Project Gutenberg's Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3, by Various
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Title: Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3
Author: Various
Release Date: January 4, 2005 [EBook #14583]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONTINENTAL MONTHLY VOL.1 ISS.3 ***
Produced by Cornell University, Joshua Hutchinson, Josephine Paolucci
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
THE CONTINENTAL MONTHLY:
DEVOTED TO
LITERATURE AND NATIONAL POLICY.
VOL. I.--MARCH, 1862.--No. III.
* * * * *
SOUTHERN AIDS TO THE NORTH.
Perhaps the most difficult question at present before the American
people is that so often and so insolently put by Southern journals, and
so ignorantly babbled in weak imitation of them by English newspapers,
asking what, after all, in case of a victory, or even of many victories,
can we do with the revolted provinces? The British press, prompt to put
the worst construction on every hope of the Union, prophesies endless
guerilla warfare,--a possibility which, like the blocking up of
Charleston harbor by means of the stone fleet, is, of course, something
which calls for the instant interference of all cotton-spinning
Christian nations. Even among our own countrymen it must be confessed
there has been no little indecision as to the end and the means of
securing the conquest of a country whose outlines are counted by
thousands instead of hundreds of miles, and whose whole extent, it is
too generally believed, forms a series of regions where dismal swamps,
bayous, lagoons, dense forests, and all manner of impenetrabilities, bid
defiance to any save the natives, and where the most deadly fevers are
ever being born in the jungles and wafted on the wings of every summer
morn over the whole plantation land. The truth is, that the simple facts
and figures relative to this country are not generally known. Let the
Northern people but once learn the truths existing in their favor, and
there will be an end to this misapprehension. There has been thus far no
hesitation or irresolution among the people in the conduct of the war.
'Conquer them first,' has been the glorious war-cry from millions of the
freest men on earth. But when we are driving a nail it is well to know
that it will be possible to eventually clench it. And when the country
shall fully understand the ease with which this Union nail may be
clenched, there will be, let us hope, a greatly revived spirit in all
now interested in forwarding the war.
It is evident enough that if all the millions of the South remain united
to the death in the cause of secession, little else than a guerilla
warfare of endless length is to be hoped for. The accounts of the
enthusiasm and harmony at present prevailing in Eastern Virginia, and in
other places controlled by the active secessionists, have struck terror
to the hearts of many. But, united though they be, they must be more
than mortal if they could resist the influences of a counter-revolution,
and of strong bodies of enemies in the heart of their country, aided by
a mighty foe without. 'Hercules was a strong man,' says the proverb,
'but he could not pay money when he had none;' and the South may be
strong, but she can hardly fail to be entirely crippled when certain
agencies shall be brought to bear against her. Let us examine them, and
find wherein her weakness consists.
The first is the easy possibility of a _counter-revolution_ among the
inhabitants of the mountain districts, who hold but few slaves, who have
preserved a devoted love for the Union, and who are, if not at positive
feud, at least on anything but social harmony with their aristocratic
neighbors of the lowlands and of the plantation. Unlike the 'mean
whites' who live among slaves and slave-holders, and are virtually more
degraded than the blacks, these mountaineers are men of strong character
and common-sense, combining the industrious disposition of the North
with the fierce pride of the South. And so numerous are they, and so
wide is the range of country which they inhabit, that it would seem
miraculous if with their aid, and that of other causes which will be
referred to, a counter-revolution could not be established, which would
sweep the slaveocracy from existence.
In a pamphlet entitled 'Alleghania,' by James W. Taylor, published at
Saint Paul, Minnesota, by James Davenport, the reader will find 'a
geographical and statistical memoir, exhibiting the strength of the
Union, and the weakness of slavery in the mountain districts of the
South,' which is well worth careful study at this crisis. Let the reader
take the map and trace on it the dark caterpillar-like lines of the
Alleghanies from Pennsylvania southward. Not until he reaches Northern
Alabama will he find its end. In these mountain districts which form
'the Switzerland of the South,' a population exists on whom slavery has
no hold, who are free and lovers of freedom, and who will undoubtedly
co-operate with the Union in reestablishing its power. This 'Alleghania'
embraces thirteen counties of North Carolina, three of South Carolina,
twenty of Georgia, fifteen of Alabama, and twenty-six of Tennessee.
According to Humboldt and other writers on climatology, an elevation of
two hundred and sixty-seven feet above the level of the sea is
equivalent in general influence upon vegetation to a degree of latitude
northward, at the level of the ocean. Therefore we are not surprised to
learn from Olmsted that 'Alleghania' does not differ greatly in climate
from Long Island, Southern New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. 'The usual
crops are the same, those of most consequence being corn, rye, oats and
grass. Fruit is a more precarious crop, from a greater liability to
severe frosts after the swelling of the buds in the spring. Snow has
fallen several inches in the month of April.'[A]
The Western Virginia portion of Alleghania, which in the
counter-secession programme of its inhabitants was to have formed the
State of 'Kanawha,' embraced in its total population of 284,796 only
10,820 slaves. Its area is 4,211 square miles larger than the entire
State of Maryland. With this we have 'Middle Virginia,' in the valley of
the Shenandoah, which extends east of the main Alleghany range to the
Blue Ridge. This region also is broadly distinguishable in respect to
slavery from the Atlantic counties. With 200,262 freemen according to
the census of 1850, it has only 44,742 slaves, and there is reason to
believe that this population has largely diminished in favor of freedom.
Yet again we have the mountain district of South-western Virginia, where
in its ten counties the proportion of freemen to slaves is nearly ten to
one, or 76,892 to 8,693. As regards internal resources, beautiful
scenery, and all that conduces to pleasant life and profitable labor,
this portion of Virginia far surpasses the eastern division, and will
eventually attract the great mass of immigration.
The reader is aware that Eastern Kentucky, embracing the counties along
the western base of the Cumberland Mountains, 'has nobly responded to
the cause of the Union.' 'They represent a population which from the
first outbreak have been on fire with loyal zeal, repudiating all
sympathy with this war of slavery against the Union.' The proportion of
slaves to freemen in these counties, according to the census of 1850, is
as follows:--
COUNTIES FREE SLAVE
Letcher, 2,440 62
Floyd, 5,503 149
Harlan, 4,108 123
Whitley, 7,222 201
Knox, 6,238 612
Perry, 2,972 117
Clay, 4,734 515
Breathitt, 3,603 170
Morgan, 7,305 187
Johnson, 3,843 30
Lawrence, 6,142 137
Carter, 5,000 257
In contrast to this healthy, temperate Eastern Kentucky, 'a portion of
the great central district of mountain slopes and valleys,' let the
reader turn to the secession hot-bed of the State. He will find it the
largest slaveholding district of Kentucky. It is worth noting that
secession is matured in the slave regions, for though it is popularly
identified with slavery, they are not wanting among its leaders--no, nor
among their traitorous and cowardly sympathizers here at the North--who
constantly assert that secession is simply a geographical necessity, and
slavery only a secondary cause--that the South will, in fact, eventually
emancipate, and that race and latitude are the great fundamental causes
of national difference, constituting us in fact 'two peoples.' How
completely false and puerile are all these assertions, appears from an
examination of the mountain region now under discussion.
Of all these sections of 'Alleghania,' none is of more importance to the
Federal Union than East Tennessee. Immensely rich in minerals, with a
healthy and agreeable climate and much rich soil, it is one of the
finest countries on earth, lying under the temperate zone, and developes
the most extraordinary physical perfection in the human form. Its
proportion of slaves to freemen is no greater than in the other mountain
regions of the South--its area is about equivalent to that of
Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island united. In considering this
with the loyalty of its inhabitants, and in studying 'Cumberland Gap,'
the great natural highway of the Alleghany Range, the observer
appreciates with pleasure the remark of Secretary Chase, who, in a
recent interview with certain eastern capitalists, disclaimed on behalf
of the Government and of General M'Clellan any purpose to send the army
into winter quarters, remarking with much significance that 'a glance at
the map will perhaps astonish those who have never reflected, _how short
is the distance from East Tennessee to Port Royal Harbor, and may
suggest the possibility of cutting a great rebellion into two small
pieces_.'
In the mountain region of North Carolina we have 'the Piedmont of the
Alleghanies.' Its seventeen counties embrace a larger area (11,700
square miles) than the whole of Vermont. Its scenery is of extraordinary
beauty, its peaks are the highest east of the Rocky Mountains. There is
full ground for the belief that in North Carolina a majority of the
people are Union at heart. The following extract from 'Alleghania' will
be read with interest as illustrating the assertion:
In the Union camps of East Tennessee, there are numerous
volunteers from Watauga and other adjacent counties over the
border. At the only popular election suffered to be held upon the
question of Union and secession, the Union majority was as two to
one; and even after the storm of Sumter, the vote in the
convention of North Carolina on a proposition to submit the
ordinance of secession to a vote of the people, received
thirty-four yeas to seventy-three nays. I have confidence that
those thirty-four names, representing one-third of the State, were
given by delegates from the western counties,--the Alleghany
counties,--from the base and sides of the Blue Ridge,--from a land
of corn and cattle, not of cotton. Again, when the news of the
capture of Hatteras was announced in the legislature of North
Carolina, it is evident from the language of the Raleigh
newspapers that an irrepressible explosion of Union feeling--even
to an outburst of cheers, according to one statement--occurred.
Nor is such a state of feeling surprising, when we remember that
not even in Kentucky is the memory of Henry Clay more a fireside
treasure of the people. In this respect, the quiet, unobtrusive
'North' State was in striking contrast to its immediate
neighbors--South Carolina in one direction, and Atlantic Virginia
in the other. Politically, when the pennons of Clay and Calhoun
rode the gale, the vote and voice of North Carolina were ever
given for the great Kentucky leader. Let us accept these omens for
the winter campaign, which will open with the triumph of the Union
and the Constitution on the Cumberland heights of East Tennessee.
'In one-fifth of Georgia, over an area of 12,000 square miles, slavery
only exists by the usurpation of the cotton aristocracy of the lowland
districts of the State.' In all of them, slaves, though in a greater
proportion than in the rest of Alleghania, are very greatly in the
minority, as appears from the following table:--
COUNTIES FREE SLAVE
Madison, 3,763 1,933
Hart,*
Franklin, 9,076 2,382
Jackson, 6,808 2,941
Banks,*
Hall, 7,370 1,336
Habersham, 7,675 1,218
Rabun, 2,338 110
Towns,*
Union, 6,955 278
Lumpkin, 7,995 939
Dawson,*
Forsyth, 7,812 1,027
Milton,*
Cherokee, 11,630 1,157
Pickens,*
Gilmer, 8,236 200
Faunin*
Murphy,*
Whitefield,*
Gordon, 5,156 828
Cass, 10,271 3,008
Floyd, 5,202 2,999
Chattoga, 5,131 1,680
Walker, 11,408 1,664
Catoosa,*
Dade, 2,532 148
* Counties marked with an asterisk, organized after the census of 1850,
of which the foregoing are returns.
Last in the list we have North-east Alabama, in which we find the
following counties:--
COUNTIES FREE SLAVE
Cherokee, 12,170 1,691
DeKalb, 7,730 506
Marshall, 7,952 868
Jackson, 11,754 2,292
Morgan, 6,636 3,437
Madison, 11,937 14,329
Limestone, 8,399 8,063
Lawrence, 8,342 6,858
'It will be observed,' says Mr. Taylor,
That the three counties last named have a slave population, in the
case of Madison exceeding, and in Limestone and Lawrence nearly
equal to the number of free inhabitants. They would seem to be an
exception to our former generalization, and are only included
because there is other evidence that Athens, in Limestone County,
and Huntsville, in Morgan County, were to the last possible moment
the head-quarters of resistance to the Montgomery conspirators. It
was the Union vote of these highland counties, notwithstanding the
number of slaves in some of them, which would inevitably have been
rolled down in condemnation of an ordinance of secession. This was
well known by Yancey and his associates, and it was to avoid this
revelation of their weakness over a compact and populous area of
the State, which was in direct communication with East Tennessee,
that they refused the ordeal of the ballot upon the consummation
of their treason to the Union.
I estimate that the district which could readily be rallied in
support of a loyal organization of the government of Alabama, with
its capital at Huntsville, to be equal to the area of New Jersey,
or 8,320 square miles. With the occupation of the Alleghanies by
an army of the Union, and such a base of operations, civil and
military, in North Alabama, a counter-revolution in that State
would not be difficult of accomplishment.[B]
It will thus be seen, that, in the South itself, there exists a
tremendous groundwork of aid to the North, and of weakness to
secession. The love of this region for the Union, and its local hatred
for planterdom with its arrogance towards free labor, is no chimera; nor
do we make the wish the father to the thought when we assert that a
Union victory would light up a flame of counter-revolution which would
in time, with Northern aid, crush out the foul rebellion. And relying on
this fact, we grow confident and exultant. If Europe will only let us
alone--if England will refrain from stretching out a helping hand to
that slaveocracy for which she has suddenly developed such a strange and
unnatural love, we may yet be, at no distant day, great, powerful, and
far more united than ever.
But we have, in addition to all these districts of Alleghania, a vast
reserve in Texas--that Texas which is now more than half cultivated by
free labor, and which is amply capable of producing six times as much
cotton as is now raised in the entire South. An armed occupation of
Texas, a copious stream of emigration thither, to be encouraged by very
liberal grants to settlers, and a speedy completion of its railroads,
would be an offset to secession, well worth of itself all that the war
has cost. With Texas in our power, with Cumberland Gap firmly held, with
the negroes in South Carolina fairly disorganized from slavery, with
free Yankee colonies in the Palmetto State, with New Orleans taken--a
blockade without and complete financial disorder within, what more could
we desire as a basis to secure thorough reëstablishment of power? Here
our superiority to the South in possessing not only a navy, but, what is
of far more importance, a vast merchant marine containing all the
elements necessary to form a navy of unparalleled power, appears in
clearest light, giving us cause for much congratulation. To effect all
this, _time_ is required. Let those who fret, look over the map of a
hemisphere--let them reflect on the condition to which Southern perfidy
and theft had reduced us ere the war begun, and then let them moderate
their cries. It will all be done; but the programme is a tremendous one,
and the future of the most glorious country on earth requires that it
shall be done thoroughly, and that no risks shall be taken.
But, beyond all the aid which is to be expected from a
counter-revolution in the South, to be drawn from the 'Alleghania'
region, there is one of vast importance, insisted upon in a series of
articles published during the past year in the New York _Knickerbocker
Magazine_, and which may be appropriately reconsidered in this
connection. Should the government of the United States, by one or more
victories, obtain even a temporary sway over the South, it will only
rest with itself to produce a powerful counter-revolution even in those
districts which are blackest with slavery. _Let it, when the time shall
seem fit_,--and we urge no undue haste, and no premature meddling with
the present plans or programme of those in power,--_simply proclaim
Emancipation_, offering to pay all loyal men for their slaves according
to a certain rate. The proportion of Union men who will then start into
life, even in South Carolina, will be, doubtless, enormous. It may be
objected that many of these will merely profess Union sentiments for the
time being. But, on the other hand, those noted rebels who can have no
hope of selling their slaves, save indeed to the Union professors, will
have small love for the latter, and two parties can not fail to show
themselves at once. Those who hope to see the slave principle ultimately
triumphant will oppose selling the chattels; those who wish to 'realize'
at once on them, owing to temporary embarrassments, will urge it; and
dissension of the most formidable character will be at once
organized,--precisely such dissension as the Southern press has long
hoped to see between the dough-faces and patriots of the North, or
between its labor and capital, or in any other disastrous dissension.
Be it borne in mind that the price of slaves is at present greatly
depressed in the South. Those who would sell would speedily acquire
more, in the hope of a profit by selling to government. Those too who
would willingly act as brokers between those who wished to sell, but who
would not dare to openly do so, would be very numerous. Between these
and the leaders of the ultra pro-slavery party there would be bitter
feud. Let a counter-revolutionary party once succeed in holding its own
in the South, and the days of secession would speedily be numbered. In a
land where all rushes so rapidly to extremes, we should soon see the war
carried on for us with a bitterness fully equal to that now manifested
towards the North.
It is with no pleasant feelings that we thus commend counter-revolution.
It is the worst of war that it drives us to such considerations. But
what is to be done when our existence as a nation is at stake, and when
we are opposed by a remorseless foe which would gladly ruin us
irretrievably? There is no halting half-way. It was these endless
scruples which interfered with the prevention of the war under the
imbecile or traitorous Buchanan; it is lingering scruple and timidity
which still inspires in thousands of cowardly hearts a dislike to face
the grim danger and prevent it.
* * * * *
WESTWARD!
How the pink-hued morning clouds
Go sailing into the west!
And the pearl-white breath of noon,
Or the mists round the silver moon,
In silent, sheeny crowds
Go sailing into the west!
The glowing, fire-eyed sun
In glory dies in the west;
And the bird with dreamy crest,
And soft, sun-loving breast,
When throbbing day is done,
Floats slowly into the west.
Oh, everything lovely and fair
Is floating into the west.
'Tis an unknown land, where our hopes must go,
And all things beautiful, fluttering slow;
Our joys all wait for us there,--
Far out in the dim blue west.
* * * * *
IS COTTON OUR KING?
BY A COTTON-SPINNER.
No falsehood has been so persistently adhered to by the Southern
planters and their advocates, and so successfully forced upon the
credulity of the North, as the statement that white men can not perform
field labor in the cotton States, coupled with the equally false
assertion that the emancipated negro lapses into barbarism, and ceases
to be an industrious laborer.
It is one of the chief points of weakness in a bad cause, that, although
a _single_ advocate may succeed in rendering it plausible, _many_ are
certain to present utterly irreconcilable arguments. An impartial man,
examining De Bow's _Review_ for a series of years, would arrive at
conclusions in regard to the economy of slave labor, and the necessity
of colored laborers in the Southern States, the very reverse of what the
writers have intended to enforce.
It is constantly asserted that white men can not labor in the tropics,
which we may freely admit; but the inference that the climate of the
Southern States is tropical we have the best authority for denying:
firstly, from the testimony of all Southern writers when describing
their own section of country, and _not_ arguing upon the slavery
question; and, secondly, from Humboldt's isothermal lines, by which we
find that the temperature of the cotton States is the same as that of
Portugal, the south of Spain, Italy, and Australia. Do we find
Australian emigrants writing home to their friends not to come out
because they will not be able to work? We know they do not; and yet the
mean annual temperature of Australia is 70°--greater by five to six
degrees than that of Texas; and, from the best accounts we can get, the
extreme of heat is very much greater.
Examine De Bow's analysis of the census of 1850, and we find him
compelled to admit that one-ninth of the force then cultivating cotton
were white men. If one-ninth were white men in 1850, when the price of
cotton was much less and the crop much smaller than of late years, how
many are there now?
One of the most reliable witnesses to the cultivation of cotton by free
labor is a Quaker gentleman in Philadelphia, who conducts a cotton
factory supplied entirely with free-grown cotton, the goods being sold
to the Quakers, who will not use the product of slave labor of any kind.
This gentleman writes:--
I learned by correspondence with several intelligent Germans in
Texas, that their experiment of raising cotton by their own labor,
without the help of slaves, was a complete success. One planter
offered to supply me at once with one hundred and forty bales
raised in this way. The ground taken by thee that cotton can be
raised by white men, as well as by colored men, is entirely
correct. A very large portion is every year so raised. I have had
particular information of its being thus raised in Texas,
Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and North
Carolina. In some neighborhoods thousands of bales are thus raised
within the limits of two or three adjacent counties.
It may be urged that this is upon uplands almost exclusively, and that
upon bottom lands it is not possible, on account of their being
unhealthy.
Two statements will be made to disprove this latter assertion, and we
will then admit it to be true, and prove it to be of no consequence.
The cotton planters, deserting the rolling land, are fast pouring
in upon the 'swamp.' Indeed, the impression of the sickliness of
the South generally has been rapidly losing ground (i.e. among the
whites of the South), and that blessing, health, is now sought
with as much confidence on the swamp lands of the Yazoo and the
Mississippi, as among the hills and plains of Carolina and
Virginia.--_De Bow's Resources of the South and West_.
Dr. Barton, of New Orleans, in a paper read before the Academy of
Science, says:
The class of diseases most fatal at the South are mainly those of
a preventable nature. In another place I have shown that the
direct temperature of the sun is not near so great in the South
during the summer as in the North. In fact, the climate is much
more endurable, all the year round, with our refreshing breezes,
and particularly in some of the more elevated parts of it, or
within one hundred miles of the coast.
Dr. Barton had forgotten that white men can not perform field labor in
the South.
But admit that white men had better work upon uplands,--the crop is
surer, owing to the less liability to frost and overflow; and good
cultivation will give an equal crop. Intelligent Northern men have taken
up exhausted plantations upon the uplands of North Carolina, and, by the
application of moderate quantities of guano, phosphate of lime, etc.,
have carried the crop from two hundred up to eight hundred pounds of
clean cotton per acre; and for the last three years the writer has been
in the habit of selecting the North Carolina guano-grown cotton, in the
New York market, where it has been shipped via Wilmington or Norfolk, on
account of its good staple, good color, and extra strength.
There is nothing in the cultivation of cotton involving harder work than
that of corn. In the early stages of its growth it is more tender than
corn, and requires more care,--which it does not get, since we find
Southern writers deploring that the cut-worm and the louse are charged
with many sins which are caused by careless cultivation and the bruises
inflicted by the clumsy negro hoes. The soil is very light, and most of
the work might be done by the plow and cultivator. Except upon very poor
soil there is only one plant allowed to eight and even ten square feet.
By the admission of Texas planters themselves, in the accounts of their
country which they have written to induce emigration and sell their
surplus land, there is very little work to be done during the hottest
part of the summer; the cultivation taking place in the spring, and the
picking in the fall and winter. Dr. J.S. Wilson, of Columbus, Ga.,
writing upon the diseases of negroes, says there is no article of
clothing so needful to them, and so seldom supplied, as an overcoat.
Should some shrewd Yankee, starting South to go into the business of
raising cotton, lay in a large supply of flannel shirts, thick Guernsey
frocks, and woolen stockings, for his field hands, how many of his
neighbors would remind him of Lord Timothy Dexter's noted shipment to
the West Indies, and ask him why he did not take some warming-pans; and
yet, for his supply of thick, warm clothing he would have the authority
of all Southern physicians.
Examine the directions given for the cultivation of cotton, and see how
much labor could be saved, provided slaves could be induced to use good
tools; planting the seed and covering it requiring one horse or mule and
_four_ hands,--one to smooth the ground, one to open the furrow, one to
plant, and one to cover. All of these operations can be performed by one
man with a planting machine. But the negro can not be trusted with one;
for the moment you begin to teach him the reasons for using it, you
begin to teach him the benefit of using another complicated machine,
which he has not before known much about--his own head and arms, and,
worse than all, his own legs, all of which you have stolen from him; and
then he will misapply his knowledge, as an old fugitive once told me he
had done: 'I took my own legs for security, and walked off.'
I know a fugitive slave who was taught the trade of a blacksmith, and
who stole the art of writing; and a sad use he made of his
accomplishments; he forged free papers with his pen, and the sacred seal
of the State of Alabama with his tools, and then started North. In
Tennessee he got out of money, and stopped to work at his trade, was
suspected, brought before a court, his papers examined and pronounced
genuine, and he passed on to Canada or elsewhere. Surely this man did
not know how to take care of himself!
There is no great reason why the slave should exert himself very much,
and why he should not, cannot be better stated than by the Rev. Mr.
McTeyire, the son of a large planter in South Carolina. 'Men,' he says,
'who own few slaves, and who share the labors of the field or workshop
with them, are very liable to deceive themselves by a specious process
of reasoning: they say, "I carry row for row with my negroes, and I put
no more on them than I take on myself." But the master who thus reasons
is forgetful or ignorant of the great truth that the negroes' powers of
endurance are less than his, while in the case of the latter there are
wanting those incentives which animate and actually strengthen the
master. This labor is for him, the gains of this excess of industry are
to make him rich. What is the servant bettered by the additional bale of
cotton extorted from exhausted nature, only that next year he shall have
more companions in the field, and the field be enlarged?' This is
extremely well put; but Rev. Mr. McTeyire, of South Carolina, must have
been unaware of the fact that it is not possible for a white man to work
row for row on cotton!
But Southern planters are not without some ingenious machines. In a
_premium_ essay upon the cultivation of cotton, read before the Georgia
Agricultural Society, the Hon. Mr. Chambers thus describes one invented
by himself for covering the seed: 'I would cover with a board made of
some hard wood, an inch or an inch and a half thick, about eight inches
broad, beveled on the lower edge to make it sharp, slightly notched in
the middle so as to _straddle_ the row, and screwed on the foot of a
common shovel.' Very safe for negroes to use, not being complicated.
But in the protests of intelligent Southern men, when they occasionally
wake up to the terrible results of their mode of cultivation, may be
found their own condemnation.
Dr. Cloud, of Alabama, editor of the '_Cotton Plant_,' mourning the want
of pasturage in his own State, writes thus: 'Our climate is remarkably
favorable to rich and luxuriant pasturage. The red man of the forest and
the pioneer white man that came here in advance of our _scratching
plow_, tell us they found the wild oat and native grasses waving thick,
as high as a man's head, and so entwined with the wild pea-vine as to
make it difficult to ride among it, all over this country. Every cotton
planter has heard of these fine primitive pasture ranges, and many have
seen them. _If the country or the climate has been cursed in our
appearance as planters here, it has been in the wasting system, that we
introduced and continue to practice_.'
Gov. Wise, in an address upon the agriculture of Virginia, condenses the
whole case in an epigram,--' The negroes skin the land, and the white
men skin the negroes.'
The limit to the production of cotton is in the capacity of the
plantation force to pick the amount cultivated by the field hands; but
the whole available force is insufficient, and large quantities are
lost. The policy of the planters being to buy out the small landholders
in their neighborhood, they have no extra force upon which to draw.
Olmsted says: 'I much doubt if the harvest demand of the principal
cotton districts of Mississippi adds five per cent. to their field-hand
force. I observed the advantage of the free-labor system exemplified in
Western Texas, the cotton-fields in the vicinity of the German village
of New Braunfils having been picked far closer than any I had before
seen,--in fact perfectly clean. One woman was pointed out to me who had,
in the first year she had seen a cotton field, picked more cotton in a
day than any slave in the county.'
'Substitute the French system (that of small allotment or
_parcellement_) for the Mississippi system in cotton-growing, and who
can doubt that the cotton supply of the United States would be greatly
increased?'
Dr. Cloud, the most intelligent writer upon cotton cultivation I have
been able to find, is urgent in his advice to manure the land, practice
rotation of crops, and produce larger crops upon fewer acres. But the
universal practice is precisely the reverse; the process of exhaustion
is followed year after year; cotton is planted year after year; the
seed--which Northern men would cultivate for oil alone, and which
exhausts the land ten times faster than the fibre--is mostly wasted; in
the words of a Southern paper, 'The seed is left to rot about the
gin-house, producing foul odors, and a constant cause of sickness.' The
land is cropped until it is literally skinned, and then the planter
migrates to some new region, again to drive out the poor whites,
monopolize the soil, and leave it once more to grow up to 'piney woods.'
Note again the warning words of Dr. Cloud: 'With a climate and soil
peculiarly adapted to the production of cotton, our country is equally
favorable to the production of all the necessary cereals, and as
remarkably favorable to the perfect development of the animal economy,
in fine horses, good milch cows, sheep and hogs; and for fruit of every
variety, _not tropical_, it is eminently superior. Why is it, then, that
we find so many _wealthy cotton planters_, whose riches consist entirely
of their slaves and worn-out plantations?'
No crop would be more remunerative to a small farmer, with a moderate
family to assist in the picking season, than cotton.
Upon the fertile lands of Texas, which produce one to two bales of
cotton to the acre, ten acres of cotton is the usual allotment to each
hand, with also sufficient land in corn and vegetables to furnish food
for the laborer and his proportion of the idle force upon the
plantation, which are two to one, without reckoning the planter and
overseer and their families. Now, upon the absurd supposition that a
free man, with a will in his work, would do no more work than a slave,
what would be the result of his labor? 1st, food for his family; 2d, 10
acres of cotton, at 500 pounds to the acre, 5000 pounds, at 10 cents per
pound, or $500. But the result would be much greater, for, as a Southern
man has well said, 'the maximum of slave labor would be the minimum of
free labor;' and the writer can bring proof of many instances where each
field hand has produced 13, 15, and even 18 bales of cotton in a year.
With the denser population which would follow the emancipation of the
slaves and the breaking up of the plantation system, a harvest force for
the picking season would be available, and one man would as easily
cultivate 20 to 25 acres of cotton, with assistance in the picking
season, as he could thirty acres of corn, the usual allotment to each
hand upon the corn land of Texas.
The very expense of slave labor is a proof of the profit which must be
derived from it. The writer has elsewhere estimated the cost of slave
labor at $20 per month, which statement has been questioned, because no
allowance was made for the increase of the live stock. Now it is well
understood that where the women are worked in the fields in such a
manner as to make their labor pay, the increase of live stock is much
smaller, and the business of breeding is left to the first families in
Virginia and other localities where the land has been exhausted (readers
will pardon a plain statement,--it will cause them to realize the full
horror of the business). The slaves in the cotton States increased from
1850 to 1860 33-88/100 per cent., in all the other slave States 9-61/100
per cent. The surplus increase in the cotton States, above the average,
was 190,632. Where did they come from?[C] At $900 each, this surplus
represents a capital of $171,568,800. How was this sum earned, and to
whom was it paid?
Let us examine the estimate of $20 per month, and, although it is
admitted that female field hands do not bear many children, take the
average increase of the country, or 2-335/1000 per cent. per annum.
The standard of value for an A 1 field hand is $100 for each cent per
pound of the price of cotton, say ten cents per pound, $1000, and the
standard of value for all the slaves upon a plantation is one-half the
value of a field hand.
Suppose a plantation stocked with
100 slaves, men, women, and piccaninnies,
at 8500 each, $50,000
Interest at 8 per cent., a low rate
for the South, 4,000
Customary allowance for life insurance
or mortality, 1,000
Overseer's wages, 1,000
House and provisions, 500
Doctor's fees, hospital, and medicines, 500
Renewal and repairs of negro quarters, 500
Clothing and food, at $1 per week
for each slave, 5,200
______
12,700
_Credit_.
Increase to keep good the mortality, 2
Annual gain, 2-335/1000, say 3
Gain, 5, at $500 2,500
Net cost, 10,200
The usual allowance for field hands is one-third,--allow it to be forty
in a hundred, the cost of each would be $255 per annum, or $21.25 per
month.
Let each one make his own allowance for the disadvantage of having the
larger portion of the capital of a State locked up in a tool which would
do more and better work if recognized as a man and representing no
invested capital. How much productive industry would there be in New
England, if every laborer or mechanic cost his employer $800 to $1500
before he could be set to work, and if each one who undertook to labor
upon his own account, and was not so purchased, were stigmatized and
degraded and termed 'mean white trash?'
It will again be objected that the theory of the cotton planter is to
raise all the food and make all the clothing on the plantation. The
cultivation of cotton in the best manner is described by Southern
writers as a process of _gardening_. Now what would be thought of a
market gardener at the North who should keep a large extra force for the
purpose of spinning yarn on a frame of six to ten spindles, and weaving
it up on a rude hand loom? Would this not be protection to home industry
in its most absurd extreme? But this is the plantation system.
The correctness of the estimate of cost can be tested in some degree by
the rates at which able-bodied slaves are hired out. Many lists can be
found in Southern papers; the latest found by the writer is in De Bow's
_Review_ of 1860.
A list of fourteen slaves, comprising 'a blacksmith, his wife, eight
field hands, a lame negro, an old man, an old woman and a young woman,'
were hired out for the year 1860, in Claiborne Parish, La., at an
average of $289 each, the highest being $430 for the blacksmith, and
$171 for 'Juda, old woman.'
The Southern States have thus far retained almost a monopoly of the
cotton trade of the civilized world by promptly furnishing a fair supply
of cotton of the best quality, and at prices which defied competition
from the only region from which it was to be feared, viz., India. This
monopoly has been retained, notwithstanding the steadily increasing
demand and higher prices of the last few years.
Improvements in machinery have enabled manufacturers to pay full wages
to their operatives, both in this country and in England, and to pay
higher prices for their cotton than they did a few years since, without
materially enhancing the cost of their goods, the larger product of
cloth from a less number of hands and the saving of waste offsetting the
higher price of cotton; but it is not probable that the cost of labor
upon cotton goods can be hereafter materially reduced. The cost of labor
upon the heavy sheetings and drills which form the larger part of our
exports is now only one and one-half cents per yard, and the cost of
oil, starch, and all other materials except cotton, less than one-half
cent, making less than two cents for cost of manufacturing; but with
cotton at ten cents to the planter and twelve and one-half cents to the
spinner, the cost of cotton in the yard of same goods is five cents.
With cotton at the average price of the last few years, we have supplied
a very small portion of India and China with goods, in competition with
their hand-made goods of same material. With new markets opening in
Japan and China, and by the building of railroads in India, we have to
meet a constantly decreasing supply of raw material as compared with the
demand. Give us cotton at six to seven cents, at which free labor and
skill could well afford it, and the manufacturing industry of New
England would receive a development unknown before. But when we ask more
cotton of slavery, we are answered by its great prophet, De Bow; that
because we are willing to pay a high price we can not have it; for he
says, 'Although land is to be had in unlimited quantities, whenever
cotton rises to ten cents, labor becomes too dear to increase production
rapidly.'
And this is what the great system of slave labor has accomplished. The
production of its great staple, cotton, is in the hands of less than
100,000 men. In 1850 there were in all the Southern States only 170,000
men owning more than five slaves each, and they owned 2,800,000 out of
3,300,000.
These men have by their system rendered labor degrading,--they have
driven out their non-slaveholding neighbors by hundreds of thousands to
find homes and self-respect in the free air of the great West,--they
have reduced those who remain to a condition of ignorance scarcely to be
found in any other country claiming to be civilized--so low that even
the slaves look down upon the 'mean white trash,'--they have sapped the
very foundations of honor and morality, so that 'Southern chivalry' has
become the synonym for treachery, theft, and dishonor in every
form,--they have reached a depth of degradation only to be equalled by
those Northern men who would now prevent this war from utterly
destroying slavery,--they have literally skinned over a vast area of
country, leaving it for the time a desert, and with an area of
368,312,320 acres in the eight cotton States, they have now under
cultivation in cotton less than 6,000,000 (an area scarcely larger than
the little State of Massachusetts); they have less than two slave
laborers to the square mile; and their only opposition to the re-opening
of the African slave-trade is upon the ground that an increase of
laborers will but reduce the price of cotton, give the planters a great
deal more trouble and less profit, and only benefit their enemies in New
and Old England.
Have not the manufacturer, the consumer, the business man, the farmer,
the soldier, every free man, every friend of the poor whites of the
South who are not yet free men, a right and an interest in claiming that
this monopoly of 100,000 cotton planters shall cease, their estates be
confiscated for their treason, and divided among our soldiers, to repay
them for their sacrifices in the cause of their country? First of all,
however, let us claim the 100,000,000 acres, not the property of any
individual, but fought for and paid for by the United States, and then
given to that most ungrateful of all the rebel States, Texas--the great
'Cotton State.'
Upon these fertile lands, and in this most profitable branch of
agriculture, let us find the bounty for our soldiers, the reward for
their sacrifices, and our own security for the future good order of the
state.
By so doing we shall silence the outcry of the South that ours is a war
of conquest (since the right of the government to the public lands of
Texas is unquestionable), and, at the same time, furnish a powerful
incentive to the zeal of our soldiers.
I have compiled a few facts and statements in regard to the soil and
climate of Texas from Capt. Marcy's Exploration of the Red River, in
which he was accompanied by Captain, now General, McLellan, from the
_Texas Almanac_, a most violent pro-slavery publication, and from the
letters of a friend, a loyal Texan, who has been driven from his home,
and is now in the North.
In advocating the Memphis and El Paso route for the Pacific Railroad,
Captain Marcy writes as follows:--
The road alluded to, immediately after leaving Fulton, Ark., leads
to an elevated ridge dividing the waters that flow into Red River
from those of the Sulphur and Trinity, and continues upon it, with
but few deviations from the direct course for El Paso and Dona Ana
to near the Brazos River, a distance of three hundred and twenty
miles, and mostly through the northern part of Texas. This portion
of the route has its locality in a country of surpassing beauty
and fertility, and possesses all the requisites for attracting and
sustaining a dense farming population. It is diversified with
prairies and woodland, and is bountifully watered with numerous
spring brooks, which flow off upon either side of the ridge
above-mentioned. The crest of the ridge is exceedingly smooth and
level, and is altogether the best natural or artificial road I
ever traveled over for the same distance.
After leaving this ridge, the road crosses the Brazos near very
extensive fields of bituminous coal, which burns readily, with a
clear flame, and is very superior in quality.
From the Brazos, the road skirts small affluents of that stream
and the Colorado for two hundred miles. The soil upon this section
is principally a red argillaceous loam, similar to that in the Red
River bottoms, which is so highly productive.
As this route is included within the thirty-second and
thirty-fourth parallels of latitude, it would never be obstructed
with snow. The whole surface of the country is covered with a
dense coating of the most nutritious grass, which remains green
for nine months in the year, and enables cattle to subsist the
entire winter without any other forage.
The line of this road east from Fort Smith would intersect the
Mississippi in the vicinity of Memphis, Tenn., and would pass
through the country bordering the Arkansas River, which can not be
surpassed for fertility.--_Marcy's Red River Exploration_.
The route thus described lies through the following counties, and
attention is specially directed to their several products in 1858:--
Acres
County White Slave Corn Wheat Cotton Sug. Misc'l Total.
Bowie 2,077 2,321 10,392 1,421 8,240 23 3,232 23,308
Cass 6,112 4,816 28,474 5,552 20,168 36 4,368 58,508
Titus 6,025 1,891 18,987 2,272 9,872 92 6,227 36,450
Upshur 5,999 2,801 22,515 3,092 16,692 45 3,122 46,065
Wood 3,254 733 8,336 1,090 3,194 31 1,841 14,501
Van Zandt 2,548 242 6,504 837 1,213 8 596 8,160
Henderson 2,758 827 8,470 845 4,768 70 908 15,061
Navarro 2,885 1,579 10,531 2,785 4,678 127 2,609 20,730
Hill 1,858 508 5,161 3,189 181 201 761 9,493
Bosque 887 182 2,702 872 224 45 83 4,026
______ ______ _______ ______ ______ ___ ______ _______
34,403 15,800 121,072 22,564 69,330 678 22,748 236,392
Let us allow the usual proportion of field hands to the whole number of
slaves, viz., one-third, and we have a force of 5297; if whites do not
labor in the field, each field hand must cultivate 44 64/100 acres of
land. The customary allotment is ten cotton and five corn, or, where
corn and wheat are the principal products, from twenty to twenty-five
acres.
July 15, 1852. We were in motion at two o'clock in the morning,
and, taking a north-east course towards the base of the mountain
chain, passed through mezquite groves, intersected by brooks of
pure water flowing into the south branch of Cache Creek, upon one
of which we are encamped.
We find the soil good at all places near the mountains, and the
country well wooded and watered. The grass, consisting of several
varieties of the grama, is of a superior quality, and grows
luxuriantly. The climate is salubrious, _and the almost constant
cool and bracing breezes of the summer months_, with the entire
absence of anything like marshes or stagnant water, remove all
sources of noxious malaria, with its attendant evils of autumnal
fevers.--_Marcy's Exploration of the Red River_, p. 11.
Our camp is upon the creek last occupied by the Witchitas before
they left the mountains. The soil, in point of fertility,
surpasses anything we have before seen, and the vegetation in the
old corn-fields is so dense that it was with great difficulty I
could force my horse through it. It consisted of rank weeds
growing to the height of twelve feet. Soil of this character must
have produced an enormous yield of corn. The timber is
sufficiently abundant for all purposes of the agriculturist, and
of a superior quality.
We have now reached the eastern extremity of the Witchita chain
of mountains, and shall to-morrow strike our course for Fort
Asbuekl.
The more we have seen of the country about these mountains, the
more pleased we have been with it. Bounteous nature seems here to
have strewed her favors with a lavish hand, and to have held out
every inducement for civilized man to occupy it. The numerous
tributaries of Cache Creek, flowing from granite fountains, and
winding like net-work through the valleys, with the advantages of
good timber, soil and grass, the pure, elastic and delicious
climate, with a bracing atmosphere, all unite in presenting rare
inducements to the husbandman.--_Marcy's Red River Exploration_.
This section of country is in latitude 34°, longitude 99°; the latitude
the same as the central part of South Carolina and the southern part of
Arkansas.
We will now give statements from the _Texas Almanac_.
The south winds are the source of comfort and positive luxury to
the inhabitants of Texas during the hot weather of summer. The
nearer the sea-coast, the cooler and more brisk the current; but
the entire area of prairie, and a large portion of the timbered
country, feel it as a pleasant, healthful breeze, rendering our
highest temperature tolerable.--_Prof. Forshey, of the Texas
Military Institute_.
TRINITY RIVER AND ITS VALLEY.
So far as I have described the river, the climate is pleasant and
salubrious, and favorable for planting. The forests and
cane-brakes mitigate the cold of the northers in winter, and the
south breezes temper the heat of summer. Contrary to the usual
opinion, plantations, when once cleared of decaying timber, are
found to be remarkably healthy. In fact, there are no causes of
sickness. The river in summer is only a deep, sandy ravine, with a
clear and rapid stream of water running at its bottom, and in the
rear of the plantations, instead of swamps, are high rolling
cane-brakes.
The paradox, that there is more good land on the Trinity than on
the Mississippi, is one which will be readily sustained by those
who are acquainted with the subject.--_Texas Almanac, 1861_.
TRAVIS COUNTY, TEXAS.
The soil is exceedingly rich, from two to ten feet deep, and when
the seasons are favorable it produces from sixty to one hundred
bushels of corn, and from one and a half to two bales of cotton,
per acre. From twenty-five to thirty acres of corn, or twelve to
fifteen acres of cotton to the hand, are usually cultivated.
Our country upon the whole is fertile and well watered, has timber
enough to supply its demands, and an everlasting amount of stone
for building; it has an eternal range of mesquit grass, on which
horses and cattle that never smell corn keep perfectly fat all
winter. The climate is delightful, the nights pleasant, a fine
south breeze in summer continually playing over the face of our
broad prairies, and the atmosphere so pure and invigorating, that
it is more conducive to good health to sleep out in the open air
than to sleep in-doors. There is something so attractive in this
section of country, that those who live here a short time are
seldom satisfied to live anywhere else.
Our citizens are generally intelligent, enterprising, industrious,
religious, sober, and, _laying politics aside_, honest.--_Texas
Almanac_.
COMAL COUNTY.
BY THE ASSESSOR.
Mostly settled by Germans. In this county there are in cultivation
600 acres in cotton, 15,000 acres in corn, 500 acres in wheat. The
acre yields 500 pounds of clean cotton, 40 bushels of corn, 20
bushels of wheat. From 3,500 to 4,000 white inhabitants; 188
slaves; 396 farms. Improved lands $30, unimproved $3 an acre.
_Most of the farms are cultivatd by white labor_; a white hand
cultivates thirty acres of corn. Peaches yield abundantly; apples
and quinces have been tried successfully. The wild grape, plum,
cherry, _mulberry_, and blackberry grow luxuriantly. Wine of good
quality has been made here.
New Braunfels is the county seat. It has 2,000 inhabitants, and
boasts of having the only free school in the State, supported by
aid from the State school fund, and by direct taxation on the
property of the school district. Four teachers are employed, and
there are 250 pupils.
The letters of my Texas friend give the following description of the
climate of Texas:--
The climate of Texas is very peculiar. This is owing to the body
of water to the eastward of it, and to the dry and elevated plain
of the Llano Estacado, and the lofty mountains which lie to the
westward. To these two causes are due the moisture and the cool
temperature, and at times and in certain localities the excessive
dryness of Texas.
The Gulf stream, in its course along the coast of Florida and in
the Gulf of Mexico, has beneath it, running to the south, a cold
stream, nearly down to the freezing point. The great equatorial
current which strikes north of Cape St. Roque and through the
Caribbean Sea is suddenly narrowed between Cape San Antonio and
Cape Catoche; here the upper and warmer current, being condensed,
strikes deeper, and forces to the surface the cold water from the
under current, sometimes occasioning a roaring and very peculiar
noise. By this means the Gulf stream is divided, part turning to
the eastward around Cuba and between that island and Florida, and
part turning to the westward, north of the banks of Campeachy, and
striking Padre Island, an island upon the coast of Texas, about
one hundred and forty miles this current strikes, there are very
deep soundings, almost up with the land. South of this point, upon
the beach, are found mahogany and other tropical drift-wood,
brought there from the tropics; while north of it the drift wood
is oak, ash, and cotton-wood, brought from the north by a current
running counter to the Gulf stream, which I will hereafter
describe. From Padre Island the Gulf stream strikes off to the
north-east to the mouth of the Mississippi, thence around the
coast of Florida and through her keys, until it joins the other
branch. Inside the Gulf stream, along the coast of Texas, is the
counter-current before referred to, making down the coast at the
rate of two to three miles per hour, and bringing down the silt
and mud of the Mississippi, Sabine, etc. I have seen the water off
the Island of Galveston the color of chocolate, after a long
norther.
Above the centre of Padre Island the coast of Texas deepens at the
rate of about a fathom to the mile, until at twenty fathoms there
is a coral reef, and on the easterly side of this reef the water
deepens, as by the side of a perpendicular wall, to a very great
depth. This reef marks the boundary of the Gulf stream, and also
the boundary of the terrible tornado. The tornado of the Gulf of
Mexico never passes this barrier, never strikes the land, nor has
it been known within memory of man upon the coast.
It seems to confine itself to the course of the warm water of the
stream, and the great 'Father of the Waters' spreads his
counter-current down the coast of Texas, like a long flowing
garment, fending off the storm and the whirlwind, and thus still
better fitting Texas for the white man and the white man's labor.
With this freedom from violent storms comes the delicious
southerly wind in the summer, which gives health and moisture to
the larger part of Texas. This wind varies in the point from which
it flows. From Sabine to Matagorda its course is from south-east
to south-south-east, growing more and more to the south as the
coast tends to the south, until at the Rio Grande it blows from
due south with perhaps a little westing in it. The course of this
wind will explain the three belts of Texas, the rainy, that of
less rain, and that of great drought.
This wind from the south-east corner from across the ocean and
gulf (being a continuation of the south-east trades) laden with
moisture and of a delightful temperature, when it is met by the
cool air from the mountains, and condensed, giving the rains of
Eastern and Central Texas. The more southing they have in them,
the less moisture, until the extreme south-eastern portion of
Texas, or the country near the mouth of the Rio Grande, is one of
almost constant drought. There are thus three belts of moisture:
first, from the Sabine to the mouth of the Brazos, may be called
the belt of greatest rain,--from the Brazos to Lavaca or Victoria,
that of moderate rain,--and from Lavaca to the Rio Grande, the dry
belt. But even in the dry belt there is moisture enough to give
fine grasses, and make the country a fine one for grazing, and the
streams taking their rise in great springs, which probably have
their source in the melting snows of the Rocky Mountains, flowing
under the Llano Estacado and breaking out in great numbers in a
line almost north and south, never dry up, even in the dryest
seasons.
In the winter months, Texas has winds from the north, which come
on very suddenly, and produce great variation in the temperature.
They are disagreeable, but wholesome, and clear the atmosphere.
They do not extend north of the Red River, nor very far west, but
increase in intensity as they go south.
No country in the world can be healthier than Texas, and
consumption and pectoral complaints never originate in the area of
the northers.
Eastern Texas is generally well wooded; Middle and Western Texas
have wood on the banks of the streams, and frequent spots of
timber on the prairies.
Most of the country is covered with nutritious grass, affording
good pasture throughout the year, capable of supporting an endless
number of cattle and sheep, and almost all the soil is suited to
the growth of cotton. There are more than five thousand square
miles of bituminous coal in Texas, presenting seams five feet
thick, and hills of pure gypsum seven hundred feet high. These are
all covered by a generous sky and climate beneath which the white
man can live and work without fear of malaria or sickness, and
where he can enjoy all the blessings of the tropics without their
attendant disadvantages.
It is this superb country which we trust General Lane and his forces may
soon redeem from the curse of slavery.
The woolen manufacturer has an equal interest with the cotton-spinner in
demanding that this shall be done, for with this unequaled country for
the production of wool remaining under the curse of slavery, we import
annually nearly thirty million pounds of wool,--about one-third of our
whole consumption. With Texas free, and emigration from abroad--for a
long time reduced almost to nothing--freely encouraged, we should become
exporters of wool, not importers.
But I am warned that I have exceeded the space allotted me. The absurd
assertion that the emancipated negro lapses into barbarism and will not
work, can only be met by the question, 'If he will not work except by
compulsion, why does he work extra after his compulsory labor is over?'
Evidence that he does so work can be presented _ad infinitum_, upon
Southern testimony; witness that De Bow's _Review_ makes only a _few_
selections.
The _peculium_ of Southern servants, even on the plantation, is
sometimes not trifling. We make a _few_ selections, showing--
THE NEGROES' CROP.--A friend has reported to us a sale, on
Tuesday, of a crop of cotton belonging to Elijah Cook, of Harris
Co., Ga., amounting to $1424 96-100.--_Columbus_ (Ga.) _Sun_, Dec.
29, 1858.
Mr. J.S. Byington informs us that he made two cotton purchases
lately. One was the cotton crop of the negroes of Dr. Lucas, of
this vicinity, for which he paid $1,800 in cash, every dollar of
which goes to the negroes.--_Montgomery (Ala.) Mail_, Jan. 21,
1859.
Speaking of negroes' crops, the sales of which our contemporaries
are chronicling in various amounts,--the largest which has come to
our knowledge is one made in Macon, for the negroes of Allen
McWalker. It amounted to $1969.65.--_Macon (Ga.) Telegraph_, Feb.
3, 1859.
Upon Louisiana sugar plantations, the exhausting work of the grinding
season can only be maintained by a system of premiums and rewards
equivalent to the payment of wages. Under that system the negroes of the
sugar plantations are among the most healthy and contented in the South;
while the same labor performed in Cuba, under the most severe
compulsion, causes an annual decrease of the slave population, and the
product of the island is only maintained by fresh importations of slaves
from Africa.
With the following Southern testimony as to the intelligence of the
negro, I leave this subject:--
Without book learning the Southern slave will partake more and
more of the life-giving civilization of the master. As it is, his
intimate relations with the superior race, and the unsystematic
instruction he receives in the family, have placed him in point of
intelligence above a large portion of the white laborers of
Europe.--_Plantation Life, by Rev. Dr. McTeyire_.
We claim emancipation for the white man; it can only be secured by the
freedom of the negro. The infinite justice of the Almighty demands both.
If we now fail to accomplish it, to bear in the future the name of
'American Citizen' will be a badge of shame and dishonor.
* * * * *
GENERAL PATTERSON'S CAMPAIGN IN VIRGINIA.
It seldom happens that the history of any series of events can be
written soon after they have transpired. The idea of history implies
correctness, impartiality and completeness; and it is of rare occurrence
that all these requisites can be obtained in their fullness within a
brief period after the time of which the history is required. The
historians of this day write of the past; and the historian of our
present civil war is not yet born, who shall emulate the completeness
and conciseness of Irving's Columbus, or Prescott's Ferdinand and
Isabella, or Motley's Dutch Republic. Nor can we expect an early
solution to the 'Fremont question,' which shall be full and
satisfactory, though the length of time involved be but one hundred
days. But it is different with Gen. Patterson. It is true that his
loyalty is disputed, and in this question may be involved many
complicated issues; but the question of the general result of his three
months' campaign in Virginia admits but one answer;--it was a failure.
And it is an exception to the general rule that we can, within a few
months after his campaign closed, see and understand exactly why and how
he failed.
It is not proposed in this article to discuss the loyalty of Gen.
Patterson, or to take sides with either those who claim for him a
patriot's laurels or those who would have him suffer a traitor's fate.
We shall ignore this question entirely, simply examining the acts of his
last campaign, with reference to his capability and efficiency, the
nature and effects of his policy, and the reasons of his failure. We
propose to try him in the same manner and by the same standard as we
would if his loyalty had never been questioned.
The early morning of the 12th day of June, 1861, found the writer a
volunteer soldier of less than two months' experience in camp, just
arrived with his regiment, from the distant Badger State, at
Chambersburg, in Pennsylvania, where it was to join Patterson's division
of the Federal army. For the next two months ensuing, the writer
possessed all the facilities attainable to a private in the ranks for
observing the progress of events in that division of the army, judging
as to the propriety or necessity of the various movements, and forming
opinions as to whether Patterson was using to the best advantage the
military means within his control. These facilities were not many, it is
true; but the public opinion of the North demanded certain actions from
the general, and the writer, though but a private, could judge as to
whether those demands of the loyal North were reasonable, and as to
whether Patterson could accomplish what was required, if he chose. He
was expected to _do something_; it did not matter in what particular
manner; but it was deemed essential that he should in some way hold
Johnston in check, and prevent his junction with the main rebel force at
Manassas. And this was precisely what Patterson did not do. Bull Run was
fought and lost, and the very result attained which Patterson was
expected to prevent. Could it have been prevented?
It is fashionable in these days to set up the cry of inefficiency when a
general does not do everything that public opinion requires. The
Americans are proverbially a fault-finding people; and it will of course
be as easy to make out an _ex parte_ case against Gen. Patterson as
against our other generals. We propose, nevertheless, at the risk of
being unfashionable, to discuss candidly these expectations of the
American people which were not realized, together with the actual doings
of the unsuccessful general. We deem it susceptible of logical proof
that Patterson might and should have prevented Johnston's junction with
Beauregard.
Tents pitched, and the dust of travel from a journey of a thousand miles
washed off, the 'boys' of the 1st Wisconsin regiment stretched their
weary limbs on the fragrant clover of Pennsylvania, and, like American
soldiers everywhere, discussed with earnestness and warmth the causes,
progress, and prospects of the war. Our own position was not a little
interesting. The strength of Patterson's division was not precisely
known, but troops were arriving daily, and it was supposed to consist of
about twenty thousand men. As was well understood, it was intended to
menace Harper's Ferry, a strong natural, military and strategic
position, then held by the rebels. A severe struggle was anticipated if
the Ferry were attacked, and many were the pictures drawn of bloody
scenes and terrible carnage. But the writer, doubting the assumed
strength of the rebels at that point, freely expressed the opinion that
there would be no fight there, but that the rebels would evacuate the
post. And before his regiment left Chambersburg, this prediction was
verified. The rebels, alarmed at the prospect which loomed up before
them of a strong column of Federal troops, burned the Armory and
Arsenal, and fled. And here we may find a key to the whole of the rebel
manoeuvring--they were weak, and unable to cope with Patterson, _and
they knew it_. Upon no other hypothesis can we account for their
evacuating so strong and so important a point as Harper's Ferry.
Up to this time it had been a foregone conclusion with the army, as well
as with the American people, that Patterson was to occupy Harper's
Ferry. No other course of action was for a moment thought of. Even so
late as the 30th of June, when the different brigades were called
together, preparatory to crossing the Potomac, very many were sanguine
that Harper's Ferry was to be made the base of operations, and did not
give up that opinion till they found themselves _en route_ for
Williamsport. But the strong strategic position was neglected for more
than a month; and finally, on the very day when Johnston poured his
fresh legions upon the bloody field of Bull Run, and forced the Federals
to fall back, Patterson, with his back to the foe, entered Harper's
Ferry, with his three months' men, whose term of enlistment was
expiring, by the very road by which Johnston had left it in June.
This neglect of Patterson to occupy the strongest point in his field of
operations puts the stamp of imbecility upon him at the commencement of
his campaign. The rebels expected him to occupy that point, as, even so
late as the time of his crossing the Potomac, the force which disputed
his onward march into the valley of Virginia was not so great as that
held at Charleston to dispute his march from Harper's Ferry in case he
entered the valley there. Patterson himself confessed his mistake, by
retiring to the Ferry in July, for the avowed reason that his three
months' men must soon go home, and he must be in such a position as not
to tempt an attack from the rebels while his column was thus weakened
and disorganized, and before he could be reinforced by three years' men.
Why did not this necessity, and the propriety of holding Harper's Ferry
as a base of operations for this reason alone, if for no other, occur to
the cautious general before, as it did to so many of less military
experience than himself? Patterson, at the last day, thus confesses his
error. It was the first great mistake of his campaign. The second was
one of a different nature.
On the 2d day of July, the army crossed the Potomac at Williamsport, by
means of the ford. The crossing was commenced at daylight, and consumed
the whole of the day. Just before daylight, a little passage at arms
occurred on the Virginia side of the stream, the companies who had been
thrown over the night before as pickets having been fired on by a
detachment of the 'Berkeley Border Guard,' and returning the fire
promptly. But this served only to stimulate the already keen energies of
the Federal forces, who waded knee-deep through the clear Potomac, and
trudged along over the 'sacred soil' with a willingness unchecked by the
cold nor'wester that raged on that July morning. That portion of
Berkeley County, Virginia, which lies opposite to Willlamsport, is
called 'the Neck,' being in the shape of a horse-shoe, and nearly
surrounded by the detour of the Potomac. The turnpike leading from
Williamsport to Martinsburg and Winchester traverses the whole length of
'the Neck;' and it was on this road that the advance guard of the
division, Abercrombie's Brigade, took its line of march, a brush with
the rebels being momentarily expected. The first view of their pickets,
after leaving Williamsport, was obtained at Falling Waters, by which
sonorous appellation the Virginians designate a small and pretty
mill-pond, which loses itself over the dam of a solitary grist-mill,
within a stone's throw of the Potomac. Here was a strong natural
position, and an excellent place for waging a defensive war, if the
rebels had been so disposed. But they did not make a stand till a point
was reached a mile south from Falling Waters, and about five miles from
Williamsport, where their skirmishers opened fire at 9.15, A.M. The
skirmish which ensued, and which has since been styled the Battle of
Falling Waters, was sustained on the part of the Federals by
Abercrombie's Brigade, consisting of the 1st Wisconsin and the 11th
Pennsylvania regiments, McMullen's Philadelphia company of Independent
Rangers, the Philadelphia City Troop of cavalry, and Perkins' Field
Battery of six guns. This force speedily dislodged a superior force of
the enemy, and pursued them for two miles, as far as the hamlet of
Hainesville, where orders from Gen. Patterson to cease the pursuit
allowed the rear-guard of the rebels to elude their grasp. The contest
and the chase lasted but two hours, and at noon the advance guard
encamped at Hainesville. The remainder of the day was consumed by the
army in selecting grounds and pitching tents; and by night, Gen.
Patterson, with twenty thousand men, had succeeded in marching seven
miles, routing Col. Jackson's rebel brigade, and occupying Camp Jackson,
distant about two and one-half miles from the Maryland shore of the
Potomac. On Tuesday, the 3d of July, the indomitable general advanced
five and one-half miles farther, to Martinsburg, the county seat of
Berkeley County, and occupied the town with his whole force, without
firing a gun; the rebel rear-guard leaving Martinsburg for the south as
the Federal advance entered it from the north.
It would seem that at such a moment a skillful general would take
advantage of such a little success, and follow it up, especially when he
had spent as much time in preparation as had Patterson, by a series of
crushing blows, if anything could be found to crush. And in view of the
facts that Gen. Johnston had thus far made almost no opposition to the
advance of the Unionists, and that Patterson's soldiers were without
exception eager and anxious to push on, the policy of holding back seems
almost unaccountable. But Patterson tarried at Martinsburg for nearly
two weeks, and telegraphed for more troops; and on the 15th of July,
when he commenced his forward march toward Winchester, he suddenly
discovered that Johnston had so fortified that place that it would be
unsafe to attack it! It may be that he could get no accurate information
as to the strength of the rebel force, and that he supposed them to be
superior to himself. Still, there were many signs which a capable
general could have read plainly. It was well known that there were in
Johnston's advance force no really good troops, except the 'Berkeley
Border Guard,' a company of cavalry, composed of citizens of Berkeley
County, who, from their complete and minute knowledge of the country,
their skill in the saddle, and their zeal in the rebel cause, were as
formidable, though not so notorious, as the Black Horse Cavalry of
Fairfax and Prince William. The rout of the rebels at Hainesville, or
Falling Waters, partook of the nature of a panic, as was evidenced by
the profuse scattering of knapsacks, clothing, canteens and provisions
along the 'pike.' Indeed, the conduct of the Virginia militia scarcely
sustained the loud professions of desire to 'fight and die in defending
the sacred soil of Virginia from the invader,' as announced by the
letters and papers found in their knapsacks. And the whole course of
these events convinced the private soldiers, if not the commanding
general, that Johnston's highest ambition at that time was to gain time.
Did he not know as well as any one that the time of enlistment of many
of Patterson's men had nearly expired? And what more natural than for
him to keep the latter at bay till such a time as the withdrawal of very
many of his best troops would force him to retire? There were many true
Unionists, too, in the ranks of the rebels, who would have been glad of
opportunities to escape; this was well known. It seems impossible to
resist the conclusion that Patterson should have acceded to the
unanimous wish of his rank and file, and followed up his success at
Hainesville, by occupying Martinsburg on the 2d, advancing to 'Bunker
Hill' on the 3d, and dispersing the small rebel force known to be there,
and celebrating the 4th of July by marching on Winchester, and attacking
and reducing that post, as it seems he might easily have done at that
time. This would of course prevent the apprehended junction of Johnston
with Beauregard. The history of the war in the Old Dominion would then
have been differently written; Bull Run and its panic would not be a
stain upon our national honor, and--but who can not read the rest? It is
true, Patterson should bear none of the blame of the Bull Run disaster,
if he could have done nothing to avoid it; but we have shown that he
could have done what was necessary, and that there were reasons existing
at the time for taking such a course, of which he should have been
cognizant.
The army left Martinsburg for the south, as we have seen, on Monday,
July 15th. The whole division, with trifling exceptions, moved forward,
and advanced on that day as far as 'Bunker Hill,' ten miles from
Martinsburg. An insignificant rebel force fell back as Patterson
advanced, and at 'Bunker Hill' the army encamped around the smoking
brands of the rebel camp-fires, just deserted. Here was a small
post-town called Mill Creek; and near by, the high ridge called 'Bunker
Hill' formed another fine natural position for defence; but the rebels
were not disposed to defend it. Patterson lay here two days, within
twelve miles of the rebel strong-hold at Winchester, the pickets of the
two armies watching each other by night and day. On the 17th the Federal
army was astir before daylight, and an advance to the south was
commenced. But before the rear-guard filed down from 'Bunker Hill' to
the turnpike, a counter-march was ordered; and the whole division
proceeded twelve miles to the east, leaving Winchester on their flank,
and occupying Charlestown, in Jefferson County. What could have pleased
Johnston better? What wonder that he should take the opportunity, as
soon as satisfied that this flank movement was not intended to operate
against him, to leave his fortifications at Winchester in charge of a
small force, and rush to reinforce Beauregard? And is it not more than
remarkable that Patterson, after occupying Charlestown for four days,
should fall back to Harper's Ferry on the very day when his foe had
effected his _ruse de guerre_, and was actually turning the tide of
battle at Bull Run?
There is nothing in all this to change the opinion, previously formed,
that Patterson should have pushed on to Winchester early in July. The
whole of Johnston's manoeuvering seems to have been calculated merely to
deceive Patterson, and to gain time. And so clever was he in his
strategy, that, when his march to Manassas commenced, Patterson,
learning either of the main movement or of a feint towards himself,
aroused his army at midnight, and held them in readiness to fight, in
apprehension of instant attack. As early as the middle of June, when
Patterson threw a brigade over the Potomac at Williamsport, on a
reconnoitering expedition, Johnston heard of the movement, and advanced
a small force to engage and delay the Federals, which fell back as soon
as the latter retired, as has since been learned from escaped prisoners
and deserters. Indeed, the whole of Patterson's campaign shows far
superior generalship on the part of his adversary.
Scarcely had the cautious general occupied from necessity that point
whose strength and natural facilities he had previously despised, when
the term of his appointment as general of the division expired, and the
government allowed him to retire to private life. His successor's first
act was to retire across the Potomac and occupy the Maryland Heights,
opposite to Harper's Ferry, leaving not a foot of rebel soil to be held
by our army as an evidence of the 'something' which had been expected of
the venerable commander of the army of the Shenandoah. He had spent
three months of time, and ten millions of money, and had only emulated
the acts of that Gallic sovereign whose great deeds are immortalized in
the brief couplet,
'The king of France, with twice ten thousand men,
Marched up the hill, and then--marched down again.'
He had done more. He had committed another grave error, which has
received but little public attention, but which told with disastrous
effect upon the Union cause in Northern Virginia. That section of the
State, as is well known, contained many true Union men. Previous to
Patterson's entry into Virginia, they had been proscribed and severely
treated by the secessionists. Many had been impressed by the rebel
troops; the 'Berkeley Border Guard' had dragged many a peaceable
Unionist from his bed at night to serve in the ranks of Johnston's army.
But many others had been able to keep their true sentiments wholly to
themselves, and had feigned sympathy with secession; while many more had
fled from their homes across the Potomac, and sought refuge in loyal
Maryland, where they hung around the Federal camps, vainly urging an
early advance, that they might go home and take care of their families
and their crops. Thus was Berkeley County completely shackled, and a
reign of terror fully established. And on that bright morning of the 2d
of July, as the Federal army marched over the 'sacred soil,' the cleanly
cut grain fields, with their deserted houses, told plainly of
secessionist owners, who could stay at home and cut their grain while
the rebels were in force, but who fled before the advance of Union
troops, and deserted their homes; while the fields of standing grain,
with the golden kernels ripe and almost rotting on the stalks, and the
cheerless-looking houses, tenanted only by women and children, told as
plainly of the poor Unionists, driven from home and family by the
'Border Guard' who so bravely 'defended the sacred soil.' With the
advance of the Union army came back hundreds of Union refugees from
Maryland; poor, half-starved men crept out to the roadside from their
hiding-places, and told the Union troops that they now first saw
daylight for several weeks; and the lonely yet brave women displayed
from their hovels the Union flags, the true 'Red, White, and Blue,'
which their loyalty had kept for months concealed. And as the army
tarried at Martinsburg, and reinforcements came in, the secret Unionists
avowed their real sentiments; the Union flag was displayed from many a
dwelling; and the fair hands of Martinsburg women stitched beautiful
banners, which, with words of eloquent loyalty, were presented to the
favorite Union regiments, and even now are cherished in Northern homes,
or in Union encampments, as mementos of the gratitude of Berkeley County
for its deliverance from the reign of terror. Yet how was the confidence
repaid which these loyal people thus reposed in Gen. Patterson? In less
than three weeks, not a Union soldier was left in Martinsburg, and
before the first of August they were withdrawn wholly from Berkeley and
Jefferson Counties. And the poor refugees who had returned to their
homes in good faith, and the loyalists who in equal good faith had
spoken out their true patriotism and their love of the Union, were left
to the tender mercies of the 'Berkeley Border Guard,' and such braves as
the Texan Rangers, the Mississippi Bowie-knives, and the Louisiana Tiger
Zouaves. Gray-headed men like Pendleton and Strother were dragged from
their homes to languish for weeks in Richmond jails, and the old reign
of terror was reëstablished with renewed virulence. Shall we ask these
poor, deceived Unionists of Northern Virginia what they think of Gen.
Patterson, and of the success of his campaign? How can we estimate the
injury to the cause of the Union inflicted in this way alone by a
grossly inefficient Federal general?
There were other reasons than those already enumerated why Patterson
should have occupied Harper's Ferry at an early day, and these were
reasons of economy, which commended themselves to the judgment of almost
every one except the commanding general. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad
is the natural and only good thoroughfare along the valley of the upper
Potomac. Harper's Ferry, confessedly the strongest and best military
point in Northern Virginia, and the one best fitted for a base of
offensive operations, is on this railroad, and, of course, of easy
access from Baltimore and Washington. In June last the road was open
from Baltimore to the Point of Rocks, between which last place and the
Ferry were some rebel obstructions easy to be removed. Had Gen.
Patterson occupied Harper's Ferry in June, and opened the railroad to
that point, and from thence carried on the campaign like a brave
general, worthy to command the brave men who filled the ranks of his
army, the government might by this time have made the whole line of the
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad of use, as a means of transporting troops
and munitions between Cincinnati and Baltimore,--a desideratum then, as
now, very strongly urged, as the shortest route between those points is
the circuitous one _via_ Harrisburg and Pittsburgh. It could have been
of great use, too, to Patterson's division of the army, in transporting
supplies from Baltimore, by the most natural and expeditious route. But
it was his plan to enter Virginia at Williamsport, so that all supplies
for his division must go from Baltimore and Philadelphia to Harrisburg,
and thence by rail to Hagerstown, where they were loaded upon army
wagons, and transported thus to and across the Potomac, and for fifteen
or twenty miles into Virginia, to the Federal camps, at very great
outlay and expense. So earnest did Gen. Patterson seem to be, either in
doing nothing, or else in causing all the expenditure possible.
These are the arguments which address themselves to our reason, as
bearing on the question of Patterson's success or failure, and as
explanatory of the latter. As before stated, they are urged, not to show
that Patterson should have possessed prophetic knowledge or any
extraordinary powers, but to illustrate his failure to understand what
was transpiring before his face and eyes. He is culpable, not because he
did not achieve impossibilities, but because he did not do what plain
common-sense seemed to require. The writer heard, among the Federal
camps, but one reason suggested for Patterson's neglect to occupy
Harper's Ferry in June, which was, that probably the rebels had
concealed sundry infernal machines in its vicinity, which would destroy
thousands of the Union soldiers at the proper time. This was building a
great military policy on a very small basis. If there was running
through Gen. Patterson's policy any such plan of military strategy, or,
in fact, any plan whatever, we have the curious spectacle presented of a
general of an army ignoring common-sense, and building up a plan of a
great campaign solely upon improbabilities. And it strikes us that this
may be the key to the general's system of warfare, and a very plain and
lucid explanation of his failure.
It is not deemed desirable here to treat of Patterson's other faults,
such as his indulgent treatment of rebel spies, his failure to
confiscate rebel property, and his distinguishing between the property
of rebels and loyalists, by placing strong guards over the former, and
neglecting to take equal care of the latter. Such acts only prove him to
be either more nice than wise, or less nice than foolish; unless we
argue him to be, as many do, a secret secessionist. But we leave it to
others to draw inferences as to his loyalty or disloyalty. Our task is
accomplished if we have shown that whether loyal or false, whether a
patriot or a traitor, his three months' campaign in Virginia proves him
unfit to be a commander, by revealing three great faults, each injuring
the cause he professed to aid, all combining to render his campaign a
failure, and two of the three assisting directly in our disaster at Bull
Run, and deepening that dark stain upon our national escutcheon. His
neglect to occupy Harper's Ferry in June, his failure to push on against
Johnston when there was an opportunity to injure him, and his cool
betrayal of the Unionists of Northern Virginia into the clutches of the
rebel Thugs, will place the name of Patterson by the side of the names
of Lee, Hull, Winder, and Buchanan, who, though not the open enemies of
their country, were its false and inefficient friends.
* * * * *
THE GAME OF FATE.
Ever above this earthly ball,
There sit two forms, unseen by all,
Playing, with fearful earnestness,
Through life and death, a game of chess.
Feather of pride and wolfish eye,
Judas-bearded, glancing sly;
Many a pawn you have gathered in,
Through circling ages of shame and sin!
Fair as an angel, tender and true,
Is he who measures his might with you;
Oft he has lost, in times long gone,
But ever the terrible game goes on.
But where are the chessmen to be found?--
Where the picket paces his dangerous round;
Where the general sits, with chart and map;
Where the scout is scrawling his hurried scrap.
Where the Cabinet weigh the chances dread;
Where the soldier sleeps with the stars o'erhead;
Where rifles are ringing the peal of death,
And the dying hero yields his breath.
Where the mother and sister in silence sit,
And far into midnight sew and knit,
And pray for the soldier-brother or son,--
God's blessing on all that the four have done!
Where the traitors plot, in foul debate,
To war with God and strive with fate;
Digging pitfalls to catch them slaves,--
Pitfalls, to serve for their own deep graves.
Where the Bishop-General proves that the rod
Which lashes women is blest of God.
There's a rod to come, ere the red leaves fall,
Which will swallow your rattlesnake, scales and all.
Where the wretched Northern renegade
On a Southern journal plies his trade,
Swearing and writing, with scowl or smile,
That all that is Yankee is low and vile.
Where the cowardly dough-face talks of war
But fears we are going a little too far;--
Hoping the North may win the fight,
But thinking the South is 'partially right.'
Where the trembling, panting contraband
Makes tracks in haste from the happy land;
And where the officer-gentlemen
Catch him and order him home again!
Where the sutler acts like an arrant scamp,
And aids the contractor to rob the camp;
Both of them serving the South in its sin,
And all of them helping the devil to win.
So the game goes on from day to day,
But there's ONE behind all who watches the play;
Well he knows who at last must beat,
And well he will reckon up every cheat.
Wolfish dark player, do your best!
There's a reckoning for you as well as the rest;
Eastward or westward your glance may wend,
But the devil always trips up in the end.
* * * * *
JONATHAN EDWARDS AND THE OLD CLERGY.
Of late years the attention of many thinking men has been much turned to
the early clergy of America. One reads of St. Peter's Church that,
notwithstanding its immense size above ground, it has an equal amount of
masonry under ground. Of the iceberg even more can be said, since its
submerged proportions are of vastly greater extent than its visible
surface. One may well inquire how much of American greatness is hidden
in its foundation. How massive indeed must be the hidden corner-stone on
which rests the structure of national character. New England is now
turning its attention to the histories of ancient families; genealogy is
no small feature in modern literature, and thus the age seems to confess
that such research is a token of advance.
I believe that the strength of our ancestors was owing to their pure and
simple piety; indeed, one can not go back even for a century without
meeting this element in clear developement. The old New England
preachers were of a character peculiarly adapted to the severe
exigencies of their day. They stood as iron men in an iron age. However
rude in other social features, the early settlers, as they worked their
way to the frontier, demanded the soothing influences of pastoral care,
and the first institution reared in the forest was the pulpit, the next
the school-house. The pastors were settled for life, and minister and
people abode in communion, with little change but that of age. In
seeking a field, the youth just launched into his profession
'candidated' among vacant churches, and was heard with solemn attention
by the selectmen and bench of deacons. Notes were taken by the more
fastidious for subsequent criticism, and the matter was discussed with
all the importance of a national treaty. When the call had been
accepted, the stipend was generally fixed at one hundred pounds, and a
rude parsonage opened its doors of welcome. To this was almost
invariably attached a farm, whose native sterility called for such
expenditure of toil that it might truly have been said,
'The furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke.'
These men indeed united mental and physical labor in a remarkable
degree. The long winters were devoted to study, to sermons, or to
meetings,--the summer to the plow and the harvest. One instance is on
record in which the entire stock of a year's sermons were written
between December and April. But, notwithstanding the inevitable drudgery
of such a life, the ministry was, upon the whole, noted for study. The
course held at Harvard required close application, and even at the
chapel exercises the Scriptures were daily read in the original
languages. These labors and studies are recorded in that quaintest of
all American books, Mather's Magnalia. Whatever be the pedantry and
vanity of its author, he is undeniably worthy of rank among the men whom
he chronicled. Indeed, the Mathers, father and son, illustrated a race
of rare moral and intellectual power. The first of these, who enjoyed
the profitable name of 'Increase,' was equally popular and successful as
president of Harvard or pastor of the church of Cambridge, and the son
takes little pains to conceal his filial pride as he blazons the virtues
of 'Crescentius Madderus.' He is particular in recording him as the
first American divine who received the honorary title D.D. As one looks
back upon the primitive days of the nascent university, he is struck by
the contrast between the present numerous and stately array of halls,
the magnificent library, and all the pomp of a modern commencement, and
the slender procession of rudely clad youth led by Increase Mather. As
they marched out of the old shaky college and filed into the antique
meeting-house, what would they have said to a glimpse of Gore Hall and
its surroundings? But those were the beginnings of greatness, simple as
they were.
The pages of the Magnalia are filled with portraits hit off in a
masterly style. Mather was a true 'Porte Crayon,' and knew how to bring
out salient points with a few happy touches. His picture-gallery is like
an ancient Valhalla, full of demigods. Among their characteristics are
strong contrasts. Here are piety and poverty and learning, hand in hand.
These men, as we have stated, could swing the axe, or chop logic, at a
moment's notice; could pull vegetables, or dig out Hebrew roots, with
alternate ease. Notwithstanding their long days of labor, their minds
kept their edge, being freshly set by incessant doctrinal disputations.
Such, indeed, was the public appetite for controversy that polemic
warfare never slumbered. Our view of their character is assisted by a
contrast with the English clergy of the same day, and which reveals
shameful deformities on the part of the latter--avarice, indolence, and
gluttony. Of such, Milton spake in Lycidas, with withering contempt, as
those who
'for their bellies' sake
Creep, and intrude, and climb into the fold.'
If the Puritan poet be charged with prejudice, we have only to turn to
the pages of Macaulay for confirmation. Where, indeed, if this be true,
did Fielding obtain the originals for the ordinary at Newgate, or
'parson Trulliber' in Joseph Andrews?
Sad and strange was that disappointment which awaited the first
emigrants to Massachusetts Bay. But there was a divine mercy in it; they
came to seek peace, but a sword awaited them. I refer to the famous Anne
Wheelright controversy, which rent the infant settlement of Boston for
more than ten years. The excitement extended through the entire colony,
affording many a bitter and vindictive argument. The pulpit belabored it
in sermons of two hours' length, after which the deacons in their
official seats occasionally expatiated to audiences whose patience on
this theme was inexhaustible. As the controversy waxed hot, it got into
the hands of the civil authorities, and some of its disputants were
thrust into jail as heretical. Anna Wheelright was a woman of great
mental vigor, and could hold her own in a debate with her reverend
disputants. Unfortunate as this controversy may appear, it proved a
benefit, by sharpening the public mind to a prodigious degree. Indeed,
the very children of Boston could define the terms of the covenant of
grace. Weary of a controversy bordering on persecution, Anne Wheelright
sought a new home in the wilderness, and was subsequently murdered by
the Indians. But the force of mental exercise which she had put in
motion still continued. It is worthy of remark that almost the only
intellectual peculiarity to which Franklin refers, in speaking of his
father, is 'a turn for polemics.' The great features of New England
character were, at that day, opinion and faith. It was these, as boldly
and defiantly expressed, which excited the fears and jealousy of Charles
the Second, and instigated the deprival of the colonial charters.
The studious and prayerful habits of the clergy continued from
generation to generation, and their piety was most tender and touching
in their ministrations. We might dwell, had we time, on the Cottons, the
Mitchells, and the Sheppards, but, revered above all others, comes
before us the venerable form of John Elliott, the missionary, clad in
homespun apparel, his face shining with inward peace, while his silver
locks overhang his shoulders. He was the Nestor of divines, and the
character of his labors might be judged from his motto--' Prayers and
pains with faith in Christ Jesus can accomplish anything.' His efforts
and successes amongst the Indians were remarkable, and it was commonly
reported that he possessed the gift of prophecy. But he was not the only
man of that day who dwelt so close to the confines of the spiritual
world as to be alternately visited by angels and devils. Indeed, what
tales of the supernatural Mather relates, what a juxtaposition of saints
and demons! Of course, there was a foundation to build upon,--had not
Mather himself in his family for more than a year a possessed girl,
whose familiar haunted the house and made it ring at times like a
bedlam? It was a peculiar characteristic in this chapter of _diablerie_,
that when the Scriptures were being read, or prayers attended, the
spasms became terrific; but when any ungodly book was substituted in
place of the Bible, there was an immediate relief.
The age was one of wonders, and Mather devotes an entire book to what he
calls Thaumaturgia. Many of its statements are bold impositions on the
reader's credulity; but there was much which, in those days of
ignorance, must have seemed to Mather to be undeniable phenomena of a
mysterious nature. After the colony had escaped many minor dangers, a
new ordeal of suffering awaited it in a faith in sorcery, resulting in
the horrible episode of Salem witchcraft, which may be considered the
darkest stain upon the age. The death-beds and parting scenes in such a
community were cherished features in domestic history, and almost every
cottage could boast its Euthanasy. Ministering angels not only hovered
over the couch, but touched their harps in melodies, whose music
sometimes reached the human ear. Youth tender and inexperienced claimed
a share in these triumphs, and Nathanael Mather, though but seventeen,
expires in all the maturity of a saintly old age.
Coming down to the survivors of the first emigration, we find them
lingering amid the respect and veneration of the community, and their
graves were deemed worthy of patriarchal honor. After their departure
the ministry seems to have lost tone and fervor. The union of church and
state swept them into secularities, and thus impaired their strength. So
great was the decline, that by the close of the first century, formality
chilled the churches, and the people bewailed their coldness, while the
aged wept at the remembrance of by-gone days. Cotton Mather had
prophesied of a coming time when churches would have to be gathered _out
of the churches_ in the colony. The cry of the saints was 'Return, how
long, O Lord, and let it repent thee concerning thy servants.' Some of
the more hopeful maintained that the midnight only heralded an
approaching dawn. Two ministers on Long Island, Barber and Davenport,
had received divine assurance of a return of power, and held themselves
in anxious waiting. At last, brilliant flashes began to play athwart the
sky, and instead of the meteoric glare which some feared, it indicated
the purer sunbeam, in whose genial power the church was to rejoice for
more than a third of a century. Whitefield's advent sent a thrill
through all New England. He sailed from Charleston to Newport, where
venerable parson Clapp, tottering with age, welcomed him as though he
had been an angel of God. Whitefield's power was comparable to the
supernatural, and it was in this view John Foster, at a later day, found
the only solution of his success. In the pulpit his appearance and
manners exceeded the dreams of apostolic grace--a youth of elegant form,
with voice of enchanting melody, clear blue eyes, an endurance which
knew no exhaustion--a fancy which ranged both worlds--were all fused by
a burning zeal for the salvation of souls. Such was Whitefield at
twenty-five, and as such he was worthy of that ovation which he received
at Boston, when governor and council went out in form to welcome him.
The evangelist bore his honors meekly, and hospitality did not weaken
the vials of wrath which he poured upon the unfaithful. He found, as he
said, in New England 'a darkness which might be felt.' At Cambridge, he
thundered at the deadness of Harvard and its faculty, and electrified
the land by striking at its glory. The hearers alternately wept and
shivered, and the professors, headed by old Dr. Holyoke (who afterwards
lived to celebrate his hundredth birthday), levelled a defensive and
aggressive pamphlet at their castigator; but Governor Belcher kissed the
dauntless preacher, and bade him 'cry aloud and spare not, but show the
people their sins.'
The second century, like the first, opened with fierce ecclesiastical
tumult. Whitefield's itineracy, like the blazing cross in the Lady of
the Lake, was the signal for an uprising. Fired by his passionate
oratory, the masses revolted from the chill formalism of a dead
ministry. The effect of the excitement which pervaded New England, when
considered merely as an appetizer of the intellect, can not be
over-estimated, and the vigor which the colonial mind thus acquired
astonished in an after day the dullards of the British Parliament. The
chief throb was felt in Connecticut, where strolling preachers of a new
order held forth in barns and school-houses. Among these imitators of
Whitefield were some men of high character, such as Tennant and Finley
(afterwards president of Nassau Hall, Princeton), while others were
frenzied enthusiasts. Davenport, the chief of these, was 'a
heavenly-minded youth,' whose usefulness was wrecked by fanaticism. In
his journey he was attended by one whom he called his armor-bearer, and
their entrance into each village was signaled by a loud hymn sung by the
excited pair. The very tone in which Davenport preached has been
perpetuated by his admirers; it was a nasal twang, which had great
effect. A law was passed against those irregularities, and Davenport was
thrown into Hartford jail, where he sang hymns all night, to the great
admiration of his friends. On being released he went to Lyme, where,
after sermon, a bonfire of idols was made, to which the women
contributed their ornaments and fine dresses, and the men their vain
books. This religious movement was marred by much evil; yet its fruits,
as we have stated, were found in that mental strength which subsequently
bore the brunt of the Revolution. Its excited scenes are hit off by such
reports as these,--'Sally Sparhawk fell and was carried out of meeting;'
this statement being frequently repeated. The style of preaching in
vogue may be imagined when we read of Tennant's appearance in the
pulpit, with long locks flowing down his back, his gaunt form encased in
a coarse garment, girt about the loins with a leathern girdle, in
imitation of the prophet Elijah. His discourses were 'awful and solemn,'
and the houses were crowded, though the cold was so intense as to sheet
Long Island Sound with ice. Other memorials of this great awakening are
found in Edwards' thrilling sermons, such as 'Sinners in the hands of an
angry God,' 'Wicked men only useful in their destruction,' etc. For
years after, the grand idea of New England was piety and good morals,
and as there were no journals, except here and there a dwarfed weekly,
the power of the pulpit was unrivaled. Religion was a common theme in
every house. As a result, it is stated that during the whole Revolution,
there was but one case of wilful murder in Massachusetts, and Dwight
informs us that up to his day there had never been a lawsuit in
Northampton, nor a loss by fire in which the damage was not mutually
shared by the citizens. He also adds that on a given Sabbath five-sixths
of the community were found in meeting. The minister in each town was
supported by tax, and being in some sense a public officer, the ceremony
of ordination was sometimes celebrated with procession and band of
music.
Jonathan Edwards, the great light of New England, at this time could
have been found in a quiet village on the Connecticut, whence his fame
had already spread to the mother country. How Northampton gloried in her
matchless preacher! For sixty years his grandfather, Solomon Stoddard,
had labored there. Let us linger a moment over those scenes which,
though fled like a dream, once witnessed the joys and sorrows of a
lifetime. Here in this retired street stands the weather-stained
parsonage, graced by a pair of saplings, planted by his own hands, to
which Northampton points as 'the Edwards elms,' and which now fling
giant shadows across the lawn. This dwelling, though scant of
furniture, is passing rich in its domestic treasures. Here is a wife of
lustrous beauty, sweet of disposition, fervent of spirit, and 'mighty in
prayer.' She is a matchless judge of sermons, wise in human nature, and
being wiser still in grace, must long rank as a model of the ministerial
wife. Here, too, is her group of daughters, well worthy of such
parentage, Esther, Sarah, Mary, and Jerusha, all beautiful and artless
as herself. Here a world of daily interest is found in the studies and
duties of a New England home. But who is he, of tall and attenuated
form, whose days are passed in his solitary study, secluded like a
hermit from the common experience of life? Like Moses, he is slow of
speech, and might be considered almost severe of countenance. The
lineaments tell their story of childlike simplicity of character, and
yet they are inspired by an expression of power, which at first seems
repellant. Those large black eyes seem to pierce and read on every
thought. I have referred to this family in a previous article,[D] but
would now speak at more length of its paternal head. This man has but
two pursuits, study and prayer. Of the outer world he has ever remained
in blissful ignorance, and even of his own parish he only knows what he
has learned of his wife. He has no 'turn' for visiting, and can not
afford time for vain talk. The secret of this is, that he breathes an
atmosphere of his own; his soul is like a star, and dwells apart. Behold
him seated at his table, jotting down casual thoughts on the backs of
letters and scraps of paper (for paper is very dear); he is building up
some great argument, whose vast proportions will in due time be
developed, like the uncovering of a colossus. Beware, Mr. Solomon
Williams of Hatfield, and you, Chubb and Tyndal, and John Taylor of
Norwich, for you will each and all of you find your master in this
secluded parson. Thirteen hours per day are given to study, and this has
been the average for years.
And _such_ study to create realities out of the fogs of metaphysics, and
to span the concrete and the abstract with a bridge such as Milton threw
across space. This man can spend hours in pursuit of 'volitions' with
all the excitement of the chamois-hunt. Now his eye brightens, for he
has transfixed an idea, and holds it up in all the nicety of artistic
touch, while he dissects it to its ramifications. It is all _con amore_
with him, though his readers will need a clue to the maze of intricate
reasoning.
One can not pass through the streets of Northampton, so broad, so rural,
and so picturesque, without being overshadowed by that memory, which may
be expressed in the sweet lines of Longfellow,--
'Here in patience and in sorrow, laboring still with busy hand,
Like an emigrant he wandered, seeking for the better land.'
It is gratifying to know that his memory is honored in Northampton by
the naming of a church, though all may not understand the connection.
The old 'meeting-house' (for the Puritans used the word church only in a
spiritual sense) stood fronting the site of the present enormous
edifice. It was torn down in 1812. Here for nearly a quarter of a
century the tall form, and face pale and meagre from intense thinking,
appeared each Sabbath before a people among whom his recluse habits
rendered him almost a stranger. Here, having rested upon the desk, upon
the elbow of his left arm, whose hand held a tiny book of closely
written MS., he read with stooping form and low tones those solemn
arguments and tremendous appeals which now thrill us from the printed
page. Each of those tiny books was a sermon. Many of these are still
preserved, and Dr. Tryon Edwards, of New London, has a chest filled with
these memorials of his great ancestor. They are written in so fine a
hand as to be hardly legible except to one practiced in their
deciphering--a result of the extreme economy of one who, with all
carefulness, was the largest consumer of paper and ink in New England.
Solemn as was the deportment of this reverend man, sundry practical
jokes at his expense are on record. It is said that the house dog was
his close attendant, and on Sabbath day would invade even the pulpit in
search of his master. Hence he was carefully fastened during 'holy
time.' On one occasion, however, some wag not only loosed the animal,
but actually garnished his neck with a pair of ministerial bands. The
poor dog, unwitting of his sacred insignia, made his way into the pulpit
without being noticed by his absent minded master, until some one showed
him the dog, _a la parson_, perched up behind him on the pulpit bench.
As a public speaker Edwards' delivery was the minimum of force, and in
this feature he admitted his utter failure. Indeed, when driven from
Northampton, he replied to Erskine's invitation to remove to Scotland,
that he was assured that his style would not be acceptable. After his
dismission, the sorrows of poverty fell heavily upon him, and he writes
to the same correspondent that 'he and his large and helpless family
were to be cast upon the world.' A collection was made for him in
Scotland, and forwarded at this time of need. The Scottish saints,
indeed, held strong sympathy with the colonies, and it was their
'benefactions' which supported the mission of Brainerd, the most
successful of modern days. Edwards remained more than a year at
Northampton after leaving its pulpit, and was humbled by seeing the
people assemble to hear sermons read by laymen in preference to his own
ministrations. What a bitter cup this must have been: but Sarah cheered
his heart, and grace reigned. In the mean time the girls wrought fancy
work, which was sent to Boston, and sold in their behalf, and thus they
were spared from want. Subsequently he was appointed missionary to the
Stockbridge Indians. It was Orpheus among the wild beasts, but without
his success. President Wayland quotes this fact in order to support a
theory which is palpably false, that a preacher should not be much above
the literary platform of his people; whereas, Edwards' ill success was
in a large measure owing to the troubles and opposition incident to
frontier life. With all his sorrows, however, he had one great
satisfaction. His chief assailant, Joseph Ashley, of Northampton, who
had borne so large a part in his expulsion, came in deep penitence, and
besought his forgiveness, which was granted with Christian tenderness.
Ashley's compunctions continued, and after Edwards' death increased in
horror so greatly that to obtain relief he published to the world an
explicit confession of his sins against 'that eminent servant of God.'
Edwards, like Milton, had long meditated a work which 'the world would
not willingly let die,' but, although he had for some years been
gathering materials, yet it was not until his removal to Stockbridge
that he addressed himself fully to the mighty task of authorship. His
habits of abstraction grew upon him amazingly during this effort, and
the notable Sarah sheltered him from intrusion, and anticipated his
wants. She was conscious of the greatness of the work with which he had
grappled, and stood by his side like a guardian angel while he
demolished errorists. It was her custom after the labors of the day to
steal up to the study, where, like Numa and Egeria, they held serene
communion. This was his sole medium of secular information, for in his
occasional walks he was like one in a dream. The whole man was engrossed
in what he alone could perform; indeed, to reconcile liberty and
necessity were a task for which he seemed providentially set apart. But
beneath these arguments, which rise Alp on Alp, there lurked a quiet
perception of humor, and the _reductio ad absurdum_, which he
occasionally drives home, showed the keenness of Puritan wit. How he
must have smiled, nay even laughed, in the midst of his abstractions at
that[E] metaphysical animal which illustrates the absurdity of his
opponents. When 'The Freedom of the Will' was finished, and the author
had sent it forth to do battle, he felt that the work of his life was
done.
Just at this time a deputation waited on him to solicit his acceptance
of the presidency of Nassau Hall. It was a strange sight to that rude
hamlet of Stockbridge--those reverend forms finishing their long journey
at the feet of the poor exiled missionary. When their errand was
announced, he burst into tears, overcome by a sense of unworthiness, and
in a subsequent letter he confirms his unfitness by reference to his
'flaccid solids and weak and sizy fluids.' But the demand was pressed,
and Northampton learns with astonishment the exaltation of her banished
pastor. The successful deputation possessed one member of rare interest.
This was John Brainerd, who had succeeded his brother David as a
missionary, and whom Edwards had met ten years before at the bedside of
his dying brother. David would have been, had both lived, the husband of
Jerusha--but now they slept side by side in Northampton burial-ground,
and the surviving brother reappeared bearing this invitation. It was one
not easily resisted; and so, amid dangers and infirmity, he was fain to
say,
'To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new.'
Before another spring, a higher glory awaited him; and the same year,
five of his family, including the incomparable Sarah, were likewise
'received up.' A sad year was that to Princeton and to the church.
We have stated our opinion, that the activity of the New England mind
arose from the digestion of strong doctrine; that very activity now
generated a new style of preaching, which may be termed the metaphysical
school. The days of _thaumaturgia_ were passed, and in place of
discussing demonology and temptation, an appetite for subtle dogma
prevailed. I doubt if Britain and Germany, with their combined
universities, could have equaled, during the last century, the New
England pulpit in mental acuteness or philosophical discrimination. A
reference to Edwards recalls mention among his followers of such names
as Smally, Bellamy, Emmons, and Hopkins. Those who listened to the
preaching of such men could not avoid becoming thinkers, and thought has
made our country what it is. Very possibly what is known as 'Yankee
ingenuity' arose from the thinking habits of careful sermon-hearers. A
man who could follow the subtle theories of the pulpit, could think out
the most elaborate machinery. Next to Jonathan Edwards, Dr. Emmons
possessed the most philosophical mind of the age. So severe and
invincible is his logic, that it is said that the New Haven lawyers
often sharpened their minds on Emmons' sermons. His scheme of making God
the author of sin may be considered one of the errors of a great mind. A
modern novelist has placed old Dr. Hopkins among the characters of a
romance. But however great may be the powers of Mrs. Stowe, it was quite
impossible for an æsthetic and poetic mind to grasp that bundle of
dried-up syllogisms which once occupied the Newport pulpit. Hopkins had
preached the church at Great Barrington empty, and that of Newport died
by lingering degrees. Only to think of that tall, ungainly form, the
head covered with a linen cap, stiff and white, coming forth like an
apparition once a week to the public gaze. We do not wonder at the
child's inquiry '_if it was God that stood up there_.' Hopkins' scheme
of 'indifferent affection' was a grand conception, but as unnatural as
grand: yet it showed an amazing boldness for a public teacher to lay
down as a postulate that a willingness to be damned was a condition of
salvation.
From a survey of the earlier clergy, even as superficial as the present
one, we are struck with its ambition of a lofty range of doctrine. They
'reasoned high
Of providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate,
Fixed fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute,
And found no end in wandering mazes lost.
Of good and evil much they argued then,
Of happiness, and final misery,
Passion, and apathy, glory, and shame.'
The highest tribute which Milton could offer the fallen angels was that
mental power which survived the general wreck. And no lesser flight
would have satisfied the subjects of this sketch. Their lifelong effort
was still to climb higher, ever exclaiming
'--Paula majora canamus.'
Their services in the cause of public education are beyond our
appreciation, and it may be well for us to remember that Harvard, Yale,
Williams, Union, Princeton, Amherst, Hanover, and other institutions,
sprang from the bold philanthrophy of men so poor as often to be objects
of pity. They saw that knowledge is power, and that power they would not
only possess, but bequeath to coming generations.
Long as these rambles have been, they would still be incomplete without
a tribute to the influence of wives and mothers which soothed and
mellowed the sterner aspect of primitive life; but this can only be
referred to as a theme worthy of distinct treatment. It should not be
forgotten that the children reared under such influences have often been
counted worthy of the highest stations of honor and trust; and although
the scapegrace character of ministers' sons is a common fling, yet
careful research has proved that it has many and brilliant exceptions.
While penning these pages, my mind has often wandered over ancient
burial-grounds where pastor and people sleep side by side. One may find
them in every New England town, and they chain with a spell of which the
modern cemetery with its showy marbles knows nothing! We turn from the
fresh mortality, which chills us with its recent sorrows, to those massy
headstones whose faint inscriptions tell of generations long since freed
from toil. Here one may find the rude monuments of those who still walk
the earth and lead its progress, and here the heart may run over, as
Byron says,
'With silent worship of the great of old!
The dead but sceptered sovereigns who still rule
Our spirits from their urns.'
* * * * *
HEMMING COTTON.
'Hem them in!' is the country's cry;
See how the bayonet needles fly!
Nothing neglect and nothing leave,
Hem them in from the skirt to sleeve.
Little they reek of scratch or hurt
Who toil at hemming the Southern shirt;
Little they'll care, as they shout aloud,
If the Southern shirt prove a Southern shroud.
Hurrah for the needles sharp and thin!
Cotton is saved by hemming it in.'
* * * * *
ONE OF MY PREDECESSORS.
No books have quite the same fascination for me as the narratives of old
travelers. Give me a rainy day, a state of affairs which renders the
performance of a more serious task impossible, and a volume of Hakluyt
or Purchas, or even of Pinkerton's agreeable collection, and I
experience a condition of felicity which leaves Gray and his new novel
far in the background. For I thus not only behold again the familiar
scenery of the earth,--never forgetting a landscape that I have once
seen,--but I am also a living participant in the adventures of those who
have wandered the same paths, hundreds of years before. I visit
Constantinople while the Porphyrogenite emperors still sit upon the
throne of the East; I look upon the barbaric court of Muscovy before the
name of Russia is known in the world; I make acquaintance with Genghis
Khan at Karakorum, and with Aurungzebe at Delhi; I invade Japan with
Kampfer, penetrate the Arctic Seas with Barentz, or view the gardens of
Ispahan in the company of the gallant Sir John Chardin.
This taste was not the cause, but is the result, of my own experience.
My far-off, unknown Arab progenitor says, in one of his poems: 'Fly thy
home, and journey, if thou strivest for great deeds. Five advantages
thou wilt at least procure by traveling. Thou wilt have pleasure and
profit; thou wilt enlarge thy prospects, cultivate thyself, and acquire
friends. It is better to be dead, than, like an insect, to remain always
chained to the same spot of earth.' In the Middle Ages, and especially
among the members of the enlightened Saracenic race, the instinct of
travel was mainly an instinctive desire for education. There was no
other school of knowledge so complete and practical, in the dearth of
books and the absence of other than commercial intercourse between the
ends of the earth, I fancy that this instinct, skipping over some
centuries, reappeared, in my case, in its original form; for it was not
until after I had seen a large portion of the earth, that I became
acquainted with the narratives of my predecessors, and recognized my
kinship with them. With the ghost of the mercantile Marco Polo, or those
of the sharp fellows, Bernier and Tavernier, I do not anticipate much
satisfaction, in the next world; but--if they are not too far off--I
shall shake hands at once with the old monk Rubruquis, and the Knight
Arnold von der Harff, and the far traveled son of the Atlas, Ibn Batuta.
These old narratives have a charm for me, which I do not find in the
works of modern tourists. There is an honest homeliness and unreserve
about them, which I would not exchange for any graces of style. The
writers need no apologetic or explanatory preface; they sit down with
the pressure of a solemn duty upon them. When much of the world was but
dimly known, the man who had reached India, China, or the Islands of the
Sea, and returned to describe his adventures, made his narrative a
matter of conscience, and justly considered that he had added something
to the stock of human knowledge. The world of fable had not then
contracted into as narrow limits as at present; foreign countries were
full of marvels, and science had not made clear the phenomena of nature.
The old travelers had all the wonder and the credulity of children. All
was fish that came to their nets, and their works are singular compounds
of personal adventure, historical episodes, statistics of trade, and
reflections on the laws, manners and religions of races, interwoven with
many astonishing stories, and with the most amusing conjectures and
speculations. Their sincerity is apparent on every page. How delightful
is that remark of honest old Bernal Diaz, when, in describing the
battle of Tlascala, he states that many of the Spanish soldiers believed
that St. James and St. Thomas fought in person against the pagans, and
adds, in the simplicity of his heart, 'Sinner that I am, it was not
given to my eyes to behold either the one or the other of those holy
persons.' Montanus, in his travels through Muscovy, speaks of a
wonderful plant on the borders of Tartary, which resembled a
pumpkin-vine in appearance, only that instead of pumpkins it produced
lambs covered with wool. He calls this 'a mighty pleasant story,' but
takes care to say that he had never seen with his own eyes the lambs
growing upon the vines, but only the wool thereof, which the natives
manufactured into garments.
Another characteristic of the old books of travel is, that they are,
unconsciously, autobiographical. The honest pilgrim, in his desire to
give a faithful description of new lands, is little aware that he is all
the time describing himself as well. His prejudice, his likings, his
disappointments and aspirations are all transparently revealed to us,
and through him we lay hold on the living character of his age. We
follow him, step by step, on his slow and wearisome journey, enjoying
his fatigues and dangers with the better zest, since we know in advance
that he reached home safely at last. One of the most popular modern
books of travel--Eothen--is a poem which gives us the very atmosphere
and odor of the Orient, but nothing more; and the author floats before
our vision in so dim and wraith-like a manner, that many readers have
doubted whether the work was founded on actual experience. On the other
hand, those old narratives, of which Robinson Crusoe is the ideal type,
bear unmistakable stains of the soil on every page. You not only feel
the vital personality of the traveler, but you would distinguish his
doublet and hose among a thousand. He does not soar, with an airy grace,
from one hill-top to another, picking out for you a choice scene here
and there, as he skims the land--he plods along the road, laboriously
and with muddy shoes, and sees the common much oftener than the sublime.
In all that concerns man, indeed, a much plainer speech was permitted to
the old traveler. There were no squeamish readers in those days, and
hence, in some respects, he is too candid for modern taste. But it often
happens that precisely the characteristics or customs of strange races
which are of most value to the anthropologist, belong to those cryptic
mysteries of human nature, to which, in our refined age, one is
prohibited from referring. At least, the absence of constraint--the
possibility of entire frankness, even though the writer should have no
occasion to avail himself of the privilege--imparts a rare loveliness
and raciness to the narrative. On the other hand, in modern works which
I have tested by my own personal knowledge of the subject, I have been
quite as much struck with the amount of suppressed as with that of
expressed truth. Mansfield Parkyns and Captain Burton, I have no doubt,
will bear me out in this statement. Why has no African explorer, for
instance, yet ventured to announce the fact,--at once interesting and
important,--that if a traveler in the central regions of that continent
could be accompanied by his wife, the chances of his success would be
greatly improved? In the apparent celibacy of explorers, barbarous races
perceive simply an absence or perversion of the masculine instinct,
which at once excites their distrust.
Let me resume the volume which I have laid down to pursue the foregoing
reflections, and, while the eastern storm drives through the autumn
woods, hurling its mingled volume of rain and leaves against my window,
ask the reader to look over my shoulder and follow with me for a while
the pilgrimage of Abou Abdallah Mohammed, better known under the name of
Ibn Batuta,--'may God be satisfied with him, and confound those who have
an aversion towards him!'--to apply to himself his own invocation in
favor of another.
Ibn Batuta, a native of Tangier, in Morocco, unquestionably takes the
first rank among the travelers of the Middle Ages, if we consider the
distances he traversed, the remote points he reached, or the number of
years consumed by his wanderings. From Pekin to Timbuctoo, from the
Volga to the Ganges, from Bukhara to Zanzibar, he vibrated to and fro,
making himself acquainted, with the exception of Christian Europe, with
the greater part of the known world. He touched, in many directions, the
borderland of darkness, beyond which the earth fell off precipitously
into chaotic depths which no mortal might explore. Having reached home
again after uncounted perils, he sat down to tell the story of his
adventures. Many of his notes had been lost by the way, and he was
obliged to depend mainly on his memory; but as this is a faculty which
all genuine travelers must not only possess, but cultivate by constant
exercise, his narrative is remarkably clear, complete, and truthful.
Born on the 24th of February, 1304, he set out, in his twenty-second
year, on a pilgrimage to Mecca, traversing the Barbary States and Egypt
on the way. Once fairly launched in the world, twenty-four years elapsed
before he again saw his native town. He explored the various provinces
of Arabia; visited Syria, Persia, and Armenia; resided for a while in
Southern Russia (Kipchak), then belonging to princes of the line of
Genghis Khan; traveled by land to Constantinople, where he was presented
to the emperor; repeated his pilgrimage to Mecca, and reached Zanzibar.
Then, returning, he made his way to Bukhara, and through Afghanistan to
the Indus; exercised, for two years, the functions of a _Kadi_, or
judge, at Delhi; was appointed by the Sultan Mohammed, the son of Togluk
Khan, on an embassy to the emperor of China, but, missing the Chinese
vessel, was obliged to remain a year and a half among the Maldive
Islands. Nothing daunted by the delay, he started again, by way of
Ceylon and the Indian Archipelago, and finally succeeded in reaching
Pekin. He appears to have returned to Tangier in the year 1349, and to
have taken up his residence soon afterwards in Granada, under the
protection of the caliph Yusef. His thirst for exploration, however, was
not yet quenched, and in two years he was ready to undertake a second
journey of greater difficulty and danger. Leaving Fez with a caravan, in
the year 1351, he crossed the Sahara, and spent three years in Central
Africa, visiting the great cities Melli and Timbuctoo. He was thus the
first to give the world an authentic account of those regions. His
descriptions correspond, in almost all respects, with those given by the
travelers of modern times.
Ibn Batuta returned to Morocco in 1354, and there remained until his
death, in 1378. During the year after his arrival, he dictated the
history of his travels to Ibn Djozay, a young Moorish poet, who, having
been unjustly treated by Yusef, in Granada, fled to Fez, where he was
appointed secretary to the Sultan, Abau Inau Faris. The latter, it
appears, commanded that the work should be written, and it was also, no
doubt, by his order that Ibn Djozay became the amanuensis of our
traveler. 'He was recommended,' says the introduction, 'to bestow great
care on the correctness and elegance of the style, to render it clear
and intelligible, in order that the reader may better enjoy the rare
adventures, and draw the greatest profit from the pearl, after it shall
have been extracted from its shell!' To Ibn Djozay, therefore, we are
indebted for the abundant poetic quotations interspersed throughout the
work--the ornaments which hang, sometimes with curious effect, on the
plain, straight-forward story which Ibn Batuta tells us. Making the
usual allowance for Oriental exaggeration, and the occasional confusion
which must occur in a memory so overcharged, we do not hesitate to
pronounce the work worthy of all credit. Burkhardt, Seetzen, and Carl
Ritter have expressed their entire confidence in the fidelity of the
narrative.
This interesting work was known to European scholars, until quite
recently, in a fragmentary condition, frequently disfigured by errors of
transcription. Since the French occupation of Algiers, however, two or
three perfect copies have been discovered, one of which, now in the
Imperial Library at Paris, bears the autograph of Ibn Djozay. The
publications of the _Société Asiatique_ furnish us with the narrative,
carefully collated, and differing but slightly, in all probability, from
the original text. Let us now run over it, freely translating for the
reader as we go. The introduction, which is evidently from the elegant
hand of the amanuensis, is so characteristic that we must extract a few
Title and all, it opens as follows:
A PRESENT MADE TO OBSERVERS,
TREATING OF THE
CURIOSITIES OFFERED BY THE CITIES AND
OTHER WONDERS ENCOUNTERED IN
TRAVEL.
'In the name of God, the Clement, the Merciful: Behold what says the
Shekh, the judge, the learned man, the truthful, the noble, the devout,
the very benevolent, the guest of God; who has acquitted himself of the
visit to the holy places, to the honor of religion; who, in the course
of his travels, has placed his confidence in the Lord of all
creatures--Abou Abdallah Mohammed, son of Abdallah, son of Ibrahim
Allewatee Alhandjee, known under the name of Ibn Batuta: may God be
merciful to him, and be content with him, in his great bounty and
generosity! Amen.
'Praise be to God, who has subjected the earth to those who serve him,
in order that they may march by spacious roads--who has placed them on
the earth, and there located the three vicissitudes of their destiny:
the creation, the return to the earth, and the resurrection from its
bowels. He has extended it by his power, and it has become a bed for his
servants. He has fixed it by means of inaccessible mountains, of
considerable elevation, and has raised over it the summit of heaven,
unsupported by a pillar. He has made the stars to appear as a guide in
the midst of the darkness of the land and the sea; he has made a lamp of
the moon, and a torch of the sun. From heaven he has caused waters to
descend, which vivified the ground when it was dried up. He has made all
varieties of fruits to grow, and has created diversified regions, giving
them all sorts of plants. He has caused the two seas to flow--one of
sweet and refreshing waters, the other salt and bitter. He has completed
his bounties towards his creatures, in subjecting to them the camels,
and in submitting to them the ships, similar to mountains, serving them
as vehicles, instead of the surface of the desert, or the back of the
sea.'
After having, in like manner, pronounced a benediction on Mohammed, the
Prophet's friends, and all others in any way connected with him, he
greets the Sultan of Morocco with a panegyric so dazzling, so
unapproachable in the splendor of its assertions, that we must quote it
as a standard whereby all similar compositions may be measured, sure
that it will maintain its pre-eminence through all time.
'It is his reign (that of Abou Inau Faris) which has cured Religion of
her sickness, which has caused the sword of Injustice to return into the
scabbard whence it had been drawn, which has corrected fortune, when it
had been corrupted, and which has procured custom for the markets of
Science, formerly given up to stagnation. He has rendered manifest the
rules of piety when they would have been obliterated; he has calmed the
regions of the earth when they were agitated; he has caused the
tradition of acts of generosity to revive after his death; he has
occasioned the death of tyrannic customs; he has abated the flame of
discord at the moment when it was most enkindled; he has destroyed the
commands of tyranny, when they exercised an absolute power; he has
elevated the edifices of equity on the pillars of the fear of God, and
has assured himself, by the strongest evidences, that he possesses
confidence in the Eternal. His reign possesses a glory, the crown
whereof is placed on the forehead of Orion, and an illumination which
covers the Milky Way with the skirts of his robe; a beneficence which
has given a new youth to the age; a justice which incloses the righteous
within its vast tent; a liberality similar to a cloud which waters at
once the leaves that have fallen from the trees and the trees
themselves; a courage which, even when the clouds shed torrents of rain,
causes a torrent of blood to flow; a patience which never tires of
hoping; a prudence which prevents his enemies from approaching his
pastures; a resolution which puts their troops to flight before the
action commences; a mildness which delights to pluck pardon from the
tree of crime; a goodness which gains him all hearts; a science, the
lustre whereof enlightens the darkest difficulties; a conduct
conformable to his sincerity, and acts conformable to his designs!'
Let us here take a long breath, and rest a minute. O, Abou Inau Faris!
we envy the blessed people that were gathered under thy wing; we weep
for our degenerate age, wherein thy like is nowhere to be found. No
wonder that Ibn Batuta declares that he lays aside forever his pilgrim's
staff--that, after traversing the Orient, he sits down under the full
moon of the Occident, preferring it to all other regions, 'as one
prefers gold-dust to the sands of the highway.' We, too, had we found
such a ruler, would have laid aside our staff, and taken the oath of
allegiance.
The traveler gives us the day of his departure from home: June 14, 1325.
'I was alone,' says he, 'without a companion with whom I could live
familiarly, without a caravan of which I could have made part; but I was
forced onward by a spirit firm in its resolution, and the desire of
visiting the Holy Places was implanted in my bosom. I therefore
determined to separate myself from my friends of both sexes, and I
abandoned my home as the birds abandon their nest. My father and mother
were still alive. I resigned myself, with grief, to separate from them,
and this was a common cause of sorrow. I was then in my twenty-second
year.'
Having safely reached the town of Tlemeen, he found two ambassadors of
the king of Tunis, about to set out on their return, and attached
himself to their suite. On arriving at Bougie, he was attacked with a
violent fever, and was advised to remain behind. 'No,' said the
determined youth, 'if God wills that I should die, let me die on the
road to Mecca,' and pushed on, through Constantina and Bona, in such a
state of weakness that he was obliged to unwind his turban and bind
himself to his saddle, in order to avoid falling from the horse. He thus
reached Tunis, in a state of extreme exhaustion and despondency. 'No one
saluted me,' says he, 'for I was not acquainted with a single person
there. I was seized with such an emotion of sadness that I could not
suppress my sobs, and my tears flowed in abundance. One of the pilgrims,
remarking my condition, advanced towards me, saluting and comforting me.
He did not cease to cheer me up with his conversation, until I had
entered the city.'
In a short time, he seems to have recovered both his health and spirits;
for, on reaching the town of Sefakos, he married the daughter of one of
the syndics of the corporation of Tunis. This proceeding strikes us as a
singular preparation for a long and dangerous journey, but it is a
preliminary which would immediately suggest itself to a Mussulman of
good character. In fact, it was equivalent in those days--and still
would be, in some parts of the Orient--to a proclamation of his
respectability. Ibn Batuta, however, was not fortunate in this
matrimonial adventure. Two months afterwards, he naïvely informs us:
'There arose such a disagreement between myself and my father-in-law,
that I was obliged to separate from my wife. I thereupon married the
daughter of an official of Fez. The marriage was consummated at the
castle of Zanah, and I celebrated it by a feast, for which I detained
the caravan for a whole day.'
After this announcement, he is silent concerning his domestic relations.
Perhaps the number of his connubial changes was too great to be
recorded; perhaps no son was born to establish his honor among men;
perhaps, with increasing sanctity, he forswore the sex. The last
conjecture is probably correct, as it tallies with the reputation for
wisdom and purity which he gradually acquired.
Finally, in April, 1326, our traveler reached Alexandria, the first
strange city which impressed him by its size and splendor. 'Alexandria,'
says he, 'is a jewel whereof the brilliancy is manifest--a virgin which
sparkles with her ornaments. She illumines the Occident with her
splendor: she unites the most diverse beauties, on account of her
situation midway between the Rising and the Setting.' At that time the
celebrated Pharos was still standing, and the following description of
it, though not very clear, will interest the reader: 'It is a square
edifice, which towers into the air. Its gate is raised above the surface
of the earth, and opposite to it there is an edifice of similar height,
which serves to support planks, across which one must wait to arrive at
the gate of the Pharos. When these planks are taken away, there is no
means of crossing. Inside of the entrance is a space where the guardian
of the edifice is stationed. The interior of the Pharos contains many
apartments. Each of its four sides is a hundred and forty spans in
length. The building is situated on a high hill, one parasang from the
city, and on a tongue of land which the sea surrounds on three sides.
One can therefore only reach the Pharos from the land side, by leaving
the city. I directed my course towards the Pharos a second time, on my
return to the West, in the year 1349, and I found that its ruin was
complete, so that one could neither enter, nor even reach the gate.'
Commencing with Alexandria, Ibn Batuta is careful, in every city which
he visits, to give an account of the distinguished _shekhs_ or _imams_,
with characteristic anecdotes of their saintly or miraculous lives. The
value and interest of these sketches reconcile us to the brevity of his
descriptions. He tells us, for example, that the _kadi_ (judge) of
Alexandria, who was likewise a master of the art of eloquence, 'covered
his head with a turban which surpassed in volume all the turbans then to
be seen. I have never beheld, neither in the East nor the West, one so
voluminous. He was one day seated in a mosque, before the pulpit, and
his turban filled almost the entire space.' At the town of Fooah, in the
Delta, on his way to Cairo, occurred his first marvelous adventure.
'During the night,' says he, 'while I slept on the roof of the dwelling
of the shekh Abou Abdallah, I saw myself, in a dream, carried on the
wing of a great bird, which flew in the direction of Mecca, then in that
of Yemen; then it transported me to the East, after which it passed
towards the South; then it flew again far to the East, alighted upon a
dark and misty country, and there abandoned me. I was amazed at this
vision, and said to myself, "If the shekh can interpret my dream, he is
truly as holy as he is said to be." When I presented myself, in the
morning, to take part in the early prayer, he charged me to take the
lead, in the quality of _imam_. Afterwards he called me to him, and
explained my dream; in fact, when I had related it to him, he said:
"Thou wilt make the pilgrimage to Mecca, thou wilt visit the tomb of the
Prophet, thou wilt traverse Yemen, Irak, the country of the Turks, and
India; thou wilt remain a long time in the latter country, where thou
wilt see my brother Dilehad, who will extricate thee from an affliction
into which thou shalt fall." Having spoken, he provided me with money,
and small biscuits for the journey. I said my farewells and departed.
Since I left him, I have experienced nothing but good treatment in the
course of my travels, and his benedictions always came to my aid.'
Passing over the traveler's visit to Damietta and the other towns of the
Delta, let us hear his enthusiastic description of Cairo, at the time of
its greatest prosperity: 'Finally, I reached the city of Cairo, the
metropolis of the country and the ancient residence of Pharaoh the
Impaler; mistress of rich and extended regions, attaining the utmost
limits of possibility in the multitude of its population, and exalting
itself on account of its beauty and splendor. It is the rendezvous of
travelers, the station of the weak and the powerful. Thou wilt there
find all that thou desirest--the wise and the ignorant, the industrious
and the trifling, the mild or the angry, men of low extraction or of
lofty birth, the illustrious and the obscure. The number of its
inhabitants is so considerable that their currents resemble those of an
agitated sea, and the city lacks very little of being too small to
contain them, notwithstanding its extent and capacity. Although founded
long since, it enjoys a youth forever renewed; the star of its horoscope
does not cease to inhabit a fortunate house. It is in speaking of Cairo
that Wasr ed-deen has written:
"It is a paradise in truth; its gardens ever smile,
Adorned and fed so plenteously by all the waves of Kile,
Which, fretted by the blowing wind, from shore across to shore,
Mimic the armor's azure scales the prophet David wore;
Within its fluid element the naked fear to glide,
And ships, like winged heavenly spheres, go up and down the tide.'"
Ibn Batuta's description of the pyramids is very curious, and we can
account for it on no other supposition than that he merely saw them in
the distance (probably from the citadel of Cairo), relying on hearsay
for further particulars. After stating that they were built by the
ancient _Hermes_, whom he supposes to be identical with Enoch, as a
repository for the antediluvian arts and sciences, he says: 'The
pyramids are built of hard, well-cut stone. They are of a very
considerable elevation, and of a circular form, capacious at the base
and narrow at the summit, _in the fashion of cones_. They have no doors,
and one is ignorant of the manner in which they have been constructed.'
In his journey up the Nile, Ibn Batuta never fails to give an account of
every Moslem saint or theologian whom he meets, but only in one or two
instances does he mention the antiquities, which, in that age, must have
been still more conspicuous than now. He even passes over the plain of
Thebes without the slightest notice of the great temple of Karnak.
Disappointed in his plan of crossing the Red Sea to Jidda, he returned
to Cairo, and at once set out for Syria. Here, the first place of
interest which he visited was Hebron, where he performed his devotions
at the tombs of the patriarchs. We learn that there were archæcological
writings in those days, for he quotes from a work entitled 'The Torch of
Hearts, on the Subject of the Authenticity of the Tombs of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob.' Unfortunately, the evidence adduced would not be very
satisfactory to us, for it rests entirely on the following statement
made by Mohammed to a certain Abou Horairah: 'When the angel Gabriel
took me on the noctural journey to Jerusalem, we passed above the tomb
of Abraham, and he said to me, "Descend, and make a prayer of two
genuflexions, for here is the sepulchre of thy father Abraham!" Then we
traversed Bethlehem, and he said also, "Descend, make a prayer of two
genuflexions, for here was born thy brother Jesus!"'
Of Jerusalem, which he calls 'the noble, the holy--may God glorify it!'
he says: 'Among the sanctuaries on the borders of the valley known under
the name of Gehenna, east of the city and on an elevated hill (the Mount
of Olives), one sees an edifice which is said to stand on the spot
whence Jesus ascended to heaven. In the middle of the same valley there
is a church where the Christians worship: they affirm that it contains
the sepulchre of Mary. There is also another church, equally venerated,
to which the Christians make a pilgrimage. The reason whereof, however,
is a lie, for they pretend that it contains the tomb of Jesus. Each
person who goes thither as a pilgrim is obliged to pay a certain tribute
to the Mussulmans, and to undergo divers sorts of humiliations, which
the Christians perform very much against their will. They there see the
place where the cradle of Jesus stood, and come to implore his
intercession.'
I have not space to follow our traveler through all the cities of the
Syrian coast, northward to Aleppo, but I can not omit offering one
flower from the garland of poetical quotations which Ibu Batuta (or
rather his amanuensis, Ibn Djozay) hangs on the citadel of the latter
capital. I presume the city then occupied the same position as at
present, on a plain surrounding the rocky acropolis, which is so
striking and picturesque a feature as to justify the enthusiasm of the
Oriental bards. Djemal ed-deen All, however, surpasses them all in the
splendor of his images. Hear him:--
'So lofty soars this castle, so high its summit stands,
Immense and far uplifted above the lower lands,
It lacks but little, truly, that with the heavenly sphere
Around the earth revolving, its towers would interfere.
And they who dwell within it must seek the Milky Way;
There is no nearer cistern which win their thirst allay:
Their horses there go browsing, and crop the stars that pass,
As other beasts the blossoms that open in the grass!'
After this flight, I think I can afford to omit the string of quotations
concerning Damascus, which is celebrated with an equal extravagance. Ibn
Batuta gives a very careful account of the great mosque, including its
priests and scholars. During his stay the plague raged with such
violence that the deaths at one time amounted to two thousand a day. He
relates one circumstance which shows that even religious intolerance
vanished in times of distress. 'All the inhabitants of the city, men,
women, large and small, took part in a procession to the Mosque of
El-Akdam, two miles south of Damascus. The Jews came forth with their
Pentateuch, and the Christians with their Gospel, followed by their
women and children. All wept, supplicated, and sought help from God,
through the means of his Word and his prophets. They repaired to the
mosque, where they remained, praying and invoking God, until three
o'clock in the afternoon. Then they returned to the city, made the
prayer of Friday, and the Lord consoled them.'
On the 1st of September, 1326, he left Damascus, with the great caravan
of pilgrims, for Mecca. He enumerates all the stations on the route, and
his itinerary is almost identical with that which the caravan follows at
the present day. Much space is devoted to a description of the religious
observances which he followed; and, singularly enough, if any
confirmation of his fidelity as a narrator were needed, it is furnished
by the work of Captain Burton. The account of the sacred cities of
Medineh and Mecca corresponds in every important particular with that of
the modern traveler. Thus the integrity of Ibn Batuta, like that of
Marco Polo, is established, after the lapse of five hundred years.
In speaking of the chair of Mohammed, which is preserved in the mosque
at Medineh, he relates the following beautiful tradition: 'It is said
that the ambassador of God at first preached near the trunk of a
palm-tree in the mosque, and that after he had constructed the chair and
transported it thither, the trunk of the palm-tree groaned, as the
female camel groans after her young. Mohammed thereupon went down to the
tree and embraced it; after which it remained silent. The Prophet said,
"If I had not embraced it, it would have continued to groan until the
day of the resurrection."'
After faithfully performing all the observances prescribed for the
pilgrim to Mecca, Ibn Batuta left that city and returned to Medineh. He
then crossed the Arabian peninsula in a north-eastern direction, to the
city of Meshed Ali, near the Euphrates, and thence descended that river
to Bassora. Here he gives us two amusing anecdotes, which reflectively
illustrate his shrewdness and the sturdiness with which he maintained
his religious views. 'The inhabitants of Bassora,' says he, 'are gifted
with a generous character. They are familiar with strangers, rendering
them that which is their due, in such a manner that no one finds a
sojourn among them tiresome. They make their Sunday prayers in the
mosque of the Prince of Believers, Ali. I once attended the prayers in
this mosque; and when the preacher arose and began to recite the sermon,
he made numerous and evident faults. I was surprised thereat, and spoke
of it to the judge Hodjat-ed-deen, who answered, "In this city, there is
no longer an individual who has any knowledge of grammar." This is an
instruction for whoever reflects thereon, and let us praise God, who
changes things and reverses the face of affairs! In fact, this city of
Bassora, the inhabitants whereof had obtained preëminence in grammar,
which there had its origin and received its development,--this city,
which gave to the world the master of this noble science, whose priority
no one contests,--does not now possess a single preacher who pronounces
the Sunday sermon according to grammatical rules!
'The mosque has seven minarets, one of which, according to the belief of
the inhabitants, shakes whenever the name of Ali, son of Abou Talib, is
invoked. I ascended to the terrace (roof) of this mosque, accompanied by
one of the men of Bassora. There I saw, at one of the corners, a piece
of wood nailed to the minaret, and resembling the handle of a mason's
trowel. He who was with me took hold of it, saying, "By the head of the
prince of believers, Ali, shake thyself!" Therewith he shook the handle,
and the minaret trembled. In turn, I placed my hand upon it, and I said
to the man, "And _I_ say, by the head of Abou Bekr, successor to the
Ambassador of God, shake thyself!" Therewith I shook the handle, and the
minaret trembled as before. The people were very much astonished.' The
amanuensis, Ibn Djozay, here interpolates the following remark: 'I have
seen, in a town in the valley of Almansura, in Spain,--which may God
defend!--a tower which shakes without the name of a caliph, or anybody
else, being mentioned.'
At the city of Idhedj, in Irak, then the capital of one of the many
Mongol sultans who at that time reigned in southern Persia, Ibn Batuta
gives another proof of his boldness. Calling upon the Sultan Afrasiab,
who was notorious for his drunken and dissolute habits, the traveler
found him seated upon a divan, with two covered vases--one of gold and
one of silver--before him. A green carpet was brought and placed near
him, upon which the traveler was invited to take his seat, after which
the sultan asked him many questions concerning his travels. 'It seemed
to me, however,' says Ibn Batuta, 'that he was quite intoxicated, for I
had been previously apprized of his habit of giving himself up to drink.
Finally, he said to me in Arabic, which he spoke with elegance. "Speak!"
I said to him, "If thou wouldst listen to me, I would say to thee--Thou
art one of the children of Sultan Ahmed, celebrated for his piety and
devotion; there is no cause of reproach to thee, in thy manner of life,
except _that_!" and I pointed with my finger to the two vases. These
words covered him with shame, and he was silent. I wished to withdraw,
but he ordered me to keep my seat, and said, "It is a mark of the Divine
mercy to meet with such as thou!" Afterwards, seeing that he swayed from
side to side, and desired to sleep, I left him. I had placed my sandals
at the door, and could not find them again. The Fakir Fadhill sought for
them in the hall, and at last brought them to me. His kindness
embarrassed me, and I made apologies. Thereupon he kissed my sandals,
placed them upon his head, in token of respect, and said to me, "May God
bless thee! What thou hast said to our sultan, nobody else would have
dared to say. I hope it will make an impression on him!"'
Continuing his journey to Ispahan and Shiraz, he gives us, as usual,
conscientious accounts of the mosques, priests, and holy men, but no
hint whatever as to his manner of travel, or the character of the
country through which he passed. This portion of his work, however,
contains many interesting historical fragments, relating to the reigns
of the Mongol sultans of Persia, and the dissensions between the two
Moslem sects. After a stay of some length at Shiraz, he returned through
Irak to the celebrated city of Cufa, and thence to Bagdad, which was
then the residence of a simple Mongol prince. Here he describes at
length the mosques, colleges, mausoleums and baths, while Ibn Djozay
takes occasion to introduce his favorite quotations from the poets. The
reader, we think, will find the following more picturesque than the
somewhat formal descriptions of Ibn Batuta:--
'Yea, Bagdad is a spacious place for him who's gold, to spend,
But for the poor it is the house of suffering without end:
I wander idly through its streets, as lost us if I were
A Koran in an atheist's house, which hath no welcome there.'
'A sigh, a sigh for Bagdad, a sigh for Irak's land!
For all its lovely peacocks, and the splendors they expand:
They walk beside the Tigris, and the looks they turn on me
Shine o'er the jeweled necklace, like moons above the sea!'
Our traveler, also, was the forerunner of Layard. In visiting Mosul, he
writes: 'Near this place one sees the hill of Jonah, upon whom be
blessing! and a mile distant from it the fountain which bears his name.
It is said that he commanded the people to purify themselves there; that
afterwards they ascended the aforesaid hill; that he prayed, and they
also, in such manner that God turned the chastisement from their heads.
In the neighborhood is a great ruin, and the people pretend that it is
the remains of the city known under the name of Nineveh, the city of
Jonah. One perceives the vestiges of the wall which surrounded it, as
well as the situation of its gates. On the hill stands a large edifice,
and a monastery, which contains numerous cells, apartments, places of
purification, and fountains, all closed by a single gate. In the middle
of the monastery one sees a cell with a silken curtain, and a door
encrusted with gold and precious stones. This, they say, is the spot
where Jonah dwelt; and they add that the choir of the mosque attached to
the monastery covers the cell in which he prayed to God.'
Returning to Bagdad, Ibn Batuta crossed the Arabian Desert a second
time, and took up his residence in Mecca for the space of three years.
His account of the voyage along the eastern coast of Africa, as far
south as Quiloa, is brief and uninteresting; but on his return he
visited Oman, of which province he gives us the first authentic account.
From the Pearl Islands in the Persian Gulf, he bent his way once more
across Arabia to Mecca, whence he crossed the Red Sea to the Nubian
coast, and descended the Nile to Cairo. I shall omit his subsequent
journeys through Syria and Asia Minor, although they contain many
amusing and picturesque incidents, and turn, instead, to his adventures
in Kipchak (Southern Russia), which was then governed by a sultan
descended in a direct line from Genghis Khan. Embarking at Sinope, he
crossed the Black Sea to Caffa, in the Crimea, which was at that time a
Genoese city. Here a singular circumstance occurred:--
'We lodged in the mosque of the Mussulmans. After we had been resting
there about an hour, we suddenly heard the sound of bells resounding on
all sides. I had then never heard such a sound; I was extremely
terrified, and ordered my companions to ascend the minaret, read the
Koran, praise God, and recite the call to prayer,--which they did. We
now perceived a man who had approached us: he was armed, and wore a
cuirass. He saluted us, and we begged him to inform us who he was. He
gave us to understand that he was the Kadi of the Mussulmans of the
place, and added: "When I heard the reading of the Koran and the call to
prayers, I trembled for your safety, and therefore came to seek you."
Then he departed; but, nevertheless, we received nothing but good
treatment.'
From Caffa, Ibn Eatuta traveled in a chariot to Azof, near which place
he found the camp of the Sultan Mohammed Uzbek Khan, of whose court he
gives a very circumstantial description. He also devotes considerable
space to an account of their manner of keeping the fast of Ramadan. The
favorite wife of the sultan was a daughter of the Greek emperor, who at
the time of the traveler's visit was preparing to set out for
Constantinople, in order that her expected child might be born in the
palace of her fathers. 'I prayed the sultan,' says Ibn Batuta, 'to
permit me to journey in company with the princess, in order that I might
behold Constantinople the Great. He at first refused, out of fear for my
safety, but I solicited him, saying, "I will not enter Constantinople
except under thy protection and thy patronage, and therefore I will fear
no one." He then gave me permission to depart, making me a present of
fifteen hundred ducats, a robe of honor, and a great number of horses.'
The journey to Constantinople was made entirely by land, and consumed
more than two months. It is rather difficult to locate the precise route
traversed by the caravan, except that it must have skirted the shore of
the Black Sea; for I find mention of three great canals, which must
refer to the three arms of the Danube. At the frontier of the Greek
empire, they were received by the brothers of the princess, with a
mounted guard. Ibn Batuta's chronology is a little confused, and we can
only guess that the reigning emperor at that time was Andronicus H.
Palæologus. The description of the entry into Constantinople, and the
interview with the emperor, are among the most curious and interesting
passages in the work.
'We encamped at the distance of ten miles from Constantinople, and on
the following morning the population of the city came forth--men, women,
and children, on foot and on horseback, in their most beautiful costumes
and most magnificent vestments. From daybreak the cymbals, clarions, and
trumpets sounded; the soldiers mounted their horses, and the emperor,
with his wife, the mother of the princess, the great men of the empire,
and the courtiers, issued from the city. Over the head of the emperor
there was a canopy, carried by a certain number of cavaliers and
foot-soldiers, holding in their hands long staves, terminated at the top
by a sort of leather ball, with which they upheld the canopy. In the
centre thereof was a dais, supported on staves by the cavaliers. When
the emperor had advanced, the troops mixed together, and the noise
became great. I was not able to penetrate into the middle of the crowd,
and remained near the baggage of the princess and her companions,
fearing for my safety. It was related to me that when the princess
approached her parents, she alighted and kissed the ground before them;
then she kissed their shoes, and her principal officers did the same.
Our entry into Constantinople the Great took place towards noon, or a
little after. Meanwhile the inhabitants caused the bells to sound, in
such measure that the heavens were shattered with the mixed uproar of
their noise.
'When we had arrived at the outer gate of the palace, we there found
about a hundred men, accompanied by their chief, who was stationed on a
platform. I heard them saying, "The Saracens, the Saracens"--a term by
which they designate the Mussulmans,--and they prevented us from
entering. The companions of the princess said to them. "These people
belong to our suite;" but they answered, "They shall not enter here
without permission." We therefore waited at the gate, and one of the
officers sent some one to inform her of this incident. She was then with
her father, to whom she spoke concerning us. The emperor ordered us to
be admitted, and assigned us a house near that of the princess.
Furthermore, he wrote, in our favor, an order prohibiting any one from
interrupting us in whatever part of the city we might go, and this was
proclaimed in the markets. We remained three days in our residence,
whither they sent us provisions, namely, flour, bread, sheep, fowls,
butter, fish and fruits, also money and carpets.
'On the fourth day after our arrival at Constantinople the princess sent
to me the eunuch Sunbul, the Indian, who took me by the hand and
conducted me into the palace. We passed four gates, near each one of
which were benches, with armed men, the captain occupying a raised
platform covered with carpets. When we had reached the fifth gate, the
eunuch Sunbul left me and entered; then he returned, accompanied by four
Greek eunuchs. These latter searched me, for fear lest I might have a
knife about me. The chief said to me, "Such is their custom; we can not
dispense with a minute examination of whoever approaches the emperor,
whether a high personage or one of the people, a stranger or a native."
This is also the custom in India.
'After I had submitted to this examination, the guardian of the gate
arose, took my hand, and opened. Four individuals surrounded me, two of
whom took hold of my sleeves, while the other two held me from behind.
They conducted me into a grand audience-hall, the walls of which were in
mosaic; the figures of natural productions, whether animal or mineral,
were there represented. In the middle of the hall there was a brook,
both banks of which were bordered with trees; men stood on the right and
on the left, but no one spoke. In the centre of the hall of reception
stood three other men, to whom my four conductors confided me, and who
took me by the garments as the first had done. Another individual having
made a sign to them, they advanced with me. One of them, who was a Jew,
said to me in Arabic, "Fear not; it is their custom to act thus towards
strangers. I am the interpreter, and am a native of Syria." I demanded
of him what salutation I ought to make, and he replied, "Say--May
blessing be upon you!"
'I arrived, finally, at the grand dais, where I beheld the emperor
seated on his throne, having before him his wife, the mother of the
princess. The latter, with her brothers, were stationed at the foot of
the throne. At the right of the sovereign there were six men, four at
his left, and as many behind him; all were armed. Before allowing me to
salute him, or to approach nearer to him, he made me a sign that I
should sit down for a moment, in order to recover from my fear. I did
so, after which I advanced nearer, and saluted him. He invited me, by a
gesture, to sit, but I did not comply. Then he questioned me on the
subject of Jerusalem, the blessed rock (of Jacob), the holy sepulchre,
and the cradle of Jesus, Bethlehem and Hebron, Damascus and Cairo, Irak
and Asia Minor. I replied to all his demands, the Jew performing the
office of interpreter between us. My words pleased him, and he said to
his children, "Treat this man with consideration, and protect him!" Then
he caused me to be clothed with a robe of honor, and assigned to me a
horse, saddled and bridled, as well as an umbrella from among those
which were carried over his own head--which was a mark of protection. I
prayed him to designate some one who should ride with me each day
through the city, in order that I might behold its rarities and marvels,
and speak of them in my own country. He granted my desire. One of the
customs of this people is, that the individual who receives a robe of
honor from the emperor, and mounts a horse from his stables, must be
conducted through the squares of the city, to the sound of trumpets,
clarions and cymbals, so that the population may behold him. This is
oftenest done with those Turks who come from the dominions of the Uzbek
sultan, in order that they may suffer no annoyance. I was conducted
through the markets in the same manner.'
But the autumn night is closing in, and we must shut up the volume. We
can not, to-day, follow the brave old traveler through all the
vicissitudes of his long pilgrimage. He allows us to perceive much that
he does not tell us outright, and it is a satisfaction to learn, from
his pages, that if society were less ordered, secure, and externally
proper five hundred years ago, individual generosity and magnanimity
were more marked, and the good in the human race, as now, overbalanced
the evil. One more story Ibn Batuta must tell us, before we take leave
of him,--one story, which must warm every heart which can appreciate
that rarest of virtues, tolerance. The father of the Greek emperor was
still living, having abdicated the crown in favor of his son Andronicus,
and become a monk. The Moslem traveler thus describes his interview with
the old Christian monarch:--
'I was one day in company with the Greek who was appointed to ride with
me through the city, when we suddenly encountered the old emperor,
walking on foot, clothed in hair garments, and with a felt cap on his
head. He had a long white beard and a noble face, which presented traces
of the pious practices whereto his life was devoted. Before and behind
him walked a troop of monks. He held a staff in his hand, and had a
rosary about his neck. When the Greek beheld him, he alighted, and said
to me, "Dismount; it is the father of the emperor." When the Greek had
saluted him, he demanded who I was, then stopped, and summoned me to
him. I approached; he took my hand, and said to the Greek, who knew the
Arabic language,--"Say to this Saracen (that is to say, Mussulman), that
I press the hand which has entered Jerusalem, and the foot which has
walked by the Holy Rock, and the Holy Sepulchre, and in Bethlehem,"
Having spoken, he placed his hand on my feet, and then passed it over
his own face. I was amazed at the respect which these people exhibit
towards an individual of another religion than their own, who has
visited the holy places. The old emperor then took me by the hand, and I
walked along with him. He questioned me on the subject of Jerusalem and
the Christians who dwell there. In his company I entered the consecrated
ground belonging to the church. As he approached the principal gate, a
crowd of priests and monks issued to salute him, for he was now one of
their chiefs. When he saw them, he let go of my hand, and I said to him,
"I desire to enter the church with thee." He said to the interpreter,
"Inform him that whoever enters is absolutely obliged to prostrate
himself before the principal crucifix. It is a thing prescribed by the
Fathers, and can not be transgressed." I then left him, he entered
alone, and I never saw him again.'
* * * * *
THE LATE LORD CHANCELLOR CAMPBELL.
It is worthy of note that the English statesmen of the present century
have mostly originated in two totally distinct ranks of society. They
have either been the scions of noble and powerful families; or they have
arisen, in spite of circumstance, from humble parents, by the sole
recommendation of personal worth. Of the great middle class, the class
which is certainly the most respectable of the English community, and
which is at present the controlling power in the state, but few have
recently attained great eminence. That the titled and wealthy should
advance to power and influence in a government peculiarly influenced by
such recommendations, is not strange. Any son of a great English house,
who has ambition, and a reasonable share of brains, may attain, with
comparative ease, eminence in the state. An apt example is Lord Russell,
who, with but little genius, with no oratorical force, and hardly more
than medium capacity as a statesman, has become the leader of the
predominant party, by dint of shrewdness, a persevering spirit, and
ambition, backed by the powerful influence of the noble house of
Bedford. And that the master-spirits born in poverty should shake off
the incubus of humble birth, and advance to a level with the noblest, is
not so unnatural or improbable but that the history of every nation
affords us abundant examples of such men; while the middle class, who
are neither stimulated by the calls of penury, nor pushed forward by
hereditary interest, naturally retain a contented mediocrity of renown
and honor.
If any of our readers have visited the House of Lords within the past
two years, they doubtless had their attention directed to the venerable
statesman who for that period has occupied, with eminent dignity and
grace, the office of chairman to that body, and whose recent decease has
been noticed with such profound regret in British journals. On inquiry,
they doubtless learned that this was Lord Chancellor Campbell. He had
risen from the lowest drudgery to the highest eminence of the legal
profession. By the prolific arts of perseverance and industry, he had
scaled each successive round in the ladder of promotion, until now, in
his declining years, with accumulated honor and respect, he had thus
reached the summit, taking precedence after the Archbishop of
Canterbury, holding the great seal, and presiding over the peers of the
realm.
He was one of those rare examples of unconquerable pluck, who have
mastered the prejudice of wealth and power, and to whom has been yielded
a position envied by the most worthy descendants of the most illustrious
nobles. In America, where public distinction is within the reach of all,
it is difficult to conceive of the restraints which beset the humble
aspirant in the old country. But notwithstanding such obstacles, the
examples of such men as Eldon, Stowell, Truro, St. Leonards, Ashburton,
Canning, and Campbell exhibit the gratifying fact, that hereditary power
or wealth can not bide the dignity of great genius; that greatness will
thrust aside the lesser privilege of worldly circumstance, whether it be
born in a palace or a cottage; and that you can no more control the
operation of a superior mind by the vanities of title and lucre, than
you can subordinate truth to error, or eternity to time. The glittering
train of peers and nabobs who followed in the path of the great
Elizabeth lie forgotten under the stately arches of the old cathedrals;
while the poverty-stricken player, William Shakspeare, has adorned every
library with his name, and reigns in every appreciative heart, as a
perfect master of nature and lofty thought. The names of the brilliant
court which welcomed George the Third to the throne of the Plantagenets
no longer linger on the lips of men; while every household boasts its
'Rasselas,' and the civilized world holds sacred the memory of the
illustrious 'Rambler.'
John Campbell was born in 1781, and was the son of an obscure Scotch
clergyman. His father destined him for the clergy; in consequence of
which he was sent to the University of St. Andrews, where he met the
great Dr. Chalmers, then a student like himself. But young Campbell
became averse to the profession which had been chosen for him, and soon
turned his attention to the law. Soon after graduation, he betook
himself to London, where he studied with great zeal, meanwhile supplying
his wants by acting as the theatrical critic of the '_Morning
Chronicle_.' There, seated in an obscure corner of the pit or upper
gallery, we may imagine the Chancellor in embryo, jotting down the petty
excellences and failings of the players, to pamper the taste of the
frivolous on the morrow; while below him, in the decorated boxes and
circles, lolled the vain crowd of coroneted simpletons and courtly
beauties, now long forgotten, while he is honored as the benefactor of
his country's laws. He was called to the bar by the Society of Lincoln's
Inn, and then commenced a long life, replete with arduous study, with
untiring interest in duty, and stubborn perseverance. He early espoused
the liberal doctrines of Fox and Grey; and inasmuch as for many years
after the Tories monopolized the power, his politics were an effectual
bar to his professional preferment. He remained, however, through his
whole life, an earnest and consistent advocate of his early convictions.
Owing to the prejudice which Lord Chancellor Eldon entertained against
the Whigs, he did not obtain the silk gown of King's Counsel till the
venerable Jacobite gave place, in 1827, to the more courteous and
liberal Lyndhurst.
He entered the House of Commons in the year 1830, and was soon
recognized as one of the leading members of the British bar. The period
of his debut in public life is one of peculiar significance in the party
history of England. The long dominion of the statesmen of the Pitt, and
Liverpool school was at last overthrown. The political dogmas which had
resisted Catholic toleration, which had sustained the continental powers
in their persecution of the French Emperor, which had resisted the right
of a neighboring people to choose their own rulers, which had held in
imprisonment the first genius of the century, which had opposed the
abolition of the test act, which had sustained the most licentious and
most obstinate sovereign of modern times, now yielded to the more
enlightened views of such statesmen as Russell and Lansdowne, Brougham
and Grey. Several causes operated to bring about this auspicious change.
George the Fourth, whose partiality for the Tories was only surpassed by
his animosity against the Whigs, had given place to a liberal and
enlightened prince, renowned for his zealous attachment to the popular
weal. Again, Canning's influence in moderating the maxims of Tory
theorists was greatly felt among the gentry. Finally, the rapid growth
of general intelligence, developments in the history of nations, and
juster conceptions of the true relations of sovereign and people,
prepared the public mind for extensive reforms in the constitution. Earl
Grey, a statesman eminent no less for his eloquence and sagacity than
for the worth of his private character, succeeded to the premiership in
1830, being the first Whig who held that office since the cabinet of
'all the talents,' in 1806.
It was at such a juncture that Campbell entered the House of Commons.
The sanguine dreams of his youth were dawning into reality; and he was
gratified to see his cherished principles fully adopted by the country,
and to know that he was a participant in the glories of the great
reform.
In 1832, when he had been a member of the House but two years, and a
King's Counsel but five years, and in the same year that the reform of
Russell and Grey received the royal sign-manual, he was elevated to the
dignity of Solicitor General. No one of the long line of his illustrious
predecessors brought to the discharge of this eminent trust greater
learning and acuteness than Lord Campbell evinced; who, at the same time
of this appointment, was honored with the order of Knighthood. In 1834,
after serving as solicitor with the marked approbation of the
government, he was promoted to the Attorney Generalship.
He now re-entered Parliament as the representative of the capital of his
native Scotland, and became a leader in debate and the transaction of
the public business. He continued Attorney General through the
conservative ministry of Sir Robert Peel, and the subsequent Whig
government of Lord Melbourne. In 1841, he held for a brief period the
Chancellorship of Ireland; being at the same time elevated to the rank
of a peer of England, with the title of John, first Lord Campbell. He
retired from office when Sir Robert Peel returned to power in the autumn
of 1841, and turned his thoughts to the gentle and graceful pursuit of
literature. The first production of his pen was the 'Lives of the Lord
Chancellors,' from the earliest times to the close of Lord Eldon's
Chancellorship, in 1827. For the spirited interest of its style, the
clear and precise detail of fact, and the simple yet elegant course of
its manner, it is surpassed by no work of the present century. It is
regarded by eminent critics as a masterpiece of biography, and may
justly rank with the first books of that character in the English
tongue. It has probably been as serviceable to perpetuate the name of
the author, if not more so, than the numerous profound and equitable
decisions which he has left on the records of the Courts of King's Bench
and Chancery.
It was soon followed by 'The Lives of the Chief Justices of England,'
which only enhanced the reputation of the former work; and we would
heartily recommend both of these books to the perusal of all who are
interested, either professionally or as a matter of taste, in this
branch of literature, as a deeply interesting as well as instructive
entertainment.
In 1846, Lord John Russell assumed office, and Lord Campbell was
recalled from the occupation which had proved so congenial to his mind,
to take a seat in the ministry as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.
While he held this position, he was a frequent and popular debater in
the House of Peers, where he zealously defended the policy of the
government. In 1850, Lord Chief Justice Denman retired from the King's
Bench, ripe in years and in honorable renown, and Lord Campbell was at
once designated as his successor. In this exalted place, he was removed
from the harassing uncertainties of political life; and he continued for
nine years to administer justice with promptitude, skill, and equity.
It was while Chief Justice that he became eminent for the great light he
brought to bear upon many important and intricate questions of law; and
his fame may be said to rest mainly upon the profound ability with which
he exercised the functions of this trust. In 1859, when Lord Palmerston
succeeded to the brief administration of Lord Derby, Lord Campbell was
finally raised to the summit of his profession. He was the fourth
Scotchman who has been Lord Chancellor within the century, and is a
worthy compeer of such men as Loughborough, Erskine, and Brougham. The
long years of unremitting toil were at length crowned with glorious
success; and the great man died in the midst of duty, affluence, honor
and power, while enjoying the prerogatives of the highest judicial
trust, during the summer of the past year.
Whether we consider him as a lawyer, statesman, author, or man, his
character appears in a most amiable light. Profound without pedantry,
subtle without craft, zealous without bigotry, and humane without
effeminacy, he lived a philanthropic, pure, and consistent life. His
highest eulogium is that he lived and died in the service of his
country; that through every vicissitude his chief care was the national
weal; that his chief fame rests in the love and veneration which he
awakened in his countrymen; and that few Englishmen of the present
century have left more enduring monuments of public wisdom and private
example.
'O, civic music, to such a name,
To such a name for ages long,
To such a name,
Preserve the broad approach of fame,
And ever ringing avenues of song.'
* * * * *
CHILD'S CALL AT EVENTIDE.
Bright and fair,--
Golden hair,
Still white hands and face;
Not a plea
Moveth thee;
Nor the wind's wild chase,
As yesterday, calling thee,
Even as I, in vain.
Come--wake up, Gerda!
Come out and play in the lane!
See! the wind,
From behind,
Sporteth with thy locks,
From the land's
Desert sands
And the sea-beat rocks
Cometh and claspeth thy hands,
Even as I, in vain.
Come--wake up, Gerda!
Come out and play in the lane!
Closed thine eyes,
Gently wise,
Dost thou dream the while?
Falls my kiss
All amiss,
Waketh not a smile!
Sweet mouth, is't feigning this?
Then do not longer feign.
Come--wake up, Gerda!
Come out and play in the lane!
Forehead Bold,
White and cold;
Sealed thy lips and all;
I am made
Half afraid
In this lonely hall.
Night cometh quick through the glade!
I fear it is all in vain,--
All too late, Gerda,--
Too late to play in the lane!
* * * * *
THE GOOD WIFE: A NORWEGIAN STORY.
PART I.
NOTHING LOST BY GOOD HUMOR.
For more than a month I had been ransacking my memory in search of some
story or narrative to offer our readers, but with rather poor success. I
thought of all the good things I had ever heard, and tumbled and tossed
my books in vain--nothing could I find that was suitable for either
children or parents. So I was, very reluctantly, about to abandon the
enterprise, when it chanced that, being unable to compose myself to
sleep, a few nights since, I took up, according to my custom on such
occasions, an old copy of Montaigne, the usual companion of my vigils,
the fellow-occupant of my pillow, and the only moralist whose musings
one can read with pleasure on the wrong side of forty.
I opened the _Essays_ carelessly, for each and every page of them is
precious and replete with themes for meditation. In so doing, I alighted
upon the chapter entitled, 'Of three Good Women,'--which commences thus:
'They are not to be found by the dozen, as every one knows, and
especially not in the duties of married life, for that is a market full
of such thorny circumstances that it is no easy matter for a woman's
will to keep whole and sound in it for any length of time.'
'Montaigne is an impertinent fellow!' I exclaimed, slamming to the book.
'What? this close reader of antiquity, this fine analyst of the human
heart, has been able to find only three good women, only three devoted
wives, in all the Greek and Roman annals! This is playing the joker out
of season. Goodness is the special attribute of woman. Every married
woman is good, or supposed to be such. I bethink me, too, that our old
jurists always make the law presume this goodness to exist, at the
outset,'
Thus meditating, I wandered into my library, and there took up a fine
old volume, bound in red morocco, and entitled 'The Dream of Vergier;' a
book full of wisdom and logic, and written by some venerable clerk,
during the reign of Charles V., king of France. I looked for the page
that had struck my fancy, but--alas! how oddly one's memory changes with
the lapse of years--instead of finding, in that grave old book, the just
panegyric of woman's goodness, I discovered, to my great surprise, only
a violent satire all spiced with texts borrowed from St. Augustine, the
Roman laws and the ancient canons, with this sage conclusion, full
worthy of the exordium:--
'I do not say, however, that there is no good woman at all, but the
species is rare; and hence an old law says that no _law concerning good
women_ should be made, for that laws are to be made concerning things of
usual occurrence, as it is written in _Auth. sinc prohib_., etc., _quia
vero_ and L. _Nam ad ca_, Dig. _De Leffibus_.'
These juridical epigrams, these cool pleasantries, in a serious book,
shocked me more than even the hard hits of the Gascon philosopher. 'Good
women,' I thought to myself, 'are found everywhere. In history? No;
history is written by men who love and admire heroes only, that is to
say, those who rob, subjugate, or slay them. In theology? No; it has not
yet forgiven the daughters of Eve the fault which ruined us,--a sin of
which they have retained at least a little share. In the records of the
law, then? No, again; for men make the laws. Woman is, in their eyes,
nothing but a minor, legally incapable of governing herself. God only
knows what is, here, as in all things, the difference between the fact
and the law. Are these good women to be found in plays, romances, or
novels? No, still; for they are but the perpetual recital of feminine
artfulness. Where, then, shall we look for good women?--In the realm of
fable and fiction, in the kingdom of fancy--the dominion of the ideal.
These are the only regions in which merit holds the place it is entitled
to or justice is done to the claims of virtue. What is the tenderness of
Baucis, or the long fidelity of Penelope? Fiction only. And the
resignation of the gentle Griseldis--what is it? An old tale of other
days. In order to find the good woman we are looking for, this is the
ivory portal at which we must knock.
Acting upon this conviction, I reperused all the old traditions, I
called to my aid that peculiar lore of nations which is embodied in
their legends, and which is so vividly, so amiably, and so ingenuously
expressed. I interrogated the story-tellers of every country, Indian,
Persian, Arabic, Turkish, Chinese, Italian, Spanish, French, German,
English, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Russian, Lithuanian, and
even the hoary old wayside narrators of the far Thibet. I plunged into
this ocean of fancy with the recklessness of an accomplished diver,
but,--must I acknowledge it?--less fortunate than even Montaigne with
his history, I have succeeded in bringing back only one woman that I can
call really good, and her I have had to disinter from under the ice and
snows of the North, in a wild country, too, and among a people who are
not so delicate and refined as though Paris were in Norway. From Cadiz
to Stockholm, from London to Cairo and Delhi, from Paris to Teheran and
Samarcand, if the stories are to be believed, there are artful girls and
scheming mothers, in any quantity; but the _good woman_!--where does she
lie hid, and why do they never tell us anything about her? Here is a
hiatus to which I specially call the attention of the learned. In
observing it myself, I feel the more emboldened to relate the story of
the only good woman and wife I have unearthed. It is a simple narrative,
and not thoroughly in accordance with every-day experience, and, indeed,
there may be some squeamish people who will say that it is ridiculous.
No matter--it has one good quality which no one can dispute--it is not
in the ordinary style of either adventure or narration. Novelty is all
the rage at the present day, and what imparts value to things is not
their intrinsic merit, but their strangeness.
Here, then, is my story presented to you, kind reader, just as Messrs.
Asbjoernsen and Moe give it, in their curious collection of Norwegian
tales and legends.
PART II.
GUDBRAND AND HIS WIFE.
There was once a man called Gudbrand, who lived in a lonely little
farm-house on a remote hillside. From this circumstance he got the name
among his neighbors of Gudbrand of the Hill.
Now, you must know that Gudbrand had an excellent wife, as sometimes
happens to a man. But the rarest thing about it was, that Gudbrand knew
the value of such a treasure; and so the two lived in perfect harmony,
enjoying their own happiness, and giving themselves no concern about
either wealth or the lapse of years. No matter what Gudbrand might do,
his wife had foreseen and desired that very thing; so that her good man
could not touch or change or move anything about the house without her
coming forward to thank him for having divined and forestalled her
wishes.
Besides, it was easy for them to get along, since the farm belonged to
them, and they had a hundred solid crowns in a drawer of their closet
and two excellent cows in their stable. They lacked nothing, and could
quietly pass their old age without fear of poverty or toil, and without
having to look to the friendship or the commiseration of any of their
fellow-creatures.
One evening, while they were talking over their various little tasks and
projects, says the wife of Gudbrand to her husband,--
'Husband, I've got a new notion in my head: you must take one of our
cows to town and sell her. We'll keep the other, and she'll be quite
enough to furnish us with all the milk and butter we can use. Why
should we toil for other people? We've money lying in the drawer, and
have no children to look after. So, wouldn't it be better to spare these
arms of ours, now that they are growing old? You will always find
something to occupy your time about the house;--there'll be no lack of
furniture and things to mend, and I'll be more than ever beside you with
my distaff and my knitting-needles.'
Gudbrand bethought him that his wife was right, as usual, and so, as the
next morning was a beautiful one, he set off for the town, at an early
hour, with the cow he wanted to sell. But it was not market day, and he
found no purchaser to take the animal off his hands.
'Well! well!' said Gudbrand, 'at all events, I can take Sukey back to
the place I brought her from; I've got hay and litter in plenty, there,
for the poor brute, and it's no farther returning than it was coming
hither.' Whereupon, he very quietly started again on the road to his
home.
After walking on for a few hours, and just as he was beginning to feel a
little tired, he met a man leading a horse by the bridle toward the
town. The horse was in fine condition, and was all saddled and ready for
a rider. 'The way is long and night rapidly coming on,' thought
Gudbrand. 'I can hardly drag my cow along, and to-morrow I'll have to
take this same walk over again. Now, here's an animal that would suit me
a great deal better, and I'd go back home with him, as proud as a lord.
Who would be delighted to see her husband returning in triumph, like a
Roman general? Why, the wife of Gudbrand!'
Upon this happy thought, Gudbrand stopped the trader and exchanged his
cow for the horse.
Once mounted on the charger's back, our hero felt some qualms of regret,
for he was old and heavy, while the horse was young, frisky, and
headstrong, so that, in less than half an hour, behold, our would-be
cavalier was on foot again, vainly striving to drag along by the bridle
a creature that cocked up his head at every puff of wind, and capered
and pranced at every stone that lay in his path.
'This is a poor bargain I've made,' thought Gudbrand, when, just at that
moment, he descried a peasant driving along a hog so fine and fat that
its stomach touched the ground.
'A nail that is useful is better than a diamond that glitters and can be
turned to nothing, as my wife often says,' reflected Gudbrand; and, with
that, he traded off his horse for the hog.
It was a bright idea to be sure, but our good man had counted without
his host. Don Porker was tired, and wouldn't budge an inch. Gudbrand
talked to him, coaxed him, swore at him, but all in vain; he dragged him
by the snout, he pushed him from behind, he whacked him on both his fat
sides with a cudgel, but it was only labor lost, and Mr. Hog remained
there in the middle of the dusty road like a stranded whale. The poor
farmer was yielding to despair, when, at the very nick of time, there
came along a country lad leading a she-goat, that, with an udder all
swollen with milk, skipped, ran, and played about, in a manner charming
to behold.
'There! that's the very thing I want!' exclaimed Gudbrand. 'I'd far
rather have that gay, sprightly creature than this huge, stupid brute.'
Whereupon, without an instant's hesitation, he exchanged the hog for the
she-goat.
All went well for another half-hour. The young madam with her long horns
greatly amused Gudbrand, who laughed at her pranks till his sides ached.
In fact, too, the goat pulled him along; but, when one is on the wrong
side of forty, one soon gets tired of scrambling over the rocks; and so
the farmer, happening to meet a shepherd feeding his flock, traded his
she-goat for a ewe. 'I'll have just as much milk,' mused he, 'from that
animal as from the other, and, at least, she will keep quiet, and not
worry either my wife or me.'
Gudbrand was right, in one respect, for there is nothing more gentle
than a ewe. This one had no tricks; she neither capered nor butted with
her head, but she stood perfectly still and bleated all the time.
Finding herself separated from her companions, she wanted to rejoin
them, and the more Gudbrand tugged at her tether, the more piteously she
baaed.
'Deuce take the silly brute!' shouted Gudbrand; 'she's as obstinate and
whimpering as my neighbor's wife. Who'll rid me of this bawling,
bellowing little beast? I must get clear of her, at any price.'
'It's a bargain, if you choose, neighbor,' said a country fellow who was
just passing, with a fat goose under his arm. 'Here, take this fine
bird, instead; she's worth two of that ugly sheep that's going to split
its throat in less than an hour, anyhow.'
'Done!' said Gudbrand; 'a live goose is as good as a dead ewe, any day;'
and so he took the goose in exchange.
But it was no easy matter to manage his new bargain. The goose turned
out to be a very disagreeable companion; for, finding itself no longer
on the ground, it fought with its bill, its feet, and its wings, so that
Gudbrand was soon tired of struggling to hold it.
'Pah!' growled he; 'the goose is an ugly, ill-grained creature, and my
wife never would have one about the house.' With this reflection, he
changed the goose, at the first farm-house he came to, for a fine
rooster of rich plumage and furnished with a grand pair of spurs.
This time, he was thoroughly satisfied. The rooster, it is true,
squawked from time to time, in a voice rather too hoarse to gratify most
delicate ears; but as his claws had been tied together with twine and he
was carried head downwards, he finally gave up and resigned himself to
his fate. The only unpleasant circumstance now remaining was that the
day was rapidly drawing to a close. Gudbrand, who had started before
dawn, now found himself fasting, at sundown, without a farthing in his
pocket. He still had a long walk before him, and the good man felt that
his legs were giving out and that his stomach craved refreshment. Some
bold step must be taken; and so, at the first wayside tavern, Gudbrand
sold his rooster for a shilling, and as he had a raging appetite, he
spent the last doit of it for his supper.
'After all,' said he, the while, 'what use would a rooster be to me, if
I had to die of hunger?'
As he, at length, drew near his own dwelling, however, Gudbrand began to
meditate seriously on the curious turn things had taken with him, and,
before entering his home, he stopped at the door of Peter the Gray
beard, as a neighbor of his was called in the surrounding country.
'Well, neighbor,' said Peter, 'how have you prospered in the town?'
'Oh! so, so,' answered Gudbrand; 'I can't say that I've been very lucky,
nor have I much to complain of either;' and he went on to tell all that
had happened.
'Neighbor, you've made a pretty mess of it!' said Peter the Graybeard;
'you'll have a nice time of it when you get home. Heaven protect you
from your dame! I wouldn't be in your shoes for ten crowns.'
'Good!' rejoined Gudbrand of the Hill; 'things might have turned out
still worse for me; but, now, I'm quiet in my mind about it, for my wife
is so clever that, right or wrong, no matter what I've done, well or
ill, she'll not say one word about it.'
'I hear and admire your statement, neighbor,' retorted Peter, 'but, with
all respect for you, I do not believe a word of it.'
'Will you lay a wager on it?' said Gudbrand. 'I have a hundred crowns in
my drawer at home, and I'll bet twenty of them against as many from
you.'
'Done, on the spot!' replied Peter. So, joining hands on it, the two
friends entered Gudbrand's house. Peter stood back at the door to hear
what the husband and wife would have to say.
'Good evening, wife!' said Gudbrand. 'Good evening, husband,' said the
good woman; 'you've come back, then, God be praised! How did you fare
all day?'
'Neither well nor ill,' replied Gudbrand. When I got to the town, I
could find no one there to buy our cow, and so I traded her off for a
horse.'
'For a horse!' said the wife. 'An excellent idea, and I thank you with
all my heart. We can go to church, then, in a wagon, like plenty of
other folks who look down upon us, but are no better than we. If we
choose to keep a horse and can feed him, we have a right to do it, I
suppose, for we ask no odds of anybody. Where is the horse? We must put
him into the stable.'
'I did not bring him all the way home,' answered Gudbrand, 'for, on the
road, I changed my mind; I exchanged the horse for a hog.'
'Come, now,' said the wife, 'that's just what I'd have done, in your
place! Thanks, a hundred times over! Now, when my neighbors come to see
me, I'll have, like everybody else, a bite of ham to offer them. What
need had we of a horse? The folks around us would have said, "See the
saucy things! they think it beneath them to walk to church." Let us put
the hog in a pen!'
'I didn't bring him with me,' said Gudbrand, 'for on the way I exchanged
him for a she-goat.'
'Bravo!' said the good wife. 'What a sensible man you are! When I come
to think of it, what could I have done with a hog? The neighbors would
have pointed us out and have said, "Look at those people--all they make
they eat! But, with a she-goat, I shall have milk and cheese, not to
speak of the little kids. Come, let us put her into the stable."
'I didn't bring the she-goat with me, either,' said Gudbrand; 'I traded
her again, for a ewe.'
'There! That's just like you,' exclaimed the wife, with evident
satisfaction. 'It was for my sake that you did that. Am I young enough
to scamper, over hill and dale, after a she-goat? No, indeed. But, a ewe
will yield me her wool as well as her milk; so let us get her housed at
once.'
'I didn't bring the ewe home, either,' stammered Gudbrand, once more,
'but swapped her for a goose.'
'What? a goose! oh! thanks, thanks a thousand times, with all my
heart--for, after all, how could I have got along with the ewe? I have
neither card nor comb, and spinning is a heavy job, at best. When you've
spun, too, you have to cut and fit and sew. It's far easier to buy our
clothes ready-made, as we've always done. But a goose--a fat one, too,
no doubt--why, that's the very thing I want! I've need of down for our
quilt, and my mouth has watered this many a day for a bit of roast
goose. Put the bird in the poultry-coop.'
'Ah! I've not brought the goose, for I took a rooster in his stead.'
'Good husband!' said the wife, 'you're wiser than I would have been. A
rooster! splendid!--why, a rooster's better than an eight-day clock. The
rooster will crow every morning, at four, and tell us when it is time to
pray to God and set about our work. What would we have done with a
goose? I don't know how to cook one, and as for the quilt, Heaven be
praised, there's no lack of moss a great deal softer than down. So, let
us put the rooster in the corn-yard!'
'I have not brought even the rooster,' murmured Gudbrand, 'for, at
sundown, I felt very hungry, and had to sell my rooster for a shilling
to buy something to eat. If it hadn't been for that I must have starved
to death.'
'God be thanked for giving you that lucky thought,' replied the wife.
'All that you do, Gudbrand, is just after my own heart. What need we of
a rooster? We are our own masters, I think; there is no one to give us
orders, and we can stay in bed just as long as we please. Here you are,
my dear husband, safe and sound. I am perfectly satisfied, and have need
of nothing more than your presence to make me happy.'
Upon this, Gudbrand opened the door;--'Well! neighbor Peter, what do you
say to that? Go, now, and bring me your twenty crowns!' So saying,
Gudbrand hugged and kissed his wife with as much fervor and heartiness
as though he and she had just been wedded, in the bloom of youth.
PART III.
But the narrative does not end with the events described in the last
chapter. There is a reverse to every medal, and even daylight would not
be so charming were it not followed by night. However good and perfect
woman may, generally, be, there are some who by no means share the easy
disposition of Gudbrand's better half. Need I say that the fault is,
usually, in the husband? If he were only to yield, on all occasions,
would he be troubled? Yield? exclaim some fierce moustachioed
individuals. Yes, indeed, yield, or hear the penalty that awaits you.
PART IV.
PETER THE GRAYBEARD.
Peter the Graybeard did not at all resemble Gudbrand. He was
self-willed, imperious, passionate, and had no more patience than a dog
when you snatch away his bone or a cat when you're trying to strangle
her. He would have been insufferable, had not Heaven, in its mercy,
given him a wife who was a match for him. She was headstrong,
quarrelsome, discontented and morose--always ready to keep quiet when
her husband preserved silence, and just as ready to scream at the top of
her voice the moment he opened his mouth.
It was great good fortune for Peter to have such a spouse. Without her,
would he ever have known that patience is not the merit of fools?
One day, in the mowing Season, when he came home, after a fifteen hours'
spell of hard work, in worse humor than usual, and was swearing, cursing
and execrating all women and their laziness, because his soup was not
yet ready for him, his wife exclaimed,--
'Good Lord! Peter, you talk away at a fine rate. Would you like to
change places? To-morrow, I will mow, instead of you, and you stay at
home here and play housekeeper. Then, we'll see which of us will have
the hardest task and come out of it the best.'
'Agreed!' thundered Peter; 'you'll have a chance to find out, once for
all, what a poor husband has to suffer. The trial will teach you a
lesson of respect--something you greatly need.'
So, the next morning, at day-break, the wife set out afield with the
rake over her shoulder and the sickle by her side, all joyous at the
sight of the bright sunshine, and singing like a lark.
Now, who felt not a little surprised, and a little foolish too, to find
himself shut up at home? Our friend Peter the Graybeard. Still, he
wasn't going to own himself beaten, but fell to work churning butter, as
though he had never done anything else all the days of his life.
It's no hard matter to get over-heated when one takes up a new trade,
and Peter soon, feeling very dry, went down into the cellar to draw a
mug of beer from the cask. He had just knocked out the bung and was
applying the spigot, when he heard an ominous crunching and grunting
overhead. It was the sow, devastating the kitchen.
'Oh Lord! my butter's lost!' yelled Peter the Graybeard, as he rushed
pell-mell up the steps, with the spigot in his hand. What a spectacle
was there! the churn upset, the cream spilt all over the floor, and the
huge sow fairly wallowing in the rich and savory tide.
Now even a wiser man would have lost all patience; as for Peter, he
rushed upon the brute, who, with piercing screams, strove to escape; but
it was a hapless day to the thief, for her master caught her in the
doorway and dealt her so well applied and vigorous a blow on the side of
her skull with the spigot that the sow fell dead on the spot.
As he drew back his novel weapon, now covered with blood, Peter
recollected that he had not closed the bung-hole of his cask, and that
all this time his beer was running to waste. So down he rushed again to
the cellar. Fortunately, the beer had ceased to run, but then that was
because not a drop remained in the cask.
He had now to begin his morning's work again, and churn some more butter
if he expected to see any dinner that day. So Peter visited the
dairy-house, and there found enough cream to replaced what he had just
lost. At it he goes again, and churns and churns away, more vigorously
than ever. But, in the midst of his churning, he remembers--a little
late to be sure, but better late than never--that the cow was still in
the stable, and that she had neither food nor water, although the sun
was now high above the horizon. Away he runs then to the stable. But
experience has made him wise: 'I've my little child there rolling on the
floor; now, if I leave the churn, the greedy scamp will turn it over,
and something worse might easily happen!' Whereupon, he takes up the
churn on his back and hastens to the well to draw water for the cow. The
well was deep, and the buckets did not go down far enough. So Peter
leans with all his might, in hot haste, on the rope, and away goes the
cream out of the churn, over his head and shoulders, into the well!
'Confound it!' said Peter between his teeth, 'it's clear that I'm to
have no butter to-day. Let's attend to the cow; it's too late to take
her out to pasture, but there's a fine lot of hay on the house-thatch
that hasn't been cut, and so she'll lose nothing by staying at home.' To
get the cow out of the stable and to put her on the house-roof was no
great trouble, for the dwelling was set in a hollow in the hill-side, so
that the thatch was almost on a level with the ground. A plank served
the purpose of a bridge, and behold the cow comfortably installed in her
elevated pasture! Peter, of course, could not remain upon the roof to
watch the animal; he had to make the mid-day porridge and take it to the
mowers. But he was a prudent man, and did not want to leave his cow
exposed to the risk of breaking her bones; so he tied a small rope
around her neck, and this rope he passed carefully down the chimney of
the cottage into the kitchen below. Having effected this, he descended
himself, and, entering the kitchen, attached the other end of the rope
to his own leg.
'In this way,' said he, 'I make sure that the cow will keep quiet, and
that nothing bad can happen to her.'
He now filled the kettle, dropped into it a good 'lump' of lard, the
necessary vegetables and condiments, placed it on the well-piled fagots,
struck fire with flint and steel, and was applying the match to the
wood, blowing it well the while, when, all at once, crish--crash! away
goes the cow, slipping down over the roof, and dragging our good man,
with one leg in the air and head downwards, clear up the chimney. What
would have become of him, no one could tell, had not a thick bar of iron
arrested his upward flight. And now there they are, both together,
dangling in the air, the cow outside and Peter within; both, too,
uttering the most frightful cries of distress.
As good luck would have it, the wife was just as impatient as her
husband, and, when she had waited just three seconds to see whether
Peter would bring her porridge at the stated time, she darted off for
the house as though it were on fire. When she saw the cow swinging
between heaven and earth, she drew her sickle and cut the rope, greatly
to the delight of the poor brute, who now found herself safe again, on
the only sort of floor she liked. It was a chance no less fortunate for
Peter, who was not accustomed to gazing at the sky with his feet in the
air. But he fell smack into the kettle, head foremost. It had been
decreed, however, that all should come out right with him, that day; the
fire had died out, the water was cold, and the kettle awry, so that he
got off with nothing worse than a scratched forehead, a peeled nose, and
two well scraped cheeks, and, thank Heaven! nothing was broken but the
saucepan.
When his better half entered the kitchen, she found Master Graybeard
looking very sheepish and bloody.
'Well! well!' said she, planting her arms akimbo and her two fists on
her haunches: 'who's the best housekeeper, pray? I have mowed and
reaped, and here I am as good as I was yesterday, while you, _you_,
Mister Cook, Mister Stay-at-home, Mr. Nurse, where is the butter,
where's the sow, where's the cow, and where's our dinner? If our little
one's alive yet, no thanks to you. Poor little fellow!--what would
become of it without kind and careful mamma?'
Whereupon, Mrs. Peter begins to snivel and sob. Indeed, she has need to,
for is not sensibility woman's field of triumph, and are not tears the
triumph of sensibility?
Peter bore the storm in silence, and did well, for resignation is the
virtue of great souls!
PART V.
There, you have my story exactly as it is related, on winter evenings,
to impress ideas of wisdom on the minds of the young Norwegians. Between
the wife of Gudbrand and the wife of Peter the Graybeard they must
choose, at their own risk and peril.
'The choice is an easy one,' says an amiable lady-friend of mine, who
has just become a grandmother. 'Gudbrand's wife is the one to imitate,
not only on account of her prudence, but for her worth. You men are much
more amusing than you fancy: when your own self-esteem is at stake, you
love truth and justice about as much as bats love a glare of light. The
greatest enjoyment these gentlemen experience is in pardoning us when
they are guilty, and in generously offering to overlook our errors when
they alone are in the wrong. The wisest thing we can do is to let them
talk, and to pretend to believe them. That is the way to tame these
proud, magnificent creatures, and, by pursuing the plan perseveringly,
one may lead them about by the nose, like Italian oxen.
'But, aunty,' says a fair young thing beside us, 'one can't keep quiet
all the time. Not to yield when you're not in the wrong, is a right.'
'And when you're wrong, my dear niece, to yield is a royal pleasure.
What woman ever abandoned this exalted privilege? We are all somewhat
akin to that amiable lady who, when all other arguments had been
exhausted, crushed her husband with a magnificent look, as she said,--
'"Sir, I give you my word of honor that I am in the right."
'What could he reply? Can one contradict the veracity of one's own wife?
And what is strength fit for if not to yield to weakness? The poor
husband hung his head, and did not utter another word. But to keep still
is not to acknowledge defeat, and _silence is not peace_!'
'Madame,' says a young married woman, 'it seems to me that there is no
choice left; when a woman loves her husband all is easy; it is a
pleasure to think and act as he does.'
'Yes, my child, that is the secret of the comedy. Every one knows it,
but no one avails herself of it. So long as even the last glow of the
honey-moon illuminates the chamber of a young couple, all goes along of
itself. So long as the husband hastens to anticipate every wish, we have
merit and sense enough to let him do it. But at a later moment, the
scene changes. How, then, are we to retain our sway? Youth and beauty
decay, and the charm of wit and intelligence is not sufficient. In order
to remain mistresses of our homes, we must practice the most divine of
all the virtues--gentleness--a blind, dumb, deaf gentleness of demeanor,
that pardons everything for the sake of pardoning.'
To love a great deal,--to love unconditionally, so as to be loved a
little in return,--that is the whole moral of the story of Gudbrand.
* * * * *
THE HUGUENOT FAMILIES IN AMERICA.
II.
The brave Admiral Coligny first conceived the plan of a colony in
America for the safety of his persecuted Huguenot brethren of France.
Such an enterprise was undertaken as early as the year 1555, with two
vessels, having on board mechanics, laborers, and gentlemen, and a few
ministers of the Reformed faith. They entered the great river which the
Portuguese had already named _Rio Janeiro_, and built a fort, calling it
'Coligny.' Here they sought a new country, where they might adore God in
freedom. Unforeseen difficulties, however, discouraged these bold
Frenchmen, and the pious expedition failed, some dispersing in different
directions, while others regained the shores of France with great
difficulty. A second attempt was also unsuccessful. Coligny, in 1562,
obtained permission from Charles IX. to found a Protestant colony in
Florida. Two ships left Dieppe with emigrants, and, reaching the
American shores, entered a large, deep river called _Port Royal_, which
name it still retains, and is, by coincidence, the spot recently
captured by the United States forces.[F] Fort Charles, in honor of the
reigning king of France, was built near by, and in a fertile land of
flowers, fruits, and singing birds. The country itself was called
_Carolina_. Reduced to the most cruel extremities of famine and death,
the remaining colonists returned to Europe.
Still undismayed by these two disastrous attempts, Coligny, the Huguenot
leader, dispatched a third expedition of three vessels to our shores,
making another attempt near the mouth of the St. John's River (Fort
Caroline). Philip II. was then on the throne, and would not brook the
heresy of the Huguenots, or Calvinism, in his American provinces.
Priests, soldiers, and Jesuits were dispatched to Florida, where the new
settlers, 'Frenchmen and Lutherans,' were destroyed in blood. Such was
the melancholy issue of the earliest attempts to establish a Huguenot or
Protestant settlement in North America. And nearly one hundred years
before it was occupied by the English, Carolina, for an instant, as it
were, was occupied by a band of Christian colonists, but, through the
remorseless spirit of religious persecution, again fell under the
dominion of the uncivilized savages. We refer to these earliest efforts
as proper to the general historical connection of our subject, although
not absolutely necessary to its investigation.
At the commencement of the seventeenth century, England, on her own
behalf, took up the generous plans of Coligny. Possessing twelve
colonies in America, when the edict of Nantes was revoked, that nation
resolved here to offer peaceful homes to persecuted Huguenots from
France. This mercy she had extended to them in England and Ireland; now
her inviting American colonies were thrown open for the same generous
purpose. Even before that insane and fatal measure of Louis XIV., the
Revocation, and especially after the fall of brave La Rochelle, numerous
Protestant fugitives, mostly from the western provinces of France, had
already emigrated, for safety, to British America. In 1662 the French
government made it a crime for the ship-owners of Rochelle to convey
emigrants to any country or dependency of Great Britain. The fine for
such an offence was ten livres to the king, nine hundred for charitable
objects, three hundred to the palace chapel, one hundred for prisoners,
and five hundred to the mendicant monks. One sea-captain, Brunet, was
accused of having favored the escape of thirty-six young men, and
condemned to return them within a year, or to furnish a legal
certificate of their death, on pain of one thousand livres, with
exemplary punishment.[G] It is imagined that these young voluntary
Huguenot exiles emigrated to Massachusetts, from the fact that the same
year when this strange cause was tried in France, Jean Touton, a French
doctor, requested from the authorities of that colony the privilege of
sojourning there. This favor was immediately granted; and from that
period _Boston_ possessed establishments formed by Huguenots, which
attracted new emigrants.
In 1679, Elie Nean, the head of an eminent family from the principality
of Soubise, in Saintonge, reached that city. This refugee, sailing
afterwards in his own merchant vessel for the island of Jamaica, was
captured by a privateer, carried back to France, confined in the
galleys, and only restored to his liberty through the intercession of
Lord Portland.
One of the first acts of the Boston Huguenots was to settle a minister,
giving him forty pounds a year, and increasing his salary afterwards.
Surrounded by the savages on every side, they erected a fort, the traces
of which, it is said, can still be seen, and now overgrown with roses,
currant bushes, and other shrubbery. Mrs. Sigourney, herself the wife of
a Huguenot descendant, during a visit to this time-honored spot, wrote
the beautiful lines,--
'Green vine, that mantlest in thy fresh embrace
Yon old gray rock, I hear that thou with them
Didst brave the ocean surge.
Say, drank thus from
The dews of Languedoc? or slow uncoiled
An infant fibre 'mid the faithful mold
Of smiling Roussillon? Didst thou shrink
From the fierce footsteps of fighting unto death
At fair Rochelle?
Hast thou no tale for me?'
Their fort did not render the French settlers safe from the murderous
assaults of savage enemies. A.W. Johnson, with his three children, were
massacred here by them; his wife was a sister of Mr. Andrew Sigourney,
one of the earliest Huguenots. After this murderous attack the French
Protestants deserted their forest home, repairing to Boston in 1696,
where vestiges of their industry and agricultural taste long remained;
to this day many of the pears retain their French names, and the region
is celebrated for its excellence and variety of this delicious fruit.
The Huguenots erected a church at Boston in 1686, and ten years
afterwards received as pastor a refugee minister from France, named
Diaillé.[H] The Rev. M. Lawrie is also mentioned as one of their
pastors. But from official records we learn more of the Rev. Daniel
Boudet, A.M. He was a native of France, born in 1652, and studied
theology at Geneva. On the revocation, he fled to England, receiving
holy orders from the Lord Bishop of London. In the summer of 1686 he
accompanied the Huguenot emigrants to Massachusetts; and Cotton Mather
speaks of him as a faithful minister 'to the French congregation at New
Oxford, in the _Nipmog_ (Indian) counties.' This was New Oxford, near
Boston. He labored for eight years, 'propagating the Christian faith,'
both among the French and the Indians. He complains, as we do in our
day, of the progress of the sale of rum among the savages,'_without
order or measure_' (July 6, 1691). We shall learn more of him at New
Rochelle, where he removed, probably, in 1695, and could preach to both
English and French emigrants. Soon after the revocation of the Edict of
Nantes, Joseph Dudley, with other proprietors, introduced into
Massachusetts thirty French Protestant families, settling them on the
easternmost part of the 'Oxford tract.'[I]
Massachusetts, peopled in part by the rigid Protestant Dissenters,
naturally favored these new victims, persecuted by a church still more
odious to them than that of England. Their sympathies were deeply
excited by the arrival of the French exiles. The destitute were
liberally relieved, the towns of Massachusetts making collections for
this purpose, and also furnishing them with large tracts of land to
cultivate. In 1686 the colony at Oxford thus received a noble grant of
11,000 acres; and other provinces followed the liberal example. Every
traveler through New England has seen 'Faneuil Hall,' which has been
called the 'Cradle of Liberty,' and where so many assemblages for the
general good have been held. This noble edifice was presented to Boston,
for patriotic purposes, by the son of a Huguenot.
Much of our knowledge concerning the Huguenots of New York has been
obtained from the documentary papers at Albany. Some of the families,
before the revocation, as early as the year 1625, reached the spot where
the great metropolis now stands, then a Dutch settlement. The first
birth in New Amsterdam, of European parents, was a daughter of George
Jansen de Rapelje, of a Huguenot family which fled to Holland after the
St. Bartholomew's massacre, and thence sailed for America. Her name was
Sarah. Her father was a Walloon from the confines of France and Belgium,
and settling on Long Island, at the _Waal-bogt_, or Walloon's Bay,
became the father of that settlement. In 1639 his brother, Antonie
Jansen de Rapelje, obtained a grant of one hundred 'morgens,' or nearly
two hundred acres of land, opposite Coney Island, and commenced the
settlement of Gravesend. Here most numerous and respectable descendants
of this Walloon are met with to this day. Jansen de Rapelje, as he was
called, was a man of gigantic strength and stature, and reputed to be a
Moor by birth. This report, probably, arose from his adjunct of _De
Salee_, the name under which his patent was granted; but it was a
mistake; he was a native Walloon, and this suffix to his name, we doubt
not, was derived from the river Saale, in France, and not Salee, or Fez,
the old piratical town of Morocco. For many years after the Dutch
dynasty, his farm at Gravesend continued to be known as Anthony Jansen's
Bowery. The third brother of this family, William Jansen de Rapelje, was
among the earliest settlers of Long Island and founders of Brooklyn.
Singularly, the descendants of _Antonie_ have dropped the Rapelje, and
retained the name of Jansen, or Johnson, as they are more commonly
called. On the contrary, George's family have left off Jansen, and are
now known as Rapelje or Rapelyea.
Most of the Huguenots who went to Ulster, N.Y., at first sought
deliverance from persecutions among the Germans, and thence sailed for
America. Ascending the Hudson, these emigrants landed at Wiltonyck, now
Kingston, and were welcomed by the Hollanders, who had prepared the way
in this wilderness for the enjoyment of civil and religious liberty.
Here was a Reformed Dutch church, and Hermanus Blomm, its pastor,
commissioned by the Classis of Amsterdam to preach 'both on water and on
the land, and in all the neighborhood, but principally in _Esopus_.'
This region, selected by the French Protestants for their future land,
was like their own delightful native France for great natural beauties.
Towards the east and west flowed the waters of the noble ever-rolling
Hudson, while on the north the Shamangunk Mountains, the loftiest of our
Fishkill monarchs, looked like pillars upon which the arch of heaven
there rested. No streams can charm the eye more than those which enrich
this region,--the Rosendale, far from the interior, the Walkill, with
its rapid little falls, 'the foaming, rushing, warsteed-like' Esopus
Creek, with the dashing, romantic Saugerties, fresh from the
mountain-side. Both the Dutch and the French emigrants followed these
beautiful rivers towards the south, and made their earliest settlements
there. On these quiet and retired banks their ashes repose. Hallowed be
their memories, virtues, and piety! In those regions thousands of their
descendants now enjoy the rich and glorious patrimony which have
followed their industry and frugality.
In the year 1663, the savages attacked Kingston and massacred a part of
its inhabitants, slaying twenty-four, and took forty-five prisoners.
The dominie, Blomin, escaped, and has left a description of the tragical
event.[J] 'There lay,' he writes, 'the burnt and slaughtered bodies,
together with those wounded by bullets and axes. The last agonies and
the moans and lamentations were dreadful to hear.... The houses were
converted into heaps of stones, so that I might say with Micah, "We are
made desolate;" and with Jeremiah, "A piteous wail may go forth in his
distress." With Paul I say, "Brothers, pray for us." I have every
evening, during a whole month, offered up prayers with the congregation,
on the four points of our fort, under the blue sky.... Many heathen have
been slain, and full twenty-two of our people have been delivered out of
their hands by our arms. The Lord our God will again bless our arms, and
grant that the foxes who have endeavored to lay waste the vineyard of
the Lord shall be destroyed.'
Among the prisoners were Catharine Le Fever, the wife of Louis Dubois,
with three of their children. These were Huguenots; and a friendly
Indian gave information where they could be found. The pursuers were
directed to follow the Rondout, the Walkill, and then a third stream;
and a small, bold band, with their knapsacks, rifles, and dogs,
undertook the perilous journey. Towards evening, Dubois, in advance of
the party, discovered the Indians within a few feet of him, and one was
in the act of drawing his bow, but, missing its string, from fear or
surprise, the Huguenot sprang forward and killed him with his sword, but
without any alarm. The party then resolved to delay the attack until
dark; at which hour the savages were preparing for slaughter one of
their unfortunate captives, which was none other than the missing wife
of Dubois himself. She had already been placed upon the funeral pile,
and at this trying moment was singing a martyr's psalm, the strains of
which had often cheered the pious Huguenots in days of the rack and
bloody trials. The sacred notes moved the Indians, and they made signs
to continue them, which she did, fortunately, until the approach of her
deliverers. 'White man's dogs! white man's dogs!' was the first cry
which alarmed the cruel foes. They fled instantly, taking their
prisoners with them. Dubois calling his wife by name, she was soon
restored to her anxious friends, with the other captives. At the moment
of their rescue, the prisoners were preparing for the bloody sacrifice
to savage cruelty, and singing the beautiful psalm of the 'Babylonish
Captives.' Heaven heard those strains, and the deliverance came. During
this fearful expedition the Ulster Huguenots first discovered the rich
lowlands of Paltz.
This was the section which they selected for their homes, distant some
eighty-five miles from New York, along the west shores of the Hudson,
and extending from six to ten miles in the interior. It was called _New
Paltz_, and its patent obtained from Gov. Andreas; twelve of their
brethren were religiously selected by the emigrants as the _Patentees_,
and known by the appellation of the '_Duzine_,' or the twelve patentees,
and these were regarded as the patriarchs in this little Christian
community. A list of the original purchasers has been preserved, and
were as follows: Louis Dubois, Christian Dian, since Walter Deyo,
Abraham Asbroucq, now spelt Hasbrouck, Andros Le Fever, often Le Febre
and Le Febore, John Brook, said to have been changed into Hasbrouck,
Peter Dian, or Deyo, Louis Bevier, Anthony Cuspell, Abraham Du Bois,
Hugo Freir, Isaac Dubois, Simon Le Fever.
A copy of this agreement with the Indians still exists, and the
antiquarian may find it among the State records at Albany. It is a
curious document, with the signatures of both parties, the patentees'
written in the antique French character, with the hieroglyphic marks of
the Indians. A few Indian goods--kettles, axes, beads, bars of lead,
powder, casks of wine, blankets, needles, awls, and a 'clean
pipe'--were the insignificant articles given, about two centuries ago,
for these lands, now proverbially rich, and worth millions of dollars.
The treaty was mutually executed, according to the records from which we
quote, on the 20th of May, 1677.
The patentees immediately took possession of their newly-acquired
property, their first conveyances being three wagons, which would be
rare curiosities in our day. The wheels were very low, shaped like
old-fashioned spinning-wheels, with short spokes, wide rim, and without
any iron. The settlers were three days on their way from Kingston to New
Paltz, a distance of only sixteen miles. The place of their first
encampment is still known by the name of '_Tri Cor_,' or three cars, in
honor of these earliest conveyances. Soon, however, they selected a more
elevated site, on the banks of the beautiful Walkill, where the village
now stands. Log houses were erected not far apart, for mutual defence,
and afterwards stone edifices, with port-holes, some of which still
remain.
* * * * *
MACCARONI AND CANVAS.
INTRODUCTION.
Rome is the cradle of art,--which accounts for its sleeping there.
Nature, however, is nowhere more wide awake than it is in and around
this city: therefore, Mr. James Caper, animal painter, determined to
repose there for several months.
The following sketches correctly describe his Roman life.
ARRIVAL IN ROME.
It was on an Autumn night that the traveling carriage in which sat James
Caper arrived in Rome; and as he drove through that fine street, the
Corso, he saw coming towards him a two-horse open carriage, filled with
Roman girls of the working class (_minenti_). Dressed in their
picturesque costumes, bonnetless, their black hair tressed with flowers,
they stood up, waving torches, and singing in full voice one of those
songs in which you can go but few feet, metrically speaking, without
meeting _amore_. And then another and another carriage, with flashing
torches and sparkling-eyed girls. It was one of the turnouts of the
_minenti_; they had been to Monte Testaccio, had drank all the wine they
could pay for; and, with a prudence our friend Caper could not
sufficiently admire, he noticed that the women were in separate
carriages from the men. It was the Feast Day of Saint Crispin, and all
the cobblers, or artists in leather, as they call themselves, were
keeping it up bravely.
'Eight days to make a pair of shoes?' he once asked a shoemaker. 'Si,
Signore, there are three holidays in that time.' Argument unanswerable.
As the carriages rolled by, Caper determined to observe the festivals.
The next day our artist entered his name in his banker's register, and
had the horror of seeing it mangled to 'Jams Scraper' in the list of
arrivals published in the _Giornale di Roma_. For some time after his
arrival in Rome, he was pained to receive cards, circulars, notices,
letters, advertisements, etc., from divers tradesmen, all directed to
the above name. In revenge, he here gives them a public airing. One firm
announces,--
'Manafactury of Remain Seltings, Mosaïques, Cameas, Medalls, Erasofines,
&c.' (Erasofines is the Roman-English for crucifixes.) And on a slip of
paper, handsomely printed, is an announcement that they make 'Romain
Perles of all Couloueurs'--there's color for you!
A tailor, under the head of '_Ici un parle Français_,' prints, 'Merchant
_and_ tailor. Cloths (clothes?) Reddy maid, Mercery Roman; Scarfs, etc.'
Another, 'Roman Artickles Manofactorer'--hopes to be 'honnoured with our
Custom, (American?), and flaters himsself we will find things to our
likings.' Everything but the English, you know--that is not exactly to
our liking. Another, from a lady, reads,--
_A VENTRE!_
_une Galérie decomposée de 300 d'Anciens Maitres, et de l'école romaine
peintres sur bois, sur cuivre et sur toit, &c._
_Ventre_ for _Vendre_ is bad enough, but a 'gallery of decomposed old
masters and of Roman school painters on wood and on the roof,' when it
was intended to say 'A gallery composed of 300 of the old masters--' But
let us leave it untranslated; it is already _decomposée_.
A SHORT WALK.
Mr. Caper having indignantly rejected the services of all professors of
the guiding art or 'commissionaires,' slowly sauntered out of his hotel
the morning after his arrival, and, map in hand, made his way to the
tower on the Capitoline Hill. Threading several narrow, dirty streets,
he at last went through one where in one spot there was such a heap of
garbage and broccoli stumps that he raised his eyes to see how high up
it reached against the walls of a palace; and there read, in black
letters,
_Immondezzaio_;
literally translated, A Place for Dirt. On the opposite wall, which was
the side of a church, he saw a number of black placards on which were
large white skulls and crossbones, and while examining these, a
bare-headed, brown-bearded, stout Franciscan monk passed him. From a
passing glance, Caper saw he looked good-natured, and so, hailing him,
asked why the skulls and bones were pasted there.
'Who knows?' answered the monk. 'I came this morning from the Campagna;
this is the first time in all my life I have been in this magnificent
city.'
'Can you tell me what that word means up there?' said Caper, pointing to
_immondezzaio_.
'Signore, I can not read.'
'Perhaps it is the name of the street, maybe of the city?'
'It must be so,' answered the priest, 'unless it's a sign of a lottery
office, or a caution against blasphemy up and down the pavement. Those
are the only signs we have in the country, except the government salt
and cigar shops.' ... He took a snuff-box from a pocket in his sleeve,
and with a bow offered a pinch to Mr. Caper. This accepted, they bid
each other profoundly farewell.
'There goes a brick!' remarked the traveler.
Arrived at the entrance-door to the tower of the Capitoline Hill, James
Caper first felt in one pocket for a silver piece and in the other for a
match-box, and finding them both there, rang the bell, and then mounted
to the top of the tower. Lighting a _zigarro scelto_ or papal cigar, he
leaned on both elbows on the parapet, and gazed long and fixedly over
the seven-hilled city.
'And this,' soliloquized he, _is_ Rome. Many a day have I been kept in
school without my dinner because I was not able to parse thee idly by,
_Roma_--Rome--noun of the first declension, feminine gender, that a
quarter of a century ago caused me punishment, I have thee now literally
under foot, and (knocking his cigar) throw ashes on thy head.
'My mission in this great city is not that of a picture-peddler or art
student. I come to investigate the eating, drinking, sleeping
arrangements of the Eternal City--its wine more than its vinegar, its
pretty girls more than its galleries, its _cafés_ more than its
churches. I see from here that I have a fine field to work in. Down
there, clambering over the fallen ruins of the Palace of the Cæsars, is
a donkey. Could one have a finer opportunity to see in this a moral and
twist a tail? From those fallen stones, Memory-glorious old
architect--rears a fabric wondrously beautiful; peoples it with eidolons
white and purple-robed, and gleaming jewel-gemmed; or, iron armed,
glistening with flashing light from polished steel--heroes and slaves,
conquerors and conquered; my blood no longer flows to the slow, jerking
measure of a nineteenth-century piece of mechanism, but freely, fully,
and completely. Hurrah, my blood is up! dark, liquid eyes; black,
flowing locks; strange, pleasing perfumes are around me. There is a rush
as of a strong south wind through a myriad of floating banners, and I am
borne onward through triumphal arches, past pillared temples, under the
walls of shining palaces, into the Coliseum....
'Pray, and can you tell me--if that pile of d----d old rubbish--down
there, you know--is the Forum--for I do not--see it in Murray--though
I'm sure--I have looked very clearly--and Murray you know--has
everything down in him--that a traveler....
'A commercial traveler?' ... interrupted Mr. Caper, speaking slowly, and
looking coolly into the eyes of the blackguard Bagman.... 'The ruins you
see there are those of the Forum. Good morning.'
MODERN ART.
'Lucrezia Borgia at the Tomb of Don Giovanni! You see,' said the artist,
'I have chosen a good name for my painting, ... and it's a great point
gained. Forty or fifty years ago, some of those fluffy old painters
would have had Venus worshiping at the shrine of Bacchus.'
'Whereas, you think it would be more appropriate for her to worship
Giove?' ... asked Capar.
'No _sir_!... I run dead against classic art: it's a drug. I tried my
hand at it when I first came to Rome. Will you believe me, I never sold
a picture. Why that very painting'--pointing to the Borgia--'is on a
canvas on which I commenced The Subjugation of Adonis.'
'H'm! You find the class of Middle Age subjects most salable then?'
'I should think I did. Something with brilliant colors, stained glass
windows, armor, and all that, sells well. The only trouble is,
ultramarine costs dear, although Dovizzelli's is good and goes a great
ways. I sold a picture to an Ohio man last week for two hundred dollars,
and it is a positive fact there was twenty _scudi_ (dollars) worth of
blue in it. But the infernal Italians spoil trade here. Why, that fellow
who paints Guide's Speranzas up there at San Pietro in Vineulo is as
smart as a Yankee. He has found out that Americans from Rhode Island
take to the Speranza, because Hope is the motto of their State, and he
turns out copies hand over fist. He has a stencil plate of the face, and
three or four fellows to paint for him; one does the features of the
face, another the hand, and another rushes in the background. Why, sir,
those paintings can be sold for five _scudi_, and money made on them at
that. But then what are they? Wretched daubs not worth house-room. Have
you any thoughts of purchasing paintings?'
Caper smiled gently.... 'I had not when I first came to Rome, but how
long I may continue to think so is doubtful. The temptations' (glancing
at the Borgia) 'are very great.' ...
'Rome,' ... interrupted the artist, ... 'is the cradle of art.'
A ROOM HUNT.
Caper, on his first arrival in Home, went to the Hotel Europe, in the
Piazza di Spagna. There for two weeks he lived like a _milordo_. He
formed many acquaintances among the resident colony of American artists,
and was received by them with much kindness. Some of the mercenary ones
of their number, having formed the opinion that he came there to buy
paintings, ignorant of his profession, were excessively polite;--but
their offers of services were declined. When Caper finally moved to
private lodgings in Babuino Street and opened a studio, hope for a
season bade these salesmen all farewell; they groaned, and owned that
they had tried but could not sell.
Among the acquaintances formed by Caper, was a French artist named
Rocjean. Born in France, he had passed eight or ten years in the United
States, learned to speak English very well, and was residing in Rome 'to
perfect himself as an artist.' He had, when Caper first met him, been
there two years. In all this time he had never entered the Vatican, and
having been told that Michael Angelo's Last Judgment was found to have a
flaw in it, he had been waiting for repairs before passing his opinion
thereon. On the other hand, he had studied the Roman _plebe_, the
people, with all his might. He knew how they slept, eat, drank, loved,
made their little economies, clothed themselves, and, above all, how
they blackguarded each other. When Caper mentioned to him that he wished
to leave his hotel, take a studio and private lodgings, then Rocjean
expanded from an old owl into a spread eagle. Hurriedly taking Caper by
the arm, he rushed him from one end of Rome to the other, up one
staircase and down another; until, at last, finding out that Rocjean
invariably presented him to fat, fair, jolly-looking landladies
(_padrone_), with the remark, 'Signora, the Signor is an Englishman and
very wealthy,' he began to believe that something was wrong. But Rocjean
assured him that it was not--that, as in Paris, it was Madame who
attended to renting rooms, so it was the _padrona_ in Rome, and that the
remark, 'he is an Englishman, and very wealthy,' were synonymous, and
always went together. 'If I were to tell them you were an American it
would do just as well--in fact, better, but for one thing, and that is,
you would be swindled twice as much. The expression "and very wealthy,"
attached to the name of an Englishman, is only a delicate piece of
flattery, for the majority of the present race of traveling English are
by no means lavish in their expenditures or very wealthy. In taking you
to see all these pretty women, I have undoubtedly given you pleasure, at
the same time I have gratified a little innocent curiosity of mine:--but
then the chance is such a good one! We will now visit the Countess ----,
for she has a very desirable apartment to let; after which we will
proceed seriously to take rooms with a home-ly view.'
The Countess ---- was a very lovely woman, consequently Caper was
fascinated with the apartment, and told her he would reflect over it.
'Right,' said Rocjean, after they had left; 'better reflect over it than
in it--as the enormous draught up chimney would in a short time compel
you to.'
'How so?'
'I have a German friend who has rooms there. He tells me that a cord of
firewood lasts about long enough to warm one side of him; when he turns
to warm the other it is gone. He has lived there three years reflecting
over this; the Countess occasionally condoles with him over the draught
of that chimney.'
'H'm! Let us go to the homely: better a drawn sword than a draught.'
They found a homely landlady with neat rooms in the via Babuino, and
having bargained for them for twelve _scudi_ a month, their labors were
over.
MACCARONICAL.
There was, when Caper first came to Rome, an eating-house, nearly
opposite the fountain Trevi, called the Gabioni. It was underground,--in
fact, a series of cellars, popularly conjectured to have been part of
the catacombs. In one of these cellars, resembling with its arched roof
a tunnel, the ceiling so low that you could touch the apex of the round
arch with your hand, every afternoon in autumn and winter, between the
hours of five and six, there assembled, by mutual consent, eight or ten
artists. The table at which they sat would hold no more, and they did
not want it to. Two waiters attended them, Giovanni for food, Santi for
wine and cigars. The long-stemmed Roman lamps of burnished brass, the
bowl that held the oil and wicks resembling the united prows of four
vessels, shedding their light on the white cloth and white walls, made
the old place cheerful. The white and red wine in the thin glass flasks
gleamed brightly, and the food was well cooked and wholesome. Here in
early winter came the sellers of 'sweet olives,' as they called them,
and for two or three cents (_baiocchi_) you could buy a plateful. These
olives were green, and, having been soaked in lime-water, the bitter
taste was taken from them, and they had the flavor of almonds.
But the maccaroni was the great dish in the Gabioni; a four-cent plate
of it would take the sharp edge from a fierce appetite, assisted as it
was by a large one-cent roll of bread. There was the white pipe-stem and
the dark ribbon (_fettucia_) species; and it was cooked with sauce (_al
sugo_), with cheese, Neapolitan, Roman and Milan fashion,
and--otherways. Wild boar steaks came in winter, and were cheap. Veal
never being sold in Rome until the calf is a two-year-old heifer, was no
longer veal, but tender beef, and was eatable. Sardines fried in oil and
batter were good. Game was plenty, and very reasonable in price, except
venison, which was scarce. The average cost of a substantial dinner was
from thirty to forty baiocchi, and said Rocjean, 'I can live like a
prince--like the Prince B----, who dines here occasionally--for half
that sum.'
The first day Caper dined in the Gabioni, what with a dog-fight under
the table, cats jumping upon the table, a distressed marchioness (fact)
begging him for a small sum, a beautiful girl from the Trastevere,
shining like a patent-leather boot, with gold ear-rings, and brooch, and
necklace, and coral beads, who sat at another table with a French
soldier--these and those other little _piquante_ things, that the
traveler learns to smile at and endure, worried him. But the dinner was
good, his companions at table were companionable, and as he finished an
extra _foglietta_ (pint) of wine, price eight cents, with Rocjean, he
concluded to give it another trial. He kept at giving it trials until
the old Gabioni was closed, and from it arose the Four Nations or
Quattre Nazione in Turkey Cock Alley (_viccolo Gallmaccio_), which, as
any one knows, is near Two Murderers' Street. (_Via Due Macelli_)
'Now that we have finished dinner,' spoke Rocjean, 'we will smoke: then
to the Caffe or Café Greco and have our cup of black coffee.'
AMERICA IN ROME.
It may be a good thing to have the conceit taken out of us--but not by
the corkscrew of ignorance; the operation is too painful. Caper, proud
of his country, and believing her in the front rank of nations, was
destined to learn, while in Rome and the Papal States, that America was
geographically unknown.
He consoled himself for this with the fact that geography is not taught
in the 'Elementary Schools' there;--and for the people there are no
others.
The following translation of a notice advertising for a schoolmaster,
copied from the walls of a palace where it was posted, shows the sum
total taught in the common schools:--
The duties of the Master are to teach Reading, Writing, the First
Four Rules of Arithmetic; to observe the duties prescribed in the
law '_Quod divina sapientia_;' and to be subject to the biennial
committee like other salaried officers of the department; as an
equivalent for which he shall enjoy (_godrá_) an annual salary of
$60, payable in monthly shares.
(Signed)
IL GONFALONIERE ---- ----.
But what can you expect when one of the rulers of the land asserted to
Caper that he knew that 'pop-corn grew in America on the banks of the
Nile, after the water went down,--for it never rains in America'?
It was a handsome man, an advocate for Prince Doria, who, once traveling
in a _vetturo_ with Caper, asked him why he did not go to America by
land, since he knew that it was in the south of England; and gently
corrected a companion of his, who told Caper he had read and thought it
strange that all Americans lived in holes in the ground, by saying to
him that if such houses were agreeable to the _Signori Americani_ they
had every right to inhabit them.
The landlord of a hotel in a town about thirty miles from Rome asked
Caper if, when he returned to New York, he would not some morning call
and see his cousin--in Peru!
This same landlord once drew his knife on a man, when, accompanied by
Caper, he went to observe a saint's day in a neighboring town. The cause
of the quarrel was this--the landlord, having been asked by a man who
Caper was, told him he was an American. The man asserted that Americans
always wore long feathers in their hair, and that he did not see any on
Caper's head. The landlord, determined to stand by Caper, swore by all
the saints that they were under his hat. The man disbelieved it. Out
came the 'hardware' with that jarring cr-r-r-rick the blade makes when
the notched knife-back catches in the spring, but Caper jumped between
them, and they put off stabbing one another--until the next saint's day.
It was with pleasure that Caper, passing down the Corso one morning, saw
there was an Universal Panorama, including views of America, advertised
to be exhibited in the Piazza Colonna. 'Here is an opportunity,' thought
he, 'for the Romans to acquire some knowledge of a land touching which
they are very much at sea. The views undoubtedly will do for them what
the tabooed geographies are not allowed to do--give them a little
education to slow music.'
Accompanied by Rocjean, he went one evening to see it, and found it on
wheels in a traveling van, drawn up at one side of the Colonna Square.
'Hawks inspected it the other evening,' said Rocjean; 'and he describes
it as well worth seeing. The explainer of the Universal Panorama
resembles the wandering Jew, exactly, with perhaps a difference about
the change in his pockets; and the paintings, comical enough in
themselves, considering that they are supposed to be serious likenesses
of the places represented, are made still funnier by the explanations of
the manager.'
Securing tickets from a stout, showy ticket-seller, adorned with a
stunning silk dress, crushing bracelets, and an overpowering bonnet,
they subduedly entered a room twenty feet long by six or eight wide,
illuminated with the mellow glow of what appeared to be about thirty
moons. The first things that caught their eye were several French
soldiers who were acting as inspection guard over several rooms, having
stacked their muskets in one corner. Their exclamations of delight or
sorrow, their criticisms of the art panoramic, in short, were full of
humor and trenchant fun. But 'the explanator' was before them; where he
came from they could not see, for his footsteps were light as velvet,
evidently having 'gums' on his feet; his milk-white hair, parted in the
middle of his forehead, hung down his back for a couple of feet, while
his milk-white beard, hanging equally low in front, gave him the
appearance of a venerable billy goat. He was an Albino, and his eyes
kept blinking like a white owl's at mid-day. He had a voice slightly
tremulous, and mild as a cat's in a dairy.
'Gen-till-men, do me the playshure to gaze within this first hole. 'Tis
the be-yu-ti-fool land of Sweet-sir-land. Vi-yew from the some-mut of
the Riggy Cool'm. Day break-in' in the dis-tant yeast. He has a blan-kit
round him, sir; for it is cold upon the moun-tin tops at break of day.
[Madame, the stupen-doss irrup-tion of Ve-soov-yus is two holes from the
corner.]
'Gen-till-men, do me the play-zure to gaze upon the second hole. 'Tis
Flor-renz the be-yu-ti-fool, be the bangs off the flowin' Arno. 'Twas
here that--'
'No matter about all that,' said Caper; 'show off America to us.' He
slipped a couple of _pauls_ into his hand, and instantly the Venerable
skipped four moons.
'Gen-till-men, do me the play-zure to gaze upon this hole. 'Tis the
be-yu-ti-fool city of Nuova Jorck in Ay-mer-i-kay, with the
flour-ish-ing cities of Brook-lyn, Nuova Jer-sais, and Long Is-lad. The
impo-sing struc-ture of rotund form is the Gr-rand Coun-cill Hall
con-tain-ing the coun-cill chamber of the Amer-i-can nations.... [You
say it is the Bat-tai-ree? It may be the Bat-tai-ree.] _What is that
road in Broo-klin_? that is the ra'l-road to Nuova Or-lins di-rect.
_What is that wash-tub_? "Tis not a wash-tub--'tis a stim-boat. They
make the stim out of coal, which is found on the ground. _Is that the
Ay-mer-i-cain eagill_? 'Tis not; 'tis a hoarse-fly which has
in-tro-doo-ced hisself behind the glass. _Are those savages in Nuova
Jer-sais_? (New Jersey.) Those are trees.'
'Pass on, illustrious gen-till-men, to the next hole. 'Tis the
be-yu-ti-fool city of Filadelfia. The houses here are all built of
woo-ood. The two rivaires that cir-cum-vent the city are the Lavar
(Delaware?) and the Hud-soon. I do not know what is "a pum-king cart,"
but the car-riage which you see before you is a fi-ah engine, be-cause
the city is all built of woo-ood. The tall stee-ple belongs to the
kay-ker (Quaker) temple of San Cristo.'
Rocjean now gave the Venerable a _paul_, requesting him to dwell at
length upon these scenes, as he was a Frenchman in search of a little of
geography.
'Excellencies, I will do my en-dea-vors. The gran-diose ship as lies in
the Lavar (Delaware) riv-aire is fool of em-i-gr-rants. The signora
de-scen-din' the side of the ship is in a dreadful sit-u-a-tion tru-ly.
[Per-haps the artist was in a boat and de-scri-bed the scene as he saw
it.] The elephant you see de-scen-din' the street is a nay-tive of this
tropi-cal re-gion, and the cock-a-toos infest the sur-round-in' air. The
Moors you see along the wharves are the spon-ta-ne-ous born of the soil.
Those are kay-kers (Quakers?) on mules with broad-brimmed hats onto
their heads; the sticks in their hands are to beat the Moors who live on
their su-gar plan-tay-tions.... Music? did you ask, Madame? We have none
in this establish-ment. Kone.
'Excellencies, the next hole. 'Tis the be-yu-ti-fool city of
Bal-ti-mory. You behold in the be-fore ground a gr-rand feast day of
Amer-i-cain peas-ants; they are be-hold-ing their noble Count
re-pair-ring to the chase with a serf on a white hoarse-bag
(horse-back?). The little joke of the cattle is a play-fool fan-cy of
the jocose artiste as did the panorama. I am un-ac-count-able for
veg-garies such as them. The riv-aire in the bag-ground is the
Signora-pippi'....
'The what?' asked Caper, shaking with laughter.
'A gen-till-man the other day told me that only the peasants in Americay
say Missus or Mis-triss, and that the riv-aire con-se-kwen-tilly was not
Missus-pippi, but, as I have had the honor of saying, the Signora-pippi
rivaire. The next hole, Excel-len-cies!--'Tis the be-yu-ti-fool city of
Vaskmenton (Washington), also on the Signora-pippi riv-aire. The white
balls on the trees is cot-ton. Those are not white balls on the ground,
those are ship;--ships as have woolen growin' onto their sides (sheep?).
'Tis not a white bar-racks: 'tis the Palazzo di Vaskmenton, a nobil
gen-e-ral woo lives there, and was for-mer-ly king of the A-mer-i-cain
nations. What does that Moor, with the white lady in his arms? it is a
negro peas-sant taking his mis-triss out to air,--'tis the customs in
those land.... That negress or fe-mail Moor with some childs is also
airring, and, the white 'ooman tyin' up her stockings is a sportive of
the artiste. He is much for the hum-or-ous.
'Excellencies, the last hole A-mer-i-cain. 'Tis the stoo-pen-doss
Signora-pippi rivaire in all its mag-gnif-fi-cent booty. What is that
cockatoo doing there? He is taking a fly. _You do not see the fly_? I
mean a flight. _What is that bust to flin-ders_? That is a stim-boat was
carryin' on too much stim, and the stim, which is made of coal, goes,
off like gun-pow-dair if you put lights onto it. This is a fir-ful and
awe-fool sight. The other stim-boat is not bustin', it is sailin'. What
is that man behind the whil-house with the cards while another signer
kicks into him on his coat-tails, I do not know. It is steel the
sportifs of the artiste.'
'Excel-len-cies, the last hole. 'Tis the be-yu-ti-fool bustin'--no, not
bustin', but ex-plo-sion of Vee-soov-yus. You can see the sublime sight,
un-terrupt-ted be me ex-play-nations. I thank you for your attentions
auri-cu-lar and pe-coo-niar-ry. _Adio_, until I have the play-shure of
seein' you oncet more.'
'I tell you what, Rocjean,' said Caper, as he came out from the
panorama, 'America has but a POOR SHOW in the Papal dominions.'
* * * * *
JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY.
Grand with all that the young earth had of vigorous and queenly to adorn
her, rich with the spoils of victories not all bought with battle-axe
and sword, stately with a pride that had won its just and inalienable
majesty from elastic centuries of progress and culture, History, the
muse to whom fewest songs were sung, yet whose march was music's
sublimest voice, trembled upon the brink of the Dark Ages, and leaped,
in her armor, into the abyss of ignorance before her. A poetry the
purest, an art the noblest, a religion deeply symbolical, a freedom bold
and magnificent, had given to the world-histories of those early days a
melody varied and faultless, a form flowing yet well-defined, an
earnestness that was sacred, a truth that was divine. A philosophy rich
and largely suggestive had made the great men of Greece and Rome alert,
vigilant, penetrating, before luxury and oppression had dragged them
down to ruin and ignorance; and at last Ambition, splendid but
destructive, becoming the world's artist, blended the midnight tints of
decline and suffering with the carnation of triumph and liberty, and
cast over the pictures of History the Rembrandt-like shadows, heavy and
wavering, that add a fearful intensity to their charms.
To these eras, once splendid and promising, succeeded a night, long,
hopeless, disastrous. Its hours were counted by contentions, its
darkness was deepened by crime. The sun had set upon a mighty empire,
regnant upon her seven hills, glorious with conquest, drunken with
power: when the day dawned upon the thousandth year of the Christian
era, its crumbled arches and moss-grown walls alone testified to the
truth of History that had survived the universal destruction.
And now came the age of knight and paladin, of crusades and talismans.
The rough, vigorous life that had been developing at the North,
exuberant with a strength not yet so mature that it could be employed in
the wise and practical pursuits of civilized life, burst forth into an
enthusiasm half military, half religious, that pervaded all ranks, but
was 'mightiest in the mighty.' The Saxons, fair-haired, with wild blue
eyes, whence looked an inflexible perseverance, the dark-browed Normans,
and the men of fair Bretagne, swooped down falcon-like from their nests
among the rocks and by the seas of Northern Europe upon the impetuous
Saracens, and fought brave poems that were written on sacred soil with
their blood. From the strife of years the heroes returned, their flowing
locks whitened by years and suffering, the fair Saxon faces browned by
the fervent suns of the distant East. From hardship and imprisonment
they marched with gay songs amid acclamations and welcome to their homes
upon the Northern shores. Their once shining armor was dimmed and
rusted with their own blood; but they bore upon their 'spears the light'
of a culture more refined, a knowledge more subtle, than those high
latitudes had ever before known.
From this marriage of the barbaric vigor of the North with the delicate
and infinitely pliable sensuousness of the South, the classic union of
Strength and Desire, Chivalry was born. Leaping forth to light and
power, a majestic creation, glittering in the knightly panoply, noble by
its knightly vows, it stood resplendent against the dark background of
the past ages, the inevitable and legitimate offspring of the times and
circumstances that gave it birth. The courtly baptism was eagerly
sought, its requirements rigidly obeyed. The lands bristled with the
lances of their valiant sons, and Quixotic expeditions were the order of
the age. But not alone with sword and spear were gallant contests
decided; the gauntlet thrown at the feet of a proud foe was not always
of iron. _El gai saber_, the _gaye science_, held its august courts,
where princesses entered the lists and vanquished gallant troubadours
with the concord of their sweet measures. Slowly, yet with resistless
strength, a new social world was rising upon the splendid ruins of the
old. Its principles were just, if their garb was fantastical. It began
with that almost superstitious reverence for woman, which had borrowed
its religion from the Teuton, its romance from the Minnesinger and the
Trouveur: it will end in the honesty and freedom of a world mature for
its enjoyment.
Thus, while the kingdoms of Europe were rising to a height where to
oppress, to torture, to fight, were to seem their sole aim and purpose,
in a hitherto obscure corner of the great theatre of modern life an
unknown element was developing itself, which was in time to shake the
greatest nations with its power, to inflame all Europe with jealousy and
cupidity, and to dictate to empires the very terms of their existence.
And this element was LABOR. The rich lowlands of the 'double-armed'
Rhine teemed with a busy life, that, king-like, demanded a tribute of
the sea, and wrenched from the greedy waves a treasure that its industry
made priceless. Each man became a prince in his own divine right, and
every occupation had its lords and its lore, its 'mysteries,' and its
social rights. The seamen, merchants, and artisans of the Netherlands
had made their country the richest in Europe. They ranged the seas and
learned the value of the land; and while they fed the great despot of
the Middle Ages, the light of intelligence, born of energy and nurtured
by activity, cast its benignant gleams from the central island of the
Rhine, and drove from their mountain nooks the owls and bats of tyranny
and superstition. They fought first, these lords of the soil, among
themselves, for local privileges, advancing in their continuous
struggles upon the very threshold of the church. By strong alliances
they kept at bay their feudal lords, and fettered the ecclesiastical
power with the yoke of a justice, meagre, indeed, and sadly unfruitful,
but still ominous of a better day. Within the alabaster vase of
despotism, frail, yet old as ambition, the lamp of freedom had long
burned dimly: now its flames were licking, with serpent-like tongues,
the enclosure so long deemed sacred, and threatened, as they dyed the
air with their amber flood of light, to shiver their temple to
fragments. The theory of the divine right of kings was but another 'Luck
of Edenhall.' Its slender stem trembled now within the rough grasp of
the sacrilegious and burly Netherlanders, who hesitated not long ere
they dashed it with the old superstition to the ground, shaking the
civilized world to its centre by the shock. But out of the ruins a
statelier edifice was to rise, whose windows, like those of the old
legend, were stained by the lifeblood of its architect.
The historian who would worthily depict such an age, such a people, such
principles, must be an artist, but one in whom the creative faculty does
not blind the moral obligations. He must bring to the work a republican
sympathy, must be governed by a republican justice, and wear a character
as noble as the struggle that he paints. And such an artist, such a
historian, such a man, we have in JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY.
The honors of Harvard, early and nobly earned, had given to the boy at
seventeen the privileges and dignity of manhood. He was destined to
become a scholar, eminent, even among the rarely and richly cultured
minds of his own New England, for his universal knowledge, clearness of
intellect, prompt energy, and indomitable perseverance. Inspired by
these gifts and attainments, it was only natural, almost inevitable,
that his first appearance upon the literary stage should have been in
the _rôle_ of a novelist. The active young intellect was pliant and
strong, but had not yet learned its power. Before him lay the broad
fields of romance, fascinating with their royal _fleurs de lis_, rich
with the contributions of every age, some quaint and laughter-moving,
some pompous and exaggerated, some soul-stirring and grand. Impelled,
perhaps, less by a thirst for fame than a desire to satisfy the
resistless impulses of an energetic nature, and lay those fair ghosts of
enterprises dimly recognized that beckoned him onward, he followed the
first path that lay before him, and became a romance writer. His first
work, _Morton's Hope, or the Memoirs of a Provincial_, was published in
1839, and subsequently appeared _Merry Mount, a Romance of
Massachusetts_. It is curious to trace in these first flights of a
genius that has since learned its legitimate field, a tendency to the
breadth of Motley's later efforts, an instinctive and evidently
unconscious passion for the descriptive, an admirably curbed yet still
powerful impatience of the light fetters, the toy regulations of the
realm of Fiction, and an earnestness that has since bloomed in the world
of Fact and History. The very imperfections of the novelist have become
the charms of the historian. His student-life in Germany, his after-plot
in the stirring Revolutionary times, strongly as they are drawn,
animated as they are with dashes of that vivid power that stamps every
page of the histories of their author, yet lack the proof of that
unquestioned yet unobtrusive consciousness of genius that harden the
telling sentences of the _Rise of the Dutch Republic_ and the _United
Netherlands_ into blocks of adamant, polished by friction with each
other to a diamond brightness, and reflecting only the noblest
sentiments, the most profound principles. The dice had been thrown a
second time, and Motley had not won a victory. The applause of the press
was insufficient to the man, who felt that he had not yet struck the
key-note of his destiny. To be counted the follower of Cooper was not
the meet guerdon of an intellect to which the shapely monuments of
ancient literature yielded the clue to their hieroglyphic labyrinths of
knowledge, and that pierced with lightning swiftness the shell of
events, and possessed the latent principles of life in their warm
hearts. He returned, therefore, to Europe, leaving behind him a
reputation which at no distant day was destined to spring from a new and
more noble foundation into a lasting and more stately pile.
To a mind like Motley's, the department of history presented the most
attractive features. There could honestly be no dabbling with the
specious and seductive alchemy of Fiction. Truth had molded every period
of the world's life. Truth defied had tripped up nations in their
headlong race after dominion and unrighteous power. Truth victorious had
smiled upon their steady growth to greatness and honor. To write history
was to write poetry, art, philosophy, religion, life. The pen that
sketched the rise, the progress, and the fate of nations, was in fact
the chisel of a sculptor, whose theme was humanity.
And what work so fitting for the American author as the record of a
nation struggling away from the oppression of feudal institutions, which
stifled all growth either towards knowledge or civil greatness,
throwing off the trammels of religious intolerance, defying the most
powerful nation of Christendom, which had breathed an air of bigotry in
its long contest with the Moors, and waging an exhaustive war of nearly
a century's duration against fearful odds, only to win an independent
existence? We had treasured as rare heirlooms the Mechlin laces of our
grandmothers, had our favorite sets of Tournay porcelain, awaited with
curious and enthusiastic patience our shares in the floral exportations
of Harlem, trodden daily the carpetings of Brussels, and esteemed
ourselves rich with a fragment of its tapestry, or a rifle of Namur; we
had honored the vast manufacturing interest of the Netherlands, their
commercial prosperity and noble enterprise; but here all thought of them
had ended. Schiller had not taught us that the ancestors of the miners
of Mons, the artisans of Brussels, the seamen of Antwerp, the professors
of Leyden, were heroes, worthy to stand beside Leonidas and Bozzaris;
Strâda had failed to rouse us to enthusiasm at the thought of their
long, noble battle for life. Grotius had indeed painted for us with a
very Flemish nicety of detail their manners and customs, but had
forgotten to round his skeleton of a nation with the passions that
animated every stage of its development. It remained for Motley, with
all the quick sympathies of an American heart, to rouse our affections
and to command our reverence for a people so unfortunate and so brave.
It was reserved for him to teach us that William of Orange was not less
a martyr to the truth than Huss or Latimer.
It was no common scholar who so worthily finished this task. It was not
enough that the intellectual integrity of oar historian was
unquestioned, his judgment mature, his knowledge vast and comprehensive.
During the years of preparation he had become thoroughly cosmopolite;
all the _petty_ prejudices of country and blood had been swept away
before the advancing dignity of a reason that became daily more truly
and completely the master of itself. All the thousand minute refinements
of an extensive and intimate association with the commanding and courtly
minds of the age fitted him to cope more successfully with the spirit of
subtle intrigue, the fox-like sagacity, the wolfish rapacity, the cruel
lack of diplomatic honor, and the illimitable and terrible intolerance
that distinguished in so wonderful a degree the historical era of
Motley's choice. He came with all the zeal of a true lover of liberty,
himself republican, as earth's most cultured sons have been in every
age, in thought, habit, and sentiment, to trace for the future and for
us the records of a people who were willing to suffer a master, but who
revolted from a tyrant; who, with a rare but unappreciated and too nice
honor, strove to keep to the yoke that their forefathers had worn, only
asking from their ruler the respect and consideration due the faithful
servants of his crown, who were no longer the abject slaves of a
monarchy, and yet, through an inveterate habit of servitude, were
scarcely prepared for the independence of a republic. How nobly he has
fulfilled his mission, the hearty applause of two nations sufficiently
testifies.
To the wide, comprehensive vision of Motley, history appears in its true
light as a science, demanding the assistance of other sciences to the
due and harmonious development of all its parts. It relies not more upon
the correctness of the recorder's authorities and the profoundness of
his researches in the mere region of the events and mutual relation of
nations, than upon his universal acquaintance with general literature
and the sister arts of politics and philosophy. It was for the
treacherous and elegant Bolingbroke to reduce the noble art of
Thucydides from the height of sublimity and grandeur to the parlor level
of the conversations of the Hotel de Rambouillet, to introduce into the
most serious political disquisitions, concerning perhaps the welfare of
society, an imperceptible yet carefully elaborated and most effective
tone of levity that speedily proved disastrous to their object. It was
be who forced the vapid but imposing ceremonial of the _bon ton_ into
the records of church and state; who clothed his empty but pompous
periods with the ermine of royalty, to ensure them the reverence of a
deluded multitude; who stripped Virtue of her ancient prerogatives, and
fed her with the crumbs from his table. His polished diction, undeniable
talent and fine acquisitions served most unhappily to disguise his real
poverty of sentiment, and for a time, at least, diverted the current of
popular feeling from the true, beautiful, and reliable in early
literature and art, no less than in history. With what success his
faulty and imperfect theories were engrafted upon the literature of his
nation, the learned and sagacious Schlosser conclusively proves in his
_History of the Eighteenth Century_. Says this ripe scholar and deep
thinker, 'All that Bolingbroke ridicules as tedious and without talent,
all that he laughs at as useless and without taste, all that which,
urged by his labors and those of his like-minded associates, had for
eighty years disappeared from ancient history, is again brought back in
our day. So short is the triumph of falsehood.' Well may we pervert the
verses of Horace,--
'Nullæ placere diu, nec vivere _historiæ_ possunt
Quæ scribuntur aquæ potoribus.'
That was an ungenerous fountain whence Bolingbroke drank even his
chilling draughts of inspiration. Splendid, in sooth, as the great
_Brunnen_ of the luckless Abderites of Wieland, with its sea-god of
marble surrounded by a stately train of nymphs, tritons, and dolphins,
from whose jets the water only dripped like tears, because, says the
writer, with grave naïveté, 'there was scarcely enough to moisten the
lips of a single nymph.' Truly the purple wine of inspiration is as
necessary to the historian as to the poet; and if the laughing Bacchus
that holds the beaker to the student's eager lips be not clothed in the
classic robes of the senate-chamber or the flowing garments of the
professor, he wears at least the fawn's dappled hide, and in his hand
'His thyrsus holds--an ivy-crowned spear.'
Does not the gentle Euripides show us the god, 'his horned head with
dragon wreath entwined?' And those two sacred horns point back to the
dread mysteries of the Ogdoad sublime,
'The great Cabiri of earth's dawning prime.'
They trace with lines that never swerve from truth the history of the
primeval world, the early days of Noah and his ark. They recall to us
the old story of life and suffering, of deluge and salvation; on their
crescent points hangs the eternal principle of the efficacy of
sacrifice. They float with the moon-ark of Astarté Mylitta on
hyacinthine seas of night-clouds, and their high import, dimmed and lost
in the great stream of Time, rises again in the ages, uncrowned with the
early luxuriance of symbol and mystery. The mystic horns appear over the
brow of the queenly Sappho of Grillparzer, upon whose hair
'Rested the diadem, _like the pale moon_
Upon the brow of night, a silver crest;'
and the white-robed Madonna, with child-like face upraised, and deep,
tender eyes uplifted, yet rests her slender, sandaled foot upon the
horned moon, floating below her in misty clouds.
A hiatus for which we crave indulgence; a dream, and yet not all a
dream, for each of these old types encloses a living truth, and unfolds
into a history, tangled, perhaps, and imperfect, but suggestive and
reliable, of races and religions that had else passed away into
oblivion. And the earnest student of the present, or the historian of
the past, can never disregard these dim old treasures, but must draw
from them a fresher faith in his own humanity and in the eternal laws of
God, that are unchangeable as he is immortal.
The art of history advances with the art of poetry; both, and indeed all
literature, correspond aesthetically with the manners, customs,
theology, and politics of the nation of their birth. The severe
grandeur of Thucydides, the invariable sweetness of Xenophon, and the
cheerful elegance of Herodotus, recall, with their just conceptions of
harmony, their noble and sustained flow of thought, and their freedom
from the adventitious ornaments of an exaggerated rhetoric or a
sentimental morality, the golden age of Greece. We seem to stand within
the Parthenon, to gaze upon the Venus of Cnidus, to be jostled by the
gay crowd at the Olympic games. It was indeed a golden age, when all
that was beautiful in nature was reverently and assiduously nurtured,
and all that was noble and natural in art was magnificently encouraged;
an age in which refinement and nobility were not accidents, but
necessities; when politics had reached the high grade of an art, and
oratory attained a beauty and power beyond which no Pitt, Canning, or
Brougham has ever yet aspired; an age when the gifted Aspasia held her
splendid court, and Alcibiades and Socrates were proud to sit at the
Milesian's feet; when Pericles, who 'well deserved the lofty title of
Olympian,' lived and ruled: the golden age when Socrates thought and
taught, bearing in its bosom the guilty day when Socrates died.
Not less faithful portraitures of the influences that formed them are
the histories of Livy, of Sallust, and of Tacitus. They wrote in a
language that had been sublimated into electric clouds by the warm and
splendid diffuseness of Cicero, and reduced to a granite-like strength
by the cold and exquisite simplicity of Terence. The amiable fustian,
the Falstaffian bombast of Lucan and Ovid's brilliant imagination, all
stamp their indelible seal upon the vivid coloring of Livy, the somewhat
affected severity of Sallust, and the elegant morality of Tacitus. The
banner of the monarchy flaunts across every page of these writers. They
even bear the impress of an architecture whose splendor and strength did
not atone for its disregard of the old Hellenic lines and rules. They
bear the same relation to Thucydides and Herodotus that a pillar of the
Roman Ionic order, with its angularly turned volutes and arbitrary
perpendicularity of outline, does to its graceful Greek mother, with her
primitive and expressive scrolls, and the slightly convex profile of her
shaft. In more modern times, a black-letter, quaint sentence of
Froissart or Monstrelet is like a knight in full armor, bristling with
quaint, beautiful devices, golden dragons inlaid on Milan cuirasses,
golden vines on broad Venetian blades, apes on the hilts of
grooved-bladed, firm stilettoes, or the illuminated margins of old
metrical romances. The pages of Strada are darkened by the stormy
passions of a battling age, crossed with the lurid light of Moorish
tragedies; an _ay de mi Alhama_ moans under his pride and bigotry.
Torquemadas grind each sentence into dullness and inquisitorial
harmlessness, yet now and then sweeps by a trace of Lope de Vega, a word
that reminds us of Calderon, while still oftener the euphuism of Gongora
pervades the writer's mind and flows in platitudes from his guarded pen.
As we near our own day, history is invested with new dignities; its arms
float, sea-weed like, on the raging waves of political life, as if to
grasp from some fragment of shipwrecked treaties or some passing argosy
of government a precious jewel to light its deep researches. It takes in
with nervous grasp the tendencies of literature; its keen gaze drinks in
the features of popular belief and searches out the fountains of popular
error. Fully equal to the requirements of the exacting age, Motley has
produced a work whose lightest merit is its equal conformity to the new
rules of his art. He possesses in an eminent degree the first
qualification which the old Abbé de Mably, in his _Manière d'ecrire
l'histoire_, insists upon for the historian. He recognizes the natural
rights of man, those rights which are the same in every age, and as
powerful in their demands in the sixteenth century as in the nineteenth.
His well-balanced mind acknowledges and respects the duties of man as
citizen and magistrate, and the mutual rights of nations. No splendor,
no power, no prejudice, has been able to seduce him from his high
principles, neither does a warm and manifest sympathy with his subject
delude him even into the passing extravagance of an undue praise. If he
comprehends the greatness of the national character he almost flings
upon the canvas before us, he appreciates as profoundly its weaknesses
too. Strada's history is a poison, which strikes at the very roots of
society, and would wither all the fresh young leaves of its vigorous
spring. Motley's is its powerful antidote, which restores the juices of
life to the brittle fibres, smooths out the shriveled leaves, and
clothes them again with the fresh green of hope and promise. Strada is
the slave of the victor; Motley is the champion of the vanquished.
Strada bends the dignity of Justice before the painted sceptre of
Despotism; Motley exalts the honest title of the man above the will of
the perjured monarch. Strada gilds with the false gold of sophistry the
very chains that gall his soul; Motley sharpens on the clear crystal of
his unobtrusive logic, the two-handed sword of power, and cuts his way
through an army of protocols and pacts to the fortress of Liberty.
It is, we believe, an exploded theory that the characters of modern
times are inferior to those of antiquity. 'Under the toga as under the
modern dress,' says Guizot, 'in the senate as in our councils, men were
what they still are;' and the old Jesuit takes a narrow view of the
progress of mankind, who asserts that the masculine and vigorous
treatment that was necessary to Thucydides and Livy is not required by
the historians of our puny and degenerate day. Even the Count Gobineau,
who so ably and, to his followers, conclusively proves the fallacy of
the dearest hope of every learned philanthropist and patriot, does not,
in his most earnest antagonism to the doctrine of human progress,
insinuate the existence of a principle urging the systematic and
inevitable decline of individual power from age to age. So far from
exacting less of the historian, the present age demands even a firmer
handling. Our era has its Alexanders and Cæsars; its Hannibals and
Hectors; and if these men of antiquity rise before us with an
unapproachable air of grandeur, it is because the light shining from our
distant stand-point surrounds them with deeper shadows, and throws them
in bolder relief against the background of their vanished ages. It is a
simple triumph of _chiaro-scuro_, and by no means the proof of the truth
of an absurd theory.
It is mournful enough to see the dead nations that were once young and
glorious pacing onward through an inferno like so many headless Bertrand
de Borns, bearing by the hair
'The severed member, lantern-wise
Pendent in hand.'
For ourselves, we have no fear of lighting our own spirit thus through
any Malabolge of purification. And this bold faith animates Motley; it
invigorates all his work with a firmness that inspires full confidence
in his readers. Free as he is from every puerile superstition, his
mastery of his subject is complete. He exercises over it a sort of
magistracy which extends even to his own flashing impulses. Never
pausing to display his moral learning, he avoids the tedious diffuseness
of Rollin; steering adroitly around the quicksands of political
dissertation, he escapes the pragmatical essayism of Guiccardini. Not
easily fascinated by the trifles that swim like vapid foam upon the tide
of history,--petty domestic details, the Königsmark intrigues of
royalty, the wines and flowers of the banquet table, the laces and
jewels of the court,--he leaves far in the distance the entertaining
Davila, who, says the sarcastic Schlosser, 'wrote memoirs after the
French fashion for good society,' yet whom the arbitrary and adventurous
Bolingbroke does not scruple to declare 'in many respects the equal of
Livy!' And yet no single stroke is omitted which is needed to preserve
the unity of the work. Tacitus himself did not embellish with more
commanding morality his histories. The jots and tittles of the _Groot
Privilegie_, the terms of the famous 'Pacification of Ghent,' the
solemn import of the _Act of Adjuration_, and the political ambition of
the church, are as faithfully drawn as the Siege of Leyden, or the
'Spanish Fury' of Antwerp.
Hume, in the narrowness of a so-called philosophical indifference to the
appeals of domestic life and the details of national theology and art,
gives us only a running commentary upon mere chronological events,
galvanized by the touch of his keen intellect and fine rhetoric into a
deceitful vigor, and ornamented with the poisonous night-shade blossoms
of a spurious philosophy. We may more justly seek some analogy between
Gibbon and Motley, even if the search but discover points of difference
so radical that a comparison is impossible. The solemn, measured, and
splendid rhetoric of Gibbon is met by the animated, impetuous, and
brilliant flow of Motley's thought. Neither leans to the ideal; with
both the actual prevails. The policy of a government is summoned by
neither before the partial tribunal of a sentiment, or the intricate
scheme of some Machiavelli subjected to the imperfect analysis of a
headstrong imagination. But Gibbon, though he writes in the vernacular,
has lost all the honest nationality that should give an air of sincerity
to his work; his brilliant antithesis belongs to the ornate school of
the French literature of the day; and, fascinating as is the pomp and
commanding march of his sentences, we are rather dazzled by his
eloquence than convinced by his argument. He is picturesque, rich; but
it is the picturesqueness and richness of the truly bewildering Roman
architecture of the Renaissance--half Byzantine, three-eighths Gothic,
and the remainder Greek. But Motley, with all his varied learning and
association, is still perfectly and nobly Anglo-Saxon. His short,
epigrammatic sentences ring like the click of musketry before the
charge, and swell into length and grandeur with the progress of his
theme. The simplicity, not of ignorance but of genius, characterizes
him. He does not cater to our hungry fancy, he appeals grandly to our
noblest impulses. In Motley a spirit of the most refined humanity is
everywhere visible; he is guilty of no Voltairean satiric stabs at
purity, no petulant Voltairean flings at the faith he does not share.
All is manly, terse, frank, undisguised. Honorable himself, he does not,
like Gibbon, distrust all mankind, and question with a sarcasm the very
sincerity of a martyr at the stake.
Among Americans, Motley is what Botta is to the historians of Southern
Europe. The same grand principles actuate both writers; the same
tendency to philosophical generalization is evident in the structure of
their works, the same inflexible pursuit of a fixed and visible aim, the
same enthusiastic love for freedom. But with Botta the poetical element,
which is only secondary with Motley, predominates. He holds the nervous
pen of a true Italian--more than that, of a true Italian patriot. All
the hitherto suppressed fire of his nation flames out on his pages in an
indignation as natural as it is superb. His lines vibrate with passion,
his words are tremulous with a noble pain. His very pathos is impatient,
stern, and proud; it cleaves our hearts like a battle-axe, rather than
meets them as with summer showers. His sarcasm is as keen and effective,
but far more startling; it hisses its way from some iron-cold comment,
and stabs the monarch whom it crowns. His fertility of imagination is
not weakened by contact with the details of government. The same pen
that draws in such inimitably graceful lines the sugar-plums of starving
Genoa, lingering about flower-wreathed baskets of bonbons sold in the
public squares to famishing men and women, sketches in a style as
nervous and appropriate the complex detail of governmental policy. He
unfolds his subject with the skill of an epic poet; its general effect
is sublime, and its petty details arranged with a rarely careless skill.
If he is sometimes diverted by a burst of enthusiasm, of indignation, or
of horror, into an inequality, the rough island thrown up in the sea of
his fancy is speedily verdured over with the wonderful luxuriance of his
genius. If he bends sometimes to amuse, to revel among his sonorous
Italian adjectives in the description of a coronation at Milan, or an
opera of Valetta, it is part of his purpose, giving to his picture the
rich and glowing tints that bring out, by violence of contrast, the more
elaborate tinting in of dark upon dark behind them.
Something of this we recognize in Motley; but none of Botta's tendency
to proverbial sayings, bitter with a sarcasm that wounds most deeply its
creator; as, 'To believe that abstract principle will prevail over full
purses is the folly of a madman.' Neither do we find in Motley the
occasional terse conciseness of Botta,--little epics enclosed in a short
sentence. 'Napoleon had redeemed France; but he had created Italy.' But
the Italian can not be impartial. Just he is, but it is the accident of
his political position, not the deference paid by the historian to his
art. He writes of an age from whose injustice he has suffered, of a
country whose miseries he has shared, of a people whose brother he is.
And here Motley stands second only to Thucydides among historians. In
the Greek, impartiality was almost divine, for he wrote in the very
smoke of the conflict, wrote as if with his dripping lance upon rocks
dyed with the blood of his countrymen. With Motley impartiality is the
product of a nature strictly noble, that aims through its art not only
to delight the present, but to instruct the future, and which bases its
doctrines of right and wrong upon the principles that govern universal
nature. The temper of Thucydides is lofty and even; though never genial,
he is always calm and accessible; though often sublime, he is never
pathetic; too grand to be sarcastic, he is also too proud to be selfish.
Motley, if lacking the great and admirable element of sublimity, which
Longinus extols, compensates for it by the animation and variety of his
style, which changes, as does his mood, with his subject. He enters with
all the vigor of his manhood into the spirit of the scenes which he
sketches. He describes a character, and his strokes are bold, quick,
decided; he follows the intricacies of political intrigue, and his
movement is slow, continuous, wary, while it still remains firm,
confident, and successful. He can administer the finances with Escovedo,
while his wide, keen intelligence, undismayed, masters at a glance the
wily policy of Alexander of the '_fel Gesicht_.' No modern historian has
given more comprehensive sketches of character. No quality escapes his
vigilance; he yields every faculty the consideration which is its due.
The portraits of Alva, of Navarre, of Farnese, of Orange, of Don John of
Austria, are so many colossal statues, that seem to unite in themselves
all the possible features and characteristics of humanity. He is indeed
rather a sculptor than a painter. His figures are round, perfect,
throbbing with life, and their hard and striking outlines, springing
sharply from the background of despotism and persecution, are more
imposing than any Rubens-like vividness of coloring which could warm
them. He treats of diplomacy as a diplomat, unwinds the reel of protocol
and treaty, and binds up with the inflexible cord the rich sheaves of
his deep researches. His reflections are suggestive but short, and his
details never weary.
He loves, too, to mark the sympathies of nature with event--the rain
falling upon the black-hung scaffold, or the laughter of gay sunshine
mingling with the shouts of a great victory. And here he differs, as
indeed he does in almost every other respect, with Macaulay. The
Englishman thinks little of nature; as he himself says of Dante, 'He
leaves to others the earth, the ocean, and the sky; his business is with
man.' Indeed, the absence of a true and universal sympathy is the one
vast defect of Macaulay. No position is so high that it may not be
overshadowed by the giant form of his violent partisanship, no character
so small that it may not be raised to the semblance of greatness by the
mere force of his political preferences. His scholarship was splendid,
his genius commanding, the beauty of his style unsurpassed; but he
perverted his knowledge to subserve certain public ends, and wielded his
magnificent powers too often in the defence of an undeserving cause.
Fascinated by his dazzling rhetoric, borne along by its rapid and
tumultuous current to the most brilliant conclusions, we forget the
narrowness of the stream. His scope of vision was indeed great, but it
had its limits, and these were not imposed by time or necessity, but by
the unyielding will of his own prejudices. As his virtues were massive,
so were his errors grievous. He ventured to grasp the great speculative
themes of existence with a mind that was neither profound nor
suggestive. He swam with all the wondrous ease of an athlete through the
billows and across the currents and counter-currents of elegant
literature, of politics, of theology, yet possessed not the diver's
power to win their sunken but priceless jewels. Rich he was with the
accumulated intellectual spoil of centuries, but the power of exhaustive
generalization was denied him. His perceptions were vigorous and acute,
and none knew more perfectly to exhaust a subject, if its requirements
were of the actual and tangible rather than of the ideal and spiritual
order. He was a thorough logician, but a superficial philosopher; a
master of style, but oblivious of those great religious truths of which
the events of his great history were but the natural outgrowth and
product. But nothing can exceed the power of his rhetoric, that is
uncontrolled by any laws, yet offends none, unless it be the
arbitrariness of his dogmatism, that concedes no favors and asks no
gifts.
Less vehement, less ornate, possibly less learned than Macaulay, with
frequent though trifling inequalities of style, Motley goes far beyond
him in real practical insight into the heart of affairs. There is a
unity in all visible life, whether of nation, of individual, of church,
or of inarticulate nature, that escaped Macaulay and impresses Motley.
The one would govern the universe with the arbitrary rules of a
political clique; the other applies to all the infallible test of a
universal philosophy. Both writers are thoroughly incorporated with
their subject; but where Macaulay was the captive of a mighty and often
just prejudice, Motley is the exponent of a living principle. Everywhere
Macaulay was a Whig and an Englishman; everywhere Motley is a Republican
and a cosmopolite.
Motley is indeed inferior to his English contemporary in many striking
points whose value every reader will determine for himself; but his
occasional and rare inaccuracies of expression and inelegances of
language are on the surface, and may be removed by the stroke of a pen
without marring the general effect of his work. He possesses, among many
charms, an unfailing geniality, which, united with his fine dramatic
powers, fascinates us completely. He abounds also in fine poetical
touches, that give us glimpses of a mind cultured to the last degree of
literary refinement. His 'rows of whispering limes and poplars' are like
arabesques of gold straying over the margins of some old _romanceros_.
His descriptions glow with the fresh and ever-varying delight of the
observant traveler, who seems to see before him for the first time the
cities which, with a few vigorous and simple strokes, he transfers to
big pages. His pictures have the charm of naturalness and a simplicity
that is more effective than the most ornate diffuseness. Thus he says of
the picturesque little city of Namur: 'Seated at the confluence of the
Sambre with the Meuse, and throwing over each river a bridge of solid
but graceful structure, it lay in the lap of a most fruitful valley. A
broad, crescent-shaped plain, fringed by the rapid Meuse, and enclosed
by gently-rolling hills, cultivated to their crests, or by abrupt
precipices of limestone crowned with verdure, was divided by numerous
hedgerows, and dotted all over with corn-fields, vine-yards, and
flower-gardens. Many eyes have gazed with delight upon that well-known
and most lovely valley, and many torrents of blood have mingled with
those glancing waters since that long-buried and most sanguinary age
which forms our theme; and still, placid as ever is the valley, brightly
as ever flows the stream. Even now, as in that banished but
never-forgotten time, nestles the little city in the angle of the two
rivers; still directly over its head seems to hang in mid-air the
massive and frowning fortress, like the gigantic helmet in the fiction,
as if ready to crush the pigmy town below.' How like the _Ueberfahrt_ of
Uhland:--
'Ueber diesen Strohm, vor Jahren,
Bin ich einmal schon gefahren,
Hier die Burg, im Abendschimmer,
Drüben rauscht das Wehr, wie immer.'
We may quote his description of the great square of Brussels, the scene
of the double execution of Montmorency, of Horn, and the gallant and
unfortunate 'Count d'Egmont,' not only as an example of his dignified
and sustained style, but also as an evidence of his sensitiveness to
those minor refinements of association and place that bespeaks the
talented artist. 'The great square of Brussels had always a striking and
theatrical aspect. Its architectural effects, suggesting in some degree
the meretricious union between Oriental and a corrupt Grecian art,
accomplished in the mediaeval midnight, have amazed the eyes of many
generations. The splendid Hotel de Ville, with its daring spire and
elaborate front, ornamented one side of the place; directly opposite was
the graceful but incoherent façade of the Brood-huis, now the last
earthly resting place of the two distinguished victims; while grouped
around these principal buildings rose the fantastic palaces of the
Archers, Mariners, and other guilds, with their festooned walls and
toppling gables bedizened profusely with emblems, statues, and quaint
decorations. The place had been alike the scene of many a brilliant
tournament and of many a bloody execution. Gallant knights had contended
within its precincts, while bright eyes rained influences from all those
picturesque balconies and decorated windows. Martyrs to religious and to
political liberty had upon the same spot endured agonies which might
have roused every stone of its pavement to mutiny or softened them to
pity. Here Egmont himself, in happier days, had often borne away the
prize of skill or of valor, the cynosure of every eye; and hence, almost
in the noon of a life illustrated by many brilliant actions, he was to
be sent, by the hand of tyranny, to his great account.'
There are, too, dashes of a healthy sarcasm among these records, not,
however, of such frequent occurrence as to darken the flow of the
narrative, but sufficiently indicative of the strength and energy of the
writer. Never attacking the honest faith of any man, his satires are
levelled at hypocrisy, never error, as when he says of the venerable
tyrant, the master of the Invincible Armada, when he had received from
the trembling secretary the assurance of the failure of the hope of
Spain: 'So the king, as fortune flew away from him, wrapped himself in
his virtue, and his counsellors, imitating their sovereign, arrayed
themselves in the same garment;' a scanty mantle, in truth, but, no
doubt, amply sufficient for the denizens of that torrid atmosphere of
bigotry in which Spain has lived for centuries.
Of what earnest stuff Motley's dreams of religious freedom are made, we
read in his terse comments upon the declaration of the principles of
liberty of conscience by the States General. 'Such words shine through
the prevailing darkness of the religious atmosphere at that epoch like
characters of light. They are beacons in the upward path of mankind.
Never before had so bold and wise a tribute to the genius of the
Reformation been paid by an organized community. Individuals walking in
advance of their age had enunciated such truths, and their voices had
seemed to die away, but at last, a little, struggling, half-developed
commonwealth had proclaimed the rights of conscience for all mankind.'
Thus we have no longer a wearisome compilation of events strung upon the
thread of chronology, but a practical history of the most momentous
epoch of modern times. No hand has before pointed out so faithfully its
great motive power or adjusted so nicely its apparent contradictions.
The structure is grand; it is the expression of a glorious faith. In the
accomplishment of so vast a design, Motley has won our warmest
gratitude, while he has awakened our deepest sympathies. Not alone to
the learned, the scholarly, and the elegant, are these volumes
addressed; their high-toned thought has met response in the people's
heart, and children bend with flushed faces over the high romance of the
struggle that cost the lives of thousands, and recognize, perhaps dimly,
the import of that great advance from the darkness of intolerance to the
light of freedom, that was so well worth the treasure of blood with
which it was bought.
And here we part with Motley the historian, only to clasp hands with
Motley the patriot. In the present tremendous struggle of people against
progress, this fierce contest between labor and the lords, these last
convulsions of the expiring giant of feudal aristocracy, whose monstrous
conception dates far back among the Middle Ages, Motley has shown
himself the true champion of the doctrines advocated in his histories.
His platform is still the same, but how changed the theatre of his
action! His letter to the London _Times_ on the 'Causes of the American
Civil War' is a masterly exposition of facts, whose naked power is
obscured by no useless displays of rhetoric. Its tone is calm,
dignified, confident; its statements are strongly maintained, its logic
convincing. All honor to the man who from his quiet researches in royal
archives and busy deciphering of dusty MSS. turned to his country in her
hour of need, and defended her where defence should have been
superfluous, but was, unhappily, of small avail. And still he works
nobly for the dear old flag, and, intimately _lié_ as he is with the
first literati and politicians of Europe, it is not easy to measure his
influence. His purely literary habits forbid all suspicion of his
disinterestedness, and will go far to commend him to the sympathies of
the commanding intellects of the age. Let us hope for the time when,
with renewed faith in his mighty theories and still renewing love for
his motherland, he shall return to the retirement which has already
produced such noble fruits, and add works as worthy to our American
classics. Meanwhile, _vive qui vince!_
* * * * *
THE LESSON OF THE HOUR.
Thou who for years hast watched the course of nature,
What time the changing seasons swept their round,
And, 'mid the play of every varying feature,
New founts of pleasure for thyself hast found;
Who, when dark clouds upon the mountain glooming,
Threaten destruction to the smiling plain,
Canst pierce the shadow and foresee the blooming
Of budding blossoms brighter for the rain:
To whom, when the dread winter's icy fingers
Have chilled to silence the gay babbling stream,
A memory of its summer music lingers,
Or April violets in the future beam;
To whom the darkness whispers of the dawning,
And sorrow's night tells of the coming day;
And even death is but the twilight morning
Of glory which shall never fade away;--
_Teach us thy lesson_. Unto us be given
The trusting faith the April flowers display;
Looking in their meek confidence to heaven,--
Trusting to God the future of the day.
Our night is dark, and perils vast surround us,
But, firm in truth and right, what shall we fear?
Has danger ever yet base cravens found us?
Who has sustained thus far will guide us here.
Ye countless legions, where each man is holding
Himself a bulwark for the cause of right,
In war's fierce furnace, where our God is molding
Each soul for his own ends in Freedom's fight,
March on to victory in overwhelming number,
Singing the peans of the noble free;
Our Liberty has just awaked from slumber,
To carry out the world's great destiny.
O mighty nation! all thy early glory
Shall be as nothing to the great renown
Which in the future ages shall come o'er thee,
For thine is Liberty's immortal crown.
Heed not the jealousies forever thronging,--
The petty envyings which gird thee round;
'Tis thine to carry out the world's great longing,
To find that liberty none else has found.
What though across the swelling, broad Atlantic
Comes scornful menace? it is naught to thee--
'Tis but the jealous raving, wild and frantic,
Of those who would, but never can, be free;--
Who, slaves to selfish passions bold ambition,
Hold up their shackled arms in heaven's broad light,
And prate of freedom, boast their high position,
And strive to turn to interest Truth and Right.
_We need more faith!_ What though the means be weakness?
With God supreme, the victory must be ours!
From imperfection he works out completeness;
From feeble means makes overwhelming powers.
How shall this be? The knowledge is not given;
Each to his duty in the field of Right;
Sure as th' Almighty ruleth earth and heaven,
His arm will do it in resistless might.
* * * * *
AMONG THE PINES.
'Dee ye tink Massa Davy wud broke his word, sar?' said the old negress,
bridling up her bent form, and speaking in a tone in which indignation
mingled with wounded dignity; 'p'raps gemmen do dat at de Norf--dey
neber does it har.'
'Excuse me, Aunty; I know your master is a man of honor; but he's very
much excited, and very angry with Scip.'
'No matter for dat, sar; Massa Davy neber done a mean ting sense he war
born.'
'Massa K---- tinks a heap ob de Gunnel, Aunty; but he reckons he'm sort
o' crazy now; dat make him afeard,' said Scip, in an apologetic tone.
'What ef he am crazy? You'se safe _har_,' rejoined the old woman,
dropping her aged limbs into a chair, and rocking away with much the
same air which ancient white ladies occasionally assume.
'Won't you ax Massa K---- to a cheer?' said Scip; 'he hab ben bery kine
to me.'
The negress then offered me a seat; but it was some minutes before I
rendered myself sufficiently agreeable to thaw out the icy dignity of
her manner. Meanwhile I glanced around the apartment.
Though the exterior of the cabin was like the others on the plantation,
the interior had a rude, grotesque elegance about it far in advance of
any negro hut I had ever seen. The logs were chinked with clay, and the
one window, though destitute of glass, and ornamented with the
inevitable board-shutter, had a green moreen curtain, which kept out the
wind and the rain. A worn but neat and well-swept carpet partly covered
the floor, and on the low bed was spread a patch-work counterpane.
Against the side of the room opposite the door stood an antique,
brass-handled bureau, and an old-fashioned table, covered with a faded
woolen cloth, occupied the centre of the apartment. In the corner near
the fire was a curiously-contrived side-board, made of narrow strips of
yellow pine, tongued and grooved together, and oiled so as to bring out
the beautiful grain of the wood. On it were several broken and cracked
glasses, and an array of irregular crockery. The rocking-chair, in which
the old negress passed the most of her time, was of mahogany, wadded and
covered with chintz, and the arm-seat I occupied, though old and patched
in many places, had evidently moved in good society.
The mistress of this second-hand furniture establishment was arrayed in
a mass of cast-off finery, whose gay colors were in striking contrast
with her jet-black skin and bent, decrepit form. Her gown, which was
very short, was of flaming red and yellow worsted stuff, and the
enormous turban that graced her head and hid all but a few tufts of her
frizzled, 'pepper-and-salt' locks, was evidently a contribution from the
family stock of worn-out pillow-cases. She was very aged,--upwards of
seventy,--and so thin that, had she not been endowed with speech and
motion, she might have passed for a bundle of whalebone thrown into
human shape, and covered with a coating of gutta-percha. It was evident
she had been a valued house-servant, whose few remaining years were
being soothed and solaced by the kind and indulgent care of a grateful
master.
Scip, I soon saw, was a favorite with the old-negress, and the marked
respect he showed me quickly dispelled the angry feeling excited by my
doubts of 'Massa Davy,' and opened her heart and her mouth at the same
moment. She was terribly garrulous; her tongue, as soon as it got under
way, ran on as if propelled by machinery and acquainted with the secret
of perpetual motion; but she was an interesting study. The
single-hearted attachment she showed for her master and his family gave
me a new insight into the practical working of 'the peculiar
institution,' and convinced me that even slavery, in some of its
aspects, is not so black as it is painted.
When we were seated, I said to Scip, 'What induced you to lay hands on
the Colonel? It is death, you know, if he enforces the law.'
'I knows dat, massa; I knows dat; but I had to do it. Dat Moye am de ole
debil, but de folks round har wud hab turned on de Cunnel, shore, ef
he'd killed him. Dey don't like de Cunnel; dey say he'm a stuck-up
seshener.'
'The Colonel, then, has befriended you at some time?'
'No, no, sar; 'twarn't dat; dough I'se know'd him a long w'ile,--eber
sense my ole massa fotched me from de Habana,--but 'twarn't dat.'
'Then _why_ did you do it?'
The black hesitated a moment, and glanced at the old negress, then
said,--
'You see, massa, w'en I fuss come to Charles'n, a pore little ting, wid
no friend in all de worle, dis ole aunty war a mudder to me. She nussed
de Cunnel; he am jess like her own chile, and I know'd 'twud kill her ef
he got hisself enter trubble.'
I noticed certain convulsive twitchings about the corners of the old
woman's mouth as she rose from her seat, threw her arms around Scip,
and, in words broken by sobs, faltered out,--
'_You_ am my chile; I loves you better dan Massa Davy--better dan all de
worle.'
The scene, had they not been black, would have been one for a painter.
'You were the Colonel's nurse, Aunty,' I said, when she had regained her
composure. 'Have you always lived with him?'
'Yas, sar, allers; I nussed him, and den de chil'ren--all ob 'em.'
'All the children? I thought the Colonel had but one--Miss Clara.'
'Wal, he habn't, massa, only de boys.'
'What boys? I never heard he had sons.'
'Neber heerd of young Massa Davy, nor Massa Tommy! Hain't you _seed_
Massa Tommy, sar?'
'Tommy! I was told he was Madam P----'s son.'
'So he am; Massa Davy had _her_ long afore he had missus.'
The truth flashed upon me; but could it be possible? Was I in South
Carolina or in Utah?
'Who is Madam P----?' I asked.
The old woman hesitated a moment, as if in doubt whether she had not
said too much; but Scip quietly replied,--
'She'm jess what aunty am--_de Cunnel's slave!_'
'His _slave_! it can't be possible; she is white!'
'No, massa; she am brack, and de Cunnel's slave!'
Not to weary the reader with a long repetition of negro-English, I will
tell in brief what I gleaned from an hour's conversation with the two
blacks.
Madam P---- was the daughter of Ex-Gov. ----, of Virginia, by a
quarteron woman. She was born a slave, but was acknowledged as her
father's child, and reared in his family with his legitimate children.
When she was ten years of age her father died, and his estate proving
insolvent, the land and negroes were brought under the hammer. His
daughter, never having been manumitted, was inventoried and sold with
the other property. The Colonel, then just of age, and a young man of
fortune, bought her and took her to the residence of his mother in
Charleston. A governess was provided for her, and a year or two
afterwards she was taken to the North to be educated. There she was
frequently visited by the Colonel; and when fifteen her condition became
such that she was obliged to return home. He conveyed her to the
plantation, where her elder son, David, was soon afterwards born, 'Aunt
Lucy' officiating on the occasion. When the child was two years old,
leaving it in charge of the aged negress, she accompanied the Colonel to
Europe, where they remained for a year. Subsequently she passed another
year at a Northern seminary; and then, returning to the plantation, was
duly installed as its mistress, and had ever since presided over its
domestic affairs. She was kind and good to the negroes, who were greatly
attached to her, and much of the Colonel's wealth was due to her
excellent management of the estate.
Six years after the birth of 'young Massa Davy,' the Colonel married his
present wife, that lady having full knowledge of his left-handed
connection with Madam P----, and consenting that the 'bond-woman' should
remain on the plantation, as its mistress. The legitimate wife resided,
during most of the year, in Charleston, and when at the homestead took
little interest in domestic matters. On one of her visits to the
plantation, twelve years before, her daughter, Miss Clara, was born, and
within a week, and under the same roof, Madam P---- presented the
Colonel with a son,--the lad Thomas, of whom I have spoken. As the
mother was a slave, the children were so also at their birth, but _they_
had been manumitted by their father. One of them was being educated in
Germany; and it was intended that both should spend their lives in that
country, the taint in their blood being an insuperable bar to their ever
acquiring social position at the South.
As she finished the story, the old woman said, 'Massa Davy am bery kind
to de missus, sar, but he _love_ de ma'am; an' he can't help it, 'cause
she'm jess so good as de angels.'[K]
I looked at my watch,--it was nearly ten o'clock, and I rose to go. As I
did so the old negress said,--
'Don't yer gwo, massa, 'fore you hab sum ob aunty's wine; you'm good
friends wid Scip, and I knows _you'se_ not too proud to drink wid brack
folks, ef you am from de Norf.'
Being curious to know what quality of wine a plantation slave indulged
in, I accepted the invitation. She went to the side-board, and brought
out a cut-glass decanter, and three cracked tumblers, which she placed
on the table. Filling the glasses to the brim, she passed one to Scip,
and one to me, and, with the other in her hand, resumed her seat.
Wishing her a good many happy years, and Scip a pleasant journey home, I
emptied the glass. It was Scuppernong, and the pure juice of the grape!
'Aunty,' I said, 'this wine is as fine as I ever tasted.'
'Oh yas, massa, it am de raal stuff. I growed de grapes myseff.'
'You grew them?'
'Yas, sar, an' Massa Davy make de wine. He do it ebery yar for de ole
nuss.'
'The Colonel is very good. Do you raise anything else?'
'Yas, I hab collards and taters, a little corn, and most ebery ting.'
'But who does your work? _You_ certainly can't do it?'
'Oh, de ma'am looks arter dat, sar; she'm bery good to de ole aunty.'
Shaking hands with both the negroes, I left the cabin, fully convinced
that all the happiness in this world is not found within plastered
apartments.
The door of the mansion was bolted and barred; but, rapping for
admission, I soon heard the Colonel's voice asking, 'Who is there?'
Giving a satisfactory answer, I was admitted. Explaining that he
supposed I had retired to my room, he led the way to the library.
That apartment was much more elegantly furnished than the drawing-rooms.
Three of its sides were lined with books, and on the centre-table,
papers, pamphlets, and manuscripts were scattered in promiscuous
confusion. In an armchair near the fire, Madam P---- was seated,
reading. The Colonel's manner was as composed as if nothing had
disturbed the usual routine of the plantation; no trace of the recent
terrible excitement was visible; in fact, had I not been a witness to
the late tragedy, I should have thought it incredible that he, within
two hours, had been an actor in a scene which had cost a human being his
life.
'Where in creation have you been, my dear fellow?' he asked, as we took
our seats.
'At old Lucy's cabin, with Scip,' I replied.
'Indeed. I supposed the darky had gone.'
'No, he doesn't go till the morning.'
'I told you he wouldn't, David,' said Madam P----; 'now, send for
him,--do make friends with him before he goes.'
'No, Alice, it won't do. I bear him no ill-will, but it won't do. It
would be all over the plantation in an hour.'
'No matter for that; our people would like you the better for it.'
'No, no. I can't do it. I mean him no harm, but I can't do that.'
'He told me _why_ he interfered between you and Moye,' I remarked.
'Why did he?'
'He says old Lucy, years ago, was a mother to him; that she is greatly
attached to you, and it would kill her if any harm happened to you; and
that your neighbors bear you no good-will, and would have enforced the
law had you killed Moye.'
'It is true, David; you would have had to answer for it.'
'Nonsense! what influence could this North County scum have against
_me_?'
'Perhaps none. But that makes no difference; Scipio did right, and you
should tell him you forgive him.'
The Colonel then rang a small bell, and a negro woman soon appeared.
'Sue,' he said, 'go to Aunt Lucy's and ask Scip to come here. Bring him
in at the front door, and, mind, let no one know he comes.'
The woman in a short time returned with Scip. There was not a trace of
fear or embarrassment in the negro's manner as he entered the room.
Making a respectful bow, he bade us 'good evening.'
'Good evening, Scip,' said the Colonel, rising and giving the black his
hand; 'let us be friends. Madam tells me I should forgive you, and I
do.'
'Aunt Lucy say ma'am am an angel, sar, and it am tru,--it am tru, sar,'
replied the negro, with considerable feeling.
The lady rose, also, and took Scip's hand, saying, '_I_ not only forgive
you, Scipio, but I _thank_ you for what you have done. I shall never
forget it.'
'You'se too good, ma'am; you'se too good to say dat,' replied the darky,
the moisture coming to his eyes; 'but I meant nuffin' wrong,--I meant
nuffin' dis'specful to de Cunnel.'
'I know you didn't, Scip; but we'll say no more about it;--good-by,'
said the Colonel.
Shaking hands with each one of us, the darky left the apartment.
One who does not know that the high-bred Southern gentleman considers
the black as far below him as the horse he drives, or the dog he kicks,
can not realize the amazing sacrifice of pride which the Colonel made in
seeking a reconciliation with Scip. It was the cutting off of his right
hand. The circumstance showed the powerful influence held over him by
the octoroon woman. Strange that she, his slave, cast out from society
by her blood and her life, despised, no doubt, by all the world, save by
him and a few ignorant blacks, should thus control a proud, self-willed,
passionate man, and control him, too, only for good.
After the black had gone, I said to the Colonel, 'I was much interested
in old Lucy. A few more such instances of cheerful and contented old
age might lead me to think better of slavery.'
'Such cases are not rare, sir. They show the paternal character of our
"institution." We are _forced_ to care for our servants in their old
age.'
'But have your other aged slaves the same comforts that Aunt Lucy has?'
'No; they don't need them. She has been accustomed to live in my house,
and to fare better than the plantation hands; she therefore requires
better treatment.'
'Is not the support of that class a heavy tax upon you?'
'Yes, it _is_ heavy. We have, of course, to deduct it from the labor of
the able-bodied hands.'
'What is the usual proportion of sick and infirm on your plantation?'
'Counting in the child-bearing women, I reckon about twenty per cent.'
'And what does it cost you to support each hand?'
'Well, it costs _me_, for children and all, about seventy-five dollars a
year. In some places it costs less. _I_ have to buy all my provisions.'
'What proportion of your slaves are able-bodied hands?'
'Somewhere about sixty per cent. I have, all told, old and young,--men,
women, and children,--two hundred and seventy. Out of that number I have
now equal to a hundred and fifty-four _full_ hands. You understand that
we classify them: some do only half tasks, some three-quarters. I have
_more_ than a hundred and fifty-four working men and women, but they do
only that number of full tasks.'
'What does the labor of a _full_ hand yield?'
'At the present price of turpentine, my calculation is about two hundred
dollars a year.'
'Then your crop brings you about thirty-one thousand dollars, and the
support of your negroes costs you twenty thousand.'
'Yes.'
'If that's the case, my friend, let me advise you to sell your
plantation, free your niggers, and go North.'
'Why so, my dear fellow?' asked the Colonel, laughing.
'Because you'd make money by the operation.'
'I never was good at arithmetic; go into the figures,' he replied, still
laughing, while Madam P----, who had laid aside her book, listened very
attentively.
'Well, you have two hundred and seventy negroes, whom you value, we'll
say, with your mules, "stills," and movable property, at two hundred
thousand dollars; and twenty thousand acres of land, worth about three
dollars and a half an acre; all told, two hundred and seventy thousand
dollars. A hundred and fifty-four able-bodied hands produce you a yearly
profit of eleven thousand dollars, which, saying nothing about the cost
of keeping your live stock, the wear and tear of your mules and
machinery, and the yearly loss of your slaves by death, is only four per
cent. on your capital. Now, with only the price of your land, say
seventy thousand dollars, invested in safe stocks at the North, you
could realize eight per cent.--five thousand six hundred dollars,--and
live at your ease; and that, I judge, if you have many runaways, or many
die on your hands, is as much as you really _clear_ now. Besides, if you
should invest seventy thousand dollars in almost any legitimate business
at the North, and should add to it, _as you now do_, your _time_ and
_labor_, you would realize far more than you do at present from your
entire capital.'
'I never looked at the matter in that light. But I have given you my
profits as they _now_ are; some years I make more; six years ago I made
twenty-five thousand dollars.'
'Yes; and six years hence you may make nothing.'
'That's true. But it would cost me more to live at the North.'
'There you are mistaken. What do you pay for your corn, your pork, and
your hay, for instance?'
'Well, my corn I have to bring round by vessel from Washington (North
Carolina), and it costs me high when it gets here,--about ten bits (a
dollar and twenty-five cents), I think.'
'And in New York you could buy it now at sixty to seventy cents. What
does your hay cost?'
'Thirty-five dollars. I pay twenty for it in New York,--the balance is
freight and hauling.'
'Your pork costs you two or three dollars, I suppose, for freight and
hauling.'
'Yes; about that.'
'Then in those items you might save nearly a hundred per cent.; and they
are the principal articles you consume.'
'Yes; there's no denying that. But another thing is just as certain: it
costs less to support one of my niggers than one of your laboring men.'
'That may be true. But it only shows that our laborers fare better than
your slaves.'
'I'm not sure of that. I _am_ sure, however, that our slaves are more
contented than the run of laboring men at the North.'
'That proves nothing. Your blacks have no hope, no chance to rise; and
they submit--though I judge not cheerfully--to an iron necessity. The
Northern laborer, if very poor, may be discontented; but discontent
urges him to effort, and leads to the bettering of his condition. I tell
you, my friend, slavery is an expensive luxury. You Southern nabobs
_will_ have it; and you have to _pay for it_.'
'Well, we don't complain. But, seriously, my good fellow, I feel that
I'm carrying out the design of the Almighty in holding my niggers. I
think he made the black to serve the white.'
'_I_ think,' I replied, 'that whatever He designs works perfectly. Your
institution certainly does not. It keeps the producer, who, in every
society, is the really valuable citizen, in the lowest poverty, while it
allows those who do nothing to be "clad in fine linen, and to fare
sumptuously every day."'
'It does more than that, sir,' said Madam P----, with animation; 'it
brutalizes and degrades the _master_ and the _slave_; it separates
husband and wife, parent and child; it sacrifices virtuous women to the
lust of brutal men; and it shuts millions out from the knowledge of
their duty and their destiny. A good and just God could not have
designed it; and it must come to an end.'
If lightning had struck in the room I could not have been more startled
than I was by the abrupt utterance of such language in a planter's
house, in his very presence, and _by his slave_. The Colonel, however,
expressed no surprise and no disapprobation. It was evidently no new
thing to him.
'It is rare, madam,' I said, 'to hear such sentiments from a Southern
lady--one reared among slaves.'
Before she could reply, the Colonel laughingly said,--
'Bless you, Mr. K----, madam is an out-and-out abolitionist, worse by
fifty per cent. than Garrison or Wendell Phillips. If she were at the
North she would take to pantaloons, and "stump" the entire Free States;
wouldn't you, Alice?'
'I've no doubt of it,' rejoined the lady, smiling. 'But I fear I should
have poor success. I've tried for ten years to convert _you_, and Mr.
K---- can see the result.'
It had grown late; and, with my head full of working niggers and white
slave-women, I went to my apartment.
The next day was Sunday. It was near the close of December, yet the air
was as mild and the sun as warm as in our Northern October. It was
arranged at the breakfast-table that we all should attend service at
'the meeting-house,' a church of the Methodist persuasion, located some
eight miles away; but as it wanted some hours of the time for religious
exercises to commence, I strolled out after breakfast, with the Colonel,
to inspect the stables of the plantation. 'Massa Tommy' accompanied us,
without invitation; and in the Colonel's intercourse with him I observed
as much freedom and familiarity as he would have shown to an
acknowledged son. The youth's manners and conversation showed that great
attention had been given to his education and training, and made it
evident that the mother whose influence was forming his character,
whatever a false system of society had made her life, possessed some of
the best traits of her sex.
The stables, a collection of one-story framed buildings, about a hundred
rods from the house, were well lighted and ventilated, and contained all
'the modern improvements.' They were better built, warmer, more
commodious, and in every way more comfortable than the shanties occupied
by the human cattle of the plantation. I remarked as much to the
Colonel, adding that one who did not know would infer that he valued his
horses more than his slaves.
'That may be true,' he replied, laughing. 'Two of my horses here are
worth more than any eight of my slaves;' at the same time calling my
attention to two magnificent thorough-breds, one of which had made
'2.32' on the Charleston course. The establishment of a Southern
gentleman is not complete until it includes one or two of these useless
appendages. I had an argument with my host as to their value compared
with that of the steam-engine, in which I forced him to admit that the
iron horse is the better of the two, because it performs more work, eats
less, has greater speed, and is not liable to the spavin or the heaves;
but he wound up by saying, 'After all, I go for the thorough-breds. You
Yankees have but one test of value--use.'
A ramble through the negro-quarters, which followed our visit to the
stables, gave me some further glimpses of plantation life. Many of the
hands were still away in pursuit of Moye, but enough remained to make it
evident that Sunday is the happiest day in the darky calendar. Groups of
all ages and colors were gathered in front of several of the cabins,
some singing, some dancing, and others chatting quietly together, but
all enjoying themselves as heartily as so many young animals let loose,
in a pasture. They saluted the Colonel and me respectfully, but each one
had a free, good-natured word for 'Massa Tommy,' who seemed an especial
favorite with them. The lad took their greetings in good part, but
preserved an easy, unconscious dignity of manner that plainly showed he
did not know that _he_ too was of their despised, degraded race.
The Colonel, in a rapid way, gave me the character and peculiarities of
nearly every one we met. The titles of some of them amused me greatly.
At every step we encountered individuals whose names have become
household words in every civilized country.[L] Julius Cæsar, slightly
stouter than when he swam the Tiber, and somewhat tanned from long
exposure to a Southern sun, was seated on a wood-pile, quietly smoking a
pipe; while near him, Washington, divested of regimentals, and clad in a
modest suit of reddish-gray, his thin locks frosted by time, and his
fleshless visage showing great age, was gazing, in rapt admiration, at a
group of dancers in front of old Lucy's cabin.
In this group about thirty men and women were making the ground quake
and the woods ring with their unrestrained jollity. Marc Antony was
rattling away at the bones, Nero fiddling as if Rome were burning, and
Hannibal clawing at a banjo as if the fate of Carthage hung on its
strings. Napoleon, as young and as lean as when he mounted the bridge of
Lodi, with the battle-smoke still on his face, was moving his legs even
faster than in the Russian retreat; and John Wesley was using his heels
in a way that showed _they_ didn't belong to the Methodist church. But
the central figures of the group were Cato and Victoria. The lady had a
face like a thunder-cloud, and a form that, if whitewashed, would have
outsold the 'Greek Slave.' She was built on springs, and 'floated in
the dance' like a feather in a high wind. Cato's mouth was like an
alligator's, but when it opened, it issued notes that would draw the
specie even in this time of general suspension. As we approached he was
singing a song, but he paused on perceiving us, when the Colonel,
tossing a handful of coin among them, called out, 'Go on, boys; let the
gentleman have some music; and you, Vic, show your heels like a beauty.'
A general scramble followed, in which 'Vic's' sense of decorum forbade
her to join, and she consequently got nothing. Seeing that, I tossed her
a silver piece, which she caught. Grinning her thanks, she shouted,
'Now, clar de track, you nigs; start de music. I'se gwine to gib de
gemman de breakdown.'
And she did; and such a breakdown! 'We w'ite folks,' though it was no
new thing to the Colonel or Tommy, almost burst with laughter.
In a few minutes nearly every negro on the plantation, attracted by the
presence of the Colonel and myself, gathered around the performers; and
a shrill voice at my elbow called out, 'Look har, ye lazy,
good-for-nuffin' niggers, carn't ye fotch a cheer for Massa Davy and de
strange gemman?'
'Is that you, Aunty?' said the Colonel. 'How d'ye do?'
'Sort o' smart, Massa Davy; sort o' smart; how is ye?'
'Pretty well, Aunty; pretty well. Have a seat.' And the Colonel helped
her to one of the chairs that were brought for us, with as much
tenderness as he would have shown to an aged white lady.
The 'exercises,' which had been suspended for a moment, recommenced, and
the old negress entered into them as heartily as the youngest present. A
song from Cato followed the dance, and then about twenty 'gentleman and
lady' darkies joined, two at a time, in a half 'walk-round' half
breakdown, which the Colonel told me was what suggested the well-known
'white-nigger' dance and song of Lucy Long. Other performances
succeeded, and the whole formed a scene impossible to describe. Such
uproarious jollity, such full and perfect enjoyment, I had never seen in
humanity, black or white. The little nigs, only four or five years old,
would rush into the ring and shuffle away at the breakdowns till I
feared their short legs would come off; while all the darkies joined in
the songs, till the branches of the old pines above shook as if they too
had caught the spirit of the music. In the midst of it, the Colonel said
to me, in an exultant tone,--
'Well, my friend, what do you think of slavery _now_?'
'About the same that I thought yesterday. I see nothing to change my
views.'
'Why, are not these people happy? Is not this perfect enjoyment?'
'Yes; just the same enjoyment that aunty's pigs are having; don't you
hear them singing to the music? I'll wager they are the happier of the
two.'
'No; you are wrong. The higher faculties of the darkies are being
brought out here.'
'I don't know that,' I replied. 'Within the sound of their voices, two
of their fellows--victims to the inhumanity of slavery--are lying dead,
and yet they make _Sunday_ 'hideous' with wild jollity, while they do
not know but Sam's fate may be theirs to-morrow.'
Spite of his genuine courtesy and high breeding, a shade of displeasure
passed over the Colonel's face as I made this remark. Rising to go, he
said, a little impatiently, 'Ah, I see how it is; that d---- Garrison's
sentiments have impregnated even you. How can the North and the South
hold together when even moderate men like you and me are so far apart?'
'But you,' I rejoined, good-humoredly, 'are not a moderate man. You and
Garrison are of the same stripe, both extremists. You have mounted one
hobby, _he_ another; that is all the difference.'
'I should be sorry,' he replied, recovering his good-nature, 'to think
myself like Garrison. I consider him the ---- scoundrel unhung.'
'No; I think he means well. But you are both fanatics, both 'bricks' of
the same material; we conservatives, like mortar, will hold you together
and yet keep you apart.'
'I, for one, _won't_ be held. If I can't get out of this cursed Union in
any other way, I'll emigrate to Cuba.'
I laughed, and just then, looking up, caught a glimpse of Jim, who
stood, hat in hand, waiting to speak to the Colonel, but not daring to
interrupt a white conversation.
'Hallo, Jim,' I said; 'have you got back?'
'Yas, sar,' replied Jim, grinning all over as if he had some agreeable
thing to communicate.
'Where is Moye?' asked the Colonel.
'Kotched, massa; I'se got de padlocks on him.'
'Kotched,' echoed half a dozen darkies, who stood near enough to hear;
'Ole Moye is kotched,' ran through the crowd, till the music ceased, and
a shout went up from two hundred black throats that made the old trees
tremble.
'Now gib him de lashes, Massa Davy,' cried the old nurse. 'Gib him what
he gabe pore Sam; but mine dat you keeps widin de law.'
'Never fear, Aunty,' said the Colonel; 'I'll give him ----.'
How the Colonel kept his word will be told in another number.
* * * * *
ACTIVE SERVICE; OR, CAMPAIGNING IN WESTERN VIRGINIA.
I have been to the war; I have seen armed secessionists, and I have seen
them run; but, more than that, I have seen _Active Service_. It was
_active_, and no mistake.
In April last, my country needed my services; I had been playing
soldier, and I felt it my duty to respond to the call of the President.
I did respond. I uncovered my head, raised my right hand, and solemnly
swore to obey the President of the United States for three months. The
three months have expired, and I am once more a free American citizen,
and for the first time in my life I know what it is to be _free_.
ACTIVE SERVICE! That's what the military men call it. I have often read
of it; I have heard men talk about it; but now I have seen it. I meet
people every day who congratulate me on my safe return, and say, 'I
suppose you are going again?' Perhaps I am.
It was a beautiful day when our company left home, and what a crowd of
people assembled to see us off! What a waving of banners and
handkerchiefs; what shouting and cheering; what an endless amount of
hand-shaking; how many 'farewells,' 'good-bys,' and
'take-care-of-yourselves,' were spoken; all of this had to be gone
through with, and our company run the gauntlet and nobody was hurt.
Going to war is no child's play, as many seem to suppose. Once sworn in
as a _private_, you become a tool, a mere thing, to do another's
bidding. I do not say this to discourage enlistments,--far from it. I am
only speaking the truth. 'Forewarned, forearmed.' If there is a hard
life upon earth, it is that of a common soldier; he may be the bravest
man in the army, he may perform an endless amount of daring deeds, but
it is seldom that he gains a tangible reward. He does all the fighting,
he performs all the drudgery, he is plundered by the sutler, he lives
on pork and hard-bread, but he gets none of the honors of a victory. As
Biglow says,--
'Lieutenants are the lowest grade that help pick up the coppers.'
I belonged to an artillery company. I joined this because somebody told
me I could ride. I wish I had that _somebody_ by the throat. The idea of
a man's _riding_ over the mountains of Western Virginia! I won't call it
ridiculous, for that's no name for it.
I will pass over the uninteresting part of the campaign, that of lying
in camp, as everybody now-a-days has ample opportunity to judge of camp
life, in the cities, and take the reader at once into 'active service,'
and show the hardships and trials, together with the fun (for soldiers
_do_ have their good times) of campaigning.
On the 29th day of May, 1861, we arrived at Parkersburgh, Va. It was my
first visit to the Old Dominion. We had been taught when youngsters at
school to regard Virginia as a sort of Holy Land, 'flowing with milk and
honey,' and the mother of all that is great and noble in the United
States, if not in the world. We were 'going South.'
It was at the close of a warm spring day that we landed there; the sun
was just sinking in the west as the boat rounded-to at the wharf. We
jumped ashore, and for the first time in our lives inhaled the 'sacred
atmosphere' of the so-called Southern Confederacy. All was bustle and
confusion; but we soon had our traps, _i.e._, guns, caissons and horses,
unloaded, and a little after dark were on the march. We proceeded a few
miles out of town, and at midnight halted, pitched our tents, stationed
guards, and all who were so fortunate as not to be detailed for duty
were soon sound asleep.
At Grafton, one hundred miles east of Parkersburgh, we were told there
was a party of some two thousand rebels. This then was the object of our
visit to Western Virginia, to drive these men east of the
mountains,--from whence most of them came,--and to protect the honor of
our flag in that portion of Virginia now known by the name of Kanawha.
At sunrise on the 30th, we marched to the depot of the north-western
branch of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and, after a hard half-day's
work in loading our guns, horses and wagons, stowed ourselves away in
cattle cars, and were once more ready for a start. As we rattled along
over the railroad, the scenery for the first few miles was beautiful,
and we began to think that Old Virginny was really the flower of the
Union. But a 'change soon came over the spirit of our dreams.'
After passing a small shanty, called Petroleum,--from the numerous
oil-wells in the vicinity,--we met with the first really hard work we
had seen since we began the life of a soldier. Here the rebels had burnt
one of the railroad bridges, and all hands had to 'fall in' and repair
damages. Never did men work with a better will. Slender youths, who, if
they had been told one month before, that on the 30th day of May, 1861,
they would be laying rails and cutting timber for Uncle Sam, for eleven
dollars a month, would have pitied their informant as insane, were here
working with a will that showed what a man can do if he only sets
himself about it. For two days and a night we toiled and ceased not, and
when, on the evening of the second day, we passed over the 'soldiers'
bridge' in safety, such a shout rent the air as I never heard before.
A few miles beyond the burnt bridge, the scenery began to change. In the
clear starlight, instead of beautiful streams and fine farms, we beheld
hills and mountains covered with an almost impenetrable growth of
underbrush, and large rocks hanging over our heads, ready to be hurled
down upon us by some unseen hand, and to crush our little handful of
men. On we went, at a snail's pace, till about ten o'clock, P.M., when
our joy was again turned to woe, for here too the dogs of Jeff Davis had
been doing their work, and had burnt another bridge. We waited until
morning, and then, after some hard swearing, were once more transformed
into 'greasy mechanics,' and before the sun went down had passed to the
'other side of Jordan' in safety.
Here began our first experience of the hospitality of the sons, or
rather daughters, of Virginia.
A small farm-house stood near the bridge, numerous cows were grazing in
the pasture close by, and everything denoted a home of comfort and
plenty. This, I thought, must be the home of some F.F.V., and I will
take a pail--or rather camp kettle--and 'sarah forth' to buy a few
quarts of milk. Wending my way to the house, I knocked at the door, and
instantly six female heads protruded from the window. Presently one of
them, an elderly woman, opened the door, and inquired what I wanted.
'Have you any milk to spare?' I said.
'I reckon,' replied the woman.
'I would like to get a few quarts,' I said, handing her my kettle. I
took a seat on the door-step, and wondered what these six women were
doing in this lonely spot. They evidently lived alone, for not a man was
to be seen around. The table was spread for dinner, six cups, six
plates, six spoons, and no more. I was about to ask for the man of the
house, when the old woman returned with my kettle of milk.
'How much?' I asked, as I thrust my hand deep into my pocket, and drew
forth one of the few coins it was my fortune to possess.
'Only four bits,' said the ancient female.
I thought milk must have 'riz' lately, but I paid the money and left.
From observations since taken, I infer these six women were 'grass
widows,' whose husbands had enlisted in the rebel army, and left them
behind to plunder the Union troops by selling corn-bread and milk for
ten times its value.
I took a seat on a log, and congratulated myself on the prospect of a
good dinner. By the aid of a stone I managed to crumble 'two shingles'
of hard bread into a cup of the milk, and then, with an appetite such as
I never enjoyed in _America_, sat to work. I took one mouthful, when,
lo! the milk was sour! Hurling cup and contents toward the hospitable
mansion, I fell back upon my regular diet of salt pork.
Leaving the Virginia damsels to plunder the next regiment of Federals
that came along, we were soon once more on our way, and on Saturday, the
1st of June, arrived at Clarksburgh. Here we learned that the rebels had
left Grafton and gone to Phillippi, some twenty miles back in the
country. We remained at Clarksburgh until Sunday morning, when, once
more stowing ourselves 'three deep' on flats and stock cars, we
proceeded as far as Webster. Here we left the railroad, and pursued the
rebels afoot.
Webster is a big name, and there we flattered ourselves we could get
some of the comforts of life. But once again we were doomed to
disappointment. Two stores, a dozen or so of shanties, and a secession
pole, make up this mighty town. Parkersburgh is a 'right smart place;'
Clarksburgh 'isn't much to speak of;' the only thing of interest about
it is the home of Senator Carlisle; but Webster is a little the worst
place I have ever seen. I am sorry to say, in the language of the great
man whose name it bears, 'It still lives.'
Observing a shanty on the summit of a small hill, with the words, 'Meals
at all hours,' over the door, I wended my way over sundry cow-paths and
through by-lanes towards it, until at last, fatigued, and with hands
torn and bleeding from catching hold of roots and bushes to keep myself
from falling, I arrived at the summit of the hill. A young woman stood
in the door-way of the shanty, and I asked her if I could obtain a
dinner.
'Yes,' she said. 'Walk in and take a cheer.' She shoved a three-legged
stool towards me, and I took it.
She was about eighteen years of age, and had a very pretty
face,--though it was thickly covered with a coating of the sacred
soil,--a musical voice, and a small hand. Her eyes sparkled like
fire-flies on a June night, and her hair hung in wavy ringlets over what
would have been an 'alabaster brow,' had it not been for the
superabundance of _dirt_ above mentioned. She was the only good-looking
woman I saw in Western Virginia.
I took a seat at the table, and from a broken cup drank a few swallows
of tolerable coffee. As for the edibles, 'twas the same old story,--corn
bread and maple molasses, fried pork and onions. I staid there perhaps
fifteen minutes, and learned from my hostess that Webster was, previous
to the war 'a right smart village,' but that the male inhabitants had
mostly joined the rebel army, then at Phillippi. She, different from
most women I met in Virginia, expressed sympathy for the Union cause. It
seemed so strange to find a _Union_ woman in that part of the country, I
was induced to ask if Webster had the honor of being her birth-place.
'Oh no,' she said; 'I was born in 'Hio.'
That solved the whole mystery. I willingly paid the 'four bits' for my
dinner; and, as a storm was coming on, made all haste back to the
railroad, where we were getting ready to march on Phillippi, distance
thirteen Virginian, or about twenty _American_, miles.
'Fall in, Company Q!' shouted the orderly. 'Numbers one, two, three, and
four, do so and so; five, six, seven, and eight, do this, that, and the
other!' So at it we went; and never in my life did I perform a harder
afternoon's work than on Sunday, the 2d of June, 1861. It was a warm,
sultry day, and our morning's ride in the cars had been dusty and
fatiguing; and when, about dusk, a heavy rain-storm set in and drenched
us to the skin, we were sorry-looking objects indeed.
Although we had been in service six weeks, we had but just received our
uniforms that morning. My pants, when I put them on, were about six
inches too long, and the sleeves of my blouse ditto. After marching all
night in the rain, my trowsers only came down as far as my knees; they
shrank two feet in twelve hours. Many of the men threw away their shoddy
uniforms after wearing them one day, as they were totally unfit for use.
They tore as easily as so much paper, and were no protection whatever
from the weather. Somebody, I don't pretend to say who, made a good
thing when he furnished them to the government. No doubt they were
supplied by some _loyal_ and _respectable_ citizen, who would not
knowingly cheat his country out of a penny! We have reaped a bountiful
harvest of such patriots during the past year. May the Lord love them!
At eleven o'clock on the night of the 2d of June we started for
Phillippi. It commenced raining about seven o'clock in the evening, and
we were all wet to the skin. The night was very dark, and the road,
though they called it a 'pike,' was one of the worst imaginable; it
wound 'round and round,'--
'It turned in and turned out,
Leaving beholders still in doubt
Whether the wretched muddy track
Were going South or coming back,'--
and seemed to run in every direction but the right one. It was a road
such as can be found only in Virginia. The mud was almost up to the hubs
of the wagon-wheels; the horses pulled, the drivers laid on the lash and
a string of oaths at the same time; the wind blew, and the rain came
down in torrents. More than once on that awful march did we lend a
helping hand to get the horses out of some 'slough of Despond.' Over the
mountains and through the woods we went, at the rate of about two miles
an hour. Many gave out and lay down by the wayside; and when at last
morning dawned, a more pitiable set of beings never were seen upon
earth. The men looked haggard and wan, the horses could hardly stand,
and we were in anything but a good condition for invading an enemy's
country.
At daylight we were within two miles of Phillippi. Col. (now General)
Lander was with the advance, and had discovered that the enemy were
ready for a retreat. Their baggage was loaded, and if we did not make
the last two miles at 'double-quick,' he was fearful we would be too
late to accomplish the object of the expedition. So the order was given,
'Double-quick!' and jaded horses and almost lifeless men rushed forward,
buoyed up with the prospect of having a brush with the rascals who had
given us so much trouble.
We had gone about a mile and a half, when, at a turn in the road, an old
woman rushed out from a log cabin, and, in a loud and commanding voice,
exclaimed,--
'Halt, artillery, or I'll shoot every one of you!'
Not obeying the order, she fired three shots at us, none of which took
effect. At the same time three men rushed from the back of the house
toward the rebel camp at the foot of the hill, shouting at the top of
their voices to give warning of our approach. A squad of our fellows
took after them, and soon overtook them in a corn-field, when they
denied coming from the house, and said they were out planting corn! A
likely story, as it was hardly daylight, and the rain was falling in
torrents. However, during the forenoon they took _oath_, and were set
free!
Past the log house we went at 'double-quick,' and in less time than it
takes to tell it, the artillery took position in a small piece of wood
on the summit of a hill overlooking the town. At once the order was
given, 'Action front!' and the first the rebels knew of our approach was
the rattling of canister among their tents. Out they swarmed, like bees
from a molested hive. This way and that the chivalry flew, and yet
scarcely knew which way to run. 'Bould sojer boys,' with nothing but
their underclothes on, mounted their nags bareback, and fled 'over the
hills and far away' towards Beverley, firing as they ran a few random
shots. Before the infantry reached the town most of them had made good
their escape, leaving behind, however, nearly all their baggage, a large
number of horses, wagons, tents, and about eight hundred stand of arms,
together with a nicely-cooked breakfast, which they had no idea they
were preparing for 'Lincoln's hirelings.'
We took about fifty prisoners, among them the man who wounded Col. (now
General) Kelley. They were retained until the next day, when the oath
was administered, and they were let loose to rejoin their companions in
arms. About four weeks after this, we had the pleasure of retaking,
several of these fellows; some of them, in fact, were taken three or
four times, each time taking the oath, and being set at liberty, and
each time, true to their nature--and Jeff Davis--immediately taking up
arms again against the government.
Phillippi, from any of the neighboring hills, or rather mountains,
presents a rather picturesque appearance. It was, previous to the war, a
place of about one thousand inhabitants. It boasts a good court-house, a
bank, and two hotels, and was by far the most civilized-looking town we
had then seen in Virginia. But, alas! what a change had come over its
once happy populace. When we entered it, not a dozen inhabitants were
left. We were told that Phillippi was the head-quarters of rebellion in
Western Virginia. Here was published the Barbour County _Jeffersonian_,
a rabid secession newspaper, now no more, for the press was demolished,
and the types thrown into a well. The editor had joined the rebel army a
few days before our arrival, and was among the loudest denunciators of
our government. He boasted he would shed the last drop of his blood (he
was very careful as to shedding the first) before he would retreat one
inch before the _Abolitionists_. We afterwards learned from some of his
men that he was among the first to mount his horse and run to the
mountains; the last that was seen of him he was going at lightning speed
toward Richmond, and in all probability _il court encore_,--he is
running yet.
We had taken possession of the town and most of the enemy's baggage and
equipments; still our commanding officer was not satisfied, neither were
the men. We had intended to completely surround the enemy and to cut off
every possible chance of his retreat. The attack was to have been made
at five o'clock, A.M.; but one column, that which marched from Grafton,
was about twenty minutes too late, and when at last it did make its
appearance, it entered town by the wrong road, having been misled by the
guide. The consequence was, the enemy retreated on the Beverley road,
where they met with little or no resistance. Our men were too much
fatigued to follow the fast-fleeing traitors, and most of them made good
their escape.
After the excitement of the attack, the men dropped down wherever they
stood, in the streets, in the fields, or in the woods, and slept soundly
until noon, the rain continuing to fall in torrents. But what was that
to men worn out with marching? I never slept better than when lying in a
newly-plowed corn-field, with the mud over my ankles, the rain pelting
me in the face, and not a blanket to cover me.
_Bang! bang! bang!_ and up I jumped from my bed of mud, thinking the
fight had again commenced. Somewhat bewildered, I rubbed the 'sacred
soil' from my eyes and looked about me. It was noon; the rain had
ceased, and from the constant sound of musketry, I supposed a battle was
then raging. But instead of fighting the 'secesh,' I soon found the
Indiana boys were making havoc among the fowls of the chivalry. They
fired too much at random to suit my taste, and I made tracks for a safer
abode. Beating a hasty retreat to the hill where my company was
stationed, I found a large crowd gathered around some of the captured
wagons, overhauling the plunder. And what a mixed-up mess! Old guns,
sabres, bowie-knives, pistols made in Richmond in 1808, old uniforms
that looked like the property of some strolling actor, and love-letters
which the bold chivalry had received from fair damsels, who all
expressed the desire that, their 'lovyers' would bring home, Old Abe's
scalp. These letters afforded great amusement to our boys, though it was
hard to read many of them, and were they put into print, Artemus Ward
would have to look to his 'lorrels.'
Bang! bang! bang! they kept on shooting till dark. It is useless to say
we had chickens for supper that night; and I would not be surprised if
the chicken crop of Phillippi and vicinity should be rather small for a
few years to come.
Wild rumors were running through the camp all day that the 'secesh' had
been reinforced, were ten thousand strong, and, with forty pieces of
cannon, would attack us that night. Some said they were commanded by
Gov. Wise, the lunatic, others by Beauregard, and some positively
asserted that Jeff Davis led the rebel forces himself. At all events, it
was pretty well settled that we were to be attacked forthwith. Our men
slept on their arms, but not a secesh appeared.
I, as usual, was on guard that night, and, feeling that a great
responsibility rested on my shoulders, was 'doubly armed.' A well-known
professor, a member of the same company as myself, was on the first
relief; I was on the second. I went on duty at ten o'clock, P.M., and
the professor kindly loaned me his revolver, and, in addition, soon
returned with an extra musket, a secession sabre, and one of the
captured pistols. Thus loaded down with swords, pistols, and muskets,
and guarding a six-pounder, I felt _tolerably_ safe. After walking up
and down my beat a few times, I found the two muskets began to feel
rather heavy, and the two sabres to be rather uncomfortable dangling
about my legs; and thinking that two revolvers and a _secesh_ pistol
would be all that I could use to advantage, I divested myself of the
extra equipments, and passed the residue of my 'two-hours' watch' in
committing to memory 'my last dying words,' for use in case the secesh
put an end to my existence.
Our colonel's name was Barnett; the countersign for the night was Buena
Vista. About eleven o'clock I observed a man coming towards me. 'Halt!'
I exclaimed; 'who goes there?'
'A _friendt_,' was the reply.
'Advance, friend, and give the countersign.'
The man walked towards me, and whispered in my ear 'Barnett's Sister!'
at the same time attempting to pass. Placing my bayonet close against
his breast, I ordered him to 'halt!' and called for the corporal of the
guard. The Dutchman--for such he was--begged and plead, but it was of no
use; I told him he was trying to 'run the guard,' and he must go to the
guard-house.
'Barnett's Sister! Barnett's Sister! Barnett's Sister!' shouted the
Dutchman. 'I know nothing about Barnett's Sister,' said I; 'stop your
noise, or you will rouse the camp.'
Just then, the officer of the guard came round. I stated the case to
him, and the man was taken to the guard-house. The next morning he was
released, and on inquiry at head-quarters it was found that he had the
password, but had confounded 'Buena Vista' with 'Barnett's Sister.' We
all enjoyed a good laugh over it, and ever after 'Barnett's Sister' was
the password for all who attempted to 'run the guard.'
We lay at Phillippi nearly six weeks. Every day or two an alarm would
occur, the long roll would beat, and the men would form in line of
battle. It is needless to say the alarms were all false. There are
always hundreds of rumors in every camp, and ours was not an exception.
But after the first week we paid little attention to the many wild
reports which were in circulation. Although Gov. Wise had said he would
take dinner in Phillippi or in ---- on the fourth of July;
notwithstanding Gov. Letcher had issued a proclamation warning us to
leave the State in twenty-four hours or he would hang every one of us;
although a proclamation dated Staunton, Va., June 7th, 1861, stated to
the people of Western Virginia that their little band of _volunture (?)_
had been forced from Phillippi by the ruthless Northern foe, led on by
traitors and tories, and that Jeff Davis and John Letcher had sent to
their aid a force of cavalry, artillery and rifles; and although the
proclamation wound up by saying To-morrow an ARMY will follow! we felt
tolerably safe at Phillippi. We had determined, if the aforesaid army
did appear, it should have a warm reception.
Every day or two scouting parties went out and captured a few stray
'Bush-Whackers,' to whom the oath was administered, and they were
released. Days and weeks passed, but the army of Davis, Beauregard, and
Co., failed to appear. They had, however, congregated and entrenched
themselves at Laurel Hill, about thirteen miles east of Phillippi.
We were reinforced from time to time, until our force numbered some
forty-five hundred men, when Gen. McClellan determined to rout the enemy
from Laurel Hill and Rich Mountain. How well he succeeded, history will
tell.
On the night of the 6th of July, we left Phillippi for Laurel Hill,
starting at midnight. The road was rather rough, but much better than we
expected to find it. When we were within about five miles of the enemy's
camps; we passed a toll-gate, where an old woman came to the door to
'collect toll.' Some of our boys stopped at the house to get a drink of
water, and asked the old lady how far it was to camp,--meaning the rebel
camp. 'About four miles,' she said, 'but you can't get in without a
pass.'
The artillery was just then passing her door; the boys pointed to that,
and told her 'they thought they had a pass that would take them in.'
'Oh!' she exclaimed, as the thought struck her that we were Federals,
'you won't find it as easy work as you did at Phillippi; they're going
to fight this time.'
On our return home this same woman was at the door, but she didn't
demand _toll_ this time. 'Well, old lady,' said one of our fellows,
'what do you think _now_ about the fighting qualities of your men?'
'They who fight and run away,
Will live to fight another day,'
she exclaimed, and, slamming the door, vanished from sight, I trust
forever.
At daylight we drove in the rebel pickets at Laurel Hill. We were within
a mile and a half of their main camp, and halted there to await orders
from Gen. McClellan, before beginning the attack. He was advancing on
the enemy at Rich Mountain and Beverley.
We threw a few shells into the rebel camp, producing great consternation
among their men and horses. For four days we kept up skirmishing, but on
the fifth day it rained, and little was done. All were anxious to
commence the attack, but, as we had heard nothing from Gen. McClellan,
all had to 'wait for orders.' That night the enemy, hearing of the
Federal victory at Rich Mountain, and the occupation of Beverley by
McClellan, and evidently thinking himself in a 'bad fix,' retreated from
Laurel Hill toward St. George. In the morning our forces took possession
of his camp and fortifications, and part of our column pursued the
flying forces, overtaking them at Cornick's Ford, where a sharp
engagement ensued, which resulted in a total rout of the rebels, and the
death of Gen. Garnett. Only a portion of his army escaped over the
mountains to Eastern Virginia.
So hasty was the retreat from Laurel Hill, that the enemy left behind
all the sick and wounded, telling them the Union troops would kill them
as soon as they took possession of their camp. A large number of tents,
a quantity of flour, and a few muskets, fell into our hands. The
fortifications at Laurel Hill were strong, and evidently planned and
constructed by men who understood their business.
Among the numerous letters which we found in the rebel camp, was one
written to one of the Richmond papers, during the _siege_ of Laurel
Hill. In that part of the letter which was intended for publication, the
writer said:--
'The Yankees have at last arrived, about ten thousand strong. For the
past two days we have had some sharp skirmishing, during which time we
have killed one hundred of the Hessians. We have, as yet, lost but one
man.'
In a _private note_ to the editor, the writer adds:--
'I guess the Yankees have got us this time. There is a regiment here who
call themselves the Indiana Ninth, but they lie,--they are regulars.
They have got good rifles, and they take good aim. If it wasn't for
this, we would attack them.'
This little item shows how the masses of the Southern people are
deceived. Through the medium of the press they are made to believe they
are gaining great victories, and repulsing the 'abolitionists' at every
step, killing hundreds of our men, and losing none of their own. Our
total loss at Laurel Hill was six men. The rebel loss, as near as could
be ascertained, was forty. The rebel leaders know they are playing a
game for life or death, and so long as they can keep in power by
deceiving the people, just so long will this rebellion continue. Could
the _truth_ be forced upon the people of the South, the rebellion would
go down as quickly as it rose.
Many laughable incidents occurred while we were skirmishing with the
enemy at Laurel Hill. We received a newspaper containing the message of
President Lincoln. One of the Indiana boys, thinking it might do the
secesh good to hear a few loyal sentiments, mounted a stump, paper in
hand, and exclaimed, 'I say, secesh, don't you want to hear old Abe's
message?' He then commenced reading, but had proceeded only a short way,
before 'ping, ping' came the rifle balls around the stump; down jumped
Indiana, convinced that reading even a President's message amidst a
shower of bullets isn't so agreeable, after all.
We staid at Laurel Hill about two weeks. The enemy had been completely
routed from that part of Virginia, and our term of enlistment having
expired, our thoughts began to turn homeward. That ninety days'
soldiering was the longest three months we ever experienced. It seemed
an age since we had tasted a good meal, and all were anxious to once
more cross the Ohio, and see a civilized country. The long looked-for
order came at last, ''Bout face!' and we were on our homeward march. A
more jovial, ragged, dirty, and hungry set of men, were never mustered
out of service. We reached Camp Chase at Columbus, Ohio, about the last
of July, and as each man delivered up his knapsack and etceteras, he
felt as if a 'great weight' had been taken from his shoulders. We were
once more free men; no one could order us about, tell us where we should
or where we should not go. There was no more touching of hats to upstart
lieutenants and half-witted captains or colonels. We could go where we
liked, and do as we pleased, and not be reported, or sent to the
guard-house. If my memory serves me aright, we _did_ do pretty much as
we pleased; in other words, for two days, 'we made Rome howl!'
What we saw of Western Virginia and its inhabitants left anything but a
favorable impression on our minds. The country is wild and romantic, but
good for little or nothing for farming purposes. The houses are mostly
built of logs, being little more than mere huts, and around each of
these 'mansions' may be seen at least a dozen young 'tow-heads,' who are
brought up in ignorance and filth. The inhabitants are lazy and
ignorant, raising hardly enough to keep starvation from their doors.
School houses are almost unknown; we did not see one in the whole course
of our march; the consequence is, not more than one in ten of the
population can read or write. And the few who 'can just make out to
spell' are worse off than their more ignorant brethren.
'A little learning is a dangerous thing.'
And these people know just enough to make them _dangerous_. They have
read in some of their county newspapers that Vice-President Hamlin is a
negro, and that Lincoln is waging this war for the purpose of liberating
the slaves and killing their masters. This they believe, and any amount
of reasoning cannot convince them to the contrary. It seems to be enough
for them to know that they are _Virginians_; upon this, and this alone,
they live and have their being. They are by far the most wretched and
degraded people in America,--I had almost said in the world. The women,
if possible, are worse than the men; they go dressed in a loose, uncouth
manner, barefooted and bareheaded; their principal occupation is chewing
tobacco and plundering Union troops by getting ten prices for their
eggs, butter, and corn bread. And these are the people our children--and
their fathers before them--have been taught to regard as the true
_chivalry_ of America! The people of the United States are beginning to
see that Virginia and her sons have been greatly over-estimated. That
Virginia has produced true and great men, no one will deny. There are a
few such still within her borders; but, taking her as a whole, the
picture I have drawn is a true one.
By my soldiering experience I learned some things which it would have
been impossible to learn had I never 'gone for a soger.' First, I
ascertained--shall I say from my _personal_ experience?--that a man
dressed in soldier-clothes can stand twice as much bad liquor as one
clothed in the garb of a citizen. Secondly, that to be a good soldier a
man should be able to go at least forty-eight hours without eating,
drinking, or sleeping, and then endure guard-duty all night in a
drenching rain, without grumbling or fault-finding. Thirdly, I _think_ I
have discovered that the martial road to glory '_is a hard road to
travel_.'
* * * * *
A CABINET SESSION.
_The President: Secretaries Seward, Chase, Bates, Smith, Blair and
Welles. Enter Mr. Stanton._
_Mr. Lincoln._ Gentlemen, I officially present Mr. Stanton!
[_Mr. Stanton, bowing with graceful dignity, seats himself at the
table._]
_Mr. Seward (breaking the momentary pause in his jocular way)._
Remember, Mr. Secretary of War, you are now in the old chair of Floyd
and Davis: and sit thee down as if on nettles.
_Mr. Chase._ Aye; but out of the 'nettle danger' pluck thou 'the flower
safety.'
_Mr. Stanton (with emphasis)._ Believe me, I appreciate not so much the
honor as the responsibilities of my new position. I claim a good omen,
for, as I turned just now towards the gate, a little boy, seated upon
one of the granite blocks for the new building hereabout, trolled out as
my salutation the lines of the national air,--
'Then conquer we must, for our cause it is just,
And this be our motto, In God is our trust.'
_Mr. Welles._ Amen!
_Mr. Bates._ I suppose you passed not a few interesting hours in this
room at the twilight of Mr. Buchanan's day, whilst holding _my_
portfolio?
_Mr. Stanton._ Too momentous to be called by _me_ interesting.
Posterity, reading, will say _that_. And those twilight hours, as you
felicitously term them, were followed by anxious vigils. But these
belong to confidences.
_Mr. Lincoln (abruptly and familiarly)._ Talking of confidences, what do
you think of the news about Zollicoffer?
_Mr. Stanton._ It appears reliable, and is a most providential success.
Eastern Tennessee was tending to the position which Lucknow sustained
towards the Indian rebellion. It is now relieved, and a fortnight or so
will bring intelligence that the whole of it has practically joined
forces to Western Virginia. I regard it as of the highest importance to
prove, by industrious acts, that we recognize and reward the sufferings
of these American Albigenses in their Cumberland fastnesses. How grandly
would swell the old Miltonian hymn, properly paraphrased, when a brigade
of the loyal Tennessians may sing
'Avenge, Columbia, thy slaughtered hosts, whose bones
Lie scattered on the Western mountains cold,'
and so forth!
_Mr. Lincoln._ Now, you are stepping into Seward's province. _He_ is the
poet of my cabinet!
_Mr. Seward._ Granted for the argument: but there is more truth than
poetry in what our new brother has just said. Throughout how many weary
months have those brave thousands who voted against secession awaited
the crack of our rifles and our cannon-smoke--true music and sacred
incense to them.
_Mr. Blair (practically)._ Next to the border States we must take care
of the newspapers.
_Mr. Welles._ Ah, those newspapers: bothersome as urchins in a nursery,
and yet as necessary to the perfect development of life's enjoyment.
_Mr. Chase._ Well said for the navy. But what do you say of the
magnificent Neckars, whose monied articles from Boston to Chicago would
swamp the treasury in a week, if they were believed in?
_Mr. Lincoln._ Being born and raised so far from the great metropolitan
centres, I don't seem to take to newspapers so kindly as the rest of you
do.
_Mr. Stanton._ With great respect to your Honor (as we say in court), I
deem it a great mistake to neglect newspaper suggestions, however
provincial. 'Do you hear (as Hamlet says), let them be well used; for
they are the abstract and brief chronicles of the time.' And your
metropolitan editor, after all, follows the bent of the public opinion
of the provinces as he scissors it from his thousand and one exchanges.
The village or country editor has time to mix among the people, and
hears them talk to reproduce it artistically. The city editor finds
little time for this. Besides, there _is_ very little of reliable public
opinion amid cities. The American mind is styled fickle; so it may be in
the great marts. From _them_ come your sensations and spasms. The
interior is more stable, and less swayed by impulses. Aggregate a
hundred county editorials all over the North, then strike an average,
and you will find the product in the last big journal. The misfortune of
Washington social life is that we walk in it over a circle. Hither come
'needy knife-grinders,' and axe-sharpeners, and place-hunters, who say
what they think will be agreeable to the ears of power. But the other
kind of mails, presided over by Mr. Blair, bring us wholesome, although
sometimes disagreeable, truths. They are worth attending to, Mr.
President. Let us 'strike,' but let us 'hear.'
_Mr. Seward._ In the matter of newspapers, my son Fred and I divide
reading. He distils the metropolitan gazettes, and I those of England
and France. Then we exchange commodities at breakfast time. Fred, having
been an editor, can boil down the news very rapidly, and so put its
essence into our coffee-pot. The foreign journals, however, have so much
in them that is dissimulative and latent, they require more care and
discernment. Mr. Hunter aids me in dissecting them.
_Mr. Lincoln._ You are the son of an editor, Montgomery; how do you
stand on this subject of Colfax's bill to carry all the papers in your
mails? The rebel postmaster-general, in _his_ report, made, you
remember, an elaborate argument to justify the Jeff Davis law, which
forbids the sending of newspapers and periodicals by expressmen.
_Mr. Blair._ When Colfax will accept as an amendment a prohibition of
telegrams, and the obliging our mails to transmit _all_ intelligence,
then I will consider of his views.
_Mr. Smith._ Well said; as good an extract that from the last edition of
Blair's rhetoric as could be wished for.
_Mr. Chase._ Or in the Tribune satires of Horace! But let me ask Mr.
Blair what he thinks of a newspaper tax.
_Mr. Blair._ Very favorably. I am for a mill stamp on every paper,
obliging every ten readers to pay the government one cent.
_Mr. Stanton._ Mr. Secretary of the Interior, what is the average
circulation of newspapers in the loyal section?
_Mr. Smith._ A thousand million.
_Mr. Chase_ (rapidly computing). Which on Mr. Blair's proposition would
yield a million dollars revenue.
_Mr. Welles._ And support the government at our present rate of
expenditure _for one day!_
_Mr. Seward._ The public would bear half a cent on each paper. The
publisher could make his readers insensibly pay the tax, and improve
both paper and issue by receiving another half cent: and so add one cent
of charge per copy.
_Mr. Chase._ Which would yield a revenue of five millions per year.
_Mr. Lincoln._ Would the people stand such a charge?
_Mr. Stanton (good humoredly)._ Will our friend the Secretary of State
smoke fewer cigars when you come to tax tobacco?
_Mr. Welles (naïvely)._ But newspaper reading is not a vice.
_Mr. Bates._ Be not so sure of that. The passion for newspapers excites
the minds of the whole republic. Now-a-days your servant reads the news
as he works. The clergy peruse the Sunday extras, and the
crossing-sweeper begs your worn-out copy instead of a cigar-stump.
_Mr. Blair._ Yet Gen. McClellan has not read a newspaper in three
months.
_Mr. Lincoln._ The subject brings to my mind a good old parson in
Springfield who used to complain that the _Weekly Republican_ was as bad
as himself. He was preaching his old sermons over and over again with
new texts. Come to find out, he had a waggish grandson who for three
previous weeks had neatly gummed the fresh date over the old one, and
the dear divine had been perusing the same paper as many times.
_(Omnes laughing heartily.)_
_Mr. Stanton._ Talking of General McClellan,--I had my first engagement
with him last night at one o'clock.
_Mr. Welles (startled)._ One o'clock! No wonder he has had typhoid
fever.
_Mr. Lincoln._ I think he is napping it now. He has a wonderful facility
at the sleep business. Forty winks seem to refresh him as much as four
hours do other people. At my last levee, according to the newspapers, he
and his wife retired early. _He_ went up stairs and napped for two
hours, desiring to see me for half an hour alone afterward. Then he
spent several hours at the topographical bureau, hunting for some old
maps which he insisted had been there since the Creek campaign. He was
rewarded for his industry by finding also an admirable map and survey of
the situation around New Orleans.
_Mr. Seward._ The General is a believer in Robert Bruce's spider. The
American spider's-web didn't reach Richmond in July, nor Columbus in
November, but McClellan has kept on busily spinning.
_Mr. Blair._ Can any one tell me what is the General's platform?
_Mr. Stanton._ I can. Long before I dreamed of being here, he told me.
It is in three words.
_Mr. Lincoln._ That's the shortest I ever heard of next to that of the
English parson--'What _I_ say is orthodox, what I don't believe is
heterodox.'
_Mr. Smith._ But the three words?
_Mr. Seward._ Cæsar's was in these words: _Veni, vidi, vici_.
_Mr. Stanton._ It is to be fervently hoped _they_ will become the Latin
translation of his own platform. McClellan's is, 'TO RETRIEVE BULL RUN!'
_Mr. Lincoln (laughing)._ Then, if the General told you that, he is a
plagiarist: for that is _my_ platform. When he was made commander here,
he asked me what I wanted done. Said I, 'Retrieve Bull Run.' He said he
would, and turned to go. I jocularly added, 'But can't you tell us how
you are going to do it?' He mused a moment, and then said, 'I must work
it out algebraically, and from unknown quantities produce the certain
result. "Drill" shall be my "_x_" and "Transportation" my "_y_" and
"Patience" my "_z_." Then _x_ + _y_ + _z_ = success.' And now that Mr.
Stanton is here, I doubt not the slate is ready for the figuring.
_Mr. Stanton._ Thank you, Mr. President, for the compliment. May it
prove a simple equation.
_Mr. Chase (with energy)._ Now we call for your platform, Mr. Secretary
of War.
_Mr. Stanton (gracefully bowing)._ The President's--yours--_ours
(looking all around)_.
_Mr. Seward._ But the allusion is a proper personal one, nevertheless.
Remember court-martial law--the youngest always speaks first!
(_Omnes compose themselves in a listening attitude._)
_Mr. Stanton._ First and foremost, I believe slavery to be the _casus
belli_. To treat the _casus belli_ above and beyond all other
considerations I hold to be the duty of the true commander-in-chief: as
the surgeon disregards secondary symptoms and probes the wound. I would
treat this _casus belli_ as the Constitution allows us to treat it--not
one hair's breadth from the grand old safeguard would I step. Under the
Constitution I believe slavery to be a purely local institution. In
Louisiana and Texas, a slave is an immovable by statute, and is annexed
to the realty as hop-poles are in the law of New York. In Alabama and
Mississippi, the slave is a chattel. In the first-named States he passes
by deed of national act and registration; in the other, by simple
receipt or delivery. Thus even among slave States there is no uniform
system respecting the slave property. To the Northern States the slave
is a person in his ballot relation to congressional quota and
constituency, and also an apprentice to labor, to be delivered up on
demand. The slave escaping from Maryland to Pennsylvania is not to be
delivered up, nor cared about, nor thought about, until he is demanded.
Liberty is the law of nature. Every man is presumed free in choice, and
not even to be trammeled by apprenticeship, until the contrary is made
clearly to appear. One man may be a New York discharged convict, for
instance--an unpardoned convict. He emigrates southward, he obtains
property, according to local law, in a slave. The slave escapes to New
York. The convict--unpardoned--master enters the tribunal there on his
demand. Quoth the escaped apprentice, producing the record of the
conviction, 'Mr. Claimant, you have no standing in court. Your civil
rights are suspended in this State until you are pardoned. You are _not_
pardoned, therefore I will not answer aye or no to your claim, until you
are legitimately in court, and recognized by the judges.' I take it that
plea would avail. And if the crier wanted to employ a person to sweep
the court-room the next moment, he could employ that defendant to do it.
There is not a man in the rebel States (_whom we publicly know of_) who
has a standing under the Constitution regarding this slavery question.
By his own argument he lives in a foreign country; by our own argument
he is not _rectus in curia_. Were I an invading general and wanted
horses, I would decoy them from the rebels with hay and stable
enticements. If I wanted trench-diggers, camp scullions, or
artillerists, or pilots, or oarsmen, or guides, and, being that general,
saw negroes about me, I should press them into my service. Time enough
to talk about the rights of some one to possess the negroes by better
claim of title to service when that somebody, with the Constitution in
one hand and stipulation of allegiance in the other, demands legal
possession. Even the fugitive slave is emancipated practically whilst in
Ohio, and whilst not yet demanded. Rebel soldiers daily leave their
plantations and abandon their negroes. _Pro tem_, at least, the latter
are then emancipated. Let them, when within Our lines, continue
emancipated.
_Mr. Welles._ Would you arm them?
_Mr. Stanton._ Yes, if exigencies of situation so demanded. The
beleaguered garrison at Lucknow armed every one about the place--natives
or not, servants or masters. Did General Washington spare the whisky
stills in the time of the insurrection in Western Virginia when they
were in his way? Yet the stills were universally agreed to be property,
and were not taken by due process of law. Shall we fight a rebel in
Charleston streets, and at the same time protect his negro by a guard in
the Charleston jail?
_Mr. Blair._ But what instructions would you give to the soldiers about
this _casus belli_?
_Mr. Stanton._ None at all. The soldier should know nothing about _casus
belli_. General Buell answered the correspondent well when he said, 'I
know nothing about the cause of this war. I am to fight the rebels and
obey orders.' Cries a general to a subaltern--'Yonder smokes a
battery--go and take it.' Do we issue specific instructions to the
troops about the women, the children, the chickens, the forage, the
mules-persons or property--whom they encounter? The circumstances and
the exigencies of the situation determine their conduct. A household
mastiff who will pin a rebel by the throat when he passes his kennel,
flying from pursuit, is just as serviceable as would prove a loyal
bullet sped to the rebel's brain. I believe that the acknowledged fact,
the necessary fact, that wherever our army advances, emancipation
practically ensues, will carry more terror to the slave-owner than any
other warlike incident. But I would have them understand that this
result is not our design, but a necessity of _their_ rebellion.
_Mr. Bates._ You are like the last witness upon the stand--subjected to
a vigorous cross-examination upon everything gone before. Have you ever
thought what is to be the upshot of the contention?
_Mr. Stanton._ Restoration of the Union!
_Mr. Bates._ Aye, but how to be brought about? Are not the pride and the
obstinacy growing stronger every day at the South?
_Mr. Stanton._ 'Men are but children of a larger growth.' Who of us has
not conquered pride and obstinacy in the nursery? I have seen the boy of
a mild-tempered father fairly admire the parent when he broke the truce
of affection and vigorously thrashed him. The large majority of the
Southern people have been educated to believe the men of the North
cowardly, mean, and avaricious. Cowardly, because they persistently
refused the duel. Mean, because all classes worked, and there seemed
among them no arrogance of birth. Avaricious, because they crouched to
the planters with calico and manufactures, or admired their bullying for
the sake of their cotton.
And the great masses of the South have been and are learning how the
present leaders have duped them upon all these points. They have
discovered we are not cowards. Every prisoner, from the chivalric
Corcoran to the urchin drummer-boy at Richmond who spat on the sentinel,
has afforded proof of courage and fortitude, whilst thousands and
thousands of people have secretly admired it. The very death vacancies
at family boards throughout the plantations perpetually remind the
Southrons that _we are not_ cowards in fight. They have learned, too,
that we are neither mean nor avaricious, when the millionaire merchant,
whom they knew two years ago, cheerfully accepts the poor man's lot of
to-day; or when they behold all classes without one murmur hear of a
million dollars per day being spent on the war, and then _clamor to be
taxed_! If they perceive the negroes leaving them, they at once also
perceive that in loyal Maryland, loyal Virginia, loyal Kentucky and
loyal Missouri,--in Baltimore, St. Louis, and Louisville,--the slaves
under local laws are protected to their owners. Thus the most stupid
will reason, It is our own act which has placed in jeopardy this our
property. With a restored Union, Georgia and Louisiana must be as
Maryland and Kentucky continued even in the midst of camps. Who, during
the acme of the French revolution, could have believed that the people
of Paris would so soon and so readily accept even despotism as the
panacea of turmoil? Show a real grievance, and I grant you that
rebellion achieves the dignity of revolution. Provide an imaginary or a
colored evil as the basis of insurrection, and even pride and obstinacy
will eventually comprehend the sophistry of the leaders.
_Mr. Lincoln._ Seward's secret correspondence with Southern loyalists
proves these things. Mr. Stanton must read that last letter from....
_Mr. Stanton._ Indeed! You surprise me. Pray how could you receive
intelligence from him?
_Mr. Lincoln (opening a drawer)._ Do you see this button? I unscrew this
eye. The two discs now separate. Between them you can put a sheet of
French letter paper. When the troops advanced to Bull Run, certain of
the soldiers were provided with such buttons. Various deserters have had
them.
_Mr. Seward (laughing.)_ Who knows but General Scott's coachman had one
or two?[M]
_Mr. Stanton._ This practically corroborates my theories. If we in
Washington find it so difficult to repress communication and spies, is
it not fair to presume that in Richmond, Savannah, New Orleans and
Memphis (where there is _real_ incentive from suffering and
persecution), it is equally impossible to stop information? It was
impossible to procure it when the three rifled cannon at the Richmond
foundry were found spiked. It would prove serviceable to the patience of
the nation, could it only step behind the scenes and learn much--known
to us--which it must ere long understand.
* * * * *
_Mr. Lincoln._ I have just received by our secret mail a very affecting
letter from Col. Corcoran. I will read an extract. [_Reads._]
'Of my physical suffering I will not speak. If restored to friends and
home I shall, however, be a memorable example of the victory of mind
over body. I determined to lay down my life for my country when I left
that home; and if it will serve the cause, as I have repeatedly told the
people here, to hang, or draw, or quarter me, I am ready for the
sacrifice. But there are hundreds among the prisoners whose minds are
not so buoyant as mine, who do suffer terribly. Can not some means be
devised to clothe and feed _them_, or to exchange for them?'
_Mr. Blair._ A patriot soul. The clerkship left in the New York
post-office when the Colonel departed for the war has been retained for
him.
_Mr. Lincoln (quickly)._ Ah! _that_ heroic sufferer shall have something
better than a clerkship if he ever returns.
_Mr. Stanton._ I have thought much of this exchange of prisoners and
captivity amelioration. When the insurrection was inchoate, we could
afford to be punctilious. But its present gigantic proportions surely
affect the question (so to term it) of ransom. When our countrymen were
in the Algerine prisons we took means to treat for them. What say you,
gentlemen, against sending commissioners to Richmond for the purpose of
supervising the medicines, clothing, food and exchange of our prisoners?
_Mr. Seward._ That may only be conceded by accepting commissioners for a
similar purpose from the rebel government.
_Mr. Chase._ Our plans are now so perfectly matured that even the danger
of spies recedes. I am in favor of Mr. Stanton's proposition.
_Mr. Lincoln._ I think you can try it. There are so many prisoners, from
all parts of the country, that public sentiment must uphold the measure.
_Mr. Smith._ Mr. Secretary of State, you were taking notes whilst Mr.
Stanton was giving his views upon the restoration question. Were they on
that subject?
_Mr. Seward._ Yes. Some fleeting thoughts occurred to me which I was
desirous of preserving for to-morrow. _I_ have a great deal of faith in
establishing Southern 'doughfacery.'
_Mr. Welles._ Doughfacery?
_Mr. Seward._ Yes: that supremacy of pocket over pride which so long
afflicted the North. Above and beyond the slave-owners must rise the
great class of manufacturers and merchants,--almost every third man of
Northern origin, too,--whose pocket is the great sufferer, and without
whose property, hereafter, plantations can not prosper. Given a decent
pretext for adjustment, when pride will go to the wall. Once allow the
masses to grasp the reins, and the slave-owners will be driven to the
wall-side of the political highway also. This I call Southern
doughfacery for the sake of a phrase well understood.
_Mr. Blair._ Then your old plan of the great national convention comes
in vogue?
_Mr. Lincoln._ _My_ plan! (_Good humoredly._) You must not _all_ steal
my thunder. By the way, Seward, your pleasant friend Judge D----, who
came from New York about Col. Corcoran, told me the meaning of that
phrase. It seems a Dublin stage manager got up a scenic play with
thunder in it perfectly imitated by a diapason of bass drums. A rival
got up another scenic play, to which, out of jealous _pique_, the
inventor repaired as a spectator. To his surprise he heard his own
invention from behind the scenes. He instantly exclaimed aloud, 'The
rascal, he's stolen my thunder!'
_Mr. Seward (jocularly)._ The President finds a parallel between a
national convention and thunder. Well, well, the clearest atmosphere is
breathed after the clouds culminate in thunder and lightning. I accept
the application.
_Mr. Chase._ But if the South is to surrender pride, what are _we_ to
surrender?
_Mr. Seward (quickly)._ _Political_ pride. The battle of freedom was
fought and won when the Inaugural was pronounced. The South can not
recover from the present stagnation in a quarter-century, by which time
it will again have accepted contentedly the original belief that
slavery, like one of the lotteries of Georgia, or one of the red-dog
banks of Arkansas, is a purely local institution.
_Mr. Stanton._ I heartily accept the project of a national convention.
But I am against any agitation or committal to leading ideas which are
to control it. One convention ruined France, and another saved it. We
can better obtain consent of North and South to holding a convention by
forbearance from discussing its probable platform. Let it meet. No fear
but it will elucidate _some_ satisfactory result.
_Mr. Welles._ You have just discussed this question of war. I wish
something could be done to settle this affair of privateering. To my
reflection it appears to embrace a very important consideration of
'policy' as well as of law. A man does not always punish his embezzling
clerk because the law gives him authority to do so. The ocean rebel who
to-day captures our transports laden with soldiers, may to-morrow put
off twenty boats in the Potomac, and capture our men on the river
schooner. The Attorney General's opinion and the law of Judge Kelson in
New York hang the former; but military law will exchange the latter
whenever a satisfactory opportunity presents itself.
_Mr. Lincoln._ The policy question has become a grave one. I have been
much struck by the letter of Judge Daly, of New York, to Senator
Harris--a most opportune, learned, and temperate paper.
[_Enter an attendant._]
_Mr. Lincoln._ Gen. McClellan is at the door. Invite him in.
_Mr. Stanton._ By all means. He is 'the very head and front of our
offending.'
[_Enter Gen. McClellan._]
_Gen. McC._ Good evening, Mr. President and Cabinet. (_Speaking rapidly
and brusquely._) The bridge equipages are now entirely complete. Here is
a dispatch acknowledging the receipt of the last supply. With February
is ushered in the Southern spring, which, as you all know, _must_ end
'this winter of our discontent.' The Western V now is perfect from Cairo
and Harper's Ferry at the top to Cumberland Gap at the bottom. It is the
first letter in Victory.
_Mr. Lincoln._ When the General becomes oratorical, then indeed has he
good news.
_Gen. McC._ I have, sir; but, with great respect to all these our
friends, it must be for your own ears, to-night at least.
_Mr. Lincoln (rising)._ We will withdraw to the library. Gentlemen, pray
come to some understanding during our absence respecting the reply to be
sent to M. Thouvenel's extraordinary secret dispatch. I will rejoin you
in--
_Gen, McC._ Seven minutes, Mr. President--those are all I can spare.
Good evening, gentlemen.
* * * * *
LITERARY NOTICES.
BORDER LINES OF KNOWLEDGE IN SOME PROVINCES OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. An
Introductory Lecture delivered before the Medical Class of Harvard
University, Nov. 6, 1861. By Oliver Wendell Holmes, M.D., Parkman
Professor of Anatomy and Physiology. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1861.
It is a pleasant thing to realize, in reading a work like this, how
perfectly GENIUS is capable of rendering deeply interesting to the most
general reader topics which in the hands of mere _talent_ become
intolerably 'professional' and dry. The mind which has once flowed
through the golden land of poetry becomes, indeed, like the brook of
Scottish story, more or less alchemizing,--communicating an aureate hue
even to the wool of the sheep which it washes, and turning all its fish
into 'John Dorées.' And in doing this, far from injuring the practical
and market value of either, it positively improves them. For genius is
always general and human, and rises intuitively above conventional
poetry and conventional science, to that higher region where fact and
fancy become identified in truth. And such is the characteristic of the
lecture before us, in which solid, nutritive learning loses none of its
alimentary value for being cooked with all the skill of a _Ude_ or of a
_Francatelli_. Many passages in the work illustrate this power of
æsthetic illustration in a truly striking manner.
In certain points of view, human anatomy may be considered an
almost exhausted science. From time to time some small organ,
which had escaped earlier observers, has been pointed out,--such
parts as the _tensor tarsi_, the otic ganglion, or the Pacinian
bodies; but some of the best anatomical works are those which have
been classic for many generations. The plates of the bones of
Vesalius, three centuries old, are still masterpieces of accuracy,
as of art. The magnificent work of Albinus on the muscles,
published in 1747, is still supreme in its department, as the
constant references of the most thorough recent treatise on the
subject--that of Theile--sufficiently show. More has been done in
unravelling the mysteries of the faciæ, but there has been a
tendency to overdo this kind of material analysis. Alexander
Thompson split them up into cobwebs, as you may see in the plates
to Velpeau's Surgical Anatomy. I well remember how he used to
shake his head over the coarse work of Scarpa and Astley
Cooper;--_as if Denner, who painted the separate hairs of the head
and pores of the skin, in his portraits, had spoken lightly of the
pictures of Rubens and Vandyck_.
Laymen can not decide, where doctors disagree; but there are few who
will not at least read this lecture with pleasure.
JOHN BRENT. By Major Theodore Winthrop.
Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1862.
It is strange that so soon after the appearance of _Tom Tiddler's
Ground_, with its one good story of a wild gallop over the Plains, a
novel should have appeared in which the same scenes are reproduced,--the
whole full of wild-fire and gallop.--American life-fever and
prairie-dust,--uneasy contrasts of the feelings of gentlemen and
memories of _salons_ with pork-frying, hickory shirts, and whisky. The
excitement and movement of _John Brent_ are wonderful. Had the author
been an artist, we should have had in him an American Correggio,--with
strong lights and shadows, bright colors, figures of desperadoes
inspired with the air of gentlemen, and gentlemen, real or false, who
play their parts in no mild scenes. It is the first good novel which has
given us a picture of the West since California and Mormondom added to
it such vivid and extraordinary coloring, and since the 'ungodly
Pike'--that 'rough' of the wilderness--has taken the place of the
well-nigh traditional frontiersman. It is entertaining and exciting, and
will attain a very great popularity, having in it all the elements to
secure such success. Those who recognized in _Cecil Dreeme_ the
vividly-photographed scenes and characters of New York, will be pleased
to find the same talent employed on a wider field, among more vigorous
natures, and assuming a far more active development. Never have we felt
more keenly regret at the untimely decease of an author than for
WINTHROP, while perusing the pages of _John Brent_. There went out a
light which _might_ have shown, in Rembrandt shadows and gleams, the
most striking scenes of this country and this age.
MEMOIR, LETTERS AND REMAINS OF ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE. Translated from
the French, by the Translator of Napoleon's Correspondence with King
Joseph. In two volumes. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1862.
No French writer enjoys a more truly enviable popularity in America than
M. DE TOCQUEVILLE. That he should have discussed the vital principles of
our political and social life, in a manner which not only made him no
enemies among us, but established his 'Democracy' as a classic
reference, is as wonderful as it was well deserved. The present work is,
however, a delightful one by itself, and will be read with a relish. We
sympathize with the translator (a most capable one by the way) when he
declares that he leaves his task with regret, fearing lest he never
again may have an opportunity of associating so long and so intimately
with such a mind. The typography and paper are of superior quality.
POEMS BY WILLIAM ALLINGHAM. ('Blue and gold.') First American Edition.
Boston: Ticknor & Fields.
'Fresh, beautiful, and winsome.'--Among the living poets of England
there may be many who are popularly regarded as 'greater,' but certainly
there is none more unaffectedly natural or simply delightful than
WILLIAM ALLINGHAM. We are pleased at his probably unconscious Irish-isms
in his humbler lyrics, which have deservedly attained the proud eminence
of veritable 'Folk-songs' in the mouths of the people, and are touched
by the exquisite music, the tender feeling, and the beautiful picturing
which we find inspiring his lays. It requires but little knowledge of
them to be impressed with the evident love of his art with which our
Irish bard is filled. It would be difficult to find in the same number
of songs by any contemporary so little evident effort allied to such
success.
THE CHURCH MONTHLY. Edited by Rev. George M. Randall, D.D., and Rev.
F.D. Huntington, D.D. Vol. II. No. 6. Boston: E.P. Dutton & Co. 1861.
This beautiful and scholarly magazine, which abounds in 'the elegant
expression of sound learning,' contains, in the present number, a noble
article on _Loyalty in the United States_, by Rev. B.B. BABBITT, which
we would gladly have read by every one. Almost amusing, and yet really
beautiful, is the following Latin version of 'Now I lay me down to
sleep,' by Rev. EDWARD BALLARD.
_In Canabulis_.
'Nunc recline ut dormirem,
Precor te, O Domine,
Ut defendas animam;
Ante diem si obirem,
Precor te, O Domine,
Us servares animam.
Hoc que precor pro Iesu!'
WORKS OF BAYARD TAYLOR. Vols. I. & II.
New York: G.P. Putnam.
BAYARD TAYLOR has the pleasant art of communicating personal experiences
in a personal way. It is not an unknown X, an invisible essence of
criticism, which travels for us in his sketches, but a veritable
traveler, speaking, Irving-like, of what he sees, so that we see and
feel with him. In these volumes, the ups and downs, the poverties and
even the ignorances of the young traveler are set forth--not
paraded--with great vividness, and we come to the end of each chapter as
if it were the scene of a good old-fashioned comedy. CORYATT without his
crudities, if we can imagine such a thing, suggests himself, with
alternations of 'HERODOTUS his gossip' without his craving credulity.
Perhaps these volumes explain more than any of their predecessors the
causes of TAYLOR'S popularity, and like them will do good work in
stimulating that love of travel which with many becomes the absorbing
passion sung by MULLER,--'_Wandern! ach! Wandern!_'
THOMAS HOOD'S WORKS. Edited by Epes
Sargent. New York: G.P. Putnam. 1862.
A beautifully printed and bound volume, on the best paper, with two fine
illustrations,--one by HOPPIN, setting forth Miss Kilmansegg and her
golden leg with truly Teutonic grotesquerie. It contains Hood's Poems,
never made more attractively readable than in this edition. As a gift it
would be difficult to find a work which would be more generally
acceptable to either old or young.
NATIONAL MILITARY SERIES. Part First.
By Captain W.W. Van Ness. New York:
Carleton, 413 Broadway.
A neat little work on military tactics, conforming to the army
regulations adopted and approved by the War Department of the United
States. It is thoroughly practical, 'being arranged on the plainest
possible principle of question and answer,' and being within the reach
of the dullest capacity, and thoroughly comprehensive of all required of
the soldier, will probably become, as its author trusts, 'a standard
military work.'
FORT LAFAYETTE; OR, LOVE AND SECESSION.
By Benjamin Wood. New York:
Carleton, 413 Broadway. 1862.
Even while a tree is being blown down by the hurricane, small fungi or
other minute vegetation spring up in its rifts; every social shock of
the day is promptly scened and 'tagged' at the minor theatres; and shall
this war escape its novels? Mr. WOOD votes in the negative, and supplies
us with a somewhat sensational yet not badly manufactured article,
which, like the melo-dramas referred to, will be received with delight
by a certain line of patrons, and, we presume, be also relished. It is a
first-rate specimen of a second-rate romance.
HEROES AND MARTYRS: Notable Men of the Time. With Portraits on Steel.
New York: G.P. Putnam, 532 Broadway. C.T. Evans, General Agent. 1862.
Price 25 cents.
The first number of a large quarto, exquisitely printed, biographical
series of sketches of the military and naval heroes, statesmen, and
orators, distinguished in the American crisis of 1861-62, and edited by
FRANK MOORE. The portraits of Commodore S.F. DUPONT and Major THEODORE
WINTHROP, in this first number, are excellent; while the literary
portion, devoted to WINFIELD SCOTT, deserves praise. The cheapness of
the publication is truly remarkable.
TRANSACTIONS of THE MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, FOR THE YEAR
1861. Boston: Henry W. Dutton & Son, Printers, Transcript Building.
1862.
A work testifying to the great extent and efficacy of the labors of the
society, and one which, among a mass of merely business detail, contains
much interesting information. An article on the first discovery of the
heather in America, by EDWARD S. RAND, is well worth reading. Can any of
our wise men re-discover the lost Pictish art of making good beer from
that plant?
* * * * *
BOOKS RECEIVED.
DINAH. New York: Charles Scribner, 124 Grand Street. Boston: Brown &
Taggard. 1861.
THE REBELLION RECORD. A Diary of American Events, with Documents,
Narratives, Illustrative Incidents, and Poetry. Edited by Frank Moore.
New York: G.P. Putnam.
THE BROKEN ENGAGEMENT; OR, SPEAKING THE TRUTH FOR A DAY. By Mrs. Emma
D.E.N. Southworth. Philadelphia: T.B. Peterson. Price 25 cents. 1861.
THE AMERICAN CRISIS: Its Cause, Significance, and Solution. By Americus.
Chicago, Illinois: Joshua R. Walsh, 1861.
* * * * *
EDITOR'S TABLE.
Step by step the vast net is closing in on the enemy,--little by little
the vice is tightening,--and if no incalculable calamity overtake the
armies of the Union, it is but fair to assume that at no distant day the
rebel South will find itself in the last extremity, overwhelmed by
masses from without and demoralized by want of means within. Government
at present holds the winning cards,--if they are only skillfully played
the game is its own. It is impossible to study the map and the present
position of our forces with our resources, and not realize this. 'Hemmed
in!' is the despairing cry from Southern journals, which but the other
day insolently threatened to transfer the war to Northern soil, and to
sack New York and Philadelphia; and, with their proverbial fickleness
and fire, we find many of them half rebelling against the management of
Mr. JEFFERSON DAVIS and his coadjutors.
This is all encouraging. On the other hand, we are beginning to feel
more acutely the miseries of war, and its enormous cost. The time is at
hand when the whole country will be called on to show its heroism by
patient endurance of many trials, and by _living_ as well as dying for
the great cause of liberty and Union. Let it all be done patiently and
without a murmur. Every suffering will be repaid tenfold in the hour of
triumph. Let it be remembered that as we suffer our chances of victory
increase, and that every pain felt by us is a death-pang to the foe.
Now, if ever, the Northern quality of stubborn endurance must show
itself. We, too, can suffer as heroically as the South boasts of doing.
It is this which in the course of events must inevitably give us the
victory, for no spirit of chivalry, no enthusiasm, can ultimately resist
sturdy Saxon pluck. The South, foolishly enough, has vaunted that it is
inspired by the blood and temper of the Latin races of Southern Europe,
and it can not be denied that their climate has given them the
impulsiveness of their ideal heroes. In this fiery impatience lies the
element which renders them incapable of sustaining defeat, and which,
after any disaster, must stimulate dissension among them.
It should also be borne in mind that the most direct causes of our
sufferings all involve very practical benefits. The Southern press
taunts our soldiers with enlisting for pay. Let us admit that vast
numbers have truly been partially induced by the want of employment at
home to enter the army. It is a peculiar characteristic of all Northern
blood that it can and does combine intelligence and interest with the
strongest enthusiasm. No man was ever made a worse soldier by being
prudent, any more than by being a religious Christian. Taunts and jeers
can not affect the truth. The Protestant mechanic soldiery of Germany
during the wars of the Reformation, the men of Holland, and the Puritans
of England, were all reviled for the same cause--but they conquered. God
never punishes men for common-sense, nor did it ever yet blind zeal,
though it may prevent zeal from degenerating into sheer madness. The
war, while it has crippled industry, has also kept it alive,--it has
become a great industrial central force, giving work to millions. Again,
in the creation of a debt we shall find such a stimulus to industry as
we never before knew. Taxation, which kills a weak country crippled by
feudal laws and nightmared by an extravagant court and nobility, simply
induces fresh and vigorous effort to make additional profits in a land
of endless resources and of vast territory, where every man is free to
work at what he chooses. Taxation may come before us like a raging lion,
but, in the words of BEECHER, we shall find honey in the carcass. Let us
only cheerfully make the best of everything, and uphold the
administration and the war with a right good will, and we shall learn as
we never did before the extent of the incredible elasticity and
recuperative power of the American.
It is evident that the present war will have a beneficial result in
making us acquainted with the real nature of this arrogant and peculiar
South-land. It was said that the Crimean struggle did much good by
dispelling the cloudy hobgoblin mystery which hung over Russia, and,
while it destroyed its prestige as a bugbear, more than compensated for
this, by giving it a proper place abreast of civilized nations in the
great march of industry and progress. Just so we are learning that the
South is perfectly capable of receiving white labor, that it is not
strangely and peculiarly different from the rest of the cis-tropical
regions, that the negro is no more its necessity than he is to Spain or
Italy, and that, in short, white labor may march in, undisturbed, so
soon as industry ceases to be regarded as disgraceful in it. We have
learned the vital necessity of union and identity of feeling between all
the States, and found out the folly of suffering petty local state
attachments to blind us to the glory of citizenship in a nation, which
should cover a continent. We have learned what the boasted philanthropy
of England is worth when put to the test of sacrifice, and also how the
British lion can put forth the sharpest and most venomous of feline
claws when an opportunity presents itself of ruining a possible rival.
More than this, we have learned to be self-reliant, to take greater and
more elevated views of political duty, and to be heroic without being
extravagant. Since we were a republic no one year has witnessed such
national and social progress among us as the past. We have had severe
struggles, and we have surmounted them; we have had hard lessons, and we
have learned them; we have had trials of pride, and we have profited by
them. And as we contend for principles based in reason and humanity and
confirmed by history, it follows that we must inevitably come forth
gloriously triumphant, if we but bravely persevere in enforcing those
principles.
The large amount of political information regarding the South and its
resources which has been of late widely disseminated in the North, is a
striking proof that, disguise the question as we will, the extension of
free labor is, from a politico-economical point of view (which is, in
fact, the only sound one), the real, or at least ultimate basis of this
struggle. The matter in hand is the restitution of the Union, laying
everything else aside; but the great fact, which will not step aside, is
the consideration whether ten white men or one negro are to occupy a
certain amount of soil. There is no evading this finality, there is no
impropriety in its discussion, and it SHALL be discussed, so long as
free speech or a free pen is left in the North. So far from interfering
with the war, it is a stimulus to the thousands of soldiers who hope
eventually to settle in the South in districts where their labor will
not be compared with that of 'slaves,' and it is right and fit that they
should anticipate the great and inevitable truth in all its relations to
their own welfare and that of the country.
We cheerfully agree with those who try with so much energy that
Emancipation is not the matter in hand, and quite as cheerfully assent
when they insist that the enemy, and not the negro, demands all our
present energy. But this has nothing to do with the great question,
whether slavery is or is not to ultimately remain as a great barrier to
free labor in regions where free labor is clamoring for admission. That
is all we ask, nothing more. The instant the North and West are assured
that at some time, though remote, and by any means or encouragements
whatever, which expediency may dictate, the great cause of secession and
sedition--will be removed from our land, then there will be witnessed an
enthusiasm compared to which that of the South will be but lukewarm.
That this will be done, no rational person now doubts, or that
government will cheerfully act on it so soon as the fortunes of war or
the united voice of the people strengthen it in the good work. And until
it _is_ done, let every intelligent freeman bear it in mind, thinking
intelligently and acting earnestly, so that the great work may be
advanced rapidly and carried out profitably and triumphantly.
The leading minds of the South, shrewder than our Northern
anti-emancipation half traitors and whole dough-faces, foreseeing the
inevitable success of ultimate emancipation, have given many signs of
willingness to employ even it, if needs must be, as a means of
effectually achieving their 'independence.' They have baited their hooks
with it to fish for European aid--they have threatened it armed, as a
last resort of desperation, if conquered by the North. Knowing as well
as we that the days of slavery are numbered, they have used it as a
pretense for separation, they would just as willingly destroy it to
maintain that separation. Since the war began, projects of home
manufactures, and other schemes involving the encouragement of free
labor, have been largely discussed in the South,--and yet in spite of
this, thousands among us violently oppose Emancipation. In plain,
truthful words they uphold the ostensible platform of the enemy, and yet
avow themselves friends of the Union.
We have said it before, we repeat it: we ask for no undue haste, no
unwise measures, nothing calculated to irritate or disorganize or impede
the measures which government may now have in hand. But we hold firmly
that Emancipation be calmly regarded as a measure which _must_ at some
time be fully carried out. Be it limited for the time, or for years, to
the Border States, be it assumed partially or entirely under the
modified form of apprenticeship, be it proclaimed only in Texas or South
Carolina, it has in some way a claim to recognition, and _must_ be
recognized. Its friends are too many to be ignored in the day of
settlement.
* * * * *
It is proper that every detail of contract corruption should be brought
fully to light, and the country owes a debt of gratitude to Mr. DAWES
for his manly attack on the wretches who have crippled the war, robbed
the soldier, swindled the tax-payers, and aided the enemy by their
wicked rapacity. Let it be remembered that whatever his sentiments may
have been, every man who has been instrumental, directly or indirectly,
in cheating the treasury and the my during this period of distress, has
been one of its enemies, and far more deadly than if he had been openly
enlisted under the banners of JEFFERSON DAVIS. Were we anything but the
best-natured and most enduring public in the world, such revelations as
have by the been made would long since have driven these rapacious
traitors beyond sea or into the congenial Dixie for which they have
indirectly labored.
We have been accustomed to read much since infancy of the sufferings of
our army during the Revolution,--how they were hatless, ragged, starved,
and badly armed. We have shuddered at the pictures of the snow at Valley
Forge, tracked by the blood from the feet of shoeless soldiers. Yet, in
the year 1861, with abundant means and with all the sympathy and aid of
a wealthy country, there has been more suffering in the army than the
Revolution witnessed, and it was due in a great measure to men who
hastened to the spoil like vultures to their prey. If the army has not
in advanced, if proper weapons are not even yet ready, let the reader
reflect how much the army is still crippled owing to imperfect supplies,
and have patience.
It is not the soldier alone who has been robbed by the contractor. The
manufacturer who sees only a government order between himself and
failure, and who is willing to do anything to keep his operatives
employed, is asked to supply inferior goods at a low price. He may take
the order or leave it,--if he will not, another will,--and with it is
expected to take the risk of a return. When a man sees ruin before him,
he will often yield to such temptations. The contractor takes the goods,
sells them if he can, and pockets the profits, sometimes ten times over
what the manufacturer gains. He thereby robs outright, not only the
soldier, but also the operatives who make the goods, since the
manufacturer must reduce their wages to the lowest living point, in
order to save himself.
It will all come to light. There is a discovery of all evil, and there
is a grace which money cannot remove, neither from the thief nor from
his children. And we rejoice to see that so much is being made known,
and that in all probability the public will be fully informed as to who
were principally guilty in these enormous and treasonable corruptions.
* * * * *
It is stated, on good authority, that the only objection urged by the
President to adopting the policy of Emancipation, is the danger which
would be thereby incurred of effectually losing the allegiance of the
loyal slave-holders in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Missouri.
The obvious answer to this is, that by paying these loyal slave-holders
for their chattels they could not fail to become firmer friends than
ever. When we reflect on the extremely precarious tenure of all such
property on the Border it becomes apparent that the man must be a
lunatic indeed to hope for the permanency of the institution in the
tobacco States. Since the war began nearly the two-thirds of the slaves
in Missouri have changed their _habitat_,--about one-half of the number
having been 'sold South,' while the other moiety have traveled North,
without reference to ownership.
The administration need be under no apprehension as to the popularity of
this measure. It would be hailed with joy by millions. The capitalists
of our Northern cities, who now await with impatience some indications
of A REGULAR POLICY, will welcome with enthusiasm a proposition which
would at once render the debatable land no longer debatable, and which
would effectually disorganize the entire South, by rendering numbers
desirous of selling their slaves in order to secure what must sooner or
later be irrecoverably lost. If government has a policy in this matter,
it is time that the public were informed of it. The public is ready to
be taxed to any extent, it is making tremendous sacrifices; all that it
asks in return is some nucleus around which it may gather,--a settled
principle by which its victories in war may be made to form the basis of
a permanent peace.
* * * * *
The English press, statesmen and orators have been pleased to regard our
democratic government as a failure.
But we have at least one advantage. When an enormous wrong is
perpetrated on the people by a secretary, _he can be hustled out of the
way_, and the accomplices be punished.
In England we have seen of late the most enormous political and social
outrage of the century coolly committed, without the slightest regard to
consequences, and without the slightest fear of any punishment whatever.
The truth has come to light, and every investigation, in the opinion of
the ablest and most sagacious men, confirms the assertion that the late
MASON and SLIDELL difficulty was simply an immense stock-jobbing
swindle, played in the most heartless manner on this country and on
England, without heed as to the terrible consequences.
The London _Times_, as is well known, is the organ of the ROTHSCHILDS.
During the late iniquitous war-flurry it acted perfectly in concert with
Lord PALMERSTON. While that gentleman kept back _for three weeks_
dispatches, which, if published, would have had the immediate effect of
establishing a peaceful feeling, his Hebrew accomplices bought literally
right and left of securities of every kind. Grand pickings they had;
everything had tumbled down. England was roused by the _Times_ to a
fury; a feeling of fierce injury was excited in this country, which an
age will not now allay; and right in the midst of this, when one word
might have changed the whole, the official ministerial organ _explicitly
denied the existence of those 'peace' dispatches_ which have since come
to light!
Let us anticipate some of the results of this precious
Palmerston-Hebrew-_Times_ swindle.
It has cost England twenty millions of dollars.
It has aroused such a feeling in this country against England as no one
can remember.
It has effectually killed the American market for English goods, and put
the tariff up to prohibition _en permanence_.
It has, by doing this, struck the most deadly blow at English prosperity
which history has ever witnessed; for all that was needed to stimulate
American industry up to the pitch of competing with England in foreign
markets was such a prohibitory tariff as would compel us to manufacture
for ourselves what we formerly bought.
Who will say now that a republic does not work as well as a monarchy?
* * * * *
We have read with pleasure a recently written and extensively
republished article by SINCLAIR TOUSEY, of New York, condemnatory of the
proposed stamp tax, and in which we most cordially concur; not because
it is a tax materially affecting the interests of publishers, but
because, as Mr. TOUSEY asserts, the diffusion of knowledge among the
people is a powerful element of strength _in government itself_. In
these times, it is essential, far more than during peace, that the
newspaper should circulate very freely, stimulating the public, aiding
government and the war, and keeping the mind of the country in living
union. Nothing would more rapidly produce a torpor--and there is too
much torpor now--than a measure which would have the effect of killing
off perhaps one half of the country press, the great mass of which is
barely able to live as it is. 'Let the press be as free as possible. Let
it be free from onerous taxation, and left unfettered by special duties
to do its just work.' This is a war for freedom, and the test of freedom
is a free press.
* * * * *
We are indebted to a valued correspondent in Illinois for the following
communication, setting forth the state of affairs in Southern Missouri
during the past summer. Few of our readers are ignorant that since that
time the region in question has been 'harried and shorn' even to
desolation by the brigands of Secessia.
In conversing lately with Dr. R., who fled for his life, last
July, from Ripley County, Southern Missouri, I collected some
information which may not be unacceptable to your readers.
Dr. R. states that early last summer the citizens of Southern
Missouri began gathering into companies of armed men opposed to
the general government, and that it was a fear that the general
government would not protect their lives and property which
induced great numbers of really Union men to take sides with the
rebels. They saw their country thronging with secession soldiers;
were told it was the will of the State government that they enlist
for the protection of the State: if they did not do this
voluntarily, they would be drafted; and all drafted ones would in
camp take a subordinate position, have to perform the cooking and
washing, in short, all the drudgery for those who volunteered.
This falsehood drove hundreds of the ignorant Missourians into the
rebel ranks. Captain LOWE, afterwards Col. LOWE, who was killed at
the battle of Fredericktown, was the recruiting officer in Ripley
and its adjoining counties. He arrested Dr. R. on the 4th of July,
on a charge of expressing sentiments 'dangerous to the welfare of
the community.' Dr. R. was tried by a court-martial, in presence
of the three hundred soldiers then assembled. Witnesses against
the Doctor were produced, but he was not allowed time to summon
witnesses in his behalf, nor to procure counsel. One novel
circumstance in the trial was occasioned by the absence of any
justice of the peace to administer the usual oath to the
witnesses. None were procurable, from the fact that all had
resigned, refusing to act officially under a government they had
repudiated. In this dilemma the prisoner came to their relief.
'Gentlemen, I am a justice of the peace, as most of you already
know, and, as I have not yet resigned, I will swear in the
witnesses for you.' 'Wall, I reckon he kin act as justice afore
he's convicted,' suggested one of the crowd. So the Doctor
administered the oath in the usual solemn manner. This
self-possession and fearlessness seemed to have an effect on his
judges, for, after the testimony, he was permitted to
cross-question the witnesses and plead his own cause. He was able
to neutralize some of the charges against him. The jury, after an
absence of fifteen minutes, returned verdict that 'as there was
nothing proved against the prisoner which would make him dangerous
to the community, he was permitted to be discharged. But,' added
the foreman, 'I am instructed by the committee to say they believe
Dr. R. to be a Black Republican, and to tell him that if he wants
to utter Black Republican sentiments, he has got to go somewhere
else to do it.' It was well known the Doctor had voted for
DOUGLAS. But here followed an animated conversation between the
prisoner and LOWE'S men as to what constituted Black
Republicanism; the result of which was, as the Doctor turned to
depart, Captain LOWE informed him he was re-arrested!
By the influence of some of the soldiers, the prisoner succeeded
next day in effecting his escape. Traveling by night and
concealing himself by day, he finally reached the federal lines in
safety. His family were not permitted to follow him, and did not
succeed in eluding the vigilance of their enemies and joining him
until the middle of January. When a Union man escapes them, the
rebels are always opposed to the removal of his wife and children,
as, by retaining them, they hope to get the husband and father
again into their hands. And, as all communication by letter is cut
off, many a man, during the last six months, has stolen back to
see his family at the risk of his life, and lost it.
Dr. R. was the first man arrested in Ripley County; but LOWE
immediately began a lively persecution of suspected Unionists.
Some escaped with life, their enemies being satisfied with
scourging and plundering them, but scores were hung. LOWE'S
soldiers furnished and equipped themselves by robbing Union houses
and the country stores.
Many suspected Union men shielded themselves by denouncing others,
giving information of the property of others, and being forward in
insulting and quartering lawless soldiers upon defenceless
families. So that, Dr. R. states, there are created between
neighbors, all through that section, feuds which will never cease
to exist. Many a man has suffered family wrongs from his neighbor
which he thirsts to go back to revenge, which he swears yet to
revenge, and which he feels nothing but the blood of the offender
can revenge! And should peace be declared to-morrow, a social war
would still exist in Missouri!
People dwelling in the free States, where the schoolhouse is not
abolished, where the laws still live and restrain, can have no
conception of the state of society where the whole community has
returned suddenly to savage life; a life wherein the reaction from
a former restraint renders the viciously disposed far more
intensely barbarous than his red brother of the plain.
LOWE'S men, and all similarly recruited by order of ex-Governor
JACKSON, remained in service six months, and were to be paid in
State scrip. But as that was worthless, they never received
anything in rations, clothing, or money, but what they plundered
from their fellow-citizens. Many of these state rights soldiers
have since enlisted in the Confederate army; but Confederate paper
being fifty per cent. below par, and not rising, the legitimate
pay of the Southern soldier is likely to be small.
In Northern Arkansas, all males between fifteen and forty-five
years of age have been ordered to be ready for the Confederate
service when called upon. This has caused a fear of failure in
next year's crops from scarcity of men in that section. There is
great suffering among them now. Salt rose to $25 a sack. The
authorities prohibited the holders from charging more than $12,
the present price. Pins are $1.50 per paper; jeans $5 per yard;
and everything else in proportion.
One word in comment. Every additional fact of the deplorable
condition of things in the slave States is an additional reason
why the North should firmly meet the cause of this misery. If the
North should have the manhood to strike a blow at slavery _now_,
still a generation must pass before harmony would ensue; but if
the North _evades and dallies_, scores of generations must live
and die before America sees unbroken peace again.
* * * * *
While the war goes on, the contrabands go off. A writer in the Norfolk
_Day Book_ complains that slaves are escaping from that city in great
numbers, asserting that they get away through the instrumentality of
_secret societies_ in Norfolk, which hold their meetings weekly, and in
open day. No one can doubt that this war is clearing the Border of its
black chattels in double-quick time. Why not strike boldly, and secure
it by offering to pay all its loyal slave-holders for their property? Of
one thing, let the country rest assured--the friends of Emancipation
will not brook much longer delay. It MUST and SHALL be carried
through,--_and we are strong enough to do it_.
* * * * *
Thurlow Weed grows apace, and occasionally writes a good thing from
London--as, for instance, in the following:--
At breakfast, a few days since, a distinguished member of
Parliament, who has been much in America, remarked, with emphasis,
that he had formerly entertained a high opinion of 'JUDGE LYNCH,'
looking with much favor upon that species of impromptu
jurisprudence known as 'Lynch law,' but since it failed to hang
FLOYD, COBB and THOMPSON, of BUCHANAN'S cabinet, he had ignored
and was disgusted with the system.
What would the distinguished member have said had he been familiar with
the Catiline steamer case, the mysteries of shoddy contracts, the
outfitting of the Burnside expedition, and innumerable other
rascalities? The gentleman was right,--Lynch law has proved a failure;
and, if we err not, another kind of law has of late months been not very
far behind it in inefficiency. Our Southern foes have at least one noble
trait--they hang their rascals.
* * * * *
'_Non dum_,' 'not yet,' was the motto of a great king, who, when the
time came, shook Europe with his victories. 'Not yet,' says the
Christian, struggling through trial and temptation towards the peace
which passeth understanding and a heavenly crown. 'Not yet,' says the
brave reformer, fighting through lies and petty malice, and all the
meanness of foes lying in wait, ere he can convince the world that he is
in the right. 'Not yet,' says the soldier, as he marches his weary
round, waiting to be relieved, and musing on the battle and the war for
which he has pledged his life and his honor--and they are a world to
_him_. 'Not yet,' says every great man and woman, laying hands to every
noble task in time, which is to roll onward in result into eternity.
Wait, wait, thou active soul,--even in thy most vigorous activity let
thy work be one of waiting, and of great patience in thy fiercest toil.
There will come a day of triumph, when the fresh wind will banish the
heat, and fan the laurel on thy brow. Such is the true moral of the
following lyric:--
FALLEN.
BY EDWARD S. RAND.
Blow gently, Oh ye winter winds,
Along the ferny reaches,
Nor whirl the yellow leaves which cling
Upon the saddened beeches;
And gently breathe upon the hills
Where spring's first violets perished,--
Died like the budding summer hopes
Our hearts too fondly cherished.
Oh memory, bring not back the past,
To brim our cup of sorrow;
The drear to-day creeps on to bring
A drearier to-morrow.
Can streaming eyes and aching hearts
Glow at the battle's story,
Or they who stake their all and lose
Exult in fame and glory?
Oh, lay them tenderly to rest,
Those for their country dying,--
Let breaking hearts and trembling lips
Pour the sad dirge of sighing.
Yet louder than the requiem raise
The song of exultation,
That the great heritage is ours
_To die to save the nation_.
In patience wait, nor think that yet
Shall Right and Freedom perish,
Nor yet Oppression trample down
The heritage we cherish!
For still remember, precious things
Are won by stern endeavor,--
Though in the strife our heart-strings break,
The Right lives on forever.
* * * * *
When you write let your chirography be legible. Strive not overmuch
after beauty of finish, make not your _a_'s like unto _u_'s or your
_o_'s like _v_'s; let not your heart be seduced by the loveliness of
flourishes, and be not tempted of long-tailed letters. Above all, write
your own name distinctly,--which is more than many do, and much more
than was done by the gentleman described in the following letter from a
kindly correspondent:--
MADISON, WIS.
DEAR CONTINENTAL:
The holder of any considerable quantity of Wisconsin currency is
liable not only to the occasional loss consequent upon the
absquatulation of a tricksy wild-cat, but also to great perplexity
as to the name of the gentleman who countersigns the bills. These
inscrutable counter-signatures are accomplished by ROBERT MENZIES,
our excellent Deputy Bank Comptroller. His cabalistic 'R. Menzies'
does not greatly resemble a well-executed specimen of copperplate
engraving. The initial 'R' is always plain enough, but the
'Menzies' is sometimes read Moses, and sometimes Muggins, and is
always liable to be translated Meazles.
Mr. MENZIES is a Scotchman, brimful of Caledonian lore and
enthusiasm. His penmanship is not always so sublimely obscure as
his performances on bank-paper would indicate; but in its best
estate it is capable of sometimes more than one reading. Witness
the following instance: In the winter of 1858 and '9, Mr. MENZIES
delivered a very interesting lecture, before a literary society,
in Prairie du Chien; subject, THE SONG-WRITERS OF SCOTLAND. Mr. M.
not residing at Prairie du Chien, the lecture was, of course, the
subject of a preliminary correspondence. At the meeting of the
society next previous to the one when the lecture was delivered,
Elder BRUNSON, the president, announced that he had received a
letter from Mr. MENZIES, accepting the invitation to lecture
before the society, and naming as the subject of his lecture 'THE
LONG WINTERS or SCOTLAND.'
* * * * *
Readers who are afflicted with the isothermal doctrine may experience
some benefit from the perusal of a letter for which we are indebted to a
friend not very far 'out West:'--
SPRINGFIELD, MASS.
DEAR CONTINENTAL:
I have a friend who would be sound on the goose, as I verily
believe, and a patriotic anti-Jeff Davis platform Emancipator, if
he hadn't unfortunately picked up a fine learned word. That word
is
ISOTHERMAL.
And that word he carries about as a hen carries a boiled
potato--something too big to swallow but nice to peck at. And he
pecks at it continually.
'I could admit that the slaves should be free,' he says, 'but then
nature, you know, has fixed an isothermal line. She has
isothermally deemed that south of that line the black is
isothermally fitted to isothermalize or labor according to the
climate as a slave.'
'Good,' I replied. 'So you admit that all anthropological
characteristics as developed by climate are quite right?'
[He liked that word 'anthropological,' and assented.]
'Good again. Well, then, you must admit that to judge by
statistics there is an isothermal line of unchastity, or "what
gods call gallantry," and further north, one of drunkenness? How
much morality is there in a tropical climate? How many temperate
men to the dozen in Scandinavia or Russia?'
My isothermalist attempted a weak parry, but failed. When he
recovers I will inform you.
YOURS TRULY.
P.S. I am preparing a series of tables by which I hope to prove
the existence of the following isothermalities:
A Lager-beer line.
A Tobacco-chewing line.
A reading of TUPPER and COVENTRY PATMORE line.
A CREAM CHEESE line.
A Doughface line.
And a Clothes line.
* * * * *
We are indebted to R. WOLCOTT for the following sketch of War Life:--
'TAKEN PRISONER.'
It was a terrible battle. Amid the rattle of musketry and
whistling of bullets, the clashing of sabres, the unearthly cries
of wounded horses and the wild shouting of men, the clear voice of
Lieutenant Hugh Gregory rang out: 'Rally! my brave boys, rally,
and avenge the Captain's death!'
'Not quite so fast, sir,' quietly remarked a rebel officer,
bringing his sword to a salute; 'you observe that your men are
retreating and you are my prisoner.'
Hugh saw that it was so, and with a heavy heart gave himself up.
'Hurrah for the stars and stripes!' shouted a brave young soldier,
attempting to raise himself upon his elbow, but falling back,
exhausted from the loss of blood.
'Damn you, I'll stripe you!' exclaimed a brutal fellow, rising in
his stirrups and aiming a blow at the wounded man.
'Dare to strike a helpless man!' shouted his commander; and he
warded off the blow with a stroke that sent the fellow's sabre
spinning into the air. 'Now dismount, and help him if you can.'
But it was too late; the brave soul had gone out with those last
words.
'Lieutenant,' said the rebel officer, whom we will know as Captain
Dumars, 'I see that you are wounded. Let me assist you upon this
horse, and one of my sergeants will show you the surgeon's
quarters.' And he bound up the wounded arm as well as he could,
helped him upon the horse, and, with a playful _Au revoir_, rode
on.
Hugh's wound was too painful, and he was too weak and tired, to
wonder or to think clearly of anything; he only felt grateful that
his captor was a gentleman, and quietly submitted himself to the
sergeant's guidance.
The battle was ended,--in whose favor it does not matter, so far
as this story is concerned,--and Captain Dumars obtained
permission to take Lieutenant Gregory to his mother's house until
he should recover from his wound or be exchanged.
When Hugh found himself established in a pleasant little chamber
with windows looking out upon the flower-garden and the woods
beyond, fading away into his own loved North land, he thought
that, after all, it was not so terrible to be a prisoner of war.
He was decidedly confirmed in this opinion when he occasionally
caught a glimpse of the lithe form of Annie Dumars flitting about
among the flowers; and being somewhat of a philosopher, in his
way, he determined to take it easy.
The presence of one of the 'Hessians' at Mrs. Dumars' house gave
it much the same attraction that is attached to a menagerie.
Feminine curiosity is an article that the blockade can not keep
out of Dixie, and many were the morning calls that Annie received,
and many and various were the methods of pumping adopted to learn
something of the prisoner,--how he looked, how he acted, how he
was dressed, and so forth.
'Impertinence!' he heard Annie exclaim, as one of these gossips
passed through the gate, after putting her through a more minute
inquisition than usual. And he heard dainty shoe-heels impatiently
tapping along the hall, and when she brought in a bouquet of fresh
flowers he saw in her face traces of vexation.
'I seem to be quite a "What-is-it?"'
'Shame!'--and she broke off a stem and threw it out of the window
with altogether unnecessary vehemence.
'Splendid girl!' thought Hugh; 'where have I seen her?'
And he turned his thoughts back through the years that were past,
calling up the old scenes; the balls, with their mazy, passionate
waltzes, and their promenades on the balcony in the moonlight's
mild glow, when sweet lips recited choice selections from Moore,
and white hands swayed dainty sandal-wood fans with the potency of
the most despotic sceptres; the sleigh-rides, with their wild
rollicking fun, keeping time to the merry music of the bells and
culminating in the inevitable upset; the closing exercises of the
seminary, when blooming girls, in the full efflorescence of
hot-house culture, make a brief but brilliant display before
retiring to the domestic sphere--Oh, yes--
'Miss Dumars, were you not at the ---- Institute last year?'
'Yes.'
'Then you know my cousin,--Jennie Gregory?'
'Yes, indeed:--and you are her cousin. How stupid in me not to
recollect it.'
And she told him how that 'Jennie' was her dearest friend, and
how in their intimacy of confidence she had told her all about
him, and shown her his picture, and--in short, Hugh and Annie
began to feel much better acquainted.
It was a few days after this that Hugh sat by the open window,
listening to Annie reading from the virtuous and veracious
_Richmond Enquirer_. Distressed by what he heard, not knowing
whether it was true or not, he begged her to cease torturing him.
She laid aside the paper with an emphatic 'I don't believe it!'
that could not but attract his attention, and he looked up in
surprise.
'I must tell you, Mr. Gregory--I have been tortured long enough by
this forced secrecy--_I am a rebel!_'
'That is the name we know you by,' he replied, smiling.
'But I am a _rebellious_ rebel. Yes,' she added, rising, 'I detest
with all my heart this wicked, causeless rebellion. I detest the
very names of the leaders of it. And yet I am compelled to go
about with lies upon my lips, and to act lies, till I detest
myself more than all else! I have consoled myself somewhat by
making a flag and worshiping it in secret. I will get it and show
it to you.'
'This,' she continued, returning with a miniature specimen of the
dear old flag, 'a _real_ flag, the emblem of a real living nation,
must be kept hidden, its glorious lustre fading away in the dark,
while that,' pointing to where the 'stars and bars' were
fluttering in the breeze, 'that miserable abortion is insolently
flaunted before our eyes, nothing about it original or
suggestive--except its stolen colors, reminding us of the
financial operations of Floyd! Oh, if hope could be prophecy--if a
life that is an unceasing prayer for the success of the federal
arms could avail, it would not be long before this bright banner
would wave in triumph over all the land, its starry folds gleaming
with a purer, more glorious light than ever!'
And as she stood there, with eyes uplifted as in mute prayer, and
fervently kissed the silken folds of the flag, Hugh wished that
his station in life had been that of an American flag.
Time passed on, and the prisoner was to be exchanged for a rebel
officer of equal rank. Captain Dumars brought him the
intelligence, and was surprised at the seeming indifference with
which he received it.
'You don't seern particularly elated by the prospect of getting
among the Yankees again.'
'I am eager to take my sword again; but my stay here has been far
from unpleasant. You, Captain, have been away so much that I have
not been able to thank you for making my imprisonment so pleasant.
I am at a loss to know why you have shown such favor to me
especially.'
'This is the cause,' replied the Captain, laying his finger upon a
breast-pin that Hugh always wore upon his coat, at the same time
unbuttoning his own; 'you see that I wear the same.'
It was a simple jewel, embellished only by a few Greek characters,
but it was the emblem of one of those college societies, in which
secrecy and mystery add a charm to the ties of brotherhood. And it
was this fraternal tie, stronger than that of Free-Masonry,
because more exclusive, that made Hugh's a pleasant imprisonment,
and made him happy in the love of one faithful among the
faithless, loyal among many traitors. For of course the reader has
surmised--for poetic justice demands it--that Hugh fell
desperately in love with Annie, and Annie _ditto_ Hugh. How he
told the tender tale, and how she answered him,--whether with the
conventional quantity of blushes and sighs, or not,--is none of
your business, reader, or mine; so don't ask me any questions.
It was the evening of the day before Hugh's departure. They, Annie
and Hugh, sat in the little porch, silent and sad, watching the
shadows slowly creeping up the mountain side towards its
sun-kissed summit, like a sombre pall of sorrow shrouding a bright
hope.
'And to-morrow you are free.'
'No, Annie, not free. My sword will be free, but my heart will
still linger here, a prisoner. But when the war is over, and the
old flag restored--'
'Then,' and here her eyes were filled with the glorious light of
prophetic hope, '_I_ will be _your_ prisoner.'
And still Hugh is fighting for the dear old flag; and still Annie
is praying for it, and waiting for the sweet imprisonment.
There has been many as sweet a romance as this, reader, acted ere this,
during the war. Would that all captivity were as pleasant!
* * * * *
'I would not live alway,' says the hymn, and the sentiment has, like
every great truth, been set forth in a thousand forms. One of the most
truly beautiful which we have ever met is that of
THE CITY OF THE LIVING.
In a long-vanished age, whose varied story
No record has to-day,
So long ago expired its grief and glory--
There flourished, far away,
In a broad realm, whose beauty passed all measure
A city fair and wide,
Wherein the dwellers lived in peace and pleasure
And never any died.
Disease and pain and death, those stern marauders,
Which mar our world's fair face,
Never encroached upon the pleasant borders
Of that bright dwelling-place.
No fear of parting and no dread of dying
Could ever enter there--
No mourning for the lost, no anguished crying
Made any face less fair.
Without the city's walls, death reigned as ever,
And graves rose side by side--
Within, the dwellers laughed at his endeavor,
And never any died.
O, happiest of all earth's favored places!
O, bliss, to dwell therein--
To live in the sweet light of loving faces
And fear no grave between!
To feel no death-damp, gathering cold and colder,
Disputing life's warm truth--
To live on, never lonelier or older,
Radiant in deathless youth!
And hurrying from the world's remotest quarters
A tide of pilgrims flowed
Across broad plains and over mighty waters,
To find that blest abode,
Where never death should come between, and sever
Them from their loved apart--
Where they might work, and will, and live forever,
Still holding heart to heart.
And so they lived, in happiness and pleasure,
And grew in power and pride,
And did great deeds, and laid up stores of treasure,
And never any died.
And many yers rolled on, and saw them striving
With unabated breath,
And other years still found and left them living,
And gave no hope of death.
Yet listen, hapless soul whom angels pity,
Craving a boon like this--
Mark how the dwellers in the wondrous city
Grew weary of their bliss.
One and another, who had been concealing
The pain of life's long thrall,
Forsook their pleasant places, and came stealing
Outside the city wall,
Craving, with wish that brooked no more denying,
So long had it been crossed,
The blessed possibility of dying,--
The treasure they had lost.
Daily the current of rest-seeking mortals
Swelled to a broader tide,
Till none were left within the city's portals,
And graves grew green outside.
Would it be worth the having or the giving,
The boon of endless breath?
Ah, for the weariness that comes of living
There is no cure but death!
Ours were indeed a fate deserving pity,
Were that sweet rest denied;
And few, methinks, would care to find the city
Where never any died!
* * * * *
Does the reader recall DEAN SWIFT'S account of the immortal Strudlbrugs
and their undying miseries--it is in the City of Laputu, we believe.
Their life was passed as if in such a city. Ah, death! it is, after all,
only birth in another form. And to step to the ridiculous, we are
reminded of an
EPITAPH IN A DEDHAM CHURCHYARD.
I've paid the debt which all must pay,
Though awful to my view,
On frightful rocks where billows poured,
And broken buildings flew.
The cruel Death has conquered me;
The victory is but small,
For I shall rise and live again,--
And Death himself shall fall.
* * * * *
There are not many of those who 'read the papers,' who have not met from
time to time with the quaint experiences of THE FAT CONTRIBUTOR,--a
gentleman who, in the columns of the _Buffalo Republican_, and more
recently in the spicy _Cleveland Plain Dealer_, has often wished that
his too, too solid flesh would melt. It is with pleasure that we welcome
him to our pages in the following original sketch:--
THE 'FAT CONTRIBUTOR' AS A GYMNAST.
'But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks.'
RICHARD III.
Says the cardinal in the play--'In the bright lexicon of youth
there's no such word as fail.' Without stopping to discuss the
reliability of a lexicon that omits words in that careless manner,
I must say that in the dictionary of fat men who aspire to
gymnastics that word distinctly occurs. I had my misgivings, but
was over-persuaded by my friends. They said gymnastics would
develop muscular strength, thus enabling me to _hold_ my flesh in
case it attempted to run away. They added, as an additional
incentive, that the spectacle of a man who weighs nearly three
hundred pounds, doing the horizontal ladder, climbing a slack-rope
hand over hand, or suspending his weight by his little finger,
would be a 'big thing.' I asked them how I was to attain that end.
'By practice,' was the reply; 'practice makes perfect.' It
did;--it made a perfect fool of me, as you shall see.
I never had much taste for feats requiring physical effort, except
lifting--lifting with my teeth. The amount of beef, pork, mutton
and vegetables that I have lifted in that way is immense. After
hearing Dr. WINSHIP lecture, I practiced lifting a flour barrel
with a man inside of it, and finally succeeded in holding it out
at arm's length. [I may remark incidentally that the barrel _had
no heads in it_.]
To return to the case in hand (and a case in hand is worth two in
the bush): I was deluded into purchasing a season ticket in the
gymnasium, and one afternoon I sought the locality. A number were
exercising in various ways, and I laid off my coat preparatory to
'going in.' As I bent down to adjust a pair of slippers, I heard
some rapid steps behind me, and the next instant a pair, of hands
and a man's head fell squarely on my back, a pair of heels smote
together in the air, and with a somersault the gymnast regained
the ground several feet in advance of me. I assumed an indignant
perpendicular, when the fellow turned with well-feigned amazement
and stammered forth an apology. Bent over as I was, he had
mistaken me for a heavily padded 'wooden horse,' which formed a
portion of the apparatus.
Desiring to be weighed from time to time, in order that I might
note the effect of gymnastics upon my tonnage, I asked one, who
was resting after prodigious efforts to wrench his arms off at a
lifting machine, if there were scales convenient. He surveyed me
for a moment--looked puzzled--and finally replied
hesitatingly,--'Y-e-s, I think we can manage it.' He led the way
to a window overlooking the Ohio canal. 'Do you see that
building?' said he, pointing to a low structure on the heel path
side, extending partly over the canal. I intimated that the fabric
in question produced a distinct impression on the optic nerves,
and inquired its use. '_Weigh-lock_' he shrieked; '_go and be
weighed!_'
'_Go and be d----d!_' I yelled, furious at being thus victimized;
but my angry and profane rejoinder was lost in the shout of
laughter that went up from the assembled athletes.
Natural abhorrence of jokes, practical or otherwise, is a trait
among my people; it runs in the family, like wooden legs. I
immediately sought the boss gymnaster and related the manner in
which I had been introduced to his elevating establishment. I told
him I had come there neither to be made a horse of by one nor an
ass of by another. He pledged his word that the like should not
occur again, and I was appeased.
I first attempted the parallel bars, but they were never intended
for men of my breadth. My hands giving way, I became so firmly
wedged between the bars that it was necessary to cut one of them
away in order to release me. A wag pronounced it a feat without a
parallel.
The horizontal bar next claimed my attention. I had seen others
hang with their heads down, suspended by their legs alone, and the
trick appeared quite easy of execution. I succeeded in suspending
myself in the manner indicated, but--_revocare gradum_--when I
attempted to regain the bar with my hands, it was no go. I was in
a perspiration of alarm at once; my legs grew weak; my head swam
from the rush of blood; twist and squirm as I would, I couldn't
reach the bar with the tip end of a finger even. My head was four
or five feet from the ground, so that a fall was likely to break
my neck, and when my frantic efforts to clutch the bar with my
hands failed, I shrieked in very desperation. Men came running to
my aid. They raked the tan bark, with which the ground was strewn,
in a pile beneath me, to break my fall as much as possible, and,
relaxing my hold of the bar, I came down in a heap, rolled up like
a gigantic caterpillar, and dived head and shoulders into the tan
bark, where I was nearly smothered before I could be extracted. It
was a terrible fright, but I escaped with a few bruises.
My brief career as a gymnast terminated with the 'ladder act.' I
felt unequal to the task of drawing myself up the ladder (which
was slightly inclined from the perpendicular), as I had seen
others do, but once at the top I believed I could lower myself
down. A purchase was rigged in the roof, by which I was hoisted to
the top of the ladder, some thirty feet from the ground, when,
grasping a round firmly with my hands, the purchase was
disconnected from my waist belt, and I began the descent. It was
very severe on the arms, and I desired to rest myself by placing
my feet on a round, but my protuberant paunch would not permit it.
When I had accomplished about half the distance in safety, a round
snapped suddenly with the unusual weight. I remember clutching
frantically at the next, which broke as did the other; then
followed a sensation of falling, succeeded by a collision as
between two express trains at full speed, and I knew no more. When
I recovered consciousness, I was in my own bed, and four surgeons
were endeavoring to set my broken leg with a stump extractor.
Gymnastics are a little out of my line.
FAT CONTRIBUTOR.
Unlike BRUMMEL, _we_ know who our fat friend is, and shall be happy to
see him again.
* * * * *
'Talbot,' of Washington, one of those who keep the many chronicles of
government, gives us the following from his repertoire:--
Shortly after the inauguration of President Lincoln, and during
the period in which the throng of office-seekers was greatest, an
applicant for a clerkship in one of the departments received
notification to appear before the 'examining committee' for
examination as to qualifications. In due time he appeared, and
announced himself 'ready.' The aforesaid 'committee,' supposing
that they had before them a decidedly 'soft one,' determined to
enjoy a little 'sport' at the poor fellow's expense. After having
put a great many questions to him, none of which in the least
applied to the duties he would be expected to perform, he was
asked how he would ascertain the number of square feet occupied by
the Patent Office building. This question aroused in him
suspicions that 'all was not right,' and, with a promptness and
emphasis that effectually dampened the hopes of his questioners,
he replied, '_Well, gentlemen, I should employ an experienced
surveyor._'
The same correspondent tells us that--
In one of the rural towns of Illinois lived, a few years agone, a
very eccentric individual known as 'DICKEY BULARD,' whose original
sayings afforded no little amusement to his neighbors.
DICKEY had his troubles, the saddest of which was the loss of his
only son. Shortly after this event, in speaking of it to some
friends, he broke out in the following pathetic expression of
feeling:
'I'd rather a' lost the best cow I have, and ten dollars besides,
than that boy. If it had been a gal, it wouldn't a' made so much
difference; but it was the only boy I had.'
On another occasion, in referring to the death of his grandmother,
who had been fatally injured by a butt from a pet ram, DICKEY gave
vent to his feelings as follows:
'I never felt so bad in all my life as I did when grandmother
died. She had got so old, and we had kept her so long, _we wanted
to see how long we could keep her_.
* * * * *
It is the 'turn of the tune' which gives point to the far-famed legend
of 'The Arkansaw Traveler,'--which legend, in brief, is to the effect
that a certain fiddling 'Rackensackian,' who could never learn more than
the first half of a certain tune, once bluntly refused all manner of
hospitality to a weary wayfarer, avowing with many an oath that his
house boasted neither meat nor whisky, bed nor hay. But being taught by
the stranger the 'balance' of the tune,--'the turn,' as he called
it,--he at once overwhelmed his musical guest with all manner of
dainties and kindnesses. And it is the 'turn of the tune,' in the
following lyric, from the soft tinkle of the guitar to the harsh notes
of the 'beaten parchment,' which gives it a peculiar charm.
THE GUITAR AND THE DRUM.
BY R. WOLCOTT, CO. B., TENTH ILLINOIS
Evening draws nigh, and the daylight
In golden splendor dies;
And the stars look down through the gloaming
With soft and tender eyes.
I sit alone in the twilight,
And lazily whiff my cigar,
Watching the blue wreaths curling,
And thrumming my old guitar:
Old, and battered, and dusty,--
A veteran covered with scars;
Yet to me the most precious of treasures,
The sweetest of all guitars.
For a gentle spirit dwells in it,
That speaks through the trembling strings,
And in echo to my thrumming
A wonderful melody sings.
As I softly strike the measures,
The spirit murmurs low
A song of departed pleasures,
A dream of the long ago.
And like a weird enchanter
It paints in the star-lit sky
Pictures from memory's record,
Scenes of the days gone by.
And as the ripples of music
Float out on the evening air,
There comes to me a vision
Of the girl with the golden hair.
Kindly she turns upon me.
Those lustrous, violet eyes,
And my heart with passionate yearnings
To meet her eagerly flies.
Nearer she comes, and yet nearer,
At the beck of the spirit's wand,
And I feel the gentle pressure
On my brow of her warm, white hand--
_Tr-r-r-rum-ti-tum-tum, tr-r-r-rum-ti-tum-tum!_
'Tis the warning voice of the rolling drum.
Through the awakened night air come
The stern command and the busy hum
Of hurried preparation.
'Tis no time now for idle strumming
Of light guitars: in that loud drumming
Is fearful meaning; the hour is coming
That for some of us will be the summing
Of all life's preparation.
Quick, quick, my boys: fall in! fall in!
Now is the hour when we begin
The battle with this monstrous sin.
Onward to victory!--or to win
A patriot's martyrdom!
Stay no longer to bandy words;
Trust we now to our gleaming swords;
For foul rebellion's dastardly hordes
A terrible hour has come.
By all that you love beneath the skies;
By the world of cherished memories;
By your hopes for the coming years;
By the tender light of your loved one's eyes;
By the warm, white hands you so highly prize;
By your mothers' parting tears,
Swear the horrible wrong to crush!
What though you fall in the battle's rush,
And the velvet leaves of the greensward blush
With your young life's crimson tide?
The angels look down with pitying love,
And your tale will be told in the record above:
'For his country's honor he died.'
The gentle strings of the light guitar,
Waking soft echoes from memory's chords,
And tender dreams of home--
The noise, and the pomp, and the glitter of war;
The furious charge, and the clashing swords;
The song of the rolling drum.
How many a young heart has, in these later days, been turned from soft
guitar-tones of idleness, to the brave, rattling measures of drum-life!
It will do good, this war of ours; and many a brave fellow will, in
after years, look back upon it as the school in which he first learned
to be a thoroughly practical and sensible MAN.
* * * * *
We are indebted to a gossiping and ever most welcome New Haven friend
for the following anecdote of one of the men who, clothed in a little
brief authority, 'go about 'restin' people:'
Our village we consider one of the most pleasant in the country;
our boys full of life and activity, and our officers men of energy
and perseverance, and men who understand their importance. In
proof of these assertions, I offer the following sketch of an
occurrence a few years ago.
DICK BARNES was a blacksmith, and a man of considerable notoriety
in those days, and from the peculiar prominence of his front upper
teeth he had derived, from the boys of the village, the singular
nick-name of 'Tushy.' For two or three successive years he had
been elected constable, and the duties of this great public office
appeared to demand that he should neglect his legitimate private
business, so that it was said that the safest place for him to
secrete himself--the most unlikely place where he would be
sought--would be behind his own anvil. Like many others 'clothed
with a little brief authority' he was not overmodest in showing
his importance.
The boys were then, as they are now, fond of skating, and there
was a large pond near the centre of the village on which they used
to have fine times on moonlight evenings, and especially Sunday
evenings, and, as a natural consequence, when large numbers of
boys are engaged in sport, they were somewhat noisy.
One Sunday evening, when the ice was very smooth and the boys were
enjoying themselves, BARNES made his appearance on the ice and
ordered them off, in tones, and exclamations of authority. The
boys did not like this interference in their sports and couldn't
see the justice of his demand. 'That's old Tushy,' says one, and
the cry of 'Tushy,' 'Tushy,' soon passed among the crowd of
skaters, till BARNES began to think it personal, and was
determined to catch one of them and make of him an example. The
ice was 'glib,' as they termed it, and as they all had skates
except 'Tushy,' they were rather rude in their behavior towards
him,--a not very uncommon circumstance,--and though they were
careful to keep out of harm's way, they kept near enough to him to
annoy him. Finding all efforts to catch one of them fruitless,
with the advantage they had,--for 'the wicked _stand_ on slippery
places,'--he announced his determination to catch one of them
anyhow, and started for the shore.
Boys are usually quicker in arriving at conclusions than older
people, and one of them suggested that he had gone for his skates.
'Good! now we'll have some fun, boys,' says Phil Clark, who was a
good skater, and withal a good leader in a frolic. 'You follow me
and do as I tell you, and I don't believe old "Tushy" will follow
us far.' By general consent he led them to the dry, sandy shore,
and such as had them filled their handkerchiefs, and such as could
not boast of that superfluity filled their caps, with sand. 'Now,'
says Phil, 'when he comes back, and it won't be long, we'll form a
line and wait till he gets his skates on, when he'll put chase for
some of us. If he gets near any of us, some one sing out "Bully,"
and every boy drop his sand, and if he catches any one we'll all
pitch in.'
'Tushy' in a little while made his appearance, and soon had his
skates strapped to his feet, and after a few stamps upon the ice,
to see that they were properly secured, glided a few strokes and
started off for the boys. The moon was shining 'as bright as day,'
and old Tushy's movements were perfectly apparent. The pond was
huge, and afforded a good opportunity for a trial of speed, and,
though many of the boys were good skaters, 'Tushy' perseveringly
determined to capture one of them, and started for the one
nearest. This was 'Phil,' who was the master spirit of the frolic,
and as 'Tushy' approached with almost the certainty of capturing
him, he would glide gracefully aside and let him pass on. He had
almost caught up with a group of the smaller boys who were going
at full speed, when 'Phil' shouted out the word 'Bully.' In an
instant the contents of handkerchiefs and caps was deposited on
the glaring ice, the boys continuing their flying course. 'Tushy,'
elated with the prospect of capturing at least one of the urchins,
increased his speed with lunger strides, and was in the act of
grasping one, when the sparks from his steel runners, the sudden
arrest of his feet and the onward movement of his body, convinced
him that _he_ was caught. The impetus he had acquired with the few
last strokes on the smooth ice, and the sudden check his feet had
received from the sand, sent him sliding headlong many yards
towards an air-hole,--one of those dangerous places on ponds
suddenly frozen,--and soon the ice began to crack around him. The
water in the pond was not deep, but the ice continued to break
with his efforts to extricate himself. He found that the boys had
successfully entrapped him, and it was not until he had made a
promise not again to interfere with their sport that they
consented to assist him out. He kept his promise, and the boys
ever after, when they designed any extra sport on the ice, had his
nick-name for a by-word.
JAY G. BEE.
* * * * *
'Salt,' according to MORESINUS, 'is sacred to the infernal
deities,'--for which reason, we presume, those who were seated 'below
the salt' at the banquets of the Middle Ages were always 'poor devils.'
Attic salt is always held to be more pungent when there is a touch of
the diabolical and caustic in it,--and therefore caustic itself is known
as _lapis infernalis_. 'Poor Mr. N----,' said a country dame, of a
recently deceased neighbor who was over-thrifty, 'he always saved his
salt and lost his pork.' 'Yes,' replied a friend, 'and now the salt has
lost its Saver.' The reader has doubtless heard of the lively young
lady, named Sarah, whom her friends rechristened Sal Volatile.
Apropos--a New Haven friend writes us that--
My chum, Dr. B., is not a little of a wag. At a social gathering,
shortly after he had received his diploma, the young ladies were
very anxious to put his knowledge of medicine to the test.
'Doctor,' queried one of the fair, 'what will cure a man who has
been hanged?' 'Salt is the best thing I know of,' replied the
tormented, with great solemnity.
* * * * *
According to a cotemporary--the Boston _Herald_--the best Christians may
be known by the pavements before their houses being cleaned of ice and
snow. This reminds us of a spiritual anecdote. A deceased friend having
been summoned through a medium and asked where he had spent the first
month after his decease, rapped out,--
'I-n--p-u-r-g-a-t-o-r-y.'
'Did you find it uncomfortable?'
'Not very. While I lived I always had my pavements cleared in winter,
and all the ice and snow shoveled away was given back to me in
orange-water ices, Roman punch, vanilla and pistachio creams, frozen
fruits, cobblers, juleps, and smashes.'
Somebody has spoken in an Arctic voyage of the musical vibrations of the
ice. There is certainly music in the article. 'Take care,' said a Boston
girl to her companion, as they were navigating the treacherously
slippery pavement of our city a few days since; 'it's See sharp or Be
flat.'
* * * * *
Somebody once wrote a book on visiting-cards. There is a great variety
of that article; an English ambassador once papered his entire suit of
rooms with that with which a Chinese mandarin honored him. MICHAEL
ANGELO left a straight line as a card, and was recognized by it. Our
friend H---- once distributed blank pasteboards in Philadelphia, and
everybody said, 'Why, H---- has been here!' Not long since, a lady
dwelling in New York asked her seven-year-old GEORGY where he had been.
'Out visiting.'
'Did you leave your card?'
'No; I hadn't any, so I left a marble!'
GEORGY'S idea was that cards were playthings. And _cartes de visite_ are
most assuredly the playthings for children of an older growth, most in
vogue at the present day. Go where you will, the albums are examined,
nay, some collectors have even one or two devoted solely to children, or
officers, or literary men, or young ladies. The following anecdote
records, however, as we believe, 'an entirely new style' of
visiting-card:--
Madam X. was busy the other morning. Miss Fanny Z. 'just ran in to
see her' _en amie_, without visiting-cards.
The waiter carried her name to Madam X. Meanwhile Miss Fannie,
circulating through the parlors, saw that there was dust on the
lower shelf of an étagére, so she delicately traced the letters
_Smut_
thereon and therefore. Waiter enters, and regrets that Madam X. is
so very much engaged that she is invisible. Miss Fanny flies home.
In the evening she meets Madam X., who is 'perfectly enchanted' to
see her. 'Ah, Fanny, dear, I am charmed to see you; the waiter
forgot your name this morning, but I was delighted to see your
ingenuity. Would you believe it, the first thing I saw on entering
the parlor was your card on the étagére!'
* * * * *
The Naugatuck railroad, according to a friend of the CONTINENTAL,
Is in many places cut through a rugged country, and the rocks
thereabout have an ugly trick of rolling down upon the track when
they get tired of lying still. So the company employ sentinels
who traverse the dangerous territory before the morning train goes
through. One of these,--Pat K. by name,--while on his beat, met
Dennis, whose hand he had last shaken on the 'Green Isle.' After
mutual inquiries and congratulations, says Dennis, 'What are you
doin' these days, Pat?' 'Oh, I'm consarned in this railroad
company. I go up the road fur the likes o' four miles ivry mornin'
to see is there ony rocks on the thrack.' 'And if there is?' 'Why,
I stops the trains, sure.' 'Faith,' said Dennis, 'what the divil's
the good o' that--_wouldn't the rocks stop 'em?_'
* * * * *
The Hibernian idea of a meeting is, we should judge, peculiar, and not,
as a rule, amicable. 'What are ye doing here, Pat?' inquired one of the
Green Islanders who found a friend one morning in a lonely spot. 'Troth,
Dinnis, and it's waiting to mate a gintleman here I'm doing.' 'Waiting
for a frind is it?' replied Dennis; 'but where is yer shillaly thin?'
This was indeed a misapprehension, and of the kind which, as a
benevolent clergyman complained, who was actively engaged in home
mission work, was one of the most constant sources of his frequent
annoyances. 'Why,' he remarked, 'it was only the other morning that I
heard of a poor girl who was dying near the Five Points, and went to
administer to her such comfort as it might be in my power to render. I
met an impudent miss leaving the room, who, when I inquired for the
sufferer by name, replied, "It's no use; you're too late, old
fellow,--she's give me her pocket-book and all her things."'
* * * * *
A friend has called our attention to the following extract from an
advertisement in a New York evening paper, and requests an
explanation:--
STRABISMUS, OR CROSS-EYE, IN ITS WORST STAGES, CURED IN ONE
MINUTE. READ!
NEWARK, August 14th, 1861.
Dear Doctor: I write to express my thanks for the great difference
you have made in my appearance by your operation on my eye. I have
had a _squint_, or _cross-eye_, since birth, and in less than one
minute, and with VERY LITTLE PAIN, you have made my eyes perfectly
straight and natural. Having consulted in Europe the greatest
_Aurists_, I, therefore, can testify that your system of restoring
the _hearing_ to the deaf is at once scientific, safe and sure;
and I confidently recommend all deaf to place themselves under
your care. W.T.
There's a nut to crack. Having had a cross-eye cured in one minute, Mr.
T. can _therefore_ testify that the system by which he was enabled to
see is just the thing to enable the deaf to hear! But an instant's
reflection convinced us of the true state of the case. There is an old
German song which translated saith:
'I am the Doctor Iron-beer,
The one who makes the blind to hear,
The man who makes the deaf to see:--
Come with your invalids to me.'
We evidently have a Doctor Iron-beer among us. 'He still lives,' and
enables people to outdo the clairvoyants, who read with their fingers,
by qualifying his patients to peruse the papers with their auricular
organs.
* * * * *
Walter will receive our thanks for the following æsthetic
communication:--
DEAR CONTINENTAL:
Do you know the superb picture of Judith and Holofernes, by
ALLORI? Of course. But the legend?
The painter ALLORI was blessed and cursed with a mistress, one of
the most beautiful women in an age of beauty. He loved her, and
she tormented him, until, to set forth his sufferings, he painted
_la belle dame sans mercy_ as Judith, holding his own decapitated
head by the hair.
'She was more than a match for her lover,' said a young lady,
who--between us--I think is more beautiful than the 'Judith.'
'Yes,' was the answer; 'the engraving proves that she got a-head
of him.'
Of course it was Holofernally bad. I once heard a better one on
the same subject, of scriptural be-head-edness. Where is a centaur
first mentioned? John's head on a charger. The postage stamp on
your lawyer's bill--mine especially--represents the same thing,
with the substitution of General Washington for John. Rarey tamed
Cruiser--I wonder if he could do anything by way of 'taking down'
this legal 'charger' of mine.
Yours truly,
WALTER
* * * * *
Much has been written on oysters. There was a time when England sent
nothing else abroad. 'The poor Britons--they are good for something,'
says SALLUST, in 'The Last Days of Pompeii;' 'they produce an oyster.'
In these days, they export no oysters, but in lieu thereof give us
plenty of pepper-sauce. But to the point,--we mean to the poem,--for
which we are indebted to a Philadelphia contributor:--
OYSTERS!
He stood beside the oysters. Near him lay
A dozen raw upon the half-shell: he
With fork stood ready to engulf them all,
When to his side a reverend gray-beard came.
Pointing his index finger to the Natives,
Slowly he spoke, with measured voice and low:--
'They are the same, THE SAME! I've eaten them
In London, small and coppery; at Ostend,
A little better; and in the Condotti,
Yea, in the Lepré--'tis an eating-house
Frequented by the many-languaged artists
Of great imperial Rome. At Baiæ: also
I've tasted that nice kind described by MARTIAL,
Who calls them ears of Venus;--there I've had 'em.
Also at Memphis--now I'm coming to it:
I've seen amid the desert sands of Egypt,
Exposed among the hieroglyphs, these Natives.
(The hieroglyphs, you know, are outward forms
Of things or creatures which unfold strange myths,
Read by the common eye in vulgar way,
But to the learned are types of truths gigantic.)
Thus unto you those oysters are but bivalves;
But unto me they're--P'raps you'll stand a dozen?'
'Well, I will, old hoss; it seems to me you need 'em!'
'Good! Then to me they are as hieroglyphs
Of our poor human state; as PLATO says,
"The soul of man, a substance different from
The body as the oyster from the shell,
Does stick to it, and is imprisoned in it.
Its weight of shell doth keep it down and force it
To stay upon its muddy bottom. So does
Man's body hold his soul in these dark regions,
Keeping it ever steadily from rising
To those superior heights where are abodes
More fitting its serene and noble nature."
Good as a quarter-dollar lecture. Boy! fork over.'
'Another "doz." to this old gentleman;
For I perceive he plainly hath it in him
To swallow down two dozen oysters' souls.
See what it is to be a philosopher!'
This is indeed finding sermons in 'shells.'
* * * * *
'Punning is a power,' according to somebody, and, like most power, is
sadly abused. Take, for illustration, the following specimen of the
'narrative pun:'
The reader knows that BYRON once punned on the word Bullet-in, and
was proud of it; distinctly proud, be it remembered. After which
comes the following:--
Some years ago it was summer time, and in the office of the
Philadelphia _Evening Bulletin_, one, as the French say, was
preparing the daily paper. Along Third Street streamed Shinners,
Bulls, Bears, and Newsboys,--in the sanctum, Editors wrote and
clipped,--proof rose up and down in the dumb waiter,--there was
the shrill scream of the whistle calling to the foreman far on
high,--
Suddenly there was a tremendous run in the front office.
A maddened cow,--an infuriate, delirious, over-driven
animal,--breaking loose from the cow-herdly creature who had her
in charge,--careered wildly past the _Ledger_ building.
One would have thought that the straw paper on which that sheet
was then printed might have tempted her to repose.
It didn't.
Past FORNEY'S paper:--he was proprietor of the _Pennsylvanian_ in
those days. Those days!--when he was Warwick, the king-maker, and
carried Pennsylvania for Old Buck. Bitter were the changes in
aftertimes, and bitterly did Forney give fits where he had before
bestowed benefits. On went the cow.
Right smack into the office of the evening paper, then engineered
by ALEXANDER CUMMINGS, now held by GIBSON PEACOCK.
Rush! went the cow. Right into the next door--turn to the left,
oh, infuriate--charge into the newsboys! By Santa Maria, little
DUCKEY is down--ha! Saint Joseph! the beast gains the front
office--she faceth streetwards--she jaculates herself
outwards--she is gone.
By the door stood a Philadelphia punster.
The cow switched him with her tail; he heeded it not. His soul
felt the morning gleam of a revelation,--the flash of a Boehmic
Aurora,--
Far, far above the world, oh dreamer!--in the pure land of
Pun-light, where the silent Calembergs rise in the sunset sea.
And he spake,--
'_I see you have_ A COW LET OUT _there, and a_ BULL LET IN HERE!'
This is going through a great deal to get at a pun, says some
over-heated and perspiring disciple.
Well--and why not?
Have you never heard of the clergyman who preached an entire
sermon on the slave-trade, and gave a detailed account of its
head-quarters, the kingdom of Abomi?
And why?
Merely that he might ring it into them bitterly, fiercely, with
this conclusion:
'My hearers, let us pray that this Abomi-Nation may be rooted out
from the face of the earth.'
That was so. _Consummatum est_.
No wonder we hear so much of the sufferings and sorrows of the Third
Estate--which is the editorial.
* * * * *
'Wine is _sometimes_ wine, but not very often in these days:' what it
very often is not when labelled 'Heidsick' and 'Rheims.' 'But then the
_cork_ proves it, you know,'--for, by a strange superstition, it is
assumed that when the cork is correct the wine is not less so; a theory
which is exploded by a revelation in the following by no means
Bacchanalian lyric:--
BOGUS CHAMPAGNE.
Fill up your glass with turnip-juice,
And let us swindled be;
Except in England's cloudy clime
Such trash you may not see.
With marble-dust and vitriol,
'Twill sparkle bright and foam,--
Who will not pledge me in a cup
Of champagne--made at home?
We do not heed the label fair
That's stuck upon the glass;
It's counterfeit,--an ugly cheat,
That takes in many an ass.
The cork is branded right, and we
Know that it once corked wine;
They give the hotel-waiters tin
To save the genuine!
Think of this when you next 'wish you had given the price of that last
bottle of champagne to the Tract Society,' as _Cecil Dreeme_ hath it.
* * * * *
One of the best repartees on record is that of WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON,
who, having been reproached with inconsistency for having taken from his
journal the old motto, 'The Constitution is a league with Death and a
covenant with Hell,' replied that 'when he hoisted that motto, he had no
idea _that either death or hell intended to secede_. Circumstances alter
cases, and definitions modify both. Slavery, it now appears, is death,
as every political economist claims, while the South is--the other
place.
* * * * *
The following is from one who was not 'well off for soap:'--
DEAR CONTINENTAL:
It was my fortune, some time ago, while traveling through the New
England States, to lose my trunk, on my way to a very thriving
manufacturing village. Arrived at the principal hotel a few
minutes before the dinner hour, I was shown up to my room, every
article of furniture in which sparkled with newness,--its carpet
shining like fireworks, curtains painfully stiff, and the air
redolent of novelty.
One article of furniture, which I took to be a cottage piano or
melodeon, turned out, on raising the lid, to be a wash-stand,
amply munitioned with water, towels, and a new piece of soap.
Having noticed that the article had never been used, and my own
being lost with my trunk, I determined to put it to its legitimate
destination.
I commenced rubbing it between my hands, immersing it in water,
passing it quickly from one hand to the other, and using all other
persuasive attempts to solve it into lather. Useless; it was
_un-lather-able_, and hearing the gong sound for dinner, I gave it
up as a hopeless job.
After dinner, in conversation with the landlord, he asked me how I
liked my room. I told him that it pleased me very well, and that I
had but one fault to find,--that was, that the soap in the
wash-stand was the hardest I had ever seen, and I believed it was
made of iron.
'Well,' said he, with a diabolical smile, 'it _is_ hard soap, and
it ort to be--it's iron-y--for it's Cast-Steel!'
* * * * *
The annexed may be read with profit by the charitable:--
H---- has never yet been known to give one cent in charity. A
Christian called on him, the other day, and begged him to give
something to a soup society.
'Ah-h-h!' said H., 'war times, now. Can't give anything.'
'The soup society is very poor, and would be thankful for the
_smallest sum_.'
'Would it?' said H., cheerfully. 'Why, then, twice one are two.
Good-morning.'
This, we presume, may be called figuring as a benefactor.
* * * * *
Our Arabic-studying friend has supplied us with a fresh batch of
oriental proverbs:--
'A monkey solicited hospitality from devils. "Young gentleman,"
they replied, "the house is quite empty of provisions."'
'Eat whatever thou likest, but dress as others do.'
'Like a needle, that clothes people, and is itself naked.'
'He who makes chaff of himself the cows will eat.'
'Give me wool to-day, and take sheep to-morrow.'
'He is high-minded but empty-bellied.'
'Easier to be broken than the house of a spider.'
'He descends like the foot of a crow, and ascends (like) the hoof
of a camel.'
But all yield in grim drollery to the last given:--
'There are no fans in hell.'
Which, as our friend declares, 'sounds as Western as Eastern.' Verily,
extremes meet.
* * * * *
Many of our exchanges have spoken of the series entitled 'Among the
Pines,' now publishing in this Magazine, as being written by FREDERICK
LAW OLMSTED. In justice to Mr. OLMSTED we would state that he is not the
author of the articles in question, and regret that the unauthorized
statement should have obtained such general credence.
A statement has also appeared in many journals declaring that the
literary matter of the CONTINENTAL MONTHLY is the same with that
published in the KNICKERBOCKER Magazine. We need not say that it is
_entirely false_, as any reader may ascertain for himself who will take
the pains to compare the two publications. Not one line has ever
appeared in common in the Magazines. The _Knickerbocker_ is printed and
PUBLISHED in New York, at No. 532 Broadway, the CONTINENTAL in Boston,
at No. 110 Tremont Street.
* * * * *
The editor of the CONTINENTAL begs leave to repeat that as the principal
object of the Magazine is to draw forth such views as may be practically
useful in the present crisis, its pages will always be open to
contributions even of a widely varying character, the only condition
being that they shall be written by friends of the Union. And we call
special attention to the fact that while holding firmly to our own
views, as set forth under the Editorial heading, we by no means profess
to endorse those of our contributors, but shall leave the reader to make
his own comments on these.
* * * * *
Readers will confer a favor by forwarding to us any pamphlets, secession
or Union, on the war, which they may be disposed to spare.
THE KNICKERBOCKER
FOR 1862.
In the beginning of the last year, when its present proprietors assumed
control of the Knickerbocker, they announced their determination to
spare no pains to place it in its true position as the leading
_literary_ Monthly in America. When rebellion had raised a successful
front, and its armies threatened the very existence of the Republic, it
was impossible to permit a magazine, which in its circulation reached
the best intellects in the land, to remain insensible or indifferent to
the dangers which threatened the Union. The proprietors accordingly gave
notice, that it would present in its pages, forcible expositions with
regard to the great question of the times,--_how to preserve the_ UNITED
STATES OF AMERICA _in their integrity and unity_. How far this pledge
has been redeemed the public must judge. It would, however, be mere
affectation to ignore the seal approbation which has been placed on
these efforts. The proprietors gratefully acknowledge this, and it has
led them to embark in a fresh undertaking, as already announced,--the
publication of the CONTINENTAL MONTHLY, devoted to Literature and
National Policy; in which magazine, those who have sympathized with the
political opinions recently set forth in the KNICKERBOCKER, will find
the same views more fully enforced and maintained by the ablest and most
energetic minds in America.
The KNICKERBOCKER, while it will continue firmly pledged to the cause of
the Union, will henceforth be more earnestly devoted to literature, and
will leave no effort untried to attain the highest excellence in those
departments of letters which it has adopted as specialties.
The January number commences its thirtieth year. With such antecedents
as it possesses, it seems unnecessary to make any especial pledges as to
its future, but it may not be amiss to say that it will be the aim of
its conductors to make it more and more deserving of the liberal support
it has hitherto received. The same eminent writers who have contributed
to it during the past year will continue to enrich its pages, and in
addition, contributions will appear from others of the highest
reputation, as well as from many rising authors. While it will, as
heretofore, cultivate the genial and humorous, it will also pay
assiduous attention to the higher departments of art and letters, and
give fresh and spirited articles on such biographical, historical,
scientific, and general subjects as are of especial interest to the
public.
In the January issue will commence a series of papers by CHARLES GODFREY
LELAND, entitled "SUNSHINE IN LETTERS," which will be found interesting
to scholars as well as to the general reader, and in an early number
will appear the first chapters of a NEW and INTERESTING NOVEL,
descriptive of American life and character.
According to the unanimous opinion of the American press, the
KNICKERBOCKER has been greatly improved during the past year, _and it is
certain that at no period of its long career did it ever attract more
attention or approbation_. Confident of their enterprise and ability,
the proprietors are determined that it shall be still more eminent in
excellence, containing all that is best of the old, and being
continually enlivened by what is most brilliant of the new.
TERMS.--Three dollars a year, in advance. Two copies for Four Dollars
and fifty cents. Three copies for Six dollars. Subscribers remitting
Three Dollars will receive as a premium, (post-paid,) a copy of Richard
B. Kimball's great work, "THE REVELATIONS OF WALL STREET," to be
published by G.P. Putnam, early in February next, (price $1.)
Subscribers remitting Four Dollars will receive the KNICKERBOCKER and
the CONTINENTAL MONTHLY for one year. As but one edition of each number
of the Knickerbocker is printed, those desirous of commencing with the
volume should subscribe at once.
The publisher, appreciating the importance of literature to the soldier
on duty, will send a copy _gratis_, during the continuance of the war,
to any regiment in active service, on application being made by its
Colonel or Chaplain. Subscriptions will also be received from those
desiring it sent to soldiers in the ranks at _half price_, but in such
cases it must be mailed from the office of publication.
J.R. GILMORE, 532 Broadway, New York.
C.T. EVANS, General Agent, 532 Broadway, New York.
All communications and contributions, intended for the Editorial
department, should be addressed to CHARLES G. LELAND, Editor of the
"Knickerbocker," care of C.T. EVANS, 532 Broadway, New York.
Newspapers copying the above and giving the Magazine monthly notices,
will be entitled to an exchange.
PROSPECTUS OF The Continental Monthly
* * * * *
There are periods in the world's history marked by extraordinary and
violent crises, sudden as the breaking forth of a volcano, or the
bursting of a storm on the ocean. These crimes sweep away in a moment
the landmarks of generations. They call out fresh talent, and give to
the old a new direction. It is then that new ideas are born, new
theories developed. Such periods demand fresh exponents, and new men for
expounders.
This Continent has lately been convulsed by an upheaving so sudden and
terrible that the relations of all men and all classes to each other are
violently disturbed, and people look about for the elements with which
to sway the storm and direct the whirlwind. Just at present, we do not
know what all this is to bring forth; but we do know that great results
MUST flow from such extraordinary commotions.
At a juncture so solemn and so important, there is a special need that
the intellectual force of the country should be active and efficient. It
is a time for great minds to speak their thoughts boldly, and to take
position as the advance guard. To this end, there is a special want
unsupplied. It is that of an Independent Magazine, which shall be open
to the first intellects of the land, and which shall treat the issues
presented, and to be presented to the country, in a tone no way tempered
by partisanship, or influenced by fear, favor, or the hope of reward;
which shall seize and grapple with the momentous subjects that the
present disturbed state of affairs heave to the surface, and which CAN
NOT be laid aside or neglected.
To meet this want, the undersigned have commenced, under the editorial
charge of CHARLES GODFREY LELAND, the publication of a new Magazine,
devoted to Literature and National Policy.
In POLITICS, it will advocate, with all the force at its command,
measures best adapted to preserve the oneness and integrity of these
United States. It will never yield to the idea of any disruption of this
Republic, peaceably or otherwise; and it will discuss with honesty and
impartiality what must be done to save it. In this department, some of
the most eminent statesmen of the time will contribute regularly to its
pages.
In LITERATURE, it will be sustained by the best writers and ablest
thinkers of this country. Life, by RICHARD B. KIMBALL, ESQ., the very
popular author of "The Revelations of Wall Street," "St. Leger," &c. A
series of papers by HON. HORACE GREELEY, embodying the distinguished
author's observations on the growth and development of the Great West. A
series of articles by the author of "Through the Cotton States,"
containing the result of an extended tour in the seaboard Slave States,
just prior to the breaking out of the war, and presenting a startling
and truthful picture of the real condition of that region. No pains will
be spared to render the literary attractions of the CONTINENTAL both
brilliant and substantial. The lyrical or descriptive talents of the
most eminent literati have been promised to its pages; and nothing will
be admitted which will not be distinguished by marked energy,
originality, and solid strength. Avoiding every influence or association
partaking of clique or coterie, it will be open to all contributions of
real merit, even from writers differing materially in their views; the
only limitation required being that of devotion to the Union, and the
only standard of acceptance that of intrinsic excellence.
The EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT will embrace, in addition to vigorous and
fearless comments on the events of the times, genial gossip with the
reader on all current topics, and also devote abundant space to those
racy specimens of American wit and humor, without which there can be no
perfect exposition of our national character. Among those who will
contribute regularly to this department may be mentioned the name of
CHARLES F. BROWNE ("Artemus Ward"), from whom we have promised an
entirely new and original series of SKETCHES OF WESTERN LIFE.
The CONTINENTAL will be liberal and progressive, without yielding to
chimeras and hopes beyond the grasp of the age; and it will endeavor to
reflect the feelings and interests of the American people, and to
illustrate both their serious and humorous peculiarities. In short, no
pains will be spared to make it the REPRESENTATIVE MAGAZINE of the time.
TERMS:--Three Dollars per year, in advance (postage paid by the
Publishers;) Two Copies for Five Dollars; Three Copies for Six Dollars,
(postage unpaid); Eleven copies for Twenty Dollars, (postage unpaid).
Single numbers can be procured of any News-dealer in the United States.
The KNICKERBOCKER MAGAZINE and the CONTINENTAL MONTHLY will be furnished
for one year at FOUR DOLLARS.
Appreciating the importance of literature to the soldier on duty, the
publisher will send the CONTINENTAL, _gratis_, to any regiment in active
service, on application being made by its Colonel or Chaplain; he will
also receive subscriptions from those desiring to furnish it to soldiers
in the ranks at half the regular price; but in such cases it must be
mailed from the office of publication.
J.R. GILMORE, 110 Tremont Street, Boston.
CHARLES T. EVANS, at G.P. PUTNAM'S, 532 Broadway, New York, is
authorized to receive Subscriptions in that City.
N.B.--Newspapers publishing this Prospectus, and giving the CONTINENTAL
monthly notices, will be entitled to an exchange.
FOOTNOTES:
[A] _Journey in the Back Country_. By Frederick Law Olmsted.
[B] The Milwaukee, Wisconsin, _Sentinel_, of June 3, contained a
confirmation of these statements in regard to Northern Alabama. A
gentleman returned from 'a prolonged tour through the cotton States'
communicated a narrative, which demonstrated that the people of
Huntsville and vicinity were very hostile to secession in January, that
'at Athens the stars and stripes floated over the court house long after
the State had enacted the farce of secession,' and that, even in May,
open opposition to secession existed '_in the mountain portion of
Alabama, a large tract of country, embracing about one-third of the
State, lying adjacent to and south of the Tennessee valley_.' The writer
added, 'IN THEIR MOUNTAIN FASTNESSES THEY DO NOT ACKNOWLEDGE THE
SOUTHERN CONFEDERACY, OR THE POWER OF ITS RULERS.'
[C] It is proved, by the great increase of the cotton crop during this
period, that the surplus increase of slaves was mainly composed of field
hands purchased in the border States.
[D] 'The Edwards Family;' page 11.
[E] 'If some learned philosopher who had been abroad, in giving an
account of the curious observations he had made in his travels, should
say he had been in _Terra del Fuego_, and there had seen an animal,
which he calls by a certain name, that begat and brought forth itself,
and yet had a sire and dam distinct from itself; that it had an appetite
and was hungry before it had a being; that his master, who led him and
governed by him, and driven by him where he pleased; that when he moved
he always took a step before the first step; that he went with his head
first, and yet always went tail foremost, and this though he had neither
head nor tail,' etc. etc.--_Freedom of the Will_, part 4.
[F] Sismondi's History of the French.
[G] Benôit, Hist. Rev. Edict of Nantes, book 7.
[H] Dr. Baird, vol. I. p. 174.
[I] Oxford town records.
[J] Vandenkemp's Alb. Rec. viii.
[K] Instances are frequent where Southern gentlemen form these
left-handed connections, and rear two sets of differently colored
children; but it is not often that the two families occupy the same
domicil. The only other case within my _personal_ knowledge was that of
the well-known President of the Bank of St. M----, at Columbia, Ga. That
gentleman, whose note ranked in Wall Street, when the writer was
acquainted with that locality, as 'A No. 1,' lived for fifteen years
with two 'wives' under one roof. One--an accomplished white woman, and
the mother of several children--did the honors of his table, and moved
with him in 'the best society;' the other--a beautiful quadroon, also
the mother of several children--filled the humbler office of nurse to
her own and the other's offspring.
In conversation with a well-known Southern gentleman, not long since, I
mentioned these two cases, and commented on them as a man educated with
New England ideas might be supposed to do. The gentleman admitted that
he knew of twenty such instances, and gravely defended the practice as
being infinitely more moral and respectable than _the more relation_
existing between masters and slaves.
[L] Among the things of which slavery has deprived the black is a
_name_. A slave has no family designation. It may be for that reason
that a high-sounding appellation is usually selected for the single one
he is allowed to appropriate.
[M] It is not now improper to broach this button ruse, because it was
recently discovered at the South and is guarded against.
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