she had a passion for\nthat exercise, and had mastered some of the most difficult dances.\n\nLong before this period, she had manifested some most extraordinary\nsingularities of taste or instinct. The extreme sensitiveness of her\nfather on this point prevented any allusion to them; but there were\nstories floating round, some of them even getting into the\npapers,--without her name, of course,--which were of a kind to excite\nintense curiosity, if not more anxious feelings. This thing was\ncertain, that at the age of twelve she was missed one night, and was\nfound sleeping in the open air under a tree, like a wild creature. Very\noften she would wander off by day, always without a companion, bringing\nhome with her a nest, a flower, or even a more questionable trophy of\nher ramble, such as showed that there was no place where she was afraid\nto venture. Once in a while she had stayed out over night, in which\ncase the alarm was spread, and men went in search of her, but never\nsuccessfully,--so that some said she hid herself in trees, and others\nthat she had found one of the old Tory caves.\n\nSome, of course, said she was a crazy girl, and ought to be sent to an\nAsylum. But old Dr. Kittredge had shaken his head, and told them to\nbear with her, and let her have her way as much as they could, but\nwatch her, as far as possible, without making her suspicious of them.\nHe visited her now and then, under the pretext of seeing her father on\nbusiness, or of only making a friendly call.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe Doctor fastened his horse outside the gate, and walked up the\ngarden-alley. He stopped suddenly with a start. A strange sound had\njarred upon his ear. It was a sharp prolonged rattle, continuous, but\nrising and falling as if in rhythmical cadence. He moved softly towards\nthe open window from which the sound seemed to proceed.\n\nElsie was alone in the room, dancing one of those wild Moorish\nfandangos, such as a _matador_ hot from the _Plaza de Toros_ of Seville\nor Madrid might love to lie and gaze at. She was a figure to look upon\nin silence. The dancing frenzy must have seized upon her while she was\ndressing; for she was in her bodice, bare-armed, her hair floating\nunbound far below the waist of her barred or banded skirt. She had\ncaught up her castanets, and rattled them as she danced with a kind of\npassionate fierceness, her lithe body undulating with flexuous grace,\nher diamond eyes glittering, her round arms wreathing and unwinding,\nalive and vibrant to the tips of the slender fingers. Some passion\nseemed to exhaust itself in this dancing paroxysm; for all at once she\nreeled from the middle of the floor, and flung herself, as it were in a\ncareless coil, upon a great tiger's-skin which was spread out in one corner\nof the apartment.\n\nThe old Doctor stood motionless, looking at her as she lay panting on\nthe tawny, black-lined robe of the dead monster, which stretched out\nbeneath her, its rude flattened outline recalling the Terror of the\nJungle as he crouched for his fatal spring. In a few moments her head\ndrooped upon her arm, and her glittering eyes closed,--she was\nsleeping. He stood looking at her still, steadily, thoughtfully,\ntenderly. Presently he lifted his hand to his forehead, as if recalling\nsome fading remembrance of other years.\n\n\"Poor Catalina!\"\n\nThis was all he said. He shook his head,--implying that his visit would\nbe in vain to-day,--returned to his sulky, and rode away, as if in a\ndream.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nNATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.\n\n\nThe romance of \"The Marble Faun\" will be widely welcomed, not only for\nits intrinsic merits, but because it is a sign that its writer, after a\nsilence of seven or eight years, has determined to resume his place in\nthe ranks of authorship. In his preface he tells us, that in each of\nhis previous publications he had unconsciously one person in his eye,\nwhom he styles his \"gentle reader.\" He meant it \"for that one congenial\nfriend, more comprehensive of his purposes, more appreciative of his.\nsuccess, more indulgent of his short-comings, and, in all respects,\ncloser and kinder than a brother,--that all-sympathizing critic, in\nshort, whom an author never actually meets, but to whom he implicitly\nmakes his appeal, whenever he is conscious of having done his best.\" He\nbelieves that this reader did once exist for him, and duly received the\nscrolls he flung \"upon whatever wind was blowing, in the faith that\nthey would find him out.\" \"But,\" he questions, \"is he extant now? In\nthese many years since he last heard from me, may he not have deemed\nhis earthly task accomplished, and have withdrawn to the paradise of\ngentle readers, wherever it may be, to the enjoyments of which his\nkindly charity on my behalf must surely have entitled him?\" As we feel\nassured that Hawthorne's reputation has been steadily growing with the\nlapse of time, he has no cause to fear that the longevity of his gentle\nreader will not equal his own. As long as he writes, there will be\nreaders enough to admire and appreciate.\n\nThe publication of this new romance seems to offer us a fitting\noccasion to attempt some description of the peculiarities of the genius\nof which it is the latest offspring, and to hazard some judgments on\nits predecessors. It is more than twenty-five years since Hawthorne\nbegan that remarkable series of stories and essays which are now\ncollected in the volumes of \"Twice-Told Tales,\" \"The Snow Image and\nother Tales,\" and \"Mosses from an Old Manse.\" From the first he was\nrecognized by such readers as he chanced to find as a man of genius,\nyet for a long time he enjoyed, in his own words, the distinction of\nbeing \"the obscurest man of letters in America.\" His readers were\n\"gentle\" rather than enthusiastic; their fine delight in his creations\nwas a private perception of subtile excellences of thought and style,\ntoo refined and self-satisfying to be contagious; and the public was\nuntouched, whilst the \"gentle\" reader was full of placid enjoyment.\nIndeed, we fear that this kind of reader is something of an\nEpicurean,--receives a new genius as a private blessing, sent by a\nbenign Providence to quicken a new life in his somewhat jaded sense of\nintellectual pleasure; and after having received a fresh sensation, he\nis apt to be serenely indifferent whether the creator of it starve\nbodily or pine mentally from the lack of a cordial human shout of\nrecognition.\n\nThere would appear, on a slight view of the matter, no reason for the\nlittle notice which Hawthorne's early productions received. The\nsubjects were mostly drawn from the traditions and written records of\nNew England, and gave the \"beautiful strangeness\" of imagination to\nobjects, incidents, and characters which were familiar facts in the\npopular mind. The style, while it had a purity, sweetness, and grace\nwhich satisfied the most fastidious and exacting taste, had, at the\nsame time, more than the simplicity and clearness of an ordinary\nschool-book. But though the subjects and the style were thus popular,\nthere was something in the shaping and informing spirit which failed to\nawaken interest, or awakened interest without exciting delight.\nMisanthropy, when it has its source in passion,--when it is fierce,\nbitter, fiery, and scornful,--when it vigorously echoes the aggressive\ndiscontent of the world, and furiously tramples on the institutions and\nthe men luckily rather than rightfully in the ascendant,--this is\nalways popular; but a misanthropy which springs from insight,--a\nmisanthropy which is lounging, languid, sad, and depressing,--a\nmisanthropy which remorselessly looks through cursing misanthropes and\nchirping men of the world with the same sure, detecting glance of\nreason,--a misanthropy which has no fanaticism, and which casts the\nsame ominous doubt on subjectively morbid as on subjectively moral\naction,--a misanthropy which has no respect for impulses, but has a\nterrible perception of spiritual laws,--this is a misanthropy which can\nexpect no wide recognition; and it would be vain to deny that traces of\nthis kind of misanthropy are to be found in Hawthorne's earlier, and\nare not altogether absent from his later works. He had spiritual\ninsight, but it did not penetrate to the sources of spiritual joy; and\nhis deepest glimpses of truth were calculated rather to sadden than to\ninspire. A blandly cynical distrust of human nature was the result of\nhis most piercing glances into the human soul. He had humor, and\nsometimes humor of a delicious kind; but this sunshine of the soul was\nbut sunshine breaking through or lighting up a sombre and ominous\ncloud. There was also observable in his earlier stories a lack of vigor,\nas if the power of his nature had been impaired by the very\nprocess--which gave depth and excursiveness to his mental vision.\nThroughout, the impression is conveyed of a shy recluse, alternately\nbashful in disposition and bold in thought, gifted with original and\nvarious capacities, but capacities which seemed to have developed\nthemselves in the shade, without sufficient energy of will or desire to\nforce them, except fitfully, into the sunlight. Shakspeare calls\nmoonlight the sunlight _sick_; and it is in some such moonlight of the\nmind that the genius of Hawthorne found its first expression. A mild\nmelancholy, sometimes deepening into gloom, sometimes brightened into a\n\"humorous sadness,\" characterized his early creations. Like his own\nHepzibah Pyncheon, he appeared \"to be walking in a dream\"; or rather,\nthe life and reality assumed by his emotions \"made all outward\noccurrences unsubstantial, like the teasing phantasms of an unconscious\nslumber.\" Though dealing largely in description, and with the most\naccurate perceptions of outward objects, he still, to use again his own\nwords, gives the impression of a man \"chiefly accustomed to look\ninward, and to whom external matters are of little value or import,\nunless they bear relation to something within his own mind.\" But that\n\"something within his own mind\" was often an unpleasant something,\nperhaps a ghastly occult perception of deformity and sin in what\nappeared outwardly fair and good; so that the reader felt a secret\ndissatisfaction with the disposition which directed the genius, even in\nthe homage he awarded to the genius itself. As psychological portraits\nof morbid natures, his delineations of character might have given a\npurely intellectual satisfaction; but there was audible, to the\ndelicate ear, a faint and muffled growl of personal discontent, which\nshowed they were not mere exercises of penetrating imaginative\nanalysis, but had in them the morbid vitality of a despondent mood.\n\nYet, after admitting these peculiarities, nobody who is now drawn to\nthe \"Twice-Told Tales,\" from his interest in the later romances of\nHawthorne, can fail to wonder a little at the limited number of readers\nthey attracted on their original publication. For many of these stories\nare at once a representation of early New-England life and a criticism\non it. They have much of the deepest truth of history in them. \"The\nLegends of the Province House,\" \"The Gray Champion,\" \"The Gentle Boy,\"\n\"The Minister's Black Veil,\" \"Endicott and the Red Cross,\" not to\nmention others, contain important matter which cannot be found in\nBancroft or Grahame. They exhibit the inward struggles of New-England\nmen and women with some of the darkest problems of existence, and have\nmore vital import to thoughtful minds than the records of Indian or\nRevolutionary warfare. In the \"Prophetic Pictures,\" \"Fancy's Show-Box,\"\n\"The Great Carbuncle,\" \"The Haunted Mind,\" and \"Edward Fane's\nRose-Bud,\" there are flashes of moral insight, which light up, for the\nmoment, the darkest recesses of the individual mind; and few sermons\nreach to the depth of thought and sentiment from which these seemingly\nairy sketches draw their sombre life. It is common, for instance, for\nreligious moralists to insist on the great spiritual truth, that wicked\nthoughts and impulses, which circumstances prevent from passing into\nwicked acts, are still deeds in the sight of God; but the living truth\nsubsides into a dead truism, as enforced by commonplace preachers. In\n\"Fancy's Show-Box,\" Hawthorne seizes the prolific idea; and the\nrespectable merchant and respected church-member, in the still hour of\nhis own meditation, convicts himself of being a liar, cheat, thief,\nseducer, and murderer, as he casts his glance over the mental events\nwhich form his spiritual biography. Interspersed with serious histories\nand moralities like these, are others which embody the sweet and\nplayful, though still thoughtful and slightly saturnine action of\nHawthorne's mind,--like \"The Seven Vagabonds,\" \"Snow-Flakes,\" \"The\nLily's Quest,\" \"Mr. Higgenbotham's Catastrophe,\" \"Little Annie's\nRamble,\" \"Sights from a Steeple,\" \"Sunday at Home,\" and \"A Rill from\nthe Town-Pump.\"\n\nThe \"Mosses from an Old Manse\" are intellectually and artistically an\nadvance from the \"Twice-Told Tales.\" The twenty-three stories and\nessays which make up the volumes are almost perfect of their kind. Each\nis complete in itself, and many might be expanded into long romances by\nthe simple method of developing the possibilities of their shadowy\ntypes of character into appropriate incidents. In description,\nnarration, allegory, humor, reason, fancy, subtilty, inventiveness,\nthey exceed the best productions of Addison; but they want Addison's\nsensuous contentment and sweet and kindly spirit. Though the author\ndenies that he has exhibited his own individual attributes in these\n\"Mosses,\" though he professes not to be \"one of those supremely\nhospitable people who serve up their own hearts delicately fried, with\nbrain-sauce, as a titbit for their beloved public,\"--yet it is none the\nless apparent that he has diffused through each tale and sketch the\nlife of the mental mood to which it owed its existence, and that one\nindividuality pervades and colors the whole collection. The defect of\nthe serious stories is, that character is introduced, not as thinking,\nbut as the illustration of thought. The persons are ghostly, with a sad\nlack of flesh and blood. They are phantasmal symbols of a reflective\nand imaginative analysis of human passions and aspirations. The\ndialogue, especially, is bookish, as though the personages knew their\nspeech was to be printed, and were careful of the collocation and\nrhythm of their words. The author throughout is evidently more\ninterested in his large, wide, deep, indolently serene, and lazily sure\nand critical view of the conflict of ideas and passions, than he is\nwith the individuals who embody them. He shows moral insight without\nmoral earnestness. He cannot contract his mind to the patient\ndelineation of a moral individual, but attempts to use individuals in\norder to express the last results of patient moral perception. Young\nGoodman Brown and Roger Malvin are not persons; they are the mere,\nloose, personal expression of subtile thinking. \"The Celestial\nRailroad,\" \"The Procession of Life,\" \"Earth's Holocaust,\" \"The Bosom\nSerpent,\" indicate thought of a character equally deep, delicate, and\ncomprehensive, but the characters are ghosts of men rather than\nsubstantial individualities. In the \"Mosses from an Old Manse,\" we are\nreally studying the phenomena of human nature, while, for the time, we\nbeguile ourselves into the belief that we are following the fortunes of\nindividual natures.\n\nUp to this time the writings of Hawthorne conveyed the impression of a\ngenius in which insight so dominated over impulse, that it was rather\nmentally and morally curious than mentally and morally impassioned. The\nquality evidently wanting to its full expression was intensity. In the\nromance of \"The Scarlet Letter\" he first made his genius efficient by\npenetrating it with passion. This book forced itself into attention by\nits inherent power; and the author's name, previously known only to a\nlimited circle of readers, suddenly became a familiar word in the\nmouths of the great reading public of America and England. It may be\nsaid, that it \"captivated\" nobody, but took everybody captive. Its\npower could neither be denied nor resisted. There were growls of\ndisapprobation from novel-readers, that Hester Prynne and the Rev. Mr.\nDimmesdale were subjected to cruel punishments unknown to the\njurisprudence of fiction,--that the author was an inquisitor who put\nhis victims on the rack,--and that neither amusement nor delight\nresulted from seeing the contortions and hearing the groans of these\nmartyrs of sin; but the fact was no less plain that Hawthorne had for\nonce compelled the most superficial lovers of romance to submit\nthemselves to the magic of his genius. The readers of Dickens voted\nhim, with three times three, to the presidency of their republic of\nletters; the readers of Hawthorne were caught by a _coup d'\u00e9tat_, and\nfretfully submitted to a despot whom they could not depose.\n\nThe success of \"The Scarlet Letter\" is an example of the advantage\nwhich an author gains by the simple concentration of his powers on one\nabsorbing subject. In the \"Twice-Told Tales\" and the \"Mosses from an\nOld Manse\" Hawthorne had exhibited a wider range of sight and insight\nthan in \"The Scarlet Letter.\" Indeed, in the little sketch of \"Endicott\nand the Red Cross,\" written twenty years before, he had included in a\nfew sentences the whole matter which he afterwards treated in his\nfamous story. In describing the various inhabitants of an early\nNew-England town, as far as they were representative, he touches\nincidentally on a \"young woman, with no mean share of beauty, whose\ndoom it was to wear the letter A on the breast of her gown, in the eyes\nof all the world and her own children. And even her own children knew\nwhat that initial signified. Sporting with her infamy, the lost and\ndesperate creature had embroidered the fatal token in scarlet cloth,\nwith golden thread and the nicest art of needle-work; so that the\ncapital A might have been thought to mean Admirable, or anything,\nrather than Adulteress.\" Here is the germ of the whole pathos and\nterror of \"The Scarlet Letter\"; but it is hardly noted in the throng of\nsymbols, equally pertinent, in the few pages of the little sketch from\nwhich we have quoted.\n\nTwo characteristics of Hawthorne's genius stand plainly out, in the\nconduct and characterization of the romance of \"The Scarlet Letter,\"\nwhich were less obviously prominent in his previous works. The first\nrelates to his subordination of external incidents to inward events.\nMr. James's \"solitary horseman\" does more in one chapter than\nHawthorne's hero in twenty chapters; but then James deals with the arms\nof men, while Hawthorne deals with their souls. Hawthorne relies almost\nentirely for the interest of his story on what is felt and done within\nthe minds of his characters. Even his most picturesque descriptions and\nnarratives are only one-tenth matter to nine-tenths spirit. The results\nthat follow from one external act of folly or crime are to him enough\nfor an Iliad of woes. It might be supposed that his whole theory of\nRomantic Art was based on these tremendous lines of Wordsworth:--\n\n             \"Action is momentary,--\n  The motion of a muscle, this way or that:\n  Suffering is long, obscure, and infinite.\"\n\nThe second characteristic of his genius is connected with the first.\nWith his insight of individual souls he combines a far deeper insight\nof the spiritual laws which govern the strangest aberrations of\nindividual souls. But it seems to us that his mental eye, keen-sighted\nand far-sighted as it is, overlooks the merciful modifications of the\naustere code whose pitiless action it so clearly discerns. In his long\nand patient brooding over the spiritual phenomena of Puritan life, it\nis apparent, to the least critical observer, that he has imbibed a deep\npersonal antipathy to the Puritanic ideal of character; but it is no\nless apparent that his intellect and imagination have been strangely\nfascinated by the Puritanic idea of justice. His brain has been subtly\ninfected by the Puritanic perception of Law, without being warmed by\nthe Puritanic faith in Grace. Individually, he would much prefer to\nhave been one of his own \"Seven Vagabonds\" rather than one of the\nausterest preachers of the primitive church of New England; but the\nausterest preacher of the primitive church of New England would have\nbeen more tender and considerate to a real Mr. Dimmesdale and a real\nHester Prynne than this modern romancer has been to their typical\nrepresentatives in the world of imagination. Throughout \"The Scarlet\nLetter\" we seem to be following the guidance of an author who is\npersonally good-natured, but intellectually and morally relentless.\n\n\"The House of the Seven Gables,\" Hawthorne's next work, while it has\nless concentration of passion and tension of mind than \"The Scarlet\nLetter,\" includes a wider range of observation, reflection, and\ncharacter; and the morality, dreadful as fate, which hung like a black\ncloud over the personages of the previous story, is exhibited in more\nrelief. Although the book has no imaginative creation equal to little\nPearl, it still contains numerous examples of characterization at once\ndelicate and deep. Clifford, especially, is a study in psychology, as\nwell as a marvellously subtile delineation of enfeebled manhood. The\ngeneral idea of the story is this,--\"that the wrong-doing of one\ngeneration lives into the successive ones, and, divesting itself of\nevery temporary advantage, becomes a pure and uncontrollable mischief\";\nand the mode in which this idea is carried out shows great force,\nfertility, and refinement of mind. A weird fancy, sporting with the\nfacts detected by a keen observation, gives to every gable of the Seven\nGables, every room in the House, every burdock growing rankly before\nthe door, a symbolic significance. The queer mansion is\nhaunted,--haunted with thoughts which every moment are liable to take\nghostly shape. All the Pyncheons who have resided in it appear to have\ninfected the very timbers and walls with the spiritual essence of their\nlives, and each seems ready to pass from a memory into a presence. The\nstern theory of the author regarding the hereditary transmission of\nfamily qualities, and the visiting of the sins of the fathers on the\nheads of their children, almost wins our reluctant assent through the\npertinacity with which the generations of the Pyncheon race are made\nnot merely to live in the blood and brain of their descendants, but to\ncling to their old abiding-place on earth, so that to inhabit the house\nis to breathe the Pyncheon soul and assimilate the Pyncheon\nindividuality. The whole representation, masterly as it is, considered\nas an effort of intellectual and imaginative power, would still be\nmorally bleak, were it not for the sunshine and warmth radiated from\nthe character of Phoebe. In this delightful creation Hawthorne for once\ngives himself up to homely human nature, and has succeeded in\ndelineating a New-England girl, cheerful, blooming, practical,\naffectionate, efficient, full of innocence and happiness, with all the\n\"handiness\" and native sagacity of her class, and so true and close to\nNature that the process by which she is slightly idealized is\ncompletely hidden.\n\nIn this romance there is also more humor than in any of his other\nworks. It peeps out, even in the most serious passages, in a kind of\ndemure rebellion against the fanaticism of his remorseless\nintelligence. In the description of the Pyncheon poultry, which we\nthink unexcelled by anything in Dickens for quaintly fanciful humor,\nthe author seems to indulge in a sort of parody on his own doctrine of\nthe hereditary transmission of family qualities. At any rate, that\nstrutting chanticleer, with his two meagre wives and one wizened\nchicken, is a sly side fleer at the tragic aspect of the law of\ndescent. Miss Hepzibah Pyncheon, her shop, and her customers, are so\ndelightful, that the reader would willingly spare a good deal of\nClifford and Judge Pyncheon and Holgrave, for more details of them and\nPhoebe. Uncle Venner, also, the old wood-sawyer, who boasts \"that he\nhas seen a good deal of the world, not only in people's kitchens and\nback-yards, but at the street-corners, and on the wharves, and in other\nplaces where his business\" called him, and who, on the strength of this\ncomprehensive experience, feels qualified to give the final decision in\nevery case which tasks the resources of human wisdom, is a very much\nmore humane and interesting gentleman than the Judge. Indeed, one\ncannot but regret that Hawthorne should be so economical of his\nundoubted stores of humor,--and that, in the two romances he has since\nwritten, humor, in the form of character, does not appear at all.\n\nBefore proceeding to the consideration of \"The Blithedale Romance,\" it\nis necessary to say a few words on the seeming separation of\nHawthorne's genius from his will. He has none of that ability which\nenabled Scott and enables Dickens to force their powers into action,\nand to make what was begun in drudgery soon assume the character of\ninspiration. Hawthorne cannot thus use his genius; his genius always\nuses him. This is so true, that he often succeeds better in what calls\nforth his personal antipathies than in what calls forth his personal\nsympathies. His life of General Pierce, for instance, is altogether\ndestitute of life; yet in writing it he must have exerted himself to\nthe utmost, as his object was to urge the claims of an old and dear\nfriend to the Presidency of the Republic. The style, of course, is\nexcellent, as it is impossible for Hawthorne to write bad English, but\nthe genius of the man has deserted him. General Pierce, whom he loves,\nhe draws so feebly, that one doubts, while reading the biography, if\nsuch a man exists; Hollingsworth, whom he hates, is so vividly\ncharacterized, that the doubt is, while we read the romance, whether\nsuch a man can possibly be fictitious.\n\nMidway between such a work as the \"Life of General Pierce\" and \"The\nScarlet Letter\" may be placed \"The Wonder-Book\" and \"Tanglewood Tales.\"\nIn these Hawthorne's genius distinctly appears, and appears in its most\nlovable, though not in its deepest form. These delicious stories,\nfounded on the mythology of Greece, were written for children, but they\ndelight men and women as well. Hawthorne never pleases grown people so\nmuch as when he writes with an eye to the enjoyment of little people.\n\nNow \"The Blithedale Romance\" is far from being so pleasing a\nperformance as \"Tanglewood Tales,\" yet it very much better illustrates\nthe operation, indicates the quality, and expresses the power, of the\nauthor's genius. His great books appear not so much created by him as\nthrough him. They have the character of revelations,--he, the\ninstrument, being often troubled with the burden they impose on his\nmind. His profoundest glances into individual souls are like the\nmarvels of clairvoyance. It would seem, that, in the production of such\na work as \"The Blithedale Romance,\" his mind had hit accidentally, as\nit were, on an idea or fact mysteriously related to some morbid\nsentiment in the inmost core of his nature, and connecting itself with\nnumerous scattered observations of human life, lying unrelated in his\nimagination. In a sort of meditative dream, his intellect drifts in the\ndirection to which the subject points, broods patiently over it, looks\nat it, looks into it, and at last looks through it to the law by which\nit is governed. Gradually, individual beings, definite in spiritual\nquality, but shadowy in substantial form, group themselves around this\ncentral conception, and by degrees assume an outward body and\nexpression corresponding to their internal nature. On the depth and\nintensity of the mental mood, the force of the fascination it exerts\nover him, and the length of time it holds him captive, depend the\nsolidity and substance of the individual characterizations. In this way\nMiles Coverdale, Hollingsworth, Westervelt, Zenobia, and Priscilla\nbecome real persons to the mind which has called them into being. He\nknows every secret and watches every motion of their souls, yet is, in\na measure, independent of them, and pretends to no authority by which\nhe can alter the destiny which consigns them to misery or happiness.\nThey drift to their doom by the same law by which they drifted across\nthe path of his vision. Individually, he abhors Hollingsworth, and\nwould like to annihilate Westervelt, yet he allows the superb Zenobia\nto be their victim; and if his readers object that the effect of the\nwhole representation is painful, he would doubtless agree with them,\nbut profess his incapacity honestly to alter a sentence. He professes\nto tell the story as it was revealed to him; and the license in which a\nromancer might indulge is denied to a biographer of spirits. Show him a\nfallacy in his logic of passion and character, point out a false or\ndefective step in his analysis, and he will gladly alter the whole to\nyour satisfaction; but four human souls, such as he has described,\nbeing given, their mutual attractions and repulsions will end, he feels\nassured, in just such a catastrophe as he has stated.\n\nEight years have passed since \"The Blithedale Romance\" was written, and\nduring nearly the whole of this period Hawthorne has resided abroad.\n\"The Marble Faun,\" which must, on the whole, be considered the greatest\nof his works, proves that his genius has widened and deepened in this\ninterval, without any alteration or modification of its characteristic\nmerits and characteristic defects. The most obvious excellence of the\nwork is the vivid truthfulness of its descriptions of Italian life,\nmanners, and scenery; and, considered merely as a record of a tour in\nItaly, it is of great interest and attractiveness. The opinions on Art,\nand the special criticisms on the masterpieces of architecture,\nsculpture, and painting, also possess a value of their own. The story\nmight have been told, and the characters fully represented, in\none-third of the space devoted to them, yet description and narration\nare so artfully combined that each assists to give interest to the\nother. Hawthorne is one of those true observers who concentrate in\nobservation every power of their minds. He has accurate sight and\npiercing insight. When he modifies either the form or the spirit of the\nobjects he describes, he does it either by viewing them through the\nmedium of an imagined mind or by obeying associations which they\nthemselves suggest. We might quote from the descriptive portions of the\nwork a hundred pages, at least, which would demonstrate how closely\naccurate observation is connected with the highest powers of the\nintellect and imagination.\n\nThe style of the book is perfect of its kind, and, if Hawthorne had\nwritten nothing else, would entitle him to rank among the great masters\nof English composition. Walter Savage Landor is reported to have said\nof an author whom he knew in his youth, \"My friend wrote excellent\nEnglish, a language now obsolete.\" Had \"The Marble Faun\" appeared\nbefore he uttered this sarcasm, the wit of the remark would have been\npointless. Hawthorne not only writes English, but the sweetest,\nsimplest, and clearest English that ever has been made the vehicle of\nequal depth, variety, and subtilty of thought and emotion. His mind is\nreflected in his style as a face is reflected in a mirror; and the\nlatter does not give back its image with less appearance of effort than\nthe former. His excellence consists not so much in using common words\nas in making common words express uncommon things. Swift, Addison,\nGoldsmith, not to mention others, wrote with as much simplicity; but\nthe style of neither embodies an individuality so complex, passions so\nstrange and intense, sentiments so fantastic and preternatural,\nthoughts so profound and delicate, and imaginations so remote from the\nrecognized limits of the ideal, as find an orderly outlet in the pure\nEnglish of Hawthorne. He has hardly a word to which Mrs. Trimmer would\nprimly object, hardly a sentence which would call forth the frosty\nanathema of Blair, Hurd, Kames, or Whately, and yet he contrives to\nembody in his simple style qualities which would almost excuse the\nverbal extravagances of Carlyle.\n\nIn regard to the characterization and plot of \"The Marble Faun,\" there\nis room for widely varying opinions. Hilda, Miriam, and Donatello will\nbe generally received as superior in power and depth to any of\nHawthorne's previous creations of character; Donatello, especially,\nmust be considered one of the most original and exquisite conceptions\nin the whole range of romance; but the story in which they appear will\nseem to many an unsolved puzzle, and even the tolerant and\ninterpretative \"gentle reader\" will be troubled with the unsatisfactory\nconclusion. It is justifiable for a romancer to sting the curiosity of\nhis readers with a mystery, only on the implied obligation to explain\nit at last; but this story begins in mystery only to end in mist. The\nsuggestive faculty is tormented rather than genially excited, and in\nthe end is left a prey to doubts. The central idea of the story, the\nnecessity of sin to convert such a creature as Donatello into a moral\nbeing, is also not happily illustrated in the leading event. When\nDonatello kills the wretch who malignantly dogs the steps of Miriam,\nall readers think that Donatello committed no sin at all; and the\nreason is, that Hawthorne has deprived the persecutor of Miriam of all\nhuman attributes, made him an allegorical representation of one of the\nmost fiendish forms of unmixed evil, so that we welcome his destruction\nwith something of the same feeling with which, in following the\nallegory of Spenser or Bunyan, we rejoice in the hero's victory over\nthe Blatant Beast or Giant Despair. Conceding, however, that\nDonatello's act was murder, and not \"justifiable homicide,\" we are\nstill not sure that the author's conception of his nature and of the\nchange caused in his nature by that act, are carried out with a\nfelicity corresponding to the original conception.\n\nIn the first volume, and in the early part of the second, the author's\nhold on his design is comparatively firm, but it somewhat relaxes as he\nproceeds, and in the end it seems almost to escape from his grasp. Few\ncan be satisfied with the concluding chapters, for the reason that\nnothing is really concluded. We are willing to follow the ingenious\nprocesses of Calhoun's deductive logic, because we are sure, that,\nhowever severely they task the faculty of attention, they will lead to\nsome positive result; but Hawthorne's logic of events leaves us in the\nend bewildered in a labyrinth of guesses. The book is, on the whole,\nsuch a great book, that its defects are felt with all the more force.\n\nIn this rapid glance at some of the peculiarities of Hawthorne's\ngenius, we have not, of course, been able to do full justice to the\nspecial merits of the works we have passed in review; but we trust that\nwe have said nothing which would convey the impression that we do not\nplace them among the most remarkable romances produced in an age in\nwhich romance-writing has called forth some of the highest powers of\nthe human mind. In intellect and imagination, in the faculty of\ndiscerning spirits and detecting laws, we doubt if any living novelist\nis his equal; but his genius, in its creative action, has been\nheretofore attracted to the dark rather than the bright side of the\ninterior life of humanity, and the geniality which evidently is in him\nhas rarely found adequate expression. In the many works which he may\nstill be expected to write, it is to be hoped that his mind will lose\nsome of its sadness of tone without losing any of its subtilty and\ndepth; but, in any event, it would be unjust to deny that he has\nalready done enough to insure him a commanding position in American\nliterature as long as American literature has an existence.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nREVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.\n\n\n_Le Prime Quattro Edizioni della Divina Commedia Letteralmente\nRistampate per Cura di_ G.G. WARREN LORD VERNON. Londra: Presso Tommaso\ne Guglielmo Boone. MDCCCLVIII. 4to. pp. xxvi., 748.\n\nThe zeal with which the study of Dante has been followed by students in\nevery country of Europe, during the last forty years, is one of the\nmost illustrative facts of the moral as well as of the intellectual\ncharacter of the period. The interest which has attracted men of the\nmost different tempers and persuasions to this study is not due alone\nto the poetic or historic value of his works, however high we may place\nthem in these respects, but also and especially to the circumstance\nthat they present a complete and distinct view of the internal life and\nspiritual disposition of an age in which the questions which still\nchiefly concern men were for the first time positively stated, and\nwhich exhibited in its achievements and its efforts some of the highest\nqualities of human nature in a condition of vigor such as they have\nnever since shown. Dante himself combined a power of imagination beyond\nthat of any other poet with an intensity and directness of individual\ncharacter not less extraordinary. The tendency of modern civilization\nis to diminish rather than to strengthen the originality and\nindependence of individuals. Autocracy and democracy seem to have a\nlike effect in reducing men to a uniform level of thought and effort.\nAnd thus during a time when these two principles have been brought into\nsharp conflict, it is not surprising that the most thoughtful students\nshould turn to the works of a man who by actual experience, or by force\nof imagination, comprehended all the conditions of his own age, and\nexhibited in his life and in his writings an individualism of the\nnoblest sort. The conservative and the reformer, the king and the\nradical, the priest and the heretic, the man of affairs and the man of\nletters, have taken their seats, side by side, on the scholars'\nbenches, before the same teacher, and, after listening to his large\ndiscourse, have discussed among themselves the questions in religion,\nin philosophy, in morals, politics, or history, which his words\nsuggested or explained.\n\nThe success which has attended these studies has been in some degree\nproportioned to the zeal with which they have been pursued. Dante is\nnow better understood and more intelligently commented than ever\nbefore. Much remains to be done as regards the clearing up of some\ndifficult points and the explanation of some dark passages,--and the\nobscurity in which Dante intentionally involved some portions of his\nwritings is such as to leave little hope that their absolute meaning\nwill ever be satisfactorily established. The history of the study of\nthe poet, of the comments on his meaning or his text, of the formation\nof the commonly received text, and of the translations of the \"Divina\nCommedia,\" affords much curious and entertaining matter to the lover of\npurely literary and bibliographic narrative, and incidentally\nillustrates the general character of each century since his death. As\nregards the settlement of the text, no single publication has ever\nappeared of equal value to that of the magnificent volume the title of\nwhich stands at the head of this notice. Lord Vernon has been known for\nmany years as the most munificent fosterer of Dantesque publications.\nOne after another, precious and costly books upon Dante have appeared,\nedited and printed at his expense, showing both a taste and a\nliberality as honorable as unusual.\n\nThe first four editions of the \"Divina Commedia,\" of which this volume\nis a reprint, are all of excessive rarity. Although each is a document\nof the highest importance in determining the text, few of the editors\nof the poem have had the means of consulting more than one or two of\nthem. The volumes are to be found united only in the Library of the\nBritish Museum, and it is but a few years that even that great\ncollection has included them all. They were printed originally between\n1470 and 1480 at Foligno, Jesi, Mantua, and Naples; and their chief\nvalue arises from the fact that they present the various readings of\nthree, if not four, early and selected manuscripts. The doubt whether\nfour manuscripts are represented by them is occasioned by the\nsimilarity between the editions of Foligno and Naples, which are of\nsuch a sort (for instance, correspondence in the most unlikely and odd\nmisprints) as to prove that one must have served as the basis of the\nother. But at the same time there are such differences between them as\nindicate a separate revision of each, and possibly the consultation by\ntheir editors of different codices.\n\nUnfortunately, there is no edition of the \"Divina Commedia\" which can\nclaim any special authority,--none which has even in a small degree\nsuch authority as belongs to the first folio of Shakspeare's plays. The\ntext, as now received, rests upon a comparison of manuscripts and early\nprinted editions; and as affording to scholars the means of an\nindependent critical judgment upon it, a knowledge of the readings of\nthese earliest editions is indispensable. But reprints of old books are\nproverbially open to error. The reprint of the first folio Shakspeare\nis so full of mistakes as to be of comparatively little use. The\ncharacter of the Italian language is such that inaccuracies are both\neasier and more dangerous than in English. Unless the reprint of the\nfirst four editions were literally correct, it would be of little\nvalue. To secure this correctness, so far as was possible, Lord Vernon\nengaged Mr. Panizzi, the chief librarian of the British Museum, to edit\nthe volume. A more competent editor never lived. Mr. Panizzi is\ndistinguished not more for his thorough and appreciative acquaintance\nwith the poetic literature of his country than for the extent and\naccuracy of his bibliographical knowledge and the refinement of his\nbibliographic skill. There can be no doubt that the reprint is as exact\nas the most rigid critic could desire. It is a monument of patience and\nof unpretending labor, as well as of typographic beauty,--the work of\nthe editor having been well seconded by that well-known disciple of\nAldus, Mr. Charles Whittingham.\n\nNor is it only in essential variations that these four texts are\nimportant, but also in the illustration which their different spelling\nand their varying grammatical forms afford in regard to the language\nused by Dante. At the time when these editions appeared, the\northography of the Italian tongue was not yet established, and its\ngrammatical inflections not in all cases definitely settled. Printing\nhad not yet been long enough in use to fix a permanent form upon words.\nMoreover, the misprints themselves, which in these early editions are\nvery numerous, often give hints as to the changes which they may have\ninduced, or as to the misplacing of letters most likely to occur, and\nconsequently most likely to lead to unobserved errors of the text.\n\nThe style of the printing in these first editions, and the aid it may\ngive, or the difficulty it may occasion, are hardly to be understood\nwithout an extract. We open at _Paradiso_, xv. 70. Cacciaguida has just\nspoken to his descendant, and then follows, according to the Foligno,\nthe following passage:--\n\n  Io mi uolfi abeatrice et quella udio\n    pria chio parlaffi et arofemi un cenno\n    che fece crefcer lali aluoler mio\n\n  Poi cominciai con leefftto elfenno\n    come laprima equalita napparfe\n    dun pefo per ciafchun di noi fi fenno\n\n  Pero chel fole che nallumo et arfe\n    colcaldo et conlaluce et fi iguali\n    che tutte fimiglianze fono fcarfe.\n\nThis looks different enough from the common text, that, for example, of\nthe Florentine edition of 1844.\n\n  I' mi volsi a Beatrice, e quella udio\n    Pria ch' io parlassi, ed arrisemi un cenno\n    Che fece crescer l' ale al voler mio.\n\n  Poi cominciai cosi: L' affetto e il senno,\n    Come la prima egualit\u00e0 v' apparse,\n    D' un peso per ciascun di voi si fenno;\n\n  Perocch\u00e8 al Sol, che v' allum\u00f2 ed arse\n    Col caldo e con la luce, en s\u00ec iguali,\n    Che tutte simiglianze sono scarse.\n\n\"I turned to Beatrice, and she heard before I spoke, and smiled on me a\nsign which added wings to my desire. Then I began thus: Love and\nwisdom, as soon as the primal Equality has appeared to you, become of\none weight in each one of you; since in that Sun, which illuminates and\nwarms you with heat and light, they are so equal, that every comparison\nfalls short.\"\n\nThe three other ancient texts are each quite as different from the\nmodern one as that which we have given, nor is the passage one that\naffords example of unusual variations. It would have been easy to\nselect many others varying much more than this, but our object is to\nshow the general character of these first editions. The second line of\nthe quotation offers a various reading which is supported by the\n_arrossemi_ of the Jesi edition, and the _arossemi_ of that of Naples,\nas well as by the text of the comment of Benvenuto da Imola, and some\nother early authorities. But even were the weight of evidence in its\nfavor far greater than it is, it could never be received in place of\nthe thoroughly Dantesque and exquisite expression, _arrisemi un cenno_,\nwhich is found in the Mantua edition. The _napparse_ and the _noi_ of\nthe fifth and sixth lines and the _nallumo_ of the seventh are plainly\nmistakes of the scribe, puzzled by the somewhat obscure meaning of the\npassage. Not one of the four editions before us gives us the right\npronouns, but they are found in the Bartolinian codex, (as well as many\nothers,) and they are established in the rare Aldine edition of 1502,\nthe chief source of the modern text. In the eighth line, where we now\nread _en s\u00ec iguali_, the four give us _et_ or _e si iguali_, a reading\nfrom which it is difficult to extract a meaning, unless, with the\nBartolinian, we omit the _che_ in the preceding line, and suppose the\n_pero chel_ to stand, not for _perocch\u00e8 al_, but for _perocch\u00e8\nil_,--or, retaining the _che_, read the first words _perocch' \u00e8 il\nSol_, and take the clause as a parenthesis. The meaning, according to\nthe first supposition, would be, \"Love and wisdom are of one measure in\nyou, (since the Sun [_sc._ the primal Equality] warmed and enlightened\nyou,) and so equal that,\" etc. According to the second supposition, we\nshould translate, \"Since it [the primal Equality] is the sun which,\"\netc. Benvenuto da Imola gives still a third reading, making the _e si\niguali_ into _ee si iguale_, or, in modern orthography, _\u00e8 s\u00ec iguale_;\nbut, as this spoils the rhyme, it may be left out of account. There\nseems to us to be some ground for believing the second reading\nsuggested above,\n\n  Perocch' \u00e8 il Sol che v' allum\u00f2 ed arse\n  Con caldo e con la luce, e s\u00ec iguali.\n\nto be the true one, not only from its correspondence with most of the\nearly copies, but from the rarity of the use of _en_ by Dante. There is\nbut one other passage in the poem where it is found (_Purgatory_, xvi.\n121).\n\nSuch is an example, taken at random, of the doubts suggested and the\nillustration afforded by these editions in the study of the text. Of\ncourse such minute criticism is of interest only to those few who\nreckon Dante's words at their true worth. The common reader may be\ncontent with the text as he finds it in common editions, But Dante,\nmore than any other author, stimulates his student to research as to\nhis exact words; for no other author has been so choice in his\nselection of them. He is not only the greatest modern master of\ncondensation in style, but he has the deepest insight into the value\nand force of separate words, the most delicate sense of appropriateness\nin position, and in the highest degree the poetic faculty of selecting\nthe word most fitting for the thought and most characteristic in\nexpression. It rarely happens that the place of a word of any\nimportance is a matter of indifference in his verse, no regard being\nhad to the rhythm; and every one sufficiently familiar with the\nlanguage in which he wrote to be conscious of its indefinable powers\nwill feel, though he may be unable to point out specifically, a marked\ndistinction in the quality and combinations of the words in the\ndifferent parts of the poem. The description of the entrance to Hell,\nin the third canto of the _Inferno_ is, for instance, hardly more\ndifferent from the description of the Terrestrial Paradise,\n(_Purgatory_, xxviii.,) in scenery and imagery, than it is in the vague\nbut absolute qualities of language, in its rhythmical and verbal\nessence.\n\nBut, leaving these subtilties, let us look at some of the disputed\npassages of the poem, upon which the texts before us may give their\nevidence.\n\nIn the episode of Francesca da Rimini, Mr. Barlow has recently\nattempted to give currency to a various reading long known, but never\naccepted, in the line (_Inferno_, v. 102) in which Francesca expresses\nher horror at the manner of her death. She says, _il modo ancor m'\noffende_, \"the manner still offends me.\" But for _il modo_ Mr. Barlow\nwould substitute _il mondo_, \"the world still offends me,\"--that is, as\nwe suppose, by holding a false opinion of her conduct. Mr. Barlow's\nsuggestions are always to be received with respect, but we cannot but\nthink him wrong in proposing this change. The spirits in Hell are not\nsupposed to be aware of what is passing upon earth; they are\nself-convicted, (_Purgatory_, xxvi. 85, 86,) and Francesca being doomed\nto eternal woe, the world could not do her wrong by taxing her with\nsin; while, further, the shudder at the method of her death, lasting\neven in torment, seems to us a far more imaginative conception than the\none proposed in its stead. Our four texts read _elmodo_.\n\nIn the famous simile (_Inferno_, iii. 112-114) in which Dante compares\nthe spirits falling from the bank of Acheron to the dead leaves\nfluttering from a bough in autumn, giving, as Mr. Ruskin says, \"the\nmost perfect image possible of their utter lightness, feebleness,\npassiveness, and scattering agony of despair,\" our common texts have\n\n  infin che il ramo\n  Rende alla terra tutte le sue spoglie,\n\n\"Until the branch gives to the earth all its spoils\"; but the texts of\nJesi and Mantua, as well as those of the Bartolinian and the Aldus, and\nmany other early authorities, here put the word _Vede_ in place of\n_Rende_, giving a variation which for its poetic worth well deserves to\nbe marked, if not to be introduced into the received text. \"Until the\nbranch sees all its spoils upon the earth\" is a personification quite\nin Dante's manner. A confirmation of the value of this reading is given\nby the fact that Tasso preferred it to the more common one, and in his\ntreatise on the \"Art of Poetry\" praises it as full of energy.\n\nThe value of this work of Lord Vernon's to the students of Dante, in\nenabling them to secure accuracy in their statements in regard to the\nearly texts, has been illustrated to us by finding that Blanc, in his\nuseful and excellent \"Vocabolario Dantesco,\" has not unfrequently\nfallen into error through his inability to consult those first\neditions. For example, in the line, (_Inferno_, xviii. 43,) _Perci\u00f2 a\nfiguralo i piedi affissi_, as it is commonly given, or, _Perci\u00f2 a\nfirgurarlo gli occhi affissi_, as it appears in some editions, Blanc,\nwho prefers the latter reading, states that _gli occhi_ is found in\n_\"toutes les anciennes \u00e9ditions.\"_ But the truth is, that those of\nFoligno and Naples read _ipedi_, that of Jesi has _in piedi_, and that\nof Mantua _i pie_. The Aldine of 1502 is the earliest edition we have\nseen which has _gli occhi_.\n\nIn the episode of Ugolino, (_Inferno,_ xxxiii.,) the verse which has\ngiven rise to more comment, perhaps than any other is that (the 26th)\nin which the Count says, according to the usual reading, that the\nnarrow window in his tower had shown him many moons before he dreamed\nhis evil dream: _Pi\u00f9 lune gi\u00e0, quand' i' feci il mal sonno,_ \"Many\nmoons already, when I had my ill slumber.\" But another reading, found\nin a majority of the early MSS. and editions, including those of Jesi\nand Mantua gives the variation, _pi\u00f9 lume;_ while the editions of\nFoligno and Naples give _lieve_, which, affording no intelligible\nmeaning, must be regarded as a mere misprint. In spite of the weight\nof early authority for _lume_, the reading _lune_ is perhaps to be\npreferred, as giving in a word a brief expressive statement of a weary\nlength of imprisonment,--while _lume_ would only serve to fix the\nmoment of the dream as having been between the first dawn and the full\nday. It is rare that the difference between an _n_ and an _m_ is of\nsuch marked effect.\n\nIn the sixth canto of _Purgatory_, verse 58, Virgil says, \"Behold there\na soul which _a posta_ looks toward us.\" Such at least is the common\nreading, and the words _a posta_ are explained as meaning _fixedly._\nBut this signification is somewhat forced, _a posta_, or _apposta_,\nbeing more properly used with the meaning of _on purpose_ or\n_deliberately_,--and the first four editions supply a reading without\nthis difficulty, and one which adds a new and significant feature to\nthe description. They unite in the omission of the letter _a_. The\npassage then bears the meaning,--\"But behold there a soul which,\n_fixed_, or _placed_, alone and all apart, looks toward us.\" This\nreading, beside being supported by the weight of ancient authority,\nfinds confirmation, in the context, in the terms in which Sordello's\naspect is described: \"How lofty and disdainful didst thou stand! how\nslow and decorous in the moving of thy eyes!\"\n\nA curious example of the mistakes of the old copies is afforded in the\ncharming description of the Terrestrial Paradise in the twenty-eighth\ncanto of the _Purgatory_. Dante says, that the leaves on the trees,\ntrembling in the soft air, were not so disturbed that the little birds\nin their tops ceased from any of their arts,--\n\n           che gli augelletti per le cime\n  Lasciasser d' operare ogni lor arte.\n\nThe lines are so plain that a mistake is difficult in them; but, of our\nfour editions, the Jesi is the only one which gives them correctly.\nFoligno and Naples read _angeleti_ for _augelletti_, while Mantua gives\nus the astonishing word _intelletti_. Again, in line 98 of the same\ncanto, all four read, _exaltation dell' acqua_, for the simple and\ncorrect _esalazion dell' acqua_. And in line 131, for _Eunoe si\nchiama_, Jesi supplies the curious word _curioce si chiama_.\n\nThese examples of error are not of great importance in themselves, and\nare easily corrected, but they serve to illustrate the great frequency\nof error in all the early texts of the \"Divina Commedia,\" and the\nprobability that many errors not so readily discovered may still exist\nin the text, making difficulties where none originally existed. They\nare of value, furthermore, in the wider range of critical studies, as\nillustrating in a striking way the liability to error which existed in\nall books so long as they were preserved only by the work of scribes.\nHere is a poem which was transmitted in manuscript for only about one\nhundred and fifty years, the first four printed editions of which show\ndifferences in almost every line. It is no exaggeration to say that the\nvariations between the editions of Foligno, Jesi, and Mantua, in\northography, inflection, and other grammatical and dialectic forms, not\nto speak of the less frequent, though still numerous differences in the\nwords themselves, greatly exceed, throughout the poem, the number of\nlines of which it is composed. Yet by a comparison of them one with\nanother a consistent and generally satisfactory text has been formed.\nThe bearing of this upon the views to be taken of the condition of the\ntext of more ancient works, as, for instance, that of the Gospels, is\nplain.\n\nThe work before us is so full of matter interesting to the student of\nDante, that we are tempted to go on with further illustrations of it,\nthough well aware that there are few who have zeal or patience enough\nto continue the examination with us. But the number of those in America\nwho are beginning to read the \"Divina Commedia,\" as something more than\na mere exercise in the Italian language, is increasing, and some of\nthem, at least, will take pleasure with us in this inquiry concerning\nthe words, that is, the thoughts of Dante. Why should the minute, but\nnot fruitless criticism of texts be reserved for the ancient classic\nwriters? The great poet of the Middle Ages deserves this work at our\nhands far more than any of the Latin poets, not excluding even his own\nmaster and guide.\n\nThe eleventh canto of the _Paradiso_ is chiefly occupied with the noble\nnarrative of the life of St. Francis. Reading it as we do, at such a\ndistance from the time of the events which it records, and with\nfeelings that have never been warmed into fervor by the facts or the\nlegends concerning the Saint, it is hard for us to appreciate at its\nfull worth the beauty of this canto, and its effect upon those who had\nseen and conversed with the first Franciscans. Not a century had yet\npassed since the death of St. Francis, and the order which he had\nfounded kept his memory alive in every part of the Catholic world. A\nstory which may be true or false, and it matters little which, tells us\nthat Dante himself in his early manhood had proposed to enter its\nranks. There is no doubt that its vows of poverty and chastity, its\narduous but invigorating rule during its early days, appealed with\nstrong force to his temperament and his imagination, as promising a\nwithdrawal from those worldly temptations of which he was conscious,\nfrom that pressure of private and public affairs of which he was\nimpatient. The contrast between the effects which the life of St.\nFrancis and that of St. Dominic had upon the poet's mind is shown by\nthe contrast in tone in which in successive cantos he tells of these\ntwo great pillars of the Church.\n\nIn lines 71 and 72, speaking of Poverty, the bride of the Saint, he\nsays,--\n\n  Si che dove Maria rimase giuso,\n  Ella con Cristo salse in sulia croce:\n\n\"So that whilst Mary remained below, she mounted the cross with\nChrist,\" Such is the common reading. Now in all four of the editions\nwhich are in Lord Vernon's reprint, in Benvenuto da Imola, in the\nBartolinian codex, in the precious codex of Cortona, and in many other\nearly manuscripts and editions, the word _pianse_ is found in the place\nof _salse_; \"She lamented upon the cross with Christ.\" The antithesis,\nthough less direct, is not less striking, and the phrase seems to us to\nbecome simpler, more natural, and more touching. Yet this reading has\nfound little favor with recent editors, and one of them goes so far as\nto say, \"che non solo impoverisce, ma adultera l' idea.\"\n\nPassing over other variations, some of them of importance, in this\neleventh canto, we find the last verses standing in most modern\neditions,--\n\n  E vedr\u00e0 il coreggier che argomenta\n  U' ben s' impingua, se non si vaneggia.\n\nAnd the meaning is explained as being,--\"And he who is girt with a\nleathern cord (_i.e._ the Dominican) will see what is meant by 'Where\nwell they fatten, if they do not stray.'\" But to this there are several\nobjections. No other example of _coreggier_ thus used is, we believe,\nto be found. Moreover, the introduction of a Dominican to learn this\nlesson is forced, for it was Dante himself who had had a doubt as to\nthe meaning of these words, and it was for his instruction that the\ndiscourse in which they were explained was held. We prefer, therefore,\nthe reading which is found in the editions of Jesi, Foligno, and\nNaples, (in part in that of Mantua,) and which is given by many other\nancient texts: _Vedrai_ or _E vedrai il correger che argomenta:_ \"Thou\nwilt see the reproof which 'Where well they fatten, if they do not\nstray,' conveys.\" This reading has been adopted by Mr. Cayley in his\nremarkable translation.\n\nOne more instance of the value of Lord Vernon's work, and we have done.\nThe 106th, 107th, and 108th verses of the twenty-sixth canto of the\n_Paradiso_ are among the most difficult of the poem, and have given\nrise to great variety of comment. In the edition of Florence of 1830,\nin those of Foscolo, and of Costa, and many others, they stand,--\n\n  Perch' io la veggio nel verace speglio\n  Che fa di se pareglie l' altre cose\n  E nulla face lui di se pareglio.\n\nAnd they are explained by Bianchi as meaning, \"Because I see it in that\ntrue mirror (i. e. God) which makes other things like to themselves,\n(that is, represents them as they are,) while nothing can represent Him\nlike to Himself.\" Those who love the quarrels of commentators should\nlook at the notes in the Variorum editions of Padua or Florence to see\nwith what amusing asperity they have treated each other's solutions of\nthe passage. Italian words of abuse have a sonorous quality which gives\ngrandeur to a skirmish of critics. One is declared by his opponent to\nhave _ingarbugliato_ the clearest meaning; another _guasta il\nsentimento_ and _sproposita in grammatica_; a third brings _falso_ and\n_assurdo_ to the charge, and, not satisfied with their force, adds\n_blasfemo_; a fourth declares that the third has contrived _capovolgere\nla consegitenza_; and so on;--from all which the reader, trying to find\nshelter from the pelting of hard words, discovers that the meaning is\nnot clear even to the most confident of the critics. But, standing\napart from the battle, and looking only at the text, and not at the\nbewildered comment, we find in the editions of Foligno, Jesi, and\nNaples, and in many other ancient texts, a reading which seems to us\nsomewhat easier than the one commonly adopted. We copy the lines after\nthe Foligno:--\n\n  Per chio laueggio neluerace speglio\n  che fa dise pareglio alaltre cose\n  et nulla face lui dise pareglio.\n\nAnd we would translate them, \"Because I see it in that true mirror who\nin Himself affords a likeness to [or of] all other things, while\nnothing gives back to Him a likeness of Himself.\" Here _pareglio_\ncorresponds with the Proven\u00e7al _parelh_ and the later French\n_pareil_,--and the Proven\u00e7al phrase _rendre le parelha_ affords an\nexample of similar application to that of the word in Dante.\n\nWith us in America, criticism is not rated as it deserves; it is little\nfollowed as a study, and the love for the great masters and poets of\nother times and other tongues than our own fails to stimulate the ardor\nof students to the thorough examination of their thoughts and words. No\ndoubt, criticism, as it has too often been pursued, is of small worth,\ndisplaying itself in useless inquiries, and lavishing time and labor\nupon insoluble and uninteresting questions. But such is not its true\nend. Verbal criticism, rightly viewed, has a dignity which belongs to\nfew other studies; for it deals with words as the symbols of\nthoughts,--with words, which are the most spiritual of the instruments\nof human power, the most marvellous of human possessions. It makes\nthought accurate, and perception fine. It adds truth to the creations\nof imagination by teaching the modes by which they may be best\nexpressed, and it thus leads to fuller and more appreciative\nunderstanding and enjoyment of the noblest works of the past. There\ncan, indeed, be no thorough culture without it.\n\nTo restore the balance of our lives, in these days of haste, novelty,\nand restlessness, there is a need of a larger infusion into them of\npursuits which have no end of immediate publicity or instant return of\ntangible profit,--of pursuits which, while separating us from the\nintrusive world around us, should introduce us into the freer,\ntranquiller, and more spacious world of noble and everlasting thought.\nThe greener and lonelier precincts of our minds are now trampled upon\nby the hurrying feet of daily events and transient interests. If we\nwould keep that spiritual region unpolluted, we need to acquaint\nourselves with some other literature than that of newspapers and\nmagazines, and to entertain as familiars the men long dead, yet living\nin their works. As Americans, our birthrights in the past are\nimperfect; we are born into the present alone. But he who lives only in\npresent things lives but half a life, and death comes to him as an\nimpertinent interruption: by living also in the past we learn to value\nthe present at its worth, to hold ourselves ready for its end. With\nDante, taking him as a guide and companion in our privater moods, we\nmay, even in the natural body, pass through the world of spirit.\n\nIt will be a good indication of the improvement in the intellectual\ndisposition of our people, when the study of Dante becomes more\ngeneral. Meanwhile, on the part of his few students in America, we\nwould offer our thanks to Lord Vernon and to Mr. Panizzi for the aid\nwhich the liberality of the one and the skill and learning of the other\nhave given to us, and for the honor they have done to the memory of our\ncommon Author and Leader.\n\n_Notes of Travel and Study in Italy_. By CHARLES ELIOT NORTON. Boston:\nTicknor & Fields. 1860. pp. x., 320.\n\nThere is, perhaps, no country with which we are so intimate as with\nItaly,--none of which we are always so willing to hear more. Poets and\nprosers have alike compared her to a beautiful woman; and while one\nfinds nothing but loveliness in her, another shudders at her fatal\nfascination. She is the very Witch-Venus of the Middle Ages. Roger\nAscham says, \"I was once in _Italy_ myself, but I thank God my abode\nthere was but nine days; and yet I saw in that little time, in one\ncity, more liberty to sin than ever I heard tell of in our noble city\nof London in nine years.\" He quotes triumphantly the proverb,--_Inglese\nitalianato, diavolo incarnato_. A century later, the entertaining\n\"Richard Lassels, Gent., who Travelled through Italy Five times as\nTutor to several of the _English_ Nobility and Gentry,\" and who is open\nto new engagements in that kind, declares, that, \"For the Country\nitself, it seemed to me to be _Nature's Darling_, and the _Eldest\nSister_ of all other Countries; carrying away from them all the\ngreatest blessings and favours, and receiving such gracious looks from\nthe _Sun_ and _Heaven_, that, if there be any fault in _Italy_, it is,\nthat her Mother _Nature_ hath cockered her too much, even to make her\nbecome Wanton.\" Plainly, our Tannh\u00e4user is but too ready to go back to\nthe Venus-berg!\n\nA new book on Italy seems a dangerous experiment. Has not all been told\nand told and told again? Is it not one chief charm of the land, that it\nis changeless without being Chinese? Did not Abbot Samson, in 1159,\n_Scotti habitum induens_, (which must have shown his massive calves to\ngreat advantage.) probably see much the same popular characteristics\nthat Hawthorne saw seven hundred years later? Shall a man try to be\nentertaining after Montaigne, aesthetic after Winckelmann, wise after\nGoethe, or trenchant after Forsyth? Can he hope to bring back anything\nso useful as the _fork_, which honest Tom Coryate made prize of two\ncenturies and a half ago, and put into the greasy fingers of Northern\nbarbarians? Is not the \"Descrittione\" of Leandro Alberti still a\ncompetent itinerary? And can one hope to pick up a fresh Latin\nquotation, when Addison and Eustace have been before him with their\nscrap-baskets?\n\nIf there be anything which a person of even moderate accomplishments\nmay be presumed to know, it is Italy. The only open question left seems\nto be, whether Shakespeare were the only man that could write his name\nwho had never been there. We have read our share of Italian travels,\nboth in prose and verse, but, as the nicely discriminating Dutchman\nfound that \"too moch brahndee was too moch, but too moch lager-beer was\njost hright,\" so we are inclined to say that too much Italy is just\nwhat we want. After Des Brosses, we are ready for Henri Beyle, and\nAmp\u00e8re, and Hillard, and About, and Gallenga, and Julia Kavanagh;\n\"Corinne\" only makes us hungry for George Sand. That no one can tell us\nanything new is as undeniable as the compensating fact that no one can\ntell us anything too old.\n\nThere are two kinds of travellers,--those who tell us what they went to\nsee, and those who tell us what they saw. The latter class are the only\nones whose journals are worth the sifting; and the value of their eyes\ndepends on the amount of individual character they took with them, and\nof the previous culture that had sharpened and tutored the faculty of\nobservation. In our conscious age the frankness and na\u00efvet\u00e9 of the\nelder voyagers is impossible, and we are weary of those humorous\nconfidences on the subject of fleas with which we are favored by some\nmodern travellers, whose motto should be (slightly altered) from\nHorace,--_Flea-bit, et toto cantabitur orbe._ A naturalist\nself-sacrificing enough may have this experience more cheaply at home.\n\nThe book before us is the record of a second residence in Italy, of\nabout two years. This in itself is an advantage; since a renewed\nexperience, after an interval of absence and distraction, enables us to\ndistinguish what had merely interested us by its strangeness from what\nis permanently worthy of study and remembrance. In a second visit we\nknow at least what we do _not_ wish to see, and our first impressions\nhave so defined themselves that they afford us a safer standard of\ncomparison. To most travellers Italy is a land of pure vacation, a\nlotus-eating region, \"in which it seemeth always afternoon.\" But Mr.\nNorton, whose book shows bow well his time had been employed at home,\ncould not but spend it to good purpose abroad. The word \"study\" has a\nright to its place on his title-page, and his volume is worthy of a\nstudent. He shows himself to be one who, like Wordsworth, \"does not\nmuch or oft delight in personal talk\"; there is no gossip between the\ncovers of his book, no impertinent self-obtrusion. Familiar with what\nhas been written about Italy by others, he has known how to avoid the\ntrite highways, and by going back to what was old has found topics that\nare really fresh and delightful. The Italy of the ancient Romans is a\nforeign country to us, and must always continue so; but the Italy of\nthe Middle Ages is nearer, not so much in time, as because there is no\nimpassable rift of religious faith, and consequently of ideas and\nmotives, between us and it. Far enough away in the centuries to be\npicturesque, it is near enough in the sympathy of belief and thought to\nbe thoroughly intelligible. The chapter on the Brotherhood of the\nMisericordia at Florence is remarkably interesting, and the coincidence\nwhich Mr. Norton points out in a note between the circumstances which\nled to its foundation and those in which a somewhat similar society\noriginated in California so lately as 1859 is not only curious, but\npleasant, as showing that there is a natural piety proper to man in all\nages alike. In his account of the building of the Cathedral of Orvieto,\nand his notices of Rome as it was when Dante and Petrarch saw it, Mr.\nNorton has struck a rich vein, which we hope he will find time to work\nmore thoroughly hereafter. By the essential fairness of his mind, his\npatience in investigation, and his sympathy with what is noble in\ncharacter and morally influential in events, he seems to us peculiarly\nfitted for that middle ground occupied by the historical essayist, to\nwhom literature is something co\u00f6rdinate with politics, and who finds a\ngreat book more eventful than a small battle.\n\nBut if, as a scholar and lover of Art, Mr. Norton naturally turns to\nthe past, he does not fail to tell us whatever he finds worth knowing\nin the present. His tone of mind and habitual subjects of thought may\nbe inferred from the character of the topics that interest him. The\nglimpses he gives us of the actual condition of the people of Italy, as\nindicated by their practical conception of the religious dogmas of\ntheir Church, by the quality of the cheap literature that is popular\namong them, of the tracts provided for their spiritual aliment by\necclesiastical authority, and of the caricatures produced in 1848-9,\n(as in his notice of \"Don Pirlone,\") are of special value, and show that\nhe knows where to look for signs of what lies beneath the surface. His\nappreciation of the beautiful in Art has not been cultivated at the\nexpense of his interest in the moral, political, and physical\nwell-being of man. His touching sketch of the life of Letterato, the\nfounder of Ragged Schools, shows that moral loveliness attracts his\nsympathy as much when embodied in a life of obscure usefulness as when\nit gleams in the saints and angels of Fra Angelico. A conscientious\nProtestant, he exposes the corruptions of the Established Church in\nItaly, not as an anti-Romanist, but because he sees that they are\npractically operative in the social and political degradation of the\npeople. What good there is never escapes his attention, and we learn\nfrom him much that is new and interesting concerning public charities\nand private efforts for the elevation of the lower orders. The miles of\nstatuary in the Vatican do not weary him so much that he cannot at\nnight make the round of evening schools for the poor.\n\nWe have not read a pleasanter or more instructive book of Italian\ntravel than this. Mr. Norton's range of interest is so wide that we are\nrefreshed with continual variety of topic; and his style is pure,\nclear, and chaste, without any sacrifice of warmth or richness. It is\nalways especially agreeable to us to encounter an American who is a\nscholar in the true sense of the word, in which sense it is never\ndissociated from gentleman. When, as in the present instance,\nscholarship is united with a deep and active interest in whatever\nconcerns the practical well-being of men, we have one of the best\nresults of our modern civilization. We are no lovers of dilettantism,\nbut we see in these scholarly tastes and habits which do not seclude a\nman from the duties of real life and useful citizenship the only\nsafeguard against the evils which the rapid heaping-up of wealth is\nsure to bring with it.\n\nWe do not always agree with Mr. Norton in his estimate of the\ncomparative merit of different artists. We think he sometimes makes Mr.\nRuskin's mistake of attributing to positive religious sentiment what is\nrather to be ascribed to the negative influence of circumstances and\ndate. We cannot help thinking that the mere arrangement of their\nfigures by such painters as Cima da Conegliano and Francesco Francia,\nthe architectural regularity of their disposition, the sculpturesque\ndignity of their attitudes, and the consequent impression of\nsimplicity and repose which they convey, have much to do with the\nreligious effect they produce on the mind, as contrasted with the more\ndramatic and picturesque conceptions of later artists. When we look at\nJohn Bellino's \"Gods come down to taste the Fruits of the Earth,\" we\ncannot think him essentially a more religious man than his great pupil\nwho painted that truly divine countenance of Christ in \"The\nTribute-Money.\" At the same time we go along with Mr. Norton heartily,\nwhere, in the concluding pages of his book, with equal learning and\neloquence, he points out the causes and traces the progress of the\nmoral and artistic decline which came over Italy in the sixteenth\ncentury, and whose effect made the seventeenth almost a desert. This is\none of the most striking passages in the volume, and the lesson of it\nis brought home to us with a force and fervor worthy of the theme. It\nalso affords a good type of the quiet vigor of thought and the high\nmoral purpose which are characteristic of the author.\n\n\n1. _An American Dictionary of the English Language,_ etc., etc. By\nNOAH WEBSTER, LL. D. Revised and enlarged by CHAUNCEY A. GOODRICH,\nProfessor in Yale College. Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam. 1859.\npp. ccxxxvi., 1512.\n\n2. _A Dictionary of the English Language._ By JOSEPH E. WORCESTER, LL.\nD. Boston: Hickling, Swan, & Brewer. 1860. pp. lxviii,, 1786.\n\nSince the famous Battle of the Books in St. James's Library, no\nliterary controversy has been more sharply waged than that between the\nadherents of the rival Dictionaries of Doctors Worcester and Webster.\nThe attack was begun thirty years ago, by Dr. Webster's publishers,\nwhen Dr. Worcester's \"Comprehensive Dictionary\" first appeared in\nprint. On the publication of his \"Universal and Critical Dictionary,\"\nin 1846, it was renewed, and, not to speak of occasional skirmishes\nduring the interval, the appearance of Dr. Worcester's enlarged and\nfinished work brought matters to the crisis of a pitched battle.\n\nFrom this long conflict Dr. Worcester has unquestionably come off\nvictorious. Dr. Webster seemed to assume that he had a kind of monopoly\nin the English language, and that whoever ventured to compile a\ndictionary was guilty of infringing his patent-right. He drew up a list\nof words, and triumphantly asked Dr. Worcester where he had found them,\nunless in his two quartos of 1828. Dr. Worcester replied by showing\nthat most of the words were to be found in previous English\ndictionaries, and added, with sly humor, that he freely acknowledged\nDr. Webster's exclusive property in the word \"bridegoom,\" and others\nlike it, which would be sought for vainly in any volumes but his own.\nDr. Webster's attack was as unfair as the result of it was unfortunate\nfor himself.\n\nWe have several reasons, which seem to us sufficient, for preferring\nDr. Worcester's Dictionary; but we are not, on that account, disposed\nto underrate the remarkable merits of its rival. Dr. Webster was a man\nof vigorous mind, and endowed with a genuine faculty of independent\nthinking. He has hardly received justice at the hands of his\ncountrymen, a large portion of whom have too hastily taken a few\nobstinate whimsies as the measure of his powers. Utterly fanciful as\nare many of his etymologies, we should be false to our duty as critics,\nif we did not acknowledge that Dr. Webster possessed in very large\nmeasure the chief qualities which go to the making of a great\nphilologist. The very tendency to theorize, which led him to adopt\nthose oddities of spelling by which he may be said to be chiefly known,\nunited as it was to an understanding of uncommon breadth and clearness,\nwould under more favorable auspices have given him a very eminent place\namong the philosophic students of language. His great mistake was in\nattempting to force his peculiar notions upon the world in his\nDictionary, instead of confining them to his Preface, or putting them\nforward tentatively in a separate treatise. The importance which he\nattached to these trifles ought to have given him a hint that others\nmight be as obstinate on the other side, and that the prejudices of\ntaste have much tougher roots than those of opinion. We are inclined to\nthink that many of the changes proposed by Dr. Webster will be adopted\nin the course of time. But it is a matter of little consequence, and\nthe progress of such reforms is slow. Already two hundred years ago,\nJames Howel (the author of Charles Lamb's favorite \"Epistolae\nHo-Elianae\") advocated similar reforms, and, as far as the printers\nwould let him, carried them out in practice. \"The printer hath not bin\nso careful as he should have bin,\" he complains. He especially condemns\nthe superfluous letters in many of our words, choosing to write _don_,\n_com_, and _som_, rather than _done_, _come_, and _some_. \"Moreover,\"\nhe says, \"those words that have the Latin for their original, the\nauthor prefers that orthography rather than the French, whereby divers\nletters are spar'd: as _Physic, Logic, Afric_, not _Physique, Logique,\nAfrique; favor, honor, labor_, not _favour, honour, labour_, and very\nmany more; as also he omits the Dutch _k_ in most words; here you shall\nread _peeple_, not _pe-ople_, _tresure_, not _tre-asure_, _toung_, not\n_ton-gue_, &c.; _Parlement_, not _Parliament_; _busines, witnes,\nsicknes_, not _businesse, witnesse, sicknesse_; _star, war, far_, not\n_starre, warre, farre_; and multitudes of such words, wherein the two\nlast letters may well be spar'd. Here you shall also read _pity, piety,\nwitty_, not _piti-e, pieti-e, witti-e_, as strangers at first sight\npronounce them, and abundance of such like words.\"\n\nHowel gives a weak reason for making the changes he proposes, namely,\nthat the language will thereby be simplified to foreigners. He hints at\nthe true one when he says that \"we do not speak as we write.\" Dr.\nWebster also, speaking of certain words ending in _our_, says, \"What\nmotive could induce them to write these words, and _errour, honour,\nfavour, inferiour_, &c., in this manner, following neither the Latin\nnor the French, I cannot conceive.\" Had Dr. Webster's knowledge of the\nwritten English language been as great as it undoubtedly was of its\nlinguistic relations, he would have seen that the _spelling_ followed\nthe _accent_. The third verse of the Prologue to the \"Canterbury Tales\"\nwould have satisfied him:--\n\n  \"And bath\u00e9d every root in such lico\u00far\";\n\nand a little farther on,--\n\n  \"Or swinken with his houd\u00e9s and labo\u00fare.\"\n\nIn this respect the spelling of our older writers, where it can be\ndepended on, and especially of reformers like Howel, is of value, as\nthrowing some light on the question, how long the Norman pronunciation\nlingered in England. Warner, for instance, in his \"Albion's England,\"\nspells _creator_ and _creature_ as they are spelt now, but gives the\nFrench accent to both; and we are inclined to think that the charge of\nspeaking \"right Chaucer,\" brought against the courtiers of Queen\nElizabeth, referred rather to accent than diction.\n\nThe very title of Dr. Webster's Dictionary indicates a radical\nmisapprehension as to the nature and office of such a work. He calls\nthe result of his labors an \"_American_ Dictionary of the English\nLanguage,\" as if provincialism were a merit. He evidently thought that\nthe business of a lexicographer was to _regulate_, not to _record_.\nSometimes also his zeal as an etymologist misled him, as in his famous\nattempt to make the word _bridegroom_ more conformable to its supposed\nAnglo-Saxon root and its modern Teutonic congeners. It never occurred\nto him that we were still as far as ever from the goal, and that it\nwould be quite as inconvenient to explain that the termination _goom_\nwas a derivation from the Anglo-Saxon _guma_ as that it was a\ncorruption of it; the point to be gained being, after all, that we\nshould be able to find out the meaning of the English word\n_bridegroom_, having no pressing need of _guma_ for conversational\npurposes. We have spoken of this word only because we have heard it\nbrought up against Dr. Webster as often as anything else, and because\nthe disproportionate antipathy produced by this and a few similar\noddities shows, that, the primary object of all writing being the clear\nconveyance of meaning, and not only so, but its conveyance in the most\nwinning way, a writer blunders who wilfully estranges the reader's eye\nor jars upon its habitual associations, and that a lexicographer\nblunders still more desperately, who, upon system, teaches to offend in\nthat kind. And it is amusing in respect to this very word _bridegoom_,\nthat the whimsey is not Dr. Webster's own, but that the bee was put\ninto his bonnet by Horne Tooke.\n\nWebster in these matters was a bit of a Hotspur. He thought to deal\nwith language as the vehement Percy would have done with the Trent. The\nsmug and silver stream was to be allowed no more wilful windings, but\nto run\n\n  \"In a new channel fair and evenly.\"\n\nHe found an equally hot-headed Glendower, wherever there was an\neducated man, ready with the answer,--\n\n  \"Not wind? it shall; it must; you see it\n    doth.\"\n\n\"You see _it doth_\" is an argument whose force no theorist ever takes\ninto his reckoning.\n\nWe said that the title \"American Dictionary of the English Language\"\nwas an absurdity. Fancy a \"Cuban Dictionary of the Spanish Language.\"\nIt would be of value only to the comparative philologist, curious in\nthe changes of meaning, pronunciation, and the like, which\ncircumstances are always bringing about in languages subjected to new\nconditions of life and climate. But we must not forget to say\nthat the title chosen by Dr. Webster conveyed also a meaning\ncreditable to his spirit and judgment. He always stoutly maintained the\nright of English as spoken in America to all the privileges of a living\nlanguage. In opposition to the purists who would have clasped the\nlanguage forever within the covers of Johnson, he insisted on the\nnecessity of coining new words or adapting old ones to express new\nthings and new relations. It is many years since we read his \"Remarks\"\n(if that was the title) on Pickering's \"Vocabulary,\" and in answer to\nthe rather supercilious criticisms on himself in the \"Anthology\"; but\nthe impression left on our mind by that pamphlet is one of great\nrespect for the good sense, acuteness, and courage of its author. And\nof his Dictionary it may safely be said, that, with all its mistakes,\nno work of the kind had then appeared so learned and so comprehensive.\nIt may be doubted if any living language possessed at that time a\ndictionary, or one, at least, the work of a single man, in all respects\nits equal.\n\nBut etymologies are not the most important part of a good working\ndictionary, the intention of which is not to inform readers and writers\nwhat a word may have meant before the Dispersion, but what it means\nnow. The pedigree of an adjective or substantive is of little\nconsequence to ninety-nine men in a hundred, and the writers who have\nwielded our mother-tongue with the greatest mastery have been men who\nknew what words had most meaning to their neighbors and acquaintances,\nand did not stay their pens to ask what ideas the radicals of those\nwords may possibly have conveyed to the mind of a bricklayer going up\nfrom Padanaram to seek work on the Tower of Babel. A thoroughly good\netymological dictionary of English is yet to seek; and even if we\nshould ever get one, it will be for students, and not for the laity.\nNor is it the primary object of a common dictionary to trace the\nhistory of the language. Of great interest and importance to scholars,\nit is of comparatively little to Smith and Brown and their children at\nthe public school. It is a work apart, which we hope to see\naccomplished by the London Philological Society in a manner worthy of\ncomparison with what has been partly done for German by the brothers\nGrimm,--alas that the illustrious duality should have been broken by\ndeath! A lexicon of that kind should be an index to all the more\neminent books in the language; but we do not hold this to be the office\nof a dictionary for daily reference. A dictionary that should embrace\nevery unusual word, every new compound, every metaphorical turn of\nmeaning, to be found in our great writers, would be a compendium of the\ngenius of our authors rather than of our language; and a lexicographer\nwho rakes the books of second and third-rate men for out-of-the-way\nphrases is doing us no favor. A dictionary is not a drag-net to bring\nup for us the broken pots and dead kittens, the sewerage of speech, as\nwell as its living fishes. Nor do we think it a fair test of such a\nwork, that one should seek in it for every odd word that may have\ntickled his fancy in a favorite author. Like most middle-aged readers,\nwe have our specially private volumes. One of these--but we will not\nbetray the secret of our loves--contains some rare words, such as the\nGallicism _mistresse-piece_, and the delightful hybrid _pundonnore_ for\ntrifling points-of-honor; yet we by no means complain that we can find\nneither of them in Worcester, and only the former (with a ludicrously\nmistaken definition) in Webster.\n\nA conclusive reason with us for preferring Dr. Worcester's Dictionary\nis, that its author has properly understood his functions, and has\naimed to give us a true view of English as it is, and not as he himself\nmay have wished it should be or thought it ought to he. Its etymologies\nare sufficient for the ordinary reader,--sometimes superfluously full,\nas where the same word is given over and over again in cognate\nlanguages. We do not see the use, under the word PLAIN, of taking up\nroom with a list like the following: \"L. _planus;_ It. _piano;_ Sp.\n_piano;_ Fr. _plain._\" Not content with this, Dr. Worcester gives it\nonce more under PLAN: \"L. _planus_, flat; It. _piano_, a plan; Sp.\n_piano;_ Fr. _plan._--Dut., Ger., Dan., and Sw. _plan._\" Even yet we\nhave not done with it, for under PLANE we find \"L. _planus;_ It.\n_piano;_ Sp._plano_, Fr. _plan._\" One would think this rather a Polyglot\nLexicon than an English Dictionary. It seems to us that no Romanic\nderivative of the Latin root should he given, unless to show that the\nword has come into English by that channel. And so of the Teutonic\nlanguages. If we have Danish, Swedish, German, and Dutch, why not\nScotch, Icelandic, Frisic, Swiss, and every other conceivable dialectic\nvariety?\n\nAnother fault of superfluousness we find in the number of compounded\nwords, where the meaning is obvious,--such, for instance, as are formed\nwith the adverb out, which the genius of the language permits without\nlimit in the case of verbs. Dr. Worcester gives us, among many\nothers,--\n\n\"OUT-BABBLE, _v. a._ To surpass in Idle prattle; to exceed in babbling.\n_Milton._\"\n\n\"OUT-BELLOW, _v. a._ To bellow more or louder than; to exceed or\nsurpass in bellowing. _Bp. Hall._\"\n\n\"OUT-BLEAT, _v. a._ To bleat more than; to exceed in bleating. _Bp.\nHall_.\"\n\n\"OUT-BRAG, _v. a._ To surpass in bragging. _Shak._\"\n\n\"OUT-BRIBE, _v, a._ To exceed in bribing. _Blair._\"\n\n\"OUT-BURN, _v. a._ To exceed in burning. _Young._\" [The definition here\nis hardly complete; since the word means also to burn longer than.]\n\n\"OUT-CANT, _v. a._ To surpass in canting. _Pope._\"\n\n\"OUT-CHEAT, _v. a._ To surpass in cheating.\"\n\n\"OUT-CURSE, _v. a._ To surpass in cursing.\"\n\n\"OUT-DRINK, _v. a._ To exceed in drinking. _Donne._\"\n\n\"OUT-FAWN, _v. a._ To excel in fawning. _Hudibras._\"\n\n\"OUT-FEAT, _v. a._ To surpass in feats. _Smart._\"\n\n\"OUT-FLASH, _v. a._ To surpass in flashing. _Clarke._\"\n\nSimilar words occur at frequent intervals through nine columns. Dr.\nWebster is equally relentless, (even roping in a few estrays in his\nAppendix,) and we hardly know which has out-worded the other. We were\nsurprised to find in neither the useful and legitimate substantive form\nof _outgo_, as the opposite of _income_. This superfluousness (unless\nwe apply Voltaire's saying, \"_Le superflu, chose bien n\u00e9cessaire_\" to\ndictionaries also) is the result, we suppose, of the rivalry of\npublishers, who have done their best to persuade the public that\nnumerosity is the chief excellence in works of this kind, and that\nwhoever buys their particular quarto may be sure of an honest\npennyworth and of owning a thousand or two more words than his less\njudicious neighbors. In this way a false standard is manufactured, to\nwhich the lexicographer must conform, if he would have a remunerative\nsale for his book. He accordingly explores every lane and _impasse_ in\nthe purlieus of Grub Street, and pounces on a new word as a naturalist\nwould on a new bug,--the stranger and uglier, the better. We regret\nthat this kind of rivalry has been forced on Dr. Worcester; but he is\nso thorough, patient, and conscientious, that he leaves little behind\nhim for the gleaner. We confess that the amplitude of his research has\nsurprised us, highly as we were prepared to rate him in this respect\nby our familiarity with his former works. We have subjected his Dictionary\nto a pretty severe test. From the time of its publication we have made\na point of seeking in it every unusual word, old or new, that we met with\nin our reading. We have been disappointed in hardly a single instance, and\nwe are not acquainted with any other dictionary of which we could say as\nmuch.\n\nAn attempt has been made to damage Dr. Worcester's work by a partial\ncomparison of his definitions with those of Dr. Webster; and here,\nagain, the assumption has been, that _number_ was of more importance\nthan concise completeness. In the case of a quarto dictionary, we\nsuppose an honest reviewer may confess that he has not read through the\nsubject of his criticism. We have opened Dr. Webster's volume at\nrandom, and have found some of his definitions as extraordinarily\ninaccurate as many of his etymologies. They quite justify a\n_double-entendre_ of Daniel Webster's, which we heard him utter many\nyears ago in court. He had forced such a meaning upon some word in a\npaper connected with the case on trial, that the opposing counsel\ninterrupted him to ask in what dictionary he found the word so defined.\nHe silenced his questioner instantly with a happy play upon the name\ncommon to himself and the lexicographer: \"In _Webster's_ Dictionary,\nSir!\" We find in Webster, for example, the following definition of a\nword as to whose meaning he could have been set right by any\ncoasting-skipper that sailed out of New Haven:--\n\n\"AMID-SHIPS; _in marine language_, the middle of a ship with regard to\nher length and breadth.\" Now, when one ship runs into another at sea\nand strikes her _amid-ships_, how is she to contrive to accomplish it\nso as to satisfy the requirements of this definition? Or if a sailor is\nsaid to be standing amidships, must he be planted precisely in what he\nwould probably agree with Dr. Webster in spelling the _center_ of the\nmain-hatch? Dr. Worcester, quoting Falconer, is of course right.\n\nWe give another of Dr. Webster's definitions, which caught our eye in\nlooking over his array of words compounded with _out_. \"OUTWARD-BOUND;\nproceeding from a port or country.\" Now Dr. Webster does not tell his\nreaders that the term is exclusively applicable to vessels; and we\nshould like to know whence a vessel is likely to proceed, unless from a\nport,--and where ports are commonly situated, unless in countries? If\nan American ship be \"proceeding from\" the port of Liverpool to some\nport in the United States, how soon does she enter on what\nlexicographers call \"the state of being\" homeward-bound? The narrow\nlimits to which Dr. Webster confines the word would not extend beyond\nthe jaws of the harbor from which the ship is sailing. Dr. Worcester's\ndefinition is, \"OUTWARD-BOUND. (_Naut_.) Bound outward or to foreign\nparts. _Crabb_.\"\n\nUnder the word MORESQUE we find in Webster the following definition: \"A\nspecies of painting or carving done after the Moorish manner,\nconsisting of _grotesque_ pieces and compartments _promiscuously\ninterspersed_; arabesque. _Gwilt_.\" (The Italics are our own.) We have\nnot Mr. Gwilt's Encyclopaedia at hand; but if this be a fair\nrepresentation of one of its definitions, it is a very untrustworthy\nauthority. The last term to be applied to arabesque-work is\n_grotesque_, or _promiscuously interspersed_; and the description here\ngiven leaves out the most beautiful kind of arabesque, namely, the\ninlaid work of geometrical figures in colored marbles, in which the\nArabs far surpassed the older _opus Alexandrinum_. Nothing could be\nless grotesque, less promiscuously interspersed, or more beautiful in\nits harmonious variety, than the work of this kind in the famous\n_Capella Reale_ at Palermo.\n\nDr. Webster defines NIGHT-PIECE as \"a piece of painting so colored as\nto be supposed seen by candle-light,\"--a description which we suspect\nwould have somewhat puzzled Gherardo della Notte.\n\nWe might give other instances, had we time and space; but our object is\nnot to depreciate Webster, but only to show that the claim set up for\nhim of superior exactness in definition is altogether gratuitous. We\nhave found no inaccuracies comparable with these in Dr. Worcester's\nDictionary, which we tried in precisely the same way, by opening it\nhere and there at random. Moreover, looking at his work, not\nabsolutely, but in comparison with Dr. Webster's, (as we are challenged\nto do,) we cannot leave out of view that the former is a first edition,\nwhile the latter has had the advantage of repeated revisions.\n\nUnder the word MAGDALEN, we find Webster superior to Worcester. Under\nULAN, we find them both wrong. Dr. Worcester says it means \"a species\nof militia among the modern Tartars\"; and Dr. Webster, \"a certain\ndescription of militia among the modern Tartars.\" In any Polish\ndictionary they would have found the word defined as meaning \"lancer,\"\nand the Uhlans in the Austrian army can hardly be described as modern\nTartar militia. Both Dictionaries give SLAW, and neither explains it\nrightly. The word does not properly belong in an English dictionary,\nunless as an American provincialism of very narrow range. As such, it\nwill be found, properly defined, in Mr. Bartlett's excellent\nVocabulary. Lexicographers who so often cite the Dutch equivalents of\nEnglish words should own Dutch dictionaries. Under IMAGINATION, a good\nkind of test-word, we find Worcester much superior to Webster,\nespecially in illustrative citations.\n\nWe have been astonished by some instances of slovenly writing to be\nfound here and there in Dr. Webster's Dictionary, because he was\ncapable of writing pure and vigorous English. Under MAGAZINE (and by\nthe way, Dr. Webster's definition omits altogether the metaphorical\nsense of the word) we read that \"The first publication of this bind in\nEngland was the _Gentleman's Magazine_, which first appeared in 1731,\nunder the name of _Sylvanus Urban_, by Edward Cave, and which is still\ncontinued.\" A reader who knew nothing about the facts would be puzzled\nto say what the name of the new periodical really was, whether\n_Gentleman's Magazine_ or _Sylvanus Urban_; and a reader who knew\nlittle about English would be led to think that \"appeared by\" was\nequivalent to \"was commenced by,\" unless, indeed, he came to the\nconclusion that its apparition took place in the neighborhood of some\ncavern known by the name of Edward.\n\nWe have only a word to say as to the _illustrations_, as they are\ncalled, a mistaken profuseness in which disfigures both Dictionaries,\nanother evil result of bookselling competition. The greater part of\nthem, especially those in Webster, are fitter for a child's scrap-book\nthan for a volume intended to go into a student's library. Such\nadjuncts seem to us allowable only, if at all, somewhat as they were\nintroduced by Blunt in his \"Glossographia,\" to make terms of heraldry\nmore easily comprehensible. They might be admitted to save trouble in\ndescribing geometrical figures, or in explaining certain of the more\nfrequently occurring terms in architecture and mechanics, but beyond\nthis they are childish. The publishers of Webster give us all the\ncoats-of-arms of the States of the American Union, among other equally\nimpertinent woodcuts. We enter a protest against the whole thing, as an\nequally unfair imputation on the taste and the standard of judgment of\nintelligent Americans. If we must have illustrations, let them be strictly\nso, and not primer-pictures. Both Dictionaries give us the figure of a\ncrossbow, for instance, as if there could be anywhere a boy of ten years\nold who did not know the implement, at least under its other name of\n_bow-gun_. Neither cut would give the slightest notion of the thing as\na weapon, nor of the mode in which it was wound up and let off. Dr.\nWorcester says that it was intended \"for shooting _arrows_,\" which is not\nstrictly correct, since the proper name of the missile it discharged\nwas _bolt_,--something very unlike the shaft used by ordinary bowmen.\n\nWe believe Dr. Worcester's Dictionary to be the most complete and\naccurate of any hitherto published. He intrudes no theories of his own\nas to pronunciation or orthography, but cites the opinions of the best\nauthorities, and briefly adds his own where there is occasion. He is no\nbigot for the present spelling of certain classes of words, but gives\nthem, as he should do, in the way they are written by educated men, at\nthe same time expressing his belief that the drift of the language is\ntoward a change, wherever he thinks such to be the case. We reprobate,\nin the name of literary decency, the methods which have been employed\nto give an unfair impression of his work, as if it had been compiled\nmerely to supplant Webster, and as if the whole matter were a question\nof blind partisanship and prejudice. The assigning of such motives as\nthese, even by implication, to such men, among many others, as Mr.\nMarsh and Mr. Bryant, both of whom have expressed themselves in favor\nof the new Dictionary, is an insult to American letters. Mr. Marsh, by\nthe extent of his learning, is probably better qualified than any other\nman in America to pronounce judgment in such a case; and Mr. Bryant has\nnot left it doubtful that he knows what pure and vigorous English is,\nwhether in verse or prose, or that he could not employ it except to\nmaintain a well-grounded conviction.\n\nApart from more general considerations, there are several reasons which\nwould induce us to prefer Dr. Worcester's Dictionary. It has the great\nadvantage, not only that it is constructed on sounder principles, as it\nseems to us, but that it is the latest. Stereotyping is an unfortunate\ninvention, when it tends to perpetuate error or incompleteness, and\nalready the Appendix of added words in Webster amounts to eighty pages.\nFor all the words it contains, accordingly, the reader is put to double\npains: he must first search the main body of the work, and then the\nsupplement. Again, in Worcester, the synonymes are given, each under\nits proper head, in the main work; in Webster they form a separate\ntreatise. One other advantage of Worcester would be conclusive with us,\neven were other things equal,--and that is the size of the type, and\nthe greater clearness of the page, owing to the freshness of the\nstereotype-plates.\n\nWe know the inadequacy of such hand-to-mouth criticism as that of a\nmonthly reviewer must be upon works demanding so minute an examination\nas a dictionary deserves. For ourselves, we should wish to own both\nWebster and Worcester, but, if we could possess only one, we should\nchoose the latter. It is a monument to the industry, judgment, and\naccuracy of the author, of which he may well be proud.\n\n\n_Elements of Mechanics, for the Use of Colleges, Academies, and High\nSchools._ By WILLIAM G. PECK, Professor of Mathematics, Columbia\nCollege. New York: A.S. Barnes & Burr. 1859.\n\nText-books on Mechanics are of three sorts. Many teachers,\nschool-committees, and parents wish to add a taste of Mechanics to the\nsmatterings of twenty or thirty different subjects which constitute\n\"liberal education,\" as understood in American high schools and\ncolleges. For this purpose it is of the first importance that the\ntext-book should be brief, for the time to be devoted to it is very\nshort; secondly, it must divest the subject of every perplexity and\ndifficulty, that it may be readily understood by all young persons,\nthough of small capacity and less application. Such a text-book can\ncontain nothing beyond the statement, without proof, of the more\nimportant principles, illustrated by familiar examples, and simple\nexplanations of the commonest phenomena of motion, and of the machines\nand mechanical forces used in the arts. To a few it seems that more\nlight comes into a room through two or three broad windows, though they\nbe all on one side, than through fifty bull's-eyes, scattered on every\nwall. But the many prefer bull's-eyes,--fifty narrow, distorted\nglimpses in as many directions, rather than a broad, clear view of the\nheavens and the earth in one direction. Hence superficial, scanty\ntext-books on science are the only ones which are popular and salable.\n\nThe thorough study of Mechanics is, or should be, an essential part of\nthe training of an architect, an engineer, or a machinist; and there\nare several text-books, like Weisbach's Mechanics and Engineering,\nintended for students preparing for any of these professions, which are\ncomplete mathematical treatises upon the subject. Such text-books are\ninvaluable; they become standard works, and win for their authors a\nwell-deserved reputation.\n\nProfessor Peck's book belongs to neither of the two classes of\ntext-books indicated, but to a class intermediate between the two. It\nis at once too good, too difficult a book for general, popular use, and\ntoo incomplete for the purposes of the professional student. As it\nassumes that the student is already acquainted with the elements of\nAlgebra, Trigonometry, Analytic Geometry, and the Calculus, the\nsuccessful use of this text-book in the general classes of any academy\nor college will be good evidence that the Mathematics are there taught\nmore thoroughly than is usual in this country. In few American colleges\nis the study of the Calculus required of all students. In preparing a\nscientific text-book of this sort, originality is neither aimed at nor\nrequired. A judicious selection of materials, correct translation from\nthe excellent French and German hand-books, with such changes in the\nnotation as will better adapt it for American use, and a clear, logical\narrangement are the chief merits of such a treatise; and these are\nmerits which seldom gain much praise, though their absence would expose\nthe author to censure. The definitions of Professor Peck's book are\nexact and concise, every proposition is rigidly demonstrated, and the\nillustrations and descriptions are brief, pointed, and intelligible.\nProfessor Peck says in the Preface, that the book was prepared \"to\nsupply a want felt by the author when engaged in teaching Natural\nPhilosophy to college classes\"; but surely a teacher who prepares a\ntext-book for his own classes must need a double share of patience and\nzeal. Every error which the book contains will be exposed, and the\nauthor will have ample opportunity to repent of all the inaccuracies\nwhich may have crept into his work. Again, the instructor who uses his\nown text-book encounters, besides the inevitable monotony of teaching\nthe same subject year after year, the additional weariness of finding\nin the pages of his text-book no mind but his own, which he has read so\noften and with so little satisfaction. Even in teaching Mechanics,\nthere is no exception to the general rule, that two heads are better\nthan one.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n_Stories from Famous Ballads_. For Children. By GRACE GREENWOOD, Author\nof \"History of my Pets,\" \"Merrie England,\" etc., etc. With\nIllustrations by BILLINGS. Boston: Ticknor & Fields.\n\nAll \"famous ballads\" are so close to Nature in their conceptions,\nemotions, incidents, and expressions, that it seems hardly possible to\nchange their form without losing their soul. The present little volume\nproves that they may be turned into prose stories for children, and yet\npreserve much of the vitality of their sentiment and the interest of\ntheir narrative. Grace Greenwood, well known for her previous successes\nin writing works for the young, has contrived in this, her most\ndifficult task, to combine simplicity with energy and richness of\ndiction, and to present the events and characters of the Ballads in the\nform best calculated to fill the youthful imagination and kindle the\nyouthful love of action and adventure. Among the subjects are Patient\nGriselda, The King of France's Daughter, Chevy Chase, The Beggar's\nDaughter of Bednall Green, Sir Patrick Spens, and Auld Robin Gray. Much\nof the author's success in giving prose versions of these, without\nmaking them prosaic, is due to the intense admiration she evidently\nfeels for the originals. Among American children's books, this volume\ndeserves a high place.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n_Mary Staunton; or the Pupils of Marvel Hall_. By the Author of\n\"Portraits of, my Married Friends.\" New York: D. Appleton & Co.\n\nThis story has a practical aim, the exposure of the faults of\nfashionable boarding-schools. \"A good plot, and full of expectation,\"\nas Hotspur said; but the author had not the ability to execute the\ndesign. The satire and denunciation are both weak, and are not relieved\nby the introduction of a very silly and threadbare love-story.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n_Poems_. By the Author of \"John Halifax,\" \"A Life for a Life,\" etc.\nBoston: Ticknor & Fields.\n\nSome of the verses in this little volume are quite pretty, especially\nthose entitled, \"By the Alma River,\" \"The Night before the Mowing,\" \"My\nChristian Name,\" and \"My Love Annie.\" Miss Muloch is not able to take\nany high rank as a poetess, and very sensibly does not try.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n_Title-Hunting_. By E. L. LLEWELLYN, Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott &\nCo.\n\nThis is a miraculously foolish book. Titled villains, impossible\nparvenus, abductions, and convents abound in its pages, and all are as\nstupid as they are improbable.\n\n\n\n\nRECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS\n\nRECEIVED BY THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.\n\n\nThe Haunted Homestead, and other Nouvellettes. With an Autobiography of\nthe Author.  By Mrs. Emma D.E.N. Southworth, Author of \"India,\" \"Lady\nof the Isle,\" etc., etc. Philadelphia. Peterson and Brothers. 12mo. pp.\n292. $1.25.\n\nAdela, the Octoroon. By H. L. Hosmer. Columbus. Follett, Foster, & Co.\n12mo. pp. 400. $1.00.\n\nThe Caxtons: A Family Picture. By Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, Hart.\nLibrary Edition. In Two Volumes. Philadelphia. Lippincott & Co. 16mo.\npp. 398, 387. $2.00.\n\nJulian Home: A Tale of College Life. By Frederic W. Farrar, M.A.,\nFellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, Author of \"Eric; or, Little by\nLittle.\" Philadelphia. Lippincott & Co. 16mo. pp. 420. $1.00.\n\nBible History: A Text-Book for Seminaries, Schools, and Families. By\nSarah E. Hanna, (formerly Miss Foster,) Principal of the Female\nSeminary, Washington, Pa. New York. Barnes & Burr. 12mo. pp. 290. 76\ncts.\n\nElements of Mechanics: For the Use of Colleges, Academies, and High\nSchools. By William G. Peck, M. A,, Professor of Mathematics, Columbia\nCollege. New York. Barnes & Burr. 12mo. pp. 338. $1.50.\n\nThe Human Voice: its Right Management in Speaking, Reading, and\nDebating, including the Principles of True Eloquence; together with the\nFunctions of the Vocal Organs,--the Motion of the Letters of the\nAlphabet,--the Cultivation of the Ear,--the Disorders of the Vocal and\nArticulating Organs,--Origin and Construction of the English\nLanguage.--Proper Methods of Delivery,--Remedial Effects of Reading and\nSpeaking, etc. By the Rev. W. W. Cazalet, A. M., Cantab. New York.\nFowler & Wells. 16mo. paper, pp. 46. 10 cts.\n\nAmerican Normal Schools: their Theory, their Workings, and their\nResults, as embodied in the Proceedings of the First Annual Convention\nof the American Normal School Association, held at Trenton, New Jersey,\nAugust 19th and 20th, 1859. New York. Barnes & Burr. 8vo. pp. 113.\n$1.25.\n\nHistory of the Early Church, from the First Preaching of the Gospel, to\nthe Council of Nicea. For the Use of Young Persons. By the Author of\n\"Amy Herbert.\" New York. Appleton & Co. 16mo. pp. x., 383. 60 cts.\n\nOur Bible Chronology, Historic and Prophetic, Critically Examined and\nDemonstrated, and Harmonized with the Chronology of Profane Writers:\nEmbracing an Examination and Refutation of the Theories of Modern\nEgyptologists. Accompanied with Extensive Chronological and\nGenealogical Tables, from the Earliest Records to the Present Time; a\nMap of the Ancients; a Chart of the Course of Empires; and Various\nPictorial Illustrations. On a Plan entirely New. Designed for the Use\nof Universities, Colleges, Academies, Bible Classes, Sabbath Schools,\nFamilies, etc. By the Rev. R.C. Shimeall, a Member of the Presbytery of\nNew York; Author of an Illuminated Scripture Chart; Dr. Watts's\nScripture History, Enlarged; a Treatise on Prayer; etc. New York.\nBarnes & Burr. 4to. pp. 234. $2.00.\n\nThe National Fifth Reader: Containing a Treatise on Elocution;\nExercises in Reading and Declamation; with Biographical Sketches and\nCopious Notes. Adapted to the Use of Students in English and American\nLiterature. By Richard G. Parker, A.M., and J. Madison Watson. New\nYork. Barnes & Burr. 12mo. pp. 600. $1.00.\n\nPopular Music of the Olden Time: A Collection of Ancient Songs,\nBallads, and Dance Tunes, Illustrative of the National Music of\nEngland. With Short Introductions to the Different Reigns, and Notices\nof the Airs from Writers of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries.\nAlso a Short Account of the Minstrels. By W. Chappell, F.S.A. The whole\nof the Airs harmonized by G.A. Macfarren. In Two Volumes. London:\nCramer, Beale, & Chappell. New York. Webb & Allen. 8vo. pp. xx., 822.\n(Paged as one vol.) $15.75.\n\nThe Material Condition of the People of Massachusetts. By Rev. Theodore\nParker. Reprinted from the Christian Examiner. Boston. Published by the\nFraternity. 16mo. paper, pp. 52. 15 cts.\n\nDie Teutschen und die Amerikaner. Von K. Heinzen. Boston. Selbstverlag\ndes Verfassers. 16mo. paper, pp. 69. 25 cts.\n\nLetters from Switzerland. By Samuel Irenaeus Prime, Author of \"Travels\nin Europe and the East,\" etc., etc. New York. Sheldon & Co. 12mo. pp.\n264. $1.00.\n\nDisquisitions and Notes on the Gospels. Matthew. By John H. Morison.\nBoston. Walker, Wise, & Co. 12mo. pp. 588. $1.25.\n\nChamber's Encyclopaedia: A Dictionary of Universal Knowledge for the\nPeople. Part XII. New York. Appleton & Co. 8vo. paper, pp. 64. 15 cts.\n\nThe Monikins. By J. Fenimore Cooper. Illustrated from Drawings by\nF.O.C. Darley. New York. Townsend & Co. 12mo. pp. 454. $1.50.\n\nLife Before Him. A Novel of American Life. New York. Townsend & Co.\n12mo. pp. 401. $1.00.\n\nAgainst Wind and Tide. By Holme Lee, Author of \"Kathie Brande,\" \"Sylvan\nHolt's Daughter,\" etc. New York. Townsend & Co. 12mo. pp. 440. $1.00.\n\nMrs. Ellis's Housekeeping Made Easy. A Complete Instructor in all\nBranches of Cookery and Domestic Economy. Edited by Mrs. Mowatt. New\nYork. Townsend & Co. 12mo. paper, pp. 120. 25 cts.\n\nLife's Evening; or, Thoughts for the Aged. By the Author of \"Life's\nMorning,\" etc, Boston. Tilton & Co. 16mo. pp. 265. $1.00.\n\nWooing and Warring in the Wilderness. By Charles D. Kirk. New York.\nDerby & Jackson. 18mo. pp. 288. $1.00.\n\nThe History of Herodotus. A New English Version, edited with Copious\nNotes and Appendices, illustrating the History and Geography of\nHerodotus, from the most Recent Sources of Information; and embodying\nthe Chief Results, Historical and Ethnographical, which have been\nobtained in the Progress of Cuneiform and Hieroglyphical Discovery. By\nGeorge Rawlinson, M.A., late Fellow and Tutor of Exeter College,\nOxford. Assisted by Col. Sir Henry Rawlinson, K.C.B., and Sir J.G.\nWilkinson, F.R.S. In Four Volumes. Vol. III. With Maps and\nIllustrations. New York. Appleton & Co. 8vo. pp. viii., 463. $2.50.\n\nCathara Clyde: A Novel. By Inconnu. New York. Scribner. 16mo. PP. 377.\n$1.00.\n\nNapoleon III. in Italy, and other Poems. By Elizabeth Barrett Browning.\nNew York. Francis & Co. 16mo. pp. 72. 50 cts.\n\nSay and Seal. By the Author of \"Wide, Wide World,\" and the Author of\n\"Dollars and Cents.\" In Two Volumes. Philadelphia. Lippincott & Co.\n16mo, pp. 513, 500. $2.00.\n\nWalter Ashwood. A Love Story. By Paul Siogvolk, Author of \"Schediasms.\"\nNew York. Rudd & Carleton. 16mo. pp. 296. $1.00.\n\nElementary Anatomy and Physiology, for Colleges, Academies, and other\nSchools. By Edward Hitchcock, D.D., LL.D., of Amherst College, and\nEdward Hitchcock, Jr., M.D., Teacher in Williston Seminary. New York.\nIvison, Phinney, & Co. 12mo. pp. vi., 442. $1.00.\n\nFragments from the Study of a Pastor. By Rev. George W. Nichols, A.M.\nNew York. H.B. Price. 16mo. pp. 252. 75 cts.\n\n\"My Novel\"; or, Varieties in English Life. By Pisistratus Caxton. By\nSir Edward Bulwer Lytton, Bart. Library Edition. In Four Volumes.\nPhiladelphia. Lippincott & Co. 16mo. pp. 414, 408, 491, 482. $4.00.\n\nCousin Maude and Rosamond. By Mrs. Mary J. Holmes, Author of \"Lena\nRivers,\" \"Meadow Brook,\" etc. New York. Saxton, Barker, & Co. 12mo. pp.\n374. $1.25.\n\nThe Caxtons: A Family Picture. By Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, Bart.\nLibrary Edition. New York. Harper & Brothers. 12mo. pp. 505. $1.00.\n\nStories of Rainbow and Lucky. By Jacob Abbott. The Three Pines. New\nYork. Harper & Brothers. 16mo. pp. 190. 50 cts.\n\nStories of Inventors and Discoverers in Science and the Useful Arts. A\nBook for Old and Young. By John Timbs, F.S.A. With Illustrations. New\nYork. Harper & Brothers. 12mo. pp. 473. $1.25.","title":"The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 05, No. 31, May, 1860: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":86619}