The Project Gutenberg EBook of Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1,
July, 1864, by Various
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Title: Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864
Devoted to Literature and National Policy.
Author: Various
Release Date: January 29, 2007 [EBook #20481]
Language: English
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THE
CONTINENTAL MONTHLY:
DEVOTED TO
Literature and National Policy.
VOL. VI.--JULY, 1864.--NO. I.
New York:
JOHN F. TROW, 50 GREENE STREET,
(FOR THE PROPRIETORS.)
1864.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by
JOHN F. TROW,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the
Southern District of New York.
JOHN F. TROW,
PRINTER, STEREOTYPER, AND ELECTROTYPER.
50 Greene street, New York.
* * * * *
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|Transcriber's note: Obvious printer errors have been corrected. All |
|other inconstencies in spelling or punctuation are as in the original.|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
AN ARMY: ITS ORGANIZATION AND MOVEMENTS.
_SECOND PAPER._
Having, in the preceding paper, described the general organization[1] of
an army, we proceed to give a succinct account of some of the principal
staff departments, in their relations to the troops.
Army organization--notwithstanding the world has always been engaged in
military enterprises--is of comparatively recent institution. Many of
the principles of existing military systems date no farther back than to
Frederic the Great, of Prussia, and many were originated by Napoleon.
Staff departments, particularly, as now constituted, are of late origin.
The staff organization is undergoing constant changes. Its most improved
form is to be found in France and Prussia. Our own staff system is of a
composite, and, in some respects, heterogeneous character--not having
been, constructed on any regular plan, but built up by gradual
accretions and imitations of European features, from the time of our
Revolution till the present. It has, however, worked with great vigor
and efficiency.
The staff of any commander is usually spoken of in two classes--the
departmental and the personal--the latter including the aides-de-camp,
who pertain more particularly to the person of the commander, while the
former belong to the organization. Of the departmental staff, the
assistant adjutant-generals and assistant inspector-generals are
denominated the 'general staff,' because their functions extend through
all branches of the organization, while the other officers are confined
exclusively to their own departments.
The _chief of staff_ is a recent French imitation. The first officer
assigned in that capacity was General Marcy, on the staff of General
McClellan, in the fall of 1861. Previous to that time the officers of
the adjutant-general's department--on account of their intimate
relations with commanding officers, as their official organs and the
mediums through which all orders were transmitted--had occupied it. The
duties of these officers, however, being chiefly of a bureau character,
allowing them little opportunity for active external supervision, it has
been deemed necessary to select for heads of the staffs, officers
particularly qualified to assist the commander in devising strategical
plans, organizing, and moving troops, etc.; competent to oversee and
direct the proceedings of the various staff departments; untrammelled
with any exclusive routine of duty, and able in any emergency, when the
commander may be absent, to give necessary orders. For these reasons,
although the innovation has not been sanctioned by any law, or any
standing rule of the War Department, and although its propriety is
discussed by many, the custom of assigning officers as chiefs of staff
has become universal, and will probably be permanent. The extent and
character of their duties depend, however, upon themselves, being
regulated by no orders, and the high responsibilities attached to the
position in France have not thus far been assumed by the officers
occupying it here. In the French service, the chief of staff is the
actual as well as the nominal head of the organization; he supervises
all its operations; he is the _alter ego_ of the commander. In the
Waterloo campaign, for instance, Marshal Soult was the chief of
Napoleon's staff, and the emperor attributed his disaster, in part, to
some of the orders issued by the marshal.
Our limits will not permit a description of the duties pertaining to the
various members of the staff, but we pass to the consideration of those
departments, the operations of which most directly affect the soldier,
are indispensable to every army, and are most interesting to the public.
Let us first consider the _quartermaster's department_, which, from the
character and diversity of its duties, the amount of its expenditures,
and its influence upon military operations, may be ranked as among the
most important. This department provides clothing, camp and garrison
equipage, animals and transportation of all kinds, fuel, forage, straw,
and stationery, an immense variety of the miscellaneous materials
required by an army, and for a vast amount of miscellaneous
expenditures. It is, in fact, the great business operator of a military
organization. In an active army, the success of movements depends very
much on its efficiency. Unless the troops are kept properly clothed, the
animals and means of transportation maintained in good condition, and
the immense trains moved with regularity and promptness, the best
contrived plans will fail in their development and execution.
The department, at the commencement of the war, had supplies in store
only for the current uses of the regular army. When the volunteer forces
were organized it became necessary to make hasty contracts and purchases
to a large amount; but as even the best-informed members of the
Government had no adequate prevision of the extent and duration of the
war, and of the necessary arrangements for its demands, a considerable
period elapsed before a sufficient quantity of the required materials
could be accumulated. Those were the days of 'shoddy' cloth and spavined
horses. The department, however, exhibited great administrative energy,
under the direction of its able head, General M. C. Meigs, and has amply
provided for the enormous demands upon it.
Depots for the reception of supplies are established in the large
cities, whence they are transferred as required to the great issuing
depots near the active armies, and from them to the depots in the field.
Thus, the main depots of the Army of the Potomac are at Washington and
Alexandria--a field depot being established at its centre, when lying
for any length of time in camp. Only current supplies are kept on hand
at the latter, and no surplus is transported on the march, except the
required amounts of subsistence and forage.
A great deal is said in connection with military movements, of 'bases of
operation.' These are the points in the rear of an army from which it
receives supplies and reënforcements, and with which its communications
must at all hazards be kept open, except it has means of transportation
sufficient to render it independent of its depots for a considerable
period, or unless the country traversed is able to afford subsistence
for men and animals. When an army marches along a navigable river, its
secondary base becomes movable, and it is less confined to the necessity
of protecting its rear. In Virginia, however, the connection of the Army
of the Potomac with Washington is imperative, and this fact explains the
contracted sphere of the operations of that army.
The transportation of supplies is limited by the ability of the
Government to provide trains, and by the ability of the army to protect
them; for large trains create large drafts on the troops for teamsters,
pioneers, guards, etc. An army train, upon the most limited allowance
compatible with freedom of operations for a few days, away from the
depots, is an immense affair. Under the existing allowances in the Army
of the Potomac, a corps of thirty thousand infantry has about seven
hundred wagons, drawn by four thousand two hundred mules; the horses of
officers and of the artillery will bring the number of animals to be
provided for up to about seven thousand. On the march it is calculated
that each wagon will occupy about eighty feet--in bad roads much more;
consequently a train of seven hundred wagons will cover fifty-six
thousand feet of road--or over ten miles; the ambulances of a corps will
occupy about a mile, and the batteries about three miles; thirty
thousand troops need six miles to march in, if they form but one column;
the total length of the marching column of a corps is therefore _twenty
miles_, even without including the cattle herds and trains of bridge
material. Readers who have been accustomed to think that our armies have
not exhibited sufficient energy in surmounting the obstacles of bad
roads, unbridged streams, etc., will be able to estimate, upon the above
statements, the immense difficulty of moving trains and artillery. The
trains of an army have been properly denominated its _impedimenta_, and
their movement and protection is one of the most difficult incidental
operations of warfare--particularly in a country like Virginia, where
the art of road making has attained no high degree of perfection, and
where the forests swarm with guerillas.
To an unaccustomed observer the concourse of the trains of an army, in
connection with any rapid movement, would give the idea of inextricable
confusion. It is of course necessary to move them upon as many different
roads as possible, but it will frequently happen that they must be
concentrated in a small space, and move in a small number of columns.
During the celebrated 'change of base' from Richmond to Harrison's
Landing, the trains were at first obliged to move upon only one
road--across White Oak Swamp--which happened fortunately to be wide
enough for three wagons to go abreast. There were perhaps twenty-five
hundred vehicles, which would make a continuous line of some forty or
fifty miles. While the slow and toilsome course of this cumbrous column
was proceeding, the troops were obliged to remain in the rear and fight
the battles of Savage Station and White Oak Swamp for its protection. A
similar situation of trains occurred last fall when General Meade
retired from the Rappahannock, but fortunately the country presented
several practicable routes. It is on a retreat, particularly, that the
difficulty of moving trains is experienced, and thousands of lives and
much valuable material have been lost by the neglect of commanding
officers to place them sufficiently far in the rear during a battle, so
as to permit the troops to fall back when necessary, without
interruption.
A march being ordered, supplies according to the capacity of the trains,
are directed to be carried. The present capacity of the trams of the
Army of the Potomac is ten days' subsistence and forage, and sixty
rounds of small-arm ammunition--the men carrying in addition a number of
days' rations, and a number of rounds, upon their persons. When the
wagons reach camp each evening, such supplies as have been expended are
replenished from them. As a general rule the baggage wagons camp every
night with the troops, but the exigencies are sometimes such that
officers are compelled to deny themselves for one or even two weeks the
luxury of a change of clothing--the wagons not reaching camp, perhaps,
till after midnight, and the troops resuming their march an hour or two
afterward. Those who indulge in satires upon the wearers of shoulder
straps would be likely to form a more correct judgment of an officer's
position and its attendant hardships, could they see him at the close of
a fortnight's campaign. Like the soldier, he can rely on nothing for
food or clothing except what is carried by himself, unless he maintains
a servant, and the latter will find a few blankets, a coffee pot, some
crackers, meat, sugar, coffee, etc., for his own and his employer's
consumption, a sufficient burden.
Let us see how the supplies of the quartermaster's department are
distributed.
At stated periods, if circumstances permit--usually at the first of each
month--the regimental quartermasters, after consultation with the
company officers, forward through their superiors to the chief
quartermasters of corps, statements of the articles required by the men.
These are consolidated and presented to the chief quartermaster of the
army, who orders them from Washington, and issues them from the army
depot--the whole operation requiring about a week. The number of
different _kinds_ of articles thus drawn monthly is about five hundred;
the _quantity_ of each kind depends on the number of men to be supplied,
and the nature of the service performed since the previous issue. If
there has been much marching, there will be a great demand for shoes; if
a battle, large quantities of all kinds of articles to replace those
lost on the battle field will be required.
An infantry soldier is allowed the following principal articles of
clothing during a three years' term of service:
1st Year. 2d Year. 3d Year.
Cap, 1 1 1
Coat, 2 1 2
Trowsers, 3 2 3
Flannel shirt, 3 3 3
Drawers, 3 2 2
Shoes, 4 4 4
Stockings, 4 4 4
Overcoat, 1 0 0
Blanket, 1 0 1
Indiarubber blanket, 1 1 1
The prices of these are stated each year in a circular from the
department, and, as the soldier draws them, his captain charges him with
the prices on the company books. The paymaster deducts from his pay any
excess which he may have drawn, or allows him if he has drawn less than
he is entitled to. The clothing is much cheaper than articles of the
same quality at home. Thus, according to the present prices, a coat
costs $7.30; overcoat, $7.50; trowsers, $2.70; flannel shirt, $1.53;
stockings, 32 cents; shoes, $2.05.
The _commissary department_ provides exclusively the subsistence of the
troops. Each soldier is entitled to the following daily ration:
Twelve ounces of pork or bacon, or one pound four ounces of fresh
beef.
One pound six ounces of soft bread or flour, or one pound of hard
bread, or one pound four ounces of corn meal.
To every one hundred men, fifteen pounds of beans or peas, and ten
pounds of rice or hominy.
To every one hundred men, ten pounds of green coffee, or eight
pounds of roasted, or one pound and eight ounces of tea.
To every one hundred men, fifteen pounds of sugar, four quarts of
vinegar, one pound four ounces of candles, four pounds of soap,
three pounds twelve ounces of salt, four ounces of pepper, thirty
pounds of potatoes, when practicable, and one quart of molasses.
Fresh onions, beets, carrots, and turnips, when on hand, can be
issued in place of beans, peas, rice, or hominy, if the men desire.
They can also take in place of any part of the ration an amount
equal in value of dried apples, dried peaches, pickles, etc., when
on hand.
A whiskey ration of a gill per day per man can be issued on the order of
the commander, in cases of extra hardship. It is, however, rarely
issued, on account of the difficulty of finding room for its
transportation in any considerable quantities. Moreover, whiskey, in the
army, is subject to extraordinary and mysterious _leakages_, and an
issue can scarcely be made with such care that some drunkenness will not
ensue. When lying in camp, sutlers and others sell to the soldiers
contrary to law, so that old topers usually find methods of gratifying
their appetites--sometimes sacrificing a large proportion of their pay
to the villains who pander to them. The utmost vigilance of the officers
fails to detect the methods by which liquor is introduced into the army.
When a cask is broached in any secluded place, the intelligence seems
communicated by a pervading electrical current, and the men are seized
with a universal desire to leave camp for the purpose of washing, or
getting wood, or taking a walk, or other praise-worthy purposes.
The total weight of a ration is something over two pounds, but in
marching, some articles are omitted, and but a small quantity of salt
meat is carried--fresh beef being supplied from the herds of cattle
driven with the army. A bullock will afford about four hundred and fifty
rations, so that an army of one hundred thousand men needs over two
hundred cattle daily for its supply.
In camp the men can refrain from drawing portions of their rations, and
the surplus is allowed for by the commissaries in money, by which a
company fund can be created, and expended in the purchase of gloves,
gaiters, etc., or luxuries for the table. A hospital fund is formed in
the same way--by an allowance for the portions of the rations not
consumed by the patients--and is expended in articles adapted to diet
for the sick. The rations are ample and of good quality, though the salt
meat is rather tough occasionally, and the consistency of the hard bread
is shot-proof. Company cooks are allowed, and in camp they contrive to
furnish quite appetizing meals. Their position is rather difficult to
fill, and woe is the portion of the cook not competent for his
profession. The practical annoyances to which he is subject make him
realize to the fullest extent 'the unfathomable depths of human woe.' On
the march the men usually prefer to boil their coffee in tin cups, and
to cook their meat on ram-rods--without waiting for the more formal
movements of the cooks. To reach camp before sunset, after a twenty-mile
march, to pitch his little shelter tent, throw in it his heavy arms and
accoutrements, collect some pine twigs for a couch, wash in some
adjacent stream, drink his cup of hot, strong coffee, eat his salt pork
and hard bread, and then wrap himself in his blanket for a dreamless
slumber, is one of the most delicious combinations of luxurious
enjoyment a soldier knows. To-morrow, perhaps, he starts up at the early
_reveille_, takes his hasty breakfast, is marshalled into line before
the enemy, there is a shriek in the air rent by the murderous shell, and
the soldier's last march is ended.
The next department we shall consider is that of _ordnance_, which
supplies the munitions and portions of accoutrements.
The subject of _artillery_ is perhaps the most interesting of the great
number connected with warfare. In the popular estimation it overshadows
all others. All the poetry of war celebrates the grandeur of
'Those mortal engines whose rude throats
The immortal Jove's dread clamors counterfeit.'
The thunder of great guns and the dashing of cavalry are the incidents
which spontaneously present themselves to the mind when a battle is
mentioned. Perhaps the accounts of Waterloo are responsible for this.
The steady fighting of masses of infantry, having less particulars to
attract the imagination, is overlooked; the fact, preëminent above all
others in military science, that it is the infantry which contests and
decides battles, that artillery and cavalry are only subordinate
agencies--is forgotten. So splendid have been the inventions and
achievements of the last few years in respect to artillery, as
illustrated particularly at Charleston, that some excuse may easily be
found for the popular misconception. A few remarks presenting some
truths relative to the appropriate sphere of artillery and its powers,
and stating succinctly the results which have been accomplished, may be
found interesting.
Without entering into the history of artillery, it will be sufficient to
state that the peculiar distinguishing excellence of modern improvements
in cannon is the attainment of superior efficiency, accuracy, and
mobility, with a decrease in weight of metal. A gun of any given size is
now many times superior to one of the same size in use fifty or a
hundred years ago. It is not so much in _big guns_ that we excel our
predecessors--for there are many specimens of old cannon of great
dimensions; but by our advance in science we are able so to shape our
guns and our projectiles that with less weight of material we can throw
larger shot to a greater distance and with more accuracy. A long course
of mathematical experiment and calculation has determined the exact
pressure of a charge of powder at all points in the bore of a cannon
during its combustion and evolution into gas. These experiments have
proved that strength is principally required near the breech, and that a
cannon need not be of so great length as was formerly supposed to be
necessary. We are thus able to construct guns which can be handled,
throwing balls of several hundred pounds' weight. Another splendid
result of scientific investigation is the method adopted for casting
such monster guns. In order that the mass of metal may be of uniform
tenacity and character, it should cool equably. This has been secured by
a plan for introducing a stream of water through the core of the
casting, so that the metal cools both within and without simultaneously.
About the time that the Italian war commenced, the subject of rifled
cannon excited much popular interest. Exaggerated expectations were
formed of the changes to be produced by them in the art of warfare. Many
saw in them the means of abolishing war entirely. Of what use is it,
they said, to array armies against each other, if they can be destroyed
at two or three miles' distance? At the commencement of our own contest
there was an undue partiality for rifled ordnance. Almost every
commander of a battery desired to have rifled guns. The more correct
views of the thoroughly accomplished artillery officers to whom was
confided the arrangement of this branch of the service, and actual
experience, have dissipated the unfounded estimate of their utility for
field service, and established the proper proportions in an artillery
force which they should compose. It has been ascertained that fighting
will never be confined to long ranges--that guns which can throw large
volumes of spherical case and canister into lines only a few hundred
yards distant are as necessary as ever.
The necessity for rifled cannon arose from the perfection of rifled
muskets. When these arms reached such a degree of excellence that horses
and gunners could be shot down at a distance of one thousand yards, the
old-fashioned smooth-bore artillery was deprived of its prestige. To
retrieve this disadvantage and restore the superiority of artillery over
musketry in length of range, methods of rifling cannon for field service
became an important study. For assailing distant lines of troops, for
opening a battle, for dispersing bodies of cavalry, for shelling
intrenchments, for firing over troops from hills in their rear, rifled
guns are of invaluable service. But, notwithstanding troops are now
universally armed with muskets of long range, no battle of importance is
fought without close engagements of the lines. The alternate advances
and retreats of the infantry, firing at distances of less than one
hundred yards, charging with fixed bayonets and frantic shouts, will
always characterize any battle fought with vigor and enthusiasm. In such
conflicts, wide-mouthed smooth bores, belching their torrents of iron,
must play a conspicuous part.
Another fact, which will perhaps surprise the general reader, is that
the form and character of _projectiles_ have been matters of as much
difficulty, have received as much investigation, and are of as much
importance, as the shape and character of the guns. In fact, rifled
pieces would be comparatively ineffective except projectiles adapted to
them had been invented. It was necessary that projectiles of greater
weight, of less resistance to the atmosphere, and of more accuracy of
flight, than the old round shot, should be introduced. To accomplish
these ends several things were necessary: 1st, the projectiles should be
elongated; 2d, they should have conical points; 3d, the centre of
gravity should be at a proper distance in front of the centre; 4th,
there should be methods of _steering_ them so that they should always go
point foremost through the whole curve of their flight; 5th, they should
fit the gun so as to take the rifles, yet not so closely as to strain
it. To attain these and other requisites, innumerable plans have been
devised. The projectile offering the best normal conditions is the
_arrow_; it has length, a sharp point, centre of gravity near the head,
and feathers for guiding it (sometimes so arranged that it shall rotate
like a rifled ball). Improved projectiles, therefore, both for muskets
and cannon, correspond in these essentials to the first products of man
in the savage state.
We cannot, in this article, further discuss either such general
principles or those of a more abstruse character, in their application
to artillery, but will briefly state a few facts relative to its
employment--confining ourselves exclusively to the _field service_.
The guns now principally used for battles, in the Northern armies, are
10 and 12-pounder Parrotts, three-inch United States rifles, and light
12-pounder smooth bores. The distinguishing characteristic of the
Parrott guns is lightness of construction, secured by strengthening the
breech (in accordance with the principles mentioned a few paragraphs
back) with a band of wrought iron. This has been applied to guns of all
sizes, and its excellence has been tested by General Gillmore in the
reduction of Forts Pulaski and Sumter. The three-inch guns are made of
wrought iron, are of light weight, but exceedingly tenacious and
accurate. The 12-pounders, sometimes called Napoleons, are of bronze,
with large caliber, and used chiefly for throwing shell and canister at
comparatively short distances.
The greatest artillery conflict of the war (in the field) occurred at
Gettysburg. For two hours in the afternoon of the memorable third day's
battle, about four hundred cannon were filling the heavens with their
thunder, and sending their volleys of death crashing in all directions.
It was estimated that the discharges numbered five or six a second; in
fact, the ear could hardly detect any cessations in the roar. The air
was constantly howling as the shells swept through it, while the falling
of branches, cut from the trees by the furious missiles, seemed as if a
tornado was in the height of its fury: every few minutes, a thunder
heard above all other sounds, denoted the explosion of a caisson,
sweeping into destruction, with a cataract of fire and iron, men and
animals for hundreds of feet around it. The effect of such a fire of
artillery is, however, much less deadly than any except those who have
been subject to it can believe. The prevalent impression concerning the
relative destructiveness of cannon and musketry is another instance of
popular error. In the first place, all firing at over a mile distance
contains a large proportion of the elements of chance, for it is
impossible to get the range and to time the fuses so accurately as to
make any considerable percentage of the shots effective; and in the next
place, except when marching to a close conflict, the men are generally
protected by lying down behind inequalities of the ground, or other
accidental or designed defences. The proportion killed in any battle by
artillery fire is very small. Lines of men frequently lie exposed to
constant shelling for hours, with small loss; in fact, in such cases,
old soldiers will eat their rations, or smoke their pipes, or perhaps
have a game of poker, with great equanimity.
No portion of the military service has been more misrepresented than the
_medical department_. An opinion seems to prevail quite extensively that
the army surgeon is generally a young graduate, vain of his official
position, who cares little for the health of the soldier, and glories in
the opportunities afforded by a battle for reckless operations. Such an
opinion is altogether fallacious. In the regiments there are undoubtedly
many physicians who have adopted the service as a resource for a living
which they were unable to find at home, but the majority are exactly the
same class of professional men as those who pursue useful and honorable
careers in all our cities and villages. When a physician is called upon
at home, it happens in a majority of cases--as every honest member of
the profession will admit--that there is little or no necessity for his
services. Too sagacious to avow this, he gravely makes some simple
prescription, and as gravely pockets his fee. In camp, however, the
potent argument of the fee does not prevail, and men who run to the
doctor with trifling ailments, by which they hope to be relieved from
duty, receive a rebuff instead of a pill. They instantly write letters
complaining of his inhumanity. In regard to operations, it is a frequent
remark by the most experienced surgeons that lives are lost from the
hesitancy to amputate, more frequently than limbs are removed
unnecessarily.
The medical department of an army, like every other, is controlled by a
_system_, and it is this which regulates its connections with the
soldier more than the qualifications of individual surgeons. In the army
the _system_ takes care of everything, even to the minutest details.
Hygienic regulations for preserving the salubrity of camps and the
cleanliness of the troops and their tents, are prescribed and enforced.
Every day there is a 'sick call' at which men who find themselves ill
present themselves to the surgeons for treatment. If slightly affected,
they are taken care of in their own quarters; if more seriously, in the
regimental hospitals; if still more so, in the large hospitals
established by the chief medical officer of the corps; and if necessary,
sent to the Government hospitals established at various places in the
country. To the latter almost all the sick are transferred previous to a
march. To be ill in the army, amid the constant noises of a camp, and
with the non-luxurious appliances of a field hospital, is no very
pleasant matter; but the sick soldier receives all the attention and
accommodation possible under the circumstances.
To every corps is attached a train of ambulances, in the proportion of
two or three to a regiment. They are spring wagons with seats along the
sides, like an omnibus, which can, when necessary, be made to form a bed
for two or three persons. With each train is a number of wagons,
carrying tents, beds, medicine chests, etc., required for the
establishment of hospitals. On the march, the ambulances collect the
sick and exhausted who fall out from the columns and have a surgeon's
certificate as to their condition. When a battle is impending, and the
field of conflict fixed, the chief medical officers of the corps take
possession of houses and barns in the rear, collect hay and straw for
bedding, or, if more convenient, pitch the tents at proper localities. A
detail of surgeons is made to give the necessary attendance. While the
battle proceeds, the lightly wounded fall to the rear, and are there
temporarily treated by the surgeons who have accompanied the troops to
the field, and then find their way to the hospitals. If the fighting has
passed beyond the places where lie the more dangerously wounded, they
are brought to the rear by the 'stretcher bearers' attached to the
ambulance trains, and carried to the hospitals in the ambulances.
Sometimes it happens that the strife will rage for hours on nearly the
same spot, and it may be night before the 'stretcher bearers' can go out
and collect the wounded. But the surgeons make indefatigable exertions,
often exposed to great danger, to give their attention to those who
require it. At the best, war is terrible--all its 'pomp, pride, and
circumstance' disappear in the view of the wounded and dead on the
field, and of the mangled remnants of humanity in the hospitals. But
everything that can be devised and applied to mitigate its horrors is
provided under the systematized organization of the medical department.
In the Army of the Potomac, at least, and undoubtedly in all the other
armies of the North, that department combines skill, vigor, humanity,
and efficiency to an astonishing degree. Its results are exhibited not
only in the small mortality of the camps, but in the celerity of its
operation on the field of battle, and the great proportion of lives
preserved after the terrible wounds inflicted by deadly fragments of
shell and the still more deadly rifle bullet. Military surgery has
attained a degree of proficiency during the experiences of the past
three years which a layman cannot adequately describe; its results are,
however, palpable.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: Since that article was written, some changes of detail have
been made, but the principles remain the same.]
ÆNONE:
A TALE OF SLAVE LIFE IN ROME.
CHAPTER VIII.
Raising himself with an assumed air of careless indifference, in the
hope of thereby concealing the momentary weakness into which his better
feelings had so nearly betrayed him, Sergius strolled off, humming a
Gallic wine song. Ænone also rose; and, struggling to stifle her
emotion, confronted the new comer.
She, upon her part, stood silent and impassive, appearing to have heard
or seen nothing of what had transpired, and to have no thought in her
mind except the desire of fulfilling the duty which had brought her
thither. But Ænone knew that the most unobservant person, upon entering,
could not have failed at a glance to comprehend the whole import of the
scene--and that therefore any such studied pretence of ignorance was
superfluous. The attitude of the parties, the ill-disguised confusion of
Sergius, her own tears, which could not be at once entirely
repressed--all combined to tell a tale of recrimination, pleading, and
baffled confidence, as plainly as words could have spoken it. Apart,
therefore, from her disappointment at being interrupted at the very
moment when her hopes had whispered that the happiness of reconciliation
might be at hand, Ænone could not but feel indignant that Leta should
thus calmly stand before her with that pretence of innocent
unconsciousness.
'Why do you come hither? Who has demanded your presence?' Ænone cried,
now, in her indignation, caring but little what or how she spoke, or
what further revelations her actions might occasion, as long as so much
had already been exposed.
'My lady,' rejoined the Greek, raising her eyes with a well-executed air
of surprise, 'do I intrude? I came but to say that in the antechamber
there is--'
'Listen!' exclaimed Ænone, interrupting her, and taking her by the hand.
'Not an hour ago you told me about your quiet home in Samos--its green
vines--the blue mountains which encircled it--the little chamber where
your mother died, and in which you were born--and the lover whom you
left weeping at your cruel absence. You spoke of your affection for
every leaf and blade of grass about the place--and how you would give
your life itself to go back thither--yes, even your life, for you would
be content to lie down and die, if you could first return. Do you
remember?'
'Well, my lady?'
'Well, you shall return, as you desired. You have been given to me for
my own; and whether or not the gift be a full and free one, I will claim
my rights under it and set you free. In the first ship which sails from
Ostia for any port of Greece, in that ship you may depart. Are you
content, Leta?'
Still holding her by the hand, Ænone gazed inquiringly into the burning
black eyes which fastened themselves upon her own, as though reading the
bottom of her soul. She could not as yet believe that even if the Greek
had actually begun to cherish any love for Sergius, it could be more
than a passing fancy, engendered by foolish compliments or ill-judged
signs of admiration, and therefore she did not doubt that the offer of
freedom and restoration would be gratefully received. Her only
uncertainty was with regard to the manner in which it would be listened
to--whether with tears of joy or with loud protestations of gratitude
upon bended knees; or whether the prospect of once again visiting that
cottage home and all that had so long been held dear, would come with
such unpremeditated intensity as to stifle all outward manifestations of
delight, except, perhaps, that trembling of the lip or ebb and flow of
color which is so often the surest sign of a full and glowing heart.
For a moment Leta stood gazing up into the face of her mistress,
uttering no word of thanks, and with no tear of joy glistening in her
eye, but with the deepened flush of uncontrollable emotion overspreading
her features. And yet that flush seemed scarcely the token of a heart
overpowered with sudden joy, but rather of a mind conscious of being
involved in an unexpected dilemma, and puzzled with its inability to
extricate itself.
'My mistress,' she responded at length, with lowered gaze, 'it is true
that I said I would return, if possible, to that other home of mine. But
now that you offer me the gift, I would not desire to accept it. Let me
stay here with you.'
Ænone dropped the hand which till now she had held; and an agony of
mingled surprise, suspicion, disappointment, and presentiment of evil
swept across her features.
'Are you then become like all others?' she said with bitterness. 'Has
the canker of this Roman life already commenced to eat into your soul,
so that in future no memory of anything that is pure or good can attract
you from its hollow splendors? Are thoughts of home, of freedom, of
friends, even of the trusted lover of whom you spoke--are all these now
of no account, when weighed against a few gilded pleasures?'
'Why, indeed, should I care to return to that home?' responded the girl.
'Have not the Roman soldiers trodden down those vines and uprooted that
hearth? Is it a desolated and stricken home that I would care to see?'
'False--false!' cried Ænone, no longer regardful of her words, but only
anxious to give utterance--no matter how rashly--to the suspicions which
she had so long and painfully repressed. 'It is even more than the mere
charms of this imperial city which entice you. It is that you are my
enemy, and would stay here to sting the hand that was so truly anxious
to protect you--that for your own purposes you would watch about my
path, and ever, as now, play the spy upon my actions, and--'
'Nay, nay!' cried the Greek, her flashing eye and erect attitude in
strong contrast with the softened tone in which, more from habit than
from prudence, she had spoken. 'When have I played the spy upon you? Not
now, indeed, for I have come in, not believing that I was doing harm,
but simply because my duty has led me hither. I came to tell you that
there is a stranger--an old man--standing in the court below, and that
he craves audience with you. Is this a wrong thing for me to do? Were I
to forbear performance of this duty, would not my neglect insure me
punishment?'
Ænone answered not, but, by a strong effort, kept back the words that
she would have uttered. Still angry and crushed with the sense of being
deceived, and yet conscious that it was not a noble or dignified thing
to be in disputation with her own slave, and that there was, moreover,
the remote possibility that the girl was not her enemy, and might really
dread returning to a desolated and devastated home, what could she say
or do? And while she pondered the matter, the door again opened.
'And this is he of whom I spoke. Do you doubt me now?' exclaimed the
Greek, in a tone in which a shade of malicious triumph mingled with soft
reproach. And she moved away, and left the room, while Ænone, lifting
her eyes, saw her father standing before her.
'A plague take the wench who has just left you!' he muttered. 'Did she
not tell you that I was below? I sent word by her, and here she has left
me for half an hour kicking my heels together in the courtyard. And I
might have stayed there forever, if I had not of myself found my way up.
Even then, there were some who would have stopped me, deeming me,
perhaps, too rough in appearance to be allowed to ascend. But I told
them that there was a time when members of the house of Porthenus did
not wait in antechambers, but stood beside the consuls of the old
republic, and I touched the hilt of my dagger; and whether it was the
one argument or the other which prevailed, here I am.'
With a grim smile the centurion then threw himself down upon a settee
near the door, arranged as properly as possible the folds of his coarse
tunic, drew his belt round so as to show more in front his dagger with
richly embossed sheath--the sole article of courtly and ceremonious
attire in which he indulged--and endeavored to assume an easy and
imposing attitude. For an instant he gazed around the room, observantly
taking in its wealth of mosaic pavement, paintings, statuary, and vases.
Then, as he began to fear lest he might be yielding too much of his
pride before the overbearing influence of so much luxury, he
straightened himself up, gathered upon his features a hard and somewhat
contemptuous expression, and roughly exclaimed:
'Yes, by the gods, the Portheni lived with consuls and proconsuls long
before the house of Vanno began to rise from the dregs and become a
house at all. And the imperator knows it, and is jealous of the fact,
too, or else he would the better acknowledge it. What, now, is that?' he
added, pointing to the central fresco of the ceiling.
'It is--I know not for certain, my father--but I think--'
'Nay, but I know what it is. It is the old story of the three Vanni
overcoming the five Cimbri at the bridge of Athesis. No great matter,
nor so very long ago, even if it were true. But why did he not paint up,
instead, how the founder of the Portheni, with his single arm, slew the
ten Carthaginians under the aqueduct of Megara? Is not now your family
history a portion of his own? His jealousy prevented him, I suppose;
though I doubt not that, when in his cups with his high associates, he
often boasts of his connection with the house of Porthenus. And yet he
would let the only relic of the family starve before assisting him.'
Ænone stood as in a maze of confusion and uncertainty. Were the trials
of the day never to end? First her unsatisfactory strife and pleading
with her husband; then the undignified contest with her own slave into
which she had been betrayed; and now came this old man--her father, to
be sure--but so much the more mortifying to her, as his vulgarity,
querulous complaining, and insulting strictures were forced upon her
ears.
'Are you not comfortable? What more can he or I do for you?' she said,
with some impatience.
'Ay, ay; there it is,' growled the centurion. 'One person must have all
luxuries--paintings, silver, and the like; but if the other has only
mere comforts, an extra tunic, perhaps, or a spare bit of meat for a
dog, what more can he want? But I will tell you what you can do? And it
is not as a gift, I ask it. Poor and despised as he may be, no one can
say that the centurion Porthenus is a beggar. It is as a fair matter of
business that I offer it.'
'Well, my father?'
'It is this: I have two slaves, and can afford to keep only one of them,
particularly as but one can be of use to me. Will the imperator purchase
the other? I will give it for a fair price, and therefore no one can say
that I have asked for anything beyond a proper trade, with which either
side should be well satisfied.'
Ænone listened with a blush of shame for her father overspreading her
face. It did not occur to her that the slave rejected as useless could
be any other than the hunchback, whom her husband had bestowed upon the
centurion a few days before; and for the receiver to try to sell back a
gift to the giver was a depth of meanness for which no filial partiality
or affection could find an excuse.
'I will show him to you,' cried the centurion, losing a little of his
gruffness in his eagerness to effect a transaction, whereby, under the
thin guise of a simple trade, he could extort a benefit. 'I have brought
him with me, and left him below. You will see that he is of good
appearance, and that the imperator will be pleased and grateful to me
for the opportunity of possessing him.'
So saying, Porthenus strode to the head of the stairway, and issued his
commands in a stern voice, which made the vaulted ceilings of the palace
ring. A faint, weak response came up in answer, and in a moment the
slave entered the room.
'Is this the one of whom you spoke?' faltered Ænone, unable for the
moment to retain her self-possession as she beheld, not the angular,
wiry form of the hunchback, but the careworn and slim figure of Cleotos.
'I thought--indeed I thought that you spoke of the inferior of the two.'
'Ay, and so I do,' responded her father. 'Of what use to me can this man
be? The other one, indeed, is of tenfold value. There is no slave in
Rome like unto him for cleaning armor or sharpening a weapon, while to
run of an errand or manage any piece of business in which brains must
bear their part, I will trust him against the world. But as for this man
here, with his weak limbs and his simple face--do you know that I did
but set him to polish the rim of a shield, and in his awkwardness he let
it fall, and spoiled the surface as though a Jewish spear had stricken
it.'
Ænone remained silent, scarcely listening to the words of her father,
while, in a troubled manner, she again mentally ran over, as she had
done hundreds of times before, the chances of recognition by the man who
stood before her.
'But listen to me still further,' continued the centurion, fearful lest
his disparaging comments might defeat the projected sale. 'I only speak
of him as he is useful or not to me. To another person he would be most
valuable; for, though he cannot polish armor, he can polish verses, and
he can write as well as though he were educated for a scribe. For one
favored of fortune like the imperator Sergius Vanno,' and here again the
centurion began to roll the high-sounding name upon his tongue with
obvious relish, 'who wishes an attendant to carry his wine cup, or to
bear his cloak after him, or to trim his lamps, and read aloud his
favorite books, where could a better youth than this be found?'
Ænone, still overpowered by her troubled thoughts, made no response.
'Or to yourself,' eagerly continued the centurion, 'he would be most
suitable, with his pale, handsome face, and his slender limbs. Have you
a page?'
'I have my maidens,' was the answer.
'And that amounts to nothing at all,' asserted her father. 'A plebeian
can have her maidens in plenty, but it is not right that the wife of a
high and mighty imperator,' and here again the words rolled majestically
off his tongue, 'should not also have her male attendants. And the more
so when that wife has been taken from an ancient house like that of
Porthenus,' he added, with a frown in derogation of any tendency to give
undue importance to her present position. 'But with this Cleotos--come
forward, slave, and let yourself be seen.'
Cleotos, who, partly from natural diffidence, and partly from being
abashed at the unaccustomed splendor about him, had, little by little,
from his first entrance, shrunk into a corner, now advanced; and Ænone,
once more resolutely assuring herself that, with the changes which time,
position, difference of place and costume had thrown about her, she
could defy recognition, summoned all her courage, and looked him in the
face. It may have been with an unacknowledged fear lest, now that she
saw him so freely in the broad daylight, some latent spark of the old
attachment might burst into a flame, and withdraw her heart from its
proper duty; but at the first glance she felt that in this respect she
had nothing to dread. In almost every particular, Cleotos had but little
changed. His costume was but slightly different from that which he had
always been accustomed to wear; for the centurion, in view of the chance
of effecting a profitable sale, had, for that occasion, made him put on
suitable and becoming attire. The face was still youthful--the eye, as
of old, soft, expressive, and unhardened by the ferocities of the world
about him. As Ænone looked, it seemed as though the years which had
passed rolled back again, and that she was once more a girl. But it also
seemed as though something else had passed away--as though she looked
not upon a lover, but rather upon a quiet, kindhearted, innocent
friend--one who could ever be dear to her as a brother, but as nothing
else. What was it which had so flitted away that the same face could now
stir up no fire of passion, but only a friendly interest? Something, she
could not tell what; but she thanked the gods that it was so, and drew a
long breath of relief.
But it was none the less incumbent upon her, for the sake of that
present friendship and for the memory of that old regard, to cast her
protection over him. For an instant the thought flashed across her that
it would be well to purchase him, not simply for a page, but so that she
could have him in the way of kind treatment and attention until some
opportunity of restoring him to his native land might occur. But then
again was the danger that, if any great length of time should meanwhile
elapse, unconsidered trifles might lead to a recognition. No, that plan
could not be thought of. She must keep a protecting eye upon him from a
distance, and trust to the future for a safe working out of the problem.
'It cannot be,' she murmured, in answer, half to her father, half to her
own suggestion.
''Tis well,' muttered the centurion, rising with an air of displeasure
which indicated that he thought it very ill. 'I supposed that it would
be a kindness to the imperator or to yourself to give the first offer of
the man. But it matters little. The captain Polidorus will take him any
moment at a fair price.'
'You will not send him to the captain Polidorus?' exclaimed Ænone in
affright. For at once the many atrocities of that man toward his slaves
rose in her mind--how that he had slain one in a moment of passion--how
that he had deliberately beaten another to death for attempting to
escape to the catacombs--how that stripes and torture were the daily
portion of the unfortunates in his power--and that, not by reason of any
gross neglect of their duty, but for the merest and most trifling
inadvertencies. Better death than such a fate.
'Pah! What can I do?' retorted Porthenus, skilfully touching the chord
of her sympathies, as he saw how sensitive she was to its vibrations.
'It is true that Polidorus is no fawning woman, and that he greets his
slaves with the rod and the brand, and what not. It is true that he
thinks but little of sending one of them to Hades through the avenue of
his fishponds. But that, after all, is his affair, and if he chooses to
destroy his property, what should it matter to me? Am I so rich that I
can afford to lose a fair purchaser because he may incline to hang or
drown his bargain? Such self-denial may suit the governor of a
province, but should not be expected of a poor centurion.'
Ænone trembled, and again the impulse to make the purchase came upon
her. Better to risk anything for herself--recognition, discovery,
suspicion, or misconstruction, than that her friendship should so far
fail as to allow this poor captive to fall into the hands of a brutish
tyrant. There was a purse of gold in the half-opened drawer of a table
which stood near her; and, in sore perplexity, she raised it, then let
it fall, and again lifted it. As the centurion listened to the ring of
the metal, his eyes sparkled, and he prepared to apply new arguments,
when Cleotos himself sprang forward.
'I know nothing about this Polidorus of whom they speak,' said he,
dropping upon one knee at her feet. 'And it is not to save myself from
his hands that I ask your pity, most noble lady. There is much that I
have already suffered, and perhaps a little more might make no
difference, or, better yet, might close the scene with me forever. It is
for other reasons that I would wish to be in this house--even as the
lowest, meanest slave of all, rather than to live in the halls of the
emperor Titus himself. There is one in this house, most noble lady, from
whom I have long been cruelly separated, and who--what can I say but
that if, when I was a free man, she gave me her love, now, in my
abasement, she will not fail with that love to brighten my lot?'
Ænone started. At hearing such words, there could be but one thought in
her mind--that he had actually recognized her, and that, without waiting
to see whether or not she had forgotten him, and certainly knowing that
in any event her position toward him had become changed, he was daring
to covertly suggest a renewal of their old relationship. But the next
words reassured her.
'We lived near each other in Samos, my lady. I was happy, and I blessed
the fates for smiling upon us. How was I then to know that she would be
torn away from me upon the very day when I was to have led her to my own
home?'
'You say that she is here? Is it--do you speak of Leta?' cried Ænone.
'Leta was her name,' he responded, in some surprise that his secret had
been so promptly penetrated before he had more than half unfolded it.
'And she is here.'
There was to Ænone perhaps one instant of almost unconscious regret at
learning that she had been forgotten for another. But it passed away
like a fleeting cloud--banished from her mind by the full blaze of
happiness which poured in upon her at the thought that here at last was
what would counteract the cruel schemes which were warring against her
peace, and would thereby bring sure relief to her sorrow.
'And she is here,' repeated Cleotos. 'When at the first she was torn
from my side, most noble lady, I would have died, if I could, for I did
not believe that life had any further blessing in store for me. But,
though the Roman armies were cruel, the fates have been kind, and have
again brought us near. It was but a week ago that, as I looked up by the
moonlight at these palace walls, I saw her. Can it be, that after so
long a time, the gods meant I should be brought near, to have but this
one glimpse of happiness, and then again be sundered from it?'
'It cannot be--it was not meant to be,' exclaimed Ænone, with energy;
and again lifting the purse of gold, she placed it in the centurion's
hand. 'There, I will purchase your slave,' she said. 'Take from this his
proper price, and leave him with me.'
CHAPTER IX.
The centurion received the purse with ill-dissembled joy. Had he been
fully able to control himself, he would doubtless have maintained a
quiet air of dignified self-possession, befitting one giving full value
for what he had received, and therefore not expected to exhibit any
peculiarly marked or lively satisfaction. But the affair had been
concluded so suddenly, and with such a liberal confidence in his
discretion, that, for the moment, his hands trembled with excitement,
and his face shone with avaricious pleasure.
Then he began to count out the gold pieces, gleefully dropping some into
his pouch, and reluctantly putting others back into the purse. From the
first he had established in his own mind the valuation which he would
place upon the slave; and he had taken care to make his calculation upon
such a liberal scale that he could well afford to consent to a large
deduction, if it were required of him. Now he reasoned that, as his
child had merely told him to take out what was proper, there could be no
impropriety in paying himself at the highest possible price. She would
never mind, and there were many comforts which he needed, and which an
extra gold piece or two would enable him to procure for himself.
Then, as he weighed the purse and pondered over it, numerous wants and
requirements, which he had hardly known until that time, came into his
mind. He might supply them all, if he were not too timid or scrupulous
in availing himself of an opportunity such as might never come to him
again. Had even his first valuation of the slave been a sufficient one?
He ought certainly to consider that the man could read and write, and
was of such beauty and grace that he could be trained to a most courtly
air; and it was hardly proper to sell him for no more than the price of
a couple of gladiators, mere creatures of bone and brawn. And, in any
event, it was hardly probable that Ænone knew the true value of slaves,
or even remembered how much her purse had contained.
Thus meanly reflecting, the centurion dropped more of the gold pieces
into his pocket, all the while eying the slave with keen scrutiny, as
though calculating the market value of every hair upon his head. Then,
with a sigh, he handed back the purse, most wofully lightened of its
contents, and turned from the room, endeavoring to compose his features
into a decent appearance of sober indifference, and muttering that he
would not have allowed himself to be betrayed into giving up such a
prize so cheaply had it not been that he had an especial regard for the
imperator Sergius Vanno, and that the house of Porthenus had never
nourished mere traders to wrangle and chaffer over their property.
In one of his conjectures he had been correct. It was little that Ænone
knew or cared about the price she was paying. Had the purse been
returned to her entirely empty, she would have thrown it unheedingly
into the drawer, and have never dreamed but that all had been rightly
done. There was now but one idea filling her heart. She thought not
about money nor any imprudence which she was committing, nor yet upon
the chance of recognition. She only reflected that the day of her
triumph had come--that at the sight of the long-absent lover, Leta would
abandon the wrong path in which she had been straying, would throw
herself into his arms, would tell him how, through the loss of him, she
had become reckless, and had allowed her suffering mind to become
perverted from the right--but that now all was again well; and thus
confessing and being forgiven, would, in the ever-present joy of that
forgiveness, lead for the future a different life, and, instead of a
rival, become to her mistress a friend and ally.
Glowing with this bright hope, Ænone scarcely noticed the shuffling
departure of the centurion, but, fixing her eyes upon the captive,
keenly scrutinized his appearance. Not that it was likely that Leta, in
the first flush of her joy at meeting him, would notice or care in what
guise he was presented, so long as the soul which had so often
responded to her own was there. But it was well that there should be
nothing neglected which, without being directly essential to the
production of a proper impression, might be tributary to it.
The inspection was satisfactory. Not only was the dress of the captive
clean, neat, becoming, and suitable to his station, but his appearance
had undergone visible improvement since Ænone had last seen him. The
rest and partial composure of even the few intervening days had sufficed
to restore tone to his complexion, roundness to his cheeks, and
something of the old merry smile to his eyes. And though complete
restoration was not yet effected, enough had been accomplished to show
that there was much latent beauty which would not fail to develop itself
under the stimulant of additional rest and kindly treatment.
'Go in, thither,' said Ænone, pointing to the adjoining room, in which
Leta was occupied. 'When you are there, you will--it will be told you
what you are to do.'
Cleotos bowed low, and passed through into the other room; and Ænone
followed him with a glance which betrayed the longing she felt to enter
with him and witness the meeting of the two lovers. But a sense of
propriety outweighed her curiosity and restrained her. It was not right,
indeed, that she should intrude. Such recognitions should be sacred to
the persons directly interested in them. She would therefore remain
outside, and there await Cleotos's return. And as she took into her
hands a little parchment ode which lay upon her table, and nervously
endeavored to interest herself in it, she delightedly pictured the
sudden transport of those within the next room, and the beaming joy with
which, hand in hand, they would finally emerge to thank her for their
newly gained happiness.
In the mean time, Leta, having delivered her message, and received her
rebuke for the interruption, had retired to the other room, and there,
as usual, resumed her daily task of embroidery. Bending low over the
intricate stitches and counting their spaces, her features, at a casual
glance, still bore their impress of meek and unconscious humility, so
far did her accustomed self-control seem to accompany her even when
alone. But a more attentive scrutiny would have detected, half hidden
beneath the fringed eyelids, a sparkle of gratified triumph, and, in the
slightly bent corners of the mouth, a shade of haughty disdain; and
little by little, as the moments progressed, these indications of an
inner, irrepressible nature gained in intensity, and, as though her
fingers were stayed by a tumult of thought, her work slowly began to
slip from her grasp.
At length, lifting her head, and, perhaps, for the first time realizing
that she was alone and might indulge her impulses without restraint, she
abruptly threw from her the folds of the embroidery, and stood erect.
Why should she longer trifle with that weak affair of velvet and dyes?
Who was the poor, inanimate, and tearful statue in the next room, to
order her to complete those tasks? What to herself were the past deeds
of the Vanni, that they should be perpetuated in ill-fashioned tapestry,
to be hung around a gilded banquet hall? By the gods! she would from
that day make a new history in the family life; and it should be
recorded, not with silken threads upon embroidered velvet, but should be
engraved deeply and ineffaceably upon human hearts!
Standing motionless in the centre of the room, with one foot upon the
half-completed tapestry, she now for the first time, and in a flash of
inspiration, gave shape and comeliness to her previously confusedly
arranged ideas. Until the present moment she had had but little thought
of accomplishing anything beyond skilfully availing herself of her
natural attractions so as to climb from her menial position into
something a little better and higher. If, in the struggle to raise
herself from the degradation of slavery, she were obliged to engage in a
rivalry with her mistress, and, by robbing her of the affection
naturally belonging to her, were to crush her to the earth, it was a
thing to be deplored, but it must none the less be done. She might,
perhaps, pity the victim, but the sacrifice must be accomplished all the
same.
But now these vague dreams of a somewhat better lot, to be determined by
future chance circumstances, rolled away like a shapeless cloud, and
left in their place one bright image as the settled object of her
ambition. So lofty, so dazzling seemed the prize, that another person
would have shrunk in dismay from even the thought of striving for it,
and even she, for the moment, recoiled. But she was of too determined a
nature to falter long. The higher the object to be attained the fewer
would be the competitors, and the greater the chance of success to
unwearying determination. And if there were but one chance of success in
a thousand, it were still worth the struggle.
This great thought which stimulated her ambition was nothing less than
the resolution to become the wife of the imperator Sergius. At first it
startled her with its apparent wild extravagance; but little by little,
as she weighed the chances, it seemed to become more practicable. There
was, indeed, nothing grossly impossible in the idea. Men of high rank
had ere now married their slaves, and the corrupted society of Rome had
winked at mesalliances which, in the days of the republic, would not
have been tolerated. And she was merely a slave from accidental
circumstances--being free born, and having, but a month before, been the
pride and ornament of a respectable though lowly family. Once let her
liberty be restored, and the scarcely perceptible taint of a few weeks'
serfdom be removed from her, and she would be, in all social respects,
fully the equal of the poor, trembling maid of Ostia, to whom, a few
years before, the patrician had not been ashamed to stoop.
This bar of social inequality thus removed, the rest might be in her own
hands. Sergius no longer felt for his wife the old affection, under the
impulse of which he had wedded her; and the few poor remains of the love
which he still cherished, more from habit than otherwise, were fast
disappearing. This was already so evident as to have become the common
gossip of even the lowliest slaves in the household. And he loved
herself instead, for not only his actions, but his words had told her
so. A little more craft and plotting, therefore--a little further
display of innocent and lowly meekness and timid obedience--a few more
well-considered efforts to widen the conjugal breach--a week or two more
persistent exercise of those fascinations which men were so feeble to
resist--jealousy, recrimination, quarrels, and a divorce--and the whole
thing might be accomplished. In those days of laxity, divorce was an
easy matter. In this case there was no family influence upon the part of
the wife to be set up in opposition--but merely an old centurion,
ignorant and powerless. A few writings, for form's sake--and the day
that sent the weeping wife from the door might install the manumitted
and triumphant slave in her place.
All aglow with the ravishing prospect--her eager hopes converting the
possible into the probable, and again, by a rapid change, the probable
into the certain, the Greek stood spurning the needle work at her feet.
Then glancing around, the whim seized upon her to assume, for a moment
in advance, her coming stately dignity. At the side of the room, upon a
slightly elevated platform, was a crimson lounge--Ænone's especial and
proper seat. Over one arm of this lounge hung, in loose folds, a robe
of purple velvet, with an embroidered fringe of pearls--a kind of cloak
of state, usually worn by her upon the reception of ceremonious visits.
To this lounge Leta strode, threw herself upon it, drew the velvet
garment over her shoulders, so that the long folds fell down gracefully
and swept the marble pavement at her feet, and there, half sitting, half
reclining, assumed an attitude of courtly dignity, as though mistress of
the palace.
And it must be confessed that she well suited the place. With her lithe,
graceful figure thrown into a position in which the gentle languor of
unembarrassed leisure was mingled with the dignity of queenly
state--with her burning eyes so tempered in their brilliancy that they
seemed ready at the same instant to bid defiance to impertinent
intrusion, and to bestow gracious condescension upon suppliant
timidity--with every feature glowing with that proper pride which is not
arrogance, and that proper kindliness which is not humility--there was
probably in all Rome no noble matron who could as well adorn her chair
of ceremony. Beside her, the true mistress of the place would have
appeared as a timid child dismayed with unaccustomed honors; and in
comparison, the empress herself might not fill her throne in the palace
of the Cæsars with half the grace and dignity.
Then, as she there sat, momentarily altering her attitude to correspond
the better with her ideas of proper bearing, and gathering into newer
and more pleasing folds the sweeping breadths of the velvet mantle, the
door was slowly swung open, and there glided noiselessly in, clad in its
neat and coarse tunic, the timid figure of her old lover Cleotos.
For an instant they remained gazing at each other as though paralyzed.
Cleotos--who had looked to see her in her simple white vestment as of
old, and had expected at her first glance to rush to her arms, and there
be allowed to pour forth his joy at again meeting her, never more to
part--beheld with dismay this gorgeously arrayed and queenly figure.
This could not be the Leta whom he had known, or, if so, how changed!
Was this the customary attire of slaves in high-placed families? Or
could it be the token of a guilty favoritism? His heart sank within him;
and he stood nervously clinging against the door behind him, fearing to
advance, lest, at the first step, some terrible truth, of which he had
already seemed to feel the premonitions, might burst upon him.
And she, for the moment, sat aghast, not knowing but that the gods, to
punish her pride and ambition, had sent a spectre to confront her. But
being of strong mind and but little given to superstitious terrors, she
instantly reasoned out the facts of his simultaneous captivity with
herself and coincidence of ownership; and her sole remaining doubt was
in what manner she should treat him. They had parted in sorrow and
tears, and she knew that he now expected her to fall into his arms and
there repeat her former vows of constancy and love. But that could not
be. Had he come to her but an hour before, while her dreams of the
future were of a vague and unsatisfactory character, she might have
acted upon such an impulse. But now, a glorious vision of what might
possibly happen had kindled her ambition with brighter fires than ever
before; and could she surrender all that, and think again only upon
starving freedom in a cottage home?
'Is it thou, Cleotos? Welcome to Rome!' she said at length, throwing
from her shoulder the purple cloak, and approaching him. As she spoke,
she held out her hand. He took it in his own, in a lifeless and
mechanical sort of way, and gazed into her face with a strange look of
inquiring doubt, which momentarily settled into an expression of deeper
apprehension. The blackness of despair began to enter into his soul. Now
that she was divested of her borrowed richness, she looked more like
herself, and that was surely her voice uttering tones of greeting; but
somehow her heart did not seem to be in them, and, for a certainty, this
had not been her wonted style of welcome.
'I thought,' she continued, 'that thou wert slain. Certainly when I
parted from you ere you fled into the mountains--'
'You know that I fled not at all,' he interrupted, the color mounting
into his temples. 'Why do you speak so, Leta? I retired to the mountains
to meet my friends there and with them carry on the defence; and,
previous thereto, I conducted you to what I believed to be a place of
safety. And I fought my best against the foe, and was brought nigh unto
death. This I did, though I can boast of but a weak and slender frame.
And it is hard that the first greeting of one so well loved as you
should be a taunt.'
'Nay, forgive me,' she said. 'I doubt not your valor. It was but in
forgetfulness that I spoke. I meant it not for a taunt.' And in truth
she had not so meant it. It was but the inadvertent expression of a
feeling which the sight of his feeble and boyish figure unwittingly made
upon her--an incapacity to connect deeds of valor with apparent physical
weakness. But this very inability to judge of his true nature by the
soul that strove to look into her own rather than by material
impressions was perhaps no slight proof of the little unison between her
nature and his.
'Sit down here,' she continued, 'and tell me all that has happened to
you.' And they sat together, and he briefly told her of his warlike
adventures, his wound, his captivity, his recognition of herself, and
his successful attempt to be once more under the same roof with her. And
somehow it still seemed to him that their talk was not as of old, and
that her sympathy with his misfortunes was but weak and cheerless; and
though he tried to interweave the customary words of endearment with his
story, there was a kind of inner check upon him, so that they came not
readily to his lips as of old. And she sat, trying to listen, and indeed
keeping the thread of his adventures in her mind; but all the while
finding her attention fail as she speculated how she could best give
that explanation of her feelings which she knew would soon be demanded
of her.
'And here I am at last, Leta--as yourself, a slave!' he concluded.
'Courage, my friend!' was her answer. 'There are very many degrees and
fates reserved for all in this old Rome, and much for every man to
learn. And many a one who has begun as a slave has, in the end, attained
not only to freedom, but to high honor and station.'
'If the gods were to give me honor and station, far be it from me to
refuse the gift,' he said. 'But that, of itself alone, would not content
me, unless you were there to share the good with me. And with yourself I
would crave no other blessing. We are slaves here, Leta, but even that
fate may have its mitigations and happiness for us.'
She was silent. How could she tell it to him? But his suspicions, at
first vague, were now aroused by her very silence into more certainty.
'Tell me,' he cried, again taking her hand, 'tell me my fate; and if
sorrow is to come upon me, let it come now. It seems as though there
were indeed evil tidings in store for me. The blight of anticipated evil
even weighed upon me ere I passed yonder hall, and when I knew no reason
why I should not find you loving of heart and humble of desire as in
other days. Is it all gone? Are you no longer the same? This tawdry
velvet in which I found you arrayed--is it the type of a something
equally foreign to your nature, and which imperial Rome has thrown
about you to aid in crushing out the better feelings of your heart?'
'My friend, my brother,' she said at length, with some real pity and
some false sorrow, 'why have we again met? Why is it now forced upon me
to tell you that the past must always be the past with us?'
He dropped her hand, and the tears started into his eyes. Much as the
words and gestures of the last few minutes had prepared him for the
announcement, yet when it came, it smote him as though there had been no
premonition of it; so lovingly had his heart persisted in clinging to
the faint hope that he might have been mistaken. A low wail of anguish
burst from his lips.
'And this is the end of all?' he sobbed.
'Think only,' she said, 'think only that I am not worthy of you.'
'The old story--the old story which has been repeated from the beginning
of the world,' he cried, stung into life by something of heartlessness
which he detected in her affected sympathy. 'The woman weaves her toils
about the man--gilds his life until there is no brightness which can
compare with it--fills his heart with high hopes of a blissful
future--so changes his soul that he can cherish no thought but of
her--so alters the whole tenor and purpose of his existence that he even
welcomes slavery as a precious boon because it brings him under the same
roof with her. And then--some other fancy having crossed her mind--or an
absence of a week or two having produced forgetfulness--she insults him
with a cruel mockery of self-unworthiness as her sole apology for
perfidy.'
'Nay,' she exclaimed, half glad of an excuse to quarrel with him. 'If
you would rather have it otherwise, think, then, that I have never loved
you as I should, even though I may have imagined that I did.'
'Go on,' he said, seeing that she hesitated.
'I know,' she continued, 'that in other days you have had my words for
it, uttered, indeed, in sympathy and truth, as I then felt them. But I
was a simple girl, then, Cleotos. The sea before me and the mountains
behind bounded all my knowledge of the world. The people whom I saw were
but few. The tastes I had were simple. Is it wonderful that I should
have listened to the first one who spoke to me of love, and should have
imagined that my heart made response to him? But now, now, Cleotos--'
'Now, what?' he exclaimed. 'Would you say that now you have seen the
world better and think differently? What is there in all that you have
since known that should change you? Is it that the sight of war and
tumult--of burning towns and bleeding captives--of insolent soldiers and
cruel taskmasters can have made you less in favor with our own native,
vine-covered retreat, with its neighborhood of simple peasantry? Or
would you say that since then you have met others whom you can love
better than me? Whom, indeed, have you seen but weary prisoners like
myself, or else unpitying conquerors whose love would be your shame? You
blush, Leta! Pray the gods that it be not the latter! Struggle sternly
with yourself to realize that you are merely for the moment fascinated
by the unaccustomed splendors of this swarming city; and that after its
first brightness has worn off from your dazzled eyes, your soul may
return to its native, pure simplicity and innocence, and--and to me.'
'Speak not so, Cleotos,' she responded. 'My eyes are not dazzled with
any splendors; but for all that, our ways now and forever lie in
different directions. We are slaves, and can give little heed to our
affections. Our only course must be for each to strive to rise above
this serfdom; and if, in doing so, either can help the other, it must
be done--but in friendship, not in love. To you, through good conduct,
there may open, even in slavery, many posts of influence and profit;
and, in so much, of better worth than our own boasted liberty with
poverty. And as for me--I see my destiny already beckoning me to a
position such as many a free Roman woman might envy.'
Speaking thus obscurely of her anticipated grandeur--to be gained,
perhaps, by abasement, but none the less in her mind certain to end in
such legitimate position as might sanctify the previous steps
thereto--her face again lit up with a glow of pride, as though she were
already the powerful patrician's wife. And revelling in such dreams, she
saw not the agony which overspread her listener's face as he read her
thoughts partly awrong, and believed her content to throw herself away
forever, in order to gain some temporary exaltation as a wealthy Roman's
plaything.
'And when that day does come,' she continued, 'if, for the memory of our
old friendship, I can help to elevate you to some better sphere--'
'Enough! No more!' he cried bitterly; and starting from her, he fled out
of the room. It were hard enough that he should lose her, harder yet
that he should hear her marking out for herself a life of ruin for some
temporary gain, but harder than all, that she should dare to mistake his
nature so far as to insult him with the promise of aiding his prosperity
through such an influence.
'Let me go hence!' he cried, in his agony, to Ænone, who, still radiant
with her newly discovered hope, met him at the door. 'Send me to the
captain Polidorus--anywhere--only let me leave this house!'
AMERICAN SLAVERY AND FINANCES.
By Hon. Robert J. Walker.
[The following article, from the pen of Hon. R. J. Walker, forms
the APPENDIX to the volume just published in England, and
now exciting great attention there, containing the various
pamphlets issued by him during the last six months. The subjects
discussed embrace Jefferson Davis and Repudiation, Recognition,
Slavery, Finances and Resources of the United States. It would be
difficult to overestimate the effect of these Letters abroad. As
our readers already possess them in the pages of THE
CONTINENTAL, we enable them to complete the series by
furnishing the ensuing Appendix. It closes with an extract from an
'Introductory Address' delivered by Mr. Walker before the National
Institute, at Washington, D. C., giving a short account of the
various improvements and discoveries made by our countrymen in the
Inductive Sciences. As showing to England what a high rank we had
even then taken in the world of science, and pointing out to her
the number and fame of our savants, it will be read with just pride
and interest. As the Address was delivered in 1844, it of course
contains no details of our marvellous progress since that date in
science and discovery.--ED. CONTINENTAL.]
We have seen by the Census Tables, if the product _per capita_ of the
Slave States in 1859 had been equal to that of the Free States for that
year, that the ADDITIONAL value produced in 1859 in the Slave
States would have been $1,531,631,000. Now as our population augmented
during that decade 35.59 per cent., this _increased_ value, at that
ratio, in 1869 would have been $2,052,332,272. If multiplying the amount
_each year_ by three only, instead of 3-559/1000 the result, during that
decade, would have been as follows:
Product of 1860, $1,559,039,962
" 1861, 1,605,811,060
" 1862, 1,654,085,391
" 1863, 1,703,707,952
" 1864, 1,754,819,198
" 1865, 1,807,464,773
" 1866, 1,861,688,716
" 1867, 1,917,539,377
" 1868, 1,975,065,558
" 1869, 2,034,317,524
-------------
Total augmented
product of the $17,873,539,511
decade
That is, the total _increased_ product of the Slave States, during the
decade from 1859 to 1869, would have been $17,873,539,511, if the
production in the Slave States had been equal, _per capita_, to that of
the Free States. This, it will be remembered, is gross product. This, it
will be perceived, is far below the actual result, as we can see by
comparing the real product of 1869, $2,052,332,272, as before given,
with the $2,034,317,524, as the result of a multiplication by three each
year.
The ratio of the increase of our _wealth_, from 1850 to 1860, as shown
by the census, was much greater than that of our population--namely,
126.45 per cent. Multiplying by this ratio (126.45), the result would be
an _additional_ product in 1860, in the Slave States, of $3,427,619,475.
But our wealth increases in an augmented ratio during each decade.
Thus, the ratio of the increase of our wealth, as shown by the census,
was as follows:
From 1820 to 1830, 41 per cent.
" 1830 to 1840, 42 "
" 1840 to 1850, 64 "
" 1850 to 1860, 126.45 "
Thus, the increase of our wealth from 1840 to 1850, was more than 50 per
cent. greater than from 1830 to 1840; and from 1850 to 1860, nearly
double that from 1840 to 1850. At the same duplicate ratio, from 1850 to
1870, the result would be over 250 per cent. That such would have been a
close approximation to the true result, is rendered still more probable
by the fact, that the product of 1859, as shown by the census, was 250
per cent. greater than that of 1849.
If, then, instead of 126.45 per cent., we were to assume 250 per cent.
as the ratio, the result would be in 1869, $5,297,708,612, as the
_increased_ product of the Slave States that year, if the ratio _per
capita_ were equal to that of the Free States. If we carry out these
ratios from 1859 to 1869, either of 126.45, or of 250, into the
aggregate of the decade, the results are startling. Assuming, however,
that of the population only, we have seen that the aggregate result in
the decade from 1859 to 1869 was over seventeen billions of dollars, or
largely more than ten times our debt incurred by this rebellion.
When, then, I reassert the opinion, heretofore expressed by me, that as
the result of the superiority of free over slave labor, our wealth in
1870, and especially in each succeeding decade, as a consequence of the
entire abolition of Slavery in the United States, will be far greater,
notwithstanding the debt, than if the rebellion had never occurred,
there is here presented conclusive official proof of the truth of this
statement. We have seen that our wealth increased from 1850 to 1860,
126.45 per cent., whilst that of England, from 1851 to 1861, augmented
only at the rate of 37 per cent.
Applying these several ratios to the progress of the wealth of the
United Kingdom and the United States, respectively, in 1870, 1880, 1890,
and 1900, the result is given below.
We have seen by the census, that our national wealth was, in
1850, $7,135,780,228
1860, 16,159,616,068
Increase from 1850 to 1860, 126.45 per cent.
England, from 1851 to 1861, 37 per cent.
Assuming these ratios, the result would be as follows:
UNITED KINGDOM.
1861, wealth, $31,500,000,000
1871, " 48,155,000,000
1881, " 59,122,350,000
1891, " 80,997,619,500
1901, " 110,966,837,715
UNITED STATES.
1860, wealth, $16,159,616,068
1870, " 36,593,450,585
1880, " 82,865,868,849
1890, " 187,314,353,225
1900, " 423,330,438,288
Thus, it appears by the census of each nation, that, each increasing in
the same ratio respectively as for the last decade, the wealth of the
United States in 1880 would exceed that of the United Kingdom
$23,743,518,849; that in 1890 it would be much more than double, and in
1900, approaching quadruple that of the United Kingdom.
When we reflect that England increases in wealth much more rapidly than
any other country of Europe, the value of these statistics may be
estimated, as proving how readily our national debt can be extinguished
without oppressive taxation.
These are the results, founded on the actual statistics, without
estimating the enormous increase of our national wealth, arising from
the abolition of Slavery. We have seen that, by the official tables of
the census of 1860, the value of the _products_ of the United States, so
far as given, for the year 1859, was $5,290,000,000. But this is very
short of the actual result. The official report (pages 59, 190, 198 to
210) shows that this included _only_ the products of 'agriculture,
manufactures, mines, and fisheries.' In referring to the result as to
'_manufactures_,' at page 59 of his official report before given, the
Superintendent says: 'If to this amount were added the very large
aggregate of mechanical productions below the annual value of $500, of
which no official cognizance is taken, the result would be one of
_startling magnitude_.'
1. This omission alone, for gross product, is estimated at $500,000,000.
2. Milk and eggs, fodder, wood, poultry, and feathers, omitted, gross
products, estimated at $350,000,000.
3. Gross earnings of trade and commerce, including freights, &c., by
land and water, $1,000,000,000.
4. Gross earnings of all other pursuits and business, including all
other omissions, $1,000,000,000.
Total gross products of 1860, as thus estimated, $8,140,000,000, of
which the amount for the Free States, as estimated, is $6,558,334,000,
and for the Slave States, $1,581,666,000.
I have heretofore referred to the vast influence of _education_ as one
of the principal causes of the greater product _per capita_ in the Free
than in the Slave States, of the much larger number of patents, of
inventions, and discoveries, in the former than in the latter.
At the April meeting of 1844, upon the request of the Society, I
delivered at Washington (D. C.) the Introductory Address for the
National Institute, in which, up to that date, an account was given by
me of 'the various improvements and discoveries made by our countrymen
in the inductive sciences.' On reference to that address, which was
published at its date (April, 1844), with their _bulletin_, it will be
seen that, from the great Franklin down to Kinnersley, Fitch, Rumsey,
Fulton, Evans, Rush, the Stevenses of New Jersey, Whitney, Godfrey,
Rittenhouse, Silliman, J. Q. Adams, Cleveland, Adrain, Bowditch, Hare,
Bache, Henry, Pierce, Espy, Patterson, Nulty, Morse, Walker, Loomis,
Rogers, Saxton, and many others; these men, with scarcely an exception,
were from the Free States.
EXTRACT.
And, first, of electricity. This has been cultivated with the greatest
success in our country, from the time when Franklin with his kite drew
down electricity from the thunder cloud, to that when Henry showed the
electrical currents produced by the distant lightning discharge. In
Franklin's day the idea prevailed that there were two kinds of
electricity, one produced by rubbing vitreous substances, the other by
the friction of resinous bodies. Franklin's theory of one electric fluid
in all bodies, disturbed in its equilibrium by friction, and thus
accumulating in one and deserting the other, maintains its ground, still
capable of explaining the facts elicited in the progress of modern
discovery. Franklin believed that electricity and lightning were the
same, and proceeded to the proof. He made the perilous experiment, by
exploring the air with a kite, and drawing down from the thunder cloud
the lightning's discharge upon his own person. The bold philosopher
received unharmed the shock of the electric fluid, more fortunate than
others who have fallen victims to less daring experiments. The world was
delighted with the discoveries of the great American, and for a time
electricity was called Franklinism on the continent of Europe; but
Franklin was born here, and the name was not adopted in England. While
Franklin made experiments, Kinnersley exhibited and illustrated them,
and also rediscovered the seemingly opposite electricities of glass and
resin. Franklin's lightning rod is gradually surmounting the many
difficulties with which it contended, as experience attests the greater
safety of houses protected by the rod, properly mounted, whilst the
British attempt to substitute balls for points has failed. This
question, as to powder magazines, has lately excited much controversy.
Should a rod be attached to the magazine, or should it be placed upon a
post at some distance? This question has been solved by Henry. When an
electrical discharge passes from one body to another, the electricity in
all the bodies in the neighborhood is affected. Henry magnetized a
needle in a long conductor, by the discharge from a cloud, more than a
mile from the conductor. If a discharge passes down a rod, attached to a
powder house, may it not cause a spark to pass from one receptacle for
powder to another, and thus inflame the whole? The electrical plenum,
which Henry supposed, is no doubt disturbed, and to great distances; but
the effect diminishes with the distance. If all the principal conductors
about a building can be connected with a lightning rod, there is no
danger of a discharge; for it is only in leaving or entering a conductor
that electricity produces heating effects; but if not, the rod is safer
at a moderate distance from the building. The rate at which electricity
moved was another of the experiments of Franklin. A wire was led over a
great extent of ground, and a discharge passed through it. No interval
could be perceived between the time of the spark passing to and from the
wire at the two ends. Not long since, Wheatston of England, aided by our
own great mechanic, Saxton, solved the problem. This has induced Arago,
of France, to propose to test the rival theories of light, by similar
means--to measure thus a velocity, to detect which has heretofore
required a motion over the line of the diameter of the earth's orbit.
In galvanism, our countrymen have made many important discoveries. Dr.
Hare invented instruments of such great power as well to deserve the
names of calorimeter and deflagrator. The most refractory substances
yielded to the action of the deflagrator, melting like wax before a
common fire. Even charcoal was supposed to be fused in the experiments
of Hare and Silliman, and the visionary speculated on the possibility of
black as well as white diamonds. Draper, by his most ingenious galvanic
battery, of two metals and two liquids, with one set of elements, in a
glass tube not the size of the little finger, was able to decompose
water. Faraday, of England, discovered the principle, that when a
current of electricity is set in motion, or stopped in a conductor, a
neighboring conductor has a current produced in the opposite direction.
Henry proved that this principle might be made available to produce an
action of a current upon itself, by forming a conductor in the whirls of
a spiral, so that sparks and shocks might be obtained by the use of such
spirals, when connected with a pair of galvanic plates, a current from
which could give no sparks and no shocks. Henry's discoveries of the
effects of a current in producing several alternations in currents in
neighboring conductors--the change of the quality of electricity which
gives shocks to the muscles into that producing heat, and _vice
versa_--his mode of graduating these shocks--his theoretical
investigations into the causes of these alternations--are abstruse, but
admirable; and his papers have been republished throughout Europe. The
heating effects of a galvanic current have been applied by Dr. Hare to
blasting. The accidents which so often happen in quarries may be avoided
by firing the charge from a distance, as the current which heats the
wire, passing through the charge, may be conveyed, without perceptible
diminution, through long distances. A feeble attempt to attribute this
important invention of Dr. Hare to Colonel Pasley, an English engineer,
has been abandoned. This is the marvellous agent by which our eminent
countryman, Morse, encouraged by an appropriation made by Congress,
will, by means of his electric telegraph, soon communicate information
forty miles, from Washington to Baltimore, more rapidly than by
whispering in the ear of a friend sitting near us. A telegraph on a new
plan at that time, invented by Mr. Grout, of Massachusetts, in 1799,
asked a question and received an answer in less than ten minutes through
a distance of ninety miles. The telegraph of Mr. Morse will prove, I
think, superior to all others; and the day is not distant when, by its
aid, we may perhaps ask questions and receive replies across our
continent, from _ocean to ocean_, thus uniting with steam in enlarging
the limits over which our Republic may be safely extended.[2]
Many of our countrymen have contributed to the branch which regards the
action of electrified and magnetic bodies. Lukens's application of
magnetism to steel (called _touching_), the compass of Bissel for
detecting local attraction, of Burt for determining the variation of the
compass, and the observations on the variations of the needle made by
Winthrop and Dewitt, deserve notice and commendation. Not long since,
Gauss, of Germany, invented instruments by which the changes of magnetic
variation and force could be accurately determined. Magnetic action is
ever varying. The needle does not point in the same direction for even a
few minutes together. The force of magnetism, also, perpetually varies.
'True as the needle to the pole' is not a correct simile for the same
place, and, if we pass from one spot to another, is falsified at each
change of our position; for the needle changes its direction, and the
force varies. Enlarged and united observations, embracing the various
portions of the world, must produce important results. The observations
at Philadelphia, conducted by Dr. A. D. Bache, and now continued by him
under the direction of the Topographical Bureau, are of great value, and
will, it is hoped, be published by Congress. Part of them have already
first seen the light in Europe--a result much to be regretted, for we
are not strong enough in science to spare from the national records the
contributions of our countrymen.
These combined observations, progressing throughout the world, are of
the highest importance. The University of Cambridge, the American
Philosophical Society, and Girard College have erected observatories;
and one connected with the Depot of Charts and Instruments has been
built in this city last year by the Government, and thoroughly furnished
with instruments for complete observations. The names of Bache, Gillis,
Pierce, Lovering, and Bond are well known in connection with these
establishments.
A magnetic survey of Pennsylvania has been made by private enterprise,
and the beginning of a survey in New York. Loomis has observed in Ohio,
Locke in Ohio and Iowa, and to him belongs the discovery of the position
of the point of greatest magnetic intensity in the Western World. Most
interesting magnetic observations (now in progress of publication by
Congress) are the result of the toilsome, perilous, and successful
expedition, under Commander Wilkes, of our navy, by whom was discovered
the Antarctic continent, and a portion of its soil and rock brought home
to our country.
The analogy of the auroral displays with those of electricity in motion,
was first pointed out by Dr. A. D. Bache, whose researches, in
conjunction with Lloyd of Dublin, to determine whether differences of
longitude could be measured by the observations of small simultaneous
changes in the position of the magnetic needle, led to the knowledge of
the curious fact, that these changes, which had been traced as
simultaneous, or nearly so, in the continent of Europe, did not so
extend across the Atlantic.
Kindred to these two branches are electro-magnetism and
magneto-electricity, connected with which, as discoverers, are our
countrymen Dana, Green, Hare, Henry, Page, Rogers, and Saxton. The
reciprocal machine for producing shocks, invented by Page, and the
powerful galvanic magnet of Henry, are entitled to respectful notice.
This force, it was thought, might be substituted for steam; but no
experiments have as yet established its use, on any important scale, as
a motive power. The fact that an electrical spark could be produced by a
peculiar arrangement of a coil of wire, connected with a magnet, is a
recent discovery; and the first magneto-electric machine capable of
keeping up a continuous current was invented by Saxton.
Electricity and magnetism touch in some points upon heat. Heat produces
electrical currents; electrical currents produce heat. Heat destroys
magnetism. Melted iron is incapable of magnetic influence. Reduction of
temperature in iron so far decreases the force, that a celebrated
philosopher made an elaborate series of experiments to ascertain whether
a great reduction of temperature might not develop magnetic properties
in metals other than iron. This branch of thermo-electricity has
received from us but little attention. Franklin's experiments, by
placing differently colored cloths in the snow, and showing the depth to
which they sank, are still quoted, and great praise has been bestowed
abroad on a more elaborate series of experiments, by a descendant of
his, Dr. A. D. Bache, proving that this law does not hold good as to
heat, unaccompanied by light. The experiments of Saxon and Goddard
demonstrate that solid bodies do slowly evaporate. It is proper here to
mention our countryman, Count Rumford, whose discoveries as to the
nature and properties of heat, improvement in stoves and gunnery, and in
the structure of chimneys and economy of fuel, have been so great and
useful.
Light accompanies heat of a certain temperature. That it acts directly
to increase or decrease magnetic force, is not yet proved; and the
interesting experiments made by Dr. Draper, in Virginia, go to show that
it is without magnetic influence. The discussion of this subject forms,
the branch of optics, touching physical science on the one side, the
most refined, and the highest range of mathematics on the other.
Rittenhouse first suggested the true explanation of the experiment, of
the apparent conversion of a cameo into an intaglio, when viewed through
a compound microscope, and anticipated many years Brewster's theory.
Hopkinson wrote well on the experiment made by looking at a street lamp
through a slight texture of silk. Joscelyn, of New York, investigated
the causes of the irradiation manifested by luminous bodies, as for
instance the stars. Of late, photographic experiments have occupied much
attention, and Draper has advanced the bold idea, supported by
experiment, that the agent in the so-called photography, is not light,
nor heat, but an agent differing from any other known principle. Henry
has investigated the luminous emanation from lime, calcined with
sulphur, and certain other substances, and finds that it differs much
from light in some of its qualities.
Astronomy is the most ancient and highest branch of physics. One of our
earliest and greatest efforts in this branch was the invention of the
mariner's quadrant, by Godfrey, a glazier of Philadelphia. The transit
of Venus, in the last century, called forth the researches of
Rittenhouse, Owen, Biddle, and President Smith, near Philadelphia, and
of Winthrop, at Boston. Two orreries were made by Rittenhouse, as also a
machine for predicting eclipses. Most useful observations, connected
with the solar eclipses, from 1832 to 1840, have been made by Paine, of
Boston. We have now well-supplied observatories at West Point,
Washington, Cambridge, Philadelphia, Hudson, Ohio, and Tuskaloosa,
Alabama; and the valuable labors of Loomis, Bartlett, Gillis, Bond,
Pierce, Walker, and Kendall are well known. Mr. Adams, so distinguished
in this branch and that of weights and measures, laid last year the
corner stone of an observatory at Cincinnati, where will soon be one of
the largest and most powerful telescopes in the world. Most interesting
observations as to the great comet of 1843 were made by Alexander,
Anderson, Bartlett, Kendall, Pierce, Walker, Downes, and Loomis, and
valuable astronomical instruments have been constructed by Amasa
Holcomb, of Massachusetts, and Wm. J. Young, of Philadelphia.
It is difficult to class the brilliant meteors of November the 13th,
1833. If such meteors are periodic, the discovery was made by Professor
Olmsted; and Mr. Herrick, of New Haven, has added valuable suggestions.
The idea that observers, differently placed at the time of appearance
and disappearance of the same meteor, would give the means of
determining differences of longitude, was first applied in our own
country, where the difference of longitude of Princeton and Philadelphia
was determined by observations of Henry and Alexander, Espy and Bache.
In meteorology our countrymen have succeeded well. Dr. Wells, of South
Carolina, elaborated his beautiful and original theory of the formation
of dew, and supported it by many well-devised and conclusive
experiments. The series of hourly observations, by Professor Snell and
Captain Mordecai, are well known; and the efforts of New York and
Pennsylvania, of the medical department of the army, and its present
enlightened head, Dr. Lawson, have much advanced this branch of science.
The interesting question, Does our climate change? seems to be answered
thus far in the negative, by registers kept in Massachusetts and New
York. There are two rival theories of storms. That of Redfield, of a
rotary motion of a wide column of air, combined with a progressive
motion in a curved line. Espy builds on the law of physics, examines the
action of an upmoving column of air, shows the causes of its motion and
the results, and then deduces his most beautiful theory of rain and of
land and water spouts. This he puts to the test of observation; and in
the inward motion of wind toward the centre of storms, finds a striking
verification of his theory. This theory is also sustained by the
overthrow or injury, in the recent tornado at Natchez, of the houses
whose doors and windows were closed, while those which were open mostly
escaped unhurt. Mr. Espy must be considered, not only here, but
throughout the world, as at the head of this branch of science. This
subject has been greatly advanced by Professor Loomis, whose paper has
been pronounced, by the highest authority, to be the best specimen of
inductive reasoning which meteorology has produced. The most recent and
highly valuable meteorological works of Dr. Samuel Forry are much
esteemed. Many important discoveries in pneumatics were made by Dr.
Franklin and Count Rumford, and the air pump was also greatly improved
by Dr. Prince, of Salem.
Chemistry, in all its departments, has been successfully pursued among
us. Dana, Draper, Ellet, Emmet, Hare, the Mitchells, Silliman, and
Torrey, are well known as chemical philosophers; and Booth, Boyé,
Chilton, Keating, Mather, R. Rogers, Seybert, Shepherd, and Vanuxen, as
_analysts_; and F. Bache, Webster, Greene, Mitchell, Silliman, and Hare,
as authors. In my native town of Northumberland, Pennsylvania, resided
two adopted citizens, most eminent as chemists and philosophers,
Priestley and Cooper. The latter, who was one of my own preceptors, was
greatly distinguished as a writer, scholar, jurist, and physician, as
well as a chemist. Priestley, although I do not concur in his peculiar
views of theology, was certainly one of the most able and learned of
ecclesiastical writers, and possessed also a mind most vigorous and
original. His discoveries in pneumatic chemistry have exceeded those of
any other philosopher. He discovered vital air, many new acids, chemical
substances, paints, and dyes. He separated nitrous and oxygenous airs,
and first exhibited acids and alkalies in a gaseous form. He ascertained
that air could be purified by the process of vegetation, and that light
evolved pure air from vegetables. He detected the powerful action of
oxygenous air upon the blood, and first pointed out the true theory of
respiration. The eudiometer, a most curious instrument for fixing the
purity of air, by measuring the proportion of oxygen, was discovered by
Dr. Priestley. He lived and died in my native town, universally beloved
as a man, and greatly admired as a philosopher. Chemistry has actively
advanced among us during the present century. Hare's compound blowpipe
came from his hand so perfect, in 1802, that all succeeding attempts of
Dr. Clark, of England, and of all others, in Europe and America, to
improve upon it or go beyond the effects produced, have wholly failed.
His mode of mixing oxygen and hydrogen gases, the instant before burning
them, was at once simple, effective, and safe. The most refractory
metallic and mineral substances yielded to the intense heat produced by
the flame of the blowpipe. In chemical analysis, the useful labors of
Keating, Vanuxen, Seybert, Booth, Clemson, Litton, and Moss, would fill
many volumes. In organic chemistry, the researches of Clark, Hare, and
Boyé were rewarded by the discovery of a new ether, the most explosive
compound known to man. Mitchell's experiments on the penetration of
membranes by gases, and the ingenious extension of them by Dr. Rogers,
are worthy of all praise. The softening of indiarubber, by Dr. Mitchell,
renders it a most useful article. Dyer's discovery of soda ash yielded
him a competence. Our countrymen have also made most valuable
improvements in refining sugar, in the manufacture of lard oil and
stearin candles, and the preservation of timber by Earle's process.
Sugar and molasses have been extracted in our country from the
cornstalk, but with what, if any profit, as to either, is not yet
determined. No part of mechanics has produced such surprising results as
the steam engine, and our countrymen have been among the foremost and
most distinguished in this great and progressive branch. When Rumsey, of
Pennsylvania, made a steamboat, which moved against the current of the
James River four miles an hour, his achievement was so much in advance
of the age, as to acquire no public confidence. When John Fitch's boat
stemmed the current of the Delaware, contending successfully with sail
boats, it was called, in derision, the _scheme boat_. So the New
Yorkers, when the steamboat of their own truly great mechanic, Stevens,
after making a trip from Hoboken, burnt accidentally one of its boiler
tubes, it was proclaimed a failure. Fulton also encountered unbounded
ridicule and opposition, as he advanced to confer the greatest benefits
on mankind by the application of steam to navigation. So Oliver Evans,
of Pennsylvania (who has made such useful improvements in the flour
mill), was pronounced insane, when he applied to the Legislatures of
Pennsylvania and Maryland for special privileges in regard to the
application of steam to locomotion on common roads. In 1810 he was
escorted by a mob of boys, when his amphibolas was moved on wheels by
steam more than a mile through the streets of Philadelphia to the river
Schuylkill, and there, taking to the water, was paddled by steam to the
wharves of the Delaware, where it was to work as a dredging machine.
Fulton's was the first successful steamboat, Stevens's the first that
navigated the ocean, Oliver Evans's the first high-pressure engine
applied to steam navigation. Stevens's boat, by an accident, did not
precede Fulton's, and Stevens's engine was wholly American, and
constructed entirely by himself, and his propeller resembled much that
now introduced by Ericsson. Stevens united the highest mechanical skill
with a bold, original, inventive genius. His sons (especially Mr. Robert
L. Stevens, of New York) have inherited much of the extraordinary skill
and talent of their distinguished father. The first steamboat that ever
crossed the ocean was built by one of our countrymen, and their skill in
naval architecture has been put in requisition by the Emperor of Russia
and the Sultan of Turkey. The steam machines invented by our countrymen
to drive piles, load vessels, and excavate roads, are most ingenious and
useful. The use of steam, as a locomotive power, upon the water and the
land, is admirably adapted to our mighty rivers and extended territory.
From Washington to the mouth of the Oregon is but one half,[3] and to
the mouth of the Del Norte but one fourth, of the distance of the
railroads already constructed here; and to the latter point, at the rate
of motion (thirty miles an hour) now in daily use abroad, the trip would
be performed in two days, and to the former in four days. Thus, steam,
if we measure distance by the time in which it is traversed, renders our
whole Union, with its most extended limits, smaller than was the State
of New York ten years since. Steam cars have been moved, as an
experiment, both here and abroad, many hundred miles, at the rate of
sixty miles an hour; but what will be the highest velocity ultimately
attained in common use, either upon the water or the land, is a most
important problem, as yet entirely unsolved. Our respected citizens,
Morey and Drake, have endeavored to substitute the force of explosion of
gaseous compounds for steam. The first was the pioneer, and the second
has shown that the problem is still worth pursuing to solution. An
energetic Western mechanic made a bold but unsuccessful effort to put in
operation an engine acting by the expansion of air by heat; and a
similar most ingenious attempt was made by Mr. Walter Byrnes, of
Concordia, Louisiana; as also to substitute compressed air, and air
compressed and expanded, as a locomotive power. All attempts to use air
as a motive power, except the balloon, the sail vessel, the air gun, and
the windmill, have thus far failed; but what inventive genius may yet
accomplish in this respect, remains yet undetermined. There is, it is
true, a mile or more of pneumatic railway used between Dublin and
Kingstown. An air pump, driven by steam, exhausts the air from a
cylinder in which a piston moves; this cylinder is laid the whole length
of the road, and the piston is connected to a car above, so that, as the
piston moves forward on the exhaustion of the air in front of it, the
car is also carried forward. The original idea of this pneumatic railway
was derived from the contrivance of an American, quite unknown to fame,
who, as his sign expressed it, showed to visitors a new mode of carrying
the mail,[4] more simple, and quite as valuable, practically, as this
atmospheric railway. The submerged propeller of Ericsson, and the
submerged paddle wheel, the rival experiments of our two distinguished
naval officers, Stockton and Hunter, are now candidates for public
favor; and the Princeton on the ocean, as she moves in noiseless
majesty, at a speed never before attained at sea, seems to attest the
value of one of these experiments, while the other is yet to be
determined. The impenetrable iron steam vessel of Mr. Stevens is not yet
completed, nor have those terrific engines of war, his explosive shells,
yet been brought to the test of actual conflict.
In curious and useful mechanical inventions, our countrymen are
unsurpassed, and a visit to our new and beautiful Patent Office will
convince the close observer that the inventive genius of America never
was more active than at the present moment. The machines for working up
cotton, hemp, and wool, from their most crude state to the finest and
most useful fabrics, have all been improved among us. The cotton gin of
Eli Whitney has altered the destinies of one third of our country, and
doubled the exports of the Union. The ingenious improvements for
imitating medals, by parallel lines upon a plain surface, which, by the
distances between them, give all the effects of light and shade that
belong to a raised or depressed surface, invented by Gobrecht and
perfected by Spencer, has been rendered entirely automatic by Saxton, so
that it not only rules its lines at proper distances and of suitable
lengths, but when its work is done it stops. In hydraulics, we have
succeeded well; and the great aqueduct over the Potomac at Georgetown,
constructed by Major Turnbull, of the Topographical Corps, exhibits new
contrivances, in overcoming obstacles never heretofore encountered in
similar projects, and has been pronounced in Europe one of the most
skilful works of the age.
The abstract mathematics does not seem so well suited to the genius of
our countrymen as its application to other sciences. Those among us who
have most successfully pursued the pure mathematics, are chiefly our
much-esteemed adopted citizens, such as Nulty, Adrain, Bonnycastle,
Gill, and Hassler. Bowditch was an American, and is highly distinguished
at home and abroad. Such men as Plana and Babbage rank him among the
first class, and his commentary on the 'Mécanique Céleste' of Laplace,
has secured for him a niche in the temple of fame, near to that of its
illustrious author. Anderson and Strong are known to all who love
mathematics, and Fischer was cut off by death in the commencement of a
bright career. And may I here be indulged in grateful remembrance of two
of my own preceptors, Dr. R. M. Patterson and Eugene Nulty. The first
was the professor at my Alma Mater (the University of Pennsylvania) in
natural philosophy and the application of mathematics to many branches
of science. He was beloved and respected by all the class, as the
courteous gentleman and the profound scholar; and the Mint of the United
States, now under his direction, at Philadelphia, has reached the
highest point of system, skill, and efficiency. In the pure mathematics
Nulty is unsurpassed at home or abroad. In an earlier day, the elder
Patterson, Ellicot, and Mansfield cultivated this branch successfully in
connection with astronomy.
A new and extensive country is the great field for descriptive natural
history. The beasts, birds, fishes, reptiles, insects, shells, plants,
stones, and rocks are to be examined individually and classed; many new
varieties and species are found, and even new genera may occur. The
learned Mitchell, of New York, delighted in these branches. The eminent
Harlan, of Philadelphia, and McMultrie were of a later and more
philosophic school. Nuttall, of Cambridge, has distinguished himself in
natural history, and Haldeman is rising to eminence.
Ornithology is one of the most attractive branches of natural history.
Wilson was the pioneer; Ord, his biographer, followed, and his friend
Titian Peale; Audubon is universally known, and stands preëminent; and
the learned Nuttall and excellent and enthusiastic Townsend are much
respected. Most of these men have compassed sea and land, and
encountered many perils and hardships to find their specimens. They have
explored the mountains of the North, the swamps of Florida, the prairies
of the West, and accompanied the Exploring Expedition to the Antarctic,
and round the world. As botanists, the Bartrams, Barton, and Collins, of
Philadelphia, Torrey, of New York, Gray and Nuttall of Cambridge,
Darlington, of Westchester, are much esteemed. The first botanical
garden in our country was that of the Bartons, near Philadelphia; and
the first work on botany was from Barton, of the same city. Logan,
Woodward, Brailsford, Shelby, Cooper, Horsfield, Colden, Clayton,
Muhlenburg, Marshall, Cutler, and Hosack, were also distinguished in
this delightful branch.
A study of the shells of our country has raised to eminence the names of
Barnes, Conrad, Lea, and Raffinesque. The magnificent fresh-water shells
of our Western rivers are unrivalled in the Old World in size and
beauty. How interesting would be a collection of all the specimens which
the organic kingdom of America presents, properly classified and
arranged according to the regions and States whence they were brought!
Paris has the museum of the natural history of France, and London of
Great Britain; but Washington has no museum[5] of the United States,
though so much richer in all these specimens.
In mineralogy, the work of Cleveland is most distinguished. Shepherd,
Mather, Troost, Torrey, and a few others, still pursue mineralogy for
its own sake; but, generally, our mineralogists have turned geologists,
studying rocks on a large scale, instead of their individual
constituents, and vieing with their brethren in Europe in bold and
successful generalization, and in the application of physical science to
their subject. Maclure was one of the pioneers, and Eaton and Silliman
contributed much to the stock of knowledge. This school has given rise
to the great geological surveys made or progressing in several of the
States. Jackson, in Maine, Hitchcock, in Massachusetts; Vanuxen, Conrad,
and Mather, in New York; the Rogerses, in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and
Virginia; Ducatel, in Maryland; Owen and Locke, in the West; Troost, in
Tennessee; Horton, in Ohio; the courageous, scientific, and lamented
Nicolet, in Missouri, Iowa, and Wisconsin, have made contributions, not
only to the geology of our country, but to the science of geology
itself, which are conceded to be among the most valuable of the present
day. The able reports of Owen and Nicolet were made to Congress, and
deserve the highest commendation.
In geographical science, the explorations of Lewis and Clark; of Long,
Nicolet, and the able and intrepid Fremont; the effective State survey
of Massachusetts; the surveys of our public lands; the determination of
the boundaries of our States, and especially those of Pennsylvania, by
Rittenhouse and Elliott; of part of Louisiana, by Graham and Kearny; of
Michigan, by Talcott; and of Maine, by Graham; have gained us great
credit. The national work of the coast survey, begun by the late Mr.
Hassler, and prosecuted through all discouragements and difficulties by
that indomitable man, has reflected honor upon his adopted country,
through the Government which liberally supported the work, and through
whose aid it is now progressing, under new auspices, with great
energy.[6] The lake survey is also now advancing under the direction of
Captain Williams, of the Topographical Corps. Among the important recent
explorations, is that of the enlightened, untiring, and intrepid
Fremont, to Oregon, which fixes the pass of the Rocky Mountains within
twenty miles of the northern boundary of Texas. Lieutenant Fremont is a
member of the Topographical Corps, which, together with that of
Engineers, contains so many distinguished officers, whose labors,
together with those of their most able and distinguished chiefs, Colonel
Totten and Colonel Abert, fill so large a portion of the public
documents, and are so well known and highly appreciated by both Houses
of Congress and by the country. The Emperor of Russia has entered the
ranks of our Topographical Corps, and employed one of their
distinguished members, Captain Whistler, to construct his great railroad
from St. Petersburg to Moscow. The travels of our countrymen, Stephens,
to Yucatan and Guatemala, to Egypt, Arabia, and Jerusalem, and of Dr.
Grant to Nestoria, have increased our knowledge of geography and of
antiquities, and have added new and striking proofs of the truths of
Christianity.
Fossil geology occupied much of the time and attention of the great
philosopher and statesman, Jefferson, and he was rewarded by the
discovery of the megatherium. The mastodon, exhumed in 1801, from the
marl pits of New York, by Charles Wilson Peale, has proved but one of an
order of animal giants. Even the tetracaulodon, or tusked mastodon, of
Godman, upon which rested his claims to fame, is not the most curious of
this order, as the investigations of Hayes and Horner have proved. This
order has excited the attention, not only of such minds as Cooper,
Harlan, and Hayes, but has also occupied the best naturalists of France,
Britain, Germany, and Italy.
Fossil conchology has attracted the attention of Conrad, the Lees, and
the Rogerses, not only calling forth much ingenuity in description and
classification, but also throwing great light upon the relative ages of
some of the most interesting geological formations. The earthquake
theory of the Rogerses is one of the boldest generalizations, founded
upon physical reasoning, which our geologists have produced. In the
parallel ridges into which the Apalachian chain is thrown, they see the
crests of great earthquake waves, propagated from long lines of focal
earthquake action, more violent than any which the world now witnesses.
The geologist deals in such sublime conceptions as a world of molten
matter, tossed into waves by violent efforts of escaping vapors,
cooling, cracking, and rending, in dire convulsion. He then ceases to
discuss the changes and formation of worlds, and condescends to inform
us how to fertilize our soil, where to look for coal and iron, copper,
tin, cobalt, lead, and where we need not look for either. He is the
Milton of poetry, and the Watt of philosophy. And here let me add, that
the recent application of chemistry to agriculture is producing the most
surprising results, in increasing and improving the products of the
earth, and setting at defiance Malthus's theory of population.
In medicine, that great and most useful branch of physics, our
countrymen have been most distinguished. From the days of the great
philosopher, physician, patriot, and statesman, Benjamin Rush, down to
the present period, our country has been unsurpassed in this branch; but
I have not time even to give an outline of the eminent Americans, whose
improvements and discoveries in medicine have contributed so much to
elevate the character of our country, and advance the comfort and
happiness of man. Rush, one of the founders of this branch in America,
was one of the signers of our Declaration of Independence, and his
school of medicine was as independent and national as his course in our
Revolutionary struggle. Statistics are chiefly concerned, as furnishing
the facts connected with government and political economy, but they are
also ancillary to physics. The statistical work of Mr. Archibald
Russell, of New York, which immediately preceded the last census,
contained many valuable suggestions, some of which were adopted by
Congress; and had more been incorporated into the law, the census would
have been much more complete and satisfactory. The recent statistical
work of Mr. George Tucker, of Virginia, on the census of 1840, is
distinguished by great talent and research, and is invaluable to the
scholar, the philosopher, the statesman, and philanthropist.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 2: This address was made and published several months before
any electric telegraph line was in operation, and is believed to
be the first prediction of the success of this principle, as
CONTINENTAL or OCEANIC.]
[Footnote 3: Now only one tenth.]
[Footnote 4: This Idea unquestionably originated in the United States,
but was improved last year, and has been introduced by Mr. Rammel, of
England.]
[Footnote 5: We now have several such museums in Washington.]
[Footnote 6: Our Coast Survey, as commenced by Hassler, and being
completed by Bache, is admitted in Europe to be the best in the world.]
THE CROSS.
Holy Father, Thou this day
Dost a cross upon me lay.
If I tremble as I lift,
First, and feel Thine awful gift,
Let me tremble not for pain,
But lest I may lose the gain
Which thereby my soul should bless,
Through mine own unworthiness.
Let me, drawing deeper breath,
Stand more firmly, lest beneath
Thy load I sink, and slavishly
In the dust it crusheth me.
Bearing this, so may I strength
Gather to receive at length
In turn eternal glory's great
And far more exceeding weight.
No, I am not crushed. I stand.
But again Thy helping hand
Reach to me, my pitying Sire:
I would bear my burden higher,
Bear it up so near to Thee,
That Thou shouldst bear it still with me.
He, upon whose careless head
Never any load is laid,
With an earthward eye doth oft
Stoop and lounge too slothfully:
Burdened heads are held aloft
With a nobler dignity.
By Thine own strong arm still led,
Let me never backward tread,
Panic-driven in base retreat,
The path the Master's steadfast feet
Unswervingly, if bleeding, trod
Unto victory and God.
The standard-bearer doth not wince,
Who bears the ensigns of his prince,
Through triumphs, in his galled palm,
Or turn aside to look for balm?
Nay, for the glory thrice outweighs
The petty price of pains he pays!
Till the appointed time is past
Let me clasp Thy token fast.
Ere I lay it down to rest,
Late or early, be impressed
So its stamp upon my soul
That, while all the ages roll,
Questionless, it may be known
The Shepherd marked me for His own;
Because I wear the crimson brand
Of all the flock washed by His hand--
For my passing pain or loss
Signed with the eternal cross.
THE ENGLISH PRESS.
IV.
It was in January, 1785, that there appeared, for the first time, a
journal with the title of _The Daily Universal Register_, the proprietor
and printer of which was John Walter, of Printing House Square, a quiet,
little, out-of-the-way nook, nestling under the shadow of St. Paul's,
not known to one man in a thousand of the daily wayfarers at the base of
Wren's mighty monument, but destined to become as famous and as well
known as any spot of ground in historic London. This newspaper boasted
but four pages, and was composed by a new process, with types consisting
of words and syllables instead of single letters. On New Year's day,
1788, its denomination was changed to _The Times_, a name which is
potent all the world over, whithersoever Englishmen convey themselves
and their belongings, and wherever the mighty utterances of the sturdy
Anglo-Saxon tongue are heard. It was long before the infant 'Jupiter'
began to exhibit any foreshadowing of his future greatness, and he had a
very difficult and up-hill struggle to wage. _The Morning Post_, _The
Morning Herald_, _The Morning Chronicle_, and _The General Advertiser_
amply supplied or seemed to supply the wants of the reading public, and
the new competitor for public favor did not exhibit such superior
ability as to attract any great attention or to diminish the
subscription lists of its rivals. _The Morning Herald_ had been started
in 1780 by Parson Bate, who quarrelled with his colleagues of _The
Post_. This journal, which is now the organ of mild and antiquated
conservatism, was originally started upon liberal principles. Bate
immediately ranged himself upon the side of the Prince of Wales and his
party, and thus his fortunes were secured. In 1781 his paper sustained a
prosecution, and the printer was sentenced to pay a fine of £100, and to
undergo one year's imprisonment, for a libel upon the Russian
ambassador. For this same libel the printers and publishers of _The
London Courant_, _The Noon Gazette_, _The Gazetteer_, _The Whitehall
Evening Journal_, _The St. James's Chronicle_, and _The Middlesex
Journal_ received various sentences of fine and imprisonment, together
with, in some cases, the indignity of the pillory. Prosecutions for
libel abounded in those days. Horace Walpole says that, dating from
Wilkes's famous No. 45, no less than two hundred informations had been
laid, a much larger number than during the whole thirty-three years of
the previous reign. But the great majority of these must have fallen to
the ground, for, in 1791, the then attorney-general stated that, in the
last thirty-one years, there had been seventy prosecutions for libel,
and about fifty convictions, in twelve of which the sentences had been
severe--including even, in five instances, the pillory. The law of libel
was extremely harsh, to say the least of it. One of its dogmas was that
a publisher could be held criminally liable for the acts of his
servants, unless proved to be neither privy nor assenting to such acts.
The monstrous part of this was that, after a time, the judges refused to
receive any exculpatory evidence, and ruled that the publication of a
libel by a publisher's servant was proof sufficient of that publisher's
criminality. This rule actually obtained until 1843, when it was swept
away by an act of Parliament, under the auspices of Lord Campbell. The
second was even worse; for it placed the judge above the jury, and
superseded the action of that dearly prized safeguard of an
Englishman's liberties, it asserting that it was for the judge alone,
and not for the jury, to decide as to the criminality of a libel. Such
startling and outrageous doctrines as these roused the whole country,
and the matter was taken up in Parliament. Fierce debates followed from
time to time, and the assailants of this monstrous overriding of the
Constitution--for it was nothing less--were unremitting in their
efforts. Among the most distinguished of these were Burke, Sheridan, and
Erskine, the last of whom was constantly engaged as counsel for the
defence in the most celebrated libel trials of the day. In 1791, Fox
brought in a bill for amending the law of libel, and so great had the
change become in public opinion, through the agitation that had been
carried on, that it passed unanimously in the House of Commons. Erskine
took a very prominent part in this measure, and, after demonstrating
that the judges had arrogated to themselves the rights and functions of
the jury, said that if, upon a motion in arrest of judgment, the
innocence of the defendant's intention was argued before the court, the
answer would be, and was, given uniformly, that the verdict of guilty
had concluded the criminality of the intention, though the consideration
of that question had been by the judge's authority wholly withdrawn from
the jury at the trial. The bill met with opposition in the House of
Lords, especially from Lord Thurlow, who procured the postponement of
the second reading until the opinion of the judges should have been
ascertained. They, on being appealed to, declared that the criminality
or innocence of any act was the result of the judgment which the law
pronounces upon that act, and must therefore be in all cases and under
all circumstances matter of law, and not matter of fact, and that the
criminality or innocence of letters or papers set forth as overt acts of
treason, was matter of law, and not of fact. These startling assertions
had not much weight with the House of Lords, thanks to the able
arguments of Lord Camden, and the bill passed, with a protest attached
from Lord Thurlow and five others, in which they predicted 'the
confusion and destruction of the law of England.' Of this bill, Macaulay
says: 'Fox and Pitt are fairly entitled to divide the high honor of
having added to our statute book the inestimable law which places the
liberty of the press under the protection of juries.' Intimately
connected with this struggle for the liberty of public opinion was
another mighty engine, which was brought to bear, and that was the
Public Association, with its legitimate offspring, the Public Meeting.
The power and influence which this organization exerted were enormous,
and, though it was often employed in a bad or unworthy cause--such, for
instance, as the Protestant agitation, culminating in Lord George
Gordon's riots in 1780--yet it has been of incalculable advantage to the
progress of the state, the enlightenment of the nation, and the
advancement of civilization, freedom, and truth. Take, for instance, the
Slave-Trade Association, the object and scope of which are thus
admirably described by Erskine May, in his 'Constitutional History of
England':
'It was almost beyond the range of politics. It had no
constitutional change to seek, no interest to promote, no prejudice
to gratify, not even the national welfare to advance. Its clients
were a despised race in a distant clime--an inferior type of the
human family--for whom natures of a higher mould felt repugnance
rather than sympathy. Benevolence and Christian charity were its
only incentives. On the other hand, the slave-trade was supported
by some of the most powerful classes in the country--merchants,
shipowners, planters. Before it could be proscribed, vested
interests must be overborne--ignorance enlightened--prejudices and
indifference overcome--public opinion converted. And to this great
work did Granville Sharpe, Wilberforce, Clarkson, and other noble
spirits devote their lives. Never was cause supported by greater
earnestness and activity. The organization of the society
comprehended all classes and religious denominations. Evidence was
collected from every source to lay bare the cruelties and
iniquities of the traffic. Illustration and argument were
inexhaustible. Men of feeling and sensibility appealed with deep
emotion to the religious feelings and benevolence of the people. If
extravagance and bad taste sometimes courted ridicule, the high
purpose, just sentiments, and eloquence of the leaders of the
movement won respect and admiration. Tracts found their way into
every house, pulpits and platforms resounded with the wrongs of the
negro; petitions were multiplied, ministers and Parliament moved to
inquiry and action.... Parliament was soon prevailed upon to
attempt the mitigation of the worst evils which had been brought to
light, and in little more than twenty years the slave trade was
utterly condemned and prohibited.'
And this magnificent result sprang from a Public Association. In this,
the most noble crusade that has ever been undertaken by man, the
newspapers bore a conspicuous part, and though, as might be expected,
they did not all take the same views, yet they rendered good service to
the glorious cause. But this tempting subject has carried us away into a
rather lengthy digression from our immediate topic. To return,
therefore:
In 1786 there was a memorable action for libel brought by Pitt against
_The Morning Herald_ and _The Morning Advertiser_, for accusing him of
having gambled in the public funds. He laid his damages at £10,000, but
only obtained a verdict for £250 in the first case, and £150 in the
second. In 1789 John Walter was sentenced to pay a fine of £50, to be
exposed in the pillory for an hour, and to be imprisoned for one year,
at the expiration of which he was ordered to find substantial bail for
his good behavior for seven years, for a libel upon the Duke of York. In
the following year he was again prosecuted and convicted for libels upon
the Prince of Wales, the Duke of York, and the Duke of Clarence, but,
after undergoing four months of his second term of one year's
imprisonment, he was set free, at the instance of the Prince of Wales.
The last trial for libel, previous to the passing of Fox's libel bill,
was that of one Stockdale, for publishing a defence of Warren Hastings,
a pamphlet that was considered as libellously reflecting upon the House
of Commons. However, through the great exertions of Erskine, his
counsel, he was acquitted.
In 1788 appeared the first daily evening paper, _The Star_, which
continued until 1831, when it was amalgamated with _The Albion_. The
year 1789 is memorable for the assumption of the editorship of _The
Morning Chronicle_ by James Perry, under whose management it reached a
greater pitch of prosperity and success than it ever enjoyed either
before or since--greater, in fact, than any journal had hitherto
attained. One of the chief reasons of this success was that he printed
the night's debates in his next morning's issue, a thing which had never
before been accomplished or even attempted. Another secret of Perry's
success was the wonderful tact with which, while continuing to be
thoroughly outspoken and independent, he yet contrived--with one
exception, hereafter to be noticed--to steer clear of giving offence to
the Government. He is thus spoken of by a writer in _The Edinburgh
Review_: 'He held the office of editor for nearly forty years, and he
held firm to his party and his principles all that time--a long time for
political honesty and consistency to last! He was a man of strong
natural sense, some acquired knowledge, a quick tact, prudent,
plausible, and with great heartiness and warmth of feeling.' His want of
education, however, now and then betrayed him into errors, and a curious
instance of this is, that on one occasion, when he meant to say
'epithalamia,' he wrote and printed 'epicedia,' a mistake which he
corrected with the greatest coolness on the following day thus: 'For
'epicedia' read 'epithalamia.'
The next event of importance is the appearance of Bell's _Weekly
Messenger_, in 1796, a newspaper that met with immediate success, and is
the only one of the weeklies of that period which have survived to the
present time. The year '96 is also remarkable for an action brought by
_The Telegraph_ against _The Morning Post_, for damages suffered by
publishing an extract from a French paper, which purported to give the
intelligence of peace between the Emperor of Germany and France, but
which was forged and surreptitiously sent to _The Telegraph_ by the
proprietors of _The Morning Post_. The result was that _The Telegraph_
obtained a verdict for £100 damages. In 1794, _The Morning Advertiser_
had been established by the Licensed Victuallers of London, with the
intention of benefiting by its sale the funds of the asylum which that
body had recently established. It at once obtained a large circulation,
inasmuch as every publican became a subscriber. It exists to the present
day, and is known by the slang _sobriquet_ of the 'Tub,' an appellation
suggested by its _clientèle_. Its opinions are radical, and it is
conducted not without a fair share of ability, but, occasionally
venturing out of its depth, it has more than once been most successfully
and amusingly hoaxed. One of these cases was when a correspondent
contributed an extraordinary Greek inscription, which he asserted had
been recently discovered. This so-called inscription was in reality
nothing but some English doggerel of anything but a refined character
turned into Greek.
In 1797, Canning brought out _The Anti-Jacobin_ as a Government organ,
and Gifford--who began life as a cobbler's apprentice at an
out-of-the-way little town in Devonshire, and afterward became editor of
_The Quarterly Review_ in its palmiest days--was intrusted with its
management. _The Anti-Jacobin_ lasted barely eight months, but was
probably the most potent satirical production that has ever emanated
from the English press. The first talent of the day was engaged upon it;
and among its contributors we find Pitt, Lord Mornington, afterward
Marquis of Wellesley, Lord Morpeth, afterward Earl of Carlisle,
Jenkinson, afterward Earl of Liverpool, Canning, George Ellis, Southey,
Lord Bathurst, Addington, John Hookham Frere, and a host of other
prominent names at the time. The poetry of _The Anti-Jacobin_--its
strongest feature--has been collected into a volume, which has passed
through several editions. This journal was the first to inaugurate
'sensation' headings; for the three columns which were respectively
entitled 'Mistakes,' 'Misrepresentations,' 'Lies,' and which most
truculently slashed away at the opponents of the political opinions of
_The Anti-Jacobin_, decidedly come under that category.
We have now arrived at another era of persecution. Those were ticklish
times, and Pitt, fearing lest revolutionary theories might be
promulgated through the instrumentality of the press, determined to
tighten the reins, and curb that freedom of expression which, after an
interval of rest from prosecution, was manifestly degenerating. Poor
Perry was arraigned on a charge of exhibiting a leaning toward France,
and he and his printer were fined and sent to prison. Pitt really
appears to have had good ground for action, in one instance, at least,
for _The Courier_ had made certain statements which might fairly be
construed as hostile to the Government, and favorable to France.
Moreover, it was stated in the House of Commons by the attorney-general,
that a parcel of unstamped newspapers had been seized in a neutral
vessel bound to France, containing information 'which, if any one had
written and sent in another form to the enemy, he would have committed
the highest crime of which a man can be guilty.' Among other things,
the departure of the West India fleet under the convoy of two frigates
only was noticed, and the greatest fears were expressed for its safety
in consequence. Another thing mentioned was, that as there was to be a
levy _en masse_ in this country, the French would not be so ill advised
as to come here, but would make a swoop upon Ireland. A bill was brought
forward, the chief provisions of which were that the proprietors and
printers of all newspapers should inscribe their names in a book, kept
for that purpose at the stamp office, in order that the book might be
produced in court on occasion of any trial, as evidence of the
proprietorship and responsibility, and that a copy of each issue of
every newspaper should be filed at the stamp office, to be produced as
good and sufficient evidence of publication. A vehement debate followed,
in the course of which Lord William Russell declared the bill to be an
insidious blow at the liberty of the press; and Sir W. Pulteney said
that 'the liberty of the press was of such a sacred nature that we ought
to suffer many inconveniences rather than check its influence in such a
manner as to endanger our liberties; for he had no hesitation in saying
that without the liberty of the press the freedom of this country would
be a mere shadow.' But the great speech of the debate was that of Sir
Francis Burdett, who did not then foresee that the time would come when
he himself should make an attack upon the press.
'The liberty of the press,' he said, 'is of so delicate a nature,
and so important for the preservation of that small portion of
liberty which still remains to the country, that I cannot allow the
bill to pass without giving it my opposition. A good Government, a
free Government, has nothing to apprehend, and everything to hope
from the liberty of the press; it reflects a lustre upon all its
actions, and fosters every virtue. But despotism courts shade and
obscurity, and dreads the scrutinizing eye of liberty, the freedom
of the press, which pries into its secret recesses, discovering it
in its lurking holes, and drags it forth to public detestation. If
a tyrannically disposed prince, supported by an unprincipled,
profligate minister, backed by a notoriously corrupt Parliament,
were to cast about for means to secure such a triple tyranny, I
know of no means he could devise so effectual for that purpose as
the bill now upon the table.'
Spite, however, of this vigorous opposition, the bill passed, and among
other coercive measures it decreed heavy penalties against any
infringement of the stamp act, such as: 'Every person who shall
knowingly and wilfully retain or keep in custody any newspaper not duly
stamped, shall forfeit twenty pounds for each, such unstamped newspaper
he shall so have in custody'--'every person who shall knowingly or
wilfully, directly or indirectly, send or carry or cause to be sent or
carried out of Great Britain any unstamped newspaper, shall forfeit one
hundred pounds,' and 'every person during the present war who shall send
any newspaper out of Great Britain into any country not in amity with
his Majesty, shall forfeit five hundred pounds.' Stringent measures
these, with a vengeance! The onslaught initiated by Parliament was well
seconded by the judges, and Lord Kenyon especially distinguished himself
as an unscrupulous (the word is not one whit too strong) foe to the
press. To such an extent was this persecution carried, that the printer,
publisher, and proprietor of _The Courier_ were fined and imprisoned for
the following 'libel' upon the Emperor Paul: 'The Emperor of Russia is
rendering himself obnoxious to his subjects by various acts of tyranny,
and ridiculous in the eyes of Europe by his inconsistency. He has now
passed an edict prohibiting the exportation of timber deal,' etc. To
fine a man £100 and imprison him for six months for this was a little
overstepping the mark, and a reaction soon followed, as a proof of which
may be noticed the act 39th and 40th George III., cap. 72, which allows
the newspaper to be increased from the old regulation size of
twenty-eight inches by twenty to that of thirty inches and a half by
twenty.
William Cobbett now makes his bow as an English journalist. He was
already notorious in America, as the author of the 'Letters of Peter
Porcupine,' published at Philadelphia; and, upon his return to England,
he projected an anti-democratic newspaper, under the title of _The
Porcupine_, the first number of which appeared in November, 1800. It was
a very vigorous production, and at once commanded public attention and a
large sale. Nevertheless it was but short lived, for the passions and
fears to which it ministered soon calmed down; and, its occupation being
gone, it naturally gave up the ghost and died. Among other celebrities
who now wrote for the newspapers are Porson, the accomplished but
bibulous Greek scholar and critic; Tom Campbell, several of whose most
beautiful poems first appeared in the columns of _The Morning
Chronicle_, Charles Lamb, Southey, Wordsworth, and Mackintosh. These
last five wrote for _The Morning Post_, and raised it, by their
brilliant contributions, from the last place among the dailies--its
circulation had actually sunk to three hundred and fifty before they
joined its ranks--to the second place, and caused it to tread very
closely upon the heels of _The Chronicle_. Tom Campbell, besides his
poetry, wrote prose articles, and was also regularly engaged as a writer
in _The Star_. Porson married James Perry's sister, and many scholarly
articles which graced the columns of _The Morning Chronicle_ toward the
close of the eighteenth century are generally believed to have emanated
from his pen. Mackintosh had written foreign political articles in _The
Oracle_ and _Morning Chronicle_, but, marrying the sister of Daniel
Stuart, the proprietor of _The Morning Post_ and _The Courier_, he
transferred his services to those journals, as well as occasionally to
_The Star_, which belonged to a brother of Stuart. Southey and
Wordsworth's contributions to Stuart's papers were principally poetry.
Charles Lamb's contributions were principally short, witty paragraphs,
which he contributed to any of the papers that would receive them, and
for which he received the magnificent remuneration of sixpence each!
Coleridge had first appeared in the newspaper world as a contributor of
poetry to _The Morning Chronicle_, but was soon after regularly engaged
upon _The Morning Post_ and _The Courier_. Some of his prose articles
have been collected together into a volume, and republished with the
title of 'Essays on His Own Times.' He was especially hostile to France,
and the best proof of the ability and vigor of his anti-Gallican
articles is that Napoleon actually sent a frigate in pursuit of him,
when he was returning from Leghorn to England, with the avowed intention
of getting him into his power if possible. The First Consul had
endeavored to get him arrested at Rome, but Coleridge got a friendly
hint--according to some from Jerome Bonaparte, and according to others
from the Pope, who assisted him in making his escape. Bonaparte had
probably gained intelligence of the whereabout of Coleridge from a
debate in the House of Commons, in the course of which Fox said that the
rupture of the Peace of Amiens was owing to Coleridge's articles in _The
Morning Post_, and added that the writer was then at Rome, and therefore
might possibly fall into the hands of his enemy. Napoleon was very much
irritated by the attacks upon him in _The Morning Chronicle_ as well as
by those in Cobbett's _Political Register_--_The Porcupine_ under a new
name--the _Courrier François de Londres_--the French _emigrés'_
paper--and _L'Ambigu_, which was rather a political pamphlet, published
at periodical intervals, than a regular newspaper. He therefore thought
proper peremptorily to call upon the English Government to put these
papers down with a high hand. But the British cabinet sent this noble
reply:
'His Majesty neither can nor will in consequence of any
representation or menace from a foreign power make any concession
which may be in the smallest degree dangerous to the liberty of the
press as secured by the Constitution of this country. This liberty
is justly dear to every British subject; the Constitution admits of
no previous restraints upon publications of any description; but
there exist judicatures wholly independent of the executive,
capable of taking cognizance of such publications as the law deems
to be criminal; and which are bound to inflict the punishment the
delinquents may deserve. These judicatures may investigate and
punish not only libels against the Government and magistracy of
this kingdom, but, as has been repeatedly experienced, of
publications defamatory of those in whose hands the administration
of foreign Governments is placed. Our Government neither has, nor
wants, any other protection than what the laws of the country
afford; and though they are willing and ready to give to every
foreign Government all the protection against offences of this
nature which the principles of their laws and Constitution will
admit, they can never consent to new-model those laws or to change
their Constitution to gratify the wishes of any foreign power.'
But Napoleon indignantly declined to avail himself of the means of
redress suggested to him, and continued to urge the English Government;
who at length made a sort of compromise, by undertaking a prosecution of
Peltier, the proprietor of _L'Ambigu_. Mackintosh was his counsel; and
in spite of his speech for the defence, which Spencer Perceval
characterized as 'one of the most splendid displays of eloquence he ever
had occasion to hear,' and Lord Ellenborough as 'eloquence almost
unparalleled,' Peltier was found guilty--but, as hostilities soon after
broke out again with France, was never sentenced. The best part of the
story, however, is, that all the time ministers were paying Peltier in
private for writing the very articles for which they prosecuted him in
public! This did not come out until some years afterward, when Lord
Castlereagh explained the sums thus expended as 'grants for public and
not private service, and for conveying instructions to the Continent
when no other mode could be found.' The trial of Peltier aroused a
strong feeling of indignation in the country; the English nation has
always been very jealous of any interference with its laws at the
dictation of any foreign potentate, as Lord Palmerston on a recent
occasion found to his cost.
Cobbett was soon after tried for a libel--not, however, upon Napoleon,
but upon the English Government. There must have been an innate tendency
in Cobbett's mind to set himself in opposition to everything around him,
for whereas he had made America too hot to hold him by his
anti-republican views, he now contrived to set the authorities at home
against him by his advanced radicalism. He had to stand two trials in
1804, in connection with Robert Emmet's rebellion. On the second of
these he was fined £500, and Judge Johnson, one of the Irish judges, who
was the author of the libels complained of, retired from his judicial
position with a pension. These reflections in question upon the Irish
authorities would hardly be called libels now-a-days, consisting as they
did chiefly of ridicule and satire, which was, after all, mild and
harmless enough. In 1810, Cobbett got into trouble again. Some militia
soldiers had been flogged, while a detachment of the German Legion stood
by to maintain order. Cobbett immediately published a diatribe against
flogging in the army and the employment of foreign mercenaries. He was
indicted for a 'libel' upon the German Legion, convicted, and sentenced
to two years' imprisonment, to pay a fine of £1,000, and to find
security in £3,000 for his good behavior during seven years--a sentence
which created universal disgust among all classes, and which was not too
strongly designated by Sydney Smith as 'atrocious.'
_The Oracle_--which, by the way, boasted Canning among its
contributors--was rash enough to publish an article in defence of Lord
Melville. The House of Commons fired up at this, and, led on by
Sheridan--_quantum mutatus ab illo!_--Fox, Wyndham, and others, who had
formerly professed themselves friends to the liberty of the press, but
who were now carried away by the virulence of party spirit, caused the
publisher to be brought before them, and made him apologize and make his
submission upon his knees.
In 1805 appeared _The News_, a paper started by John Hunt and his
brother Leigh, then but a mere boy, but who had, nevertheless, had some
experience in newspaper writing from having been an occasional
contributor to _The Traveller_, an evening paper, that was afterward
amalgamated with _The Globe_, which still retains the double title. The
year 1808 was fruitful in prosecutions for libels, but is chiefly
remarkable for the appearance of Hunt's new paper, _The Examiner_. This
was conducted upon what was styled by their opponents revolutionary
principles, an accusation which Leigh Hunt afterward vehemently
repudiated. This same year also gave birth to the first religious paper
which had as yet appeared, under the name of _The Instructor_, as well
as to _The Anti-Gallican_, which seems to have quickly perished of
spontaneous combustion, and _The Political Register_, an impudent piracy
of the title of Cobbett's paper, and directed against him. In 1809,
Government passed a bill in favor of newspapers, to amend some of the
restrictions under which they labored. This was done on account of the
high price of paper: and yet in the following year another attempt was
made to exclude the reporters from the House of Commons. These men had
always done their work well and honestly, although in their private
lives some of them had not borne the very best character. A capital
story is told of Mark Supple, an Irish reporter of the old school, who
was employed on _The Chronicle_. One evening, when there was a sudden
silence in the midst of a debate, Supple bawled out: 'A song from Mr.
Speaker.' The members could not have been more astonished had a
bombshell been suddenly discharged into the midst of them; but, after a
slight pause, every one--Pitt among the first--went off into such shouts
of laughter, that the halls of the House shook again. The
sergeant-at-arms was, however, sent to the gallery to ascertain who had
had the audacity to propose such a thing; whereupon Supple winked at him
and pointed out a meek, sober Quaker as the culprit. Broadbrim was
immediately taken into custody; but Supple, being found out, was locked
up in a solitary chamber to cool his heels for a while, and then having
made a humble apology, to the effect that 'it was the dhrink that did
it,' or something of the kind, was set at liberty. But the reporters at
the period of this unjust and foolish exclusion--for it was successful
for a time--were a very different class of men; and Sheridan told the
House that 'of about twenty-three gentlemen who were now employed
reporting parliamentary debates for the newspapers, no less than
eighteen were men regularly educated at the universities of Oxford or
Cambridge, Edinburgh or Dublin, most of them graduates at those
universities, and several of them had gained prizes and other
distinctions there by their literary attainments.' It was during this
debate that Sheridan uttered that memorable and glowing eulogium upon
the press which has been quoted in the first of the present series of
articles.
It has been shown that at one time the church was the profession which
most liberally supplied the press with writers; but now the bar appears
to have furnished a very large share, and many young barristers had
been and were reporters. The benchers of Lincoln's Inn endeavored to put
a stop to this, and passed a by-law that no man who had ever been paid
for writing in the newspapers should be eligible for a call to the bar.
This by-law was appealed against in the House of Commons, and, after a
debate, in which Sheridan spoke very warmly against the benchers, the
petition was withdrawn upon the understanding that the by-law should be
recalled. From that time to the present, writing in the newspapers and
reporting the debates have been the means whereby many of the most
distinguished of our lawyers have been enabled to struggle through the
days of their studentship and the earlier years of their difficult
career.
The last attempt of the House of Commons against the press culminated in
Sir Francis Burdett's coming forward in its behalf, and, in an article
in Cobbett's paper, among other things he asserted that the House of
Commons had no legal right to imprison the People of England. In acting
thus, Sir Francis amply atoned for the ridiculous attempt which,
prompted by wounded vanity, he had made a few years before to engage the
interference of the House of Commons in his behalf in what he called a
breach of privilege--the said breach of privilege consisting merely in
an advertisement in _The True Briton_ of the resolutions passed at a
public meeting to petition against his return to Parliament. The results
of his bold attack upon the power of the House of Commons, his
imprisonment, the riots, and lamentable loss of life which followed, are
so well known as to render any particularizing of them here unnecessary.
Originating with this affair was a Government prosecution of _The Day_,
the upshot of which was that Eugenius Roche, the editor--who was also
proprietor of another flourishing journal, _The National Register_--one
of the most able, honorable, and gentlemanly men ever connected with the
press, of whom it has been truly said that 'during the lapse of more
than twenty years that he was connected with the journals of London, he
never gained an enemy or lost a friend,' was most unjustly condemned to
a year's imprisonment.
The next important event is the trial of the Hunts for a libel in _The
Examiner_ in 1811. Brougham was their counsel, and made a masterly
defence; and, though Lord Ellenborough, the presiding judge, summed up
dead against the defendants--the judges always appear to have done
so--the jury acquitted them. Yet Brougham in the course of his address
drew the following unfavorable picture of the then state of the press:
'The licentiousness of the press has reached to a height which it
certainly never attained in any other country, nor even in this at
any former period. That licentiousness has indeed of late years
appeared to despise all the bounds which had once been prescribed
to the attacks on private character, insomuch that there is not
only no personage so important or exalted--for of that I do not
complain--but no person so humble, harmless, and retired as to
escape the defamation which is daily and hourly poured forth by the
venal crew to gratify the idle curiosity or still less excusable
malignity of the public. To mark out for the indulgence of that
propensity individuals retiring into the privacy of domestic
life--to hunt them down and drag them forth as a laughing stock to
the vulgar, has become in our days with some men the road even to
popularity, but with multitudes the means of earning a base
subsistence.'
Soon after this trial and another provincial one connected with the same
'libel'--one gets quite sick of the word--in which the defendants were
found guilty in spite of Brougham's exertions in their behalf and the
previous verdict of the London jury in the case of the Hunts, a debate
arose in the House of Commons on the subject of _ex-officio_
informations generally, and especially with regard to their
applicability to the case of newspapers. In the course of this debate
Lord Folkestone charged the Government with partiality in their
prosecutions, and said: 'It appears that the real rule which guides
these prosecutions is this: that _The Courier_ and the other papers
which support the ministry of the day, may say whatever they please
without the fear of prosecution, whereas _The Examiner_, _The
Independent Whig_, _The Statesman_, and papers that take the contrary
line, are sure to be prosecuted for any expression that may be offensive
to the minister'--an accusation which was decidedly true.
In 1812 the Hunts were again prosecuted for a libel upon the Prince
Regent, and sentenced to be imprisoned two years, and to pay a fine of
£500. Bat the imprisonment was alleviated in every possible way, as we
gather from Leigh Hunt's charming description of his prison in his
Autobiography.
'I papered the walls with a trellis of roses; I had the ceiling
colored with clouds and sky; the barred windows were screened with
venetian blinds; and when my book cases were set up with their
busts and flowers, and a pianoforte made its appearance, perhaps
there was not a handsomer room on that side of the water.... There
was a little yard outside, railed off from another belonging to a
neighboring ward. This yard I shut in with green palings, adorned
it with a trellis, bordered it with a thick bed of earth from a
nursery, and even contrived to have a grass plot. The earth I
filled with flowers and young trees. There was an apple tree from
which we managed to get a pudding the second year. As to my
flowers, they were allowed to be perfect.'
We have now arrived at a period which may almost be called that of the
present, inasmuch as many well-known names which still continue to adorn
our current literature first begin to appear, together with many others,
the bearers of which have but recently departed from among us. Cyrus
Redding, John Payne Collier, and Samuel Carter Hall still survive, and,
it is to be hoped, are far off yet from the end of their honorable
career; and William Hazlitt, Theodore Hook, Lord Campbell, Dr. Maginn,
Dr. Croly, Thomas Barnes, William Jordan, and many others, belong as
much to the present generation as to the past. Among other distinguished
writers must be mentioned Jeremy Bentham and David Ricardo, who
contributed articles of sterling merit upon political economy and
finance to the newspapers, and especially to _The Morning Chronicle_, in
which journal William Hazlitt succeeded Lord Campbell, then 'plain John
Campbell,' as theatrical critic. Cyrus Redding was at one time editor of
_Galignani's Messenger_, and was afterward connected with _The Pilot_,
which was considered the best authority on Indian matters, and in some
way or another, at different times, with most of the newspapers of the
day. John P. Collier wrote in _The Times_ and _Morning Chronicle_,
Thomas Barnes in _The Morning Chronicle_ and _Champion_, Croly and S. C.
Hall in _The New Times_--a newspaper started by Stoddart, the editor of
_The Times_, after his quarrel with Walter--Maginn in _The New Times_,
_Standard_, _John Bull_, and many others, William Hazlitt in _The
Morning Chronicle_, _Examiner_, and _Atlas_, and Theodore Hook in _John
Bull_, of which he was the editor.
In 1815, the advertisement duty, which had hitherto stood at three
shillings, was raised to three shillings and sixpence, and an additional
halfpenny was clapped on to the stamp duty. There were then fifty-five
newspapers published in London, of which fifteen were daily, one hundred
and twenty-two in the provinces of England and Wales, twenty-six in
Scotland, and forty-nine in Ireland.
And here let us pause to consider the position which the press had
reached. It had survived all the attempts made to crush it; nay, more,
it had triumphed over all its foes. Grateful to Parliament, whenever
that august assemblage befriended it, and standing manfully at bay
whenever its liberties had been threatened in either House, it had
overcome all resistance, and Lords and Commons recognized in it a safe
and honorable tribunal, before which their acts would be impartially
judged, as well as the truest and most legitimate medium between the
rulers and the ruled. The greatest names of the day in politics and in
literature were proud to range themselves under its banners and to aid
in the glorious work of extending its influence, developing its
usefulness, and elevating its tone and character; and the people at
large had learned to look upon it as the firm friend of national
enlightenment, and the most trustworthy guardian of their constitutional
liberties.
LIFE ON A BLOCKADER.
Life in the camp and in the field has formed the staple of much writing
since the commencement of the war, and all have now at least a tolerable
idea of the soldier's ordinary life. Our sailors are a different matter,
and while we study the daily papers for Army news, we are apt to ignore
the Navy, and forget that, though brave men are in the field, a smaller
proportion of equally brave serve on a more uncertain field, where not
one alone but many forms of death are before them. Shot and shell it is
the soldier's duty to face, and the sailor's as well, but one ball at
sea may do the work of a thousand on shore: it may pass through a
vessel, touching not a soul on board, and yet from the flying splinters
left in its path cause the death of a score; its way may lie through the
boilers, still touching no one, and yet the most horrible of all deaths,
that by scalding steam, result. It may chance to hit the powder
magazine, and sudden annihilation be the fate of both ship and crew; or,
passing below the water line, bring a no less certain, though slower
fate--that which met the brave little Keokuk at Charleston, not many
months since.
Life at sea is a compound of dangers, and though the old tar may
congratulate himself in a stormy night on being safe in the maintop, and
sing after Dibdin--
'Lord help us! how I pitys
All unhappy folks on shore'--
to the majority of our present Navy, made up as it is, in part at least,
of volunteer officers and men, it is essentially distasteful, and
endured only as the soldier endures trench duty or forced marches--as a
means of sooner ending the Rebellion, and bringing white-winged Peace in
the stead of grim War.
The history of our ironclads, from their first placing on the stocks, to
the present time, when Charleston engrosses them all, is read with
avidity, but few know anything of life on our blockaders, or, thinking
there is not the dignity of danger associated with them, take little or
no interest in what they may chance to see concerning them. Those who
have friends on blockade duty may be interested to know more of their
daily life than can be crowded into the compass of home letters, and the
writer, one of the squadron off Wilmington, would constitute himself
historian of the doings of at least one ship of the fleet.
Wilmington, Charleston, and Mobile, alone remain of all the rebel ports,
but it is with the first we have to do--where it is, how it looks, &c.
Right down the coast, some 450 miles from New York, and a hundred or
more from the stormy cape of Hatteras, you will see the river which
floats the merchandise to and from the docks at Wilmington, emptying
into the ocean at Cape Fear, from which it takes its name. The river has
two mouths, or rather a mouth proper, which opens to the south of the
cape, and an opening into the side of the river, north of the cape
called New Inlet. Perhaps more seek entrance by this inlet than the
mouth, which is guarded by Fort Caswell, a strong, regularly built fort,
once in Union hands, mounting some long-range English Whitworth guns.
One other fort has been built here since the commencement of the war.
This inlet is guarded by a long line of earthworks, mounted by Whitworth
and other guns of heavy caliber. Wilmington lies some twenty miles from
the mouth, and fifteen north of New Inlet.
One great characteristic of this coast is the columns of smoke, which
every few miles shoot up from its forests and lowlands. All along the
coasts may be seen mounds where pitch, tar, and turpentine are being
made. These primitive manufactories for the staple of North Carolina are
in many places close down to the water's edge, whence their products may
easily be shipped on schooners or light-draft vessels, with little
danger of being caught by the blockaders, who draw too much water to
make a very near approach to shore. So much for the coast we guard; now
for ourselves.
Our vessel, of some thirteen hundred tons, and manned by a crew of about
200 all told, reached blockade ground the early part of March. Our
voyage down the coast had been unmarked by any special incident, and
when at dusk, one spring afternoon, we descried a faint blue line of
land in the distance, and knew it as the enemy's territory, speculation
was rife as to the prospect of prizes. About 11 P. M. a vessel
hove in sight, which, as it neared, proved to be a steamer of about half
our tonnage. Our guns were trained upon the craft, but, instead of
running, she steamed up toward us. We struck a light, but it was as loth
to show its brightness as the ancient bushel-hidden candle. A rope was
turpentined, and touched with burning match, but the flame spread up and
down the whole spiral length of the rope torch, to the infinite vexation
of the lighter. Fierce stampings and fiercer execrations swiftly
terrorized the trembling quartermaster, who, good fellow, did his best,
and then, frightened into doing something desperate, made this blaze. We
hailed them while waiting for fire to throw signals, letting them know
who we were; but the wind carried away our shoutings, and the vessel
actually seemed inclined to run us down. Worse yet--what could the
little vixen mean?--a bright light, flashed across her decks, showed
gathering round her guns a swift-moving band of men. Her crew were
training their guns upon us for our swift capture or destruction: she
could not see our heavy weight of metal, for our ports were closed. She
might be a friend, for so her signal lights seemed to indicate; but if
of our fleet, how should we let her know in time to save the loss of
life and irreparable harm a single ball from her might do? She had
waited long enough for friendly signals from us, and the wind, which
swept our shouts from hearing, brought to us from them, first, questions
as to who we were, then threats to fire if we did not quickly tell, and
then orders passed to the men at the foremost gun: 'One point to the
starboard train her!'--words which made their aim on us more sure and
fatal. 'Bear a hand with that fire and torch! Be quick, for God's sake,
or we'll have a shot through us, and that from a friend, unless we blaze
away like lightning with our rockets.' The crew were stepping from the
gun to get out of the way as it was fired; the captain of the gun held
the lock string in his hand; but the instant had not been lost, and our
rockets, springing high in air, told our story. Danger is past: we learn
they are not only friends, but to be neighbors, and steam in together to
our post rather nearer the shore than other vessels here.
Days pass on in watching, and as yet no foreign sail. We study the line
of our western horizon, and find it well filled in with forts,
embrazures, earthworks, black-nosed dogs of war, and busy traitors. As
time goes on, a new thing opens to the view: a short week ago it seemed
but a molehill: now it has risen to the height of a man, and hourly
increases in size. Two weeks, and now its summit is far above the reach
of spade or shovel throw, and crowned by a platform firmly knit and held
together by well-spliced timbers. As to its object we are somewhat
dubious, but think it the beginning of an earthwork fortress, built high
in order that guns may be depressed and brought to bear on the turrets
of any Monitors which might possibly come down upon this place or
Wilmington.
At night we draw nearer to the shore, watching narrowly for blockade
runners, which evade us occasionally, but oftener scud away
disappointed. One night or early morning, 3 A. M. by the clock,
we tried to heave up anchor; the pin slipped from the shackles, and the
anchor, with forty fathoms of chain attached, slipped and sank to the
bottom in some eight fathoms of water.
The next day we steamed into our moorings of the previous night and
sought to drag for it. While arranging to do so, we saw a puff of smoke
from the shore. Bang! and a massive cannon ball tore whizzing over our
heads. The shore batteries had us in their range, and the firing from
the far-reaching Whitworth guns grows more rapid. Puff after puff rolls
up from the long line of battery-covered hillocks, under the bastard
flag, and the rolling thunder peals on our ears with the whizzing of
death-threatening balls. Oh! the excitement of watching and wondering
where the next ball will strike, and whether it will crush a hole right
through us, wasting rich human life, and scattering our decks with
torn-off limbs and running pools of blood. Quickly as possible we up
anchor and away, and soon are out of reach of balls, which splash the
water not a ship's length from us. Even then we involuntarily dodge
behind some pine board or other equally serviceable screen; and a
newspaper, if that were nearest, would be used for the same purpose--so
say those who have tasted many a naval fight. In fact, the dodge is as
often after the ball has hit as before, as this story of one of our
brave quartermasters will prove: Under fire from rebel batteries, he
noted the cloud of smoke which burst from one of the fort's
embrazures--watched sharply for the ball--heard the distant roar and its
cutting whiz overhead--watched still further, saw it fall into the sea
beyond, and then sang out to the captain, 'There it fell, sir!' and like
lightning dodged behind a mast, as though the necessity had but just
occurred to him.
As our rebel friends see their shot falling short of us, the firing
ceases, and thus harmlessly ends the action which for a few moments
threatened so much, teaching us the folly of too near approaches to
land, or attempts to batter down, to which we have often been tempted,
the earthworks daily erecting. It is folly to attempt it, because the
disabling of these few blockade steamers would open the port to all who
choose to barter with our Southern foes; and, _en passant_, this will
explain why here and elsewhere the rebels build their works under the
very noses of our men-of-war. Thus a vessel runs the blockade, and takes
into them English Whitworth guns, which send balls flying through the
air a good five miles, and whose range is longer than our far-famed
Parrott rifled cannon. These Whitworths they place concealed in
hillsides, or in forests back of the places where they build the regular
fort to protect them. If our vessels approach to batter down these germs
of forts, fire is opened on us from these long rangers, and nine chances
out of ten we are disabled before we can so much as touch them with our
guns; so that for ourselves we accomplish nothing, thereby benefiting
them.
Week days and Sundays pass on alike as far as outside incident is
concerned, but new features in each other open to view as time goes on.
Naval discipline develops the bump of reverence, or at any rate fosters
it for a time, and to the volunteer in his first days or weeks passed on
board a man-of-war, the dignified captain in the retirement of his cabin
is an object of veneration, and the slight peculiarities of some other
officers, merely ornamental additions to shining characters. On a
Sunday, for instance, in the early part of the cruise, the said bump
receives as it were a strengthening plaster, at the sight of officers
and men in full dress--the first resplendent in gold-banded
caps--multiplied buttons--shining sword hilts, et cetera, et cetera, and
the men in white ducks, blue shirts, et cetera, scattered about the
decks in picturesque groups. The captain, from the fact of his occupying
a private cabin, and seeing the officers merely to give orders or
receive reports in the line of their duty, comes but little in contact
with them, and, as there is a certain idea of grandeur in isolation,
obliges a degree of reverence not accorded to those with whom one is in
constant intercourse. A slight feeling of superiority always exists in
the minds of those of the regular navy over the volunteer officers, and
though at first the ward-room mess all seemed 'hail fellow, well met,'
familiarity develops various traits and tendencies, which, in a mess of
eight or nine, will not be persuaded to form a harmonious whole. Our
lieutenant, for instance, who, in the first days of the cruise, appeared
a compound of all the Christian graces, and a 'pattern of a gentleman,'
develops a pleasant little tendency to swear viciously on slight
provocation, and, though, rather afraid to indulge his propensities to
the full, lest the rules of naval service be violated, and disgrace
follow, still recreates himself privately, by pinching the little
messenger boys till they dance, and gritting his teeth, as if he longed
to do more, but didn't dare. It is wonderful how salt water develops
character. Our (on land) _debonnaire_, chivalrous executive, is merged
in the swearing blackguard as far as he can be; and yet strange as it
may seem, no man can be braver in time of danger, or apparently more
forgetful of self. Our paymaster, too, has suffered a sea change: the
gentleman is put away with his Sunday uniform, and taken out to air only
when it is politic to do so: wine and cigars, owned by somebody else,
occasion its instant appearance. No man on ship can show more deference
for another's feelings where the captain is concerned; no man more
thorough disregard where the sailors come into question. Yet this man
has also his redeeming points or point, made perceptible by a solitary
remark, remembered in his favor at times when the inclination has been
to call him a hypocritical scoundrel. One of the mess, rather given to
profanity, said to him one day: 'Paymaster, what's the reason you never
swear?' 'Because,' was the answer, 'I never set an example at home which
I would not wish my children to follow, and so I've got out of the way
of it.'
Various criticisms might be made on officers and men: there are
characters enough among them to furnish material for a volume. Some are
moderately patriotic, but would have been as much so on the other side,
had as strong inducements been held out in the way of 'loaves and
fishes.' Others love the cause for itself, and hold life cheap if its
sacrifice may in any way advance it. Blockade duty is perhaps a harder
test of this love than actual field service; and as months pass on, it
becomes almost unendurable. The first few days can be taken up in sight
seeing on board, and the most novel of these said sights is the drill
which follows the daily call to quarters. The rapid roll of the drum is
the signal: here, there, everywhere, on berth deck, spar deck, quarter
deck, men spring to their feet, jump from their hammocks, and every door
and passage way is blocked up by the crowd, who rush to their respective
quarters, and about the armory, each seeking to be the first, who, fully
equipped with cutlass, gun, and sabre-bayonet affixed, shall be in his
place. Another instant, and all stand about their several guns in rows,
awaiting orders from their officers, who sing out in clear commanding
tones, as though a real fight were impending: 'Pass 9-inch shell and
load!' They drive it home. 'Now run out! train her two points off port
quarter; elevate for five hundred yards! Fire! Run her in! Run out
starboard gun! Run her home! Train her three points off starboard
quarter! Fire!'
High up on the bridge of the hurricane deck, stands the first
lieutenant, overlooking the men as they work the guns, train, load, run
out, and mimic fire. Suddenly he shouts through the trumpet: 'Boarders
and pikemen at port quarter! First boarders advance! Second boarders
advance! Repel boarders! Retreat boarders! Pikemen cover cutlass
division! Fire! Repel boarders!' The second hand scarcely sweeps over a
quarter of its dial before the men have crowded around the port
bulwarks, and are slashing the air with a most Quixotic fury--then
crouch on bent knee, to make ready their pistols, while in their rear,
marines and pikemen, musket and rifle armed, snap their pieces, and pour
into an imaginary foe a vast volley of imaginary balls; then pierce the
air with savage bayonet thrusts. The farce, and yet a most useful farce,
is gone through with. The retreat is ordered to be beat, and all retire;
refill the armory with their deadly rifles and side arms, and then
return to their respective watches, work, or recreation--some gathering
round a canvas checker board; some polishing up bright work; others
making pants, shirts, or coats, or braiding light straw hats. Some are
aloft, and watching with eager eyes to catch the first glimpse of a sail
on the distant horizon; and this he must do from his loftly outlook
before the officer of the deck or quartermaster espies one, as they
sweep the sky with their long-reaching glasses--else he may suffer
reprimand and prison fare.
These and our meals are epochs which measure out the time, between which
the minutes and hours pass most wearily, and are filled with longings
for home or some welcome words from there, the next meal, or the drum
beat to quarters. Said one to me whose time is not used up as is that of
the watch officers, by four-hour watches twice in the twenty-four hours:
'When breakfast's done, the next thing I look forward to is dinner, and
when that's done, I look for supper time, and then wait in patience till
the clock strikes ten, and the 'master at arms' knocks at our several
doors, saying: 'Four bells, gentlemen; lights out, sirs.'' So time drags
often for weeks together. No new excitement fills the head with thought,
and more or less of _ennui_ takes hold on all. In fact, some consider
life on shipboard not many removes from prison life; and a man
overflowing with the sap of life, whose muscles from head to foot tingle
for a good mile run across some open field, a tramp through a grand
forest, or climb of some mountain crag, and who loves the freedom of
good solid _terra firma_--he, I say, feels like a close-caged lion.
After every calm comes a storm, and so, after weeks of listless waiting,
doing nothing, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, a very gale of bustle
comes on. 'Sail ho!' comes from the lookout aloft. 'One point off our
starboard bow!' 'Man the windlass and up anchor!' shouts the officer of
the deck, as the strange sail bears down steadily toward us, finally
showing signals which tell us she's a friend and brings a mail. The
Iroquois steams out to meet her; their anchors drop, and they hold
friendly confab. We, too, soon come up, and hear that letters, papers,
fresh meat, and ice await us, on the good old Bay State steamer
Massachusetts. We prepare to lower boats and get our goodies, when we
are told from the Iroquois that a sail lies far off to the N. N. E., and
are ordered off on chase. 'It never rains but it pours,' think we.
Letters, goodies, and now a chance at a prize! 'Begone dull care!' 'Ay,
ay, sir!' responds swift-vanishing _ennui_, as our eyes are strained in
the direction we were told the vessel was seen. No sign of one yet; but
as we enter on our second mile, our lookout cries for the first time: 'A
sail! dead ahead, sir!' After a five miles' run, we near the vessel
sufficiently to make out that she is the brig Perry, one of Uncle Sam's
swiftest sailing vessels, and so we quit chasing, and return to get our
letters and provisions ere the Massachusetts starts again. An hour from
our first meeting we are back, and find her heaving anchor to be off,
for she runs on time, and may not delay here; so haste away with the
boats, or we lose mails, provisions, and all. The boat returns well
laden with barrels of potatoes, quarter of beef, and chunks of ice, but
no mail. 'Letters and papers all sent on board the Iroquois,' says the
Massachusetts; so if we have any, there they are, but no word of any for
us is sent; so with hearts disappointed, but stomachs rejoicing in the
prospect of ice water and fresh meat, we settle down.
Our tongues, under red-tape discipline, keep mum, but inwardly we
protest against this deprivation, brought about by the wild-goose chase
on which we were ordered. Well, to-morrow the State of Georgia is
expected down from Beaufort, and she will bring us a mail, we hope. The
morrow comes, and at daydawn she heaves in sight, just halting as she
nears the flagship, to report herself returned all right, and then down
toward us--with a mail, we trust. She is hardly ten ship's lengths away,
when she spies a sail to southward, notifies us, and we both make chase.
She is deeply laden, we but lightly, so we soon outstrip her, and
overtake the sail, which is a schooner, and looks suspicious, very. We
order her to 'heave to,' which order is wilfully or unwittingly
misunderstood. At any rate she does not slacken her speed, till she
finds our guns brought to bear, and we nearly running her down. Then she
stops: we send a boat with officers and men to board her and see if we
have really a prize, and all is excitement. One officer offers his share
for ten dollars--another for twenty--a third for a V, and one for fifty
cents; but would-be salesmen of their shares are far more numerous than
buyers. And soon the boat returns, reporting the vessel as bound for
Port Royal, with coffee, sugar, and sutlers' stores. Her papers are all
right, and she may go on without further hinderance. Now back to the
State of Georgia for our mails. 'Our mails! our mails!' is the hungry
cry of our almost home-sick hearts. As we get within hailing distance,
we sing out for our letters, and are answered: 'While you were chasing
the schooner, we left your mail on board the Iroquois.' 'The devil you
did!' say some in bitter disappointment, but red tape demands that we
wait till the flagship sees fit to signal us to come for letters. The
hours pass wearily. We have waited weeks for home news, and, now that it
is here, we must wait again--a day, two days--a week even, if it suits
the flagship's convenience. At last the signals float and read: 'Letters
for the ----; come and get them.'
At last! The seals are broken and we read the news. One tells of a sick
mother, dying, and longing to see her son. Another is from M----'s lady
love: we know by the way he blushes, the fine hand and closely written
pages, and various other symptoms. And our fleet of ironclads are busy
at Charleston. Heaven help the cause they work for! Now we must hasten
with our answers, to have them ready for sending at a moment's notice,
when it is signalled: 'A vessel bound North, and will carry your mails,
if ready.'
As the sun goes down, the horizon is lit up with bonfires stretching
along the coast for miles. 'These fires mean something,' we say
knowingly; 'depend upon it, the rebs expect some vessel in to-night.'
Nothing came of it, however, though the following afternoon we saw a
steamer with two smoke stacks come down the river and take a look,
perhaps to see as to her chances of getting out that night. The twilight
darkened into night, and night wore on into the small hours, and now we
gazed into the gloom anxiously, for at this time, if any, she would seek
to run out. With straining eyes and the most intense quiet, we listen
for the sound of paddle wheels. A stranger passing along our decks,
seeing in the darkness the shadowy forms of men crouched in listening
attitudes, would have fancied himself among a body of Indians watching
stealthily some savage prey. The night passes on; gray dawn tells of the
sun's approach, and soon his streaming splendor lights up sea and land.
We look to see if our hoped for prize still waits in the river, but
no--she is not there. The day wears on and still no signs of her. If she
has slipped by us, it is through the mouth and not the inlet, we feel
sure, but still are chagrined, and, doubting the possibility of ever
catching one, go to bed with the blues.
The next day we brighten up a little, to be saddened the more, for the
Massachusetts on her return trip tells us that, so far from there being
good news from Charleston, we have only the worst to hear. The brave
little Keokuk is riddled with balls and sunk, and the fleet of ironclads
have retired from before the city. It is a costly experience, though it
may yet bear precious fruit, for they tell us it has revealed what was
necessary to make our next attack successful. What it is, we cannot
learn, the authorities meaning in the future, doubtless, to wait till
deeds have won them praise, before they make promises of great work.
Night draws on again, and we move in toward shore. Signal lights are
burning, and huge bonfires, built behind the forests, that their glare
may not light up the water, but their reflection against the background
of the sky shows blockade runners the lay and bearings of the land.
Something will surely be done to-night, and we keep vigilant watch. Two
o'clock A. M., and a sound is heard, whether of paddle wheels,
surf on the beach, or blowing off of steam, we cannot tell. 'It's paddle
wheels,' says our ensign, and reports quickly to the captain. The first
lieutenant springs on deck, a steam whistle is heard, so faint that only
steam-taught ears know the sound, and word is passed to slip our chain
and anchor, and make chase in the direction of the sound. They spring to
the chain and work with a will to unshackle it quickly, but things are
not as they should be; the hammer is not at hand, and the pins not fixed
for speedy slipping out, even when struck a sharp, heavy blow. 'I think
I see a dark object off the direction of the sound we heard, sir,' says
some one. 'Confound the chain! will it never unshackle?' they exclaim,
as they seek to unloose it. At last it slips, we steam up, and are off
in pursuit, but which way shall we turn, and where shall we chase? There
is no guiding sound now, and we paddle cautiously on, spending the
balance of the night in this blind work, feeling for the prize which has
slipped from our fingers, for, as day dawns, we see a large steamer,
safe under the walls of the fort. If disappointments make philosophers,
we ought to rank with Diogenes.
The next day is filled with growl and 'ifs' and 'ands,' and 'if _this_
had been so and so,' and 'but for that neglect, which we shall know how
to avoid next time,' etc., etc. The afternoon of another day comes on,
and then a sail is descried, and off we go after it. Seven or eight
miles' run brings us close to it; still it pays no attention, but keeps
straight on. The captain orders a ball to be fired across her bows,
which explodes so near as to splash great jets of water over them. Her
crew and captain strike sail, and let go halliards, while they fly
behind masts, down cockpit, or wherever they can get for safety. Finding
no further harm is meant than to bring them to, they answer back our
hail--say they are going to Beaufort, quite a different direction from
the one they are heading--and seem generally confused. As an excuse they
say their compass is out of order, and as they appear to be wreckers, we
allow them to go on without further molestation, and steam back to our
moorings, consoling ourselves by the fact that these bootless chases are
using up coal, and thereby hastening the time of our going to Beaufort
to coal up, where we shall have a chance to step once more on _terra
firma_.
Another night passes, and there are no indications of runners having
tried to escape us; but at sunrise we see, far to the south, a schooner,
and soon the flagship signals that a prize has been taken by one of our
fleet. It looks very much like the schooner we let go yesterday, and our
head officers swear, if it _is_ that schooner, never to let another go
so easily. One declares the vessel is loaded with cotton, and worth at
least $100,000, but that, notwithstanding, he will sell his share for
$500 in good gold. No one bids so high. Our ensign offers his for one
dollar, and the paymaster sells his to the surgeon for fifty cents, the
magnificence of which bargain the latter learns from the captain, who
says his share will be about seven and a half cents! We steam alongside,
and learn that our prize is the schooner St. George, bound for
Wilmington, via the Bermudas, with a cargo of salt, saltpetre, etc., and
worth perhaps four thousand dollars. We send our prize list on board the
flagship, and have a nice chat over the capture. It puts us in good
humor, and our vessels _chassée_ around each other till afternoon, when
we separate, to hear shortly that the schooner, on being searched, has
disclosed rich merchandise, gold, Whitworth guns, &c., hidden under her
nominal cargo of salt. So hurra again for our prize list! This _almost_
makes up for the loss of the steamer.
As we are on the point of letting go our anchor, the distant boom of
cannon is heard, and the flagship orders us to repair to the seat of
danger with all speed. We haste away, and as we go, hear a third gun
fired. It comes from the direction of the brig Perry, and we cut through
the water toward it, at a twelve-knot rate, for a good half hour, but
hearing no more firing, put in near the shore to watch for the rebel
vessel, as we think those guns were intended to put us on our guard. It
soon grows dark; lights are ordered out, and each man blinds his port.
No talking above a whisper must be heard; we are to be still as an
arctic night. Midnight passes, and lights still flicker along the shore.
It is so dark we cannot see the land, though not more than a mile from
it, and only know what it is by our compass and bearings, and the fires
which lighten up the clouds in spots right over them. One, two, and
three o'clock have passed; no sail or sound yet, and the night so dark
we cannot see a ship's length away. Half past three, and we begin to
heave anchor. The rattle of the chains is just enough to drown the sound
of paddle wheels should a steamer approach, and the sound of her own
wheels would in turn drown our noise; so if one does run in to land, it
may be over us, for any warning we should have of its whereabout.
Suddenly the acting master jumps, looks for an instant across the bows
into the thick darkness, and bids a boy report to the captain and
lieutenant 'a vessel almost on us.' The man at the windlass is stopped,
unshackles the chain, and lets the anchor go with a buoy attached.
Captain and lieutenant come on deck, and order to blaze away with our
fifty-pound Parrott. Crash! through the still air rings the sharp
report, and the ball goes whizzing through the gloom, in the direction
the vessel was seen. The bright flash of the gun, and the thick cloud of
smoke make the darkness tenfold more impenetrable. For half an hour, we
chase in every direction, then fire again toward the shore. It is just
four; a gray light is working up through the mist, and we catch the
faintest glimpse of the Daylight, one of our fleet. A few minutes later,
and we see a speck near the shore, which the spyglass shows to be the
steamer we chased and fired after in the night. The surf beats about
her; in her frantic efforts to escape, she in the darkness has been run
ashore by our close pursuit. We steam up, to get within range and
destroy, if we cannot take her, when the Daylight, now discovering her,
opens fire. Once, twice, three times she has banged away a broadside at
the rebel sidewheel, and now the batteries on shore in turn open fire on
her. The sea fog hangs like a shroud over and between us and the land,
which looms up mysteriously, stretching its gray length along the
western horizon. Spots of fire bursting from the midst of it, tear
through the fog cloud right at us. It seems, in its vast, vague
undefinedness, rather an old-time dragon, with mouth spouting fire and
thunder, than harmless earth. The smoke of our own guns settles around
us; our ears ring with our own firing: the excitement of the moment is
intense. The jets of flame seem to spout right at one, and the
inclination to dodge becomes very strong. The Daylight has stopped
firing: what is the matter? The fog lifts slightly, and as the flagship
advances to join in the fight, we see that the Daylight is moving back
to reload and let her pass in, which she does, entering the circle of
the rebel fire, between us and them. She finds it out quickly, for their
guns are brought to bear on her, and the balls strike the water
frightfully near. She turns, but, as she leaves the fiery circle,
delivers, one after the other, a whole broadside of guns, followed by
the Penobscot, who too gives them a few iron pills.
From six to eight A. M., the vessels gather in a cluster at
safe distance from the land, and the commanders of the different vessels
repair on board the flagship to consult what next shall be done.
Meanwhile the spyglass shows crowds of rebels along the shore, and great
efforts seem to be making to get the steamer off. Puffs of steam and
clouds of black smoke from her chimneys show that she is blowing off
steam, firing up, and pushing hard against the shore. Now her paddle
wheels are working; her stern is afloat. Again and again it is reported,
'She's getting herself off the beach; she'll soon be off!' but it does
not appear to hasten the powers that be, who apparently have decided
that, as it will not be high tide till nearly one P. M., she is
safely aground till then.
Finally, after long delay, it is decided that all hands shall be piped
to breakfast, and we go in for a regular fight afterward. So the
boatswain blows his whistle, and each man goes to his mess. Breakfast is
leisurely gone through with, and then the drum beats all to quarters.
And now it looks like serious work. Men gather round their guns eager
for battle, and the surgeon stands ready, instruments before him, for
whatever may come. But hardly are they ready for the fight, when the
rebel steamer, with its traitor flag floating high in air, has
extricated itself from the beach, and is steaming down the coast as fast
as it can go. The golden opportunity is lost--was lost when the morning
hour was spent in unnecessary discussion, eating, and drinking. Still
they try to make up for lost time by rapid firing now, for she may be
taking in a precious and comforting cargo of arms and other stores of
war. The shots fall close about her, but a little short. Whitworth guns
protect her as she goes, for our steamers dare not venture too near
land, lest some long-range ball smash through their steam chests. The
batteries from which the rebels fired were mostly erected after the
steamer ran ashore, and seemed to consist principally of field pieces
and guns hastily drawn to the spot, with no earthworks to protect them.
This speedy work of theirs was in strong contrast to our slow motions.
With a spyglass we could see telegraph poles stretched along the shore.
The steamer had probably not been ashore one hour, when eight miles
south to the fort, and eight or ten miles north to Wilmington, the news
had spread of its arrival, and busy hands bestirred themselves, dragging
up guns and ammunition to cover their stranded prize. As soon as
sunlight lit up the beach, squads of men were seen pulling at ropes to
work the vessel off the sandy beach. While they were thus engaged,
breakfast was being quietly eaten on board our vessels! We kept up our
fire till the steamer got under the guns of the fort and out of our
reach, and then retired; and so ended our chase in nothing but noise and
smoke.
We have given the reader a clue to a little of the inefficiency of the
Wilmington blockade. In our next paper, we shall endeavor to picture
some of the effects of naval life on character, and the strange
experiences one can have on shipboard, even in the monotony of life on a
blockader.
BUCKLE, DRAPER; CHURCH AND STATE.
_FOURTH PAPER._
In the first paper of this series, reference was made to the Principles
of _Unity_ and _Individuality_ as dominating over distinctive epochs of
the world's progress; and certain characteristics of each epoch were
pointed out which may be briefly recapitulated. Up to a period of time
which is commonly said to commence with the publication of Lord Bacon's
_Novum Organum_, the preponderating tendency in all the affairs of
Society--in Government, in Religion, in Thought, in Practical
Activities--was _convergent_ and toward Consolidation, Centralization,
Order, or, in one word, _Unity_; with a minor reference only to Freedom,
Independence, or Individuality. A change then took place, and the
Tendency to Unity began to yield, as the _major_ or _chief_ tendency in
society, to the opposite or divergent drift toward Disunity or
Individuality, which gradually came to be pre-eminently active. The
Spirit of Disintegration which thus arose, has exhibited and is still
exhibiting itself in Religious affairs, by the destruction of the
integrality of the Church, and its division into numerous sects; and in
the State, by the Democratic principle of popular rule, as opposed to
the Monarchical theory of the supremacy of one.
We have now arrived, in the course of our development as a race, at the
culminating point of the second Stage of Progress--the Era of
_Individuality_. The predominant tendency of our time in things
Religious, Governmental, Intellectual, and Practical, is toward the
utter rejection of all clogs upon the personal freedom of Man or Woman.
This is seen by the neglect into which institutions of all kinds tend to
fall, and the disrespect in which they are held; in the movements for
the abolition of Slavery and Serfdom; in the recognition of the people's
right of rule, even in Monarchical countries; more radically in the
Woman's Rights Crusade, and in the absolute rejection, by the School of
Reformers known as Individualists, of all governmental authority other
than that voluntarily accepted, as an infringement of the individual's
inherent right of self-sovereignty.
This Spirit of Individuality, this desire to throw off all trammels, and
to live in the atmosphere of one's own personality, exhibits itself in a
marked degree in the literature of our day. It is the animating spirit
of John Stuart Mill's work 'On Liberty'--a work which, as the writer has
elsewhere shown, was substantially borrowed, although without any openly
avowed acknowledgment of indebtedness, from an American publication. It
is this spirit which has inspired some of the most remarkable of Herbert
Spencer's Essays; and is distinctively apparent in the Fourth one of the
Propositions which Mr. Buckle affirms to be 'the basis of the history of
civilization;' and in the general tenor of Prof. Draper's _Intellectual
Development of Europe_.
The gist of this doctrine of Individuality, as it is now largely
prevalent in respect to the institutions of the Church and the State,
and which is squarely affirmed in the proposition above mentioned, is
this: Men and Women do not wish nor do they need a Spiritual Society to
teach them what to believe, nor a Political Society to teach them what
to do. If they are simply left alone, they will thrive well enough. An
Ecclesiastical Organization is not only useless, but positively
injurious; it is a decided hinderance to the progress of humanity; and
the same is true of a Civil Organization, except in so far as it serves
the purpose of protection to person and property.
It is intended to show in this article the erroneousness of this
doctrine; to point out that Religious and Political Institutions have,
in the past, been great aids to human advancement; that they are still
so; and will be in the future. In this manner we shall meet the
arguments of those who regard such institutions as having always been
unnecessary and a hinderance; and of those who, while considering them
as essential in the past, believe that they are now becoming obsolete,
are detrimental to the cause of human progress, and in the future to be
wholly dispensed with.
Mankind in its entirety resembles a pyramid. At the base are the
ignorant and superstitious nations of the earth, comprising the great
majority of its inhabitants. A step higher includes the next greatest
number of nations, in which the people are less ignorant and less
degraded, but still very low as respects organization and culture. So,
as we rise in the scale of national development, the lines of inclusion
continually narrow, until we reach the apex, occupied by the most
advanced nation or nations.
That which is true of nations is so of classes and of individuals
composing classes. Every community has its natural aristocracy, its
superior men and women. These constitute the top of the pyramid of
Society; and comprise those in whom intellectual powers, moral purposes,
and practical capacities are most highly developed and combined. Below
them comes the somewhat larger body of persons who are less endowed in
respect to the qualities just enumerated. Below these comes, in turn,
the still greater congregation who are still less gifted; and so on, the
number increasing as the range of general capacity decreases, until we
reach the layer which embodies the great mass of Society; who, though
measurably affectionate, well-intentioned, and docile, are ignorant,
superstitious, and simple minded, wanting in any large degree of high
moral purpose, and constantly prone to the development of the vicious
and depraved passions incident to this lower stratum of life.
It is evident that to meet the needs of these widely different grades of
individuals, widely different manners, customs, and institutions are
indispensable. Culture, delicacy, and intelligence have their own
attractions, which are wholly diverse from those of crudeness,
coarseness, and simplicity. The surroundings which would bring happiness
to the lover of art or the man of large mental endowment, would render
miserable the peasant who still lacked the development to appreciate the
elegancies of refinement; while the tidy cottage and plain comforts
which might constitute the paradise of the humble and illiterate rustic,
would be utterly inadequate to the requirements of larger and more
highly organized natures.
The Constitution and Structure of Society should be of such a nature,
therefore, for the purposes of human growth and happiness, as to allow
the needs and wants of every one of its members to be adequately
supplied. As yet there has been no such arrangement of our social
organization. In nations governed by Monarchical or Aristocratic rule,
the institutions of the country are made to satisfy the demands of the
privileged classes; with scarcely any reference to the wants of the
masses. In Democratic communities, the opposite method is adopted; and
the character of their public organizations and of their public
opinion--the latter always the most despotic of institutions--is
determined by the average notions of the middle class, which ordinarily
furnishes the bulk of the voters; with little consideration to the
desires of the higher or the necessities of the lower orders.
The institutions of any people, civil or religious, are, therefore,
representative, in the main, of the state of development of the dominant
and controlling class in the community. In a Monarchical or Aristocratic
nation it is the upper portion of the body politic whose condition is
chiefly indicated. In this case, the manners, customs, laws, etc., of
the country are _in advance_ of the great body of the people, who have
yet to grow up to them. In Democratic states, the manners, customs,
laws, etc., conform to the stage of advancement which the majority of
the people have reached. They are thus _above_ the level of the lower
classes, who are not sufficiently developed to participate in their full
benefits; and _below_ the capacity of the superior ranks, who, though
fitted for the right use and enjoyment of more liberal and higher social
adaptations, are nevertheless obliged to cramp their natures and dwarf
their activities to the measure of the capacities of the more numerous
circle of citizens.
Three classes have thus far been named as the _personnel_ of any
Society. There is, however, a body of individuals which, although made
up of persons from the three classes above indicated, constitute, in a
peculiar sense, a distinct order. This includes the Philosophers, Poets,
Scientists--the Thinkers of all kinds--who are in advance of the best
institutions of either Monarchical or Democratic countries; who see
farther into the future than even the great bulk of men of intelligence
and high development; who especially understand the transient nature and
inadequate provisions of existing societies, and feel the need of better
conditions for intellectual, social, and moral growth.
It is from this body of men that the incentives to progress chiefly
spring. They behold the errors which encumber old systems--they are,
indeed, too apt to conceive them as _wholly_ composed of errors. To
them, the common and current beliefs appear to be simply superstitious.
It irks them that humanity should wallow in its ignorance and blindness.
They chafe and fret against the organizations which embody and foster
what they are firmly convinced is _all_ false. The Church is, in their
eyes, only a vast agglomeration of priests, some of them self-deceived
through ignorance; most of them not so, but deliberately bolstering up
an obsolete faith for place, profit, and power. The State, both as
existing in the past and now, is likewise, in their understanding, a
tremendous engine of tyranny, keeping the light of knowledge from the
masses; withholding liberty; and hindering the prosperity of mankind.
That there is much truth in such opinions, too much by far, is not to be
denied. That Society needs regeneration in all departments of its
life--political, religious, industrial, and social--is plainly apparent.
But there is an essential omission in the kind of reform which is
spontaneously taking place at this time, and which is lauded by Mill,
Buckle, Spencer, Draper, and the advanced Thinkers of the day generally,
as the true direction in which change should be made; an omission which
will bring Society to disastrous revolution, even, it may be, to fatal
overthrow, unless supplied.
The tendency of modern reform in reference to the institutions of Church
and State--and these, in the sense in which they are here used, include
all other institutions--is, as has been said, to do away with the former
altogether, and to restrict the latter to the sole functions of
protection of person and property. Reformatory ideas come, it has also
been said, from that small circle of men and women in Society, who are
in advance of the general development of the age even as represented in
the superior class--meaning by this, the class which, in the average
estimate, occupies the highest position; as, for instance, the
Aristocracy in England, and the Wealthy Families of America.
Human Society, in all its Institutions, has been, thus far in the
history of the world, a thing of spontaneous, instinctual, or automatic
growth. There has never been and is not to-day, so far as is publicly
known, any _Science_ of Social Organization; any System of Laws or
Principles embodying the true mode of Social Construction. There has not
been, in other words, any discovery of the right Principles upon which
the affairs of mankind should be conducted in reference to their mutual
relationships; and hence, there is no real _knowledge_, but only
conjecture, of what are the right relations. _Might_ has always been the
accepted Right and the only Standard of Right in the regulation of
Society. The opinions of the Ruling Power give tone to human thought and
action. While Kings and Oligarchies were in the ascendency, the Standard
of Right--the King's or the Oligarchs' will--were based on his or their
ideas of right. Later, when the People secured the conduct of their own
affairs, the voice of the Majority became the voice of God, as expressed
in the popular motto: _Vox populi, vox Dei_.
Having then no Standard of true Social Organization, it is natural,
though short sighted, that the reformatory party--perceiving the
insufficiencies and drawbacks of our present Societary Arrangements,
feeling that _they_ have no need of the Governmental and Religious
institutions of the day, that these are, indeed, rather hindrances than
aids to _their_ progress--should think that the people of the whole
world, of the civilized nations, or of one civilized nation, at least,
were in like state of preparation, and that those Institutions could be
safely and advantageously dispensed with. There could scarcely be a
greater mistake. There are but comparatively few individuals in the
world who are so highly developed in their intellectual and moral
capacities, and in practical ability also, as to be competent to be a
law unto themselves in the general conduct of life. The great mass of
mankind, even in the most advanced communities, need still the guiding
hand of a wisely constituted and really paternal Government, and the
religious admonitions of a true priesthood. The greatest danger with
which Society is threatened in modern times, arises from the lack of
these essential concomitants of any high civilization. The degradation,
squalor, ignorance, and brutality of the lowest classes; the
irreverence, disrespect, dishonesty, and moral blindness of the middle
orders; and the apathy, heartlessness, unscrupulousness, selfishness,
cupidity, and irreligion of the upper stratum of Society, are alike due
to the absence of a rightly organized State, which should command the
allegiance, and of a rightly constituted Church, which should absorb the
devotion, of the whole community.
The Constitution of Society must be moulded with reference to the
character of the individuals in it. Of these, some are sagacious,
executive, intelligent, benevolent, sympathetic, philanthropic,
self-reliant; possessed of all the qualities, in fine, which inspire
respect and confidence in their fellow men, and cause them to be
recognized as leaders. Others are timid, ignorant, feeble-minded,
credulous, prone to lean upon others, hero worshippers; people whose
natural bent it is to follow some one in whom they put faith. The
sentiment of loyalty is inherent in the human breast, and will find an
object whereon to fasten. At one time it is an Alexander; then a
Washington, a Napoleon, or a Wellington; at another, a Clay, a Webster,
or a Grant. There are ranks and orders in Society as there are ranks and
orders among individuals. And as the inherent rank of an _individual_
is, as a general rule, recognized and accorded, no matter what may be
the social constitution of the land in which he lives, so it is with
_classes_. Theoretically, all individuals and orders are equal in the
United States. But the Law of Nature is stronger than the laws of man;
and the men and women of superior endowment in moral power, intellectual
force, or practical ability, receive the voluntary homage of those who
feel themselves to be inferior.
In considering the nature of the Institutions which Society needs, we
have simply to consider by what mode we may best provide for the normal
tendencies which ever have been and ever will be active in man. It is
not in our power to change these tendencies, nor to prevent their play.
But we may so order our social polity as to _assist_ their natural
drift, or to _obstruct_ it. In the one case, the affairs of the
community are conducted with harmony, and with the least possible
friction. In the other, they are discordant, and are forced to reach
their proximately proper adjustment through antagonism and struggle. It
is the difference between the ship which flies swiftly to her destined
port with favoring winds, fair skies, and peaceful seas, and one which
struggles wearily to her harbor through adverse gales and stormy waves,
battered, broken, and tempest tossed. The great mass of the people have
always looked to the more highly developed of their race for practical
guidance in the secular concerns of life, and for spiritual guidance in
religious things. That they have done so, and that the Church and the
State have been large factors in the sum of human progress, we shall
presently see. We shall also see brought out more distinctly and clearly
the fact, that the dominant classes in Society, whether the form of
Government be a Monarchy, an Oligarchy, or a Democracy, are, in the
main, and except, perhaps, in transitional epochs, the classes who
possess, in reality, superior capacities of the quality the age most
requires in its leaders.
In the earliest ages of the world, when brute force was regarded as the
highest attribute of greatness, the men of might, the renowned warriors,
the Nimrods and the Agamemnons, occupied the highest pinnacle of
Society, and received homage from their fellows as supreme men. Of their
age they were the supreme men. To our enlightened epoch, the fighting
heroes of the past are but brutal bullies a little above the level of
the animals whose powers and habits they so sedulously emulated. But if
we plant ourselves in thought back in that savage era, if we reflect
that its habits and instincts were almost wholly physical, that the
chief controlling powers of the time were the arm of might and
superstition, and if we ponder a moment upon the force of will, the
dauntless courage, the inexorable rigor, the terrible energy, the
ceaseless activity, and the gigantic personal strength which must have
combined in a single man to have enabled him to rule so turbulent and so
animal a people; we shall be apt to understand that the only being who
could, in that age, stand first among his fellows, must have been the
superior brute of all.
If we consider still further the ferocious natures of the men of that
time, we shall perceive the necessity which existed for a strong
Government, regulating all the affairs of Society, and administered by
the most severe and savage chieftain; one who could hold all others in
subjection by the terror of his might, preserve a semblance at least of
order in the community, and protect his subjects from outside wrong.
But what could hold _him_ in subjection--an irresponsible despot,
without human sympathy, without any awakened sense of moral
responsibility, capricious, self-willed, ambitious, lustful, vindictive,
without self-control, and possessing absolute power over the lives and
property of his subjects? Nothing but the dread of an offended God or
gods. And, as a consolidated despotism, wielded by brute force, was the
best form of Government possible in this age; so a worship based chiefly
upon the incitements and terrors of retributive law--the holding out of
inducements of reward for the good, and of determents of direful
punishment for the wicked, in a future world--was the best religion for
which the time was prepared.
Tracing the history of the world down to later times, we shall find the
same state of things in society at large, until a period which it is
difficult to fix, but which, we may say, did not fairly begin until the
beginning or the middle of the eighteenth century. Down to that time,
physical force was the dominant element among the nations. The great
warriors were still the prominent men upon the stage of action, though
many of the brutal characteristics of the earlier ages had disappeared.
The people were still ignorant, credulous, childlike, and looked to the
Feudal Aristocracy for direction and support--an Aristocracy founded on
superiority of warlike talent; thus fitly representing the leading
spirit of the age, and the proper guardians of the people in this
warlike time. The Catholic Church, and, at a later period, the
Protestant sects, held the upper classes from oppressing the lower, and
taught the latter to respect and defer to the former. The Feudal Lords
were thus the Social providence and protection of the poor and weak,
thinking and acting for them in things beyond their range of capacity;
while these, in turn, performed the agricultural and other labors to
which they were competent. Each class occupied its appropriate position
and fulfilled its legitimate calling. The superior orders held the
superior situations; and were recognized for what they really were,
leaders and guides. The masses of the community were faithful and
obedient as followers. The Church inspired each with a feeling of
devotion to duty, protected the subject and controlled the ruler. In its
function of a Governmental arrangement, the Feudal System was admirably
adapted to the necessities of the time. In its religious capacity, the
Catholic Church was the bulwark of Social order during the Middle Ages.
About the period of time mentioned above, the warlike spirit which had
theretofore pervaded the world and controlled its destinies, began to
yield before the enlightenment of civilization. Commercial, industrial,
and intellectual pursuits commenced to assume the leading position among
the interests of Society. At the same time physical force and hereditary
blood began to give way, as tokens of superior character, to
intellectual greatness and executive commercial ability. The struggle
which then commenced between the Aristocracy of Birth and the
Aristocracy of Genius in all its forms, mental or practical, is still
pending in the Old World. In America it has declared itself in favor of
the latter. The only Noblemen here recognized are those of Nature's
make--those who bear in their organizations and culture the stamp of
superiority. These are, in the main, quickly recognized and
acknowledged; whether they exhibit their genius in the field of
Literature, Science, Invention, Government, Religion, Art--or in the
thousand Commercial and Industrial Enterprises which are characteristic
of this era, and especially of this country.
With the breaking up of the Feudal System and the advent of modern
commercial activities, a great change took place in the organization of
Society. Under this system a community was, as has been indicated, made
up in such a manner that the whole body formed, so to speak, one family,
having mutual interests; each individual performing those functions--for
the benefit of the whole--for which he was, as a general rule, best
fitted. The most warlike, sagacious, executive--those, in short, who
were best capacitated for leaders and protectors, being at the head, and
looking after the welfare of the whole; while others occupied such
stations and rendered such services as their qualifications made them
adequate to, in subordination to these leaders. Thus the interests of
community were linked immediately together. They formed a grand
Coöperative Association, in which each member recognized his obligations
to the whole body of associates, and to every individual associate, _and
measurably fulfilled those obligations as they were understood at that
day_. The poor were not left to fall into starvation and misery for the
want of work; there were no paupers; and the rich and powerful classes
did not neglect the affairs of the indigent and weak as those who had no
claim upon them. On the contrary, they felt that mankind were the
children of one Father, and their brethren. They felt that their
superior powers devolved upon them accompanying responsibilities; that
because they were comparatively far seeing and strong, they were bound
by all the nobler sentiments of manhood to watch over and guide the
short sighted and the feeble. Under the inspiration of the Catholic
Church--a Church whose persistent efforts were ever devoted in a marked
degree to the amelioration of the physical no less than the spiritual
conditions of humanity, a Church which strove in the darkest hours of
its history and always to stand between the helpless and suffering and
their oppressors--they accepted this office and fulfilled its functions.
To the beat of their understanding--with the light they then had,
considering the times in which they lived, and the state of the world's
progress--they executed well and faithfully the duties which pertained
to it. Far better, indeed, as we shall presently see, than the opulent
and powerful perform the same duties in our day.
With the commencement of more peaceful times and the gradual
civilization of Society, the necessity of personal protection which had,
in great measure, given rise to the Feudal System, passed away. Civil
law acquired the protective power which had formerly resided in the arm
of physical force. Travel became safe. The accumulations of industry
were less liable to be wrenched from their legitimate owner by the hand
of the robber. There was a rapid opening up of intelligence among the
masses. Individual energy was stimulated. Commerce received a wonderful
impetus. The bounds of personal freedom were enlarged. Men felt no
longer the necessity of association for the sake of safety. They felt,
moreover, the restless surging of new-born powers within them; and
longed to give them exercise. So the old forms of community life were
slowly broken up. Individuals embarked in various enterprises; now no
longer consociated with others in mutual coöperation, but for their
individual benefit. Thus _competitive_ industry gradually supplanted the
old method of _coöperative_ or _associated_ industry, as seen in its
crude and imperfect form, and the inauguration of the false and selfish
system which still prevails began.
There could be but one result to a mode of commercial and industrial
traffic and a system of labor and wages which pits the various classes
of Society together in a strife for the wealth of the world, the
fundamental principle of which strife is, _that it is perfectly right to
take advantage of the necessities of our neighbors in order to obtain
their means for our own enrichment_.
For this was the principle which instinctively sprang up in the world as
the basis of business, and which has never been changed. Traffic
originated in the necessities of life, and was extended by the desire to
obtain wealth. Each individual perceived some want in his neighbor, and
forthwith proceeded to supply this want, _charging just as much for the
thing supplied as the desire for the article or his need of it would
force the person supplied to pay; without reference to the equitable
price, estimated with respect to the labor bestowed in supplying the
want_. This principle of trade, originating in the most complete
selfishness, and, viewed from any high moral point, both unjust and
dishonest, has always been and is to-day the fundamental principle of
our Political Economy. That 'a thing is worth what it will bring,' is a
basic axiom of all trade. The only price which is recognized in commerce
is the market price; which is, again, what a commodity will bring. What
a commodity will bring is what the necessities of mankind will make them
pay. Thus is exhibited the curious spectacle of the existence of a
Religion which inculcates good will and love to our neighbor as the
foundation of all true civilization and virtue, coexisting side by side
with a Commercial System, a relic, like slavery, of ancient barbarism,
which forces all men to traffic with each other on the principle that
our neighbor is an object of legitimate prey.
Of course, in a System of Competitive Industry thus carried on, the
wealth of the world would fall into the hands of those of superior
powers; while the feeble, the stolid, and the ignorant would be left
poor and helpless. And, as the different classes of the community would
be no longer directly associated with each other in their labors and
interests, but would be, on the contrary, competitors--and as the fact
that there had been free competition would be held by all classes to
absolve them from any responsibility as to each other's welfare--it
would inevitably result that the weaker orders should fall into
indigence, degradation, wretchedness, starvation, and premature death.
Such has been the case. With the advent of Competitive Industry in
Europe and America--to confine ourselves to these countries--with the
disintegration of the Social System in which the different classes were
associated in mutually dependent and coöperative efforts; with the
abrogation, on the part of the superior body of citizens, of all
responsibility for, and direct interest in, the affairs and comfort of
the lower orders, has come Pauperism, Social Instability, and a degree
of misery and depravity among the poorest of the masses, never before
known in the history of the world, all things being taken into
consideration. It is a well-known saying of Political Economists, that
the rich are daily growing richer, and the poor poorer. It might be
added with truth: and more degraded and dangerous.
The effects of this method of Competitive Industry upon the higher
classes have been scarcely less injurious, though in a different
direction. It has bred an intense selfishness and an apathy in respect
to the sufferings of others which no lover of his race can contemplate
without emotions of anguish. Not only is the idea of any effort for the
permanent relief of the poorer classes, for taking them under special
care and making their welfare the business of Society, not entertained
by any large number of persons; but those who do feel keenly the
necessity of such a step, and whose sympathies are aroused by the
sufferings of the masses around them, are too deeply imbued with the
ease-loving spirit of the age, too much wedded to their own comfort, to
take any active measures for the realization of their desires, or to
forego their momentary interests to secure them.
The rich heap up riches by the iniquitous trade-system which drifts the
earnings of the laborers into their net, and are dead to the call of
those whom they are, unconsciously in most cases, defrauding. Nay! they
even struggle to wring from them the largest possible amount of work for
the smallest possible pay! Day by day they grow more exacting as they
grow wealthier; day by day the laboring orders sink into more harassing
and hopeless conditions. Had the functions of Government in our own
country and in England been those only of protection to persons and
property; had not the general and local authorities in some degree
assisted the oppressed toilers; had not the Church by her admonitions
and pleadings kept some sparks of feeling alive in the breast of the
people of this money-getting age, and stimulated somewhat their
benevolence, the laboring classes of England and America would long
since have sunk to utter destitution. Nor would this have been all. For
when the mass of the people reach such a point; when they are driven to
despair, as they are now fast being driven, and would long ago have been
driven but for the circumstances stated, then comes the terrible
reaction, the frightful revolution, the upheaval of all order, anarchy,
and--who shall tell what else? The Riot of July is still ringing its
solemn warning--all unheeded--in the ears of this people. Society has
yet and speedily to lift the masses out of their ignorance, poverty,
squalor, and accompanying brutality, or to sink awfully beneath their
maddened retaliation.
In thus criticizing the Industrial Polity of modern times as, in the
respects indicated, inferior to that of the Feudal System, the writer
does not wish to be understood as affirming any more than is really
said. The idea which it is desired to express is this: that the plan
upon which this system was founded--the mutual interdependence of
classes and their reciprocally coöperative labor--was far superior to
the method of Competitive Industry now in vogue; and the true type--when
rightly carried out, without the drawbacks and the evils of the Feudal
System--of Social organization. That there are compensations in our
modern mode, and that, on the whole, Society advances in adopting it, is
true. But it will take a further step in advance when it reverts to that
plan on the footing above indicated; when it adopts the _plan_ without
the evils which in an ignorant and undeveloped age necessarily
accompanied it.
It has not been forgotten that the Church has arrayed itself, to no
small extent, against the advent of new knowledge; that the State has
suppressed the enlarging tendencies of individual liberty; and that both
have been, in this way and in other ways, as Mr. Buckle and Professor
Draper have clearly shown, clogs upon the hurrying wheels of the
nations. It is precisely because they _have_ been and _are_ still so,
that they served and do serve the cause of progress.
It has been previously stated that new truths come from the body of
advanced Thinkers, who constitute a fourth and comparatively small class
in the community. The discoverer of a new truth sees the immense
advantages which would accrue to Society from a knowledge of it, and is
eager for its immediate promulgation and acceptance; and, if it be of a
practical nature, for its incorporation into the working principles of
the Social polity. This may be true. But there is another verity of
equal importance, which ordinarily he does not take into consideration,
namely: that the great mass of the people who form Society are not
prepared for the change which he contemplates. They comprehend and act
more slowly than the Thinkers. The novelty must be brought home to their
understandings gradually, and assimilated. Old forms of thought, old
associations, encrusted prejudices, the deep-seated opinions of years
must be modified before the new will find a lodgment in their
convictions.
It is well that the Thinker should urge with impetuous and ardent zeal
his side of the case; that he should insist upon the immediate
adjustment of thought or activity in accordance with advanced right. It
is true that he will not instantly succeed. It is equally true that,
with human nature and Society as they now are, he would destroy all
order if he did. Men can live only in that portion of truth which they
are competent to appreciate. Place the Indian in the heated city, and
make him conform to the usages of city life, he pines and dies. If it
were possible to take away from the ignorant and child-minded races of
the earth or portions of community their superstitious faith, and
substitute the higher truths of a more spiritual interpretation, yet
would they not subserve their religious purposes. So, when the new
verity is held up to view, to the great mass who cannot understand it,
it is no truth, but a lie. They oppose it. Thus the discovery becomes
known. Discussion excites new thought. The Thinkers array themselves
upon one side, urging forward; the State and the Church, representing
the body of Society, take the other, standing sturdily still, or
hesitating, doubting either the validity of the alleged truth or its
uses. Between the clash of contending opinions the new ideas take shape
in the awakened minds which are prepared for them. These come shortly to
be the majority. The State and the Church gradually and imperceptibly
modify their methods or their creeds; and so, safely and without
disaster, humanity takes a step in advance.
It would be better, indeed, if this slow process were not necessary.
When the whole scope of Fundamental Truths is apprehended; when a
Science of the Universe is known; when truth is no longer fragmentary;
and when there is mutual confidence and coöperation among the different
classes of community, it will not be necessary. But until then, any
attempt to force an instantaneous acceptance of new truths or an
immediate inauguration of new methods upon the mass of the people will
only serve, if successful, to overthrow order in Society, and introduce
Social anarchy in its stead. From such an attempt came the chaos of the
French Revolution;--from an endeavor to inaugurate ideas essentially
correct among a people noway ready to comprehend them rightly. The
Conservative Element is as essential to the well-being of society as the
Progressive. To eliminate either is to destroy its balanced action; and
to give it over to stagnation on the one hand, or to frenzy on the
other. The Thinkers of the past have done, and those of the present are
doing, good work for humanity, on the Progressive side. The Church and
the State of the past have done, the Church and the State of the present
are doing, good work for humanity, on the Conservative side. Through the
instrumentality of the Thinkers, the Church, and the State, the world
has been brought slowly, steadily, and safely along the path of
progress, now gaining in one way, and now in another; at times
abandoning one line of advance, only to go ahead upon a different one;
yet always moving onward, and standing to-day, in spite of its seeming
retrogressions, at the highest point of development which it has ever
touched.
The Church and the State of the future will be the subject of subsequent
consideration.
LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN.
For months that followed the triumph the rebels had boasted they wrought,
But which lost to them Chattanooga, thus bringing their triumph to nought;
The mountain-walled citadel city, with its outposts in billowy crowds,
Grand soarers among the lightnings, stern conquerors of the clouds!
For months, I say, had the rebels, with the eyes of their cannon, looked
down
From the high-crested forehead of Lookout, from the Mission's long sinuous
crown
Till GRANT, our invincible hero, the winner of every fight!
Who joys in the strife, like the eagle that drinks from the storm delight!
Marshalled his war-worn legions, and, pointing to them the foe,
Kindled their hearts with the tidings that now should be stricken the blow,
The rebel to sweep from old Lookout, that cloud-post dizzily high,
Whence the taunt of his cannon and banner had affronted so long the sky.
Brave THOMAS the foeman had brushed from his summit the nearest, and now
The balm of the midnight's quiet soothed Nature's agonized brow:
A midnight of murkiest darkness, and Lookout's dark undefined mass
Heaved grandly a frown on the welkin, a barricade nothing might pass.
Its breast was sprinkled with sparkles, its crest was dotted in gold,
Telling the camps of the rebels secure as they deemed in their hold.
Where glimmered the creek of the Lookout, it seemed the black dome of the
night
Had dropped all its stars in the valley, it glittered so over with light:
There were voices and clashings of weapons, and drum beat and bugle and
tramp,
Quick flittings athwart the broad watchfires that spotted the grays of the
camp:
Dark columns would glimmer and vanish, a rider flit by like a ghost;
There was movement all over the valley, the movement and din of a host.
'Twas the legion so famed of the 'White Star,' and led on by GEARY the
brave,
That was chosen to gather the laurel or find on the mountain a grave.
They crossed the dim creek of the Lookout, and toiled up the sable ascent,
Till the atoms black crawling and struggling in the dense upper darkness
were blent.
Mists, fitful in rain, came at daydawn, they spread in one mantle the
skies,
And we that were posted below stood and watched with our hearts in our
eyes;
We watched as the mists broke and joined, the quick flits and the blanks of
the fray;
There was thunder, but not of the clouds; there was lightning, but redder
in ray;
Oh, warm rose our hopes to the 'White Star,' oh, wild went our pleadings
to heaven;
We knew, and we shuddered to know it, how fierce oft the rebels had
striven;
We saw, and we shuddered to see it, the rebel flag still in the air;
Shall our boys be hurled back? God of Battles! oh, bring not such bitter
despair!
But the battle is rolling still up, it has plunged in the mantle o'erhead,
We hear the low hum of the volley, we see the fierce bomb-burst of red;
Still the rock in the forehead of Lookout through the rents of the windy
mist shows
The horrible flag of the Crossbar, the counterfeit rag of our foes:
Portentous it looks through the vapor, then melts to the eye, but it tells
That the rebels still cling to their stronghold, and hope for the moment
dispels.
But the roll of the thunder seems louder, flame angrier smites on the eye,
The scene from the fog is laid open--a battle field fought in the sky!
Eye to eye, hand to hand, all are struggling;--ha, traitors! ha, rebels,
ye know
Now the might in the arm of our heroes! dare ye bide their roused terrible
blow?
They drive them, our braves drive the rebels! they flee, and our heroes
pursue!
We scale rock and trunk--from their breastworks they run! oh, the joy of
the view!
Hurrah, how they drive them! hurrah, how they drive the fierce rebels
along!
One more cheer, still another! each lip seems as ready to burst into song.
On, on, ye bold blue-coated heroes! thrust, strike, pour your shots in
amain!
Banners fly, columns rush, seen and lost in the quick, fitful gauzes of
rain.
Oh, boys, how your young blood is streaming! but falter not, drive them
to rout!
From barricade, breastwork, and riflepit, how the scourged rebels pour out!
We see the swift plunge of the caisson within the dim background of haze,
With the shreds of platoons inward scudding, and fainter their batteries
blaze;
As the mist curtain falls all is blank; as it lifts, a wild picture out
glares,
A wild shifting picture of battle, and dread our warm hopefulness shares;
But never the braves of the 'White Star' have sullied their fame in defeat,
And they will not to-day see the triumph pass by them the foeman to greet!
No, no, for the battle is ending; the ranks on the slope of the crest
Are the true Union blue, and our banners alone catch the gleams of the
west,
Though the Crossbar still flies from the summit, we roll out our cheering
of pride!
Not in vain, O ye heroes of Lookout! O brave Union boys! have ye died!
One brief struggle more sees the banner, that blot on the sky, brushed
away,
When the broad moon now basking upon us shall yield her rich lustre to-day:
She brings out the black hulk of Lookout, its outlines traced sharp in
the skies,
All alive with the camps of our braves glancing down with their numberless
eyes.
See, the darkness below the red dottings is twinkling with many a spark!
Sergeant Teague thinks them souls of the rebels red fleeing from ours in
the dark;
But the light shocks of sound tell the tale, they are battle's fierce
fireworks at play!
It is slaughter's wild carnival revel bequeathed to the night by the day.
Dawn breaks, the sky clears--ha! the shape upon Lookout's tall crest that
we see,
Is the bright beaming flag of the 'White Star,' the beautiful Flag of the
Free!
How it waves its rich folds in the zenith, and looks in the dawn's open
eye,
With its starred breast of pearl and of crimson, as if with heaven's colors
to vie!
'Hurrah!' rolls from Moccasin Point, and 'Hurrah!' from bold Cameron's
Hill!
'Hurrah!' peals from glad Chattanooga! bliss seems every bosom to fill!
Thanks, thanks, O ye heroes of Lookout! O brave Union boys! during Time
Shall stand this, your column of glory, shall shine this, your triumph
sublime!
To the deep mountain den of the panther the hunter climbed, drove him to
bay,
Then fought the fierce foe till he turned and fled, bleeding and gnashing,
away!
Fled away from the scene where so late broke his growls and he shot down
his glare,
As he paced to and fro, for the hunter his wild craggy cavern to dare!
Thanks, thanks, O ye heroes of Lookout! ye girded your souls to the fight,
Drew the sword, dropped the scabbard, and went in the full conscious
strength of your might!
Now climbing o'er rock and o'er tree mound, up, up, by the hemlock ye
swung!
Now plunging through thicket and swamp, on the edge of the hollow ye hung!
One hand grasped the musket, the other clutched ladder of root and of
bough:
The trunk the tornado had shivered, the landmark pale glimmering now,
And now the mad torrent's white lightning;--no drum tapped, no bugle
was blown--
To the words that encouraged each other, and quick breaths, ye toiled up
alone!
Oh, long as the mountains shall rise o'er the waters of bright Tennessee,
Shall be told the proud deeds of the 'White Star,' the cloud-treading host
of the free!
The camp-fire shall blaze to the chorus, the picket-post peal it on high,
How was fought the fierce battle of Lookout--how won THE GRAND FIGHT OF
THE SKY!
ONE NIGHT.
I.
From the window at which I write, in these November days, I see a muddy,
swollen river, spread over the meadows into a dingy lake; it is not a
picturesque or a pretty stream, in spite of its Indian name. Beyond it
the land slopes away into a range of long, low hills, which the autumn
has browned; the long swaths of fog stretching between river and hill
are so like to them and to the dissolving gray sky that they all blend
in one general gloom. This picture filling my eye narrows and shapes
itself into the beginning of my story: I see a lazy, dirty river on the
outskirts of a manufacturing city; where the stream has broadened into a
sort of pond it is cut short by the dam, and there is a little cluster
of mills. They all belong to one work, however, and they look as if they
had been set down there for a few months only; 'contract' seems written
all over them, and very properly, for they are running on a Government
order for small arms. There is no noise but an underhum of revolving
shafts and the smothered thud of trip hammers. Ore dust blackens
everything, and is scattered everywhere, so that the whole ground is a
patchwork of black and gray; elsewhere there is snow, but here the snow
is turned to the dingy color of the place. It is very quiet outside,
being early morning yet; a cold mist hides the dawn, and the water falls
with a winter hiss; the paths are indistinct, for the sky is only just
enough lightening to show the east.
The coal dust around one door shows that the fires are there; a
cavernous place, suddenly letting a lurid glow out upon the night, and
then black again. It is only a narrow alley through the building, making
sure of a good draft; on one side are the piles of coal, and on the
other a row of furnace doors. The stoker is sitting on a heap of
cinder. He is only an old man, a little stooping, with a head that is
turning ashes color; his eye is faded, and his face nearly
expressionless, while he sits perfectly still on the heap, as if he were
a part of the engine which turns slowly in a shed adjoining and pants
through its vent in the roof. He has been sitting there so long that he
has a vague notion that his mind has somehow gone out of him into the
iron doors and the rough coal, and he only goes round and round like the
engine. Yet he never considered the matter at all, any more than the
engine wanted to use its own wheel, which it turned month after month in
the same place, to propel itself through the world; just so often he
opened and shut each door in its turn, fed the fires, and then sat down
and sat still.
He was looking at a boy of six, asleep at his feet on a pile of ashes
and cinder, which was not so bad a bed, for the gentle heat left in it
was as good as a lullaby, and Shakspeare long ago told us that sleep has
a preference for sitting by hard pillows. The child was an odd bit of
humanity. An accident at an early age had given it a hump, though
otherwise it was fair enough; and now perhaps society would have seen
there only an animal watching its sleeping cub. Presently the boy woke
and got on his feet, and began to walk toward the cold air with short,
uncertain steps, almost falling against a furnace door. The old man
jumped and caught him.
'Ta, ta, Nobby,' he said, 'what's thou doin'? Them's hotter nor cender.
Burnt child dreads fire--did knowst 'twas fire?'
He had a sort of language of his own, and his voice was singularly
harsh, as if breathing in that grimy place so long had roughened his
throat.
'There, go, Nobby, look thee out an' see howst black she is. Ta, but
it's hawt,' and he rubbed his forehead with his sleeve; 'it's a deal
pity this hot can nawt go out where's cold, an' people needin' it.
Here's hot, there's cold, but 'twill stay here, as it loved the place
'twas born--home, like. Why, Net, that thee?'
There was no door to the place to knock at or open, but the craunch of a
foot was heard on the coal outside, and a girl came in, moist and
shivering. The stoker set her down in a warm corner, and looked at her
now.
'Is thee, my little Net?' he repeated.
'Yes, and I've brought your breakfast, father; 'twas striking six before
I come in.'
'Too early, my girl, sleep her sleep out. Here's hot an' cosey like, an'
time goes, an' I could wait for breakfast, till I'm home. I'll nawt let
my little girl's sleep.'
'No, father, I couldn't sleep after five, anyway; and I thought I must
bring your breakfast to-day. You'll walk back through the cold easier
after something hot to eat.'
'That's my dear little girl. Shiverin' yet, she is. There, lay down on
this,' raking out a heap of fresh ashes, 'them warm an' soft like, an'
go ye to sleep till I go.'
'No, I must heat your coffee,' she answered, steadying the pot before
one of the furnaces with bits of coal.
''Ware that door doan' fly back an' hurt ye; them does so sometimes.'
'Yes, I'll be careful. Why, you've got Whitney here!'
'He come down to-night, Net. By himself, somehow, though I doan' knaw
how Lord kep' his short feet from the river bank an' the floom. An' he
couldn't go back, nor I couldn't go with him. He's slep' on the cender,
nice; all's a cradle to Nobby.'
'Yes, cinder's a good bed, when the eyes are shut,' said the girl,
bitterly. 'The coffee was smoking hot when I started, but it's cold out
this morning, so there's all this to be done over.'
'Yes, outdoors has cooled it. The world was hungry, like, an' wanted to
eat it. Small nubbin' for all the world, but it stole the hot an' the
smell o' the meat.'
The girl did not reply to this bit of pleasantry. She was about
eighteen, and her face would have been strikingly pretty except for the
eager, hungering look of the eye; but in every motion, every look, and
even the way in which she wore her neat and simple clothing, there was
the word 'unsatisfied.'
Finally, she brought coffee and meat to him.
'Here, Net, take ye a sip,' said he; ''twill warm ye nice. Shiverin' yet
she is; 'deed the mornin's clammy cold; there's naw love in thet. Drink!
I cawnt take ye home so, an' my time's most up; it's gettin' light.'
But she refused it, and sat and watched him as he ate, never taking her
eyes from his face.
'Father,' she presently said, 'what do you do here?'
The old stoker laughed: 'Do, my girl? Why, keep up the fires. It's like
I'm a spoke in a wheel or summut. I keeps the fires, an' the fires makes
the angeen go, an' thet turns the works thet makes the pistols, so't
folks may kill theirsel's. There's naw peace anywheres in the world.'
'I didn't mean that; but what do you do the rest of the time? Don't you
think? Aren't you tired of this place, father?'
'Sometimes it's like I think so; but how's the use, my Net? Here's
rough, an' here's rough too,' touching his chest. 'On smooth floors,
such as I couldn't work, if we could get there. How's the use o' bein'
tired? We've got to keep steady at summut. It's best to be content, like
Nobby there; cender's as good a bed as the king's got.'
'Well, if you _were_ tired, you're going to rest now, so I wish you
were.'
'What's that mean?'
'You've got through here, that's all,' cried the girl, with a smothered
sob.
He set down his pot of coffee and his pail: 'Who told ye so?' he
demanded.
'Margery Eames.'
Catching the girl's hand, the old man half dragged her through the
opening into a yard devoted to coal storage. Picking their way through
the spotted mire, they entered a shed where trip hammers were pounding
in showers of sparks, stepped over a great revolving shaft, and came to
a stairway; up, up, to the fifth floor, where the finishing rooms were.
Faint daylight was straggling through the narrow windows, and most of
the lamps were out, those that were burning being very sickly, as if
they did it under protest. A number of women were employed here, because
much of the work was merely automatic, and just now men were scarce and
women would work cheaper. The women were coarse and rough, rather the
scum of the city--perhaps some might have fallen; but the place was
noisome and grimy, with a sickening smell of oil everywhere, repulsive
enough to be fit for any workers.
The stoker and his daughter walked to the farther end, and came to where
a little group of women were sitting round a bench; one of the group
tipped a wink to the rest.
'How's coal an' fires now, Adam?' she said.
'Did ye tell my girl anythin'?' he demanded.
'Of course I did.'
'What was't then?'
'Well,' said she, wiping her greasy hands on the bosom of her dress, 'I
watched on the road for her this morning, an' I told her.'
'_What?_'
'I told her she needn't try to put on airs, she was only a stoker's
daughter, an' he'll not have that place any more.'
'Did ye knaw she didn't knaw't?'
'Yes. What do you care, old dusty? She's got a good place.'
'Yes, she has, Lord's good for't.'
'Shall we fight it out, Adam? Hold on till I wipe my hands.'
'Nawt till one can fight by hersel', Margery. I forgive yer spite, an'
hope Lord woan' bring it back to ye ever. What's said can nawt be
helped. Come, Net.'
'You're a mean creature, Margery, to tell him that,' said one, after
they were gone. 'I expected to hear you tell him about the place his
girl's got. Lord! he's innocent as a baby about it, an' thinks she's on
the way up, while everybody else knows it, an' knows it's the way down.'
''Tis that,' said Margery, 'but I've that much decency that I didn't say
it. Let the old man take one thing at a time; he'll know it soon enough
when she fetches up at the bottom.'
'What did you want to trouble old Adam for?'
'Because I did!' cried the woman, with a sudden flash; 'because I like
to hurt people. _I've_ been struck, an' stabbed, an' bruised, an'
seared, an' people pointin' fingers at me, whose heart wasn't fouler'n
theirs, if my lips were. It's all cut an' slash in the world, an' the
only way to get on with pain when you're hit, is to hit somebody else.
I'd rather find a soft spot in somebody than have a dollar give me,
sure's my name's Margery. What business has he to have any feelin's,
workin' year after year down there in the coal? Why haven't people been
good to _me_? I never come up here into this grease; people sent me; an'
when hit's the game I'll do my part. I hope his girl's a comfort to him;
he'll be proud enough of her some time, you see.'
Adam seated his girl again, opened the doors one after another, and
raked and fed the fires; then he shut them, and stood his rake in the
corner, and seated himself.
'Well, it's come out,' he said; 'but I didn't mean ye should know, yet.
Margery's ill willed, but it's like she didn't think.'
'I oughtn't to have told you till after to-morrow, father.'
'There's how't seems hard, thet it must come to Christmas. An' when I've
been here so long, twenty year noo, Net.'
'Oh, don't call me that any more, father; I don't like it.'
'Why nawt, little girl? What should I call her? You used to love to hear
it.'
'Not now, not now,' said the girl, in a choking voice, 'not to-day, not
till Christmas is over. Call me Jane.'
'Yes, twenty year ago I come here, an' I've been settin' on them piles
o' cender ever sence. 'Deed I most love them doors an' the rake an'
poker. I've hed my frets about it sometimes, but I doan' want to go
though.'
'And I say it's a shame in them to use you so!' cried the girl. 'Making
their money hand over hand, and to go and grudge you this ash hole, for
the sake of saving! They'll get no good from such reckoning. I wish
their cruel old mill would burn down!'
'No, Jane, hold hersel'! Here's fire--should _I_ do it?'
'It's Cowles's work. I hate him.'
'The mill's their own, Jane; they gev me what they liked; I've no claim.
Mr. Cowles do as he think best for t'mill.'
'Then to do it just now! I hope _his_ dinner'll be sweet.'
'I nawt meant my girl to knaw't till Christmas wor done. But ye'll nawt
mind it, Jane, ye'll nawt! We'll nawt lose Christmas, too, for it come
for us. Mr. Cowles doan' own _thet_. We'll hev thet anyhow, an' keep it.
She'll nawt fret hersel', my little girl!'
Jane did not answer.
'We'll get on somehoo, Lord knaws hoo. We never starved yet, an' you've
got a good place. It'll all be right, an' Christmas day to-morrow!'
'I got a good place! Oh, father!'
'Why, Jane, I thought so. Doan' they use her well?'
'Yes, they do,' quickly answered the girl; 'I don't know why I spoke
so. I'm a bit discontented, perhaps, but don't you fear for me, father;
and we mustn't fret--anyway, till after to-morrow.'
'She's nawt content, is she?' said the stoker, settling his head into
his hands. 'I've hed my frets, too, alone here, thinkin' summut like I
should liked to knaw books, an' been defferent, but it's like I'd nawt
been content. Lord knows. 'Deed I loves them doors an' the old place
here, but seems as if summut was sayin' there's better things; it's like
there is, but nawt for such as me. I doan' care for mysel', but I'd like
to hev more to gev my little girl.'
'You give me all you've got, father, and I ought to be satisfied. But
I'm not--it's not your blame, father, but I know I'm not,' she said,
with sudden energy. 'I don't know what I want; it's something--it seems
as if I was hungry.'
'Nawt hungry, Jane! She's nawt starvin'!'
'No, I don't want any more to eat, nor better clothes,' she said,
getting out the words painfully. 'It's something else; I can't tell what
it is, unless I'm hungry.'
'Well, I knaw I doan' understan' her,' said the man sadly. 'I doan' knaw
my little girl. Is it _him_ she's thinkin' of?'
The fire-glow on the girl's face hid any change that may have come
there, and she only drew a little farther away, without answering.
'I've nawt seen many people, Jane, but sometimes I likes an' dislikes,
as Nobby does, an' I doan' like _him_. An' I doan' like him to be nigh
my girl; there's naw truth in him. I wish she'd say she'll hev naw more
speech with him.'
'No, no, father, don't ask me that. I don't care for him, but I can't
promise not to speak to him--I do! I do! Oh, father!' sobbed the girl,
'everything comes at once!'
The old man drew her head on his knee, and even his rough voice grew
softer, talking to his 'little girl.' He bent and kissed her.
'I wish 'twere nawt so,' he said; 'but mebbe I'm wrong. Lord keep my
little girl, an' we'll nawt fret, but be happy to-morrow.'
Another man came in with a big tread. It was the engineer, a hale, burly
fellow, with a genuine, rollicking kindness. He tossed the boy into the
air, pinched Jane's cheek, and gave his morning salutation in several
lusty thumps on the stoker's back.
'Rippin' day this'll be, Adam,' said he; 'say t'won't, an' I'll shake
your ribs loose. Just such a day's I like to breathe in; an' when I've
set all night in my chair there, not sleepin' of course, but seein' that
everlastin' old crosshead go in an' out, an' that wheel turnin' away
just so fast an' no faster, I swear I do go to sleep with my eyes open;
an' when it gets light such a day's this, I get up an' shake
myself--this fashion,' giving him an extra jerk. 'Keep up heart, Adam; I
know it, an' I don't know what Cowles is thinkin' of. I don't want to
crowd you out, an' you ought to be the last one to go. I'd quit 'em for
it myself, afford it or not, only 'twon't do you no good.'
'Merry Christmas, Mr. Grump!' cried Nobby, rubbing his eyes.
'You've slept over, my young 'un,' laughed the engineer; 'you're one day
ahead. Of course the palty mill must run to-morrow. Mine don't, I
warrant. My machinery runs on a fat turkey, twenty pound if he's an
ounce. That's me.'
'Yes, and we've got a turkey too,' chimed Nobby.
'I warrant you have. An' he had as good an appetite when he was alive as
anybody else's turkey; them fellows do gobble their grub quite
conscientiously, fattin' 'emselves without knowin' or carin' whether
rich or poor'll eat 'em. _I'll_ bet yours's as fat an' good's Mr.
Prescott's, or old Cowles's--damn him! No, I don't mean quite that, so
near Christmas, but he ought to be choked with his own dinner, I'll say
that. Keep up good heart, Adam; an' now clear out, every one! cut home
to yer breakfasts! My watch now, and' I won't have one of ye
round--scud! or wait a minute an' I'll pitch ye out.'
II.
After his breakfast, Adam walked back to the factory. He was wondering,
as he went along, why they should begin with him if they wanted to save
expense. Eighteen dollars a month was a good deal to him, but what was
it to the mill? Every turn of the water wheel, he thought, made more
money than his day's wages. But possibly Mr. Prescott had found out that
his son fancied Jane, and meant to drive them out of town. The very day
that Mr. Prescott saw him first, Mr. Cowles, the manager, told him he
wasn't needed any longer, that the under engineer would see to the
fires. That was punishing him for another's fault--just the way with
rich men; and for a while he almost hated Mr. Prescott.
Adam Craig had had a peculiar life, as he thought. He wanted education,
money, and such other things, besides something to eat and wear; but
they never came to him, and he drifted into a place at the machine
shops, and got the stamp put on him, and then went his round year after
year with less and less thought of stepping out of it. Yet he always
believed he once had some uncommon stuff in him, and he claimed his own
respect for having had it, even if he had lost it now; he had his own
way of proving it too. His wife was the mirror by which he judged
himself. She was a German woman, whom he found in the city hospital; or
rather she found him, shot through the throat by the accidental
discharge of a rifle. She was just from the fatherland, and could not
speak a word of English; with his swollen head he could not speak at
all; but she watched him through it, and by the signs of that language
which is common to all nations, they managed to understand each other,
and signalized the day of his recovery by marrying. This was the pride
of Adam's whole life, and convinced him he was made capable of being
somebody; he held his wife to be a superior woman, and her appreciation
was a consolation that never left him. 'She knawed me,' he used to say,
'she saw into me better nor I did.' And though he would talk stoutly
sometimes for democracy, he had an odd notion that marrying a
Continental European gave him some sort of distinction; and all his
troubled talks with himself ended in his saying: 'Ah, well, if I'd been
born in Germany, I might been somebody.'
Adam watched for Mr. Cowles most of the forenoon, determined to ask
about his dismissal; at last the manager strolled through the shops, and
Adam made a desperate effort, and went to him. He turned short about, as
the stoker spoke.
'Mr. Cowles, was ye told to send me away?'
'Told! Who should tell me?'
'But I thought--I thought Mr. Prescott might said summut--'
'Do you suppose he concerns himself about you? I'm master here, and I
don't ask what I shall do.'
Adam took hope: 'Hev ye said sure I must go, Mr. Cowles? I've been here
so long, an' noo I'm old. I've got gray at t'mill,' touching his head as
he spoke.
'You've had your wages regular, haven't you?' said Cowles, roughly. 'I
don't inquire how long you've been here. Would I keep an old lathe that
was worn or that I had no use for, because I'd had it a good while? Stay
round to-day, if you like, and then go.'
'But eighteen dollars is nawt much to t'mill,' said Adam, humbly; 'doan'
be hard, an' gev me a chance, a chance to help mysel'! T'winter's hard,
an' I've a family!'
'Did I make your family? You should have thought of that long ago. Stand
out of the way, if you're done.'
The stoker clung to the doorpost.
'Summut else I could do--there must be summut--ye knaw summut else, Mr.
Cowles?'
'Something else to do, you fool! What could you do--run the engine? tend
the planers? If I wanted you at all, I should keep you where you were.'
He moved off at this. Adam seated himself on the familiar cinder heaps
and grieved in his simple way, for a time feeling almost bitter.
Little Nobby's deformity was one of the strange things that made Adam
think. Several years before, he had the child with him at the factory
one night, just old enough to walk a little. In Adam's momentary absence
the boy managed to get upon a box near one of the furnace doors, and,
rolling against the blistering iron, was horribly burned; yet
unaccountably he did not die, but grew bent into a scarred, shapeless
body, though his face was a sweet, childish one, innocent of fire.
Nobby, as Adam called him after that, was a silent preacher to the
stoker. When a clergyman asked him once if he was a Christian, he
pointed to Nobby's back:
'I knaw there's a Lord,' he said,' or else Nobby'd died, burnt so sore
thet way; an' I knaw He's good, or Nobby'd been a fool a'terward, like
children thet burn theirsel's. Saved Nobby from dyin' an' from bein'
worse nor dead, both, Lord meant him good.'
The boy was Adam Craig's grandson. His firstborn, Tom, was wild, and
went to sea--the old story--leaving wife and unborn child for his father
to look to. Six years had gone--the seventh began at New Year's; the boy
was born, burnt, saved alive, and not idiotic; its mother had died;
Adam's life was outrunning the child's, and he would soon have to leave
it to go on by itself; but his faith in his son's return never shook.
'Him'll come back,' he would say, simply, and in perfect confidence, 'I
knaw't well. Lord never burnt Nobby for nawt. Him's nawt dead; him'll
come back some time, I knaw.'
III.
Adam went back at noon, and found something else to take his thoughts:
Nobby was in his pains--a sad remnant of his terrible mishap. These were
irregular, and he had been free for several months, but he had been
exposed to the cold to-day. There was little to be done. At such times
Adam could only cry over him, hold him in his arms while he was twisting
his crooked body so that it would hardly stay in or upon anything, and
say:
'Poor, poor Nobby. Him'll nawt die, Katry; but how can he live? Lord
send back Tom!'
Jane was busy somewhere, and did not come home till evening. Her father
had been turned out of his place; Nobby was in his pains again, after
they had been hoping he wouldn't have any more; and to-morrow was
Christmas! As she said, everything came at once. Things seemed to swim
before her eyes--Nobby's pain was the most real of all--and as she could
not help him, she wanted to get out of sight. It was all true. Aching
and longing intolerably for something more than she had known, she had
met Will Prescott--and he had loved her--he said so; and he had promised
her books and pictures, and chances for travel and study.
She went into the best room, already trimmed for to-morrow; the
Christmas tree was clustered with gifts and with candles ready for
lighting, and the motto was on the top, '_Gott zur hülfe_.' Jane looked
it all over, and her lip quivered.
'This is pure and honest, as it says,' said she; 'and _I'm_ a lie
myself, cheating father. Christmas to-morrow! 'twon't last long; if
_he_ only knew I go to--I won't say the word--would he ever care about
me again?'
She went into the other room for her shawl.
'Hes my little girl got to go out to-night?' said Adam. 'Well, there's
to-morrow. Doan' stay late, Net,' kissing her good-by.
She pulled the hood over her face and went out, taking the road to the
city, never slackening her pace till the lights along the way grew
thicker, and she came upon the pavements. Crossing the great
thoroughfare, she turned into a narrow street, and from that descended a
short flight of steps into a narrower one lit only by a great lamp in
front of a door, with the word '_Tanzhaus_' above it; she went in here
unhesitatingly. A large room with a bar on one side, small tables in the
middle, and a stage at the farther end; some tables had occupants,
drinking and looking at several women dancing on the stage. This was
Jane's 'place;' the dance house wanted her face at its tables, and as
there was nothing else open, in very desperation she went. She turned
into a smaller room where the private tables were, to which she
belonged; at first they had tried to teach her to dance, but she would
not learn. The furniture was worn, with a slimy polish in spots; an
unclean, stifling smell in the air; a few coarse prints of racers and
champions hung around; and in one place a drunken artist had sketched
one night a Crucifixion on the wall; the owner was angry enough, but
something held back his hand from touching it, and it staid there,
covered by an old newspaper.
As Jane laid away her shawl and hood, a woman came forward to meet her.
'What are you here for?' she said, fiercely; 'this is Christmas eve!
there's none for me--I wish I could cry, but my tears are dried up,'
snatching her tawdry cap from her head and stamping on it; 'but you're
not a devil yet. Go home, if you've got a home! out the back
way--quick!'
The woman caught her shoulder, pulled away the paper, and pointed to the
picture on the wall.
'Look at _that_! When I see that, I think sometimes I'm in hell! What
has that got to do with me? Do you want to get out of the reach of that?
Go home, go home,' shaking her furiously.
'I can't! I can't!' cried Jane, desperately. 'He won't let me. 'Twas
here or the street, I thought; I've been here three weeks, and
to-night's no more'n other nights.'
A voice called in the front room, and the woman put on her cap and ran
in; Jane stood where she left her. She hardly knew what moved her
to-night; she saw her own body walking about, tense and foreign, as
though some possession had it; she had felt a new, strange kind of
strength all day, after she had her cry out. She looked up at the
picture again, saying slowly to herself:
'It's for _them_--I've got father, and mother, and sister, and
brethren.'
Nine o'clock struck, and people began to come in; there was likely to be
a rush to-night, and the players in the front room commenced their
liveliest round of operatic airs. One after another turned into the side
room, and the calls for service grew lively. Jane moved among them
mechanically, thinking all the while of Nobby tossing in his pain; of
the tree waiting for to-morrow; of her father turned out of his place;
of the rent and the grocer's bill that were about due; and of her own
wages, pretty much all that was left. Was it such a terrible sin to be
there--for _them_? Then she shivered to think she might be sliding down.
No, no, she would be kept--they should be taken care of, but she
wouldn't fall while she had them to think of. A hot flush colored her
face as she thought of young Prescott, confusing her so that she almost
stumbled. What would _he_ think if he knew where she worked? No matter,
he shouldn't know it. He would take her out of this by and by, and after
that she would tell him all about it, and what she did it for, and he
would love her all the better for it.
The hours struck and went by, and the room grew hotter and noisier. Once
the tables were emptied; but a fresh party came in, and their leader
waved them to seats with maudlin politeness. He was a handsome young
man, partly drunk already; he pushed the woman he had with him into a
chair, and dropped into another himself. His back was toward Jane; she
stood still a minute, then walked slowly, as if something dragged her,
till she could see his face.
The glass she held fell from her hand with a crash, but she stood dumb
and white, and clung trembling to the table. He started, but gave her a
nod.
'_You_, Will Prescott! Oh, my God!'
'You here, Jane! And you're one of 'em too! I didn't think it quite so
soon.'
She did not seem to hear the last words. The blood surged back to her
face, and she sank at his feet.
'No, no,' she moaned, 'I'm not, I'm not--I'm only here. You won't think
worse of me, Will, seeing I did it for _them_? I must work somewhere,
and this was all I could find. Say you don't think _that_! Say you
believe me!'
He smiled in a drunken way, without speaking.
'Say it, Will! Say you love me, and take me out of this!'
'Ho, ho! that's a devilish good one! You're here, and so'm I; I'm just a
little merry to-night--couldn't wait till to-morrow. We're well met,
Jane--these are my friends; here's my most par-ticular friend,' laying
his hand on his companion's shoulder.
The girl seemed to be stunned so that she did not understand.
'See it, hey? 'Say you love me!' You do it beautifully, Jane--do some
more. Did you ever think I loved you?--Oh, yes! and that I wanted to
marry you--of course! If your face hadn't looked prettier'n it does now,
damn me if I'd ever looked twice at it!'
He turned his chair a little.
'What's that!' he screamed, catching sight of the painting on the wall.
'Take it away! You put it there, you wretch!' staring at it with his
eyes fixed.
The noise brought the owner to the door--a burly Dutchman.
'Landlord, put that thing away--cover it up! Damnation! Do I want to
come here to be preached at?'
'Who pulled that paper off, I say?' said the man. 'I pinned _The
Clipper_ over it. You did it, I swar! Be off with yer!'
'Oh, let her stay, Lumpsey,' said a woman that came in from the bar;
'she'll be one on 'em when she gits round.'
'I won't; I won't have nobody here that's better'n we be no longer.
Here's yer pay; an' now, missis, start yerself, an' don't yer come nigh
here agen 'thout yer'll behave decent an' be one on us.'
He tossed some bank notes toward her, took her by the shoulders, and
shoved her out, shutting the door upon her.
IV.
Everybody had gone out on Christmas eve--darting about in sleighs; at
service in the churches; at a party given in their set; shopping, as if
their lives depended on it. Buying, selling, visiting, looking, the city
was all astir. In the churches, soberly gay with evergreen trimming,
like a young widow very stylish in black, but very proper withal, people
were listening to the anthems, and everything about the place was wide
awake, unless it was the chimes taking a nap until twelve o'clock;
drygoods men ran to and fro, dropping smiles, and winding themselves up
in a great medley reel of silks, laces, and things of _virtu_ in
general; next door, the booksellers were resplendent in dazzling
bindings, pictures and photographs of everything and everybody, all of
which were at everybody's disposal--take 'em all home, if you pleased;
livery stables were as bare as if there had been an invasion of the
country that day, and smiling keepers touched their pockets, and shook
their heads pityingly at late comers; and even in the markets jolly
butchers laughed, and sawed, and cut, and counted their money--and those
leathery fellows that were never jolly, suddenly found out a new
commercial maxim, that jollity is the best policy, and they fell to
laughing too. 'Christmas is coming!' thought everybody. 'Christmas is
coming!' and some of the lively small bells in the towers, not grown yet
to years of ripe discretion, whispered to each other, and had to bite
their tongues to keep from shouting it right out.
The dance house and the narrow alley left behind, Jane was in the street
too; she went with the crowd, pulling her hood so as to hide her face.
She glanced at the costly goods that lay in confusion on the counters of
the stores, and smiled bitterly, taking hold of her own cheap dress; the
sleighs almost ran over her, they shot back and forth so wildly, to her
whirling brain; a German air that a band was playing on a serenade
somewhere in the distance seemed to roar in her ears like thunder. She
stopped before a confectioner's. The hot smell of meats came up through
the grating where she stood; the window was ablaze with gas, piled high
with pyramids of glittering frost, which rose out of a heaped profusion
of carved lobster and turkey, and fruits and candies; she saw girls with
pretty faces and nice dresses waiting on the fashionable crowd inside,
and said to herself that she ought to be there. Some one touched her. It
was a girl younger than herself, who stood glaring at the window,
shivering in her ragged clothing; her eyes looked unnaturally large out
of her sharp, pinched face, daubed with tears and dirt.
'Look a' thar!' she cried eagerly, catching Jane's arm, 'see _them_! Why
ben't them mine? Why ben't I in thar, a buyin' o' them? I ort to ride,
ortn't I? Why ben't I got nice things on, like a' them thar? Pinchin'
Dave's got my dress for three shillin' to-night--the last un I been a
savin'; must ha' some drink, so't I'd be forgettin'--to-night, to-night,
ye see, I say--hoh!'
Giving a wild laugh, the girl ran off. A man inside was looking angrily
through the window; so Jane turned from the thoroughfare, and finally
struck into the road by which she came. The street lamps had given way
to the moon. The flats adjoining the city were all white except marshy
spots; passing two tall buildings, that made a sort of gateway, the
country spread to the sky unbroken, except where rows of dreary houses,
shadowy without the twinkle of a light, stood on some new land; this was
not the fashionable road, and it was empty. How pure and cool it was! In
the city, there was straggling moonlight, darkened by the brick walls,
but no moon; out here, the moon had just broken from a bank of cloud low
down, piled on a bank of snow, all looking snowy and alike, the horizon
line being hardly distinguishable; the light poured from the edge in a
shining flood, and rippled without a sound over the crisp, crusted
snow--all of one kin, cold, sparkling, desolate.
Jane noted nothing of this; she walked dizzily along the road. Only one
day since morning, after living a whole lifetime in that! She scooped up
a handful of snow, and rubbed it furiously into her face and eyes, they
burned so; her eyes were dry, melting the snow without feeling wet any.
Clear back in the morning, Margery Eames met her; then the day dragged
along as if it never would go, and she ate nothing but the tears she
swallowed; going down those steps, through that dreadful door, waiting
on those tables--the evening, till Will Prescott came in. She had wanted
so to have what others had, to study, to paint--such things as she had
seen, and she couldn't make a stroke! to learn to sing, as she had heard
them sing in the churches; to see Germany, that her mother had told her
about; she wanted to be loved--not like father and Nobby, but another
way too; she had a right to have such things--other people had them.
_He_ had praised her, stroked her hair; said she was too pale, but no
matter, she'd brighten up by and by; she was his little bluebell he had
found in the woods, that he was going to make over into a red rose; she
should have everything she wanted, and go with him everywhere, pretty
soon--only be patient; if he could wait, couldn't she? And she had been
patient, without telling father about it, though somehow he found out;
she had waited in the road an hour more than once for a kind word and a
smile as he rode by; she had borne with her hard fare, and waited for
him to do the things he promised; and after she had to go into the dance
house, she hated it most for his sake--she hated him to kiss her, for
fear he'd find some taint on her lips of the place she went to; she
thought of him all the while, to keep up courage; of course it was for
father and Nobby she did it, but he helped her. It was all over now.
She came to the bridge over the river, and stopped on it. Just then she
happened to think of a choral her mother liked to sing: 'A mighty
fortress is our God.' A fortress--not hers. Did He sometimes turn
against people and crowd them--who crowded the girl at the
confectioner's window? Was there any God at all? Not in the city; only
two sorts of people were there, who either lived in fine houses, and had
no souls at all, or else went about the streets, and had lost them. Was
there any God out here? If there was, He wouldn't have let Mr. Cowles
turn her father off, and she wouldn't be out in the cold; there wasn't
any anywhere.
Jane looked down at the water. It was muddy, but it gave a wavering
reflection as the wind ruffled it; now and then a piece of driftwood
glided from under the bridge, and was borne along toward the factory
dam. Her mind flashed round to the factory, and home, and the Christmas
tree for to-morrow, and she laughed bitterly. Jump! She had lost _him_,
all that had been keeping her up so long--he never meant to marry her,
though he said so, and she believed him. Everything went with that love;
what was there left? What matter what came now? Jump! But father and
Nobby? She couldn't leave them unprovided for. Money, money! she must
have money, for _them_.
The bells began to chime very softly, as they always did at twelve
o'clock of this night in the year. They seemed to say: 'Come! come!
come!' She caught at the sound. There was money in the city, and one way
yet to earn it.
'They're calling me!' she cried, clutching her dress wildly with both
hands; 'they're pushing me into hell--why shouldn't I go? _They'll_ have
money, and I'm gone already.'
She turned, and walked back without faltering, to the edge of the city,
and stopped between the two buildings. There was an alley close by, like
one she knew so well; by the noise there was revel in it. She hesitated
a minute, crouching out of sight in the shadow of the buildings.
'Don't stop here!' she muttered to herself; 'now as well as any other
time!' and turned into the alley. The light was streaming from a door
near the middle, and a man in sailor's dress came out and caught a
glimpse of her creeping along close to the wall.
'Hey, lass!' he said, 'merry Christmas to ye! 'Rived in port to-day.
Been a cruisin'. Locker full, an' all hands piped ashore. What craft be
you--a Dutch galley? Sail down a bit, till I get within speakin'
distance.'
She only staggered closer against the wall.
'Beatin' off, hey? Well, lass, come an' drink to better acquaintance.'
'It's the first time, but I'll go--I'll go with you,' she answered. She
followed him to the door. The gas flared full on his face, and she gave
a mortal scream.
'Brother Tom!'
He made a headlong clutch at her, but she broke away, leaving a fragment
of her dress in his hand, and flew round the corner out of his sight.
She ran blindly through several streets, but finally she regained the
road, and never stopped her headlong speed till she leaned against the
door of Adam Craig's cottage. She pushed the door open softly, and went
in. Quick as she had been, her brother was there already, standing by
Nobby's bed; Adam Craig was there, but his back was turned.
'Did you--tell him?' she whispered.
Her brother nodded, and put out his hand. She took it, with a half
hesitation.
'He understands,' he whispered, answering the question of her eyes.
The old stoker turned around. She made a move to shrink away, but he
caught her, and drew her to his breast, crying and sobbing:
'Lord, Lord, Lord's good!' he cried, 'thank Him for't! She's saved, my
little girl! I've found more'n I've lost, to-day. Oh, she's pure yet,
she's saved--she's nawt lost, my girl, she's nawt! I didn't knaw't!
didn't knaw what she was doin', but it's all right noo! We'll never want
any more, but if Net'd been lost--but she's nawt, nawt--she's nawt gone,
she's here, an' harm never'll come nigh her any more! I knowed Tom'd
come back, an' now Net! they both hev saved each other, Lord's good
for't!'
'But Nobby?' she whispered.
'Lord brought us one, an' noo He's goin' to take back t'other,' said
Adam.
The child was twisting in his father's arms in the height of his pain.
'I knaw noo why 'twas I went away thet mornin', an' Nobby got t'bump,'
said Adam, looking on sadly.
The young sailor made no answer. The partial drunkenness of his first
night on shore was gone, and he only held his suffering child, wiping
the drops from its face. So they stood watching, and the hours went on.
'Zuhöret!' cried Adam's wife. 'Die Weihnachtsglocken!'
It was the bells, ringing out the full morning carol. The child was
lying on his bed; he brightened up a little, then shut his eyes wearily,
and stopped writhing. For little Nobby it that moment became true that
'Christ was born on Christmas day.'
APHORISM.--NO. VII.
The sufficient reason why the common developments of intellect are so
poor, is not so much in the want of native capacity, as in the low moral
estate of our nature. Our hearts are so dry, our better affections so
dull, that we are not the subjects of stimulus adequate to the calling
forth of efforts suitable to the necessities of the case. Here and
there, one is so richly endowed in mind, that his love of science or art
may suffice to tax his powers to the full: but a world could never be
constituted of such geniuses. The mass of men, if ever to be led up to
any high plane of mental life, must be so under the promptings of
affections and passions which find their excitement in the more
practical spheres of our existence.
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER ON SECESSION AND STATE RIGHTS.
In the earlier numbers of _The Spirit of the Fair_, the newspaper
published by a committee of gentlemen for the benefit of the New York
Metropolitan Fair, appeared a series of very remarkable papers from the
pen of James Fenimore Cooper, the American novelist.[7] The history of
these papers is very curious, as announced by the editors of _The Spirit
of the Fair_, in their introductory, as follows:
'UNPUBLISHED MSS. OF JAMES FENIMORE COOPER.
'Our national novelist died in the autumn of 1850; previous to his
fatal illness he was engaged upon a historical work, to be entitled
'The Men of Manhattan,' only the Introduction to which had been
sent to the press. The printing office was destroyed by fire, and
with it the opening chapters of this work; fortunately a few pages
had been set up, and the impression sent to a literary gentleman,
then editor of a popular critical journal, and were thus saved from
destruction. To him we are indebted for the posthumous articles of
Cooper, wherewith, by a coincidence as remarkable as it is
auspicious, we now enrich our columns with a contribution from the
American pioneer in letters.'
Many readers at the time passed over these papers without the careful
attention which they deserved. Others, who perused them more thoroughly,
were struck with the remarkable prescience which the great writer's
thoughts exhibited on topics which the events now passing before us lend
a tremendous interest. Cooper, it must be remembered, uttered his views
on 'Secession,' 'State Rights,' etc., upward of _fifteen years ago_, and
at a period when the horrors of rebellion, as a consequence of slavery,
were little foreseen as likely to succeed those years of peace and
prosperity. Had these opinions been published at the period intended by
their writer, they would doubtless have been pronounced visionary and
illogical. By a singular succession of events, however, the MS. has been
hidden in the chrysalis of years, until, lo! it sees the light of day at
a period when the prophetic words of their author come up, as it were,
from his grave, with the vindication of truth and historic fidelity.
For the benefit of those who have not read these papers in the newspaper
where they originally appeared, we make the following extracts, feeling
assured that no man interested in passing events, or in the causes which
led to them, can fail to recognize in these passages the astonishing
power and comprehensiveness of the mind that fifteen years ago discussed
these vital topics. Let it be remembered, too, that their author was a
man whose sympathies were largely with his countrymen, not less of the
South than of the North, and that it was doubtless with a view of
warning his Southern friends of the danger which hovered over the
'institution' of slavery, that they were written. Probably had they
appeared in print at that time, they would have produced no effect where
mostly effect was aimed at; but now that they have appeared, when the
small cloud of evil pointed out has spread over the Southern land and
broken into a deluge of devastation, they will at least prove that the
words of warning were not perishable utterances signifying nothing.
'SECESSION.
'The first popular error that we shall venture to assail, is that
connected with the prevalent notion of the sovereignty of the States. We
do not believe that the several States of this Union are, in any
legitimate meaning of the term, sovereign at all. We are fully aware
that this will be regarded as a bold, and possibly as a presuming
proposition, but we shall endeavor to work it out with such means as we
may have at command.
'We lay down the following premises as too indisputable to need any
arguments to sustain them: viz., the authority which formed the present
Constitution of the United States had the legal power to do so. That
authority was in the Government of the States, respectively, and not in
their people in the popular signification, but through their people in
the political meaning of the term, and what was then done must be
regarded as acts connected with the composition and nature of
governments, and of no minor or different interests of human affairs.
'It being admitted, that the power which formed the Government was
legitimate, we obtain one of the purest compacts for the organization of
human society that probably ever existed. The ancient allegiance, under
which the colonies had grown up to importance, had been extinguished by
solemn treaty, and the States met in Convention sustained by all the law
they had, and backed in every instance by institutions that were more or
less popular. The history of the world cannot, probably, furnish another
instance of the settlement of the fundamental contract of a great nation
under circumstances of so much obvious justice. This gives unusual
solemnity and authority to the Constitution of 1787, and invests it with
additional claims to our admiration and respect.
'The authority which formed the Constitution admitted, we come next to
the examination of its acts. It is apparent from the debates and
proceedings of the Convention, that two opinions existed in that body;
the one leaning strongly toward the concentration of power in the hands
of the Federal Government, and the other desirous of leaving as much as
possible with the respective States. The principle that the powers which
are not directly conceded to the Union should remain in first hands,
would seem never to have been denied; and some years after the
organization of the Government, it was solemnly recognized in an
amendment. We are not disposed, however, to look for arguments in the
debates and discussions of the Convention, in our view often a deceptive
and dangerous method of construing a law, since the vote is very
frequently given on even conflicting reasons. Different minds arrive at
the same results by different processes; and it is no unusual thing for
men to deny each other's premises, while they accept their conclusions.
We shall look, therefore, solely to the compact itself, as the most
certain mode of ascertaining what was done.
'No one will deny that all the great powers of sovereignty are directly
conceded to the Union. The right to make war and peace, to coin money,
maintain armies and navies, etc., etc., in themselves overshadow most of
the sovereignty of the States. The amendatory clause would seem to
annihilate it. By the provisions of that clause three fourths of the
States can take away all the powers and rights now resting in the hands
of the respective States, with a single exception. This exception gives
breadth and emphasis to the efficiency of the clause. It will be
remembered that all this can be done within the present Constitution.
It is a part of the original bargain. Thus, New York can legally be
deprived of the authority to punish for theft, to lay out highways, to
incorporate banks, and all the ordinary interests over which she at
present exercises control, every human being within her limits
dissenting. Now as sovereignty means power in the last resort, this
amendatory clause most clearly deprives the State of all sovereign power
thus put at the disposition of Conventions of the several States; in
fact, the votes of these Conventions, or that of the respective
Legislatures acting in the same capacity, is nothing but the highest
species of legislation known to the country; and no other mode of
altering the institutions would be legal. It follows unavoidably, we
repeat, that the sovereignty which remains in the several States must be
looked for solely in the exception. What, then, is this exception?
'It is a provision which says, that no State may be deprived of its
equal representation in the Senate, without its own consent. It might
well be questioned whether this provision of the Constitution renders a
Senate indispensable to the Government. But we are willing to concede
this point and admit that it does. Can the vote of a single State, which
is one of a body of thirty, and which is bound to submit to the decision
of a legal majority, be deemed a sovereign vote? Assuming that the whole
power of the Government of the United States were in the Senate, would
any one State be sovereign in such a condition of things? We think not.
But the Senate does not constitute by any means the whole or the half of
the authority of this Government; its legislative power is divided with
a popular body, without the concurrence of which it can do nothing; this
dilutes the sovereignty to a degree that renders it very imperceptible,
if not very absurd. Nor is this all. After a law is passed by the
concurrence of the two houses of Congress, it is sent to a perfectly
independent tribunal to decide whether it is in conformity with the
principles of the great national compact; thus demonstrating, as we
assume, that the sovereignty of this whole country rests, not in its
people, not in its States, but in the Government of the Union.
'Sovereignty, and that of the most absolute character, is indispensable
to the right of secession: nay, sovereignty, in the ordinary acceptation
of the meaning of the term, might exist in a State without this right of
secession. We doubt if it would be held sound doctrine to maintain that
any single State had a right to secede from the German Confederation,
for instance; and many alliances, or mere treaties, are held to be
sacred and indissoluble; they are only broken by an appeal to violence.
'Every human contract may be said to possess its distinctive character.
Thus, marriage is to be distinguished from a partnership in trade,
without recurrence to any particular form of words. Marriage, contracted
by any ceremony whatever, is held to be a contract for life. The same is
true of Governments: in their nature they are intended to be
indissoluble. We doubt if there be an instance on record of a Government
that ever existed, under conditions, expressed or implied, that the
parts of its territory might separate at will. There are so many
controlling and obvious reasons why such a privilege should not remain
in the hands of sections or districts, that it is unnecessary to advert
to them. But after a country has rounded its territory, constructed its
lines of defence, established its system of custom houses, and made all
the other provisions for security, convenience, and concentration, that
are necessary to the affairs of a great nation, it would seem to be very
presumptuous to impute to any particular district the right to destroy
or mutilate a system regulated with so much care.
'The only manner in which the right of secession could exist in one of
the American States, would be by an express reservation to that effect
in the Constitution, There is no such clause; did it exist it would
change the whole character of the Government, rendering it a mere
alliance, instead of being that which it now is--a lasting Union. But,
whatever may be the legal principles connected with this serious
subject, there always exists, in large bodies of men, a power to change
their institutions by means of the strong hand. This is termed the right
of revolution, and it has often been appealed to to redress grievances
that could be removed by no other agency. It is undeniable that the
institution of domestic slavery, as it now exists in what are termed the
Southern and Southwestern States of this country, creates an interest of
the most delicate and sensitive character. Nearly one half of the entire
property of the slaveholding States consists in this right to the
services of human beings of a race so different from our own as to
render any amalgamation to the last degree improbable, if not
impossible. Any one may easily estimate the deep interest that the
masters feel in the preservation of their property. The spirit of the
age is decidedly against them, and of this they must be sensible; it
doubly augments their anxiety for the future. The natural increase,
moreover, of these human chattels renders an outlet indispensable, or
they will soon cease to be profitable by the excess of their numbers. To
these facts we owe the figments which have rendered the Southern school
of logicians a little presuming, perhaps, and certainly very
sophistical. Among other theories we find the bold one, that the
Territories of the United States are the property, not of the several
States, but of their individual people; in other words, that the native
of New York or Rhode Island, regardless of the laws of the country, has
a right to remove to any one of these Territories, carry with him just
such property as he may see fit, and make such use of it as he may find
convenient. This is a novel copartnership in jurisdiction, to say the
least, and really does not seem worthy of a serious reply.'
'SLAVERY.
'The American Union has much more adhesiveness than is commonly
imagined. The diversity and complexity of its interests form a network
that will be found, like the web of the spider, to possess a power of
resistance far exceeding its gossamer appearance--one strong enough to
hold all that it was ever intended to enclose. The slave interest is now
making its final effort for supremacy, and men are deceived by the
throes of a departing power. The institution of domestic slavery cannot
last. It is opposed to the spirit of the age; and the figments of Mr.
Calhoun, in affirming that the Territories belong to the States, instead
of the Government of the United States; and the celebrated doctrine of
the equilibrium, for which we look in vain into the Constitution for a
single sound argument to sustain it, are merely the expiring efforts of
a reasoning that cannot resist the common sense of the nation. As it is
healthful to exhaust all such questions, let us turn aside a moment, to
give a passing glance at this very material subject.
'At the time when the Constitution was adopted, three classes of persons
were 'held to service' in the country--apprentices, redemptioners, and
slaves. The two first classes were by no means insignificant in 1789,
and the redemptioners were rapidly increasing in numbers. In that day it
looked as if this speculative importation of laborers from Europe was to
form a material part of the domestic policy of the Northern States. Now
the negro is a human being, as well as an apprentice or a redemptioner,
though the Constitution does not consider him as the equal of either.
It is a great mistake to suppose that the Constitution of the United
States, as it now exists, recognizes slavery in any manner whatever,
unless it be to mark it as an interest that has less than the common
claim to the ordinary rights of humanity. In the apportionment, or
representation clause, the redemptioner and the apprentice counts each
as a man, whereas five slaves are enumerated as only three free men. The
free black is counted as a man, in all particulars, and is represented
as such, but his fellow in slavery has only three fifths of his
political value.'
'THE LOVE OF UNION.
'The attachment to the Union is very strong and general throughout the
whole of this vast country, and it is only necessary to sound the tocsin
to bring to its maintenance a phalanx equal to uphold its standard
against the assaults of any enemies. The impossibility of the
Northwestern States consenting that the mouth of the Mississippi should
be held by a foreign power, is in itself a guarantee of the long
existence of the present political ties. Then, the increasing and
overshadowing power of the nation is of a character so vast, so
exciting, so attractive, so well adapted to carry with it popular
impulses, that men become proud of the name of American, and feel
unwilling to throw away the distinction for any of the minor
considerations of local policy. Every man sees and feels that a state is
rapidly advancing to maturity which must reduce the pretensions of even
ancient Rome to supremacy, to a secondary place in the estimation of
mankind. A century will unquestionably place the United States of
America prominently at the head of civilized nations, unless their
people throw away their advantages by their own mistakes--the only real
danger they have to apprehend: and the mind clings to this hope with a
buoyancy and fondness that are becoming profoundly national. We have a
thousand weaknesses, and make many blunders, beyond a doubt, as a
people; but where shall we turn to find a parallel to our progress, our
energy, and increasing power? That which it has required centuries, in
other regions, to effect, is here accomplished in a single life; and the
student in history finds the results of all his studies crowded, as it
might be, into the incidents of the day.'
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 7: The stereotype plates of _The Spirit of the Fair_, in which
the Cooper articles originally appeared, are owned by Mr. Trow. Bound
volumes of these interesting papers, containing a record of days so full
of patriotism, charity, and incident, may be obtained on application to
him. We give this piece of information to our readers, not doubting that
many of them will be glad to avail themselves of the opportunity to
possess them--an opportunity which may soon pass away in the rapid
development of present events.--EDITOR CONTINENTAL.]
APHORISMS.--NO. VIII.
'We shall never know much while we have so many books.'
Such was my thought, many years ago; and such does all my observation
and experience still confirm. Knowledges we may have, even if we do read
much: but not much knowledge.
But, some will ask, if one has true ideas, though derived from
others--is not that knowledge? Yes, if he has ideas: but propositions
expressing them are not enough: one may have many of these, and know but
little. For example, let us suppose Locke right about the mind's coming
into existence as a sheet of white paper--a man may receive this, and
yet not know it. See how easily this may be tested. White paper will
receive any impression you please: can the human mind receive the
impression that two and two are five, or that a part is equal to the
whole? Locke could have answered this, and seemed to save his theory.
The borrower from Locke cannot.
THE RESURRECTION FLOWER.
If a traveller in Egypt were to bow before the Sphynx, and receive a nod
in return, he could scarcely be more surprised than I was to-day, upon
seeing a little, dried-up thing--the remains of what had once bloomed
and faded ''mid beleaguering sands'--spring into life and beauty before
my very eyes. All the Abbott Collection contains nothing more rare or
curious. Old, perhaps, as Cheops, and apparently as sound asleep, it is
startled at the touch of water, and, stretching forth its tiny petals,
wakes into life as brightly as a new-born flower.
No one could believe, upon looking at this little ball, hanging on its
fragile stem, and resembling both in color and shape a shrunken
poppy-head, or some of the acorn tribe, what magical results could arise
from merely wetting its surface--yet so it is.
Sleeping, but not dead, the flower is aroused by being for an instant
immersed in water, and then supported in an upright position. Soon the
upper fibres begin to stir. Slowly, yet visibly, they unfold, until,
with petals thrown back in equidistant order, it assumes the appearance
of a beautifully radiated, starry flower, not unlike some of the Asters
in form. Resting a moment, it suddenly, as though inspired by some new
impulse, throws its very heart to the daylight, curving back its petals
farther still, and disclosing beauties undreamed of even in the
loveliness of its first awakening.
To say that, in general effect, its appearance resembles the
passion-flower is to give but a poor description, and yet one searches
in vain for a more fitting comparison. Lacking entirely the strong
contrasts in color of the latter, it yet wears a halo of its own, unlike
any other in the whole range of floral effects.
When viewed through a powerful lens, the heart of the flower, which, to
the naked eye, lies flooded in a warm, colorless light, assumes the most
exquisite iridescent hues, far more beautiful than the defined tints of
the passion-flower. Melting to the eye in its juiciness and delicacy,
yet firm in its pure outline and rounded finish, it bears the same
relation to that chosen type of the great Suffering, that peace bears to
passion, or that promise bears to prayer.
Soon the aspect of the flower changes. As though over the well-spring of
its eternal life hangs some ruthless power forcing it back into
darkness, before an hour has passed, we can see that its newly-found
vigor is fading away. The pulsing light at its heart grows fainter and
fainter--slowly the petals raise themselves, to drop wearily side by
side upon its bosom--and finally, its beauty vanished, its strength
exhausted, it hangs heavy and brown upon its stem, waiting for the touch
that alone can waken it again.
This rare botanical wonder, blooming one moment before admiring eyes,
and next lying dried and shrivelled in a tomb-like box, is not without
its legendary interest, though the odor of its oriental history has, by
this time, been nearly blown away by that sharp simoom of investigation,
which has already whirled so many pretty fables and theories into
oblivion.
The story of the flower, as given in 1856, by the late Dr. Deck, the
naturalist, is as follows:
While travelling on a professional tour in Upper Egypt, eight years
before, engaged in exploring for some lost emerald and copper mines, he
chanced to render medical service to an Arab attached to his party. In
gratitude, the child of the desert formally presented to him this
now-called 'Resurrection Flower,' at the same time enjoining upon him
never to part with it. Like the fabled gift of the Egyptian, it was
supposed to have 'magic in the web of it.' The doctor was solemnly
assured by the Arab, and others of his race, that it had been taken ten
years before from the breast of an Egyptian mummy, a high priestess, and
was deemed a great rarity; that it would never decay if properly cared
for; that its possession through life would tend to revive hope in
adversity, and, if buried with its owner, would ensure for him hereafter
all the enjoyments of the Seventh Heaven of Mahomet. When presented,
this flower was one of two hanging upon the same stem. Dr. Deck
carefully preserved one; the twin specimen he presented to Baron
Humboldt, who acknowledged it to be the greatest floral wonder he had
yet seen, and the only one of its kind he had met with in the course of
his extensive travels.
For years the doctor carried his treasure with him everywhere, prizing
it for its intrinsic qualities, and invariably awakening the deepest
interest whenever he chanced to display its wondrous powers. During the
remainder of his life he caused the flower to open more than one
thousand times, without producing any diminution of its extraordinary
property, or any injury to it whatever. It is proper to state that,
though closely examined by some of the most eminent naturalists, both at
home and abroad, no positive position in the botanical kingdom was ever
assigned to it--indeed to this day it remains a waif in the floral
world, none having determined under what classification it belongs.
I need not say that the doctor, while gratefully accepting the gift of
his Arab friend, quietly rejected the accompanying superstitions.
Subsequent trials and proofs positive confirmed his doubts of its
hope-inspiring power, while his inclination and good old prejudices
tempted him to forego the delights of the Seventh Heaven by bequeathing
his treasure to his friend and pupil, Dr. C. J. Eames, of New York, than
whom none could regard it with a truer appreciation, or recognize its
exquisite perfection with a feeling nearer akin to veneration.
It has now been in the possession of Dr. Eames for several years, and
has, in the mean time, been unfolded many hundred times, still without
any deterioration of its mysterious power. It opens as fairly and
freshly to-day, as when, under Egyptian skies, more than sixteen years
ago, its delicate fibres, heavy with the dust of ages, quivered into a
new life before the astonished eyes of Dr. Deck.
Well-named as, in some respects, it seems to be, this marvel of the
botanical world has already given rise to not a few discussions among
the scientific and curious, some earnestly proclaiming its right to the
title of 'Resurrection Flower,' and others denying that it is a flower
at all. Indeed, in its unfolded state, its resemblance to a flattened
poppy-head, and other seed vessels, offers strong argument in favor of
the latter opinion. In alluding to it, one uses the term 'flower' with
decided 'mental reservation'--beautiful flower, as it seems to be when
opened--and speaks of its 'petals' with a deprecating glance at
imaginary hosts of irate botanists. Some, it is true, still insist that
it is a _bona fide_ flower; but Dr. Deck himself inclined to the belief
that it was the pericarp or seed vessel of some desert shrub, rare
indeed, as few or none like it have appeared in centuries, yet not
without its analogies in the vegetable world.
The famous Rose of Jericho (not that mentioned in the Apocrypha, or the
very common kind peculiar to the far East, but that long-lost variety
prized by the Crusaders as a holy emblem of their zeal and pilgrimage)
was, in all probability, a member of the same genus to which the
'Resurrection Flower' belongs. This opinion is supported by the fact
that resemblances of the 'flower,' both open and closed, are sculptured
upon some of the tombs of the Crusaders--two, in the Temple Church of
London, and several in the Cathedrals of Bayeux and Rouen in Normandy,
where lie some of the most renowned followers of Peter the Hermit.
A brother of Dr. Deck, engaged in antiquarian research in the island of
Malta, discovered the same device graven upon the knights' tombs, and
invariably on that portion of the shield, the 'dexter chief,' which was
considered the place of highest honor. This gentleman has also furnished
the following quotation from an old monkish manuscript, describing 'a
wonder obtained from Jerusalem by the holy men, and called by them the
'Star of Bethlehem,' as, if exposed to the moon on the eve of the
Epiphany, it would become wondrous fair to view, and like unto the star
of the Saviour; and with the first glory of the sun, it would return to
its lowliness.'
Doubtless the old chroniclers, had they lived in these days of evidence
and 'solid fact,' would have given some credit to the heavy dews
peculiar to moonlight nights, an exposure to which would assuredly have
produced all the effect of immersion upon the flower.
The fact of so close a representation of the 'Resurrection Flower' being
upon the tombs of the Crusaders, added to the circumstance that in his
Egyptian researches he had never met with any allusion to it, induced
Dr. Deck to discard the story of its Egyptian origin as untenable. 'I
have unwrapped many mummies myself,' he wrote, 'and have had
opportunities of being present at unrolling of others of all classes,
and have never discovered another Resurrection Flower, nor heard of any
one who had; and in the examination of hieroglyphics of every age and
variety, I never discovered anything bearing the remotest resemblance to
it. Those who are conversant with the wonderful features of the Egyptian
religion and priestcraft, will observe how eagerly they seized upon and
deified anything symbolical of their mysterious tenets, and transmitted
them to posterity, figured as hieroglyphics; and it is but natural to
presume that this homely-looking flower, with its halo, so typical of
glory and resurrection, would have ranked high in their mythology, if
it, and its properties, had been known to them. Moreover, an examination
of the elaborate works of Josephus, Herodotus, King, and Diodorus, so
full in their description of Egyptian mythology, has failed to elicit
any description or notice of it whatever.'
Nearly every one has read of the famous Rose of Jericho (_Anastatica
hierochontina_) or Holy Rose--a low, gray-leaved annual, utterly unlike
a rose, growing abundantly in the arid wastes of Egypt, and also
throughout Palestine and Barbary, and along the sandy coasts of the Red
Sea. One of the most curious of the cruciferous plants, it exhibits, in
a rare degree, a hygrometric action in its process of reproduction.
During the hot season it blooms freely, growing close to the ground,
bearing its leaves and blossoms upon its upper surface; when these fall
off, the stems become dry and ligneous, curving upward and inward until
the plant becomes a ball of twigs, containing its closed seed-vessels in
the centre, and held to the sand by a short fibreless root. In this
condition, it is readily freed by the winds, and blown across the
desert, until it reaches an oasis or the sea; when, yielding to the
'_Open Sesame_' of water, it uncloses, leaving nature to use its
jealously guarded treasures at her will.
The dried plant, if carefully preserved, retains for a long time its
hygrometric quality. When wet, it expands to its original form,
displaying florets (?) not unlike those of the elder, but larger,
closing again as soon as the moisture evaporates. Hence it is
reverenced in Syria as a holy emblem. The people call it _Kaf Maryam_,
or Mary's Flower, and many superstitions are held regarding it, one of
which is, that it first blossomed on the night on which our Saviour was
born. Growing everywhere, upon heaps of rubbish and roofs of old houses,
by the wayside, and almost under the very door-stones, it creeps into
the surroundings of the people, weaving its chains of white, yellow, or
purple flowers while sunshine lasts, and, when apparent decay overtakes
it, teaching its beautiful lesson of Life in Death. Who can cavil at the
thought which raises it to a symbol of that Eternal Love forever weaving
endless chains from heart to heart, no spot too lowly for its tendrils
to penetrate, or too dreary for its bloom.
Some specimens of the Anastatica have been carried to this country by
travellers. One, in the cabinet of Fisher Howe, Esq., of Brooklyn, and
brought by him from Jericho fourteen years ago, still retains its
remarkable habit; and another, older still, is in the possession of Dr.
Eames.
Among the plants which exhibit curious phases of hygrometric action
might be cited some of the Fig Marigolds (_Mesembryanthemum_); also the
Scaly Club Moss (_Lycopodium_). The latter, after being thoroughly
withered, will, if laid in water, gradually expand, turn green, and
assume the appearance of a thriving plant. When again dried, it becomes
a brown, shrunken mass, capable, however, of being revived _ad libitum_.
Some species of Fungi also exhibit a similar property--and all have
observed with what promptitude the various pine and larch cones cover
their seed in a storm, or even when it 'looks like rain.' I remember
being once not a little puzzled in trying to open a drawer that some
weeks before had been filled with damp pine cones. Upon becoming dry,
each individual had attempted a humble imitation of the genii in the
'Arabian Nights,' expanding to its fullest extent, only to be subjugated
by being cast again into the water.
Some of the Algæ exhibit properties similar to that of the Club Moss;
and a marine plant known as the Californian Rock-rose is still more
curious. Clinging closely to the rocks, and feeding upon some invisible
debris, or, like certain orchids, drawing its sustenance from the air
(for the rocks upon which it grows, sometimes are lifted far above the
water), it attains an enormous size, being in some instances as large as
a bushel basket. It is not without a certain jagged beauty of contour,
resembling, more than anything else, clusters of Arbor Vitæ branches cut
out of wet leather, and meeting in the centre. Once torn from its stony
bed, the Rock-rose curls up into an apparently tangled mass of network,
having the general outline of a rose, but it will at any time, upon
being immersed in water, assume its original appearance. I have seen a
fine specimen of this plant open and close, for the hundredth time,
years after it had been taken from the rock.
The Hygrometric Ground Star (_Geastrum hygrometricum_), found in many
portions of Europe, is well known; nearer home, we have a variety
(_Geastrum Saratogensis_) differing in some respects from its
transatlantic relative, which is of a warm brown color, and flourishes
in gravelly soil.
The American variety grows abundantly in the drifting sands of Saratoga
County, N. Y. It has no stem or root, excepting here and there a fine
capillary fibre by which it clings to the ground. When dry, it contracts
to a perfect sphere, is rolled by the wind across the sand, and
(according to the account given by Dr. Asa Fitch, who has had a specimen
in his possession for twenty years) shakes a few seeds from the orifice
at its summit at each revolution. This seed ball also possesses the
power of opening when moistened, changing its spherical form to that of
an open flower about two inches in diameter. When opened, it displays
eight elliptical divisions, resembling petals. These are white as snow
on the inside, and traversed by a network of small irregular cracks,
while their outer surface resembles kid leather, both in color and
texture.
The Ground Star differs in habit from the 'Resurrection Flower,' which
never yields its seed unless expanded by moisture (if Dr. Deck's theory
be correct), and is not nearly as intricate or beautiful in construction
as the oriental relic. Indeed, to this day, the 'Resurrection Flower,'
as one must call it for want of a better name, remains without a known
rival in the botanical world. From time to time, brief notices
concerning it have been published; and where writers, sometimes without
having seen the original, have claimed the knowledge or possession of
similar specimens, they have become convinced of their mistake on
personal inspection. Even the plants alluded to in a short account,
given eight years ago, in a leading New York periodical, as being the
same as the 'Resurrection Flower,' proved, on comparison by Dr. Eames,
to be entirely different.
Although it is by no means certain that the plant in Baron Humboldt's
collection, and that owned by Dr Eames, are the only individuals of
their kind in existence, the fact of their great rarity is well
established. As far as I have been able to ascertain, there is but one
'Resurrection Flower' in America.
That new plants might be obtained from this lonely representative of its
race few can doubt; but to this day the germs exposed so temptingly at
each awakening, have never been removed. Old as it is, it has never done
its work, the only seeds it has sown being those of inquiry and
adoration in the minds of all who have witnessed its marvellous powers.
Whether the pretty oriental tale of its origin be true or not--and it
requires an oriental faith to believe it in the face of contradictory
evidence--none can gaze upon that little emblem of 'Life in Death'--so
homely and frail, and yet so beautiful and so eternal--without peculiar
emotion.
What drooping, weary soul, parched with the dust of earth, but sometimes
longs to be forever steeped in that great Love in which it may expand
and bloom--casting its treasures upon Heavenly soil,--and glowing
evermore with the radiance of the Awakening.
RECOGNITION.
Now in the chambers of my heart is day,
And form and order. A most sacred guest
Is come therein, and at his high behest
Beauty and Light, who his calm glance obey,
Flew to prepare them for his regal sway.
Now solitude I seek, which once, possessed,
I fled; now, solitude to me is blessed,
Wherein I hearken Love's mysterious lay,
And hold with thee communion in my heart.
That thou art beautiful, thou who art mine--
That with thy beauty, Beauty's soul divine
Has filled my soul, I muse upon apart.
In the blue dome of Heaven's eternity,
Rising I seem upborne by thoughts of thee.
THE SEVEN-HUNDREDTH BIRTHDAY OF A GERMAN CAPITAL.
Most of our countrymen look upon Germany as all one. The varieties of
outlandish customs, costumes, and dialects observed among our emigrant
population from that land are little noticed, and never regarded as
marking districts of the fatherland from which they severally sprung.
One of the most fruitful themes of pleasant humor and biting sarcasm in
our periodical literature and in the popular mouth, is the ignorance
betrayed by enlightened foreigners, and especially foreign journalists,
in regard to the geography of our country; as though America were, _par
excellence_, THE land, and on whatever other subject the world might,
without meriting our contempt, fail to inform itself, our country, not
only in its glorious history and more glorious destiny, but in the
minuter details of the picture, must be understood and acknowledged.
This charge of ignorance is not unfounded. Often have I been not a
little amused when an intelligent German has inquired of me as a New
Yorker, with the sure hope of news from his friend in Panama, or another
to learn how he might collect a debt from a merchant at Valparaiso, or a
third to be informed why he received no answers to letters addressed to
friends in Cuba, and so on. But if the tables were turned upon us, there
is no point on which we should be found open to a more fearful
retribution than on this. I know an American gentleman of education--and
he told me the story himself--who applied at Washington for letters to
our diplomatic representatives in Europe, and who had sufficiently
informed himself to be on the point of sailing for several years'
residence abroad, and still, when letters were handed him for our
consul-general at Frankfort and our minister in Prussia, asked, with no
little concern, whether a letter to our minister in _Germany_ could not
be given him. I knew a correspondent of a New York journal fearfully to
scourge a distinguished German for his ignorance of American geography.
The same person, after months of residence in Munich, having about
exhausted the resources which it offered him for his correspondence,
gave a somewhat detailed account of the affairs of Greece, in which he
referred to King Otho as _brother_ of King Lewis of Bavaria, although
almost any peasant could have told him that the latter was _father_ to
the former.
Indeed, there is nothing strange about this, unless it be that any one
should deem himself quite above the class of blunders which he
satirizes. It is less to be wondered at that one should continue to hurl
his satiric javelins at those who commit the same class of errors with
himself, since he seldom becomes aware of his own ridiculous mistakes.
In regard to Germany, our people know but its grand divisions and its
large cities; and of its people among us but their exterior
distinctions, and mainly those offered to the eye, arrest attention. We
meet them as servants or employés in kitchens, shops, and gardens, and
on farms, or as neighbors, competitors, or associates in business. At
evening we separate, and they go to their own domestic or social
circles, where alone the native character speaks itself freely forth in
the native language and dialect. There only the homebred wit and humor
freely flow and flash. There the half-forgotten legends and
superstitions, the utterance of which to other ears than those of their
own people is forbidden--perhaps by a slight sense of shame, perhaps by
the utter failure of language,--together with the pastimes and
adventures of their native villages or districts, are arrested in their
rapid progress to oblivion, as they are occasionally called forth to
amuse the dull hours or lighten the heavy ones of a home-sick life in a
foreign land. Could we but half enter into the hearts of the peasant
Germans who move among us, and are by some regarded as scarcely raised
in refinement and sensibility above the rank of the more polished
domestic animals of our own great and enlightened land, we should often
find them replete with the choicest elements of the truly epic, the
comic, and the tragic.
How seldom do the people of different lands and languages learn to
understand each other--become so well acquainted as to appreciate each
other's most engaging traits? The German emigrant seeks a home among us,
and desires to identify himself with us. The costume of his native
district is thrown off as soon as he needs a new garment, often much
sooner. His language is laid aside except for domestic use and certain
social and business purposes, as soon as he has a few words of ours.
These words serve the ends of business, and rarely does he ever learn
enough for any other purpose. The other parts of the man remain
concealed from our view. He is to us a pure utilitarian of the grossest
school. His pipe suspended from his mouth, his whole time given to his
shop, his farm, or his garden, and to certain amusements unknown to us,
he is deemed to vegetate much like the plants he grows, or to live a
life on the same level with that of the animal he feeds, incapable of
appreciating those higher and more refined pleasures to which we have
risen--in other words, the true type of dulness and coarseness. An
intelligent Welshman once told me that he could not talk religion in
English nor politics in Welsh. So with the Germans among us. Their
business and politics learn to put themselves into English, their
religious, domestic, and social being remains forever shut up in the
enclosure of their mother tongue, and from this we rashly judge that
what they express is all there is of them. We have never considered the
difficulty of transferring all the utterances of humanity from their
first and native mediums to foreign ones. It is easy to learn the daily
wants of life or the formal details of business in a new language. Here
words have a uniform sense. But the nice shades and turns of thought
which appear in the happiest and most delicate jets of wit and humor,
and which form the great staples of pleasant social intercourse, depend
upon those subtile discriminations in the sense of words which are
rarely acquired by foreigners. One may have all the words of a language
and not be able to understand them in sallies of wit. How nicely
adjusted then must be the scales which weigh out the innumerable and
delicate bits of pleasantry which give the charm to social life! The
words to relate the legends connected with the knights and castles of
chivalry, saints, witches, elves, spooks, and gypsies, the foreigners
among us never acquire, or at least never so as to have the ready and
delicate use of them in social life, until their foreign character has
become quite absorbed in the fully developed American, and the taste, if
not the material for picturing the customs and legends of the fatherland
are forever gone.
It is mainly North Germany with whose institutions we have become more
or less familiar through our newspaper literature, and the numbers of
students who have from time to time gone thither for educational
purposes. Some acquaintance has also been made with Baden and
Wirtemberg, in South Germany, as these principalities have a population
mainly Protestant; and Heidelberg, at least, has been a favorite resort
for American students. But the same is not true of Catholic South
Germany. Munich's collections and institutions of art--mainly the work
of the late and still living King Lewis I.--have, indeed, become
generally known. Mary Howitt, in her 'Art Student in Munich,' has given
us some graphic delineations of life there. The talented and witty
Baroness Tautphoens has done us still better service in her 'Initials'
and 'Quits,' in relation both to life in the capital and in the
mountains; yet the character, institutions, and customs of the people
remain an almost unexplored field to the American reader.
In the middle of the twelfth century Munich was still an insignificant
village on the Isar, and had not even been erected into a separate
parish. About this time Henry the Lion added to his duchy of Saxony,
that of Bavaria, and having destroyed the old town of Foehring, which
lay a little below the site of Munich on the other side of the river,
transferred to the latter place the market and the collection of the
customs, which had till then been held by the bishops of Freising with
the imperial consent. The emperor Frederic I., in the year 1158,
confirmed, against the remonstrances of Bishop Otho I., the doings of
Henry. The duke hastened to surround the village with a wall and moat to
afford protection to those who might choose to settle there, and in
twenty years it had become a city. But the duke fell into disgrace with
the emperor, and the latter revoked the rights he had granted; but this
was like taking back a slander which had already been circulated. The
effect had been produced. Munich was to become a capital.
Bishop Otho's successor would gladly have destroyed the infant city and
the bridge which had been the making of it. In consequence, however, of
his early death, this beneficent purpose toward his see of Freising
remained unexecuted. The next successor continued the same policy. He
built a castle with the design of seizing the trading trains which
should take the road to Munich, perhaps deeming this the best way of
magnifying his office as a leader in the church militant. But before he
could achieve his purpose of cutting off all supplies from the rival
town, and turning trade and tribute all to his own place, a new defender
of the rising city had sprung up in the house of Wittelsbocher--the same
which still reigns over the kingdom of Bavaria,--and the matter of the
feud was finally adjusted by the quiet surrender of the bridge and the
tolls to the city.
The imperial decree, therefore, of 1158, must be regarded as having laid
the foundation of Munich as a city, and accordingly the seven hundredth
anniversary of its founding was celebrated in the year 1858. I shall
place a notice of this _fête_ at the head of the list of those which
occurred during my residence in that capital.
It was a part of the plan that the ceremony of laying the foundation of
a new bridge over the Isar should be performed by the king. This was
deemed specially appropriate, because the springing up of the city had
depended upon a bridge over the river to draw thither the trade which
had gone to the old Freising. This occurred on Sunday, and I did not see
it. I never heard, however, but that his majesty acquitted himself as
well in this stone mason's work as he does in the affairs of court or
state--just as well, perhaps, as one of our more democratic Chief
Magistrates, accustomed to splitting rails or other kinds of manual
labor, would have done. I took a walk with my children at evening, and
met the long line of court carriages returning, followed by a procession
on foot, the archbishop, with some church dignitaries, walking under a
canopy and distributing, by a wave of the hand at each step of his
progress, his blessing to the crowds which thronged both sides of the
broad street. Some, perhaps, prized this more than we did, but I do not
suppose that there was anything in the nature of the blessing or in the
will of the benevolent prelate to turn it from our heretical heads.
The other parts of this celebration consisted in dinners, plays in the
theatres, a meeting at the _Rathhaus_, at which were read papers on the
development of Munich for the seven hundred years of its existence, and
a procession, the whole occupying about a week. I shall only notice
specially the procession, and in connection with it the art exhibition
for all Germany, which closed at the same time, having been in progress
for three months; for the two greatly contributed to each other.
The illustrated weekly, published at Stuttgart by the well-known
novelist Hacklaender, under the title of _Ueber Land und Meer_, refers
to these festivities in the following terms:
'Munich, the South German metropolis of art, was, during the
closing days of September, transformed into a festive city. The
German artists had assembled from all parts of the country, that
they might, within those walls, charmed by the genius of the muses,
wander through the halls in which the academy had collected the
best works of German art, and take counsel upon the common
interests, as they had formerly done at Bingen and Stuttgart. The
artists and the magistracy vied with each other in preparing happy
days for the visitors--an emulation which was crowned with the most
delightful results. The artists' festival, however, was but the
harbinger to the the city of the great seventh centennial birthday
festival of the Bavarian capital, which had been so long in
preparation, and was waited for with such impatience. Concerts and
theatres opened the festal series. Services in all the churches of
both confessions consecrated the coming days, and the laying of the
foundation of the new bridge over the Isar, leading to the
Maximilianeum, formed, historically, a monumental memorial for the
occasion. Favored by the fairest of weather, the city celebrated
the main festival on the 27th of September. It was a historical
procession, moved through all the principal streets of the city,
and caused departed centuries to pass in full life before the eyes
of the citizens and the vast assemblage of strangers there present.
It was no masquerade, but a true picture of the civilization of the
city, from its first appearance in history to the present day--'a
mirrored image,' says a chronicler of the festival, 'of times long
since gone by.
'The twelfth century opened the procession--representations of the
present time in science, art, and industry, as developed under the
reigns of Lewis and Maximilian, which have been so promotive of all
that is great, closed it up. But one voice was heard in regard to
the success of this festival.'
The plan was to let representatives of the people for this whole period
of seven hundred years pass before the eyes of the spectators in the
fashions and costumes of their respective ages, bearing the implements
or badges of their several guilds or professions. The preparation had
been begun months beforehand. Artists had been employed to sketch
designs. The best had been selected. The costumes were historical. We
see sometimes in every part of our country, costumes extemporized from
garrets for old folks' concerts and other like occasions, but generally
they do not correspond with each other, or with the performances. The
result is committed to accident. The actors wear what their meagre
wardrobes of the antique furnish. The wider the divergence from present
fashions the better. Chance may bring together the styles of a dozen
successive periods, and render the whole without coherence. In such an
exhibition our interest is felt simply in the grotesque. It shows us how
a countenance familiar to us is set off by a strange and outlandish
costume. It represents no history. Such was not this procession. Its
front had twelfth century costumes of peasants, burghers, and even the
ducal family. So down to the very day of the festival; for statues of
the present royal family on open cars closed up the long line. It did
not seem indeed quite right that the successive ages of the dead should
pass before us living, and the living age alone lifeless. In one part of
the procession was an imperial carriage of state drawn by six horses, a
man in livery leading each horse, with all the necessary footmen,
outriders, and outrunners. The whole was antiquity and novelty happily
combined. The costumes and insignia of all classes, with the tools and
implements of all handicrafts, from the day when Duke Henry and Bishop
Otho, seven hundred years before, had had their petty bickerings about
the tolls of a paltry village, down to the present day, the whole
transformed into a living panorama, and made to pass in about four hours
before the eye.
To set forth great things by small, a bridal pair remove from the East
and settle in our Western wilds. In a score of years they return to
their native place, wearing the very garments in which they had stood up
and been pronounced husband and wife. The picture is equal to a volume
of history and one of comedy, the two bound in one. But here, instead of
a score of _years_ we have a score of _ages_, reaching back to a period
farther beyond that great popular movement in which modern society had
its birth, than that is anterior to our own age. If all the costumes,
fashions, implements, and tools of the house, the shop, and the field,
insignia and liveries, from those of the first Dutch settlers of New
Amsterdam, down to those of New York's belles, beaux, and beggars of the
present day, should be made to pass in review before us, how absurdly
grotesque would be the scene! That veritable 'History of New York from
the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty, by Diedrick
Knickerbocker,' has perhaps shaken as many sides and helped digest as
many dinners as almost any book since Cervantes gave the world his
account of the adventures of his knight Don Quixote, and yet this great
historical work hints but a part of that picture, though doubtless
greatly improved by the author's delicate touches, which would pass
before us in a procession illustrating two centuries of New York's
history. Using such hints, the reader may partially judge of the
impression made by this setting forth of seven centuries of a capital of
Central Europe, and yet one can hardly tell, without the trial, whether
he would rather smile at the grotesqueness of the pageant, or be lost in
the profound contemplation of the magnificent march of history reënacted
in this drama.
This procession spoke but to the eye. It was but a tableau, dumb, though
in its way eloquent. It detailed no actions; it only hinted them. It
simply presented the men who acted, clad in the outward garb, and
bearing the tools and weapons of their day. The cut of a garment, the
form of a helmet or halberd, a saddle or a semitar, a hoe or a hatchet,
or the cut of the hair or the beard, may speak of the heart and soul,
only, however, by distant hints. But just as the representation is less
distinct and detailed, is it a mightier lever for imagination to use in
raising again to life centuries which had long slept in the dust. The
superstructure of history, indeed, which we should rear upon such a
basis, would be wide of the truth on one side, just as the narratives
and philosophical disquisitions which come to us under that name are on
the other. History generally relates those things in which all ages have
been most alike--the same which have 'been from the beginning and ever
shall be'--the intrigues of courts and of diplomacy--varied mainly by
the influence of the religion of the Bible, as at first persecuted, then
rising by degrees to a rank either with or above the state, and becoming
a persecuting power, and then finally modifying and softening down the
native rudeness of the human race, until mutual and universal tolerance
is the result; court life, diplomacy, and war, however, remaining and
still to remain the perpetual subjects of historical composition. But
between this elevated range and the humble one of burghers' tools and
costumes, lies a boundless field of aspect, variegated with all the
forms which checker social and domestic life. Oh!--thought a little
group of American spectators occupying a room near the corner of Ludwig
and Theresien streets--could we but rend the veil of time which conceals
Munich's seven hundred years of burgher and peasant life, how odd, how
rude a scene would present itself! The reader's fancy may make the
attempt. I will aid a little if I can, and there was indeed some
material furnished in addresses prepared for that occasion, and in some
other papers which have come into my hands.
The people of that little village on the banks of the Isar were but the
owners and tillers of the barren soil. Nearly a century (1238) after
Henry the Lion had surrounded it with walls, and a local magistracy had
been chosen; when two parishes--those of St. Peter and St. Mary--had
been already long established, we find a schoolmaster signing, doubtless
by virtue of his office, a certificate of the freedom of a certain
monastery from the city customs. That the school teacher must, _ex
officio_, sign such papers, spoke volumes. How few could have had the
learning, for it must indeed be done in Latin. And then the history of
the city runs nearly a century back of this date. What was the burgher
life of that first century of Munich's history? It is but the faintest
echo that answers. Schools there were at that day and long before. Nay,
the cloister schools were already in decay; but more than three hundred
years were yet to elapse before the rise of the Jesuit schools. Three
hundred years! How can we, of this age of steam, estimate what was
slowly revolving in society in those years? In 1271 we find an order of
the bishop of Freising requiring the parish rector to have a school in
each parish of the city; half a century later than this we meet
documentary evidence that school teaching had assumed a rank with other
worldly occupations, and was no longer subject to the rector of the
parish. If I could but set the reader down in a school room of that day,
I might forego any attempt to portray the times; but, alas! I cannot. He
would, however, doubtless see there groups of boys--for I half suspect
that this was before girls had generally developed the capability of
learning--the faces and garments clean or smutty, showing the grade of
social progress which had been gained, for we may presume that the use
of soap and water had been to some extent introduced, and if so, I have
erred again, for the dirty and the ragged did not go to school. These
could do without education. We should see, too, the beaming or the dull
and leaden eye--if, indeed, the eye spoke then as now--proclaiming the
master's success or failure. And then the schoolmaster, the chief figure
in the group, would be found to have the _otium cum dignitate_, and
especially the former, in a higher sense than is now known. And what was
the staple information which circulated among the people? Of this we
know more. It was made up of adventures of knights, miracles wrought by
the host, by crucifixes and Madonnas, and apparitions of saints, leading
some emperor or prince to found a church or monastery--a kind of history
which few churches or other religious institutions want. If there was
less of life in the humanity of that age than we have at present, there
was as much more in other things; for even those holy pictures and
statues could move their eyes and other parts. They found various ways
of expressing approbation of the pious, and frowning upon scoffers.
Crucifixes and Madonnas, carried by freshets over barren fields, brought
fertility. The devil, too, figured more largely in the narratives of
days before printed books formed the basis of education. He generally
appeared in the persons of giants and witches, which latter were his
agents by special contract. Their freaks had all shades of enormity,
from the slight teasing of the housewife in her baking and churning to
the peril of life and limb and endless perdition. The devil sometimes
coming in one of these forms endangered the lives of the quiet people of
the city by formally dismissing the watch between the hours of eleven
and twelve o'clock at night. So hundreds of things which he has become
too genteel in our day to practise.
The founding of the city was near the close of that great movement known
as the crusades. What a world of material these furnished to be used in
popular education! The feats of knights, instead of assuming distinct
forms and being stereotyped and told to them in books, were surrendered
to the popular mouth for preservation and propagation. Saints, angels,
and demons attached themselves from time to time to these circulating
myths. Original characters often dropped out, and the discrimination of
the wisest believer in the real and ideal, became confused. Then came
the period of the Hussite war. This gave rise to many a miracle of
divine judgment. The Bohemian mocker of the holy mass, or of some
wonder-working statue of the Virgin, is pursued with divine vengeance.
The Jews--how suggestive the name, in the history of mediæval Europe, of
mystery, miracle, and murder!--were early allowed to settle in Munich.
They were assigned to a particular street. In the year 1285 a story was
started--it had been long stereotyped, and editions of it circulated in
every part of Christendom--of the murder of a Christian child. A
persecution of the Jews was the result--one hundred and forty were
burned in their own houses--and the poor Israelites must doubtless
suffer without redress, although many of them were then, as they now
are, bankers and brokers to the spiritual and temporal lords. Not far
from the same time the ducal mint was destroyed, because the people were
enraged to find the metal in their coin growing alarmingly less. For
this the city must pay a fine.
From our first knowledge of this town it continued gradually, but very
slowly, to advance in intelligence--we should rather say from century to
century than from year to year; for during this period progress was too
slow to be perceptible, unless the observation were verified by the
pillars erected to mark the boundary lines between successive centuries.
The inquirer into the past often sighs out the wish that art had found a
way to transmit full impressions of all departed generations to the
latest living one. Perhaps he prudently limits the desired favor to
himself, otherwise the wish would not be wise; its realization would
place every lazy observer upon the same level with the studious
investigator. The cumbrous details, too, of sixty centuries piled upon
one mind would crush it, unless human nature were a very different thing
from that which we now behold. It is in accordance with a wise plan of
Providence that the deeds of past ages should perish with them, except
the few needed to cast their gleam of light upon the world's future
pathway. We are made capable of rescuing just enough for the highest
purposes of life, not enough to overwhelm and burden us in our march
toward the goal before us. It is thought by some that the point and
finish of the ancient Greek authors, as compared with the moderns, is
attributable to the fact that they were less perplexed with accumulated
lore and the multiplication of books and subjects of study. Their minds
were not subject to the dissipating effects of large libraries, and
daily newspapers with telegraphs from Asia, Africa, and Hesperia. I
shall not discuss this question. The amount of information handed down
from past ages even _now_ is but as the spray which rises above the
ocean's surface to the vast depths which lie below. The historical
fossils of those ages are therefore left to exercise the genius of the
Cuviers of historical inquiry. As that naturalist could, from a single
bone of an extinct animal species, make up and describe the animal, so
have inquirers into the past succeeded in picturing a departed age from
the few relics left of it. Hence we are treated occasionally with such
agreeable surprises in the march of history as the discovery of Pompeii,
Herculaneum, and Nineveh. The genius of our Wincklemanns, Champollions,
Humboldts, and Layards has found a worthy field. Such days as that I am
attempting to describe, representing seven centuries of a modern capital
before the admiring eyes of the present generation of its people, become
possible. Instead of the monotony of a perpetual observation, we have
the charm of alternate lulls and surprises.
This picture has a further likeness to the naturalist's description made
from the fossils of extinct genera of animals. In the latter the animal
is made to stand before us. We have the data necessary to infer his
habits. But we see him not perfect in his wilderness home of unnumbered
ages past. We see him not the pursuer or the pursued; we hear not the
fierce growls or the plaintive note of alarm or distress. These we must
imagine. So, too, the slowly and peacefully moving train which passes
our windows, setting forth the sleeping centuries of this city. There is
the emperor in state--dukes in ducal magnificence--knights in armor with
horses richly and fancifully caparisoned--citizens in the dress of their
times--the various mechanics' and traders' guilds, with their
implements, their badges and their banners, with priests thickly
scattered through the whole line, which is ever changing as the
representatives of one age succeed those of another. The whole is calm
and quiet. The fierce contests, the angry broils, private and
public--now throwing the whole city into a ferment of innocent alarm,
now deluging its streets with blood--the rage of plagues, sealing up the
sources of human activity, and causing the stillness of the grave to
settle over the scene--all these we must supply; and surely the
thoughtful mind is busy in doing this as it contemplates the passing
train. We conceive rival claimants for the ducal throne, contending,
regardless of dying counsel, until death again settles what death had
thrown open to contest. Everything which has ever transpired on the
theatre of the world's great empires, may be conceived as enacted on
this narrower stage. The difference is less in talents and prowess than
in the extent of the field and the numbers of actors.
From the period of the Reformation down we can form the picture with
more distinctness. Seehofen, son of a citizen of Munich, while a student
at Wittenberg, received Luther's doctrine, and through him many of his
townsmen. The most learned and able opponent whom the Reformer had to
encounter was John Eck, chancellor of the Bavarian University of
Ingolstadt--one of the most renowned at that day in Europe--which, by
removal to the capital, has now become the University of Munich. In 1522
Duke William, of Bavaria, issued an edict forbidding any of his people
to receive the reformed doctrine. Bavaria, therefore, remained Catholic,
and Munich became the headquarters of German Catholicism. The electoral
duke, Maximilian, of Bavaria, was head of the Catholic league which
carried on the 'Thirty Years' War' against the Protestants under
Gustavus Adolphus, king of Sweden, in the early part of the seventeenth
century. The city is full of sayings derived from this whole period,
such as to leave us no ground to wonder that few Catholics are inclined
to become Protestants. The only Protestant church in the city was built
within the last thirty years. It is but a few years since the house was
still shown in Scudlinger street, in which Luther, in his flight from
Augsburg, whither he had been called to answer for his teaching before
Cardinal di Vio in 1518,[8] stopped, his horse all in a foam, to take a
drink, and in his hurry forgot to pay for the piece of sausage which he
ate. In the market place was a likeness of Luther and his 'Katherl.'[9]
There are also numerous derisive pictures, such as the Reformer riding
upon a swine, with a sausage in his hand, which, however, all originated
in the mockery of the Jews, who were afterward compelled to surrender
some of them to the leading spirit of the Reformation. At Saurloch, a
little distance south of Munich, there were still, in 1840, to be seen
pictures of Luther and his wife in a group made up of chimney sweeps,
buffoons, and many others of the class. As this age passed before the
eyes of the spectators, they would doubtless give it new life by
attributing to it the spirit exemplified in these choice and tasteful
pictures and sayings, amusing at this day, doubtless, to both parties.
The period of the 'Thirty Years' War' and the visit to Munich of
Gustavus Adolphus has left more sayings and monuments, and thus do more
honor to the people. After the Catholic victory near Prague, in 1620,
the elector celebrated a public entry into the city amid the jubilations
of the people and the Jesuits. A pillar was erected in remembrance of
the victory, and dedicated, eighteen years afterward, to the Virgin, in
accordance with a vow. The city was also variously adorned. The
rejoicing was somewhat premature. In 1632 the duchess and ducal family
had to remove to Salzburg for safety, whither they carried with them the
bones of St. Benno, the patron saint of the city, and other valuables.
The king of Sweden entered the walls under a promise, which he had made
in consideration of three hundred thousand florins, to be paid to him by
the people, to secure them against fire, sword, and plunder. Ladies
freely gave up their precious ornaments to make up the amount. But they
failed. The conqueror took forty-two priests of the religious orders,
and twenty respectable citizens, as hostages for the payment. These
wandered around with his camp for three years, and then all returned
except four, who died during the time. The traditions of the people give
the king credit for having strictly abstained from plunder, and executed
the only man who transgressed his rule, although the citizens failed on
their part. How beautifully the brilliant and the glorious mingle with
the sad and the sombre in the picture which we form of this age as the
passing train brings it before our minds! How religion, variously tinged
with the sable hues of superstition, wrought upon that age! The Swedish
king, the moment victory turns in his favor, dropping upon his knees in
the midst of the dead and the dying, the clouds of smoke and dust as yet
unsettled, pours out his soul in fervent prayer and thanksgiving.[10] He
but represents his army and his age. The Catholic army are not less
devout in their way. Germany is full of monuments and sayings of this
period. Those of Munich are of the Catholic side. There stands in a
public square an equestrian statue of colossal size, in bronze, of the
elector Maximilian, head of the Catholic League--his pillar to the
Virgin still stands--and the great general of the League, Count Tilley,
represented in bronze, is among the prominent objects viewed by the
visitor to this capital. On the other hand, the greatest organization in
Europe for the aid of Protestants in Catholic lands, having branches
everywhere, bears the name of Gustavus Adolphus. Let the reader then
conceive the visions which flit through the minds of the spectators as
this age passes in review before them.
But here I shall close this part of the picture. The description of the
city as it now exists belongs in other connections. It has been
suggested, as greatly adding to the interest of this birthday festival
of the capital, that it concurred in time with the exhibition of the art
of all Germany in the Crystal Palace. Although the two had no natural
connection, yet they became so intertwined in fact as not easily to be
separated. I shall therefore just touch upon the art display.
Works of art are dry subjects of description, and that too just in the
proportion of their exquisiteness to behold. Things made for the eye
must be presented to the eye. Works of a coarse and comic nature can,
indeed, be described so as to produce their effect. Here, for instance,
is a railroad-station man. Such in Bavaria, dressed in their quaint
little red coats, must stand with the hand to the hat as if in token of
profound respect for the train while it passes. This one, when lathered
and half shaved, was suddenly called by the train, and in this
predicament he stands while it passes. The best new work in the
exhibition was one in water colors by Professor Schwind, of Munich,
setting forth the popular German myth of the seven ravens. It sold to a
prince for seven thousand florins. I know better than to attempt a
description. The 'Raising of Jairus' Daughter,' a picture sent on by the
king of Prussia, gave the best impression I have ever had of life once
departed, and now suddenly beginning again to quiver on the lip and
gleam in the eye; or as Willis has it:
'And suddenly a flush
Shot o'er her forehead and along her lips,
And through her cheek the rallied color ran;
And the still outline of her graceful form
Stirred in the linen vesture;'
thus changing the sadness of the family assembled round the couch into a
lustre sympathetic with that of her own reopened eyes.
These specimens have been given to show that such subjects are incapable
of description. The exhibition continued from June to October, and the
collection was so extensive that a shorter period would have been
scarcely sufficient for the study of works exhibited. During this time
the characteristic enthusiasm and jealousies of the artists were
variously exemplified. The delightful hours spent in walking through
these halls will be among my latest remembrances.
This whole festive period culminated with the closing days of September.
The city had been unusually full all summer, but as its great birthday
festival approached, the crowds thickened, until its capacity for
lodging room had been transcended. All parts of Germany were
represented, nor did delegates from the rest of the civilized world
fail.
The question naturally arises, whether New York, Boston, or Philadelphia
has a history which would appear well in such a drama! Although our
history extends back over little more than one fourth of the period
occupied by that of Munich, it might afford this material. The annals of
public events would be found preserved with great fulness and
distinctness--the archives of city and state councils and of the
churches would supply the needed facts--but who could furnish the
fashions, tools, and implements of each successive age from that of the
Pilgrim fathers to that of the great rebellion? Who would perform the
labor of research necessary to ascertain what they were? Where is the
American court, supported at an expense of several millions per annum,
to preserve all these in collections, or to get them up for court
theatres? Who would pay for making all these for a procession of twenty
thousand persons, with all the necessary horses and carriages? And
surely, if we could not feel the confidence that everything was
historical, all our interest in the display would be gone. I am
apprehensive that we shall be obliged to leave such exhibitions to those
countries which have hereditary heads, and, making a virtue of
necessity, console ourselves with the thought that we have something
better.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 8: Luther was not in Munich at that time, if indeed he ever
was.]
[Footnote 9: Catherine Bora, Luther's wife.]
[Footnote 10: _Vide_ Schiller's 'Geschichte des dreisigjährigen
Krieges.']
THE DANISH SAILOR.
Far by the Baltic shore,
Where storied Elsinore
Rears its dark walls, invincible to time;
Where yet Horatio walks,
And with Marcellus talks,
And Hamlet dreams soliloquy sublime;
Though forms of Old Romance,
Mail-clad, with shield and lance,
Are laid in 'fair Ophelia's' watery tomb,
Still, passion rules her hour,
Love, Hate, Revenge, have power,
And hearts, in Elsinore, know joy and gloom.
* * * * *
Grouped round a massy gun
Black sleeping in the sun,
The belted gunners list to many a tale
Told by grim Jarl, the tar,
Old Danish dog of war,
Of his young days in battle and in gale.
The medal at his breast,
The single-sleeved blue vest,
His thin, white hair, tossed by the Norway breeze,
His knotted, horny hand,
And wrinkled face, dark tanned,
Tell of the times when Nelson sailed the seas.
* * * * *
Steam-winged, upon the tides
A gallant vessel glides,
Two royal flags float blended at her fore,
Gay convoyed by a fleet,
Whose answering guns repeat
The joyous 'God speeds' thundered from the shore.
'Look, comrades! there she goes,
Old Denmark's Royal Rose,
Plucked but to wither on a foreign strand;
Can Copenhagen's dames
Forget their country's shames--
Her sons, unblushing, clasp a British hand?
'Since that dark day of shame
Which blends with Nelson's fame,
When the prince of all the land led us on,
I little thought to see
Our noblest bend the knee
To any English queen, or her son.
'What the fate of battle gave
To our victor on the wave,
Was as nothing to the bitter, conscious sting,
That our haughty island foe
Struck a sudden, traitor blow,
In the blessed peace of God and the king.
'Ay, you were not yet born
On that cursed April morn,
When they sprang like red wolves on their prey,
And our princeliest and best
By our humblest lay at rest,
In the heart's blood of Denmark, on that day.
'And now, their lady queen,
O'er our martyrs' graves between,
Stoops to cull our cherished bud for her heir,
And the servile, fickle crowd
Shout their shameless joy aloud,
All but one old crippled tar--_who was there_!
'Till the memory shall fail
Of that treach'rous, bloody tale,
Or the grief, and the rage, and the wrong,
Shall enforce atonement due,
On some Danish Waterloo,
To be chanted by our countrymen in song,
'I will keep my love and truth
For the Denmark of my youth,
Nor clasp hands with her enemies alive;
Ay, I'd train this very gun
On that British prince and son,
Who comes _here_, in his arrogance, to wive.
'When I gave my good right arm,
And my blood was spouting warm
O'er my dying brother's face, as we lay,
I played a better part,
I bore a prouder heart,
Than the proudest in that pageant bears to-day.
* * * * *
'--There floats the Royal Bride,
On that unreturning tide;--
By the blood of all the sea-kings of yore,
'Twere better for her fame,
That Denmark sunk her shame
Where the maelstrom might drown it in his roar!'
* * * * *
There was silence for a space,
As they gazed upon his face,
Dark with grief, and with passion overwrought;
When out spoke a foreign tongue,
That gunner-group among:
'Neow old Jarl ses the thing he hed'nt ought.
'This idee of keeping mad
Half a cent'ry, is too bad;
'Tis onchristian, and poor policy beside;
For they say that the young man
Has the 'brass to buy the pan,'
And _her_ folks are putty sure that he'll _provide_.'
* * * * *
The old seaman's scornful eye
Glanced mute, but stern reply,
And the Yankee vowed and swore to me, the bard,
That old Jarl, that very night,
By the northern moon's cold light,
Talked with Hamlet's father's ghost in the back yard.
AMERICAN CIVILIZATION.
There are two opposite standpoints from which American civilization will
be regarded both by the present and future generations; opposite both in
respect to the views they give of American society and the judgment to
be formed thereon: so opposing, in fact, that they must ever give rise
to conflicting opinions, which can only be reconciled in individual
instances by the actual occurrence of great events, and never when
dealing with generalities. These two far distant points of view are the
foreign and the native. We are, more perhaps than any other nation in
existence, a peculiar people. Our institutions are new and in most
respects original, and cannot be judged by the experience of other
nations. Our manner of life and modes of thought--all our ideas of
individual and national progress, are _sui generis_, and our experience,
both social and political, as based upon those ideas, has been similar
to that of no other race which history records. Hence to the foreign
historian or philosopher our inner life is a sealed book; he can neither
understand the hidden springs of action which govern all the movements
of our body politic, nor appreciate the motives or the aspirations of
the American mind: in a word, he can never be imbued with the _spirit_
of our intellectual and moral life, which alone can give the key-note to
prophecy, the pitch and tone to true and impartial history. And he who,
reasoning from the few _à priori_ truths of human nature, or from those
characteristics which the American mind possesses in common with that of
the Old World, shall pretend to treat of our systems and our
intellectual life, or to map out our future destiny, will be as much at
fault as the historian of a thousand years ago who should attempt to
portray the events of this our day and generation. The historian of
American civilization must not only be among us, but _of_ us--one who is
able not only to identify his material interests with those of the great
American people, but also to partake of our moral habitudes, to be
actuated by the same feelings, desires, aspirations, and be governed by
the same motives. By such an one alone, who is able to understand our
moral life in all its phases and bearings, can a clear and truthful view
be taken of the great events which are continually agitating our
society, and their bearings upon our present and future civilization be
correctly estimated.
It is precisely from lack of this sympathy and of appreciation of the
difficulties under which we have labored, that America has suffered in
the opinion of the world. For the foreign view, looking upon us not as a
new people, but as the offshoot of an old and cultivated race, has
conceded to us little more than a certain mechanical ingenuity in
fitting together the parts of an edifice built upon a foundation already
laid for us away back in the ages--a carrying out of plans already
perfected for us, and requiring little of originality for their
development; forgetting that oftentimes the laying of the foundation is
the easiest part of the work, while the erection and embellishment of
the superstructure has taxed the efforts of the loftiest genius. In so
far as regards the development of the national mind, the strengthening
of the originating and energetic faculties, and the capability of
profound and well directed thought arising therefrom, we are, as a race,
deeply indebted to our progenitors of the Old World, and we have reaped
therefrom a great advantage over other nationalities in their inception.
But aside from these benefits, the cultivation of the race before the
settlement of our country has been rather a hamper upon our progress.
For here was to be inaugurated a new civilization, upon a different
basis from and entirely incompatible with that of the Old World; here
was to be established an idea antagonistic to those of the preexisting
world, and evolving a new and more progressive social life, which needed
not only a new sphere and new material, but also entire freedom from the
restraints of the old-time civilization. And it is harder to unlearn an
old lesson than to learn a new. The institutions and modes of thought of
the Old World are to the last degree unfavorable to the progress of such
a nationality as ours. Their tendency being toward the aggrandizement of
the few and the centralization of power, renders them wholly
incompatible with that freedom of thought and action, that opening up of
large fields of exertion as well as of the road to distinction and
eminence, with all their incentives to effort, which are the very life
of a majestic republic stretching over a large portion of the earth's
surface, embracing such mixed nationalities, and founded upon principles
of progress both in its physical and mental relations which have
rendered it in very truth a new experiment among the nations. We had
first to forget the divine right of kings, and the invidious
distinctions of class, with all their deep-seated and time-honored
prejudices, and to start forward in a different and hitherto despised
path toward which the iron hand of our necessity pointed, and in which
all men should be considered equal in their rights, and the position of
each should depend, not upon the distance to which he could trace a
proud genealogy, but upon the energy with which he should grapple with
the stern realities of life, the honesty and uprightness with which he
should tread its path, and the use he should make of the blessings which
God and his own exertions bestowed upon him. We had to learn the great
but simple lesson that
'The rank is but the guinea's stamp,
The man's the man for a' that;'
and in so doing, to accept, for a time, the position of the Pariahs of
Christendom, through the imputation of degrading all things high and
noble to the rank of the low and vulgar, of casting the pearls of a
lofty and ennobled class before the swinish multitude, of throwing open
the doors of the treasury, that creatures of low, plebeian blood might
grasp the crown jewels which had for ages been kept sacred to the
patrician few; in a word, we had to take upon ourselves all the odium of
a despised democracy--a moral agrarianism which should make common
property of all blessings and privileges, and mingle together all
things, pure and impure, in one common hotch-potch of corruption and
degradation. Greater heresy than all this was not then known, and the
philosopher of to-day has little conception of the sacrifice required of
those who would at that time accept such a position.
Another and not less important lesson which our ancestors had to learn
was, that national prosperity which depends upon the learning and
refinement or energy of a certain privileged class, can never be
otherwise than ephemeral; that the common people--the low plebeians,
whom they had been taught to consider of the least importance in the
state, are in reality the strength of the land; and that in the
amelioration of their condition, in the education and mental training of
the masses, while at the same time placing before them the highest
incentives to individual exertion, lies the only sure basis of an
enduring prosperity--that the only healthful national growth is that
which is made up of the individual strivings of the great mass rather
than the self-interested movements of the few; and as a consequence of
this truth, that the privileged minority is really the least important
of the two classes in any community. In the infancy of government, when
a rude and unlettered people are little able to take care of
themselves, the establishment of class distinctions is undoubtedly
conducive to progress, as it tends to unite the people, thereby
counteracting the thousand petty jealousies and strifes and bickerings
which invariably beset an infant people, and to organize and systematize
all progressive effort. It is, in fact, a putting of the people to
school under such wholesome restraints as shall compel them forward
while guarding them against those evil influences which militate against
their prosperity. But in the course of events the time comes when these
restraints are no longer necessary, but rather become hampers upon the
wheels of progress; and when that period arrives, all these invidious
distinctions should, in a well-regulated state, gradually disappear and
give place to that freedom which is essential to individual advancement
as the basis of national power. Trained as our ancestors had been to
consider these distinctions divinely appointed, it was no easy task for
them to abrogate so aged and apparently sacred a system, and nothing but
the material evidence before their eyes in the experience of their own
society, convincing them that such a course was an actual necessity of
their future well-being, could have induced them so to depart from the
teachings of their progenitors. Nor was it less difficult to determine
how far these safeguards of the olden time might safely be dispensed
with, or where or how deeply the knife should be applied which, in the
fallibility of human judgment, might possibly cut away some main root of
their social organization. Here was required the exercise of the
profoundest wisdom and the most careful discretion--wisdom unassisted by
any experience in the past history of the world other than that of the
utter failure of all past experiments in any way similar to their own.
To us of to-day, viewed in the light of intervening experience and of
the increased knowledge of human affairs, this may seem a little thing;
but to them it was not so, for the path was new and untried, and they
were surrounded by the thickest of darkness. Thus it will be seen that
in the founding of our system there were great difficulties, which only
the loftiest aims and the utmost firmness and determination in the cause
of the good and the true, with the liveliest sense of the necessities
and the yearnings of human nature, and the true end of all human
existence, could have overcome,--difficulties which, with all the
cultivation of their past, rendered their task not less arduous than
that of the founders of any community recorded in history even among the
rudest and most savage of peoples. And for all their energy and
perseverance the world has not yet given them the credit which is their
due, although the yearly developing results of their labors are
gradually restoring them to their proper position in the appreciation of
humanity. And the time will come when their memory will be cherished all
over the earth as that of the greatest benefactors of the human kind. As
the Alpine glacier year after year heaves out to its surface the bodies
of those who many decades ago were buried beneath the everlasting snows,
so time in its revolutions heaves up to the view of the world, one by
one, the great facts of the buried past, to be carefully laid away in
the graveyard of memory, with a towering monument above them to mark to
all succeeding ages the spot where they have wrought in the interest of
humanity.
Another evil effect of this same foreign view is to lead the world to
expect of us, the descendants of an old and polished civilization, more
than is warranted by the facts of our history or even by the
capabilities of human nature in its present stage. And this, too, arises
from a false estimate of the difficulties which have beset us on every
side, and from the paucity of the world's experience, and consequent
knowledge, of such experiments as our own. The march of human
advancement has but just begun in this its new path; and it is but
little wonder that, excited by our past successes, and stimulated to an
inordinate degree as their ideas of progress have become through the new
truths which our efforts have brought to light, the friends of human
freedom all over the world should expect from us more astonishing
developments, more rapid progress, than is compatible with the frailties
and fallibilities of our humanity. Hence in the light of this morbid
view our greatest successes are looked upon as somewhat below the
standard which our advantages demand.
With the foreign view we, as a nation, have nothing to do. We must be
content to act entirely independently of the opinions of the outside
world, being only careful steadfastly to pursue the path of right,
leaving to future ages to vindicate our ideas and our motives. So only
can we possess that true national independence which is the foundation
of all national dignity and worth, and the source of all progress. We
must free ourselves from all the hampering influences of old-time dogmas
and worn-out theories of social life, content to submit to the
aspersions of Old-World malice, confident that time will prove the
correctness of our policy. So only can we throw wide open the doors of
investigation, and give free scope to those truths which will not fail
to follow the earnest strivings of a great people for the purest right
and the highest good.
In estimating any civilization at its true value, the law of God is
obviously the highest standard. Yet in these days of divided opinion and
extended scepticism, when scarcely any two hold exactly the same
religious views, and when all manner of beliefs are professedly founded
on Holy Writ, such a comparison would only result in as many different
estimates as there are reflecting minds, and the investigation would be
in no degree advanced. Even the moral sense of our own community is so
divided upon the distinctions of abstract right, that the application of
such a standard to our civilization would only open endless fields of
useless because interested and bigoted discussions.
There are two other and more feasible methods of conducting such an
investigation; the first of which is that of comparing our own
civilization with that of Europe; marking the differences, and judging
of them according to our knowledge of human nature and the light of past
experience and analogy. Yet such a course presents the serious objection
of preventing an impartial judgment through the strong temptation to
self-laudation, which is in itself the blinding of reason as well as the
counteraction of all aspirations for a still higher good.
The third and last method is that which takes cognizance of the most
obvious and deeply felt evils connected with our own system, and
reasoning from universally conceded principles of abstract right, and
from the highest moral standard of our own society, to study how they
may best be remedied and errors most successfully combated. From such a
course of investigation truth cannot fail to be evolved, and the moral
appreciation of the thinker to be heightened. For such a method presents
less danger of partiality from local prejudices, religious bias, or
national antipathy. And such is the method which we shall endeavor to
pursue.
Judging from mankind's sense of right, of justice, and of that moral
nobility which each individual's spiritual worthiness seems to demand, a
pure democracy is the highest and most perfect form of government. But
such a system presupposes a _perfect_ humanity as its basis, a humanity
which no portion of the earth has yet attained or is likely to attain
for many ages to come. Hence the vices as well as the weaknesses of
human nature render certain restraints necessary, which are more or
less severe according as the nation is advanced in moral excellence and
intellectual cultivation, and which must gradually disappear as the race
progresses, giving place to others newer and more appropriate to the
changing times and conditions of men. Under this view that progress in
the science of government is alone healthy which keeps exact pace with
the moral progress of the nation, and tends toward a pure democracy in
exactly the degree in which the people become fitted to appreciate, to
rationally enjoy, and faithfully guard the blessings of perfect liberty.
Too rapid progress leads to political anarchy by stimulating, to a
degree unsustained by their acquirements and natural ability, the
aspirations of the ambitious and the reckless, thereby begetting and
nationalizing a spirit of lawlessness which grasps continually at
unmerited honors, and strives to make all other and higher
considerations bend to that of individual advancement and personal
vanity. The truth of this position is seen in the utter failure of all
attempted democratic systems in the past, which may be traced to this
too eager haste in the march of human freedom, ending invariably in the
blackest of despotism, as well as from the fact in our own history that
every era of unusual political corruption and reckless strife for
position and power, has followed close upon the moral abrogation of some
one of those safeguards which the wisdom of our fathers threw around our
political system.
On the other hand, advancement which does not keep pace with the
expansion of thought, the intellectual development, and consequent
capacity of the people for self-government, not only offers no
encouragement to effort, but actually discourages all striving, and
blunts the appetites of the searchers for truth. It fossilizes the
people, retards the march of intellect by its reactionary force, and
rolls backward the wheels of all progress, till the nation becomes a
community of dull, contented plodders, fixed in the ruts of a bygone
age, suffering all its energy and life to rust away, day by day, in
inaction. Such we find to be the case with those nations of the Old
World which are still ruled by the effete systems of a feudal age. The
governmental policy and the intellectual status of the masses mutually
react upon each other, effectually neutralizing all progress, whether
moral or physical.
For these reasons that nicely graduated mean between political
recklessness and national old fogyism, which alone guarantees an
enduring progress, is the object of search to all disinterested
political reformers. For only by following such a golden mean, in which
political reform shall keep even pace with intellectual and moral
advancement, can physical and mental progress be made mutually to
sustain each other in the onward march. Yet this mean is extremely
difficult to find, for though we be guided by all the experience of the
past, and earnestly and sincerely endeavor to profit by the failures as
well as the successes of those who have gone before us, the paths of
experiment are so infinite and the combinations of method so boundless,
that the wisest may easily be led astray. Hence the failures of the
republics of the past, however pure the motives and lofty the aims of
their founders, may be attributed to a leaning to one side or the other
of this strait and narrow way, which lies so closely concealed amid the
myriad ramifications of the paths of method. The slightest divergence,
if it be not corrected, like the infinitesimal divergence of two
straight lines, goes on increasing to all time, till that which was at
first imperceptible, becomes at last a boundless ocean of intervening
space, which no human effort can bridge.
To say that we, as a nation, are following closely this golden mean,
that our wisdom has enabled us to discover that which for so many ages
has remained hidden from men, were simply egotistical bombast; for it
were to assert that with us human nature had lost its fallibility and
human judgment become unerring. Yet we may safely assert that no system
exists at the present day which so clearly tends toward the attainment
of such a mean, and which contains within itself so many elements of
reform, as our own. For ours is a system of extreme elasticity, a sort
of compensation balance, constructed with a view to the changing climate
of the political world, and capable of accommodating itself to the
shifting condition of men and things. And this not by forcing or leading
public sentiment, but by yielding to it. Thus while it is founded upon,
and in its workings evolves, so many lofty and ennobling truths, keeping
constantly before the eyes of the people lessons of purity and moral
dignity, acting as a check upon the visionary and a safeguard to our
liberties, it nevertheless yields quietly to the requirements of the
times, and changes according to the necessities of the governed, thus
being far from proving a hamper upon our intellectual advancement, but,
on the contrary, leaving free and unimpeded the paths of national
progress. And it is one of the most distinctive features of our
institutions that, while few foreign Governments admit of much change
without danger of revolution, with us the most thorough reforms may be
consummated and the greatest changes effected without danger of ruffling
the waves of our society. For with us change is effected so gradually
and in such exact consonance with the necessities of the people as to be
almost imperceptible, and to afford no handle to the turbulent and
designing revolutionist. The gratification of legitimate ambition is
guaranteed, but our system utterly revolts against the sacrifice of the
public good to the inordinate cravings of personal ambition or
aggrandizement. It is in recognition of this principle of gradual change
that the politician of to-day hesitates not to avow and to advocate
principles which twenty years ago he deemed the height of political
absurdity. It is not abstract truth that has altered, but the necessary
modification of theories resulting from the altered condition and
exigencies of society. Were this truth not recognized, no statesman
could for many years retain his hold upon the popular appreciation, for
he would at once be branded with inconsistency and incontinently thrown
aside as an unsafe counsellor. Hence the hackneyed phrase, 'ahead of the
times,' contains within itself a deep and important meaning, since it is
but a recognition of the fact that relative right and wrong may change
with the condition of society, and that theories may be beneficial in a
more advanced stage, which at present would be noxious in the extreme,
and that, in consequence, he is an unsafe leader who grasps at some
exalted good without making sure of the preliminary steps which alone
can make such blessings durable--who would, at a single leap, place the
nation far ahead in the race of improvement, without first subjecting it
to that trial and discipline which are absolutely necessary to fit it
for a new sphere. And the extreme disfavor with which such agitators are
regarded by society is an evidence of the safeguard which our
institutions contain within themselves, which, by moulding the minds of
the people to a proper appreciation of the blessings of limited reform
and of the inevitable and necessary stages and degrees of progress, as
well as of the danger of too sudden and radical change, effectually
counteract the evil influence of the unmethodical and empirical
reformer.
Our Government, in its form, can in no sense of the word be called a
democracy, however much its workings may tend toward such a result in
some far-distant future. It is founded in a recognition of the fact that
however equal all men may be in their civil and political
rights--however the humblest and most ignorant member of the community
may be entitled to 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,' all
men are not equal either in intellectual endowments or personal
acquirements, and consequently in their influence upon society, or
equally fitted either to govern or to choose their rulers. Our ancestors
recognized the fact that the people are not, in the democratic sense of
the term, fitted to govern themselves. Hence they threw around their
system a network of safeguards, and adopted and firmly established
restraints to counteract this principle of democratic rule, without
which our infant republic would soon have fallen to pieces by the force
of its own internal convulsions. And time has proven the wisdom of their
course, and we shall do well if we shall reflect long and deeply before
we essay to remove the least of those restraints, remembering that when
once the floodgate is opened to change, the eternal tide is set in
motion, and a precedent established which will prove dangerous if it be
not carefully restrained within the limits of the necessities of the
times.
To draw an illustration from the constitution of our body politic: we
find that the people meet in their primary elections, and choose a
representative to their State legislature, which representative is,
_theoretically_, considerably advanced above his constituents in
intellect, and in knowledge and experience of governmental affairs, and
of the necessities of the nation; by whom, in conjunction with his
colleagues--and not by the people themselves--a Senator is chosen to
represent the State in the national Congress,--which Senator, in his
turn, _theoretically_, is elevated above his constituents, not by the
fortuitous circumstance of birth or of worldly possessions, but in point
of intellect and acquirements, and consequent capacity to govern. Again,
the people do not directly choose their President, but select certain
electors, to whose superior wisdom and judgment is intrusted the task of
determining who is most fitted to rule the nation for the coming
presidential term. In the single instance of the representative to
Congress do the people choose directly from among themselves. And this
was adopted as a wise precaution that he, springing directly from their
midst, owing both his present and future position to their suffrages,
more closely identified with them in interest, and partaking more nearly
of their modes of thought, and who from the shortness of his term might
easily be displaced if he should prove recreant to his trust, thus
having every inducement to correctly represent the sentiments and
protect the rights of his constituents, might act as a check upon that
other house, which, further removed in every respect from the people,
elected more in accordance with, the aristocratic institutions of the
mother country, and from this exalted and exclusive position, and long
term of office, more liable to aristocratic influences, might be tempted
to combine for the consolidation of power and the gratification of
personal ambition, even at the expense of the liberties of the people.
Such is the _theory_ of our form of Government; the practical working of
it has altered with the times. While the form of the Constitution is
still observed to the letter, the spirit is, in a great measure,
abrogated. The people now choose only those representatives whose
sentiments are well known and whose future course can safely be
predicated--only those electors who stand pledged to cast their votes
for a designated candidate. Yet even now there is nothing to prevent
those representatives from pursuing a course entirely opposed
to all previous professions, and the known wishes of their
constituents--nothing to hinder those electors from casting their votes
for some third party, or combining to place in the executive chair some
unknown person whom the people have not chosen or desired; nothing, if
only we except the eternal odium and political damnation of public
opinion. Yet it may well be questioned if this same public opinion be
not after all the safest custodian of the public interest, the most
powerful restraint which could be imposed upon these representatives of
the people to compel them to a strict performance of their trust.
Yet while, as we have said, a pure democracy is but another term for the
highest type of civilization, the fact that our form of Government is
not in any sense of the word a democracy, is no argument against our
civilization, but rather in its favor. For it is but a recognition of
the fact that no people on earth is yet fitted for a pure democracy as a
basis of their institutions: it is an adapting of ourselves to that
state of things for which we are most fitted, instead of grasping at
some Utopian scheme of perfection, which the common sense of the nation
tells us is beyond our present capacity. On the other hand, it is a
frank acknowledgment of our own defects and frailties. As the '[Greek:
gnôthi seauton]' of the heathen philosophers contained within itself the
germ of all individual philosophy and moral progress, so does it
comprehend the whole problem of national growth and progress. It is only
the rudest, most ignorant and barbarous nation that arrogates to itself
perfection: it is that nation only which, conscious of no defects, sees
no necessity for reform, and has no incentive thereto. The consciousness
of defects, both physical and moral, is the life of all reform, and
hence of all progress; while the capacity to detect error in our system
implies the ability for thorough reform, and the cultivation which
underlies such knowledge implies the inclination to effect it. The
establishment of a pure democracy in our midst, in the present state of
human advancement, were evidence of a lack of that civilization which
depends upon earnest thought and a proper appreciation of the present
capabilities as well as the frailties and imperfections of our humanity.
We have seen that while, in the matter of choosing our rulers and
legislators, our institutions are, in their practical workings,
democratic, in form they are by no means so. This cannot long remain so.
An empty form is of little value, and ere many years the country will
either return to the principles of the olden time--which in the present
advanced state of public sentiment is not likely--or else sweep away the
form and simplify the whole system. Already the question has begun to be
agitated of submitting the presidential vote directly to the people
without intervention of electors. But it may well be doubted whether, in
the light of the political corruption of to-day, even this be not too
great an advance upon the democratic principle for the moral condition
of our people. For many years our country has been the victim of a
demagoguism, resulting from the working of this very principle, and the
question admits of serious discussion whether, instead of abrogating the
form, a return to the _spirit_ of the Constitution, while, at the same
time, holding strictly amenable those to whom this important choice is
intrusted, would not result in a pure and more statesmanlike
administration of public affairs. For the elector, being held
politically responsible for the conduct of the candidate for whom his
vote was cast, and for all the evils resulting from mal-administration,
would soon learn that to be faithful is not less important than to be
wise, and that his political interest was identified with the well-being
of the country. But it is one of the evils of our rapid progress that
the past is looked upon with such disfavor as to effectually prevent a
return even upon the path of error. In the pride of our civilization the
simpler theories of the olden time are despised as unworthy of, if not
wholly unfitted for, our present exalted intellectuality. The principle
is ignored that reform may sometimes be effected by retracing the steps
of years. Hence reform in this particular must either adopt the
dangerous experiment of establishing the pure democratic principle, or
else devise some third plan which shall charm by its novelty at the same
time that it is founded upon some evident and abiding truth.
And in this connection another great evil becomes evident which is in
itself a fault of our civilization, and not a defect arising from any
fundamental error in our system; an evil which, although always
predominant, has been more active in its workings, more injurious in its
effects during the present war than ever before. It is the spirit of
bitter, uncharitable, and even malicious opposition of the minority to
the acts and theories of the party in power, forgetting that no great
evil was ever yet effectually counteracted by opposition, which only
fans the flame and makes the fire burn hotter. And while no good can be
effected by such opposition, its direful effect is to divide the
councils of the nation, to paralyze the executive arm in all times of
great emergency, to render but half effectual every great national
enterprise, to make wavering the national policy, to exasperate
political parties more and more against each other, thereby dividing the
people and weakening the national life and progress, preventing all
concentration of effort and unanimity of purpose, and--worst of
all--subjecting the country periodically to the violent shock of
opposing systems, according as parties alternate in power, tossing the
ship of state in the brief period of a four years' term from one wave of
theory to another, and opposing one, only to be hurled back as violently
as before. Can it be doubted that such a state of affairs is injurious
to prosperity and either political or social advancement? Were the
results of every Administration for _good_, there would be less danger;
but radical evils cannot but result from the bitter partisanship of the
party in power, and when the scale is reversed and the opposite party
gains the ascendency, the new Administration has scarcely time to
correct the errors of its predecessors and to establish its own theory,
ere the popular tide ebbs and flows again in the opposite direction, the
ins are out and the outs are in, and again the alternation begins.
Certainly party divisions are the life of a republic, from their
tendency to counterbalance each other, and periodically reform abuses,
thus keeping the vessel in the straight course; yet when those divisions
reach the point which we see in our midst to-day, when the avowal of any
principle or theory by the one party, however just or beneficial it may
seem, is but the signal for the uncompromising hostility and bitter
denunciation of the opposition, who seek to make of it a handle to move
the giant lever of political power, unmindful of the wants and the
urgent necessities of the land--a hostility having for its basis the
single fact that the new measures are unfortunately advocated by the
opposite party--then such divisions become not only injurious to the
body politic, but a foul blot upon the civilization of our day and
nation. This is perhaps putting the question in a strong light; but,
admitting that we have not yet reached that point, are we not swiftly
drifting in that direction? Let every candid thinker put the question to
himself and ponder it deeply, remembering, while looking for the
ultimate result, that it was the bitter hostility of opposing factions
which ruined the republics of old, and which to-day convulse many that
might otherwise take rank among the most powerful and progressive
nations of the earth, neutralizing their progress, and holding them
constantly suspended above the gulf of anarchy and desolation.
Ask the oppositionist of to-day what he proposes or expects to
accomplish by his hostility to the powers that be, and he will answer
to little purpose. A vague idea is floating in his brain of some 'good
time coming' for his party, yet he knows very little what or when this
good time shall be, living on in the hope of some unknown event which
shall reverse the political chessboard. The opposition of to-day is that
of ultra conservatism to radicalism, of which the tendency of the one is
toward the stationary, that of the other to the rapidly progressive. The
so-called conservative, apparently blind to the result, and looking to a
return of the nation to the worn-out theories of the past as the result
of the efforts of his clique, is straining every nerve to paralyze the
arm of the Government, and to neutralize the effect of every great
achievement, doing everything in his power to exasperate the large
majority who are endeavoring to sustain the country in her hour of
peril, seemingly unconscious that in so doing he is not only working
steadily to defeat his own purpose, but also paving the way for the
destruction of his faction. For he is endeavoring to drag the country
backward along the track of years--an object which, as all history
proves, can never be effected with any progressive race; on the
contrary, such nations have ever owed their ruin to the inevitable
tendency to too rapid advancement. Again, by embittering the feelings of
his opponents toward himself and his coadjutors, he is effectually
preventing any future reconciliation and coöperation of the divided
factions, in which only could he hope for success, and raising up a
powerful opposition which will counteract all his future efforts.
A purer civilization would look at this question of party divisions in a
different light, recognizing it as an institution of Providence, whereby
great good may be effected when its benefits are properly appreciated,
and at the same time as a terrible engine of destruction when misused or
not properly controlled. A purer civilization would recognize and
candidly acknowledge every element of good in the theories of even the
fiercest opponents, and heartily coöperate in every enterprise whose
tendency was to the national good, working steadily and cheerfully side
by side with rivals and political opposers, and confining its own
opposition strictly to those measures of which the effect is, judged by
its own standard, obviously evil. The _rôle_ of the true reformer is to
glide quietly along with the tide of events, becoming reconciled to
those measures which, though contrary to his own convictions, are
nevertheless too firmly established to admit of being shaken by his most
powerful efforts; and so while carefully avoiding all unnecessary
antagonisms, all useless stirring up of old bitternesses, to seek so to
identify himself with the current of events, and so to become part and
parcel of the nation's political life and progress, as to be enabled to
guide into the channel of future good the movement which at first
started awry. Even where the vessel has widely diverged from the path of
good, and follows that which leads to inevitable destruction, it is his
part, instead of wasting his powers in useless struggles to stay her
course, to continue on as part and parcel of the precious freight,
seeking opportunity so to guide the erring prow that she shall be
gradually diverted from the evil course toward some distant and advanced
point of the forsaken track, without being violently dragged back along
her wake. So reaching at last the accustomed course, the good ship will
still be far advanced upon her way with all the benefits of past
experience of evil to act as a warning against future digressions from
the established path of progress. It will be time enough then to point
out the dangers she has escaped, and to argue the absurdity of the olden
theories which have so seriously interfered with her navigation. By such
a course alone will he secure the respect of his opponents, and the
love and admiration of those who never fail to appreciate sterling
integrity of purpose, uprightness of motives, and persevering effort in
the cause of the public good, which is that of the right and the true;
and so only will he quiet and disarm that factious spirit which would
otherwise be ever ready to start into a violent opposition at his first
effort in the public cause. Nor must such a course imply time-serving or
sycophancy, or the least concealment of any of the loftiest and noblest
sentiments. In any matter of wrong, where the voice and the concentrated
effort of the true philanthropist can avail to check the nation's
career, the voice of the reformer should not fail to be raised in its
most powerful tones, and all his energy exerted to form such political
and social combinations as shall effect his purpose. But in those stages
which are prominent in every nation's progress, when the tide of public
opinion sets full and irresistibly in one direction, sweeping along all
thought and energy in its course, against which it were madness to
contend until the tempest shall have worn itself out by its own
violence--more especially when the great questions involve a mere
difference of opinion as to the results of important measures or the
general tendency of the public policy--then, when opposition would only
serve to arouse a factious or disputatious spirit, his part is to glide
quietly along with the popular movement, acquiescing in and reconciling
himself to the condition of affairs till such time as the public
sentiment is ripe, and the circumstances fitting for the advocacy and
the triumph of his own views; meanwhile letting no opportunity escape to
guide the national mind and direct the nation's strivings to such a
consummation.
By such a course only can he effect great results and make durable the
establishment of his own cherished principles.
CHURCH MUSIC.
From the earliest Christian period of which we have any knowledge, music
has been employed in the public worship of Christian communities. Its
purposes are, to afford to the devotion of the worshippers a means of
expression more subtile than even human speech, to increase that
devotion, and to add additional lustre and solemnity to the outward
service offered to God. Music has a wonderful power in stirring the
souls of men, in (so to speak) moving the soil of the heart, that the
good seed sown by prayer and instruction may find ready entrance, and a
wholesome stimulus to facilitate growth. Now, it is the duty of all
concerned in the ordering of public worship to see that the music
employed tends to effect these ends.
In the year 1565, the composers of church music were in the habit of
employing so many and well-known secular melodies, and of rearing upon
them and upon their own inventions such complicated and unintelligible
contrapuntal structures, that the church authorities took the matter
seriously in hand, and there is no knowing what might have been the
final sentence, had not Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina brought his
genius to the rescue, and, in sundry compositions, especially in a
six-part mass, dedicated to Pope Marcellus II., shown that science need
not exclude clearness, and the possibility of hearing the words sung,
and that the truly inventive artist has no need to seek his themes in
inappropriate spheres.
In this day we run little risk of ship-wreck through too great an amount
of science. Scarlatti and Bach would laugh at the efforts styled 'canon'
and 'fugue,' by the aspiring tyros of the present age. Our difficulties
arise, not from musical complexity, but from want of suitableness,
adaptation, and characterization, together with the ever-increasing feud
between choir and congregational singing. In some churches on the
Continent of Europe, these two latter modes are happily blended, certain
services or portions of services being left to the choir, and the
remainder being entrusted to the entire congregation. Of course this
arrangement is only practicable where there is a certain variety in the
musical portion of the service. Where the singing of hymns (in the
ordinary sense of the phrase) is the only musical form used in the
worship, such differences would be difficult to establish, and a variety
of circumstances must determine which of the two modes, or what
combination of them, be selected by the congregation. Even where
splendor is studiously avoided, all desire order and decency in the
conduct of public worship, and such order is painfully violated where
discordant sounds or unsuitable selections of music are permitted to
distract attention and disturb devotion. A ragged carpet, faded fringes,
or dingy window panes, would speedily find a reformer; and surely the
sensitive, defenceless ear has as good a claim to exact order as the
more voluntary sense of seeing. Better, indeed, no music, than such as
binds the wings of the soul to earth instead of aiding them to fly
heavenward.
The above remarks apply as well to choir as to congregational singing.
Let us suppose now that the mere primal foundation--the mechanical
execution--be respectably good; that the congregation or choir have been
taught to sing in tune; that all be harmonious and properly balanced; in
short, that the auditory nerves be spared any very severe shock--and
what then will we ordinarily find? A few good old church melodies,
almost lost amid a dreary maze of the most recent droning platitudes, or
a multitude of worldly acquaintances, negro minstrelsy, ancient love
ditties, bar room roundelays, passionate scenes from favorite operas,
with snatches from instrumental symphonies, concertos, or what not!
Music, as I have said, is even more subtile in its power of expression
than speech, and the _new words_, which we may perhaps not even hear,
can never banish from our minds the _old impressions_ associated with
the melody. The ears may even be cognizant of the holy sentiments
intended to be conveyed, but the mind's eye will see Sambo, 'First upon
the heel top, then upon the toe;' the love-lorn dame weeping her false
lover, 'Ah, no, she never blamed him, never;' a roystering set of good
fellows clinking glasses, 'We won't go home till morning;' Lucia
imploring mercy from her hard-hearted brother and selfish suitor; Norma
confiding her little ones to the keeping of her rival; or perhaps the
full orchestra at the last 'philharmonic,' supplying the missing notes,
the beginning and the end of some noble idea, now vainly struggling with
the difficulties and incongruities of its new position, its maimed
members mourning their incompleteness, its tortured spirit longing for
the body given by the original creator.
Are we Christians then so poor that we must go begging and stealing
shreds and patches from our more fortunate secular brethren? Has music
deserted us to dwell solely in the camps of the gypsying world? If so,
there must be some fault among ourselves, for music is a pure gift from
God, the only _earthly_ pleasure _promised_ us in heaven. Such
imputation would indeed be a libel upon the almost infinite variety in
the character of music, and its power of consecration to the very
loftiest ends. Ah! there we fear is the rub. _The character of music!_
_That_ seems to have been forgotten. If all these melodies be adapted to
their original aims, can they be suited to new ones so different? Is
there really in musical form, rhythm, melody, and harmony, no capacity
for any real expression? Will the same tune do as well for a dance as
for a prayer, for a moonlight serenade as for an imploration of Divine
mercy?
Now we have no quarrel with dances; they are innocent and useful in
their proper place; human love is a noble gift from the Almighty; we are
not shocked by a good drinking song, provided the singers be sober;
operas _might_ be made highly instrumental in elevating the tone of
modern society; and we listen reverentially to the grand creations of
the masters; but, in addition to all these, we require a music adapted
to signify the relations between ourselves and our Heavenly Father, a
music which shall express adoration and love, praise and thanksgiving,
contrition and humble confidence, which shall implore mercy and waft
prayer to the very gates of the abode of omnipotence. Let such music be
simple or complex, according to the thought to be rendered or the
capacity of the executants, let it be for voices, for instruments, or
for a blending of the two, but let it always be appropriate to the
subject, and rise with the thought or emotions to be conveyed. Who can
tell what would be the effect of such a church music? What a feeling of
earnestness and sincerity would it not lend to services now often marred
by the shallowness or meretricious glitter of their musical portions?
The range is wide, the field broad; there is scope for grandeur,
sublimity, power, jubilation, the brightest strains of extatic joy,
mourning, pathos, and the passionate pleading of the human soul severed
from its highest good; but all should be in accordance with the dignity
of the personalities represented: on the one hand, the Father and
Creator of all, and on the other, the weak, erring, dependent creature,
made, nevertheless, in the image of his Creator, and for whom a God
thought it no unworthiness to live, to suffer, and to die.
Have we any such music? Yes--a little; but that little is not always the
best known nor the most frequently employed. Are there any composers now
capable of writing such? Are the composers of genius, or even of talent,
sufficiently earnest and devout? for here we want no shams. Each one
must answer these questions in accordance with his own experience. The
practical question is, What can be done toward an amelioration of the
present state of affairs, not confined to this continent, but unhappily
only too prevalent everywhere? Let the head of the musical department of
every church service begin by weeding from his repertory all _trash_,
whether profane or simply stupid and nonsensical. As the number of
musical creations remaining will not be very large, let him retain for
the present all that are not positively bad or inane; a few old song
melodies have, through long usage, lost their original associations, and
hence, though perhaps only imperfectly adapted to devotional purposes,
are yet, on the whole, unobjectionable, and perhaps better than many
modern inventions.
An idea seems prevalent that, to write words for music is an easy task,
and hence the many wounds inflicted upon both music and poetry in their
frequent union. When a melody is to be composed for a set of verses, the
same melody to be sung to every verse, the composer naturally examines
the general tone and form of the poem. These of course determine his
selection of rhythmical character, of time, key, movement, etc. The
melody is constructed upon the basis of the first verse. To the words
embodying the most important thoughts or feelings, he gives the most
important, the emphatic notes, striving to make the sound a faithful and
intensifying medium whereby to convey the sense. _His_ work is then
done, as the same melody is to be repeated to every verse, and the end
sought will have been attained if the poet have carefully fulfilled
_his_ part. But if he have introduced inequalities into his rhythm, or
have given unimportant words the places occupied by important ones in
the first verse, so that an emphatic note will fall upon an 'in,' or a
'the,' or some similar particle, the effect will be bad, and the result
unsatisfactory to all concerned. Old association, or intrinsic beauty of
poetry or melody may, in rare cases, render such blemishes tolerable,
but the creator of a new work should strive to avoid all blemishes, and
at least _aim_ at perfection.
If to each good religious poem we possess, or may hereafter possess (be
that poem psalm, hymn, sequence, litany, prayer, or form of doctrine),
we could attach, or find attached, the musical form best adapted to its
highest expression, what delight would we not experience in its
rendering? Some such poems might, by reason of old associations, or of
especial adaptation, be always sung to the same melodies, while to
others might be accorded greater facilities for variety. This only by
way of suggestion. The common practice of selecting melodies for verses,
hap-hazard, with regard only to the 'metre,' of course destroys all
possibility of any especial characterization. If the original 'marriage'
have been a congenial one, a divorce, with view to a second union,
rarely proves advisable. The same verses may bear another musical
rendering, but the music will very rarely endure adaptation to other
verses.
But we left our _maestro di capella_, our head of the music in any
religious assemblage, weeding his repertory. A difficult task! for, to
sound principles of discrimination he must add the best counsel and the
widest information he can procure from every competent quarter, not
narrow nor one-sided, but commensurate with the breadth, the world-wide
diffusion of the subject.
We cannot hope for very speedy progress in this matter, so large a share
of its advancement depending upon general, real and proper musical
cultivation; but if each one interested will think the matter over
seriously and intelligently, and do the little that may lie in his
power, a beginning will have been made, which may in the end lead to
grand, beautiful, and most precious results.
APHORISM.--NO. IX.
Our Saviour says of life: 'I have power to lay it down, and power to
take it again.' We have not such power in our own hands; but our Lord
holds it for us, so that our position is independent of the world, and
of the power of evil, just as His was; and as in His case He did resume
more than He laid down, so will be given to us by the same Almighty hand
more than any creature has to surrender for the highest objects of
existence.
Such doctrine, I may add, is not, in its essence, merely Christian: it
has been the common sentiment of our race, that one of the highest
privileges of our being is to sacrifice ourselves, in various modes and
degrees, for the good of our fellow men; and those who cheerfully do
this, even if it be in the actual surrender of life, are esteemed
blessed, as they are also placed above others in the ranks of honorable
fame, and held to be secure of the final rewards of a heavenly state.
LITERARY NOTICES.
LIFE OF WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT. By GEORGE
TICKNOR. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1864.
There are no discordant voices on either side of the Atlantic with
regard to the literary merits of William H. Prescott. Truth, dignity,
research, candor, erudition, chaste and simple elegance, mark all he has
ever written. His noble powers were in perfect consonance with his noble
soul. His strict sense of justice shines in all its brilliancy, in his
evident desire to tell the truth, and nothing but the truth, of every
character appearing in his conscientious pages. No current of popular
prejudice, however strong, swerves him from his righteous path; no
opportunity for glitter or oratorical display ever misleads him; no
special pleading bewilders his readers; no 'might is right' corrupts
them. His genius is pure, dramatic, and wide; his comprehension of
character acute and clear; his characterization of it, chiselled and
chaste; his ready comprehension of magnanimous deeds evinces his own
magnanimity; his correct understanding of various creeds and motives of
action proves his own wide Christianity; chivalry was known to him,
because he was himself chivalrous; and we have reason to rejoice that
the field in and through which his noble faculties were developed, was
the vast and varied one of history. We doubt if any one ever read his
works without forming a high conception of the character of their
author, a conception which will be found fully realized in the excellent
Life given us by George Ticknor. If no one is qualified to write the
Life of a man, save one who has familiarly lived with him, who but Mr.
Ticknor could have given us such a biography of Prescott? This
advantage, together with the similarity of literary tastes, the common
nationality in which their spheres of labor lay, their long friendship,
their congeniality of spirit, with the mental qualifications brought by
Mr. Ticknor to his task of love, renders his production one of
inestimable value. It is indeed full of sweet, grave charm, and
thoroughly reliable. In these pages we see how it was that no man ever
found fault with or spoke disparagingly of Prescott--we find the reason
for it in the perfect balance of his conscientious and kindly character.
He was in the strictest sense of the words 'lord of himself,' mulcting
himself with fines and punishments for what he regarded as his
derelictions in his labors, compelling himself to pursue the tasks which
he had determined to achieve. There is no more interesting record than
that of his constant struggles to conquer the effects of his growing
blindness, none more inspiriting than the results of his efforts. He
loved and lived among his books; his last request was that his body
should be placed among them ere it was given to the grave.
This delightful biography, which has been received so warmly, both at
home and abroad, was originally published in an elegant quarto volume,
illustrated in the highest style of art, and an edition was printed
which was considered quite too large for the present times. But the
edition was soon exhausted, and Messrs. Ticknor & Fields have now given
us the Life in a 12mo volume, thus placing it within the means of all
readers. We rejoice at this, because Prescott belongs to us all: while
his life is dear to the scholar and lover of his kind, it furnishes some
of the most important lessons to Young America. Such a man is a true
national glory. We close our imperfect notice with a short extract from
Mr. Ticknor's preface: 'But if, after all, this memoir should fail to
set the author of the 'Ferdinand and Isabella' before those who had not
the happiness to know him personally, as a man whose life for more than
forty years was one of almost constant struggle--of an almost constant
sacrifice to duty, of the present to the future--it will have failed to
teach its true lesson, or to present my friend to others as he stood
before the very few who knew him as he was.
"Virtue could see to do what virtue would
By her own radiant light, though sun and moon
Were in the flat sea sunk."
SERMONS, Preached at Trinity Chapel, Brighton, by the late
Rev. FREDERICK W. ROBERTSON, M. A., the Incumbent. Fifth
Series. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1864. For sale by D. Appleton &
Co., New York.
The sermons of Mr. Robertson are very popular in England. They are
remarkable for clearness and excellence of style, and earnestness of
purpose. Many noble lessons are to be drawn from them, even by those who
differ with the author on sundry points of doctrine. We wish, however,
for the credit of theological exactness, that he had been somewhat more
careful in stating the views of his adversaries. Referring to the use of
indulgences, he says: 'The Romish Church permits crime for certain
considerations.' The Roman Catholic doctrine as actually held is, that
an indulgence is a remission of a portion of the earthly or purgatorial
punishment due to any sin, after it has been duly repented of,
confessed, abandoned, and restitution made so far as possible. It can
consequently never mean a pardon for sins to come, as is often
ignorantly supposed, and is apparently a reminiscence of the ancient
practice of canonical penances inflicted on penitents.
Just now, when the entire scientific world is being convulsed by the
attempted substitution of some inflexible law for a personal God with a
living _will_, it is not strange that some phase of the same idea should
creep into even the purest theology, and that in Mr. Robertson's theory
of prayer we should find traces of the rigidity characterizing 'ultra
predestinarian' as well as 'development' schemes of creation.
We cannot better conclude than by quoting the following passage from the
sermon on 'Selfishness,' a home thrust to nearly all of us: 'It is
possible to have sublime feelings, great passions, even great sympathies
with the race, and yet not to love man. To feel mightily is one thing,
to live truly and charitably another. Sin may be felt at the core, and
yet not be cast out. Brethren, beware. See how a man may be going on
uttering fine words, orthodox truths, and yet be rotten at the heart.'
WOMAN AND HER ERA. By ELIZA W. FARNHAM. 'Every
book of knowledge known to Oosana or Vreehaspatec, is by nature
implanted in the understandings of women.'--_Vishnu Sarma._ In 2
volumes. New York: A. J. Davis & Co., 274 Canal street.
This is a book which will excite violent criticism, and call forth
opposition, as all new statements invariably do. Its author says it is
twenty-two years since its truths took possession of her mind, and that
they are as firmly grounded among the eternal truths for her, as are the
ribbed strata of the rocks, or the hollows of the everlasting sea. Mrs.
Farnham attempts to prove the superiority of woman in all, save the
external world of the senses, the material structure of the work-a-day
world. She regards the knowledge and acceptance of this fact as of vital
importance to the order of society, the happiness of man, the
development of his being, and the improvement of the human race. Her
argument is not the sentimental one so often profaned in our midst. She
traces the proofs of her assertions to the most profound sources,
presents them in her acute analyses and philosophical arguments, and
draws practical applications from them. She is sincere in her
convictions, and able in her arguments; she sets up a high standard of
womanly excellence for _noblesse oblige_, and teaches faith in God and
humanity.
We have not space to follow Mrs. Farnham's argument: it would require a
review rather than a cursory notice. She shows that there is an
intuitive recognition of the superiority of woman in the universal
sentiments of humanity, that man's love when pure assumes the superior
qualities of the woman loved, that he looks to her to aid him in his
aspirations for a better life than he has lived before; but woman never
proposes to herself a reform from any gross or vicious habit by reason
of her first lesson in love. The reverse is more apt to be the case.
In man the love of power is an infernal passion, because its root is
self love; in woman, it is a divine impulse, connected only with the
love of noble uses. Our author is no advocate for women's rights, there
being two orders of human capacities, masculine and feminine. Man is
master of the outer world: woman cannot cope with him there; her sphere
is freer, deeper, higher, and of more importance to the future destinies
of the race. This book will be sharply criticized by the clergy, pure
and good men, but always hard on woman, although she keeps the lamp of
faith trimmed and burning in the churches, believing her always a mere
subordinate of man, and utter submission to him her chief virtue. The
lady-killers and men of pleasure will scorn it, for it exposes many of
their claims and vices, which they labor to hide with glittering veils
of dazzling sophisms. Will our women read it? We think not. Mrs. Farnham
treats of difficult subjects, with the freedom and innocence of an
anatomist; but will our fair and shrinking students enter the dissecting
room, even to learn some of the secrets of life?
We differ from Mrs. Farnham in many important particulars. We think she
has made some errors fatal to the well-being of her system. But she has
entered upon a new path, one in which there are indeed _lions upon the
way_; she has advanced freely and boldly through its dangers; her aims
have been generous and sincere; she has given the mature a suggestive
and thoughtful book; and shall we not greet her when she returns with
her hard-won trophies from the mystical land of earth's fair Psyches?
'O woman! lovely woman! nature made thee
To temper man; we had been brutes without you!
Angels are painted fair to look like you;
There's in you all that we believe of heaven!'
THE HOLY AND PROFANE STATES. By THOMAS FULLER.
With some Account of the Author and his Writings. Boston: Little,
Brown & Co. For sale by D. Appleton & Co.
A book from quaint old Fuller will always find its audience ready to
receive it. It is only by contrasting his works with those of his
contemporaries that we can do him full justice. He was an eminent
historian and divine of the Church of England, in the stormy times of
Charles I. and the Commonwealth. He made his first appearance as an
author in 1631, in a poem entitled 'David's hainous Sin, heartie
Repentance, and heavie Punishment.' He was much beloved in his day,
following faithfully as chaplain the fortunes of the royal army. As a
writer, every subject is alike to him; if dull, he enlivens it;
agreeable, he improves it; deep, he enlightens it; and if tough,
grapples bravely with it. As he was unwilling to go all lengths with
either party, he was abused by both. The storms which convulsed the
Government, had only the effect of throwing him upon his own resources,
and he thus produced the various works which won the admiration of his
contemporaries, and through which he still receives the gratitude of
posterity, keeping his memory still green in our souls. The table of
contents in the present volume is very varied, the chapters are short,
and treat of familiar and home-like topics.
FAMILIAR QUOTATIONS: Being an Attempt to Trace to their
Sources Passages and Phrases in Common Use, chiefly from English
Authors. By JOHN BARTLETT. Fourth edition. Boston: Little,
Brown & Co. 1864.
The compiler of this book says the favor shown to former editions has
encouraged him to go on with the work and make it still more worthy. The
object has been to present the general reader with such quotations as he
would readily recognize as old friends. The index of authors is a wide
one, placing before us at a glance many of the names treasured in our
memories; the index of subjects, alphabetically arranged, covers seventy
closely printed pages, and is exceedingly well ordered. We consider such
books as of great value, planting pregnant thoughts in the soul, and
affording rich illustrations. We cheerfully commend Mr. Bartlett's
excerpts. They are well chosen, and the binding, paper, and print of the
book are admirable.
ARNOLD AND ANDRÉ. An Historical Drama. By GEORGE
CALVERT, author of 'Scenes and Thoughts in Europe,' and 'The
Gentleman.' Boston: Little, Brown & Co. 1864.
Mr. Calvert says, 'an historical drama being the incarnation--through
the most compact and brilliant literary form--of the spirit of a
national epoch, the dramatic author, in adopting historic personages and
events, is bound to subordinate himself with conscientious faithfulness
to the actuality he attempts to reproduce. His task is, by help of
imaginative power, to give to important conjunctures, and to the
individuals that rule them, a more vivid embodiment than can be given on
the literal page of history--not to transform, but to elevate and
animate an enacted reality, and, by injecting it with poetic rays, to
make it throw out a light whereby its features shall be more visible.' A
just theory and well stated; and in 'Arnold and André,' our author has
subordinated himself with conscientious faithfulness to historic truth,
and is always correct and dignified; but the imaginative gift of deep
insight is wanting, and the fire of genius kindles not the heart of the
stately record to reveal its hidden power and pathos.
HISTORY OF THE ROMANS UNDER THE EMPIRE. By CHARLES
MERIVALE, B.D., late Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge.
From the fourth London edition. With a copious Analytical Index.
Vol. III. New York: D. Appleton & Co., Broadway.
Merivale's third volume commences with the proceedings upon the death of
Cæsar, and concludes with the Imperial Administration, thus containing
one of the most interesting and important periods of Roman history.
Antonius, Octavius, Cicero, Cleopatra, Octavia, Cæsarion, Herod,
Antipater, Mariamne, Agrippa, etc., make part of the brilliant array
rekindled before us. We have no doubt that the readers of ancient
history will gladly avail themselves of the opportunity to possess
themselves of Merivale's work.
SELECTIONS FROM THE WORKS OF JEREMY TAYLOR. With some
Account of the Author and his Writings. Boston: Little, Brown & Co.
1864.
Bishop Heber says, when speaking of the three great English divines,
'Hooker is the object of our reverence. Barrow of our admiration, and
Jeremy Taylor of our love.' Taylor was a man of devout and glowing soul,
of imaginative genius, so that, whatever may have been the prejudices of
his times, the restrictions of his creed, his thoughts are still fresh
and captivating, his quaint pages full of interest. He loved his Master,
and his love glows through much of his writing.
He was an accomplished scholar, and in spite of his contests with
'Papists,' a kindhearted man. His biographer says: 'To sum up all in a
few words, this great prelate had the good humor of a gentleman, the
eloquence of an orator, the fancy of a poet, the acuteness of a
schoolman, the profoundness of a philosopher, the wisdom of a
chancellor, the sagacity of a prophet, the reason of an angel, and the
piety of a saint, devotion enough for a cloister, learning enough for a
university, and wit enough for a college of virtuosi.'
These selections are judiciously made, and will commend themselves to
all readers of taste. It is a good sign to see Jeremy Taylor and old
Fuller reappearing among us.
POEMS. By FREDERICK GODDARD TUCKERMAN. Boston:
Ticknor & Fields. 1864.
Mr. Tuckerman has given us a volume of philosophically thought, tenderly
and purely felt, and musically rhythmed poems. No roughness disfigures,
no sensualism blights, no straining for effect chills, no meretricious
ornament destroys them. The ideas are grave and tender, the diction
scholarly, and if the fire and passion of genius flame not through them,
they seem to have been the natural growth of a heart
'Hearing oftentimes
The still sad music of humanity.'
THOUGHTS ON PERSONAL RELIGION. Being a Treatise on the
Christian Life, in its two Chief Elements, Devotion and Practice.
By EDWARD MEYRICK GOULBURN, D. D., Prebendary of St.
Paul's, Chaplain to the Bishop of Oxford, and one of her Majesty's
Chaplains in Ordinary. First American, from the fifth London
edition. With a Prefatory Note, by George H. Houghton, D.D., Rector
of the Church of the Transfiguration, in the City of New York. New
York: D. Appleton & Co., 443 and 445 Broadway. 1864.
This is, in the main, an excellent work on practical religion. From its
fervent spirit and sound common sense, it came very near being such a
one as we could have recommended for the perusal and attentive study of
the great body of Christians in our country. Unfortunately, the author,
by sundry flings at other Christian communities, and by the use of
nicknames, as Quaker, Romanist, Dissenter, etc., in speaking of them,
has restricted its usefulness chiefly to the members of his own
communion, the Protestant Episcopal Church. To such, it will doubtless
prove highly satisfactory and beneficial. A very few omissions would
have procured for it the wide range of acceptance and power of working
good to which its intrinsic excellence would then have entitled it. When
will our religious writers learn that the great battle now is not among
the various sections of the Christian camp, but with an outside enemy,
indefatigable, learned, plausible, and every day gaining ground? Who can
tell but that a careful examination of, and more accurate acquaintance
with the principles and practice of divisions serving under the same
great Captain, might dissipate many a prejudice, and reconcile many a
difficulty? One of the first requisites is, that all learn _to know_ and
_to speak_ the truth about one another.
THE SPIRIT OF THE FAIR. 1864. 'None but the brave deserve
the Fair.' Editorial Committee: Augustus R. Macdonough, _Chairman_;
Mrs. Charles E. Butler, Mrs. Edward Cooper, C. Astor Bristed,
Chester P. Dewey, James W. Gerard, jr., William J. Hoppin, Henry
Sedgwick, Frederick Sheldon, Charles K. Tuckerman. New York: John
F. Trow, Publisher, 50 Greene street.
In recommending to our readers this neatly bound volume of the daily
product of the great 'Metropolitan Fair,' we cannot do better than
extract the little introductory notice of the publisher, who says: 'By
the request of many patrons of the 'Spirit of the Fair,' the publisher
purchased the stereotype plates and copyrights of the paper, for the
purpose of supplying bound copies for permanent preservation. The
talented ladies and gentlemen who conducted the 'Spirit of the Fair,'
during its brief and brilliant career, have, by their well-directed
efforts, made a volume worthy of preservation, both from its high
literary excellence, and from the recollections with which it is
associated. Its pages are illuminated with the writings of the most
distinguished authors. Every article in the paper first saw the light of
print in the 'Spirit of the Fair.' Poets, Historians, Statesmen,
Novelists, and Essayists furnished contributions prepared expressly for
its columns; and their efforts in behalf of the noble charity which the
paper represented, should alone entitle the volume to be cherished as a
most valued memento and heirloom.
'The publisher, therefore, presents this volume to the public, in the
hope that it will not only gratify the reader of the present, but that
it will assist to preserve the 'Spirit of the Fair' for the reader of
the future.'
THE LITTLE REBEL. Boston: J. E. Tilton & Co. 1864. For
sale by Hurd & Houghton, New York.
A very interesting book for the little ones. It presents vivid pictures
of New England life, and is fragrant and dewy with fresh breezes from
the maple bush, the hillside, and the pasture lands. The style is
excellent, and the matter as sprightly and entertaining as it is simply
natural and morally improving.
THE POET, AND OTHER POEMS. By ACHSA W. SPRAGUE.
Boston: William White & Co., 158 Washington street. For sale by A.
J. Davis, New York.
'Miss Sprague was chiefly known to the world as a trance lecturer under
what claimed to be spirit influence. Although speaking in the interest
of a faith generally unpopular, and involved in no slight degree in
crudities, extravagance, and quackery, she was herself neither fool nor
fanatic. She was a true child of nature, direct and simple in her
manners, and impatient of the artificiality and formal etiquette of
fashionable society.' These poems are characterized by great case of
style, flowing rhythm, earnestness in the cause of philanthropy, and
frequently contain high moral lessons. But it is somewhat strange that
the poems of trance writers and speakers, so often marked by exquisite,
varied, and delicate chimes of ringing rhythm, of brilliant words, of
sparkling poetic dust blown from the pages of great writers, and
drifting through the world, should so seldom give us those great granite
blocks of originality, which must constitute the enduring base for the
new era therein announced. Is there nothing new in the world beyond the
grave which they deem open to their vision? We ask this in no spirit of
censure or cavil, for we have no prejudice against the school of
spiritualistic literature, save where it militates against the faith in
our Redeemer.
INDEX TO VOLUME VI.
A Castle in the Air. By E. Foxton, 272
Ænone; a Tale of Slave Life in Rome, 10, 149, 254, 408, 519, 610
A Glance at Prussian Politics. By Charles
M. Mead, 261, 383
A Great Social Problem. By G. U., 441
American Civilization. By Lieut. Egbert
Phelps, U. S. A., 102
American Slavery and Finances. By Hon.
Robert J. Walker, 22
American Women. By Mrs. Virginia Sherwood, 416
An Army: Its Organization and Movements.
By Lieut.-Col. C. W. Tolles, A. Q. M., 1, 223, 330, 601
A Sigh. By Virginia Vaughan, 355
A Wren's Song, 434
Aphorisms, 78, 83, 134, 222, 260, 414, 444, 609, 663
Asleep, 270
Averill's Raid. By Alfred B. Street, 326
Battle of the Wilderness. By E. A. Warriner, 207
Buckle, Draper: Church and Estate. By Edward
B. Freeland, 55
Buried Alive. A Dirge. By Martha Walker
Cook, 189
Causes of the Minnesota Massacre. By January
Searle, 174
Church Music. By Lucia D. Pychowska, 112
Colors and their Meaning. By Mrs. M. E. G.
Gage, 199
Coming Up at Shiloh, 399
'Cor Unum, Via Una.' God Bless our Native
Land! 716
Creation. By Charles E. Townsend, 531
Death in Life. By Edwin R. Johnson, 516
Docs the Moon Revolve on its Axis? By
Charles E. Townsend, 380
Editor's Table, 238, 478, 711
Excuse. By Kate Putnam, 415
Flower Odors, 469
Fly Leaves from the Life of a Soldier, 289, 534
Genius, By Richard Bowen, 705
James Fenimore Cooper on Secession and
State Rights. By Charles K. Tuckerman, 79
Letter of Hon. R. J. Walker, in favor of the
Reëlection of Abraham Lincoln, Sept.
30, 1864, London, 686
Life on a Blockader. By the Author of 'The
Last Cruise of the Monitor, 46
Literary Notices, 116, 232, 359, 475, 706
Locomotion. By David M. Balfour, 472
Lois Pearl Berkeley. By Margaret Vane
Hastings 552
Longing. From Schlegel, 454
Look-Out Mountain. By Alfred B. Street, 65
Lunar Characteristics. By Charles E. Townsend, 381
Miracles. By Rev. Asa L. Colton, 685
Negro Troops. By Henry Everett Russell, 191
Observations of the Sun. By Charles E.
Townsend, 328
One Night. By Julius Wilcox, 67
On Hearing a 'Trio.' By Mary Freeman
Goldbeck, 650
Our Domestic Affairs. By George Wurts, 241
Our Great America. By January Searle, 445
Our Martyrs. By Kate Putnam, 147
Phenomena of Haze, Fogs, and Clouds. By
Charles E. Townsend, 533
Proverbs. By E. B. C., 371
Recognition. By Virginia Vaughan, 88
Self-Sacrifice. Analect from Richter, 632
Shanghai: Its Streets, Shops, and People.
By Henry B. Auchincloss, 633
Sketches of American Life and Scenery. By
Lucia D. Pychowska, 544, 664
Some Uses of a Civil War. By Hugh Miller
Thompson, 361
Sound Reflections. By E. B. C., 314
Streck-Verse. By E. B. C., 298
Tardy Truths. By H. K. Kalussowski, 209
The Antiquity of Man. A Philosophic Debate.
By William Henderson, 356
The Constitutional Amendment. By Henry
Everett Russell, 135
The Cross. By E. Foxton, 34
The Danish Sailor. By G. T. M., 99
The Devil's Cañon in California. By Henry
B. Auchincloss, 280
The English Press. By Nicholas Rowe,
London, 36, 135
The Esthetics of the Root of All Evil. By
George P. Upton, 677
The First Christian Emperor. By Rev. Dr.
Philip Schaff, 161
The First Fanatic. By Fanny L. Glenfield, 543
The Ideal Man for Universal Imitation; or,
The Sinless Perfection of Jesus. By
Rev. Dr. Philip Schaff, 651
The Lesson of the Hour. By Edward Sprague
Rand, 455
The North Carolina Conscript. By Isabella
McFarland, 379
The Progress of Liberty in the United States.
By Rev. A. D. Mayo, 481
The Resurrection Flower. By M. E. Dodge, 84
The Sacrifice. By S. J. Bates, 296
The Scientific Universal Language; Its
Character and Relation to other Languages.
By Edward B. Freeland, 456, 572
The Seven-Hundredth Birthday of a German
Capital. By Prof. Andrew Ten
Brook, 89
The Two Platforms. By Henry Everett
Russell, 587
The Undivine Comedy. A Polish Drama.
By Count Sigismund Krasinski. Translated
by Martha Walker Cook, 298, 372, 497, 623
The Vision. By George B. Peck, 620
Tidings of Victory. By C. L. P., 676
Violations of Literary Property. The Federalist--Life
and Character of John Jay.
By Henry T. Tuckerman, 336
Who Knows? By Edwin R. Johnson, 358
Word-Stilts. By William Wirt Sikes, 439
'Ye Know Not What Ye Ask.' By Fanny
L. Glenfield, 398
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1,
July, 1864, by Various
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