Project Gutenberg's The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 3, by Various
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Title: The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 3
Author: Various
Release Date: February 9, 2006 [EBook #17723]
Language: English
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[Illustration: John Albion Andrew]
THE BAY STATE MONTHLY.
_A Massachusetts Magazine._
VOL. III. AUGUST, 1885. NO. III.
* * * * *
JOHN ALBION ANDREW.
THE "WAR-GOVERNOR" OF MASSACHUSETTS.
John Albion Andrew, the twenty-first Governor of Massachusetts, was
born, May 31, 1818, at Windham, a small town near Portland, Maine. His
father was Jonathan Andrew, who had established himself in Windham as a
small trader; his mother was Nancy Green Pierce, of New Hampshire, who
was a teacher in the celebrated academy at Fryeburg, where Daniel
Webster was once employed in the same capacity.
Jonathan is described as having been "a quiet, reticent man, of much
intelligence and a keen perception of the ludicrous," while his wife was
"well educated, with great sweetness of temper, and altogether highly
prepossessing in appearance." There never was a more united and happy
family. The father possessed ample means for their education, and left
his household to the good management of his wife, who was admirable in
her domestic arrangements, judicious, sensible, energetic, and a rigid
disciplinarian of her children. There was a rare union of gentleness and
force in this woman, which made her generally attractive, and especially
endeared her to all who came under the influence of her character.
Mrs. Andrew died on the 7th of March, 1832. Shortly afterwards the
husband sold out his property in Windham and removed to a farm in
Boxford, in the county where he was born. He died in September, 1849.
John Albion, the oldest son, entered Bowdoin College in 1833, where he
pursued a course in no way remarkable. He was a studious youth, applied
himself closely to his books, and appeared to take no lively interest in
athletic sports. Notwithstanding his studiousness, he was ranked among
the lowest of his class, and was allotted no part at Commencement. Among
his fellows he was, however, exceedingly popular, and his happy
temperament, his genial nature, won him friendship which after years
only made stronger and more enduring.
After his graduation the young man came to Boston and entered the office
of the late Henry H. Fuller, as a student of law. The attraction between
him and young Andrew was mutual, and they became almost like brothers.
It was while serving his novitiate under Mr. Fuller that Andrew became
interested in many of the reform movements of the day, and was as firm
and peculiar in one direction as his friend was in another.
Andrew rose slowly at the bar. To his clients he simply did his duty,
and that was all. He was not a learned lawyer, nor was he in any sense a
great lawyer, and yet he expended great care and industry in looking up
his cases, and probably never lost a client who had once employed him.
We are told by one of his biographers that, "during all these years he
was not what was called a student, but was never idle." He entered
largely into the moral questions of that day; was greatly interested in
the preaching of James Freeman Clarke; a constant attendant at meeting
and the Bible-classes. Occasional lay-preaching being the custom of that
church, young Andrew sometimes occupied the pulpit and conducted the
services to the general acceptance of the people.
Andrew did not become actively interested in politics until his
admission to the bar, and then he joined the Whig party, and became
thoroughly in earnest in advocating the Anti-Slavery movement. In 1859
he was chosen to the lower branch of the Legislature and at once took a
prominent position. In 1860 he was nominated for Governor of the
Commonwealth, by a general popular impulse which overwhelmed the old
political managers, who regarded him as an intruder upon the arena, and
had laid other plans. He was called to the position of chief magistrate
of Massachusetts at a most momentous time, but he was found equal to the
emergency, and early acquired, by general consent, the title of "The
Great War-Governor."
It was just on the eve of the Rebellion, and the whole North was excited
by the events which had already transpired. In his inaugural address in
January, '61, Governor Andrew advised that a portion of the militia
should be placed on a footing of activity, in order that, "in the
possible contingencies of the future the State might be ready without
inconvenient delay to contribute her share of force in any exigency of
public danger," and immediately despatched a confidential messenger to
the Governors of Maine and New Hampshire to inform them of his
determination to prepare for instant service the militia of
Massachusetts, and to invite their coöperation.
This is not the place nor the time to give even a _résumé_ of
Governor Andrew's administration. He retired from office at the close of
1865, after a service of unexampled interest and importance in the
history of the Commonwealth. He retired with honor to himself and to the
regret of all who had known him best. We have already alluded to
Governor Andrew's interest in the question of Anti-Slavery, and it
should be stated that in regard to the emancipation of the slaves he was
among the first, as he was the most persistent advocate of a measure
which he considered the greatest blow that could be struck at the enemy,
fully justified as a measure of war and demanded by every consideration
of justice and humanity.
Apropos of his impatience on this subject the following incident related
by one of the Governor's friends is worth recalling:--
"It was the summer of 1862, when emancipation was being talked a great
deal. We had not had any great successes, and everybody had a notion
that emancipation ought to come. One day the Governor sent for me to
come up to the State-House. I went up to his room, and I never shall
forget how I met him. He was signing some kind of bonds, standing at
a tall desk in the Council Chamber, in his shirt-sleeves, his fingers
all covered with ink. He said, 'How do you do? I want you to go to
Washington.'--'Why, Governor,' said I, 'I can't go to Washington
on any such notice as this; I am busy, and it is impossible for me
to go.'--'All my folks are serving their country,' said he; and he
mentioned the various services the members of his staff were engaged
in, and said with emphasis, 'Somebody must go to Washington.'--'Well,
Governor, I don't see how I can.' Said he, 'I command you to
go!'--'Well,' said I, 'Governor, put it in that way and I shall go,
of course.'--'There is something going on,' he remarked. 'This is a
momentous time.' He turned suddenly towards me and said, 'You believe in
prayer, don't you?' I said, 'Why, of course.'--'Then let us pray;' and
he knelt right down at the chair that was placed there; we both kneeled
down, and I never heard such a prayer in all my life. I never was so
near the throne of God, except when my mother died, as I was then. I
said to the Governor, 'I am profoundly impressed; and I will start this
afternoon for Washington.' I soon found out that emancipation was in
everybody's mouth, and when I got to Washington and called upon Sumner,
he began to talk emancipation. He asked me to go and see the President,
and tell him how the people of Boston and New England regarded it. I
went to the White House that evening and met the President. We first
talked about everything but emancipation, and finally he asked me what I
thought about emancipation. I told him what I thought about it, and said
that Governor Andrew was so far interested in it that I had no doubt
he had sent me on there to post the President in regard to what the
class of people I met in Boston and New York thought of it, and then
I repeated to him, as I had previously to Sumner, this prayer of the
Governor's, as well as I could remember it. The President said, 'When we
have the Governor of Massachusetts to send us troops in the way he has,
and when we have him to utter such prayers for us, I have no doubt that
we shall succeed.' In September the Governor sent for me. He had a
despatch that emancipation would be proclaimed, and it was done the next
day. You remember the President made proclamation in September to take
effect in January. Well, he and I were together alone again in the
Council Chamber. Said he, 'You remember when I wanted you to go on to
Washington?' I said, 'Yes, I remember it very well.'--'Well,' said he,
'I didn't know exactly what I wanted you to go for then. Now I will tell
you what let's do; you sing "Coronation," and I'll join with you.' So we
sang together the old tune, and also "Praise God from whom all blessings
flow." Then I sang "Old John Brown," he marching around the room and
joining in the chorus after each verse."
After the war had begun, Governor Andrew insisted on every measure to
defeat the Confederate armies that was consistent with the laws of war.
He was especially strenuous in demanding the emancipation of the slaves,
as the following quotation from a sketch by Mr. Albert G. Browne, Jr.,
the Governor's military secretary, will show:--
"Over the bodies of our soldiers who were killed at Baltimore he had
recorded a prayer that he might live to see the end of the war, and a
vow that, so long as he should govern Massachusetts, and so far as
Massachusetts could control the issue, it should not end without freeing
every slave in America. He believed, at the first, in the policy of
emancipation as a war measure. Finding that timid counsels controlled
the government at Washington, and the then commander of the Army of the
Potomac, so that there was no light in that quarter, he hailed the
action of Fremont in Missouri in proclaiming freedom to the Western
slaves. Through all the reverses which afterwards befell that officer he
never varied from this friendship; and when at last Fremont retired from
the Army of Virginia, the Governor offered him the command of a
Massachusetts regiment, and vainly urged him to take the field again
under our State flag. Just so, afterwards, he welcomed the similar
action of Hunter in South Carolina, and wrote in his defence the famous
letter in which he urged 'to fire at the enemy's magazine.' He was
deeply disappointed when the administration disavowed Hunter's act, for
he had hoped much from the personal friendship which was known to exist
between the General and the President. Soon followed the great reverses
of McClellan before Richmond.
"The feelings of the Governor at this time, on the subject of
emancipation, are well expressed in a speech which he made on Aug. 10,
1862, at the Methodist camp-meeting on Martha's Vineyard. It was the
same speech in which occurs his remark since so often quoted:--
"'I know not what record of sin awaits me in the other world, but this I
know, that I was never mean enough to despise any man because he was
black.'
"Referring to slavery, he said:--
"'I have never believed it to be possible that this controversy should
end and peace resume her sway until that dreadful iniquity has been
trodden beneath our feet. I believe it cannot, and I have noticed, my
friends (although I am not superstitious, I believe), that, from the day
our government turned its back on the proclamation of General Hunter,
the blessing of God has been withdrawn from our arms. We were marching
on conquering and to conquer; post after post had fallen before our
victorious arms; but since that day I have seen no such victories. But I
have seen no discouragement. I bate not one jot of hope. I believe that
God rules above, and that he will rule in the hearts of men, and that,
either with our aid or against it, he has determined to let the people
go. But the confidence I have in my own mind that the appointed hour has
nearly come makes me feel all the more confidence in the certain and
final triumph of our Union arms, because I do not believe that this
great investment of Providence is to be wasted.'"
[Illustration: GOV. ANDREW'S BIRTHPLACE]
Governor Andrew retired from office January 5, 1866, and, returning to
private life, he again entered upon a large practice at the bar, which
was lucrative as well.
On the 30th of October, 1867, he died suddenly of apoplexy, after tea,
at his own home on Charles street, Boston. The body was laid in Mount
Auburn Cemetery, but was afterwards removed to the old burial-place in
Hingham, where a fine statue has since been erected over his grave.
Governor Andrew was married Christmas evening, December, 1848,
to Miss Eliza Jane, daughter of Charles Hersey, of Hingham. They had
four children living at the time of his death,--John Forrester, born Nov.
26, 1850; Elizabeth Loring, born July 29, 1852; Edith, born April 5,
1854; Henry Hersey, born April 28, 1858.
Mr. Edwin P. Whipple, who was first chosen as the most competent person
to write the biography of Governor Andrew, after examining the
Governor's private and official correspondence, affirmed that he could
discover nothing in his most private notes which was not honorable.
[Illustration: BURIAL-PLACE AND MONUMENT, HINGHAM, MASS.]
Says Mr. Peleg W. Chandler, in his "Memoir and Reminiscences of Governor
Andrew,"[1] a most charming volume, from which largely this sketch has
been prepared:--
"He passed more than twenty years in an arduous profession, and never
earned more than enough for the decent and comfortable support of his
family. He devoted his best years to the country, and lost his life in
her service. His highest ambition was to do his duty in simple faith and
honest endeavor, of such a character the well-known lines of Sir Henry
Watton are eminently applicable:--
"This man was free from servile bands
Of hope to rise, or fear to fall;
Lord of himself, though not of lands,
And having nothing, yet had all."
[Footnote 1: Published by Roberts Brothers, Boston.]
* * * * *
THE CITY OF WORCESTER--THE HEART OF THE COMMONWEALTH.
By Fanny Bullock Workman.
The city of Worcester, forty-four miles west of Boston, lies in a valley
surrounded on all sides by hills, and covers an area which may be
roughly estimated as extending four miles in length by two in breadth,
its long axis running north and south. It is the second city in the
State in point of population, while in enterprise it yields the palm to
none of its size in the country, sending to all parts of the world its
manufactured products, the excellence of which has established the
reputation of the place in which they were produced.
[Illustration: UNION PASSENGER STATION.]
Worcester was first settled in the spring of 1675, under the name of
Quinsigamond. The original order of the General Court, granted Oct.
11th, 1665, was as follows:--
This Court, understanding by the petition of Thomas Noyes, John Haynes
of Sudbury, and Nathaniel Treadaway of Watertown, hereunto affixed,
that there is a meete place for a Plantation about ten miles from
Marlborow, westward, at or neer Quansetamug Pond, which, that it may
be improved for that end, and not spoiled by the grantinge of farms,
in answer to the forsaid petition, This Court doth order, that there
should he a quantitie of eight miles square layd out and reserved
thereabout, in the Courts dispose, for a plantation, for the
encouragement of such persons as shall appear, any time within three
years from the date hereof, beeing men approved by this Court; and that
Capt. Edward Johnson, Lieut. Joshua Fisher, and Lieut. Thomas Noyes,
shall, and are herby appointed and empowered to lay out the same,
and to be payd by such persons as shall appear within the terme above
expressed. The Deputies have passed this with reference to the consent
of our honored Magistrates hereto.
WILLIAM TORREY _clerk_
The Magistrates consent to a survey of the place petitioned for, and
that Capt. Gookin doe joine with those mentioned of our brethren the
deputies, and make return of their survey to the next General Court of
Elections, who may take order therein as they shall see meete, their
brethren the deputies hereto consenting.
EDWARD RAWSON _Sect'y._
WILLIAM TORREY _Cleric._ Consented to by the deputies.
[Illustration: FIRST UNIVERSALIST CHURCH.]
[Illustration: FIRST UNITARIAN CHURCH.]
[Illustration: PLAN OF WORCESTER 1673 TO 1675.]
At that time several persons occupied lands that had been granted them,
and built houses. This infant settlement was strangled almost at its
birth by the outbreak of King Philip's War, which spread in that year
throughout Massachusetts. The colonists, few in number, and without
adequate means of protection against the hostile savages, soon abandoned
their buildings, which were burned by the Indians, December 2, 1675. In
1684 some of the former proprietors returned to their lands, accompanied
by new settlers, and a second plantation was formed; this time under the
name of Worcester. The records relating to the fortunes of this
plantation are very meagre; but it continued to exist till 1700, or
1702, when, during the progress of the French and Indian hostilities,
owing to its exposed position, it was again deserted by its inhabitants.
One man only, Digory Serjent, remained with his family, refusing to give
up to the Indians the fields his labor had brought under cultivation.
For a time he was unmolested. The authorities sent messengers to warn
him of the danger he incurred by his rash course, and to advise his
removal with his family to a place of safety. But the warning and
admonition were alike disregarded. At last, early in the winter of 1702,
an armed force was sent to compel him to depart. They marched with due
expedition, but, being detained overnight by a severe snow-storm at a
blockhouse about two miles from his residence, they arrived too late to
attain their object, and found his body, scarcely yet cold, lying on the
floor, and his family carried captive by the Indians. Thus terminated
the second attempt at a settlement on this spot, which was again given
over for several years to desolation and decay.
[Illustration: ST. PAUL'S CHURCH.]
The principal seat of the Indians in this vicinity was Pakachoag Hill, a
little south of where now stands the College of the Holy Cross. They
were called Nipmuck Indians, and consisted of about twenty families,
numbering about one hundred persons, under Sagamore John. Another tribe,
of about the same number, dwelt on Tatnuck Hill, under Sagamore Solomon.
John Eliot, the famous apostle to the Indians, with General Daniel
Gookins, visited these tribes in 1674; but he did not fully reclaim them
to peaceful habits, although many of them professed Christianity.
[Illustration: CHAIR MANUFACTORY OF E.W. VAILL.]
[Illustration: THE NEW CENTRAL CHURCH.]
In 1713 the inhabitants, not discouraged by their former experience, one
after another returned again to take possession of their property; and
this time they returned to stay. They were joined by others, and the
population began to increase. In 1722 Worcester was incorporated as a
town, and henceforth assumed its share of responsibility with the other
towns in adopting measures for the general welfare, and contributed its
proportion of men and supplies for the common defence. Through the
stormy period preceding the War of the Revolution, the public sentiment
of Worcester sustained the rights of the Colonies, and when, on the 19th
of April, 1773, the messenger of war, on his white horse, dashed through
the town, shouting, "To arms! to arms! the war is begun," the response
was immediate; the bell was rung, cannon fired, and the minute-men, true
to name, rallied on the Common, where they were paraded by Capt. Timothy
Bigelow. At about five o'clock in the afternoon they took up their line
of march. Capt. Benjamin Flagg soon followed, with thirty-one men,--a
total of one hundred and eight men. Capt. Bigelow having halted at
Sudbury, to rest his men, was met by Capt. Flagg, when they both pushed
on to Cambridge, where the organization of the army was being made.
Timothy Bigelow, whose abilities were at once recognized, was appointed
Major in Col. Jonathan Ward's regiment. On the 24th of April another
company, of fifty-nine men, all from Worcester, enlisted under Capt.
Jonas Hubbard. During the seven dark years that followed, this town
never wavered in its devotion to the cause of liberty, and was
represented on many of the most important battle-fields, as well
as at the surrender of Yorktown, which terminated the struggle for
independence. Saturday, the 14th of July, 1776, the Declaration of
Independence was received. It was publicly read, for the first time on
Massachusetts soil, from the porch of the Old South Church, by Isaiah
Thomas, to the assembled crowd. On Sunday, after divine service, it was
read in the church. Measures were adopted for a proper celebration of
the event, and on the Monday following, the earliest commemoration of
the occasion, since hallowed as the national anniversary, took place in
the town.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: POST OFFICE AND MASONIC HALL.]
Worcester continued to increase both in size and importance during the
first half of the present century, till, in 1848, having outgrown the
limits of a town, it was made a city, and the first city government
inaugurated, with Ex-Gov. Levi Lincoln, Mayor, and the following
Aldermen: Parley Goddard, Benjamin F. Thomas, John W. Lincoln, James
S. Woodworth, William B. Fox, James Estabrook, Isaac Davis, and Stephen
Salisbury. The City Clerk was Charles A. Hamilton; the City Treasurer,
John Boyden; and the City Marshal, George Jones. Since then it has made
rapid strides in growth, influence, and prosperity. When the call for
troops to defend Washington came, in 1861, Worcester as a city was true
to her record as a town; for within twelve hours a company started for
the seat of war, and passed through Baltimore with the Sixth
Massachusetts Regiment, on the memorable 19th of April, just eighty-six
years from the first shedding of Massachusetts blood at Lexington.
In 1800 the population of Worcester was 2,411; in 1820 it was 2,962;
in 1840, 7,500; in 1850, 17,049; in 1860, about 25,000; in 1870, about
41,000. At the present time it is about 70,000. The first event of
consequence that gave an impetus to the growth of the town was the
opening of the Blackstone Canal, in 1828, connecting Worcester with
tide-water at Providence. This, although considered at the time a marvel
of engineering skill, and undoubtedly of great benefit to the public,
was not a successful enterprise, and on the establishment of railroads
a few years later was discontinued.
[Illustration: WORCESTER CORSET COMPANY'S WORKS.]
In 1831 the Boston and Worcester Railroad was incorporated and soon
built, followed at short intervals by the Western Railroad, the Norwich
and Worcester, the Nashua and Worcester, Fitchburg and Worcester, and
the Providence and Worcester railroads; thus making a centre from which
one could travel in any direction. Later the Barre and Gardner Railroad
was built, and the Boston and Worcester consolidated with the Western
Railroad. By this last corporation the Union Passenger Station was
erected, in 1877, which is one of the most costly, elegant, and
convenient edifices devoted to this business in the country. About
seventy-five trains arrive and depart daily. The advantage thus given to
Worcester over other towns in the county was great, and the results were
striking and immediate, as may be seen by reference to the figures of
population above given. The facility of communication thus afforded
caused capitalists to settle here, and manufactures rapidly sprang up
and flourished, drawing to this spot thousands of laborers, who
otherwise would have gone elsewhere. At the present time the chief
interests of the city centre in its manufactures, which embrace almost
every variety of articles made in iron, steel, and wire cotton and
woollen fabrics, leather, wood, and chemicals.
[Illustration: FREE PUBLIC LIBRARY.]
Among the multitude of manufactured products it is almost useless to
attempt to specify any particular ones. The same is true of the
manufacturing establishments and corporations. Mention may be made,
however, of the Washburn & Moen Wire Works, which give employment to
about three thousand operatives, established in 1831, and having a
capital of two million dollars. The power used in manufacturing is
almost exclusively steam, but water is used somewhat in the outskirts,
where streams have been dammed to make reservoirs.
Connected with the growth of Worcester it is interesting to note that
the increase in the population has been largely from the ranks of the
laboring classes. The manner in which the city is built shows this to
the most casual observer. There are but few large estates or imposing
residences, surrounded with extensive grounds. The great majority
of the houses are made of wood, are of small size, and stand in small
enclosures. As mechanics have prospered they have bought land, and built
such houses as were suitable to their means, obtaining loans of the
savings-banks, which they have paid off gradually. This has been
especially the case the last few years, during which time the city has
extended in every direction in the manner indicated; and it is said the
greater part of the deposits in the savings-banks, as well as their
loans, have been made by and to people of the laboring class. This shows
a general prosperity, and indicates a permanency of population not seen
in many cities. During the last twenty years many people who began life
with the most modest means, or with none at all, have become wealthy;
and in almost every such case their prosperity has been due to their
connection with manufacturing interests.
[Illustration: THE PRESENT ANTIQUARIAN HALL.]
Worcester is exceptionally fortunate in its water-supply. This is
derived from two large reservoirs fed by running streams, each about
five miles distant from the city. One of these, called the Lynde-Brook
Reservoir, is situated in the township of Leicester. It was built in
1864, has a water-shed of 1,870 acres, and a storage capacity of
681,000,000 gallons, and an elevation of 481 feet above the City Hall.
The dam of this reservoir gave way in February, 1876, during a freshet,
and the immense mass of water was precipitated, with an unearthly roar,
into the valley below, destroying everything in its path, and carrying
rocks, earth, trees, and _débris_ to a distance of several miles.
The other, called the Holden Reservoir, is in the township of Holden.
This was built in 1883, has a water-shed of 3,148 acres, a storage
capacity of 450,000,000 gallons, and lies 260 feet above the City Hall.
There are also three distributing reservoirs at elevations of 177 to 184
feet above the level of Main street, and supplied from the two principal
reservoirs. Thirty-inch mains connect the reservoirs with the city. The
height of the water-supply gives a pressure in the pipes at the City
Hall of from sixty to seventy-five pounds to the square inch, which is
sufficient to throw a stream of water to the tops of the highest
buildings,--a great advantage in case of fire, rendering the employment
of steam fire-engines unnecessary in those parts of the city provided
with hydrants. The water is of excellent quality, being remarkably free
from impurities, either organic or mineral. The total amount expended on
the water-works from 1864 to December 1, 1884, is $1,653,456, and the
income from water-rates for the year ending December, 1884, was
$107,515. The uneven character of the ground upon which Worcester is
built is favorable to drainage, and advantage has been taken of this
fact to construct an excellent system of sewers, which thoroughly drain
the greater parts of the city. All abutters are obliged to enter the
sewers; and no surface-drainage nor cesspools are allowed. The result is
that Worcester is a very clean city, and few places can be found either
in the city itself or in the suburbs where surface accumulations exhale
unpleasant or noxious odors. To the influence of pure water and good
drainage may partly be ascribed the general good health of the
inhabitants, and the absence, during the last few years, of anything
like an epidemic of diseases dependent upon unsanitary conditions. The
sewers all converge upon one large common sewer, which discharges its
contents into the Blackstone river at Quinsigamond.
[Illustration: THE OLD SOUTH MEETING-HOUSE.]
In Worcester, as in most of the smaller cities of New England, the Main
street is the chief thoroughfare and the site of many of the prominent
buildings. This street runs north and south, and is about two and a half
miles long. Near the north end, at Lincoln square, are the Court-House
and the American Antiquarian Society building. The latter contains a
large number of valuable and rare books, much sought after for reference
by students. Farther on toward the business centre are the Bay State
House--Worcester's principal hotel--and Mechanics' Hall. This hall is
one of the handsomest and largest in the State, and has a seating
capacity of about two thousand. In the centre of the city, bordering
upon Main street, is the Old Common, the original park of Worcester, now
a small breathing-place of the working class, where band concerts are
frequently given in summer. Here stand the Soldiers' Monument, designed
by Randolph Rogers, of Rome, and the Bigelow Monument, erected to
Timothy Bigelow, who commanded the minute-men who marched to Cambridge
upon receipt of the news of the Battle of Lexington, and served
throughout the Revolution as colonel of the Fifteenth Massachusetts
Regiment. At one corner of the Common, facing Main street, is the City
Hall, a small, unimposing structure, hardly worthy of the city. The
question of erecting a new one has been lately agitated. Near by stands
the Old South Church, built in 1763. The business portion of Main street
is well lined with large blocks, and the south end is laid out for
residences.
[Illustration: ELM PARK.]
Upon one of the hills, at the west side, stands the City Hospital, which
is well managed and kept up, and has a visiting staff of the best
physicians in the city. In connection with this institution, a
training-school for nurses has lately been established.
The city's most imposing building is the Worcester State Lunatic Asylum,
which can be seen from the trains on the Boston and Albany Railroad. A
picturesque edifice in itself it crowns a hill about two miles east of
Worcester, and overlooks the blue waters of Lake Quinsigamond, and also
a charming stretch of hill and dale beyond. Were the softening charms of
nature a potent remedy for the diseased mind, speedy cures might be
effected in this sequestered retreat. It contains generally over seven
hundred inmates, and can accommodate more. The building, begun in 1873,
was completed in 1877, is handsomely fitted up throughout, and very
spacious. It cost one million and a quarter dollars.
[Illustration: THE BIGELOW MONUMENT.]
On Summer street is the Asylum for the Chronic Insane. For many years
it was the only asylum, but upon the completion of the new building the
chronic cases were removed there, and it has since been devoted to their
needs only. The Technical School, or Free Institute, is situated on a
pretty wooded acclivity on the west side. Founded in 1865. it was
endowed, through the liberality of John Boynton, of Templeton, with
$100,000, which he left as a legacy for that purpose. This school is
more particularly for mechanics, chemists, and engineers, and is
conducted on the plan of the polytechnic schools of Europe. It is the
aim of the institution to train young men in such branches as are not
usually taught in the high schools, that any mechanic or civil engineer
on leaving the establishment may be fitted in a thoroughly scientific
manner to pursue his life-work. The institution is free to
Worcester-county residents; to those outside of the county the price of
tuition is $150. The number of students accommodated is one hundred and
twenty-six. The Free Public Library, founded in 1859, is one of the best
in the State, has a circulating department of 26,000 and an intermediate
department of 14,000 books; also a reference collection of over 20,000
volumes, bequeathed by the late Dr. John Green. An endowment fund, left
by this gentleman for the latter collection, is used to the best
advantage in procuring a great variety of encyclopædias and other
desirable books of reference. That Worcester citizens appreciate their
opportunities in this line is indicated by the large daily patronage.
Connected with the Public Library is a well-arranged reading-room,
supplied with periodicals and daily papers, accessible at all times to
the public; also the valuable library of the Worcester District Medical
Society, containing about 6,000 volumes. The able and accomplished
librarian is Mr. S.S. Green, who not only supplies its shelves with the
newest and most desirable books for reading and reference, but is a
fountain-head of information in himself, and ever ready and willing to
answer the many questions put to him constantly by a steady concourse of
applicants.
[Illustration: THE WASHBURN & MOEN MANUFACTURING COMPANY.]
The public-school system has been the occasion of much compliment, and
is regarded both here and elsewhere as a model one. In 1733 it was
voted, "that a school-house be built in the centre half, and that said
school house be 24 feet long, 16 feet wide, and 7 feet stud, and be
completely finished with good chimney glass," This was the first
school-house built in Worcester, and it stood at the north end of Main
street, near the middle of the present street, and there remained until
after the close of the Revolution. In 1740 £100 were granted for the
support of schools. The first Grammar school was established in 1752.
In 1755 John Adams, afterward President of the United States, taught
the Latin Grammar school here, and remained until 1758. There are now
twenty-six different school-houses, including the High School, a large
effective building, situated on Walnut street. Further accommodations
at the present time are greatly needed, the existing houses being
overcrowded. The amount last appropriated for the schools was $184,500
for maintenance, and $20,000 for the purchase of free textbooks. Beside
the public schools there are several large and well-known educational
institutions,--the College of the Holy Cross, the Free Institute, the
Worcester Academy, the Highland Military Academy, the Oread Institute,
the State Normal School, and the Roman Catholic Parochial schools. There
are also several private schools of note. The educational interests of
the city have kept pace with its rapid and astonishing growth.
[Illustration: OLD PAINE HOMESTEAD, LINCOLN STREET.]
Worcester has seven national banks, four savings-banks, and one safety
deposit and trust company.
Among a number of newspapers the chief ones have been the "Spy" and
"Evening Gazette." The "Massachusetts Spy" is one of the oldest papers
in this country, and has been published with unbroken numbers for 115
years. It was established in Boston, in July, 1770, but was removed to
Worcester by its proprietor, Isaiah Thomas, in May, 1775. It was in
those days outspoken with regard to the difficulties between the mother
country and the colonies, and, owing to its urgent appeals for freedom
from tyranny, it became necessary to remove press and paper. Mr. Thomas
was certainly one of the most remarkable men of his day. His patriotism
never waned during the most trying days of the Revolution, and the
"Massachusetts Spy" and its editor are a part of the history of the
country. July 22, 1845, the "Daily Spy" was first issued. The first
number was on a sheet 18 by 23 inches, a trifle larger than the first
number of the "Massachusetts Spy," which was 16 by 20 inches. It has
been enlarged several times. The "National Ægis," published in 1801, in
1833 merged into the "Massachusetts Yeoman," a paper started in 1823.
The name was changed to the "Worcester Palladium." In 1829 the
"Worcester County Republican" was started, and also merged into the
"Palladium," in 1834. It was a successful paper for years, but in 1876
it was sold to the "Spy." The "Gazette," begun in 1801 as a weekly,
became a daily in 1843, and is now an eight-page paper, the only one in
the city. In 1851 the "Daily Morning Transcript" was issued. Early in
1866 its name was changed to the "Evening Gazette," and it is now the
representative afternoon sheet of the city. There are two able and
well-conducted French weekly journals,--"Le Travailleur," and "Le
Courier de Worcester."
[Illustration: HIGH SCHOOL BUILDING.]
In 1719 the first church was built, near the present Old South Church,
on Main street. Previous to that time the inhabitants had held service
in their different houses, where their prayers were often interrupted by
the presence of hostile Indians, who took the occasion when the people
were absorbed in their devotions to molest them. In 1763 the present Old
South Meeting-House was built. The original dimensions were seventy feet
long, fifty-five wide, with a tower on the north side surmounted by a
spire one hundred and thirty feet high. It was commenced June 21, 1763,
and first occupied Dec. 8, 1763. There were sixty-one large square box
pews and seven long ones on each side of the broad aisle, which were
free. The building committee consisted of John Chandler, Joshua Bigelow,
Josiah Brewer, John Curtis, James Putnam. Daniel Boyden, James Goodwin,
Jacob Hemmenway, David Bigelow, Samuel Moore, and Elisha Smith. The
entire expense of the building was £1,542.
Since the date of its erection there have been many changes and
additions, so that it now presents but little of the appearance of its
former self.
The bell now in use was cast in 1802, and has this inscription:--
"The living to the church I call,
And to the grave I summon all."
In 1786, owing to certain disagreements, a division occurred in the
parish, some of its members leaving and forming an organization of their
own, with the Rev. Mr. Bancroft as rector. This society dedicated its
first church January 1, 1722, and this was replaced by a new structure,
of brick, in 1829, which is still in use. Since this first division new
societies have sprung up and new churches have been built, until to-day
there are forty-eight different houses of worship, among which are
eleven Congregational, eight Methodist Episcopal, seven Baptist, seven
Roman Catholic, three Protestant Episcopal, two Universalist, and two
Unitarian churches.
On account of the encircling hills the climate of Worcester is hot in
summer, but somewhat more temperate and less subject to east winds in
winter than that of Boston.
The surrounding country has all the charms that cultivated soil and
undulating hill-and-valley scenery can give. Good roads run in various
directions to the adjacent towns, and strangers often speak of the many
different and delightful drives to be found about Worcester.
Three miles east of the city is the beautiful sheet of water called Lake
Quinsigamond. It is a narrow lake, about five miles long, with thickly
wooded banks, and its surface dotted with picturesque little islands.
Along its shores the Nipmuck Indians are said to have lived and hunted;
and on Wigwam Hill, a wooded eminence overlooking the water, where one
of their encampments is supposed to have been, are still occasionally
found specimens of their rude house utensils.
A large tract of land bordering on the lake has lately been given to the
city by two Worcester gentlemen, and it is expected that in the near
future it will be cleared away and made into a public park. The only
park that the city now possesses, besides the Common, before alluded to,
is a small affair on the west side, at the foot of Elm street, one of
the principal residence streets.
* * * * *
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
By George Lowell Austin.
There is something eminently satisfactory in the reflection that, when
the new faith, "That all men are created equal," and that "Governments
are instituted among men deriving their just powers from the consent of
the governed," was finally assailed by the slave-power of America, and
had to pass the ordeal of four years of war, a man born and reared in
poverty, deficient in education, unused to the etiquette even of
ordinary society, and untutored in the art of diplomacy and deception,
had been selected by the people of the United States to become the
representative of the new faith, and the defender of the government
established upon it. This man was ABRAHAM LINCOLN, of Illinois, the
record of whose life, at once important, eventful, and tragic, it is
pleasant to recall.
There are, in my judgment, at least four men associated with the period
of the civil war, who, in their early lives, their struggles, their
training, and their future callings, ought forever to command the
admiration of this people: Lincoln, the lowly, the exalted, the pure
man in rude marble, the plain cover to a gentle nature, the giant frame
and noble intellect; Grant, the defender of the Federal Union, the
unflinching soldier, around whose dying couch a whole nation now
lingers, whose light will shine down through future ages a warning to
conspirators, to freemen a pledge, and to the oppressed a beacon of
hope; Stanton, the lion of Buchanan's cabinet, the collaborator of
Lincoln, the supporter of Grant, gifted with the far-seeing eye of a
Carnot, spotless in character, incorruptible in integrity, great in
talent and learning, and a fit object of unhesitating trust; and John
Rogers, the American sculptor, who has offered, in his beautiful and
famous group of statuary, "The Council of War," an undying tribute to
these three great leaders in American history, and is himself worthy
to be grouped with them in our remembrance.
"Leaves have their time to fall,
And flowers to wither at the north wind's breath,
And stars to set; but all--
Thou hast all seasons for thine own, O Death!"
If we could have looked into a rude log-cabin in Hardin county,
Kentucky, on the morning of the 12th of February, 1809, we should have
seen an infant just born,--and with what promise of future greatness?
Looking ahead ten years, we should have discerned this infant, Abraham,
developing into youth, still living in the old log-cabin, with neither
doors nor windows, with wolves and bears for neighbors, with a shiftless
father. But his mother was dead! Still this mother had left her impress,
and she had become in that boy's heart "an angel of a mother." She made
him what he afterwards proved himself to be. Follow Abraham Lincoln
where we will,--from the cradle to the grave,--and we shall find honesty
and kindness ever distinguishing him. In his boyhood, among boys, he was
always fighting the battle of the offended and the weak; in manhood, he
was always protecting the fugitive from an angry mob; as a lawyer,
saving the widow's son from the gallows, and declining the rich fee of
an unrighteous cause; as a public debater, the fairest ever met in the
political arena; and as president of the republic, honest in his
convictions and kind to his bitterest enemies.
Let us not forget the difficulties which it was his lot and his good
fortune to surmount. He never was six months at school in his life; and
yet, by the use of a single book and the occasional aid of a village
schoolmaster, he became an expert surveyor in six weeks! At the age of
twenty-one he accompanied his family to Illinois. One morning, when
seated at the breakfast-table of his employer, Lincoln was told that a
man living six miles away had a copy of an English grammar. He left the
table at once, and went and borrowed the book. During the long winter
evenings that followed, in the light of the village cooper's shop, he
pored over the pages of that book,--studying the science of language,
the theory of human speech, and qualifying himself to become the author
of one of the three great State papers of modern times, by the light of
burning shavings!
But we leave that early life of his, which, in rude simplicity, repeats
"the short and simple annals of the poor."
In 1832 Black Hawk, the celebrated Indian chief, then in his
sixty-seventh year, crossed the Mississippi to regain the Rock River
valley,--the scene of his early trials and triumphs. His coming meant
war upon the pale-faced stranger, that had ventured to possess the
hunting-grounds of the red men. Several companies of volunteers were
raised to meet him, and Abraham Lincoln served as captain of one of
them.
When the war was over Lincoln returned to New Salem, his home in
Illinois, and shortly afterwards began the study of the law. He was
still poor in purse, his clothing was threadbare, but his ambition was
immense. He often pursued his study in the shade of a tree. One day
Squire Godbey--a very good man he was, too, so we are told--saw him
seated on a pile of wood, absorbed in a book, when, according to the
squire, the following dialogue took place: "Says I, 'Abe, what are you
studying?'--'Law,' says he. 'Great God Almighty!' says I." Studying law
astride of a wood-pile, probably barefooted, was too great a shock for
the squire's susceptible nature. He continued to study, then to practise
a little without fee, and finally was admitted to the bar in 1836.
Judge Davis, once on the Supreme Bench of the United States, a man
spotless alike upon the throne of justice and in his daily walk, was
upon intimate terms with Lincoln for upwards of twenty years, and during
more than half of that period sat upon the judicial bench before which
Lincoln most frequently practised. No one is abler than he to speak of
Lincoln as a lawyer,--a lawyer who became one of the first of the
Western bar,--a bar that can proudly point to its Carpenter, its
Trumbull, its Ryan, and its Davis. He says:--
"The framework of Lincoln's mental and moral being was honesty; and a
wrong cause was poorly defended by him. The ability which some eminent
lawyers possess of explaining away the bad points of a cause by
ingenious sophistry was denied him. In order to bring into full activity
his great powers it was necessary that he should be convinced of the
right and justice of the matter which he advocated. When so convinced,
whether the cause was great or small, he was usually successful.
"He hated wrong and oppression everywhere; and many a man whose
fraudulent conduct was undergoing review in a court of justice has
writhed under his terrific indignation and rebukes. He was the most
simple and unostentatious of men in his habits, having few wants, and
those easily supplied."
In 1837 Mr. Lincoln removed to Springfield, Ill., where he entered into
partnership with his old friend, John T. Stuart; and this partnership
continued until 1841. In 1834 he had been elected to the Legislature,
and after his removal to Springfield he was again chosen to that body.
It was during this period that he found the nerve, when it did require
courage, to express and record his protest against the injustice of
slavery. Twice as a youth he had made a trip to New Orleans,--in 1828
and 1831,--and on his second visit had for the first time observed
slavery in its most brutal and revolting form. He had gone into the very
centre of a slave mart, had seen families sold, the separation forever
of husband and wife, of parent and child. When we recall how deeply he
always sympathized with suffering, brute as well as human, and his
strong love of justice, we can realize how deeply he was affected by
these things. His companions on this trip have attempted to describe his
indignation and grief. They said. "His heart bled. He was mad,
thoughtful, abstracted, sad, and depressed."
The years which Mr. Lincoln passed in Springfield were the preparatory
years of his future greatness. From this time onward he was ever a busy
man.
He was once associated with Mr. Swett in defending a man accused of
murder. He listened to the testimony which witness after witness gave
against his client until his honest heart could stand it no longer;
then, turning to his associate, he said: "Swett, the man is guilty; you
defend him: I can't." Swett _did_ defend him, and the man was
acquitted. When proffered his share of the large fee Lincoln most
emphatically declined it, on the ground that "all of it belonged to Mr.
Swett, whose ardor and eloquence saved a _guilty_ man from
justice."
At another time, when a would-be client had stated the facts of his
case, Mr. Lincoln replied: "Yes; there is no reasonable doubt but I can
gain your case for you. I can set a whole neighborhood at loggerheads.
I can distress a widowed mother and her six fatherless children, and
thereby get for you $600, which rightfully belongs, it seems to me, as
much to the woman and her children as it does to you. You must remember
that some things that are _legally_ right are not _morally_
right. I shall not take your case, but will give you a little advice,
for which I will charge you nothing. You appear to be a sprightly,
energetic man: I would advise you to try your hand at making $600 some
other way."
I turn now to another phase of his nature, and recall that he had not
grown up to manhood without the usual experiences of the tender passion.
It was while he was yet living at New Salem that his heart opened to a
fair, sweet-tempered, and intelligent girl, with the romantic name of
Anne Rutledge. They were engaged to be married as soon as he should be
admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court. But in August, 1835, she died.
Her beauty and her attractions and her early death made a very deep
impression upon him. We are told that he idealized her memory, and in
his recollections of her there was a poetry of sentiment, which might
possibly have been lessened, had she lived, by the prosaic realities of
life. With all his love of fun and frolic, with all his wit and humor,
with all his laughter and anecdotes, Lincoln, from his youth, was a man
of deep feeling. We have it on the authority of the most reliable of his
biographers, that he always associated with the memory of Anne Rutledge
the poem which, in his hours of despondency, he so often repeated:--
"Oh! why should the spirit of mortal be proud?
Like a swift fleeting meteor, a fast flying cloud,
A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave,
He passeth from life to his rest in the grave.
"The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade,
Be scattered around, and together be laid;
And the young and the old, and the low and the high,
Shall moulder to dust and together shall lie."
I never read this beautiful poem, so full of the true philosophy of
life, so suggestive of the rich promises of the hereafter, that I do not
think of the great president. He first found it in the columns of a
newspaper, cut it out, carried it in his pocket, and treasured it in his
memory for many years without knowing who was its author.
It would be pleasant to trace the years spent by Mr. Lincoln in the
State Legislature, and to revert to some of the speeches and occasional
addresses belonging to those years, which, in the light of his
subsequent history, are strangely significant. In the early period of
his legislative career he became acquainted with Stephen A. Douglas,
while the latter was a school-teacher at Winchester. Douglas was a man
of extraordinary powers, and one of the readiest of the American
debaters of his time. As the years went on he became actively interested
in politics, and at length assumed the leadership of the Democrats in
Illinois, while Lincoln became the standard-bearer of the Whigs. When
party platforms were promulgated, upon the eve of important contests,
these two statesmen, by the unanimous consent of their supporters, were
selected to debate the merits of their respective political creeds
before the people. A series of joint discussions was arranged to take
place in the various important towns of the State. The assemblages were
large, and were composed of men of all parties. The discussion opened
with a speech of an hour, from one of the debaters; the other replied in
an address of an hour and a half; a rejoinder of half an hour brought
the discussion to a close. At the next meeting the order of speaking was
reversed, and by this arrangement the "last word" was indulged in
alternately by each debater.
During the various joint discussions held between the eloquent political
orators who were chosen to represent the Anti-Slavery and Democratic
parties, it may fairly be asserted that Lincoln opposed, while Douglas
defended, directly or indirectly, the slave interests of the country.
The former always felt that slavery was wrong, and in seeking a remedy
for the existing evil he followed in the footprints of Henry Clay. He
advocated gradual emancipation, with the consent of the people of the
slave States, and at the expense of the General Government. In his great
speech against the Kansas and Nebraska bill, he said, "Much as I hate
slavery, I would consent to its extension rather than see the Union
dissolved, just as I would consent to any great evil to avoid a greater
one."
The debates between Lincoln and Douglas, especially those of the year
1858, were unquestionably the most important in American history. The
speeches of Mr. Lincoln, as well as of the "Little Giant" who opposed
him, were circulated and read throughout the Union, and did more than
any other agency to create the public opinion which prepared the way for
the overthrow of slavery. As another has said, "The speeches of John
Quincy Adams and of Charles Sumner were more scholarly; those of Lovejoy
and Wendell Phillips were more vehement and impassioned; Senators
Seward, Hale, Trumbull, and Chase spoke from a more conspicuous forum;
but Lincoln's were more philosophical, while as able and earnest as any,
and his manner had a simplicity and directness, a clearness of statement
and felicity of illustration, and his language a plainness and
Anglo-Saxon strength, better adapted than any other to reach and
influence the common people,--the mass of the voters."
From 1847 to March 4, 1849, Mr. Lincoln served a term in Congress,
where he acted with his party in opposing the Mexican war. In 1855 he
was a prominent candidate for the United States Senate, but was
defeated. From the ruins of the old Whig party and the acquisition of
the Abolitionists, the Republican had been formed, and of this party, in
Illinois, Mr. Lincoln became, in 1858, the senatorial candidate. Again
he was defeated, by his adversary Mr. Douglas. Lincoln felt aggrieved,
for he had carried the popular vote of his State by nearly 4,000 votes.
When questioned by a friend upon this delicate point, he said that he
felt "like the boy that stumped his toe,--it hurt him too much to laugh,
and he was too big to cry."
In his speech at Springfield, with which the campaign of 1858 opened,
Mr. Lincoln made the compromisers of his party tremble by enunciating
a doctrine which, they claimed, provoked defeat. He said: "'A house
divided against itself cannot stand.' I believe this Government cannot
permanently endure half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union
to be dissolved; I do not expect the house to fall; but I do expect it
will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other;
either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it,
and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is
in a course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it
forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the States,--old as
well as new, North as well as South."
These were prophetic words; and they were spoken by a man born in the
slave State of Kentucky. It was the truth, the fearless truth, uttered
in advance of even the acknowledged leader of the Republican party,
Governor Seward, of New York. The simple assertion of that truth cost
Lincoln a seat in the United States Senate; but it set other men's minds
to thinking, and in 1860 the PEOPLE, following the path made through the
forest of error by a pioneer in the cause of truth, came to similar
conclusions, and made "Honest Old Abe" Chief Magistrate of the republic.
On the 10th of May, 1860, the Republican convention of Illinois met
at Decatur, in Macon county, to nominate State officers and appoint
delegates to the National Presidential Convention. Decatur was not far
from where Lincoln's father had settled and worked a farm in 1830, and
where young Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Hanks had split the rails for
enclosing the old pioneer's first cornfield. Mr. Lincoln was present,
simply as an observer, at the convention. Scarcely had he taken his seat
when General Oglesby arose, and remarked that an old Democrat of Macon
county desired to make a contribution to the convention. Two old fence
rails were then brought in, bearing the inscription: "Abraham Lincoln,
the rail candidate for the Presidency in 1860. Two rails from a lot of
three thousand, made in 1830, by Thomas Hanks and Abe Lincoln, whose
father was the first pioneer of Macon county."
The effect of this contribution can well be imagined: at once it became
useless to talk in Illinois of any other man than Abraham Lincoln for
President.
On the 16th of May the National Republican Convention was called
together in Chicago. The convention met in a large building called the
"Wigwam," which had been constructed specially for the occasion. The
contest for the nomination lay between William H. Seward of New York and
Abraham Lincoln of Illinois. On the third ballot, as we know, the latter
was nominated. I was but a youth on that memorable day, but I vividly
recollect that I was standing, with other urchins, nearly opposite the
"Wigwam," and was startled when a man stationed on top of the building
yelled out, "Fire: Lincoln is nominated!" Then followed the roar of
cannon and cheers upon cheers.
When the news reached Mr. Lincoln he was chatting with some friends
in the office of the "Sangamon Journal," in Springfield. He read the
telegram aloud, and then said: "There is a little woman down at our
house who will like to hear this. I'll go down and tell her." The
"little woman" was his wife, whom, as Mary Todd, he had won in 1842, and
he knew that she was more anxious that he should be President than he
himself was.
On the 7th of November, 1860, it was known throughout the country that
Lincoln had been elected. From that very hour dates the conspiracy
which, by easy stages and successive usurpations of authority,
culminated in rebellion. It is painful now to revert to the events which
marked its progress. There is not a man living to-day, I trust, that
does not wish they could be blotted out from our history. While watching
the course of these events Mr. Lincoln chanced one day to be talking
with his friend, Newton Bateman, a highly respectable and Christian
gentleman, and Superintendent of Public Instruction in Illinois. I can
only quote a part of the interview, as furnished by Mr. Bateman himself:
"I know there is a God," said Lincoln; "and he hates injustice and
slavery. I see the storm coming. I know that his hand is in it. If he
has a place and work for me,--and I think he has,--I believe I am ready.
I am nothing; but truth is everything, I know I am right, because I know
that liberty is right; for Christ teaches it; and Christ is God. I have
told them that 'a house divided against itself cannot stand,' and Christ
and reason say the same; and they will find it so.
"Douglas doesn't care whether slavery is voted up or down; but God
cares, and humanity cares, and I care; and with God's help I shall not
fail. I may not see the end, but it will come, and I shall be
vindicated; and these men will find that they have not read their Bible
aright."
We are told that, after a pause, he resumed: "Does it not appear strange
that men can ignore the moral aspects of this contest? A revelation
could not make it plainer to me that slavery or the Government, must be
destroyed. The future would be something awful, as I look at it, but for
this rock on which I stand." He alluded to the Testament which he held
in his hand, and which his mother--"to whom he owed all that he was, or
hoped to be"--had first taught him to read.
There is nothing in history more pathetic than the scene when, on the
11th of February, 1861, Abraham Lincoln bade a last farewell to his home
of a quarter of a century.
To his friends and neighbors he said, while grasping them by the hand,
"I go to assume a task more difficult than that which has devolved
upon any other man since the days of Washington. He never would have
succeeded except for the aid of Divine Providence, upon which he at all
times relied. I feel that I cannot succeed without the same divine
blessing which sustained him, and on the same Almighty Being I place my
reliance for support." The profound religious feeling which pervades
this farewell speech characterized him to the close of his life.
All along the route Lincoln preached the gospel of confidence,
conciliation, and peace. Notwithstanding the ominous signs of the times,
he had such an abiding faith in the people as to believe that the
guarantees of all their rights under the Constitution, of
non-intervention with the institution of slavery where it existed, and
the assurance of a most friendly spirit on the part of the new President
would calm the heated passion of the men of the South, would reclaim
States already in secession, and would retain the rest of the cotton
States under the banner of the Union. What a striking evidence of the
lingering hope and of the tender heart of the President is afforded by
his first inaugural address!
"In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is
the momentous issue of civil war.
"The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without
being yourselves the aggressors; you can have no oath registered in
heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn
one,--'to preserve, protect, and defend it.'
"I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be
enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break, our bonds
of affection.
"The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field and
patriot grave to every living heart and hearth-stone all over this broad
land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as
surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."
Abraham Lincoln took the helm of government in more dangerous times and
under more difficult and embarrassing circumstances than any of the
fifteen presidents who preceded him. The ship of Union was built and
launched and first commanded by Washington.
"He knew what master laid her keel,
What workmen wrought her ribs of steel,
Who made each mast, and sail, and rope,
What anvils rang, what hammers beat,
In what a forge and what a heat
Were shaped the anchors of her hope."
The men whom he chose as her first crew were those who had helped to
form her model. During succeeding generations inefficient hands were
occasionally shipped to take the place of worn-out members of the
original crew. Often the vessel was put out of her course to serve the
personal ends of this or that sailor, and ere long mutiny broke out
among her passengers, headed by John C. Calhoun, of South Carolina.
Finally, a man ignorant in the science of astronomy and navigation,
feeble alike in heart and arm, became, nominally, commander, but really
the cat's-paw, of his crew, at whose bidding the ship was steered. When
Abraham Lincoln was called to the helm he found the once stanch, strong
vessel in a leaky, damaged condition, with her compasses deranged, her
rudder broken, and the luminous star by which Washington guided his
course dimmed by a cloud of disunion and doubt. When the belching cannon
opened upon Sumter, then it was that the ship of State was found to be
all but stranded on the shoals,--Treason.
We are all aware of the story of that struggle. We can never forget
the story, for there is yet a "vacant chair," that recalls it in many
a home. The manner in which President Lincoln conducted the affairs of
the government during that struggle forms an important chapter in the
history of the world for that period. After Good Friday comes Easter;
after the day of dejection and doubt comes the day of recompense and
rejoicing. To my mind there is that in the life-work of President
Lincoln which itself consecrates every soldier's grave, and makes the
tenant of that grave more worthy of his sublime dying. It added honor
to honor to have fallen, serving under such a commander.
It was midsummer, 1862, and at a time when the whole North was
depressed, that the President convened his cabinet to talk over the
subject-matter of the Emancipation Proclamation. On the 22d of September
ensuing it was published to the world. It was the act of the President
alone. It exhibited far-seeing sagacity, courage, independence, and
statesmanship. The final proclamation was issued on the 1st of January,
1863. On that day the President had been receiving calls, and for hours
shaking hands. As the paper was brought to him by the Secretary of State
to be signed, he said, "Mr. Seward, I have been shaking hands all day,
and my right hand is almost paralyzed. If my name ever gets into history
it will be for this act, and my whole soul is in it. If my hand trembles
when I sign the proclamation those who examine the document hereafter
will say, 'He hesitated.'" Then, resting his arm a moment, he turned
to the table, took up the pen, and slowly and firmly wrote, ABRAHAM
LINCOLN. He smiled as, handing the paper to Mr. Seward, he said "That
will do."
This was the pivotal act of his administration; but this humane
and just promise to liberate four millions of slaves, to wipe out a
nation's disgrace, was followed by the darkest and most doubtful days
in the history of America. Grant, in the lowlands of Louisiana, was
endeavoring, against obstacles, to open the Mississippi; but, with all
his energy, he accomplished nothing. McClellan's habit of growling at
the President had become intolerable, and Burnside superseded him in
command of the Army of the Potomac. Burnside advanced against Lee,
fought him at Fredericksburg, and was repulsed with terrible disaster.
Then the army broke camp for another campaign, the elements opposed,
Burnside gave way to Hooker. The soldiers became disheartened, and
thousands deserted to their homes in the North. The President's
proclamation was now virtually a dead letter; people looked upon it
and characterized it as a joke. But there came at last a break in the
clouds, and on Independence Day, 1863, the star of liberty and union
appeared upon the distant sky as a covenant that God had not forsaken
the Prophet of the West,--the Redeemer of the Slave. I can find no more
fitting words to characterize Grant's victory at Vicksburg than those
which the young and brave McPherson used in his congratulatory address
to the brave men who fought for the victory:--
"The achievements of this hour will give a new meaning to this memorable
day; and Vicksburg will heighten the glory in the patriot's heart, which
kindles at the mention of Bunker Hill and Yorktown. The dawn of a
conquered peace is breaking before you. The plaudits of an admiring
world will hail you wherever you go."
Take it altogether it was perhaps the most brilliant operation of the
war, and established the reputation of Grant as one of the greatest
military leaders of any age. He, the last of the triumvirate, is passing
away; and, in this connection, no apology is needed in quoting the
letter which the President wrote with his own hand, and transmitted to
him, on receipt of the glorious tidings:--
MY DEAR GENERAL,--I do not remember that you and I ever met personally.
I write this now as a grateful acknowledgment for the almost
inestimable service you have done the country. I wish to say a word
further. When you first reached the vicinity of Vicksburg I thought you
should do what you finally did,--march the troops across the neck, run
the batteries with the transports, and then go below; and I never had
any faith, except a general hope, that you knew better than I that the
Yazoo-Pass expedition and the like could succeed. When you got below,
and took Fort Gibson, Grand Gulf, and vicinity, I thought you should go
down the river and join Gen. Banks; and when you turned northward, east
of the Big Black, I thought it was a mistake. I now wish to make the
personal acknowledgment that you were right, and I was wrong.
And recall now the never-to-be-forgotten scenes at Gettysburg. The Union
army had been defeated at Chancellorsville, and Gen. Lee, having assumed
the offensive, had been making the greatest preparations for striking
a decisive blow. Already had he passed through Maryland; he was now in
Pennsylvania. But valiant men were there to meet and oppose. The fate
of the day, the fate of the Confederacy, was staked upon the issue. I
cannot picture the battle; but we all know the result, and how great was
the rejoicing in the North when, on that 4th day of July, the tidings of
the fall of Vicksburg and the victory at Gettysburg reached the country.
A portion of the battle-field of Gettysburg was set apart as a
resting-place for the heroes who fell on that bloody ground. In November
of that year the ceremony of consecration took place. Edward Everett,
the orator and the scholar, delivered the oration; it was a polished
specimen of his consummate skill. After him rose President
Lincoln,--"simple, rude, his care-worn face now lighted and glowing with
intense feeling." He simply read the touching speech which is already
placed among the classics of our language:--
"Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this
continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the
proposition that all men are created equal.
"Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation,
or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met
on a great battle-field of that war. We are met to dedicate a portion of
it as the final resting-place of those who here gave their lives that
that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we
should do this.
"But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we
cannot hallow, this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who
struggled here, have consecrated it far above our power to add or
detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we
_say_ here; but it can never forget what they _did_ here. It
is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished
work that they have thus far so nobly carried on. It is rather for us to
be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these
honored dead we take increased devotion to the cause for which they here
gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that
the dead shall not have died in vain; that the nation shall, under God,
have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the
people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth."
There have been but four instances in history in which great deeds have
been celebrated in words as immortal as themselves: the epitaph upon the
dead Spartan band at Thermopylæ; the words of Demosthenes on those who
perished at Marathon; the speech of Webster in memory of those who laid
down their lives at Bunker Hill; and these words of Lincoln on the hill
at Gettysburg. As he closed, and while his listeners were still sobbing,
he grasped the hand of Mr. Everett, and said. "I congratulate you on
your success."--"Ah," replied the orator, gracefully, "Mr. President,
how gladly would I exchange all my hundred pages to have been the author
of your twenty lines!"
I forbear to dwell longer on the events of the war. The tide had turned,
and the end was already foreseen. Notwithstanding that Mr. Lincoln had
proved the righteousness of his course, a great many people in the
North--and many even in his own party--were opposed to his nomination
for a second term. The disaffected nominated Gen. Fremont, upon the
platform of the suppression of the Rebellion, the Monroe doctrine, and
the election of President and Vice-President by the direct vote of the
people, and for one term only. The Democratic party declared the war for
the Union a failure, and very properly nominated McClellan. It required
a long time for the General to make up his mind in regard to accepting
the nomination; and, in conversations upon the subject with a friend,
Lincoln suggested that perhaps he might be _entrenching_. The
election was held, and Lincoln received a majority greater than was ever
before given to a candidate for the presidency. The people this time
were like the Dutch farmer,--they believed that "it was not best to swap
horses when crossing a stream."
On the 4th of March, 1865, he delivered that memorable inaugural address
which is truly accounted one of the ablest state papers to be found in
the archives of America. It concludes with these words:--
"With malice towards none, with charity for all, with firmness in the
right as God gives us to see the right, let us finish the work we are
in,--to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have
borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphans, to do all which may
achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with
all nations."
Read and reread this whole address. Since the days of Christ's Sermon
on the Mount, where is the speech of ruler that can compare with it?
No other in American annals has so impressed the people. Said a
distinguished statesman from New York, on the day of its delivery,
"A century from to-day that inaugural will be read as one of the most
sublime utterances ever spoken by man. Washington is the great man of
the era of the Revolution. So will Lincoln be of this; but Lincoln will
reach the higher position in history."
Four years before, Mr. Lincoln, an untried man, had assumed the reins of
government; now, he was the faithful and beloved servant of the people.
Then, he was ridiculed and caricatured; and some persons even found
fault with his dress, just as the British ambassador found fault with
the dress of the author of the Declaration of Independence. The
ambassador is forgotten, but Jefferson will live as long as a government
of the people, by the people, and for the people, endures. While he
lived Lincoln was shamefully abused by the people and press of the land
of his forefathers; and not until the shot was fired--not until the
blood of the just--the ransom of the slave--was spilled, did England
throw off the cloak of prejudice, and acknowledge--
"This king of princes-peer,
This rail-splitter, a true-born king of men."
It is well known that not all of Mr. Lincoln's friends invariably
harmonized with his views. Of the number of these Horace Greeley stood
foremost, and undoubtedly caused the President great anxiety upon
several occasions. He never did things by halves; and, whenever he
undertook to do a thing, the whole country, believing in the honesty and
purity of his motives, gave to him a willing ear. From the editorial
sanctum of the "Tribune" many a sharp and soul-stirring letter went
forth addressed to the executive of the nation. Mr. Lincoln read them,
oftentimes replied to them, but very rarely heeded the counsel which
they contained. When the President was struck down, Mr. Greeley, who
differed so widely from him, mourned the loss of a very dear friend.
Charles Sumner often differed from the President, and on the floor of
the Senate Chamber frequently gave utterance to statements which carried
grief into the White House. But Mr. Lincoln knew and understood Charles
Sumner. An incident may here be recalled. The President was solicitous
that his views, as embodied in an act then claiming the attention of
Congress, should become law prior to the adjournment of that body on the
4th of March. Mr. Sumner opposed the bill, because he thought it did not
sufficiently guard the interests of the freedmen of that State. Owing to
the opposition of the Senator and a few of his friends the bill was
defeated. Mr. Lincoln felt displeased, and the newspapers throughout the
country published that the friendship which had so long existed between
the two men was at an end.
But Mr. Lincoln was not a man who would withdraw friendship on account
of an honest difference of opinion. It was not he who made the mistake
of urging the dismissal of Mr. Sumner from the chairmanship of the
Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. On the 4th of March Mr. Lincoln
was reinaugurated; on the evening of the 6th occurred the Inauguration
Ball. Mr. Sumner had never attended one of these state occasions, and he
did not purpose doing so at this time until he received, in the course
of the afternoon, the following letter:--
DEAR MR. SUMNER,--Unless you send me word to the contrary, I shall
this evening call with my carriage at your house, to take you with
me to the Inauguration Ball.
Sincerely yours,
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
The great Senator entered the ball-room, with Mrs. Lincoln leaning on
his arm, and took his seat by the side of the President. The evening was
pleasantly spent, and the newspapers at once discovered how great a
blunder they had made.
At length the curtain fell upon the bloody scenes of the war. Under the
mighty blows of Grant and his lieutenants the Rebellion was crushed.
On a bright day the President, accompanied by Mr. Sumner, entered the
streets of Richmond, and witnessed the grateful tears of thousands of
the race he had redeemed from bondage and disgrace. Having returned to
Washington, he convened a cabinet council on the 14th of April. During
the session his heart overflowed with kind and charitable thoughts
towards the South, and towards those officers who had deserted the flag
of their country in her trying hour he poured out a forgiving spirit.
After that cabinet meeting he went to drive with Mrs. Lincoln,--they two
were alone. "Mary," said he, "we have had a hard time of it since we
came to Washington; but the war is over, and, with God's blessing, we
may hope for four years of peace and happiness, and then we will go back
to Illinois and pass the rest of our lives in quiet. We have laid by
some money, and during this term we will try and save up more, but shall
not have enough to support us. We will go back to Illinois, and I will
open a law-office at Springfield or Chicago, and practise law, and at
least do enough to help give us a livelihood." Such were the dreams of
Abraham Lincoln the last day of his life. The whole world knows the
remainder of the story,--of that terrible night at the theatre; of that
passing away in the early dawn of the morning; of that sad and mournful
passage from the Capitol to the grave at Oak Ridge Cemetery. It is
painful to dwell upon it; it makes the heart faint even to recall it.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN needs no eulogy. There is but one other name in
American history which can be mentioned with his as that of a peer,--the
name of Washington. He was as pure, and just, and as patriotic as the
Father of his Country. He was born of his time, a creature of the age of
giants, a genius from the people, all the greater for his struggles, for
he really did more than any man of his day to destroy caste and give
courage to the lowly; and therein he wrote the brightest pages of
progress. The shaft that marks his silent resting-place, the books he
read, the office he used, the strong body that covered his warm heart
and wise purposes, were only the outer symbols to the higher gifts of
his Creator. All gifts and graces are not found in one person. He is
great in whom the good predominates. All persons are not born equal.
Gifts are diversified; but if ever a man had the "genius of greatness,"
it was Abraham Lincoln. As all are eloquent in that which they know, he
was eloquent in what he both knew and did.
A few words more. The President left a heart-broken widow, a woman whose
intellect was shattered by one of the most awful shocks in human
history. No mind can picture the agonies which she suffered, even till
the day of her death, on July 16, 1882. I make mention of her now,
because, during her eventful life in Washington and afterwards, she was
most cruelly treated by a portion of the press and people. I can
conceive of nothing so unmanly, so devoid of every chivalric impulse, as
the abuse of this poor, wounded, and bereft woman. But I am reminded of
the splendid outburst of eloquence on the part of Edmund Burke, when,
speaking of the heart-broken Queen of France, he said:--
"Little did I dream that I should live to see such disasters fall upon
her in a nation of gallant men,--a nation of men of honor, cavaliers.
I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to
avenge even a look that threatened her with insult. But the age of
chivalry is gone."
"Lincoln was incontestably the greatest man I ever knew. What marked
him was his sincerity, his kindness, his clear insight into affairs,
his firm will and clear policy. I always found him preëminently a
clear-minded man. The saddest day of my life was that of Lincoln's
assassination."--U.S. GRANT.
[The death of GENERAL GRANT has occurred since this article was put into
type.--_Ed._]
* * * * *
NANTASKET BEACH.
By Edward P. Guild.
The outline of Boston harbor somewhat resembles a very irregular
letter C, with its open side facing to the north-east. The upper horn
terminates with Point Shirley, in the town of Winthrop. The lower horn
is a narrow ridge of land of varying width, extending four miles from
the mainland, then abruptly turning to the westward for three miles.
This peninsula is the town of Hull; the sharp elbow is Point Allerton.
The stretch of four miles from the point to the mainland is of greatly
varying width, the harbor side being of most irregular and fantastic
outline; but the side toward the sea is smooth and even, and forms
Nantasket Beach,--one of the most popular watering-places on the
Atlantic coast.
The development of Nantasket as a summer resort began a long time ago,
although the era of large hotels and popular excursions began in the
last few years. Forty or fifty vears ago people from Boston, Dorchester,
Hingham, and other towns, when hungering for a sniff of unalloyed
sea-breeze, or a repast of the genuine clam-chowder, were in the habit
of resorting to this beach, where they could pitch their tents, or
find accommodations in the rather humble cottages which were already
beginning to dot the shore. That the delights of the beach were
appreciated then is evinced by the habitual visits of many noted men of
the time, among them Daniel Webster, who often came here for recreation,
usually bringing his gun with him that he might indulge his sporting
proclivities; and, according to his biographer, "he was a keen
sportsman. Until past the age of sixty-five he was a capital shot; and
the feathered game in his neighborhood was, of course, purely wild. He
used to say, after he had been in England, that shooting in 'preserves'
seemed to him very much like going out and murdering the barn-door
fowl. His shooting was of the woodcock, the wild-duck, and the various
marsh-birds that frequent the coast of New England.... Nor would he
unmoor his dory with his 'bob and line and sinker,' for a haul of cod or
hake or haddock, without having Ovid, or Agricola, or Pharsalia, in the
pocket of his old gray overcoat, for the 'still and silent hour' upon
the deep."
Another frequent visitor--Peter Peregrine--wrote: "The Nantasket Beach
is the most beautiful I ever saw. It sweeps around in a majestic curve,
which, if it were continued so as to complete the circle, would of
itself embrace a small sea. There was a gentle breeze upon the water,
and the sluggish waves rolled inward with a languid movement, and broke
with a low murmur of music in long lines of foam against the opposite
sands. The surface of the sea was, in every direction, thickly dotted
with sails; the air was of a delicious temperature, and altogether it
was a scene to detain one for hours."
Evidently, Peter was a lover of nature at the sea-side; but to show that
those who sojourned here forty years ago were not unexposed to ridicule,
the following extract is given from a letter written from Hull in 1846:
"The public and private houses at Nantasket are overrun with company,
chiefly from Boston. Some of our fashionable people, as the rich are
vulgarly called, will leave their airy, cool, well-appointed
establishments in Boston, with every luxury the market affords, in the
vain hope of finding comfort in such houses. They will leave their city
palaces, the large and convenient rooms, comfortable bedsteads and
mattresses, and all the delicacies of the season, and submit to being
stowed away on straw-beds or cots, even upon the floor, half-a-dozen in
a small chamber, or four deep in an entry, to be half-starved into the
bargain upon badly cooked fish and other equally cheap commodities, for
the mere sake of being able to think that they are enjoying the
sea-breeze." Had the writer of this satire lived to lodge for a night in
one of the palace hotels which now adorn Nantasket Beach he would have
sung another song.
The peninsula of Hull is graced by three gentle elevations,--Atlantic
Hill, a rocky eminence marking the southern limit of the beach; Sagamore
Hill, a little farther to the north; and Strawberry Hill, about midway
to Point Allerton. The last of these elevations is the most noted of
the three. On its summit is an old barn, which is not only a well-known
landmark for sea-voyagers, but a point of the triangulations of the
official harbor surveys. In 1775 a large barn, containing eighty tons
of hay, was burned on this spot by the Americans, that it might not be
secured by the British. The splendid scene which this fire must have
produced was doubtless applauded with even more enthusiasm than the
great illuminations which are now a part of each season's events at the
beach.
It is said that fierce conflicts among the savages used to often occur
on the plains extending toward Point Allerton, before these parts were
invaded by the white man. The theory has arisen from the finding of
large numbers of skulls, bones, arrows, tomahawks, and other relics in
this locality.
The trip to Nantasket from Boston by boat on a summer day is most
delightful, affording a sail of an hour among the most interesting
objects of Boston harbor. The point of departure is at Rowe's wharf,
near the foot of Broad street, where the passenger steps on board one of
the well-equipped steamers of the Boston and Hingham Steamboat Company.
The course down to Nix's Mate, and thence to Pemberton, is quite
straight, but the route the remainder of the way, especially after
entering Weir river, is so tortuous as to cause the passenger to
constantly believe that the boat is just going to drive against the
shore. Upon the arrival at Nantasket pier the passenger is aware that he
is at a popular resort. Barges and coaches line the long pier; ambitious
porters give all possible strength of inflection to the names of their
respective hotels; while innumerable _menu_ cards are thrust into
the visitors' hands, each calling particular attention to the chowders
of the ------ House as being the best to be had on the New England
coast.
Two minutes' walk is sufficient to cross from the steamboat-pier over
the narrow ridge of land to the beach. The difference between one side
and the other is very striking. On the one is the still, dark water of
Weir river; on the other, the open sea and the rolling surf. The beach
at once impresses the visitor as being remarkably fine, and, indeed, it
is equalled by none on the coast, unless, possibly, by Old Orchard. The
sands are hard and firm, and at low tide form a spacious boulevard for
driving or walking. Before the eye is the open sea, dotted here and
there with glistening sails. The long, dark vessel which appears in the
distance, about four o'clock on Saturday afternoon, is a Cunard steamer,
which has just left East Boston for its voyage to Liverpool. For two or
three hours it is in sight, slowly and majestically moving toward the
horizon.
The scene on the beach is in marked contrast to what might have been
witnessed a generation ago. Then one would have found here and there
a family group just driven down in the old-fashioned carryall, and
enjoying a feast of clam-chowder cooked over a fire of drift-wood. Now
the beach is thronged by crowds of many thousands; immense hotels vie
with those of the metropolis in grandeur; there are avenues and parks,
flying horses, tennis-grounds, shops for the sale of everything that the
city affords, and some that it does not, dog-carts and goat-wagons,
fruit and peanut-stands, bowling-alleys, shooting-targets, and, in fact,
as many devices to empty the pocket-book as are usually found at a
cattle-show and a church-fair together. An excursion party has just
arrived, but this occurs, sometimes, several times in a day,--for
Nantasket is a Mecca to the excursionist. Societies and lodges come
here; clubs resort hither for a social dinner; mercantile firms send
their employés on an annual sail to this place, and philanthropists
provide for hundreds of poor children a day's outing on this beach.
Thus, there is no exclusiveness about Nantasket; but, at the same time,
the tone of the place is excellent, and there seems to be no tendency
toward its falling into disrepute, as has been the case with other
very popular watering-places. It is, in fact, admitted by a New York
newspaper that "Bostonians are justly proud of Nantasket Beach, where
one can get cultured clams, intellectual chowder, refined lager, and
very scientific pork and beans. It is far superior to our monotonous
sand-beach in its picturesqueness of natural beauty, in the American
character of the visitors, and in the reasonableness of hotel charges,
as well as the excellence of the service."
The oldest of the large hotels now in existence at the beach is the
Rockland House, which was opened in 1854 by Colonel Nehemiah Ripley, who
was proprietor for many years. At first, it had forty rooms; it now has
about two hundred, and is beautifully furnished. It stands at the head
of a broad, rising lawn, and from its balconies and windows the view of
the sea is magnificent. It is now in the hands of Russell & Sturgis, who
are also proprietors of the Hotel Nantasket,--the most effective in its
architecture of any of the great houses here. Its towers and pinnacles
are numbered by the score, and it has the broadest of piazzas. In front
of the hotel, toward the water, is the band-stand from which Reeve's
celebrated band gives two concerts daily during the season, their
entrancing music mingling with the monotone of the surf, to the delight
of large audiences which assemble on the piazzas.
The Rockland Café, also under the same management, is joined to the
hotel by a long arcade, and enjoys an excellent reputation for its
chowders and fish dinners.
The Atlantic House, which crowns the hill of the same name, is a
spacious and elegant hotel, always filled during the season with guests,
including many of the representatives of wealth and culture in the
metropolis. The view from here is very grand, commanding the entire
beach and a vast expanse of the sea. The proprietors are L. Damon &
Sons.
Bathing is, naturally enough, a prominent feature of Nantasket's
attractions. Bath-houses are scattered all along the beach, where one
may, for a small sum,--fifty to two-hundred per cent. of its
value,--obtain the use of a suit for as long a time as he or she may
choose to buffet the waves of the briny Atlantic. The most appreciative
patrons of the surf seem to be the children, who are always ready to
pull off shoes and stockings, and, armed with a wooden pail and shovel,
amuse themselves with digging sand, and letting the surf break over
their feet. It is very evident that not a few older people envy the
children in this innocent amusement.
It is said that the life of the hotels and the drift of excursionists,
great as they appear, are falling into the background, while the
popularity of cottage life is rapidly on the increase. This plan is much
more economical than boarding at the highest-price hotels, although
those who have ample means find a summer spent at either the houses of
Russell & Sturgis, or at the hostelry of Damon & Sons, most eminently
satisfactory in every respect. New cottages spring up like mushrooms
every year from one end of the beach to the other, and they represent
every style of architecture, although Queen Anne is held responsible for
the most frequent style as yet. But in size, coloring, and expense the
cottages vary as widely as the tastes and wealth of their several
owners. "There are big houses and little; houses like the Chinese
pagodas in old Canton blue-ware; houses like castles, with towers and
battlements; houses like nests, and houses like barracks; houses with
seven gables, and houses with none at all."
During the heavy easterly gales of winter seaweed and kelp are washed
ashore in great quantities. This is carted off by the farmers, who find
it valuable as a fertilizer, and they are indebted to the sea for
thousands of dollars' worth of this product every year. Nantasket in
winter presents a gloomy contrast to its life and gayety in the summer.
The winds are cold and fierce. The pretty cottages are deserted, and the
sea moans with a sound betokening peril to the craft that ventures to
tempt the waves. The nearly buried timbers of old vessels that are seen
in the sands are relics of disaster in years gone by.
But in the summer months, Nantasket must ever remain a sea-side paradise
to those who know its attractions.
* * * * *
IDLENESS.
By Sidney Harrison.
A flutter 'mid the branches, and my heart
Leaps with the life in that full chirp that breathes;
The brown, full-breasted sparrow with a dart
Is at my feet amid the swaying wreaths
Of grass and clover; trooping blackbirds come
With haughty step; the oriole, wren and jay
Revel amid the cool, green moss in play,
Then off in clouds of music; while the drum
Of scarlet-crested woodpecker from yon
Old Druid-haunting oak sends toppling down
A ruined memory of ages past;
O life and death--how blended to the last!
* * * * *
THE GRIMKÉ SISTERS.
THE FIRST AMERICAN WOMEN ADVOCATES OF ABOLITION AND WOMAN'S RIGHTS.
By George Lowell Austin.
This is an era of recollections. The events of twenty and twenty-five
years ago are being read and reconsidered anew with as much interest as
though they were the fresh and important events of the present. It was
long claimed by those who believed that they thought and wrote with
authority that not only was slavery the main cause of the civil war in
America, but that the abolition of slavery was its chiefest object.
A more sober criticism of the motives and deeds of those who were the
prime actors in that inglorious struggle has tended somewhat to alter
this opinion. It will, however, be again called to mind by a forthcoming
biography,--that of Sarah and Angelina Grimké, better known as "the
Grimké Sisters." The task of preparing this biography was intrusted to
Mrs. Catherine H. Birney, of Washington, who knew the sisters well, and
who lived for several years under the same roof with them.
There need be no hesitation in saying this book is one of the most
interesting and valuable contributions to the history of abolitionism
ever published. From first to last, during that momentous struggle, the
phrase "the Grimké Sisters" was familiar to everybody, and the part
which they enacted in the struggle was no less familiar. Mr. Phillips
often spoke of them in his public addresses; they were prominent members
of the anti-slavery societies; they themselves frequently appeared
before large audiences on public platforms. Indeed, no history of the
great moral cause would be complete that was not, in large part, made up
of their noble deeds; and no less valiantly did they contend for Woman's
Rights.
SARAH and ANGELINA GRIMKÉ were born in Charleston, South Carolina;
Sarah, Nov. 26, 1792; Angelina, Feb. 20, 1805. They were the daughters
of the Hon. John Fauchereau Grimké, a colonel in the revolutionary war,
and judge of the Supreme Court of South Carolina. His ancestors were
German on the father's side, French on the mother's; the Fauchereau
family having left France in consequence of the revocation of the Edict
of Nantes in 1685.
Judge Grimké's position, character, and wealth placed his family among
the leaders of the very exclusive society of Charleston. His children
were accustomed to luxury and display, to the service of slaves, and to
the indulgence of every selfish whim, although the father's practical
common-sense led him to protest against the habits to which such
indulgences naturally led. To Sarah he paid particular attention, and
was often heard to declare that if she had been of the other sex she
would have made the greatest jurist in the land.
Children are born without prejudice, and the young children of Southern
planters never felt or made any difference between their white and
colored playmates. So that there is nothing singular in the fact that
Sarah Grimké early felt such an abhorrence of the whole institution of
slavery that she was sure it was born in her.
When Sarah was twelve years old two important events occurred to
interrupt the even tenor of her life. Her brother Thomas was sent off to
Yale College, leaving her companionless; but a little sister, Angelina
Emily, the last child of her parents, and the pet and darling of Sarah
from the moment the light dawned upon her blue eyes, came to take his
place. Sarah almost became a mother to this little one; whither she led,
Angelina followed closely.
In 1818 Judge Grimké's health began to decline. So faithful did Sarah
nurse him that when it was decided that he should go to Philadelphia,
she was chosen to accompany him. This first visit to the North was the
most important event of Sarah's life, for the influences and impressions
there received gave some shape to her vague and wayward fancies, and
showed her a gleam of the light beyond the tangled path which still
stretched before her.
Her father died; and in the vessel which carried his remains from
Philadelphia Sarah met a party of Friends. She talked with them on
religious matters, and after a few months acknowledged to one of them,
in the course of a correspondence, her entire conversion to Quakerism.
Ere long circumstances and the inharmonious life in her family urged her
again to seek Philadelphia, where she arrived in May, 1821. Angelina
remained at Charleston, where she grew up a gay, fashionable girl.
We pass over the interesting correspondence which, from this time
onward, was carried on between the sisters.
The strong contrast between Sarah and Angelina Grimké was shown not
only in their religious feelings, but in their manner of treating the
ordinary concerns of life, and in carrying out their convictions of
duty. In her humility, and in her strong reliance on the "inner light,"
Sarah refused to trust her own judgment, even in the merest trifles,
such as the lending of a book to a friend, postponing the writing of a
letter, or sweeping a room to-day when it might be better to defer it
until to-morrow. She says of this: "Perhaps to some, who have been led
by higher ways than I have been into a knowledge of the truth, it may
appear foolish to think of seeking direction in little things, but my
mind has for a long time been in a state in which I have often felt a
fear how I came in or went out, and I have found it a precious thing to
stop and consult the mind of truth, and be governed thereby."
Already the sisters had begun to reflect upon the evils of slavery.
Evidences of the tenor of their reflection are furnished in their
letter, and also in Sarah's diary, which she commenced in 1828. Angelina
was the first to express her abhorrence of the whole system; while
Sarah's mind, for a while at least, was too much absorbed by her
disappointed hopes and her trials in the ministry to allow her to do
much more than express sympathy with Angelina's anti-slavery sentiments.
In the autumn of 1829 Angelina left Charleston never to return, and made
her home with Sarah in the home of Catherine Morris. She soon became
interested in Quakerism, and eventually joined the Society. The daily
records of their lives and thoughts, for the ensuing four or five years,
exhibit them in the enjoyment of their quiet home, visiting prisons,
hospitals, and almshouses, and mourning over no sorrow or sins but their
own. Angelina was leading a life of benevolent effort, too busy to admit
of the pleasure of society, and her Quaker associations did not favor
contact with the world's people, or promote knowledge of the active
movements in the larger reforms of the day. As to Sarah, she was
suffering keenly under a great sorrow of her life.
Meanwhile, events were making; the anti-slavery question was being
agitated and discussed. In February, 1831, occurred the famous debate at
Lane Seminary, near Cincinnati, presided over by Dr. Lyman Beecher. The
eloquence of that debate swept over the country; it flooded many hearts,
and set souls aflame. Sarah Grimké also thought a _little_. Under
date of "5th mo., 12th, 1835," appears the following in Angelina's
diary:--
Five months have elapsed since I wrote in this diary, since which time
I have become deeply interested in the subject of abolition. I had long
regarded this cause as utterly hopeless, but since I have examined
anti-slavery principles, I find them so full of the power of truth, that
I am confident not many years will roll by before the horrible traffic
in human beings will be destroyed in this land of Gospel privileges. My
soul has measurably stood in the stead of the poor slave, and my earnest
prayers have been poured out that the Lord would be pleased to permit me
to be instrumental of good to these degraded, oppressed, and suffering
fellow-creatures. Truly, I often feel ready to go to prison or to death
in this cause of justice, mercy, and love; and I do fully believe if I
am called to return to Carolina, it will not be long before I shall
suffer persecution of some kind or other.
When, after the Garrison riot, Mr. Garrison issued his appeal to the
citizens of Boston, Angelina's anti-slavery enthusiasm was fully
aroused. On the 30th of March of that year (1835) she wrote a letter to
Mr. Garrison,--as _brave_ a letter as was ever penned by the hand
of woman. In it occur these thrilling words:--
If, she says, persecution is the means which God has ordained for
the accomplishment of this great end, _Emancipation_, then, in
dependence upon him for strength to bear it, I feel as if I could say,
_Let It Come!_ for it is my deep, solemn, deliberate conviction
that _this is a cause worth dying for_. I say so from what I have
seen, heard, and known in a land of slavery, where rests the darkness of
Egypt, and where is found the sin of Sodom. Yes! _Let it come--let us
suffer_, rather than insurrections should arise.
Mr. Garrison published the letter in the "Liberator" to the surprise of
Angelina and the great displeasure and grief of her Quaker friends, and
of her sister, Sarah, as well. But Angelina was not dismayed. In 1836
she wrote her "Appeal to Southern Women," and sent it to New York, where
it was published as a pamphlet of thirty-six pages. Mr. Elizur Wright
spoke of it, at the time, as "a patch of blue sky breaking through the
storm-cloud of public indignation which had gathered so black over the
handful of anti-slavery workers." The praise was not exaggerated. The
pamphlet produced the most profound sensation wherever it was read.
Soon after its publication the sisters went to New York and there openly
identified themselves with the members of the American Anti-Slavery
Society; and also of the Female Anti-Slavery Society. The account of the
first assembly of women, not Quakers, in a public place in America,
addressed by American women, as given in these pages, is deeply
interesting and touching from its very simplicity. We, who are so
accustomed to hear women speak to promiscuous audiences on any and every
subject, will naturally smile at the following memoranda by Angelina:--
We went home to tea with Julia Tappan, and Brother Weld was all anxiety
to hear about the meeting. Julia undertook to give some account, and
among other things mentioned that a warm-hearted abolitionist had found
his way into the back part of the meeting, and was escorted out by Henry
Ludlow. Weld's noble countenance instantly lighted up, and he exclaimed:
"How supremely ridiculous to think of a man's being shouldered out of a
meeting for fear he should hear a woman speak!"....
In the evening a colonizationist of this city came to introduce an
abolitionist to Lewis Tappan. We women soon hedged in our expatriation
brother, and held a long and interesting argument with him until near
ten o'clock. He gave up so much that I could not see what he had to
stand on when we left him.
After closing their meetings in New York the sisters held similar ones
in New Jersey, all of which were attended only by women. From thence
they went up the North River with Gerrit Smith, holding audiences at
Hudson and Poughkeepsie. At the latter place they spoke to an assembly
of colored people of both sexes, and this was the first time Angelina
ever addressed a mixed audience.
The woman's rights agitation, while entirely separate from abolitionism,
owes its origin to the interest this subject excited in the hearts and
minds of American women; and to Sarah and Angelina Grimké must be
accorded the credit of first making the woman question one of reform.
They wrote and spoke often on the theme. Public feeling grew strong
against them, and at last the Congregational ministers of Massachusetts
saw proper to pass a resolution of censure against the sisters! This
resolution was issued as a "Pastoral Letter," which, in the light and
freedom of the present day, must be regarded as a most extraordinary
document.
Whittier's muse found the "Pastoral Letter" a fitting theme for its
vigorous, sympathetic utterances. The poem thus inspired is perhaps one
of the very best among his many songs of freedom. It will be remembered
as beginning thus:--
"So this is all! the utmost reach
Of priestly power the mind to fetter,
When laymen _think_, when women _preach_,
A war of words, a 'Pastoral Letter!'"
Up to this time nothing had been said by either of the sisters in their
lectures concerning their views about women. They had carefully confined
themselves to the subject of slavery, and the attendant topics of
immediate emancipation, abstinence from the use of slave products, the
errors of the Colonization Society, and the sin of prejudice on the
account of color. But now that they had found their own rights invaded,
they began to feel it was time to look out for the rights of their whole
sex.
In the face of all this censure and ridicule the two sisters continued
in the discharge of a duty to which they increasingly felt they were
called from on high.
One is compelled, in this brief _résumé_, to hurry over much that
is interesting and important. While the good work goes on we see the
sisters everywhere faithful to their sense of duty, unflinching to all
assailants.
In February, 1838, Sarah Grimké spoke for the last time in public,
and in the month of May following, Angelina was united in marriage to
Theodore D. Weld. "No marriage," says Mrs. Birney, "could have been more
fitting in every respect. The solemn relation was never entered upon
in more holiness of purpose or in higher resolve to hold themselves
strictly to the best they were capable of. It was a rededication of
lives long consecrated to God and humanity; of souls knowing no selfish
ambition, seeking before all things the glory of their Creator in the
elevation of his creatures everywhere. The entire unity of spirit in
which they afterwards lived and labored, the tender affection which,
through a companionship of more than forty years, knew no diminution,
made a family life so perfect and beautiful that it brightened and
inspired all who were favored to witness it. No one could be with them
under the most ordinary circumstances without feeling the force and
influence of their characters."
The happy couple settled down for their first house-keeping at Fort Lee,
on the Hudson. They were scarcely settled amid their new surroundings
before the sisters received a formal notice of their disownment by the
Society of Friends because of Angelina's marriage. In December, 1839,
the happiness of the little household was increased by the birth of a
son, who received the name of Charles Stuart, in loving remembrance of
the eminent English philanthropist, with whom Mr. Weld had been as a
brother, and whom he regarded as living as near the angels as mortal man
could live.
In the latter part of February, 1840, Mr. Weld, having purchased a farm
of fifty acres at Belleville, New Jersey, removed his family there.
The visitors to the Belleville farm--chiefly old and new anti-slavery
friends--were numerous, and were always received with a cordiality which
left no room to doubt its sincerity.
In many ways the members of this united household were diligent in
good works. If a neighbor required a few hundred dollars, to save the
foreclosure of a mortgage, the combined resources of the family were
taxed to aid him; if a poor student needed a helping hand in his
preparation for college, or for teaching, it was gladly extended to
him,--perhaps his board and lodging given him for six months or a
year,--with much valuable instruction thrown in. The instances of
charity of this kind were many, and were performed with such a cheerful
spirit that Sarah only incidentally alludes to the increase of their
cares and work at such times. In fact, their roof was ever a shelter for
the homeless, a home for the friendless; and it is pleasant to record
that the return of ingratitude, so often made for benevolence of this
kind, was never their portion. They always seem to have had the sweet
satisfaction of knowing, sooner or later, that their kindness was not
thrown away or under-estimated.
In 1852 the Raritan Bay Association, consisting of thirty or forty
educated and cultured families of congenial tastes, was formed at
Eagleswood, near Perth Amboy, New Jersey; and a year later Mr. and
Mrs. Weld were invited to join the Association, and take charge of its
educational department. They accepted, in the hope of finding in the
change greater social advantages for themselves and their children, with
less responsibility and less labor; for of these last the husband, wife,
and sister, in their Belleville School, had had more than they were
physically able to endure longer. Their desire and plan was to
establish, with the children of the residents at Eagleswood, a school
also for others, and to charge such a moderate remuneration only as
would enable the middle classes to profit by it. In this project, as
with every other, no selfish ambition found a place. They removed to
Eagleswood in the autumn of 1854.
In the new school Angelina taught history, for which she was admirably
qualified, while Sarah taught French, and was also book-keeper.
It is scarcely necessary to say that few schools have ever been
established upon such a basis of conscientiousness and love, and with
such adaptability in its conductors, as that at Eagleswood; few have
ever held before the pupils so high a moral standard, or urged them
on to such noble purposes in life. Children entered there spoiled by
indulgence, selfish, uncontrolled, sometimes vicious. Their teachers
studied them carefully; confidence was gained, weaknesses sounded,
elevation measured. Very slowly often, and with infinite patience and
perseverance, but successfully in nearly every case, these children were
redeemed. The idle became industrious, the selfish considerate, the
disobedient and wayward repentant and gentle. Sometimes the fruits of
all this labor and forbearance did not show themselves immediately, and,
in a few instances, the seed sown did not ripen until the boy or girl
had left school and mingled with the world. Then the contrast between
the common, every-day aims they encountered, and the teachings of their
Eagleswood mentors, was forced upon them. Forgotten lessons of truth and
honesty and purity were remembered, and the wavering resolve was stayed
and strengthened; worldly expediency gave way before the magnanimous
purpose, cringing subserviency before independent manliness.
Then came the war. In 1862 Mrs. Weld published one of the most powerful
things she ever wrote,--"A Declaration of War on Slavery." We have not
the space to follow the course of the sisters' lives farther; and, were
it otherwise, the events narrated would be all too familiar. Sarah,
after a somewhat prolonged illness, died on the 23d of December, 1873,
at Hyde Park, Mass. The funeral services were conducted by the Rev.
Francis Williams, and eloquent remarks were made also by Wm. Lloyd
Garrison. On the 26th of October, 1879, Angelina passed quietly away,
and the last services were in keeping with the record of the life then
commemorated. We close this writing with a passage from the remarks
which Wendell Phillips made on that occasion. No words could possibly
be more touching or more eloquent:--
When I think of Angelina there comes to me the picture of the spotless
dove in the tempest, as she battles with the storm, seeking for some
place to rest her foot. She reminds me of innocence personified in
Spenser's poem. In her girlhood, alone, heart-led, she comforts the
slave in his quarters, mentally struggling with the problems his
position wakes her to. Alone, not confused, but seeking something to
lean on, she grasps the Church, which proves a broken reed. No whit
disheartened, she turns from one sect to another, trying each by the
infallible touchstone of that clear, child-like conscience. The two old,
lonely Quakers rest her foot awhile. But the eager soul must work, not
rest in testimony. Coming North at last, she makes her own religion one
of sacrifice and toil. Breaking away from, rising above, all forms, the
dove floats at last in the blue sky where no clouds reach.... This is no
place for tears. Graciously, in loving kindness and tenderly, God broke
the shackles and freed her soul. It was not the dust which surrounded
her that we loved. It was not the form which encompassed her that we
revere; but it was the soul. We linger a very little while, her old
comrades. The hour comes, it is even now at the door, that God will open
our eyes to see her as she is: the white-souled child of twelve years
old ministering to want and sorrow; the ripe life, full of great
influences; the serene old age, example and inspiration whose light will
not soon go out. Farewell for a very little while. God keep us fit to
join thee in that broader service on which thou hast entered.
* * * * *
TEN DAYS IN NANTUCKET.
By Elizabeth Porter Gould.[2]
One night in the early part of July, 1883, as the successful real-estate
broker, Mr. Gordon, returned to his home from his city office, his
attention was arrested by a lively conversation between the members of
his family on the wonders of Nantucket. The sound of this old name
brought so vividly back to him his own boyish interest in the place,
that almost before he was aware of it he announced his return home to
his family by saying: "Well, supposing we go to Nantucket this summer?
It is thirty-four miles from mainland, and so free from malaria there is
no better place for fishing and sailing, and there would be a mental
interest in looking around the island which would be instructive and
delightful, and, perhaps, profitable; for me from a business point of
view."
[Illustration: EARLY MORNING, NANTUCKET.]
Mrs. Gordon, who had of late years developed a keen interest for
the historic and antique, immediately seconded her husband in his
suggestion; and before the evening closed a letter was sent to Nantucket
asking for necessary information as to a boarding-place there, for at
least ten days, for a party of five,--Mr. and Mrs. Gordon, their
daughter Bessie, twenty years of age, their son Tom, fifteen years, and
a favorite cousin of theirs, Miss Ray, who was then visiting them, and
whose purse, as Mr. Gordon had so often practically remembered, was not
equal to her desire to see and to know.
In a few days satisfactory arrangements were made, which ended in their
all leaving the Old Colony depot, Boston, in the half-past twelve train,
for Wood's Holl, where they arrived in two hours and a half. From that
place they took the steamer for a nearly three hours' sail to Nantucket,
only to stop for a few moments at Martha's Vineyard.
While they were thus ploughing their way on the mighty deep, Nantucket's
famous crier, "Billy" Clark, had climbed to his position in the tower of
the Unitarian church of the town,--as had been his daily custom for
years,--spy-glass in hand, to see the steamer when she should come in
sight. Between five and six o'clock, the repeated blowing of the horn
from the tower announced to the people his success, and became the
signal for them to make ready to receive those who should come to their
shores. Just before seven o'clock the steamer arrived. While she was
being fastened to the wharf, Tom was attracted by this same "Billy,"
who, having received the daily papers, was running up the wharf toward
the town ringing his bell and crying out the number of passengers on
board, and other important news, which Tom failed to hear in the noise
of the crowd. A few minutes' walk brought the party to their
boarding-place. When Mrs. Gordon spied the soft, crayon likeness of
Benjamin Franklin on the wall, as she stepped into the house, her
historical pulse quickened to such an extent that she then and there
determined to hunt up more about the Folgers; for was not Benjamin
Franklin's mother a Folger and born on this island? Then, as she saw
about her some old portraits and copies of the masters, and, above all,
a copy of Murillo's Immaculate Conception in the dining-room, she was
sure that the atmosphere of her new quarters would be conducive to her
happiness and growth. The others saw the pictures, but they appreciated
more fully, just then, the delicious blue-fish which was on hand to
appease their hunger.
After a night of restful sleep, such as Nantucket is noted for giving,
they all arose early to greet a beautiful morning, which they used,
partly, for a stroll around the town. Of course, they all registered at
the Registry Agency on Orange street, where Mr. Godfrey, who had
entertained them by his interesting guide-book on Nantucket, gave them a
kind welcome. Then they walked along the Main street, noticing the bank,
built in 1818, and passed some quaint old houses with their gables,
roofs, and sides, all finished alike, which Burdette has described as
"being shingled, shangled, shongled, and shungled." Tom was struck with
the little railings which crowned so many of the houses; and which,
since the old fishing days' prosperity did not call the people on the
house-tops to watch anxiously for the expected ships, were now more
ornamental than useful. They passed, at the corner of Ray's Court, a
sycamore tree, the largest and oldest on the island, and soon halted
at the neat Soldiers' Monument, so suggestive of the patriotic valor
of the island people. Later they found on Winter street the Coffin
School-house,--a brick building with two white pillars in front and a
white cupola,--which was back from the street, behind some shade trees,
and surrounded by an iron fence. As they looked at it Miss Ray read
aloud the words inscribed on the front:--
Founded 1827 by
Admiral Sir Isaac Coffin, Bart.
Erected
1852.
They were also interested to see, near by, a large white building, known
as the High School-house. As they neared home Tom's eves noticed the
sign of a Nantucket birds' exhibition, and a visit to that place was
made.
During the walk Mrs. Gordon had been particularly interested in the
large cobble-stones which the uneven streets supported in addition to
the green grass, and also the peculiar Nantucket cart, with its step
behind.
On their return to their boarding-place, they joined a party that had
been formed to go to the Cliff, a sandy bluff about a mile north from
the town, where they were told was to be found the best still-water
bathing on the island. Soon they were all on the yacht "Dauntless,"
which hourly plied between the two places; in twenty minutes they were
landed at the Cliff; and fifteen minutes later they were all revelling
in the warm, refreshing water. Bessie declared that in all her large
bathing experience on the north shore she had never enjoyed anything
like this. Miss Ray felt that here in this warm, still water was her
opportunity to learn to swim; so she accepted the kind teaching of a
friend; but, alas, her efforts savored more of hard work to plough up
the Atlantic ocean than of an easy, delightful pleasure bottling up
knowledge for some possible future use. While Miss Ray was thus
straggling with the ocean, and Bessie and Tom were sporting like two
fish,--for both were at home in the water,--Mr. Gordon was looking
around the Cliff with his business eye wide open. As he walked along the
road back from the shore, and saw the fine views which it afforded him,
he admired the judgment of Eastman Johnson, the artist, in building his
summer-house and studio there. A little farther on, upon the Bluffs, the
highest point on the island, he noted the house of Charles O'Conor with
the little brick building close by for his library; he then decided that
an island which could give such physical benefit as this was said to
have given to Mr. O'Conor, would not be a bad one in which to invest. So
the value of the Cliff or Bluffs he placed in his note-book for future
use.
[Illustration: VIEWS IN NANTUCKET, MASS.]
At the same time that Mr. Gordon was exploring the land Mrs. Gordon
was in the office of two gallant young civil engineers, exploring the
harbor! In fact she was studying a map of the surroundings of the
harbor, which these young men had made to aid them in their work of
building a jetty from Brant Point to the bell-buoy. As she examined it
she found it hard to believe that Nantucket had ever stood next to
Boston and Salem, as the third commercial town in the Commonwealth. She
sympathized deeply with the people of the years gone by who had been
obliged to struggle with such a looking harbor as the map revealed, and
said that she should go home to learn more of the "Camels," which she
honored more than ever. When they told her that probably three years
more than the two that had been given to the work were needed to finish
the jetty, and that there was a slight possibility that another one
would be needed for the best improvement of the harbor, she thought her
interest in the matter could be better kept alive If she should hunt up
her old trigonometry and learn that all over again! With this idea she
left the young men, whose kindness to her she fully appreciated, and
went to find her party. She soon found, on the yacht ready to go back to
town, all but Miss Ray; she had chosen to take one of the many carriages
which she had noticed were constantly taking passengers back and forth
from the town to the Cliff, at the rate of ten cents apiece.
Later in the afternoon their attention was arrested by another one
of the town-criers,--Tom had learned that there were three in the
town,--who was crying out that a meat-auction would be held that night
at half-past six o'clock. When they were told that these meat-auctions
had been the custom of the town for years, they were anxious to attend
one; but another engagement at that hour prevented their so doing, much
to Tom's regret.
The next day was Sunday. As Bessie and Tom were anxious to see all of
the nine churches of which they had read, they were, at first, in doubt
where to go; whereas their mother had no questions whatever, since she
had settled in her own mind, after having reduced all sects to the
Episcopal and the Roman Catholic, that the Episcopal Church was the true
historic one, and, therefore, the only one for her personal interest,
that she should go to the St. Paul's on Fair street. Mr. Gordon usually
went to church with his wife, although he often felt that the simplicity
of the early apostolic days was found more in the Congregational form of
worship. This day he yielded to Tom's desire to go to the
square-steepled Congregational Church on Centre street, to hear Miss
Baker, who had been preaching to the congregation for three years. He
entered the church with some prejudice; but soon he became so much
interested in the good sermon that he really forgot that the preacher
was a woman! Miss Ray and Bessie went to the Unitarian Church on Orange
street, to which the beautiful-toned Spanish bell invited them. After an
interesting service, on their way out they met Tom, who wished to look
into the pillared church of the Methodists, near the bank, and also into
the "Ave Maria" on Federal street, where the Roman Catholics worshipped.
Miss Ray, being anxious to attend a Friends' meeting in their little
meeting-house on Fair street, decided to do so the following Sunday, if
she were in town; while Bessie said that she should hunt up then the two
Baptist churches, the one on Summer street, and the other, particularly
for the colored people, on Pleasant street. Their surprise that a town
of a little less than four thousand inhabitants should contain so many
churches was modified somewhat when they remembered that once, in 1840,
the number of inhabitants was nearly ten thousand.
In the afternoon the party visited some of the burying-grounds of the
town, six of which were now in use. The sight of so many unnamed graves
in the Friends' cemetery, at the head of Main street, saddened Miss Ray;
and she was glad to see the neat little slabs which of late years had
marked the graves of their departed ones. They strolled around the
Prospect Hill, or Unitarian Cemetery, near by, and wished to go into the
Catholic one on the same street; but, as Mrs. Gordon was anxious to see
some of the old headstones and epitaphs in the North burying-ground on
North Liberty street, and their time was limited, they went there
instead. When Tom saw her delight as she read on the old stones the date
of 1770, 1772, and some even earlier, he said that she must go out to
the ancient burial-ground on the hill near the water-works and see the
grave of John Gardner, Esq., who was buried there in 1706. As he said
this one of the public carriages happened to be within sight, and she
proposed that they take it and go immediately to that sacred spot. When
they arrived there her historic imagination knew no bounds; her
soliloquy partook of the sentiment--in kind only, not in degree--which
inspired Mark Twain when he wept over the grave of Adam. In the mean
while, Mr. Gordon had gone to the Wannacomet Waterworks, which supplied
the town with pure water from the old Washing-pond. He there noted in
his note-book that this important movement in the town's welfare was
another reason why investment in the island would be desirable.
As they started to go back to town from the burial-ground Tom wished
that they could drive to the south-west suburbs, to see the South and
also the colored burying-grounds, for he should feel better satisfied if
he could sec everything of a kind that there was! But Mrs. Gordon had
seen enough for one day, and so they drove to their boarding-house
instead.
The ringing of the sweet-toned church bell the next morning at seven
o'clock reminded Miss Ray of her desire to visit the tower which
contained it. She had noticed how it rang out three times during the
day, at seven, twelve, and nine o'clock, and, for the quiet Nantucket
town, she hoped that the old custom would never be dropped. And then
this bell had a peculiar attraction for her, for it was like the one
which was on her own church in Boston, the New Old South. She had been
greatly interested in reading that this "Old Spanish Bell," as it was
called, was brought from Lisbon in 1812; that it was stored in a cellar
for three years, when it was bought by subscription for about five
hundred dollars, and put in this tower. She had read, further, in
Godfrey's guide-book, that "some little time after the bell had been in
use, the sound of its mellow tones had reached the Hub; and so
bewitching were the musical vibrations of this queenly bell (e) of
Nantucket to many of the good people of the renowned 'City of Notions,'
that the agents of the Old South Church negotiated with the agents of
the Unitarian Church, saying that they had a very fine clock in their
tower; that they had been so unfortunate as to have their bell broken,
and wished to know at what price this bell could be procured. The agents
of the Unitarian Church replied that they had a very fine bell in their
tower, and would like to know at what price the Old South Society would
sell their clock. The bell weighs one thousand five hundred and
seventy-five pounds; the Boston gentlemen offered one dollar a pound for
it, and upon finding they could not get it at any price, they asked
where it came from; and having ascertained its history, sent to Lisbon
to the same foundry and procured that which they now have." And she had
been told further that this same bell had been removed to the new church
on the Back Bay. With all this pleasant association with the bell of her
own church, of course she must pay it a visit. So at about nine o'clock,
after Mr. Gordon and Tom had gone off with two gentlemen for a day's
blue-fishing, she, with Mrs. Gordon and Bessie, started out for their
morning's sight-seeing. In a half hour's time they had climbed the
stairs to the tower, and were admiring the fine new clock,--a gift from
one of Nantucket's sons, now living in New York,--which had been first
set in motion two years before, to replace an old one which had told the
time for over half a century. A little farther up they saw the famous
bell, and Miss Ray did wish that she could read Spanish so as to
translate the inscription which was upon it. A few steps more brought
them into the dome itself. Here, then, was the place where "Billy" came
to sight the steamers; and here was where a watchman stayed every night
to watch for fires. Whenever he saw one, Bessie said his duty was to
hang a lantern upon a hook in the direction of the fire and give the
alarm. She said that this had been the custom for years. As they were
all enjoying this finest view which the island affords, Bessie spied the
Old Mill in the distance, and as she had that painted on a shell as a
souvenir of her Nantucket trip she must surely visit it. So they were
soon wending their way up Orange street, through Lyons to Pleasant, and
then up South Mill to the Old Mill itself. On paying five cents apiece,
they were privileged to go to the top and look through the spy-glass,
and also see the miller grind some corn. This old windmill, built in
1746, with its old oaken beams still strong and sound, situated on a
hill by itself, was to Bessie the most picturesque thing that she had
seen. She associated this with the oldest house on the island, built in
1686, facing the south, which she had seen the day before.
In the afternoon they continued their sight-seeing by visiting the
Athenæum on Federal street. They found it to be a large white building
with pillars in front, on the lower floor of which Miss Ray was
particularly pleased to see such a good library of six thousand volumes,
and a reading-room with the leading English and American periodicals,
the use of which she learned was to be gained by the payment of a small
sum. Bessie was attracted to the oil-painting on the wall of Abraham
Quary, who was the last of the Indian race on the island. Then they
examined, in an adjoining room, the curiosities gathered together for
public inspection. Here they found the model of the "Camels," and also
the jaw of a sperm whale, seventeen feet long, with forty-six teeth and
a weight of eight hundred pounds. Bessie said that the whale from which
it was taken was eighty-seven feet long and weighed two hundred tons.
When Mrs. Gordon learned that this very whale was taken in the Pacific
Ocean and brought to the Island by a Nantucket Captain, she became as
much interested in it as in the "Camels," for surely it had an
historical interest. After an hour spent in this entertaining manner,
they returned to their boarding-place in time to greet the gentlemen who
had come back with glowing accounts of their day's work, or rather
pleasure, for they had met with splendid success. Tom's fingers were
blistered, but what was that compared to the fun of blue-fishing!
What particularly interested the ladies was a "Portuguese man of war"
which one of the gentlemen had caught in a pail and brought home alive.
This beautiful specimen of a fish, seen only at Nantucket, their hostess
said, and seldom caught alive, was admired by all, who, indeed, were
mostly ignorant of the habits or even the existence of such a creature.
Bessie wondered how such a lovely iridescent thing could be poison to
the touch. Tom promised to study up about it when he should begin his
winter studies, whereupon his mother said that if he would tell her what
he should learn about it she would write it out for the benefit of them
all.
The next morning they all started from the wharf at nine o'clock in the
miniature steamer, "Island Belle," for Wauwinet, a place seven miles
from the town. Miss Ray had become interested in the pretty Indian names
which she had heard, and was struck with this, which she learned was the
name of an old Indian chief who once controlled a large eastern part of
the island. In an hour they landed on the beach at Wauwinet. They found
it decorated with its rows of scallop-shells, some of which they
gathered as they walked along. Some of the party made use of this
still-water bathing, while others ran across the island, some three
hundred yards, to enjoy the surf-bathing there. Tom was delighted with
this novelty of two beaches, separated by such a narrow strip of land,
that he was continually going back and forth to try the water in both
places. He only wished that he could go up a little farther where he had
been told the land was only one hundred yards wide,--the narrowest part
of the island. After a shore dinner at the Wauwinet House, and another
stroll on the beaches, they started for the town on the yacht "Lilian,"
which twice a day went back and forth. The wind was unfavorable, so they
were obliged to go fourteen miles instead of seven, thus using two hours
instead of one for the sail. On their way they passed the places known
as Polpis, Quidnet, and Coatue. Mr. Gordon was so much impressed with
the advantages of Coatue that he noted the fact in his note-book; while
his wife became so much interested in the nautical expressions used that
she declared that she should get Bowditch's "Navigation," and see if she
could find those terms in it; she must know more of navigation than she
did. As they landed at the wharf they heard "Billy" Clarke crying out
that the New Bedford band would give a grand concert at Surf Side the
next day. Now, as this kind of music had been the chief thing which they
had missed among the pleasures of Nantucket, of course they must go and
hear it. So the next afternoon, at two o'clock, they were on the cars of
the narrow-gauge railroad, bound for the Surf-Side Hotel, which they
reached in fifteen minutes, passing on the way a station of the
life-saving service department. They spent an hour or two seated on the
bluff overlooking the grand surf-beach, and enjoying the strains of
music as they came from the hotel behind them. It must be confessed that
Mr. Gordon was so interested in noting the characteristics of this part
of the island with an eye to business, that he did not lose himself
either in the music of the band or the ocean. On his way back to town,
when he expressed his desire to build a cottage for himself on that very
spot, Surf Side, Mrs. Gordon would not assent to any such proposition;
for she had settled in her own mind that there was no place like Brant
Point, where she and Bessie had been that forenoon; for did not the
keeper of the light-house there tell her, when she was at the top of it,
that on that spot was built the first light-house in the United States,
in 1746? That was enough for her, surely. The matter was still under
discussion when Miss Ray told them to wait until they had visited
'Sconset before they should decide the question. As for her she could
scarcely wait for the next morning to come when they should go there.
And when it did come it found her, at half-past eight o'clock,
decorating with pond-lilies, in honor of the occasion, the comfortable
excursion-wagon, capable of holding their party of eight besides the
driver. By nine o'clock they were driving up Orange street by the
Sherburne and Bay View Houses, on their way to Siasconset, or, 'Sconset,
as it is familiarly called.
As they passed a large white building known as the Poor Farm, Tom was
surprised that a town noted for its thrift and temperance should be
obliged to have such an institution. Bessie was glad to learn that they
were going over the old road instead of the new one, while Miss Ray
would rather have gone over the new one, so as to have seen the
milestones which Dr. Ewer, of New York, had put up by the wayside. They
met the well-known Captain Baxter, in his quaint conveyance, making his
daily trip to the town from 'Sconset. As they rode for miles over the
grassy moors with no trees or houses in sight, none of them could
believe that the island had once been mostly covered with beautiful oak
trees. Soon the village, with its quaint little houses built close
together on the narrow streets, which wound around In any direction to
find the town-pump, its queer, one-story school-house, its post-office,
guarded by the gayly-colored "Goddess of Liberty," was before, or rather
all around them. They had all enjoyed their ride of seven and a half
miles; and now, on alighting from the carriage, the party separated in
different directions. Miss Ray insisted upon bathing in the surf-beach
here in spite of its coarse sand and rope limitations, since it was the
farthest out in the Atlantic Ocean. Her experience with the strong
undertow in its effects upon herself and upon those who watched her is
one, which, as no words can portray it, Tom has decided to draw out for
some future Puck; for he thinks that it is too good to be lost to the
public.
Mrs. Gordon and Bessie walked among the houses, noticing the peculiar
names which adorned some of them, and, indeed, going inside one of the
oldest where a step-ladder was used for the boys of the household to get
up into their little room. They crossed the bridge which led them to the
Sunset Heights where some new houses, in keeping with the style of the
old ones, were being built. They were pleased to see this unity of
design, rather than the modern cottage which had intruded itself upon
that coast. In their walk they learned that about eleven or twelve
families spent the winter at 'Sconset. The air was intensely
invigorating, so much so that Mrs. Gordon, who was no walker at home,
was surprised at herself with what she was doing without fatigue. Later
they found Mr. Gordon looking at the new church which had just been
completed, and which he had ascertained was built for no sectarian
purpose, but for the preaching of the truth. They all met at noon for
their lunch, after which they went a mile and a half farther to visit
the Sankaty Head light-house, the best one of the five on the island.
The keeper kindly escorted them up the fifty-six steps to the top, where
they learned that the point of the light was one hundred and sixty-five
feet above the level of the sea. He gave them some more facts relative
to the light, interspersed with personal experiences. Tom said that he
should remember particularly the fact that he told him that this
light-house would be the first one that he should see whenever he should
come home from a European trip.
Two hours later they were relating their pleasant experiences in the
dining-room of their boarding-house, while enjoying the delicious
blue-fish which gratified their hunger. As for Miss Ray her
anticipations had been realized; and that night she wrote to a certain
young man in Boston that she knew of no place in America where they
could be more by themselves and away from the world, when their happy
time should come in the following summer, than at 'Sconset.
The next afternoon found them all listening to Mrs. McCleave, as she
faithfully exhibited the many interesting curiosities of her museum, in
her home on Main street. Mrs. Gordon was very much interested in the
Cedar Vase, so rich with its "pleasant associations," while Bessie was
delighted with the beautiful carved ivory, with its romantic story as
told by its owner. Miss Ray considered Mrs. McCleave, with her
benevolent face, her good ancestry, and her eager desire to learn and
impart, a good specimen of the well-preserved Nantucket woman.
Through the courtesy of their hostess they were privileged, on their way
back, to visit the house of Miss Coleman, on Centre street, there to
see the wonderful wax figure of a baby six months old, said to be the
likeness of the Dauphin of France, the unfortunate son of Louis XVI.
When Mrs. Gordon learned that this was brought to Nantucket in 1786, by
one of her own sea-captains, she became very much excited over it. As
she realized then that her knowledge of French history was too meagre to
fully understand its historical import, although she appreciated its
artistic value, she determined that another winter should be partially
devoted to that study. So she added "French history" to "Camels,"
"Light-houses," "Navigation," and "Indians," which were already in her
note-book. She had added "Indians" the day before when her interest in
them had been quickened by some accounts of the civilization of the
early Indians in Nantucket, which seemed to her almost unprecedented
in American history. After supper Mr. and Mrs. Gordon went out in a
row-boat to enjoy the moonlight evening, Tom went to the skating-rink,
Miss Ray spent the evening with some friends at the Ocean House near by,
while Bessie went out for a moonlight sail with some friends from a
western city, whom, she said, she had "discovered, not made." Her
appreciation of a fine rendering of her favorite Raff Cavatina by a
talented young gentleman of the party, soon after her arrival, had been
the means of bringing together these two souls on the musical heights,
which afterwards had led to an introduction to the other members of the
party, all of whom she had enjoyed during the week that had passed. And
now, with these newly-found friends, on this perfect July evening, with
its full moon and fresh south-westerly breeze, in the new yacht
"Lucile," she found perfect enjoyment. Pleasant stories were related,
and one fish-story was allowed, to give spice to the occasion. After a
little more than two hours' sail they found themselves returning to the
Nantucket town, which, in the moonlight, presented a pretty appearance.
The next day, Saturday, Mr. Gordon and Tom started early to sail around
the island, with an intention of landing on the adjoining island,
Tuckernuck. Tom had calculated that it would be quite a sail, for he
knew that Nantucket Island was fourteen miles long, and averaged four
miles in width; and his father had decided that such a trip would give
him a better idea of the island's best points for building purposes. On
their return at night they found that the ladies had spent a pleasant
day, bathing, riding, and visiting some Boston friends who were stopping
at the Springfield House, a short distance from them. Bessie had found
more pleasure in the company of the young musician and his friends,
having attended one of the morning _musicales_ which they were
accustomed to have by themselves In the hall of the Athenæum. Tom and
his father had much to tell of their day's pleasure.
Mr. Gordon, for once in his life, felt the longing which he knew had so
often possessed his wife, to go back and live in the years gone by; for
if he could now transfer himself to the year 1659, he might buy this
whole island of Thomas Mayhew for thirty pounds and two beaver hats.
What a lost opportunity for a good business investment! As it was,
however, some valuable notes were added to his note-book, suggested by
the trip, which time alone will give to the world. He was more and more
convinced that the future well-being of Nantucket was more in the hands
of real-estate brokers and summer pleasure-seekers, than in those of the
manufacturers, agriculturists, or even the fishing men as of old. He
could see no other future for her, and he should work accordingly. His
chief regret was that the island was so barren of trees.
They spent the next day, Sunday, in attending church, as they had
planned, and in pleasant conversation and rest preparatory to their
departure for Boston on the following morning. They expressed gratitude
that they had not been prevented by sickness or by one rainy day from
carrying out all the plans which had been laid for the ten days. Mrs.
Gordon very much regretted that they had not seen the famous Folger
clock which was to be seen at the house of a descendant of Walter
Folger, the maker of it. She should certainly see it the first thing,
if she ever were in Nantucket again; for she considered the man, who,
unaided, could make such a clock, the greatest mechanical genius that
ever lived. She felt this still more when she was told that the clock
could not be mended until there could be found a mechanic who was also
an astronomer.
At seven o'clock the next morning they were all on board the steamer, as
she left the old town of Nantucket in the distance. Mrs. Gordon looked
longingly back at Brant Point, which she still felt was the best spot on
the island; while Bessie eagerly watched for the little flag which a
certain young gentleman was yet waving from the wharf.
At half-past one they were in Boston, and an hour later at their
suburban home, all delighted with their short stay in Nantucket. They
felt that they had seen about all that there was to be seen there, and
they were glad to have visited the island before it should be clothed
with more modern garments.
[Footnote 2: Copyright 1885, by Elizabeth Porter Gould.]
* * * * *
A BIRTHDAY SONNET.
By George W. Bungay.
Our days are like swift shuttles in the loom,
In which time weaves the warp and woof of fate;
Its varied threads that interpenetrate
The pattern woven, picture bride and groom,
A life-like scene in their own happy home.
There are some frayed and shaded strands, fair Kate,
But lines of purest gold illuminate
Our wedded lot, as stars the heavenly dome,
And come what may, sunshine or chilling rain,
Prosperity and peace or woe instead,
Untruth and selfishness shall never stain
The web of love and hope illustrated.
Not even death unravels when we die,
The woven work approved of God on high.
* * * * *
ELIZABETH.[3]
A ROMANCE OF COLONIAL DAYS.
By Frances C. Sparhawk, Author of "A Lazy Man's Work."
CHAPTER XX.
GREEK MEETS GREEK.
It was two weeks after the scene at Colonel Archdale's dinner-party.
There was quite a knot of people in Madam Pepperell's drawing-room. All
the household at Seascape had come on the way home from a drive to pay a
morning visit here, and found the in-door coolness refreshing. Colonel
Archdale, who had joined his son, was there also. Mr. Royal, as it
happened, was in Portsmouth that morning.
Edmonson had been exemplary enough in avoiding the cant of pretended
regret for what must have given him pleasure. Archdale had no complaints
to make on that score, but he distrusted Edmonson more and more, and
perceived more clearly that he was attracted by Elizabeth. He wondered
if she encouraged him: that was not like the person she seemed to be;
yet why not? She had assured Archdale more than once that she was free,
and her certainty had given him comfort. But he was here this morning
for another purpose than to weigh the question of Miss Royal's fancy. If
she did encourage Edmonson she was all the more inexplicable.
Stephen bent over Lady Dacre's chair, talking gayly to her; yet his eyes
wandered every now and then, and, gradually, after he had stopped
several times beside one and another, he came up to Elizabeth, as she
was sitting listening to a young lady who, with her brother, had come
back from town with Madam Pepperell, the night before, to spend a few
days at the house.
As Stephen stood behind her chair he looked across the room, and saw
Edmonson leaning with folded arms against a window. The light fell over
his face; he had been looking at Elizabeth, but his eyes met Archdale's
at once with an expression meant for cool scrutiny and a dash of
insolent triumph at the victory he had scored. Edmonson's fierceness was
not easily fettered; the dark shadow in his heart darted over his face,
and, withdrawing as hastily, left to view a light that blazed in his
eyes and only slowly died down into the cordial warmth necessary between
guest and host, even under peculiar circumstances. Stephen's face
darkened also, but his feeling was less, and his control greater.
Elizabeth was listening quietly to some account of a merry-making at
which Katie must have been present, for her name occurred frequently in
the narrative. As she perceived that Archdale was behind her she looked
round at him a moment, and by a few words included him in the
conversation. She was as entertaining as usual and rather more talkative
after he came. Yet he thought that under her ease of manner he detected
a current of nervousness that made him the more anxious to carry out the
purpose with which he had come to her.
But it was not easy to find any excuse for withdrawing her from the
circle in which she had made herself so welcome. At last, however, under
cover of a general movement, which he had secretly instigated, he
succeeded in getting her into the library, on the plea of a message to
her father. When there, he closed the door behind him, and said:--
"I have a message to your father, it is true, Mistress Royal, but it is
only to beg him to interfere."
"Interfere?" she echoed with a nervousness that this time was
unmistakable.
"Pray be seated," he said, drawing a chair toward her as she stood by
the mantel.
"Thank you, but--I don't mind standing. What you--the business will not
take long, you said."
"As you please." And he stood facing her on the opposite side of the
great fireplace.
She heard his tones, glanced at him, and sat down. He took a chair also,
still placing himself so that he could watch her. She grew plainly more
nervous.
"Who is Mr. Hartly?" he asked, abruptly.
She looked at him in a frightened way, and the hand that she lifted to
her throat was trembling.
"He is"--she began, then she stopped; without any warning her expression
and her manner changed, for with the coming of what she had dreaded came
the strength to meet it. There was no more tremulousness of voice or
hand, and the face that looked at Stephen Archdale was the face of a
woman who met him upon equal terms; yet, as he looked at her steadily,
he was not quite sure even of that; it seemed to him that it would
require an effort on his part to keep at her level; that at least he
must stand at his full height. She sat silent, meeting his steady gaze.
There was a dignity about her that would have been haughtiness but for
her simplicity. Even her dress carried out the effect of this
simplicity; it was a white muslin, very plain, and the single pink
hollyhock that the new guest had slipped into her hair, and Elizabeth
had forgotten, gave to her attire the touch of warmth that something in
her face showed, too. It was to Stephen the calmness of flesh and blood,
not of marble, that he was looking at; a possibility of life and motion
was there, but a possibility beyond his reach. Some one might arouse
her; to him she was impassive.
"You've not finished your sentence," he said, coldly.
"Why should I? You know the rest of it."
"Nevertheless, I wish you would say it."
"Very well. Mr. Hartly is an agent of Mr. Peterborough."
"And Mr. Peterborough?"
"My solicitor."
"You mean your father's?"
"Yes, and mine, too."
"Then you have property of your own?"
"Yes. You did not know it?"
"I heard of it yesterday. Your property is no concern of mine, you
understand." She was silent. Under the circumstances the statement was
significant. "Mr. Hartly came to my father the other day," he went on.
Still no answer. "Possibly you knew it?" he persisted. She lifted her
eyes which had been fixed on the cover of a book that her fingers were
toying with, and said:--
"Yes."
Stephen waited to choose words which should not express too forcibly the
impetuous feeling that shone in his eyes and rang in his voice when he
spoke.
"Let me put a case to you," he said, "or, rather, not an indifferent
case, but our own, and hear how it sounds in plain English. How we were
married, if married we are, it is useless to speak of; how absolutely
nothing we are to one another it is unnecessary also to say. I
appreciate your efforts and your courtesy when I see so plainly that it
is with difficulty you can bring yourself even to speak a word to me."
Elizabeth glanced up a moment, and down again, and her fingers went on
idly turning the leaves of the book. "When I see what social powers you
have," he pursued, "I assure you that I shall regret it for you if fate
have denied you a better choice. But at all events" (constrainedly), "I
must thank you for the gracious and successful manner in which you have
kept suspicion from becoming certainty before time proves it so."
She looked fully at him this time, and smiled.
"Gratitude comes hard to you," she said. "There is no cause for it in
anything I have ever done. You may be sure it was not to please you at
all, but to gratify something in myself that demanded satisfaction. Now,
please explain to me what you mean by your extraordinary summary of
things we know too well, and how I have offended you when I am really
your friend--yours, and "--She stopped, a smile flitted over her face
and was gone; it revealed for the unnamed person a gentleness and an
affection that perhaps she did not care to have her tones betray.
"Yes, you have offended me," he said. "I have no right to comment on
your actions in general."
"None whatever."
"But what I do have a right to demand is an explanation from you of
conduct so strange as to be unaccountable."
She flushed a little.
"It's not pleasant," she answered, "when one has done the best that
opened up to be told that it's unaccountable conduct."
"Then it was you? I was sure of it." She looked at him earnestly.
"Why should there be any beating about the bush?" she answered. "I
should like it better if you need never have known; but, since you were
sure to find it out sooner or later, it might as well come now. What I
have done is wise and right, the most satisfactory thing to me, and to
others wiser than I. But I wish you would never speak of it."
"Never speak of your coming forward with your whole fortune to make up
the loss that this fellow's claim will be to us? Never speak of it!"
cried Archdale. "And accept it? From you? You certainly have a
flattering opinion of me."
"If it were like any business losses," she said, "it would be different.
But this is something nobody could have been prepared for; it needs
something outside of the routine to meet it." She waited a moment. "Will
you put your case, as you said you were going to do?" she asked. "It
will make it clearer, and you will see that there is nothing
extraordinary. I think you need not say anything more about--about us,
that is all understood. Go on from there."
"A father and a son, then, are nominally in business together," he
answered; "the father does the work; the son has a generous share of the
profits. Matters are going on swimmingly. Suddenly a claimant turns up
who wants a grand slice of the property. He is the only son of the
father's elder brother,--a being who was not known to have existed, that
is, who was supposed to have died when an infant. The father, my father,
was named for him, and my grandfather's will gave the largest share of
his fortune to his oldest son, Walter, whom he supposed to be my father,
but who was really Gerald Edmonson's father--if the fellow's proofs turn
out valid; they are having a thorough overhauling. My uncle does not
suffer; it is only we. I am sorry," he added, "that you are liable to be
in any way connected with loss, but at the worst it is so remotely that
it will never affect you. As for the other matter, the story,"--he
stopped with a movement of irritation, perhaps of some deeper
feeling,--"that must be borne as best it can, nothing of that falls upon
you, certainly. How the matter concerns a young lady at all I can't
imagine; so I fail to see what interest you can have in it, or what
right to move in it."
"You fail to see?" she said and gave him a smile full of sweetness. It
was not a coaxing smile, as if she begged him to reconsider his
opinions; it indorsed her own while placidly acquiescing in mutual
indifference. "Besides, do you know it was through me that the portrait
was found?" And she gave him an account of the discovery. He did not
think it necessary to interrupt her by saying that he had heard Edmonson
give it with great relish; it seemed a good opportunity to learn whether
he had been telling the truth. The story was substantially the same, but
the enjoyment of the narrator was absent. "And, then," she added,
finishing, "this is not a bad investment."
"It may be now; I can't tell. We were under full sail; we have large
ventures, and to give out so much ready money may mean ruin. In a few
months, perhaps sooner, you may have the happiness of bearing a bankrupt
name."
Elizabeth's eyes were full of pity at the bitter tones in which she
heard suffering; she looked away and answered:--
"It is merely justice to me to let me prevent that, if I can."
"Good heavens!" he cried; and, struck with the readiness of her answer,
he studied her face. He would have liked to be sure from what motive she
was acting. Was it pride, or really pity? The thought of the last made
him furious; the other was at least endurable. "And you might not
prevent it," he added, watching to catch her eyes as she should turn
them back to answer. He was reasonably sure that it was pride.
"Then let me do this for my own sake," she said. "Listen to me calmly
for a moment. There is one thing you ought not to forget. Either I am
your wife, which God forbid, and I believe he has forbidden it, or I am
simply Katie's friend. In case of the first,--if I have destroyed your
happiness and Katie's, and my own,--what can money do for me? Life
offers me nothing; there are no possibilities before me so far as joy is
concerned; there is nothing left for me but to do the best I know how;
we must pick up the little things that lie along the way in life, you
and I; there will be nothing else for us; I have made you suffer so
much, and you deny me this little thing that can never balance any pain,
but is all I can dot? Why are you so unwise? Why should we make
ourselves more miserable than we need be?"
He sprang up. These very words--that he had often said to himself in
regard to his own life, that in effect he had said to her that
morning--how harsh they were, how they cut him! He was tender with his
wounded vanity. What man would like to hear that a woman has nothing
before her but misery if she be bound to himself?
"There is one condition," he cried, harshly, "under which I will accept
your money,--when you love me; when it is the gift of love." He laughed
bitterly. "I am safe," he said.
"Yes, Mr. Archdale, you are safe," she answered, rising to meet him as
he stood before her. "I can use no such weapons. It is beneath you to do
it. To say such a thing to me when you know that in any event my great
blessing is that I don't care a pin's worth for you, that I am not a
sighing woman wasting her affection on you, while you--But I don't
suppose you meant your words as an insult."
"Have I ever been rude to you?" he asked, eagerly. "Such a thing would
be an infinite disgrace to me."
"Yes," she said, answering his assertion.
"'While you,'" he repeated, "you said 'while you'--What were you going
to say about me?"
"While you love Katie with all your heart," she answered, "as it is
right you should do." He looked at her, and remembered that for all
her courage it might be that he owed her at least the courtesy of all
observances of respect and regard before others. He had committed an
unpardonable error that day of the dinner at his father's, and he felt a
confusion, as if the color were coming to his face now as he thought of
it.
"You--mistake," he stammered. "I assure you you do. I think I
understand--I"--
She looked up at him. Her face was pale, and there was in it the kind of
compassion that one might imagine a spirit to feel for a wayworn mortal.
"You owe me no explanation," she said. "Let us believe in the victory of
the right, and put this nightmare away from us. Remember you are
speaking only to Katie's friend."
He looked at her, and he could not be sure.
"But you must let me speak," he said, "because I see you mistake. I
don't want you to think because--I confess it--her beauty has a great
fascination for me that I can forget myself, that I--it was like
admiring a beautiful living picture."
She moved nearer, involuntarily.
"Poor fellow!" she said under her breath, "you have been brave; you are
brave, very brave. I've seen it." Then, after a pause in which she
retreated a little and stood considering deeply, she said, "I will tell
you something; it would be too much to be spoken of, only that you don't
understand why I did this thing about the business. Think how I am
placed. I may be standing between my dear friend and the man who was to
have been her husband, and separating them forever. That night when I
came home from your father's I realized it more than ever before; it
filled me so that I could not bear the thought of life. I happened to
have something by me, and I--almost took it. I should have slipped away
from between you two, I was so bent upon doing it,--only, the warning
saved me from such a sin. It will never be again," she added as she saw
his eyes dilate with questioning horror. "That temptation has gone. I
have accepted my lot, for it was permitted to come, or even that wicked
man could not have brought it. But now, think, think how I must long to
do some little thing, not to atone, that's impossible, but to make life
not quite so hard to you, and to her. Now, this has come for you. Take
it, I entreat you. Some day I may be able to help her in some way; I
think it will be so."
He looked into her eyes as she raised them to his.
"But you didn't mean to--do all this, if it is done," he said. "There's
no need of talking about atoning, as if you were guilty of anything."
"But, then, I ought to have refused; it was my place. It would have
saved everything."
"You wanted to," he said, "and you yielded to oblige Katie."
She looked relieved at his answer. It surprised him; he wondered that he
had remembered her hesitation.
"You will do this thing?" she persisted. "You see it is your duty."
"Do you know the reason you are so anxious to have me do it?" he asked,
the momentary softening of his face gone. "It's out of no love for
Katie, or friendliness to me."
"No," she said to his last statement, and added, "Yes, I know; I've seen
it."
"What is it?"
"I suppose," she said, humbly, "that it's my pride.
"Yes," he cried, "that's what it is--your pride. Well, I have my pride,
too. I'll take your money, when you love me--when it's the gift of your
love, as I said--no sooner; I shall have to do without it this year, I'm
afraid."
Her eyes swept him from head to foot in an indignant glance. Then she
turned and walked away as if disdaining further speech. He bowed in
silence as he opened the door for her, looking at her with a mocking
smile, and even as he did so taking in every line of her graceful
figure, the pose of her head, and the flush upon her face. In answer to
the taunt she did speak one sentence under her breath, but he caught
it:--
"You are not the only one," she said.
When he had closed the door after her he walked slowly the length of the
room, and, standing by the window, in another moment saw her pass by on
her way to the shore where she had learned that the party had gone. If
they were already sailing it was no matter; she could wait for them
there, or come back; but they might not have started, and to put any
part of sea and land between herself and Archdale would be a joy to her.
Archdale watched her until she disappeared.
"And I called myself proud," he muttered. He stood lost in revery,
living the scene over again. "What eyes!" he thought; "they're as
unconscious as a child's, but such power as they have; they call out a
man's best, and I met her with my worst. I never even told her she was
generous. She meant to be kind when she humiliated me so." And then he
thought that she deserved a better fate than to be bound to him whose
heart was with Katie, and realized that Elizabeth was not at all the
kind of woman whom he should choose to set his love upon. Yet he smiled
scornfully at himself for the eager start with which he had cried out
that if she were roused she could be magnificent. A magnificent woman
was not in his line, and if it proved that she was his wife, she would
go through the world a sleeping princess, he said to himself, unless he
should go off to the wars and get shot. Perhaps that would be the best
way out of the difficulty, he thought, and would leave her free. At the
moment Edmonson's face rose before him, and he frowned as he wondered
what feeling there was in that quarter. "No, no," he said to himself.
"Not Edmonson. I know he's a villain; I feel it." He interrupted his
thoughts by asking, sarcastically, what it could all matter to himself,
well out of harm's way, what happened, what Elizabeth or anybody else
did? He was very angry with her, and she did not realize the Archdale
unforgiveness. If she had, would she have cared? She had not yielded her
purpose.
CHAPTER XXI.
WAR CLOUDS.
"I hate November," cried Mrs. Eveleigh, coming into Elizabeth's room
and bringing a whiff of cold air with her. "It's a mean month," she
continued. "There's nothing but disagreeable things about it. The leaves
are all gone, and the snow hasn't come. You can't even go out riding
with any comfort, the ground is so frozen you are jolted to pieces." And
with step emphasizing the petulance of her voice, the speaker turned
from her companion and went to her own room, to put away her bonnet and
the heavy cloak that, if it had not been able to protect her from the
roughness of the roads, had kept the cold air from doing more than
biting revengefully at her nose and the tips of her fingers, in place of
all the mischief it would have been glad to inflict if it had had the
chance. The steps grown fainter, went about the next room, and Elizabeth
went on with her reading only half attentively, watching for the
inevitable coming back. "But then," resumed Mrs. Eveleigh, returning to
her subject as soon as she had opened the door wide enough to admit her
voice, "one must see a little of the world sometimes. I'm coming in to
warm my feet by your fire, shan't I? mine is low. I declare, it's hard
that Nancy should be so partial to you. I can get scarcely any
attention, though, to be sure, poor thing, it's well to have it from
somebody, even if it is from dependents. And you don't get any too much
from the quarter where you've a right to it."
Elizabeth, knowing it would be useless to attempt going on with her
reading, had laid aside her book on Mrs. Eveleigh's entrance, and now
she looked up from the sewing toward which she had reached out her hand,
and said:--
"You know as well as I do that it is exactly as I want it. Mr. Archdale
considers my wishes, and as to having a right, you know, Cousin
Patience, that that is what is being disproved now. Haven't I declared
that the ceremony was nothing at all?"
"Oh, certainly you have, but you'll find out how little good that will
do. I have not an idea that you'll ever have a chance to say 'Yes' to
that splendid Edmonson. You'll find it out soon enough, poor child."
Elizabeth flushed, then turned pale.
"Have you heard anything?" she asked.
"Not yet; not since that Mr. Harwin turned out a minister, just as I
thought he would, and your case went to the court to be decided. You'll
have the first news, I suppose, but I don't doubt what it will be."
"Neither do I," returned the girl, resolutely.
"We shall see," said Mrs. Eveleigh. "Do you know," she added, "that Mr.
Edmonson came yesterday when you were out?"
"Yes."
Then there fell between the pair as long an interval of silence as Mrs.
Eveleigh ever permitted where she was concerned. She broke it by asking,
energetically:--
"Elizabeth, if you really believed that you were not Mr. Archdale's
wife, why, in the name of wonder, did you go and put your whole fortune
into his business? And why did your father let you?"
"My father had no legal right to interfere," said the girl, ignoring the
first question, "and he did not choose to strain his authority. When was
he ever unkind to me?"
"I think he was then, decidedly." And the speaker nodded her head with
emphasis. "But you have not told me why you did it," she continued.
Elizabeth was silent a moment. "I had been the means of the whole thing
being discovered," she said, "and I had hurt him enough already."
"And he let you risk your whole fortune just because you had happened to
put your finger through a hole in the hall tapestry."
"No," cried Elizabeth, "he did no such thing. He is very angry with me
now because I invested it; he is not willing, even though he knows that
it's for Katie's sake."
"I thought you said just now that it was for Mr. Archdale's." Elizabeth
looked at her, and smiled triumphantly.
"I did," she answered. "It's the same thing; I have always told you so."
"Um!" said Mrs. Eveleigh, and returned to the attack. "If he wouldn't
take the money, how could you give it?" The girl was silent. "It was the
father, I know; they say a penny never comes amiss to him."
"How did you find this out, Cousin Patience?" But Mrs. Eveleigh laughed
instead of answering. "You have not spoken of it?" cried Elizabeth.
"Not a word. Why, I don't want to proclaim any one of my own family a
goose." The only answer was a smile of satisfaction. "You don't mind
being called a goose, I see," pursued the speaker.
"Not at all. I know it's often true. Only it doesn't happen to be true
here."
Though Mrs. Eveleigh had so openly criticised Elizabeth, it would have
gone ill with any one who had dared to follow her example. She was often
annoyed by things in Elizabeth; but she believed in the girl's truth
more than she did in her own. And there she was quite right. Now she
began to talk about the portrait scene, and declared that Mr. Edmonson
looked very handsome standing beside the old picture that he so much
resembled.
"That portrait was Colonel Archdale's grandfather, his mother's father,
Mr. Edmonson," explained Elizabeth, perceiving that her companion's
ideas were somewhat mixed. And then Mrs. Eveleigh confessed that she had
been trying to explain about the portrait and the relationship, and that
though she had talked learnedly about the matter, she had been a little
confused in her own mind.
"This portrait was in the colonel's father's house, lent him to be
copied, and when he fled he took the original with him, and left the
copy. It was a duel that he fought, and there was something irregular
that he did about it. He went to Virginia, you remember, and while there
he changed his name. Then he came here, and the search for him died out.
The matter was hushed up some way, I suppose."
"And pretended that he belonged to a different race of Archdales in
another part of England," asserted Mrs. Eveleigh, contemptuously.
"Perhaps we should, too, if we had been in his place."
"What! in his place, Elizabeth? Can you even imagine how you would feel
if you had murdered anybody, or about the same as that?"
"Yes."
"Nonsense, my dear. You must have a powerful imagination; I shouldn't
think it was healthy. There's no use, any way, in being so odd."
"No."
"First 'yes,' and then 'no,' and neither of them means anything. But if
you haven't anything to say, I wish you would tell me how those people,
the colonel's father and mother, happened to have a son living that they
didn't know anything about."
Elizabeth, full of remembrance of the time when a human life, even if
her own, had seemed light to her, could not help smiling at Mrs.
Eveleigh's literal interpretation of things. "They had to escape at
once," she said, "and the doctor said the child would die if he
undertook a sea-voyage in that state. So she sent him to her father's
home with a nurse who was very fond of him; he was a baby then. And she
went away with her husband with the understanding that when the child
recovered, as the doctor expected him to do, the nurse should bring him
to her in America. And she left open some way of communication. But,
instead of the baby, there came news that he was dead."
"And he wasn't dead?"
"No; his grandfather adopted him, and gave him his name. He hated Mr.
Archdale; he had lost his daughter through him, and he determined to
keep the child. So he bribed the nurse to report his death, and
persuaded her that it was better for the little fellow to stay with him
as his sole heir than follow the fortunes of a haunted man in a
wilderness, as America must have been then."
"And do you really believe they never knew of this son of theirs being
alive?"
"Mr. Archdale's will, if nothing else, proves that. He had three sons
here, you remember; and the colonel, the eldest of these, was named
Walter, after the one supposed to have died in England. And, now, you
see how this trouble all happened. The will left the greater part of the
property to Mr. Archdale's oldest son, Walter, whom he supposed the
colonel. But the real oldest son, Walter, was this Mr. Edmonson's
father. So that the colonel was really left penniless."
"Yes, yes, now I see," cried Mrs. Eveleigh. "You are like your father
when you come to explanations, Elizabeth; a person can always get at
what you mean. Now tell me about the portrait, how it came there, and
how in the world Mr. Edmonson found it."
"I don't know how it came there," she answered, leading away from the
rest of the question by adding, "I have never asked a word about it."
"Elizabeth! you _are_ odd, that's certain. And if Mr. Archdale is
never coming here any more, you will never have a chance now to ask him.
It's a pity to be so diffident."
Elizabeth smiled a little. "What else did you hear this morning?" she
asked.
"Nothing that will interest you, though of course I thought it would
when I heard it. Stephen Archdale has come back from his expedition up
to the Penobscots with Colonel Pepperell. I wonder how they succeeded?"
"I can tell you that. The Indians have sent word that they will not
fight against their brothers of St. John's and New Brunswick. That means
that they'll fight for them. We shall have an Indian war with the French
one. Think of the horrors of it." She shuddered as she spoke.
"Yes," returned Mrs. Eveleigh, with calm acquiescence. "It will be
dreadful for the people that live in the little villages and in the open
country."
This calmness, as if one were gazing from an impregnable fortress upon
the tortures and deaths of others, silenced Elizabeth. She looked the
speaker over slowly and turned away.
"Any more news?" asked Mrs. Eveleigh in a cheerful tone.
"I can tell you nothing more," returned Elizabeth.
This was literally true. It would not have been true if she had said
that she had heard nothing else, for she had been sitting with her
father for an hour, and had learned of a secret scheme,--a scheme so
daring that the very idea of it made her eyes kindle and her breath come
quickly,--a scheme that if it should fail would be hooted at as the
dream of vain-glorious madmen, and if it should succeed, would be
called a stroke of genius--magnificent. It interested her to know that
among the most eager to carry out the scheme was Major Vaughn, the man
whose valor she had asserted to Sir Temple Dacre a few months before. A
small band of men had pledged themselves to put reality into this dream
of grand achievement. "Its failure means," thought Elizabeth, "that
America is to be French and Jesuit; its success that Englishmen, and
liberty of mind and conscience, rule here." She prayed and hoped for
success, and took an eager interest in all the details of the scheme
that had reached her; but these were meagre enough, for, as yet, it
was only outlined; the main thing was that it was resolved upon. The
prisoners captured at Canso had been at last exchanged. They had been
brought to Boston, and had given valuable information about the place of
their captivity, the stronghold of France in America. Governor Shirley
had declared that Louisburg was to be captured, and that Colonel
Pepperell was the man to do it. Elizabeth, as she looked across at Mrs.
Eveleigh, wondered what she would say to the project. But she wondered
in silence, not only because silence had been enjoined, but because this
was not a woman to trust with the making of great events. She had heard
of an Indian war, and her chief thought had been that she would be safe.
The war had been talked about all the autumn. It was a terrible
necessity, but this new direction that it was to take was something
worth pondering over.
Elizabeth naturally, took large views of things, and, as her father's
companion, she had not learned to restrict them. But, also, for the last
months she had perceived dimly that there was a power within her which
might never be called into action. And this power rose, sometimes, with
vehemence against the monotony of her surroundings, in the midst of her
wealth of comforts and of affection.
It was the last of November, only two days after this conversation, that
Stephen Archdale was announced.
"He has come to tell me the decision," said Elizabeth to Mrs. Eveleigh;
"he promised he would come immediately. It's good news."
"Then what makes you so pale? And you're actually trembling."
Elizabeth looked at her companion in surprise, for all her years of
acquaintance with her.
"Don't you understand?" she said. "The strain is to be taken off. The
certainty must be good; and yet there is the possibility that it is not.
This and the thought that the moment has come make me tremble."
As she was speaking she moved away and in another moment was in the
drawing-room with Archdale.
"You have brought me word," she said, as soon as her greeting was over.
"You have good news; I see it in your eyes."
"Yes," he answered. "I suppose you will call it good news. You are free;
you are still Mistress Royal."
She clasped her hands impulsively, and retreated a few steps. It seemed
to him as he watched her that her first emotion was a thankfulness as
deep as a prayer. He saw that she could not speak. Then she came up to
him holding out both her hands.
"Never was any one so welcome to me as you with your words this
morning," she said. "I have not spoiled your life and Katie's."
"And you are free," he said again.
"Yes," she repeated, "I am free." And as she drew away her hands she
made a movement almost imperceptible and instantly checked, as if she
had thrown off some heavy weight. He read it, however, as he stood there
with his eyes upon her face, which was bright with a thankfulness and a
beauty that, although he had seen something of her possibilities of
expression, he had never dreamed of. How glad she was! A pang went
through him. He understood it afterward. It had meant that he was asking
himself if Katie's face, when he told her the news, would look so happy
at having gained him as this girl did at having lost him; and he had not
been sure of it. All the autumn there had been strange fancies in his
head about Katie. He had had no right, under the circumstances, to send
Lord Bulchester away; but it had seemed strange to him that any girl's
love of power should be carried so far if it were mere love of power
that moved her. But no shadow on Elizabeth's face showed him that she
dreamed of change in Katie, and Stephen felt rebuked that friendship
could find its object more perfect than love did.
"Will the wedding be on the anniversary of the other one?" asked
Elizabeth. "I suppose it will," she added; "Katie ought to have it so.
That will come in three weeks. It will be a little time before you sail,
if you go." And she smiled rather sadly, then glanced about her to make
sure that the last remark had not been overheard.
"Ah!" he said, "I see you know all about the scheme on foot. But it is
safe to trust you. You are very much interested," he added, watching
her.
"Very much. My father does trust me a good deal. But I hope I shall not
make him sorry for it."
Archdale kept on looking at her, and smiling.
"You prefer making people glad," he answered.
"But perhaps you will not go--now?" she said.
"Oh, yes. I promised my services to Colonel Pepperell last summer; that
holds me, you see. Besides, I want to do my part."
"I could not imagine you standing idle by while others were striking the
blows for our country," said Elizabeth. "Katie has told me a good deal
about you at one time and another. Dear Katie!" she added in an
undertone, with an exquisite gentleness in her face. Then, looking back
from the window where her eyes had wandered, she turned off her emotion
by some gay speech.
Very soon afterward the young man left her. For he was on his way to
carry the news to Katie who was then in Boston visiting her aunt. But to
go to her he passed Mr. Royal's door, and his wishes, as well as his
promise, made him delay his own happiness for a moment to see Elizabeth
rejoice. He saw her rejoice to his heart's content; and then he took
leave of her for his happy meeting with his betrothed.
[TO BE CONTINUED.]
[Footnote 3: Copyright, 1884, by Frances C. Sparhawk.]
* * * * *
EDITOR'S TABLE.
Evidences are constantly multiplying that American history is a subject
which has not lost its interest to investigators or to readers. During
the past month four distinct works, namely, the fifth volume of Von
Holst's Constitutional History of the United States, the third of
Schouler's History of the United States, the second of McMaster's
History of the People of the United States, and also a new volume of
Hubert Howe Bancroft's History of the Pacific States, have been
published, and are destined, no doubt, to take their places as
"standards." This diligence on the part of their respective writers, and
the interest in them manifested by the great public is commendable, and
in a measure dispels the oft-repeated saying that Americans are a nation
of novel-readers.
It is gratifying, also, to record another fact. During the third week in
July the Old South lectures for young people, illustrative of "The War
for the Union," were inaugurated in Boston. The ancient "meeting-house"
was crowded with earnest students to hear the first lecture on slavery,
delivered by William Lloyd Garrison, Jr. The speaker gave a vivid sketch
of the chief events of the anti-slavery movement, and of the part taken
by George Thompson, Garrison, Phillips, Whittier, and Harriet Martineau.
* * * * *
Students of the anti-slavery struggle should not forget, however, how
much the success of that struggle was due to Mrs. Maria Weston Chapman,
whose death occurred at Weymouth, Mass., on July 12. She was not only a
_magna pars_ of the struggle, but one of the most remarkable women
of our time. Mrs. Maria Child used to relate how Mrs. Chapman, clad in
the height of fashion of that day, came into the first anti-slavery
fair, an entire stranger to every one present. "She looked around over
the few tables, scantily supplied, and stopped by some faded artificial
flowers. The poor commodity only indicated the utter poverty of means to
carry on the work. We thought her a spy, or maybe she was a
slave-holder." From that time she entered heartily into the work. She
became the life of the Female Anti-slavery Society in Boston, she spoke
often in public; her pen was never idle when it could advance the cause
of equal rights and freedom.
Mr. Lowell, in his rhymed letter, descriptive of an anti-slavery bazaar
at Faneuil Hall, and the celebrities of the cause there assembled, drew
the portrait of this gifted woman with his usual felicitous touch:--
"There was Maria Chapman, too,
With her swift eyes of clear steel-blue,
The coiled up mainspring of the Fair,
Originating everywhere
The expansive force, without a sound,
That whirls a hundred wheels around;
Herself meanwhile as calm and still
As the bare crown of Prospect Hill;
A noble woman, brave and apt,
Cumæa's sybil not more rapt,
Who might, with those fair tresses shorn,
'The Maid of Orlean' casque have worn;
Herself the Joan of our Arc,
For every shaft a shining mark."
* * * * *
It is one thing to be a good ship-builder for the government, and quite
another thing to be in favor with the Secretary of the Navy, at
Washington. This is the lesson, and the only lesson, which can be
deduced from the two dispatches which have been transmitted over the
country, namely: that the "Dolphin" has been rejected, and that John
Roach, her builder, has failed.
The case has its value as a warning to American ship-builders. They are
given to understand that the closest compliance with the requisitions of
the department in the process of constructing a vessel, and that under
the direction of experts, perfectly competent to determine what is good
work and what is bad, will avail them nothing unless they are in favor
with the Secretary when the vessel is offered for acceptance. And they
are warned that the Department of Justice holds it perfectly legal for
the Navy Department to lay upon them such conditions as to construction
as must determine the capacity of the vessel for speed, and yet reject
the vessel as not fast enough. They may be fined heavily for not having
used their discretion, and yet may have been denied discretion as to the
plans used.
It will be remembered by all who have watched the case, that the
"Dolphin" was found satisfactory and in full accordance with the terms
of the contract by one naval board, and that it was then condemned by
another board of no greater weight or capacity. If this fact be
remembered, it should be weighed with the full understanding that naval
officers, chosen by Mr. Whitney for this service, are just as much
dependents of the new Secretary as their predecessors were of Mr.
Chandler. The last set of officials, as experts, were not superior to
those which constituted the first; and yet Mr. Whitney bases his refusal
to accept the vessel upon the contradiction of the first report to the
second. If the first report was worthless, why not the second, in the
light of all the facts?
What is needed to-day is a board of examiners fully competent to
pronounce on the merits, of not only the "Dolphin" but of any and
every other ship that shall be built, and fully sundered from, and
independent of, political and official relations with the Navy
Department. The nearest approach to this is the report of the body of
experts--ship-builders, and ship-captains, experts in ship's materials,
and the like--whom Mr. Roach invited to examine the "Dolphin." The
report of these gentlemen flatly contradicts Mr. Whitney's board on
points which are matters of fact, and not of opinion, and therefore
throws the burden of proof upon Mr. Whitney himself. Until some equally
unpolitical and unofficial body refutes it, the treatment Mr. Roach has
received will be set down to other motives than the best.
* * * * *
The republic at last bows its head in sorrow at the death of its
greatest citizen. In awe and admiration it honors the character which,
heroic to the last, has never been more conspicuously shown than during
the months of that depressing illness, the end of which must have been
to him a welcome entering into rest.
The same unquailing courage, and the same calm, grim fortitude which
shed their fadeless lustre upon his whole extraordinary career were
evinced by General Grant at the last moments of his life. For months the
nation has hung over his bedside, awaiting the silent foot-fall of the
unseen conqueror of all that is mortal.
The nation's loss is not measured by the vacant place. For nearly a
decade General Grant had been only a private citizen, wielding no
sceptre of authority, and exercising no sway in the public councils. And
yet his going is a loss; for he was everywhere felt, not merely by what
he had done, but by what he was,--one of the great reserve forces of our
national commonwealth.
"Great men," said Burke, "are the guideposts and landmarks of the
State." General Grant was the guidepost of a victorious war, and a
landmark of a magnanimous peace. A pillar of strength has fallen; and
yet a broken shaft is not the fit emblem of his life. It is a finished
and splendid column, crowned with its full glory.
The chieftain is dead. The American people themselves will now judge
him, after the calm evening and the serene repose of retirement, more
justly than in the stress and storm of struggle. The asperities of angry
contentions have passed; the flaws have faded, and the blemishes are
dimmed, while the splendor of General Grant's achievements and the
simple grandeur of his character have gained a brighter halo as the
years have rolled by. The clouds and the smoke of battle have long since
lifted; the fragments and the scenes are swallowed in the majestic
drama; and to-day we see the hero elevated on his true pedestal of fame
through the just perspective of history.
It is given to few men to bear suffering with the fortitude displayed by
the departed hero; it is given to fewer still to await in patience and
without complaint the certain issue of suffering in death. But it is
neither his fortitude, nor his patience, nor his touching solicitude,
nor his unselfish industry which distinguished him in an almost unique
degree. It was rather, in one word, his simplicity, his strong but
unpretentious character, and his firm but magnanimous nature.
Of such, plainly, is the kingdom of Heaven, and it is a national glory
that of such, too, in the instance of General Grant, the American people
was never neglectful.
* * * * *
If every person who is inclined to attribute to Socialism all the
discontent now prevalent among the laboring classes of this country,
would carefully read Mr. Laurence Gronlund's remarkable book, entitled,
_The Coöperative Commonwealth_,--an exposition of modern
Socialism,--he would perhaps awaken to a comprehension of the fact that
true Socialism is neither communism, nor lawlessness, nor anarchy. We
wish this book could be scattered, by millions, among the intelligent
people of this land, if for no other purpose than to root out many of
the false ideas which are current, as well as to inculcate a logical
explanation of much that is transpiring at the present moment.
We are told that at least 30,000 laborers are out of work in Cincinnati,
and that full as many are unemployed in Chicago. The same state of
affairs prevails in other large cities. These people, we are also told
by the newspapers, are "exposed to the designs of socialistic leaders,
and liable to embrace their dangerous schemes." Hence, it is to be
inferred, of course, that timely measures should be instituted to "guard
the unreflecting against socialistic theories and measures."
Despair sometimes calls for a desperate remedy. When men are in physical
or financial distress they _are_ apt to lose their heads, so to
speak, and to be subject to the wildest delusions and hallucinations. A
great many of the unfortunates now out of employment have been already
reduced to misery and want; but it is a mistake to suppose that the
philosophy of Socialism can afford them any relief or consolation, or
that it can incite them to mad deeds of violence. There are certain
demagogues in this country who, assuming to be Socialists, are ready to
stir up the popular mind, even to the shedding of blood; but such men
are few in numbers, and wield only a limited influence.
Now, Socialism holds that the impending reconstruction of society, which
Huxley predicts, will be brought about by the logic of events, and
teaches that the coming revolution, which every intelligent mind must
foresee, is strictly an evolution. Socialists of this school reason from
no assumed first principle, like the French, who start from "social
equality," or like Herbert Spencer, who lays it down as an axiom that
"every man has freedom to do all that he wills, provided he infringes
not the like freedom of every other man;" but basing themselves squarely
on _experience_,--not individual but universal experience,--they
can, and do present clear-cut, definite solutions.
It is this true _German_ Socialism which Mr. Gronlund, in the work
previously alluded to, very clearly presents, and which should be more
generally understood than it is.
Apropos of the subject, it will not be amiss to recall a statement made
by Frederic Harrison, namely:--
"The working-class is the only class which is not a class. It is the
nation. It represents, so to speak, the body as a whole, of which the
other classes only represent special organs. These organs, no doubt,
have great and indispensable functions, but for most purposes of
government the state consists of the vast laboring majority. Its welfare
depends on what their lives are like."
And this from Carlyle:--
"It is not to die, or even to die of hunger that makes a man wretched;
many men have died; all men must die. But it is to live miserable, we
know not why: to work sore and yet gain nothing; to be heartworn, weary,
yet isolated, unrelated, girt in with a cold universal _Laissez-faire_."
* * * * *
AMONG THE BOOKS.
It seems but a short time since we pored interestedly over the pages
of Mr. Stanley's "Through the Dark Continent," which described the
exploration of the Congo in 1876-7, from Nyongwe to the Atlantic
Ocean. The final results of that first expedition, which surpasses all
anticipation, are now recorded in two handsome volumes from the same
pen, bearing the title: _The Congo and the Founding of Its Free
State_.[4] When Mr. Stanley, in 1878, had crossed the African
continent and had reached the mouth of the Congo, he took ship for
Europe. He had reached Marseilles, where, in the railway-station, he was
met by two commissioners who had been sent by Leopold II., King of the
Belgians, for the express purpose of interesting Mr. Stanley in the
project entertained by that king of founding a State in the heart of
Africa. This project was subsequently accepted, and all the powers of
Europe entered into the scheme. Mr. Stanley now relates, for the first
time, the story of the founding,--a story which is as entertaining as
the liveliest piece of fiction, and as marvellous in its unfolding as
would be the sudden discovery of a new and habitable world. From the
mouth of the Congo to Stanley Falls is about fifteen hundred miles, and
the basin of this immense river contains more than a million and a half
square miles; that is, a territory nearly one-half as large as that of
the United States. The opening of this great country to the commerce of
the world is one of the greatest events of the nineteenth, indeed of
any, century. By the agreement of the sovereigns of Europe, no European
power is ever to be permitted to seize the sea-coasts of the continent,
or to levy differential customs and high tariffs upon the commerce of
the world such as our New England and Middle States now levy upon the
West and South. Forever hereafter a merchant or producer dwelling in the
Congo can dispose of his ivory and ebony, or any other product
whatsoever, in whatever market it will yield him the most money, and buy
his shovel and hoe, his gunpowder, and the like, where he can buy them
the best and the cheapest. It is, perhaps, not too much to affirm that
the founding of such an empire on such a basis will make in time as
great a change in commercial affairs as the establishment of the
American Republic has made in political affairs and in the relation of
men to governments. The work of Mr. Stanley is destined to have a large
influence. It is the most important book on Africa that has ever been
written at any period of time or in any language. And yet no record of
good deeds grandly done could savor of more modesty and
unpretentiousness than does the narrative in these two noble volumes.
* * * * *
Miss Anna Laurens Dawes, the daughter of Senator Dawes, of
Massachusetts, has undertaken "an explanation of the Constitution and
government of the United States," in her book entitled _How We are
Governed_.[5] Believing, as we do, that a knowledge of politics is an
essential part of education, we hail this work as one of the hopeful
signs of the times, and commend it especially to young people, because
the author has so accurately and comprehensively accomplished her task
as to make it worthy of confidence. Simplicity in writing is the first
needed qualification of one who undertakes to instruct youth. Miss Dawes
exhibits this quality, and takes nothing for granted as to the previous
knowledge of her readers. Her plan follows the order of the
Constitution, and that document is quoted in full, and in its several
parts under the division of "The Legislature," "The Executive," "The
Citizen," and "The States."
* * * * *
It is the practical nature of the contents of _The Hunter's
Handbook_[6] which will commend it to all readers, and which stamps
it as an indispensable work for all persons who "go camping out." This
is just the season for such healthful recreation and resting among the
hills or along shore. It is just the season, too, when, unless he knows
exactly how to manage, the camper-out is subjected to a great many
annoyances as well as pleasures. The little work under notice contains
many valuable hints and suggestions, while its notes of all camp
requisites and receipts are exceedingly valuable. Some of the author's
quaint aphorisms on camp economy, camp neatness and cleanliness, and on
the signs and portents of the weather, will tend to keep the reader in
good humor. It would require years of experience for new beginners to
acquire the information which a half hour's study of this book will
easily impart. To all such, then, it is invaluable.
The first volume of Mr. McMaster's entertaining work on the _History
of the People of the United States_[7] appeared just three years ago
this summer, and the lively interest which it then aroused gave promise
of the cordial welcome that would be generally extended to future
volumes of the same work. The first volume closed with the year 1790.
The second volume, which has recently been published, continues the easy
and entertaining narrative down to 1803. Within its seven chapters there
is a vast fund of valuable information in regard to life and society as
they existed under the early administrations. These chapters cover the
experimental years of the Republic under the Constitution,--the years
which, so susceptible of popular treatment, are so particularly engaging
to students of American history. At so formative a period in the
national development, when there was open contest between Congress and
the States, when the group of undoubted aristocrats gathered around
Hamilton were in direct opposition to the extreme republicanism of the
circle which acknowledged Jefferson as its chief, the dominance of
English or French influence was an element of great moment to the future
of the nation. Mr. McMaster has most admirably handled this phase of his
subject.
The account of town and country life as they were at the beginning of
the present century, and of the growth of those social usages which we
have come almost to regard as instinctive, is very entertaining and
instructive. Barring certain blemishes and a few inaccuracies, which
ought to be excusable in a work of such character, Mr. McMaster's two
volumes form a very valuable and welcome contribution to our national
literature. It was a felicitous thought which prompted him to enter this
peculiar field, and to gather up the important facts which writers on
political history have generally avoided. So thoroughly and so admirably
has Mr. McMaster worked this field that we doubt whether any other
writer, coming after him, will be tempted to invade the same territory.
The work thus far ends with the negotiations which led to the Louisiana
purchase, and we are led to expect three more instalments before it
shall be completed.
* * * * *
Should any readers be tempted by Mrs. Gould's article in this number of
THE BAY STATE MONTHLY to visit Nantucket, they will do well to
take with them, for handy reference and trustworthy guidance, Mr.
Godfrey's _Island of Nantucket: What it was and what it is_.[8] It
is a complete index and guide to all that is interesting in the
island,--tells just how to get there and what to see there,--and
contains, moreover, several special articles, by different hands, on the
history, botany, geology, and entomology of the island. The maps
accompanying the text were made expressly for the book.
* * * * *
A fitting companion to Mr. Wallace's "Malay Archipelago," which appeared
some ten or a dozen years ago, is a new book, entitled _A Naturalist's
Wanderings in the Eastern Archipelago_,[9] of which Henry O. Forbes
is the author. Mr. Forbes revisited most of the islands which Mr.
Wallace had described, but his route in each island was altogether
different. He gives us the first detailed account of the Timor-laut
Islands, with very interesting and valuable ethnological notes. The work
is divided into six parts, devoted to the Cocos-Keeling Islands, Java,
Sumatra, the Moluccas, Timor-laut, Buru, and Timor. Many illustrations
are interspersed throughout the text, and the whole work is exceedingly
vigorous, graphic, and abounding in interest.
* * * * *
_Under the Rays of the Aurora Borealis; In the Land of the Lapps and
Kvæns_[10] by Sophus Tromholt, edited by Carl Siewers, furnishes a
narrative of journeys in Lapland, Finland, and Northern Russia in
1882-83. It also contains an account of the recent circumpolar
scientific expeditions, and a popular statement of what is known of the
Aurora Borealis, which the author has studied long and carefully. A map
and nearly one hundred and fifty illustrations add greatly to the value
and attractiveness of the work.
MR. WINFRED A. STEARNS, a close student of natural history, and
one of the authors of "New England Bird Life," has prepared a work
entitled _Labrador: a sketch of its People, its Industries, and its
Natural History_.[11] Although not written in a very agreeable style,
the work is one which deserves perusal, and will certainly command some
attention. Mr. Stearns visited Labrador three times, once in 1875, once
in 1880, and again in 1882. The results of these journeys and
observations are herein set down in a compact volume of three hundred
pages. With the exception of a valuable paper on Labrador in the
"Encyclopedia Britannica," little of a modern and useful character has
been written giving anything like a fair description of the country and
its resources. Mr. Stearns book supplies the omission, and is cordially
to be commended. It ought to pave the way for a good many excursion
parties.
[Footnote 4: The Congo and the Founding of Its Free State. By Henry M.
Stanley, 2 vols. Maps and illustrations. New York; Harper & Bros. Price,
$10.00.]
[Footnote 5: How We are Governed. By Anna Laurens Dawes. Boston: D.
Lothrop & Co.]
[Footnote 6: The Hunter's Handbook, containing a description of all
articles required in camp, with hints on provisions and stores, and
receipts for camp cooking. By "An Old Hunter." Boston: Lee & Shepard.
Price, 50 cents.]
[Footnote 7: A History of the People of the United States, from the
Revolution to the Civil War. By John Bach McMaster. Vol. II. New York:
D. Appleton & Co. Price, $2.50.]
[Footnote 8: The Island of Nantucket: What it was and what it is.
Compiled by Edward K. Godfrey. Boston: Lee & Shepard. Price, paper, 50
cents.]
[Footnote 9: Wanderings of a Naturalist in the Eastern Archipelago. By
H.O. Forbes. Illustrated. New York: Harper & Bros. Price, $5.00.]
[Footnote 10: Under the Rays of the Aurora Borealis; In the Land of the
Lapps and Kvæns. By Sophus Tromholt. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, & Co.]
[Footnote 11: Labrador: a Sketch of its People, Industries, and Natural
History. By W.A. Stearns. Boston: Lee & Shepard. Price, $1.75.]
* * * * *
MEMORANDA FOR THE MONTH.
The reduction of letter postage from two cents per half-ounce to two
cents per ounce, which took effect July 1st, suggests a few words in
regard to postal matters in general. The collection of news by
post-carriers is said to have originated in the regular couriers
established by Cyrus in his Persian kingdom about 550 B.C. Charlemagne
employed couriers for similar purposes in his time. The first
post-houses in Europe were instituted by Louis XI. of France.
Post-chaises were invented in the same country. In England in the reign
of Edward IV., 1784, riders on post-horses went stages of the distance
of twenty miles from each other in order to convey to the king the
earliest intelligence of war. Post communication between London and most
towns of England, Scotland, and Ireland existed in 1935. The penny-post
was first set up in London and its suburbs in 1681 as a private
enterprise, and nine years later became a branch of the general post.
Mail coaches, for the conveyance of letters, began to run between London
and Bristol in 1784. The postal system of the American colonies was
organized in 1710. Franklin, as deputy postmaster-general for the
colonies, established mail-coaches between Philadelphia and Boston in
1760. Previous to 1855 the rates of postage were according to distance.
The uniform three-cent rate was adopted in 1863. Money-order offices
were instituted in England as early as 1792. They were established in
this country in 1864, and there is no safer way to remit small amounts.
* * * * *
End of Project Gutenberg's The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 3, by Various
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